The Soldier's Curse

by Meg Keneally

  The major’s mouth slowly expanded into a smile. ‘Well, Monsarrat. It seems my standing may be better than I had thought. The Colonial Secretary is delighted at the discovery of New River, as we are currently calling it – I think he would like the honour of naming it himself – and will send a surveying team. We will of course provide them all assistance. I will, anyway. You may not be here.’

  He shuffled through the other correspondence. ‘Ah, it seems my recommendations for the tickets of leave and conditional pardons for those who accompanied me on the expedition have been approved. Monsarrat, can you make the necessary administrative arrangements? I wonder how we let Kiernan know.’

  ‘Allow me to take care of that for you, major. I have a shrewd idea as to how he can be reached.’

  ‘Very good.’

  But on the last page, the major’s smile vanished. ‘As Slattery has confessed, and given the nature of his crime, the Colonial Secretary has acceded to my request to send a judge to hear his plea and pass sentence, assuming the documents from the inquest are in order, which they are.’

  The major set down the bundle. Looking up, he said to Monsarrat, ‘Do you still bear any affection for Slattery?’

  ‘Not for the man who committed the crime, sir. But for the boy he was, yes, I confess I do.’

  ‘It is with regret, then, that I have to ask you to carry out a task for me, one that I fear you may find distressing,’ said the major. ‘I would like you please to ask the chief engineer to procure sufficient wood for the building of a gallows.’

  Everything must indeed have been in order, as a few weeks later the brig Fame brought with it Justice Curtis, together with his clerk.

  Monsarrat saw little of the judge, who stayed at Government House during his few nights there, the major having retired to the barracks – he did not wish to ask the judge to sleep in the room of the person whose murderer he was to sentence, and of course the major had no wish to sleep there himself, so ceded his room to the judge.

  The Female Factory was again pressed into service as a courtroom, with Monsarrat given the task of arranging the necessities under the direction of the judge’s clerk, a fellow named Turner.

  The long table at which the inquisitors had sat, scene of numerous convict meals, would serve as a bench, with Turner to be installed at one end. If the man felt the lack of the wood panelling and coat of arms he was used to in Sydney’s new Supreme Court, he gave no indication, instead thanking Monsarrat for his efforts in procuring a large quantity of paper and more than enough ink.

  Other long benches were placed against the wall in the long main room of the factory. Here the major and other inquisitors would sit, present should the judge have any need of them. Monsarrat stood at the back corner of the room, ready on a nod from the major or Turner to fetch anything which needed fetching.

  If the judge and Turner had to live without wood panelling, they also had to do without a dock. Instead Slattery, when brought in, stood in the centre of the room, in front of the makeshift bench, his eyes fixed on a point somewhere over the judge’s right shoulder.

  Turner placed a Bible under Slattery’s bound hands, on which he swore. The judge, without looking up from his notes, informed Slattery he was hereby charged with the wilful murder of Honora Belgrave Shelborne, and asked him to plead.

  ‘I plead guilty, Your Honour,’ Slattery said. His eyes were still unfocused, his voice reedier than Monsarrat had ever heard it. He seemed already a little incorporeal, as though the sentence which would shortly be pronounced was already taking effect.

  At his plea, the judge did look up. ‘I caution you against entertaining any hopes of mercy should you maintain your guilt. Given the nature of your crime, no mercy is possible. You may retire your plea and withdraw your confession, and face a trial.’

  ‘No, thank you, Your Honour,’ said Slattery in the small voice of a chastened child. ‘My plea stands. I am guilty in the eyes of the British law, and perhaps even in the eyes of God, but I am confident that he understands things more broadly than a British court might.’

  The judge nodded. He withdrew from a box on the table a square of black cloth, which he rested on top of his wig. ‘Fergal Slattery, you will be taken hence to the prison in which you were last confined and from there to a place of execution at a time to be determined, where you will be hanged by the neck until you are dead, and may the Lord have mercy upon your soul.’

  Slattery was escorted back to his cell, and the judge retired to Government House to dine with the major before the Fame sailed back with him to Sydney the following morning. It fell to Mrs Mulrooney to prepare the joint of beef with vegetables which the two men, and a handful of senior military and civil officers, ate in a house devoid of any female presence.

  The genial Meehan had become used to dealing with the private’s visitors, and waved Monsarrat through the next morning as though he were entering a shop in Sydney. He found Slattery sitting with Father Hanley, engaged in quiet conversation. The two looked up at Monsarrat. The priest stood.

  ‘Ah, Mr Monsarrat, a delight as usual,’ he said with the same flourish he had used in the kitchen weeks ago. ‘Fergal and I were just discussing some of the practicalities now.’

  Monsarrat wondered what practicalities they could possibly have to discuss. The only action Slattery was required to take was to sit quietly and count his heartbeats until they ran out.

  ‘The Father is just ensuring my paperwork’s in order for my next journey,’ said Slattery. ‘I understand the bureaucracy up there is difficult, far more so than any penal colony. I suppose they need it, to administer all those saints. Nevertheless, I want to make sure I have all the appropriate documents. I can’t pop back and get anything I may have forgotten.’

  The priest smiled, a little sadly. ‘Well, Fergal, that’s not exactly how I would have put it, but I suppose the intent is basically the same. You will be giving me an extra decade of the rosary for that blasphemy, by the way, won’t you, my boy?’

  The young man nodded and held up a set of wooden beads. Monsarrat recognised them – they belonged to Mrs Mulrooney.

  Father Hanley, Monsarrat knew, would be given unfettered access to Slattery in the lead-up to his execution. The fact that he was here now indicated that he, and Slattery, had some idea that the time was approaching.

  ‘I heard they’re sending a hangman, make sure the job’s done right,’ said Slattery calmly. ‘When do you think he’ll be here?’

  An executioner, the major had told Monsarrat, would be sent from Sydney as soon as word was received that a sentence of death had been passed.

  ‘I’m not sure, but I’m under the impression that he’ll be coming at the earliest opportunity. The Mermaid’s back in a few weeks; he may be on that.’

  ‘And you’ll make sure they build that gallows properly, won’t you, Monsarrat? I don’t want to slip before I’m supposed to.’ Slattery sounded slightly nervous. ‘And for the love of God, make sure that the noose is capable of tightening. I saw a hanging once in Ireland where the noose hadn’t been made properly, and the poor bastard took a long time to die, slowly choking as he twisted there. I’d as soon avoid that, if you don’t mind.’

  Monsarrat’s throat tightened in sympathy. No one who had spent time in the colony could have failed to witness an execution, and Monsarrat had seen a few: as a convict he was required to watch others receive their punishment. None of them had been botched – but even the most expertly managed hanging still ended with a dead man at the end of a rope.

  He assured Slattery he would do everything in his power to make sure things were quick. He had no wish to see the laughing boy strangled alongside the murderous man. He also gave the news to Mrs Mulrooney, as she bustled about the kitchen the next morning with breakfast for the judge, who would leave that day. When she had served the men last night, they had not mentioned the outcome of the day’s events, and she hadn’t inquired, fearful of the answer.

  She paused in her preparation
s for a moment. She had her back to him, so he could not see whether the news had called forth any tears. But her voice was calm when she said, ‘Thank you for letting me know, Mr Monsarrat.’

  He knew, though, that she visited the gaol every day with the pot of tea. She, Slattery and the Father often sat together, and she had taken to adding another tin cup to the collection she brought to the gaol with her.

  She had also, through Monsarrat, asked the major if she could prepare Slattery’s final meal, whenever that was to occur, and the major had agreed with a brief nod.

  Despite the fact that he was bonded – still – Monsarrat had always seen his workroom as his own personal kingdom. Things were where they were for a reason. He would have taken it very unkindly had anybody tried to rearrange them. Until this day, nobody had.

  But now one of the convict clerks from the agricultural station at Rolland’s Plains was here. He had been waiting when Monsarrat arrived at the workroom early one morning. The door to the study was closed, the major out on some business or other. The fellow, a thin young man with a receding chin which seemed to be on the same longitude as his Adam’s apple, stood to attention when he saw Monsarrat.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Monsarrat,’ he said.

  ‘Good morning, Ellis,’ said Monsarrat, remembering just in time that this was the man’s name. He probably could have identified Ellis’s handwriting out of a thousand documents, but had rarely met him face to face.

  He pointedly moved around the man, and unlocked the door.

  Following him, Ellis seemed a little uncomfortable. ‘I take it the major didn’t inform you I would be here, then,’ he said.

  Monsarrat very deliberately got a sheet of paper and laid it on the blotter, taking great pains to ensure it was completely straight. He then slowly retrieved one of his pens and dipped it in the inkwell, before forming words of exquisite neatness. He intended to give Ellis the impression that he was extremely busy, but in truth he had no transcribing awaiting him, so he wrote the opening greeting of a letter to the Colonial Secretary – he would no doubt have to do one at some point soon, so he might as well get a start.

  After he’d written a few words, he said, without looking up, ‘No, Ellis, he did not.’

  ‘Oh. You’re to train me, you see.’

  ‘Train you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ellis, shifting from foot to foot. Monsarrat was dimly aware that he held a somewhat legendary status amongst the other clerks in the settlement, scattered as they were. His close relationship with the major, his reputation for intellectual rigour and his copperplate script saw to it.

  Monsarrat was not finding toying with Ellis as satisfying as he had hoped. There was only one seat in his workroom, so he couldn’t offer another. Instead he stood, and leaned against his desk, so that they were on a more equal footing. ‘Train you for what exactly, Ellis? You seem to me to be a perfectly competent clerk as it is.’

  Ellis, a small-time counterfeiter from Essex who had been caught out after curfew while in Sydney, smiled at the compliment. ‘Yes, I flatter myself that I am. But there’s a difference between clerking somewhere like Rolland’s Plains and here in the centre of it all, in the commandant’s office.’

  Monsarrat was slightly amused by Ellis’s description of Port Macquarie as ‘the centre of it all’. He had trouble imagining somewhere less central. Nevertheless, he smiled at the boy. ‘Indeed there is.’

  ‘So I was told you are to be leaving soon, and the major wished me to have sufficient time with you to get to know his preferences, how to organise matters, that sort of thing.’

  Further evidence, thought Monsarrat, that the major expected his recommendation for a ticket of leave for Monsarrat to be granted. And also evidence that it was now becoming common knowledge. He’d better let Mrs Mulrooney know before she found out elsewhere – he would be deprived of tea for a long time otherwise.

  ‘Very well then, Ellis. We will have to find you a chair somewhere, seat you at my elbow. Now, let me start by showing you how to do the returns …’

  If there was any relief at all in seeing the gallows built, it was that they appeared to be doing it properly. The structure slowly rising on the parade ground seemed to consist of a proper platform, with a lever-operated trapdoor, such as Monsarrat had seen in Sydney. As Slattery was aware, there were horror stories around hangings gone wrong. Monsarrat had been spared the spectacle the private had seen, of somebody whose neck didn’t break immediately, condemning them to a slow death by choking. He was also eternally grateful never to have seen the more grisly type of hanging – where the rope had not tightened properly, and the drop had torn the head from the body.

  He was confident that the major would at least try to make it quick. For starters, Slattery was still well liked amongst his peers. Every one of them understood why what was happening needed to happen. But they didn’t have to like it. Many of the men seemed to have a relationship with two separate Slatterys, railing against the one who was capable of killing the major’s wife, while missing the banter of the other, the twinkling rogue.

  Monsarrat knew he would not be able to escape viewing the hanging. This kind of punishment would never be carried out in secret – part of its value, in addition to ridding the world of the guilty party, was to demonstrate to others the necessity of good behaviour if they wanted to avoid a similar fate, so everyone was required to attend.

  Mrs Mulrooney was delighted for Monsarrat when he mentioned his ticket of leave. Despite the fact that he told her not to get her hopes up – it was a recommendation at this point, nothing more – she had clasped his hand and done a little dance, twirling him around with as much abandon as the confines of the cramped kitchen would allow.

  Then she said, ‘Well, if you’re going now, Monsarrat, I am definitely leaving. There really will be nothing for me here.’

  Monsarrat had, in fact, started to wonder how much he could expect to make as a free man, whether he might be able to resume his employment with Mr Cruden or someone similar, and whether this would give him sufficient funds to employ a housekeeper. He had no doubt, though, that if Mrs Mulrooney became his servant, she would be the most intractable and disobedient one ever to bear that name.

  But all of this was a consideration for another time, on the other side of the wall which divided a world with Slattery in it from one without. Still, as the days passed with no executioner, Monsarrat and Mrs Mulrooney were almost able to pretend their young friend would be with them for some time, and that they would simply have to go to a few more lengths to visit him than they previously had.

  But that, of course, was a fantasy. After a few weeks of working with Monsarrat, Ellis had come into the workroom early one morning with his cravat slightly askew (Monsarrat would have to talk to him about the importance of precision in one’s personal appearance as well as in one’s handwriting), with the news that the Mermaid was even now attempting a crossing of Port Macquarie’s treacherous bar.

  Chapter 32

  The Mermaid disgorged a fellow who was referred to as Jack Ketch. Monsarrat never found out his real name – his given one was common amongst executioners, a nod to a notorious hangman of decades past.

  Ketch, or whoever he was, inspected the gallows – the sound of the construction of which could not have escaped Slattery’s hearing – and found them to be adequate. He suggested the addition of a small wooden barrier at the front for the sake of the dignity of the prisoner and the sensibilities of the onlookers, protecting them from the sight of the lower half of Slattery’s body. He spent about an hour closeted with the major, discussing how the business was to proceed, and showing him some nooses he had brought with him from Sydney. The tying of a noose was a delicate art, he said, as it needed to tighten just the right amount to ensure a merciful end. Despite his profession – or perhaps because of it – Ketch did not relish witnessing the outcome of a botched hanging.

  He also sought information on Slattery’s weight, and did his best to ensure the
length of rope selected would break the connection between his brain and his body with the greatest possible efficiency.

  That day, Monsarrat knew, the major visited Slattery for the first time, to inform him that the hanging would take place in the morning of the day after next. He told him he could request any visitor, any meal, and any amount of time with Father Hanley until he was taken from the cells to be hanged.

  So that night Slattery, having put in a request for a quantity of rum from the stores – which Monsarrat had fetched via Spring – hosted a game of Three Card Brag with Meehan and some other old gambling mates of his, all of them uproariously drunk before an hour had passed.

  The next morning, when Monsarrat looked in on him, Slattery said, ‘If it was this morning instead of tomorrow morning, I’d not complain – hanging is preferable to the head I have at the moment.’

  He then pressed some coins into Monsarrat’s hand. ‘Rum or not, I still did well at cards, although I expect some of them would have let me win even had I not been capable of doing it on my own. Would you do me a great service and give these to Mother Mulrooney after … Well, after.’

  Monsarrat promised he would. And that night he saw Slattery again. For the soldier’s last meal Mrs Mulrooney had requested some fresh pork – ‘so much better than that salt beef stuff from the cask’ – and roasted it together with some vegetables she herself had grown. Monsarrat contributed the meagre return from his own small garden, and with the major’s approval requested a bottle of the better wine to be had here, which Spring again provided, grumbling that the stores of wine and spirits would soon be dry.

  Monsarrat helped Mrs Mulrooney carry the food down to the gaol, together with proper china plates – ‘I doubt he’s eaten off anything except tin these past years,’ she said. Once there, they spread a blanket over the river pebbles which made up the floor, and watched Slattery eat – Mrs Mulrooney had brought a setting for three, but neither she nor Monsarrat had much of a stomach. And unlike Slattery, they had at least a chance of a similar meal at some point in the future.