Wild Island

by Jennifer Livett

  ‘Where do we go this time?’ Booth kept his voice deliberately even. Not, surely, back to the West Indies, not now. What a joke of the Almighty (or the devil) that would be.

  ‘India is the word.’ Pilkington shrugged.

  ‘It may be no more than a rumour?’

  ‘There’s a Mess Meeting tomorrow night. I daresay that’s why you’re called. We’ll know then for sure and certain. In the meantime, my dear fellow—will you tell me when we are to see you at home before you go back down to your felons? Lizzie and her mother will never let me hear the last of it if I’ve not brought you to dine. Name your day, my dear.’

  In the high-ceilinged anteroom of the Colonial Office several groups of people waited: a shabby couple as silent and wide-eyed as their solemn child; two men in stained working clothes; a very neat young man sitting with a tall hat on his knees and a pair of yellow gloves thrown across it. Entry to the panelled doors of the inner sanctum was managed by a clerk at a desk in the corner: Willoughby, a rising young favourite. Booth greeted him and spoke. Willoughby disappeared and returned in a few minutes, holding up a sealed note like a conjuror showing a card. Mr Montagu regretted that he would have no opportunity of seeing Booth in the office today, but he and Mrs Montagu would be pleased if the Commandant could join them for dinner at ‘Stowell’ that evening.

  Hobartians joked that ‘Stowell’s’ position revealed Montagu’s ambitions. The Colonial Secretary had not built near the water as most officers did if they could afford to: his house was on the hill looking down on Government House. ‘Stowell’ had cost four thousand pounds, everybody knew; the money lent to Montagu by Arthur. Rumour added that some of the building materials had also been ‘borrowed’ from public works, but a threat of court action had silenced the newspapers on that matter. No one would be willing to give evidence against Montagu.

  Booth had expected the evening to be gentlemen only, as it frequently was, but he found both Montagus and both Forsters in ‘Stowell’s’ drawing room.

  ‘Shocking,’ said Mrs Forster. ‘Such shocking news, Captain Booth? About Lieutenant Young?’ She had a habit of framing her remarks as questions, as though seeking approval or expecting disagreement.

  They spoke of the dangerous coasts of the island, the treacherous rocks, the violent power of the sea.

  ‘We might have lost every man in the boat,’ said Montagu comfortably as they settled on the elegant chairs, ‘had it not been for the efforts of a convict by the name of Barnham—Lewis Barnham, a black man recently transported. He was among the group waiting on the beach, the only one who could swim. He took a rope out through the breakers, tied it to the painter and dragged the longboat ashore.’

  ‘Poor Henry Young, to lose his brother?’ said Mrs Forster. ‘They made jokes of course, the younger Young and so forth? So terribly sad.’

  Perhaps because they were sisters, Helena Forster and Jessie Montagu were inclined to address their remarks to each other, even in company, including others only obliquely, so that you were never quite sure whether you had been spoken to or not. When Booth first met them, they had been sitting side by side on a garden seat wearing similar fawn-coloured costumes with grey shawls. He had found himself thinking ‘small marsupials’, one of Lempriere’s phrases. Utterly unfair. They were friendly, intelligent, capable women. And in their own way, influential no doubt. A word or two in a husbandly ear, in the privacy of the matrimonial bedroom. Hints about backsliding husbands; the unsuitability of certain wives.

  Perhaps their similarity was more notable because of the great difference between their husbands. Did Mrs Montagu sigh with inward relief each time she saw her husband beside Forster? Montagu might be many things, but he looked every inch a gentleman. Forster, in elaborate evening dress tonight, had the appearance of a burly coxcomb, a brutish fop. The local press had recently castigated him again over his fondness for dog fighting and low company. One of his sayings was, ‘Once I get my harpoon into a man I never let it out.’ His laugh as he said it was not pleasant.

  When the meal drew to an end and the ladies adjourned, the gentlemen did not stay at table for their port and cigars. Montagu rose when his wife did, inviting Forster and Booth to follow him to the study.

  ‘I have a dislike to sitting over the ruins of a meal,’ he said, smiling as though his own foibles amused him. ‘Or even while the cloth is cleared. There is always a sense of disorder which does not suit my nature.’

  He moved to a sideboard and poured brandies for Forster and Booth, and a digestive of ginger wine with a little water for himself.

  ‘No doubt you have heard the news, Booth, although it is supposed to be a secret? That the Twenty-first is under orders for India? Pilkington has told you, perhaps. I understand you are quite a favourite with that family.’

  He smiled at Booth. He was said to hear everything, forget nothing.

  ‘Rumours of recall are always about, sir,’ Booth said. ‘Especially when we have been several years at a station.’

  ‘Oh, I think we can assure you that it’s a fact, can’t we, Matthew?’ Montagu said to Forster, smiling still. ‘The Twenty-first have orders for India. It will be announced tomorrow at the Mess Meeting, although it will be months before the first detachment sails.’

  Montagu smoothed his coat tails carefully and sat down in the chair closest to the fire.

  ‘Several questions now arise,’ he continued. ‘For instance, what is to be done about Government positions held by officers of the Regiment? We believe the Fifty-second will replace the Twenty-first, but it’s not yet clear whether all posts presently held by the military will continue as such, or whether the Colonial Secretary at Home will convert some into civil appointments. There will also be news tomorrow of changes to London’s convict arrangements. Transportation to New South Wales is likely to end soon. This Molesworth Committee at Home is full of radicals of every complexion. Anti-transportationists, abolitionists . . .’

  Forster had remained standing sideways to the hearth, one elbow on the mantelpiece and one foot on the fender, drink in hand, the great curve of his belly outlined by his embroidered waistcoat.

  ‘We may become the only destination for England’s felons,’ he said gruffly. ‘Mixed blessing, I sh’ld say.’

  ‘You will have seen the newspapers full of it,’ Montagu said. ‘The Government at Home demands cuts to expenditure in the colonies . . . Some addlepate has even suggested transporting convicts to Ireland. But for the time being it has been decided to continue sending them here. Which is fortunate for us. How else would we survive? There will be changes, however. Settlers are now to pay for the police department here, which may mean taxation—and of course, all the usual malcontents are instantly baying opposition to this. Gregson, Fenn Kemp . . . They claim the police department is large and expensive only because the penal establishment makes it necessary. And if they are to pay tax, they cry, they must be allowed to vote their own representative onto the Legislative Council and Executive Councils.’

  ‘Can’t have that, says we,’ growled Forster. ‘Can’t allow civil interference in a penal colony run by the Army. Old story.’

  Montagu looked amused.

  ‘You put it precisely, Matthew,’ he said. ‘If somewhat baldly. The interest lies in the detail. For instance, exactly this question of whether military or civil officers will best oversee the changes that are bound to come. Certain officers, in my view, should be induced to remain. Your own valuable work, Booth . . . you would not easily be replaced.’ Booth murmured, bowed, hoped he did not look as wary as he felt. It had happened before that Montagu made him feel complicit in some unspoken cabal. He spoke as though you were intimates, but just when you were on easy terms, he withdrew into cool formality, leaving in the air an implication that you had overstepped the mark, misunderstood his good manners or tried to presume on them.

  ‘I wanted to let you know beforehand, Booth,’ Montagu waved a hand to dismiss potential thanks, ‘that at my instigation, Sir J
ohn will try to persuade you to seek permission to stay when the Regiment leaves. If you judge that would be in your best interests, then with his recommendation—and of course, my own,’ he smiled, ‘there should be no difficulty. You might decide to apply for your majority at the same time. I put it to you merely as a friend,’ he paused, ‘to give you time to think of it before tomorrow when Sir John wishes you to breakfast with him . . .’

  ‘You are very kind, sir.’

  ‘Not at all. Your staying would benefit us all.’

  The room grew thickly warm from the generous, heaped-up fire; oil lamps; a great branch of candles with tall, steady flames. Heavy green velvet curtains shut out draughts, the dark, the difficult colony. One might have been in Basingstoke. Booth would have liked to go away and sleep. His head was fuzzy with weariness and he knew he had not the right kind of nature to keep up with Montagu. He liked to think he was clever enough in his own way; could design you a wharf, build you a bridge, a railway . . . but the sense of political deeps and shoals that overtook him in Montagu’s company made him feel stupid. He preferred to walk miles in the clean rain—and he understood clearly what this meant: that he never had been, would never be, ambitious enough for his own good.

  Forster crossed to the sideboard, refilled his brandy and brought his glass and the decanter back to the mantelpiece. Montagu’s eyes made a memorandum of it.

  ‘On another matter, sir,’ Booth said. ‘The letter concerning Mr Rowland Rochester. May I see you about it tomorrow?’

  ‘Ah,’ Montagu frowned, sipped his watered wine. ‘No need after all, I think. Send it back to me. A mare’s nest. I have looked into it. There are no records of a Mr Rochester in the colony. No reason why you need be involved.’

  ‘But, sir,’ said Booth. ‘I believe Rochester might be here. Or at least, that he was in the colony at one time . . .’

  Montagu frowned. Forster smiled at Montagu.

  ‘I felt I should mention it . . .’ Booth floundered on, ‘I saw him two years ago.’

  ‘The circumstances?’

  ‘I had come up from the peninsula for Lieutenant Tunstall’s wedding. I had leave to attend, you may remember, at Bothwell. I managed to get a lift upriver to the Black Snake Inn, and went into the stables there to hire a horse for the rest of the way. When I came riding out, the coach was there loading, and among the passengers just embarking was a man . . . My attention was drawn by his limp, I suppose. Rowland Rochester’s leg was injured at Demerara and . . .’

  ‘Did he see you? Did you speak to him?’ Montagu interrupted, still frowning.

  ‘I did not, but I believe he saw me and knew me. He looked at me as though he did not want to be . . .’

  Montagu’s frown relaxed. ‘You are mistaken, Booth. You saw a man who gave you the impression of being someone you had known briefly many years before? No, no. There would be some record.’

  ‘I wondered if he might be using another name,’ said Booth.

  Montagu smiled, raised his open hands in a triumphant gesture of, ‘There, you see?’ and said, ‘Well, in that case how could we find him out to be Rochester? It is not for us to waste time looking into every possibility. What do you say, Matthew?’

  Forster had his back to them, refilling his glass.

  ‘Makework for lawyers,’ he growled. ‘Fees for this, that, and t’other. The man must be dead, I sh’d say,’ he added, giving a leering, crooked smile at Montagu, who looked away at the fire.

  A pause.

  ‘Because, you know,’ continued Montagu, smoothing his right hand gently over the back of his left, as though stroking a small pale animal, ‘it’s my feeling that we should be careful not to introduce irrelevant details. They will only protract the family’s futile search. Raise false hopes. And it would be unfortunate for you, Booth, if old, almost forgotten matters were raised again—just as you apply for your Majority?’

  Of course Montagu would know about the court martial. Booth’s stomach turned as he waited for mention of Caralin, but after a moment the Colonial Secretary continued, ‘In any case, once Molesworth brings in his report we shall all have enough to do.’

  ‘At the time, sir, I felt certain it was Rowland Rochester,’ said Booth, thinking, for some reason they’re as reluctant as I am to open up this matter. Rochester is dead? Under awkward circumstances? There was a tap at the door. The maid said Mrs Montagu had made tea in the drawing room.

  ‘Send the Rochester letter back to me. I’ll deal with it,’ Montagu murmured as they rose. ‘And rest assured, Booth; Forster and I are well placed to defend your interests—if it should become necessary.’

  The night air woke Booth as he walked back to the barracks, and later as he lay awake the conversation churned in his mind. He envied Casey, who had the knack of falling asleep in an instant whatever the circumstances. He’d seen Casey deep asleep in the bottom of a whaleboat in heavy seas, with waves splashing over the gunwale onto his face.

  Sir John and his secretary, the eccentric Scotchman Captain Alexander Maconochie, were in the breakfast room when Booth reached Government House before eight next morning. Sir John was collecting a mounded plate of eggs, bacon, kidneys, cold meat and bread. Maconochie, whose opinions on diet were as curious as on every other subject, was eating porridge with salt. Over the next hour men flowed in and out.

  ‘“Monstrare”’, Maconochie said, with his rolling Scottish ‘rrr’s’. ‘To demonstrate, to show. The tyrants and murrrderers of Shakespeare and Marrrlowe are mooral mornsters. Their evil rebounds upon their own pairrsons and upon the state itself.’

  He was talking about Mrs Shelley’s Frankenstein and the criminal mind, his thin body leaning forward to make the point, his wire spectacles slipping down his nose. Booth had heard Maconochie’s opinions about the treatment of convicts before, and thought them half practical good sense and half idealistic madness. Maconochie had been in prison himself, probably the only officer in the colony who had been. During the war he had been a lieutenant on the Grasshopper when it was wrecked on the Dutch coast. The crew had been captured by the French; force marched from Holland to Verdun in midwinter and kept for two years in a French prison—which would no doubt colour one’s views. But he had been a prisoner-of-war, not a convict. There was a difference.

  Maconochie argued that the length of convict sentences should be less fixed, so that men might earn early release by a points system. Merit points would be awarded for good behaviour or special services. Well, that was sensible. Booth could think of at least thirty men at Port Arthur who could be released now, which would help the overcrowding and add labourers to the shortage in the colony. But he couldn’t say so, of course: he’d be thought mad as Maconochie.

  George Boyes, the Colonial Auditor, was listening with his customary sardonic smile. He was called ‘Alphabetical’ by his clerks on account of his large number of Christian names, George William Alfred Blamey Boyes, and because he liked everything precisely ordered. His long, thin arms were crossed, as usual, and he was leaning back as though distancing himself from Maconochie’s fervour. Montagu came in. He had breakfasted at home with his wife and would take only coffee. He sat next to Boyes, choosing his seat with casual care, Booth thought. Dr Bedford looked in to tell Sir John he had seen Miss Eleanor Franklin. There was no measle in the case, simply a winter dose of the grippe, nothing to alarm.

  Henry Elliot went out, came back to say that Dr Lillie, the new Presbyterian minister, was seeking an interview urgently. Forster came and sat beside Booth with a laden plate and asked him to dine at ‘Wyvenhoe’ the following evening. Forster’s house was just below the barracks in Hampden Road. Amid all this Sir John looked beleaguered, Booth thought. He was trying to tell anyone who would listen about the Griper Arctic expedition in the year ’24.

  ‘She was a small ship but very comfortable, you know, very comfortable. Means for conveying hot air all around her. Harrumph. The Arctic clothing was made of two pieces of cloth glued together with liquid India rubber,
making it air and watertight. And—um, aah—Captain Lyon’s fur bag for sleeping was covered with this linen, too. His stockings were two glued together.’

  Sir John chuckled. ‘And the pillow. India rubber too. Ingenious. Kept flat, in general, for packing into the smallest space. But furnished with a cork at the corner. By blowing through this, the pillow was distended with air and formed a comfortable rest for the head. Only one disadvantage—the nauseous smell of the rubber. Very bad.’

  Franklin would clearly have liked to continue talking. There were several more recent inventions of useful Arctic equipment . . . but at ten minutes to nine Montagu rose and Boyes followed. Henry Elliot ushered Sir John and Maconochie, still talking, into the office, where Booth’s affairs were briskly considered, Sir John nodding benignly throughout. Booth would apply to stay as Military Commandant when his Regiment departed, and to be considered for his Majority. Letters from Sir John and Montagu would be sent in support.

  At Forster’s house that night there was no nonsense about moving away from the debris of a meal. The men sat, after the ladies had retired, over a soiled cloth and an ugly clutter of ravaged food, dishes, glasses, bottles, worthy of a Mess night. Broken bread, walnut shells, claret stains. Bloody meat congealing on a platter. A convict housemaid tried to remove this, but Forster stopped her. Although he had already eaten well, he kept picking at it with his fingers, wiping them on a napkin that had once been white linen but was acquiring a gruesome appearance.

  Montagu would not have approved, Booth thought. Here were none of the niceties practised in his own house. But Montagu was not here—and this was gentlemen only: Booth and Forster, Captain Swanston, John Price. Price was a recent arrival in the colony. He had obtained land at the Huon River but was dissatisfied with it. He spoke little, looked arrogant and a trifle bored, a young man of aristocratic connections condescending to colonial society.

  As Forster tore off another piece of meat and brought it dripping red juices to his mouth, Booth wondered what Montagu found to eat when he dined here. At ‘Stowell’ there had been a delicate soup followed by half crawfishes in pink sauce, and then, in the new Russian style, everything on the table together; ragoo of vegetables, a potato dish, roast fowl, savoury pie with a crust of melting perfection. Pears in marsala had followed, with crème anglaise. Mrs Montagu had corrected Booth pleasantly enough when he complimented the ‘custard’.