“Name is Mickey,” a midshipman told the women after the last of them was released from her chains. “I won’t remember yours, so don’t bother telling me. The ship’ll be docked in the harbor another week or two, until they reach the quota. Quarters are tight and getting tighter. You’ll take sponge baths—clothes on, mind ye—on the main deck once a week, to keep it bearable on the orlop deck.”

He doled out coarse yellow sponges, bricks of lye soap, wooden spoons and bowls, tin cups, and gray burlap shifts, and showed the women how to roll everything into horsehair blankets.

Pointing at a pile of bedticks, he said, “Each of ye, grab one of those.”

The bedticks were heavy. Evangeline smelled hers: it was mildewed, filled with wet straw. But at least it would be better than the hard stone floor at Newgate.

Gesturing at the women’s feet, Mickey said, “When it’s not freezin’ ye should go barefoot on the main deck. It can be rough at sea. Ye wouldn’t want to pitch over.”

“Does that happen?” one of the women asked.

He shrugged. “It happens.”

Motioning for them to follow, he disappeared down the rope ladder. “Ye’ll get the hang of it,” he called from below as they crept down the ladder with their unwieldy bundles and bedticks. Pointing out the officers’ quarters, he led them down the narrow hall to the lip of another opening. He dug a candle stub out of his pocket and lit it. “Hades, this way.”

Struggling to balance their bulky loads, the women followed him down an even flimsier ladder into a low, cave-like space, weakly lit by swinging candle lamps. As soon as Evangeline reached the bottom rung, she dropped her bedtick on the floor and covered her nose with her hand. Human waste and—what could it be? A rotting animal? How quickly she’d recovered from the stench of Newgate and acclimated to fresh air.

Mickey gave her a lopsided grin. “Orlop’s just above the bilge. A stew of filthy water. Fragrant, in’it? Add to that the chamber pots and stinky candles and god knows what else.” Pointing at her bedtick he added, “I wouldn’t set that on the floor if I was ye.”

She snatched it up.

Gesturing toward the narrow sleeping bunks, he said, “There’ll be close to two hundred women and children down here at night. Cozy quarters. I advise ye to keep your soap and bowl under your mattress. And hide anything ye care about.”

Olive claimed an empty top berth. “Need me privacy.” She heaved herself up, grunting.

Evangeline dumped her bedtick onto the berth below Olive’s and unrolled her blanket. The space was half a yard high and half a yard wide. No room to sit up and not long enough to stretch out. But it was hers. After unpacking her things, she took Cecil’s handkerchief, smoothed it out on the blanket, refolded it with the crest and initials hidden, and pushed it deep under the mattress behind her tin cup and wooden spoon.