“Nay, I do not think I ever have,” he said.
“I keep watching to see Aphrodite born.”
The sky cleared in the south and west just enough to let the sinking sun turn those drifts of spume to gold, then the rain fell again, but gently.
“I am ravished by this place,” said Stephen, sighing.
“Whereas I have spent my time in the bottom of the sawpit with a saw across my knees,” said Richard wryly. “How goes it with you?”
“As superintendent of convict labor, ye mean?”
“Aye.”
“ ’Tis not a wonderful job, Richard. D’ye remember Len Dyer?”
“How could I forget that weasel?”
“He brought things to a head three days ago when he informed me that he was not about to take orders from a shirt-lifting Rome mort turd pusher, and that when he took over the island I would be the first man he would kill. Next to go would be my fancy blond doll, Miss Molly Livingstone. He likes the sound of ‘Rome mort’ best, it seems—he used it more often than he did ‘Miss Molly.’ ”
“He is a Londoner, ’tis the phrase they use most.” Richard turned to stare at him, but Donovan gazed straight ahead. “What happened next, Mr. Donovan?”
“Oh, I wish ye’d call me Stephen! The only one who does is Johnny.” The shoulders lifted, his head hunched into them. “I ordered forty-eight lashes and made Private Heritage lay it on. Luckily for me, Dyer had not endeared himself to Heritage either, so he laid it on hard with the meanest cat. There were mutters from Francis, Peck, Pickett and a few others, but after they saw Dyer’s back they shut up.” His eyes finally slewed to look at Richard, their expression hard. “Ye’d think they would realize a man’s preferring his own gender does not indicate that he is soft or timid, would ye not? But no! Well, I have survived over fifteen years at sea and gained respect, so I am not about to take cheek from the likes of a Len Dyer. As he now understands.”
“I would watch my back if I were you,” said Richard. “The pity of it is that I scarcely know what is going on among those not concerned with the sawpit, but Golden Grove told me that there was something ominous in the air. Just what, I do not know. Nothing was said or done in my vicinity, since I’d kicked them in the cods. Perhaps Dyer was testing the temperature of the water in your vicinity when he spoke insolently. If that was the case, then he now has ye down in his book as”—Richard grinned—“no simpering Rome mort. Sincerely, watch your back.”
Stephen rose to his feet. “Dinner time,” he said, extending a hand to pull Richard up. “If ye hear anything at all, tell me.”
* * *
The carpenters were busy building a shelter for the sawpit the next morning, so as soon as he had eaten his leftover bread and a few mouthfuls of cress, Richard set off up Arthur’s Vale, keeping to the north side of the stream. Close to where Lieutenant King had indicated that he intended to build a large barn, a group of convicts were beginning to dig a new sawpit long enough to take a thirty-foot log. All the malcontents were on the job save the temporarily ruined Dyer, Stephen supervising—with two of the new marines off Golden Grove as guards, Richard was pleased to see.
Stephen does not wish more ardently than I do that I could call him by his name, Richard thought as he gave Donovan a wave. But I am a felon and he a free man. It is not fitting.
He continued around the north bluff to where the brook gushed down that slope where King wanted a dam. Standing on top of the rise, he could see why the Commandant considered a dam feasible, for there was indeed a big depression in the ground before the vale widened yet again.
Clearing of the trees had progressed some distance farther on and was creeping up the lower slopes of the hills, quite as steep as those along the back of Sydney Town. When he saw the plantains he recognized them for what they were from drawings in his books, and marveled at their height and maturity—such growth in a mere eight months? No, that was not possible. King had gotten into the vale only recently, which meant that the plantain grew in Norfolk Island naturally. A gift from God: the long bunches of a little green banana were already formed, so in months to come there would be fruit to eat—filling fruit at that.
As the vale narrowed again the clearing stopped abruptly, though a track continued into the forest alongside the stream, which here was some feet deep in places and so clear that Richard could see tiny, almost transparent shrimp swimming in it. Around the dinner camp-fire they had talked of large eels, but these he did not glimpse.
Brilliant green parrots flashed overhead and a weeny fantail fluttered twittering only inches from his face, as if trying to tell him something; it kept him company for at least a hundred yards, still trying to communicate. He thought he saw a quail, and then stumbled upon the most beautiful dove in the world, soft pink-brown and iridescent emerald green. So tame! It simply glanced at him and waddled off, head bobbing, quite indifferently. There were other birds too, one of which looked to be a blackbird save that its head was grey. The air was full of song unlike any he had heard in Port Jackson. Melodic except for the parrots, which screeched.
At no time since his arrival had he been able to stand back and take in the sight of a Norfolk pine, for the simplest of reasons: a lone Norfolk pine did not exist, and King’s clearing technique so far was to denude an area of every tree rather than to leave an odd one standing. He had discovered that the tails carpeting the floor of his hut were the leaves of the pine, if leaves they could be called. On either side of the track was the forest, an impenetrable wilderness he was not tempted to enter, though it bore no resemblance to what his reading had led him to believe was a jungle. Small plants did not exist, starved out by the pines, which grew very close together and must surely produce but few young; some were fifteen and more feet in diameter, most were about the size of the logs he had been sharpening the saws to cut, and a very few only were slender. Their roughish bark was brown with purple in it and they grew amazingly tall before they gave out branches. Occasional leafy green trees were sprinkled among them, but most of the space was taken up by a climbing vine the like of no vine anywhere. Its major trunks were as thick as a man’s thigh, and twisted, turned, ran back upon themselves, soared upward in gnarled humps and knees, were entangled in the thinner parts of the vine’s chaotic randomness. When it encountered a tree small enough to throttle, it did so, or else bent the hapless thing sideways and compelled it to continue its upward course feet from the place where its trunk left the ground.
The valley broadened a little to reveal more plantains having bunches of green fruit and showed him yet another bizarre tree which, like the plantains, confined itself to the watercourse area. This new plant had a round trunk a little like a palm’s—they were there too, with stiff, erect fronds rather than graceful ones—but plated with sharp-ended knobs; at the very top spread a canopy of what could only be fern leaves. A giant fern! A fern that grew as a forty-foot tree!
More birds arrived, among them a small kingfisher in cream, brown and a brilliant, iridescent blue-green exactly the color of the lagoon. The most mysterious bird he did not see until it moved, for it looked like a continuation of the mossy stump upon which it perched. The movement was sudden and startling: Richard jumped involuntarily. The thing was an enormous parrot.
“Hello,” he said. “How are you today?”
It cocked its head to one side and stalked toward him, but he had the wisdom not to hold his hand out; that huge, wicked black beak was powerful enough to take a finger off. Then, it seemed deciding that he was beneath contempt, it disappeared into the ferny or broad-leafed undergrowth along the banks of the brook.
On the way back he noticed a shrub which seemed able to compete with the forest giants, its trunk very smooth and rosy, its leafy branches loaded with bright red berries the size of small plums. Will I, or won’t I? Some weeks before he drowned, the unfortunate sawyer, Westbrook, had eaten a local fruit he mistook for a Windsor bean and nearly died. Richard pressed one of the berries to find it hard and u
nyielding; whatever it was, it was certainly not yet ripe. Later, he promised himself, I will try just one. I do not believe that eating one of anything can kill.
The sun was westering as he retraced his steps and emerged into Arthur’s Vale; time to join the others and eat. This place is unique, not to be compared with New South Wales in any way whatsoever. Different trees, different soil, different hills, different rocks, and not one single blade of any kind of grass. Perhaps this was God’s first attempt to create land out of the sea? Or perhaps it was His last attempt? If His last, then He gave it no people. Which might lead a man like Jem Thistlethwaite to say that God had come to the conclusion that Man was not a desirable addition to His menagerie.
“Are there any snakes?” he asked Nat Lucas, whom he liked very much, as he did old Dick Widdicombe, full seventy years old—why had London sent aged men to hew out a new place?
“If there are, they have remained invisible,” Nat said. “No one has seen a lizard, a frog or a leech either. Ground animals seem to be absent save for the rat, though it does not look like our rats. The Norfolk Island one is a soft grey with a white belly and is not enormously large.”
“But it eats anything,” said Ned Westlake. “A rat is a rat.”
At dawn on the morrow Richard turned his footsteps eastward, choosing to walk along the sand of Turtle Bay before scrambling up and over to yet another lovely beach, this one unprotected by a reef; here the sand had spread inland upon a raft of petrified logs, and beyond this beach some distance around the shore reared a massive cliff. Yet more pine forest; it truly was everywhere, and always impenetrable. The only way he could proceed was to hug the rocks, a dangerous alternative in the face of a heavy sea. Today, however, was perfect weather, and the brisk breeze blew from the northwest. The tide was on the ebb, so he must make sure that he returned before it reached half-flood. Two little brooks joined forces in a small flat area beyond which the water glowed an ethereal aquamarine. For a short while he tried to climb up the cleft which led to that mighty headland, but gave it up. Not sensible.
So he returned to Turtle Bay to discover two men he had not seen before heaving a gigantic turtle onto its back, where it lay, flippers waving, utterly helpless.
They had to be brothers, and they did not wear the look of men who had spent time in an English prison. Both spare, young, decent-looking; brown of skin, brown of hair, brown of eye.
“Ahah! Ye must be Morgan,” said one. “I am Robert Webb and this is my brother, Thomas. We go by our full names. Help us to tether this beauty—there will be turtle for dinner tomorrow.”
Richard helped tie a rope firmly around the creature’s chest where its flippers would prevent the rope’s sliding off.
“We are the gardeners,” said Robert, who, if he were not the elder, was certainly the spokesman. “I thank ye for bringing us women. Thomas is not keen for a woman, but I was desperate.”
“Whom did ye choose?” asked Richard, wondering why he was to be thanked.
“Beth Henderson, a good woman. Which means Thomas and I have come to the parting of the ways,” said Robert cheerfully, while his brother grimaced. “He has gone to live with Mr. Altree in Arthur’s Vale, where there is much planting going on.”
The turtle was hauled into the water and towed, the men knee-deep, around the point of Turtle Bay. Richard helped the Webbs bring it up the straight beach near the landing place, then left them to return to his hut.
“Lieutenant King was looking for you,” said Joey.
So off Richard went again; he found the Commandant at the site of the second sawpit, excavated in soil and so needing to be shored up with timber.
“There is turtle, sir,” said Richard, saluting.
“Oh, splendid! Dashed good!” King turned to walk off a little way and faced his head sawyer. “I do not allow many turtle to be turned, otherwise there will end in being none,” he said. “Nor do I permit the eggs to be dug out. ’Tis not as turtle-populous as Lord Howe Island to begin with, so why ruin a good thing?”
“Aye, sir.”
Lieutenant King then demonstrated one of the more exasperating facets of his nature: he clean forgot what he had said two days ago when he congratulated his sawing teams and gave them time off until Monday. “Ye’ll be back sawing tomorrow,” he announced, “and I intend to build a third sawpit farther up the vale beyond where the dam will be. That means more sawyers. I understand enough about the work to know that it is exceeding hard and cannot be done by weak men, but I leave it to you to pick out the men ye want, Morgan. Ye can have your choice of any provided they are not carpenters. The old pit’s shelter is up, so ye’ll start sawing there tomorrow—planks for the granary ceiling. And ye’ll continue to do this on Saturday, even though by rights the day should be yours. I need the granary finished, there are crops close to harvesting.” He prepared to go. “Think about whom ye want, Morgan, and let me know on Monday.”
“Aye, sir,” said Richard woodenly.
Two sawpits meant four teams: three sawpits meant six teams. Christ, he would never have a chance to saw! Ned Westlake, Bill Blackall and Harry Humphreys could not seem to learn to use a file properly. The only man who had shown any kind of aptitude was Will Marriner, who would have to be left at the old sawpit to sharpen while he hied himself to Arthur’s Vale. The saws needed touching up every ten to twelve feet along a cut. But who would be willing to saw? Men hated it, did it grudgingly. Weasels like Len Dyer, Tom Jones, Josh Peck and Sam Pickett were impossible. John Rice, one of the originals, had the build for it, but he was the ropemaker and therefore unavailable. John Mortimer and Dick Widdicombe were too old, and Noah Mortimer was an idler, always in trouble for not pulling his weight. If a man disliked physical labor, he was not capable of doing any work without being driven to it, and that was Noah. The very young original, Charlie McClellan, was another such.
Who then off Golden Grove? John Anderson, yes. Sam Hussey, yes. Jim Richardson, yes. Willy Thompson, yes. But that was the end of the supply. Richardson, who had taken up with Susannah Trippett, would manage the job with equanimity, if not enthusiasm. Hussey and Thompson were peculiarities, already busy building themselves huts of their own because they could not bear company; they both reminded Richard of Taffy Edmunds. As for Anderson—he was an unknown quantity. At divine service on Sunday at eleven in the morning, Richard thanked God for his convict status: it would never be in his province to order a man flogged. He had to find other ways to ensure that his sawyers worked, chiefly by pairing one good man with one doubtful one. Never two doubtfuls together.
“Four teams are as many as I can scrape up,” he informed Stephen when they met at Turtle Bay for a swim on Sunday evening. “I am doomed to sharpen forever, it seems. Such a simple job, ye’d think, Mr. Donovan, and yet most men lack the—the idea of it. They take no care to set the teeth at the right bevel, nor do they have the eyes in the tips of their fingers a man must have. Oh, I wish I had Taffy Edmunds! Not only can he sharpen as well as I, but he would like it here.”
“More are coming, so I understand, though Supply cannot carry many at once. And, since they are finding some trees they can cut in Port Jackson, I fear ye won’t see Taffy landed here in a hurry. Richardson is a good, strong fellow, he will work out, I think. Who knows? Perhaps one of this second four will turn out to have a talent for sharpening. Though why, Richard, ye should want to saw yourself baffles me,” said Stephen.
“Because to the men who saw, my job is child’s play. I sit cross-legged like a tailor and appear to be doing nothing. One reason why I put them all to it, and will go on putting them to it. Each of them knows that if he should prove good at sharpening, he has a comfortable job. When they fail, at least they know that sharpening is a job of patience and skill.”
Stephen lay back on the sand and stretched voluptuously. “Ye would think,” he said, “that Johnny, being a seaman, would be down here with us. But no, he would rather be outside our house, planing or polishing some fancy piece of wood
. He will have finished the balusters for Port Jackson’s Government House by the time Supply returns, whenever that might be. How isolated we are! More than a thousand miles across an empty ocean to the only other place an Englishman can be found. I feel it every time I look at the horizon. This isle is a gigantic ship at anchor in the midst of a nowhere, surrounded by infinity. It is completely its own entity.”
Richard rolled over to dry his back. “I do not feel that this isle is small, though I agree about the isolation. To me, Norfolk Island seems quite as large as New South Wales. Here lies a certain privacy. I do not feel as if I am a prisoner, whereas everything at Port Jackson reminded me I was a prisoner.”
“More officials,” said Stephen dryly.
“Is your Johnny getting on with the carpenters?”
“Oh, yes. Mostly thanks to the fact that he sticks to his lathe and has more sense than to tell Nat Lucas how to do his job or how to make sure the others do their jobs. ’Tis I suffer.”
“Just watch your back—I have a feeling.”
“D’ye want me to pull your four new sawyers out of the gang?”
“It has to be either you or Lieutenant King. Whoever.”
“I will do it. King is a will o’ the wisp—he darts here, there and everywhere. Always starting new things before the old are done, and never stopping to remember that he has too few hands to do what has been started, let alone deal with new work as well. That is why I insisted that he finish the granary before he lifts a finger to build the barn or the dam. In the midst of which he wants more houses built, if you please! But then, he has never served on any but big ships, wherein more hands run around than are necessary save in a battle or a blow.”
“Which reminds me, Mr. Donovan. Joey and I are sleeping in double beds with feather mattresses and feather pillows. By rights they belong to you and Mr. Livingstone.”