Command (35 page)

It seemed churlish to sit while others must stand, so he found other “chairs” and the three laid out their meal—flour and water pancakes with boiled pulses. “Lillie-pie an’ pease,” Tranter grunted defensively. Renzi thought longingly of his precious few bottles of Old World claret hidden away—this was the most special of occasions but to sacrifice . . . Later, perhaps, he decided, and helped himself to another scoop of half-cooked pottage.

That night in his tent, distracted by the wavering drone of a mosquito seeking his flesh and the menace in the unknown scuffles and squeals in the dark bush outside, Renzi nevertheless felt exalted by the experience of finally setting foot in his future. But, he wondered apprehensively, what would the next day bring?

An hour or so after midnight, as he lay sleepless, it started to rain again.

It took a week just to clear the lower part of his land. Renzi had decided, with a little advice from Mr Coke, to turn this over to grain as being the more apposite to the soil type as best as he could recognise it.

The hardest had been the grubbing up of tree-stumps, which fought back with a fiendish tenacity; every single one cost sweat and labour out of all proportion to the tiny area of bare ground won. Aching in every bone, Renzi slaved on, day by back-breaking day.

His hut was finally built, with not three rooms but one—purely for convenience of time, of course, but even so it could be accounted home. The sides were chinked with mud and the roof of interleaved saplings was spread with the canvas of the tents as a temporary measure. An experiment with a fire at the centre was a disaster: the hut filled immediately with billowing smoke. The

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related domestics, therefore, would be placed firmly outside.

Against all the odds a landmark was reached. Renzi had not only constructed his first residence but was now ready to begin crop production. Eagerly he checked Coke again. First he had to plough: he intended to borrow an implement for the first year.

Then it would be hoeing or harrowing—or did that come after seeding?

With rising excitement Renzi reviewed his dispositions: the convicts would continue to advance the clearing up to the land boundary ready for whatever crop he decided should be there.

So, meanwhile—first things first: a plough.

His nearest neighbour would be somewhere over to the east.

He tidied himself up and, taking his pocket compass, set out from the known position of the board on the tree. There were no tracks but a confusing jumble of simple paths led through the grassy undergrowth. He tried to follow them—but merely flushed out a couple of kangaroos who made off rapidly.

Striking out by compass was the only reliable method and he set course for the north-east corner of the block. Over a slight rise he could see thin smoke spiralling above the trees. He hurried towards it and a small hut came into view, with a woman in a coarse dress working at a vegetable garden.

She looked up in dismay and ran inside. A man emerged, cradling a musket. “Stan’ y’r ground, y’ villain!” he roared.

“Renzi, Nicholas Renzi, and it would appear we are to be neighbours,” he called, in what he hoped was an encouraging tone.

“Come near, then, an’ let’s see summat of yer,” the man said, still fingering his gun.

Some little time later Renzi was sitting at a rough table with a mug of tea. “Don’t see nobody one end o’ the month to t’other,”

the man said, after admitting to the name of Caley. “So, yer’ve got the north selection,” he ruminated, rubbing his chin.

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Renzi took in the hut; it was well lived-in but Spartan, of wat-tle daubed with clay and finished with a thin white limewash. The floors consisted of bare, hard-packed earth. There were only two rooms, the other patently a bedroom. “That’s right, Mr Caley.

It is my avowed intention to establish a farming estate in these parts and reside here myself.”

Caley looked archly at his wife. Both were deeply touched by the sun, but she had aged beyond her years. “Ye’d be better throwing y’r money into th’ sea—gets rid of it quicker,” she said bitterly.

“Now, now, Ethel darlin’, don’t take on so.” He turned to Renzi and explained: “We bin here three year come Michaelmas, an’ things ain’t improvin’ for us. A hard life, Mr Renzi.”

“What do you grow?”

“Thought t’ be in turnips—everyone needs ’em if they has horses. But look.” He gestured down the cleared space in front of the hut. The rows were populated only by sorry-looking stringy plants. “Supposed t’ lift ’em in February, but no chance o’ that with ’em lookin’ so mean, like.”

Should he offer his extensive library on horticulture and agricultural husbandry? Renzi pondered. Coke of Holkham would be sure to have a sturdy view on turnip production. Sensing that possibly they might not welcome advice from a newcomer, he changed tack. “I must say, your convict is not the most obliging of creatures. I’ve seen labourers on my—er, that is to say, some estates in England, who would quite put them to the blush in the article of diligence.”

Mrs Caley snorted. “As you must expect! These’re felons an’

criminals, Mr Renzi, an’ has no love f’r society. They’re wast-rels an’ condemned by their nature, sir.” She smoothed her hair primly. “Not a’tall like we free settlers, who try t’ make something of the land.”

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Caley smiled sadly. “That’s why we got rid o’ ourn—cost thirty shillin’ a month in rum afore they’d pick up a hoe.”

“Sir, I’d be considerably obliged should you lend me your plough. If any hire is required I would be glad to—”

“Mr Renzi.” Caley drew in his breath and let it out slowly.

“We don’t have ploughs. We uses only th’ harrow an’ a deal o’

sweat,” he said emphatically.

Renzi hastened to make his little hut before dark. Unseen animals scuttled away at his approach and a sudden clatter in the trees above startled him. When he reached the clearing, he saw that the convicts had allowed the fire in front of the hut to die to embers, and he cast about in the gloom for leaves and kindling, annoyed that they had neglected such an obvious duty before supper. The fire caught sullenly, with much dank smoke and spitting.

In the gathering dark he trudged down to their tent but as he approached, tripping on jagged stumps and loose branches, he heard loud snoring. He did not have the heart to wake them: clearly they had turned in early, weary after their day. He made his way back to the hut to scrape together some kind of repast.

Throwing aside the canvas entrance flap he went inside. By the fitful glare of the flames he could see that one neat stack of his possessions had been put to disorder. With a sinking heart he knew what he would find. He was right—every one of his precious half-dozen claret was gone.

Kydd watched Renzi depart
Totnes Castle,
then turned back to his ship. The last convicts filed down the gangway to the wharf and away to their final fate. The shouts of overseers and the clinking of fetters faded into the distance, and Kydd was glad.

He had done his best: they were unquestionably in better shape than when they had been disgorged by their gaols in England, but their presence had made him feel tainted by the reek of penalty and hopeless misery.

He looked out over Sydney Cove. A thief-colony, there was no escape from its origins. On the muddy foreshore was a whipping post and beyond the point was Pinchgut Island, a hundred yards or so long with a gibbet in view at one end, the white of a skeleton visible through flapping rags.

Ironically, the ship now seemed empty and depressing without her human cargo; the stores had been landed and the officers’

ventures spirited away. Now there was little for him to do but complete the paperwork that would mark a successful conclusion to the voyage.

With what crew were still sober tomorrow, the
Totnes Castle
would be warped out to lie at anchor. She would remain there until the little shipyard on the west side of the cove could take

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her in hand to remedy the hundred and one defects that needed attention before her return to England. With only a small number of skilled shipwrights and caulkers, and other vessels ahead of Kydd’s, a time of weeks was being talked of. It was a depressing prospect.

It had wounded Kydd to see Renzi step over the side to his destiny without so much as a backward glance: they had shared so much. He wondered how his friend was relishing his new life wherever he was in the interior of this strange land. But this was what Renzi had chosen as a course in life, and Kydd would respect it.

After the long voyage, however, he was curious to experience the untrammelled space and new sights of land. In any case, when the
Castle
was careened across the harbour she would be uninhabitable: sooner or later he would have to find quarters ashore.

There was a bridge over the little rivulet at the head of the cove that led into the settlement proper. He stepped out along the wide street past the ship’s chandlers and warehouses, standing back to allow the passage of two carts pulled by yoked convicts, thin and sunburned, their heads down.

Only one road of significance was evident, leading inland along the banks of the watercourse: in one direction the rocky foreshore of the western side, with its crazy jumble of hovels, more substantial structures and shipyards; in the other, a scatter of cottages, stone buildings, and in the distance over the low hills, a puzzling mass of regularly spaced dwellings.

Turning up the slope towards them he lost his footing and stumbled; reddish mud-holes were everywhere. Strangely haunting birdsong came from outlandish trees, and here and there a garden with alien plants caught his eye.

Closer, the dwellings turned out to be a convict barracks,
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complete with flogging triangle and chapel. Beyond, there were empty fields and the ever-present dark-green woodlands. It was time to return—Sydney had little to offer the weary traveller.

Trudging back, Kydd passed a neat cottage. His mind was bleak with depressing images and at first he thought he had misheard the greeting. Then a low voice behind him called again, this time more confidently:
“Tom Kydd!”

He swung round to find a young man staring at him from the paling fence of the house. “Sir, ye have the advantage of me,”

Kydd said, trying to place him.

“It has been some years,” admitted the man, with a secret smile. There was something familiar about him; the intensity of his gaze, the slight forward lean as he spoke. “William Redfern,”

he said at last, but it did not bring enlightenment. “A convict I am, on ticket-of-leave,” he went on, then added, with a quizzical uplift of his eyebrows, “and for the nonce, sir, assistant surgeon at His Majesty’s Penal Settlement of Norfolk Island.”

Kydd looked intently at him. The man continued softly, “And, Tom, your shipmate as was in
Sandwich . . .
”

It all came crashing back—the ferocious days of the mutiny at the Nore when Kydd had stood by his shipmates through a whirlpool of terrible events but, for reasons he still did not fully understand, he had escaped the rope at the last minute.

“You were surgeon of . . .” He found it difficult to go on. Until now he had believed that the sentence of death on the idealistic young Redfern had been carried out—yet here he was. “Aye, I never thought t’ see ye again, William,” he said slowly. Ticket-of-leave implied that, while trusted, Redfern was still a convict under sentence—he must have been spared the noose and instead transported to serve out the remainder of his time. Kydd had gone on to quite a different life.

“And do I see you still topping it the sailor?” Redfern said lightly.

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Not sure how to respond, Kydd muttered a few words of agreement.

“Do come inside, old fellow,” Redfern suggested. “I’m sure we’ll have a yarn or two to spin.”

They entered the homely dwelling and Redfern found a comfortable chair for Kydd near the window. He excused himself, then returned with a bottle of rum. “I do sincerely welcome the chance to raise a glass to an old shipmate!” He grinned broadly.

“And drink as well to the luck that sees us both here instead of dancing at a yardarm!”

Kydd found it hard to treat these baneful ghosts from his past lightly but managed a smile.

Redfern then asked, “How did you . . . ?”

“I was pardoned,” Kydd said quietly.

“Then I give you joy of your fortune.” He swilled the rum in his glass then went on, in a different tone, “You’re master of the
Totnes Castle.
”

“Aye, f’r my sins.”

“Then you’ve done well in the sea profession. Did you leave the Navy . . . afterwards?”

“No.” Kydd saw through the look of polite enquiry and knew he could not lie. “I was a lucky wight, an’ that’s the truth of it.

Not more’n six months after, at Camperdown, I took th’ eye of the admiral an’ went t’ the quarterdeck.”

“I stand amazed! And, by God, I take the hand of a man who has had the backbone to seize Dame Luck by the tail and give it a hearty pull.”

Kydd blushed and took refuge in his rum.

“So, while we’ve been taking our rest at His Majesty’s expense you’ve been cresting the briny, as it were. Did you smell powder after that at all?”

“Nothing t’ speak of—that is, apart fr’m our meeting at the Nile.”

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“The Nile? You were with
Nelson
at the Nile?”

Kydd nodded, embarrassed to see Redfern regard him with something suspiciously like awe.