Summary

Scene One is titled “The Voyage Out” and is set in “the hold of a convict ship bound for Australia [in the year] 1787. Convict Sideway is being flogged. Lieutenant Ralph Clark counts the strokes of the whip. When the whipping is finished, Sideway is dropped into the hold with the other convicts. After a long silence, convict Wisehammer speaks poetically of what night is like in the hold of a ship, saying that there is no comfort but to “seek English cunt” (7) so that they can find comfort in each other and remember their homeland of England together.

Scene Two is titled “A Lone Aboriginal Australian describes the arrival of the First Convict Fleet in Botany Bay on January 20, 1788”. The Aborigine describes “a giant canoe” arriving, “a dream which has lost its way” (8).

Scene Three is titled “Punishment.” A group of sailors...