The Commandant

by Jessica Anderson

  ‘They?’

  ‘Victor and Lancelot told me. They are both so pink, I told them they must have looked like pigs on their hind legs. I told them they are beginning to look like pigs even with their clothes on.’

  ‘How could they!’

  ‘I asked them the same question, in the same tone. And they asked me to tell them what else they were to do.’

  ‘Louisa, that is a vewy stwange question.’

  ‘Very. I had never considered the matter in that light. Perhaps I am becoming a bit of a pig myself. I expect Henry looked like a pig, too. But Henry’s piggishness is well established, one thinks nothing of it. But you are not resting. Rest!’ cried Louisa imperiously. ‘Or James Murray will be cross with me.’

  Letty lay on the sofa again, and Louisa took the chair vacated by the commandant. ‘They would not have dared,’ she said, ‘if Captain Logan had not been at Dunwich. I should have rather liked them to encounter him on one of his nocturnal sorties with Collison or Gilligan. Or Bishop, before he drowned.’

  Tears sprang to Letty’s eyes. ‘Lord, Louisa, I am glad he will never do that again. I saw him once through the window, with Bishop. There was a huge moon, like the one last night. And I thought—I can speak of it now it is over—I thought they were like two hunting dogs.’

  Louisa, of course, knew that Letty did not think her husband entirely noble, but this was the first denial of his nobility she had ever heard her make. From shining knight to hunting dog was a big drop, but in the face of Letty’s tears Louisa hid her startlement. ‘It is not his fault,’ she said, ‘if the regulations insist on these surprise visits to the prisoners.’ She would have liked to add that the regulations could be taken much too seriously, but Letty was still crying.

  ‘It demeaned him, Louisa.’

  ‘There,’ said Louisa, ‘don’t cry. As you say, it is all over now. You are going, and so is Frances. And so, later, is Lieutenant Edwards, who is so clear and sunny, like that sky out there, only possibly less hot. Yes, Letty, you may laugh at me, but to be truthful, I am distressed. At these outposts it is a great alleviation to have one or two persons of one’s own sex to whom one can speak one’s mind. I shall be left with only Amelia. Amelia brings out all my malice. It is one thing to be a pig, but I hardly care to be a malicious pig.’

  ‘Mrs Clunie will soon be here.’

  ‘Yes, she sounds a woman of sense. And there are still my beetles and butterflies. Lancelot begs me to discard my hairpiece. What do you say?’

  ‘Lancelot has taste, Louisa. What does Victor say?’

  ‘That Lancelot has taste.’

  Letty looked away. ‘Yet never exercises it on poor Amelia.’

  ‘He says Amelia is perfect. Absolutely perfect.’

  This startled Letty into meeting Louisa’s eyes for a few seconds of that excessive solemnity that serves the purpose of laughter. Letty’s gaze moved away to the door. ‘She will enter in a moment.’

  ‘Of course, to speak of your posting. “Army life!” she will say. “One must not complain.” She sometimes shows sense.’

  ‘I shall begin to complain when the childwen go to Scotland. Today I can only feel glad that all our waiting is over.’

  ‘I told you the covering letter would come.’

  ‘Oh, it has not.’

  ‘You said, all your waiting.’

  ‘Lord, Louisa, what does that letter matter now?’

  ‘I did not say it mattered at any time.’

  ‘No. I did. Darling Louisa, don’t let us weverse our opinions now. Captain Clunie’s appointment explains itself, you see, by the fact of the wegiment going to India.’

  Louisa got up, went to the mirror, put one hand over her hairpiece, and looked at herself through narrowed eyes. She did not ask if Governor Darling had known for certain, when he sent Captain Clunie, that the regiment was going to India. ‘I have worn a hairpiece for five years,’ she said. ‘You leave here in three weeks, I take it, so that Captain Logan may press his charge against Mr Smith Hall.’

  ‘Yes. He says it will not occupy more than a few days.’ She yawned. ‘So little sleep last night, Louisa.’

  ‘Your mind was on the mailbag.’

  ‘Yes. Oh, yes!’

  ‘Will Frances go with you to India?’

  ‘That’s the gweat question. There has been no time to speak of it since the mail came. She has gone to weply to her letters. One from our little sisters, Louisa, and three from Mr Edmund Joyce.’

  ‘Three!’

  ‘Three.’

  Louisa came back to her chair. ‘Then Frances is not for India.’

  ‘I don’t know. She is evasive about him.’

  ‘So she is with me. I believe she dreads a decision. I hope she is not like that donkey one hears about—who starved because he couldn’t choose between straw and turnips.’

  ‘She opened the letter from our sisters first.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Louisa, with contralto significance.

  ‘So . . .’ said Letty, shrugging.

  ‘Still,’ said Louisa, ‘it need not signify. She has not heard from them since leaving home, whereas Mr Joyce has been most regular. Let me see, if the regiment doesn’t move out until next March, you will have at least five months in Sydney. More than time enough for them to marry.’

  ‘More than time enough for him to change his mind.’

  ‘And for her, and you, to make him change it back again.’

  ‘We are being bwutally fwank today.’

  ‘Well,’ said Louisa, ‘it is quicker.’

  ‘To be sure, I should pwefer the childwen to be with Fwances and her husband than in Scotland.’

  ‘Oh now,’ said Louisa, laughing, ‘perhaps we are being too quick.’

  ‘Louisa, I can’t take them to Madwas.’

  ‘Not even to the hill station?’

  ‘Oh, Louisa, let us continue to be bwutally fwank. I shan’t be at the hill station except in the hottest months. I shall be on the plains with Patwick. We have not enough money to keep two establishments. Don’t evade my eyes, Louisa. It is not like you. It is my pwivilege to be fwank, since it is I who am going there, and who do not want my childwen to go there. And they can’t go to Cass. Even Madwas is not as unhealthy as the Indies.’

  ‘Mrs Bulwer, ma’am.’

  Amelia, who since the warm weather had reduced her mourning to grey muslin, hurried forward with a gentle purring sound instead of her former important susurration. ‘So it is Madras! I heard what you said as I came in. And you are right! Madras is not as unhealthy as the Indies. And the hill station! Ootacamund. Sir William Rumbold has built a great house there, and his wife is a daughter of Lord Rancliffe’s, and is cousin to our own Lieutenant Edwards. And you will be nearer home, and will have the joy besides of knowing yourself in a country where the missions have gained some ground among the blacks. Yes, well, thank you, thank you, I will sit. Well, what news! And Lieutenant Edwards to go, though not yet. And Louisa and I left to console each other. And no horses! Did you know that, Louisa? Letty? No horses! Beasts, however. Some beasts, though not enough. And you go in three weeks, Letty, so that Captain Logan may appear at the trial of Mr Smith Hall. Well, to be sure, it will be unpleasant, but he will emerge unscathed, I assure you. Oh, when you look at me with those big eyes, Letty, I realise I make it sound as if it were to be his trial, which you know I do not mean. Am I interrupting your rest? Pray, do rest. You look as tired today as my poor Lancelot, who can never sleep when there is a full moon. I am one of the lucky ones, I sleep through everything. Is Frances to go with you to India?’

  ‘Why should she not?’ asked Letty.

  ‘I thought she may stop in Sydney.’

  ‘Why should she do that, Amelia?’ asked Louisa.

  Amelia opened her fan. ‘
Where is Frances?’

  ‘Weplying to her mail.’

  ‘Oh.’ Amelia largely fanned herself. ‘I see. She has run to reply at once to his letter. I see. Well, I must go and reply to mine. You have not forgotten my tea tomorrow? I see Louisa has not. And from you, Letty, I shan’t accept a refusal. How many times have you left this house these last six months? Once? Twice? It is not healthy. Louisa, persuade her.’

  ‘I agree with Amelia, Letty. Such a rare event deserves another. Do come.’

  Of the smaller of the two front rooms of his weatherboard cottage Clunie had made an office. The window was only a few yards from the road running along the river bank, and on hearing footsteps he raised his head and saw through the muslin curtain the commandant and Private Collison. When he saw Collison halt, and the commandant turn towards the open front door of the cottage, he quickly folded the sheet of paper he had covered with figures, put it in a pigeon hole, and rose to open the office door to the commandant. He had not seen him since his return from discharging the Governor Phillip, but Lieutenant Edwards, who had been sent to give him an account of the cargo, had also told him that the fifty-seventh was under orders for Madras.

  On opening the door he saw Logan standing with his hand raised to knock; and the two men simultaneously said, ‘Well!’ in mutual relief from the suspense they had shared. Logan handed Clunie two letters and without waiting for an invitation took the second chair. Clunie glanced at the letters—from his wife and his brother—and then took his place at the desk again and turned his chair to the commandant, whom he observed now to be showing that gratification, almost a radiance, that marked his good moods.

  It was the custom for officers and their families to collect their mail from Whyte the clerk, but each time a mail had arrived, Logan had brought Clunie his letters, and each time had immediately sat down, and each time but this had been angry and despondent. It had been Clunie’s opinion that the time must come when the commandant would vent one of his black moods on the man whom he must surely suspect, at these times, however obscurely, of being his supplanter. He had devised against this occurrence all sorts of guards and wiles, but had needed none of them. Towards himself the commandant had been steadfastly fair and trusting ever since he had taken the decision, on that first day, to like him. Clunie had at first found this restraint remarkable in such a man, towards such a provocation as himself, but later he came to understand that Logan’s friendship and loyalty, once given, however arbitrarily, were practically unshakeable. Clunie could not decide whether this was owing to some sacred and mythic view of friendship and loyalty, or to the commandant’s desperate need for both, but whatever the reason, he felt it to be excessive and slightly comical. He also felt it an embarrassment, for he could not return without reserve even the friendship, let alone the queer unreasonable antiquated loyalty. All he could offer were amiability and a willingness to oblige, and to his surprise, Logan seemed to find these quite enough. It was as if, having taken his decision on their friendship, he had also decided never to doubt the quality of what was returned to him.

  ‘Well, sir,’ said Clunie now, ‘India. When do you leave?’

  ‘In three weeks. I’ve no instructions yet about Edwards and the men.’

  ‘You go early because of Smith—’

  ‘Smith Hall, Smith Hall. Yes.’

  ‘No need to ask about that covering letter. Since it’s superfluous, for you at least, no doubt it’s come.’

  ‘It has not. But don’t be disturbed,’ said Logan, as Clunie abruptly raised his brows. ‘I know it’s not superfluous for you. But are you not in a position, now, to write and ask for full instructions?’

  ‘I am,’ said Clunie, ‘and I shall. The lack of the letter is no more curious, after all, than the lack of horses.’

  It was an argument he had often used to soothe the commandant during the last six weeks, and with so little success that he was privately amused to see it so readily accepted now. ‘The governor is ill-served by his commissariat,’ said Logan. ‘I am mainly sorry because it will leave you with only Murray’s nag on the settlement.’

  ‘By the time you leave, horses will have come.’

  ‘I meant when I go on my inland journey. For of course I must ride Fatima.’

  ‘Of course. Well, my dear sir, we must manage. When do you start?’

  ‘The day after tomorrow. I take Collison and five good bushmen.’

  ‘Cowper says the best bushman on the settlement is Lewis Lazarus.’

  ‘You’re not suggesting I take him. A hatred like his would put my life in jeopardy.’

  ‘Do none of the five you are taking hate you?’

  ‘I neither know nor care. I know only that all come to the end of their sentences in a matter of months, and unless goaded by someone as mad as Lazarus, they will do nothing to risk my giving them an extension.’

  ‘I see that,’ said Clunie with reserve.

  ‘You believe Lazarus is wasted in the gangs. So do I. But the fellow has chosen. He wastes himself.’

  ‘Yes.’ Clunie picked up a paperweight, turned it in his hand. ‘All the same, I am sorry to learn he is in the solitary cell, in irons.’

  ‘How else can I have him punished? The day after his last two hundred he threatened an overseer. I can’t have him flogged again,’ said Logan in apology, ‘so soon. And if he is not ironed he bangs the walls and shouts. Now he only shouts. Upon my word, he is lucky not to be gagged as well.’

  The paperweight was of polished pink stone. Watching it turn, Clunie said nothing. Logan leaned forward in his chair and spoke softly. ‘My dear Clunie, in three days Lazarus will be taken from his cell and put in one of the outlying gangs, still in irons. And while I am inland, and you are my deputy, I must ask that you leave him in irons. Do as you please when I leave the place, but while I am still effectively in the command—as I shall be accounted on an absence so short—my punishments must be maintained in their full severity. Not only because I believe in the efficacy of severity, but because to abate them now would seem that I am trying to pander to my enemies.’

  Clunie raised his eyebrows at the paperweight. ‘Are you speaking of the Smith Hall matter?’

  ‘They will be attentive to it. I am not afraid of the outcome, and don’t wish it to appear that I am.’

  ‘Edwards tells me Bulbridge and Fagan were taken at Port Macquarie.’

  ‘They were. They broke into a house there. Stole food and clothing. The Phillip put into the Port on her way here and brought me the news. The Isabella was at the Port on her homeward journey. She takes Bulbridge and Fagan to Sydney for trial.’

  ‘Their trial is likely to coincide with Smith Hall’s.’

  ‘What of it?’

  ‘Are they liars?’

  ‘They are all liars. And the persons who give them credit are fools. An honest man cannot consider the slander of liars and the judgement of fools.’

  ‘Many honest men do.’

  ‘Then they cease to be honest men.’

  ‘Perhaps they learn to temper their honesty with discretion.’

  ‘And thus risk losing it.’

  Clunie, with a sigh, put down the paperweight and leaned back in his chair. ‘When do you relinquish the command?’

  ‘I am requesting that I keep it until I leave Sydney for India. I hope I may regard my stay in Sydney as leave, and draw a commandant’s pay till the end.’

  ‘That’s perfectly fair and just.’

  ‘Then what is troubling you, man?’

  Clunie was on the verge of warning him that a man remaining in official command remains in danger of being removed from that command, and that if Logan wanted to make sure of putting himself out of reach of his enemies, he would do better to relinquish the command on leaving the settlement. But by giving such a warning, Clunie would sound over-eager
for the commandant’s place and pay. It was only a few months ago, in July, that the commandant’s salary had been increased from one hundred and eighty pounds a year to three hundred, and backdated only to April instead of to January, as he had requested. If the talk of his debts were true, it would be important to him to continue to draw this increased pay for as long as he could; he would not lightly give it up. And besides, even if Clunie were to risk appearing avaricious, and give the warning, Logan would take no notice. Why should he wish to put himself out of reach of his enemies? He believed he was already out of their reach.

  But although Clunie refrained from giving the warning, he allowed its tone to linger in his voice. ‘There will be about five months, then, between Smith Hall’s trial and your departure?’

  ‘There will. Time to settle my affairs in the colony thrice over. But don’t think you will be required to act for all that time only as my deputy. No. That applies during my journey inland. But the moment I leave for Sydney you become my relief, and will have a free hand.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘And yet, you doubt it? You sound as if you doubt it.’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Clunie with resignation. ‘You’re mistaken. I don’t doubt it.’

  He went with Logan to the door. The Regent Bird had just arrived, and they stood at the edge of the road and watched the prisoners from the Governor Phillip disembarking at the stone wharf. ‘A fair load,’ said Logan. ‘Two mechanics—a carpenter and a shingler. The shingler is sentenced to be worked in irons, but we’ll knock them off and put him on the roofs. That tall fellow is one of the colonial born whites.’ He laughed. ‘A beggarly nativity!’

  ‘Who is Boylan?’ asked Clunie suddenly.

  ‘A dead man. A runaway. His body came down the river and was lodged by the tide just down there. I know what makes you ask. You have been hearing he is in the bush. So have I. So has Cowper. Lazarus said he saw him last time he was out.’

  ‘My servant says he was seen a week ago.’

  ‘Who told your servant?’

  ‘One of the other prisoners.’

  ‘Who had it from yet another prisoner.’