
Lives are about to be irrevocably changed following a typhus outbreak on a cramped emigrant ship bound for Australia.
1850 Sarah Hallow is orphaned, penniless and alone, with only the skills learned from her midwife mother to guide her. Passage on a ship bound for the new settlement of Brisbane, Australia, is her last option. Though her skills are quickly dismissed by the ship’s doctor, Sarah is pleased to find instant friendship with her cabin mate, Bridie, a fiery Irish girl with a sharp tongue and midwifery skills of her own.
When the two women come to the aid of a labouring woman onboard, Sarah’s dreams of opening her own midwifery practice in Brisbane don’t seem so impossible. Certainly not as impossible as her daydreams about the ship doctor’s son, who only seems to have eyes for her friend.
But something else is lurking on the ship: a disease that has the power to take down even the strongest man and is about to rip through the ship like wildfire, leaving only devastation in its path. As caring for patients stretch Sarah and Bridie to their absolute limit, thoughts of the future are rapidly eclipsed by their determination to survive. If only they can make it to Australia with their lives and loves intact …
Inspired by true events, this is a meticulously researched, eye-opening, heart-breaking, soul-warming story of survival, love and grit for readers of Darry Fraser, Alison Stuart and Tea Cooper.
‘A poignant story of love and loss and the triumph of the human spirit over adversity that will tug at your heart and have you reaching for the tissues…’ – Alison Stuart, author of The Goldminer’s Sister.
1850
A dull eye was fixed heavenward, the body dripping blood onto the cobbles below. Sarah winced and looked away from the stall and its gory produce. She wondered if there were rabbits in the colonies. If not, she did not want this to be her last memory of them. Rather, she’d remember their early-morning romps in the field below her window.
Except, she no longer had a window. Or a home. Or family. Nothing bar a few dresses, fewer coins and her diary. And a booking on a ship that was to take her away from all she knew. She had never even so much as set foot aboard a rowboat.
‘Ticket, Miss?’
The voice brought her back to her surrounds and Sarah handed over her paperwork. As she waited for the officer to process it, she gave herself a talking to. It would not do to dwell on these morbid thoughts, of that she was sure. Her fine hair had escaped its bun and she tucked the wisps back beneath her bonnet, resolving to never again let such sentiments make her maudlin. Well, she would do her very best. She knew that was what her mother would advise, and wished she was here beside her now. Wished she was not leaving her behind with no one to tend her grave. Her thoughts once again threatened to spiral. She took a deep breath and smoothed her skirt.
The officer stamped her ticket, then directed two porters to take charge of her trunk and escort her through the crowd to the foot of the gangway. She smiled her thanks then looked up at the vessel.
Her boards blistered with sea crust, masts soaring above the wharf, the Lady Susan eclipsed all others at the Liverpool Docks. Hulking, black, built for long voyages and rough seas, her solid prow sat squat and wide in the water.
Sarah felt a dart of fear as she stared up at the tower of masts. Then, above the din, she heard her mother’s voice. Take a deep breath and you’ll find your courage.
She knew that once she stepped aboard, there was no turning back.
*****
The docks roiled with activity. Porters’ and hawkers’ calls rang out, crones with poxed faces sold fish from baskets, nips and foists ran through the crowd, darting hands into pockets. Emigration agents funnelled queues of passengers past inspection tables; piteous men, women and children hollowed by crowded days quarantined in beggarly lodging houses. Will kept his gaze averted as he passed the queues.
Ahead, tri-masted and square-rigged, the Lady Susan stretched over two hundred feet from bowsprit to stern. Six hundred tons in the water and dwarfing the fishing boats and schooners bobbing in her lee, the barque screeched against her moorings as people swarmed the gangplank.
‘William!’ Doctor James Waterford was at the ticket office. ‘Quickly! Now!’ He pulled the watch from his pocket, glanced at it then shoved it back, gold chain swinging against his tailored frockcoat. ‘Why are you dawdling? You’re too old for this mooning around. It must stop!’
Will bit back a response. His recent birthday had gone unremarked on until his father had presented him with a small pocket watch after the usual silent dinner. He knew it would have been a different day altogether had his mother been there. He had turned nineteen, after all. If his mother had still been alive, Will would have been pursuing his dreams, would have had meaningful work at the very least. He would not have spent the past months holed up in the dingy rooms above his father’s surgery, transcribing crabbed notes into legible forms, an unpaid clerk. The few times he had broached the topic of remuneration, his father had reminded him that his room and board was a sufficient cost, one that Will’s efforts barely covered, apparently. The idea of study had never been raised again after his mother died and, despite the handsome amount his father received on the sale of their family farm, Will had seen no evidence of it in the mean months that followed.
‘Well?’ His father stared at him, irritation creasing his face.
‘Yes, Father. Sorry, Father.’ Will’s deadpan response only deepened the creases but the stand-off was interrupted as the ticket officer gave them a fistful of paperwork.
A porter dragged their baggage towards the gangway, over to the men stacking the hold. Will followed his father’s stern profile up the planks as a dismal sun slipped behind the fog. A bell sounded bass notes as the last of the passengers boarded. The deck was jammed with bodies and luggage as the pair pushed through, bags in each hand.
Waterford addressed a sailor whose copper hair and beard gleamed despite the dull day. ‘Tell the captain that Doctor Waterford is on board, then show us to our quarters directly.’
The sailor raised his eyebrows but nodded and climbed the ladder to the quarterdeck. He spoke in the ear of a dour-faced man in a black duffel coat and peaked cap who glanced in their direction and raised his hand to acknowledge them. The sailor climbed back down, then motioned them to follow him through a narrow hatch.
Will picked up his bag and turned to follow. As he did, his bag swung wide and into the stomach of a young woman with long black hair. He gasped, appalled, as she stumbled and nearly fell.
‘William! Hurry up!’ His father had disappeared but his voice rang clear.
The woman glared at Will, her face furious as she steadied herself. He stared back, captured by the storm-blue of her eyes. He shook himself as he realised he had yet to say anything. ‘I am terribly sorry, Miss, I pray you are not hurt.’ He hoped the brief apology was enough.
Instead, a stream of profanities issued from her mouth in a thick Irish accent. ‘You fecking eejit! May the Devil spit you out of his arse!’ She turned her back to him.
He’d never heard a woman speak in such a manner. Shaken, Will stumbled through the hatch after his father.
*****
Sarah pushed her bags beneath the bunk in the tiny cabin and threw her bonnet and shawl on the top bed. She breathed a sigh of relief. The last few weeks had been a trial, with much well-meaning advice coming her way—all, she had been told on numerous occasions, with her best interests at heart. And she’d had to listen as, by the time her mother passed, they were virtually penniless. Had it not been for the utmost gratitude of her mother’s well-meaning, and wealthy, patrons … well, she did not wish to pursue that thought.
She looked around. Aside from the bunk bed, the only other furniture was a small table with a spindly stool beneath it. Nowhere to hang anything other than a row of hooks along the wall opposite, a few more tacked into the back of the door for good measure. It seemed she would be living out of her bags for the next few months. It was just as well she’d had little to bring. As there was nothing to unpack, there was not really anything to do other than settle in and wait for her cabin mate to arrive.
She did not have to wait long.
‘Fecking gobshite!’ A young woman with silky black hair flung a ragged carpet bag through the door and followed it into the cabin. ‘Chancer nearly pushed me down the stairs, was in such a hurry, never so much as a “beg yours”.’ She noticed Sarah. ‘What are you starin’ at? What’s the matter with you?’
‘You startled me, bursting in here like that!’
‘Hmph!’ The girl glanced around, grimacing at the bunk beds with their meagre straw tick mattresses. ‘Bridget Mary Marley, from Clifden, Galway, Ireland. People call me Bridie.’ The girl proffered her hand, unsmiling.
‘Sarah Ellen Hallow. From Salisbury, Wiltshire, England.’ She echoed Bridie as she took the hand. Its palm was hard and callused. ‘People call me Sarah.’
The corner of Bridie’s mouth twitched. ‘Well, Sarah Ellen Hallow, it looks like we’ll have to become friends. Two people shorten the road, as Maimeo used to say, and this is going to be a fecking long road.’
Sarah had never met a girl who cursed like Bridie. She didn’t know whether to smile or frown. ‘Maimeo?’ was all she could offer.
‘Me gran. Lived with her since I was a babe.’
‘She stayed at home?’
‘Yes, in her grave. Can’t go anywhere. Oh, don’t look so slapped!’ She rummaged in her bag and produced a small sack. She shook it and a brown knob fell into her palm. Using a knife she pulled from her pocket, Bridie pared away the skin and cut off a few chunks. She put one in her mouth, chewed, and offered the other to Sarah.
‘What is it?’
‘Ginger root. Good for the stomach when the seasick takes you. Just chew it. You won’t regret it, believe me. All the fishermen back home use it.’
Sarah took the grubby offering and nibbled. Its tang bit her throat and she coughed then pulled a face. ‘That’s vile!’
Bridie smiled as she pushed her bag beneath the bunk. ‘You’re all right, you are.’
She didn’t know whether it was the kindness or just the proximity of another soul, but Sarah burst into tears.
Bridie reeled back. ‘Jaysus! What’s got into you? Surely where we’re going is better than where we’ve been?’ She sat on the lower bunk and patted the space beside her. ‘Come now.’
Sarah sat down and wiped her face. ‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured. ‘How old are you, Bridie?’
‘Eighteen. Yes, quare sure I’m eighteen.’ Bridie shrugged. ‘Maimeo were never sure if I was born the year Dolly had the twin calves that lived, or the year after, when her neighbour had twin girls—they lived also. Both rarities, so I can understand the confusion.’ She shrugged again. ‘Me ma lasted three days after I tore her apart coming out, and me da—well, he didn’t stay around long enough to know he was a father. How about you? How old? Family?’
‘I’m eighteen too. Three months ago I lost my only family—my mother. Now I’m on my own and leaving England forever. I’m feeling a little sorry for myself, I think.’ Sarah smiled weakly. ‘Don’t be alarmed, I’m not usually prone to tears. Hopefully those will be the last you will see from me.’ She took a deep breath and let it out slowly as she looked around the tiny berth. How could she possibly tell this girl, this stranger, how frightened she really was? How, whenever she thought of the future, its complete uncertainty threatened to unmoor her.
Bridie echoed the sigh. ‘I know, dark as a grave, is it not? Better than the stinking ship that brought me here, but you would think we might have a wee window in this place, considerin’ the fare we paid.’ She snickered. ‘Well, not me personally. I would have been in the workhouse by now if Maimeo hadn’t buried a sack of coins. Just like a leprechaun, she was.’ Bridie smiled. ‘Money talks at the end of the day, so here I am. What about you? Surely you cannot afford a cabin ticket on your own?’
Sarah shook her head. ‘No. My mother had many grateful to her. They took care of it.’ Her throat closed and her eyes filled again. She blinked the tears away.
Bridie peered at her. ‘I feel like I’m in a cave and we’ve only been here five minutes. What do you say to some fresh air, Sarah Hallow from Salisbury?’
Sarah nodded. Yes, some air on deck would improve her spirits. She rose and grabbed her shawl and bonnet.

Lives are about to be irrevocably changed following a typhus outbreak on a cramped emigrant ship bound for Australia.
1850 Sarah Hallow is orphaned, penniless and alone, with only the skills learned from her midwife mother to guide her. Passage on a ship bound for the new settlement of Brisbane, Australia, is her last option. Though her skills are quickly dismissed by the ship’s doctor, Sarah is pleased to find instant friendship with her cabin mate, Bridie, a fiery Irish girl with a sharp tongue and midwifery skills of her own.
When the two women come to the aid of a labouring woman onboard, Sarah’s dreams of opening her own midwifery practice in Brisbane don’t seem so impossible. Certainly not as impossible as her daydreams about the ship doctor’s son, who only seems to have eyes for her friend.
But something else is lurking on the ship: a disease that has the power to take down even the strongest man and is about to rip through the ship like wildfire, leaving only devastation in its path. As caring for patients stretch Sarah and Bridie to their absolute limit, thoughts of the future are rapidly eclipsed by their determination to survive. If only they can make it to Australia with their lives and loves intact …
Inspired by true events, this is a meticulously researched, eye-opening, heart-breaking, soul-warming story of survival, love and grit for readers of Darry Fraser, Alison Stuart and Tea Cooper.
‘A poignant story of love and loss and the triumph of the human spirit over adversity that will tug at your heart and have you reaching for the tissues…’ – Alison Stuart, author of The Goldminer’s Sister.