The Soldier's Curse

by Thomas Keneally

  Any liquor that was still left in the copper would no doubt be contaminated by now – days’ worth of dead insects and rain were unlikely to add to the flavour, even though flavour wasn’t the substance’s main selling point. Monsarrat decided to check anyway. He thought if he was able to smell it, he might be able to gauge its strength.

  But when he looked in the copper, he did not see clear liquid, or liquid made murky by rain. What he saw instead was a sludge of mostly evaporated water, with some flecks of an unknown substance floating in it.

  The flecks, and to a lesser extent the water in which they floated, were green.

  * * *

  On his way back, Monsarrat cursed himself for his curiosity. A disturbing idea was beginning to form itself.

  Why couldn’t he be satisfied, he thought, with the clerk’s wage and lifestyle, or with just enough knowledge to get him into his dotage? He strode back to the settlement with considerably more speed. There was only one person he could trust with this information, and only one who he knew could help him interpret it.

  But as he was making his way around the side of Government House, he saw Diamond emerging from the major’s study. His mind flew to the documents in his pocket, as did his hand.

  Diamond, who had already noticed him, noticed also the gesture. He marched over. ‘Turn your pockets out, Mr Monsarrat.’

  Shadow Monsarrat came surging in with a vengeance, pushing aside all caution as he always did, like a drunk sweeping cutlery off a table. ‘Why, sir? Are you looking for your conscience?’

  ‘Have a care, Monsarrat,’ said the captain with a nasty smile. ‘I am running the investigation into Mrs Shelborne’s death. And I have a very keen idea of who was responsible, and who aided her.’

  ‘You cannot find proof where there is none to find, not unless you intend to manufacture it.’

  ‘Oh, no manufacturing is needed. The circumstances point quite clearly to the guilty parties. Although you had a wasted trip to the store recently – you’ll find all of the rat poison you procured for Mrs Mulrooney has vanished. And furthermore, Monsarrat, I’ll ensure you get a nice short rope. Even a man as gangly as you might prove a good dancer.’

  Monsarrat’s bone marrow liquefied. The noose, mercifully snatched away in Exeter, might yet make its way to these shores for him, he realised. But as he had already been staring Diamond down, he remained paralysed in that act, more out of happenstance than any force of will.

  ‘What possible reason would an old housekeeper have for killing Mrs Shelborne?’ he asked.

  ‘Old, yes indeed she is. Must be difficult to live daily beside someone who is so much brighter than you. And richer. The crone has a son who she hopes to set up in a public house, does she not? So, I ask you again, Monsarrat – turn out your pockets.’

  Monsarrat remained paralysed.

  The captain darted forward then, ripping Monsarrat’s hand out of his pocket and delving into it, to extract the packet of his own correspondence, and Gonville’s unsigned report on his conduct with Mercer’s daughter.

  He smiled in recognition as he turned over the letters, and quickly scanned the other document. ‘I must thank you, Monsarrat, for recovering these for me. Although it seems you have ill-used them. I couldn’t think where they had got to; they certainly weren’t anywhere in the major’s study. I am very grateful,’ he said, giving a mock bow.

  ‘I intend to acquaint the major with their contents, whether I have them or not,’ said Monsarrat. ‘Together with the details of the arrangement into which you forced me.’

  Diamond laughed. ‘Oh, please do,’ he said. ‘I will simply say it’s all a fabrication, concocted by you or the Irishwoman to put blame on an officer who has, unlike you two, never been guilty of any crime. As for the doctor’s report on my adventures, well, perhaps I may find that he also had a hand in this.’

  ‘You can’t honestly believe that.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter one jot what I believe, Monsarrat. It only matters what I can make a case for. Go off to work now, while you still can. Or I might find a place has opened up for you on the lime-burners’ gang.’

  * * *

  As Diamond stalked away, Monsarrat smoothed down his waistcoat. He did not know how to protect Mrs Mulrooney now. But he knew he needed to try. And information was the only weapon he, and she, had.

  She was absent from the kitchen, but the hearth was lit and a flatiron lay on the stove, a glow coming from within it. As he stood regarding the iron, Mrs Mulrooney entered from the outer door. Like the first-class convicts – those whose original offences were not so severe and who had demonstrated good behaviour – she had a separate set of good clothes for Sunday. These were over her arm now, a black skirt and plain white shirt with a red jacket.

  ‘It’s Thursday,’ he said, sitting down.

  ‘And I know that very well myself without any help from you, Mr Monsarrat.’ She shoved him aside with her hip and laid the clothes on the table – which looked as if it had lost yet another quarter inch – and cursed at them for developing creases as she ironed. ‘Mrs Shelborne’s funeral is tomorrow, Mr Monsarrat. The very least I can do is go with pressed clothes. You’ll have to do without tea for today.’

  ‘For once, I didn’t come for the tea,’ said Monsarrat. ‘Diamond is making a very good show of being convinced that you took Mrs Shelborne’s life. He realises that we suspect the truth of the situation, and he is quite happy to see you take his punishment.’

  ‘Mr Monsarrat, next time make sure your news is current. Diamond had me into the major’s office after you left. The major just sat there and stared at me, while the captain asked me why I killed her. I said I did no such thing, that I tried to prevent her death by every limited means at my disposal. Then Diamond asked me whether I had been jealous of Mrs Shelborne. Or whether I bore any grudges – he said it was well known that I had not wanted to go into the bathing machine with her, but had felt obliged to do so. He wondered whether what I saw as her high-handedness was behind it.’

  ‘You denied it, surely?’ said Monsarrat.

  ‘Of course I did, eejit of a man. I feel I acquitted myself well, actually. No tears, I just faced them down the way they were facing me.’

  ‘Under the circumstances, a few tears may have been wise,’ said Monsarrat.

  ‘I’m not a crier, Mr Monsarrat. Not usually. You can’t ask a cat to bark.’

  ‘I fear that’s precisely how Diamond sees us,’ said Monsarrat. ‘As animals. Of a sacrificial nature.’

  ‘But I can’t believe the major would lay such a thing at my door. In fact, Diamond made much of the fact that Mrs Shelborne hadn’t been wearing her ring when she was taken off this morning. He suggested that I might have stolen it, and much more besides. Well, at least I was able to enlighten him on that point. I told the major where it was, said it kept falling off her finger as she wasted, said I wanted to keep it safe so that he could decide what to do with it. The poor man, he looked stricken just then, only for a moment but I noticed. I wanted to rattle Diamond, too. It would do the blackguard no end of good to get a dose of his own treatment. So I said that it was amazing what one could find in the drawers of the dressing table like the one which held Mrs Shelborne’s ring.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Monsarrat. ‘I fear we may have had something of a setback there.’ He described his meeting with Diamond.

  ‘Why on earth did you not hide them?’ said Mrs Mulrooney. It was the closest he had ever heard her get to yelling.

  And he felt a small amount of irritation rise. ‘And where exactly would you want me to hide them? Behind that blasted wallpaper?’

  ‘Well, even without the letters, surely we can make the major see who is really responsible.’

  ‘I fear that may be difficult,’ said Monsarrat. ‘He judges others by his own standards. And Diamond has sunk to a level the major does not believe a brother officer is capable of, so he simply doesn’t see it.’

  ‘Well, for the moment he doesn’t see m
y guilt either,’ said Mrs Mulrooney. ‘Diamond wanted me locked in the gaol. But the major overruled him. He even drank the tea I made him – not the act of a man who believes I’m the poisoner.’

  Monsarrat was silent for a while, watching Mrs Mulrooney iron her clothes into submission, enjoying the way the iron passed over hillocks of fabric and turned them into plains. Order imposed, on whatever scale, was a comfort.

  He knew Diamond was guilty. Everything fitted so neatly. But he hadn’t yet told Mrs Mulrooney about his walk, and the green tinge at the bottom of the copper that had troubled him. It could be that there was an entirely innocuous explanation – something to do with the brewing process. He was most certainly not willing to sample the stuff himself to find out. But perhaps Mrs Mulrooney knew more than he did about these things, so he told her what he had seen.

  When he’d finished, she sat down heavily. She looked, he realised, as shocked as he had ever seen her. The way he imagined he had looked when he realised that the long-feared prospect of his discovery in Exeter had become a reality. It seemed, to Monsarrat, a disproportionate response, but perhaps she was more prone to shock at present, given recent events.

  ‘That stupid boy,’ she said. ‘For a smart lad he’s an imbecile.’

  ‘Well, he might get a reprimand for it, but that doesn’t make him an imbecile. I’m sure I’m being fanciful linking the green to the wallpaper – I thought it might be part of the brewing process. Do you know, yourself?’

  ‘Oh yes, all of the Irish are well versed in the art of making grog,’ said Mrs Mulrooney. Shouting and now sarcasm, Monsarrat thought. She must be terrified.

  ‘You don’t think … I can’t see why he would, but you don’t think it’s possible?’

  She pulled up her fist and thumped the table. ‘Mr Monsarrat, if you say one word against Fergal, give one sideways look which implies you might think he had something to do with this, our friendship will end in that moment, and you’ll be ashes to me.’

  Monsarrat knew that she meant it. ‘Of course. Please don’t trouble yourself. I was a little surprised to be reading an article about poisonous green wallpaper when a similar paper was being laid in the sitting room next door. My imagination is being uncharacteristically overactive. I do beg your pardon.’

  Mrs Mulrooney sighed. ‘And I beg yours, Mr Monsarrat. I don’t know what I would have done without you, these last years but most especially these last two weeks. Forgive a woman. I’m letting the situation upset me too much.’

  ‘I would doubt your sanity if you weren’t,’ said Monsarrat.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Mrs Mulrooney, ‘it’s Diamond. We agreed. It has to be him. If it isn’t, we are lost.’

  * * *

  Monsarrat ate a silent meal in the mess. When Edward Donald entered, not the most gregarious of men at the best of times, Monsarrat slid onto a bench next to him.

  ‘I have always taken you, Donald, to be a man of discretion,’ Monsarrat said.

  Donald pursed his lips slightly. Monsarrat chose to interpret it as a gesture of thanks, but he could equally have been saying ‘More fool you’.

  ‘I hope I may rely on that discretion now, and on your assistance in a matter which I know to be of importance to the surgeon.’

  A slight nod from Donald.

  ‘If you would be kind enough to relay a message to Dr Gonville for me, I would be in your debt.’

  Monsarrat often wondered why, when Donald did speak, his voice didn’t come out as a rasp, rusted from the lack of use.

  ‘Well, Monsarrat, having such an elevated person as you in my debt may be handy in the long run.’

  Monsarrat ignored the jibe. He couldn’t afford to take offence, and was thankful Donald did not know quite how low his own stocks were. ‘Thank you. Would you kindly tell the doctor that a document of interest to him is now with its subject?’

  Donald nodded again, and Monsarrat was grateful for the man’s taciturn nature – others might have asked what the document was and who it was about. He wouldn’t have answered the questions, of course, but preferred not to be in a position to be seen denying knowledge to others.

  After the meal, as directed, he returned to his workroom. Major Shelborne was sitting at his desk, this morning’s tea half-drunk and cold. He was scratching out a letter, but judging by his constant crossings-out and muttering, its composition was not flowing as smoothly as usual.

  Monsarrat knocked discreetly on the study door, and the man looked up. Monsarrat noticed some lines of rough skin where the collar of the major’s red coat had rubbed his neck raw, probably not helped by the damp conditions he had been sleeping in during his search for the river. It surprised Monsarrat that he had not thought, until now, to wonder whether the river had turned out to be other than a figment of Kiernan’s imagination.

  ‘Ah, Monsarrat. Please, come in. Shut the door behind you.’ The major put down his pen. ‘I wonder if I might impose on you to assist me in framing correspondence to my wife’s family, letting them know of her passing. I’m afraid my hand is not as fine as yours, nor are my sentiments easily expressed.’

  Monsarrat indicated that of course he would do as the major asked, silently grateful that he had thought to draft such letters in the dead time while he was waiting for the major’s return.

  ‘In the meantime, I’ll have need of your hand on official business. I must report the discovery of the river and pasture land to the Colonial Secretary.’

  Monsarrat did his best to hide his surprise. You old dog, Kiernan, he thought. How on earth did you find such a place?

  ‘Your expedition was successful, then, sir.’

  ‘Yes. At too high a cost, as it turns out. You know, if Oxley had continued just a little further north, he would have found this area. A wide, strong river with fertile ground on either side. I must say, I was quite delighted with it, until I returned here.’

  The major stood up, and walked to the window. ‘I’ve read, by the way, the doctor’s reports on my wife. I’ve also heard what Diamond has to say. And he says a lot. He is perhaps not the most tactful of officers, but an excellent bloodhound to put on the scent of the guilty.’

  He turned to Monsarrat. ‘I want you to know, Monsarrat, that I do not believe that you were in any way party to my wife’s death. I fancy myself a judge of character, and while I know you can sail close to the wind at times, murder is not in your nature.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. Neither is it in your housekeeper’s.’

  ‘I would like to agree with you, and find it hard not to,’ said the major. ‘But Diamond makes a compelling case, circumstantial though it may be. There is simply no way for the poison to have entered her system save through the tea which Mrs Mulrooney served her each day. She herself claims innocence, as one might expect. It is my fervent hope that some information will arise to exonerate her. However, Monsarrat, I must prepare you – and myself for that matter – for the eventuality of her arrest, should Diamond be able to build a strong enough case.’

  Monsarrat did not know how to respond. The major was a fair man, but a grieving one.

  ‘My wife will be laid to rest tomorrow, in the grounds of the church where I had thought to baptise our children,’ said the major. ‘The following day, you and I will start work on the reports to Sydney. In the meantime though, I do have a service to ask of you.’

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  ‘That wallpaper, the stuff she was so keen on festooning the sitting room with. I never cared for it, to be honest. Now that she’s gone – well, I would prefer not to have to stare at it. I know the papering is not yet quite complete, and I wish it taken down. You’ll appreciate, this doesn’t require the same touches as putting it up, so the private who was overseeing it will go back to his normal duties. I will give you a crew of two men, and I wish it to be gone within the next few days.’

  On directions from the major, Monsarrat took these instructions to the superintendent of convicts, a stern man named Crow. The superintendent nod
ded his assent when he read the note containing the request. ‘Take the two who are left from the crew who put it up; hopefully they’ll have the wit to do the same thing backwards,’ he said.

  So Monsarrat procured the services of Frogett and Daines. They would report to the kitchen first thing the following morning, as they had under Slattery. Their erstwhile overseer was being kept busy, as part of a contingent of men sent to guard a group of cedar-cutters working a little further up the river. Spears made from the stalks of grass trees had, in the past, occasionally whistled through the air and found their mark, as a result of which all wood-cutting parties were now well guarded.

  Monsarrat did not, in fact, see Slattery until the following morning, when he had a welcome cup of tea in front of him and was awaiting the crew’s arrival. They would work on the room until midday, at which point practically the whole settlement would attend the funeral of the commandant’s wife.

  Mrs Mulrooney was busy making a large breakfast for Major Shelborne. ‘There’s a lot less of the man than there was when he set off. Hard bush living, and then a shock.’

  The man may hang you, thought Monsarrat, and you’re making eggs for him.

  For a moment, Slattery’s entrance restored a sense of normality. He slammed the door against the wall as he always did, exhorted God to bless all there as he always did, and took his seat at the table as he always did, with a wink and a smile. But the twinkling which marked him out as a capricious, slightly naughty but basically good young man was not in evidence.

  ‘God love you, Mrs Mulrooney,’ he said as she placed a cup of tea in front of him. ‘There’s been precious little of this marvellous stuff recently, first in the bush and now guarding those cedar-cutters. A rough lot they are, too. None of the pleasures of the conversations we share.’

  ‘And I understand that you met your objective, that the land around the new river was just as fine as Kiernan had promised,’ said Monsarrat.