To Botany Bay

Prison was a dangerous place for young women, and so was a ship with more than 100 convicts. Now Mary could not escape the men, with there sneering grins and unclean remarks, some of them villains who deserved to be feared, but many who where good men, stealing only to feed there family. A family that would now starve.

But there was worse than men with unclean thoughts and temptations-caged like animals, packed and crowded, Mary and the others were forced to live among rats and lice, in the darkness of the ship, where they could only wish for sunlight.

Mary could remember every awful detail of that ship, even so many years later. She could remember the smell of the sea, of vomit and waste, she could remember the gloomy faces of those around her, the way they cried and wailed, the sound of the rats at night, the way her clothes had itched with the lice….

But moist awful, she remembered the feeling of realising that she was with another-the prison guard would never know that he had a child, nor the fate of it, and he probably wouldn't have cared if he had heard. He wouldn't wonder how 17 year old Mary would raise a child, along in the conditions she was being subjected too, he gotten all that he had wanted….

Mary could still remember the friendships she had forged…. Elizabeth had looked out for her, taken her in, though Mary would never know why, she could remember clear as day when Elizabeth had asked how long she'd been with child.

"How did you know?" she had asked, amazed. "Had two me self, haven't I?" she had replied, "Who was it then?" "The prison guard." Mary had admitted, with bitter hatred, it was on that night she had promised herself her child would not live like this, like some animal, caged away from sunlight, she had sworn it.

That had been the night Will had saved her.

Will. She had been so frightened at first, as he did not hide the fact that he wanted her, she could see it in his eyes, the way he looked at her, and she could even hear it in his voice when he talked to her. And yet he did not corner her and rape her like she had seen other men do, but joked and made witty comments.

He seemed laid back, happy, a trouble maker maybe, when it came to jokes, but nothing more than smart comments or quick angry passed between them; he seemed to want to look out for her.

She had been frightened, and ignored him most of the time, trying to avoid him, and yet she could not deny the feeling that suddenly exploded inside of her at the sight of him, she was too young to realise then that for some strange reason, she loved him.

And then there was Ralph Clarke.

Sorry It's so short, I plan to try and make it a bit longer soon