The Commandant

by Jessica Anderson

  ‘What did he say to that?’

  ‘He says, Well, Collison, he says, all the same, this seems to me to be fermented. Someone has stirred these up.’

  ‘Then he must have believed there were whites among them.’

  Collison almost shrugged. ‘He always blames the runaways for everything bad the blacks do, sir. I been his servant two years, and would like a penny for every time I hear him say it’s the runaways stir them up.’

  ‘Did any of the men see whites among them?’

  ‘They wouldn’t say if they did, sir. They would call it peaching on their mates.’

  ‘Which they sometimes do.’

  ‘Ah, but which they can’t be depended upon to do.’

  It was clear that Collison, now that he had rested, was beginning to enjoy himself. He was the man with the information everybody wanted. When Clunie had arrived home from the commandant’s house, he had overheard him talking to the servants. ‘Now then,’ he was saying with lordly roughness, ‘you know better than to ask me questions like that.’

  Now he folded his arms and said, ‘But in my opinion, sir, the captain was right this time. There were whites among them. Or if not among them, behind them. Or else, why else would they go after him, and only him?’

  Clunie thought of the boat’s crew, all prisoners, speared up the river. ‘It is true,’ he said in a provisional tone, ‘that their attacks usually seem haphazard.’

  ‘Well, there was nothing haphazard about this, sir. It was only him they rolled the stones down upon, only him they told to go back over the water, and only him they must have tracked and tried to ambush at that clearing. Ah yes, and he knew it. After we ford the river he says to me, Collison, I believe the ones known to be with the tribes in the north have come down. Their tribes have come down for one of their great meetings, and those have come with them. And I say, to warn him, Sir, what about Boylan? And he says, speaking offhand, Oh, Boylan is dead. But then he falls quiet, and after a while he says, Why, Collison, did you see one like Boylan? And I had to say, No, sir, I did not. But everyone says he’s come down and has been seen.’

  The candles were flickering. Clunie guarded them with both hands. ‘Shut the window, if you please.’

  While Collison shut the window he looked at the map. The commandant’s pen had been light and tentative, and the river finished like a hairline on an expanse of paper turned grey by the shaded light. ‘Well,’ he said, when the soldier came back, ‘you are standing in the river. You have fired and dispersed them. What then?’

  ‘They withdrew, sir, but did not go. They followed all that day. We seen them between the trees or like shadders in the long grass. The bullocks go well, for a change, and we go fourteen miles, and come to where the horse was lost, that broke his tether last time. We make camp, and in the morning he says, Collison, take the men and look for that horse. And he rides off on the mare alone.’

  ‘To explore his new creek?’

  ‘No, sir. That is up here. Even on the mare he could scarce get so far and back in one day.’

  ‘Did he mention the blacks?’

  ‘No, sir, but I did. Sir, I says, what of the blacks? And he says, Have you seen any today, Collison? I have to say no, and he rides off. He comes back that night, quiet, but well enough, and next day we go to the junction of the river and his new creek, reaching it at night. And in the morning he rides off to explore the creek, and all that day we others just wait there. We see no blacks, though one man—Partridge, sir, I should not want to go with him again—Partridge thinks every kangaroo or native dog is a black. And it is true we see the smoke from their fires in the sky. It gets dark and he is not back. I am thinking I had better cooey or fire a shot, when in he comes. He sits with his arms about his knees, and stares at the fire, and says nothing. And neither do I, because when he is like that, it is better not to say nothing. In the morning he says, Well, Collison, there is not one creek, but two. And I says, And do you consider they both run to the sea, sir? I consider nothing, he replies. But after a while he says, Into mud or sand, most likely, or lost among stones. I see his mood is heavy. And will you trace them again today? I ask. I have done all I can, he says. There is nothing for it now but to go back.

  ‘So we strike camp and set off. Nothing happens that day. He stays with us and the bullocks, walking the mare or dismounting to rest her. We camp at the second ford, and next day we go on and come again to the first ford, the one where they rolled the stones. And he is ahead, and he stops and is looking at the ground. And when I come up, he says, These are tracks. Well, they might have been. They were very indistinct. What is it tracks of? I ask. A horse or a bullock, he says. I will follow it. Take the men and camp at the bend where we camped in May. Wait there till I come up. So I do, reaching it at four p.m. Soon after four one man thinks he hears a cooey. We answer, and then we think we hear it again, and we answer again, and also I fire a shot, in case he is lost. But in my opinion, sir, it is easy to think you hear a cooey in the bush, when none has been made, and if I was asked to swear there was a cooey, I would have to say, I don’t know. At any rate, he doesn’t return. The whole night goes by, and at dawn I send two men back to search.

  ‘Sir, those two men come back very soon. They seen the tracks of his horse across a small creek, they tell me, going in the direction of the Limestone. Well, it is like the cooey. I wouldn’t swear they seen those tracks, or were just in a hurry to get out of the bush, where they were alone, with no gun to protect them. But they keep saying they did, so I think it better to take it as true, and we set out for the Limestone. At noon we see blacks, fifty or sixty. They follow us in the trees and shout, but I don’t fire a shot. They don’t sound as angry as before. It is more like they are excited. Also they don’t come as close.’

  ‘Then they were the same ones?’

  ‘I thought they were, sir, but can’t say why. No, and now you ask me direct, I won’t say they were. I don’t see them as clear as the first lot. They go off in a couple of hours. We go on, and I tell the men to walk in single file after the bullocks, to leave a track he can follow, for I have in my mind all the while that those two might not have seen his tracks at the creek at all. We come to the Limestone, and find him not there. And the rest I told you, how we went out next day, travelling light, and found his traces.’

  ‘Those stirrup leathers, Collison—could you say what was used to cut them?’

  ‘A stone axe, sir, or something like it.’

  ‘Such as the blacks use?’

  ‘Yes, sir. And such as white men use, who live with the blacks. Not all fashion knives for theirselves, nor find the metal to do so. Stirrup irons, and any other thing they might forge to their use, not falling in their path every day.’

  ‘True. Any sign of his pistol?’

  ‘No, sir. He could be carrying it still. May I know who is to lead the search party, sir?’

  Clunie could only reply that he didn’t know. He had been pondering the question on his way from the commandant’s house, and after dismissing Collison he took it up again. The arrival of the Alligator meant that either he or Edwards must go down to Dunwich early tomorrow. Bulwer had taken to bed with his intermittent fever; Harbin was the only officer who might go. But there would be prisoners on the Alligator (Clunie expected no horses; she was too small for such cargo), and Harbin could scarcely be spared. Moreover, even if he were, by what means would he go? One of the surgeons must go, for the commandant might be found wounded. But Murray’s nag was the only horse on the settlement. Of the officer and the surgeon, who would ride, and who go afoot? Well, must either be mounted? Yes, so that if needs be, a message could be carried at speed. He had almost decided to send Murray, mounted, with Collison and five men, and to dispense with an officer, when his servant came in and announced Henry Cowper.

  It was close in the room since Collison had shut the window
. Henry, already hot from his walk, loosened his collar and spread his legs as soon as he sat down. He eyed the port with longing, but refused Clunie’s invitation to drink.

  ‘There are occasions when I regard it as prescribed stuff. I prescribe myself with enough to keep it at a level just below the Plimsoll line. Then I keep topping it off, as it were, but don’t let it get any higher. I’ve just topped it off, and daren’t again, because I come with a story, captain, and have need of my senses. Let us begin with Monday’s ghost.’

  ‘Cowper, I have had enough of Monday’s ghost.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t support belief in that apparition, as I told you on Tuesday. I said then that their certainty made me think they saw something in the half light, but not Captain Logan and the mare. But now I believe myself wrong. I believe now that they saw nothing at all, but heard something.’

  ‘I see,’ said Clunie with impatience. ‘A small confusion of the senses.’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Oh, Cowper, come to your story.’

  ‘Allow me a minute of drama—’ he looked at the bottle—‘as a reward for my restraint. May I take the drumming of your fingers as applause for my prologue? Captain, thank you! And now to my story. The commandant is dead. He was murdered on Sunday. Blacks brought the news to the outlying gangs on Monday morning. It reached the settlement in the evening. It reached the men working on the boats. And as they listened to the words, they supplied the action from their imaginations—as all of us do—and then became excited, and continued with their own wild sequel—as all of us do not do. “The commandant is dead,” they were saying. “Ergo, there is his ghost.” ’

  ‘Who told you he was murdered on Sunday?’

  ‘Lewis Lazarus. It may be untrue.’

  ‘Lazarus was sent straight from the solitary cell to one of the outlying gangs. When did you see him?’

  ‘He was brought in this evening with a wound to be dressed. Most likely self-inflicted, so that he could get to me with the story. The belly is an improbable place to be wounded with a pickaxe. He says he fell. You know he lived for months with the blacks. He was made welcome because one black claimed him as his brother returned from the dead. This afternoon this same black brother passed near his gang. He told him that the commandant was taken by surprise while watching white cockatoos, that he was hunted and killed, and that his body was lying in a certain place. Before Lazarus could ask him anything else, according to him, the guards chased him off. So Lazarus then falls on the pickaxe, bleeds harmlessly but in profusion, yells that he is bleeding to death, and is brought in to have the wound dressed.’

  ‘I am glad,’ said Clunie, ‘that he came to you with this useful information. Mind, I should have thought it simpler if he had asked to be brought direct to me. But pass that! Pass that! Here is a map. Unless the body lies in this area—’ Clunie pointed to the blank part of the paper—‘he will save the search party much time by pointing out the spot.’

  ‘Captain,’ said Henry, ‘I am disappointed in you. If such a man asks to be brought to you, do they obediently bring him? And as to pointing to the spot on a map, maps are lines on paper. What have they to do with such as Lazarus, who carries the terrain in three dimensions in his head?’

  Clunie was disconcerted not only by the logic of this, but by his feeling that Cowper’s disappointment in him, though expressed with levity, was real. However, his impatience with Cowper’s half-tipsy circumlocutions remained, and was audible in his voice.

  ‘So I suppose he offers to lead us to the spot.’

  ‘He does.’

  ‘Which will afford him an excellent opportunity to run.’

  ‘It will.’

  ‘Cowper, tell me plainly, do you believe the man?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Mr Cowper, in the manner of your replies, you are indulging your taste for drama again.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Then you will excuse me.’ Clunie half rose in his chair. ‘I have the search party to arrange.’

  ‘That looks a very fine cheese.’

  Clunie sat back in his chair. ‘Pray help yourself.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Henry, as he cut the cheese, ‘I indulged my taste for drama at the expense of my common sense. For I admit I don’t entirely believe the man. I am as much on my guard as you are against their tricks. His motive is one of two—to run, or to get a remission for finding the body. But if I were in command here, I would put my trust in the latter. I would have his irons knocked off, and let him go with the party.’

  Clunie was placated by this sober tone. He cut a slice of cheese and put it all at once into his mouth. Eating it, and wiping his fingers on his napkin, he looked beyond Henry in deep reflection. Then he said, ‘The white cockatoos.’

  ‘An irrelevant note,’ agreed Henry. ‘Not the note of a liar.’

  ‘The story of the ambush tallies with Collison’s but for the white cockatoos. Such a detail, if true, could come only from the attackers.’

  ‘And what is its purpose if not true?’

  ‘Collison believes that the blacks were goaded by runaways, perhaps even led by them. He’s a sensible and steady fellow, and he puts his argument well. He mentioned Boylan. Did Lazarus’s black brother mention Boylan?’

  ‘If he did, be assured it will stay between him and Lazarus. Lazarus and Boylan were mates.’

  ‘He mentioned him once to you.’

  ‘There had been no murder then.’

  Clunie pushed back his chair and rose heavily to his feet. Henry was cutting and eating cheese as if he could not stop. Clunie went to the uncurtained window and stood with his hands clasped at his back. For a moment he wondered if the light flickering through the trees came from the landing stage, if a boat had brought a message from the Limestone Station to say that the commandant was found. But the light was higher than the landing stage; it was coming from the commandant’s garden, and very soon it drew clear of the foliage and showed itself as a light carried by Murray’s servant. The moon was in its last quarter; the man was lighting his master from the commandant’s house to the hospital; both were walking fast. As Clunie pulled the curtain across the window, he recalled Murray’s quiet words—‘Poor lady!’—and his own intended rebuke. He turned back into the room. Henry had stopped eating and was sitting with both hands pressed in satisfaction to his belly. ‘We must not allow ourselves to conclude that the commandant is dead,’ said Clunie. ‘We must continue to hope and believe that he will be brought in.’

  But as he spoke, he knew that he did not believe it; and he knew by Henry’s formal and acquiescent inclination of his head that he did not believe it either. He returned to his chair. ‘I didn’t see him on the morning he left. Collison says he was out of humour.’

  ‘I saw him,’ said Henry. ‘He came to ask me a direct question. Would I really give evidence against him if his administration were put to an enquiry?’

  Clunie raised his eyebrows high.

  ‘Yes,’ said Henry. ‘No preamble. Just that. Abrupt as a shot. I had warned him of the possibility before, but perhaps, even the last time, always with too much levity. But this was very early in the morning, the time of day when I am plain and serious. I said I didn’t know. I said perhaps the Bible and the oath would make me tell the whole truth.’

  ‘What did he say to that?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Surely he disputed that the truth would be evidence against him?’

  ‘No. He said nothing. Nothing. He nodded his head. Once.’ Henry gave a curt nod that was indeed reminiscent of Logan. ‘Then he turned on a heel and went.’

  Clunie put his elbows on the table and his jaw on his fists. His frowning gaze took in the candlelit map and the opposite rim of the table, on a level with which Henry’s white hands now clasped each other on his belly. The footsteps of J
ames Murray and his servant passed on the road outside. ‘I gave Captain Logan a promise,’ said Clunie. ‘I agreed that while I was his deputy, I would see his punishments maintained in their full severity. His request that I do so was the result of a conversation about Lazarus. It applied especially to him. Yet now I must act on a gamble, and order the fellow’s irons to be knocked off, and let him go with the party.’ Clunie took his elbows off the table. ‘Yes, I will do it.’ He knew his resolve to be a ratification of his belief that Logan was dead. ‘The commandant,’ he said, without looking at Henry, ‘will understand.’

  Henry gave his formal nod again.

  ‘Lazarus understands that remission can come only from the governor?’

  ‘Yes, but knows that the governor will be guided by your recommendation.’

  ‘I shall give him the recommendation he earns.’

  ‘He can ask no more. Collison goes with the party, of course?’

  ‘Of course. Collison, Murray, Lazarus—’

  Clunie’s abrupt pause made Henry look at him with amusement. ‘You are doubtful about that last conjunction?’

  Clunie’s eyes moved in slow consideration over Henry. Henry unfolded his hands from his belly and spread them with the palms upward.

  ‘Are you fit for it?’ asked Clunie.

  ‘If Murray’s nag is. I shall ride, I take it?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Someone must be mounted.’

  ‘And so,’ said Henry, ‘tomorrow, you will go to the Eagle Farm in the bullock cart.’

  ‘Cowper, such considerations are indecent at a time like this. The woman I have just left is perhaps a widow, the children fatherless.’

  ‘I wish only to warn you, Murray.’

  ‘I know what you wish, Cowper. But you will not see me in that bullock cart.’

  ‘Oh, to be sure, I will not see you.’