Command (37 page)

“What sort o’ man is he, then, as you’d hear it?”

“Sociable and affable—been here right from the start in

’eighty-eight at Botany Bay—and while you’ve been quilting the French he has done a service for New South Wales, in my opinion. It was in sad dilapidation before. The lobsterbacks held the whole place to ransom by trading in rum and the colony was going to rack and ruin. Now we have brick-built houses and roads, quite an achievement with no resources at hand.”

“Aye,” murmured Kydd. A useless penal colony at the ends of the earth would be all but forgotten by a country fighting for its life against a despotic revolution.

“And don’t forget that as a naval officer he is a rare enough creature, and he faces not a few enemies. The traders are few in number but they want to run the port for their own ends and are wealthy and powerful. And he has the military: the marines were all sent back to the war and we’re left with the sottish rogues in the New South Wales Corps. When you add in the big landown-ers, like MacArthur, who have their own conceiving of how they should be governed, you will know his task is no light one.”

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“Has he th’ bottom f’r a fight?”

Redfern grinned without humour. “I think so, friend. He’s the son of a draper born in the wilds of Launceston and knows what it is to stand before gentlemen and prevail.” His face clouded. “I honour him most for his fearless support of those who have paid their penalty and want to contribute to their society. There are many—your MacArthur is chief among them—who would deny us the right and take the odious view that, once a criminal, the blood is tainted and we must be deprived for ever of any chance to aspire to higher things.”

“Do have some more silver bream, Mr Kydd. You’ll find then why it’s famed for its succulence,” Mrs King said brightly, easing a morsel of fish on to his plate, then motioning to the servant to offer it to the other guests.

It was indeed a fine dish and Kydd did justice to it. “Tell me, Mrs King,” he mumbled, “what is th’ name o’ the sauce? It has a rare taste.”

“Ah, that is our Monsieur Mingois having one of his better days. It is his Quin’s fish sauce.”

King beamed at Kydd. “Rather better than we find on our plate after a week or two at sea, hey?”

“Aye, sir—an’ you’ll be remembering th’ midshipman’s burgoo an’ hard tack, not t’ say other delicacies an enterprising young gentleman c’n find!”

Laughing gustily, King looked fondly at his wife. “L’tenant, not so free, if you please, with your sea tales in front of Anna.”

She dimpled and stifled a giggle.

Picking up his glass, Kydd enquired politely, “The French still in harbour, sir, is it resolved as t’ who may name th’ new-found territories? Commander Flinders or . . . ?”

“Why, we, of course,” King answered smugly. “Flinders was there before them. For all their ‘Napoleon Strait,’ ‘Josephine

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Bight’ and such, they were pipped. We have sea charts of our south such as would make you stare, sir.”

“Mr Kydd,” broke in Mrs King, “were you indeed an officer at the glorious Nile with Admiral Nelson? I’ve only just heard.”

“Why, er, yes, Mrs King,” Kydd said. Now he understood: it had only just been discovered that he was a hero of the Nile, which placed him at a social pinnacle in this faraway outpost and had earned him the good-natured envy and curiosity of the governor, himself a naval officer and far from the excitement and honours of active service.

“Goodness, how exciting! We shall have a
soirée
and all my friends will come to hear Lieutenant Kydd speak of his adventures. Such an honour to have you, Mr Kydd, believe me.”

“I’d be interested m’self, if I’m to be invited,” the governor said stiffly, but with a friendly gesture leaned over to top up Kydd’s glass. “Should you have been received by the first governor, your invitation to Government House would say, at the close, ‘Guests will be expected to bring their own bread.’ ”

He waited for the dutiful merriment to subside and went on,

“But as you might remark it, we have advanced a trifle since then. We are all but self-sufficient in basic foodstuffs and I have my hopes for a form of staple that may be exported. Coal, sir.

We have made substantial finds on the banks of the Hunter River, and by this we may at last be able to expect a net inflow of specie and thus pay for our imports. And put a stop to this barbarous practice of payments in rum.”

The obvious sincerity in his enthusiasm for the enterprise touched Kydd. “Sir, th’ fine stone buildings I see on every hand are a great credit t’ your colony. Y’ have faith in its future, an’ I hope t’ make my return one day to see it.”

“Thank you, Mr Kydd. I have my faith also—but it shall be so only because the inhabitants themselves will it so. Sir, to be frank, there are those who would see a land with two peoples,
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the free settlers and the emancipated. They see the one in permanent subjugation to the other. I am not of that kind. I believe that if a convict is offered hope and rehabilitation and accepts, then he is redeemed and may take his place in our society. I will not have it that there are two races apart in the same land.”

“Hear, hear!” A strong-featured man further down the table raised his glass to the governor. Others murmured approbation.

“I dream that this settlement shall mightily increase, shall prosper by the labours and blood of both bound and free and, with our staple now secured and a mighty port at our feet, within a lifetime we shall be a great and wonderous people upon the land.”

A burst of applause broke out. Kydd watched the faces: hard, sun-touched and lean. Some of these were probably the “emancipated” of whom King had spoken, and each had a sturdy, un-affected air of resolution that made the governor’s dream seem so very possible.

“Do tip us the poem of Sydney Cove, Jonathan, if you will,”

King directed at the strong-featured man. Then he turned to Kydd and said, “Penned by Erasmus Darwin at our establishing and only now proving true—except for the bit about the fantastical bridge across the harbour, that is.”

There, rayed from cities o’er the cultured land,
Shall bright canals and solid roads expand.

There the proud arch, Colossus-like, bestride
Yon glittering streams, and bound the chafing tide;
Embellished villas crown the landscape scene
Farms wave with gold, and orchards blush between.

It was met with proud cries and hearty table thumps. A realisation dawned on Kydd: beyond the tawdry and makeshift of the raw settlement, beyond the flogging triangles and penal

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apparatus, there were those who were going to bring a new country to life by their own efforts and vision.

For the first time he understood what was impelling Renzi.

What he had seen was beyond the dross of the everyday. He had known that New South Wales had a future, a splendid future, and the country would owe it to Renzi and his kind. Such sacrifice—

and so typical of his high-born friend.

His eyes stung as he wondered where Renzi was at that moment.

The bad blood between the convicts and the new men was getting worse. Willis, whom Renzi had hired to act as wrangler, was big and swaggering, with a foul mouth. The other was a laconic Portuguese seaman who, for some reason, had put himself out for hire as a farm labourer. Probably it was the money, Renzi mused wryly—it was costing four shillings a day for him and five for Willis, a shocking sum compared to rates in England but it was the only way he could see to get the work done.

Still, they were making progress of a kind. The land to the north had been cleared and hoed a good half-way back. Renzi had watched as the men sowed the seed, scattering the corn grains with wide, sweeping gestures just as he had seen done on the ancient fields of Wiltshire. It was the obvious crop: whatever else, the colony would always need bread.

That had been over a month ago, and now to his intense delight tiny needles of green were emerging. He threw himself into the work with renewed energy: half of the land for corn, half for root vegetables—out of consideration for his neighbour, not turnips.

He laboured on, happy in the knowledge that while he worked his crop was steadily growing, maturing. In effect, this was his

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future wealth buried until he saw fit to draw upon his account.

The metaphor pleased him and he went back to his hut for a mattock to help the others with the clearing.

Angry shouts and barking carried up from the working party.

It would be Willis, setting off Tranter again. Flannery would then cleverly needle the big man and the cycle would go on and on.

Renzi stumped back down to the group, who continued squabbling as if he was not there.

The dog’s witless barking made him see red: he had been forced to buy the cur when their attempts to fence in the growing shoots against the nightly raids of hungry kangaroos had failed—the animals had simply bounded over the barrier. Now if he wanted to preserve anything of his precious green shoots he had to put up with the dog’s din during the night.

“Shut your cursed noise!” he bawled at the men.

“It’s Flannery agen,” spat Willis, rolling up his sleeves theatrically. “He don’t do as he’s bin told!”

Flannery threw down his hoe in front of Willis. “Orl right, me ol’ bully-cock, what’s it t’ be then?”

Renzi ground his teeth. “If I see you two rogues brawling once more I’ll—I’ll . . .” But what
was
there to do? He calmed himself.

“Now, Flannery, you and Tranter go—”

“Ye’re bein’ robbed,” Flannery interjected, his eyes fixed on Willis.

“What do you mean?” Renzi asked uneasily.

“Willis ’n’ the dago, they’re takin’ y’r silver.”

“Explain!”

Flannery’s cynical smile had the chill of truth about it and Renzi braced himself. “They knows that ain’t corn!” He kicked at the painfully weeded dirt, then yanked out a green tuft. “See?

It’s some kinda grass, is all! You’ve been gulled. They knew it weren’t corn all along, jus’ played along t’ take y’r coin!”

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Julian Stockwin

Renzi took the straggly tussock; he had no real idea what sprouting corn looked like. “And you knew of this?” he challenged Flannery, as he let it drop to the ground.

“You’re th’ chief, roight enough, Mr Renzi. We does what ye say, an’ wi’ no opinions,” the man said.

Straightening, Renzi stared at the untidy acres of thin green.

He had been living in a fool’s paradise but what should he do now? He had to think.

His first reaction of hot anger was overcome with a sharp dose of cold logic. In this situation the obvious course was to bring the malefactors to justice. But would this not expose him to scorn and laughter in the colony where he was seeking acceptance and advance in society?

He got rid of the two hired men but retained the convicts—

they were not costing him anything except the inevitable rum.

However, his means were being eroded at a startling rate; it was time to take stock. The one thing that he would never contemplate was tamely submitting to fate and quitting. He was still master of his land, he had living quarters, wide acres of cultivated land and, for what it was worth, the two convicts. He would find more corn, and seed it himself, then see this difficult time through to a successful conclusion.

And had it not been the doughty sea hero Sir Francis Drake who had said, so long ago, “There must be a beginning of any great matter but it is the continuing of the same to the end until it be thoroughly finished that yieldeth the true glory”?

Renzi took heart at the strong words and sat down to plan.

The first thing was to secure the corn. This was only obtain-able in Sydney Town so there was no alternative but to make the journey.

For several months now he had not seen any fellow human being beyond his rough-mouthed workers and the plebeian couple

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on the next selection, and he found himself looking forward to the trip. He would dress decently, his chest of gentlemanly wear unopened since arrival, and there was a growing list of articles to buy that were trifling in themselves but which would go far in easing life on his farm estate.

The Parramatta coach jolted and ground grittily to a stop and Renzi descended thankfully. Stretching after the journey, he surveyed the scene. Merely seeing other people in the road buoyed his spirits and the feel of the fine clothes next to his skin was sen-sual and uplifting. He strode off down the road.

Renzi slowed his pace as he came to the bridge over the stream: he had been told that there were shopping establishments along the foreshore and he reviewed the list in his mind. Besides the corn, only one thing could be considered necessary—indeed, vital—but he had no idea where he might go for it.

Ahead, he saw a gentlewoman, a handsome female followed by a maid. She glanced his way, her strong features appraising.

Renzi lifted his hat and swept down in a bow. “Dear madam, I would be infinitely obliged should you assist me in one particular dear to my heart. Do you know of a library at all, a subscription library, perhaps, for the gentlefolk of this town?”

She paused, her glance flashing to his elegant morning coat that had left a London tailor’s not nine months before. “A library? I fear there is no such in New South Wales. The people are generally of quite another sort.” Looking at him directly, she said, “Sir, you must be a stranger to these parts, but I do confess, I cannot recollect the news of the arrival of someone of quality . . .”