Hazel’s legs wobbled when she stepped out of the boat and onto the dock. She hadn’t realized how accustomed she’d become to the rhythm of the waves until she was on solid ground, unable to find her footing. Afraid of losing her balance and dropping Ruby, she fell to her knees. All around her, women were doing the same.

By the time all 192 women and children had been ferried over and marched across the rickety causeway to the wharf, it was midmorning. Hazel looked at the gulls circling overhead, the fog wallowing on the sea behind them. Listened to the tide ramp against the shore, a low, rhythmic roar. A cool breeze came off the water, twisting up her skirt and winding between her legs. She tucked the blanket around Ruby and pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders.

As they made their way across the slick cobblestones of the wharf, Hazel became aware of a strange whooping noise. A crowd of rough-looking men was moving toward them. Coming closer, they leered at the women, grabbing their skirts, waving hats in their faces, calling them names Hazel had never heard before, even on the streets of Glasgow.

“Look a’ that flash bit o’ mutton! . . . nasty bunters . . . stinkin’ fish drabs . . . moon-eyed hens . . . dirty cracks . . .”

“Droolin’ animals,” Olive muttered, behind Hazel. “Can’t abide that we’re heading to prison instead of warming their beds.”

The women shuffled along, looking down, trying to avoid the muddy puddles in the dirt road, pushing the men back with their elbows. Behind them, soldiers in scarlet uniforms carrying muskets on their shoulders stood watching. “Let’s go, pick it up!” they yelled. The soldiers pushed the women roughly if they got out of line and pulled them to their feet if they tripped and fell, their hands lingering too long on waists and backsides.

Macquarie Street, the sign read just ahead. They trudged up a hill past brown government buildings and a brick church with a black dome and a three-faced clock, women moaning, children pleading, “How much longer? Where are we going?” Ruby, too, was fussing, hungry; Hazel tried to bobble her in the sling. Her own stomach rumbled. They hadn’t been offered anything but hardtack in the darkness before they left. Spoiled by the real food she’d been eating lately, she’d turned up her nose. She regretted it now.

They passed two-story sandstone houses, small neat cottages, lean-to shacks that appeared to have been nailed together in a day. Roses twined up trellises and cherry trees bloomed in shades of pink. The morning air smelled peaty and fresh. Hazel gazed ahead at the high rocky bluffs of the mountain she’d seen from the harbor, the top of it clouding into sky. On either side of the road were trees with pinkish gray bark that reminded her of shorn sheepskin. She was startled to see birdlike creatures in a fenced-in garden that were taller than humans, with skinny legs and oblong bodies, strutting and pecking the dirt.

After some time, the long parade of women descended into a valley. A weak sun slipped from behind the clouds as they made their way past wooden shanties, a sawmill, a brewery. A group of green birds, massed as thickly as mosquitoes, whizzed through the air above their heads. The mud was deeper here, tamped down by the women at the front of the line but squishy nonetheless. It seeped through the seams of Hazel’s shoes. All of this walking felt strange and unnatural after so many months at sea. Her legs ached and her feet were sore. She was thirsty and needed to pee.

Olive tapped Hazel’s arm. “Look at that.”

In a field about a hundred yards away, a cluster of large brown animals with deerlike faces and rabbity ears stood on their hind legs, staring at them. One turned and hopped off and the others followed, bounding after it like balls tipped from a basket.

“What in the world,” Hazel breathed. This place was stranger than she’d dared to imagine.

As they marched forward, she became aware of a murmuring from the front of the line, and then, a few moments later, a terrible smell. She looked down: they were crossing a small bridge over a rivulet filled with sewage. Gray rats scurried in and out of the water.

Olive nudged her from behind. “Look up.”

Straight ahead, in the shadow of the mountain, a windowless fortress rose from the earth. At the front of the line a soldier rapped on the huge wooden gate. When it opened, he barked at the convicts and children to form two lines. Slowly, they began to file inside.

A thin, whiskered man in a blue uniform and a woman in a black dress buttoned to the neck stood near the far end of a desolate courtyard. Behind them, three women in shapeless prison garb swept the gravel. One, a woman with braided white hair, stopped her work and watched the new prisoners file in. When Hazel caught her eye, she put a finger to her lips.

Except for a clanging pot and the sound of someone chopping wood in the distance, the place was eerily quiet.

After the last woman entered, and the gate was closed and locked, the whiskered man stepped forward. “I am Mr. Hutchinson, superintendent of the Cascades Female Factory,” he said in a high, reedy voice, “and this is Mrs. Hutchinson, the matron. As long as you are imprisoned here, you will be under our command.” He shifted from foot to foot, speaking so quietly that the women had to lean forward, straining to hear. “Your personal effects will be taken from you and returned when you are released, unless they are deemed too foul, in which case they will be incinerated. Utmost cleanliness and submission are expected at all times. You will attend daily chapel at eight in the morning, after breakfast, and at eight at night, after supper. Lateness and absences will be severely punished. Profanity and smoking tobacco are even graver offenses. It is our belief that silence prevents disruptions and bad influences. Talking, laughing, whistling, and singing are strictly forbidden. If you break this rule, you will be punished.”

Hazel glanced furtively around. The courtyard was damp and shadowed, pocked with puddles. It smelled of mold. The walls rose twenty feet around them. Ruby was whimpering. Her diaper sagged, sodden, and she needed to be fed.

“You’ll be assigned to one of three classes, depending upon your sentence, reports of your conduct filled out by the ship’s surgeon, and our assessment of your character. Assignables—those of you who are well behaved and presentable, and who possess a useful skill or ability—will be accorded the privilege of leaving the premises to work in free settlers’ homes and businesses.”

Olive poked Hazel in the back. “‘Privilege,’” she scoffed. “To be worked like horses and treated like dogs.”

“If you fail to perform your work, show signs of insolence, become intoxicated, or attempt to run away, this privilege will be revoked.” The superintendent spoke in a monotone, his voice droning on. “Crime-class prisoners are employed at the prison, making and repairing clothing and working at the tubs in the washing yard. If you are found guilty of disobedience, profanity, obscenity, insubordination, sloth, or disorderly conduct, your hair will be sheared and you will be placed in a dark cell in solitary confinement, picking oakum until your sentence is served.

“If you become pregnant you may care for your infant for six months in the nursery before serving six months in the crime yard for the offense of unwed pregnancy. Older children will be sent to an orphanage. Mothers on good behavior may be permitted to visit on Sundays.”

Though Hazel knew that mothers and children would be separated, most of the women did not. Their cries and exclamations filled the courtyard.

“Quiet!” the superintendent barked.

Ruby’s whimpering turned into a wail. Olive whispered, “Should I feed her?”

Hazel pulled Ruby out of the sling and handed her over. “You’ll be Ruby’s nurse, then?”

Olive shook her head. “If I do, they’ll make me a wet nurse. I can’t be stuck to babies all day long.”

When at last the superintendent finished speaking, the convicts queued for the midday meal, a hunk of bread and a pint of watery soup. Mutton, they were told, though Hazel tasted only fat and gristle. It was sharply sour, rancid. Despite her hunger, she spat it back in the bowl. For the rest of the afternoon, she stood with the other women in the drafty courtyard, jiggling Ruby on her hip, waiting to see the doctor. She watched as, one by one, they disappeared into a small brick house and emerged in gray uniforms.

“Show me your hands,” the dour-faced doctor said when it was finally her turn. Hazel set Ruby on a wooden chair and held out her palms. Hands up, hands down. “Open your mouth.” Looking at her papers, he raised a bushy eyebrow. “It says here your child needs a wet nurse.”

She nodded.

“It’s because you’re too thin,” he said irritably. “You convicts don’t take care of yourselves, and others are forced to carry your burden. Who fed her on the ship?”

Hazel knew better than to implicate Olive. “A woman who sadly died.”

“That’s unfortunate.” He made a note in her chart. “It is recommended that you work in the nursery. What are your skills?”

She hesitated. “I was a midwife.”

“You delivered babies?”