The Gallant (25 page)

master to close the shore and steer for the inlet.

“How long d’you reckon it’ll take us to get there?” he demanded. “Half an hour?”

“A mite longer. The tide’ll be running against us when we come close inshore,” Tarr told him woodenly.

“Right.” Galvanized into action, Haines looked from one to

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the other of his fellow escapers. “Toby, go below an’ make sure the crew are all locked in-an’

don’t forget the cook. The stokers can go in, along o’ the rest now-we don’t need them no more. You’d best back “im up, Josh, just in case any of ‘em starts lookin” for trouble.”

He waited, with barely concealed impatience, until his two henchmen returned to report that all was as he wanted it below.

“Not a peep out o’ any of the bastards,” Josh reported. He grinned derisively and gestured to the rapidly nearing shoreline. The strong afternoon sunlight shone down on a semicircle of golden sand immediately ahead, with the gentle, tree-clad slope Tarr had described forming a

picturesque backcloth to the small, secluded bay. “What about it, Will? Ain’t there a couple of other sods we don’t need no more? An’ one in partic’lar I bin itchin’ to get me hands on?”

The moment he had been dreading had come, Michael realized, but … he had not anticipated that they would serve Captain Tarr as, it seemed, they were intending to serve himself. He had decided that, when suspicion became certainty, to dive overboard and attempt to swim ashore would be his best, if not his only, chance of survival. But the

Hastings’

master was an old man, and, like most of his generation of seamen, he probably could not swim. … To abandon him, whatever the cost, was unthinkable. Devil take it, he thought derisively, the instincts of a gentleman were still there. Commandant Price had not entirely obliterated them.

He heard Haines laugh, heard him bellow “Aye—have at Mm, Josh!” but had moved before Josh Simmons could free the long military bayonet from his belt. His fist landed squarely on the little man’s unshaven jaw, sending him down as if he had been poleaxed, but, to Michael’s chagrin, the sprawled body rested on top of the half-drawn bayonet, which he had hoped he might secure as a weapon.

“Go below!” he yelled at Tarr, “and lock yourself in! They’ll kill you if you don’t! I’ll hold “em off!”

Tarr tried to react to his warning, but Big Toby Train moved swiftly to block his escape, an outstretched foot bringing the old captain tumbling to his knees. The musket butt descended with

hideous force, and Tarr lay spread-eagled on the deck in a slowly growing pool of his own blood.

“I thought as much-gettin” together, wasn’t you?”

Haines snarled. The Adams was in his hand, leveled at Michael’s chest, and he waved Train aside with a harsh “No, this bastard’s mine, Toby! Leave “im to me!”

The instincts of a barefisted fighter, unwillingly acquired under Superintendent Delaney’s tutelage, had not been obliterated either, Michael knew. He spun round, his leap taking him across the deck just as Haines fired, and the shot missed him by a hairsbreadth. He was over the rail an instant later, hurtling feet first into the churned-up water astern of the

Hastings”

paddle wheel. The sea opened to swallow him up, and he kicked out, holding his breath as the green water closed over his head, blindly seeking to put as much distance between himself and the ship as he could before being compelled to come up for air.

His desperate ploy succeeded. Shots rained into the sea a dozen yards from him when he rose, gasping, his lungs near to bursting. He heard Train shout “Look-there “e is!” and the next shot came nearer as he struck out in a powerful crawl stroke for the faraway shore.

Then, to his sick dismay, when he paused for a moment to look back, he saw Train pick up Captain Tarr’s limp body and fling it over the side, and the old man’s despairing cry told him that he was still alive and conscious of his peril. The ship was chugging steadily toward the still-distant inlet; with no one, seemingly, at her wheel, her progress had become erratic, but she was heading away from him, drawing out of musket range with each turn of her paddle wheels.

Michael trod water, measuring the distance, and then decided to make a last attempt to save her master. Tarr was conscious when he reached him, floating on his back, the swell washing the blood from his wounded head into a scarlet patch of froth about him … and there were sharks in these waters, Michael knew, whether or not such dangerous predators lurked in Eaglehawk Bay. But he had been prepared to risk an encounter with them there, had he been compelled to, and so … He drew deep gulps of air into his lungs and, grasping Tarr by the

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collar, began the long, strength-sapping swim to the Huon Valley coast.

The sun was sinking when, at last, the turning tide washed him ashore with his helpless burden. No sharks had made an appearance; he would have been powerless to ward them off if they had, Michael was dully aware, and he found himself breathing a prayer of thankfulness to the God he had for so long neglected as his feet touched solid ground.

This was not the sheltered, sandy inlet upon which Tarr had chosen to beach his ship; it was seaweed-encrusted rock, with a daunting cliff face behind it, which he recognized he lacked the strength, at present, to climb. But until the tide again turned, they were safe there, and, praise be to God, he could rest his exhausted body, at least until feeling returned to his numb limbs.

It was old Captain Tarr who wakened him. The Hastings”

master was tugging weakly at his arm, and it was again broad daylight.

“Tide’s … turning, Wexford. We’ll drown if we … stay here.”

Michael made an effort to rouse himself. He was aching, his whole body chilled and drained of energy, his salt-soaked felon’s garb seeming to cling to him in stiff, unyielding folds. Wearily he sat up and divested himself of the jacket, trying to ward off the mists of sleep and for a time unable to recall where he was and how he had come to be here.

“There’s a cave … up the cliff a ways,”

Tarr whispered faintly. “If we can get to it.”

He pointed with a trembling hand. “But I … before God, I don’t think I can walk!”

Memory returned, and Michael got to his feet. To have come so far, to have endured so much-even to have survived, against all odds … merciful heaven, the incoming tide might drive them from their refuge, but it was not going to drown them now! He braced himself and, an arm round his companion’s waist, staggered toward the cave. It was perhaps twenty feet above the tidemark. Old Tarr was right-they would be safe if they could gain its shelter. A mere twenty feet, and there were handholds, footholds in the rock. … It wasn’t beyond their reach-it couldn’t be!

Somehow, a painful foot or two at a time, dragging Tarr behind him, Michael managed to reach their goal, and as the surf pounded at their heels and soaked them anew, he exerted the last remnants of his strength and lifted his well-nigh-helpless companion onto the dry cave floor.

Tarr was fighting for breath, his lined face drained of blood. Alarmed, Michael lifted him into a sitting position, propping him up against the wall of the cave and chafing the cold, limp hands between his own. The old man managed a twisted smile.

“I’ll not forget what you’ve done for me, Mr.

Wexford,” he murmured, gasping hoarsely.

“I’ll see you’re granted a pardon, if it’s the last thing I ever do-I swear I will! And I’ll see those treacherous villains who stole my ship are hanged for it, if it takes me the rest of my days.”

Ironically, those were the last words he spoke. A sudden spasm convulsed him. His face, so pale a moment before, was suffused with hectic color, and as Michael knelt beside him, anxiously calling his name, the old man collapsed in an ungainly heap, like a puppet whose strings had been released. His breathing was stertorous, rasping in his throat, and his eyes, though open, were blank and lackluster, devoid of sight.

Michael did what he could for him, but it was little enough. The old man lapsed into a coma; his breathing became more labored, then finally ceased. Frantic efforts to revive him met with no response.

Benjamin Tarr, master of the steamer Hastings

until a few hours ago, had died as, in all probability by this time, his ship had died, smashed on the rocks that guarded the entrance to Baker’s Inlet.

With the old man’s death had vanished his own hope of a pardon, Michael reflected bitterly, and … He looked down at the still, shuttered face, his spirits at their lowest ebb. He dared not leave the body there, he knew, for if it were discovered, he might well find himself facing a murder charge, because he was a convict and because of the record Commandant Price had left as his legacy after the tortured years on Norfolk Island. His only witness could not speak up for him now… .

He knelt briefly in prayer, harking back to his boyhood in the half-forgotten words that he spoke aloud. Then, unable to bring himself to rob the body of its clothing, or even to go through its William Stuart Long

pockets, he steeled himself and rolled it to the mouth of the cave; a gentle push sufficed to send it, with a dull splash, into the surf below.

The cave had become untenable now. Wearily Michael stepped out into the sunlight of a new day and started to ascend the cliff, scarcely caring whether or not he reached the summit. But he reached it, after almost an hour’s hard climbing, to find himself in a green expanse of pastureland, on which sheep and cattle were grazing.

There were farm buildings in the distance, perhaps two miles away, circling a white-painted dwelling house. These were the only signs of human habitation as far as the eye could see, and after some hesitation, Michael moved cautiously nearer, his need for food and a change of clothing suddenly of paramount importance in his mind.

And if that made him a bushranger and a thief, then so be it, he told himself, since fate had cast him for the role.

The small steamer

Opossum

came smoothly alongside the wharf at Port Arthur, and as Johnny Broome waited for the gangplank to be set up to enable him to disembark, he looked about him with interest.

At first sight, it seemed a beautiful place.

Low wooded hills surrounded the cove on three sides, and the buildings of the main settlement spread out in a semicircle between sea and hills, with well-kept lawns and fine, landscaped flower gardens on every hand.

The extensive, four-story penitentiary, still in the process of enlargement, was first to catch his eye; beyond it a well-constructed, stone-built church, with a graceful steeple, was approached by an avenue of symmetrically spaced oak trees. The church itself had been well designed; each of its three gables was surmounted by three small spires, the tower had four, and there was a clock set in its face.

“The work of a convict architect, the church,” the

Opossum’s

master volunteered. “Feller named Laing. And it was built by the Royal Engineers-with convict labor, of course. That’s Government Cottage, beside it-with the best garden on the Tasman Peninsula. And over on the other side are the commandant’s and the civil officers’ quarters, the soldiers’ barracks, and the hospital. It’s a small township these days, self-supporting and self-contained-like everyone says, a model prison. But-was He laughed shortly.

“Can’t say I’d want to serve a sentence William Stuart Long

here, all the same. As you can see-was He gestured to a gang of men in broad-arrowed convict garb lined up on the jetty. “There are still the chain gangs for any who step out of line.”

The men, in obedience to a shouted order, hauled a railed gangway to the ship’s side and set it in place.

“You can go ashore now, Mr. Broome,” the master said. “And you’ll find Commandant Boyd in “is office, I expect. Follow the roadway to the church, then head for the semaphore station-see it, on top of the hill? The commandant’s house is halfway up-anyone will direct you.”

Johnny thanked him and, following his instructions, found the commandant in his office. James Boyd was a quiet-voiced, pleasant-mannered man-the first civilian to be appointed to the office of commandant at Port Arthur. A Scot, he had come out to Australia some fourteen years earlier with his flamboyant elder brother, Benjamin, on board the yacht

Wanderer,

but had taken no part in his brother’s ill-starred commercial ventures, although for a time he had been employed by one of the banks Benjamin had founded.

He read the letter of introduction from Dr.

Hampton, replaced it carefully in its envelope, and eyed Johnny questioningly across his paper-strewn desk.

“I shall, of course, be happy to be of service to you, Mr. Broome. Mr. Damien Hayes is a gentleman for whom I have great respect, and I understand, from Dr. Hampton’s note, that you are also on terms of friendship with him?”

“He has commissioned me to write an article on the new prison system here, sir,”

Johnny answered and, seeing the commandant’s quick frown of displeasure, attempted to enlarge on the purpose and scope of his commission, conscious of a feeling of regret at the deception he had been compelled to practice. In his breast pocket was a second letter, written by Kitty and Patrick, which was intended for their brother Michael and which, reluctantly, he had promised to deliver should an opportunity arise. He had not read it-Kitty had insisted that he should not comb he had little trouble in guessing its contents, and when James Boyd, reassured by his explanation, agreed to accord him the virtual freedom of the prison settlement, his conscience began anew to torment him.

But it was too late to go back on his word now, he told

himself unhappily. At least he could salve his conscience by writing a fair and unbiased report on the new model prison, and James Boyd should have no reason for complaint on that score. … He managed a smile and offered his thanks.

“You will stay with us, of course,” Boyd said. “And we can talk over dinner. Then tomorrow I will delegate one of my officers to escort you on a tour of the establishment. There is much to see, Mr.