People were wandering about aimlessly, including the 56 new marines, minus a barracks. Their officers had commandeered eight-by-ten huts from the old convict residents, who contributed to the confusion by joining the ranks of the newly arrived homeless.
“I hope,” said Ross grimly, “that ye have a good crowd of men sawing, Mr. King?”
“Aye, as far as it goes.” King’s distraction increased, as did his sudden anxiety to quit Norfolk Island. “There are three sawpits, but I will have to find more men to saw—and that, as ye know, Major Ross, is not easily done.”
“There are Port Jackson sawyers among the new convicts.”
“And more saws, I hope?”
“His Excellency has sent all but three pit saws, as well as a hundred hand saws.” Ross dropped his arm from his son’s shoulders. “Is Richard Morgan sawing?”
King’s face lit up. “I could not do without him,” he said, “any more than I could do without Nat Lucas, my head of carpenters, or Tom Crowder, my clerk.”
“I told ye Morgan was a good man. Where is he?”
“Sawing while ever there is daylight.”
“Not sharpening?”
King grinned. “He puts women to sharpening, and it answers exceeding fine. His sawing partner is Private Wigfall—well, we ran out of suitable convicts. ’Tis an unenviable job, but Wigfall seems to thrive on it, as do Morgan and a few others. They enjoy rude health, probably thanks to the hard labor and good food.”
“And they have to be kept well fed, no matter who else goes hungry. The first thing,” said Ross, temporarily forgetting that King was still nominally in charge, “is to build barracks for my marines. Living under canvas is Hell—if and when Hunter gets off his royal arse to unload the tents.” He added, though not by way of an apology, “D’ye have any idea whereabouts the barracks ought to go?”
“Over there on the far side of the swamp,” said King, nobly swallowing his displeasure. “The land along the base of the hills behind Sydney Town is free of water, though I must tell ye that the Norfolk pine rots quickly if put in the ground. ’Twould be best to use stone for the foundations—did any stonemasons come?”
“Several, and a few stone chisels. Port Jackson is not in need of new buildings at the moment, whereas His Excellency knows Norfolk Island will need them desperately. He was, incidentally, delighted to get the lime—we have not found one pebble of limestone on our travels through Cumberland County.”
“Then when I see him I can tell him not to worry. We can produce a hundred bushels of lime a day if pushed to it,” said King, longing for a glass of port and acutely aware that the Major did not approve of more than a daily half-pint of anything intoxicating. He caught sight of Ann in the doorway of the house and decided to leave the Major to his own devices; after all, Ann was carrying a second child and might be in distress. “Must go!” he said, and bolted.
Along came the delicate figure of Second Lieutenant Ralph Clark, whom Ross had despised until he realized that the mawkish, immature Clark had a rare touch with children, actually seemed pleased to take care of Little John. Useless as a marine, but a wonderful nursemaid.
“I will be dashed glad, sir,” said Clark politely, smiling at Little John, “to have a clean shirt to put on my back. As, I am sure, will you. They might at least have sent our baggage ashore.”
“I doubt Sirius will ever manage to unload,” said Ross dourly, “though I note that Supply makes light enough work of it.”
“Supply has Ball and Blackburn, sir. They know the place.”
While Hunter of Sirius, said Ross to himself, is a crotchety fool. Aloud he said, “Take charge of Little John, Lieutenant. I need to do some walking.”
The scars of the mighty hurricane were still visible more than a year after it had happened, though the usable trees had been stripped of their bark and reduced to appropriate lengths. Those too large for the pit saws and those already rotten had been disposed of in various ways: their branches were lopped off to be made into torches and firewood, their trunks lopped into sections and dropped into craters for burning or heaped into piles for burning. The settlement was still, King had explained, sawing timber felled by the wind, though clearing of the hills around the vale and Sydney Town was continuing and that timber was being stockpiled. In winter, thought Ross, I will have a bonfire every night. Too much precious flat land is being wasted on pine detritus.
To Ross, the island was even worse than Port Jackson; how it could support more than 400 people in some degree of comfort he did not yet know. Of vegetables there were plenty despite the grub armies, but humankind could not live on vegetables alone if they were required to labor hard—people needed flesh and bread as well. The size of the wheat crop in the granary had astonished him, as did the amount of Indian corn. Only the constant presence of some of MacGregor’s and Delphinia’s offspring around the granary kept the rats at bay, King had explained, but with the new arrivals had come a dozen more dogs and two dozen cats to help control the rodent hordes. The pigs here were thriving far better than at Port Jackson. They dined on Indian corn, mangel-wurzel, fish scraps and whatever else was fed them, including the pith of the palm and tree fern. They also dined off some sort of sea bird which came in to nest in burrows on Mount George between November and March.
“A fool of a thing,” King had said, “that gets lost and cannot find its burrow. Waaaah! Waaaah! It howls like a ghost all night when it is here, frightens the living daylights out of newcomers. Take a torch and ye can catch it easily. The pigs just scamper up on top of Mount George and feast. We tried to eat ’em because they are so nearby, but they are fearsome fatty and fishy—ugh!”
Therefore, thought Ross as he walked, porkers will loom large in my calculations.
The wheat, good crop though it was, would never feed 424 people until the next harvest came in; sowing happened in May or June, reaping in November or December. According to King, Indian corn grew all year round. His technique in dealing with the rats and grubs was to plant wheat just at the conclusion of a grub wave and Indian corn continuously. Wheat in ear was too frail for rats to climb, whereas corn was a ladder. But the ripe ears of both were ravaged by the green parrots, which came out of the skies in vast flocks. Taming Nature, the Major reflected, was a constant war.
He toured the sea-level shelf from end to end and front to back, thinking, thinking. No more people up Arthur’s Vale; that was clearly where the produce flourished best, must be reserved for cultivation. Therefore Sydney Town would have to house everybody for the time being—but only for the time being. He would have to visit Robert Webb and his woman and the time-elapsed convict Robert Jones, who had taken up land halfway between Sydney Town and Cascade. Oh, Cascade—what a place to have to come ashore! And how Hunter must have sniggered as he watched the new Lieutenant-Governor, baggageless, in a longboat full of poultry. Ross glowered, concentrated all his energies upon ill-wishing Captain John Hunter of Sirius; practical and down-to-earth Scotchman though he was, the Major believed that a curse held great power. Hunter would not prosper. Hunter would come to grief. Hunter would fall. A murrain on him, a murrain on him, a murrain on him. . . .
Feeling much better, he paused on the far side of the causeway and turned to look east down the cleared but unoccupied land which ended at the sea along the beach beyond Turtle Bay. This end plus the road down to the landing place, he decided, would accommodate the marines and their officers, thus effectively cutting off the convicts from access to Arthur’s Vale and the food, which was now stored in King’s huge barn and the mezzanine of the granary. He would house the convicts eastward of the troops, ten to a hut, and bugger the Reverend Johnson’s strictures about keeping male and female felons from fornicating. In Ross’s opinion, freedom to fornicate meant a certain degree of content. God would forgive them, for God had sent them many other trials.
Those convicts possessed of huts along the beach who had been evicted in favor of his officers would have to be returned to their dwelli
ngs; hard he was, but just he was. Those who had labored here—very few, when all was said and done—must have some sort of thanks for their efforts. They would go back to their huts as soon as his officers were properly housed, and they would also be the first convicts to receive land. For that, he had already concluded, was the only answer: break open the interior of this speck in the midst of an infinity of ocean and people it. Give those who were willing to work an incentive to work by dowering them with land—some around Sydney Town, a very few in Arthur’s Vale, and the big majority in the virgin bulk of the island. No more tracks: a proper road to Ball Bay, to Cascade, to Anson Bay. Once there were roads, people could move out and away. If there was one asset he owned, it was a huge laboring force.
Those resolutions tucked away, he turned then westward into Arthur’s Vale, grudgingly admitting to himself that, considering the tiny size of his work force, Lieutenant King had not loafed during the two years he had occupied Norfolk Island. The granary and the barn were gradually having their wooden foundations replaced by the lime-producing stone (it was not limestone, but calcarenite) King had discovered around the cemetery, the stockyard attached to the barn was roomy, and the dam was an inspiration. He found the second sawpit, sheltered from the sun, its men working frantically; gazed sourly at the gaggle of women under a roof busy sharpening saws; and passed on up the vale beyond the dam, where the hillsides were being cleared in preparation for yet more wheat and Indian corn. Here he located the third sawpit, and Richard Morgan atop a gigantic log. Far too sensible to attract the sawyer’s attention to him while that lethal instrument ripped inches at a time through the six-foot girth—he was down to heartwood and big beams—Major Ross stood quietly watching.
The air was humid, the weather finer than any since he had landed four days ago, and the men at the sawpit worked clad only in worn, tattered canvas trowsers. It is not right, thought Ross. Not one of them has the luxury of underdrawers, that I know from Port Jackson, where the last convict underdrawers fell apart a full twelvemonth ago. So they do this work with the rough seams of their trowsers chafing at their groins. Though I detest convicts, I have to admit that a fair proportion of them are good men, and some are superlative. King may rave about the likes of a Tom Crowder—a useful lickspittle—but I prefer the likes of Richard Morgan, who never opens his mouth save to voice common sense. And Nat Lucas, the little carpenter. Crowder will work indefatigably for himself; Morgan and Lucas simply work for the pleasure of a job well done. How strange are the machinations of God, Who makes some men and women genuinely industrious, and others lazy to the very marrow. . . .
The cut finished, Ross spoke. “Hard at it, Morgan, I see.”
Not troubling to conceal his delight, Richard turned on the log, leaped from it onto solid ground, and walked over. His hand went out automatically, but he caught the gesture in time to turn it into a salute. “Major Ross, welcome,” he said, smiling.
“Have ye been evicted from your hut?”
“Not yet, sir, but I expect I will be.”
“Where d’ye live, that it has not happened?”
“Farther up, right at the end of the vale.”
“Show me.”
On stone piers now and with its roof shingled, the house—it could not be called a hut—lay under the eaves of the forest. Ross noted that it had a stone chimney, as did some of the convict huts and houses on the shore; a sign that King thought Richard Morgan worthy of reward. Below it but up the hillside was a privy. A lush-looking vegetable garden surrounded it save for a path of basalt rocks to the door, and beyond the garden sugar cane waved. A few plantains flourished and the slope around the privy was planted with a bushy small tree that bore pinkening berries.
Entering, Major Ross thought the house a remarkably professional piece of work for a man not a carpenter; it was finished. The walls, ceiling and floor had actually been dully polished. Of course! Gunsmiths worked with wood too. An impressive collection of books stood on a shelf on one wall, another shelf held what looked suspiciously like a dripstone, the bed was sheeted with Alexander-issue blankets, and a very nice table and two chairs stood in the middle of the floor. The window apertures had been equipped with proper shutters.
“Ye’ve made a home,” said Ross, occupying one chair. “Sit down, Morgan, otherwise I will not be comfortable.”
Richard sat rather rigidly. “I am glad to see ye, sir.”
“So your face betrayed. One of the very few.”
“Well, folk dislike change of any kind.”
“Especially when the change is named Robert Ross. No, no, Morgan, there is no need to look squalmy! Ye’re a convict, but ye’re not a felon. There is a difference. For instance, I do not see Lucas as a felon either. What did he go down for, d’ye know? I am gathering evidence for a theory I have conceived.”
“Lucas lived in a London boarding house, in a room he was not allowed to lock because he was obliged to share it at a moment’s notice. Two other lodgers were a father and daughter. The father found some of his daughter’s property beneath Lucas’s mattress—some muslin aprons and the like. Not items a perverted man would steal. Lucas denied he had put them there, but the girl and her father prosecuted him.”
“What d’ye think the truth was?” asked the Major, interested.
“That the girl coveted Lucas himself. When she could not have him, she chose revenge. His trial lasted not ten minutes and his master neglected to appear for him, so he had no one to speak for his character. But I gather that the London courts are such a mass of people and confusion that his master could well have been there, either lost or refused entrance. The magistrate questioned him and he denied the charges, but it was his word against two people. He went down for seven years.”
“Yet one more confirmation of my theory,” said Ross, leaning back in the chair until its front legs left the floor. “Such tales are fairly common. Though some of ye are recognizably villains, I have noted that most of ye keep out of trouble. ’Tis the few who make it difficult for all. For every convict flogged, there are three or four who are never flogged, and those who are flogged inevitably get flogged again and again. Mind you, some of ye are neither decent nor villainous—the ones who are averse to hard work. What the English trial boils down to is someone’s word against someone else’s word. Evidence is rarely presented.”
“And many,” said Richard, “commit their crimes sodden drunk.”
“Is that what happened to you?”
“Not exactly, though rum contributed. An excise fraud hinged upon my testimony, therefore it was expedient that I not be able to testify. It took place in Bristol, but I was removed to trial in Gloucester, where I knew no one.” Richard drew a breath. “But in all fairness, sir, I blame no one except myself.”
Ross thought he looked like a Celtic Welshman—dark hair, dark skin, light eyes, fine-boned face. The height he must have inherited from English forebears, and the musculature was the result of hard labor. Sawyers, stone-masons, smiths and axemen who threw their hearts into their work always had splendid bodies. Provided they had enough to eat, and clearly those in Norfolk Island had enough to eat. Whether they would in the future was not so sure.
“Ye look the picture of health,” Ross said, “but then, ye never were sick, were ye?”
“I managed to preserve my health, mostly thanks to my dripstone.” Richard indicated it affectionately. “I have also been fortunate, sir. The times when I have not had enough to eat have either been short enough or idle enough not to cause bone-deep illness. Had I remained in Port Jackson, who knows? But ye sent me here sixteen months ago.” His eyes twinkled. “I like fish, and there are many who do not, so I have had more than my share of flesh.”
MacTavish erupted through the open door and made a flying leap onto Richard’s lap, panting.
“Good lord! Is that Wallace? ’Tis not MacGregor.”
“Nay, sir. This is Wallace’s grandson out of the Government spaniel, Delphinia. His name is MacTavish and he eat
s rat.”
Ross got up. “I congratulate ye on this house, Morgan, ’tis a comfortable dwelling. Cool in summer thanks to the trees, warm in winter thanks to the fireplace.”
“It is at your disposal, sir,” said Richard dutifully.
“Were it closer to civilization, Morgan, I would grab it, make no mistake. Your canniness is worthy of a man from north of the border, to build at the far end of the vale. None of my officers would relish the walk save Lieutenant Clark, and I need him close to me.” It is too isolated to make safe officer housing, Ross said to himself—who knows what the bastard who occupied it might get up to? “However,” he added, going to the door, “in time I will oblige ye to share it.”
Richard walked with him as far as the sawpit, where Sam Hussey and Harry Humphreys were attacking a new log.
“I am supervisor of sawyers, sir, so as soon as ye have the time, I would discuss the sawing with ye,” he said.
“There is no time like the present, Morgan. Talk now.”
They visited each of the sawpits in turn, Richard explaining his system, the worthiness of using women to sharpen and strip bark, the sites where more sawpits could be dug, the kind of men he needed to saw, the desirability of letting the sawyers cut timber for their own houses in their spare time, the need to convert some of the extra pit saws into cross cut saws.
“But that,” he ended as they stood on the edge of the sawpit on the beach, “is work I dare not trust to anyone save myself. Unless ye’ve brought William Edmunds?” he asked, sure that Major Ross would know the names of all his immigrants, free or felon.
“Aye, he is among the throng somewhere. He is yours.”
And, thought Richard in great content, I have made this transition painlessly. How friendless Major Ross must be, to talk to a convict as to a colleague. Is that why he banked me here?
Morgan's Run Page 55
