The Soldier's Curse

by Thomas Keneally

  ‘I’d be grateful for some more tea from your dear old hands, before I dance for the audience,’ Slattery called out after her.

  Mrs Mulrooney turned as Monsarrat was leading her away. ‘Fergal, you will get the best cup of tea I have ever made.’

  * * *

  The three of them walked in silence back towards Government House, the major slightly ahead, not inviting conversation.

  By the time they returned, it was closing in on nine o’clock.

  ‘Sir,’ said Monsarrat, ‘may I have your permission to give Mrs Mulrooney some sustenance in the kitchen before retiring?’

  The commandant turned sharply, as though he had forgotten they were there. ‘By all means.’

  He walked up to Mrs Mulrooney and took her hand. ‘I will not pretend to understand the affection you seem to feel for my wife’s murderer. But I know it was matched by your affection for my wife herself. I apologise for all that you’ve had to go through since her death, and I hope I may rely on you in the difficult weeks ahead.’

  ‘Of course, major. And please don’t mistake my love for Fergal as approval of what he did. He is like a son to me, and I’m bound to love him regardless of the evil he’s done.’

  The commandant nodded. ‘Goodnight to you, then, and to you, Monsarrat. Please ensure you are in your workroom no later than seven tomorrow morning. You and I have a lot to do.’

  Monsarrat thanked the major and said goodnight, before walking with Mrs Mulrooney across the courtyard to the kitchen. The fire had died, and it took Monsarrat a while to get it going again, while fending off Mrs Mulrooney’s attempts to assist him. ‘Haven’t I done enough sitting for the past few days?’ she protested. ‘This is my fire. I know its moods.’

  Nevertheless, he was eventually able to persuade her to sit while he kindled the flames. It was only when the fire was fully established, and the lamps lit, that a look of horror crossed her face.

  ‘Who has been let in here?’ she demanded, in a tone which suggested Monsarrat bore full responsibility. She licked a finger and ran it along the table, dislodging crumbs from its grooves. The kettle had been left on the hob, not put back on its hook. And the teapot and cups were absent from barracks, having been placed on shelves where they had no business being.

  Once she had noticed all this, Monsarrat did not have the scarcest hope of keeping her in her seat. She flitted from one shelf to the next, looking accusingly at the cups as she put them back in their places, muttering as she moved the kettle to its hook, and imposing a thorough scrubbing on the table.

  This done, Monsarrat was able to persuade her to sit again, but only for as long as it took her to realise that he was going to attempt to make tea.

  ‘Now, I’ve had enough of an imposition here. No one but me will be brewing tea in this kitchen,’ she said.

  ‘God save me from intractable women,’ said Monsarrat with no real conviction. ‘Well, I suppose I can understand if you don’t want me to make tea. You clearly feel you did not do a good enough job of teaching me how.’

  Mrs Mulrooney jumped back down on the chair, folding her arms. ‘Well then, Mr Monsarrat, let’s see how well you learn.’

  In defiance of the impending evil, Monsarrat made a great show of going through the steps precisely as Mrs Mulrooney had taught them to him, warming the teapot with boiling water, waiting until it cooled enough to be introduced to the leaves, and straining the tea so only black liquid remained. With more flourish than necessary, he presented a cup to Mrs Mulrooney. She picked it up and tasted it, held it in her mouth for several seconds, and swallowed.

  ‘Well, for a man, you appear to have made a decent job of it.’

  Monsarrat smiled. He knew this was as much praise as he could expect from Mrs Mulrooney on the subject of tea.

  With his own cup, he sat down opposite her. ‘Not a patch on yours, of course.’

  ‘Of course it’s not,’ she said, astonished that he felt it necessary to make such an obvious comment.

  They drank in silence for a while. Then Mrs Mulrooney said, ‘Was it you who talked Fergal into it?’

  Monsarrat wasn’t sure how she would feel about the answer. He knew she had, after all, intended to go meekly onto the ship sailing for Sydney, and not return. ‘Yes, it was. He didn’t realise, or at least I hope he didn’t, what mortal peril you were in. He assumed there would be a trial at which you would be acquitted, and everybody would just throw up their hands, say the murder couldn’t be solved, and leave him, me and you to go about our normal business.’

  ‘Fool of a boy,’ said Mrs Mulrooney. ‘A fool on so many levels. I am going to miss him greatly.’

  ‘You and I are going to miss what he showed us of himself,’ said Monsarrat. ‘That’s all. We will be missing an illusion, a smart piece of acting.’

  ‘No, for all his card playing, I don’t think you’re right, Mr Monsarrat. The mask never slipped, because it wasn’t a mask. Certainly he was deceitful, but it was his crime that he tried to hide, not his true nature. I will never forgive him, and I will never forget him.’

  ‘You know, he might be in that gaol for a while. I don’t know when the major intends to send him for trial. I imagine he’ll seek guidance from the Colonial Secretary. And by the time his letter works its way to Sydney, into the secretary’s hands, and back out again through a series of clerks, it may be a month or more before … Anyway, hopefully I can secure the major’s permission for us to visit him.’

  ‘I’m not sure I want to, Mr Monsarrat.’

  ‘Yet I had trouble persuading you to leave the gaol, to leave him in the place where you were.’

  ‘Now that it’s done, though … It might be better to leave him where he is, on the doorstep of the next world.’

  ‘But it seemed to me as though you wanted to forgive him.’

  ‘Forgive him? Not a bit of it. I curse him for Honora’s death. And I am angry at him for laying claim to some of the love that should have gone to Padraig. Still, that doesn’t mean that I take any delight in what’s about to happen to him. I desperately wanted to save him. But he is close enough to dead now that any communion with the living might make his passing harder.’

  She got up then, taking her empty cup and his, putting them back on the shelf without rinsing them. (‘God alone knows whether this water has been kept fresh enough.’)

  ‘Well, Mr Monsarrat. I don’t know how much convincing it took to get him to come forward, and I don’t want to know, but it seems that I owe you my life. For now, though, I’m bone weary and shall go to my bed, if somebody hasn’t left that in a mess as well. I’ll be back early, though, long before you. I know the major wants you by seven. See that you come by here first. I have reason to think that tea might be the only thing which will carry you through the days ahead.’

  Chapter 29

  Mrs Mulrooney was indeed in the kitchen and well into breakfast preparations by the time Monsarrat arrived.

  She rarely gave him food, and he never asked. They both knew there might be a punishment attached to her doing so, as Monsarrat’s food was supposed to come solely from the commissariat, together with whatever he was able to convince to grow in his garden. This morning, though, she placed a bowl of porridge in front of him, with a dollop of honey slowly burrowing into its surface.

  ‘I won’t hear no from you, Mr Monsarrat. The commandant owes me a favour, he said as much himself last night. You are far too thin, and I know you can’t have eaten – the cookhouse would have been well closed by the time you made your way to your hut. So get this into you, and shut up about it.’

  Monsarrat, not having opened his mouth to begin with, was more than happy to follow orders.

  He had never understood it when people said, after a meal, that they felt like themselves again. He would have been quite delighted with a holiday from feeling like himself. But with the porridge warming him, he had a sense of what they meant. He knew he was far more able, now, for the duties of the day than he would have been with
out it.

  Before he left the kitchen to head to his workroom, he said, ‘Would you like me to seek permission for us to visit Slattery? Or are you still resolved not to?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mr Monsarrat. I really don’t. But why don’t you go ahead and seek permission? And we’ll see.’

  While he had been eating, Mrs Mulrooney had been putting together a tray of breakfast things for the major. ‘He was up almost as early as I was,’ she said. ‘He will breakfast in his study, he says. He has no desire to do so in the dining room.’

  As she was making the preparations, Monsarrat allowed himself to believe, for an instant, that she was doing so for a young woman who was about to go hunting, or to drag her husband off for wild rides along the river. And that soon she would be getting down an extra cup in expectation of a visit from a young soldier.

  When she bent to pick up the tray, however, he gently nudged her aside and lifted it himself. She rolled her eyes at him, but didn’t seem to have sufficient energy to protest – a fact which worried him. Instead she went to the door, and opened it for him. ‘You and I are going to the same place, this morning, Mr Monsarrat,’ she said. ‘So you’d best be quick. And careful. If you spill one drop of tea, I’ll take it out of your hide.’

  They made their way across the courtyard together and around the side of the house, Mrs Mulrooney opening the outer door and then the major’s study door, Monsarrat gingerly placing the tray in front of the man himself, who looked as though he had slept poorly.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Mulrooney,’ the major said. She dipped slightly, turned and left.

  ‘Now, Monsarrat,’ he said. ‘Please come and sit. We have a lot to do.’

  Monsarrat did as he was told, fetching his writing things. When he returned, the major was allowing his tea and his breakfast to go cold. Monsarrat decided he would not inform on the man to Mrs Mulrooney.

  ‘Let’s get it out of the way, shall we?’ said the major, and Monsarrat was in no doubt about the task to which he was referring. He began to dictate:

  Sir,

  Since my letter regarding the culpable party in the death of my wife, new information has come to me with which I have the honour to acquaint you, and I seek instruction on how to proceed.

  As I had previously written, it seemed likely that the perpetrator was the ticket-of-leave woman who serves as housekeeper at Government House, as she was the only one with clear opportunity to administer the poison which took my wife’s life.

  Now, however, Private Fergal Slattery of my own Third Regiment has come forward, claiming he was responsible for the murder, prompted by my wife’s family’s involvement in the destitution of his own family. On current indications, judging by what he has already confessed, there seems little doubt that his confession is genuine.

  I will of course be seeking to verify the statements he has made to me, and in my capacity as justice of the peace and magistrate I intend to convene a coroner’s inquest of seven free persons of good character to obtain depositions from all of those whose information has bearing on the matter, together with a written confession from Private Slattery. I will forward these at the earliest opportunity.

  The major had been staring at the ceiling as he dictated. Now he lowered his head and looked at his clerk. ‘I must ask you, Monsarrat, to steel yourself for what I am about to dictate. You will not like it, though I believe it justified and necessary.’ He raised his head again.

  Given the most unusual and appalling nature of the crime, it is my belief that for the King’s justice to be served, as well as natural justice, Private Slattery should be executed here, at Port Macquarie, where his crime was committed, and I commit this course of action for the consideration of His Excellency the Governor. The murder wronged not only my wife and myself but the entirety of this settlement, which my wife dedicated her time to improving. I further believe Private Slattery’s execution here, in public, will serve as a salutary lesson both to the refractory prisoners and to the regiment, illustrating as it does that the King’s justice falls equally on the free and the bonded.

  In addition, should Private Slattery plead not guilty – an event which I consider close to impossible – I would have difficulty in sparing either myself or others who would be required to testify at a trial for such a period of time as would be necessary for him to be tried in Sydney.

  To that end, may I request the attendance of a judge here at Port Macquarie, to hear the private’s plea and pass sentence upon him. In the unlikely event he pleads not guilty, such witnesses as the court requires can be immediately called without disrupting the management of this settlement.

  I am holding Private Slattery in the gaol while I await the honour of your instructions, and in the meantime will proceed with all haste in regard to the coroner’s inquiry.

  I remain, sir, your obedient servant …

  ‘Monsarrat, you know the rest.’

  Monsarrat did indeed, although he had never thought he would be appending those words to such a document.

  The major seemed relieved to have got this particular missive out of the way. He turned, then, to the more mundane business of the colony – the receipts and returns which demonstrated to the government in Sydney that all was in good order, or as good an order as one could possibly have when the majority of the population had transgressed not once but twice.

  Given the recent complaints by the Reverend Ainslie to the Colonial Secretary, he was particularly insistent that all the formalities and administrative necessities be observed – which, on Monsarrat’s watch, they always were, anyway. He also asked Monsarrat to arrange for a sample of sugar and rum from the plantation to be sent, to demonstrate the quality of the produce, together with a few sawn planks of cedar and rosewood, and a letter outlining how these could be used, given their quality, to add to the settlement’s coffers.

  Finally, though, he ran out of letters and reports to dictate. The shift in his momentum seemed to cost him. Monsarrat noted the change.

  ‘Perhaps I should ask Diamond to take on the administrative duties for a few days,’ Major Shelborne mused.

  This alarmed Monsarrat. He hadn’t seen the captain since their confrontation, but while Mrs Mulrooney was no longer in danger, Monsarrat did not want to remind the captain of his own existence, much less the accusation of murder which had turned out to be unfounded. But he restricted himself to saying, ‘As you wish, sir, of course. I must say, though, that the settlement has missed you. But given the heaviness of your loss, no one would quibble should you need some quiet reflection.’

  The major sighed. ‘You’re right, Monsarrat. I have been away too long.’

  ‘I will make a fair copy of everything you’ve dictated to me, sir. I wonder, though, whether I might ask you a great favour.’

  The major sounded weary when he responded. ‘Yes, Monsarrat, what is it?’

  ‘I fear Mrs Mulrooney may have suffered somewhat from her incarceration, possibly more than she is admitting to. Would it meet with your approval if I asked Dr Gonville to see her? Simply to look at her and make sure nothing is amiss.’

  ‘Very well then, Monsarrat. Probably a good idea. And before you ask – you and she may visit Slattery, if it is your wish. Do not tell me what you decide to do on the matter, though. I do not want to think less of you.’

  * * *

  With the letters and reports transcribed in the fairest copperplate ever to have graced Port Macquarie, Monsarrat asked the major if there was further need of his services. Receiving an answer in the negative, he set off on the familiar walk to the hospital.

  Monsarrat’s concern for Mrs Mulrooney’s health was genuine, but he had another reason for seeking the doctor out. Diamond could not be allowed to administer cruel floggings with impunity, nor to have disturbed the peace of what had turned out to be the last months of Honora’s life with his unwanted attentions. If the King’s justice was to break Slattery’s neck, the least it could do was to also transfer Diamond as far away from M
onsarrat as possible.

  So Monsarrat went to find Gonville. He came upon the surgeon and Donald engaged in their normal activities – a sawyer had been a little careless with the tool of his trade, and was biting down on a stick while Gonville stitched together a gash in his arm. Another man lay in a bed nearby, his foot a swollen, purple monstrosity. Monsarrat had seen the like before – probably the man had been unwise enough to have his foot in a place where a horse had wanted to step, or a wheel to run.

  Gonville looked up from his stitching. ‘Wait for me, Monsarrat, if you please,’ he said, in a tone which suggested he had been expecting the visit.

  When the sawyer’s arm had been stitched up with as much finesse as possible, the doctor gestured Monsarrat towards his desk behind its partition. ‘Well, a lot has come to pass since you and I last spoke, Monsarrat.’

  ‘You’ve heard about Slattery, I take it, doctor.’

  ‘Yes, and I dare say by now so has everyone else. How is Mrs Mulrooney taking it?’

  ‘It is a double loss for her, you know. And she had to suffer the ignominy, for a few days, of being thought responsible for the death of a woman she held in high esteem. In fact, it is on her behalf I have come. I fear she may soon work herself into a state of exhaustion, and I doubt she ate much during her stay in prison. I have asked the major for permission to request that you examine her – whether she will stand for it or not – just to ensure she is in full health, or as full as possible under the circumstances.’

  ‘Very well then. And you and I have some other business to discuss, Monsarrat. Let’s save it for the walk, though, shall we? A partition does not provide sufficient privacy.’

  As they set out, Gonville said, ‘We are making a habit of this, Monsarrat. Conferences on foot.’

  ‘Necessary, I suppose, while the captain’s around.’

  ‘Yes, the very man I wanted to discuss. Why has there been no discipline, no chastisement for his behaviour with Dory?’

  ‘It seems hard to believe in a place like this, where gossip flows like water, but nobody has told the major,’ said Monsarrat. ‘Certainly not Diamond – as you suspected, he removed the report on the event. I have been on the brink of it, several times, but have not wanted to broach it with someone so recently bereaved. I suppose, if I am honest, I also did not want to create problems when Mrs Mulrooney’s fate was so uncertain. But she is safe now, and the settlement appears to be returning to some variety of normal. That being said, I do believe it’s time that we acquaint the major with Diamond’s behaviour.’