Killigrew and the Incorrigibles

by Jonathan Lunn

  ‘What I’m trying to say, Killigrew, is that if you want to get yourself killed, I have absolutely no objection. But kindly have the decency to do it on your own time, and not the navy’s. If you’ve decided the game isn’t worth the candle, then you’re no good to me as an officer any more. But there are ninety-nine men in the Tisiphone’s crew beside yourself; men who count on you, and if you should imperil any one of their lives through your reckless behaviour, I will personally keelhaul you and have you strung up from the yard-arm. Right now you’re a powder keg looking for a spark. I don’t want to be around you when you go off; and I don’t want any of my men to be around when it happens, either. Hoist in?’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir. Lecture over?’

  ‘Damn your eyes, Killigrew! If you’re too mutton-headed to realise when your friends are trying to help you, then by God you don’t deserve their help!’

  They reached Sullivan’s Cove where Robertson’s gig waited for them at the wharf. Once the two officers were seated in the stern sheets, the gig’s crew rowed them back to the Tisiphone. Killigrew cast a curious glance at the whaling ships tied up at Kelly’s Wharf and wondered which one was the Lucy Ann.

  ‘By the way, did you know Mr Thorpe sent a letter of recommendation to Sir William Denison as a character witness before the inquest?’ asked Robertson. ‘How is it you come to know Thaddeus Thorpe, of all people, anyhow?’

  ‘I only met him on Friday night. Why? Have you heard of him?’

  ‘Heard of him? Of course I’ve heard of him. You would have, too, if you’d crawled out of that whiskey bottle you’ve crawled into. He’s only one of the most celebrated men in Hobart Town. Or perhaps I should say “infamous”. That’s his yacht over there.’ Robertson pointed to where the Wanderer was moored.

  ‘He’s a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron?’ mused Killigrew.

  ‘And one of the richest men in the Australias; although where he gets his money from is anyone’s guess. Since he arrived in Van Diemen’s Land eight years ago he’s invested in half a dozen doomed trading ventures: sheep farming, whaling, contract labour.’

  ‘Contract labour?’

  ‘I know what you’re thinking, Second. It’s already been investigated. Accusations of slavery have been made, but HMS Havannah visited his trading station in the New Hebrides the year before last and gave him a clean bill of health.’ Robertson chuckled. ‘He calls the place “Thorpetown”. They say he runs it like his own personal fiefdom, lording it over the natives. Even prints his own damned currency for his employees.’

  ‘A modest sort of a fellow, then.’

  ‘Boat ahoy!’ the marine sentry on duty at the Tisiphone’s entry port challenged as the gig drew near.

  ‘Tisiphone!’ returned the coxswain. The gig reached the sloop’s side and Robertson was piped back on board by one of the boatswain’s mates. Killigrew followed him up on deck, making his obeisance to the quarterdeck by tipping his cocked hat as he climbed up through the entry port.

  ‘Better let Mr Westlake take a look at that leg of yours, Second,’ said Robertson, who apparently did not have a very high opinion of the surgeons of Hobart Town.

  ‘My leg’s fine, sir.’

  ‘We’ll let Westlake be the judge of that, hm? Go on, down to the sick-berth with you.’

  Killigrew made his way down the forward hatch, to where the sick-berth was located in the bows of the sloop. There was no sign of the surgeon, but his assistant was there, heating up a flask of chemicals over a spirit lamp. Aside from being a skilled apothecary who was well on the way to qualifying as a surgeon under Westlake’s tutelage, Strachan was a scientific polymath who could put a Latin name to any fauna or flora known to man. He had joined the navy because of the opportunities it afforded him to study the world’s natural history at first hand. Robertson turned a blind eye to the amount of time Strachan spent on his scientific investigations, provided they did not interfere with his duties as the Tisiphone’s assistant surgeon. The Admiralty was all in favour of scientific investigation, and if Strachan turned out to be the next Sir Joseph Banks then it would not do Robertson’s reputation any harm.

  He glanced at the lieutenant as he entered. ‘I’ll be with you in two shakes of a cat’s whisker,’ he promised.

  Killigrew nodded. ‘What is that?’

  ‘A compound of acetic acid, saturated solution of gallic acid and crystallised silver nitrate. I’m experimenting with the standard formula for photographic paper to try to reduce exposure times.’ As a keen botanist, amongst other things, Strachan often took calotypes of some of the exotic plants he encountered on his travels; as a zoologist, he also wanted to do the same for wildlife, but the thirty seconds’ exposure required made it almost impossible to take photographic portraits of animals.

  ‘I wish I hadn’t asked.’ As intrigued as Killigrew was by the possibilities of the new process of photography, as soon as Strachan started to talk about chemicals he might as well have been speaking a foreign language.

  Killigrew’s joshing was like water off a duck’s back to Strachan, who was used to it by now. ‘How did the inquest go?’ he asked.

  ‘Just capital. The coroner accused me of excessive use of force and the youth’s uncle made a thinly veiled threat to kill me.’

  ‘You’re as adept as ever at making friends, I see. You cannot blame yourself, Killigrew. You had to kill the lad. You had no choice.’

  ‘Didn’t I?’

  Strachan looked up from his chemicals to stare at Killigrew in surprise. ‘You told me yourself: if you hadn’t killed him, he’d’ve killed you for certain. Or is that not how it happened?’

  ‘That’s the way it happened,’ the lieutenant assured him.

  ‘Then what choice did you have, other than to stand there and let him kill you?’

  Killigrew just looked at him.

  * * *

  The scene in the try-works was Stygian as the crew of the Lucy Ann worked through the night to finish trying out the blubber of the whale they had caught. A couple of lanterns tried to cast their weak, flickering light across the interior of the barn-like building on Kelly’s Wharf, but they were no match for the hellish glow of the furnaces beneath the massive copper try-pots set in a brick framework.

  Like most whaling ships, the Lucy Ann had its own try-works on board, set in a shallow, water-filled cistern called the ‘goose-pen’ abaft the fore hold. But fire and whale oil made for a dangerous mix on board a ship at sea, and when he caught a whale close enough to one of the many land-based try-works Captain Quested preferred to do his trying-out ashore.

  A good-sized sperm whale would yield about a hundred barrels of whale oil, and even working continuously in six-hour shifts it took two days to try out that much oil. The blubber, flensed from the carcass of the whale with flensing knives – two-foot blades on six-foot shafts, more like poleaxes than conventional knives – was cut into strips and put in the mincing tub. After being chopped up even more finely, the blubber was put in the try-pots and rendered down into whale oil. The fibrous fritters that floated to the surface of the bubbling pots were scooped off with a long-handled ladle and thrown in the furnaces, which burned even more fiercely. Then the tryed-out oil was drained into the cooling cauldron. Once the oil was cool enough, it was poured into casks that were then left to stand for a day until they were properly cool.

  A wooden platform stood over the try-pots, from which the blubber could be tipped into the boilers, and it was from this vantage point that Captain Quested surveyed his men as they worked.

  The Lucy Ann’s chief mate, Mr Macy, entered the try-works and climbed the rickety steps to the platform where Quested stood. ‘Fallon’s outside, sir.’

  ‘Fallon? What does he want? I thought he said there was to be no further contact between us before we meet at Norfolk Island?’

  ‘Says he wants a word.’

  Quested thought for a moment. ‘Very well. Bring him in.’

  Macy went outside again and returned with a young
man with a Vandyke beard, elegantly dressed in a bottle-green frock coat over a fancy embroidered waistcoat and fashionably checked trousers. He wore a stovepipe hat with a rakishly curled brim at a jaunty angle on his head and carried an ebony cane in one hand. The other hand held a handkerchief to his nose and mouth.

  Macy conducted Fallon to the platform where Quested stood. 'Are you sure you weren’t followed here?’ demanded Quested.

  ‘Quite sure.’ Fallon spoke with a soft Irish brogue. ‘I learned everything there is to know about giving informers the slip when I was in Ireland, believe me. Do you think we could continue this conversation outside?’ He gestured helplessly with the gold head of his cane. ‘The stench…’

  ‘That’s the smell of money, Mr Fallon. Hard-earned money. Whaling may strike a gentleman such as yourself as a filthy, stinking trade, but it’s the trade that puts oil in the lamps in your home, whalebone in the corsets of your sweetheart and ambergris in the scent you’re so fond of.’

  ‘The most pungent toilet water in the world could not be competing with this stench, even if I’d doused myself in a bucket of the stuff!’

  Quested chuckled. ‘I’m sure you didn’t come here to discuss perfumes, Mr Fallon.’

  The Irishman shook his head. ‘I heard about your nephew, Mr Starbuck. I came to offer my condolences. I’m sorry.’

  ‘There’s only one man who should be sorry: Lieutenant Christopher Killigrew.’

  ‘Yes. I hear you confronted him outside the Criminal Courts this morning?’

  'What of it?’

  ‘Are you sure that was wise? What did you say to him?’

  ‘That’s between me and Killigrew.’

  ‘No, Captain Quested. The Lucy Ann is my charter now. Your business happens to be my business.’

  ‘The man shot my nephew, Mr Fallon, and they let him off scot-free. Was I supposed to say nothing?’

  ‘Damn it, man! You shouldn’t have drawn attention to yourself that way!’

  'That wasn’t drawing attention to myself, Fallon. Now, if I’d followed my instincts and gunned him down on the steps of the Criminal Courts like the dog he is, that would have drawn attention to me. He won’t walk away next time we meet. And don’t tell me there won’t be a next time, because—’

  ‘Oh, there’ll be a next time, all right,’ interrupted Fallon. ‘I think I can just about guarantee that. For your information, Captain Quested, Killigrew just happens to be the second lieutenant of Her Majesty’s steam-sloop Tisiphone – the ship that’s taking me to Norfolk Island!’

  ‘The Tisiphone! I thought you said you’d be travelling out on a convict brig?’

  ‘I did. But it seems the usual convict brig is too short-handed at present, what with half the male population of Van Diemen’s Land heading off to California for the gold rush. The Tisiphone’s bound for the Fijis, so they’re dropping me off on the way.’

  ‘And if the Tisiphone’s still there when we arrive?’

  ‘She’s a steamer. She’ll be long gone by the time you get there with the Lucy Ann.'

  ‘You’d better be right,’ said Quested. ‘I’d like to run into this Mr Killigrew again; but another time, another place. I still say you should sail to Norfolk Island on the Lucy Ann.'

  ‘And how am I to get ashore? While you were bandying words with this fellow Killigrew in the streets, I was speaking to an old lag who’d done time on Norfolk Island. There are two landing places there: Sydney Bay on the south side of the island, and Cascades Bay on the north. Sydney Bay is out of the question: it’s right under the noses of the garrison at the main settlement of Kingston. Cascades is three miles away and unguarded, but there’s a reason for that: the only way ashore is by a big wooden derrick they have on the cliff-top. If a boat crew wants to come ashore, they have to lower a rope from a derrick and winch them up, boat and all.’

  ‘And the derrick can only be operated from the top of the cliff,’ concluded Quested. ‘They must use specially strengthened boats. Try to winch one of my whaleboats up with the crew still in her, and she’d snap like a twig.’

  ‘Then you’d better see to it that you reinforce one of your boats on the voyage out to Norfolk Island.’

  ‘When does the Tisiphone sail?’

  ‘Thursday.’

  ‘Then I’d better sail tomorrow, on the dawn tide. The Westerlies are fairly steady at this time of year; we should reach Norfolk Island Thursday week. We’ll stand off the coast, out of sight below the horizon during the day, and come in closer to the island during the night. Make sure you take your bull’s-eye: if we get your signal, I’ll send a boat ashore, so be ready to winch her up.’

  ‘There’ll be three of us to carry off the island.’

  ‘Three? I thought it was just you and—’

  ‘I’ll be needing a guide when I get to the island. The old lag I spoke to last night recommended one of the convicts: the commandant’s butler.’

  ‘Can you trust him?’

  ‘I doubt it. But I think he’ll help us if it means he gets a chance to escape from the island.’

  ‘Oh-kay, three of you it is. But I’m only staying there for a week, so if you don’t show by the night of Wednesday the first of May, I’m leaving you to rot on that island with your buddy.’

  ‘We’ll be there,’ Fallon promised him. ‘Just make sure that—’

  He was interrupted by an ear-splitting scream that was shrill enough to be audible over the hissing of the try-pots and the roaring of the fires in the furnaces. ‘What the devil’s that?’

  ‘My deserter. After he ran away, that naval officer found him and tried to put him up at the Harbour View Hotel. Johnny Blubbermouth was only out of our sight for a few minutes, but it was enough time to blow the gaff on our plans.’

  ‘Mary, Mother of God! If he talked…’

  ‘If he talked, the plan’s off,’ Quested told him calmly.

  ‘How can we be sure he didn’t?’

  ‘Gog and Magog are just finding that out now.’

  ‘Gog and Magog?’

  ‘Two of my men. Come on, I’ll introduce you to them.’

  Grinning, Quested motioned for Fallon to follow him off the platform. They descended the stairs and Quested led the way to an office at the back of the try-works. Thanks to the stench of the burning blubber, Fallon looked green about the gills as it was, but the sight that greeted his eyes as they entered the office drained what little colour remained in his face.

  A black man was sprawled on his back on the floor while one of the biggest men Fallon had ever seen stood over him. Only a couple of inches shy of seven feet in height, unlike most unnaturally tall men this one was not gangly but well-built; husky, even. His ugly, ill-formed face was in sharp contrast to his muscular physique: his wide mouth was like a clumsy slash across his face, and two piggy eyes glinted beneath his gnarled brow. It seemed impossible to believe that one such human behemoth could have sprung from the womb of any woman; but the man’s identical twin stood on the other side of the room, leaning his back against the wall with his brawny arms folded while waiting for his turn to inflict punishment on the squirming black.

  ‘Meet Peter and Paul Lawless,’ said Quested. ‘Also known as Gog and Magog.’

  The man standing over the black nodded a silent acknowledgement at Fallon, and then placed a massive foot squarely on the compound fracture in his victim’s arm. The black screamed in agony.

  When the screams died away into a whimper, Quested turned to the fourth man already in the room, a muscular Polynesian in Western clothing. He was probably a big man himself, but the Lawless twins dwarfed him.

  ‘This is Mr Fallon, the gentleman who’s chartered our ship for our forthcoming voyage,’ said Quested. ‘Mr Fallon, meet Simon Utumate, my specksnyder.’

  ‘Specksnyder?’ echoed Fallon.

  Utumate shook the Irishman by the hand. ‘Chief harpooner,’ he explained.

  ‘Has he told you anything yet, Utumate?’ asked Quested.

  The
Polynesian grinned. ‘I don’t think he got around to telling anyone anything.’

  ‘Thinking isn’t good enough, Utumate. We need to know for sure, or the whole deal is off.’ Quested turned to the twin standing over Wadrokal. ‘Stand back, Magog.’

  The whaling skipper crouched over Wadrokal and seized a fistful of his hair, pulling his head back cruelly. ‘It doesn’t have to be like this, Johnny,’ he said, almost tenderly. ‘Just tell me what you told Killigrew, and the pain stops now.’

  ‘I tell him nothing, Cap’n Quested!’ sobbed Wadrokal. ‘I swear it! I only wanted to escape from the Lucy Ann.’

  ‘Not a word about our little voyage to Norfolk Island? You’re sure?’

  ‘I tell him nothing!’

  ‘If you told him, it would be better to tell me now. I shan’t lie to you and say I won’t be angry – you know me better than that – but I’ll be more angry if I find out you’ve lied to me. Do you understand? We’re going to put you back on board the Lucy Ann now; but if it turns out you’ve lied to us and the Royal Navy is waiting for us when we get to Norfolk Island, the pain begins again. And I’ll make it last the rest of your life, and that’s going to be a long, long time. Do you believe me?’

  Wadrokal nodded.

  ‘Now, before I tell Gog and Magog to put you back on board the Lucy Ann, are you quite sure there’s nothing you want to say to me?’

  ‘I tell him nothing, sir. I swear it, as God is my witness.’

  Smiling, Quested straightened. ‘That’s more like it. Gog, Magog, you know what to do.’

  The two giants lifted Wadrokal effortlessly between them and carried him out of the office.