CHAPTER ONE
29 June 1842
Jennie’s bare feet burned as she stepped down onto the sun-seared cobblestones from the crammed prison wagon. Hers was one of many lined three deep next to the Liverpool quayside. She swallowed hard at the sudden cloying stench of dead fish, rotting wood and slime. Within moments, sweat beaded on her forehead in the glaring noonday sun. She brushed fingers across her face and wiped them on the tattered dress that clung to her thin body.
A guard yanked her by the shoulders. She winced as he cuffed her wrists behind her back. A second guard snapped shackles on her ankles, and then thrust her behind Alice. The ten-year-old huddled against Jennie until a third guard chained them into an already formed line. In silence, they waited for the rest of the female convicts to join the fettered queue. Quaking inside, Jennie ran her dry tongue over parched lips.
Whips crackled overhead and at last the line of emaciated women lurched forward along the crowded wharf. With slow uneven steps, Jennie trekked with the other whey-faced, hollow-cheeked women. Many kept their heads down as they edged past the throng of onlookers waiting with friends and family to board their respective passenger ships. Heavy manacles bit into Jennie’s wrists and ankles with each hobbled step towards the sailing ship bound for Van Damien’s Land.
“Be gone with ya, ya thieving women.” Someone hollered.
“Yeah, good riddance!” yelled a tall man whose head stuck above the crowd.
Jennie tensed as he pushed his way towards them.
“You’re good for nothing rubbish and we’re best rid of your kind.” His spittle landed at her feet.
Jennie stood tall and stared straight ahead. She refused to drop her head in shame. She accepted that she had committed a morally wrong act, even though at the time she had been desperate and felt justified. But was it not payment enough to be ripped from her family and transported to a penal colony 10,000 miles away? Did she have to be humiliated in public too? Her chest tightened against her lungs.
Judith Silverthorne 