Off he stumped. Richard felt very sorry for him; he had great talent for organization and action, yet he had no sympathy for the frailties of others, especially if they were his own marines. Whom, when they transgressed, he was at liberty to flog. When he wanted to flog a convict, he had at least to mention the matter to the Governor. To crown the many woes this conflict within his breast generated, Ross had developed an affinity for lightning; his small stock of sheep had perished sheltering under a tree, then his marque had been struck and most of his papers and records were burned together with much else. What Richard thought as he watched the military figure disappear was that without Major Ross, chaos at Port Jackson would be infinite. The Governor is an idealist; the Lieutenant-Governor is a realist.
Richard’s bark shelter had grown much larger and he had added two more men to his team, Neddy Perrott and Job Hollister. Billy Earl, Johnny Cross and Jimmy Price had gone to join Bill Whiting in Government Stores, which left only Joey Long without a delegated job. Richard scrounged a grubbing hoe to add to their spade and mattock and set him to making a garden outside their hut, praying that no one would commandeer him for other work, or question his activities; he was fairly well known to be simple in the head, which made him less desirable. If Joey stayed at the hut, their inedible belongings would be safe. The pillaging of food was so universal that every man and woman carried their rations with them to their place of work—and then had to be vigilant to make sure nothing was stolen. Most food thefts were internecine and therefore of no interest to the Governor or the marines; the strong convicts stole from the weak or sickening convicts with impunity.
Dysentery had broken out within two weeks of landing. Richard’s instincts about the stream of water were right, though how it had become polluted at the place where water was drawn was a mystery the surgeons could not solve. Their theory was that the water of New South Wales was too alien for an English gut. Three convicts in the hospital tent died and a second hospital had to be erected out of whatever was to hand. Scurvy was rife too; the sallow skin and painful limping gave it away long before the gums started to swell and bleed. Richard still had malt and could stretch it further because Lieutenant Furzer in Government Stores prized his small band of convict helpers so much that he secretly dosed them with malt. This kind of favoritism, as with the sawyers, was inevitable in the face of growing privation.
“But if it comes to it,” said Richard to his group in a tone brooking no argument, “we will eat sour crout. I do not care if I have to sit on your chests and force it down your throats. Remember your mothers—we were all brought up to believe that medicine did no good unless it tasted abominable. Sour crout is medicine.”
Port Jackson had no natural remedies for the scurvy in anything like sufficient quantity to feed its new population; very few local plants and berries did not cause symptoms of poisoning. The germinating plants faithfully watered in the Government gardens poked up shoots to look at the sun and the sky, and died of sheer discouragement. Nothing would grow, nothing.
It is late summer here, coming into autumn, thought Richard, considering the citrus seeds he had saved from Rio de Janeiro. So I will not sow my seeds until September or October, when it is spring. Who knows how chill the winter is here? In New York the summer is very hot, yet in winter the sea can freeze. From the look of our Indians, I doubt it ever gets that cold, but I cannot afford to take chances by planting anything now.
Three convicts—Barrett, Lovell and Hall—were caught in the act of stealing bread and salt meat from the Government Stores, and another was caught in the act of stealing wine. The three food thieves were sentenced to death; the wine thief was appointed the Publick Executioner.
On the western shore of the cove between the men’s and the women’s tents stood a tall, solid, handsome tree with one oddity: a strong, straight, aberrant branch projected from it ten feet off the ground. Thus did it become the Hanging Tree, for there was no timber to spare for erecting a gallows. On the 25th of February the three wretches were escorted to it under the gaze of every convict, ordered to attend on pain of 100 lashes. Governor Phillip was determined that this last-ditch lesson would have the desired effect—they had to be made to stop stealing food! His own belly, of course, like the belly belonging to every senior person, was at least full. So, as in the business of fornication, the desperate measures introduced to rectify the trouble could not succeed. The hope that they would arose from empty scrotums and full bellies.
Many among the audience, free or felon, had seen a hanging; in England they were occasions of fete and celebration. But many had not, preferring, like Richard and his men, to leave that kind of macabre pleasure to others.
The first condemned man, Barrett, was placed atop the stool and the Publick Executioner was directed to put the looped rope about his neck, tighten it. This he did white-faced and weeping, but he refused to kick the stool away until several marines put powder and ball in their muskets and aimed at him from point-blank distance. Very pale but composed, Barrett kept himself steady. A die-hard. Because the drop was not sufficient to break his neck, he lunged and writhed at the end of his rope for what seemed an eternity. When he did eventually die, it was from lack of air. A full hour later the body was removed and the stool positioned to receive Lovell.
Lieutenant George Johnston, the Governor’s aide-de-camp now that Lieutenant King was gone to Norfolk Island, stepped forward and announced that Lovell and Hall had been granted a twenty-four-hour reprieve. The convicts were then dismissed. Phillip’s lesson was wasted; those of a mind to steal would continue to steal, and those of a mind not to steal would not. The most that hanging could do was to reduce the number of thieves by simple subtraction.
While Richard was moving away he chanced to look at the ranks of the women convicts, and there he saw some scarlet ostrich feathers nodding over a glamorous black hat. Stunned, he stopped in his tracks. Lizzie Lock! It had to be Lizzie Lock. She had been transported along with her cherished hat. Which looked remarkably fine in light of its travels. But then, she had probably looked after it better than she had her own person. Now was not the time to try to approach her; a moment would arrive. Knowing she was here was sufficient comfort.
On the morrow everybody was again compelled to assemble—in the midst of pouring rain—only to be informed that His Excellency the Governor had reprieved Lovell and Hall in favor of exile to some place as yet to be determined. However, said Lieutenant George Johnston in minatory tones, His Excellency was seriously considering shipping all recalcitrants to New Zealand and dumping them ashore to be eaten by the cannibals. Once Supply could be spared, that was where they were all going, and he meant every single word of it, make no mistake! In the meantime, exiles were to go in irons to a barren rock near the cove which had already earned the name “Pinchgut” and subsist there on quarter-rations of bread plus a little water. Yet Pinchgut, the noose and the threat of cannibal feasts did not stop the desperate from stealing food.
If the convicts concentrated upon edibles, the marines preferred to plunder rum and women; marine floggings went from 50 to 100 to 150 lashes, though the flogger never laid it on as hard as he did were his victim a convict—understandable. That the marines could concentrate upon booze and sex lay in the fact that they doled out the food; no matter how this operation was supervised, the portions for marines were always much larger than the portions for convicts. Again, understandable.
