As the tune came back to her, Mathinna hummed it aloud: It’s wattle blossom time, it’s springtime, the birds are whistling, spring has come. The clouds are all sunny, the fuchsia is out at the top, the birds are whistling. Everything is dancing because it’s springtime . . . Reaching into the basket on the floor, she pulled Waluka onto the bed. She stroked the ridge of his back, rested her palm between his tiny witchy hands, cupped his rounded belly. He nudged her neck with his wet nose, and she felt tears slide from her eyes, dampening her neck and pillow.

She missed her mother. She missed Palle. She missed the smell of the smoke that rose from the elders’ pipes as they sat around the fire pit. She had spent her whole life in a place where she’d been free to roam barefoot as far as she pleased, where she could sit for hours on a rock on the hillside watching seals waffle in the surf, moon birds dip and soar in a choreographed whoosh, the sun slide into a glittery sea. Where everyone knew her. And now she was alone in this strange land, far from anything familiar.

Closing her eyes, she was back on Flinders, threading through wallaby grass on a windy day as it heaved and ebbed around her like waves on the sea, digging her toes into the white sand, running across the top of the hills. Watching embers glow and settle in the campfire on a cool evening, listening to Palle’s languorous voice as he sang her to sleep.

Evangeline

Among other suggestions relative to the classification of prisoners we find one recommending the wearing of a ticket by each woman. Each ticket was inscribed with a number, which number should agree with the corresponding number on the class list. . . .

In the case of convicts on board convict-ships proceeding to the penal settlements, Mrs. Fry recommended that not only should the women wear these tickets, but that every article of clothing, every book, and every piece of bedding should be similarly numbered. . . . She considered the most thorough, vigilant, and unremitting inspection essential to a correct system of prison discipline; by this means she anticipated that an effectual, if slow, change of habits might be produced.

—Mrs. E. R. Pitman, Elizabeth Fry, 1884

The Port of London, 1840

As the carriage ground to a halt, Evangeline heard the groan of springs under the driver’s seat and felt the tilt of the chassis. When the door creaked open, she winced. The darkness inside framed a too-bright world: a dirt road with a small crowd of people on the other side, and beyond that, anchored in the harbor between water and sky, a black wooden ship with three sails.

“Out,” the guard barked. “Step quick.”

Stepping quick was impossible, but one by one the women hobbled to the opening, where he grasped them by the upper arms and yanked them onto the dirt.

The crowd surged toward them: a few rough-looking boys, a frail old man with a cane, a ringleted girl hanging onto her mother’s skirt. A woman holding a baby cried, “Slatterns!”

Ahead of them, tied to a dock, was a skiff with two sailors. One of them whistled. “Ay! Over here.”

As the guard pressed the prisoners forward, the crowd tried to block their way, throwing a rotten cabbage, a spray of pebbles. An egg bounced off Evangeline’s skirt and cracked at her feet.

“Dirty puzzles, ye should be ashamed,” the old man said.

“God help your souls,” a woman called, hands clasped in prayer.

Evangeline felt a sharp pain in her arm and looked down. A rock skittered in the dirt. Blood trickled from her elbow.

“Nasty buggers!” Olive turned to face the crowd, jangling her handcuffed fists. “I’ll fight the whole boodle of ye.”

“Settle down or I’ll pound ye meself,” the guard said, poking her hip with his truncheon.

Evangeline could feel the earth beneath the thin soles of her shoes. She had an impulse to lean down and rake her fingers through it, to clutch a handful of it. This would almost certainly be the last time her feet would touch English soil.

Far out in the harbor, on the three-masted ship, a line of men leaned over the railing, hooting and clapping. From this distance their catcalls sounded as innocent as birdsong.

The two sailors at the skiff wore wide trousers and tunics tied with rope. Their forearms were covered in ink. One was swarthy and one pale, with a mop of sandy hair. The sandy-haired sailor leapt out and stood on the dock, grinning as the women approached. “Greetings, ladies!”

“We’re glad to be rid of ’em,” the guard told him.

“They’ll have a warm welcome here.”

He laughed. “No doubt.”

“That one should clean up all right.” The sailor jerked his chin toward Evangeline.

The guard made a face. “She’s up the duff. Look at ’er.” He motioned toward her belly. “That one, too,” he said, scowling at Olive, “and she’s a feisty munter. She’ll claw your eyes out.”

“Won’t be so feisty when we’re done with ’er.”

“All talk,” Olive said. “I know your type.”

“Enough outta ye,” the sailor said.

In the skiff the women were seated side by side, front and back, while the crewmen rowed in the middle. Evangeline sat perfectly still, listening to the splashing of the oars in and out of the water, a bell clanging in the distance. The hem of her skirt was soaked with seawater. As they got closer, she saw the name painted on the hull: Medea.

From this angle the ship loomed over them, terrifyingly large.

The sandy-haired sailor appraised Evangeline frankly as he rowed. His small eyes were dishwater gray and he sported a red-and-black tattoo of a topless mermaid on his biceps that writhed as he pulled on the oar. He blew a kiss into the air when he caught her eye.

As they reached the ship, bumping lightly against the side, the whooping of the men at the railing above them grew louder. The sandy-haired sailor jumped onto a small platform attached to a ramp and began tugging the prisoners out of the skiff.

The women were clumsy in their shackles. “Bloody chains,” Olive grumbled as she clambered onto the dock. “Where the hell d’ye think we’ll escape to?”

“Watch your mouth or we won’t take ’em off at all,” the sailor said.

She snorted. “Don’t go actin’ all superior. You’re an ex-con yourself, no doubt.”

“Mind your own—”

“As I thought.”

He yanked the chain between her hands and she stumbled forward. When she caught her footing, he pulled her close to him, like a dog on a lead. “Listen, tart. Ye’ll do well to remember who’s in charge.” With a sudden movement he jerked the chain down and she fell to her knees. He twisted it so the upper half of her body hovered over the water alongside the platform. “These irons are heavy. All I have to do is let go. Ye’ll sink like a stone.”

Olive made a small noise. A whimper. “Please.”

“Please, sir.”

She opened her hands helplessly. “Please, sir.”

“Kind sir.”

She was silent.

Evangeline, behind her in the skiff, leaned forward. “Olive. Just say it.”

The sandy-haired sailor looked at the other sailor and winked. Then he nudged Olive’s legs with his knee, pushing her closer to the water.

The men above them quieted. The only sound was the screeching of seagulls.

“Kind sir,” Olive whispered.

The sailor pulled the chain up, and with it, Olive’s body, so that she hung suspended over the water. He seemed poised to let go. Without thinking, Evangeline cried out and stood up. The skiff rocked wildly side to side. “Fer Chrissake, wench, will ye go overboard too?” the sailor behind her said, pushing her roughly on the shoulder so that she fell hard on the wooden bench.

The sandy-haired sailor yanked the chain back toward him, and Olive collapsed on the platform in a heap. For a few moments she lay at the base of the ramp. Her wrists were scored with blood. Her back heaved oddly up and down, and at first Evangeline thought she was laughing. Then she saw that Olive’s eyes were squeezed shut. Her body was shaking, but she didn’t make a sound.

After the four prisoners had been transferred to the ship, they stood on the main deck, waiting to be unshackled. A shirtless sailor with a scaly green-and-black dragon inked across his torso held up a ring of keys. Except for Cecil, in the shadowy light of a bedroom with the drapes closed, Evangeline had never seen a man without his shirt, not even her father in his dying days. “You.” The sailor gestured to Evangeline, motioning for her to sit on an overturned bucket.

A small crowd of sailors had formed. She’d never seen men like this, with faces leathery and as creased as walnut shells, hawklike eyes, sinewy arms covered in elaborate tattoos. The guards at Newgate had been contemptuous, but they didn’t lick their lips in lascivious revelry, making obscene noises with their tongues.

The locksmith instructed another sailor to hold the chain between Evangeline’s manacles, then he knelt down and opened the irons around her ankles before unfastening the ones around her wrists. When her shackles fell to the ground, the men around her yelled and clapped. Evangeline shook out her sore hands.

The locksmith jerked his head toward the others. “They’ll settle down. It’s always like this with a new group.”

Evangeline looked around. “Where are the other prisoners?”

“Most of ’em are down there.” He raised his chin toward a dark, square opening from which a handrail jutted out. “In the bowels. The orlop deck.”

The bowels. Evangeline shuddered. “Are they—caged?”