The Gallant (17 page)

“No. Not those two, certainly, Mr.

Staveley,” Michael admitted, tightlipped.

“Well, you’ll have to put up with “em, I fear,” Staveley told him. “The commandant gave the pair of them three months, in heavy irons, for stealing tobacco and using threatening language. They got off lightly, in my view-the poor bugger they robbed is in hospital! All right, lad-into line with you and answer to your name, and then we can set off. I want to get back to my quarters before dark-my little lass Julie is ailing.”

Michael crammed on his cap and obeyed.

Five minutes later, with two soldiers, sweating in their thick

scarlet tunics, marching on either side of them, the prisoners shuffled through the gates of the muster yard and, chains clinking, breasted the slight hill in front of the guardhouse. The semaphore on its roof was in operation, its amis rising and falling rapidly and a checkered pennant flying halfway up the mast.

A system of signals, Michael

knew from prison gossip, had once enabled communication with Hobart Town to be maintained.

Numerically encoded messages were relayed by a series of signal stations, situated at regular intervals on high ground, throughout the intervening wastes of bush and sea, and a message sent from Battery Point, in Hobart Town, would be received in Port Arthur within less than half an hour. A previous governor, however, had closed the system down, on grounds of economy, and now only the local stations were manned.

Even so, attempted escapes from anywhere on the Tasman Peninsula could very rapidly be notified to the authorities, with search parties of troops alerted and guard boats standing by … and the signal station overlooking Eaglehawk Neck was manned night and day.

As Michael looked up at the rotating arms of the guardhouse semaphore, Warder Staveley, striding briskly at his side, followed the direction of his gaze and volunteered gruffly, “There’s been a suicide at Safety Cove, seemingly. Some of the lads at the Juvenile Establishment are being released-they’ll be taken to Hobart in the

Hastings

when she’s finished loading. A boy who’s not

due for release threw himself off the clifftop yesterday evening, poor young fool.” He jerked his grizzled head in the direction of the semaphore.

“Now they’re arranging for his corpse to be taken to the Isle of the Dead yonder for burial. God rest his soul! By all accounts, he wasn’t a bad lad.”

But, bad lad or good, Michael thought with sudden revulsion, he would be interred in quicklime in that part of the cemetery reserved for convict dead, and there would be no headstone to mark his resting place. The strange old Irish lifer Barron-no one knew his Christian name-who lived alone on the small island facing the penitentiary, would dig his grave, as he had dug so many others, and then return to his primitive wooden hut to await the next call for his services.

William Stuart Long

And who knew, Michael told himself bitterly-the next call might be for

his

lifeless body, if his bid for freedom failed and the aim of one of the soldiers guarding Eaglehawk Neck should prove straight and true.

As if guessing the nature of his thoughts, Warder Staveley slowed his pace, a hand on Michael’s arm holding him back. They were at the rear of the shuffling procession of fettered men, and the old prison officer seemed in a talkative mood.

He said, when they were out of earshot of the rest, “Why do you go on fighting, Big Michael? You’ve been over a year in the labor gang now. You could earn probation, if you set your mind to it. And you were born a gentleman, everyone knows that.”

“I’ve forgotten it!” Michael retorted.

“Aye, you may have, but others haven’t. With the education you’ve been blessed with, you could have a soft life, teaching school, for instance. Or tutoring the officers” children.”

He had done that once. Michael recalled.

Even on Norfolk Island, for a few short weeks after Commandant Price had left and Captain Deering of the 99th had been in temporary command, he had been taken from the prison to become mentor to the captain’s children, and against all reason, hope had been born again. He had responded to the trust reposed in him and to the children’s growing affection, but … Deering had asked to be relieved, Captain Day had replaced him, and one of Price’s toadies-a convict constable named Baldock-had laid charges against him to the new commandant. Day had had no reason to accept his word against that of a constable, and since Commandant Price had officially entered him as incorrigible in the records, there had been no more tutoring but a return to solitary confinement, followed by hard labor.

And so it had been here. Not the arbitrary six months in the chain gang the Port Arthur commandant had initially told him he might expect but …

over a year. Always Price’s verdict was hung, like a millstone, about his neck. Yet Price had not broken him; he had defied the civil commandant to the last, disputed and disproved his boast that there was no convict rogue he could not bring to submission. And .

. . Michael’s big, callused hands clenched fiercely into fists at his side, letting the chain attached to his belt slip from his grasp.

John Price, the convict grapevine had asserted, had won government approval and promotion. He was now inspector general of penal establishments in the state of Victoria, in charge of its principal prison at

Pentridge, while he himself … He stumbled, cursing aloud, and instantly regretted his loss of control. Any officer but Staveley would have put him on a charge, he knew; instead, the old warder told him gruffly to have a care, and as he gathered up his chain, the onetime army sergeant added mildly, “I’d put in a good word for you, Michael, if I thought you would make a real attempt to merit probation. Commandant Boyd does take heed of what I say.”

Ashamed, Michael mumbled his thanks. But it was too late, he knew. He could not face year after endless year in this place, after all he had endured at Price’s hands. Even if he earned probation and what the good old Staveley had called a soft life, it would still take years before the probationary period became conditional freedom. And there was Price, lording it in Victoria, indulging his sadistic pleasure in Pentridge Gaol… .

Staveley regarded him for a long moment, an odd sadness in his eyes, then Michael quickened his stride, aiming to catch up with the gang of prisoners.

“You’ll not listen, will you, Michael Wexford?”

he accused. “Well, no one can say I didn’t try. There’s something driving you, isn’t there? Something evil, if the truth were known. You would do well to pray that you overcome it, for no good will come out of evil, lad. Not now, not ever.” His tone changed, becoming stern as they drew level with the file of chained convicts. “God help you, Big Michael …

All right, you men! Pick those feet up and march in step!”

He made no further attempt at conversation until the cluster of buildings that made up the Cascades outstation came in sight at a bend in the road. Beyond, a dazzling blue vista of sea and sky stretched the wide expanse of Norfolk Bay, and moored alongside the Cascades Bay jetty, the black-funneled paddle-steamer Hastings

moved sluggishly in the slight, incoming swell, her hatches open, ready for the next day’s loading.

The station had grown since its opening almost twenty years earlier, and, Michael reflected sourly, it looked a pleasant enough place at this distance. The timber mill was the largest

building, but in addition there were a dozen single-story officers’ cottages, a convict barracks with accommodation for more than four hundred men, the usual block of solitary

cells, two messrooms, a chapel, a

cookhouse, and a large bakery. The chapel, which doubled as a school, was little better than a wooden shed, but all the residential quarters were solidly built, with stone foundations from the local quarries, whitewashed brickwork, and picturesque shingle roofs. Well-tended gardens, growing fruit trees and vegetables in abundance, added to the deceptive air of rural peace and plenty—the more so because, it being Sunday, no work was in progress.

“Tell me,” Warder Staveley invited, breaking his silence at last but still keeping his voice Sow, “has Mr. Delaney fixed up a match for you, Michael? Is that why he wants you back here?”

Michael shrugged. Superintendent Delaney was in the oddly contradictory habit of arranging pugilistic contests at the station-an enterprise that did not have official approval but to which authority turned a blind eye, in the belief that it boosted the general morale of both staff and prisoners.

Indeed, according to Delaney, it also provided an outlet for prisoners of violent temperament, who might otherwise cause trouble.

He himself had displayed no violence and given little trouble, Michael thought cynically, but as always, his physical strength had singled him out, and Delaney-who was by no means the worst of the Port Arthur station superintendents-had selected him when he had first been sent to Cascades and induced him to play a regular part in the contests ever since.

Inevitably bets were cast on the results; the prison staff and the soldiers wagered considerable sums from their pay, and whether or not the commandant was aware of it, Superintendent Delaney did well out of the practice.

“Well?” Staveley prompted. “Has he?”

“I suppose he must have,” Michael returned reluctantly. “But I’m just out of solitary. A week on bread and water isn’t the best preparation for a fight.”

“Then I’d best not risk a wager on you, had I?”

“A couple of shillings, maybe. Not more, Mr.

Staveley.”

“If you say so.” Staveley laughed, with ready good humor. “I’ll have a word with the sergeant of the guard before I set off

back. Lord, though, you’re a rum one, Big Michael, and no mistake. For a

gentleman born, I mean. You’re just not like any gentleman I ever met-in Her Majesty’s forces or here.”

Perhaps, Michael thought, he had always been a rum one-a misfit in the role for which life had cast him.

But until he had encountered John Giles Price, who had also been born a gentleman, he had at least subscribed to the code of honor of his class and kind. Perhaps if he had called Captain Septimus Leonard out and shot him with a dueling pistol, the damned old English judge who had sentenced him to transportation as a traitor would have imposed a lesser penalty and held that his action had been that of a gentleman.

He managed a mirthless smile in old Staveley’s direction and followed the other prisoners into the barracks yard, where Delaney was waiting, two of his overseers at his side.

“I’ve a match for you tonight, Big Michael,” the superintendent greeted him, a gleam in his dark eyes. “And you’ll be well matched this time-I’ve found a fellow your size.”

It was of little use to argue or to protest that his big body had been debilitated by the week in solitary, and Michael offered no

objection. He drew himself up to attention and, as the rules demanded, doffed his cap.

“Very good, sir,” he acknowledged woodenly.

It occurred to him suddenly, as he waited for his dismissal, that neither his sister Kitty nor his brother Patrick would recognize him if, by some miracle, they were able to see him now. From the window of the superintendent’s office nearby, his reflection mocked him. It revealed a tall, stooping figure in ill-fitting convict garb—a man with a gaunt, bony face that was deeply lined and tanned almost to the color of mahogany, its expression one of sullen resignation. The lines, the sunken eyes, and the closely shaven head aged him far beyond the thirty years through which he had lived, and Michael turned away, sickened by the realization of what he had become.

But praise be to God, he thought, sweet little madcap Kitty would never have occasion to look at him thus, and young Patrick would retain the illusions he had always had concerning his elder brother. Even if O’Brien had contrived to keep his promise to deliver the letter to them at Kilclare, all he had William Stuart Long

asked of them had been that they engage a good lawyer to file an appeal on his behalf. That, Michael told himself, they would surely have done—O’Brien had found them-and perhaps, God willing, the appeal would succeed before his spirit was broken and his courage finally failed him.

One of the overseers shouted out the number of

the barracks room he was to occupy. Relieved that Haines and Simmons had been sent elsewhere, Michael lifted the chain to hold his ankle fetters clear of the ground and, moving with the ease of long familiarity with the impediment they offered, started across the yard. The gang from the timber mill stood in line outside the barracks, two overseers at their head.

One of them-an ex-convict sub-overseer named Burke, whose report had earned him the week’s solitary confinement-grinned in pleased recognition.

“So you’re back, Big Michael!” he

observed derisively. “Well, it’s to be hoped you’re in good trim for a fight. There’s your match, standin’ over yonder.” He gestured to a man at the rear of the waiting line, and Michael stared in stunned disbelief. His opponent was a veritable giant, blackbrowed and powerful-one who clearly could give him not only four or five inches in height but at least a stone in weight.

He looked fit, in addition-a new arrival, evidently, who had not yet been worn down by long hours of toil in a chain gang or nauseated by the monotonous prison diet to a point where he could no longer stomach it.

“Meet Tobias Train,” Sub-overseer

Burke added, his tone tinged with conscious malice.

“Big Toby to you! And I tell you this, Nine-four-six-seven Wexford-I ain’t puttin’

my money on

you

tonight. No so.in’ fear I ain’t! All right, take a good look, and then get on your way.”

Michael did not reply to the taunt. If the fight went against him and he was badly hurt, his escape would, he knew, have to be postponed. But-He raised a hand in salute to the opponent Delaney had chosen for him and strode into the barracks with head held high, conscious that Train’s gaze had followed him and that, for all his splendid physique, the giant was, of the two of them, the more afraid.