 
### The Prisoner

By

Adrian Scott

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2011 by Ian T. Foster, M.A.

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First Publication Rights Only

Ian T Foster, M.A;

Unit 73/130-132 King Street

Caboolture Queensland 4510

Phone: 0438 559 513

Email: ian64832@dodo.com.au

http://www.adrianscott.info

## CHAPTER ONE

**March 18th; 1821:** Dawn had barely risen when they came for the prisoner.

Tossing restlessly on his narrow bunk, he had been unable to sleep through that first long night because of rats that gnawed at the edges of the thin horsehair mattress that lay between his body and the hard wooden boards of his bunk, and bedbugs that crawled and crept through the thin, moth-eaten blanket they had given him.

He heard the door of his cell open on squealing hinges, heard the heavy tramp of booted feet, and suddenly he was seized by the shoulders and almost lifted bodily upright, to stand, half-awake, beside his bunk whilst manacles were fastened about his wrists and the short, heavy chain that linked his ankles was checked. Then he was dragged from the tiny cell in which he had spent his first night ashore in Sydney, and hauled down the narrow corridor to the parade-ground.

A hand landed heavily between his shoulder-blades, and he stumbled out into the pre-dawn chill as a group of six armed guards, bayonets fixed to the muzzles of their muskets, formed themselves in a ring about him. Before he had time to even glance quickly about his new home, the squad began marching, the prisoner dragged along in their midst by a short length of hemp that was fastened about his neck, the other end held by a swiftly-moving soldier.

He had a sensation of a long, narrow, cobbled roadway that stretched before him, the smell of the sea from somewhere to his left, the wash of the tide on the rocks that littered the shoreline, and no more.

Along Hickson Road they marched, the tall man stumbling along in their midst, prodded occasionally by a rifle-butt slammed into his back.

Early morning workers stopped to watch the parade, the mass of soldiers in their coloured uniforms, the officer at their head and, almost lost to sight in the centre of the ring of guards, the prisoner. They marched to the end of Hickson Road and out into George Street, a wide thoroughfare designed to allow drays and teams of eighteen bullocks to turn about in its width, and continued on their way, ignoring the curious onlookers beginning to gather on the footpaths to either side.

As some of the more voluble members of the crowd began to catch sight of the prisoner, stumbling along in the midst of his guards, his hands shackled, his feet, because of the chain linking them, causing him to stagger and fall occasionally as he tried to keep up with the marching platoon of soldiers, voices were raised in protest. One man, a huge, hulking bear in dirty dungarees and workshirt, hoisted a small shard of broken tile from beneath his feet and sent it sailing into the red-coated phalanx, accompanied by a raucous cry of: "Dirty, stinkin' bastards!"

Almost immediately, twenty yards behind the 'parade,' the prison-gates opened again, and a brigade of marines exited at the double, weapons at the high-port, raced past their fellows, and lined both sides of George Street, facing the crowd. As thumbs pulled back on musket-hammers and a repeated metallic 'click!' was heard, the crowd fell silent...with the exception of the bear, who glared into the eyes of the soldier immediately in front of him, then carefully and unerringly spat on the toecap of the man's highly-polished boot, then stood, arms folded, smiling sardonically.

With nary a change in his dour expression, the soldier took one pace forward, and the butt of his musket connected with the chin of his attacker.

The bear staggered, shook his head, then resumed his place, his fists doubled, the muscles along his arms bulging.

A shot rang out, shattering the morning stillness, and the huge man suddenly clutched both hands to his midriff, where a large red blossom had opened, and as blood pumped from his abdomen, he sank slowly to his knees, then toppled face-forward into the gutter.

"Leave 'im be!" the young soldier growled as an overweight woman bent to do what she could for the victim. She looked up into the eyes of the uniformed man, busy reloading his musket, stared again at the groaning figure at her feet, then melted back into the crowd.

As the large man's lifeblood slowly trickled away down the gutter, an angry muttering began, picked up and carried from voice to voice. The crowd pressed forward, and from behind the soldiers lining the roadway, a middle-aged officer, his shoulder-epaulets shining in the dawn sunlight, cried " _Ready!_ " and rifles swiftly came to each shoulder, the muzzles pointed straight at the crowd.

The forward movement of the throng stopped. The muttering did not.

Along the road and past the corner of King Street the parade continued, its collective pace timed to the beat of a lone drummer, past shops and dwellings and workhouses, to the junction of George and Market Streets, where an armed squad of men awaited the arrival of the prisoner. Out in front of them stood a giant of a man, a sergeant, a cat-o'-nine-tails coiled over one shoulder. He wore no shirt, the red braces of his trousers appearing incongruous against the worn, unwashed, and tattered undershirt. As his little pig eyes caught sight of the prisoner, a slow grin split the fat face, and he jerked the leather coils down off his shoulder and allowed them to uncoil in the dust at his feet.

"P'rade... _halt!_ " echoed loudly along the street, and the entire assembly of uniformed figures stopped. Two guards seized the prisoner by the arms and dragged him forward to a huge wooden triangle, and his wrists were tied to the peak, some three feet above his head. An officer stepped forward, took hold of the ragged shirt the man wore, and ripped it wide open down the back, revealing protruding ribs and an absence of body-fat.

The sergeant stepped forward, the cat trailing behind him, and took careful aim at the back of the prisoner. At the cry of " _One!_ " the cat whistled forward, the weighted ends coiling about the upper body of the prisoner and ripping into skin and muscle. Bloody streaks appeared on the pallid skin, and the prisoner jerked slightly, but not a sound escaped his firmly clamped lips.

" _Two!_ " and the cat struck again, gouging lumps of living flesh from the unprotected body.

"Three!"

This time, a grunt of pain escaped the pale face, and the head drooped slightly down between the shoulders. But before the prisoner could brace himself, the cat had struck again, and his legs began to buckle. By the time the count had reached fifteen, the bloodied figure was hanging, unconscious, all his weight suspended by his wrists.

The count continued. The punishment went on unabated, until the number had reached fifty. Then the big sergeant, now panting heavily, lovingly ran the plaited tails of the cat through his hand to strip the flesh that had clung to the leather, coiled it again, and hung it over his shoulder. A bayonet severed the ropes binding the prisoner's wrists, and his body dropped, senseless, to the ground.

A soldier stepped forward, a wooden pail in one hand. Hefting the pail, he sent a cascade of sea-water splashing over the prisoner's body.

As the salt in the brine ate into the raw wounds on the body, the prisoner was brought back to a world of pain he would not forget for many months.

He screamed.

Two soldiers stepped forward, handed their muskets to two of their fellows, and lifted the unfortunate man by the armpits. His feet dragging behind him, his head hanging, he was surrounded by guards and hauled away, and the parade returned back the way it had come.

## CHAPTER TWO

As eight am; chimed from a ship's bell in the harbour, they tossed him into a cell, slammed and locked the door, and left him.

All was quiet and still for a time, interrupted only by the laboured breathing of the prisoner. Then, emboldened by the smell of blood and the lack of movement in their world, rats began to creep from their holes in the walls and climbed up the sides of the rotting mattress to investigate. They followed the scent of fresh blood and butchered flesh to its source, sniffed, and began gnawing at the open wounds that curled around his back and ribs.

For perhaps ten minutes, unconsciousness held him free from the pain and burning torture of the world that awaited him. Then, as a particularly bold rat approached a gaping wound in his side and began chewing at the flesh hanging from him, he awakened, screamed once – a long, lonely sound in that world of steel bars and granite-block walls – and attempted to rise from his bunk, to flee from the creatures that tore and ripped at the damaged meat of his body.

He seized one large creature by the scruff of the neck and smashed its skull into the wall, then tossed it from him. Immediately, the remaining rats scurried to this new, fresher, and more helpless victim, and began tearing at it with their sharp little teeth. Ripping, cracking sounds issued from the motionless corpse until hair, flesh, and bone were all consumed, and all that remained was a filthy scum of blood on the floor of the cell. Then they returned with renewed vigour to the larger prey cringing on his bunk, his knees drawn up to his chin, his eyes wide in terror, his hands flailing uselessly at the beasts that turned his world into a place of ripping, burning agony.

In desperation, the prisoner found, from some deep place within him, the strength to rise to his feet, to stand, unbalanced, on the thin mattress from which the odour of rotting horsehair and material arose, and for a time the rats were held at bay, unable to reach the upper body that offered so much fresh nourishment to their hungry maws.

But soon they began to climb the thin legs, to reach out for the shreds of flesh surrounding the wounds created by the lash and the heavy lead weights that hung at the tips of each 'cat', and his agony began anew.

Driven to the rim of insanity by the unending pain, he gradually sank to his knees, offering an easier path to his tormentors. And as his fevered brain collapsed once again towards unconsciousness in an effort to protect itself from the ghastly torment of the myriad rodents that invaded that tiny cell, he slumped, once again, down on his face, and lay there, oblivious to the needle-sharp claws and razor teeth of the rats.

Sometime later, when all but the greediest of the rodents had eaten their fill, two guards, each carrying a pail of heavily-salted water, entered the cell and hurled the contents of their wooden receptacles over the creatures, sending them scurrying for their holes.

Laughing and joking at the hideous sight that greeted their eyes, they took the prisoner by the arms and dragged him from the cell, threw his limp form in the back of a tumbril, and drove the cart some six miles, out into the bushland surrounding what was to eventually become the premier city of that faraway land, and awakened him by hauling on his ankles until his body slid from the back of the cart and landed, face-down on the hard-baked earth.

He was lifted to his feet, his manacles were unfastened, and a pick was forced between the fingers of his curled fists. They led him to a pit, where foundations were being dug for a block of offices near the area later to be known as Broadway, hurled him down into the mud and slime, and ordered him to work.

The prisoner dragged himself slowly to his knees, then his feet, and looked about him. Within the long, narrow pit, two other prisoners laboured with spade and pick, digging, tossing aside shovelfuls of earth, and turning to dig again. He raised his eyes upwards, and there above him stood two guards, their muskets pointing directly at him, their fingers curled about the triggers, grim smiles on their faces.

"Yer digs...or yer dies," the taller one told him, an evil grin lighting up the little pig eyes, and so he worked.

There, as the sun burned down on the open wounds in his torn and shredded body, he swung that pick until he could lift it no more, then sank to his knees in the slime, whilst the two guards laughed and taunted him, prodding him with the tips of the bayonets affixed to the muzzles of their rifles and challenging him to "Run! Damn yer! We ain't shot nothin' in many a day!"

For an instant, he considered shrieking "Shoot, then! Shoot! And release me from this hell!" But some inner, deep-seated desire to cling to life at all costs asserted itself, and he hefted the pick again, just as a whistle sounded from somewhere on the other side of the worksite.

"Orright!" the shorter of the two guards grated; "come on. Git outa there. It's time fer yer lunch!"

He dropped the pick, somehow managing to release the handle though his fingers had locked themselves about the wooden grip, and stumbled to the end of the pit. Pushed from behind by the other two prisoners, he managed to clamber over the end of the worksite, crawled onto flat, heated earth, and found the strength to rise to his feet.

Prodded from behind by the ever-ready bayonets, he stumbled off in the direction indicated, and saw, ahead of him, a group of some twenty other prisoners, seated on stumps and rocks and digging their filthy fingers into tin pannikins of mash and barely-warm, rotting meat. As he collapsed to the ground once again and twisted his aching body so that he was seated on the earth, a pannikin was shoved into his hands, and he stared at the fly-infested contents of the bowl, whilst his stomach heaved at the foul odour emanating from the mess.

Every muscle in his body ached; his fingers were cramped, barely able to cling onto the pannikin; and the open wounds in his flesh burned from the sun that had scorched down mercilessly upon him all that long morning. But he ate, somehow, regardless of the disgusting odour and nauseating taste of the meat and potatoes, and even managed to wash it down with a half-mug of cold, sugarless tea.

A hand reached out from beside him and passed into his fingers a white, ricepaper-wrapped cylinder of tobacco, then held a Congreve so that he could bring its end to glowing life, and he breathed in the smoke, feeling his head spinning as his first cigarette in several days took its effect upon his blood-pressure.

He turned his head and gazed with thanks into the eyes of an aged, white-haired prisoner clad in rags even more tattered than his own.

"What'd yer do?" the old fellow asked in a hoarse whisper, flicking his eyes to the wounds in the prisoner's flesh, and the prisoner replied: "Stumbled comin' down tha gangplank...grabbed a guard ta save meself from fallin'. Laid me 'ands on tha Queen's uniform, they said. Fifty lashes."

" _Silence!_ Or ye'll get more o' tha same!" a senior guard yelled at him, and he fell silent once more.

Slowly, so very slowly, the nicotine began to relax him. He gazed around, at the towering eucalypts that surrounded the worksite, at the flashing blue waters of the bay some fifty yards distant, at the multi-coloured parrots squawking and chattering high in the branches of the trees. It all seemed so peaceful, so quiet, so tranquil, and so very far removed from the horror into which he had fallen through no fault of his own.

Found assisting a dying man who had robbed a baker's store and been shot down by the Bow Street Runners, he had been arrested and tried as an accomplice, and regardless of his own protestations of innocence, been sentenced to fourteen years' transportation to the colonies.

And so, here he was at the start of his sentence, more a victim of the harsh and implacable justice system that ruled the British Isles than many other men who had sailed with him on that distant day some two months previously, part of a population his home country no longer wished to accommodate.

All too soon the order to "Return ta work!" was given, and he crushed out the remains of his cigarette, rose to his feet, and hefted the heavy pick once more. His first day on the work-gang would not end until sunset was approaching; by then, he was barely able to raise a hand to swat at the black, buzzing flies that tormented him endlessly.

## CHAPTER THREE

**April 1st; 1821:** Two weeks had passed since that day when Hell had opened its doors and forced him to taste of its horrors, and the gaping wounds and livid gouges on his back and ribcage had begun to close over.

His stomach had become immured to the foul stench arising from the food they offered him, and he could now swallow the rancid meat, rotting potatoes, and cold, lumpy gruel without wanting to vomit.

But he appreciated most of all the small quantity of tobacco and the old, handmade white-clay pipe with the fractured stem he had found, together with a small box of Congreves, in the prison yard one morning. It had been his fortune to find them when a particularly old guard had been on duty, a man with a heart that could, at times, offer a representation of kindness to those beneath his charge, and so his treasure had not been taken from him. He had slipped tobacco, matches, and pipe into the only pocket remaining in the once-white cloth trousers he wore, and now could enjoy the taste of tobacco at lunchtime, and at night when the guards had passed on their hourly rounds, and all was quiet in the long corridor off which the cells opened.

Two cigarettes a day was a pittance. But to the prisoner, that pittance was something to be looked forward to, something to be enjoyed and for which he could have thanked Heaven, had not the cruelty and mistreatment of the past three months driven all thoughts of a Heaven and a God from his broken being.

Every day, he laboured in the heat of the sun or the flooding downpour of torrential rain, swinging his pick again and again, until the muscles in his back and shoulders ached, and his hands cramped and became locked to the handle of the implement he used. And every day, he dreamed of the world he had left behind, a world where hunger was a daily companion and want a never-ending accomplice, but a world where freedom, at least, was also present.

He had not been married, had not even been aware of so much as one relative still existing of the extended family into which he had been born. And now, he could feel gratefulness for the lack of both, for to leave a wife or grieving relatives would have created an ache his heart could not have borne when the prison-fleet sailed on that morning which now seemed so long ago.

In that previous life, the prisoner had been a cobbler, and a good one he believed, a maker of shoes for the wealthy and those who could afford not to go barefoot through the travails of life in Victorian England. In truth, he had been on his way to deliver a pair of boots to a member of the House of Lords on that evening when the Hand of the Law had reached out and plucked him from his life. The Bow Street Runner who had taken him had not believed him and, not wishing to appear to have let one of the two robbers avoid capture, had insisted he had been the second man who had escaped that baker's shop, a pair of stolen boots tucked under one arm.

He had seen the lead ball take the first robber in the back, seen the man fall, and not knowing the man was a robber, had knelt to give aid to the dying man. And it was during that act of Christian charity that he had been captured, manacled, and led away to a waiting Black Mariah, which had transported him to a cell beneath the Old Bailey to await his trial.

The parliamentarian for whom he had made the boots, at the time caught up in a torrid affair with a street-girl, had not come forward to testify as to his innocence, regardless of the fact that the prisoner could name him and identify his face, and had faded into the shadows, leaving the unfortunate man to face his fate alone.

And so he had been condemned, tried, sentenced, and led away to a rotting hulk in the backwaters of the River Thames where, in three months' time, he was transferred, together with one hundred and nineteen male and seventy-one female prisoners, to a prison-ship, chained to the bulkhead by a short, heavy length of anchor-cable, and locked below decks. The fleet had set sail on the high tide that night, and after sixty-seven days of pounding seas and decks awash in vomit and human excreta, had reached that land far to the south, where men were regarded as of little more value than cattle, and women as no more than playthings for any uniformed man or business-suited stranger who might fancy them.

So began, for the prisoner, a life of pain and suffering, of starvation and thirst, of torn and filthy rags to wear and bare feet that were cut and bruised by the smallest stone on which he might tread, a life of crawling spiders and black snakes that could strike a man down before he even became aware of their presence.

But worst of all was the loneliness. Forbidden to speak to those with whom he laboured on pain of another severe lashing, locked alone in his tiny cell each night, he had not the comfort of human companionship. He lived within his own mind, conjuring up the narrow streets of the East End of London in an attempt to escape reality if only for an hour before tiredness and exhaustion took him in its arms until the dawn, when guards came, shouting and banging their truncheons on the bars of his cell to awaken him.

A bowl of cold, lumpy gruel and a mug of weak and even colder tea were slipped through a hatch at the bottom of his door, and his day began with him sitting on a narrow ledge a few inches above the filthy water that flowed across the floor of his cell, eating what passed for breakfast with his fingers and washing the mess down with the tea.

If he was fortunate, the guards took their time in rousting him from his cell to begin work, and he found time for a pipe-full of tobacco. If not, he went without.

Day followed week followed month, with nary a change to his circumstances, whilst his body grew thinner, his face more gaunt, and his hopes diminished hour by hour. There was no end to his torture; there never would be, or so he thought. The remainder of his life on this earth would pass in a succession of long hours of labour and short periods of sleep, with a belly that ached incessantly for the food and nourishment denied him, and a despair that filled his heart until death itself seemed but a welcome release from this living hell on earth.

And the only comfort he knew lay in the fact that he was but one of many caught up in the same situation which, in a way, meant that he was not alone.

**March 30th; 1822:** His first year passed without his even realizing it.

The building-site on which he laboured had changed, and now the prisoners hauled huge sandstone blocks on wooden sleds from the quarry, where they were dug and cut, to the foundations he had laboured over with pick and shovel, and pushed them into position, then dragged the sleds back to the quarry, where another immense stone block was loaded aboard. Then the line of prisoners took up the heavy hemp rope, hauled as if their very lives depended on each stone arriving at its allotted place in the shortest possible time, and pressed their combined weight against the block until it tumbled from the sled and found a new home in the ditch over which they had laboured.

Now, when he lay in his cell each night, he found he could not lift his arms for the agonising pain in his muscles. His legs quivered from the constant hauling and heaving, and his back ached abominably.

But stone by stone the building grew, until a day when Fate itself took a hand in his life, and his world once again underwent a change that he could not have foreseen, a change that, in a way, was better than the backbreaking routine of his present life, but in other ways, was worse than anything he could have imagined.

And it happened on a day when the sun shone so brightly and the birds in the trees sang so loudly that all the world seemed to be trying to smile upon him.

## CHAPTER FOUR

**June 11th; 1822:** The boards from which the sled had been made were of hardwood, strong abnd thick and laid side-by-side. Beneath them, on either side, was a long wooden runner on which the sled sat, the huge stone shoved into place on its broad back.

Forty-six prisoners hauled on the thick rope until the sled sat right beside the ditch where the huge sandstone block was to take its place, and the prisoners then leaned their combined weight against the stone, whilst a second rope was looped around it and another group of prisoners hauled from in front of the monolith.

On the side nearest the foundation-ditch, the runner, on that day, fractured and broke in two, and the prisoner, first man on the hauling-rope, was dragged feet-first into the ditch because his toes could not find a purchase on the mud underfoot. As he tumbled to the bottom of the ditch, the huge stone toppled, its edge striking his left leg just below the knee, and the shinbone was crushed and shattered.

He screamed, and several prisoners immediately leaped into the ditch and began trying to move the heavy stone by means of inserting long wooden poles beneath it and levering it upwards. An old man, one who had been on the work-gang since the site had been first cleared, seized his arms and dragged him free, but the damage was done: from below the knee to just above the ankle, his leg was twisted and mangled so severely that only amputation could save his life.

The prisoner was laid out on the grass, where shock and loss of blood combined to render him unconscious, and the prison physician fetched. By the time the man arrived, the prisoner's upper thigh had been bound with a length of rope and a hardwood branch passed through it and twisted. The flow of blood had been slowed to a trickle, and the prisoner lay, pallid of face and barely breathing, whilst the physician took out his instruments and set about amputating the damaged limb.

Whilst he worked, the blade of a new shovel was heated in a fire, and when the limb had been removed, the blade was pressed against the open stump, cauterising the flesh, closing off the blood-vessels, and sealing the open wound. Then the prisoner, still unconscious, was laid on a stretcher and carried to the infirmary, some two miles away.

**June 14th; 1822:** For three days the prisoner lay in a coma, alternately sweating and shivering whilst his body tried to fight the infection in the wound. As the fourth day dawned, he returned to consciousness, returned to a world of pain and suffering such as he had never known before.

A young nurse, seated beside the prisoner all through those three long days, quickly fetched the infirmary physician, and morphine was administered, taking the patient into a world of alternate slumber and half-awake ravings and mumblings.

It was feared that he would succumb to his wounds. But somehow, he fought off the effects of the accident and the crude and hasty but necessary surgery, and came to his senses some forty-eight hours later, wanting nothing more than a sip of water.

The young nurse, who had not left his side during those five days, but dozed in a chair set to one side of his bed, tended to his needs, and cared for him as best she could. And it was principally due to her efforts and repeated doses of morphine that he pulled through, and by the end of a week, was able to sit up and take an interest in his surroundings.

Each morning, she unbandaged the leg and cleaned the wound then redressed it, and bathed his sweating brow. She fashioned crude cigarettes for him, lit them, and held the lid of a shoe-polish tin in lieu of an ashtray, fed him, and tended him hour after hour, and gradually, he overcame his pain, and the wound became clean and sanitary.

Then, at the end of the fourth week, a woodcarver came and took measurements of the stump and the length of the remaining leg. He scribbled down his measurements on a scrap of paper, left, and returned two days later with a wooden stump that was held in place by means of straps and a concave upper end that fitted over the stump of the leg, At first, it was ungainly and he found difficulty in balancing, but eventually the prisoner learned to walk again, albeit slowly, and aided by a crutch, A leather pad was fashioned to fit over the stump and prevent the wooden leg from rubbing on the bare flesh, and two months after that dreadful accident, the prisoner rose from his bed, laid aside the crutch, and walked across the little room.

He would never swing a pick or shovel again. He would never drag huge sandstone blocks from the quarry to the building-site. But he was able to walk.

## CHAPTER FIVE

**August 23rd; 1822:** Superintendent of Prisoners Clarence Beamish sat back in his chair and eyed the man opposite him.

A sheep-farmer from along the Hawkesbury River, some thirty miles north of Sydney Town, he had presented a request for the appointment of three prisoners to his property to work as shepherds and a gardener. His name was William Morris, and he had immigrated to the new land some six years previously, hoping for a more prosperous life than he could manage in England.

One year ago, he had hired a ticket-of-leave woman as a governess to his five children and employed two prisoners as shepherds, but the men had run off into the scrub and were believed to have been eaten by cannibals. And now, here he was, back again.

"What assurances do I have, assuming I award you these two shepherds and a...gardener...that they will not flee into the wilds, as the previous two men have already done?" Beamish asked, drumming his fingers on the edge of his desk.

Morris' eyebrows drew down into a dark line, and his thin mouth took on a cruel twist, as he replied: "I shall keep 'em in ankle-chains, sir. That's me assurance."

"But...can they work, hampered by ankle-chains?"

"It'll be difficult. But they will learn. Or I'll 'ave the hide off their backs!" and Morris emphasized the point by pounding his fist on the desk.

"Just so," Beamish replied, smiling; "just so, Mr Morris. Kindness does not work with these miscreants Mother England sends us. Only the strictest discipline is of use out here."

"We see eye to eye, you an' I, sir," Morris smiled, and Beamish, watching his face, shivered.

"Very well," Beamish picked up his quill and scribbled his signature at the bottom of the form; "I believe I can offer you a gardener who not only _will_ not run, he _cannot_ run...a man in the infirmary who has a stump in lieu of a left leg. Lost it in an accident some months ago. He would make an ideal gardener. And for your shepherds, I will give you two men who have known the lash more than once...men who are terrified of it, and fear the sight of it almost as much as they fear death itself."

In this second statement, Beamish was wrong: the two men of whom he was thinking did not _fear_ the lash – they _hated_ it, with a cold, implacable hatred that knew no boundary.

He took out a file, opened it and ran a fat forefinger down a column, then scribbled three names at the bottom of Morris' request.

"There you are," he said, rising and holding out his hand; "three men who will give you no trouble whatsoever. And I wish you the very best, Mr Morris. See to it that your standards of discipline are harsh and hard, and you will experience no troubles. Discipline, after all, should be meted out with an iron fist."

"Me own thoughts precisely, sir," Morris said, rising and shaking Beamish's hand; "me own thoughts precisely." And he took up his authority for the three prisoners and left the office.

Morris stepped out into the bright sunlight and walked across the compound to the Prison Administrator's office. He waited at the desk whilst a young seaman entered an office to the rear of the building, and returned with a tall, thin man in the uniform of a lieutenant-commander in Her Majesty's Navy, a grey-bearded man who had reached the limits of his rise through the ranks and would soon retire.

Lieutenant-Commander Savage had dreamed of ending his career as the victor of a distant sea-battle and returning to England a hero. But an annoying habit of running ships-of-the-line aground in confined waters had ended his seagoing career somewhat abruptly two years ago, and now retirement beckoned in this backwater of the lower echelons of society, this wide green place where only the very dregs of humanity found suitable refuge.

He introduced himself, shook Morris' hand, and took the proffered document, glanced at the notation at the bottom by the Superintendent of Prisoners, then handed it to the seaman, waiting respectfully at his side.

"Wait here, Mr Morris. Jenkins will fetch your servants," the officer said, then turned on his heel, disappeared back inside his office, and closed the door.

Jenkins donned his cap and disappeared from the building, leaving Morris standing, alone, in the anteroom. He gazed about, at the sparse, functional furniture, a tall cupboard, its doors standing open, against the wall.

Taking a pipe from his pocket, he filled it from a battered tobacco-pouch and lit it from a candle on the desk, and smoked as he paced impatiently back and forth in front of the scarred desk.

After some time, Jenkins reappeared and beckoned him. The pipe jutting from the corner of his mouth, he followed the young seaman outside, to where a squad of soldiers was coming through the main gates, two prisoners in their midst. As they drew nearer, he saw the unfriendly scowls on the faces of the prisoners, and noted the slovenly fashion in which they moved, as if they could not have cared less what happened to them. One was tall, angular, his hair thinning on top; the second man was shorter and heavier, with a livid scar running from the corner of his jaw to just beneath the left eye, the remnants of a knife-fight of some months ago.

At a shouted command, the squad halted some yards from him, and a sergeant stepped forward, seized the manacles about the wrists of the first man and dragged him forward.

"Pris'ner Simpson, sir," the sergeant said to Morris, left Simpson standing there and returned to the squad, where he seized hold of the second prisoner by the shoulder and jerked him forward.

"An' this is Wallis...both of 'em bad'uns. Ye'll need ter be 'ard on 'em."

"I intend to. Where's me third prisoner?" Morris asked, and at that moment a man, accompanied by a nurse and a young marine, appeared from a building across the parade-ground. Morris glanced at the wooden stump in place of a left lower leg, at the sad, almost mournful expression on the man's face, and frowned.

"Well, 'e won't be runnin' anywhere," he said, and led all three men to a waiting buckboard, standing in the shade of the administration building. Ordering them to get in, he waited until the first two had seated themselves and leaned forward and lifted the third man by his armpits into the wagon, and then fastened a length of chain through their manacles and back to a huge metal staple jutting out of the side of the buckboard, where he fastened it with a large padlock.

"That'll 'old them til we get 'ome," he grinned at the seaman, climbed up on the driving-seat and took up the whip. He cracked it once over the back of the old mare harnessed to the wagon, and it set off across the parade-ground and through the main gates.

The journey back to the Hawkesbury River was long and uneventful. The sun beat down mercilessly on the bare heads of the three prisoners, and before they had gone a mile, all three were sweating profusely. Occasionally, Morris turned to look at his charges, but otherwise ignored them and made no attempt to offer them a drink from the bottle of cold water stowed beneath his seat, keeping it instead for his own use.

Approximately halfway through the journey, the buckboard drew up before a small, tumbledown wayside tavern set back from the road, and Morris climbed down and disappeared inside. He was gone for perhaps an hour, then returned, burped loudly, tossed a brown-paper package to the prisoners, and the wagon set off again.

The tallest of the prisoners opened the package, and found three meat pies, all of which had gone cold. Sitting in the back of the wagon, they ate their tasteless meal, and threw the brown paper into the bushes at the side of the road. Then they stretched out in the back of the wagon as much as the chain would allow them, and tried to relax for the remainder of the journey.

Mile after mile, the old mare plodded on. The road was almost deserted except for the odd wagon on its way into the nearest town for supplies, and it was almost dark by the time the wagon drew up before a set of double gates closing off a winding gravel track that led to a large, single-storey house on a rise in a small clearing.

Morris got down and unlocked the gate, took hold of the horse's halter and pulled it and the wagon through, then locked the gate again, climbed back up on the seat, and they set off once more.

From a distance, the house looked neat and respectable. But as they drew closer, they could see it was almost as rundown as the little wayside tavern had been, with boards missing from the walls and weeds poking up out of the gravel driveway. Torn curtains covered the windows, and as the wagon came to a halt, an old, grey-haired woman dressed in a torn and much-mended gown appeared on the porch, wiping her hands on a tea-towel. She watched as the chain was unlocked and the three prisoners climbed down and stood in a circle behind the wagon, then turned and went back inside.

"Come along," Morris ordered, and the group set off around the side of the house to a small shack set behind it, with broken windowpanes and a door that hung by one hinge. The three were led inside, and there stood three bunks, no more than hardwood boards on frames with thin, moth-eaten horsehair mattresses covering them. A torn and filthy blanket lay across the foot of each bunk.

Morris led the taller of the prisoners to the first bunk, bent down and retrieved a long length of chain from the floor. One end of it was fastened around a vertical beam, the other end passed around the manacles and again locked with a padlock.

When all three had been made secure, each to a separate bunk, Morris stood back, hands on hips, and said: "Tha cook'll bring yer summat ta eat shortly. Then yer c'n git some rest til mornin'," and left them.

Half an hour later, a small, thin woman appeared carrying a blackened iron cauldron. She dumped it on the floor in the middle of the room, and as she turned to leave, one of the prisoners called: "Don' we git no bowls or spoons?"

"What fer?' the middle-aged woman asked; "dig it outa tha pot with yer fingers." and they were left alone for the night.

## CHAPTER SIX

**August 24th; 1822:** Dawn had not yet risen when the prisoners were awakened by the sound of someone banging on the iron pot in the centre of the floor.

As they sat up, grumbling and swearing, the sheep-herder straightened up, and handed the two tallest prisoners a shepherd's crook each.

"Yer'll find tha sheep in tha paddock be'ind tha 'ouse," he growled; "I want 'em taken down ta tha pasture in tha lower paddick."

"Don' we git no breakfast?" one of the prisoners asked, and Morris glared at him: "Yer'll eat when I say yer'll eat. Now git down there."

"'Ow can we 'erd sheep with ankle-irons on?' the second prisoner asked; "we can't run arter 'em."

"Well, yer'll jes' afta do it tha 'ard way. I ain't takin no anklets orf yez...jes' ta see yez runnin' off over tha nearest hill," Morris snarled; "now git down there." And he aimed a kick at the backside of the nearest man.

As the two men disappeared out of the doorway, the remaining prisoner asked: "What about me? I can't chase no sheep, with a wooden leg."

Morris turned to him: "Yer'll be workin' in tha garden. Me missus wants roses trimmed, an' weeds dug. An' then there's tha vegetable garden ta be planted." And he led the way out of the hut and around to the front of the house, where a narrow strip of dirt had been cleared and rosebushes planted. Weeds grew thickly, almost choking the life from the rosebushes, while here and there, a daisy poked its head up towards the still-rising sun.

Morris pointed to a collection of gardening tools lying on the ground: "There's yer tools. Git ta work...if ya wanna eat terday, that is. I don' feed no slackers 'ere."

As Morris disappeared inside the house, the prisoner dropped to his knees in the flower-bed. Taking up a small hand-fork, he began levering weeds from the garden and tossing them behind him. As he worked, he could smell the aroma of bacon and eggs coming from within the house, followed by the scent of brewed coffee. His mouth began to water.

A short time later, footsteps echoed from within the house, drawing closer. The old woman appeared on the verandah, a bottle of water in one hand. She tossed it so that it landed just in front of the prisoner's knees.

"In case yer git thirsty," she mumbled, and disappeared inside the house again.

The prisoner worked his way along the row, and when fully half the bed had been weeded, stopped, took out his pipe and tobacco, and filled the bowl. Then he took out a Congreve, scratched it down the side of his worn trousers, and lit the pipe. As he took his first breath of tobacco, the man appeared on the verandah.

"Did I tell yer ye c'd smoke?" he asked, and the prisoner, surprised, looked at him and shook his head.

"Ask nex' time," Morris said, stood watching him work for several minutes, then walked around the side of the house. A few seconds later, he could hear the property-owner yelling at the two men caring for the sheep.

That first day was long and tedious. The prisoner weeded the flowerbeds to either side of the steps leading up to the porch, then trimmed back the rosebushes, most of which showed signs of aphids and weed-rot, and when he had finished, was escorted down the back of the house to where a hundred-yard square vegetable garden awaited digging.

He took up a garden fork and tried to dig the first row, but after falling several times because he could not balance on the stump whilst pushing down on the fork with his foot, he switched to a hoe, and drove it into each clod, breaking the soil and lumps of mud with difficulty. Twice, Morris came out and stood watching him, and once he even came forward and chastised him for not using the fork. When the prisoner told Morris he could not use the fork because of the stump, he was berated and cursed. Then Morris turned and stomped back into the house. He did not see his master again all that long afternoon.

Darkness was falling as the three men were fetched back to the little shack where they had slept that first night. On the floor was a leaking pail of water, a cake of lye soap, and a torn shred of towel on which to dry themselves. They had barely finished a rough cleanup of their faces and hands before the middle-aged cook reappeared, carrying the old blackened pot, in which floated fatty lamb chops in a sea of warm greasy gravy. Peas and sliced potatoes drifted in the mess.

They ate, using their fingers, chewing the meat off the chops and tossing the bones back into the pot, then scooping the peas and potatoes out by hand. The meat was so tough, it was barely chewable, and the potatoes had a strange smell to them, but all were so hungry, they ate without complaining.

Sometime later, Morris walked into the shack, tossed two broken-stemmed pipes on the floor and a half-packet of tobacco, together with a box of Congreves, and walked out again without saying a word.

They smoked a pipe-full of tobacco each, then stretched out on their bunks, and were asleep within minutes.

## CHAPTER SEVEN

**August 25th; 1822:** The prisoner was working his way along the second row in the vegetable garden when he heard a shout from down in the lower paddock. One of the sheep had found a hole in the fence-line and escaped, and Simpson, the smaller of the two shepherds, gave chase. He had only gone two paces when the chain linking his ankles pulled him up short, and he tumbled face-down in the mud.

Cursing and swearing, he rose, and set off again, taking short, limping steps in an effort to stay on his feet. But the animal was too fast, and had made it halfway across the paddock leading down to the river before he had even climbed the fence.

Hearing the din, Morris appeared from within the house, and set off in pursuit of the sheep. He caught it as it neared the river, brought it down by grabbing its leg as he hurled his body forward at it, and then heaved it over one shoulder and carried it back to the paddock.

As he passed the beast across to Simpson, his fist lashed out and caught the man a solid blow on the chin, knocking him backwards.

"Yer damn fool!" he shouted at Simpson; "yer shoulda been watchin' 'em more closely!"

"I couldn' run arter 'em because of tha chains on me feet!" Simpson complained, and again Morris' fist lashed out.

" _Well, I ain't takin' them chains orf!_ " he roared; "I seen me last pris'ners run orf inta tha bush, an' I'm blowed if I'll give yer tha same chance! Now keep yer eyes open!"

Simpson climbed back to his feet, and backed away, as Morris pulled the fencing wire taut and tried to repair the hole in the fence. Then, cursing and grumbling to himself, he stomped back up the yard and stopped in front of the prisoner working in the garden.

"Go down ta tha shed!" he snarled; "git some fencin' wire an' fix that 'ole in tha fence, before them idiots let _all_ me sheep out!"

The prisoner limped away down the yard and into the shed. He found a roll of eight-guage heavy fencing wire and a wire-strainer in a corner, hefted both over one shoulder, and made his slow way down to the fence. As he worked, Simpson walked over to him, one hand rubbing his bruised jaw.

"What'd 'e say ter ya?" he asked.

"Told me to fix the fence before yer let all 'is sheep out," the prisoner said, and went on working.

"Oi'll do fer 'im some dark night! Oi _swear_ Oi will!" Simpson said, and turned to walk away. as he did so, a loud hissing sounded from near his feet, and a thin black shape reared out of the grass, its spade-head lashed forward, and Simpson screamed.

"Tha snake! Tha snake! It bit me!" he cried as the long black serpent slithered away into the grass. In a moment, it was gone from sight.

Simpson sat down heavily on the ground, holding his leg where the snake had bitten him, and as he moved his fingers, the prisoner could see two tiny puncture-marks in the flesh.

"What sort of snake was it?" he asked, standing over Simpson.

"Dunno, all black with a red belly. Some o' tha snakes in this bloody country is deadly. Christ!" and he limped away up to the shack where they spent their nights, and disappeared through the doorway.

A moment later, Morris appeared at the back door of the house. he walked down to the shack, peered inside at Simpson, who was lying on his bunk, rubbing his leg where the serpent had bitten him.

Morris reappeared, walked down to where the prisoner was working on the fence, and said to the two: "Simpson'll be daid afore nightfall. 'E said 'e was bit by a black. They kill." Then he shrugged, and walked away again. Then he stopped.

"Wallis..." he said, turning around; "...that means yer'll afta do 'is work as well as yer own. Can't 'ave tha gimp 'ere runnin' arter sheep with a wooden laig." A few moments, he was gone, back inside the house.

"Ain't yer gonna do nuthin' fer 'im?" Wallis called after him, and Morris turned: "Like what? There ain't nuthin' I can do fer 'im. 'E's as good as daid now." And he continued back up the yard and disappeared inside the house again. As his broad back disappeared through the doorway, Wallis yelled after him: " _Cold-hearted bastard!_ "

Morris turned. He glared down the yard at Wallis, standing with both fists on his hips, then strode down the yard, seized Wallis by the shirt-front, and struck him full in the mouth with his fist. As Wallis stumbled backwards, Morris followed, landing blow after blow on the man's unprotected face, then struck him hard in the stomach. As Wallis doubled over, Morris hit him again, and blood began to pour from the man's split lips.

"Yer ever curse at me again, an' I swear I'll _kill_ yer!" Morris shouted, standing over Wallis, who was cringing on the ground, his hands up before his damaged face; "now _git back ta work!_ " and he disappeared inside the house again.

The prisoner held out a hand to Wallis, who took it and hauled himself back to his feet, one hand rubbing at the blood still pouring from his lips. A tooth was broken off, and his nose lay almost flat against one cheek where one of Morris' blows had struck it.

"'E ain't nuthin' but a animal!" Wallis mumbled, turning away; "'e's a dead man! A _dead_ man!"

Wallis stumbled up the yard, doused his face and head in a barrel of rainwater, then returned to guarding the sheep.

The prisoner finished repairing the fence, disconnected the wire-strainer, threw it over one shoulder, and returned to the shed.

Morris proved to be right about Simpson: as they returned to the shed at the end of the day's work, the little man gave a long, gasping sigh, and expired on his bed.

The prisoner walked up to the house and knocked on the back door. When the woman appeared, he said: "Tell Mr Morris Simpson is dead. Jus' now, he died."

Morris came down to the shed, stood beside the bed and gazed dispassionately at the dead body, then ordered Wallis to fetch a shovel and dig a grave. As he left the shed, he turned to the prisoner and Wallis, and said: "Let this be a lesson ter tha both of yer: keep away from snakes," and walked out.

## CHAPTER EIGHT

**August 26th; 1822** : Work began again, as usual, just before the dawn had properly broken on the horizon.

Wallis got the sheep from their paddock and moved them down to grazing, but found himself hard-put to keep them in one area of the large paddock where the grasses grew long and sweet. But no matter how much he pleaded, Morris would not remove his ankle-chains.

Finally, after a particularly long and pointless argument, Morris shouted at Wallis to shut up and keep silent, and walked away to the barn. He reappeared several minutes later leading a big bay stallion by the halter, mounted up, and rode away through the gate.

The prisoner laboured over the vegetable garden, wondering how long it would be before Morris turned on him for some reason. He was a hard man, not given to sympathy, and more than willing to use his fists, it seemed. He had shown no pity at Simpson's death, and could see that Wallis had no chance of keeping up with all the sheep, hampered as he was by a short chain and manacles about both ankles, yet would not consider removing them.

Foot after foot, the prisoner dug all that day, turning over clods and breaking them, and moving on to the next row, sweating in the hot sun, and ever-mindful of the sudden appearance of the snake that had killed Simpson.

The property-owner's wife appeared near midday with a pannikin of water for him, and he sat in the shade of a tree and drank half the contents, then lit his pipe, and had just settled back to enjoy his smoke before continuing with the garden, when Morris came through the gate. He was obviously drunk.

Dismounting from his horse, he took it inside the barn, and the prisoner heard the door of a stable close, then Morris came out, looked about, stared at the vegetable garden, and walked over to where the prisoner sat.

"Ain't yer got eyes in yer 'ead?" he asked angrily, and the prisoner stared at him, then looked at the vegetable garden, but could see nothing wrong.

Before he could react, a hand closed about the front of his torn shirt and hauled him to his feet. A fist slammed into his face, and he fell backwards, striking his head on the bole of the eucalypt against which he had been sitting.

" _Damned fool!_ " Morris shouted at him; "that last row is crooked! Now git an' fix it!" and an open palm landed against his cheek.

He stooped, picked up his pipe from where it had landed on the ground, and made his way back to the garden. When he stood at the end of the last row he had hoed, he could see it was not as straight as it should have been.

Wearily, he took up his hoe, and set about correcting the row, Morris standing over him all the while, weaving drunkenly on his feet. When he had finished, Morris glared at him again, and stumbled back into the house. A few moments later, the prisoner heard the old woman cry out, and Morris' voice raised, then the sound of a slap, and then silence.

It seemed not even Mrs Morris herself was safe from her husband's violent temper.

Down in the pasture Wallis, bare-headed and out in the hot sun all day, had had nothing to drink. Dehydration set in, and he became dizzy, and the prisoner watched as the man collapsed on the ground and lay unmoving.

Tossing aside his hoe, the prisoner moved as quickly as he could over the rough ground, but he was not fast enough: the sheep, with nobody to watch over them, had found another hole in the aged fence, and one by one were escaping into an unfenced area down near the river. Within a few minutes, white fluffy balls dotted the lower pasture.

Unable to give chase because of his artificial leg, the prisoner could only yell to the house for assistance.

A moment later, Morris appeared, stormed out of the house, and set off through the lower gate in pursuit of his sheep, Mrs Morris running after him and doing all she could to help. The two figures managed to get ahead of the sheep and cut them off from the river, but even so, half an hour had passed before all the sheep were back in the pasture. In that time, Wallis had awakened again, and was sitting up, holding his head, and vomiting.

As the last of the sheep was forced through the gate, Morris walked over to Wallis, sitting at his feet, and stood glaring down at him. Then, without a word, he walked away into the shed, returning a moment later with two short lengths of rope and a stockwhip in his hand.

"Git over 'ere!" he ordered Wallis, and led the way to a fencepost sunk into the muddy soil. When Wallis stood in front of him, he tied a length of rope tightly about Wallis' wrists and the other end to the post, then reached out with one hand and tore Wallis' shirt open down the back.

As the prisoner watched, shocked, Morris laid into Wallis' bare back with the stockwhip, landing heavy blows again and again, while blood ran freely from the man's back and shoulders. Blow after blow landed, until Wallis slumped to his knees in the mud, his head hanging down between his shoulders. And still the whip continued to land.

Finally, gasping loudly, Morris had had enough. He untied Wallis, and walked away. As he passed the prisoner, he glared into his eyes and said: "Make sure you ain't tha next!" then returned the whip to the shed, and disappeared inside the house once more.

## CHAPTER NINE

Wallis lay on his bunk, face-down, his back a raw, open wound from shoulder to waist.

Every now and then, he groaned, tried to brush away the flies that landed on the skin and began feeding off the dried blood and the crimson dribble that still seeped from his flesh, but the slightest movement of his arms or shoulders brought with it a fresh onslaught of agony, and after a while, he lay still.

Half an hour later, near suppertime, Morris appeared. He had brought the blackened cauldron in which their supper was normally served, and a small calico bag hung from his fingers.

Tossing the calico bag at the prisoner's feet, he said: "Rub that inta 'is back. It'll 'elp tha wounds ta heal an' permit 'im ta work termorrer...an' don' be gentle about it," and turned to walk away.

"He passed out because he didn't 'ave anything to drink all day," the prisoner said as Morris made to close the door of the shack behind him, and Morris hesitated. Then he stepped back into the shack and walked back, to stand over the prisoner, who sat, his back against the foot of a bunk.

"Are you sayin' I should'na done what I did?" he asked, both bunched fists resting on his hips, and the prisoner replied: "No, Mr Morris...I was just explaining why 'e passed out, and couldn't tend yer sheep."

Morris stood, staring down into the prisoner's face, for a long time. Then, suddenly, his right foot lashed out and caught the prisoner's leg where the stump joined onto the wooden prosthetic. Morris leaned down as the prisoner gasped in pain, clutching the stump of his leg: "Yer ever question me again, an' I'll 'ave tha _hide_ off yer _own back!_ " he snarled, kicked the prisoner's leg again, and stomped from the shack.

A moment later, the door slammed behind him.

"'E's a right bastard, is Morris!" Wallis managed through his pain; "it's a wonder someone ain't done fer 'im before now!"

The prisoner looked at Wallis, now sitting up on his bunk. He picked up the calico bag, untied the string holding the neck closed, and peered inside. The bag contained perhaps quarter of a pound of salt.

"Bastard or not, he's right yer know..." the prisoner said softly; "the salt will help repair what h'e's done to yer back. It'll be rough...but it's the best way."

"Would'na needed it if tha bastard 'ad a grain o' 'umanity in 'im," Wallis said, and lay down again; "go on...git it over with." And the prisoner sat down on the edge of Wallis' bunk and began rubbing salt into his open back, over the loud protestations of the injured man.

## CHAPTER TEN

**August 27th; 1822:** The sky was still grey outside when Morris kicked open the door to the shack and entered. In his hand, he held a torn and tattered shirt.

As Wallis and the prisoner slowly awakened, Morris walked to Wallis' bunk and tossed the shirt across his body.

"Ya better wear that today...or tha sun'll burn tha hell outa yer back," he said; "now git out there...an' _make sure_ none of me _sheep_ don' escape!" And he was gone.

They rose, stomachs growling with hunger, and returned to their tasks. The morning was cold, with a light frost overlaying the ground, and the prisoner found the earth frozen from an overnight chill, but put his shoulders into the work, and soon had the hoe working to his liking. He dug his way down the row he had begun the previous evening, and turned to begin the run back up the next row, when he heard a shout from the paddock where Wallis had released the flock of sheep to pasture.

Looking up, he saw Wallis, struggling to release a sheep from down near the river. It had tried to exit the paddock through a narrow gap in the barbed wire, and become snared, its woolly coat caught in the sharp barbs.

At the same moment as he dropped the hoe and moved towards the lower fence to assist the struggling Wallis, Morris appeared from the back door of the house, and ran down to where Wallis was on his knees, trying to disentangle the sheep.

"What tha ruddy 'ell are you doin'? Tryin' ta ruin me fleeces?" he heard Morris shout, and then the big farmer was down on his knees, carefully disentangling the animal's wool from the wire. He watched, as slowly the animal was released and allowed to rejoin the flock. Then, as Wallis straightened and pressed a hand to his back, Morris moved directly in front of the shepherd and struck him a savage blow directly to the face.

"If I 'and't 'ad these leg-irons on, I coulda got 'ere in time ta _save_ yer precious fleece!" Wallis cried from beneath Morris' feet, and Morris suddenly leaned down and struck him again.

"I won't stand fer a man _back-chattin'_ me!" Morris said angrily; " _remember_ it!" As he walked away, passing close to the prisoner, he stopped and glared into his face.

" _You_ got anythin' ta say?" he asked, his fists bunched at his sides.

The prisoner shook his head, and Morris, after staring directly into his eyes for several seconds, stomped back up the paddock and made for the house. As he disappeared through the back door, Wallis said softly: "That man's a bloody _brute_! Nothin' less! A bloody _brute_!"

He had just finished hoeing the vegetable garden when, from a grass-tussock near his feet, a long black shape appeared and tried to slither away.

Remembering the snake that had killed Simpson, he raised the hoe high over his head and struck downwards with it, the handle of the hoe catching the snake behind the head and striking against a large rock. The handle of the hoe snapped just behind the blade, and the snake lay, wriggling, in the sun for a few seconds, before it died.

He picked up the head of the hoe and, holding the broken handle in his hand, limped up to the house and knocked on the back door.

Morris appeared a few seconds later, holding a bottle of beer in one hand.

"I'm sorry, Mr Morris...I broke yer hoe," he began, holding the broken handle up; "I struck at a snake, an'-"

The punch took him high on the cheekbone, and sent him staggering back down the steps, to land on his spine at Morris' feet. Following him down, Morris stood over him, and glared.

"Gardenin' tools cost _money_...convicts cost _nuthin_!" Morris snarled; "nex' time, let tha snake bite yer!" He reached down, snatched the head of the hoe from the prisoner's hand, and stomped off into the barn.

The man reappeared some minutes later, leading his horse by the halter. He shoved the head of the hoe into his saddlebag, mounted up, and rode out of the yard without saying a word, as the prisoner limped past him, a hand pressed to his jaw.

He walked back down to the vegetable garden and stared at the body of the snake. Ants had already begun feasting on the corpse, so he left it where it was, and returned to the house.

Mrs Morris answered his knock. When she appeared in the doorway, the prisoner noticed she had a bruise, high on her forehead.

"Yair?" she asked.

"What does Mr Morris want me ta do now? I finished tha vegetable garden," the prisoner said, and the woman stared at him for a moment, before asking: "Did Morris 'it yer?"

"Yes. But it's nothin'. 'E's gone inta town, an' didn't tell me what 'e wants me ta do now."

"Then if 'e didn't tell yer, I ain't gonna. I'll probably tell yer tha wrong thing, an' then 'e'll be arter me. Go an sit in tha shade down by tha shack. If yer see 'im comin', make it look like ye're doin' somethin'." And she disappeared, back inside the house.

The prisoner limped down to the shack, and sat in the shade by the side of the little bunk-house. He pulled out his pipe, filled and lit it, and sat there, smoking. After a few moments, Wallis joined him.

"I saw 'im 'it yer..." Wallis said, sitting down beside him; "it's not worth bein' 'anged, or I'd do fer tha bastard. 'E's a right evil one," he said; "I saw 'im hit 'is wife once. Seems 'e likes usin' 'is fists."

They talked for a few minutes, then Wallis returned to the sheep.

The prisoner went and fetched the wire-strainer and a pair of heavy pliers from the barn. He limped down to the bottom pasture, and found a panel of fencing that had loosened, applied the wire-strainer and tensioned it, then tied off the ends of the wire, and freed the strainer. Then he moved on to another panel that was in danger of falling.

The posts that held that section of fence had rotted, and were in need of replacing. He stood, gazing at the fence-line for some time, then found another section that had loosened, and repaired that, then fetched a sledge-hammer from the barn and drove the post as deep as he could into the hard earth. As he was walking back up to the barn, Morris reappeared, holding the hoe affixed to a new handle.

Dismounting, Morris led his horse into the barn, unsaddled it, and led it into its stall, then walked out and handed the hoe to the prisoner.

"See yer don't break this one," he said, and turned away.

"I've finished the vegetable garden...what do yer want me ta do now, Mr Morris?" the prisoner asked, and Morris turned and gazed down over the paddocks. Then he looked up at the sun, low down in the western sky.

"Go an' 'elp Wallis git tha sheep up inta their paddock fer tha night," Morris said; "then yer can knock orf. There's nothin' else yer can do today."

"Those posts down by tha river need replacin'," the prisoner said; "most of 'em are rotten."

Morris turned about: "Are you tellin' me how ta run me farm now?"

"No, Mr Morris, I-"

"Termorrer, put tha sheep in that pasture to tha east," Morris told him, pointing; "you'll find some cut fence-posts stacked beside tha barn. Yer can begin settin' them an' replacin' those that need replacin' in tha mornin'," he said, and walked away towards the house.

The prisoner walked down the pasture where the sheep were kept, and between them, he and Wallis got the flock back into the night-pasture. As they closed the gate, Morris reappeared, drinking from a bottle of rum. He walked down to the men as they approached the shack where they slept, and handed the bottle to Wallis.

"Go an' sit down inside...supper'll be along in a while," he said, and turned away once more.

Wallis looked at the bottle, then at the prisoner. Then he took a long swallow from the bottle, and passed it to the prisoner.

"'E's a queer one alright," Wallis said; "'e's 'ittin' yer one minute, then 'andin' out bottles o' rum tha next. Yer jes' can't figger 'im out."

"He's a man ta be careful of," the prisoner said; "an' 'e hits 'is wife, too. She 'ad a bruise on her forehead when I talked to 'er earlier."

"A man wot 'its his wife ain't no man at all!" Wallis growled, and they moved into the shade of the shack and sat on their bunks.

Half an hour later, Mrs Morris arrived with their supper in the little black cauldron.

## CHAPTER ELEVEN

**August 28th; 1822:** As dawn broke, the two men rose, dressed, and made their way down to the pasture where the sheep were dozing. Whilst Wallis got them moved to the east pasture, the prisoner went down to the pasture where they were normally penned during the day, and inspected each fence-post, finding four that needed replacing.

He limped back up to the barn, fetched a heavy iron bar and the spade, and set about digging out the first of the rotted fence-posts. Whoever had sunk the posts originally had used, not hardwood, but common pine, which was why they had rotted. By lunchtime, he had dug three of them out, and was about to start on the fourth.

Morris came down with the cauldron, placed it on the ground with a bottle of water and a loaf of fresh-baked bread, and looked along the fence-line: "Wallis can leave tha sheep fer a while, an' 'elp yer get them fence-posts set," he said; "I want that fence back up by nightfall. Yer've done a good job. Done fencin' before?"

"A little...back in England," the prisoner replied.

"Well, can yer ride...I mean, with that wooden stump?"

"Not too easily. But I can handle a buckboard."

Morris gazed along the lower fence that ran beside the river: "In that case, when yer've finished with this fence, yer can take tha horse an' buggy, an ride out an' inspect all me fences. If yer find any that need replacin', let me know. Yer'll probably find a few in tha same state...damn fool that put tha fences up in tha first place 'ad no idea what 'e was doin', usin' softwood instead o' hardwood posts...me wife coulda done better." Then he grinned, and slapped the prisoner on the back.

"Well, I'll be buggered!" Wallis said as he joined the prisoner and helped himself to the stew in the little cauldron; "did yer see that? 'E akshully grinned, an' slapped yer back! Bastard might be 'uman arter all!"

"We all 'ave our good days," the prisoner replied, digging into the stew with a chunk torn off the loaf. As he ate, he considered the man. He was cruel, given to using his fists, and impelled by a very short temper. Yet today, for the first time, he had shown a different side of himself.

When they had finished the stew, Wallis went down to the river and found a few large river-stones. He carried them back up to the paddock, dropped two into the first hole and drove them with the bar, then sat a new post on top, and the prisoner took the shovel and poured earth back into the hole around the foot of the post. Then, while he held it upright, Wallis pounded the earth into place with the bar, and they moved onto the second post.

While they were working, Mrs Morris came down and fetched the empty cauldron. She did not speak to either of them, but the prisoner noticed a fresh bruise at the corner of her mouth. Her eyes, when he looked into them, were dull and lifeless.

Just before dusk, they had replaced all four posts. Wallis fetched the strainer and handed it to the prisoner, and they managed to get the wire strung and tensioned just as the sun was setting.

The prisoner picked up the tools and headed up to the barn, while Wallis moved the flock of sheep back into their regular pasture for the night, and they washed up in a barrel of rainwater beside the shack.

Morris came down with the cauldron and set it on the floor of the shack. Then he tossed half a pack of tobacco and a box of Congreves beside the cauldron, and left again.

"Don't speak much, does 'e," Wallis said, and the prisoner shook his head.

"No...but it's when 'e speaks that yer want to watch out," he commented, and they set about their supper.

Just as they finished eating, Morris reappeared with a rolled sheet of paper in his hand.

"I drew this up for yer," he said, handing the paper to the prisoner; "it's a layout of me paddocks. Mark any fences yer think need replacin', an' when yer've finished, give it back ter me. There's two new rolls of wire in the barn, an' we got plenty o' fence-posts."

"How much land does it cover?"

"Twenty-seven acres," the farmer answered, lighting a battered pipe; "start from tha outer fences first, an' work yer way in. Then we'll start on 'em, paddock by paddock." He turned, and was about to leave the shack, when he stopped, and faced about again.

"Jes' a warnin'..." he said, glaring from one man to the other; "...they're bringin' a female out termorrer, ta help me wife in tha house. You two keep away from 'er. I want no trouble 'cause o' males makin' free with me female servant. Got it?"

Wallis stared at Morris for a moment, then nodded his head. As the prisoner was about to reply, Morris said: "You I don' 'ave ta worry about: who'd want a man with a wooden leg?" Then he laughed, a harsh sound in the stillness of the night, and left the shack.

The two men ate their supper, then went outside to the rainwater barrel and washed their faces and hands. Then they sat on the step in the cool of the early night, and smoked.

"Makin' free with 'is female servant!" Wallis growled; "what makes 'im think I'd wanna 'ave anything ta do with a scrawny female convick, anyway?"

"'E was just warning us, that's all," the prisoner said, rubbing the leg where it joined onto the wooden stump. It had been chaffing whilst they had been working on the fence, and now felt raw and tender. Reaching down, he unfastened the straps holding it in place, and took it off, laying it beside his body on the step.

"Is it 'ard ta get used ta walkin' with that thing?" Wallis asked, and the prisoner shook his head: "No. Not arter a while. At first, it throws yer off-balance, but when you get used ta balancin' on it, yer hardly notice it...except when it chaffs against the skin, like it's been doin' all afternoon," he replied.

Down in the lower paddocks, a fog began to creep across the ground, hiding the flock from view. Somewhere up in the hills, a dingo howled, then was silent.

"'Ope it comes down an' eats 'is flamin' flock! I'm goin' ter bed!" Wallis said, and rose, made his way back into the shack, and was soon asleep.

The prisoner sat alone on the front step, smoking for some time, and listening to the night noises all about him. Then he, too, retired.

## CHAPTER TWELVE

**August 29th; 1822:** Just on dawn, Morris roused the men and went back up to the barn. He harnessed an old grey gelding to the buggy, led it out into the yard, and called to the prisoner, who turned and walked back up to where Morris stood.

As he was about to climb aboard the buggy, a Black Mariah drew up in the yard beside the house. A female prisoner, young, with long, stringy hair climbed down, and stood waiting until a guard got down, took hold of the manacles securing her wrists, and led her towards Morris.

"Mr Morris?" the guard called when within a few yards of them; "this is Mary Sullivan. Transported fer prostitution in London. She's yer assigned servant now."

Morris looked at the girl, at the sullen face and downcast eyes. Then he said: "Take 'er up ta tha house. Yer'll fine me wife inside. She'll be takin' charge of 'er." As they were about to walk away, Morris called: "Sullivan! Make sure yer do as ye're told, or ye'll feel tha lash, right smart!" Then he helped the prisoner climb aboard the buggy, slapped the gelding on the rump, and the buggy set off down the yard.

The prisoner began working his way around the boundary-fences, marking panels that needed replacing with a stub of pencil on the map Morris had given him. Whoever had erected the fences originally had known nothing about the trade: most of the posts were pine, and had not lasted many years before giving way to rot, and several panels lay, flattened, on the ground.

By noon, when the sun sat directly overhead and he could feel the heat through his worn and tattered shirt, he had completed inspecting roughly a third of the boundary-fences. He drove the buggy up through the bottom gate and across the river, then up through the gates separating him from where Wallis was working, and with difficulty, climbed down.

As his feet touched the earth, the female appeared, the blackened cauldron in her hands. She glanced at the prisoner, then at his wooden leg, and placed the cauldron on the ground with a bottle of water, and turned to walk back up to the house.

"How long you out here for, Mary?" the prisoner asked, and the girl stopped momentarily. Without turning her head, she said softly: "Mrs Morris said I weren't ta speak ter yez," and walked away. She had only gone a few paces when she stopped again.

"Fourteen year," she said, and continued on her way.

"Not ta speak ta us...are we some kinda disease, or somethin'?" Wallis growled, and dug into the cauldron with his fingers.

"They're jes' tryin' to make sure no funny business gets started between us," the prisoner said, and began eating. He picked up a loaf of bread the girl had placed beside the water-bottle, tore off a chunk, and dipped it into the greasy mess in the cauldron. As he ate, he watched the girl, moving towards the house. She was young, perhaps seventeen or so, and had once had long black hair, when she had bothered to wash it, which must have been some time ago. Her face was pitted with smallpox scars, and there was a long, livid scar down the right cheek. But he had noticed her eyes most of all: a light shade of green, they appeared to contain all the misery a world could throw at a human being.

'A prostitute in London,' he thought to himself; her life would not have been an easy one.

They finished their meal, and the prisoner left Wallis, scraping the remains of the gravy out of the cauldron with a chunk of bread, and managed to hoist himself aboard the buggy again. He set off down through the paddocks and across the river, and began work on the next panels of fencing.

Dusk was setting as he drove the buggy through the fence along the lower boundary, and waited until Wallis had got all the sheep back into their holding-pen for the night before coming up through the remaining paddocks and pulling to a stop before the barn.

He was tired, and his leg was chaffing badly from climbing in and out of the buggy, opening and closing gates, and getting down to inspect fallen panels of fencing all afternoon. He walked the buggy into the barn, unhitched the gelding and led it into a stall, made sure it had water and hay, and locked the stable-door, then limped outside as the girl approached, the cauldron in both hands.

"C'n I take that for yer, Mary?" he asked, and gratefully, she passed the heavy cauldron to him. He carried it down to the shack where he and Wallis slept, placed it on the floor, then sat on the step, watching as Wallis tried to engage the girl in conversation.

A flicker of movement caught his eye, and through the back door of the house, Morris appeared. Seeing the girl and Wallis standing close together, he moved quickly down the yard, and as the girl turned, his open right hand caught her across the cheek. As the girl stumbled away with a cry and a hand pressed to her cheek, he snarled: "I tole yer _not ta talk_ to 'em! Do as yer told!" Then he stood there, glaring at Wallis.

The prisoner saw Wallis' fists bunch, and for an instant, he thought the convict was about to strike his master. But then Wallis shrugged, turned away, and continued up the yard to the shack.

"By Gawd! 'E's a bastard!" he muttered as he passed the prisoner and threw himself on his bunk.

"I see 'e's taken off her leg-irons," the prisoner said, entering the shack; "at least she has that much freedom."

"Yeah...'e's not afraid of 'er runnin' off and joinin' tha natives, like 'e is me, for fear of gittin' ate by them," Wallis growled, sitting up and lighting his pipe; "if 'e ever took mine off, I'd be outa here like a shot. 'E's even worse than tha animals back at tha prison-camp!"

The prisoner lowered himself so that he sat beside the cauldron. He reached down, unstrapped the wooden leg, and laid it on the floor, then began massaging the stump where it had been chaffing. The skin was red-raw, and blisters were beginning to appear at the edges, where the movement of the stump against the wooden appliance had been greatest.

"'Ere...you..." a voice spoke from the doorway, and they looked up, to see Mrs Morris entering the shack. She tossed a small brown bottle of salve to the prisoner, who caught it and began unscrewing the lid.

"It'll take tha sting out of it, an' you'll be able ter work termorrer," she said, turned, and left the shack. They heard her footsteps, moving away up the yard.

"She's not so bad, but 'e's a proper mongrel," Wallis said; "wonder why she ever married 'im in tha first place?"

The prisoner began massaging the salve into the stump, slowly and gently. As he did so, Wallis came over, squatted beside the cauldron, and began eating with his fingers. When the prisoner had finished his task, he screwed the lid on the bottle of salve, wiped his hands on his shirt, and began eating. Just as they had finished wiping out the cauldron with chunks of bread, the girl appeared again, picked up the cauldron, and walked out of the shack. She said not a word, but continued on her way, her head down. The prisoner noticed her eyes were red, as if she had been crying.

"Don' take no notice of him," he said softly; "it don't do no good."

She glanced back at him, paused as if about to speak, then thought better of it, and left the shack.

The two men moved out to the step and sat there smoking in the early dark. From somewhere near at hand, an owl hooted once, then took flight.

From down near the sheep-pen, a wild dog howled. Wallis fetched his shepherd's crook from beside his bunk and moved out into the darkness, towards the pen. As he disappeared into the black night, the prisoner climbed wearily to his feet, and walked back to his bunk, where he unstrapped the leg again and lay down on his back, thinking of all that had happened to him since his arrest back in London.

It seemed that his life had become an endless chain of brutishness and cruelties. He finally fell asleep, wondering how much longer he could continue to live under these harsh conditions.

## CHAPTER THIRTEEN

**August 30th; 1822:** "'Ow many more fences yer got ta inspeck?" Morris asked the prisoner as he harnessed the gelding to the buggy.

"Take me about another week," the prisoner replied; "I rode about a third of the outer fences yesterday."

"Well, lemme know when yer finished. I'll send Wallis with yer, an' yer can both work on tha fences until they're finished...before all me stock gits lost ta tha natives, not that fences stop 'em. If they wants somethin', they just helps themselves...think they can just take what they want."

"They don' know any better, Mr Morris. To them, tha sheep are jus' stock, to be taken when they need food."

Morris, about to walk back to the house, turned and came back. Standing so close to the prisoner, their faces were almost touching, he grated: "If I want yer advice, I'll _ask_ fer it! Otherwise... _shut up!_ " and he stomped away up the yard as a group of mounted men drew up in front of the house.

Shrugging, the prisoner climbed aboard the buggy and set off through the paddocks to the west as the sun rose behind him. The day would be hot and dry, with a light breeze blowing. Beside him on the seat sat a haunch of salted beef and a bottle of water Morris had given him for his lunch. Obviously, he was expected to remain at his task for the day.

He had worked his way along the western boundary, and was just turning onto the north fences when he came across a family of natives camped beneath a stand of eucalypts. He watched, as the woman worked at getting a fire kindled, and the husband set off, a tall, thin man with his spears in one hand. Two small children ran around their campsite, chasing a blue-tongued lizard that soon escaped them by racing up a tall tree.

Then he noticed, to one side of the fire, was a heap of fleece from a sheep. Apparently, the natives had helped themselves to one of Morris' ewes sometime during the past few days, and had not yet gotten rid of the fleece. If Morris saw that wool, the prisoner had no illusions as to what the man would do.

He drove down into the camp, and the woman looked up from her fire, stared at him through wide brown eyes, watching as he leaned down and picked up the fleece, and stowed it behind the seat. He would dispose of it somewhere far from the campsite, where Morris was unlikely to find it.

As he drove his buggy through the campsite and into the bushes on the far side, a rifle-shot crashed in the stillness. He turned, as the woman clutched at her breast, then toppled face-down into the fire.

The prisoner ducked, as a rifle-ball whistled past close to his head, then there was a volley of shots, and the two children were hit. One, a boy, lay screaming on the ground, blood pumping from his stomach. Then the tall native male appeared again, raised a spear, and made to hurl it as a shot took him through the forehead. He toppled over backwards, and lay still.

All the members of the little family were dead. Stunned, the prisoner could only watch as Morris and a group of men he had never seen, all carrying rifles, appeared from the bushes on the far side of the campsite and walked out to inspect the bodies.

"I'll take that fleece yer've got in yer buggy!" Morris' voice yelled, and the prisoner watched as the short, swarthy man walked towards him, a rifle hanging from his hand.

The prisoner picked up the bundle of wool and tossed it on the ground at Morris' feet.

"There was no need to kill 'em all, 'specially tha children!" he said.

"If we 'and't, they'd've taken more of our stock, an' then we'd 'ave 'ad more native thieves ta deal with once word got out," Morris spat; "when they start stealin', yer've gotta kill 'em, as a warnin' ta the others. Now be on yer way, an' tend ta yer work!"

The prisoner could do nothing. He left the campsite and the bodies, and returned to inspecting the fences. But all that day, he thought about the little family that had died, because they had taken a sheep. When he returned through the campsite later that evening, all four bodies were tied by the neck to tree-branches, and hung, twisting and turning in the breeze. They had been left there as a warning to other natives who might come through the area. Already, flies were buzzing around the bodies and flocking on the blood.

Sickened, he drove through the site and back up the trail that led to the bottom yard.

## CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The prisoner was sitting on the step in front of the shack, enjoying the cool of the twilight, and Wallis had gone back inside to fetch a candle to light his pipe, when a group of some twelve Aboriginal men appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. Ranging in age from about twenty to one in his sixties with white hair, all held spears in their hands. And all looked grim-faced and angry.

Stepping forward, the oldest one spoke in a language the prisoner could not understand, and he stared at the old man, not knowing how to react or what to expect. Then a younger man stepped forward, and said: "Boss." He looked inside the shack, and said again: "Boss,' then stepped back.

Assuming they wanted to speak to Morris, the prisoner pointed up at the house, and the group turned away, jabbering and gesticulating with their hands, and headed for the house.

As Wallis returned, the group gathered about the open back door and waited, until the same one who had spoken stepped forward and pounded with his fist on the open door.

A moment later, Morris appeared, a flintlock in one hand. at sight of the weapon, the men leaped back, and Morris lowered the barrel, and waited.

The younger one stepped forward again, and there seemed to be a short conversation between Morris and the native. Then Morris held up one hand, and disappeared back inside the house, to return several minutes later holding two white flour-bags. He handed the bags to the men, who passed them to the oldest man. The old one peered inside the bags, jabbered again at Morris, and then the group turned and walked back the way they had come, down through the paddocks and across the river.

"Wonder what that was all about?" Wallis spoke from behind the prisoner.

Morris watched until the group of natives had disappeared into the falling dusk, then walked casually down to the shack and stood in front of the prisoner.

"What'd they say ter yer?" he asked.

"Summat I couldn't understand," the prisoner said; "then they asked for the boss, so I sent 'em to you. why, Mr Morris? What'd they want?"

"Oh..." Morris said casually, turning to gaze off down the paddocks; "...they carried on 'bout that mob we killed that stole me sheep. So I gave 'em a bag of tea, an' another of sugar, an' that satisfied 'em. Yer won't be seein' them again."

The prisoner gazed off into the distance, but could not make out the men: "Dunno that a bag o' _sugar_ an' a bag o' _tea_ is gonna keep 'em satisfied, not after a _family_ has been shot," he said.

Morris grinned: "Mebbe not...but the _poison_ I put in tha _sugar_ 'll shut 'em up. They'll be _dead_ afore mornin'." And he sauntered away, whistling tunelessly to himself.

The two men sat on the step and stared after Morris' disappearing figure.

"Did 'e kill a _fam'ly?_ " he asked softly; "fer _stealin_ ' a _sheep?_ "

"Yes," the prisoner said quietly; "I saw it 'appen, this mornin', just over the river. A group of farmers with rifles shot them, and left the lot hangin' from branches in the forest."

"Gawd!" Wallis swore softly; "they're real mongrels aroun' 'ere. What will tha p'lice say when they find out?"

"Dunno. But I'm not goin' ridin' fences tomorrow without a rifle," the prisoner vowed, tapped out his pipe, and stood, as Mary made her way down to the shack with the little cauldron.

## CHAPTER FIFTEEN

**September 1st; 1822:** Heavy rain had fallen all the previous day, and the men had remained in the shack, lying around on their bunks and playing cards, and enjoying a day free of work and toil.

By the next morning, the clouds had cleared, and Morris woke them early. As Wallis headed down to the sheep-pen, the prisoner followed Morris up to the barn, and was about to bring up the subject of his carrying firearms, when a subaltern and six mounted troopers rode in from the roadway.

Halting beside the two men, the young subaltern flipped a lazy salute, and asked: "Mr Morris?"

Morris turned: "Yair...what'dya want?"

"I understand you had some trouble with natives out here two days ago, sir?"

The prisoner stopped what he was doing, and turned, expecting trouble, and wondering how Morris was going to get out of the blame for killing the family, and for poisoning a group of native men.

"I did...but I fixed 'em. Found tha fam'ly what stole me sheep, an' shot 'em, an' took care o' a group o' blacks what come lookin' fer trouble."

The subaltern took out a pad from his dress-jacket, made some notes, then asked: "The...aah...men...how did you 'take care of them,' sir?"

"Give 'em some poisoned sugar an' tea," Morris said, both hands braced on his hips; "what of it?"

"Oh..." the young subaltern removed his cap, and wiped a hand across his forehead; "...just that we like to keep our records straight as to the number of blacks causing troubles in the area, sir. Can you show me where the first lot are?"

Morris nodded towards the prisoner, who had resumed harnessing the gelding to the buggy: "Me man 'ere c'n show yer. 'E's goin' down that way. Dunno where tha second mob went to...but I 'spect yer'll find 'em down there somewhere."

"And...how many were in the second group, sir?"

Morris scratched his head: "Oh...'bout ten or twelve." Then he turned to the prisoner, who was about to mount the buggy: "Take this lot down an' show 'em where that mob o' thieves is. An' ye'd better take this..." he walked into the barn, took down an old shotgun, then searched a bench until he found a handful of shells, and handed them to the prisoner.

"If yer hafta use it, I want a full accountin'...so's I know who ta come to if one o' me _sheep_ gits shot," he growled, and the prisoner took the shotgun and slid it down behind the seat of the buggy. Shoving the shells in his shirt-pocket, he said: "I won' shoot none of yer sheep, Mr Morris."

"Well, if ya hafta use tha shotgun..." Morris said; "...don' muck about with shootin' over their 'eads. It don't work. Yer _shoot fast_...an' yer _shoot_ ta _kill_. Got it?"

The prisoner stared at Morris for a second. Then he wheeled the buggy and set off down through the paddocks, the subaltern and his troopers following.

They crossed the river and headed south through the forest where the murder of the native family had taken place. The four bodies had been cut down from the branches where they had been hung, and were laid out side by side, in a little clearing, and around them sat a large group of natives, both men and women.

There were no children. All the males sat in a group, talking angrily in their own language and gesticulating wildly, while the females, their faces painted in white clay, sat in a circle around the four bodies and wailed piteously. As the party of troopers appeared through the bushes, the entire group fell silent and sat, staring at the white men. Then one old man, his hair white, his long and stringy beard matted, rose to his feet and shouted at the group then stood, staring straight at the subaltern, a spear in his right hand. One by one, the rest of the males, some in their late teens or early twenties, rose and stood in a group behind him. Each held a spear or a heavy wooden war-club, or nulla-nulla, as the Aborigine called them.

The subaltern held up his hand, and the two lines of troopers came to a halt, their hands hovering close to their weapons.

The young officer rode forward, his hand held up before him. As the old man drew back his spear, the subaltern said loudly: "Lay down your weapons, in the name of the Queen! We are here to investigate the deaths of four of your kinsmen!" and the old man hesitated as, from behind him, the prisoner heard a series of loud clicks, and knew the men had drawn their muskets and thumbed back the hammers.

For a moment, the old man stared into the eyes of the subaltern. Then he said something in his own language, and behind him, spears were raised, nulla-nullas lifted threateningly.

Suddenly, a shot rang out on the morning stillness. The old man staggered, dropping his spear, and pressing his hand to his abdomen as blood appeared from between his spread fingers.

"Who fired that shot?" the subaltern barked, turning in his saddle, and all at once, the air was filled with spears. The subaltern was struck high in the back, the shaft of the spear burying itself deeply in his flesh, and he slowly toppled from his horse and lay still.

"Fire!" someone shouted, and a volley of shots sounded from behind the prisoner. He ducked his head, and a long, deadly spear flew past his shoulder, to bury itself in a eucalypt behind him. Then a young warrior ran towards him his club raised high. Four paces separated the two men when a lone shot sounded, and the warrior pitched face-down on the earth, his club flying from his fist. He lay, kicking and digging at the earth with his fingers, strange guttural sounds emanating from his open mouth, then slowly stiffened, and lay still.

Then, suddenly, the natives had disappeared into the bushes, simply vanished from sight.

Looking behind him, the prisoner saw a man, a shaft buried in his shoulder, gritting his teeth as he broke off the haft of the spear close to his body. The subaltern lay, dead, on the ground, and another older man lay near to him, a spear buried in his spine.

He watched in horror as the troopers reloaded their weapons, and on a given command, fired a volley into the bushes shielding the natives. A sergeant, older than any of the other troopers, dismounted, knelt beside the body of the subaltern and pressed fingers to his chest, then lifted the body and slung it across the saddle of the officer's horse. He moved to the second man, shook his head, and slowly lifted the body and laid it across the saddle of the trooper's horse.

"Let's get out of here, before they come back!" the sergeant cried, and as one, the troop turned and rode off, back the way they had come.

The prisoner shook the reins, and his horse lunged forward, pulling the buggy over the rough ground behind the troop. In the exchange, which had lasted no more than seconds, four men had died and one was wounded. As the troop broke into a gallop, the prisoner cracked his whip and followed as fast as his horse could manage.

## CHAPTER SIXTEEN

"...Two of my men are dead, one is wounded, and we left two dead natives in the clearing," the sergeant told Morris, who stood, smoking and leaning on the fence; "but I hope the sight of the Army will send those natives running, and they will not bother you again, sir." Then, flipping a lazy salute with his right hand, he waved, and the troop rode off through the main gates and out onto the roadway.

Morris stood, gazing at the prisoner. His mouth was set in a firm, hard line, and he stood, thinking, for some time, before speaking: "Well, 'e can 'ope them natives won't be back...but they will. They never knows when they's 'ad enough. You better not go down the fences again terday, I don't think. Never can tell what can 'appen. I'll find work fer yer ta do around the 'ouse fer the next few days. Then, when we go down tha fences again, I'll go with yer...an' we'll both be armed!" And he turned away and headed back towards the house.

The prisoner turned and gazed off back towards the little clearing, now hidden behind the eucalypts beyond the river. He thought about the fierce exchange that had taken place, the two natives that had been killed, and wondered who had fired the shot that had started the battle. Somebody had been too quick on the trigger, and because of his nervousness, four men were dead. The natives would return to collect and bury their dead comrades, or whatever it was that they did with the dead in their society, of that he was certain. But what would be their reaction to it all, now that the soldiers had left? Would they seek revenge on Morris and his men?

He shook the reins and drove the buggy into the barn, climbed down from the seat and unharnessed the horse. Then he spent some time washing the animal down and stabling it, and ensuring it had enough fodder and water, closed the door, and left the barn. As he walked down to where Wallis was sitting, one eye on the flock of sheep, he could not help casting frequent glances back towards the hidden clearing.

"Hear yer 'ad some trouble," Wallis said as the prisoner closed the gate to the paddock behind him and limped over to where the shepherd sat, smoking; "over beyond tha river...some blacks give yer a 'ard time?"

"Yes...the troopers had to shoot two of 'em, and lost two of their own men. Worryin', though...think they could be back...'specially when they find out that sugar Morris gave 'em is poisoned."

"They'd know by now, mate," Wallis said, gazing away towards the clearing; "an' I bet they're back, lookin' fer more trouble, now they know tha soldiers is gorn. There's only three of us an' Morris ain't likely ta give us guns."

"Mightn't 'ave any choice," the prisoner said, lighting his pipe; "if the blacks come back...there's a lot of 'em over there. Too may fer one man ta hold off until tha traps get 'ere."

Wallis looked at him: "How many you reckon there are...warriors, that is?"

"Twenty, per'aps more. I counted at least that many in the group we ran inta. An' they don't like us one bit. If they know Morris is the only one here with guns, they'll be back. He'll 'ave to arm us...if 'e wants ta live, _an_ ' protect 'is missus."

Nothing was seen of the natives for the rest of the day. Morris did not arm the two convicts, but the prisoner noticed the man carried two flintlocks, shoved in the waistband of his trousers, from then on.

For the remainder of the day, the prisoner stayed with Wallis, guarding the flock of sheep in the paddock nearest the house. The grass was not as long or as thickly-grown as in their usual grazing paddock, but it was nearer to the house, and to assistance, should the band of blacks reappear.

As dusk fell, and the two men shepherded the flock back into the night holding-paddock, Morris came down into the yard and scanned the woods near the river for any sign of the native, but saw nothing. He was not concerned that they might attempt retribution during the night – the natives in this new country seemed to have a fear of the night, and remained in their encampments until dawn.

When Mary brought the cauldron down to the shack for their supper, Morris followed her inside, and tossed a flintlock on each of the men's beds.

"Keep 'em by yer at all times," he said; "I don't like givin' convicks guns, but there ain't no choice right now." Then he turned and followed Mary back to the house.

The prisoner picked up the flintlock lying on his folded blanket, and checked it. The weapon was old, the barrel slightly rust-coated, the trigger loose. But it was loaded, although, to judge from the age of the weapon, there was a chance it would do no more than blow off his hand should he choose or need to fire it.

Wallis' weapon was in even worse condition. Morris was certainly taking no chances in arming the two men: he had chosen the oldest and most unserviceable weapons he had to give them.

As they sat on the steps in the chill of the falling night, their eyes kept wandering to the river, and the woods beyond it. But there was no sign of movement in the bushes, nor in the further clearing, which the prisoner could locate by the presence of an exceptionally-tall eucalypt at its edge. Time and again, he found himself turning in that direction, scanning the forest even after full dark had fallen and nothing could be seen.

There was not even the distant flicker of a campfire. It was as if the natives had simply vanished.

Finally, shortly after seven pm; when a cold wind sprung up from the west, both men retired. But regardless of Morris' belief that the natives would remain in their camp during the hours of darkness, neither man slept well that night, dozing fitfully, to awaken at the slightest noise, and lie awake until dawn broke.

## CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

**September 2nd; 1822:** The prisoner rose as grey touched the far horizon, donned a tattered old army greatcoat Morris had given him, and limped outside to relieve himself. As he stood in the dawn chill behind the shack, he glanced across the river – and there stood a large group of natives, lined out before the forest, each carrying spears and nulla-nullas, and staring towards the farm.

"Think we got trouble," he said as he stumped into the shack; "they're back...an' they look like the mean business." He picked up the ancient flintlock and tucked it into the waistband of his worn trousers, then moved to the door and stood, peering around the jamb.

A moment later, Wallis joined him, his weapon in his hand. As he shoved the muzzle around the door and sighted along the barrel, the prisoner raised his hand, placed it on top of the barrel, and pushed it gently downward.

"Not yet..." he said softly; "...we ain't got no reloads. We gonna hafta make every shot count."

" _Hey!_ " Morris yelled from the back door of the house; "git yerselves up 'ere! We'll 'old 'em orf from 'ere, if we hafta!"

At that moment, the big stallion burst from the barn, Mary bent low over the saddle. As it raced out through the gates and turned onto the roadway, Morris yelled: "She's gorn in ta fetch tha army! Hurry up! Git up 'ere!"

His pistol still in his hand, Wallis ran for the house, leaving the prisoner hobbling along in his wake. When he was halfway to the house, one of the natives drew back his right arm and hurled a spear from his woomera, or throwing-stick. It sailed high in the air, and the prisoner watched as it buried its shaft in the soil not thirty feet behind him.

He turned, braced his right wrist on a fencepost, took aim, and fired, then turned about and headed for the house as quickly as his stump would allow him.

On the far side of the river, the natives ducked down as the shot crashed in the early morning stillness, and the ball passed harmlessly over their heads.

Morris reached out and took his arm, pulling him up the steps and into the house, then slammed the door. Handing the prisoner a powder-horn and shot, he ordered: "Reload that gun! Yer did well!" and the prisoner looked up, surprised at the compliment.

"Yer showed 'em we got guns! They'll likely think careful before comin' any closer," Morris told him, a double-barrelled shotgun braced beneath his right arm; "it'll take tha army per'aps half an hour ta get 'ere...if them natives come, we gotta hold 'em orf til then!"

They watched through the rearward-facing windows of the old house whilst the natives stood in a large group, arguing volubly. Occasionally, one of them would stop and stare across the river at the house, then return to the argument. Then, as the debate seemed to have reached its most heated, the older men spread out in a line facing towards the house, whilst the younger ones – some dozen or so – grouped themselves at the centre of the line, and began moving towards the river.

Morris disappeared inside, and when he returned, he held a musket, its barrel shining with a coating of oil, and handed it to the prisoner.

"Yer eyes is better than mine," he explained; "when they reach this side, take a crack at hittin' one of 'em...it might be enough ta put tha rest orf comin' any closer."

The prisoner rested the long barrel on the lower sill of the open window, thumbed back the hammer, and sighted on the tallest of the warriors, a man who was now stepping into the river, a woomera in one hand, two or three spears in the other. It was a long shot – some eighty yards or so – but assuming the weapon was new, by the time the warrior had reached the near bank, the range would have fallen to some sixty yards. He would be within range, but only just.

He watched as the young warrior waded out into midstream, his weapons held over his head, and waited. As the warrior's foot touched the near bank, he sighted on the man's chest, held his breath, and gently squeezed the trigger. There was a puff of smoke, a loud, resounding crack as the gunpowder exploded, and the warrior suddenly threw his arms wide, the weapons flying from his grasp.

""Yer did it!" Morris shouted, slapping the prisoner on the shoulder; "yer got 'im!"

The three men watched as the warrior slowly sank into the water then resurfaced, to lie, floating amongst the reeds. The remaining warriors began to turn about and make their way hurriedly from the river. When they had all regained the far bank, the line of elder warriors closed in about them, and the argument resumed, with much arm-waving and shouting taking place.

"That was a damn good shot!" Wallis said, grinning at the prisoner; "yer give 'em summat ta think about. Mebbe they won't be so keen ta take us now."

"I just shot one of their warriors," the prisoner said as he accepted the powder-horn from Morris; "they'll be arter revenge, an' make no mistake about it. They'll come fer us, sooner or later." He finished loading the musket, and stood it on its butt against the wall next to the window. He looked up across the river again, and as he watched, a second group of warriors appeared from the eucalypt forest behind the group gathered near the riverbank.

All were fully armed. And the face and body of each warrior was painted with coloured clay.

"Reinforcements jes' arrived," Morris said; "we're fer it now." Then, raising his voice, he shouted: _Mary! Git out 'ere!_ "

"She can't, Mr Morris...you sent her into town to fetch the army," the prisoner said, and Morris looked at him for a moment, then ran, doubled over, back into the house. A moment later, he reappeared with his grey-haired wife, who looked scared and strained.

"Stay out 'ere with us, Lil;" Morris told her; "we'll need yer ta reload fer us...if we're ta 'ave any chance of holdin' 'em orf. Git down, an' reload the guns as we pass 'em to yer, girl. I think we're for it now, lads!"

## CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Across the river, the natives now numbered some thirty to forty armed warriors. There seemed to be a discussion or voluble argument taking place involving all the warriors, for there was much arm-waving, pointing across the river towards the house, and shouting.

The three men and the old woman crouched below the windows and peered across at the melee, waiting to see what the group would do next. And they were not kept waiting long.

An old man, seemingly older than the rest, stepped forward, and began shouting, and gradually the tumult subsided, the warriors paying close attention to what he was saying. Then they split into two groups, separated by some twenty yards, and moved towards the river. As they began wading out in the shallows, their weapons held above their heads, they remained separated, obviously intending to attack the house on two fronts, from the left and from the right. It would be an attempt to split the fire of the defenders, for the natives seemed to have reasoned out that it took some seconds for each weapon to reload after being fired. A steady, swift rate of fire could not be maintained, and if the defenders were forced to defend two sides of the house at once, this further lessened the response rate.

"We're for it now, lads!" Morris said grimly, laying aside his shotgun and taking up a musket, which had a longer range than the shotgun; "they'll take us from two sides. I never counted on that!"

Morris proved to be right: when the natives reached the nearside of the river, they waded ashore, and the two groups separated even further, moving down along the riverbank in both directions until some eighty to a hundred yards stood between them and the house. Then they began moving up, over the rise towards the house.

The group watched as the natives moved in closer to the little house, and when still some fifty yards from the buildings, a native stood and hurled a spear from his throwing-stick. The defenders watched as it sailed through the morning air and landed just short of the left-hand wall.

Then both groups dropped down on their stomachs and began crawling through the long grass towards the house, sitting on a slight rise above them. By doing so, they had ensured the defenders lost sight of both groups in the paspalum that stood to well over knee-height. As they moved closer, one native, a firestick tucked into his woolly hair, separated from each group, and began crawling slowly and stealthily towards the front of the house. When they had moved far enough up towards the roadway to ensure they could not be seen from the back of the house, they rose and ran in towards the front of the house, laying their firesticks against the walls and heaping handfuls of dead grass and light bracken over the smouldering firesticks. Then they fanned the tiny flickering flames with their hands until the kindling was ablaze, and backed away to watch, as the flames gradually engulfed the front wall.

"I smell smoke!" Wallis said suddenly, and as the three men turned, a wisp of grey smoke floated down the hallway towards the back of the house.

"Gawd! They've set fire ta tha house!" Morris yelled, and got to his feet just as a spear thudded into the wall near where he had been crouching.

Rising quickly. Lily ran up the hall, into the house's only bedroom off to the left, and reappeared holding a blanket. She disappeared into the kitchen, and came out holding the blanket, now sodden with the washing-up water from a wooden pail in the sink. Heading back up the hall, she began beating at the conflagration with all her might, her thin arms flailing at the flames, which appeared to die beneath the damp weight of the blanket, then rose again as the weight of the heavy material was lifted up.

"Here they come!" Morris yelled, and fired. Twenty yards away from the house and out to the left, a native grabbed at his arm, cried out, then ignored the wound and hurled his spear. As it sailed past Wallis through the open window above his head, he ducked, then rose again and fired in the one motion.

The two men watched helplessly as Wallis seemed to straighten to his full height before the open window, then staggered back, and toppled to the floor, a spear embedded deeply in his breast. The man's wide, staring eyes told them he was already dead.

"Lil! We need yer, gal!" Morris shouted as, outside, the blacks made a concerted run towards the house on two fronts. Spears began thudding into the walls, and one or two sailed right through the open windows, missing the two men by inches.

Over to the right, behind the back door, the prisoner took aim on a tall, bearded native, and fired, then watched with satisfaction as the man dropped to the ground, his spears and woomera flying from his hands. He heard Morris fire again, heard a native scream, then ducked down to reload the musket. His hand fell on a flintlock pistol lying near his hand, and he raised it, took aim again, and squeezed the trigger.

Outside, the oldest of the old men cried out, more in anger than pain, and hurled a spear, then stood momentarily frozen as he attempted to fit a second spear to his woomera. Around him, the younger warriors were now within ten yards of the house, and showed no sign of slowing their advance.

With trembling fingers, he finished reloading the musket, laid the long barrel on the window-sill, and fired again. But his shot had been hasty, misjudged. The natives continued their run towards the embattled house, as beside him, the old woman picked up the flintlock pistol and set about reloading it with trembling fingers.

He felt the pistol pressed hard against his forearm and reached across his body to take the weapon as old Lil gasped, choked, then fell forward onto her face, a spear buried in her back.

" _Lil!_ " Morris yelled; " _Lil!_ Get up, girl! _Lil!_ " But the old woman could not hear him.

"Yer stinkin' murderin' bastards!" he cried, rose to his feet, his face suffused with anger, and fired through the open window. A moment later, a shaft took him through the throat, and he slumped forward over the sill, his head hanging outside, the musket dropping from his lifeless hands.

The prisoner looked about him. Towards the front of the hallway, the flames were advancing steadily, now no more than five yards from his back. Over to the far left, Morris' dead body hung over the sill, and on the floor at his feet, Wallis lay, his eyes staring at the ceiling. Near his feet lay Lil, her face hidden by the shabby carpet that covered the dry floorboards.

In that brief instant of time that followed, all the brutality and cruelty he had survived in the past months came flooding into his mind. He thought of home, the land he would never see again, of the places he would never visit, and the harsh, almost unbearable years that lay ahead of him. Then he sighed.

Laying aside the musket, he picked up the shotgun that lay near to Morris' lifeless body, reached a hand over the sill and dug in the man's coat pockets and located a handful of shells.

He broke the shotgun, thumbed a shell into each barrel, then closed it, and rose to his feet. As he began moving toward the open back door, the words of an old hymn he had learned as a child came to mind, and he began humming the tune, softly, to himself, holding the shotgun at his hip, he limped to the head of the short flight of stairs leading down into the back yard as the first of the natives reached him...

THE END

## About the author:

Adrian Scott has been writing short stories for a number of years, in addition to studying at university and taking care of media coverage and public relations for various charity organizations. He has three daughters, all in their twenties, one of whom lives in Bundaberg with her husband, the two youngest living in Brisbane.

'DeVayne' is his first venture into the world of novels, and he has followed this up with volumes two and three, all involving the DeVayne family and their problems in facing life as lycanthropes.

He now lives in a retirement village in Caboolture, Queensland with his wife Penny, and is completing his Masters in Professional Writing.
