The chaplain stepped back so quickly that he trod heavily on his wife’s foot; she yelped, he apologized profusely, and so managed to get away with dignity more or less intact.
“A perfectly matched couple,” said Donovan to their retreating backs. “They labor with equal zeal in the Lord’s Name.” Then he turned his laughing eyes upon Lizzie, scooped her up and kissed her thoroughly. “I am Stephen Donovan, able seaman off Sirius, Mrs. Morgan,” he said, bowing with a flourish of his Sunday tricorn. “I wish ye the whole world.” After which he wrung Richard’s hand.
“There is no wedding feast,” said Richard, “but we would be pleased if ye’d join us, Mr. Donovan.”
“Thankee, but no, I have the Watch in an hour. Here, a small present,” he said, thrust a package into Richard’s hand and walked off blowing light-hearted kisses to a group of ogling women.
The parcel contained butter of antimony and a lavishly fringed scarlet silk shawl.
“How did he know I love red?” asked Lizzie, purring.
How did he? Richard laughed and shook his head. “That is a man sees through iron doors, Lizzie, but he is another ye can trust.”
In May the Governor located a patch of reasonably good land about fifteen miles inland to the west and decided to shift some convicts to the site, crowned by Rose Hill (after his patron, Sir George Rose), to clear it fully and prepare the ground for wheat and maize. Barley he would continue to try to grow on the farm at Sydney Cove. A very little timber was coming out of the sawpits, but quantities of palm logs were now being freighted from coves nearer to the rearing bastions of the Heads. These round, fairly straight boles were flimsy and rotted quickly, but they could be easily sawed and chinked with mud, so most of the increased spate of building was done with palm logs and a thatch of palm fronds or rushes. The casuarina shingles were being weathered and saved for permanent structures, starting with the Governor’s house.
The bricks of the nucleus of this had been landed and the wonderful field of brick clay not so very distant was already being worked—brick making went on as fast as the miserable twelve brick molds put on board could be turned around. There was, however, one problem about building in brick or the stunning local yellow sandstone: no one had found a single trace of limestone anywhere. Anywhere! Which was—it was ridiculous! Limestone was like soil—it was always so abundant that no one in London had given it a thought. Yet how, in the absence of limestone, could any mortar be mixed to join bricks or sandstone blocks together?
Needs must. The ships’ boats were sent out to collect every empty oyster shell dumped around Port Jackson’s beaches and rock shelves, a heavy undertaking. The natives were partial to oysters (very tasty oysters, all the senior officers pronounced) and left the shells piled up like miniature slag heaps. If there was no alternative, then the Government would burn oyster shells to make lime for mortar. Experience proved that it took 30,000 empty shells to produce enough mortar to lay 5,000 bricks, the number contained in a tiny house, so as time went on the forays in search of this only source of lime extended to Botany Bay and Port Hacking to the south and almost 100 miles north of Port Jackson. Millions upon millions of empty oyster shells, burned and ground to dust, went between the bricks and blocks of the first solid, imperishable buildings around Sydney Cove.
Almost everybody began to display the early symptoms of scurvy, including the marines, whose flour rations were being cut back to eke out what flour was left in the stores. The convicts chewed at grass and any sort of tender leaf not redolent with resin. If it stayed down, they ate more of it—if it came up or they collapsed in agony, they avoided it. What else could they do? Having the time and the armaments to venture afield, the senior free men reaped the minute supply of edible greens: samphire (a succulent growing in the salt swamps of Botany Bay), a wild parsley, and a vine leaf which, when infused in boiling water, yielded a sweet, palatable tea.
No matter how many were banished in irons to Pinchgut, flogged, or even hanged, thefts of food continued. Whoever possessed any thriving vegetables was sure to lose them the instant vigilance was relaxed; in that respect Richard’s men were lucky, for they had MacGregor, a splendid watchdog during the night hours, and Lizzie Morgan to watch during daylight.
The death toll was mounting alarmingly among the free as well as the felon, and included women and children. A few convicts had absconded, hardly ever to be seen again. Some attrition, but not enough; Sydney Cove still held over 1,000 people on Government rations. Scurvy and semistarvation meant that the pace of work was appallingly slow, and there were of course a proportion of convicts—and marines—who objected to work on principle. With a governor like Arthur Phillip they were not flogged to work; an excuse was easy to find.
May also saw the first frosts of coming winter, heavy enough to kill almost everything in the gardens. Lizzie looked at her vegetable patch and wept, then went scratching dangerously farther afield in search of anything she thought green and edible. After two convict bodies were carried naked into the camp, killed by the natives, Richard forbade her to leave the cove environs. They had sour crout and it would be eaten. If the rest of the world chose scurvy in preference, that was hard luck.
On the 4th of June came the King’s birthday and a celebration, perhaps Governor Phillip’s way of injecting some heart into his dwindling, apathetic chicks. Guns thundered, marines marched, a bit of extra food was issued, and after dark a huge bonfire was kindled. The convicts were given a whole three days off work, but what mattered far more was the gift of a half-pint of rum broken down into grog by the addition of a half-pint of water. The free people each received a half-pint of neat rum and a pint of porter, which was a thick, black beer. To mark the occasion with some official deed, His Excellency the Governor determined the boundaries of the first county in New South Wales and christened it Cumberland County.
“Tchah!” Surgeon-General White was overheard to exclaim. “It is without a doubt the largest county in the world, but there is absolutely nothing in it. Tchah!”
This statement was not quite accurate; somewhere in Cumberland County were four black Cape cows and one black Cape bull. The precious Government herd of cattle, pastured near the farm under the care of a convict, took advantage of his rummy state, swished their tails and broke out of their compound. The search for them was frenzied and signs of their passing were found in heaps of dung and chewed shrubs, but they had no intention of being recaptured, and were not. A disaster!
Supply had come back from a second trip to Norfolk Island with some cheering news and some depressing news. The pine logs could not be loaded whole thanks to lack of an anchorage, nor could they be towed because they were so heavy they sank, but they could provide plenty of sawn beams, scantlings and boards for Port Jackson. This meant that Port Jackson could erect better wooden buildings than palm log, and concentrate upon a liquor store in stone—Fishburn and Golden Grove were stuck until some secure premises were erected on shore for the liquor.
On the other hand, Supply reported, growing plants in Norfolk Island was proving almost insuperably difficult because the place was infested with literally millions of caterpillars and grubs. Lieutenant King was so desperate that he was sitting his handful of women convicts among the plants to pick the grubs off by hand. But as fast as they picked, two replaced every one grub removed. Such rich, deep, fertile soil! Yet he could not grow in it. What did shine through in Lieutenant King’s despatches, rumor had it, was an unquenchable enthusiasm for Norfolk Island. Despite its myriad pests, he truly believed that it had more potential to support people than did the environs of Port Jackson.
