Here Be Monsters

by John Birmingham

  Here be Monsters.

  John Birmingham

  First Edition published 2008

  Revised edition published 2016

  Copyright John Birmingham 2008

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the author. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10% of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

  John Birmingham

  PO Box 437

  Bulimba, Queensland 4171

  Australia

  Author's note.

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  (Extracted from the address of Lieutenant-General Sir Watkin Tench to members of the Royal Society, in London, on 25 January 1808 to mark the twentieth anniversary of the discovery of the Scourge).

  You will forgive me, gentlemen, if I do not dwell on the preliminaries of the matter which has these recent years inflamed the fearful wondering of every soul extant upon God’s earth, be they monarch, basest commoner, republican or Bantu savage. My colleagues Surgeon White and Admiral Hunter have both enjoyed considerable success with their journals of the voyage to the Forbidden Seas. The publication of our late Governor’s notes as an addendum to their work provides an immoderate weight of material preceding the events at Port Jackson for those inclined to so immerse themselves.

  If I might begin with the ordinary, as a solid footing for the extraordinary which quickly follows it, we had famously anchored for a number of days at Botany Bay and found it unacceptable as a home for the new colony. The waters were very open and greatly exposed to the fury of the southeast winds, which, when they blew, caused a heavy and dangerous swell. At a distance of a league from the mouth of the bay was a bar, on which at low water not more than fifteen feet were to be found. Within this bar, and proceeding for many miles along the southwest arm of the bay, was a haven in which any number of ships of the line might permanently shelter were it not for lack of fresh water, a thirst unrelieved by any source within the bay as we first found it.

  I emphasise that point. As we first found it.

  The Governor, having despatched a small party north to examine the inlet noted by Captain Cook, and having had reports of a commodious and well-watered anchorage, resolved to remove the camp from its original situation to one more calculated to inspire confidence in our survival. A grim irony, that, you’ll warrant now.

  Our passage took up a mere few hours, but in that time we did not simply move from the exposed and unsuitable anchorage at Botany Bay into the deeper harbour of Port Jackson. We rather travelled from a position of pleasant anticipation and general relief at the termination of our long voyage into a hell of unimaginable contour and unfathomable depth.

  As best all who lived can tell, it was the white squall which marked the crossing of the line from an ordered world, where God’s design is apparent to all who look, into the darker Inexplicable where we now dwell. The Fleet was proceeding in fair order, as we had done for nigh on two hundred and fifty days. HMS Supply had the vanguard, and in her sailed Governor Phillip. The fastest of the convict transports, Scarborough, Friendship and Alexander, were not embarrassed in their efforts to keep station, a claim my own tub, the Charlotte, could not dare make without gross outrage to truth and modesty. We wallowed some distance behind the leaders, penned in on all sides by the remaining hulks and store ships, shepherded on our way by brave little Sirius.

  There was no warning of the tempest. You will have heard seafarers make claim of wild storms blown up without caution, when what they truly mean is that whatever warnings they did enjoy were rather short and the transition from tranquillity to the Devil’s own maelstrom was effected without delay, a matter of some minutes, perhaps.

  As an officer of His Majesty’s Royal Marines, I too have had my fill of storms at sea and would not refuse any mariner a small measure of exaggeration in such things. In doing so, however, such tales rob my own of the immediacy and hazard I must now impress upon you.

  At one heartbeat I stood on deck, adjacent to the barricado, our final defence against any uprising from below. The waters were gentle, and slipped by our flanks with a slight hiss and the occasional plop of wavelet against wood. The moon’s reflection was a silver sword upon the deep and I was chatting pleasantly with my friend Surgeon White, enjoying the hard brilliance of the increasingly familiar southern stars in the night sky, as we recalled our damnable luck in the affairs and intrigues of l’amour with the ladies of St Sebastian. We had both arrived in that port aflame with the reports of Dr. Solander, who had written of Portuguese beauties throwing nosegays at strangers for the purpose of bringing on an assignation. White and myself, not an entirely unhandsome pair I’m sure you’ll agree, were so deplorably unfortunate as to walk every evening before their windows and balconies without once being honoured by a single bouquet, even though nymphs and flowers were in equal and great abundance.

  These memories did we rake over like spent coals, enjoying the warm, still night, when at the next heartbeat we were all about beset by a storm of such violence I would not be aghast to discover it had blown straight from the mouth of Hell. It is possible the good surgeon cried out. I am certain I did, but so enormous was the shrieking of wind and hammering of rain that I could hear nothing beyond their savage caterwauling din. Smashed to the deck as if by a great invisible fist, I was attempting in extreme distress to settle accounts with my maker, for annihilation must surely be the only outcome of such a development.

  And then another heartbeat, gentlemen, just like the thudding within your own breast pockets at this precise moment, and we were clear of it, or rather it of us, for of the storm there was no sign, except a strange contrary fog which had settled like a cloak upon the Fleet. Besides the mist there was not a puff of breeze, nor drop of rain beyond that remnant moisture which now dripped from our sails and rigging. The silence was enormous in its own way. As deafening as the roar that had preceded it.

  I heard the curses of the Charlotte’s crew, and the beginnings of a panic below decks amongst our human freight, when there came a great crash and the awful splintering of timber which bespoke a collision between two ships. It was impossible to tell, what with darkness and fog – and one must admit of it, fear and confusion – but a naval Lieutenant soon hurried past with news of a mishap involving the Borrowdale and Golden Grove.

  I am sure you will agree that it is to the credit of the British race, and our maritime tradition, that no lives or ships were lost in the next hours (although, perhaps for some it were best t’was otherwise). Great cliffs stood to our portside and we had been driven a good way towards them, but the masters of the Fleet and their fine men quickly shook off all consideration but that of returning order and a settled command to our affairs. When Governor Phillip was satisfied that no great damage had been done to his host, that Borrowdale and the Grove were still seaworthy, and that we might proceed, he signalled from Supply to hove to, and as innocent and
unknowing as babes, we did just that.

  Would that our intelligence of the great changes afoot was not smothered by the fog that had remained after that unholy tempest? Might we have stood off and sent much smaller armed parties to investigate? Might we have withdrawn and quarantined the Scourge for all time? I see some of you nodding vigorously, but of course, to have done so would have betrayed the nature of dauntless curiousity and adventure by which Empires such as ours are built. And without the Scourge there could be no knowledge of the wonders which attended it. We might be gathered here by candlelight, rather than electronical glass. These notes before me would consist of stained scrawls, inked by quill, rather than neatly composed by mechanical typewriter. And the cornucopia of marvels recovered from that benighted place would have been prey to Spanish brigand or French privateer, rather than devoted to the betterment of man’s finer instincts and designs, as manifest in the achievements of the British Empire.

  Could the American colonies have been won back without the repeating gun? Could all those children now alive and growing to strengthen the sinews of the Empire have done so without the miracle patents and potions and pure knowledge of the Hippocratic arts we snatched from the jaws of Hell and brought safe home? Would the blockade of the Forbidden Seas by the Royal Navy have any real chance of sustained accomplishment without the steam engine, ironcladding and the radiola? As much as horror has come into the world, so has a countervailing magic with which to combat it. I hope you will indulge me these digressions, for as I age, they are much upon my conscience.

  At that point however, some twenty years ago tonight, my deliberations were centred squarely on immediate concerns. I had greater than one hundred convicts in my charge, twenty of them women, and forty-one marines with which to guard them – although I must confess some of my men took to their husbandry duties with questionable vigour, and I cannot today recall a single female transportee who had not found herself a connection amongst the men of the regiment by the time we reached Port Jackson. I have at times pondered the virtue of such vice, asking myself if we might not have survived in the numbers we did aboard the Charlotte were it not for the bonds of family which had been struck below decks on the voyage out.

  I had ordered the chains struck off my prisoners almost as soon as we had departed home waters, an indulgence which I am proud and happy to relate was not abused by the wretches, or not so much as greatly matters. Disinclined to return them to their fetters, I was nonetheless concerned lest riot should ensue upon our making landfall. It had been much discussed amongst the officers, and Chaplain Johnson, always greatly exercised by questions of morality, had predicted a bacchanalian outbreak of sin as soon as the prisoners were free to have at each other. I must admit I was more concerned for the safety of our precious stores than for the ethical temper of my pick-pockets and whores.

  Lest high spirits should lead to a general debauch, in which months of provisions might be utterly destroyed, I loudly ordered all of my men to stand to with muskets, sabre, bayonet, spare ball and powder as we neared landfall. I am convinced I stand here before you today in possession of my life and immortal soul because of that precaution. I might add that thirty seamen sailed on the Charlotte, and although the majority of them were given to the busy task of navigating an uncharted, fog-bound harbour at ebb tide, their master Mr. Gilbert ensured that his men too were alive to the possibility of mayhem.

  We proceeded up the passage, the cries of the pilots and fathom sounders flat and alien, smothered by the mist no doubt. Of the shores there was little to be seen at this juncture. It was still dark and the fog shrouded all. Those few times we strayed close enough to make out anything, the slopes seemed steep, and luxuriantly wooded. Points of light burned here and there, a sight to which we had grown accustomed as we hauled up the coast. Natives, we presumed, gathered around their campfires, some of them considerable infernos as best we could judge.

  The first intimation of disaster was not long in coming. Positioned as we were towards the rear of the Fleet we discerned the cries and alarums from ahead, without understanding what encouraged them. As I was later to discover, the Supply had struck a buoy.

  A floating buoy in a harbour never transited by civilised man.

  In short order, more shouts and sirens reached us in the rearguard as those in the van encountered evidence of the cursed miracle into which we had blundered, or been cast. As the sun rose and quickly burned away the fog we found ourselves, not resident of some empty cove at world’s end, but inexplicably surrounded by a city, not of the new world, but of another world entirely. A sharply strengthening breeze from the south cleared out the remaining fog within minutes, presenting to us the spectacle of a metropolis to call London dwarf, of blues and whites and light, bathed in sun to blind the eyes. I stood there a pilgrim to this New Jerusalem. It was only as we drew closer I found no hammering of industry, no cacophony of voices, or the clip clop of horse traffic. There was a low, constant and most unsettling moan which drifted over us, but I ascribed this to the passage of the sirocco through our rigging.

  Many, if not all of you will have seen the photographic imagery of the dead city, known as Sydney. A city of monoliths, of magnificent colour and textures and angles and omnipotent scale as to overwhelm the senses. I need not recall to you the familiar sights of metal and glass towers, some of them awash in flames and spewing clouds of roiling black smoke into the sky. As dawn brightened the harbour was revealed as an inky pool choked with debris and dominated by the broken hull of a gargantuan iron vessel, unlike any ship of His Majesty’s Navy, at least in those days. I could see now a veritable flotilla of smaller craft, their lines sleek and almost painful to the eye. Abandoned all of them, or so we thought.

  As the temperature rose the southerly wind carried over us the first of many terrible revelations. The foul, cloying air emerging from the broken teeth of those soaring towers was as rank as a charnel house on a summer’s day. The miasma of putrescence and burning flesh threatened to overwhelm me, and I, you will recall, had ample experience of life below decks and not far removed from the bilge water of the good ship Charlotte.

  Surgeon White appeared at my side, a looking glass in hand.

  “It is an impossible vision,” he croaked. “A thing that might be dreamed of by a Wren in the grip of opium.”

  My uncomprehending eyes followed his shaking hand and I perceived it too, a vast claw, raking the sky. It seemed the cunning work of giants, fled from the lands of men and returned here at the ends of the earth. It was terror and it was madness and it was glory, and it made one feel like an ant beneath the boots of God himself.

  “What holds it up?” I whispered.

  “The Will of God, sir,” said Surgeon White. “It can be nothing else.”

  Behind the impossible architecture, which we now know to be the undead city’s haunted opera house, a massive stone and metal arch spanned the waters of the inlet. It glittered in the morning sun. A dream of iron and wire and stone, its arch almost a mile in length and suspended at over five chains above the harbour. On both banks I presently espied great stately homes. Some of them afire. But of people we saw little. A shambling figure here and there. One or two others darting hither and yon across rooftops in the distance. Some waving, possibly crying out to us. Of their fate I know nothing, but suspect the worst.

  We advanced towards the magnificent bridge, a creeping sense of wickedness and malignity growing stronger. I have seen much battle at the closest of quarters in service to His Majesty, but I lie not now when I tell you that never has fear threatened to unman me as completely as it did on that bright morn. Surgeon White must have perceived my unease, for he gripped me on the arm and pressed a tot of rum upon me.

  “Some medicinal advice, if you will have it, Captain Tench?” he muttered.

  “Yes,” I choked back in reply.

  “One tot immediately for every fighting man, and any man who will fight to save himself and his fellows.”

  “W
hy…” I began, meaning to enquire further, but the gentleman’s grip only tightened. “Do you not feel it, Watkin? Inside of you? We are in the presence of Evil and I fear it means to strike. The men will look to you for strong leadership. You must provide it, or we will die here. I feel it in my meat.”

  The goose flesh crawling up my arms and the ice water in my bowels knew the truth of it. I took the rum in a swallow and ordered Mr. Baker, my Sergeant-at-arms, to break out two days’ grog ration and distribute it with all haste amongst the private soldiers. Then to see to a further distribution amongst Master Gilbert’s men, and every convict who was willing to bear arms.

  Yes, I see some of you shake your heads at that. I understand your perplexity, that we had gone in such a brief interval from guarding these miserable vagabonds at bayonet point, to placing in their gnarled hands the very weapons with which they might undo us. You must take it as testimony to the malevolent nature of our surroundings that such a drastic course seemed entirely appropriate. Sergeant Baker, a thirty-year man, did not so much as bat an eyelid. With sallow face and haunted eyes, he merely nodded and hurried off to do my bidding, his fingers stroking the ammunition pouch at his waist as he went.

  We all felt it, the oppressive presence of Evil and grave madness.

  It was at that moment that I perceived a vision so reassuring in its familiarity that it seemed placed within this fantastic tableau as a mockery to the rational mind, a jape to reinforce the loss of balance we all felt when reeling back from the apparition of the damned city. It was a stone fortress, a Martello tower as they are called of late, which would not have caused surprise had it been spied in any port where the King’s law is writ. A mere glimpse I had, before the Borrowdale and Sirius passed in front of her, but in that interlude, I knew I had seen men at the ramparts. Armed men. It was a revelation to add to a book of revelations, but before I could order my thoughts around this new development it ceded precedence to another.