The Gallant (33 page)

Michael stared at him in frank bewilderment.

“A couple? You mean a married couple-a man and a woman? I thought I saw them last night.”

“But you did not recognize them?”

“No, they were too far away. I’ve no idea who they were.”

Murphy smiled. “Perhaps you

should

have known them, Mr. Wexford-because you are a gentleman, aren’t you? You speak like one. were you a political prisoner?”

“Initially, yes. And I used to be a gentleman and a midshipman in Her Majesty’s Navy. However-was Michael shrugged. “After serving time on Norfolk Island under Commandant Price and then at the Port Arthur Penitentiary, the most I can lay claim to is that I’m a useful prizefighter.” He hesitated, the memory of the previous night’s happenings vivid in his mind.

There was the young woman who had wept and then run so swiftly and recklessly back to the hotel-the young woman who had stirred his imagination because of the likeness she had borne to his sister Kitty. But it was so long since he had seen Kitty; she would have changed, grown up and become a young lady, instead of the girl, the child he remembered.

“Mr. Murphy,” he asked tensely, “do you know the names of the two civilians who were on the customs wharf, yesterday evening?”

Murphy shook his head. “No, we weren’t given any names, except yours and those of the other escapers. They told us to proceed carefully because you were desperate men, wanted for murder and piracy, and would be likely to resist capture.”

“I see.” Michael hid his disappointment. It was, he thought ruefully, too much

to expect that Kitty and Patrick would have come to Australia in search of him, although … He smothered a sigh. They would be capable of it, they-

“Mr. Wexford, were

you

involved in murder and piracy?” Murphy demanded.

“I was involved in the taking of the Hastings

steamer-with a gun at my head. The murders were committed before I boarded her. Perhaps I should explain what happened, if you’ve time to listen. It’s quite a lengthy tale.”

“We’re both off watch,” Murphy said.

“I’ve time to listen, Mr. Wexford.”

Encouraged by the young mate’s attitude, Michael gave him as brief and unvarnished an account of the circumstances surrounding his escape as he could, and Murphy listened without interruption until the story was concluded. Then he asked a few questions about the death of the

Hastings”

master, shaking his head regretfully when Michael told him that he had been compelled to consign the old man’s body to the sea.

“Then you’ve no proof of how he died?

No proof that you tried to save him?”

“No, alas-none. And the crew were all below when Captain Tarr and I went over the side and Haines fired on us. They would have seen nothing.”

“How about-what is their name? The folk you stayed with after you went ashore?”

“Amos Meldrum and his family, you mean?”

Michael shook his head. “I’d not want to involve them, Mr. Murphy. Technically they broke the law in giving me shelter and not handing me over to the military search party when they came to the farm. And, I fear, giving me a dead man’s papers and his ticket-to-leave would be an offense equally heinous.”

Murphy frowned, mulling over his reply. “You understand, don’t you,” he said at last, “that if I report your presence on board this ship to the master, he’ll be legally bound to hand you over to the police in Geelong as an escaper? Old Silas Deacon is a good man, as straight as they come, but they’d take his master’s ticket off him if he failed to hand you over.”

“Yes,” Michael conceded, tightlipped. “I understand that.”

222

William Stuart Long

“On the other hand, Mr. Wexford,” the mate said, his frown lifting, “I believe what you’ve told me, and I’d like to help, if I can.”

“You’ve no call to help me, Mr.

Murphy,” Michael felt obliged to say.

“I’m grateful, but you could get yourself into a great deal of trouble if you do. And there’s no way I could repay you. I-was

“I’ve been in trouble myself,” Murphy told him. “Plenty of trouble, and I-I lost my wife, a few months ago. She died in childbirth, and I-well, I suppose I’ve been running too, trying to escape from the-oh, damn it, the knowledge that I was responsible for her death. If she had not married me, she would still be alive, Wexford. And I loved her. She was the sweetest, most beautiful woman in the world!”

“Yes, but-oh, for God’s sake, you cannot be responsible for her death in childbirth,” Michael began, surprised by the depths of the young mate’s grief. “You-was

It was as if Murphy had not heard him, for he went on, in a low, bitter voice, “I ran to the first place that offered escape-this ship. I thought if I could get away from the places I’d shared with Elizabeth, her family, our home, that it would be easier to forget. It hasn’t been much easier, and I haven’t forgotten. Deacon made me second mate because I’d sailed with him before, as a deckhand, and I’m related to the ship’s owner comand I know a little about navigation. But I’m not much use to him, if the truth were known. My heart’s not in it, you see. I’d more or less made up my mind to quit when we make port at Geelong and go to the goldfields. I’ve done a spell as a digger, and I’ve enough for a grubstake.”

His tone changed and he managed a wry smile.

“We could tell Captain Deacon a different tale from the one you’ve just told me, Mr, Wexford.”

Michael eyed him uncertainly. “What sort of tale?”

“Well, that you are a new immigrant, anxious to get to the goldfields and-yes, without the money for your passage. So you smuggled yourself on board this brig, hoping to pass yourself off as a seaman in place of the lad who deserted-O’Hara. Those seaman’s papers of yours-would they pass, muster?”

Michael shook his head. “The man they belonged to is dead

comand.he was a ticket-of-leave convict assigned to Amos Meldrum. So I fear they would not bear close inspection.”

“Let me see them, will you?”

“Yes, of course.” Michael produced the grubby, much-faded seaman’s book from his pocket.

“Thomas Blaney’s ticket-of-leave and a note from Amos Meldrum are inside.”

Murphy studied all three documents with frowning care. “Well,” he said, returning them, “I reckon the seaman’s book would get you ashore, and it might satisfy Captain Deacon, if you don’t show him the ticket-of-leave. They don’t worry too much in Geelong. There’s a steady flow of gold seekers entering the port, some with money and papers and some without much more than the clothes they stand up in. All they want is to get to Ballarat or Bendigo or to the new fields in the Murray Valley. There are hundreds, thousands, of men, from every country in the world, working in the fields still, although the first mad rush is over. There aren’t many fortunes made these days, but …” Murphy’s expression relaxed. “I still have a mind to go back. It’s been in my blood, I suppose, ever since

I made a lucky strike in California, years ago, when I was just a kid.”

“You were in California?” Michael questioned, surprised.

“I hail from there, Mr. Wexford.”

“And Murphy?”

“Oh, that’s my real name-Luke Murphy.” The young mate was smiling now, suddenly eager and excited. “We could team up together for a while, if it would help you to make good your escape. I’d get you to Ballarat, anyway, and we could part company there, if you want.”

“You would be taking a chance, Murphy. I cannot ask that of you,” Michael began. “You-was Luke Murphy cut him short, still smiling. “You have not asked it of me-I’ve offered. There’s a difference. I’ve learned to judge men since I came out here, and you’re no villain-I’d stake my life on that. And I’d be right, wouldn’t I?”

A second human being had taken him on trust, Michael thought-the little crippled girl Prudence Meldrum had been the first, and now this young Californian was prepared to do so. He felt humbled, momentarily bereft of words, tempted to confess to Luke Murphy the real reason for his determination to

William Stuart Long

make his escape from Port Arthur-but no sooner had the thought occurred than he dismissed it from his mind.

This boy, who had lost his wife and gone to sea in a vain attempt to find forgetfulness, could not be expected to understand, any more than the gentle little Prudence would have understood, had he made his confession to her. She, who had nursed an orphaned wild bird and restored it to life, with infinite patience and devotion, would have been hard put to it to sympathize with his obsession for revenge on the man who had robbed him of his pride, his manhood, and-perhaps even of his soul. And Luke Murphy was like her, in a way.

Michael forced an answering smile, accepting the hand Murphy was holding out to him.

“I was not born a villain,” he said quietly.

“And I’ll not betray your trust. We’ll go to Ballarat together, and I thank you, with all my heart, for your offer.”

“We shall have to square Captain Deacon first,”

Murphy reminded him. “I think I’d better take you to him now. You-was He paused, eyeing Michael uncertainly. “Is Wexford

your

real name?”

“No,” Michael admitted. It was a long time since he had used his real name, but to his own surprise, he was able to admit to it with pride.

Price had not, after all, stolen that from him. “It is Cadogan,” he said. “Michael Cadogan.

Wexford is where I come from.”

Dominic Hayes was in the

Chronicle

office when Kitty was announced, the newspaper’s front page spread out across the desk. He rose at once and, having ushered Kitty to a seat, gestured to the page of newsprint he had been studying.

“Look at this,” he invited, in an oddly tense tone of voice. “The mills of God, it would seem,

do

grind exceeding small!”

Kitty picked up the page and drew in her breath sharply as she took in the banner headline.

NORFOLK ISLAND’S EXCOMMANDANT MURDERED

Shocked, she read on:

We have just received the tragic news from Melbourne that, on March 27, at Pentridge Gaol, Mr. John Price, Inspector

General of Penal Establishments in the State of Victoria, was set upon by seven of the gaol’s inmates. Taking him unawares, they stoned and savagely attacked him with their quarrying tools, battering him with such severity that he died shortly afterward.

The miscreants responsible have been placed under arrest and are to be brought to trial, whilst two convicts, who went to Mr. Price’s assistance but were unable to revive him or

William Stuart Long

stanch the fatal bleeding, have been commended for their prompt and compassionate action.

The late Mr. Price was, of course, well known in Hobart, having settled initially in the Huon Valley District in 1836, on his arrival in the colony, later being appointed a police magistrate and muster master in the Convict Department.

He and his wife, the former Mary Franklin, niece of our Lieutenant Governor, resided here until, following an attempted

mutiny by the Norfolk Island convicts in July 1846, the Executive Council recalled the military commandant, Major Joseph Childs, and appointed Mr. Price civil commandant in his place. Accompanied by his wife and their five young children, Mr. Price sailed from Hobart to take up his appointment, which he held until January 1853, when the decision to wind down the penal colony was reached.

A year later, with the increase of lawlessness in the State of Victoria due to the gold rush, Mr.

Price was appointed Inspector General of Penal Establishments and took charge of Pentridge Gaol-where he met his death-and the prison hulks off Williamstown.

He was born on October 20, 1808, the fourth son of Sir Rose Price, of

Trengwainton, Cornwall, England, and was educated at Charterhouse School and Brasenose College, Oxford… .

She skipped down toward the bottom of the page: Mr. Price will be sadly missed by his many friends in this town, and our sincere condolences are offered to his widow in her tragic bereavement. …

There was still more, but Kitty could read no more, the words that the convict O’Brien had written in his diary dancing before her eyes and blotting out those printed in the newspaper:

Price ordered Big Michael fifty lashes for making his complaint insolently and doubled the sentence when Michael laughed at him. They flogged him, with a dozen others … he took the flogging without making a sound, and then spat at Price’s feet when they cut him down. Price put his damned eyeglass in his eye

and shouted “Give him the gag!” And then put him back in solitary for ten days… .

How, she wondered bitterly, could anyone grieve for a man like John Price? Had he not been given his just deserts by the poor wretches who had attacked him in the quarry at Pentridge?

Poor tortured souls, as Michael had been, they had rebelled and murdered their tormentor, and no doubt the law would exact retribution and hang them for what desperation had driven them to do. At least, God be thanked, Michael had not been of their number.

“Do you really think,” she asked Dominic coldly, “that Commandant Price will be sadly missed by his Hobart friends?”

“He

had

friends here, Kitty,” Dominic defended. “And Mary Price was very well liked.” He shrugged his broad, well-tailored shoulders.

“Such-er-sentiments are expected of a local newspaper, you know.”

He was right, of course, Kitty had to concede.

Dominic took the page from her and, carrying it to the door, handed it over to one of his employees with a crisp “Yes-print it as it stands.” Returning to his desk, he asked, a faint edge to his pleasant voice, “I gather you met with no success last night? Your brother Michael was not with the absconders they apprehended?”

Kitty shivered at the memory his question invoked.

“No, Michael was not there. I-oh, Dominic, I don’t know whether to be glad or sorry! They were dreadful men, the ones they say escaped with him.

One of them-they said his name was Haines-was evil. I

don’t think I have ever come across anyone who personified evil as he did. And the two others-one was very tall, and just for a moment I thought it might be Michael-they were brutes.”