Behind the Sun (26 page)

‘Convicts ent allowed on the foredeck,’ he barked as he wrestled her to the ground.

Friday lashed out at him but it was too late — Rachel had already reached the foredeck.

She took two swift steps towards Keegan, who was facing the other way, and kicked him in the back of his knee. His leg buckled and he half turned, and she was delighted to see alarm flare in his eyes when he realised it was her. Reaching up she slapped his face as hard as she could.

Mrs Seaton let out a shriek and backed away, taking Geneve and Eudora with her.

‘
That’s for taking what wasn’t yours!
’ Rachel screamed, then punched Keegan in the stomach.

He barely registered the blow. ‘Get away from me! I’m warning you.’

Rachel raised her hand to strike him again, but he reacted first. He planted his hands on her chest and pushed her hard, the force of it driving her backwards to the top of the companion ladder. She stepped back onto nothing and seemed, at least to the women watching in horror from the waistdeck, to take an age to fall through the air, her skirt and her long silver-white hair fluttering after her, before she finally hit the deck six feet below.

She lay very still, one arm outstretched, her skirt rumpled above her scabbed knees, lines of dark blood already collecting in the grooves of the deck boards beneath her head. The women gathering around her stared down at her in shocked silence, others pushing in close to see. Harrie let out a rising wail of despair.

Then James Downey was there, crouching over her, his fingers against her throat. Behind him Matthew hovered, his face as white as his shirt.

Harrie fell on her knees beside James. ‘Is she dead? Oh, please, she isn’t, is she?’

He seemed not to have heard, his gaze fixed on Rachel’s still face.

Then he said, ‘Wait. I think, yes, I can feel a pulse.’ He glanced up and caught sight of Matthew. ‘Help me, will you? I need to get her below.’

James lifted Rachel in his arms. On the deck where she had lain was a great puddle of dark ruby blood. The crowd gasped and murmured: surely a body couldn’t lose that much of its life force and still be drawing breath? Rachel’s head lolled against James’s shoulder, her blood immediately staining the cloth of his blue jacket black. Harrie tore off her apron, wadded it and pressed it against the back of her skull. Between them Matthew and James carried Rachel very carefully down the ladder to the hospital, followed closely by Harrie, weeping openly.

Seconds later Josiah Holland came running, shrugging himself into his coat, fetched from his cabin by Walter Cobley.

‘What’s going on here?’ he demanded, then stopped short as he noted the gore all over his deck.

Friday, a great rip in her skirt and her face scarlet with rage, pointed up at the foredeck and cried out, ‘Attempted murder by that man there, Keegan! We all saw it!’

Holland lifted his gaze even as his heart sank. ‘What?’

‘He pushed Rachel down the ladder! He tried to kill her!’

Holland looked around for his crew and spied Amos Furniss. ‘Is this true?’

‘The gentleman did push a girl off the foredeck, aye,’ Furniss said conversationally.

‘What was she doing up there?’ The captain looked bewildered. ‘Prisoners aren’t allowed on the foredeck. It’s against regulations.’

‘
Fuck
the regulations!’ Friday screamed. ‘He tried to kill her! Bloody well arrest him, you
buffoon
!’

Holland’s face went a deep puce colour. ‘Furniss! Take her down to the hold.’

While Friday was being bundled away to a chorus of loud booing from the crowd, Holland went up onto the foredeck. Mrs Seaton and her daughters were huddled against the starboard gunwale, their arms around each other. The girls were crying.

‘Are you unharmed, madam?’ he asked.

‘We are well, thank you, Captain,’ Hester Seaton replied. ‘It was just rather a shock. She was quite unhinged! And then when she fell!’ She retrieved a lace-trimmed kerchief from her reticule and dabbed at her eyes.

‘Did you see what happened?’

Hester hesitated, then gave Eudora and Geneve the look they knew meant they were not to say a word. ‘Not clearly, no. We were standing over here at the time.’ It wouldn’t do Octavius’s plans for promotion any good if they were to be caught up in a scandal the minute they arrived in New South Wales. It was obvious now who the girl in the corridor the other night had been.

Josiah Holland had the distinct feeling he was being lied to. ‘I suggest you retire to your cabin, Mrs Seaton. I may wish to speak to you and your daughters later, however.’

Gabriel Keegan was sitting on a coil of rope at the base of the bowsprit with his hat in his hands, the picture of dejection. He glanced up as Holland approached.

‘Captain. I am as appalled as you, I really am. Obviously it was an extremely unfortunate accident. And as for her absurd allegations, I have no idea to what she was referring.’

Holland experienced a very unpleasant stab of anxiety. ‘What allegations?’

Rachel’s hair looked as though it had been dyed the colour of garnets.

She lay on the examination table on her side, breathing shallowly, one leg straight and the other bent so she wouldn’t
roll onto her face. James had carefully parted her hair over the wound and was now attempting to wash away the blood with damp lint.

‘Won’t the salt water be stinging it?’ Harrie said.

Lil Foster patted Harrie’s arm. ‘I don’t think she’ll be feeling it, love.’

Harrie nodded, choked on another sob, and dropped the tin bowl she was holding in case Rachel vomited again.

Without looking up, James said, ‘Harrie, I know this is upsetting, but if you can’t manage your emotions a little more effectively, I’m going to have to send you away. This is most unlike you.’

‘No! No, really, it’s just…’ Harrie stopped babbling and picked up the bowl. ‘I’m all right, really. Please let me stay.’

James sat up straight. ‘I’ll have to cut some of her hair.’

Harrie burst into fresh tears.

Ignoring her, James waved his hand. ‘Pass me the scissors, Lil.’

He trimmed away the blood-sodden hair around the wound, swabbed it thoroughly with a weak solution of costic, and sutured it shut with catgut threaded through a curved, ivory-handled surgical needle. Twenty-one stitches running from the top of her head, across the back of her skull to the base of her left ear.

Deeply unconscious, Rachel didn’t stir once. James had shouted in her face, slapped it lightly, lifted her eyelids and held the lamp close to her eyes — both pupils were markedly dilated, not just the right one this time — and tapped her knees and inner elbows with his plexor, all with no response. Yet she was still breathing, albeit shallowly. She had also vomited, and it had been very fortunate they had arranged her on her side or she could well have choked to death. It was clear the severe blow to her head had rendered her comatose, which was a grave state of affairs. He had seen only a handful of patients recover from coma, particularly those caused by blows to the head, and to his knowledge most of them had gone on to live lives fraught with problems both physical and mental. At
this point, he didn’t know whether Rachel Winter would recover at all, let alone to what extent.

He did, however, now know who had assaulted her five nights earlier — or he thought he did — and he was at least as disappointed with himself as he was with Gabriel Keegan. It was his responsibility to oversee the convicts’ welfare and he’d let his inherent snobbery blind him to the possibility that it may have been a paying passenger who’d attacked Rachel Winter, not a crewman.

Gabriel Keegan should be tried in a court of law for what he had done — for both his attack on the girl today and for his initial assault on her. As soon as he had finished here, James was going to demand that Holland arrest the fellow and sling him in the brig for the rest of the voyage. It was absurd to think he should be allowed to wander at liberty about the ship. First, however, he would have to make very sure he had his facts straight. He finished winding a bandage around Rachel’s head and tucked in the loose end.

‘Harrie? Rachel’s broken nose: she didn’t injure herself walking into a post, did she?’

Harrie stood very still, staring down at the bowl in her hands, her ears slowly turning pink. James could see she was trying to decide whether or not to lie. It was very endearing, but at the moment not helpful.

‘I need to know, Harrie, so please tell me the truth.’

‘No, she didn’t,’ Harrie finally said. ‘Someone hit her.’

As gently as he could, given how angry he felt, James said, ‘It was Gabriel Keegan, wasn’t it?’

A look of angry defiance flashed across Harrie’s face at the mention of the man’s name. ‘Yes, it was. It damn well was.’

God, how was he going to ask this next bit? ‘And during that episode, when her nose was injured, are you aware, Harrie, did Keegan perpetrate any other harm against her person?’

‘Well, he bloody well raped her,’ Lil said, banging the bandage box back on the shelf to demonstrate her disgust.

‘Lil!’ Harrie was aghast. ‘How did you know?’

‘Janie Braine.’

Even though he’d suspected it, James felt a wave of revulsion and dismay roll though him: Keegan would most definitely need to be locked up.

‘But why didn’t she report it?’ he asked Harrie.

But Lil answered. ‘Would you or the captain’ve believed her? Her word against a “gentleman’s”?’ She snorted rudely. ‘Not likely.’

James knew he really should reprimand her for being cheeky, but he just didn’t have the energy. Anyway, she was right.

‘She was tricked, Mr Downey.’ Very, very gently, Harrie stroked Rachel’s cold, still cheek with the back of her fingers. ‘She’s only fifteen and not really the best judge of character. She’s betrothed, to a soldier called Lucas Carew. A lieutenant. They ran off together but he had to leave her in London. She got into terrible trouble with her family for it. She was alone and she was tricked and she ended up in gaol. She’s a good girl, really. She has this great plan. She’s saving up and if he doesn’t come to New South Wales to find her first, when she’s served her sentence she’s going back to England to find him.’ Harrie looked up, tears rolling down her cheeks. ‘That’s a lot of “she’s”, isn’t it?’ She wiped her nose on her sleeve. ‘Apparently Keegan offered her paid work, laundering or the like, but she’s so naive. He just helped himself.’

James swallowed what felt like a burning coal and looked away. ‘Was she…did you…was she hurt?’ He waved a vague hand at Rachel’s belly.

Harrie nodded. ‘I did. She didn’t want you to. No offence intended. There was…blood. And bruising. I didn’t know what else to look for.’

James felt himself reddening. Poor Harrie. Poor
him
. ‘Er, yes. Well, these things can be very difficult to, well, yes.’ Not that he was an expert, but he had encountered that previous case of forced sexual intercourse on a convict ship and one or two on emigrant
transports. And, actually, several within His Majesty’s Navy, now that he thought about it.

‘Will she die, Mr Downey?’

James couldn’t lie. ‘I don’t know, Harrie.’

Josiah Holland sat at the table in the great cabin, his arms crossed protectively over his painfully bloated belly. He was suffering a severe attack of indigestion, brought on, he was sure, by the day’s unsavoury events and the distress of what he was being forced to listen to now, and wanted everyone to go away so he could dose himself with oil of peppermint and several of the charcoal wafers Downey had prepared for him. But they wouldn’t leave, arguing and demanding for all the world as though they were in command of the ship, not him.

‘Surely, Captain, it is clear what has to be done!’ James Downey insisted, leaning forwards and slapping the surface of the table.

‘Mr Downey, as I’ve already said —’ Holland began, rubbing the bridge of his nose wearily.

‘But he can’t be allowed to just…go about his business!’

Holland breathed in deeply, which hurt his stomach, and sighed. ‘Look, be rational about this, Mr Downey. What you have is a girl — a
convict
girl, who is being transported to the colonies for seven years for improbity — who says she was assaulted by a paying passenger. In his cabin. In the middle of the night.’

Downey almost launched himself out of his chair. ‘No,
she
isn’t saying it, because
she
can’t!
She
’s lying in my hospital because Keegan pushed her off the foredeck and damn near killed her!’

Reverend Seaton, sitting opposite, said, ‘I find your language offensive, sir.’

‘So, who
is
saying it?’ Holland asked, ignoring him.

‘Her colleagues.’

‘Colleagues,’ sneered Amos Furniss, standing at the end of the table.

The reverend threw his hands in the air, the light reflecting off the large yellow stone in the ring he wore on his right hand. ‘I find this entire situation preposterous. I interviewed Mr Keegan myself not an hour ago and he flatly denies any knowledge whatsoever of the female
felon
in question. In my opinion, the word of a gentleman should be more than enough to settle a simple dispute.’

Holland held his breath as Downey responded with admirable restraint. ‘With all due respect, Reverend, this is considerably more than a simple dispute.’

He loosened his collar — it really was getting stuffy in here — and turned to Matthew Cutler to broach the matter that bothered him most of all. ‘And you, Mr Cutler, are maintaining that there is a brothel being run aboard my ship at night?’

‘Yes, I am,’ Cutler replied.

Holland, to his dismay, actually tended to believe Cutler about this — after all, it wasn’t as though there hadn’t been precedents on previous transports, though not
his
ships — and one or two comments he’d inadvertently overheard from the crew now made sense. He noted, however, that Silas Warren, standing near the door, looked as perturbed as he felt himself.

‘I even saw one of the women,’ Cutler added. ‘On deck, the night Rachel Winter was attacked.’