Bitter Eden (50 page)

a week. His head and shoulder were crushed. Peter took the man to the river bank and laid him beside the body of the man who had come down the slide.

Walter covered his eyes, hiding the gratitude he felt that it hadn't been John the Pocket. Then he walked through the water hunting for sight of John. The convicts shouted their condition to the guards on shore. As Walter came toward Peter, standing on the shore, two men struggled to the bank further down river. One of them was John the Pocket, his left arm dangling useless and bloody,

John was taken to the prison hospital. His left hand was amputated and his broken arm and shoulder set. Walter cried like a baby, as though his life were over as well as John the left-handed pickpocket's. No dreams could come true if they were impossible. As long as John had his hand, escape from Sarah was something to talk about because John could take care of them in the world outside. Now he no longer could, and Sarah Island could no longer be escaped, even in dreams.

When John returned to the barracks, he was a different man. He was grim, determined to escape in a way Peter had never heard him speak of before. He asked for his old job on the river crew again, and took chances no man could rightly expect to survive. The logs, however, seemed perverse. If John stood directly in their path, the logs swerved, leaving him untouched.

Peter and Walter tried to cheer him up, make him laugh and plan and dream again. John merelv became quieter and more introspective. His one desire was to be released from Sarah Island. He looked lovingly and sorrowfully at the two friends he had already decided to leave behind. "Can't you find it in you to see I can't take no more? I want my Maker. He can be no

harsher than a man, and surely I think He'll judge me kinder."

Peter didn't understand. He still throbbed with life and though it was of a bitter sort, he had hope. Walter did understand. But for Walter, understanding wasn't necessary. He knew that where John went he would go too. John had always been the leader. He would remain so.

At the river the great logs tumbled down the slide. Peter, John, and Walter stood in the water waiting, their eyes fixed on the logs, their minds and hearts centered on God. Would He forgive? Was there truly a place on His right hand for the good thief?

As the log plunged deep into the river, the rushing swirl of water pounded against Peter's legs. John the Pocket went under without a struggle against the strong hand that held him down until the log had been pushed over him and replaced the hand. Shortly Peter shouted there was a man under.

John was replaced on the crew by a new convict. The following week another convict replaced Walter Wheeler, and Peter was once again alone on Sarah Island.

For two months Peter went out each morning, rowing to the woodcutting station, silent and ignoring the others around him. The less he had to do with anyone the better it seemed to be. At least that way he had only himself to fight and be responsible for, and not the kindness and hatred of others.

Because he caused no trouble, Peter was reclassified within the confines of Sarah. He was termed a good-conduct man within the sixth classification. At the end of June his job was changed. He would, starting in July, be sent to the island's sawmill. Each step in good conduct was a step up the classification. If it

continued, he would soon be classed as a fifth-level convict. It seemed a good thing as well as a relief to be sent to the sawmill. There was no icy water to stand in for twelve hours a day, and there would be no more of the backbreaking weight of the logs on his shoulders.

The mill stood in a large clearing, rolling scrub land around it. On the hillsides he saw guards, whips in hand, shouting and directing heavy sleds of wood being dragged toward the sawmill. They shouted, geeing and hawing as they would any horse or ox, except that there were no horses or oxen or asses on Sarah. No beast of burden was allowed.

The guard assigned to Peter took him to the sled he was to pull. The man reached to the top of the loaded wood stack, hauling down the harness thrown there. Peter stood straight and rigid as the guard came toward him.

"You're not putting that on me," he said in a low voice.

"Get over here. Raise your arms." The guard jabbed him with the whip handle. He took Peters arm, slipping the harness onto one shoulder.

"Get your bloody hands off me!" Peter grabbed the whip. He hurled it into the brush. As he stretched out, the guard hit him in the stomach, doubling him over, and quickly tossed the harness across Peter's back. Peter reared up, taking hold of the harness and the guard, shaking them both with a savage fury.

The other prisoners sat down on the ground, glad to be ignored. Other guards rushed over. The convicts watched as five guards closed in on Peter. It happened to them all at sometime, but they would enjov watching it now. It was quite a show to see the tall blond man in irons wildly swinging the harness like a weapon at all comers.

"A man is no beast, damn your

The guards formed a circle and began to move in. To whichever of the five Peter turned his attention, the other four flicked at him with their whips.

Slowly the circle closed. Peter lashed at them, his face and body covered with sweat, tears streaming down his cheeks. "A man is no beast! I am a man . . . a man." His voice was smothered with the scuffling and grunting of the guards as they bore down on him driving his face into the ground.

The other convicts got up, going back to work. It had been good while it lasted, but it was too short a test. They knew it was probably the last show of rebellion they would see from Peter Berean. Men who had not been to the triangles were always more outspoken than those who had. Those bearing the scars might be recklessly revengeful, but "A man is no beast" were the words of a newcomer.

The triangles, wooden staves fastened together to form a triangle, stood in an open area. They were constructed atop a wooden structure, making it easier for onlookers to view the punishment. The bell was rung and a crowd began to form. Peter stood on the platform, his shirt taken off him and tossed to the plank floor. A stir of interest rippled through the people at the sight of the brand on his chest.

'Who'd he murder?" one woman asked her neighbor.

"His wife, I heard, and the local magistrate . . . found them together and had done with them both. I heard tell he's a real brute, this one is."

The first woman shook her head. "A magistrate . . . well, it's often the way with these 'andsome ones. They don't have two corn kernels in their heads to call brains."

More people trickled up to stand at the base of the triangles. Men and women from the settlement, some with their children, convicts, guards, and officers forming a waiting sea of eager, anticipatory faces all around him.

"What'd he do?" a man asked.

"Attacked a guard, they say."

"He's lucky they didn't hang him."

"Mmmm. They'll skin the back off 'im. You watch. He'll take at least a hundred."

His body was extended to full length as his hands were lashed to the apex of the triangle at the same time his legs were spread wide and lashed to the angular braces. He hung there naked to the waist, listening to the murmuring talk around him. The chaplain, probably a disgraced minister sent to Van Diemen's Land to rid himself of his own demons of drink or lust or hate, mounted the platform with Peter. He thrust the Bible into Peter's face. "Sin has a dreadful hold on your immortal soul. Keep your mind turned toward the Lord lest you be lost to the legions of evil."

The crowd mumbled amens piously, then raised their eyes to stare at the prisoner hanging half naked before them.

Peter hung his head, trying to avoid the sight of the minister, if not the sound of his voice.

"Repent, dear soul, that your depravity may not destroy all hope for the salvation of your soul. Repent! Lest you be cast into the everlasting sulphurous fires of Hell," he concluded, the spittle standing in white flecks on his lips. Ponderously, clutching the Bible to his breast, the minister left the platform to join the crowd below.

Another convict stepped forward. He took the cat-o'-nine-tails and stepped into position behind Peter.

Peter remembered the flogging he had received aboard the George HI and thought that with mercy he'd be unconscious before this one was half over. With the slow regularity of a metronome the lashes were called out. Peter hadn't reckoned with the thirty-second delay between strokes. The time seemed an eternity. His nerves were flayed raw along with his back. He was screaming long before the lash ever touched him, and when it came it thudded into his back driving the breath from his body, making him choke and strangle on his own saliva and blood as he bit through his lip and tongue. He was insensible to everything but terror and pain. There was no sound on heaven or earth but the swishing scream of the scourge and the dull impact on yielding flesh. The platform was lined with armies of red ants carrying off the torn slices of Peters back. At every stroke blood sprayed.

Thoughts of withstanding the whip were gone after twenty lashes. He couldn't stand it. But he couldn't escape it. He couldn't move from it. He couldn't beg, though he would have, for there was no mercy. He couldn't think with that fiery lightning coming down on him again and again eating away his flesh and his soul. All he could do was endure. Survive because neither was there a way to die. He thought he knew then what it meant to want to die. He thought he understood John's despair and longing for death. But he didn't.

With each lash his body jerked spasmodically. The blue sky leapt; the wood of the triangles wavered against the blue like brown worms in the heavens. The blur of faces bobbed and weaved. Grotesqueries. Ascending and descending in sickening revolution.

When the lash began to cut muscle, the comman-

dant ordered it stopped. They needed the man to work the sled. There was no value in a cripple.

Peter's hands and legs were cut free. He fell to the planking, his face cushioned on his own blood and flesh. An inch from his half-opened eyes the red ants carried the red flesh through his red blood. He thought he'd never move again, thought he no longer cared what they did to him. But he screamed till he thought he'd torn his throat out, and arched his back as the guard threw a bucket of saltwater over his open wounds.

"Pick up your shirt, Berean. There's still a sled to be hauled."

Peter struggled to his feet, falling twice before he could stand wobbling and dizzy. He staggered across the platform, nearly falling again as he went down the steps.

"Now we'll see if that harness doesn't suit you better."

No concern for his back was exercised as the harness was placed on him. The straps were affixed just as securely. Peter stood weakly letting his tormentor do as he would, never once allowing his eyes to meet the guard's. It was the most satisfying evidence the guard had seen that Peter Berean was beginning to acquire the proper attitude for a convict.

He kept his eyes downcast as the guard hooked the harness to the sled and told Peter to test the fastenings before moving the lumber. Peter pulled against the straps, the leather biting deep into his flayed shoulders and back.

The guard didn't expect him to be able to pull the sled. Peter was far too weak and sick after the triangles, but the guard kept him at it the remainder of the work day. He watched as Peter tried to pull the heavy

weight and fell under it, struggling to his feet, flinching and straining under the shouted commands of gee! and haw! The entire day he managed to pull one load of lumber.

From that day on he was worked and treated like a brute, prodded with a whip, attending to his commands.

Chapter 35

That spring Stephen had to prepare the hop fields without his brother for the first time. The crew of men Peter had hired and trained before they left for England knew their work well. Without them Stephen would never have been able to manage.

Jack had lost his boon companion. Stephen was working from dawn to dusk. By the time the fields were plowed, the hop wires strung, and the young shoots twiddled, Stephen was dreaming confusedly of work-filled days.

There was so much that had to be done all at the same time. He and Peter had planned a two-man operation, and it was. There was more to be accomplished than either could have managed alone, yet Stephen was determined to try. He too had some of Callie's determined faith that some day Peter would come home.

The brewery was nearly completed and Stephen was needed there daily to direct the installation and placement of the new equipment. In the malthouse it was the steam-powered engine that required his atten-

tion. In the fields it was the varieties of hops and the selection of new fields to clear. In the office it was the ledgers. Dailv he was reminded of how much he missed Peter. This farm was their dream, and Stephen couldn't find the delight in it that he would have, had he been able to share it with his brother. If only Peter were home. Had he been there, the completion of the brewery would have been a day Peter would have celebrated. Stephen could almost hear his laughter and the extravagant plans he would have made for a party, no doubt inviting every man and his family who had worked on the brewery to join them. Stephen sighed. He would never have the quality of shared joy that came to Peter so naturally.

Peter was on his mind a great deal that spring. He had never before realized how much a part of his life his brother was, or how much he loved him. Stephen wrote frequently, not reallv expecting a reply. Peter was not a likelv corresnondent to start, and with a new land to explore and become excited about, Stephen thought, he probablv wouldn't be heard from until he was brimming with news and wanted to share it. For no matter how lonely Stephen was without Peter, he didn't doubt that Peter would do well, even as a convict. He had no reason to think otherwise for life on that lonely, distant penal colony was a secret to the outside world. And Stephen knew his brother was a born leader of men. He was bold and he was honest. He was sure those qualities would be recognized and valued. Anyone would realize Peter wasn't a criminal. Altthey had to do was listen to him.