The Penal Colony (31 page)

Martinson picked up a black pebble and hurled
it as far as he could. The shags craned their necks anxiously, and
one even made as if to depart, but at the harmless splash of the
projectile fifty metres out it changed its mind and, with its
companion, remained uneasily watching.

“Get a move on, Obie,” Martinson
muttered.

He had sent Obie to the lighthouse with a
message for Houlihan.

There were currently four members of the
brain gang: Feely, Wilmot, Gomm, and Wayne Pope. Pope was the only
one with ambition. Wilmot and Gomm could be relied on to adapt.
Feely was another matter.

This was Christmas morning. Martinson thought
of the uplifting celebrations taking place all across Britain. Just
about now the kids would have broken their new robots or discovered
that batteries weren’t included. Then, this afternoon, when it
clouded over, when the whole family had pigged themselves sick on
turkey and pudding, the adults’ rows and sulks would begin.

He had known two Christmases with his mother.
The rest he had spent with grandma, except for one, when he had
been invited to the house of a rich kid he had met at Crusaders.
Not rich, really, but better off than anyone else he had ever met.
The parents had called him “James” and tried to make him feel at
home. They had given him a plastic Darth Vader and a jigsaw puzzle
of Lake Windermere. The Christmas dinner had been pretty good.
Afterwards he and the rich kid had gone upstairs. Martinson had
looked round his bedroom, at all the stuff he owned, listening to
him boasting about his old man. “I’ve had enough of this,”
Martinson had said. “Enough of what?” “Enough of you,
dunghead.”

That kid was probably some bigshot now, able
in his own right to massage his conscience by patronizing what he
would certainly call “disadvantaged” children. Like the shrinks and
social workers and the parole board and all the rest of them. The
mind-boggling arrogance of these bastards was utterly beyond
belief. Martinson, flinging another pebble, told himself he was
better off here.

Before the ripples had died he noticed that
the shags had gone. Three figures were picking their way along the
beach from the direction of the lighthouse. One was Obie. Another
was Wilmot, distinctive in his yellow PVC jacket. But the third, in
an island-made sheepskin coat and dreadlocks, could have been
either Gomm or Pope. At least Feely wasn’t among them.

As the figures drew nearer, Martinson
identified the third man and again felt that sense of
predestination. For it was Pope who had elected, or been ordered,
to come. Or, even stranger, perhaps Pope had some ideas of his own:
perhaps he was already thinking along the lines that Martinson
himself intended, faintly and impressionistically, to adumbrate
today.

“That’s far enough!” Martinson shouted,
machete in hand, when they were yet a hundred metres off.

Both of Houlihan’s men were armed with iron
bars.

“I’ll talk to one or the other! Pope! I’ll
talk to you! Wilmot, you stay with Obie!”

Pope and Wilmot conferred; Pope shrugged and
came forward. “What’s up, man?” he said, when he was close enough
to talk. “Why didn’t you come to the light?”

“I got reasons.”

“Obie wouldn’t tell us nothing about Nackett.
What happened? You scragged him yet? That’s what Archie want to
know.”

“Nackett’s still alive.”

“But you said —”

“I just said I’d top him. Not when.”

“You give Archie to understand it would be
Christmas. He’ll be disappointed. He been looking forward to
it.”

“And what about you, Wayne? You disappointed
too?”

“Anything upset Archie upset me and all.”

Martinson smiled: the sketchy beginnings of
an understanding had passed between them.

“So when it going to be?”

“Soon,” Martinson said. “Can I say something
to you? Off the record, like? When I’ve done Nackett I got to be
sure Archie keeps his end up. I want that bastard Franks. When we
go for him it’s got to be hard, and it’s got to be right.”

“You know you can count on Archie, Jim.”

“Sure I can. But a thing like taking the
Village needs planning. It needs expert work. For that, Obie’s the
only bloke in Old Town I can trust.”

“We gots blokes you can trust.”

“Like you?”

“Like me, for one.” Pope glanced over his
shoulder at Wilmot, who was rubbing his hands together, his iron
bar tucked under his arm. “Thing is, Archie won’t want to commit no
resources till Nackett goes.”

“I need the binoculars.”

“No chance.”

“Before we hit the Village I want to know
everything about it. Patrol schedules, guard details, work rotas,
where Franks craps. I don’t want him getting away. To find out all
that I need observers. If Archie says I can’t have observers, then
I need binoculars. With binoculars me and Obie can do it between
us.”

“You didn’t say nothing about this before,”
Pope said, peevishly.

“I didn’t think of it before.”

“You ain’t the sort of bloke what don’t think
of things.”

“Maybe so.”

“Archie’ll never stand for it.”

“Does he have to know?”

Pope’s eyes narrowed. He was cunning:
Martinson would have to be deadly careful. “How long you want them
for?”

“Couple of months.”

“He’d create if they went missing.”

“All I’m after is Franks. I don’t care about
nothing else.”

“What is it with you and Franks? Archie
reckon you got the hots for him.”

Martinson gave a sneering laugh. “Yeah, sure.
Tell Archie it’s the real thing.” He looked directly into Pope’s
eyes. “And tell him this is the best way he can get the whole
island for himself. The ’copter. The governor. The lot.”

“You make it sound tempting, put like
that.”

“I’ll be here at noon every day for the next
three days. If you get them binocs to me, Archie’ll have cause to
thank you later.”

“Yes,” Pope said, weighing his iron bar. “I
can see that, Jim.”

Martinson delivered his next words with cool
deliberation. “Tell him what you like about Nackett. Tell him I
lost my bottle, if you want.”

“I’ll tell him you’ll do it later. That’s
right, ain’t it?”

“That’s right. Nackett goes. Make no mistake
there. But he goes when the time is right and not before.”

Pope gave an emphatic nod. “Right. Leave it
with me.” He nodded once more, turned, and started back towards
Wilmot.

“Merry Christmas to you, Wayne.”

“And to you, Jim. And to you.”

Picking up his watch from the bedside shelf,
Routledge saw that he had slept almost unimaginably late. It was
past ten o’clock. He had wasted well over two hours of
daylight.

His tongue felt thick and furry. His head was
throbbing.

He slowly put the watch back and coaxed
himself into rising.

Standing shivering by the washbowl, he shut
his eyes and frowned. He remembered now. The evening was coming
back to him. How much had he drunk? Two months’ allocation, at
least. He would be in debt to Venables till the end of January.

This was Thursday, Christmas morning, a
holiday. He had volunteered to work this afternoon with Thaine in
the carpentry shop; before then, he and King and several others had
been invited to Mitchell’s house for lunch. Appleton was organizing
another lunch in his house, Stamper another in his, Blackshaw
another in the recreation hut, and the Father would be presiding
over the biggest of all, in two sittings, at the bungalow.

Routledge steeled himself to wash. Luckily
there was water in the jug, though he could not recollect having
put it there. Nor, now, could he recollect undressing or falling
asleep. His clothes had been neatly laid out on the chair, but that
was not the way he usually arranged them himself. King. King had
put him to bed.

Routledge frowned again. It pained his skull
to bend down, and the water in the jug was thinly covered by ice,
but he leaned over the bowl anyway and poured the whole jugful on
his head.

He put on yesterday’s clothes: long
underwear, plaid shirt, thin sweater, thick sweater, corduroy
jeans, thin woollen socks, thick woollen socks, lace-up work boots,
woollen mittens, a woollen scarf, and the woollen noddy which,
having taken lessons and been given some of the yarn spun under
Stamper’s supervision, he had knitted for himself. After making his
bed he rejected the idea of breakfast and put on his waxed cotton
coat. From the mantelshelf he took a parcel he had prepared the
previous morning, and slipped it into one of his capacious outer
pockets.

King was at home. He had been sitting alone
with his volume of Spenser, the southern shutter laid open to admit
the sunshine, a peat fire burning in the grate.

“I brought you this,” Routledge said, once he
had been invited inside, and handed King the half-bottle of whisky,
which was tied at the neck with a bit of red ribbon. “Season’s
greetings.”

King seemed to be moved by the gesture, but
not entirely surprised. “Well, that’s very nice,” he said. “To use
the hallowed phrase, you really shouldn’t have. Whisky’s far too
extravagant.” He went to his shelves and took down a medium-sized
package done up in brown paper; a sprig of berried holly had been
tucked beneath the string. “I thought you might do something like
this,” he said, “so I took the necessary precaution. Happy
Christmas.”

Carefully untying the string and removing the
paper, Routledge saw that he had been given exactly what he needed:
a new belt, made of supple pigskin and with a steel buckle
fashioned apparently from driftwood fittings. About five
centimetres wide, the leather was unstained but had been most
expertly tooled with an artistic pattern of oblique bars.

“It’s superb,” Routledge said. “Did you make
it yourself?”

“I wish I had. It’s one of Mr
Caldecote’s.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Say you’ll have a drink. Take a seat.”

Despite the open shutter, the peat fire was
so efficient that Routledge decided to remove his coat first.
“Reading your friend Edmund again?” he said, picking up the
book.

“It’s a drug.” He handed Routledge a glass of
whisky, taken from the full-sized bottle he had won on Gunter’s
victory in the darts championship. “So. How are you feeling
now?”

“Much better for a sip of this. I want to
thank you for putting me to bed. If it was you.”

“Yes, it was me, and Mr Fitzmaurice.”

“I’m afraid I was pretty far gone last
night.”

“That was the whole idea.” King paused and
raised his glass. “If you don’t mind me saying so, I would now like
to propose a toast. To the metamorphosis of Anthony John
Routledge.”

“Metamorphosis?”

“Sert makes or breaks everyone in the first
few months. It’s an ordeal. You’ve come through intact. At one time
I didn’t think you would, but then one can never be sure who will
and who won’t. To be honest, when you first arrived I was sure you
wouldn’t. Still, you survived outside, and that’s ninety per cent
of it. If you can do that, there’s a good chance you’ll eventually
be OK.”

Routledge, overwhelmed by this unexpected
praise, looked down at his glass. But King was right: he had come
through the worst part of his punishment and been made stronger. He
was stronger physically, and he was much stronger mentally, than
the man who had awoken in this room last July. He had begun to
learn something quite alien and new: he had begun to learn how to
tolerate discomfort and pain, disappointment, bitterness, his
fellow men.

“I didn’t murder that nurse,” he said, after
a moment.

“I believe you.”

“When the jury brought in their verdict I
just couldn’t grasp it. My legs felt like water. I had to hold on
to the dock or I’d have gone down. I shouldn’t be sitting here on
Christmas Day. I should be at home. But I don’t mind any more. Can
you understand that, King? I don’t mind the injustice of it any
more. It’s happened. I can’t change it now. Maybe there is such a
thing as fate. Maybe I was supposed to be sent to Sert.” He thought
of all the coincidences, the flimsy scraps of circumstantial
evidence, one suggesting and confirming another, which together had
convinced the police of his guilt. If only he hadn’t taken Louise’s
newspaper that day; if only the nurse had got into another carriage
or even another seat; if only he hadn’t slipped and fallen, unseen,
on his garden step; if only, if only … the list was almost endless,
and he had been through it a hundred thousand times. “I can’t
pretend I’m pleased to be spending the rest of my days in a penal
colony. I’d give anything for a place on the ketch. But I have to
admit there are compensations, of a sort. I’ve learned things here
I’d never have known on the mainland. Mostly about myself.”

“There’s no need to say any more,” King said.
“Don’t forget I’ve been through it too. Although in my case, of
course, I was guilty.” He smiled ruefully and raised his glass once
more. “I drink to yapping terriers.”

“To yapping terriers. None of which are here
to plague us on Sert.” Now it was Routledge who smiled.

“True.” King emptied his glass. “There are,
as you say, compensations. What about a refill?”

* * *

The new cutting-lists had come last night
from Appleton and were lying on the plan-table. “This is right up
your street again, Mr Routledge,” Thaine said, opening the master
portfolio and untying the tapes. “I want you to check these revised
quantities against the plans. Include the bits we’ve already done.
Then check that the working cutting-list tallies with the numerical
cutting-list. Be especially careful that the timbers match.”

“OK. Will do.”

During lunch, cloud had slowly spread from
the north-west and now the afternoon was dull, with a freshening
breeze which had just begun plucking at a loose shutter on the
windward side of the carpentry shop. Dusk was not far off. Two
Tilleys had been lit, one spreading its light on this broad,
sloping plan-table by the storeroom door.