Colleen McCullough - Morgan’s Run

“Beautiful!” breathed Richard, stunned.

“How could a man tire of this place?”

They remained watching until the lights died away and then resumed their walk amid dozens of panting, sack-laden predators, torches all around them.

Winter came, drier and colder than last year’s; the wheat and Indian corn were planted over many more acres than King’s eleven, but were slow to come up until a welcome day of squally rain followed by a day of sun saw the vale and hillsides turn magically from blood-red soil to vividly green grass.

The official tally of Mt. Pitt birds rose to over 170,000-an average of 340 birds per person over 100 days. The island was still under Law Martial; Major Ross cut salt meat entirely from everybody’s rations, aware that the thousands of petrels remaining on the mountain would fly away once their chicks were strong enough to take wing. There had been plenty of heavy floggings administered by Jim Richardson, whom Richard had used as a sawyer until he broke his leg. To wield his assortment of cats put no strain on the afflicted member, and he quite liked this exclusive occupation. The odium in which he was regarded by almost all of his fellows, free as well as felon, worried him not in the slightest.

There had also been some hangings. Not of convicts: of sailors. Captain Hunter’s servants, assisted by Ross’s servant the noble Escott of Sirius fame, pillaged the Major’s scanty supply of rum, drank some of it and sold the rest. In his role of judge, jury and executioner, Lieutenant-Governor Ross hanged three of the offenders, though not Escott and not Hunter’s chief minion, Elliott. Escott’s other punishment was to be stripped of his Sirius valor; Ross gave the official credit for swimming out to the wreck to a convict named John Arscott. Escott and Elliott were let off with 500 lashes from the meanest cat, a punishment which, as the Major had promised in his address at the beginning of Law Martial, laid them bare to the bone from neck to ankles. This total was administered in a series of five floggings of 100 lashes each, 100 lashes being considered the most any man could bear at one time. The flogger started at the shoulders and moved slowly down the body over back, buttocks and thighs to finish at the calves. Murmurs of mutiny arose among the sailors, but in the face of this terrible crime against the free, rum-drinking community Captain Hunter was unable to support his men’s cause, while the furious marines looked only too happy to shoot a mob of sailors down. Thanks to Private Daniel Stanfield their muskets were in excellent condition and they kept their cartridges dry; musket practice under Stephen and Richard still happened on Saturday mornings.

Major Ross arrived at Richard’s house in the aftermath of the rumstealing disaster, face even grimmer than usual.

This task is killing him, thought Richard, ushering the Major to a chair; he has aged ten years since arriving here.

“Mr. Donovan,” Ross announced, “imparted some interesting facts about ye to me, Morgan. He says ye can distill rum.”

“Aye, sir-given the equipment and the ingredients. Though I cannot promise that it will taste any better than the stuff produced in Rio de Janeiro, from reports of that. Like all spirits, rum should be aged in the cask before being drunk, but if ye want what I think ye want, there is not the time. The results will be raw and nasty.”

“Beggars cannot be choosers.” Ross snapped his fingers at the dog, which bustled over to be patted. “How are ye, MacTavish?”

MacTavish wagged his undocked tail and looked adorable.

“I was a victualler in Bristol, sir, among other things,” said Richard, throwing a log onto his fire, “so I understand better than most how big are the horns of this dilemma. Men who are used to rum or gin every day cannot live happily without it. That can be as true of women. Only the Law Martial and lack of equipment has prevented construction of a still here already. I will gladly build ye the still and work it, but…”

Hands out to the fire, Ross grunted. “I know what ye’re implying. The moment ’tis known a still exists, there will be those who will not be content with a half-pint a day and others who will see profit in it.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Ye have a fine crop of sugar cane, as does the Government.”

Richard grinned. “I thought it might come in handy.”

“Are ye a drinker yourself these days, Morgan?”

“Nay. On that I give you my word, Major Ross.”

“I have one abstemious officer, Lieutenant Clark, so to him I will apportion supervision of this project. And tear my ranks apart looking for privates. Stanfield, Hayes and James Redman I can trust neither to imbibe nor to sell, and Captain Hunter”-his face twisted, was disciplined-“recommends his quarter gunner Drummond, his bosun’s mate Mitchell, and his seaman Hibbs. That gives ye a total of six men and one officer.”

“Ye cannot site it in the vale, sir,” said Richard strongly.

“I agree. Have ye any suggestions?”

“Nay, sir. I travel only as far afield as my sawpits.”

“Let me think about it, Morgan,” said Ross, rising with some reluctance. “In the meantime, have Lawrell cut your sugar cane.”

“Aye, sir. But I will tell him that ye’ve ordered me to start refining sugar to sweeten the officers’ tea.”

Off went the Major, nodding in satisfaction, to supervise the final installation of his grindstone. When the wheat came in, hand querns would not cope with it. Therefore the full-sized millstone would have to be turned by the only labor he had, that of men. A useful adjunct to floggings, which Ross tolerated but privately detested-not because of scruples, rather because the lash only deterred crime when it was administered in very large doses, and those rendered the victims partially crippled for the rest of their lives. To chain a man to the grindstone for a week or a month and make him push it like a sailor a capstan was good punishment, hideous but not ruinous.

The roads to Ball Bay and Cascade were finished. Hacking a road westward to Anson Bay began at the beginning of June, and yielded a delightful surprise; about a hundred acres of rolling hills and vales halfway between Sydney Town and Anson Bay were discovered utterly free of pine forest-for what reason, no one could fathom. Accepting this as a gift like unto the manna of the Mt. Pitt bird, Major Ross immediately decided to establish a new settlement there. The ground he had cleared at the middle of the Cascade road was intended as a place of banishment for the Sirius sailors; Phillipburgh, at the Cascade end of the road, was still trying to turn flax into canvas.

The settlement in the direction of Anson Bay was called after Her Majesty Queen Charlotte-Charlotte Field. Why was Richard not surprised when none other than Lieutenant Ralph Clark was deputed to establish Charlotte Field? In company with Privates Stanfield, Hayes and James Redman? The still would be tucked somewhere along the way between Sydney Town and Charlotte Field, he was sure of it.

Rightly so. Soon after, he was summoned to walk out in that direction to site a new sawpit for Charlotte Field. A nice area. The pineless ground was densely covered with a creeper Clark fancied resembled English cow-itch; the creeper came out of the ground easily and was found useful in the construction of fences when mixed with a bush sporting thorns two inches long-not a fence a pig would tackle, enterprising though pigs were.

Major Ross had chosen a site for the distillery down a track off the Anson Bay road well before Charlotte Field; a stream arose from a spring below the crest and flowed down with other tributaries to join a creek which entered Sydney Bay not far from its western promontory, Point Ross. On additional pay, the three marines and three sailors set to with a will to clear enough ground for a small wooden building and a woodheap of white oak, the same local tree which fueled both the salt house and the lime kiln because it burned to scant ash. The stone blocks which would make the hearth and furnace were hauled by convicts from Sydney Town, ostensibly destined for Charlotte Field later on; Richard and his six men took them from the road to the distillery themselves after dark. They also had to erect the shed. Ross furnished copper kettles, a few stopcocks and valves, copper pipe and vats made from barrels sawn in half. Richard managed the welding and assembling himself. Secrecy was maintained, rather to his surprise; the cut cane and some ears of Indian corn simply vanished to presses and hand querns at the distillery.