Killigrew and the Incorrigibles

by Jonathan Lunn

  ‘I’ve spent half my life dealing with criminals, Mr Killigrew. Before I was appointed commandant of this establishment, I was muster master in the Convict Department and, de officio, an assistant police magistrate. I know how to get information out of men reluctant to surrender it.’

  Fallon was slung across the saddle of a horse while two officers took him back to Kingston. Shortly afterwards the officer returned from the cottage. ‘Cusack’s gone, sir.’

  ‘But of course!’ said Price. ‘He was the one they came for.’

  A bank of cloud rolled in front of the moon, hiding the barque from sight.

  ‘Where in Hades is the Tisiphone?’ demanded Price.

  ‘She’ll be here,’ said Killigrew. ‘When she gets here, we’ll have to let Robertson know which direction the barque sailed in.’

  ‘And how do you intend to do that? You’re going to signal her?’

  ‘Unfortunately there are only about a dozen naval night signals which are generally recognised, and you need four lights for each of them,’ Killigrew said tightly. It had never occurred to him until that moment what a parlous state naval night signalling was in. ‘I’ll have to go out to the Tisiphone by boat.’

  He pushed himself to his feet and crossed to the derrick. The rope running from the winch to the derrick arm was sawn halfway through and was in danger of snapping.

  ‘I need a dozen men, Major!’ he called to the commanding officer of the garrison.

  ‘Right!’ The major turned to one of his sergeants, who had now arrived with a platoon of breathless soldiers. ‘Pick twelve men and assist Mr Killigrew.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ The sergeant selected a dozen privates and led them over to the derrick. ‘What do you want us to do?’

  Killigrew indicated the rope running to the derrick arm. ‘This rope isn’t going to hold unless I knot it. I need you to hold it while I cut it through and tie it off again.’

  The soldiers complied, and Killigrew cut through the rest of the rope, allowing the soldiers to take the strain while he ran enough slack off the winch to tie the line in a secure knot.

  ‘Here comes the Tisiphone!’ The major pointed to where the sloop’s lights showed in the night, off to their right.

  One of the privates winched the boat up as far as it would go, and then he and the other soldiers swung it back over the land, the dangling prow scraping across the ground. Then they lowered it again, and Killigrew saw that the name of the ship had once been painted on the boat’s stern, but it had been sanded off to prevent identification. Whoever the master of the barque was, he did not miss a trick.

  Killigrew quickly effected repairs to the cat’s cradle. Most of the boat’s tackle had fallen out when he had cut through the cradle earlier, but there were still two oars and a couple of whaling irons wedged under the thwarts. ‘I don’t suppose any of you can row?’ he asked.

  ‘I can row,’ said Price, climbing into the boat. ‘Have your men swing us back out over the cliff and lower us to the sea below, de Winton.’ He ordered the major and turned to Killigrew. ‘Hope you know how to tie a good knot, Mr Killigrew!’

  ‘They’ll hold,’ the lieutenant assured him, joining him in the boat. The soldiers started to winch them down. ‘You’re in charge until I get back, de Winton!’ Price called up. ‘As civilian commandant I’m exercising my authority to declare a state of martial law on the island. There’ll be no work details tomorrow morning: I want all the convicts locked up until we’ve taken a roll call, established the full extent of the breakout. There may be other men loose on the island who didn’t get on the boat. Find them, before they let some of their fellow lags out of the prisoner barracks and spark off another mutiny!’

  As they were winched down to the sea below, the Tisiphone drew ever nearer, until she hove to only a few hundred yards off. Killigrew could see sparks flying from the sloop’s funnel. When the boat reached the waves, he cast off the cat’s cradle. At least Price had not been lying when he claimed to be able to row: he was a skilled oarsman, and stronger – and less exhausted – than the lieutenant. It took them a couple of minutes to reach the Tisiphone, and they both climbed up the side ladder while Petty Officer Olaf Ågård – a tall, blond Swede whose eyes were narrowed from years of squinting across the seas – climbed down to the boat to secure it. The men on deck were all at their quarters, ready for action, and Robertson awaited Killigrew and Price on deck. ‘Well?’

  ‘There was a ship all right, sir,’ Killigrew told him. ‘A barque. She sailed from here not twenty minutes ago, heading north-west.’

  ‘Mr Cavan, go below and ask Mr Muir to set on, full speed ahead,’ ordered Robertson.

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  As the midshipman descended the after hatch, Robertson turned to the quartermaster. ‘You have your heading, Holcombe. North-west.’

  A few seconds later the Tisiphone’s paddle-wheels splashed into life, and the quartermaster ordered the helmsman to steer two points to port.

  ‘You really think you can catch her?’ asked Price.

  ‘It’s not a question of catching her,’ Killigrew told him. ‘The Tisiphone can make eight and a half knots under steam. Even running before the wind, a barque could make no more than four, maybe five knots in these winds. No, Mr Price. The difficulty will be finding her in this darkness. She’s sailing without lights.’

  ‘I think you’d better see this, sir,’ said Ågård; there was no trace of his native Sweden in his accent; if anything, he spoke with a Yorkshire accent picked up from the Hull whaler-men from whom he had first learned English. He had taken a whaling iron from the boat, and he held it out to Killigrew.

  ‘A harpoon, Ågård. So we know the ship we’re after is a whaler. That hardly helps us: whalers must be ten a penny in these waters.’

  ‘Look again, sir. It’s common practice for whalers to stamp the names of their vessels on their craft.’ He ran his finger along the haft of the harpoon until he found the imprint. ‘Here we are: the Lucy Ann.’

  ‘Christ!’ exclaimed Killigrew.

  Price glanced up at him in surprise. ‘Mean something to you?’

  ‘Killigrew, wasn’t that fellow you killed in Hobart Town from a whaler named the Lucy Ann?’ asked Robertson.

  The lieutenant nodded. ‘Peleg Starbuck – Captain Quested’s nephew.’

  ‘Is Mrs Cafferty on that ship?’ asked Robertson.

  ‘No sign of her ashore, sir,’ Killigrew said grimly. It was bad enough that she was in the hands of escaping convicts, but if they were escaping on board Quested’s ship…

  ‘So if we do catch this ship, we can’t simply blow them out of the water,’ Robertson said with evident regret.

  ‘You needn’t shed any tears for her,’ snapped Price. ‘She tried to murder me earlier!’

  ‘What?’ spluttered Robertson.

  ‘You mean, she was in on it?’ asked Strachan.

  Price shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think she knew anything about it. The bitch came here solely with the express intention of assassinating me!’

  Killigrew could not believe it. ‘Why?’

  Price shrugged. ‘I used to employ convicts as labourers on my farm on the Huon River before I was appointed commandant here,’ he explained. ‘Seems her brother was once one of the men assigned to me, a young army subaltern who embezzled the mess funds and didn’t have the sand to take the honourable way out. He died – he was a sickly sort of fellow – and she holds me responsible.’

  ‘And you say she tried to kill you for it?’

  ‘That pistol you found under my desk? The one you used to raise the alarm? Hers. I was just disarming her when Fallon and Jarrett burst into the library. So you can blow that barque to kingdom come for all I care.’

  ‘I’m sure that won’t be necessary,’ said Robertson. ‘We’ll just have to board her, that’s all. It will be tricky, but I think my men can handle themselves against a crew of whalers and… how many convicts got away?’

  ‘Seven,’ sa
id Killigrew. ‘Cusack, Wyatt, Jarrett, and four others.’

  Robertson turned to Ågård. ‘You’ve served on whalers, haven’t you, Ågård? How large a crew do they usually carry?’

  ‘Yankee whalers usually carry six men to a boat, and three ship-keepers or thereabouts, sir. That’s twenty-seven.’

  ‘If it is Quested’s Lucy Ann, then he lost four men in Hobart Town, don’t forget, sir,’ put in Killigrew. ‘With sailors in such short supply these days, I don’t imagine he had time to find replacements for Wadrokal, Starbuck and the other two. And I managed to take care of another three up on the cliffs just now. So he’s short-handed by seven.’

  ‘Except he’s just added seven convicts to his crew. I don’t imagine they’ll be much use as sailors, but I’ll wager they know how to fight. Will they carry much in the way of arms, Ågård?’

  ‘Most whalers carry a few muskets and pistols in the great cabin, sir, in case of mutiny. And they’ll have plenty of whaling craft: irons, flensing knives, cutting-in spades, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Permission to lead the boarding party, sir,’ said Killigrew.

  ‘Not granted, Second. Lord Hartcliffe can lead the boarding party: you look like you’re all in. Besides, first we’ve got to find them. You’d better get down to the sick-berth and let Mr Strachan take a look at that.’ He indicated the cut on Killigrew’s temple where Wyatt had kicked him.

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Taking into account the relative speeds of the two ships, and the fact the Lucy Ann had a half-hour start on the Tisiphone, Killigrew reckoned it would be at least another thirty minutes before they caught the barque; assuming they were even sailing in the right direction. Without lights, all the Lucy Ann had to do was change her heading, and the first the crew of the Tisiphone would know of it was when dawn came to reveal no sign of the barque in any direction.

  Killigrew made his way down to the sick-berth, where Strachan was poring over a book. ‘What happened to you?’ he asked when he saw the lieutenant.

  ‘I was kicked in the head.’

  Strachan sighed and cleaned up the wound with iodine, making Killigrew wince. ‘Och, stop being such a baby! You know, I seem to spend more time patching you up than the rest of the crew put together.’ He put a sticking plaster over the cut. ‘How is it you can’t go for a fortnight without getting in a scrap?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Killigrew said wearily. His whole body was a mass of cuts and bruises, and his thighs ached from all the running he had done. ‘Just lucky, I suppose.’

  ‘There, all done. Please try to avoid getting into any more fights, for the next few days at least.’

  Killigrew smiled wanly. ‘I don’t think that’s a promise I can keep.’

  * * *

  Killigrew’s worst fears came to pass when dawn rose a few hours later: the Lucy Ann had changed direction in the night, giving them the slip. The sea was empty in every direction except where the peak of Mount Pitt – the highest point on Norfolk Island – was visible over the horizon astern.

  ‘I’ve decided we’re going back to Kingston,’ Robertson announced to his officers and Price in the day-room. ‘We’re wasting our time searching for the Lucy Ann.’

  ‘You’re just going to give up?’ Price asked in disgust. ‘Just like that?’

  ‘What else would you have me do?’ Robertson replied quietly.

  ‘Quarter the seas for them! Last night, you yourself said the Lucy Ann couldn’t manage more than five knots running before the wind. It’s only four hours or so since she sailed. She can’t be more than twenty miles away.’

  ‘But in which direction, Mr Price?’ asked Robertson.

  The master, Mr Yelverton, took a scrap of paper and a pencil and drew a small circle on it. ‘That’s Norfolk Island, see? And here’s Cascades Bay. There’s been a strong breeze blowing fairly steadily from the south-east all night. Now, if the Lucy Ann sailed southeast, to windward, she’d have to tack.’ He drew a diagonal line down and to the right of Norfolk Island, and then scribbled three hard lines across it less than an inch from the island, as if by doing so he could bar the passage of the ship.

  ‘She couldn’t manage much more than one knot as the gull flies. Even after four hours, we’d still be able to see her from the cliffs. So it’s fairly safe to assume she’s running before the wind. That still gives us sixteen points of the compass to search in.’

  He drew a large circle around Norfolk Island, and then a line bisecting the circle, from south-west to north-east; the northwestern half of the circle he hastily shaded with hatching. ‘What’s left is our search area. Let’s say the Lucy Ann can manage five knots running before the wind. That’s damned generous, but we have to assume the worst. If they sailed north-west, they could be twenty miles away by now. That gives the Tisiphone about six hundred and thirty square nautical miles of ocean to search. In another four hours, it will be more than two and a half thousand square miles. After twenty-four hours, more than twenty-two thousand square miles. And so on and so forth, increasing geometrically with every passing hour.’ He stabbed at his diagram with the pencil, snapping off the point.

  ‘It’s a big ocean, Mr Price,’ said Robertson. ‘Finding a needle in a haystack would be easy by comparison.’

  ‘So you’re just going to let them escape?’

  ‘I didn’t say that. We’ll head back to Norfolk Island. Perhaps Mr Fallon can give us some clue as to where they’ve gone. Return on deck and have us put about, First. Have the men stand down – they’ve been at their stations for over four hours now. The rest of you are dismissed.’

  Killigrew made his way to the wardroom and poured himself a large whiskey from one of the decanters. A moment later there was a knock at the door. Killigrew quickly put his glass down behind him. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Me,’ said Strachan. As assistant surgeon, he belonged to the gunroom mess and could not enter the wardroom without being invited to.

  ‘Come in, Strachan.’ Killigrew picked up his glass again and took a swig as the assistant surgeon entered. When Strachan looked at him disapprovingly, Killigrew held up the decanter. ‘Can I offer you a glass?’

  Strachan shook his head. ‘It’s a little early in the day for me. What is it you sailors say? Sun not over the forearm?’

  ‘Foreyard,’ Killigrew corrected him.

  ‘You know, I’ve been meaning to have a word with you about your drinking.’

  ‘Don’t you start. I’ve already had the Old Man weighing me off…’

  ‘If you won’t listen to your commanding officer, will you at least listen to a friend? You won’t find the answers you’re looking for in the bottom of a glass, Killigrew.’

  ‘I don’t drink to find the answers. I drink to forget the questions.’

  ‘Very glib! You want to get kicked out of the service?’

  ‘I was ready to give it up for her…’ Killigrew said morosely. He did not have to explain to Strachan that he was thinking of the girl in Hong Kong. ‘Every night I dream about her. Every night we’re back there on that clipper, and she’s got that gun to her head. And I try to save her. And do you know what?’

  ‘You fail?’

  Killigrew shook his head. ‘No. That’s just it. I could live with nightmares like that. But in my dream I save her, and for a few moments I’m happy because I think that losing her was just a nightmare, and we’re going to be together. And then I wake up, and I’m alone in my bunk, and that’s when I realise she’s dead and she’s never coming back. Every morning I wake up, it’s as though I’ve lost her again. Every day I have to face another day without her, I have to face knowing that if I’d been faster, if I hadn’t hesitated for a fraction of a second, she might still be alive today. Instead I have to face another day without her. And another, and another. For the rest of my life. I can’t live with that pain any longer.’

  ‘She’s dead, Killigrew. I’m sorry for it, but life goes on. Drinking won’t bring her back. And if she were here, what do you think she would say
if she saw the state of you now?’

  ‘She’d probably say it served me right.’

  ‘She’d want you to get on with your life. Damn it, Killigrew, act like a man!’

  ‘You weren’t the one who got her killed.’

  ‘Neither were you. Pull yourself together.’

  ‘She’d never have died that day if it hadn’t been for me.’

  ‘No; she’d have been killed two months earlier. Instead you had two months together; there must be some precious memories which count for something.’

  ‘Precious memories! Fourteen years at sea, and that’s all I’ve got to show for it! Precious memories indeed!’

  ‘And how many lives did you save during the tai-pan affair, or in your work on the Guinea Coast? Don’t they count for something?’

  Killigrew put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘I’ll tell you something, Strachan: I’d trade them all in – yes, and my own worthless life – to have her still alive today.’

  ‘No you wouldn’t. “The greatest happiness of the greatest number”, remember?’

  ‘Bentham! That old cynic! What did he know? What about my happiness, Strachan? Aren’t I entitled to a little happiness?’

  ‘If you want to be happy then be happy, instead of feeling sorry for yourself. Yes, for yourself. If it was her you were feeling sorry for, I could understand; but it isn’t. It’s yourself, and there’s nothing more disgusting than the sight of a self-pitying drunkard. I’ve been reading Dombey and Son, and there’s a phrase in there that made me think of you. What was it? Ah, yes, now I remember: “Melancholy – the cheapest and most accessible of luxuries.” We all have fits of the mollygrumps from time to time, but you’re trying to make a career out of them.’

  ‘A pretty speech,’ sneered Killigrew. ‘Go tell it to Exeter Hall…’

  ‘You’re taking this worse than Mr Price.’

  ‘He wasn’t the one responsible for Mrs Cafferty being taken hostage.’

  ‘Oh? And what did you do? Say to those convicts: “Oh, whatever you do, please don’t take Mrs Cafferty hostage”?’