As it was a civil case, the panel which sat to hear it was presided over by the Judge Advocate, marine captain David Collins, assisted by the Surgeon-General, John White, and the Reverend Mr. Johnson. Sinclair’s contention was that the parcel had broken when being moved from one part of the hold to another and that the books had fallen out, so had been kept separately. As to what happened to the parcel itself, he had no idea. The court found in favor of the Cables, whom the Reverend Johnson had married after they landed. The worth of the books was assessed at £5 of the £20 total value; Captain Duncan Sinclair was ordered to pay the Cables £15 in damages.
“I will not!” he cried, outraged. “Let them pay me fifteen pounds! They owe me for freightage of their wretched parcel!”
“Pay up, sir,” said Judge Advocate Collins wearily, “and stop wasting this court’s precious time. Your ship was in the service of Government and you were remunerated accordingly for the sole purpose of conveying these people and the little property they possess to this country. Fifteen pounds, sir, and no nonsense!”
A verdict which told Alexander’s convicts that the higher-ups were well aware that Esmeralda Sinclair had been selling convicts’ belongings at Sydney Cove.
The episode had one curious consequence. Two days after the court case Major Robert Ross sent for Richard to his palm log house; a stone house was being built for him with haste, as his accommodations were not fitting for the Lieutenant-Governor. His nine-year-old son, John, had been disembarked from Sirius and was now living with him; the child’s mother and younger brothers and sisters had remained behind in England.
The Major was in a wonderful mood, smiles from ear to ear.
“Ah, Morgan! Ye heard that Captain Sinclair lost the case?”
“Aye, sir,” said Richard, returning the grin cautiously.
“Take that—’tis your property,” said Ross. “It magically appeared out of nothing in Alexander’s hold. But first, ye’d best look to see what’s missing.”
There on a camp stool stood Richard’s big wooden tool chest, bare of any cloth wrappings; had it not still borne the brass plate with his name on it, who would ever have known? The locks had been broken; his heart sank. But when he opened it and removed all its nested trays, he could find nothing missing.
“I’ll be buggered!” said the Major, peering at the contents of the trays. “Ye’re no saw sharpener, Morgan—ye’re a gunsmith.”
Everything was perfectly ordered. Senhor Tomas Habitas must have packed the box himself because it contained whole flintlocks, parts of flintlocks, screws, pins, bolts, brass and copper cladding, springs, various liquids—whale oil!—special brushes. Far more than he had ever needed to carry to and from work. Nothing had moved or broken; everything was so tightly wadded in lint that a bedbug could not have crawled inside. With what was in here, he could make a gun did he have an unfinished stock and a freshly forged barrel and breech.
“I am a master gunsmith,” Richard admitted apologetically. “However, sir, I am a genuine saw sharpener too. My brother in Bristol is a sawyer and I always set his saws for him.”
“Ye’ve been very close about the gunsmithing.”
“As a convicted felon, Major Ross, I thought it inadvisable to air my skills at handling weapons. My interest might have been misinterpreted.”
“Fuck that!” rapped the Major, delighted. “Ye can turn to and overhaul every musket, pistol and fowling piece in this camp. I’ll have a proving butt built immediately—there are too many children running loose to pot bottles on tree stumps. How is your apprentice saw sharpener coming on?”
“He is as good as I am at it, sir.”
“Then he sharpens saws and you work on guns.”
“To work on guns, Major Ross, I will need a proper work-bench of the right height, some sort of stool, and shade allied to plenty of light. ’Tis not work can be done well otherwise.”
“Ye shall have whatever ye need—the rust, Morgan, the rust! There is not a gun in this place smaller than a cannon is not full of rust. Half the muskets aimed above the natives’ heads or at the kangaroos hang fire, flash in the pan or fizzle. Well, well!” The Major rubbed his hands together gleefully. “I knew that fat fucken flawn Sinclair had your tools, so as soon as the court rose I took him by the collar and told him I had an informer willing to give evidence that he’d stolen a chest of tools belonging to the convict Richard Morgan. Next morning I took delivery of it.” He emitted a short bark which Richard decided was his version of a hearty laugh. “He must have taken one look inside it and thought it more profitable to sell the thing intact in London.”
“I cannot thank ye enough, sir,” said Richard, wishing he might shake the Major’s hand.
The Major clapped a hand against his forehead. “Wait a moment! Nearly forgot I have something else for ye.” He scrabbled around in a heap of items rescued from his lightning-ruined marquee and held up a large bottle of sluggish fluid. “Assistant Surgeon Balmain distilled this while he was—er—slightly incapacitated last month. ’Twas Mr. Bowes Smyth found the tree before he sailed for Cathay. He thought it not unlike a turpentine, though its sap is a sort of a blue color. It fell to Mr. Balmain to test it on the rusty saw. He said it worked very well.”
Richard stood expressionless as the Major gave him this information, well aware (as were all his fellow convicts) of what the officers were convinced they had kept a close secret: that Mr. William Balmain and Mr. John White, who had loathed each other ever since the affair of Alexander’s bilge pumps, had had such a fierce and drunken quarrel at the King’s birthday feast that they promptly went out with a pair of pistols and fought a duel. Mr. Balmain had received a flesh wound in the thigh, and the Governor had been forced to tell the two combatants very gently that surgeons should concentrate upon letting blood out of patients, not out of each other.
“Then I shall save my butter of antimony and whale oil for the guns and give Edmunds this bottle of whatever-it-is for the saws,” said Richard, and departed hardly crediting his good fortune.
Within two days he was ensconced beneath the shelter of a stout canvas tent, its sides retractable, at a work-bench of the right height and with a stool to match. Major Ross had not exaggerated; the settlement’s armaments were shockingly rusted.
“What a close-mouthed bastard you are, Richard,” said Stephen Donovan, arriving to investigate the latest rumor.
Oh, how good to see him! “I did not think it right to speak of things that were behind me, Mr. Donovan,” he said, making no attempt to conceal his joy, written all over his face. “Now that I am officially a gunsmith, I am happy to discuss it with you.”
Chin tucked in, eyes gleaming derisively, Donovan said no more for perhaps an hour, contenting himself with watching Richard work on his first consignment, a pair of pistols belonging to the Major. What a treat to be privileged to watch a consummate craftsman doing something he loved to do! The strong sure hands moved over the gun delicately, applying a drop of whale oil with the tip of a lint-bound stick, working at the frizzen spring.
“The frizzen is soft,” Richard explained, “so ’twill not strike sufficient spark. Aside from that, the Major has kept his pistols very nicely. I have removed the rust and browned them with my butter of antimony again. Thank you for the wedding present, it is more appreciated now than it was then. What have ye been doing with yourself?”
“Captaining a longboat to bring oyster shells, mostly. We are taking the boats out to sea now that Port Jackson is exhausted.”
“Then ye’d better go back to your longboat, captain. I can see Major Ross approaching,” said Richard, putting the pistol down with a sigh of content.
