The Soldier's Curse (33 page)

Mrs Mulrooney was indeed in the kitchen and well into breakfast preparations by the time Monsarrat arrived.

She rarely gave him food, and he never asked. They both knew there might be a punishment attached to her doing so, as Monsarrat's food was supposed to come solely from the commissariat, together with whatever he was able to convince to grow in his garden. This morning, though, she placed a bowl of porridge in front of him, with a dollop of honey slowly burrowing into its surface.

‘I won't hear no from you, Mr Monsarrat. The commandant owes me a favour, he said as much himself last night. You are far too thin, and I know you can't have eaten – the cookhouse would have been well closed by the time you made your way to your hut. So get this into you, and shut up about it.'

Monsarrat, not having opened his mouth to begin with, was more than happy to follow orders.

He had never understood it when people said, after a meal, that they felt like themselves again. He would have been quite delighted with a holiday from feeling like himself. But with the porridge warming him, he had a sense of what they meant. He knew he was far more able, now, for the duties of the day than he would have been without it.

Before he left the kitchen to head to his workroom, he said, ‘Would you like me to seek permission for us to visit Slattery? Or are you still resolved not to?'

‘I don't know, Mr Monsarrat. I really don't. But why don't you go ahead and seek permission? And we'll see.'

While he had been eating, Mrs Mulrooney had been putting together a tray of breakfast things for the major. ‘He was up almost as early as I was,' she said. ‘He will breakfast in his study, he says. He has no desire to do so in the dining room.'

As she was making the preparations, Monsarrat allowed himself to believe, for an instant, that she was doing so for a young woman who was about to go hunting, or to drag her husband off for wild rides along the river. And that soon she would be getting down an extra cup in expectation of a visit from a young soldier.

When she bent to pick up the tray, however, he gently nudged her aside and lifted it himself. She rolled her eyes at him, but didn't seem to have sufficient energy to protest – a fact which worried him. Instead she went to the door, and opened it for him. ‘You and I are going to the same place, this morning, Mr Monsarrat,' she said. ‘So you'd best be quick. And careful. If you spill one drop of tea, I'll take it out of your hide.'

They made their way across the courtyard together and around the side of the house, Mrs Mulrooney opening the outer door and then the major's study door, Monsarrat gingerly placing the tray in front of the man himself, who looked as though he had slept poorly.

‘Thank you, Mrs Mulrooney,' the major said. She dipped slightly, turned and left.

‘Now, Monsarrat,' he said. ‘Please come and sit. We have a lot to do.'

Monsarrat did as he was told, fetching his writing things. When he returned, the major was allowing his tea and his breakfast to go cold. Monsarrat decided he would not inform on the man to Mrs Mulrooney.

‘Let's get it out of the way, shall we?' said the major, and Monsarrat was in no doubt about the task to which he was referring. He began to dictate:

The major had been staring at the ceiling as he dictated. Now he lowered his head and looked at his clerk. ‘I must ask you, Monsarrat, to steel yourself for what I am about to dictate. You will not like it, though I believe it justified and necessary.' He raised his head again.

‘Monsarrat, you know the rest.'

Monsarrat did indeed, although he had never thought he would be appending those words to such a document.

The major seemed relieved to have got this particular missive out of the way. He turned, then, to the more mundane business of the colony – the receipts and returns which demonstrated to the government in Sydney that all was in good order, or as good an order as one could possibly have when the majority of the population had transgressed not once but twice.

Given the recent complaints by the Reverend Ainslie to the Colonial Secretary, he was particularly insistent that all the formalities and administrative necessities be observed – which, on Monsarrat's watch, they always were, anyway. He also asked Monsarrat to arrange for a sample of sugar and rum from the plantation to be sent, to demonstrate the quality of the produce,
together with a few sawn planks of cedar and rosewood, and a letter outlining how these could be used, given their quality, to add to the settlement's coffers.

Finally, though, he ran out of letters and reports to dictate. The shift in his momentum seemed to cost him. Monsarrat noted the change.

‘Perhaps I should ask Diamond to take on the administrative duties for a few days,' Major Shelborne mused.

This alarmed Monsarrat. He hadn't seen the captain since their confrontation, but while Mrs Mulrooney was no longer in danger, Monsarrat did not want to remind the captain of his own existence, much less the accusation of murder which had turned out to be unfounded. But he restricted himself to saying, ‘As you wish, sir, of course. I must say, though, that the settlement has missed you. But given the heaviness of your loss, no one would quibble should you need some quiet reflection.'

The major sighed. ‘You're right, Monsarrat. I have been away too long.'

‘I will make a fair copy of everything you've dictated to me, sir. I wonder, though, whether I might ask you a great favour.'

The major sounded weary when he responded. ‘Yes, Monsarrat, what is it?'

‘I fear Mrs Mulrooney may have suffered somewhat from her incarceration, possibly more than she is admitting to. Would it meet with your approval if I asked Dr Gonville to see her? Simply to look at her and make sure nothing is amiss.'

‘Very well then, Monsarrat. Probably a good idea. And before you ask – you and she may visit Slattery, if it is your wish. Do not tell me what you decide to do on the matter, though. I do not want to think less of you.'

With the letters and reports transcribed in the fairest copperplate ever to have graced Port Macquarie, Monsarrat asked the major if there was further need of his services. Receiving an answer in the negative, he set off on the familiar walk to the hospital.

Monsarrat's concern for Mrs Mulrooney's health was genuine, but he had another reason for seeking the doctor out. Diamond could not be allowed to administer cruel floggings with impunity, nor to have disturbed the peace of what had turned out to be the last months of Honora's life with his unwanted attentions. If the King's justice was to break Slattery's neck, the least it could do was to also transfer Diamond as far away from Monsarrat as possible.

So Monsarrat went to find Gonville. He came upon the surgeon and Donald engaged in their normal activities – a sawyer had been a little careless with the tool of his trade, and was biting down on a stick while Gonville stitched together a gash in his arm. Another man lay in a bed nearby, his foot a swollen, purple monstrosity. Monsarrat had seen the like before – probably the man had been unwise enough to have his foot in a place where a horse had wanted to step, or a wheel to run.

Gonville looked up from his stitching. ‘Wait for me, Monsarrat, if you please,' he said, in a tone which suggested he had been expecting the visit.

When the sawyer's arm had been stitched up with as much finesse as possible, the doctor gestured Monsarrat towards his desk behind its partition. ‘Well, a lot has come to pass since you and I last spoke, Monsarrat.'

‘You've heard about Slattery, I take it, doctor.'

‘Yes, and I dare say by now so has everyone else. How is Mrs Mulrooney taking it?'

‘It is a double loss for her, you know. And she had to suffer the ignominy, for a few days, of being thought responsible for the death of a woman she held in high esteem. In fact, it is on her behalf I have come. I fear she may soon work herself into a state of exhaustion, and I doubt she ate much during her stay in prison. I have asked the major for permission to request that you examine her – whether she will stand for it or not – just to ensure she is in full health, or as full as possible under the circumstances.'

‘Very well then. And you and I have some other business to discuss, Monsarrat. Let's save it for the walk, though, shall we? A partition does not provide sufficient privacy.'

As they set out, Gonville said, ‘We are making a habit of this, Monsarrat. Conferences on foot.'

‘Necessary, I suppose, while the captain's around.'

‘Yes, the very man I wanted to discuss. Why has there been no discipline, no chastisement for his behaviour with Dory?'

‘It seems hard to believe in a place like this, where gossip flows like water, but nobody has told the major,' said Monsarrat. ‘Certainly not Diamond – as you suspected, he removed the report on the event. I have been on the brink of it, several times, but have not wanted to broach it with someone so recently bereaved. I suppose, if I am honest, I also did not want to create problems when Mrs Mulrooney's fate was so uncertain. But she is safe now, and the settlement appears to be returning to some variety of normal. That being said, I do believe it's time that we acquaint the major with Diamond's behaviour.'

‘Yes, I agree. I must confess, though, Monsarrat, I had been hoping that you would take care of it. Cowardly though that is.'

‘I don't think you a coward, doctor. And I would have been delighted to deal with it. The problem is that I am tainted, I fear, by my friendship with, first, a suspected murderer, and now a confessed one. And I am myself a felon. I believe the major will hear me out. But I also believe it will be far easier for him to act if the information is backed by a voice of authority. Such as yours.'

The doctor sighed. ‘Yes, you're probably right. Don't ascribe too much authority to my voice, though, Monsarrat. Diamond still has the major's ear, and the captain has no love for me.'

Monsarrat thought of Diamond's letters to Mrs Shelborne, presumably now ash. He had told no one of them except Mrs Mulrooney. And a lot of his intellectual capacity had been spent, over the past few days, on wondering whether the major would thank him for the revelation.

He was decided, pretty much, on keeping the letters and the contents to himself. Despite his stoicism, the major was no doubt devastated by his wife's death. Monsarrat did not wish to add to his grief by forcing him to imagine her, in her last months, secretly fearful of the attentions of a man he himself had imposed on her.