The Gallant (14 page)

“Yes, but-was

“You can assure them that they’ve nothing to fear from us, even if Michael Wexford turns out to be a member of their family. Quite probably, Johnny old man”-Red’s smile widened-“the reason why the beautiful Lady Kitty has been avoiding you and staying away from this ship may well be because she is afraid to trust us. I’m an officer in Her Majesty’s Navy, and you’re a newspaperman .

. . and it’s possible that you asked her too many questions.

Or else you answered the questions she asked you

in the wrong way! At all events, her reaction to the diary should settle the matter, one way or another, don’t you agree?” Red rose to his feet.

“My

sympathies are one hundred percent with Big Michael, as I’m sure yours are, so you can tell her that, for a start. And if Patrick decides to have the diary published, I’ll do nothing to impede him.

If the accusations against John Price are true, then on his head be it! He deserves no better.”

Johnny jumped up, to clap him approvingly on the shoulder. “Well spoken, Red! I’ll do precisely what you suggest. And if I’m wrong and the Cadogans have no connection whatsoever with Big Michael, I’ll give this diary to my editor.

Or to Bishop Willson perhaps, to use as he sees fit. In view of Sir William Denison’s widely known support for Price, my paper might be reluctant to touch it.”

“The

Hobart Chronicle

would have no such inhibitions,” Red observed cynically. “In fact, they would jump at it.”

He picked up his cap and moved toward the door.

“Dine with me, if you care to, Johnny. We’ll have fresh pork, I expect, and maybe that will make up for the feast you are missing at the Orange Grove comeven if the company’s not all you want!”

“Thank you, Captain,” Johnny acknowledged, with mock formality. “I’ll make do with the company.”

He started to gather up the scattered pages of the diary, and having replaced them in their proper order, he continued to

read them from the beginning, a sick anger growing at the pitiless cruelty they revealed.

While it was true that the majority of those sentenced to penal servitude on Norfolk Island had been men sunk in depravity-murderers, thieves, and rapists-John Price had not attempted to reform them, but simply and solely to punish, until many sought escape from their torment in death. Sodomy, on the diarist’s own admission, was rife throughout the prison settlement; the so-called Old Hands of the Ring were, he conceded, villains of the first water, evil men who preyed on their fellows for their own gain, but … they were men, human beings like himself, who might have reformed, had they been shown even a modicum of compassion.

Alexander Maconochie had offered proof of it during his administration, but he had been left in charge of the island for only four years and replaced by a succession of officers of the Price stamp-though none, Johnny thought, turning another page, his throat tight, none who had displayed John Price’s sadistic enjoyment of the power he wielded.

Even the author of the journal he was reading-a quiet, self-effacing fellow who had accepted the harsh discipline without rebelling and, in consequence, earned his release-even he had suffered flogging and solitary confinement, once for sharing his own meager food ration with one of the chain gang and once, when smitten with dysentery, for being in the privy when the muster bell had rung. That crime had led to fourteen days in solitary and another fourteen in chains… .

The light was fading. Unbidden, the steward brought a lamp and set it at Johnny’s elbow, but his eyes were tired, even, at times, filled with unmanly tears, and he stopped reading. It would not be advisable to let Kitty Cadogan see the diary as it stood, he decided. Patrick could read it in full, if he wished, but Kitty should be shown only those pages in which mention of Big Michael was made.

By the flickering light of the oil lamp, Johnny selected the requisite pages and, laying them on top of the rest, returned the diary to its canvas wrapping.

Was it possible, he wondered dully, that so gay and beautiful a young woman as Kitty Cadogan, whose laughter during the

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passage from Sydney had been music in his heart-was it,

could

it be possible that her gaiety had been only a cloak for the secret she was hiding? And had she, as Red had suggested, feared to trust him with it? God knew, even if she did not, that he would gladly lay down his life for her.

But at least it explained her sudden reluctance to be with him, her apparent distaste for his company. And tomorrow, when he showed her the diary, he would know the truth.

More cheerfully, Johnny left his brother’s cabin and, with a spring in his step, made for the hatchway and the open deck.

“We’ve failed, Pat,” Kitty Cadogan said disconsolately. “For all our searching, we’ve failed, haven’t we? There’s simply no trace of Marcus O’Brien’s journal.”

Her brother Patrick, standing beside her at the foot of the jetty, turned from his anxious contemplation of the heavily laden whaleboat’s progress through the reef, giving vent to a sigh of relief as it drew clear of the surf and headed toward the Galah.

One of Henry Day’s young sons, seated on his father’s knee in the bow, waved triumphantly, and the convict rescue party, stationed at the far end of the jetty with their cork floats and lifelines, permitted themselves to relax, the danger past.

“It will be our turn next,” Patrick observed ruefully, responding to the child’s wave without enthusiasm. “What an infernal way to have to load human cargo!” Then, recalling Kitty’s question, he shrugged. “In all honesty, Kit, I’d not say we’d failed. We may not have found the diary-obviously someone must have been here before us and he probably destroyed it. Or it’s disintegrated in the damp. But we know, thanks be to God, that Michael is still alive. We know that he left this island for Tasmania last May-in reasonably good health, according to Henry Day-and that he was to be transferred to the prison at Port Arthur, after reaching Hobart.”

“He has gone from one hell to another that is little better,” Kitty reminded him.

“Yes, perhaps,” her brother conceded. “But the Galah

is go

ing

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to Hobart, and Henry and his wife are now our friends. Henry has promised to give us an introduction to the new governor, who, praise be, is not Denison! We have achieved as much, or even a little more than we hoped to, and as to the diary …

well, we’ve only O’Brien’s word for it that the evidence it contains against the late civil commandant-what’s his name? Price-could win a pardon for Michael. O’Brien was himself here as a convict, don’t forget, and even though he served his sentence and was emancipated, would his evidence be believed?

Especially since he’s not here to swear to it, and nothing on God’s earth would induce him to return!”

Kitty sighed, having no answer to his question.

“I still wish we had found the diary, Pat. It might have helped.”

“We tried hard enough, Lord knows! Either O’Brien’s directions or his memory must have been at fault. I went through every one of those cells, and yesterday, when I thought I was at last on the right track, who should I run into head on but John Broome! I had to beat a very hasty retreat, for fear of arousing his suspicions.”

“I fear we

have

aroused them,” Kitty said, a catch in her voice.

“I think I did, before we came ashore. He’s not convinced that you intend to write a book, and he thinks that I-oh, goodness knows what he thinks!”

“He is an extremely decent fellow,”

Patrick defended. “And he’s fallen for you, little sister-hook, line, and sinker!”

It was true, Kitty thought unhappily.

Johnny Broome had made no secret of his feelings, and … he was a very attractive man, one to whom it would have been easy to respond, had the circumstances been different, or had she been free. But she was not free; she had no right to think of herself when her duty was to Michael. That was why she was here, in this dreadful place to which they had brought poor Michael in chains, to suffer torment that, even now-in spite of what Marcus O’Brien had told her, in spite of what she had seen of the prison and its mounds of unmarked graves-was too hideous to think about or even quite believe.

And Patrick had been shown more than Henry Day had deemed it prudent for her to see… .

Kitty felt a wave of

nausea sweep over her, as she glanced back at the towering walls and the barred windows of what had been the prison hospital. They had shown her that,

and the memory still haunted her, in sharp contrast to her recollection of the pleasant house built for the commandant, in which she had stayed with Henry Day and his family, where flowers and fruit trees flourished in a well-kept garden and the happy voices of children echoed throughout the sunlit rooms.

The hospital had been dank and dark, filled with the stench of death, still lingering there, although it was now deserted. Would it be pulled down, she wondered, before the Pitcairners came to make their home on the island? The chapel would be retained, of course, for all it opened onto the prison yard; and so would the stone-built officers’ quarters, the gardens, and the livestock. And the cemetery, with its divisions . .

. headstones and well-tended graves for officers and free men and their families who had died there, but mounds of unmarked earth for those confined as prisoners-graves destitute even of a wooden cross or other tangible signs that those buried there had once been men, known by names and not numbers.

They-

“The boat is coming back,” Patrick announced, breaking into her thoughts. “You know-was He hesitated, eyeing Kitty uncertainly, and then, as if coming to a sudden decision, he caught her arm, turning her to face him. “We might do worse than confide in your Boy Broome, Kit. I’ve a strong feeling that he would be sympathetic, if we told him the whole story.”

“But he’s a journalist,” Kitty objected.

“That’s why I’ve kept a guard on my tongue and why I’ve kept out of his way since we landed here.

He would want to print the story, and if he did, we comoh, Pat, don’t you see? It would destroy any chance we have of helping Michael.”

“Of helping him to escape, perhaps,” Patrick countered. “But it could help an appeal-an appeal for clemency, if not a pardon.”

“Well, yes, I suppose it might.

Only-was Kitty gazed over the water toward the whaleboat, which was returning from the Galah.

“It would be taking a risk.”

“Not if we only told him that we are hoping to organize an appeal. And as you say, Broome is a journalist, so he has

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con

nections-he could help us.” Patrick warmed to his theme. “The more I think about the situation, the more I realize that we

need

help, Kit. We are strangers here, in no position to ask favors from the authorities. A newspaper campaign, if John Broome were willing to assist us to launch one, might gain Michael’s freedom-or at least his release from the Port Arthur prison. Surely it is worth trying?”

Kitty was still conscious of a nagging doubt. They had kept their secret for so long, she told herself, confided in no one save the loyal, devoted Mary O’Hara, who had known them all their lives …

and known Michael, too. It would be taking a risk to attempt to enlist John Broome’s aid, and .

. . She stifled a sigh. If, as Patrick insisted, he had fallen in love with her, would it not be the height of perfidy to take advantage of the feelings he had for her … and the more so, if she did not wholly reciprocate them?

She started to express her doubts to Patrick, but the whaleboat had come alongside the jetty, and young Ensign Mablon-Henry Day’s

son-in-law-whose men had been assisting with the embarkation, came up to them with a beaming smile.

“Time to leave this accursed place, Lady Kitty. If you and Mr. Cadogan are ready, we can brave the reef for the last time!”

“We’re ready, Joe,” Patrick assured him. He offered Kitty his arm. “Come on, Kit-you don’t want to stay here, do you?”

She did not, Kitty thought, and shivered. The commissariat storekeeper, Mr. Stewart-who, with six trusted convict servants, was to remain in charge of the island pending the arrival of the families from Pitcairn-stood, hat in hand, to bid them farewell. She answered his good wishes automatically and took her place in the stern, courteously assisted by Francis De Lancey, the Galah’s

first lieutenant, who was at the tiller.

The pull back to the ship was accomplished without mishap, and Captain Broome was waiting at the entryport to offer a greeting and apologize for the fact that she would have to share a cabin with Caroline Day and her children for the passage to Hobart.

“Our accommodation is stretched to its limit, I’m afraid, but the weather augurs well. We should have a smooth passage, I

think, so it is to be hoped that you will not be too uncomfortable.”

He was, as always, friendly but a trifle formal, yet for no reason that she could have explained, Kitty sensed a subtle change in his manner toward her and-yes, a warmth he had never previously displayed. A trifle mystified, she assured him that the loss of her cabin was of no account and followed the steward with her valise below.

Of John Broome there was no sign, but-having assisted Caroline Day as best she could to settle her three youngest children into the now-cramped accommodation afforded by the captain’s night cabin-she went on deck and was just in time to see the arrival of the last boat from the shore. It was the gig, under the command of the captain himself, with his tall, bearded brother seated beside him. The boat was winched inboard, and a short while later the deck was swarming with seamen, as the order came to weigh anchor and the topmen went surging aloft in seeming confusion. Kitty sought sanctuary in the gunroom below, and there, as if he had been waiting for her, she found John Broome.

He said, without preamble, gesturing her. to take a seat at the long mess table, “Lady Kitty, I believe I may inadvertently have stumbled on something for which you have been searching. Indeed, it may even have been the reason why you and your brother came to Norfolk Island.”