The Gallant (26 page)

Broome, apart from the so-called separate system of confinement of prisoners, adopted from Pentonville Prison in London. There are the agricultural projects-we are self-supporting or almost so, thanks to these-the building work, road construction, timber felling, and a number of factories in which the prisoners turn out excellent commercial goods, ranging from furniture to shoes, We no longer mine coal here-the work was dangerous and the conditions deplorable, so I do not regret the closure of the mines. But I am exceedingly sorry that the shipbuilding yard was closed down by Governor Denison, for its record was remarkable, and the training given there enabled men granted ticket-of-leave to obtain regular and well-paid employment in Hobart when they left here.”

He talked on, with pride and enthusiasm, and Johnny, despite his preoccupation with the real reason for his visit, found his interest quickening. He took notes, an action that clearly won Commandant Boyd’s approval, and before they left his office, the commandant had made out an itinerary for the two days Johnny would spend there.

His hospitality and that of his kindly, middle-aged wife left nothing to be desired. The room in which Johnny spent the night was comfortably furnished and cool, and the evening meal, served by two well-trained convicts in spotless white jackets, was the best he had eaten for a long while-its ingredients, as James Boyd smilingly reminded him, all locally produced, from the excellent saddle of lamb to the dessert of apple tart and fresh peaches.

Next day, escorted by the prison chaplain and accompanied by the Boyds” two young sons, Johnny was taken to the church, the garrison school, two of the factories, and the hospital. Boyd himself toured the new prison with him in the afternoon, permitting him to talk quite freely to the occupants of the cells and William Stuart Long

those in the exercise yard, and then, clearly harboring no suspicion of his visitor’s motives or intentions, returned to his office, leaving Johnny in an upper messroom of the penitentiary to attend the prisoners’ evening class, whose tutor was a gray-uniformed political prisoner of singular charm and erudition.

Unable to bring himself to betray the trust reposed in him, Johnny asked no questions as to the whereabouts of the man known as Big Michael. He had another day, another twenty-four hours before the Opossum

would leave for the return passage to Hobart, he told himself. An opportunity could well arise when he would be able to obtain the information he wanted without arousing suspicion or taking undue advantage of James Boyd’s kindness and warm hospitality.

That evening, Boyd returned to his quarters very late-too late to join his family for dinner-and although he looked worried, he offered no other explanation of his lateness than what he described as pressure of work. The glances he exchanged with his wife, however, suggested an emergency of some kind, and this was borne out when he told Johnny that, after all, he would be unable to accompany him on a tour of the probation stations and the visit to Eaglehawk Neck that had been arranged for the last day of his stay at the settlement.

“But this need not impede you, Mr.

Broome-I’ll give you a first-rate guide who has been here longer than I have, initially as a sergeant in our military guard. John Staveley is now one of my senior warders, a most excellent fellow and a mine of information about Port Arthur’s early days.” The commandant cast another warning glance at his wife and rejected his elder son’s plea to be allowed to go with their guest.

“No, no-it’s school for both of you tomorrow.” Turning again to Johnny, he went on, “We’ll send you by boat to Long Bay and open up the tramway to take you up to Eaglehawk in comfort. Officially our splendid tram line is no longer in service-closing it was one of the former governor’s many economies. But it is still quite usable, and it makes light of an otherwise tiring journey.”

Once again, Johnny expressed his thanks, genuinely grateful but, as before, his conscience troubling him.

Next day, Prison Officer Staveley

called for him. He soon

proved to be, as Boyd had promised, a mine of information on the early days of the prison settlement.

The onetime NCO had served under Captain O’Hara Booth for a year and was loud in his praise, claiming for him the distinction of having originated both the semaphore signal stations and the tramway, which he referred to, with a dry little smile, as the Tasman Peninsula Railroad.

“It was the first passenger-carrying line in Australia, sir,” Staveley added. “And I don’t reckon it ought to have been closed down. It didn’t cost nothing, it moved men and supplies at a fair rate, and ‘twas work the prisoners were always ready to volunteer for. A man works better if he can take a pride in what he’s doing.”

“Then you don’t hold with the idea that work should be a form of punishment, Mr. Staveley?” Johnny suggested, thinking of the article he was pledged to write.

Staveley shrugged. “Oh, yes, indeed I do, up to a point, sir. The men we have here are pretty nearly all bad characters-second offenders, capital respites, and hardened criminals.

They’ve got to be kept under strict discipline and undertake useful laboring work whilst they’re serving their sentences here. But if we’re to reform them-and that’s what we aim to do-hard labor’s got to be within the bounds of their endurance, sir. Teaching them a trade helps-it’s reformed many men-but working them nigh to death, well, that just makes them bitter. Reward them for good behavior, punish them for bad, but don’t deprive even the worst man of hope. Leastways, sir, that’s my belief, and I’ve been here close on fourteen years. The new probation system we’re operating here now-that’s a good system, for it gives a man a chance.”

The old man enlarged on the manner in which the probation system was organized as they boarded the oared boat, with its convict oarsmen, that was to convey them to Long Bay and the junction of the tramway.

Staveley spoke to the men in friendly fashion, and it was evident from their response that they liked and respected him.

Perhaps, Johnny thought, as the whaleboat skimmed through the water, the men requiring no urging from the two overseers in charge of them-perhaps old Warder Staveley was the man

William Stuart Long

to ask about Michael. If he phrased his inquiry carefully, so as not to invite mistrust or suspicion, he would at least learn Michael’s whereabouts. Certainly he was not an inmate of the model prison; and he was not in the hospital-his guarded questions had elicited that much. But time was pressing; guarded questions would no longer suffice, if he were to keep his promise to Kitty Cadogan.

They made shore and soon afterward began their journey along the four-mile-long

railroad, the convict oarsmen now trotting behind the single, open passenger car, pushing it up the slight incline. Seated in splendid isolation beside the old warder in the front of the car, Johnny was searching for words in which to broach the subject when, to his astonishment, Staveley himself spoke Michael’s name.

“I can give you a case in point, sir,” the warder said, continuing to develop his theme now that they were able to speak freely, the rumbling of the iron wheels effectively putting them out of earshot of the two men providing their motive power. “That of a man known here as Big Michael. Michael Wexford, he called himself, but I’m sure that wasn’t his real name.”

Johnny stiffened, controlling his shock of surprise with difficulty and scarcely able to take in what the old prison officer was saying. He was describing Michael’s long ordeal on Norfolk Island, under Commandant Price’s rule, offering it as an example, and Johnny gripped the wooden bar in front of him in an effort to retain his composure.

Thank God, he thought, that he was alone! Had Patrick or Kitty been with him and been taken, as he had been, completely off guard, one or other of them would surely have been in danger of betraying their secret.

“What I was telling you about trying a prisoner beyond endurance …” Staveley went on, seemingly unaware of Johnny’s tense silence or, if he had noticed it, attaching no significance to it, “that’s what was done to Michael Wexford on Norfolk Island, sir. I don’t know how many times he’d been flogged or subjected to some of the forms of torture that went on under Mr.

Price. When he was transferred here, just over a year ago, he came with a record, and that meant he had to serve at hard labor in chains. I tried with him, sir, I truly did try,

because he was a gentleman born and they said he had been an officer in the Royal Navy at one time.

And he was a political prisoner, not a criminal … a rebel Irishman, I believe.” He sighed, seemingly with genuine concern, and Johnny’s throat tightened.

“Did you-was he managed huskily. “Did you know Big Michael well, Mr. Staveley?”

“Aye, I did. Or that’s to say as well as a man in my position is ever able to know a prisoner, Mr. Broome. We’re not permitted

to fraternize with the convicts, and they mostly don’t like it if we do. But Michael was different, he …

well, I think he liked to talk to me sometimes. And I did everything I could think of to persuade him to try for probation, but-he wouldn’t hear of it, wouldn’t listen to me. He rubbed some of the overseers up the wrong way, and they had it in for him. He never got out of the chain gang, never mind probation, poor young devil! And now he’s absconded-absconded with three of the worst degenerates we’ve had here.

He-was

“Absconded?”

For all the tight rein he had been keeping on his emotions, Johnny almost shouted the word. “You mean,”

he added, in a more level tone, “that he’s made his escape? From here, Mr. Staveley?”

Staveley eyed him uncertainly, on the point of regretting what he had said. “Did the commandant not tell you, sir? I thought he would have, you being his guest at the house.”

Fool that he was, Johnny reproached himself.

He had come within an ace of giving himself away, and-oh, God, he had to find out more, had to know how Michael had escaped and where he might have gone.

“Oh, yes, Mr. Staveley,” he

lied, praying that his lie would carry conviction. “Mr.

Boyd mentioned that there had been an escape, naturally. He was greatly concerned about it. Upset, even, and I-well, I didn’t like to ask questions and upset him further, since I’m his guest. But I’m interested, after what you have told me about Wexford-Big Michael. How did he make his escape? It’s supposed to be impossible from here, isn’t it?”

“It’s pretty near impossible, sir,”

Staveley confirmed. His momentary doubts allayed, he was eager to tell the rest of his story, and he permitted himself a fugitive smile. “They got William Stuart Long

away in the

Hastings

steamer-he and three blackguards who were with him in the loading gang at the Cascades. William Haines was one-he used to be in the

Hastings’

crew at one time-and his crony, Joshua Simmons, and a fellow named Train, sent here quite recently. The Cascades is an inlet of Norfolk Bay, on the north of the

peninsula. It’s where the lumberyard and sawmill are, and the ship was taking on a load of timber. They jumped the sentry and an overseer-killed them, very probably, though it’s not known for sure. They’ve both vanished, and so has the ship. She’s more than a day overdue in Hobart-that was the news the commandant received last night, sir-and there’s a search being made for her now. I don’t doubt, sir, that the vessel that brought you here, the

Opossum,

will be required to join in. She’s due to sail first thing tomorrow, is she not, sir?”

Johnny drew in his breath sharply. If old Staveley was right and the

Opossum

were ordered to take part in the search, it might prove a totally unexpected stroke of luck, so far as he was concerned. It would give him a chance, however slender, of finding and making contact with Michael. Of telling him that his brother and sister were in Hobart and that they had made-or were making-arrangements to send him to New Zealand, if he could make his way to join them. But … A sudden nagging doubt assailed him.

If Michael

had

had a hand in the taking of the ship, and if, as Staveley feared, the overseer and the sentry had been killed, then a charge of murder would be laid against him and, very probably, a reward offered for his capture. Even if no one had been killed, the seizure of a ship at sea was piracy-a crime that carried the death penalty. The fugitive would be taking his life in his hands if he attempted to enter Hobart, so that … Johnny inclined his head in answer to the old prison officer’s question.

“Do you believe,” he asked impulsively, “that this man, the man you call Big Michael, would commit murder? Do you believe him capable of it, Mr. Staveley?”

Staveley frowned. “It’s hard to say, sir.

Like I told you, Michael Wexford was tried beyond endurance before he was ever transferred here. He was a gentleman, in my view, but he had

been-well, I suppose you’d call it brutalized. I’d like to be able to tell you he’s not capable of taking another man’s life, but I’m not sure. But the men he’s absconded with-that’s a different story. None of them would think twice about it. Indeed, I’m astonished that Michael went with them. It’s possible that he didn’t do so willingly, of course, but if they murdered the sentry and Overseer Burke-and if Michael was with them-then he would be an accessory to murder. No two ways about that, sir.”

As he had feared, Johnny reflected glumly. Indeed, although he had not given his support to the younger Cadogans’ foolhardy attempt to organize their brother’s escape, he was compelled to recognize that, had they succeeded in smuggling him aboard the sealer

Mary Ann,

the poor, unfortunate fellow would have been very much better off than he was now … even if, because of his previous naval service, his villainous companions had given him command of the Hastings.

“They’ll not get far, sir,” Staveley observed, as if guessing his thoughts. “The Hastings

is coal-burning-a paddle-steamer, and she-was He broke off. “Somebody’s hailing us, Mr.