Prison Ship by Paul Dowswell

bewildering experience. Many of them had never been away from their town or village before they fell foul of the law. They were astonished by the sights they saw. The vast,circling albatross that sometimes shadowed our ship frightened them. I heard several say that these were birds who attacked a drowning man, pecking at his head with their vicious beaks as he struggled to stay above the surface.
    The men would gather in the forecastle, when our routine permitted, to gawp at the porpoises that darted to and fro in the turbulence of our bow. Flying fish leaping from the waves amazed them, and dolphins they often took for mermaids or mermen.
    The weather got warmer as we headed south. Having spent some of December the previous year around Gibraltar this was no great surprise. The further south we sailed, the more muggy and sticky it became.
    There was only one stop on our journey, the island of Tenerife, where we picked up fresh water. We were all shackled again and confined below deck for the two days we spent moored at harbourside. Casewell was determined no one was going to escape.
    As we journeyed south, we got to know the other convicts. Men separated from wives and children were especially devastated by their fate. They had as much chance of seeing their loved ones again as if they were dead and buried. But many of the younger men, especially those with no families of their own, were excited. Stories had filtered back to England making New South Walessound just the place to make a fresh start. True, there were unsettling elements to these stories: the strange, savage inhabitants; the unforgiving nature of the land, which was covered in thick bush; the fiery heat of the day; the brutal iron gangs for the second offenders, chained together for years at a time. But if a man kept himself out of trouble, it seemed life promised to be quite bearable.
    Much to my relief, the fearful atmosphere of the hulks was lacking aboard the
Euphrates
. Because of the marines and the fact that the men were under constant guard both night and day, the worst of them could not form into gangs to terrorise their weaker fellows. Ill-discipline was dealt with abruptly by Captain Casewell. Men who were insolent or violent were flogged without hesitation. Soon after Tenerife, the convoy halted to witness a public execution aboard the Navy escort HMS
Adelphi
. These escorts carried a small cargo of convicts and three of them had been stirring up mutiny. We were all herded on deck to witness the spectacle. Seeing these hooded figures kicking their legs in their death throes as they swung from the yardarm had a suitably aweing effect on the assembled prisoners. It was an ugly reminder of the fate we had so narrowly missed and I turned away as I couldn’t bear to watch.
    Occasionally a ship would be sighted on the horizon, but none came close enough to threaten us. No doubtour Navy escort kept them away. I had heard that some pirate ships off the North African coast hunted for slaves to man their galleys. The life of a galley slave, chained to an oar and worked to death, filled my sleep with nightmares until I knew in my bones we were far south enough to be well out of their clutches.
    During the long nights locked in the cells, gambling mania gripped the convicts. We would hear the arguments and wails of despair from other cells as men lost their shirts or rations. They would bet anything they had. One man even lost his wedding ring.
    Richard and I would have been tempted, if we had been in more disreputable company. We could see the attraction in this illicit activity. But Dan would not hear of it. We still got dragged into the craze, though. Little things in our cabin started to go missing. A quill Doctor Dan used to write his journal, my belt, the laces on Richard’s shoes. There could only be one culprit, Johnny Onions. Dan sat him down and gave him a stern talking to. He confessed. Johnny had been trading these bits and bobs with the more