Vengeance, page 22
For six years, this had been Ralph’s home.
The island lay at the centre of a little archipelago. Inevitably, Ralph’s gaze drifted to another islet, a tiny knoll known as Halliday’s Island. Wooden boards stuck out of its flinty earth like pins in a cushion, each surrounded by a mound of stones to keep the wind from blowing them away. The only memorial to the men who had never left.
That was the fate that awaited him.
Breakfast for the convicts was thin porridge swallowed in haste. As soon as it was finished, the work boats set out for the lumber camps. Ralph took his place on the thwart, dipping his oar in the glassy water as they rowed up the mouth of the Gordon River. They rowed in silence, apart from the squeak of the rowlocks and the clink of their chains, pulling just hard enough to avoid the lash across their backs. There was no point hurrying to their destination.
Looking back, Ralph could see the island and the long inlet beyond. That morning, a flag streamed from the flagstaff by the lookout house, answering another flag from the signal station on Wellington Head, ten miles to the north. A ship was coming, though there was no sign of her yet. It was quite an occasion, a rare break in the monotony of life at Macquarie Harbour. Twice a year, the brig made the two-hundred-and-fifty-mile journey from Hobart Town, bringing fresh convicts and a change of officers.
‘Reckon the new lot’ll be better’n what we’ve got?’ whispered the man on the bench beside him. Ralph shrugged. The current commandant never ordered more than two dozen lashes as punishment, and he did not let the commissariat profiteer too much from giving the men short rations. Better than most Ralph had known in his six years.
‘Quiet, there!’ snapped a redcoat from the front of the boat. Ralph shut his mouth and leaned on his oar. There had been a time when a ship’s arrival had made him ache with hope at the thought of a world beyond the prison, at the possibility – however remote – of a ticket-of-leave or a pardon. But those days were long gone.
Ralph no longer thought of escape.
He dug his oar into the water so violently that the coxswain had to correct their course.
Twelve hours later, Ralph was sore, filthy, wet and hungry. He had spent the day floundering through the muddy forest, trying to keep a grip on his axe as he worked alongside the other men to bring down the great Huon pines that grew there. Someone had discovered that they made fine ships’ timbers, and someone else had decided that convict labour would be an ideal way to overcome the inconveniences of extracting them from the trackless wilderness. Ralph cursed those men, and he cursed the ships that would be built from the wood he had cut, to service the empire that made men like himself its slaves.
There were no beasts of burden at Macquarie Harbour. When a tree came down, it had to be lifted by the men and carried down the skidroad to the water, sometimes a mile or more. When the time came to return to the island, the prisoners were so weary that they could hardly man the oars. But no one had chopped through his fingers, no fights had broken out, and the redcoats had been restrained with their use of the lash. It had been a good day.
As they pulled towards the island, Ralph glanced over his shoulder and saw the brig riding at anchor. Red-coated soldiers were ferrying a boatload of convicts ashore, their fresh uniforms bright as flowers against the grey water. The soldiers in scarlet, the convicts in canary yellow.
The guards in Ralph’s boat were in a jolly mood at the thought of being relieved, and did not bridle at the convicts’ chatter, so long as they kept their voices down.
‘Be nice to see some fresh faces,’ said one, a forger from Chepstow named Jacob.
‘Fresh arses you mean,’ retorted one of his mates, a veteran convict known as Old Tom. Jacob was prone to what the commandant termed ‘unnatural vice’, though to Ralph’s mind there could be no more natural outcome than Jacob if you locked three hundred men together for years on end without female company.
‘Let’s hope the screws ain’t bastards like this lot.’ That was Young Tom, a fresh-faced lad of nineteen who had been transported for stealing a pocket watch.
‘What do you reckon, Noah?’
Noah was what they called Ralph, maybe on account of his age, maybe because they remembered that he had once worked a spell in the dockyards. He had excelled himself, building what the master shipwright declared was the finest sloop ever constructed in the southern hemisphere. The man had been distraught when Ralph had tried to steal it, and was sent back to the logging crews.
‘Noah’s seen it all,’ Old Tom said. ‘He don’t have an opinion no more.’
It was true. Ralph had seen every flavour of humanity in the soldiers who had arrived during his six years on the island. Sadists, drunkards, well-meaning failures, cowards, broken-hearted lovers: these were the men who washed up in a garrison like Macquarie Harbour.
‘Don’t know what you’re expecting,’ Ralph said. ‘Ship never brings anything new.’
Their boat bumped up against the wharf, where piles of Huon pine lay stacked ready for the sawpits. The smell of tar and sawdust filled the air.
The new convicts had already been offloaded from the brig, and now stood mustered on the stretch of open ground by the lumber yard that served as a drill square. The logging crews formed a line and joined them.
The new commandant stepped into the centre of the square and began to make a speech. Jacob leaned close to Ralph.
‘That sergeant looks a nasty bugger.’
Standing beside the new commandant was the sergeant who would act as his deputy. He carried a short swagger stick, tucked under his arm. His face was pockmarked and badly shaven, a man who had good reason to shun a mirror.
Ralph nodded. The commandant might set the rules, but he was a remote figure. It was the sergeant who was in the convicts’ faces every day, who had the power to make their lives a living hell if he chose.
‘Likely we’re in for a hard spell.’
‘Looks like one of ’em’s had enough already,’ Young Tom said. He pointed to a prisoner being led up the hill towards the gaol. He was soaking wet, half naked, and his back bore the marks of a recent flogging. Even so, the redcoats were taking no chances. Two men held his manacled arms, while two more followed with fixed bayonets.
‘He didn’t waste no time making trouble.’
‘Maybe he tried to drown himself,’ Old Tom said.
An incident like that could keep the men gossiping all day. Usually, Ralph had little interest. Every man there was his own island of misery. But today he found himself looking up the slope at the unfortunate prisoner.
As if he had felt Ralph’s gaze, the man turned and looked back. Lank hair hung over his eyes, yet Ralph felt as if the man was staring straight at him. Impossible, of course, at that distance – Ralph was only one of hundreds of convicts assembled on the drill square – but he could not shake the feeling. Like a compass needle finding north, their gazes seemed drawn to each other.
‘Look at me when I speak to you, God damn you!’
Something hard and sharp was jabbed into Ralph’s stomach. He doubled over, instinctively tensing his muscles to retaliate. But that would have been a mistake. The sergeant had appeared in front of him. He put his cane under Ralph’s chin and forced him to look up.
‘What is your name?’
Close to, the sergeant was even more frightening to look at than he had first appeared: bloodshot eyes, a high forehead and pox scars all over his lumpen features. With the swagger stick pressed against his throat, Ralph could not look away.
‘Prisoner 3427. Ralph Courtney.’
The sergeant’s nose twitched, like a dog sniffing out a scent. He is looking for someone to make an example of, Ralph realised. Bullying the weak might entertain a man like the sergeant, but it achieved nothing. Better to break a man the prisoners respected, a man they thought was untouchable. Then they would know that no one was safe.
Ralph dropped his gaze and stared hard at the sergeant’s shoes. He slumped his shoulders, trying to shrink into himself.
Too late. The sergeant had seen the fire in Ralph’s eyes when he had hit him.
‘What are you here for?’
‘Attempting to escape.’
The sergeant huffed, blowing foul breath into Ralph’s face. ‘Might you be tempted to escape again, Prisoner 3427?’
Years in Macquarie Harbour had taught Ralph to bury his pride deep; it was the only way to survive. If a man kept his peace and did not talk back, the redcoats mostly left him alone. But this sergeant was different.
‘No, sir.’
A stab of pain as the cane rapped him on the shoulder. ‘Are you in uniform? You do not call me “sir” unless you are a soldier. Do you understand?’
‘Yes.’
Another rap. ‘Yes, sergeant.’
‘Yes, sergeant.’
Both Ralph’s shoulders stung from the blows. He felt his muscles clenching, his fingers curling into fists. Stay calm. He could not look away, but he tried to look past the sergeant, focusing on a point just beyond his ear.
The cane cracked against his cheek. ‘Look me in the eye, damn you.’ The sergeant leaned in, so close that Ralph could see the little veins spidering across his eyeballs.
‘Whatever easy treatment you might have had before, I am in charge now.’
‘Yes, sergeant.’
‘I am your lord and master.’
‘Yes, sergeant.’
‘You will have no other god before me.’ He was screaming now, the spittle flying out over Ralph’s face. ‘And I am a jealous, double-dyed bastard taskmaster god. Do you understand that?’
After six years on the island, Ralph assuredly did. The sergeant was right. He had the power of a god.
The sergeant held Ralph’s gaze for a moment longer, until the fight died in his eyes. Then he left him.
‘You think you can escape? Think you can shirk? Think you can cheat your punishment?’ The sergeant had raised his voice to address all the men in the yard. Now he slapped the cane against the side of his boot, making a noise like a rope snapping. ‘You are wrong. There’ll be no dodges or shill-I-shall-I now. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Yes, sergeant,’ the prisoners chorused dutifully.
He spun back towards Ralph. ‘Do I make myself clear?’
‘Yes, sergeant.’
From up on the hill came the sound of the gaol door slamming shut.
No one spoke in the boat the next morning as they rowed to Phillips Creek through a fine mist. Sergeant Jakes sat in the bow, where the rowers could not see him, though they could feel his malevolent glare on their backs. He had a whip in his hands, which he toyed with constantly. The rattle of the knots on the planking was all the men heard as they rowed up the river mouth. Ralph half wished he would use it, simply to break the tension.
The heavy rains of the last few days had caused the river to rise, so that the landing stage stood marooned in the current, twenty feet from the bank and six feet under water. The convicts had to wade ashore; three of the taller men carrying the redcoats on their backs until they reached drier ground.
They were to cut a road through the forest. There was good pine a mile inland, the scouts reported, but the terrain in between was almost impassable. They had to drive a path, felling tree after tree, using the trunks to make a rough, corrugated roadway. The convicts would use it to carry the long trunks back to the river.
Soon the prisoners were spread out across nearly half a mile of forest. The redcoats had the convicts put up a canvas awning, and huddled beneath it, talking and smoking. Occasionally one of them would emerge to shout a few words of abuse at the prisoners. Otherwise, they left them to the mud and the rain.
Ralph’s gang was at the front of the line, cutting a path through the virgin forest. It was the hardest work, but at least it gave them a measure of freedom. If they kept their voices low, they could talk without attracting attention.
Jacob scrambled up a tree and fastened the rope. Old Tom belayed the line, while Ralph and Young Tom took turns laying in with their axes.
‘You hear about the Spaniard?’ Young Tom asked. ‘Jumped off the ship as soon as she was past the heads.’
‘Nearly made the shore, too, before the boats caught up with him,’ Jacob said. The story of the man who had saved the brig and then dived overboard had gone around the barracks like wildfire the night before. It was the most interesting thing to have happened in months.
‘I heard he came from Peru,’ Old Tom said.
‘They caught him in Jamaica,’ Jacob added. ‘I had it from one of the men on the ship.’
‘Jamaica’s near Peru.’
‘He’s a Spaniard,’ Young Tom insisted.
‘Looks like one of the blacks, with that woolly hair.’
‘Wonder why he did it? Why save the ship and then go in the water?’
‘Spaniards is queer folk,’ Old Tom said. He had served as a merchant seaman, and was considered something of a man of the world. ‘Too much heat softens the brain.’
Ralph let them chatter. He still remembered the moment of connection he had felt when the man had looked around, back down at the drill square. He was desperate to know more about him – more than the gossip and speculation he would get from his crew.
‘He’ll be out of solitary in a month or two,’ Ralph said. ‘Then you can find out all you like. He’s probably a Cheapside tailor,’ he added, to laughter.
‘You!’
Jakes’ voice cut through the damp stillness of the forest. Ralph whipped around. The sergeant had appeared as if from nowhere, with three redcoats flanking him.
Ralph’s men shuffled into line and knuckled their foreheads obediently.
‘You work in silence,’ Jakes barked. His cane slashed through the air and left a welt on Young Tom’s cheek. ‘Silence is for contemplation. Contemplation is you reflecting on the miserable stinking lives that brought you here. Do you understand?’
The men nodded and hung their heads. Jakes moved down the line, hissing between his teeth. He stopped in front of Ralph.
‘You’re an ugly bastard, aren’t you?’ He stroked the scars on Ralph’s cheek with the tip of his cane.
‘Yes, sergeant.’
‘Got a wife? Some poxy whore you left behind?’ Ralph said nothing, but the sergeant caught the glint in his eyes. ‘Thought so. Bet she was glad to see the back of an ugly bastard like you.’
The muscles in Ralph’s arms began to twitch.
‘Nice-looking, was she? Fine piece of goods?’ Jakes tipped back his head and breathed in, nostrils flaring, like a man savouring a vintage wine. ‘Bet her bed’s worn through with all the men she’s had since you’ve been gone.’
Ralph clenched his jaw. He rolled his shoulders and flexed his fingers, trying to release the pressure, but it kept building.
Jakes put his arm around Ralph’s shoulder like a consoling friend. The stench of his breath was vile. ‘Must be hard for you, eh? Thinking of her with all those other men’s cocks in her mouth.’
Ralph closed his eyes, feeling the anger swell inside him.
He waited for the fury that in his younger days would always follow.
It did not come. Something had happened in the last six years, something that had left him too weary even for rage.
Once, he would have thought that he could outlast a man like Jakes. Now he knew better. In Macquarie Harbour, however long a man resisted, there was always more time. You could not outwait it. Sooner or later, you would break.
Better to get it over with, then. If rage would not take the matter out of his hands, he would have to take responsibility himself.
He smashed his fist as hard as he could into Jakes’ face.
The force of the blow sent the sergeant stumbling back against a tree. Blood gushed from his shattered nose. Around him, Ralph heard the snap of muskets being cocked.
Jakes put up a hand to stay the redcoats. His face was a mask of blood, and when he opened his mouth his jaw made a sickening click, but he did not seem to notice. The triumph in his eyes was almost ecstatic.
‘I will make you pay for that,’ he said.
MISSION STATION, MAHIKENG
H
arry woke pressed against the wall of a sandy pit. Rubbing his eyes, he threw off the thin blanket that covered him and crawled up to the stony parapet that lined the top of his hide. The African dawn was on the horizon; the earth beginning to stir. Flocks of birds chorused the dawn, while the undergrowth chattered and rustled.
Harry had waited in his hide all night, trying to stay awake, but somewhere in the smallest hours sleep had overcome him. He felt the uncomfortable bulge pressing against the front of his trousers. He had been dreaming of Clara, a hot dream that made him blush now to remember it.
Pushing the hair from his eyes, he reached out for the rifle that lay against the side of the pit. The night air had left the barrel cold to the touch. He added fresh priming to the pan from his powder flask, then rested the rifle on the parapet. He had built the hide himself, in a little nek in the hills that duiker and bushbuck liked to pass through before sunrise. His prizes had become a regular source of meat for the Mahikeng kitchens.
He was fifteen now, taller than his mother and almost as strong as Andrew. His dark hair grew long and wild, his skin had tanned a deep brown and his limbs had the wiry strength of a boy who spent almost every hour in active pursuits.
After the battle and the fire and Elspeth’s death, the survivors had lost interest in civilising him. Once the labour of rebuilding the mission was finished, they had not known what to do with him. Eventually, Andrew had given him a rifle and an ammunition pouch and told him to make himself useful. After that, he had roamed the lands around the mission, deep into the bush, often returning after dark. At first, he had hunted small game – impala and bushpig – but soon he had started hunting larger game – bushbuck, kudu and nyala. His expeditions took ever longer – sometimes he was gone for two or three nights. Eventually even Ann stopped asking when he would return.
All he lacked was company. Wistfully, he remembered the early months at the mission, the adventures that he’d had with Clara. Before that day, as Andrew called it. Before Clara had changed.
