But even as she wished she’d ventured beyond London sooner, she knew the turning around wasn’t easy, not for poor women like her. If not for the help of the Columbia Mission Society, she wouldn’t have been able to afford a train ticket out of the city. Even if she’d decided to walk to the countryside, parishes were swift to punish beggars, vagrants, trespassers, and anyone who didn’t belong.

“How am I gonna last months at sea,” Sarah asked miserably, “when I can hardly make it an hour?”

“You’ll get used to it,” Mercy assured, praying she was right.

Sarah started to speak again, but then hung her head over the side of the tender and released the contents of the morning meal they’d eaten at the public house, a meal they’d ravenously devoured: hot fresh bread, cooked eggs, thick slices of bacon and sausage, and coffee—real coffee. Mercy’d never had anything so filling or tasty before in her life and guessed the others hadn’t either.

And now Sarah was losing the sustenance she so badly needed.

For the remainder of the row to the steamer, Mercy gently rubbed Sarah’s back, held her hair out of the way when she vomited again, and caressed the girl’s cheek.

Barely older than fifteen, Sarah and some of the other youngest women in their group had been gathered out of St. Margaret’s Home, which Mercy learned was an orphanage. The girls had informed her they were getting too old to stay at the orphanage and would have soon been cast out to make room for younger children who needed the help more. This voyage had spared them from having to live on the streets.

When the tender pulled alongside the ship, Mercy noticed a haggardness about the steam vessel, as if she’d been pushed too hard for too long in her young life. The fresh coat of paint couldn’t disguise the dents and scratches, and coal soot had blackened much of the ship’s hull.

As the gangplank was lowered and they boarded the main deck, Mercy kept a tight hold on Sarah, gathering the other orphans around her as well.

“Ladies, your attention, please.” A tall woman, who was as thin and flat as an iron bedstead, stood several feet away. She wasn’t old, but the downturned lines at the corners of her mouth and prominent veins in her temples indicated that she hadn’t necessarily had an easy life.

“My name is Mrs. Robb,” she said firmly. “I’m to be one of your chaperones during your voyage on the Tynemouth.”

Mercy should have known the Columbia Mission Society wouldn’t allow sixty women to travel unsupervised. With already half their number having boarded, she supposed someone would need to provide instruction and guidance if Mrs. Dotta and Miss Rye were staying behind to organize the next shipment of women.