Ten Rogues
Page 1
PRAISE FOR A GOOD PLACE TO HIDE
‘Peter Grose’s tale of the astounding “rescue village” of Le Chambon … is a story resonant in our days, the age of refugees, and a grand narrative in its own right, all told with absorbing narrative skill. A book to cherish and recommend!’
Thomas Keneally
‘This is a beautifully written tribute … and an outstanding contribution to Holocaust literature.’
Booklist
‘Inspiring. In chronicling the daring activity that went on for years, Grose keeps readers on the edge with a heartwarming story of ordinary heroes who just did what was required.’
Kirkus Reviews
‘… a page-turning account of how one French village defied the Nazis …’
The Bookseller
‘If you need proof that truth is stranger than fiction, go no further than this marvellous evocation of an isolated French village during World War II.’
Ballarat Courier
‘What a terrific book. The subject matter is incredible … and Peter Grose’s writing style is wonderful (read: highly enjoyable) and authoritative (read: educational). I devoured this book in two sittings and will be snapping up everything else this author has written.’
Julie Lawson Timmer, author of Five Days Left
‘This meticulously researched, intriguing account documents the key figures in restrained prose that accentuates the sheer drama of the situation, delivers a salutary and resonant tale of a community rising to its best.’
Bendigo Advertiser
‘This book’s publication is perfectly timed. Yes, it’s a deeply humane, diligently researched, skillfully written, and intelligently structured book. And normally these would be the strengths to mention first. But … when a story this human comes along, it becomes a symbol of hope.’
Lawrence J. Epstein, author of The Basic Beliefs of Judaism
‘In the vein of Schindler’s List, A Good Place to Hide combines solid historical research with the tension of a spy novel … an inspiring account of the extraordinary courage of ordinary people.’
Shelf Awareness
‘Engrossing from beginning to end and painstakingly researched, master storyteller Peter Grose paints a vivid and moving picture of this era, leaving one with a sense of the triumph of human decency over grim odds.’
Toowoomba Chronicle
PRAISE FOR AN AWKWARD TRUTH
‘Grose’s compassionate, honest and vivid account, with its awkward truths, deserves to be widely read.’
Sun-Herald
‘This intriguing book should be read by all school students and history buffs as well as by the general reader.’
Sydney Morning Herald
‘A masterful piece of research, easy to read, moving and unbiased. A must read.’
Reveille
‘Peter Grose tells a brilliantly researched, intriguing story of heroism, looting, bungling and ill-preparedness.’
Toowoomba Chronicle
‘The truth [Grose] uncovers would be laughable if it weren’t so tragic.’
Adelaide Advertiser
‘Grose reveals an eye for telling detail.’
Canberra Times
‘Read this engrossing book.’
Australian Defence Magazine
‘Illuminating. Grose has researched meticulously. Readers will learn more than they expected.’
Townsville Bulletin
PRAISE FOR A VERY RUDE AWAKENING
‘Peter Grose has a natural ability to tell a good yarn and the story of the Japanese subs that slid into Sydney Harbour in 1942 is about as good as any Aussie yarn can get. This is the kind of history writing that ensures the reader is engaged not only with the story but also the background drama.’
Sydney Morning Herald
‘Grose knows how to write. [He] has many objectives here: to tell the story (and a fascinating one it is, too) in fine detail; to give us the political, military and social context; and to question received truths.’
The Age
‘This book is an absolute cracker … well researched and carefully written.’
Army Magazine
‘Grose has produced an absorbing and thought-provoking study of that fateful night.’
Australian Defence Review
‘A Very Rude Awakening is a ground-breaking new look at the night in 1942 when three Japanese midget submarines crept into Sydney Harbour and caused an unforgettable night of mayhem, high farce, chaos and courage.’
Defence News
‘A stylish, gripping and masterfully told reconstruction of the night of 31 May 1942.’
Asia-Pacific Defence Reporter
‘Grose’s spirited, well-researched book exposes much about a society at war, as well as one of the most daring military episodes in its course.’
The Bulletin
‘A Very Rude Awakening reveals the triumphs of the little blokes doing their best while the might and pomp of high-ranking officialdom flapped about uselessly.’
RSL News
‘The battle of Sydney Harbour is an enthralling story which Grose tells with verve.’
Law Society Journal
‘A fascinating account of one of the more bizarre episodes from World War II.’
News Weekly
‘Those with an interest in Australian history will enjoy this book immensely, primarily because it is so well written and its subject holds a strong fascination.’
Newcastle Herald
‘Engrossing.’
Surfer’s Paradise Weekend Bulletin
PETER GROSE began his working life as a journalist for the Sydney Daily Mirror before becoming the first London correspondent of The Australian. He switched from journalism to literary agency, setting up Curtis Brown Australia, then the first literary agency in Australia and now the biggest. After moving to the London office of Curtis Brown, where he continued as a literary agent, he joined the London publisher Martin Secker & Warburg as publishing director. In his ‘retirement’ he returned to his first love: writing. He is the author of three bestselling history books. He is also the proud holder of British, American and Australian private pilot’s licences, and has flown all over Australia, Europe and the United States in single-engine aircraft. He lives in France.
OTHER BOOKS BY PETER GROSE
A Very Rude Awakening:
The night the Japanese midget subs came to Sydney Harbour
An Awkward Truth:
The bombing of Darwin, February 1942
A Good Place to Hide:
How one French community saved thousands
of lives in World War II
First published in 2020
Copyright © Peter Grose 2020
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100
Email: info@allenandunwin.com
Web: www.allenandunwin.com
ISBN 978 1 76063 261 8
eISBN 978 1 76087 348 6
Maps and illustrations by Mika Tabata
Set by Midland Typesetters, Australia
Cover design: Design by Committee
Cover
illustrations: Josh Durham and Shutterstock
For all those who have suffered, and those suffering today,
from the baseless belief that harsh punishment
reduces crime and reforms criminals
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
PART 1 Convicts
CHAPTER 1 Jimmy
CHAPTER 2 Transportation
CHAPTER 3 Expansion
PART 2 Van Diemen’s Land
CHAPTER 4 Hobart
CHAPTER 5 Sarah Island
PART 3 The brig
CHAPTER 6 Hoy
CHAPTER 7 Plot
PART 4 Chile
CHAPTER 8 Voyage
CHAPTER 9 Valdivia
PART 5 Prisoners
CHAPTER 10 Trial
CHAPTER 11 Appeal
CHAPTER 12 Norfolk Island
CHAPTER 13 Whatever happened to …
APPENDIX I
APPENDIX II
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND SOURCES
INDEX
INTRODUCTION
I never planned to tell the story of Jimmy Porter and the seizure of the brig Frederick.
In February 2016 my wife, Ros, and I took a week’s holiday in Tasmania with my lifelong friend Richard Walsh (who also happens to be the original publisher of this book) and Richard’s wife, Sue. We all met up in Hobart and drove together to the north coast of Tasmania, then down to Strahan on the west coast to take a cruise on the beautiful Gordon River.
At the time, I had a half-baked idea to write a book called Punishment, which would have been a history of that tortured subject and would have dealt with all those futile historical punishments, from administering hemlock to dunking witches to hanging thieves. I planned to write it with my daughter Anouchka, a London psychoanalyst who has written more books than I ever will.
If I’d stuck to this original plan, I would very likely have come up with all the usual facile liberal conclusions that punishment doesn’t work, and that the best way to treat criminals is to keep them apart from the rest of society, then give them something useful to do. That was about as far as I’d got.
Then, as part of the Gordon River cruise, I visited the early nineteenth-century penal settlement of Sarah Island. It can be found in Macquarie Harbour, near the small village of Strahan. As I wandered around Sarah Island, my first reaction was that here was perfect proof of everything I believed: give those convicts a useful craft—in this case shipbuilding—while simultaneously making sure they were better fed and better housed, and discipline would improve out of all recognition. Hanging and flogging could go out of style. I began busily taking photographs of various plaques scattered around Sarah Island illustrating this transformation.
Then I came across the story of the seizure of the brig Frederick and the ten convicts’ epic voyage to Chile and freedom. I could suddenly see the major thesis of Punishment gift-wrapped and packaged as an irresistible narrative. It was a story with everything: defiance of authority, an adventurous sea voyage, cheeky convicts, stuffy, sadistic and occasionally buffoonish bureaucrats, and above all a compelling tale with a happy ending. Who could ask for more? I started researching and discovered that there was a wealth of original source material easily available. For instance, the handwritten convict records from the early nineteenth century had been digitally copied and were available online, which meant they could be accessed easily from anywhere in the world.
Furthermore, my central character, Jimmy Porter, had left two first-hand accounts of his life. One was written in Hobart in 1837. The second was written on Norfolk Island in 1842. Gold dust! And the whole tale seemed to me to be the perfect anecdote to illustrate the points I had planned to make in Punishment.
I was well and truly under way with the new book when I was brought up short by Dr Hamish Maxwell-Stewart, Professor of History at the University of Tasmania and author of Closing Hell’s Gates, a superb and definitive history of Sarah Island. We met over breakfast at a Balmoral cafe in Sydney’s harbourside suburb of Mosman. I put forward my rather gauche theory about how some useful work in the form of shipbuilding combined with better treatment had been a more effective convict reform program than any hanging and flogging regime. This was destroyed instantly by Hamish. My theory was too facile and middle class, he thought. The reality was not that well-meaning liberals had rescued the convicts. Rather, the convicts had survived by their uncrushable spirit, which enabled them to keep going and retain their humanity and individuality despite every effort by the authorities to flatten and destroy them.
As my research dug deeper, I came to realise that Hamish was right. Yes, giving the convicts useful things to do coincided with improved discipline and a reduction of floggings and hangings. But without the convicts’ remarkable refusal to be crushed and destroyed, no amount of dewy-eyed wishful thinking would have prevailed.
So, as you read the pages that follow, spare a thought for the 166,000 convicts transported from Britain to Australia between 1788 and 1868 whose stories are not told in this book. These overlooked men and women were deeply mired in injustice, bullying, and arbitrary and cruel punishment. They were patronised, demonised, dismissed with contempt, exploited and brutalised. Yet huge numbers of them managed to keep their humanity, and their spirit.
So while I can hardly deny that the main attraction of the story of the stealing of the brig Frederick is that it makes for a rollicking good yarn, I would also like to put in a plea for a larger truth. Human beings in general are too resilient and too spirited to be destroyed permanently by punishment, however harsh and pitiless. And somewhere in all of our DNA is a streak of optimism that allows human beings to plan for a better life rather than be put down by petty tyranny, injustice and cruelty, whatever form it takes.
While I was researching this book, I learned a lot of things I should have been taught at school, but wasn’t. I had no idea of the close connection between the British convict system and the slave trade. Nor did I have any appreciation of how liberally the earliest prisoners transported to Australia were treated.
We are used to the idea of relentless inhumane treatment handed out to convicts: clapped in irons, chained, flogged and demoralised. My school lessons in Australian history gave me no inkling of the amount of freedom many convicts enjoyed, particularly in the early years of the colony. Yes, some worked in chains. But others roamed the streets freely, married, set up home and lived comparatively normal lives while still under sentence. Convicts were not usually locked in cells: most were ‘assigned’ to free settlers, where they were worked hard but were not always mistreated. In those early years, convicts with a track record of good behaviour could apply for a ‘ticket of leave’, which meant they could pick and choose their employer, and negotiate their terms of employment. For all practical purposes, they were free men and women, forced only to remain in exile for the term of their sentence. And when they had completed that sentence, they might even be eligible for a grant of land, and free convict labour to work it. Compare that with the fate of today’s incarcerated drug addict or petty thief, in Australia or anywhere else in the world.
Peter Grose
August 2019
Chapter 1
JIMMY
It’s hard to know whether to like or dislike Jimmy Porter. He was, by his own account, a killer and a thief. He was also a deserting husband and father, and a tireless schemer and con man. His real persona bears a fair resemblance to one of those enduring heroes of popular fiction, the lovable rogue. He was a self-pitying liar, but then his survival more than once depended on his being economical with the truth. And if his survival led to a few clamorous bouts of self-promotion and fact twisting … well, what are lovable rogues for?
Jimmy Porter was born ‘in the neighbourhood of London’, probably in Bermondsey, a dingy inner London suburb now best known for its Friday antiques market. The year of his birth must have been around 1800, perhaps as late as 1802, but he gave the authorities several in
consistent versions of his age, so it is impossible to calculate a reliable date. He doesn’t say why, but at the age of six he was placed in the care of his grandmother, ‘though not without great reluctance on the part of my mother’. His time with his granny was, by his account, happy. He went to school until he was twelve, and says of himself, ‘I could write a tolerable hand and was pretty forward in arithmetic.’ But his rebellious streak soon had him in trouble. He recalls being punished by his schoolmaster ‘for placing hair in his cane so that when he chastised any of us it would split up and cut his hand’.
Sometime towards the end of his twelfth year, Jimmy started playing truant, which marked the beginning of his misfortunes. Characteristically, he blamed this on someone else: ‘I was not sufficiently checked by my grandmother,’ he wrote afterwards. To make things worse, he was subject to regular thrashings by his schoolmaster—‘beating out one devil and beating in two’. In the face of all this, he persuaded his grandmother to let him drop out of school. He then ran wild with the neighbouring children ‘and soon got initiated into vice’. His first crime was to steal money from his granny to see a performance at the newly restored Drury Lane Theatre in Covent Garden. The stage show entranced him, and the memory of it never left him. Unfortunately it was not without cost: his grandmother’s shock and anger at this piece of treachery ‘hurried her to her grave’.
But not yet. Jimmy was full of remorse over his betrayal of his grandmother and vowed never to steal again. In his own words: ‘Had I then been separated from my acquaintances and sent to sea under good treatment in a man o’ war, it would have cured all.’ That didn’t happen. Instead, still running free with his young friends, he was desperate to get back to see another theatre performance. But where would he find the entrance money?
In his account, two boys put him up to the next crime. The trio passed a wealthy house, looked through the parlour window, and spotted a handsome clock on the mantelpiece. Would Jimmy come back at dusk and sneak in and grab it? Yes, he would. He managed to do as he was asked and run off with the clock, duly receiving a small share of the proceeds when it was ‘fenced’. But he had been seen entering the house, and identified. He was subsequently nabbed, and taken to his grandmother, ‘who swooned away’. His parents arrived to discuss the matter with the gentleman victim, who agreed not to prosecute, according to Porter, ‘on the account of the respectability of my parents’. All agreed that young Jimmy’s career in crime could only lead to the gallows, and the best move would be to send the lad to sea while his neck remained unstretched.