The Convict Ship, Volume III by W. Clark Russell

Mr. Bates and Will arrived, each bearing a burden of clothes from the slop-chest. I advised the mate to go behind the mizzen-mast and shift his convict clothes at once. He seemed unnerved and wanting in spirit, as though broken down by the scenes and sights of the day and night, and obeyed me as if I had been Tom or his captain. Will was dressed as throughout; it had strangely happened that no convict had forced him to exchange clothes. He went to Tom's cabin and brought up my bundle and monkey-jacket; the latter I slipped on, throwing Tom's convict coat overboard with passion and loathing. Will told me that only two or three men were now awake in the cuddy; one had fallen under the table just as he had passed up through the steerage hatch.

I quitted the wheel to look through the skylight, but the waking men sat too far aft to be seen; I heard the murmur of their fuddled voices, and was sure by the tones that the noise must cease in a few minutes. The picture remained as I have described it; the convicts lay over the table and in twenty various postures. Under the table, and betwixt the table and the bulkhead, they were heaped up as though slaughtered. A dreadful smell rose through the open skylight. Fragments of broken pipes, shreds of wearing apparel, capsized pannikins and hook-pots, overset pails of rum covered the deck and table. I was sure that Tom was right in thinking that when those senseless, beastlike shapes came to be looked at in the morning, many would be found corpses. Mr. Bates, having changed his clothes, stood beside me dressed in a suit of black cloth and a cloth cap. He said: ‘Shall Johnstone and I start on provisioning the boat? I shouldn't like to act without instructions from Butler.'