Raymond shrugged. “I am not certain which he grieves over the most. His precious natives who killed his men as well as some of yours, or the fact that he no longer has his own army to crow over! I’ll be satisfied only when I get some proper soldiers here. I cannot abide amateurs in any walk of life!”
Raymond moved to the gangway and paused, looking down into his boat.
“There will be a brig from England shortly. She will call here on passage to New South Wales. She can take the guards back to Sydney where they came from. Then there will be no excuse for not sending me some troops.”
Despite his hatred for the man, his hurt over what had happened, Bolitho sensed an inner warning.
The burning village and what Herrick had told him about the natives of North Island made a mockery of Hardacre’s hopes. Revenge for what Tuke had done to them had killed Finney’s militiamen and had nearly done for Herrick. The old hatreds could soon come alive again and turn island against island, tribe against tribe.
One of the most noticeable things he had seen when Tempest had re-entered the bay had been the absence of canoes and swimming villagers. The same girls and young men had been there well enough. On the beaches and below the thick green fronds. But they had kept their distance, as if fearful that by coming too close they would gain some infection and lose their simplicity and safety which they must have come to take for granted.
“And until they arrive, sir?” He already knew the answer.
“The responsibility will be yours, Captain. Hardacre has enough men still to take care of the settlement. The protection of its progress I am giving to you, and will be saying as much in my report. It is a heavy responsibility.” He looked round, his eyes almost hidden in shadow. “I will be interested to watch your, er, success.” Then with a curt nod to the side party he lowered himself into his boat.
Herrick walked across the deck and said bluntly, “I could live very well without that one!”
Bolitho shaded his eyes to peer at the settlement with its palisades and rough blockhouses. She might be watching the ship, knowing of her husband’s eagerness to get out to Tempest, if only to add weight to the captain’s burden.
Apart from the lack of laughing islanders, things seemed much as before. The little schooner was already being loaded with bales and baskets, and he guessed she would soon be sailing to other islands nearby. To keep trade moving. To regain confidence. Hardacre was taking a great chance, but then he had done that for a long time now.
He said, “I want this ship ready for sea as quickly as possible. Work the hands while there’s daylight, and make sure you put a picket ashore if you’re sending anyone for fruit or water.”
Herrick nodded. “I couldn’t help but hear the last thing he said, sir. I think it’s damned unfair to hand you the extra role of guarding over the convicts.”
Bolitho smiled gravely. “The convicts will be no trouble. I doubt if they’ll want to stray far from the settlement.” He turned away to watch new cordage being hauled aloft. “However, we do what we are paid to do.” He walked towards the companionway. “Tell Noddall…” He stopped short.
Herrick looked at him. “Sir?”
“Nothing. I’d forgotten.” He vanished below.
Herrick walked slowly to the nettings and looked at the inviting beaches. Inviting? He thought of the great bloody stain on the sand, the human fragments rotting in the sun, and shivered. Just to see St Anthony’s light in the English Channel once more. To walk beside the Medway, to smell the fruit trees, and the farms. He would not want to stay ashore too long. But to know he would be able to see it again.
Borlase joined him. “Now, sir, about the promotion to quartermaster. I’ve a good man in my division.”
Herrick moved his shoulders inside his coat. Like getting back into things. Men had to be moved, a shortage of hands in one watch must be remedied from the other. The whole watchbill would have to be rearranged, with the unfit men put to work where they would find it less of a burden but still do a good job.
Someone would have to be found to replace poor Noddall.
He turned as the gangway sentry called, “Jolly boat returnin’!”
Borlase said harshly, “The pickets are bringing off the two who deserted! They should be flogged senseless after what we’ve been through!”
“I think not.” Herrick watched the approaching boat, the two figures sitting dejectedly between some marines. “We need every fit man, and by God are those two going to work!”
He saw Jury coming towards him with one of his petty officers and the carpenter’s red waistcoat looming from the opposite direction. Questions, things wanted, things destroyed. He smiled. All in a day’s work for any first lieutenant.
It was a mixed gathering. Raymond, very composed and unsmiling, sitting at a large, locally carved table. John Hardacre, his bushy hair and beard, his strange, loosely folded robe very much at odds with Raymond’s neat elegance.
Seated at the far end of the room, one leg negligently crossed over the other, Narval’s captain, the Comte de Barras, with his senior lieutenant whose name was Vicariot, made bright figures of blue and white, while de Barras’s curled wig added another touch of unreality. Both the Frenchmen were so smartly attired that Bolitho felt crumpled by comparison, and when he glanced at Herrick he guessed he was thinking much the same.
A scar-faced overseer from the settlement, a half-caste called Kimura, who looked more like an executioner than anything else, completed the gathering.
Bolitho tried to sit easily in the cane chair, wondering how this place would have changed in a year or so. A big, well-built house and a thriving community of traders and administrators. Clerks and managers, experts on this and that from England. Or would it be like others he had seen in the Great South Sea, overgrown again by the jungle, deserted even by the natives who had once come to depend upon such outposts?
Through a long window, well-screened with plaited mats, he could see the end of the bay, a dark green point of land, with the sea rising beyond it like water penned in a dyke.
Tempest had been at anchor for five days. Days of ceaseless work and short tempers. Three men had been flogged over incidents which at any other time would have been trivial enough to be overcome. Bolitho detested unnecessary punishment, just as he despised those who preferred it to righting the wrongs.
It had been made worse by the nearness of the French ship, the faces lining her gangways to watch the bitter ritual of punishment under the lash.
Bolitho had been ashore several times to report progress to Raymond, to consult with the Corps guards, who had come with the convicts from Sydney, on the matter of security. Also, he had had plenty of opportunity to meet the deported prisoners for himself. Even after all the long months awaiting trial and making the voyage to the opposite end of the earth, they seemed dazed. But they looked well enough, and were not so cowed as when Bolitho had seen some of them aboard the Eurotas.
He wondered about the Eurotas. Why she could be spared merely to lie idle in the bay. Accommodation ship she was not, and apart from her depleted company, she appeared to provide nothing but a possible way of escape if things went wrong. Bolitho knew that Herrick had been across to her on two occasions to try and obtain men for Tempest. He had, by means which Bolitho could only guess at, procured six new hands, all seamen. No matter what it had cost him in patience and humour, they were worth their weight in gold.
No doubt like all the other hints and promises in Sydney somebody would eventually arrive with a new warrant to work the Eurotas in the government’s service, and she would sail away.
He tried to concentrate on the men around him, to fit them into the puzzle. But it was too easy to think instead of Viola Raymond. He had seen her once only since his return while her husband had been aboard the French frigate enjoying de Barras’s hospitality. Just for an hour he had stayed with her. But not alone. To save her as best he could from further gossip, Bolitho had accompanied her to the new clearing where some of the convicts were building a line of huts for their own occupation.
Her silent maid, the only female deportee to be allowed in the Levu Islands, had followed them, looking neither right nor left as they had passed amongst the amateur builders.
He had said, “There is a brig coming from England soon.” He had looked at her, the way she held her head, the rich hair shining beneath her large straw hat. If anything she was lovelier than ever. “If you insist on going in her to Sydney, her master cannot refuse. And neither can your husband. You obeyed his wishes. The gesture was made. Nothing can be gained by your staying, and I’ll not let him stand by and watch you endanger your health.”
It was then that she had stopped and had taken his hands, pulling him round to face her.
“You don’t understand at all, do you, Richard?” She had smiled up at him, her eyes shining. “What if I did as you suggest? Take the next available ship to England, pack my belongings and go to your house in Falmouth?” She
