‘Is our Commander-in-Chief,’ General Balfour reminded him tersely. ‘And although he is not a soldier – not in any real sense of the word – the Duke of Wellington most definitely is a true soldier, as is General John Moore. And if both of these fine men have recommended you to the King, then – ’
‘The King!’ Lachlan’s shock was now turning into fury. ‘But why would they do that? Without consulting with me first? And why me anyway? I’m not a politician, I’m simply a soldier for goodness sake!’
‘Yes, and that’s why they need someone like you now, because it is the soldiers over there who have been causing all the trouble.’
Balfour prised himself out of his chair and grunted. ‘Let’s have a drink and discuss this some more. I know by rights I should be feeling proud of you, my boy … all these top brass recommendations … but if you accept the post I shall be very sorry to see you go.’
After an hour of discussing it in more detail, Balfour concluded, ‘Well, if nothing else, one fact still cheers me. If you do accept the post, you’ll be back in two years. No one ever stays there for long … it’s a rotten place by all accounts. And it’s a job for a strong man, a tough man. Are you that tough, Macquarie?’
Lachlan shrugged. It mattered not whether he was tough enough or not, because he had no intention of accepting the posting, he would resign his commission first.
‘Well, dear boy, are you?’ Balfour persisted. ‘Tough enough to go to Hell and back in service of your king and country?’
Lachlan shrugged again, disinterested, and lifting his cloak to leave. ‘What do you think, sir?’
‘I think you’re a splendid soldier and a fine man,’ Balfour admitted. ‘But that’s all I have to say now. In the end, of course, the decision must be yours.’
*
When Lachlan returned home, Elizabeth was anxiously waiting for him at the front door.
‘The dispatch – was it about a new posting? It was, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘To India?’
‘No, but India would be like Heaven in comparison.’
‘To where?’ she demanded. ‘In comparison to where?’
Inside the parlour Lachlan made Elizabeth sit down and then explained the contents of the dispatch to her, and the reasons behind it, in the same way Balfour had explained it to him.
‘As heads of the Army and the Navy, the Duke of York and his brother the Duke of Clarence are both in a state of great alarm due to a mutiny that has taken place in the British Colony of New South Wales, deposing the Governor, William Bligh.’
‘New South Wales?’
‘A mutiny by the soldiers of the New South Wales Corps,’ Lachlan continued.
New South Wales … where on earth was that? Elizabeth wondered, but managed to keep silent while he went on.
‘The news of the mutiny has shocked the Admiralty; this being the second that Captain Bligh has suffered. First the mutiny on HMS Bounty, and now another mutiny in New South Wales.
‘They want Bligh replaced, and quickly.’
‘By you?’
‘It seems so. From what Balfour said, the Duke of York and his brother have decided that the custom of New South Wales being ruled by a succession of naval captains has become inappropriate for a place controlled solely by the military. The new Viceroy, therefore, should not be a naval commodore, but a military commander.’
Elizabeth stared at him. `And they want you – as Viceroy?’
‘To be the new Governor-General.’
‘But Lachlan …’ Elizabeth had to stand up and walk around; this was all so unexpected. ‘First tell me … where is this New South Wales – is it in Wales?’
‘No, my love, it’s somewhere on the other side of the world.’
Lachlan stood up and paused for a time to stare out of the window at the greenness of his own Scotland, still unable to believe that he had been asked to fill such a post.
He turned back to Elizabeth and gave her a wry smile as he said, ‘You might have heard of the place by another name – Botany Bay.’
‘Botany Bay?’ No, Elizabeth had never heard of it … and then suddenly it came to her. ‘You mean, that place … where they are sending all the criminals?’
‘Yes, a penal settlement, a convict colony – so why would I, an active and serving soldier, want to go to a place like that? No more than I can understand why Arthur Wellesley and John Moore recommended me!’
‘Wellesley?’ Elizabeth had to sit down again. ‘The Duke of Wellington recommended you?’
‘Yes – sour-face himself and John Moore. So while those two are over on the continent living the life of soldiers and fighting Napoleon and the French – they are sending dispatches to the Duke of York saying I am the man who should be sent out to that dump-hole to oversee a crowd of stinking felons and bring a regiment of bad soldiers back into line! Look at me – do I look that old and decrepit? Do I look like my soldiering days are over?’
Elizabeth looked at her beloved husband with tears shimmering in her eyes. To her, he was the most wonderful man in the world, active and strong and full of energy … and yes, she could fully understand his bitter feelings of betrayal against his two former friends. Why had they done it?
Lachlan’s anger was consuming him to a point that he had to walk out of the room, out of the house, and then mounted his horse and rode straight back to General Balfour.
‘It’s because they were asked in dispatches from the Duke of York to recommend a good man who would be up to the job,’ Balfour explained. ‘London doesn’t care a jot about the convicts – it’s the soldiers out there that need controlling. What London wants is a good officer who, unlike Captain Bligh, knows how to command the respect of his men, but also – a man who would also be able to command the respect of the civilian colonists as well.’
‘I’ll not go,’ Lachlan said firmly. ‘I’ll resign first. My regiment is the 73rd and I’ll not exchange them for a bunch of mutineers.’
‘You wouldn’t have to exchange them,’ Balfour said, lifting a dispatch from his desk. ‘This came about an hour ago, just after you had left … It seems that London has anticipated your refusal and your reluctance to leave your own regiment … and so they have sent this urgent dispatch informing me that they have decided to send the entire 73rd regiment out there with you.’
‘What?’
‘It makes sense, I suppose, now the New South Wales Corps have proved themselves to be unfit for the task. And remember, dear boy, not only would you be accompanied by your own men, you would all only be out there for about two years, quite a short posting really.’
‘Oh, this is unbelievable …’ Lachlan was about to turn away and leave, and then stopped … this latest news just beginning to sink in.
‘So,’ he said, turning back to General Balfour, ‘if they are preparing to send out the entire 73rd, then …’ he smiled self deprecatingly, ‘well I’m just a colonel – but as commander of the regiment that means you are now being posted out there too.’
‘I certainly am not!’ Balfour exclaimed, his personal anger only now beginning to show. ‘London is not going to succeed in getting me out to that hell-hole on the other side of nowhere – not even for two years – and I have just sent a dispatch to the Commander-in-Chief informing him of that fact. I’ll take my pension instead.’
Still holding the dispatch from London, Balfour crushed the paper in his hand and then flung it into the waste-paper basket.
‘And remember, Macquarie,’ he said huffily, ‘it’s you they have chosen to be their new Viceroy, not me!’
Chapter Four
When Lachlan returned home Elizabeth had gone out for a walk.
‘Aye an’ a long walk it’s been,’ Mrs Burgess said, ‘I expected her back along before this. An’ young Mister George has been looking for ye. He came asking me a few times if ye were back yet.’
‘Where is George?’
‘He’s out in the back yard, filling a bucket o
f water from the pump for me.’
George had his shirt sleeves rolled up and had just filled the pail when Lachlan approached him.
‘Helping the servants again I see,’ said Lachlan.
George shrugged a grin. ‘I’m not as proud and aloof as they say I am.’
‘Were you looking for me for any reason in particular?’
George straightened and began to roll down his sleeves. ‘Yes, I have made a decision about my future.’
‘A decision?’ Lachlan felt a stab of alarm. ‘Which is?’
George stood thoughtful for a moment, and then looked around him.
‘Let us walk down to the field,’ he suggested, ‘away from the house, so our conversation is not broken by interruptions.’
They strolled down to the field in silence, and when they reached it, they rested their forearms on the gate together and Lachlan waited for George to speak.
‘My life,’ George said quietly, ‘has got to change. I am no longer the small boy you rescued from the slave trade. I am a man now, and I want to act like a man, and live like a man.’
Lachlan frowned, perplexed.
‘Your generosity, I cannot live on it anymore, take it from you anymore,’ George explained. ‘It’s time for me to make my own way in this world, and earn my own living.’
Could this day get any worse, Lachlan wondered, and once again a sensation of impending loss swept over him. First his daughter … and now George … no father could love a son the way he loved George.
‘Yes … well, your education will open many doors and opportunities for you.’
George smiled in amusement. ‘My education started long before I entered any classroom in London or Edinburgh. That was just a long study of books. My real education came from the life I lived in India with you and the sahibs in the British army.’
Lachlan thought back and realised that George was right. From a boy he had lived his young life amongst hardened British soldiers. Always at Lachlan’s side on campaigns, he had marched with them, joked with them, and had even suffered with them all through the long march across the desert from Suez to the Nile. And when the thirst became unbearable in the cruel dry heat of that desert, George had even helped the soldiers by teaching them a trick he had learned from his Arabic mother.
Those soldiers in the 77th had loved George Jarvis, loved his laughter and good humour and repaid him by teaching him how to fight, and fight hard, in self-defence. And truth to tell, by the time they had returned from Egypt, George had changed from a boy into a hardened and strong young soldier himself.
No wonder he had found the physically lazy and soft life of college classrooms so difficult to tolerate.
‘But you did well at college,’ Lachlan said. ‘You excelled in all your studies. And now that you are no longer forced to read books, I notice, since leaving college you spend a lot of your time doing just that – reading books.’
George laughed. ’Now I read books for pleasure not for exams. Books of my own choosing.’
‘So what is this decision you have made … about your future?’
George Jarvis did not answer for a while. Stars were appearing in the sky and the air was getting cooler.
‘I want to be a soldier.’
‘What?’
‘A serving soldier.’ George turned and looked at Lachlan, his dark eyes very serious. ‘In your regiment, the 73rd.’
‘The 73rd …’ Lachlan made a sound like a groan and bowed his head over his forearms on the gate. ‘No, George, no … one regiment I cannot allow you to serve in, is the 73rd.’
‘Why?’
‘Because, in a few weeks time, the entire 73rd regiment is being posted down to Botany Bay.”
‘Botany Bay?’ George’s interest quickened. ‘Where is that?’
‘Some place south of Hell.’
Chapter Five
In the end, it was not General Balfour or even the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, the Duke of York, who persuaded Lachlan Macquarie to go to New South Wales; it was the Prince of Wales.
In previous times, after his return from India and while he was working at the War Office in London as a staff officer to Lord Harrington, Lachlan had often been required to dine with the Prince of Wales in the company of his boss.
Upon receipt of his refusal of the posting, Lord Harrington sent him a dispatch a few days later.
The Prince of Wales remembers you well and fondly, and would consider it a personal favour if you did take the post as Governor-General of New South Wales.
Although it has not been revealed to the country or even to Parliament, the King’s health is failing badly and it is quite probable that the Prince of Wales will be taking over his duties as the King’s Regent very soon.
Lachlan looked up from the letter, realising he had no further choice in the matter. If a Regency Bill was approved by Parliament, and all royal power was vested in the Prince of Wales as Regent, then refusing his request would be tantamount to refusing the King himself.
And for a soldier … an officer in His Majesty’s Army to do that …
But first, even before the King, Lachlan chose to give priority to consideration of the views of his family.
*
Over the previous week, Elizabeth had given long thought to the matter of New South Wales. A grim place from all accounts, and certainly not a place for a gentle-bred lady. She knew that most army wives in her position would choose to stay behind in the comfort of their own homes while their husbands were away on service.
But she also knew that if her husband was forced to go, and to a place so far away, no matter how awful it was she would still go with him, even to the ends of the earth, because she loved him.
*
Lachlan understood the baffled expression on George Jarvis’s face.
‘Why not?’ George asked.
‘Because if I did get you commissioned into the 73rd, George, all your freedom – and assistance to me – would be lost. You would be under the control of your superior officers, going out into the field, marches, parades morning and night. And it won’t be anything like India or Egypt – all deployed soldiers will be there simply to guard the colony and the convicts.’
George at last understood. He nodded, ‘Yes, yes, I understand now.’
A silence hung in the room before George finally asked, ‘So what is it you wish me to do?’
‘Just to … come with me, George. Be my personal and private aide … Help me in this trial that I’m sure New South Wales will be. It’s only for a couple of years, and you are still very young. When we return, then – ’
‘How soon do we go?’ George asked quietly.
In blank silence Lachlan stared at him … He knew George Jarvis had no reason that would compel him to go with him to New South Wales. Years ago, from the money left in Jane's will, a trust had been settled by her on George which he had received from the day of his twenty-first birthday. So he was financially independent now and could go wherever he pleased.
He said: ‘George, it’s a hellhole of convict colony … are you sure?’
George looked at the man who had rescued him, brought him up through his childhood years and educated him, the man he would follow anywhere, because he loved him.
‘Yes, my father,’ George answered with certainty. ‘I am sure.’
*
Two weeks later, Elizabeth and George accompanied Lachlan down to London where he was officially presented by the Duke of York to the King, who officially appointed him as Governor-General of New South Wales, Van Diemen’s Land, and all islands adjacent in the Pacific Ocean.
Unlike previous Governors of New South Wales, the new vice-regal powers that King George the Third gave “To our trusty and well-beloved Lachlan Macquarie,” were almost those of a Monarch of the entire antipodean region.
Elizabeth could not stop herself from feeling extremely proud of the honours bestowed on her husband by the King and his sons, but Lachlan was not nearly so impresse
d.
‘We are shortly to be transported to a penal colony,’ he wrote to his friends in India, ‘but myself and the 73rd Regiment have now become reconciled to our banishment to Botany Bay.’
PART TWO
This fifth part of the Earth
Which would seem an after-birth
Not conceived in the Beginning,
But emerged at the first sinning,
When the ground was therefore curst;-
And hence – this barren wood!
Kangaroo
Chapter Six
As far as the white man was concerned that barren wood, founded in 1779 by Captain James Cook on the east coast of New Holland, was now a British settlement only twenty years old. Its main benefit as a newly found Crown Colony was a much-needed dumping ground for the felons who could not be contained in Britain's overflowing jails.
Murderers, thieves, and villains,
We'll send them all away.
To serve out their sentence
In the hell of Botany Bay!
No prisoners were ever landed at Botany Bay itself. In 1788, nine years after Cook's discovery, Captain Arthur Phillips arrived at Botany Bay with the first shipload of convicts, but decided that the anchorage was unsafe, finally anchoring in a beautiful harbour further up the coast, which he named Sydney.
During the twenty years since the arrival of those first prisoners, vast tracts of the barren wood had been chopped down and cleared by the energy of the convicts and the lash.
Regiments of soldiers had been dispatched there, many taking their wives and children with them. A number of free-settlers, too, had emigrated there, for wealth was always to be made in a new land, especially when the men and labour needed to make it were supplied free of wage. A man with only a few pounds might be a worthless nobody in London or Devon, but in the new colony of New South Wales he could be a land-owner, a squire, a gentleman with his own tribe of slaves!
Southward ho!
Away they go!
To break the backs of convicts,
And make their fortunes O!
The drawback to the fortune-seeking emigrant was the stigma he suffered on his return from New South Wales. The reason being that, before anything else, he had to prove his sojourn there had been legitimate. Even when he had proved that his time in the colony had been taken of his own free will, he was still viewed with a suspicious eye. No matter how wealthy, the returned emigrant discovered that it was a rare neighbour who could entertain his company without constantly making surreptitious checks that the contents of his pockets were safe, that his wife was safe, that his safe was safe.
The Far Horizon Page 3
