Chapter 1

For Sarah, everything had started to go wrong when old man Johnson threw her family out once her mother got pregnant again.

Her mother tried, she really did, but everything had been against her for her whole life. Anne Holding's life wasn't a pretty story, but she knew that, knew what she was; what she had become. Sarah knew that her mother comforted herself with the thought that she had fought her whole life, sacrificed herself, to protect Sarah and her other siblings from the only life she had ever known.

Anne was only fourteen years old when she'd been brought before the magistrate in Nuneaton, a small town outside Birmingham in the English Midlands, to be charged for prostitution. It wasn't like she had any choice, nor was she at all unusual, just another orphan with no other hope and nothing going for her, even as a whore, except for her young age. But she'd gotten involved in some hustler's sting, not knowing any better. She'd been caught and then the prosecutor had pleaded for the death penalty. Instead, the magistrate had taken pity on her and ordered her to be transported to the colonies to serve a ten-year sentence. She'd broken down in tears, not knowing or understanding the magistrate's pity, only knowing that she would never again be free in her own country.

After that she'd spent a few months in a small overcrowded jail and then a few more months in a foul-smelling, rat-infested floating shipwreck in Southampton Harbour, all the time gradually wasting away from poor food and not enough of that, plus the fear of her fate. Finally, rail thin and sickly, she had been herded aboard the one of the convict transport ships in a fleet bound for the far off place known as Port Jackson. On the convict transporter she had a little more freedom, but conditions were still tough. Because she was so hungry, it hadn't been long before she had returned to the only trade she knew, the only one she could practice on the never-ending ocean, and she'd traded herself for better food. By the time the ships had landed at Port Jackson, she was four months pregnant with Sarah. The father could have been any one of a number of the crew.

Once processed and sorted, Anne had spent her ten-year sentence working as a housemaid in a number of different houses belonging to marines or government officials. In each case, the master of the house had read her sentencing papers, and either taken her for himself or given her to one of the other convicts in his charge as a bedmate. By the time her sentence was complete, she'd had four more children as brothers and sisters for Sarah, all of them to different fathers.

As a child, Sarah had free run of the small town called Port Jackson. Like the other convict chidren, she was barely dressed and barely educated, but full of energy and spite. They'd run the town, fished with the few natives still left around Port Jackson, and skinny dipped together in the hot summers. As she got older, she had to do more to help her mother, mostly with the other kids, but also helping around the house. Towards the end of her mother's sentence, it sometimes seemed to Sarah that she might as well been a convict herself, so initially she'd been relieved when her mother was finally set free.

But this hadn't really changed her family's status at all, all it had done was taken away what little protection the convict system had offered, and now, on her own, Anne had to find support for herself and her five young children. Since all she knew were housemaid and whore, there'd been no choice, really; she'd traded herself again for food and shelter for her family. But she was getting old and haggard. Sarah knew that her mother had tried hard. She'd watched her mother try ever harder to please the increasingly brutish men who'd take them in. She'd do anything, but there was not much opportunity for a washed-up whore, now with six children, and gradually times had gotten harder and harder. Sarah thought her mother had reached the bottom of the barrel with old man Johnson, a tough old ex-convict who'd been on the terrible second fleet. He could barely afford to keep the family as it was, and when Anne fell pregnant for the seventh time, he'd simply thrown her and her family out.

Sarah had held her mother as they'd both cried, and then they'd talked about it, and decided to try their luck with the outstations in the hills. There would be no house, probably not even a tent for them, but maybe they'd get food, and hopefully the younger children would grow up with some hope instead of just anger and spite. Labour was terribly short out there, and at the very least, it couldn't be worse than their chances in Port Jackson. Her mother had once again traded her body, this time for a ride on a wagon bound for the southern hills, which were reputed to be a land of plenty, but harsh and tough. That had suited them fine - there would be less competition there.

They'd almost fallen on their feet in the highlands to the southwest of Port Jackson. There were several men, all ex-convicts, who had vied for the opportunity to take the family in. Not only was there a distinct shortage of labour, there were surely not enough women to go around out there. Anne had reluctantly chosen the one with the biggest herds and holding. He certainly wasn't her first choice as a partner. He was tall, dark, ugly, unsavoury and he was certainly the foulest smelling man she'd met. But there was no doubt that he was best able to support her growing family, and she'd long ago abandoned all interest in her own wants and needs.

At first, it had seemed like paradise to Sarah. Her mother didn't have to work as hard. There was no big house to clean - just a few tents - and food was plentiful, though the variety was not great. The younger children had free rein over the holding, and Sarah's main job was to look after them, running around with them as they explored the forests and streams. She also helped with the holding, along with the next two siblings, both brothers. The man, whose name was John Burgess, was very nice to the children, laughing, joking and playing with them, and he was nice to her mother too, which was a real welcome change. In fact, he treated her like he couldn't believe his good fortune.

For Sarah, this brief period of calm came at a perfect time, as she had her first monthly bleed. She knew what this meant. Her mother had discussed it with her many times while they waited and waited for it to happen. She was now old enough to play the sex game. They planned it, planned and prepared, because Anne's single biggest goal in life was that Sarah, of all her daughters, was not going to be a prostitute. Sarah had seen enough of her mother's life to know that indeed, whatever she was going to be, that wasn't it. Port Jackson hadn't been the promised land for her mother, but the male to female ratio was skewed enough to give Anne hope that Sarah could find a real husband, one who would look after her, which would allow them to split the children between them.