The Lace Balcony Page 8

  ‘Who knows? Maybe Logan’s trying to break your spirit. ’Cos you’re one of the rare ones who never cries out, no matter how many stripes you cop.’

  ‘What’s the bastard been up to while I’ve been in here?’

  ‘Himself has been off on another expedition into the hinterland, in search of new rivers and mountains to impress Governor Darling. Making a fine name for himself is our Commandant.’

  ‘Yeah, if he’s not half careful he’ll end up in the history books – and be given a knighthood.’

  Ricketts gave a non-committal grunt.

  ‘Where have they assigned me, Ricketts? Back to the iron gang?’

  ‘You’ll know soon enough.’ Ricketts wagged a cautionary finger. ‘Use your head, lad. Next time you’re forced to watch a man flogged to death – keep your trap shut. Or Logan’ll have you back on the triangles in a trice. And from the looks of you your back ain’t healed proper yet.’

  Wincing under the forgotten power of tropical sunlight, unsteady of gait and shuffling on legs weak from disuse, Mungo followed the guard along the track past the military officers’ quarters. This morning the regiment’s officers and their wives and children were nowhere in sight. He knew that Logan’s 57th Regiment had a proud history, known for their valour in battle as ‘The Die Hards.’

  Die Hards indeed. Only now Logan feels free to inflict that fate on his prisoners – like we are the enemy.

  Ricketts appeared to be headed in the direction of the Commandant’s quarters but pulled up short beside an ancient horse’s trough that served for convicts’ ablutions. Mungo obeyed the order to strip off his rank clothing. He wasted no time in washing the filth from his body. He noted with surprise that the almost continual running sores caused by leg irons around his ankles had almost healed thanks to his enforced inactivity.

  That’s the one damned thing the hole has in its favour.

  Standing naked to dry in the sun, his long-limbed body still muscular, but now as pale as a turnip, Mungo took pleasure in shaking his head in the manner of a dog emerging from a creek, sending out a spray of water. He was suddenly aware that the length of his hair served as a calendar, a rough indication of the length of time he had been incarcerated in solitary confinement. His head had been shaved when he entered the hole. It was now close to his jaw line.

  He was surprised when Ricketts handed him a neatly folded pile of slop clothing. Mungo instinctively raised it to his face, overcome by the fresh smell of sunlight and eucalyptus on clean Indian cotton.

  ‘These have been washed in eucalyptus soap!’ Mungo exclaimed.

  ‘Aye, the Isabella brought us a nice motherly woman amongst the batch of Volunteers. One woman to eight male do-gooders. She took it on herself to oversee prisoners’ laundry during Logan’s absence. So enjoy clean slops while you can, lad.’

  Feeling as if he had been reinvented as a man in a fresh body, Mungo marched with his head high towards the office near the Commandant’s quarters. From the corner of his eye he made out the figure of a woman in a dark green gown seated on Logan’s veranda, a young boy at her knee as she fanned the little girl she nursed in her arms. From the line of her head, Mungo felt sure the lovely Mrs Logan was observing him, but tempted as he was to drink in the gentle beauty of this rare domestic scene, he kept his gaze resolutely fixed ahead.

  A cat might look at a King, but to be caught staring at Letitia Logan would cost me two hundred stripes of the cat. Logan has caused men to be flogged to death for lesser ‘misdemeanours’.

  But Mungo’s head swivelled around when he glimpsed a flash of a red military coat. The officer joined Mrs Logan on the veranda. No mistaking Logan. Dark auburn hair, the handsome face clean-shaven except for long sideburns, the Commandant was noble of bearing. Logan reached down and ruffled his son’s hair and little Robert Abraham looked up at his father in awe, the man a hero in his eyes.

  Mungo was confronted by the paradox of Logan’s nature. As a soldier his valour was unquestioned, one of the celebrated Die Hards who had fought on many fields of battle, carried out the Duke of Wellington’s orders and routed the French during the Napoleonic Wars – though Logan’s exact role was unknown.

  An audacious explorer, he had conquered the almost vertical mountain he named Mount Lindsay, the highest known peak in the Colony. Logan’s brother officers appeared to admire him. As husband and father he was said to be loving and protective. Yet in Mungo’s eyes Logan’s humanity ended there. As Commandant and Magistrate he was a tyrant. Every convict at Moreton Bay who had managed to retain half a brain fervently wished him dead.

  Ricketts pointed out a newly erected, low-roofed timber building. ‘There you are. This new bloke lives and works there on his own, but he’s said to be connected to Logan in some way. A new settler. You better watch your step. He could be working on God’s side of the fence – or Logan’s.’

  After the guard headed in the direction of the chapel, where he served as a lay preacher, Mungo hobbled up the veranda steps and entered the office.

  Alone in the room was a man Mungo judged to be close to thirty. He looked up from his desk and paused in the act of sorting papers. His sandy-red hair was tied back in the old-style queue, his eyes unnaturally bright, his skin covered by a film of sweat that suggested either failing health or failure to adapt to the semi-tropical climate. His voice had a strong Scottish burr and his manner was surprisingly mild.

  ‘Your full name, lad?’ he asked.

  Caught off-guard, Mungo almost revealed it. ‘Sean O’Connor, Sir.’

  ‘Ah, Irish. From the North or South?’ he asked, appearing to have no agenda.

  Mungo answered in a rush. ‘Neither. I’m native born. A Currency Lad. Given a four-year colonial sentence. Against all odds I’ve managed to survive more than two of them in this hell-hole,’ he added hastily, ‘Sir!’

  Why the hell did I say that? It’s a dead giveaway Logan’s a tyrant.

  The older man nodded sagely. ‘Aye. That’s no mean feat, given the statistics of dead and missing prisoners. The name’s Gordon. Alexander at birth, Sandy for preference.’

  He offered his handshake then waved Mungo to take a seat, gestures that caught Mungo by surprise.

  One of Logan’s officers would have marched me off to the scourger by now. What’s this bloke up to?

  ‘I’ve been checking your record, O’Connor, along with a few others with special trades and talents. It would seem that out of the four classes of convicts, you were originally placed in the educated class. Is that so?’

  ‘I was, Sir.’

  ‘But for some reason not noted in these records you were removed and sentenced to one hundred lashes – a degree of punishment which I understand is considered quite moderate in this neck of the woods.’

  ‘Not if you’re on the receiving end, Sir.’ I’ve gone too far this time.

  Gordon looked up sharply then flipped over a page. ‘As a result you were relegated to the iron gang class. From which you were absent without leave for four-and-twenty hours on two occasions. Flogged – one hundred strokes on each count. I can’t quite decipher the clerk’s handwriting. No reason given why you were absent without leave.’

  ‘Two hundred lashes on both charges, Sir. I remember every stroke. Absent without leave is a polite way of putting it. Truth is I bashed a convict overseer with a shovel – then four of us bolted into the bush.’

  ‘I see. The cause of your bid for freedom?’

  What’s he going to do if I tell the whole truth? Hang, draw and quarter me?’

  ‘We’d had our water rations cut – as punishment for insubordination. A man in the iron gang had just died of thirst – you can’t work long without water in this heat. I know. I was there. The body organs shut down, muscles seize up, the body bloats up, fails to sweat. Vomiting, diarrhoea, shock, coma. It’s not a pretty sight. You want the full details of his corpse, Sir? I helped bury him.’

  ‘No need, O’Connor. I graduated from Edinburgh University Medical
School, served as a naval physician. Intended to go into practice except my damned lungs packed up on me. I was sent out here to New South Wales “for my health”. A common euphemism for dying.’

  Mungo took a closer look at him. The man’s face was an unhealthy olive-grey, the skin stretched taut across the cheekbones. Beneath his jacket his chest looked concave. A ripe candidate for phthisis. He’ll be lucky to see in the New Year.

  Dr Gordon made a sound somewhere between a cough and a short laugh of self-deprecation. ‘I wanted to see something of the world before – while there was still time enough.’ He continued crisply, ‘So, O’Connor, I note you were engaged in the cultivation of maize – aye, and tobacco – before the drought ruined the crops and all hope of feeding the settlement. Then you were transferred to an iron gang, building roads and a bridge across one of the many rivers the Captain discovered, no doubt?’

  Mungo tried to avoid any hint of servility, yet he was desperate to know what special plan might be afoot, and how it might involve him. ‘It’s said Britain has plans to open up this whole district to future settlers. Logan sure knows how to get things done – one way or another.’

  ‘Aye. At some considerable loss of man power, it would seem. Judged by the rough tally by a clerk here, out of a population in excess of six hundred assigned men, there were sixty-three deaths last year.’ He paused and added significantly, ‘From one cause or another. Flogging, fever, drowning, quite apart from those bolters in the bush who are presumed dead. Does sixty-three deaths sound an accurate figure, O’Connor?’

  Mungo felt cornered. Aware any careless words might find their way back to Logan, he tried to sound non-committal. ‘I lost count of the funerals – Sir.’

  ‘Aye. Well your own attempts at bolting are now past history.’ He went on, ‘I note you have quite a rounded education. The classics, Shakespeare, Goethe, Greek and Roman philosophers. Plus fencing, boxing, swimming. Aye, and a marked interest in botany and bushcraft, according to this letter I received from a family by the name of L’Estrange, on behalf of your mother. It would seem ye have support in high places, O’Connor. This gentleman, Kentigern L’Estrange, is known to you?’

  Mungo was stunned. After years of silence a letter had got through to him at last. But is this a trap to prove my real identity? I’ll take a punt on the truth.

  ‘My mam was transported from the Isle of Mann, aged seventeen. Copped Life for aiding her brother, a fisherman, to smuggle brandy and tobacco across to England. The King’s boats had given chase. Shot her brother dead. He was unarmed, aged twenty-two. Just trying to avoid export duties.’

  Dr Gordon nodded. ‘Aye. That’s a common enough activity in Scotland for fishing boats struggling to eke out a living from the sea. But I’m intrigued as to how you came by such a fine education.’

  He’s like a dog with a bone. What does he want? My whole damned life story?

  Mungo chose his words with care. ‘My mother’s assigned master, Kentigern L’Estrange, was unusually generous. I shared his son’s lessons with the family tutor.’

  ‘Indeed. As a result you are the best educated prisoner at Moreton Bay – more erudite than many of the military. Pity to waste all that book learning in an iron gang. I have decided to return you to the ‘educated class’ to work on a special project. I have Captain Logan’s assurance I am free to choose one or two men to search for and catalogue some of the botanical and mineral specimens the Commandant discovered on his expeditions. Mrs Logan and others in this little community would be especially pleased for us to find rare specimens for their butterfly collections.’

  Butterflies! Jesus, am I dreaming? Or dead and gone to heaven?

  Mungo suspected he saw the trace of a twinkle in the Scotsman’s eyes.

  ‘Our work will be divided between this office and field work in the bush – hence some danger from natives, who I understand are growing increasingly hostile to Logan’s explorations.’

  ‘Two prisoners were speared to death at the wharf just before I copped solitary.’

  ‘So I heard. You have a choice, O’Connor. Accompany me on field work or remain here – in relative safety.’

  ‘I’ll take my chances in the bush. I could do with a bit of fresh air.’

  ‘Fine. You will be answerable solely to me. Our work will be conducted – without interference.’

  Dr Gordon looked over the top of his spectacles and said quietly. ‘Mrs Logan is distant kin to my mother’s family. And I am well known to Governor Darling.’

  Mungo’s heart sank at the thought of Gordon’s dual link to those in power, but perhaps the man’s presence here and his strangely ambiguous status suggested that Darling’s support of Logan was no longer unqualified. Mungo’s spirits rose at the prospect of congenial work and bivouacs in the bush – the next best thing to freedom.

  Dr Gordon eyed him shrewdly. ‘Unlike Logan’s expeditions, my small team will have no military support. We may well encounter hostile natives. It is not yet common knowledge – there was a recent attempt on Logan’s life.’

  Another one. I reckon the first was an act of revenge by bolters who took up with a tribe of blacks. But I’d best keep my trap shut.

  ‘Are you equal to the task, O’Connor? No shame if you decline. But you are my first choice. I’d be seeking your advice about what to me is virgin territory.’

  Mungo remembered Stimson’s long ago warning of the choice that lay ahead of him, to do murder – or prove himself strong enough to resist it. Right now he didn’t care. Whatever the danger, I’ll face it. But if I have to kill to avoid solitary – I’d do it.

  ‘You can count on me, Sir.’ Mungo felt bold enough to ask, ‘Will I be working in irons in the bush?’

  A smile flickered at the corner of the doctor’s mouth. ‘I dinna think shackles on a man chasing butterflies would improve his rate of success, do you?’

  Mungo’s laugh was genuine for the first time in months.

  Dr Gordon looked Mungo straight in the eye. ‘One further point. If we are attacked, it’s a case of every man for himself. I would expect you to bolt.’

  ‘I’m a crack shot, Sir,’ Mungo said quickly.

  ‘Aye. That’s why you are my first choice. I’m a Quaker. I choose not to bear arms. You will carry a fowling piece – for hunting.’ He snapped the file closed. ‘Fine. That’s settled. Today being Sunday, I understand you are all obliged to attend church services. Present yourself here on Monday morning and I’ll brief you on the plans for our bivouac in the bush. Good day to you, O’Connor.’

  Mungo shuffled from the room, stunned by this undreamed of change of fortune. Last night he had been certifiably insane, he was sure of it. He felt reborn.

  A botanist? A butterfly collector? Hell, I’d best study up on the subject quick smart. Before Gordon discovers that the sum total of my knowledge wouldn’t cover a farthing. Felix should be here, not me. He was the one who shone at botany.

  Out of sight of Dr Gordon’s office and Logan’s private quarters, Mungo gave a hoot of triumph as he leapt in the air, prevented from dancing the sailors’ hornpipe only by his leg irons.

  Yet Mungo knew he must be still half nuts, when he heard the gentle words of his fantasy woman echo in his mind. ‘Do whatever you must to survive. You are my man . . . I am waiting for you.’

  Chapter 7

  The spirit of Venus had come to him last night, Felix was sure of it.

  He gave a sigh of frustration as he screwed the cap on his telescope. It had long been his loved companion, providing an escape route into the night sky – the star gazing that renewed his soul and brought him as close to God as he dared travel. This nightly adventure was now out of reach for another twelve hours.

  He was still astounded by last night’s revelation. While searching for some as yet unnamed star, for a brief moment he had seen a girl’s face imposed on the Milky Way. Eyes of an intense blue seemed to look into his very soul. An angel? A dream?

  No. They’re her eyes, I’ll s
wear to God. That incredibly beautiful girl I saw at Hangman’s Hill the day Will Eden was hanged. When I lifted her up onto the wall she was close enough to kiss – if only I had dared. She called out Will’s name and he answered her. He must have loved her. But what does it all mean? Will’s been dead for three years. I’ve never been able to forget her – I keep searching for her face in crowds. How could such beauty remain hidden in Sydney Town? And why did I see her face amongst the stars last night?

  Drawn back into the daylight reality of the world, Felix’s eye was caught by two figures in the rear garden, below his wrought-iron balcony. Barefoot boys raced each other between the lines of bed linen on the clothes lines, pursued by one of the assigned women, whose children seemed to be interchangeable.

  The sight of the boys at play aroused an odd wave of nostalgia. They’re just like Mungo and I were – except Mutti forbade me to go barefoot or dirty my clothes. Mungo always led me into trouble. But without him my childhood would have been as dull as dishwater.

  Stripping off his nightshirt, Felix poured water from the Italian majolica jug into the matching washbasin and hurriedly sluiced his face and body, all the while steeling himself to face the duties of the day – separate audiences with his parents.

  Mutti was first on the list. Anxious that the opening words he had planned lacked the correct balance between filial duty and assertiveness, he tried another tack, saying the words out loud to his naked mirror image to test their impact.

  ‘I am sure you are aware, Mother, that ever since the trial and William Eden’s execution, I have carried out Father’s wishes to the letter in running the family business.’ No, no! I must remember to say ‘estates’. Any hint of trade is abhorrent to Mother. But how else can I broach the subject of Mungo’s future?

  Felix was grateful that his mother’s role in upper class colonial society had little bearing on his own life. Since his father’s stroke, no doubt brought on by his efforts to secure Mungo an early release, Felix had worked steadfastly from his father’s office at home, fully engaged in holding the reins of the covert L’Estrange empire that fanned out from Great Rockingham Street to their rural properties on the Nepean and Castlereagh, from the far side of the Blue Mountains south to the Illawarra and the rich grazing lands beyond the limits of settlement, where vast unofficial L’Estrange holdings were manned by isolated convict shepherds.