Colleen McCullough - Morgan’s Run

“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 eats 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?

On Fridaythe 19th of March, the sea fair, the day fine, Sirius stood in to Sydney Bay to unload her cargo. She lay to under the lee of Nepean Island and prepared to hoist her boats into the water, but when her commanders realized that she was drifting too close to the rocks of Point Hunter they made sail to get her farther out; she missed stays and lay immobile. Sailing master Keltie decided to wear her by tacking with the wind around her stern at the very moment when it gusted from a breeze to a gale. Sirius missed her stays again. Just as the noon bell rang a wave plucked her out of a trough and flung her broadside on the reef. Armed with axes, her sailors lopped the masts through at deck level, stoving in her boats and smothering her in a welter of spars and canvas. Boats flew from the beach and from Supply in the roads, but had no hope of reaching her; the treacherous surf was suddenly high enough to soar over her chess tree, a piece of oak where the curve of the bow straightened to run aft as the rail. While the sailors worked in a frenzy to clear the decks of the felled rigging, a seven-inch-circumference hawser was towed ashore and fixed high on a surviving pine; those people who could be spared aboard were dragged in clinging to the hawser through the flooding afternoon tide. As the hawser bowed in its middle exactly where the surf broke, Captain John Hunter, the first man winched ashore, arrived bruised, cut and battered enough to assure Major Ross that his curse had worked a treat. There would be far worse to come for Hunter, who had lost his ship and would have to stand trial for it in England.

Other officers followed him before someone thought to rig the hawser with a traveler, a piece of grating upon which the men could perch and at least save their legs and bottoms from the coral. Only when the surf went down would they be able to put a tripod under the bow in the hawser, and there was no chance of that at the moment.

Some of Sirius’s crew, on shore leave, swam back and forth to the wreck, as did Stephen Donovan, very angry that no one on Sirius had asked him about the local winds and currents. Christ, she was a big ship, and someone ought to have realized that Nepean Island did strange things with wind! Why hadn’t Hunter utilized David Blackburn or Harry Ball, if he was too haughty to ask a mere sailor of the merchant service?

The news reached the sawpits as quickly as bad news always does; Richard went the rounds and forbade his teams to stop work unless orders came that they were needed. There were several hundred people to house, especially given that the crew of Sirius was now marooned on Norfolk Island as well-an extra hundred souls. If Sirius could not sail to Cathay, Supply would have to go, and that meant months and months without relief. Or so Richard reasoned-as it turned out, correctly.

Dawn of Saturday revealed Sirius still intact; her back was broken but her stern had swung off the reef, where she lay at an angle. Landing conditions were terrible. The wind had risen to a minor gale and clouds threatened rain, but the work of getting her provisions off went on all day; by four that afternoon the last of the men had come ashore, having emptied Sirius’s holds and put her cargo on the cleared decks for easier removal.

But at nine on that Saturday morning King, deferring to Major Ross, called a meeting of all the commissioned officers belonging to Sirius and the Marine Corps. Ross conducted it.

“Lieutenant King, as is proper in this emergency, has formally handed command to me as Lieutenant-Governor,” said Ross, whose pale eyes bore the same steely gloss as a highland loch. “It is necessary to make decisions that will ensure the peace, order and good government of this place. I am informed that Supply will be able to take about twenty members of Sirius’s crew as well as Mr. King, his lady, and child, and it is imperative that Supply sails for Port Jackson as quickly as possible. His Excellency must be apprised of this disaster forthwith.”