Colleen McCullough - Morgan’s Run

“I do not doubt ye, sir.”

“I see your wife is with child.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Ye’re better off out of Arthur’s Vale, but ye were wise enough to see that for yourself. There will be no trouble for ye with Mr. King, who has little choice other than to honor those transactions I have negotiated as His Majesty’s legally appointed Lieutenant-Governor. Of course your pardon ultimately rests with His Excellency, but ye’re out of your sentence in a few months anyway, and I cannot see why ye will not get your full pardon.” Ross stopped. “If this benighted isle ever succeeds, ’twill be because of men like you and Nat Lucas.” He held out his hand. “Goodbye, Morgan.”

Blinking back tears, Richard gripped the hand and wrung it. “Goodbye, Major Ross. I wish ye well.”

And that, thought the desperately sorry Richard as he hurried after Kitty and Joey, is one half of the work done. I have yet to deal with the other half.

It happened as Queen discharged cargo and convicts first at Cascade and then at Sydney Bay; Richard was sawing with a new man because Billy Wigfall was going, and was too busy shouting instructions to his partner below to bother looking up. When the cut was done he noticed the figure in its Royal Navy uniform aglitter with gold braid, unwrapped the rags from around his hands and walked across to salute Commander King.

“Should the supervisor of sawyers actually saw himself?” King asked, staring at Richard’s chest and shoulders with some awe.

“I like to keep my hand in, sir, and it informs my men that I am still better at it than they are. The pits are all working well at the moment and each has a good man at the helm. This one-your third pit, sir, d’ye remember?-is where I saw myself when I do saw.”

“I swear ye’re in far finer body than ye were when I left, Morgan. I understand ye’re a free man by virtue of pardon?”

“Aye, sir.”

His mouth pursing, King tapped his fingers a little peevishly against his brilliantly white-clad thigh. “I daresay I cannot blame the sawpits for the shockingly bad buildings,” he said.

The gulf yawned, but had to be leaped. Richard set his jaw and looked straight into King’s eyes, more aware these days that he possessed a certain power. Thank you, Kitty. “I hope, sir, that ye’re not about to blame Nat Lucas.”

King jumped, looked horrified. “No, no, Morgan, of course not! Blame my own original head carpenter? Acquit me of such idiocy. No, ’tis Major Ross I blame.”

“Ye cannot do that either, sir,” said Richard steadily. “Ye left this place twenty months ago, a week or two after the people in it had jumped from a hundred and forty-nine to more than five hundred. During the time ye’ve been away, the population has gone to over thirteen hundred. After Queen, more, and Irish Irish at that-they’ll not even speak English, most of them. ’Tis simply not the place ye left, Commander King. Then, we enjoyed good health-we lived hard, but we managed. Now, at least a third of the mouths we are feeding are sick ones, and we have besides Port Jackson’s leavings when it comes to utter villains. I am sure,” he swept on, ignoring King’s mounting indignation and annoyance, “that while ye were in Port Jackson ye discussed with His Excellency the terrible difficulties His Excellency is suffering. Well, it has been no different here, is all. My sawpits have produced thousands upon thousands of superficial feet over the last twenty months. Much of it ought to have been seasoned for longer than it did because the new arrivals kept coming and coming. Ye might say that Major Ross, Nat Lucas, I and many others here have been caught in the middle. But that was nobody’s fault. At least not on this side of the globe.”

Eyes still fixed on King’s, he waited calmly. No servility, but not a trace of impudence or presumption either. If this man is to survive, he thought, then he must take notice of what I have said. Otherwise he will not succeed, and the New South Wales Corps will end in ruling Norfolk Island.

The mercurial Celt struggled with the coolheaded Englishman for perhaps a minute, then King’s shoulders slumped. “I hear what ye’re saying clearly. But it cannot continue thus, is what I meant to say. I insist that whatever is built is constructed properly, even if that means some have to live under canvas for however long it takes.” His mood changed. “Major Ross informs me that the harvest will come in magnificently, both here and at Queensborough. Many acres and none spoiled. I admit that is an achievement. Yet we have to put men on the grindstone.” He gazed at his dam, still holding up very well. “We need a water-wheel, and Nat Lucas says he can build one.”

“I am sure he can. His only enemies are time and lack of materials. Give him the latter and he will find the former.”

“Aye, so I think too.” His face assumed a conspiratorial look as he moved completely out of earshot. “Major Ross also told me that ye distilled rum for him during a time of crisis. That rum also saved Port Jackson from mutiny between March and August of this year, with no rum and no ships.”

“I did distill, sir.”

“D’ye possess the apparatus?”

“Aye, sir, very well hidden. It does not belong to me, it is the property of the Government. That I am its custodian lies in the fact that Major Ross trusted me.”

“The pity of it is that those wretched transport captains have not been above selling distillation apparatus to private individuals. I hear that the New South Wales Corps and some of the worst convicts are distilling illicit spirits. At least Port Jackson can grow no sugar cane, but here it grows like a weed. Norfolk Island is potentially a source of rum. What the Governor of New South Wales has to decide is whether to continue importing rum from thousands of miles away at great expense, or to start distilling here.”

“I doubt His Excellency Governor Phillip would consent.”

“Aye, but he will not be governor forever.” King looked very worried. “His health is breaking down.”

“Sir, there is no point in fretting about events which still lie very much in the future,” Richard said, relaxing. He had leaped the chasm, things would be all right between him and King.

“True, true,” said the new Lieutenant-Governor, and hied himself off to spend an hour or two in his office, with perhaps a tiny drop of port to palliate the monotony.

“Ye’ve abox at Stores,” said Stephen not long after this encounter. “What is it, Richard? Ye look exhausted for someone who thinks nothing of ripping a dozen gigantic logs apart.”

“I have just spoken my mind to Commander King.”

“Ooooo-aaa! Well, ye’re a free man, so he cannot have ye flogged without trial and conviction.”

“Oh, I survived. I always do, it seems.”

“Do not tempt fate!”

Richard bent and knocked on wood. “This time, anyway,” he amended. “He had the sense to see I spoke naught but the truth.”

“Then there is hope for him. Did you hear the first thing I said, Richard?”

“No, what?”

“There is a box for you at Stores. It came on Queen. Too heavy to carry, so fetch your sled.”

“Dinner this evening? Then ye can help me explore the box.”

“I will be there.”

He collected his sled at midday and was led to the box by Tom Crowder, taken under Mr. King’s patronage at once. Someone had broken into it-no one here in Stores, he decided. On Queen or in Port Jackson. Whoever had inspected it had had the courtesy to hammer the lid back on. Pushing at the box, he decided from its weight that little had been confiscated, from which he assumed it contained books. A great many books, since it was bigger than a tea chest and made of stronger wood. When he bent to pick it up and heft it onto the sled, Crowder squealed.