as it inches its way slowly around the perilous reef and into the shallow bay.
Polly stands, stares at the ship for a moment, removing her bonnet to swat a stray fly from her cheek. About bleedin’ time too, she thinks. Now maybe we might get some little rise in the food rations at last. Maybe they’ve brought over some more pigs, an’ all.
Well … no point standin’ around here when there’s work to be done, she determines, and no doubt there’ll be a good deal more rushin’ about at Government House once that lot get ashore, what with all the unloadin’ and cartin’ about an what-have-you. All those men with their grand schemes, lots of shoutin’ an’ everythin’s the most important thing that ever there was, an’ it must all be done by about yesterday, or there’s hell to pay. An’ if it’s not done, well, most likely it’ll be some poor convict that gets the blame. She shakes her head slowly.
She turns, leaving the bucket and scrap tin for the moment where they lie in the shallow heath. She gathers her washing basket in both hands, and turns again towards the clothesline.
But as she does so, behind her she hears a noise. No, more than just a noise, a definite and human sort of noise. Well, barely human – and, she shudders, recognising the sound, most decidedly unwelcome. The sound is a low, rasping clearing of the throat, exaggerated to the point of stagecraft. It is a noise that could only come from one person.
Fixing a politely bland expression onto her healthy features and summoning what civility she can muster, Polly turns to face the Reverend Ezekiel Staines, colonial chaplain.
“Mornin’, Reverend”, she intones steadily.
The Chaplain smiles, his ineffectively shaven jowls creasing into a leer above the ever-present off-white clerical collar - which looks very much the worse for having had a number of fluids spilled down the front flaps of it, over the significant period since it appears to have seen any hint of soapy water.
“Lovely morning, my dear”, opines the Reverend in a kind of rasping sing-song - rather akin, thinks Polly, to the sound of a badly-oiled gate. Then he adds with the leer gaining in intensity: “And, I may say, a lovely vision to grace it.” He flutters his eyelashes and almost drools.
My God, she observes with disgust, even his lashes are oily. Over the involuntary turning of her stomach, she forces another barely tolerant half-smile which she works hard to ensure is not accompanied by any visible rolling of the eyes. She satisfies herself with a tone of firm but gentle reproof, trying not to make it sound the least bit playful, coquettish or otherwise encouraging, but merely to truncate further conversation as deftly and politely as possible.
“Now now, Reverend,” she says, in the tone of a kindly but firm governess, “that’ll do.”
And as she turns away from him towards the washing line she adds under her breath, unheard by him: “Pig.”
For a moment the chaplain considers following her; but something in the quiet steel of her rebuff deters him. He narrows his eyes and smiles ruefully, thinking to himself: Bit of a wild one, that one. All that scuttlebutt about the fate that reportedly befell the last man who tried to force his attentions upon her. Had to be shipped home in two separate vessels, according to Halloran the stablehand. Mind you, the Reverend sneers to himself, anything coming from that highly dubious source would need to be taken with a most generous pinch of salt.
Staines shakes his head and watches with ill-disguised prurience Polly’s generous hips swinging backwards and forwards as she pegs the washing out upon the line.
Yes, he thinks, after five years in the colony it is high time I found myself a nice little wife. And then on reflection: But possibly one in need of a little less taming than she. High-spirited, that is the word for her. And while there can be certain … advantages in that, I am not at all sure that she would respond to the requisite degree of discipline from a strong husband and moral guardian such as myself – no matter whether or not the Holy Bible might instruct her that man must rule and woman must obey.
Still, one must not be choosy, he warns himself, what with men outnumbering women in the colony by a proportion of no less than seven or eight to one. Ah, he thinks with a sigh, the many trials cast by the Almighty in the path of us mere mortals.
He ruminates upon this for a moment, takes a deep breath, turns and shuffles away, inspired by his spiritual ponderings to begin a rather tuneless mumbling of one of John Newton’s popular hymns of the time, “The Prodigal Son”:
Afflictions, though they seem severe,
In mercy oft are sent.…
Newton, of course, had been associated with the campaign against slavery – but Staines does not hold this against him. After all, to a good Christian it does seem wrong to haul some poor African half way around the world in the bowels of a ship and turn him into a beast of burden.
No, far better to use the Irish for that. At least they understand what you are yelling at them. Well, almost.
As the Reverend warbles on, his eyes have drifted to the Heavens and away out to sea. All at once he stops, squints into the morning haze. Distant cream shapes flutter majestically into the bay.
Ah, he thinks, the ship has come in at last. His mood brightens immediately at the prospect of the new parishioners this vessel may bring – hopefully a good proportion of them female.
With a great deal more spring in his step now, the Chaplain turns and totters happily off past Government House towards the main street.
Through heavy eyelids half-closed against the bright glare, someone else now observes the ship as it drops anchor out in the bay and the longboats are prepared for the bridging of the remaining distance to the shore.
This observer has only moments ago emerged from the track leading down from the settlement, and now props his ample frame against a navigation post at the top of the dunes overlooking the beach. He puffs with the exertion of this activity as he wipes the sweat from his brow and peers from under a ragged straw hat towards the ship, which sits placidly at anchor in the early morning calm of the bay.
Well now, he thinks, sure an’ that’d be a welcome sight. An’ not before time, too.
He’s reminded of a similar day – must be about just about seven years past now – when he himself arrived on a similar vessel, and from the same port of origin: Portsmouth. He recalls the surge of mixed emotions with which he had at first set foot upon these golden sands. Such a long way, so far from everything he was familiar with. And into a life of such hard labour in such strange surroundings.
Well, he thinks, not all that hard, really, not the way I’ve managed to arrange most of it. At the end o’ the day I’m still standin’, he thinks - unlike some. I’ve not fared all that badly from it, all things considered - not compared with what might’a been. Doesn’t stack up all that bad, really, he concludes, against the hard realities o’ life on the back streets o’ Dublin. Wouldn’t be tradin’ my lot for those back there. Not now.
Still, he thinks, can’t be countin’ me chickens at this point. Not out o’ the woods yet. Still need to be playin’ me cards carefully. ’Specially with what I
