Colleen McCullough - Morgan’s Run

Toward Christmas, Lieutenant King decided to send Assistant Surgeon John Turnpenny Altree, Thomas Webb and Juno Anderson to live permanently at Ball Bay, a stony beach on the eastern side of the island wherein Supply was occasionally forced to anchor. His intention was that the three men should clear and keep clear a channel through the round, kettle-sized rocks so that a ship’s boat could land; the basalt boulders stove a boat’s keel in. This decision of King’s was one which provoked covert winks and smirks all round. Altree, a strange and ineffectual man who had not been able to face doctoring the female convicts of Lady Penrhyn, avoided women as if they carried plague. Wherever he went, so too would Thomas Webb go, eased out of his brother’s life by Beth Henderson and fled to Altree for succor. Delighted at the prospect of abandoning his wife and his job as a sawyer, Juno Anderson went to dance attendance on the two free custodians of Ball Bay. It was no more than a mile away, but was so cut off by the forest that Joe Robinson, trying to find his way back to Sydney Town, was lost for two nights. A path to Ball Bay was therefore mandatory, though no trees were felled to make it. The massively thick, strangulating vine between the pines was easily severed by one blow from an axe, and its bark, the path hewers discovered, made quite good twine provided the lengths were kept short.

Richard was now down two sawyers, and of prospective sawyers there were none until Supply returned-if Supply ever did. Jim Richardson had ventured out on a Sunday in quest of bananas and broken his leg so badly that it would be months healing; he would never saw again. And Juno Anderson was no loss, a sentiment his wife echoed heartily.

This meant that Richard would have to saw himself; the three-and-a-half-hour midday break would have to be spent sharpening, as would every other second of spare time. But who as a partner?

“Needs must,” said the Commandant, having long since recovered from his miff at Morgan’s presumption. “I shall ask Private Wigfall if he would care to make an additional wage as a sawyer. He has the body and stature of a boxer.”

“A good choice, sir,” said Richard, then pretended to be horrified. “What if Private Wigfall cannot saw straight and has to be the bottom man? It is not seemly for a convict to give a marine free man a face full of sawdust.”

“He can wear a hat,” said King blithely, and hurried off.

Luckily Private William Wigfall was a typical large and burly fellow: habitually phlegmatic, impossible to rile. He hailed from Sheffield and owned no close friends among his tiny detachment.

“My friends all remained at Port Jackson,” he said to Richard. “Honestly, I am right glad for the chance to get away from this lot, not to mention that I will earn more for sawing than I do for being a marine. I will be able to retire earlier. ’Tis my ambition to buy an acre of good ground with a nice little cottage on it somewhere near Sheffield. If I work my passage home as a sailor I will have even more money.”

“D’ye mind if I try being the man on top of the log first?” asked Richard. “My eye is very straight, so I am curious to see if that holds true when I am sawing. Besides, being bottom man is easier on the muscles. Unfortunately ye will not be able to wear a hat-ye have to stand too close to the saw. I will yell as I begin my pull to give ye the chance to look down.”

His eye proved straight; Wigfall’s did not. The work was every bit as grueling as Richard had thought, but Wigfall turned out to be a magnificent partner, capable of a tremendous pull downward. But I could never have done this in Port Jackson on those miserable rations. Here, between the fish, the occasional turtle and the masses of green vegetables and turnips-not to mention the better bread-I can saw without losing more weight than I can afford. For a man of forty, I am in far better condition than Lieutenant King is at a mere thirty.

At Christmastide the Commandant killed a large pig just for his convict family, so on that dark and windy day the porker was spitted over a fire of smoldering coals and roasted until its skin crackled and bubbled up crisply; each man and woman got a double portion, there were scarce potatoes to go with it, and a half-pint of rum to wash the meal down. This was the first roast meat that Richard had eaten since his days at the Cooper’s Arms-incredibly delicious! As were the potatoes. Dear Lord, he prayed that night as he tumbled into his feather bed, I am so very grateful. Only those who have truly wanted can ever enjoy simple plenty.

For the next few days it rained and blew too hard for outside work, though, as both sawpits were sheltered, the sawyers continued to cut logs into planks, scantlings and beams; Government House was receiving some additions, Stephen Donovan was getting a new house in close proximity to the Commandant’s, and all the sawyers were allowed to cut timber to build themselves private dwellings. Nor was Richard, already possessed of a good house, unwilling to saw for his teams’ houses.

New Yearof 1789 dawned clear and fine; the convicts were given a half-day off work and a quarter-pint of rum. Thanks to the subtle and unobtrusive exertions of his supervisors, Lieutenant King was settling into something vaguely like a routine-please, sir, if we finish what we have started, it will mean we can devote all our attention to the new work in its turn…

King’s joy overflowed when his healthy son by Ann Innet was born eight days into 1789. As the only person who conducted religious worship, King baptized the boy himself and christened him “Norfolk.”

“Norfolk King has a pleasing sound,” said Stephen to Richard on the sand at Turtle Bay. “I am delighted for him. He needs to have a family, though ’twill not help his naval career to marry Mistress Innet. But a more doting father would be hard to imagine. Things will go hard for him when comes the time he must leave for England-what to do with a much-loved bastard, not to mention the mother? He is very fond of her.”

“He will solve all his dilemmas,” said Richard tranquilly. “A flightier commanding officer would be hard to find, but he lacks neither honor nor a sense of responsibility. There are some things he cannot deal with happily-routine, for one-and he has a hot temper. Witness Mary Gamble.”

Mary Gamble provoked that hot temper when she threw an axe at a boar and severely wounded it. Furious at the near-demise of this immensely valuable animal, King refused to listen to her frenzied explanation that the boar had charged her and she had thrown the axe in self-defense. Before his temper cooled he levied the atrocious number of a dozen-dozen lashes at the cart’s tail upon her. Once calm returned, he was aghast-strip that gallant creature to the waist before men like Dyer and give her 144 licks of the cat, even the kindest cat among the assortment? Oh, Christ, he could not do it! What if the boar had indeed charged her? The axe she had by right, as she was one of the women deputed to debark pine logs. Oh, Jesus! He had never ordered half that many lashes for a man! What a pickle! So he summoned Mary Gamble to Government House and announced in lordly tones that he forgave her.

His conduct of this debacle told a few of the convicts that he was stupid, soft-hearted and weak; certain plans already in train were advanced in time because it was so obvious that King had neither the stomach nor the kidney for harsh action.

Robert Webb the gardener came to see him urgently. “Sir, there is a plot afoot,” he said.

“A plot?” King asked blankly.

“Aye, sir. A great many of the felons plan to take you, Mr. Donovan, the other free men and all the marines prisoner. They are then going to wait for the next ship, take her, and sail her to Otaheite.”