Read Online Prison Ship by Paul Dowswell - Free Book Online Page B

‘Then they let you off. I seen that ’appen a few times, but usually you get pardoned. It’s rare to get another sentence, like as you ’ave. I’ve ’eard allsorts about where you’re goin’. Some good, some bad. First they’ll put you in a prison hulk outside Portsmouth. That’s where we’re goin’. Should be there in a week. You stay on that ’til there’s a ship ready to take you away. If you can survive the hulk, you’ve got six months at sea to look forward to. Takes that long to get down there. Still, you bein’ Navy men, you should be tough enough.’
    * * *
    When after another week or so at sea we were finally brought up from the hold of the
Aeneas
, I saw at once we were back at Portsmouth. We were not taken directly to a prison hulk, but instead spent a couple of weeks in a stinking barracks cell close to the quayside. We slept on a bed of cold straw and talked constantly of our hope for a reprieve.
    â€˜They’ve put us here because they’re going to let us go!’ I said to Richard.
    He shared my hope. ‘Maybe they’re just playing us along for a bit, like they did when they pretended to hang us. Keep us here for another couple of weeks then let us off?’
    When a squad of marines came for us, I couldn’t help but ask, ‘Have you good news? Are we to be set free?’
    The Sergeant commanding didn’t even have the heart to hit me for my insolence. ‘Shut up, you silly boy,’ he said. ‘You’re off to the hulks.’
    â€˜Anything’s got to be better than this horrible place,’ whispered Richard with a grin.
    The Sergeant overheard him. ‘You wait and see, lad, you wait and see.’ He was beginning to sound impatient. ‘Now shut your mouths, the pair of you.’
    A small tender ferried us over Portsmouth Sound to our new home. It was a day full of promise for anyone not bound for a prison hulk. On shore, blossoms burst from the trees and the air was filled with fresh scents andsunshine. Despite my fate, my spirits were high. Every day I woke and told myself I was still alive and not slowly turning to corruption at the bottom of the North Sea, with a rope around my broken neck.
    Our destination was the
St Louis
, a prison hulk outside Portsmouth harbour, which we were told was a captured French 74. There were ten other prison vessels moored beside the
St Louis
, in the waters leading down to Spithead. I could see them clearly, all moored together in line. What a pitiful sight they made, compared to the proud warship I had seen sailing in line at Copenhagen. The mizzenmast and yardarms had been removed, and just a stump left for the main mast and foremast. No sails or flags billowed proudly from these masts, only a single black pennant. All the ships were the colour of rotten wood, with none of the proud spick and span of a Navy vessel. They looked like a row of loathsome brown toads squatting on the green marble surface of the sea.
    Richard and I fell into conversation with an older man on the tender, who had been sent down to Portsmouth from Newgate Prison in London. He had a wrinkled face and mean, ratty eyes, but I thought there must be some good left in his soul as he was keen to give us advice.
    â€˜Third time I been sent to one of these,’ he told us.
    â€˜Didn’t you get transported?’ I asked him. He shook his head. ‘There’s plenty on the hulks who never get sentout to Botany Bay. We get sent to the ships because the gaols are full to bursting.
    â€˜I expect I’ll see a few old mates,’ he went on. ‘I usually do. Only, as a word of warning to you boys, don’t go thinking anyone here is going to be
your
mate. Even me. They’re just out to trick you of every possession you have. And if you find the prisoners nasty, you should see the guards. They come from the depths of humankind. Lightermen, rat catchers, slaughtermen,