Colleen McCullough - Morgan’s Run

Richard stood expressionless as the Major gave him this information, well aware (as were all his fellow convicts) of what the officers were convinced they had kept a close secret: that Mr. William Balmain and Mr. John White, who had loathed each other ever since the affair of Alexander’s bilge pumps, had had such a fierce and drunken quarrel at the King’s birthday feast that they promptly went out with a pair of pistols and fought a duel. Mr. Balmain had received a flesh wound in the thigh, and the Governor had been forced to tell the two combatants very gently that surgeons should concentrate upon letting blood out of patients, not out of each other.

“Then I shall save my butter of antimony and whale oil for the guns and give Edmunds this bottle of whatever-it-is for the saws,” said Richard, and departed hardly crediting his good fortune.

Within two days he was ensconced beneath the shelter of a stout canvas tent, its sides retractable, at a work-bench of the right height and with a stool to match. Major Ross had not exaggerated; the settlement’s armaments were shockingly rusted.

“What a close-mouthed bastard you are, Richard,” said Stephen Donovan, arriving to investigate the latest rumor.

Oh, how good to see him! “I did not think it right to speak of things that were behind me, Mr. Donovan,” he said, making no attempt to conceal his joy, written all over his face. “Now that I am officially a gunsmith, I am happy to discuss it with you.”

Chin tucked in, eyes gleaming derisively, Donovan said no more for perhaps an hour, contenting himself with watching Richard work on his first consignment, a pair of pistols belonging to the Major. What a treat to be privileged to watch a consummate craftsman doing something he loved to do! The strong sure hands moved over the gun delicately, applying a drop of whale oil with the tip of a lint-bound stick, working at the frizzen spring.

“The frizzen is soft,” Richard explained, “so ’twill not strike sufficient spark. Aside from that, the Major has kept his pistols very nicely. I have removed the rust and browned them with my butter of antimony again. Thank you for the wedding present, it is more appreciated now than it was then. What have ye been doing with yourself?”

“Captaining a longboat to bring oyster shells, mostly. We are taking the boats out to sea now that Port Jackson is exhausted.”

“Then ye’d better go back to your longboat, captain. I can see Major Ross approaching,” said Richard, putting the pistol down with a sigh of content.

Donovan took the hint and departed.

“Done?” asked Ross brusquely.

“Aye, sir. All remaining is to test them.”

“Then come with me to the proving butt,” said the Major, taking the walnut case from Richard. “Once the muskets are something like workable, there will be practice every Saturday at the butt, and ye will supervise. This place should be fortified, but since His Excellency deems battlements and gun emplacements frivolous, the best I can do is have my men prepared for emergencies. What happens if the French arrive? There is not a ship moored in a defensive position nor a cannon could be fired in under three hours.”

The proving butt was a log house with no front wall and sand piled inside it; a post bearing a chunk of blackened wood was the target. The Major fired at it while Richard loaded his second gun, fired that, and grunted in satisfaction. “Better than when I first bought them. Ye can start on the muskets tomorrow. And I have found ye an apprentice.”

That, thought Richard, is the trouble with dictators. I just hope my Ross-appointed apprentice has the right temperament for this painstaking work. Dealing with pretty pistols-he is an honest man, this one, and offered up his own possessions for sacrifice in case I was ham-fisted-dealing with pretty pistols is all very well, but I have to break down, clean and reassemble about two hundred Brown Besses, if not more. A good helper will be a godsend, an unsuitable one a handicap.

Private Daniel Stanfield was a godsend. A slight, fair young man with no pretensions to good looks, he spoke a grammatical, fairly regionless English and had, he said in answer to Richard’s question, been carefully tutored by his mother before going to a charity school. His taste inclined more to reading than to rum, and while he was extremely eager to learn, he had sufficient good sense not to make a nuisance of himself. He listened and remembered, put things back where they belonged, and was deft with his hands.

“This is a peculiar situation,” he remarked as he watched Richard break down a musket.

“How so?” asked Richard, driving the pins out along the barrel stock. “I am preparing to separate the piece into its component parts, so do not take your eyes off me. There is always a correct direction to punch out the pins, it is not mere brute strength. They taper, so if you strike them with your punch on the wrong side ye’ll ruin the pins-and possibly the gun.”

“This is a peculiar situation,” Stanfield repeated, “because officially I am your master, yet in this tent ye’re my master. I am not comfortable to have you address me as ‘mister’ while I call ye ‘Morgan.’ An it pleases ye, I would have ye call me Daniel while I call ye Mister Morgan. Inside this tent.”

Blinking in surprise, Richard smiled. “ ’Tis up to you, but I would be glad to call ye Daniel. Ye’re almost young enough to be my son.” An indiscreet thing to say: Richard felt his heart twist. Go back to sleep, William Henry, go back to sleep in the bottom of my mind.

“Ye’re well known as one of the quiet convicts,” said Daniel some days later, able to break down a musket himself. “I know not what ye did nor why, but we marines all know who is who, if not what and why. Ye’re also the head man of a number of quiet groups, which means ye’re respected in the marine camp. Less work.”

Richard did not look up to grin, he grinned to a Brown Bess between his knees.

When Major Ross had summoned him, Daniel Stanfield had gone secure in the knowledge that he had committed no crimes, even in the matter of women. His attentions were devoted to Mrs. Alice Harmsworth, who had lost her baby son a month after landing and her marine husband two months after that. Now a widow with two surviving children, she existed as best she could. Stanfield’s protection, which as yet displayed no amorous side, made the world of difference to her and her children.

“I need to train one of my own men as a gunsmith, Stanfield,” said Major Ross, “and my eye has lighted upon ye because ye’re the best shot here and ye’re also good with your hands. I have found a convict who is a master gunsmith-Morgan, late Alexander. His Excellency the Governor is leaning more and more toward making a larger settlement at Norfolk Island, and that means we will need a saw sharpener and a gunsmith for both settlements. Therefore I am sending ye to Morgan to learn at least the rudiments of gunsmithing. Whichever one of ye goes to Norfolk Island will have to be skilled enough to attend to the muskets there. If ’tis ye who goes to Norfolk Island, I would have to send a saw sharpener as well, which means I lean to sending Morgan there. But only if ye can maintain Port Jackson’s pieces. So start learning, Stanfield-and learn fast.”

Winter wasproving itself the rainy season; at the beginning of August, well after the men of Richard’s hut had waved an ironic farewell to Alexander, it rained without let for fourteen days. The stream flooded and drove the married marines out of their camp conveniently close by, even this sandy soil tried to turn to muck, and every chinked log house was a death trap of whistling chilly winds after the mud plaster melted. The thatched roofs did not merely leak, they let waterfalls through, property stored in the open was irreparably damaged, and the Government Stores was beset with molds, damp, crawlies and deterioration.