Hell Ship

Начало книги

There is only one known image of my great-great-grandfather, Dr James William Henry Veitch. It is a classic Victorian-era portrait, taken in a Melbourne photographic studio sometime—we believe—in the late 1880s. A large man, he stands confidently in front of a canvas backdrop painted to resemble the fashionable drawing room of a home of the well-to-do. His left elbow rests against the back of a turned wooden chair, which one suspects is a little too low for comfort. Beside him, seated on a chaise longue and affecting a similar air of repose, is his wife of many years, my great-great-grandmother, Annie. She, by contrast, is small and delicate—almost bird-like.

The two had met over 30 years earlier on the ship that had brought them to Australia from England at the height of the gold rush. Annie Morrison, travelling as a single, educated assisted female emigrant, had expectations of obtaining a position such as a governess with a prosperous colonial family; James, descending from a long line of naval surgeons, and having recently secured his first contract as assistant surgeon on board a government-commissioned emigrant vessel, anticipated the beginning of a long and prestigious career at sea. Instead, what awaited them on the voyage would change and haunt them for the rest of their lives.

Читать дальше →