Command

by Julian Stockwin

  All his frustrations and pent-up feeling boiled up. “Get out! All o’ you!” he shouted hoarsely. “Now! G’ damn ye!” He stood up suddenly, sending his chair crashing to the floor.

  Then he slumped, trembling with anger but trying for composure. It was not only the base demands they were making but the whole sordid business of penal servitude that was sapping his humanity. Yet if he was to return to claim a proper master’s berth his only chance was to deal with it and make a success of the voyage. If only Renzi would—

  A soft tap at the door broke through his bleak thoughts. Mowlett entered carrying a large phial. “As doctor, Mr Kydd, I prescribe a medicinal draught, to be taken at once,” he said firmly.

  The sharp tang of neat whisky enveloped Kydd. He took a stiff pull and felt its fire—it steadied him and he looked sharply at Mowlett. “Thank ’ee, Doctor.”

  “Would you object if I speak my mind?” Mowlett said quietly.

  “If ye must,” Kydd said, bristling. “But I’ll have y’ know I won’t have any seaman aboard the Castle makin’ play f’r a female convict.”

  “Please understand, I know your position and honour you for it.” Mowlett had dropped all trace of banter and spoke with sincerity. “However, for all our sakes a small piece of advice I would offer.

  “These ’Bay ships have been plying the route now for above a dozen years and I dare to say are proficient in the art. They have necessarily developed practices to deal with conditions that many might find . . . remarkable. For instance, in the matter of females mixing promiscuous with the crew.” He held up an admonishing finger. “No doubt you have not given it overmuch thought, dismissing it as a moral scandal, but there are elements of practicality that you should perhaps consider.”

  Kydd glowered but allowed Mowlett to continue. “Putting aside the obvious fact that, it being the custom in the past, you will be setting the entire crew to defiance should you stand in their way, you will not be amazed to learn that most of your felonious ladies are no strangers to the arts of Venus and will in fact warm to the opportunities on offer to take up with a protector.”

  At Kydd’s expression Mowlett hastened to add, “Yes, a protector. Has it crossed your mind how much common theft, sneaking, bullying, lonely hardship must be suffered out of your sight below? In any case, Mr Captain, whether you like it or not the consorting will happen.”

  Kydd could think of no immediate response and he fell back on the larger issue: “Y’r transportation is a vile thing, Doctor. The suffering, the misery!”

  “Perhaps, but reflect—they have now a chance. If you ask it of them they must inevitably reply that what you provide is infinitely better than the hangman would serve.

  “But to return to your women. I would venture to say that, whatever you are able to do, the consorting will take place privily. Animal spirits will ensure this—is it not better to regulate than condemn?”

  Kydd stared down moodily.

  “Those more uncharitable than I would perhaps be tempted to point out a certain degree of what might be considered hypocrisy in you, Mr Kydd,” he added meaningfully.

  “Hypocrisy?”

  “Why, of course! Or has the Navy changed its spots so completely that the sight of women flocking aboard a wooden wall of old England coming into port is no longer to be seen? Or that these same have put out for some harmless recreation with the honest tars?”

  “They have a choice!” Kydd snapped.

  “Quite so—therefore do you allow your ladies their choice, should they desire, Mr Kydd.”

  “I shall think on it.” Kydd fidgeted with his sleeve. “No one t’ take up with any without they agree,” he said finally, “and they shall tell me so ’emselves in private.”

  “An eminently practical solution.”

  “An’ we’ll get windsails rigged, a bit o’ fresh air in that stink-pit. Yes, an’ have ’em up in the sun—without irons, except they deserve it. At least we can do something f’r the poor brutes.”

  He looked Mowlett directly in the eyes. “You mentioned th’ Navy. We might take some lesson from there. Let’s see. We’ll have two watches of convicts to take the deck b’ turns, an’ each morning we’ll have a fine scrub-down.

  “Each mess o’ six will have a senior hand who’ll take charge an’ see all’s squared away. An’ a petty officer o’ the deck who’ll take charge o’ them. We’ll give ’em something useful t’ do in the day—men to seaming canvas with the sailmaker, females to . . . Well, a parcel o’ women can always find things t’ do.”

  CHAPTER 12

  RENZI STOOD by the weather main shrouds, now so worn with use, and gazed forward to where the cry of the lookout indicated land would soon be in sight. New South Wales. The other side of the globe, as far as it was possible to be from England—any further and they would be on their way back again. Four and a half months of wearisome sailing—it seemed like a lifetime. The banality of the other settler family, the ever-present sight of the shuffling condemned, the absence of anyone with any pretence at education . . . Without the solace of his books he would not have survived this far.

  “I see it!” squealed the settlers’ vapid daughter, rushing to the barrier. Convicts soon crowded forward anxious to catch their first glimpse of an unguessable fate, but Renzi stood back, a half-smile marking his detachment from the excitement of landfall as he contemplated the events that had led to this moment.

  The fever that had carried him ashore to the Lazaretto had nearly killed him: he had little recollection of the twilight of existence there, only the later swirling chaos and screeching nightmares as he had struggled to lay hold on life.

  Then Cecilia.

  It had been she who had watched over him as his consciousness emerged from its horrors, had been there when every token of life itself was so precious, her voice of compelling tranquillity, soft, comforting, his assurance of life.

  He had begun to mend: still Cecilia sat by him, reading softly, responding to his feverish babbling, her dear image now coming into focus with a smile so indescribably sweet—and for him alone. For her sake he had concentrated on getting better—until the melancholia had come.

  Black and dour, the spreading hopelessness bore down on him, at times with such weight that he had found it necessary to turn to the wall so she would not see the tears coursing. Long days of trying to draw on his pitiful resources of strength, scrabbling for the will to live, to go on.

  And after the endless hours of depression came realism, his past life stripped of its vanities and dalliances, foolish notions, pretences; he could see himself as he had never done before and despised the revelation—one born with the immense advantages of privilege, including an education of the first order and opportunities of travel, and what had he done with it?

  His sea experience on the lower deck had been a self-imposed exile for the expiation of what he considered a family sin.

  As a result of his father’s enforcement of enclosure of common lands, a young tenant farmer had committed suicide in despair. Renzi should not have gone on to the quarterdeck—that had been an indulgence. Could he return to his ancestral home to resume as eldest son? He had dealt with that question at the walls of Acre when he decided to disavow his father. There was nothing more to be said. And what of his King’s commission? This was avoiding the issue. He had none of the fire and ambition of sea officers like Kydd; for Renzi the sea was an agreeable diversion—and therefore a waste.

  What was left? There was nothing he could point to as his own achievement. For the world, it was as if he had never been.

  It had been a cruel insight to be thrust on him at his lowest ebb but if he was to live with himself it had to be faced. Most importantly, he recognised that his feelings for Cecilia had deepened and flowered and there was now little doubt that he would never love another as he did her. But his detachment, logic, which before had served so well to control and divert the power of his emotions, now turned on him and exacted a price. If he cared for Cecili
a to such a degree, was it honourable to expect her to join herself to one with neither achievements to his name nor any prospects?

  It was not. Obedience to logic was the only course for a rational man and therefore he would act upon it. He would remove himself from Cecilia’s life for her sake. But logic also said that, should he, in the fullness of time, find himself able to point to a notable achievement wrought by himself alone, then he might approach her—if she was still in a position to hear him.

  In the long hours that he had lain awake he had made his plans. As soon as his strength allowed he would silently withdraw from her kindnesses and make his own way as a settler in the raw new world of Terra Australis. By his own wits and hard labours he would carve out a farming estate from the untouched wilderness, create an Arcadia where none had been before, truly an achievement to be proud of. And then . . . Cecilia.

  The colonial government was generous to the free settler. It seemed that not only would the land be provided for nothing but that convict labour would be assigned to him, indeed tools, grain and other necessaries to any who was sincere in their wish to settle on the land. Admittedly he knew little of tillage but had seen much of the way the tenant farmers of Eskdale Hall had gone about their seasonal round. As a precaution, however, he had invested heavily in books on the art of farming, including the latest from Coke of Holkham whose methods were fast becoming legendary. Even the passage out was provided for; and thus he had carefully severed all connections with his old life and committed wholeheartedly to the new, boarding Totnes Castle in Deptford—to be confronted by, of all those from his past, Thomas Kydd.

  He had resolved to cut all ties to his previous existence until he was in a position to return with his noble mission accomplished: Kydd was of that past and both logically and practically he should withdraw from his company as part of his resolve.

  It had been hard, especially when he had seen what the voyage was costing his friend, but then he had witnessed Kydd lever himself above the sordid details and, by force of will, impose his own order on the situation. Now they must go their separate ways, find their own destinies at the opposite ends of the earth.

  The coast firmed out of blue-grey anonymity: dark woods, stern headlands—not a single sign that man was present on the unknown continent. Conversations stilled as they neared; the land dipped lower until it revealed a widening inlet.

  “Botany Bay, lads,” one of the seamen called. It was a name to conjure with, but no ship had called there with prisoners since the early days. Their final destination was a dozen miles north. Totnes Castle lay to the south-easterly and within hours had made landfall at the majestic entrance to a harbour, Port Jackson.

  A tiny piece of colour fluttered from the southern headland; as they watched, it dipped and rose again. They shortened sail, then hove to safely offshore. The pilot was not long in slashing out to sea in his cutter.

  Renzi watched as he climbed aboard; thin and rangy and with a well-worn coat, he looked around with interest as he talked with Kydd, and soon Totnes Castle was under way again for the last miles of her immense voyage.

  They passed between the spectacular headlands into a huge expanse of water stretching away miles into the distance. The first captain to see it had sworn that it could take a thousand ships-of-the-line with ease.

  Helm over, they continued to pass bays and promontories, beaches and rearing bluffs. Densely forested, there was no indication of civilisation—this was a raw, new land indeed and Renzi watched their progress sombrely.

  Quite suddenly there were signs: an island with plots of greenery, a clearing ashore, smoke spiralling up beyond a point—and scattered houses, a road, and then, where the sound narrowed, a township. Substantial buildings, one or two small vessels at anchor, a bridge across a small muddy river and evidence of shipbuilding. And, after long months at sea, the reek of land. Powerful, distinctive and utterly alien, there were scents of livestock and turned earth overlain by a bitter, resinous fragrance carried on the smoke of innumerable fires.

  After a journey of fourteen thousand miles, the torrid heat of the doldrums and the heaving cold wastes of the Southern Ocean, across three oceans and far into the other half of the world, Totnes Castle’s anchors plunged down and at last she came to her rest.

  “Please y’self then—an’ remember we don’t change after, like.”

  “No, no—I understand,” Renzi replied. The boorish Land Registry clerk sat back and waited.

  It was unfair. Renzi was being asked to make a decision on the spot affecting the rest of his life: which of the government blocks of land on offer would he accept as his grant? But then he realised that more time to choose would probably not help, because many of the names were meaningless. Illawarra? Prospect Hill? Toongabbie? He had turned down land along the Hawkesbury river in Broken Bay—it was apparently isolated and miles away up the coast—but he had read that expansion was taking place into the interior beyond the Parramatta River.

  “Where might I select that takes me beyond the headwaters of the Parramatta?” he asked.

  The clerk sighed. “There’s a hunnered-acre block goin’ past Marayong,” he said, pushing a surveyor’s plan across.

  It was a cadastral outline of ownership without any clue as to the nature of the terrain but, then, what judgement could he bring to bear in any event? The land was adopted on either side so it could be assumed that it was of farming quality. “That seems adequate,” Renzi said smoothly. “I’ll take it up, I believe.”

  Within the hour, and for the sum of two shillings and sixpence stamp duty, Renzi found himself owner and settler of one hundred acres of land in His Majesty’s Colony of New South Wales, and thereby entitled to support from the government stores for one year and the exclusive services of two convicts to be assigned to him. The great enterprise was beginning . . .

  Naturally it was prudent to view his holdings at the outset, and as soon as he was able he boarded Mr Kable’s coach for the trip to Parramatta. This was his country now and he absorbed every sight with considerable interest.

  Sydney Town was growing fast: from the water frontage of Sydney Cove continuous building extended for nearly a mile inland. And not only rickety wooden structures, but substantial stone public buildings. Neat white dwellings with paling fences, gardens and outhouses clustered about and several windmills were prominent on the skyline.

  The coach lurched and jolted over the unmade roads, but Renzi had eyes only for the country and the curious sights it was reputed to offer. He heard the harsh cawing of some antipodean magpie and the musical, bell-like fluting of invisible birds in the eucalypts. He was disappointed not to catch sight of at least one of Mr Banks’s kangaroos—perhaps they only came out at certain times of the day.

  Parramatta was drab and utilitarian. His books had informed him that this was the second oldest town in the colony, but with his land awaiting ahead he could not give it his full attention and hurriedly descended from the coach to look for a horse to hire.

  Avoiding curious questions he swung up into the saddle of a sulky Arab cross and, after one more peep at his map, thudded off to the west. The houses dwindled in number as did cultivated fields and then the road became a track, straight as a die into the bush.

  Gently undulating cleared land gave way to sporadic paddocks that seemed vast to Renzi’s English eye. Then the pathway petered out into an ill-kept cart-track through untouched wilderness. He knew what he was looking for and after another hour in the same direction he found it, a small board nailed to a tree, its lettering now indecipherable.

  He took out his pocket compass, his heart beating fast. This was the finality and consummation of his plans and desires over the thousands of miles: this spot was the south-east corner of his property—his very own land into which he would pour his capital and labour until at last it became the grand Renzi estate.

  He beat down the ground foliage, then found a surveyor’s peg and, on a line of bearing nearly a half-mile away through lig
ht woods, another. One hundred acres! In a haze of feeling he tramped about; in one place he found a bare stretch on which, to his great joy, a family of big grey kangaroos grazed. They looked up in astonishment at him, then turned and hopped effortlessly away.

  Bending down he picked curiously about the ground litter. Coke had stressed the importance of tilth; this earth appeared coarse and hard-packed under the peculiar scatter of the pungent leaves of eucalypts. Renzi was not sure what this meant but the first ploughing would give an idea of which crop would be best suited. He wandered about happily.

  As the sun began to set he had the essence of his holding. There was no water, but the lie of the land told him there must be some not far to the north. For the rest it was light woods of the ubiquitous piebald eucalypt trees and a pretty patch of open grassland, if such was the right description for the harsh bluish-green clumps. With a lifting of his spirits he decided the Renzi residence would be on the slight rise to the south.

  Back in Sydney, he tendered his indent at the government stores: tools, grain, tents, provisions, even rough clothing. The obliging storeman seemed to know well the usual supplies asked for and the stack of goods grew. Fortunately he was able to secure the immediate services of a drover with a small team of oxen—for a ruinous price—and set them on their creaking way amid the sound of the ferocious cracking of bull-hide whips and sulphurous curses, his year’s supplies piled high in the lurching wagon.

  Finally he attended at the office of the principal superintendent of convicts. There was no difficulty with his labour quota: he had but to apply to the convict barracks at Baulkham Hills with his paper.

  In a fever of anticipation Renzi arrived at Parramatta with all his worldly possessions, rounded up a cart and horse, and very soon found himself with two blank-faced convicts standing ready; one Patrick Flannery, obtaining goods by deception to the value of seven shillings, respited at the gallows and now two years into his seven-year exile, and Neb Tranter, aggravated common assault and well into his fourteen-year term.