“March of 1792.”
“Then in all probability ye’ll finish your time at Norfolk Island. Where,” said Stanfield, making sure a cork was tied down thoroughly, “I am undoubtedly going to be sent at some time or other before I am through. Major Ross does not intend to have any marines permanently stationed on the island, we will all do our turns. Which is why I have to persuade Mistress Harmsworth to marry me before I am posted there.”
“She would be foolish to turn ye down, Daniel. However, if history continues as it has with me,” Richard said, adjusting the lint wadding, “by the time ye’re sent to Norfolk Island the Crown will have developed another settlement elsewhere in this vast place and I will have been sent there.”
“Not for some years at least,” said the young marine emphatically. “Those here have first to prove that settling Englishmen so far away will succeed. Especially because few of them wanted to come or had any choice. The Governor is determined not to fail, but there are many others not very junior to him who do not feel the same.” His fine, light grey eyes looked at Richard very directly. “I take it that this conversation will not go any further?”
“Not from my mouth,” said Richard. “There is nothing wrong here that could not have been solved before we set sail. Whatever the official attitudes are here, it is lack of planning and specific orders in London to blame. And the rivalries between naval officers and marine officers.”
“In a nutshell.” Stanfield smiled.
Richard drew a breath and put the welfare of his back in Daniel Stanfield’s hands. “The Major is a curious mixture,” he said.
“That he is. He sees his commissioned duties as any marine major would, and disapproves of duties which don’t contribute to the well-being of the Corps or marines’ pockets. So he will let those of us with a trade work as carpenters or masons or smiths, but he will not countenance his officers serving on criminal courts because they are not paid for the extra duty. The Governor insists that it is every man’s duty to do whatever the Crown asks, and in New South Wales he is the Crown. Then there is Captain Hunter, who sides with the Governor for no other reason than that both are Royal Navy.” He shrugged. “It makes things very difficult.”
“Especially,” said Richard thoughtfully, “because ye’re more grown up than many of the officers, Daniel. They act like children—quarrel in their cups, fight duels—refuse to get on together.”
“How,” asked Stanfield, “d’ye know that, Richard?”
“In a place this size? With not many more than a thousand souls? We may be felons, Daniel, but we have eyes and ears the same as free men. And, no matter how low our status at the moment, all of us were born free Englishmen, even if some of us hail from Ireland or Wales. None from Scotland, where they do not use English judges.”
“Aye, that is another bone of contention. The majority of our officers are Scotchmen, whereas the sailors can be anything.”
“Let us hope,” said Richard, locking his chest, “that those who do remain in this place learn to bury the differences this place renders meaningless. Though I doubt that will happen.” He held out his hand a second time. “I wish ye luck.”
“And I you.”
The men were all home to dinner, which Lizzie cooked; had she only a few ingredients it would have been obvious that she was a good cook. As it was, the menu consisted of pease pottage to coat a kettle of rice. And a spoonful of sour crout each.
Richard put his tool box away and joined the circle around the fire; of wood for sawing there might be none, but of wood for burning there was plenty.
How to do it? How to tell them? Ought he to tell Lizzie in private? Yes, of course he had to tell her first, and in private, no matter how he dreaded the tears and protestations. She would assume he had asked not to take her with him.
He ate his food in silence, glad that no one had noticed him deposit the tool box in their belongings room. Of long experience they saved a little of the pease-and-rice for a cold breakfast, even though every one of them could have devoured the lot and still felt hungry.
How would they survive without him? Well enough, he thought; after eight months here, each of them has forged some kind of life for himself independent of the group. Only food and shelter keep them intact. The Government Stores men—and that is most—have excellent relationships with other convicts in Stores and with Lieutenant Furzer, and the others all sharpen together. If I worry about any of them, it is Joey Long, such a simple and easily led soul. I pray the rest watch out for him. As for Lizzie—she would survive the sinking of the Royal George. Mine has never been a push sort of leadership; they will hardly know I am gone, and maybe some of them will be glad to strike out on their own.
“Walk with me, Lizzie,” he said when the meal was over.
She looked surprised, but accompanied him without a murmur, aware that something bothered him tonight, yet sure it was nothing she had done.
Dusk was thickening but the official curfew stayed at eight o’clock all year round, still well after dark. Richard led his wife to a quiet place by the water and found a seat for them on a rock. Crickets were making a racket in the grass and the huge huntsman spiders were on the prowl, but there was little else to disturb them.
“Major Ross summoned me today,” he said steadily, looking out across the cove to where the myriad lights of the western shore flickered and flamed. “He informed me that tomorrow I am to board Golden Grove. I am being sent to Norfolk Island.”
His voice told her that she was not to accompany him, but she had to ask. “Am I to go with you?”
“No. I did ask that ye might, but I was refused. Apparently the Governor has already picked the women.”
A tear splashed on the rock, still warm from the last sunlight; her mouth began to tremble, though she fought valiantly to maintain her calm. He would not like a scene, this man of the shadows. Not wanting to stand out from the rest, yet speared on his own abilities and excellences. Nothing will draw him out of his armor, nothing can weaken him, nothing will deflect him from what he sees as his purpose. And I too am a nothing in his eyes, for all that he does genuinely care about my well-being. If he ever had a light inside of him he has snuffed it out. I know nothing about him because he never speaks of himself; when he is angry it only shows as a different sort of silence, after which he proceeds to get his own way by some other means. I am sure that inside his mind he was able to intrude his name into Major Ross’s mind. Silly thought! How can one mind influence another without the necessity for speech and glances and nearness? Yet he can do it. Who else in this place has managed to get on the right side of Major Ross? Without smarming or greasing—well, Major Ross cannot be so cozened, as all know who have tried. He wants to go. Richard wants to go. I am sure he did ask for me, but I am quite as sure that he knew the answer would be no. Were he evil, I would say he had sold his soul to the Devil, but there is no evil in him. Has he sold his soul to God? Does God buy souls?
“It is all right, Richard,” she said in a voice which did not betray her grief. “We go where we are sent because we are not free to choose. We are not paid for our labors and we cannot insist on having what we want. I will continue to live here and look after our family. If I behave soberly and decently they cannot force me back into the women’s camp. I am a married woman separated from her husband at the Governor’s whim. And I have a good arrangement with Lieutenant Furzer about vegetables, so he will not want me back in the women’s camp. Yes, it will be all right.” She got up quickly. “Now let us go back and tell the others.”
