English passengers (30 page)

‘‘Ah, but I have, Professor.’’ He cheerfully patted his chest, as if to point out the sympathy’s exact whereabouts. ‘‘There it is, just below my desire not to have my throat cut.’’

It was typical of the man. ‘‘If they heard your talk,’’ I told him, ‘‘I would hardly blame them for wishing to cut yours.’’

Another curious quality of Knowles was his eyes. He kept these so narrowed that at times only his moving about informed one that they were open at all, and that he was not in a state of profound sleep. This, when combined with his habitual absence of any facial expression, gave him the look of some scornfully squinting bear. At most, as that morning on the ship’s deck, a faint flicker might pass across his face—a kind of twitch—which I had learned to recognize as laughter. ‘‘Don’t think they’d stop at me,’’ he declared cheerfully. ‘‘They’ll not have been reading the same books as you, Professor, but ones of their own devising, which prize nothing so high as cutting the throat of a good Christian philanthropist such as yourself’’

Four more days I had to endure his company as we remained sheltering from the gales in Pirates Bay. How gladly I would have spent those four days inspecting the Port Arthur settlement, rather than endure Knowles’s insufferable goading. Already I had been greatly delayed during my journey from England, while I had prison settlements on the mainland to visit after this one. To make matters worse, we were, throughout this time, absurdly near to our destination. The ship was hove to just by Eaglehawk Neck, the narrow bridge of land that links Port Arthur to the remainder of Van Diemen’s Land. As the days passed, I became unhappily familiar with the sight of this cruel-looking spot,
with its guardhouse and the line of cruel-looking dogs held in place by chains, one of which was lodged several yards into the water, upon a curious little platform furnished with a kennel, I suppose to discourage any convicts from trying to creep through the shallows. I knew that it lay only a few brief hours’ journey overland from the main penal settlement, and it was most infuriating to look upon it, so near that I could easily hear the barking of the dogs, and yet to remain stranded.

The difficulty lay with the ship’s captain. ‘‘This is no weather for rowboats,’’ he insisted whenever I asked, being as obstinate in this as he was in refusing to allow the poor convicts up from the hold. Even when the wind eventually swung round to a more helpful direction, still he would not let us land, now claiming that the delay of lowering a boat might cause him to miss his chance to sail. Thanks to his stubbornness it took a full two further days and nights of beating our way round the coast before, peering out through the dawn light, I at last gazed upon my quarry of Port Arthur.

I had never expected the settlement to be so large. From a distance the throng of sheds gave the impression of a shabby manufacturing town, while the sound of bugles and shouted commands added a military touch. As the ship drew nearer, the establishment’s purpose became more sadly evident, with gangs of convicts clearly discernible, tramping back and forth in chains. Knowles speedily scuttled away to attend to his watery duties and I confess I was happy enough to be free of him. I myself was taken to see one of the establishment’s officers who, I was pleased to note, treated me with polite helpfulness, this being not always the case when an inspecting visitor arrives at an institution he may later have call to criticize. I was shown to my quarters, introduced to a second officer who was to serve as my guide and was even provided with an invitation to dine that evening with the commander and his wife. Thus prepared, I could finally begin my work.

If there is any advantage to being greatly delayed it is that one is left primed with impatient determination, and I accomplished more in that first day than I ever could have expected. I visited almost every building frequented by convicts: every workshop and sleeping quarter, every kitchen and punishment cell. I also accompanied a chained work gang as they processed into the nearby forest to cut down trees. Most useful of
all, however, was the chance I had to speak to some of the convicts, that I might learn what influence their punishment was having upon them. While most were too hardened to cooperate, and refused to give answers of more than a single word, some proved more loquacious, and while their replies were guarded, still they formed, in their way, a most useful testimony.

As to my impressions, I considered that the settlement was efficiently run, and seemed little to suffer from those habits of vengeful cruelty which are often the most detestable feature of such establishments. What it lacked, however, was that most essential element: a system of moral enlightenment. The tiny settlement school offered only a handful of lessons each week, while the library—a miserable affair— seemed to be visited only by those few convicts who were already educated, and so had least need of learning. As for the church, while this was a most impressive stone building to look upon, my conversation with convicts indicated that the pastor’s influence was distressingly slight, many of the felons hardly troubling to conceal their scorn for the man, whom they referred to as the ‘‘god botherer.’’

Being thus untouched by improving influences, the malefactors were ruled only by the threat of harsh punishments, which were given out for even the slightest wrongdoing. Such a system was both crude and painfully cruel to witness, being not so much a mechanism for the transformation of men as the kind of brutish training that might be used upon a wild dog. Hardly less troubling was the freedom with which evil influences were permitted to spread from felon to felon. Only in the work gangs was a strict code of silence enforced, while in the penitentiary sleeping huts beds were not even separated by dividing walls, allowing evil chatter, and worse, to occur in the dark hours.

This was far indeed from the modern ideas of prison systems currently gaining ground in England and the United States. These new and admirable notions did not rely upon chains and whips, but instead employed the gentle force of silence. Felons were to be kept always separated from one another, and thus would be removed from all influences except hard work and Christian teaching, until these noble qualities could win over their minds. A prison settlement such as Port Arthur, where malefactors could mix freely, was, by contrast, hardly a place of
moral improvement so much as a school for criminality, where pickpockets might learn from housebreakers, and housebreakers from murderers, till all were surfeited with wickedness.

Such thoughts were far from the ideal preparation for a polite social gathering—especially one in the home of the very man I regarded as being most at fault, the commander of the establishment—and as I washed and dressed I would gladly have exchanged the approaching dinner even for the simplest fare. The moods of men are unpredictable, however, and by the time I was making my way through the muddy ways of the settlement towards the man’s house—a most attractive building, with a long verandah facing the water—I was surprised to feel my spirits beginning to rise. After so long spent aboard ship, and in the unhappy company of convicts, I suppose I was ready for a little domestic comfort. As I was shown inside, it was hard, certainly, to resist the spell of a clean and orderly home, graced with feminine taste.

My hosts were most welcoming. The commander’s wife was young and charming, and displayed a disarming excitement at the prospect of this little social gathering in her home. I supposed life for her in this remote and harsh place was hardly diverting. Her husband—who I had expected to be a martinet every bit as crude as his notions—also proved most hospitable in his gruff way, quite thrusting a large glass of punch into my hand as I was shown into the parlour. My only disappointment, indeed, was the sight of Knowles, standing narrow-eyed in the corner, from where he gave me a barely perceptible wink. I suppose I should have guessed he too would be invited.

It was Knowles, needless to say, who insisted on goading me into a discussion of the one matter I had been determined to avoid: my own views upon the penal colony. By then we had progressed to sitting around the dining table, where three convicts—one of them a huge fellow with a face like a cliff—were attempting, with no great success, to play the part of domestic servants.

‘‘So how do you like Port Arthur?’’ Knowles asked, regarding me with a taunting look through his near-closed eyes. ‘‘Are the robbers and knife men well enough spoiled for your tastes?’’

I felt the wisest course was to say as little as possible. ‘‘I have hardly had time properly to consider all that I have seen.’’

It was the commander’s wife, rather to my surprise, who pressed me further. ‘‘But we are all most curious as to your thoughts, Mr. Crane. Surely you must have reached some conclusions?’’

There was something in the glance she cast at her husband which made me wonder if I had strayed into some area of disagreement between them. There seemed, certainly, a discernible tenseness. Having no wish to criticize my host in his own home, I chose my words with care. ‘‘I have been most impressed by the efficiency of the establishment. I will admit, though, to being a little surprised that more concern is not shown for the improvement of the convicts’ minds.’’

The commander smiled warily. ‘‘And how would you suggest such a thing be done?’’

‘‘Speak with candour, Mr. Crane,’’ added his wife, smiling a little sadly. ‘‘We would so much like to know your opinions.’’

My unsaid thoughts of that long day must have been weighing upon me, demanding voice, as it took no more than this for me to quite forget my caution and begin warmly recounting some of the latest notions in this sphere. I talked of those men of vision I admired, in both England and America. I endeavoured to explain the advantages of separation over corporal wounding, and of silence over chains. All the while Knowles regarded his napkin with a mocking stare. As for the commander, he listened patiently enough, though he looked more than a little doubtful. His wife, I was interested to see, quite beamed.

‘‘But this is fascinating,’’ she remarked, darting a glance at her husband. ‘‘Surely such things could be done here?’’

‘‘I’m afraid it’s hardly so simple, my dear,’’ the commander insisted. ‘‘For a start such matters are hardly in my power, being more the concern of the governor, and the Colonial Office in London. At present both are urging me to make the lives of convicts here ever harsher, so that Port Arthur may retain its fearsome reputation.’’

This brought Knowles into the fray. ‘‘What our kindly friend Mr. Crane doesn’t understand is that His Majesty’s colony of Van Diemen’s Land is not intended to reform criminals, but simply to store them, like so much rubbish in a dust heap, so that England can be emptied of troublemakers once and for all.’’ He sat back, well pleased with the
vileness of his own views. ‘‘I’m not saying it’s a pretty arrangement but it’s the arrangement there is, and I for one see little advantage in wasting money and time worrying over the morals of a dung hill.’’

The commander cast him a look of faint amusement. I, however, was unable to respond with such levity. ‘‘If the sole purpose of the system is to empty England of troublemakers, as you say, then it hardly seems to be succeeding very well. After all these decades of exiling men to the ends of the earth one is quite as likely to have one’s pocket picked in London or Glasgow as before. For that matter I feel a good deal safer here in Van Diemen’s Land. The fact is, Knowles, that you perceive the whole matter entirely in the wrong way. It is not a question of banishing men, but finding a way of reforming them. Is not every man capable of being redeemed?’’

‘‘That’s easy to say,’’ Knowles answered cheerfully. ‘‘But a tiger cannot change his stripes.’’

The commander’s wife shook her head. ‘‘My thinking is quite with Mr. Crane. I am sure that there are convicts here who are capable of great goodness.’’

I was delighted to find myself not alone. Knowles, however, seemed not at all troubled by this stiffening of the opposition ranged against him. ‘‘Perhaps we should have ourselves a little test,’’ he declared, turning to the huge, cliff-faced convict, who was in the act of placing upon the table a dish of stuffed mushrooms, all arranged in the pattern of a flower. ‘‘You there, could you tell us what brought you to this place?’’

The man was greatly startled, glancing about the table, doubtless in the hope of discerning what hidden dangers might lie in the question. A nod from the commander helped to reassure him. ‘‘I was taken for robbing a baker’s shop in Great Yarmouth High Street.’’

Knowles sat back in his chair like a judge. ‘‘And would you do the same again?’’

The convict frowned for a moment, puzzling through the words. Finally he shook his head. ‘‘How could I? Not now. I’d never get back to Yarmouth from here.’’

His answer could hardly have been more unfortunate. Somehow it missed the point so completely as to be favourable to Knowles’s views,
though ludicrously so. Even the commander’s wife, my new ally, could not conceal her amusement, while her husband quite lost himself in laughing. Knowles, naturally, was insufferable.

‘‘What did I tell you, Mr. Crane?’’ he roared.

It was, in truth, a most unfairly phrased question. The convict should have been asked if he now saw the error of his ways, rather than if he would commit his crime again. There is, sadly, little so poisonous to logical debate as laughter, and, though I tried my best, it proved quite impossible to return to the serious matter at hand. When I walked back to my quarters that evening I was left with a sense of profound frustration. I had had an opportunity to champion ideas of the greatest importance, only to find myself thwarted by foolishness.

As if this were not annoyance enough, I learned the next day that I was to suffer the company of my persecutor during my return journey back to Hobart. It seemed Knowles had finished his work as speedily as had I, and it was assumed we would wish to journey as a party. The weather had taken a turn for the worse once again, and the commander thought it wiser to return to Hobart not by sea but overland.

‘‘You can take our train,’’ he declared, adding, with some pride, ‘‘I’m told it is the only railway in all the Southern Hemisphere.’’