ALEXANDRIA BURNHAM Swallow. Reviewed by Ann Skea

Alexandria Burnham’s debut historical novel takes inspiration from a real-life convict, mutineer and pirate.

They called me nine-nine-nine. Swallow was the name I preferred. I’d not been born with it; I’d taken it for myself.

But he was called other things, too: convict 323, Captain Walker, William Brown, John Wilkinson, and his birth name, William Walker. Each name served a purpose, confusing those who would have hanged him for breaking and entering property, theft, absconding from imprisonment, mutiny and piracy. One historian has called him ‘probably the greatest escape artist in the history of British prisons’.

Alexandria Burnham’s novel takes his chosen name and his voice, and immerses the reader in the mutiny he instigated aboard the Cyprus, which was on its way from Hobart to Sarah Island, on the west coast of Tasmania.

Waiting in irons to be embarked on the ship with a group of second offenders, Swallow (William hates his first name and rarely uses it) tells us first about the Cyprus:

Bright red copper sheathed her hull. The metal shone like newly plated armour; a sun-kissed breastplate against the ocean parasites … A fresh line of yellow painted along her hull accentuated her nine portholes. She bore her stripes, just like the rest of us… She was a sturdy ship, not a woman of frivolity.

Yet, as he notes that she will sail for Sarah Island with 19 convicts, 12 slack sailors, a drunken captain, ten ill-equipped soldiers, and three military wives with infants, he decides that the Cyprus, in spite of her beauty and her dignity, is ‘a lady of loose morals indeed’ and ripe for takeover.

What follows is a story full of the devious planning, execution, excitement and horrors that attend the mutiny that Swallow instigates aboard the Cyprus, but full, too, of the dangers, terrors, and horrors experienced by the small group of mostly inexperienced sailors, sailing the Cyprus in wild weather and treacherous seas, with only Swallow experienced enough to chart their way to freedom.

This could have been a piratical sea-saga like many others, but Swallow’s life is so full of extraordinary events, and he tells it so vividly, that it is hard to believe it is all true. Alexandria Burnham, however, has worked closely with court documents and other historical records, and in her Author’s Note she declares that she has tried ‘to be as true to the life as possible’, although ‘new research and discoveries about William’s story’ are still coming to light, and William himself does not help.

The joy of working with William’s direct testimonies is that I am dealing with a man who lied to authorities at almost every opportunity. And he was smart about it. He’d tell as much of the truth as possible, and only at key moments would he bend the truth in his favour.

I’ve worked hard to catch and understand most of his lies … But the bastard still trips me up, and has me second-guessing all of my notes.

She admits, however, that she and William have ‘something in common. We take the lies, and spin plots from them.’

And what plots! Alexandria’s Notes are extensive and almost as fascinating to read as her novel. In Swallow, her characters (all but one) are real, the events are real, the dangers and terrors are real, and, because she quotes testimonies, she captures Swallow’s tone, his ‘bluster’, his character and his voice convincingly.

As Swallow tells of the mutiny and the events that follow, he remembers his early life in Sunderland, the six years he spent on the ship (a collier) that he joined at the age of 13, then being press-ganged into the navy – ‘cornered for war’:

For two years we chased cargo schooners, made flotsam of war galleons, stalking the trade routes out of New York. The screams and splinters of each sea battle were etched into my memory.

After three years he is discharged from the navy and joins the Liberty, a brig that he pilots along the English coast. Then, lured by ‘more exhilarating routes’, he takes a ‘technical demotion’ and becomes first mate on the Florida. This ‘new lady’ becomes his second home for five years until she is dashed to pieces in a storm in the Mediterranean. His wages and his prospects sunk, he returns to his beloved wife, Sarah, in Sunderland, but he can find no work because of the number of unemployed discharged navy men there.

His first theft is impulsive. Seeing unattended crates on the dock, bursting with supplies, he picks up a roll of cloth, tucks it boldly under his arm, and walks off. It is so easy that he does it again. ‘Temptation became habits,’ he comments, and thieving is common: ‘petty larceny was the most popular career in Sunderland’. But breaking and entering, which he goes on to do, is a hanging offence. For the first time, caught and brought before the magistrate, he manages to confuse the jury, and is sentenced to transportation to Van Diemen’s Land for seven years. And for the first time, he manages to escape – but the way he does it is so bizarre that it seems impossible. Historical research confirms it.

Twice he is sentenced to transportation to Van Diemen’s Land. The second time, on the Georgiana, he is allowed to work as a sailmaker, and he learns that ‘she is a brooding lady with many secrets and nooks’. Allowed to stay on as a sailmaker, he hears that she is about to sail for Sydney, hauling supplies, so he secretes himself aboard.

Stowed away in the hold … I’d begged her. I whispered for her to unfurl her wings and rid us both of Hobart Town. But all I summoned was stormy weather and an unbearable pain in my knees. The storm re-scheduled her launch, and a second search of the hold was conducted.

The soldiers found him and he should have been executed, but again he manages to talk his way out of it, and is sentenced to hard labour on Sarah Island in Macquarie Harbour, a sentence notorious for being ‘worse than death’. So, the mutiny is planned.

On the Cyprus, having taken the ship and put ashore the sailors, the soldiers and the wives and children, the convicts, only three of them with any seamanship experience, must sail the ship through treacherous seas while risking capture at any time. Swallow is the only one able to navigate the ship, and he must do it without the chronometer, which had been smuggled away by someone they put ashore. He has only the sun and stars to plot a course, and is constantly worried that he will make a disastrous error. There are failures, tensions, fallings-out, and a second mutiny, the seeds of which are sown by Leslie Ferguson, who constantly challenges Swallow for leadership of the men.

Later, to avoid identification, the Cyprus is repainted, her figurehead sawn off, and a new name must be chosen. But ‘the naming of ships isn’t a process to be rushed’, Swallow tells two of his shipmates, but a call from the weatherdeck tells him it is already done.

Herring pointed to the ship’s starboard quarter. ‘Just finished.’

I stared. ‘But no decision’s been made.’

Herring shrugged.

I hurried to the rail. Sure enough the elegant calligraphy of Cyprus, London, had been painted over by the infant scrawl of Friends, Boston.

‘Friends? The Friends? Christ man, that’s a disgrace.’

‘We thought it’d bode well,’ Herring said.

‘Merciful buggering hell! Paint over it!’

But the paint is all gone, so now they have to impersonate American sailors. Swallow brushes up his Boston accent, but to no avail when they meet another ship, and his fast talking has to save them again. So the Friends sails on.

Two themes recur throughout Swallow’s story. His love of Sarah and his determination to return to her; and his love of an old shipmate, John Wilkinson, whose voice guides him, although he is now dead and who, so Swallow says, had ultimately betrayed him. This remains a mystery, although John clearly played an essential part in the piracy that is described by Swallow to his crew in instalments. Being an expert storyteller, Swallow breaks off each episode at a critical moment to attend to the ship, but he does eventually get around to telling them about the reported cannibalism. However, we do not learn how Swallow came to suffer the ‘one hundred and fifty’ lashes which scar his back. Nor do we know what ultimately happens to the Cyprus (as Swallow still calls her) and to Swallow and his crew. Of course, one can look it up on the internet, but how much more enjoyable it will be to hear Swallow tell us about it in the sequel which is planned for this book. All Alexandria Burham tells us for now, is that Swallow and John Wilkinson meet in 1821:

aboard the Malabar. They are at sea for four months. They are convicts together in Hobart for three months, before they steal the Sunflower alongside Travers and Greenhill. They then abandon the other three men to carry on as a pair… they live together for five months in Sydney as ‘free’ men under false names – to be precise, they swap names.

This is a tantalising start to another story, and judging by Swallow, it will be well worth waiting for.

Alexandria Burnham Swallow WestWords Books 2025 PB 460pp $34.99

Dr Ann Skea is a freelance reviewer, writer and an independent scholar of the work of Ted Hughes. She is author of Ted Hughes: The Poetic Quest (UNE 1994, and currently available for free download here). Her work is internationally published and her Ted Hughes webpages (ann.skea.com) are archived by the British Library.

You can buy this book from Abbey’s at a 10% discount by quoting the promotion code NEWTOWNREVIEW. You can also buy it from Booktopia. We receive a small commission if you purchase through these links.

You can also check if it is available from Newtown Library.

Tags: Alexandria | Burnham, Australian fiction, Australian history, Australian writers, convicts, historical fiction, Hobart, mutineers, pirates, Sarah Island, Van Diemen’s Land, William Swallow