Killigrew and the Incorrigibles

by Jonathan Lunn

  ‘Then please feel free to set me straight,’ Cusack told Killigrew. ‘I’d be fascinated to hear your side of the story; we Irish know what it’s like to be slandered by not having our side of the story told.’

  ‘It’s something I prefer not to talk about.’

  In the awkward silence that followed, Strachan nodded to the painting the Irishman had been studying. ‘Looking for inspiration, Mr Cusack?’

  Cusack smiled. ‘Alas, I’m not the carpenter Daedalus was: I fear constructing a pair of wings to fly away from here would be quite beyond my powers. I was merely musing on the similarities between the Athens of King Minos and Mr Price’s own kingdom here on Norfolk Island. Although whether Mr Price is a King Minos or a Minotaur I’ve not yet divined.’

  Before Price could object to being compared to a monster which was half-man, half-bull, Nairn and Fallon appeared at the door.

  ‘We haven’t met,’ Fallon told Cusack, pre-empting Price’s introduction. ‘I’m Malachi Fallon, a reporter for The Irish-American.’

  ‘Mr Fallon is here to be reassured that you are being kept in a condition fitting for a political prisoner,’ explained Nairn.

  ‘Is that so?’ asked Cusack, eyeing Fallon with amusement. ‘If you’re hoping for stories of dank, underground cells and thumbscrews, I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed. They keep me in a cottage by myself on the north side of the island. I have plenty to read and a certain amount of liberty, for what that’s worth on a place the size of Norfolk Island. But I do miss my friends—’

  Cusack broke off when he realised that everyone was staring at the doorway. He followed their gaze and his jaw dropped when he saw Mrs Cafferty standing there in a dark-blue evening dress of broché silk, the skirts domed by the mass of petticoats she wore underneath.

  ‘Mrs Cafferty?’ said Price. ‘May I present Mr Devin Cusack? I believe you’ve already met everyone else present. Mr Cusack, this is Mrs Philippa Cafferty.’

  Cusack bowed to kiss one of her kid-gloved hands. ‘Enchanté, madame. May I be permitted to ask what brings a young woman as lovely as yourself to a place like Norfolk Island?’

  ‘Mrs Cafferty is to be governess to Mr Price’s children,’ said Fallon.

  ‘Governess?’ Cusack let go of her hand as if it burned him. He looked bewildered. ‘Surely she… You’re not suggesting that she join us for dinner, I trust?’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Price, evidently amused by Cusack’s discomfort. ‘Mrs Cafferty comes from an excellent family. Now that we’ve agreed to employ her – and she’s agreed to accept our offer – we’ll be considering her one of the family.’

  Cusack looked as if he might have had further to say on the matter, but thought it best to keep his thoughts to himself. Mrs Price joined them presently – Killigrew gathered that the children had already been put to bed – and they went through into the dining room. Killigrew lingered to speak to Hartcliffe.

  ‘Did you see the way Cusack reacted when Price told him Mrs Cafferty was a governess? The man’s a damned snob!’

  ‘Can you blame him? He comes from a proud family.’

  ‘So do you. That doesn’t stop you from treating people with respect, regardless of their rank.’

  ‘Ah, yes. But then, you see, all my family think I’m a little peculiar. You’re determined not to like this fellow Cusack, aren’t you?’

  ‘Can you blame me? He may have been let off lightly because his so-called revolution was such a débâcle, but it would have been a very different story if things had gone the other way that day at Ballingarry. The incident could have sparked off a rebellion the length and breadth of Ireland. There could have been a repeat of the events of the ’ninety-eight rebellion: brutal repression, sectarian massacres, burnings, mass executions and other atrocities. Ireland’s always been a powder keg of discontent, and Cusack and his friends were playing with fire – as well they knew. Using the threat of force of arms to put pressure on a democratically elected government… Oh, I’m not saying the men who want to see the Act of Union repealed don’t have a valid point of view. If Ireland still had its own parliament, instead of a few token MPs in the House of Commons whose voices are drowned out by being a tiny minority, perhaps the effects of the potato blight might have been greatly reduced. But that doesn’t excuse what the Young Irelanders did. Once you start giving in to the demands of a few people who chose to take up arms, where does it end? The next thing you know, you’ll have the army dictating foreign policy to Whitehall!’

  Hartcliffe held up an appeasing hand. ‘God forbid! Not that the Foreign Office doesn’t have me scratching my head in bewilderment from time to time, but I don’t imagine those poltroons at Horse Guards could run things any better.’

  They joined the others in the dining room, where half a dozen convict-trusties were assembled as servants to wait on them hand and foot as they sat down to eat at the large, linen-covered table.

  ‘Does Mr Price often invite you to dine with him?’ Fallon was asking Cusack.

  ‘No.’ Then, as if concerned not to appear rude, he added: ‘Mr Price and I have a number of differences of opinion on political matters.’

  ‘I can well imagine,’ remarked Killigrew.

  ‘How do you spend your time here?’ asked Fallon.

  ‘Reading and writing, mostly, or going for walks. The island itself is lovely: only the British could conceive of such a paradise as a penal colony.’

  ‘So you wouldn’t describe your incarceration here as a hardship?’

  ‘It’s certainly an imposition. But the greatest ordeal I’ve had to face in the six months I’ve been here is having to learn how to make my own bed and brew my own tea,’ he added with a smile.

  ‘If you returned to Van Diemen’s Land, you could have a convict servant assigned to you,’ said Nairn. ‘All you have to do is give your parole.’

  ‘Promise not to try to escape?’ Cusack smiled. ‘That I can never do, Mr Nairn.’

  ‘You certainly won’t escape from Norfolk Island,’ Price promised him.

  ‘Whereas if I were transferred to Van Diemen’s Land, I might have a chance, you mean? Except that I’d have given my word not to; and I’m a man of honour.’

  ‘A man of honour would never have taken up arms against his queen,’ snorted Price.

  ‘We’ve already had this discussion, Mr Price,’ Cusack said boredly. And as for the rest of these gentlemen, well… I’m sure they don’t care to hear what I have to say. In Mr Fallon’s case, I should be preaching to the converted; as for the others, I should be preaching to the Pharisees rather than to the sick. If it’s all the same with you, I’ll be saving the rhetoric for men I might make an impression on.’

  ‘And when rhetoric fails you, you resort to force of arms,’ sneered Killigrew.

  Cusack smiled. ‘And you’ve never resorted to force of arms, Admiral?’

  * * *

  ‘He upset you, didn’t he?’

  Cusack had been taken back to his cottage on the north side of the island and nearly everyone else had gone to bed when Mrs Cafferty found Killigrew sitting on the verandah with his feet on the railing, a cheroot in one hand and Price’s decanter of port close to hand.

  Killigrew stood up. ‘Who?’

  She grimaced. ‘You know very well who I mean. Devin Cusack.’ The lieutenant shook his head. ‘I have to respect someone before I give a damn about what they think of me.’

  ‘And you don’t respect Cusack?’

  ‘He’s no better than the ruffians down there.’ Killigrew gestured down to where the convict barracks loomed over the sea wall in the light of the full moon. ‘But he gets treated with honour because his uncle is a lord and he dresses his villainy up in political ideals.’

  ‘But you said yourself you’re in favour of what he fought for: the repeal of the Act of Union.’

  ‘It’s his methods I object to, not his aims.’

  ‘And are his methods so very different to the ones you use to keep the seas clean
of slavers and pirates? I think you’ve got a lot more in common with him than you’d like to admit. I think you do admire him. I think there’s a part of you that wishes you could risk everything to fight for a noble cause, as your father did in Greece.’

  ‘My father was a dreamer. So’s Cusack. Some of us have responsibilities, and have to live in the real world.’

  ‘But your father’s dream came true, didn’t it? Greece got her independence from the Ottoman Empire. Who knows? Perhaps one day Ireland will also be independent of Britain. Would that be so terrible?’

  ‘There are a good many Protestant Irishmen who would prefer to be ruled from Westminster by fellow Protestants than they would by Roman Catholics in Dublin. You can’t please everyone. What are you going to do? Draw a dotted line across the country and tell all the Protestants to live on one side of it, and all the Catholics to live on the other?’

  She laughed. ‘Now you’re just being facetious.’

  ‘“And if I laugh at any mortal thing,/’Tis that I may not weep.”’

  ‘Byron.’

  ‘Another dreamer who died fighting for Greek independence.’

  She moved closer to him. ‘And what do you dream of, Kit Killigrew?’

  ‘Oh, all the usual well-intentioned gammon. A world of peace, where men aren’t driven by greed to rob, slaughter and enslave one another.’

  ‘So that’s what the “I” stands for: “Idealist”? And what place would there be for a man like you in a world like that?’

  ‘None at all,’ he admitted cheerfully. ‘I could put my feet up. Fall in love, get married, raise a family. Do all the things that ordinary men take for granted.’

  She looked up at him, her eyes shining in the gloom. ‘But you’re not an ordinary man.’

  He wondered if she were paying him a compliment or if she were merely teasing him again, and wondered what she would do if he kissed her. He took her hand and gave it an experimental squeeze, and when she squeezed back he edged closer to her, moving slowly and deliberately so that she could not mistake his intentions and had all the time in the world to react one way or another. To his disappointment, she laid a hand on his breast and pushed him away.

  ‘No… I’m sorry. I’m not some sixteen-year-old ninny fresh out of the nursery who’s going to take one look at you and fall against your manly breast in a swoon.’

  ‘It’s just as well,’ he said ruefully, trying to cover his embarrassment by resorting to light-hearted banter. ‘My breast really isn’t all that manly.’

  ‘No? And what about those baubles you have hanging off it?’

  He glanced down at his medals. ‘These?’ He pointed to them in turn. ‘This one I got for being in the wrong place at the right time; and this one I got for being in the right place at the wrong time. I’ve also been mentioned in dispatches for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

  ‘Have you ever been in the right place at the right time?’

  ‘Well, I did remember to turn up to collect the medals… but it was a close-run thing on both occasions.’

  She laughed. ‘You know, I think I’ll regret the fact you’ll be sailing tomorrow. Against my better judgement, I’m actually starting to like you. As one grows fond of a mischievous kitten, you understand,’ she added mockingly. Then she seemed to remember that she was not supposed to be happy. ‘I’m sorry, Kit. It’s not meant to be. Tomorrow you’ll sail away from here and I… We’ll never see one another again.’

  ‘What’s the matter? Surely you’re not afraid you might fall in love with me? I’d credited you with better taste than that.’

  ‘You have a very low opinion of yourself, don’t you?’

  ‘Don’t be fooled,’ he said with a self-deprecating grin. ‘It’s just false modesty.’

  ‘You don’t fool me, Kit Killigrew,’ she said, and kissed him. It was a proper kiss, none of your pecks-on-the-cheek before fleeing, and he kissed her back enthusiastically. But he could not help feeling it was wrong. It was not a question of betraying the memory of the woman he had got killed in Hong Kong; he knew she would have wanted him to be happy. But after what happened in Hong Kong, he did not feel he had the right to be happy.

  He was still debating with himself whether or not to break off the kiss when she resolved things for him by pushing him away. ‘No. I can’t do this to you. It’s not fair.’

  The rejection made his mind up: he wanted her. ‘Oh, by all means be unfair to me!’

  ‘You don’t understand. It can’t work out between us. Tomorrow you’ll be sailing for the Fijis and you deserve better than to be my fi— my love of the hour. I’m sorry, Kit, I can’t.’

  She turned and ran back into the house.

  Killigrew blinked and wondered what all that had been about. She did not strike him as the shy sort, but obviously something was upsetting her, something external to the two of them. He threw the stub of his cheroot away with a gesture of annoyance.

  Chapter 6

  Where Satan Never Sleeps

  ‘Solomon Lissak! You’re wanted!’

  Lissak was already in his hammock when the call came from the far end of the ward in the prisoners’ barracks. He had learned not to question orders: when you were called for, you went. He made his way between the rows of men lying in their hammocks to the door at the end of the ward.

  The prisoners in general circulation – those not in the gaol-gang – were locked in the wards in the prisoners’ barracks from six in the evening to sunrise without lights or any kind of supervision by the guards. When a new batch of convicts arrived, they were put in the wards with the hardened criminals, regardless of how petty their own crime might be. Lissak would lie awake at night and listen as the younger, prettier men were subjected to the inevitable initiation to the ways of Gomorrah Island. Not that he had ever undergone such an initiation: he had been well into his fifties by the time he had arrived on Norfolk Island, and even when he had been younger he had never been attractive, either to his own sex or the opposite.

  The convicts in each ward selected a ‘wardsman’ from amongst themselves. The wardsman was supposed to be responsible to the commandant for anything that happened on the wards during the hours of darkness, but if he peached on any of his fellow lags he had to bear in mind that he still had to share the same ward with the men whose punishment he had helped bring about. If the infraction were severe enough to warrant the death penalty, then the executed man was sure to have plenty of friends to avenge him.

  Lissak reported to the door at the end of the ward. The warder outside shone a light through the grille, dazzling him, and then the door was unlocked and opened. Lissak stepped through, and the door was closed and locked behind him.

  ‘Price wants to see you.’

  Lissak recognised Silas Jarrett’s voice at once. ‘Speeler’ Jarrett had been a member of The Ring back in the days when Jacky-Jacky had been the ringleader, but Jarrett had only been small fry in those days and had slipped through the net when Price had punished the mutineers of 1846. Indeed, by secretly exposing several of his enemies as members of The Ring, Jarrett had both disposed of them and won Price’s confidence; which made him a very useful person to Ned Wyatt. Even Lissak was not sure who Jarrett worked for, Wyatt or Price. It probably varied depending on the given circumstances.

  ‘Price!’ exclaimed Lissak. ‘What does he want to see me for? And at this time of night?’ Being dragged out of the ward to see Price would only convince everyone that he was one of Price’s dogs, which boded no good for him when he got back; unless Jarrett could convince his fellow inmates he was innocent.

  ‘Don’t ask questions,’ Jarrett told Lissak. ‘Come with me.’

  Lissak followed Jarrett past the guards and out of the prisoners’ barracks. Outside the front gate, they turned left as if they were making for Government House.

  ‘Got your betties?’ Jarrett asked in a low voice.

  ‘What betties?’

  ‘Don’t try to gammon me, Sol. I know yo
u’ve been making a set of betties in the workshop. Doesn’t it strike you as rum that you haven’t been searched lately?’

  ‘I figured the screws had a bellyful of cooling up my flanky every other day.’

  ‘I told Price about the betties; that you were planning to escape with some of the others.’

  ‘What? That’s a bloody lie!’ Lissak was planning to escape, true enough; but when he ran, he’d do it on his own. ‘Who am I supposed to be making my lucky with, anyway?’

  ‘Ah, that’s the clever part. I said I didn’t know; but if we waited for you to make your move, we’d find out soon enough. That was the only way I could stop you from being searched.’

  They reached the corner of the wall surrounding the compound, but instead of continuing along the sea wall towards Government House, Jarrett suddenly grabbed Lissak and dragged him down the passage between the compound and the lumber-yard.

  ‘You ain’t taking me to see Pricey, are you?’ Lissak guessed with trepidation. If Jarrett was not taking him to Price, then he had no authorisation to remove Lissak from his ward in the prisoners’ barracks; and there was only one man on Norfolk Island for whom Jarrett would take a chance like that.

  Jarrett led the way around the back of the prisoners’ barracks. ‘You saw that navy sloop arrive today?’

  ‘Sure. I was working in the fields when it dropped anchor.’

  ‘One of the men who arrived on it is an American reporter; except his real reason for being here is to rescue Devin Cusack. ’

  ‘That Irish rebel they got up at Cascades? He told you this himself, did he?’ Lissak said sceptically. They were talking in whispers now, creeping through the shadows behind the three compounds that lined the sea wall.

  ‘Someone in Hobart Town gave him my name as a man who could be trusted.’

  Lissak gave a high-pitched, hooting chuckle. ‘They got that wrong then, didn’t they!’

  ‘Keep quiet! Do you want to ruin everything? There’s a whaling ship coming to Cascades Bay tonight to help Cusack and Fallon – that’s the reporter – escape. Fallon told me if I had a couple of horses saddled to take us to Cascades, I could leave with them.’