Colleen McCullough - Morgan’s Run

Gigantic sea birds called albatrosses grew more and more numerous as they inched southward, but when an ambitious marine got out his musket because he fancied roast albatross for dinner, the crew restrained him in horror; it was bad luck to the ship to kill one of these kings of the air.

The new sickness broke out among the marines first, but soon spread into the prison. So it was back to fumigating, scrubbing and whitewashing. The central isolation platforms were full once more and one convict died in the midst of a roaring gale. Surgeon Balmain-happier to visit in these days of sweeter smells-spent a lot of time between the prison and steerage. Whenever the weather permitted it he ordered yet another fumigation, scrub, and whitewash, though clearly the ritual did nothing save steal a little more light for Richard, Bill, Will, Neddy and others to read by if the deck was a shambles of sail and sailors. It turned out during this series of blows that Captain Sinclair was no mean sailor himself; he would make sail the moment the wind was right, then shorten sail not many minutes later if the wind went sour. Make, shorten, make, shorten, make… Little wonder that John Power, Willy Dring and Joe Robinson never made an appearance in the prison. The mates could use all the hands they could get. Nothing was worse than having too few hands to get a decent rest between watches.

By the end of September the equinoctial gales died a little, the seas became easier, deck accessible. In fair weather or foul she sailed well, did Alexander, so at no time did the seas break over her hard enough to batten the hatches. That fate had happened only the once since leaving Portsmouth.

Looking as exalted as he did exhausted, John Power returned to the prison from time to time once his services were not so much in demand, as did Willy Dring and Joe Robinson, who seemed edgy and restless; they made no attempt to go forward and join Power’s clique around the bow bulkhead, which puzzled Richard, who had expected that shared work would see them grow increasingly friendly with their fellow sailor. Instead, they looked uneasy whenever they saw him.

Things went along much as they had for weeks on end-an excursion on deck to fish or pat animals, a read, a singsong, talk between groups, games of dice or cards, some sort of struggle to eat; they were all growing thin again, the little bit of padding acquired in Rio dwindling on that terrible diet. No one near the stern bulkhead on the larboard side noticed anything different-no change in the atmosphere, no furtive whispering, no descending into the hold to steal bread-well, who would want to? Willy Dring and Joe Robinson had gone to earth in their cot and seemed to sleep or doze constantly; that last was the only symptom Richard noticed, and he dismissed it as odd but not really remarkable. They had worked hard for two solid weeks.

Then on the 6th of October and not very far from the African continent, a party of ten marines descended into the prison and took John Power away. He went fighting, was knocked senseless and lifted out through the after hatch while the convicts stared in amazement. A few minutes later the marines were back to remove two men from Nottingham, William Pane and John Meynell, whose cot was next to Power’s. Then-nothing. Except that Power, Pane and Meynell never came back.

Richard got most of the story from Stephen Donovan and a little from Willy Dring and Joe Robinson.

Power and some of the crew had planned a mutiny which hinged on the fact that two-thirds of the marines were not fit for duty.

“A wilder, more harebrained scheme I have never heard of,” said Donovan, confounded. “They simply intended to take over the ship! Without any method to their madness at all, at all. I was not in on it, I would stake my life young Shortland was not, and his eminence William Aston Long would not so demean himself-he is up for a master’s ticket when he gets home, besides. Old Bones? He says not, though I do not believe him and nor does Esmeralda. Once the quarterdeck and the scatter cannon were secured, the idea was to batten the marines and the convicts in below deck, take the helm and steer for Africa. Presumably Esmeralda, Long, Shortland, self and the dissenting crew were to be locked up with you lot in the prison. I doubt any murder was planned.”

“Do not go away,” said Richard, and went back to the prison to beard Willy Dring and Joe Robinson.

“What did you know about it?” he demanded.

They looked as if an enormous weight had been lifted from them.

“We heard about it from Power, who asked us to be in on it,” said Dring. “I told him he was mad, and to give it up. After that he made sure he spoke to no one while we were about, though he knew we’d not do the whiddle on him. Then Mr. Bones dismissed us.”

Richard returned to the deck. “Dring and Robinson knew, but would not be in on it. Bones I think was. What happened? ”

“Two convicts informed on him to Esmeralda.”

“There are always snitches,” said Richard, half to himself. “Meynell and Pane from Nottingham. Bad bastards.”

“Well, Dring and Robinson adhered to the code of honor among thieves, whereas this other couple are in the business of earning official commendations and better food. Ye called them bad. Why?”

“Because there have been other snitchings. I have had my suspicions about them for some time. Once the names are known, it all falls into place. Where are they now?”

“Aboard Scarborough, to the best of my knowledge. Esmeralda took a longboat to see His Excellency the moment the pair informed. I went along to heave him up ladders. Sirius sent two dozen marines and the sailors whom the snitches named were arrested. About Mr. Bones and some others-we have no proof. But they will not try it again, no matter how much they hate Esmeralda for watering the rum and then selling it to them.”

“What of Power?” Richard asked, throat tight.

“Gone to Sirius, there to stay stapled to the deck. He will not come back to Alexander, that is certain.” Donovan stared at Richard curiously. “Ye truly do like the lad, don’t ye?”

“Aye, very much, though I could see he’d end in trouble. Some men attract trouble the way a magnet does iron nails. He is one. But I do not believe that he was guilty of the crime he was convicted for.” Richard brushed his eyes, shook his head angrily. “He was desperate to get home to his sick dad.”

“I know. But if it is any consolation, Richard, I think that once we get beyond Cape Town and there is no chance for Johnny to return home, he will settle to being a model convict.”

It was not much consolation, perhaps because Richard felt that he himself had not fulfilled his filial obligations; most of his thoughts lay with Cousin James-the-druggist, not with his father.

There was one thing he could do to help John Power, and he did it without a qualm: he let the names of the snitches be known from one bulkhead to the other. Snitches were snitches, they would snitch again. When Scarborough came into Cape Town the word would travel to her. Pane and Meynell would be known for what they were to every convict at Botany Bay. Life for them would not be easy.

Surgeon Balmain had the answer for the general mood of gloom and depression in the prison; he made them fumigate, scrub and whitewash again.

“I want,” said Bill Whiting passionately, “to do two things, Richard. One is to grab fucken Balmain, explode gunpowder in his face, scrub him with oil of tar and a wire brush, and paint him solid white. The other is to change my fucken name. Whiting! ”

Cape Townwas beautiful, yes, but could not hold a candle to Rio de Janeiro in the judgment of the convicts, doomed always to look, never to sample. Not only had Rio been visually stunning, but it had also been filled with happy and natural people, with color and vitality. Cape Town had a more windswept and bleakly dusty kind of appeal, and its harbor lacked those hordes of gay bum boats; what black faces they saw did not smile. This might have been a simple reflection of its sternly Calvinistic, extremely Dutch character. Many buildings were painted white (not the favorite color of Alexander’s convicts) and there were few trees inside the town itself. A grand mountain, flat and bushy on top, reared behind the tiny coastal plain, and what the books said about it was quite true: a layer of dense white cloud did come down and spread a cloth over Table Mountain.