Читать книгу The Fatal Cup: Thomas Griffiths Wainewright and the strange deaths of his relations - John Price Williams - Страница 4

PROLOGUE

Van Diemen’s Land, November 1837

Slowly and carefully the weathered barque Susan nudged her way up the dangerous strait between the South East Cape and Tasman Head.

Even more cautiously she passed the underwater rock that had ripped the bottom out of another ship George III two years before, leading to the loss of 120 lives.

Up she came though the d’Entrecasteaux Channel, up the Derwent River until the pilot brought her finally into Sullivan’s Cove.

As the anchor of the Susan rattled down, a red flag was hoisted on the shore. It meant “Convicts from England”.

It had been a relatively quick passage for a convict ship – 109 days after clearing the Isle of Wight to sail to the other end of the world, to Hobartown, Van Diemen’s Land, later to be renamed Tasmania.

The first part had been easy, with light winds and agreeable time spent on the open deck, but after rounding the Cape into the Roaring Forties, there had been a month of westerly gales and raging seas, according to the account of one who sailed in her.

Hatches had been battened down for weeks on end, and the noisome prison deck below was frequently flooded, and the water swilled to and fro as the Susan pitched and rolled violently night and day.

Cooped up in this sodden, filthy world were nearly

THE FATAL CUP

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