The Lieutenant Part 5

'I never did nothing, sir,' he said. 'I were just walking along, I had got a couple of crows, I were just taking a bead on one of them opossums, then I get a stone smack in the back, another on the arm here, the bushes was that thick I couldn't see nothing, sir, not one thing!'

Like Rooke, the governor seemed to hear too much protest in this.

'And then? Did you shoot? Out with it, man!'

Brugden's beard made it easy for him to hide the expression on his face.

'They was coming for me, they had the spears and the cudgels, I felt my life to be in danger, sir.'

'So you did see them! Did you shoot?'

Brugden avoided his gaze, rubbing at the place on his arm and another place on his neck. His eye was almost closed.

'Yes, sir,' he said truculently. 'I fired among the thick of them, sir, if not, sir, I'd be a dead man.'

The governor looked at the ground as if tamping down rage.

'So you fired. Did you wound? Did any fall?'

'Why, sir, I fired and then I run. I could not say what happened, I let off the gun then I ran like the blazes, I had the fear of G.o.d in me, sir.'

'Brugden, I warned you, if you remember.'

The governor's voice was so soft that Rooke had to lean in to hear.

'I warned you, I told you, and now I will tell you once again. The survival of this settlement, and of all its members, depends in large degree on maintaining cordial relations with the natives. Do you understand, man? There are too few of us, and G.o.d knows how many of them.'

'Yes, sir,' Brugden said.

His rosy lips shaped the words like a small creature in the thicket of dark hair, then disappeared.

The mood of the party s.h.i.+fted with Brugden's story. Rooke saw the governor have a word with Silk, saw Silk have a word with the sergeant, saw one of the privates take up position as guard. The sergeant discreetly gathered up the guns and loaded them in the shadows beyond the fire, then brought them back and laid them in a row.

Rooke supposed he should be frightened. In their different ways, he thought the others were. Brugden was surly, groaning each time he moved, squinting through his closed-up eye. Willstead got his stockings and shoes back on and sat on a log by the fire repeatedly clearing his throat like a man about to give his wedding speech. Silk slapped at the mosquitoes with larger gestures than necessary.

'My G.o.d they are the size of sparrows, I swear, even though you would think them discouraged by the cold,' he exclaimed. 'Rooke, I have no doubt you hoped for natural curiosities unknown to science, but frankly, my friend, wondrous though you no doubt find them, I would as soon forgo the pleasure of their acquaintance.'

It was theatre, Rooke thought, the lit-up clearing by the fire a stage on which a performance was taking place, ent.i.tled perhaps His Majesty's Men Defy the Foe.

He chewed through his ration, making it last. Even crow soup would have been welcome. Something had happened out there in the woods about which Brugden was remaining silent. But if native warriors were planning to attack, a few muskets were not going to save them. Fear was what you felt when your actions could make a difference to what was about to happen. Eight men alone in this immensity of unknown could only wait and hope.

It was an uneasy night, but an uneventful one. They woke to long calm stripes of sunlight along the gra.s.s between the trees, and the carolling of birds welcoming the day. In sunlight, the row of loaded muskets seemed absurd.

That day they closed off the ragged three-quarter circle they had described and made their way back to where they had disembarked. As they glimpsed the boat through the trees the governor turned to Rooke.

'First-rate navigating, Lieutenant Rooke. Well done.'

Gardiner had the boat neatly backed in to the sh.o.r.e. Rooke watched him read the governor's face and see that the promised land of sweet pasture and talkative natives had not been found. He gave Rooke a private grimace that said, Rather you than me.

Rooke was pleased to be sitting in the boat taking his ease rather than stumbling along with his pack. But he had established himself as a first-rate navigator. That would not do him any harm at all. And that long blundering through a nameless land was like the first meeting with a stranger: a promise of something better to come.

Silk had his pencil out and was jotting something down in his notebook and smiling at the words. Willstead had managed to get himself beside the governor but when the governor spoke, it was Silk he turned around to address.

'That fertile area by the river is exactly what I hoped we might find,' Rooke heard him say. 'It looks fair to become the breadbasket of the colony, would you not say, Captain Silk?'

'Indeed, sir,' Silk said. 'Very promising, a fair prospect indeed.'

He met Rooke's glance but, with the governor next to him, even Silk did not dare wink.

Brugden's eye was a regal shade of purple, and he had gone silent and grim. It was more than the pain, Rooke thought. The man had been humiliated, and would not forget it.

Unusually, the governor was also at the next Sunday dinner at the barracks. As the officers took their places, he was already standing, leaning forward with his fingertips on the mahogany, barely containing his impatience.

'Gentlemen,' he started, before everyone was quite seated. 'Gentlemen!'

Major Wyatt struck his fork against his wine gla.s.s and glared down the table at where Gosden was coughing.

'I have to announce a highly important discovery, made on our recent expedition,' the governor announced. 'It is of a most excellently promising place for agriculture. The soil is of a surpa.s.sing fertility and well watered by a n.o.ble river. I have named the place Rose Hill.'

Rose Hill, Rooke thought, that untamed place where no rose had ever grown? Where the soil was fertile only by comparison with the grey sand of Sydney Cove?

'I have the intention of establis.h.i.+ng a second settlement there, guarded by a small garrison. Captain Lennox has done me the honour of accepting the task.'

Everyone looked along the table to Lennox, who got to his feet, bowed his long bony body, and sat again. Rooke observed that he did not allow his spine to touch the back of the chair. Even sitting, Lennox was at attention.

'Captain Lennox is to take a party of men and prisoners there as soon as practicable. Agriculture will be initiated at the earliest opportunity. I have every confidence that the place will rapidly feed our infant colony.'

Lennox blinked once, his face inscrutable. Around the table only Silk moved. One hand went to his hair and smoothed it back from his brow. His eyes found Rooke's and his face moved in a flicker that no one could accuse of being a wink.

Confidence was one word for the governor's enthusiasm, Rooke thought. Another might be delusion. But the governor was paid to be optimistic. His fifteen hundred pounds a year would cease if the settlement were abandoned. Fifteen hundred pounds bought a great deal of confidence.

The governor held up his empty plate.

'After that time, gentlemen, I can promise there will be no more of these!'

Wyatt demonstrated that the governor had made a joke by forcing a loud laugh. A few others joined in. Wyatt missed nothing, so Rooke quirked up the corners of his mouth in what he thought was probably a smirk, but even the worst smile was better than none.

The governor looked pleased at the reception of his pleasantry. He had grown paler and more brittle with every week that pa.s.sed. Everyone knew that he was on meagre rations too, had even donated his private stock of flour into the common store.

'In the short term, in order to supplement the diabolical morsel'-he bowed towards Silk- 'I have decided to appoint two more prisoners to join Brugden as gamekeepers. Brugden is confident that they will be able to supply fresh meat on a regular basis and in considerable quant.i.ty.'

Rooke thought of Brugden, out there in the woods, that powerful chest, the gun as easy on his shoulder as if part of his body. He would be an efficient killer. Rooke imagined the woods like a body of water, in which the ripples of Brugden's destruction would go out and out, wider and wider. With three men on the job, the place would soon be stripped of game.

'On the matter of the natives,' the governor went on, 'it is a source of regret that they have proved so reluctant to come among us. I have every confidence that, if they were to do so, they would discover that we have nothing but good will towards them. The obstacle has, of course, been the lack of opportunity to demonstrate such good will. I am, however, confident'-Rooke saw him hesitate, as if hearing his repet.i.tion of the word- 'that this situation may shortly be rectified.'

Rooke felt for the man, watching him cling so fiercely to optimism. With every tree cut down, every yard of ground dug and planted, his need became more urgent: to convey to the natives that new masters of the soil had come upon their demesne. In the absence of any understanding about the new arrangements, Rooke could see that there was a dangerous ambiguity to the presence of a thousand of His Majesty's subjects in this place. No such understanding was possible without language to convey it, and persons to whom the news could be delivered. And yet it seemed that the silence might continue indefinitely.

The governor would not have welcomed warfare, but Rooke thought he would have understood it. War was a species of conversation. But this silence was neither war nor peace. It was a null that paralysed the small frail figure straining to stand straight in front of his officers.

The pleasure of precision was one unsung by poets, as far as he knew, but for Rooke the small thrill of marking the afternoon readings of the instruments into the prepared spot in his ledger never failed. September 14, 1788 4 pm. Wind: NE, 8 knots. If he were ever to attempt a poem, he thought he would take exact.i.tude as his subject.

But how would he make rhymes out of the words he would have to use? Perhaps that was why there were no odes to the thermometer or the rain gauge.

Thinking about Silk, who could probably suggest such rhymes, there was an instant's confusion in his mind as he saw that the man coming down the rocks towards him was not Silk, but Gardiner.

Rooke got up to welcome him. Gardiner would have even less idea than he did himself of how one might find a rhyme for thermometer, but the idea would entertain him.

Usually hearty, Gardiner greeted Rooke in a preoccupied way, sat at the table and downed in one swig his brandy-and-water.

Gardiner could be an odd sort of fellow. As another odd sort of fellow, Rooke knew how to be patient.

When Gardiner spoke, his voice cracked so he had to cough and start again.

'It was not well done, Rooke,' he said. 'It was a shocking bad thing to do.'

'What is it, old fellow, tell me?' Rooke asked, to give Gardiner a little momentum. 'I hear nothing out here. In my eyrie. You will have to tell me.'

Gardiner took a breath like a sigh.

'You know the governor is wanting to speak to the natives, and they will not come near. He came up with a way to settle the thing. Decided in his wisdom to seize one or two by force. Teach them English, learn their tongue. Treat them well, so they would tell the others. It was me he picked to do the dirty work.'

He was silent for so long that Rooke thought he might say no more.

'He was most particular,' Gardiner said at last. 'We were to take the cutter down to the cove inside North Head, someone had seen a party of natives there. We were to take some fish with us, lure a couple of the men away. You know how they love fish.'

He wiped a hand over his face.

'We got ourselves backed into the shallow water there, held up the fish. Well, they were smart enough to be careful at the start. But we called and coaxed and dangled the d.a.m.ned fish... we grabbed two poor devils, they were slippery as eels and fought like the blazes but I had eight good men there, we got the ropes around them in the end.'

Rooke could see it: the boat lurching, the native men sprawled in the water slopping about in the bottom, pinned there with the sheer poundage of cursing sailors. He wanted to hear the next part of the tale, in which the natives threw off the sailors, leaped out of the boat, swam ash.o.r.e, vanished into the woods.

'I cannot believe that the governor,' he started, but Gardiner was not listening.

'They cried out, Rooke,' Gardiner exclaimed. 'By G.o.d you should have heard them crying out, it would break your heart. The ones left behind as we got away, they were screaming. The wretches in the boat crying out. Oh G.o.d. They may be savages, we call them savages. But their feelings are no different from ours.'

He jumped up as if the chair had grown spikes and went over to the window. Rooke could see only his big shoulders, the back of his head. The hut was silent. Even the water at the foot of the rocks was holding its breath.

Rooke half rose out of his chair, not knowing what to do next, only that he could not let Gardiner stand there alone. But as he moved, Gardiner took a long shaky breath that ended in a cough, dragged out his handkerchief and blew his nose. He came back to the table and poured himself a drink, his hands shaking.

'Well, they are in the hut behind the governor's house now. He had the shackles put on them, I am glad I did not have to watch that.'

'You did your duty, that was all.'

How feeble that sounded. What did duty have to do with a man undone by feeling?

'You did it in the kindliest way. That such a task could be done. Since it had to be done.'

'Kindly!' Gardiner repeated. 'He will put it in that light, you may be sure of it. In London they will all agree. How kindly. What a splendid fellow, best give him another fifty pound a year.'

Rooke knew Gardiner as well as he knew any man, but had never dreamed that he might speak with this depth of bitterness. Or how some answering sharpness in himself was responding. He had not known how much he had come to dislike the governor, that secretive sour man.

'Brought in, that is what he calls it. The natives were brought in. Never mind that they were kidnapped. Violently. Against their will. They were crying, Rooke, I tried to show them we meant no harm, but they were wailing as if their hearts would break! Who will say how it really was? Tell the truth about it?'

'Certainly not a pair of lieutenants who know which side their bread is b.u.t.tered!' It was an effort to lighten the mood, but Rooke might as well not have spoken.

'It was by far the most unpleasant service I ever was ordered to execute.'

Gardiner's voice was low, ashamed. Rooke thought, And I? Have I ever been given an order that would shake me, shame me? Nothing came to his mind. On Resolution he could not see the men his blind shots might have reached, if there had been any. In New South Wales he had sidestepped the whole business of being a soldier through the good offices of astronomy. But it was chance, nothing more. There was a coldness in him, knowing that only accident lay between his situation and Gardiner's.

A loose s.h.i.+ngle rattled, the branch of a bush scratched against the wall. A bird warbled once, twice.

'I wish to G.o.d I had not done it! He should not have given the order, but I wish to G.o.d I had not obeyed!'

Gardiner was shouting, the words filling the hut and sailing out the window.

'For G.o.d's sake, man! Have a care what you say!'

They were private out here, but no degree of privacy was safe when such words were released into the air. The lieutenant who had twirled at the end of the rope that day in English Harbour had not got as far as disobeying. Nor had the other two, the ones Rooke had watched being sent into oblivion. The words had been enough. Here, where all that stood between the governor and chaos was a handful of officers, no hint of insubordination could be tolerated.

'Our duty,' he began, 'our duty as soldiers,' but his friend had already drawn back. Gardiner drank off his cupful and screwed a grin onto his face that stretched his sunburnt sailor's lips.

'Yes, Mr Rooke, I know. Yes, we are all servants of the governor here and the Devil take any man who says different!'

Rooke said nothing more. There was a question forming in the back of his mind, which he did not want to hear. It was: What would I have done in the same place?

Early next morning Rooke went down to the settlement. He felt disloyal to Gardiner, but he was consumed with curiosity about the captured natives. He wondered by what stratagem he might get a glimpse of them, but none was necessary. As he pa.s.sed the parade ground he saw the governor walking down the hill with two men shuffling in fetters. Captain Silk was looking sprightly at the governor's elbow, a notebook and pencil in his hand.

The bigger of the natives was a finely made man, perhaps thirty years old. There was a roguish sparkle to his eye. It made Rooke think that if Silk were to have been kidnapped, and became the guest of some unimaginable chief of the natives, he would look around in just that way, with eyes that found everything interesting, and the smile of someone having the greatest adventure of his life.

The other was a person of different make, shorter and sterner, a compact ma.s.s of outraged dignity. Being here was not an adventure for him, Rooke thought. It was an affront to his sense of himself.

The governor's narrow face had changed overnight, broadening and beaming. Today he was not nearly so much like the Mathematical Bridge. He held up his hand to the cheerful captive and turned it.

'Now, Boinbar. This is what we call "hand". What is the word in your tongue?'

Bo-in-bar. Rooke saw it as if written, committed it to memory. His first word of the native tongue.

Silk licked the end of his pencil and made ready to write the native word for 'hand'. The quickest jack-in-the-box in the regiment. How had Silk got himself there with the notebook in his hand, Rooke wondered. If one wanted a linguist in New South Wales, would one not ask for Lieutenant Rooke?

Perhaps the governor enjoyed the company of an officer of his own size, he thought, and was shocked at himself. There will be time, he told himself. Silk is no linguist, and then they will remember me.

Now the governor was trying to gain the attention of the other man, holding up his thumb and waggling it.

'Warungin? Warungin! Here is my thumb, we say "thumb", now tell me what you say.'

Wa-rung-in. Two words of the native tongue.

But Warungin would not meet the governor's eye and had no interest in his thumb. Even though hobbled by the fetters he walked upright and stared into the middle distance as though the governor were not there.