On one ship, Arthur the Great, 384 wounded were laid out on the decks, packed as close as possible, much as it was on the slave ships, the dead and dying lying side by side with the wounded and the sick, without bedding, pillows or blankets, water bowls or bedpans, food or medicines, except those in the ship’s chest, which the captain would not allow to be used. Fearing the spread of cholera, the navy’s principal agent of transports, Captain Peter Christie, ordered all the stricken men to be put on board a single ship, the Kangaroo, which was able to accommodate, at best, 250 men, but by the
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