by Tom Keneally
Perhaps McCarthy was in Parramatta by now, standing by as Ralph Eveleigh read the packet he had been sent and wondered if Monsarrat was more trouble than he was worth. Perhaps Mrs Mulrooney had succeeded in getting Peter out, and was sitting in his little shed with him, feeding him spoonfuls of tea. Or perhaps McCarthy had been intercepted and strung up from a tree, and Mrs Mulrooney was in chains or worse.
Monsarrat wished his imagination was normally as good as it was now. He could feel the violent jerk as Sally was whipped, bolting away from under McCarthy and his noose. The fists as they landed on Mrs Mulrooney, the chains around her wrists. All with no way of knowing whether his thoughts were self-torture or preparation.
Whatever the case, they were certainly having an effect on his chess game. Their two-person tournament was now in its fifth hour. Plates of congealing gravy, deposited with bad grace hours ago by Miss Douglas before she stomped to bed, were at their elbows.
‘No one ever falls for the Spanish Opening!’ crowed Jardine as Monsarrat laid his king on its side in a gesture of surrender. ‘Especially not twice in a row. You could be doing a little more to make this entertaining, Monsarrat.’
‘I do apologise, Lieutenant. I find myself somewhat distracted.’
‘Understandable, I suppose. Do try to concentrate harder, though. I will let you be white again, if it means that there will be some semblance of a challenge.’
Jardine was so busy rearranging the pieces he didn’t immediately notice one of his men walk in, his hand extended, a note pinched between his fingers.
The private cleared his throat. ‘From the docks, sir.’
Jardine took the note without looking up, then laid it to the side of the board. ‘Are you still there, Private?’ he said after a moment.
‘I thought you might wish to send a reply, sir.’
‘Hard to do that when I haven’t read the damn thing yet. Dismissed. I’ll call if I need you.’
After the soldier had left the room, Jardine said, ‘I find that everyone from the lowliest private would try to impose their own priorities on you, if you let them.’ He finished placing the last pawn before unfolding the note. ‘Nothing found in any of the ships going to England. Makes me wonder if you were bluffing about writing to Eveleigh as well.’
‘I most assuredly wasn’t. Did they tip out every barrel of meal? Unroll every bolt of silk? Search the passengers?’
Jardine paused as he studied Monsarrat. ‘Why couldn’t you have just found it was Albert Bancroft? Or the husband of some fictional lover? Or someone Hallward beat at dice five years ago? You’d be home by now. Things were certainly not meant to unfold like this.’
Monsarrat gave him a sharp look. ‘Do you mean to tell me there was a plan for how things were meant to go?’
Jardine bent over the board again, suddenly fascinated by the arrangement of the pieces.
‘Did you – did you have a part in this?’ Monsarrat asked him.
‘No. Nor did I want one. And I don’t know much. Snippets. Overheard whispers.’
He looked up, his face drawn. ‘My duty is all I have, and it binds me as surely as a priest is bound by the seal of the confessional.’
‘By this time tomorrow, I will be dead,’ Monsarrat said, and the weight of the statement hit him with such force that had he been standing, he would have stumbled. ‘I would rather not go to my grave without knowing precisely what I had been part of. You are loyal, I know. It is a characteristic I admire, even though I believe your loyalty to be misplaced. You would never speak against your commander.’
‘No, God help me.’
‘But this is the last conversation I will have. So it would not be unexpected if I were to muse a little on my fate, and what led to it.’
‘I’m not sure I follow.’
‘I’ll probably start rambling,’ said Monsarrat. ‘Make all kinds of suggestions, articulate all sorts of ridiculous ideas. And, of course, you will tell me they are ridiculous. If they are.’
Jardine was staring at him now.
‘Consider it the last request of a dying man,’ said Monsarrat.
‘Very well. I will do that much.’
Monsarrat stood and walked over to put his elbow on the mantelpiece. He dislodged a vase from its place, but did not bother to set it to rights. ‘If he was so displeased about my assignment to the case, why didn’t Duchamp simply send me away again and put one of his own men on to the matter; have them discreetly say it couldn’t be solved – leave it at that?’
‘I couldn’t possibly say, Mr Monsarrat.’
‘The governor, I know, likes things to be orderly – that’s his reputation, anyway. Perhaps the protests were rattling the colonel. He didn’t want the governor to come back from Norfolk Island into a sea of screaming people.’
‘One does not want one’s superior to develop an unfavourable view,’ said Jardine. ‘I’m speaking in generalities, of course.’
‘Of course. So you make sure that you wade into a crowd of protesters with a man who has been brought in from the outside. Someone independent. Someone to quiet the throng.’ Monsarrat glanced up and saw that Jardine had gone back to staring at the board. ‘Why would he take that risk, though? He might have believed – hoped – I would settle on someone else. But he couldn’t know, not for certain.’
‘There you are,’ said Jardine. ‘Simple statement of fact.’
‘So I don’t understand … Ah! Unless – oh, that is clever. If I’m right, that is very clever indeed.’
‘There is no fear of me saying the wrong thing in response to that statement. I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘He couldn’t lose! Either way, he would get something he wanted!’ said Monsarrat, slapping his hand on the mantelpiece.
Jardine looked up, smiling. ‘You do seem rather pleased with yourself, Mr Monsarrat,’ he said. ‘You seem to believe your path is becoming clearer. Just make sure not to take that vase with you when you go down it – your landlady would object, I fear.’
‘If the colonel decided he didn’t like where my investigation was heading, all he had to do was discredit me,’ Monsarrat said. ‘I do have two convictions, so it wouldn’t be terribly hard. Particularly if one has an unusual degree of influence over the editor of the town’s only newspaper. If my assertions were not to his liking, he need only portray them as the ramblings of a criminal mind.’
‘I suppose that’s an explanation,’ said Jardine. ‘Not saying it’s a truth, mind.’
‘Of course not, Lieutenant. No one could accuse you of adding any certainty to this. And – and! Another benefit to the colonel: if I am discredited, so is Eveleigh. Duchamp can place his own man in Parramatta and effectively control the two seats of power.’
‘If one had a particularly Machiavellian mind, one might see things that way,’ said Jardine.
‘And are you an admirer of Machiavelli, Lieutenant?’ asked Monsarrat.
‘I might be. Colonel Duchamp certainly is.’
‘Well, I must thank you.’ Monsarrat sat down opposite Jardine. ‘If I am to be sent to my grave, at least I will know why.’
‘Will you, Mr Monsarrat? I couldn’t say – I’ve just been making the occasional polite comment as you ramble. Really, I was hardly listening. I was planning my strategy for the next game, actually.’
The door opened again, and the same private walked in and saluted.
‘I told you I would inform you if I wished to respond to the intelligence from the dock,’ said Jardine. ‘At this point, I do not.’
‘I do beg your pardon, sir, but that is not why I have intruded. You asked me to inform you at this hour. It is time.’
Chapter 26
Hannah suspected that Peter didn’t often cry. Boys who cried in his world would have been considered impossibly weak, the tears an invitation to a beating. But the prospect of freedom so abruptly denied had worn him down. After Henrietta clicked the lock behind them, he went over to the mattress on which he’d spent t
hese past couple of nights, sat down and silently tears began to leak from his eyes. He did not embrace them, not as Hannah might have done. He did not suck down air so that he could put more force behind his sobs, let them shake his body until he couldn’t breathe. He was simply too worn out to stop the tears, so they escaped, finding their own path down his face and falling where they may.
Hannah sat down on the mattress beside him. She had once been used to the smell of confined humanity; she had barely noticed the stink of the sweat and the urine and the fouler substances the convicts emitted. Their betters produced the same substances, of course – they were simply more skilled at covering the smell, and had the resources to do so.
The comfortable cottage in Parramatta smelled of lye and wood smoke and brewing tea. Without her noticing, it had supplanted those memories of the baser odours. But the memories came back now, all the stronger for having been banished for so long. Called to the surface by the bucket in the corner, which surely hadn’t been emptied for the whole time Peter had been here, and was in danger of overflowing. And by the sweat that had soaked into the mattress, no less pungent for having come from a little boy rather than a grown man.
She did not know whether he would welcome an embrace. He might prefer her to ignore his tears. So she sat silently, within reach but not reaching. After a few minutes, however, it was more than she could bear. She was not sure whether it was for his sake or hers, but she reached for him and drew his head onto her shoulder. He allowed it, and after a minute of stillness allowed his little arms to extend like vines around her neck.
‘I am sorry,’ she said. ‘That you’re back in here.’
‘I suppose I’ll go to hell now,’ he said.
‘What nonsense. You’re not going to hell. Who told you that?’
‘Miss Duchamp,’ said Peter. ‘She said if I didn’t tell her things, I would go to hell. The archdeacon told her, and he knows because he talks to God all the time.’
Hannah leaned back, taking Peter gently by the shoulders. ‘I want you to look at me.’
His head remained bowed.
‘You don’t need to hide your tears from me,’ she said.
‘Boys aren’t supposed to cry.’
‘Peter, grown men would cry in your situation, and if any of them tell you anything different then they’re lying. And they wouldn’t be sitting there quietly, either – they’d be rolling around on the floor and gibbering.’
Peter gave a small laugh.
‘You need to listen to me, because I tell the truth, and Miss Duchamp does not. Children do not go to hell.’
‘Yes, they do. The matron at the orphan school was always telling us we were bound there.’
‘Then she’s a liar as well. Sometimes people like to threaten hell to make children behave. Even priests – especially priests, actually. And matrons, and scheming little madams who would rather send others wading through the mud on their behalf than get their own skirts dirty. But I would not be surprised if many of those who threaten hell wind up there themselves one day. God does not punish children. The Blessed Virgin wouldn’t allow it, I can tell you. And He will not punish you, or I’ll deal with Him.’ She crossed herself at the blasphemy. I hope You understand, she prayed silently. I’m just trying to calm the lad down. It’s what You would want, I’m sure of it, and if I’m not mistaken there’s very little of what You want getting done these days.
She taught him his catechism to pass the time. She didn’t even know if he was Catholic but there were worse things to be learning in this situation. Then she taught him every song she remembered from her childhood, particularly the rebellious ones. She told him stories of spirits and sprites and fairies. Peter slept then, and she must have as well. No one, of course, had lit the lamp by the door, and she opened her eyes to a blackness so deep she might as well have kept them closed. She wasn’t sure what had woken her. A rustle? A rat, perhaps, scurrying across the floor. Or the quiet little voice.
‘Do you think she’ll come back soon?’ Peter whispered.
‘Perhaps. It’s not likely though. She has a fair few things to be going on with. Someone else might come.’
‘Not the man. I hope not.’
‘The one with the silly moustache that goes all the way to his ears?’
Peter nodded. ‘She left me alone with him once. I coughed and he heard. He came down and hit me.’
I hope he hangs for it.
‘Not him, at least I don’t think so,’ Hannah said. ‘No, someone you know rather better. Someone who knows where I am.’
‘I hope he hurries,’ said Peter.
‘He will, don’t worry.’
But after another half-hour had passed, she wondered if he would. Perhaps there had been a raid on the Chronicle’s offices; perhaps he had been arrested.
When she heard movement outside the door, she braced herself. Once it opened, it might reveal the last person she would ever see before a shot from a pretty little gun sent her to be punished for her earlier blasphemy. Henrietta, though, would surely not need to bang so loudly at the door, with such force. She would just use the key.
Whatever was making all that noise, the door didn’t seem as though it could stand up to it for long. After several more blows it splintered and buckled, the latch slipping out.
Cullen, holding a mallet, stood behind it. ‘What’s the point of spending all that money on a few little locks,’ he said, ‘when a couple of decent blows with a hammer does the job?’
Peter ran to him, and Cullen bent over and picked the boy up, wheeling him around and setting him on his feet outside the door.
Cullen turned to Hannah. ‘Are you coming, missus? Only it seems we’ve a bit to do, and not much time to do it in. And, it turns out, we’re expecting a visitor.’
There was no coach for Monsarrat this time, but he did get his own horse, hemmed in by Jardine on one side and a soldier on the other, with a third riding in front through the pre-dawn gloom.
In the boarding house parlour it had felt almost as though he and Jardine were closed in a box around which the world was moving without the slightest regard for them. But Jardine’s easy manner, enhanced by hours together with Monsarrat in the room, nothing to do but talk and play chess, disappeared as soon as they stepped through the door. Now, he was the martinet again, the guardian of efficiency, the barker of orders. Now, he referred to Monsarrat as ‘the prisoner’.
On the road they were passed by a comfortable coach that did not slow for them. It did not need to – Jardine and the others clearly recognised it, and scrambled to the sides of the road to allow it to pass. As it did, Monsarrat saw Duchamp’s sharp profile in the back, with Albert Bancroft, probably reprising the role of second, beside him.
‘I do not have a second,’ Monsarrat said quietly to Jardine once they were back on the road.
‘You won’t need one.’
The vegetation was scrubby; stunted, gnarled bushes with the occasional eucalypt sentinel. None of it provided cover from the rising sun, by now just high enough to be blinding for anyone who faced east. Monsarrat kept his eyes trained on the shadows, blinking and trying to resist the urge to rub them, blocking out the voice which told him his exhaustion might fatally slow him. On the deep green of the waxed, stubby leaves being slowly revealed by the lightening sky. A grey-furred creature returning from its night-time forage. And beyond, the sloshing water that glinted in the low rays of the sun. Above him, flying foxes returned to their trees; when the sky darkened again and they flew back, it was likely Monsarrat’s eyes would be permanently closed.
Duchamp was already there, in full uniform and with his ceremonial sword at his waist. He had already taken up his position to the east, and was laughing with Bancroft. The men stopped talking as Monsarrat passed them to assume his sun-seared position to the west. Duchamp nodded to Bancroft, who went to the coach and returned with a polished wooden box. Duchamp said, ‘I have chosen the positions, as you see.’
‘Yes,’ said
Monsarrat. ‘I’m surprised, actually. Given your reputation, I would have thought firing into the rising sun wouldn’t present a problem.’
‘If we weren’t already here, I would challenge you. I am an honourable man, Mr Monsarrat. That is why I will allow you first choice of weapons.’
Bancroft stepped forward and opened the box. Inside blue velvet lining, two ornately engraved duelling pistols glinted at Monsarrat.
I suspected it would be a rope, he thought. A knife at night. Maybe a fall from a horse. I never for a moment thought it would be a pistol with flowers scratched into it.
He reached over and took the furthest gun, hefting it. Perhaps Duchamp thought Monsarrat was getting a feel for the balance of the weapon, its shape, the way its grip fitted his hand. In truth, he had rarely held a gun. He had no idea what to feel for. He was using the charade to buy a few extra breaths. Pretending to play Duchamp’s game.
What if he refused? If he simply declined to follow the expected rules, the accepted procedure?
Duchamp cleared his throat. ‘I know you don’t have anywhere to be, Monsarrat, but I have a colony to run, so if you wouldn’t mind getting on with it?’
Monsarrat looked up at him and nodded. ‘Yes, getting on with it is a good idea.’
They turned their backs on each other, then walked in opposite directions while Bancroft counted to ten. All of the steps, Monsarrat thought, that I took without a thought. The ones that led me to Exeter, into the courtroom, onto the boat. And they end with a stroll through a swamp. He waited, his back turned, for the command to fire.
When it came, he turned to see Duchamp whirling around, his arm outstretched. Monsarrat had no doubt the gun would be aimed at his forehead.
The baker’s shop was closed and shuttered. Baking was an early-morning business, so it was odd to find the shop completely abandoned at this hour, Hannah thought. Not that the shop was where they were heading. Cullen led Hannah and Peter around to the back, unlocking the door to Donnelly’s schoolroom and bustling them in.
