The Exiles

Though they must wait for the ship to fill with other convicts before they embark, the women on board become accustomed to their chores and routines. Every morning, they hang their blankets on the top deck to air, and every afternoon, they are inspected by Doctor Dunne. Still, Evangeline cannot reconcile herself to the pure cruelty she sees on board and “people who [get] away with bad behavior because they [can]” (113). She learns the name of one of the young sailors who had made such sexual comments upon their arrival—Danny Buck, a murderer who had completed his sentence at the penal colony and then decided to continue his life at sea.

One morning, another skiff of female convicts arrives at the Medea. A few are close to Evangeline’s age, but one is obviously much younger and quite petite. She does not hang her head like the rest but “stare[s] resolutely ahead” (114), not making eye contact with anyone. This angers Buck, who shoves her hard onto the deck, causing her to fall flat on her face. Olive and Evangeline rush to her aid to find her bleeding from a head wound. Doctor Dunne soon appears and demands to know what happened to the girl. He treats her kindly, and she tells him her name is Hazel Ferguson, from Glasgow. Olive quickly accuses Buck of shoving the girl, but Buck claims she tripped of her own accord.

That evening, Olive and Evangeline return to their bunk to find the girl on the opposite bed, lying quietly in the darkness. Olive tries to find a common ground with her by saying that she once traveled to the cathedral in Glasgow, but the girl seems reluctant to speak. She says that she is 20 years old, but Olive emphatically calls her out for lying. Finally, Hazel says, “I’m sixteen. Now leave me alone” (118).

The day before they are to set sail, one final skiff arrives—the Quaker women from Newgate. Suddenly, the men on board become respectful, even Buck, who “holds [the skiff] steady for the women to disembark” (118). The Quaker women approach the prisoners, and the leader, Mrs. Fry, recognizes Evangeline from the prison. She gives her a Bible—so that she can share the word of God with the rest of the women—and a few items of warm clothing. Finally, she hands her a small tin piece with a number—171—stamped into it and tells Evangeline that this number should be present on all her clothing for the entirety of the journey. Evangeline is reluctant to become a number and finds it to be dehumanizing, but Mrs. Fry assures her it is so she will always be “accounted for…and not lost to the winds” (121) on the journey ahead.

On the morning of June 16, the Medea finally sets sail. Evangeline stands at the railing with the rest of the women and watches the shoreline disappear, feeling like “England [is] literally slipping through her fingers” (122). As someone who has never been far from her hometown, this journey scares her, and she knows she will probably never see England again. She wanders across the ship and finds Olive playing makeshift cards with another woman, and then she sees Hazel sitting by herself, looking through the Bible gifted by the Quaker women.

Quite suddenly, Evangeline feels a rising nausea—and not from her pregnancy. She makes her way to the railing and promptly throws up. Doctor Dunne, standing nearby, gives her advice on how to fend off the seasickness. She continues to be sick the rest of the day, and by nightfall, none of Doctor Dunne’s remedies have helped. In their berth, Hazel gives her a bite of ginger root and tells her to chew it—it will help with the seasickness. Evangeline finally falls asleep as the ginger dissolves in her mouth. The next morning, she feels much better. Doctor Dunne asks her if his advice worked, and she replies that the ginger root helped more. Though he is “skeptical of miracle cures” (126) and old wives’s tales, he advises her to continue using it as long as it helps her.

Even surrounded by people on the ship, Evangeline is lonely. Her daily life becomes a monotonous routine. She finally decides to try talking to the young girl, Hazel. Though Hazel is very quiet, Evangeline coaxes her story out of her—she is the daughter of a prominent midwife who lost her reputation after a patient died, leaving Hazel to begin stealing to make ends meet. After her third arrest, she was sentenced to transport. However, Hazel’s mother taught her everything she knew about health and midwifing, which explains why Hazel knows the little secret about the ginger root. She convinces Evangeline that she knows more about medicine than many doctors, and Evangeline asks if she knows how to deliver a baby. Hazel notices that she is pregnant and observes that Evangeline is “afraid of birthing” (130). She assures Evangeline that she will know how to help her when the time comes.

Once the ship reaches the open ocean, Evangeline turns back to her literary background for comfort and recalls a line from one of Coleridge’s poems—“Alone on a wide sea!” (131). The food and water become more and more subpar as the days go on, and her job on the work crew tires her out. Eventually though, Evangeline adjusts. She becomes comfortable at sea, climbing between decks “as fast as any crewman” (132” while teaching herself “the language of sailing” (133). She observes the crewmen and learns from them until she feels more at home. Even so, she is often reminded that she is just a prisoner—any woman found guilty of any crime while on board ship, such as stealing, faces harsh penalties. Evangeline knows she must protect her unborn child and therefore stays out of trouble. In her darkest moments, she recalls her childhood at Tunbridge Wells and falls back into the comfort of her memories.

As the days go by, Evangeline realizes that many of the women use their bodies as “another tool at their disposal” (136) by sleeping with the crewmen in exchange for additional rations and comfortable sleeping arrangements. Olive explains, “The sailors call it taking a wife” (137), but Evangeline thinks the actions are immoral. Olive herself has found a man, even in her pregnant condition, and Evangeline worries about her safety, as many of the men are rough and abusive. When discussing it with Hazel, Evangeline worries that the men might try and be rough with Hazel as well, but Hazel assures her that will not happen—she stole someone’s small silver knife as protection.

One day, a sailor falls from the tall main sails down to the deck below, right near Hazel and Evangeline. Hazel immediately flocks to his side and begins inspecting his broken leg. When Doctor Dunne arrives and tells her to move aside, she refuses, choosing rather to tell the doctor what needs to be done. Her air of authority challenges Doctor Dunne, who reacts with arrogance. Regardless, Hazel begins mixing up a poultice of herbs for the sailor’s leg. Evangeline speaks to Doctor Dunne on Hazel’s behalf and vouches for her intelligence. The doctor agrees to try the poultice, as the sailor is in great pain and in danger of infection. Three days later, the sailor is back on deck in great spirits.

Hazel’s cures become quite popular aboard ship, as the doctor cannot keep up with the high demand of sick people on board. When convicts and crewmen cannot get in to see Doctor Dunne, they turn to Hazel, who gains a reputation as a healer through her herbs and homemade remedies. Doctor Dunne confides to Evangeline his concern that people are becoming too reliant on Hazel’s cures, which he finds circumstantial at best. Evangeline stands up for the girl and reminds him that she has learned quite a lot in her short time on Earth. He tells her that he, too, understands what it’s like to have to make your own way. His father, a prominent physician, fell victim to a case of malpractice after losing a client, which destroyed his family name. The young doctor could not make a practice for himself in London, so he chose to go to sea on a convict ship to practice medicine. However, he despises his choice and would prefer to open his own practice in Australia.

Olive, concerned that Hazel is not being paid for her services, tells her to begin bartering with patients on board. Very soon, Hazel is awash in trinkets, homemade quilts, and other prized necessities. She opens up her payments to Evangeline and Olive for whatever they might need, and Evangeline is shocked to find Cecil’s handkerchief among the goods. Hazel returns it to her without question, as it is clear someone stole it from Evangeline’s mattress. Olive jokes about the frivolity of the monogrammed letters, but Hazel’s questions probe more toward the meaning of the handkerchief as a whole. She questions why Evangeline even keeps it when Cecil never came to her defense. Her frank nature makes Evangeline question it as well: “Why did she want this lousy piece of cloth?” (147). Finally, she realizes that this handkerchief is the last remaining connection to her old life. Hazel offers to hide it for her to keep it safe.

As the ship approaches Africa, the wind dies down and the temperature rises. The atmosphere on deck leads to an abundance of sickness on board until the women feel like “they’re boiling [them] alive” (149). One woman dies from the lack of air and harsh conditions, and the crewmen bury her at sea. Evangeline and Olive watch a shark approach the body as it sinks beneath the waves.

On washing day, Evangeline, “large and slow” (151) in her third trimester, comes on deck to hear a woman crying out in fear. She recognizes Hazel’s voice and runs to the starboard bow where she sees Hazel bent over a barrel by Buck, who is attempting to rape her. She grabs a wooden stick with a hook on the end of it and tells him to stop. Buck moves toward her and grabs the weapon, knocking Evangeline off balance. He has Hazel’s silver knife in his hand. Suddenly, Hazel throws a barrel behind his knees, which trips him. Evangeline grabs the knife and slices Buck’s arm open. She yells at Hazel to get help and thinks to herself that she is done putting up with all of these men—including Cecil—who believe they can use women however they want. Doctor Dunne arrives and takes the knife from her and orders Buck to be brought down to the hold in shackles.

An hour later, Olive and Evangeline care for a bruised and battered Hazel in their berth. Hazel credits Evangeline for saving her life. The ship’s captain orders Buck to be lashed for his crime and sent to the hold for 21 days. Buck glares at Evangeline as he receives his lashes, but she ignores him. She is confident now that she has a future and will one day “put all of this behind her” (155).

As they cross the Indian Ocean, Evangeline wonders at the animal life she sees: The dolphins, whales, and jellyfish are straight out of her legendary books. Doctor Dunne joins her at the railing to reveal that Buck, still in holding, is quite angry at her. Suddenly, a crewman approaches the doctor to let him know a woman is in labor.

It is Olive, and she goes through a very difficult and long labor. Hazel recognizes that “it’s taking too long” (158) for the baby to be born, but she is not allowed to enter the birthing room. Olive’s cries abruptly stop while Evangeline and Hazel wait outside the surgery center. The doctor comes out to tell them the baby was stillborn and then has a crewman take them back down to the orlop deck.

The next day, Olive is back on deck, but she obviously grieves for her lost son, saying that she wants to feel the pain of losing him. Hazel tries to console her by telling her that it is “just the way it is sometimes” (161), but it is Evangeline’s story about the tree rings that most comforts Olive. Evangeline reminds her that her child will always be a part of her story. Though she is initially dubious about the tale, it makes her smile.

When the sky turns a yellow color, the sailors know a storm is coming. All convicts are sent below deck as lightning and rain rage down on the ship. Though she is soaked to the skin from water leaking into the orlop deck, Evangeline manages to fall asleep. A short time later, she awakens with a searing pain in her stomach. She wakes Hazel in her belief that the baby is coming. For a few hours, Hazel talks her through the contractions until the storm dies down, then she takes her to Doctor Dunne. On the way, they run into Buck, fresh out of the holding cell. He spits in Evangeline’s direction, and Doctor Dunne warns him to stay away.

Hazel aids the doctor in Evangeline’s childbirth. Hours go by until they realize the baby is breech and must be maneuvered inside her womb. The doctor lets Hazel take control until finally, a girl is born. The baby mesmerizes Evangeline, who cannot stop looking at her beautiful features. She thinks of all the things she did not know before becoming a mother.

Later that night while lying in the surgical chambers, Hazel practices her reading skills while Evangeline nurses the baby. As it is so hot beneath the deck, Evangeline decides to go to the top deck to get some air, even though Hazel advises her against it. She dismisses Hazel’s concerns and tells her to “look after my daughter while I’m gone” (169). Up top, Evangeline leans over the railing and takes in the fresh air. Suddenly, she hears a noise behind her—only to turn and find Buck approaching her rapidly. He pushes her back against the railing saying “you’ll pay” (170). She hears Hazel screaming in the distance, but it is no use—Buck pushes her over the railing into the water below.

Evangeline ponders that she cannot swim as her gown twists around her legs. She thinks about her daughter lying cradled in her bed. Quotes from literary masterpieces float across her mind—Cecil’s handkerchief—her childhood at Tunbridge Wells. She closes her eyes as she sinks and feels like she is finally going home.