“May I see Major Ross?” he asked the marine sentry on duty outside the big round marquee.

The marine, a stranger to Richard, looked him up and down in contempt. “No,” he said.

“It is a matter of some urgency,” Richard persisted.

“The Lieutenant-Governor is too busy to see the likes of you.”

“Then may I wait until he has a free moment?”

“No. Now piss off—what’s your name?”

“Richard Morgan, number two-ought-three, Alexander.”

“Send him in,” said a voice from inside.

Richard entered a space fairly well lighted by open flaps on all sides, and having a wooden plank floor. An interior curtain divided it into an office and what were probably the Major’s living quarters. He was there at a folding table which served him as a desk and, typically, alone. Ross despised his subordinate officers quite as much as he did his enlisted men, yet defended the rights, entitlements and dignity of the Marine Corps against all Royal Navy comers. He considered Governor Arthur Phillip an impractical fool and deplored lenience.

“What is it, Morgan?”

“I am on the east side, sir, and would discuss that with ye.”

“A complaint, is it?”

“Nay, sir, merely a few requests,” said Richard, looking him straight in the eye and conscious that he must be one of the very few persons at Port Jackson who rather liked the picturesque Major.

“What requests?”

“We have nothing to build our shelters with, sir, apart from a few hatchets. Most of us have managed to get up some sort of frame, but we cannot thatch with palm fronds unless we have twine to tie them down. We would happily dispense with nails, but we have no instruments to bore holes, or saw, or hammer. The work would go faster if we had at least some tools.”

The Major rose to his feet. “I need a walk. Come with me,” he said curtly. “Ye have,” he went on as he preceded Richard out of the marquee, “a level head, I noted it in the matter of Alexander’s pumps and bilges. Ye’re a no-nonsense man and ye don’t pity yourself one wee bit. If we had more like ye and less like the scum of every Newgate in England, this settlement might have worked.”

From which Richard gathered, walking at the Major’s rapid pace, that the Lieutenant-Governor had no faith in this experiment. They passed the bachelor marine encampment and approached the four round marquees in which the marine officers dwelled. Lieutenant Shairp was sitting in the shade of an awning outside Captain James Meredith’s dwelling in the company of the Captain, drinking tea out of a fine china cup. On sight of the Major they rose to their feet, but in a manner which suggested that they actively disliked their outspoken, salty commandant. Well, everybody knew that, including the felons; fueled by rum and port, the divisions in the ranks of the officers led to quarrels, courts martial and, always, opposition to Ross. Who had his supporters in some circumstances, however.

“Are the sawpits under construction?” asked the Major frostily.

Meredith waved in a direction behind him. “Yes, sir.”

“When did ye last inspect, Captain-Lieutenant?”

“I am about to. After I have finished my breakfast.”

“Of rum rather than tea, I note. Ye drink too much, Captain-Lieutenant, and ye’re quarrelsome. Do not quarrel with me.”

Shairp had saluted and disappeared, returning a moment later with MacGregor in one hand. “Here, Morgan, take him. ’Twas one of your men won him, so I am told.” He giggled. “Cannot quite seem to remember, myself.”

Wanting to sink into the ground, Richard took the joyous scrap from Shairp and followed Major Ross down to the ford.

“D’ye mean to carry that thing to the commissary?”

“Not if I can find one of my men, sir. Our camp is on the way,” said Richard with a tranquillity he did not feel; he always seemed to be there when the Major had hard words to say to people.

“Well, ’tis time I visited the surplus. Lead the way, Morgan.”

Richard led the way, hanging on to the struggling MacGregor.

“He will survive by ratting,” said Major Ross as they arrived at the dozen or so shelters dispersed among the trees. “The place has as many rats as London.”

“Give this to Joey Long,” said Richard, thrusting MacGregor at a startled Johnny Cross. “As ye see, sir, we managed to get up a fair sort of frame, but I think convict Crowder has the best idea for walls. The trouble is that without tools and materials the work proceeds at a snail’s pace.”

“I did not know that there was so much ingeniousness among the English” was Ross’s comment, touring thoroughly. “Once ye’re done here, ye can start building another camp between where ye are and the Governor’s farm, which is being cleared and laid out already. If we get no fresh vegetables the scurvy will kill us all. There are too many women all together over on the western side. I will divide them, send some over here. Which does not mean congress, Morgan, understand?”

“I understand, sir.”

They proceeded to the commissariat, where confusion still reigned. The horses, cattle and other livestock had come off and were confined inside hastily erected barricades of piled branches, looking as miserable as everybody else.

“Furzer,” said the Lieutenant-Governor, erupting into the big marquee, “ye’re a typical fucken Irishman. Have ye never heard of method? What d’ye think ye’re going to do with those animals unless ye get them into grazing? Eat them? There is no corn left and very little hay. Ye’re not a quartermaster’s arsehole! Since there is nothing for the carpenters to do until they have some timber, get them onto building pens for the animals right now! Find someone who knows good grazing when he sees it and build the pens there. The cattle will have to be shepherded and the horses hobbled—and God help ye if they get away! Now where are your lists of what was on what ship, if it has come off, and where it is now?”

Lieutenant Furzer could produce no lists worth mentioning, had little idea of whereabouts anything landed had been stored; the only storehouses up were temporary canvas ones.

“I had thought to list things when they went into permanent storage, sir,” he faltered.

“Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Furzer, ye’re a cretin!”

The quartermaster swallowed and stuck his chin out. “I cannot do it all with the men I have, Major Ross, and that is honest!”

“Then I suggest ye conscript more convicts. Morgan, have ye any ideas as to suitable men? Ye’re a convict, ye must know some.”

“I do, sir. Any amount. Commencing with Thomas Crowder and Aaron Davis. Bristol men and fond of clerking. Villains, but too clever to bite the hand gives them clerical work, so they’ll not steal. Threaten to put them to chopping down trees at the rate of a dozen a day and they will behave perfectly.”

“What about yourself?”

“I can be of more benefit elsewhere, sir,” Richard said.

“Doing what?”

“Sharpening saws, axes, hatchets and anything else in need of a keen edge. I can also set a saw’s teeth, which is a craft. I have some tools with me now and if my tool box was put on a ship, I will have everything I need.” He cleared his throat. “I do not mean to cast aspersions on those who are in command, sir, but the axes and hatchets are sadly inferior. So too the spades, shovels and mattocks.”

“I have noticed that for myself,” said Major Ross grimly. “We have been diddled by experts, Morgan, from the penny-pinching Admiralty officials to the contractor and the transport captains, some of whom are busy selling slops and better clothing already—including, I have reason to believe, personal possessions of the convicts.” He prepared to leave. “But I will make it my business to see if there is a tool box for one Richard Morgan. In the meantime, get what ye need from Furzer here, be it awls, nails, hammers or wire.” He nodded and marched out, clapping his cocked hat on his head. Always neat as a bandbox, Major Ross, no matter what the weather.