Prison Ship by Paul Dowswell Page B

ship was so well managed death had become an outside possibility rather than a daily threat. There were few books aboard to while away the hours. Instead, the ship was well supplied with religious tracts such as
Two Hundred Exercises Against Lying, Dissuasions from Stealing
and
Caution to Swearers
. I avidly read
Exhortation to Chastity
and discovered that it was not just men who were tempted by the sins of the flesh.
    As we sailed through the Southern Ocean several ofus decided to fill our time by putting on a play. After a fortnight’s rehearsals we performed
The Beggar’s Opera
, with screeching accompaniment from the ship’s makeshift band. Richard and I took the parts of Betty Doxy and Polly Peachum.
    At the end of the play Lizzie Borrow came up to us and said, ‘Well done boys, a most convincing performance,’ before she was hurriedly escorted away. The Captain, it appeared, was not so impressed. Dan later told us Casewell had thought the tale of the highwayman Macheath and his escape from the gallows was too subversive, and had decided at once that there would be no more plays.
    Lizzie’s compliments left us feeling as high as kites. And after that our interest in her blossomed. We would watch her walking the deck when we were up in the yards or working on the bowsprit. Several times up in the rigging we both avoided certain death by a hairs-breadth, because we were not paying proper attention to our work. She walked alone, or with her maid or one of the ship’s officers. Sometimes she looked earnest when she talked, other times she giggled and seemed playful. I longed to talk with her and discover what she was really like.
    She was a tall girl, as tall as Richard at least, and had a mane of thick curly hair. Her face was a source of constant wonder. She had quite a prominent nose. Not trimand petite, but strong. Strong but well shaped. Great big eyes and a sulky, pouting mouth. ‘She not sulky, she’s just bored,’ said Richard who would not hear a thing said against her. ‘She just needs the company of a young man her own age, like me!’ One time, when Richard and I were in the forecastle, she walked away from us along the deck with the sun behind her. We could see right through her thin cotton dress. Neither of us breathed or blinked until she disappeared down the companionway back to her quarters.
    The voyage dragged on. Captain Casewell made great attempts to keep up the morale of his crew and cargo. Classes were held in reading and writing, and Richard and I helped our fellow convicts write letters home. Doctor Dan gave interesting talks on the behaviour of animals, Richard told us all about life in Boston. He talked perfectly well until he noticed Lizzie had joined the audience right at the back, with Captain Casewell. Then he began to stumble, and there were long pauses between his sentences. He would have dried up altogether had not Doctor Dan and I kept asking him questions to keep him going.
    Daily inspections were introduced to keep the ship as clean as possible, and in the long summer evenings prisoners were allowed to stay on deck till ten o’clock at night. There was singing and even dancing, and some of the convicts were so wild I wondered fearfully whatthey would be like when they had a drink inside them. It was extraordinary how the character of a captain could affect the whole ship. Casewell believed in reward rather than punishment, and the better the convicts behaved, the more freedom they were given. The worst of them had realised their best hope of survival lay in keeping out of mischief. In the last two months of the voyage only two men were flogged, and then given the minimum punishment of twelve lashes.
    Almost no voyage of this length passes without fatalities. The wife of one of the marines died in childbirth together with her baby. The whole crew was badly affected for a week after. The poor husband was left with two young boys to raise