Read an Excerpt
9780593099575|excerpt
Adams / DANGEROUS WOMEN
I wish I didn’t know, she thought. I wish I’d never found out. I wish I could be the person I was this morning, before we sat down to our stitching.
The sea moving past the ship was almost black in the fading light. Where the Rajah was now, in the middle of the Southern Ocean, there was only a short time between sunset and darkness. She leaned over to look more closely at the water. It rushed past the hull, curling up into small waves, which slid away to lose themselves in larger waves or long swells of water. For a long time she’d been afraid of it, walking along with her eyes fixed on the planks of the deck, seeing the ocean only when it couldn’t be helped, catching sight of it from the corner of her eye. Now, after many weeks at sea, she’d grown used to it, was in awe of it and loved it, albeit warily.
She’d fallen into the habit of going to the rail when the stitching work was finished. She liked to stand there for a few minutes, alone, trying to see what lay beyond the line of the horizon, breathing in the wide water and the high sky that seemed to go on and on till you grew dizzy staring up at it. Now the only thought in her head was what she’d learned. Every feeling in her heart was muddled, and the fear that had overcome her since she’d found out—discovered by noticing a gesture for the first time—wouldn’t go away. There had been a shadow before, near the coil of rope, and she peered behind her now to see if anyone was there, looking at her. She saw nothing. But what was that noise? She held her breath, though the only sound was the familiar groaning of ropes in the rigging. Then she felt a change in the air around her, became aware of someone coming up beside her, and turned, ready to tell whoever it was to go and leave her alone.
Pain took away her words. She reached out, but as soon as it sliced into her clothes, as soon as it pierced her skin and reached her flesh, the blade was gone and whoever had held it had disappeared, too, and there was nothing left but an agony of white, shining pain, and her own hands suddenly scarlet and wet as she clutched them around herself.
The knife, the knife has killed me, she thought, and a sound filled the whole of her head and poured out of her mouth in a torrent of screaming.
1
NOW
5 July 1841
Ninety-one days at sea
A knife . . . is it true? Who’s got a knife?
Hide. I must hide . . . Oh, my blessed saints, help us . . . Is there blood?
Where is it? Is it here? Someone’s got a knife . . .
Who’s got it now? Where is it?
They’ll cut our throats . . .
The women’s voices twisted into one another, rising and falling in the gathering darkness of the cabin. The lanterns had not yet been lit and the light from the small windows was fading. The women who weren’t shrieking were wailing and clinging to each other, and even though no one said the words, and no one dared to ask, one question hung in the fetid air: Is she dead?
Those who’d been on deck when it happened sat together, trembling and white-faced, some still holding their baskets of scraps and sewing. The three women known as the Newgate Nannies shifted and settled on the cabin’s longest bench, gathering their garments around them, like three birds of prey folding their wings. Behind them, the sleeping berths rose up, and the dark corners of the convicts’ quarters seemed gloomier than ever. The Rajah rolled a little in the swell, her timbers creaking with the motion of the waves.
They were now much nearer to Van Diemen’s Land than to England. The sea had been as flat as a sheet of glass for the last two weeks but had grown choppy around dawn. By sunset birds had appeared, wheeling in free spirals around the masts, their black shapes standing out against the pale sky. July in these latitudes meant winter, and there was often a chill in the air.
“She was probably asking for it,” said a harsh voice, sharp with spite.
“Shut your filthy mouth,” said another woman, with a pockmarked face—the one who took care of the children aboard. “Say another word, you fat bitch, and I’ll bash your teeth so far into your head you’ll be farting them out through your arsehole.”
Someone stood up as angry murmurs turned to shouts, and another hissed, “Quiet, the lot of you. They’re coming.”
They heard the men before they saw them. Their voices rang loud in the darkness, their feet stamping heavily on the steps of the companionway. The women stared at these strange creatures as though they were more than human: taller, stronger, calmer. The captain and the Reverend Mr. Davies, accompanied by three sailors, faced the huddled bodies of the women, like a human wall. The matron, Miss Kezia Hayter, was with them. She wore a blue knitted shawl around her shoulders, and her pale face was unsmiling. Her hair, usually so well arranged, was disheveled and her eyes were full of sadness.
As they waited for the captain to speak, some women cried; others clamped their lips together and tightened their jaws, eyes wary, daring others to blame them. There were those also who longed for matters to be as they were before, in the harmony they’d found briefly before the screams began. Before they’d seen Hattie Matthews lying there, her hair like red-gold autumn leaves scattered on the deck. Before everything was torn apart.
