The last
week of March saw a cessation in the thunderstorms and the worst of that humid heat. Those possessed of hats had turned them into Yankey headpieces by snapping tricorn brims down all around, but Richard had kept his tricorn a tricorn because he had his bark shelter to work in and his straw sailor’s hat—and because he liked to be properly dressed for Sunday service. The habits of Bristol died hard.
Sunday service was held in any one of a number of places, but on Sunday the 23rd of March—the third anniversary of his conviction and sentence at Gloucester—it happened near the bachelor marines’ camp on a stack of rocky shelves which gave the congregation some chance to see and hear the Reverend Mr. Richard Johnson exhort them in the Name of the Lord to rein in their shameful urges and join the ranks of those who were marrying.
Having resolved on a course of action, Richard had wanted to pray and receive enlightenment, but the sermon did not do a thing to help. Instead, God answered him by presenting him with the figure of Stephen Donovan, who ranged himself alongside Richard and walked with him around the cove, across the stepping stones and down to the water’s edge near the new farm.
“Terrible, is it not?” asked Donovan, breaking the silence as they sat, arms around their knees, on a rock five feet above the placidly lapping water. “I hear that it takes six men a whole week to grub out one stump from yon wheat field, and that the Governor has decided the ground will have to be hoed by hand to receive the grain, for put a plough in it he dares not.”
“And that in turn means that one day I will not eat,” said Richard, taking off his best coat and disposing his person in the shade of an overhanging tree. “How thin the shade is here.”
“And how hard the life. Still,” said Donovan, flicking dead leaves into the water, “it will improve, you know. ’Tis like any brand-new venture, at its worst during the first six months. I am never sure why it then begins to look more bearable, save perhaps that the strangeness goes away. One thing is certain. Whenever it was that God made this corner of the globe, He used a different template.” His voice dropped, grew softer. “Only the strong will survive, and you will be one of those who survives.”
“Oh, ye can depend on that, Mr. Donovan. If I managed Ceres and Alexander, I can manage this. Nay, I do not despair. But I have missed ye. How goes Alexander and dear fat Esmeralda?”
“I would not know, Richard, for I am not in Alexander. The parting of the ways came after I caught Esmeralda opening all the convicts’ belongings and parcels stored in his holds. To see what he could sell for a fortune.”
“Bastard.”
“Oh, Sinclair is all of that and more.” The long, supple body stretched and twisted luxuriously. “I have a far better berth now. You see, I fell in love.”
Richard smiled. “With whom, Mr. Donovan?”
“Would you believe, Captain Hunter’s valet? Johnny Livingstone. As Sirius is down six or seven seamen, I applied to join her crew, and was accepted. Captain Hunter’s nose may be a trifle out of joint over the affair, but he ain’t about to turn down a seaman of my experience. So I am on good rations and have a little love into the bargain.”
“I am pleased,” said Richard sincerely. “Also very glad to see ye on this day above all others. As it is a Sunday, I do not have to work. Which means that I am at your disposal. I need an ear.”
“Only say the word and ye can have more than an ear.”
“Thank you for the offer, but remember Johnny Livingstone.”
“The water,” said Mr. Donovan, “looks good enough to sport in. I would, but for the fact that Sirius caught a shark the other day measured six and a half feet around the shoulders. Inside Port Jackson!” He rolled up his coat for a pillow and lay flat. “I never did ask ye, Richard—did ye succeed in swimming?”
“Oh, aye. The moment I imitated Wallace, it was easy. Joey Long got his pup, by the way. Winsome little fellow, rats a treat. Eats better than we do, though I am not tempted to change to his diet.”
“Have ye seen a kangaroo?”
“Not even the swish of a tail through the trees. But I do not get out of camp—I sharpen our wretched saws and axes.” Richard sat up. “I do not suppose Sirius has any butter of antimony?”
The thick black lashes lifted, the eyes gleamed blue. “Cow’s butter we have, but not any other kind. How d’ye know about things like butter of antimony?”
“Any good saw setter and sharpener does.”
“Not any I ever met before.” The lids fell. “A lovely Sunday, here in the open air with you. I will enquire about the butter. I also hear that the timber is unsawable.”
“Not quite, just exceeding slow work. Made slower because the saws are rubbish. Everything, in fact, seems to be rubbish.” Richard’s face hardened. “That is how I know what England thinks of us. She equipped her rubbish with rubbish. She did not give us a fair chance to succeed. But there are some like me who are more steeled and stubborn knowing that.”
Donovan got to his feet. “Make me a promise,” he said, putting on his hat.
Conscious of huge disappointment, Richard tried to look as if this abrupt departure did not matter. “Name it,” he said.
“I will be gone an hour. Wait here for me.”
“I will be here, but will use the time to change. ’Tis too hot for Sunday clothes.”
Richard returned before Donovan did, clad as most of the convicts were two months into their sojourn at Sydney Cove; canvas trowsers cut off below the knee, bare feet, a checkered linen shirt so faded that the pattern was as subtle as shade inside shade. When Donovan appeared he too wore simple gear, and staggered under the weight of a Rio orange basket.
“A few things ye may need,” he said, dumping it down.
His skin prickled, the color drained from his face. “Mr. Donovan, I cannot take Sirius’s property!”
“None of it is—or rather, all of it was gotten legitimately—well, almost all,” said Donovan, quite unruffled. “I confess I did pluck some of Captain Hunter’s watercress—he grows it on wet beds of lint. So we have a good lunch, and there will be plenty to take back to the others. The marines will not bother ye if I walk home with ye and carry the basket myself. I bought malt from our commissary, another sailor’s hat, some good stout fishing line, hooks, a piece of cork to make floats, and some old scuttle lead for sinkers. The main reason why the basket is so heavy,” he went on as he dug around, “is due to the books. Would you believe that some of the marines on board from Portsmouth disembarked and left their books behind? Christ! Ah!” He held up a little pot. “We have butter for our bread rolls, baked fresh this morning. And a jug of small beer.”
The only other meal of his life which could compare was the one Donovan had provided after they had filled the water tuns in Teneriffe, but even it paled at the taste of watercress—
green!
Richard ate ravenously while Donovan watched, donating him all the cress and butter, most of the rolls.
“Have ye written home yet, Richard?” he asked afterward.
Richard savored the small beer. “There is neither the time nor the—the will,” he said. “I dislike New South Wales. All of us do. Before I write any letters, I want to have something truly cheerful to say.”
“Well, ye have a little time yet. Scarborough, Lady Penrhyn and Charlotte sail in May, but to Cathay to pick up cargoes of tea. Alexander, Friendship, Prince of Wales and Borrowdale sail direct for England about the middle of July, I hear, so give your letters to one of them. Fishburn and Golden Grove cannot leave until thief-proof buildings have been erected to receive their rum, wine, porter and even the surgeons’ proof spirits.”
“What of Sirius? I understood that she was to return to naval duties as soon as may be.”
Donovan frowned. “The Governor is reluctant to let her go until he is sure that the settlement here will survive. To retain only Supply—thirty years old and so small—brrr! Captain Hunter, however, is not pleased. Like Major Ross, Captain Hunter thinks this whole enterprise is a waste of English time and money.”
The last mouthful of small beer went down. “Oh, what a feast! I cannot thank you enough. And I am delighted that ye won’t be leaving in a hurry.” Richard grimaced, shook his head. “I cannot even take small beer without feeling dizzy.”
“Lie down and nap a while. We have the rest of the day.”
Richard did just that. The moment he put his head on a nest of leaves, he was asleep.
Curled into a defensive position, Stephen Donovan noted, having no intention of dozing himself. Perhaps because he was a free man and a sailor who genuinely loved the sea, he looked at New South Wales very differently from captive Richard Morgan; there was naught to stop him picking up his traps and moving on. That he owned a desire to stay could in most measure be attributed to Richard, whose fate he cared about—no, whose whole person he cared about. A tragedy that his affections had fixed upon a man unable to return them, but not a tragedy of epic proportions; having voluntarily chosen his sexual preferences before he went to sea, he had lived with them in a spirit of optimism and content, keeping his affairs light-hearted and his sea bags packed to shift ship at a moment’s notice. He had felt no premonition when he boarded Alexander that Richard Morgan was about to destroy his complacency. Nor really did he know why his heart had settled upon Richard Morgan. It had just happened. Love was like that. A thing apart, a thing of the soul. He had crossed the deck on winged feet, so sure of his instincts that he had expected a kindred recognition. Failing to find it was irrelevant; at first glance it was already too late to retreat.
This alien land also prompted him to stay. Its fate drew him. The poor natives would perish, and knew it in their bones. That was why they were beginning to fight back. But they were neither as sophisticated nor as organized as the American Indians, whose tribal ties extended into whole nations and who understood the art of war, vide their alliances with the French against the English, or the English against the French. Whereas these indigenes were simply not numerous enough, and appeared to war one small tribe against another; concepts like military alliances were not in their nature, which Donovan suspected was highly spiritual. Unlike Richard, he was in a position to listen to those who had had some contacts and dealings with the natives of New South Wales. The Governor had the right attitude, but the marines did not share it. Nor was it shared by the convicts, who saw the natives as just one more enemy to be feared and loathed. In a funny way, the convicts were in the middle, like the piece of iron between the anvil and the hammer. A good analogy. Sometimes that piece of iron became a sword.
The countryside fascinated Donovan, though like everybody else he had no idea whether it could be tamed to something like English prosperity. One thing he did know: it would never breed a cozy village life, wherein a man tilled a few small fields and pastured a few more, and could walk to the local tavern in half an hour. If this place was tamed, the distances would be enormous and the sense of isolation all-pervasive, from how far away the tavern was to how far away a kindred civilization was.
He liked the feel of it, maybe because he communed with birds, and this was a land of birds. Soaring, wheeling, free. He flew the ocean, they flew the skies. And the sky was like no sky anywhere else, illimitable, pure. At night the heavens spread a sea of stars so dense they formed gauzy clouds, a web of cold and fiery infinity that rendered a man less significant than a drop of rain fallen into the ocean. He loved his insignificance; it comforted him, for he did not want to matter. Mattering reduced the world to Man’s toy, a grief. Richard sought God in a church because he had been brought up to do so, but Donovan’s God could not be so confined. Donovan’s God was up there amid that splendor, and the stars were the vapor of His breath.
Richard woke after sleeping for two hours, curled up and not moving or sighing once. “Have I been out to it for long?” he asked, sitting up and stretching.
“D’ye have no watch?”
“Aye, I do, but I keep it safe in my box. ’Twill come out when I have my own house and the stealing dies down.” His gaze was caught by the sudden appearance of hordes of little fish in the water, striped in black and white with yellow fins. “We have not heard what happened when Lieutenant King got to Norfolk Island—d’ye know?” he asked. A great deal of convict talk revolved around Norfolk Island, which had taken on the allure of an alternative destination kinder and more productive than Port Jackson.
“Only that it took King five days and many trips ashore to find a landing place. Of harbors there are none, just a lagoon within a coral reef beset by surf, and in the end that proved the only possible spot to land. There is one section of the reef is sufficiently submerged to get a jollyboat over. But of flax King could find none, and the pine trees, even if suitable for masts, will never be able to come aboard a ship, as there is nowhere to load them and they do not float. However, the soil is remarkable rich and deep. Supply left before further news was available, but she is to go back soon. Then we will know more. The isle is tiny—not above ten thousand acres in all—and is thickly forested with these giant pines. I am afraid, Richard, that Norfolk Island is no more a paradise than Port Jackson.”