Morgan’s Run

smooth and rosy, its leafy branches loaded with bright red berries the size of small plums. Will I, or won’t I? Some weeks before he drowned, the unfortunate sawyer, Westbrook, had eaten a local fruit he mistook for a Windsor bean and nearly died. Richard pressed one of the berries to find it hard and unyielding; whatever it was, it was certainly not yet ripe. Later, he promised himself, I will try just one. I do not believe that eating one of anything can kill.

The sun was westering as he retraced his steps and emerged into Arthur’s Vale; time to join the others and eat. This place is unique, not to be compared with New South Wales in any way whatsoever. Different trees, different soil, different hills, different rocks, and not one single blade of any kind of grass. Perhaps this was God’s first attempt to create land out of the sea? Or perhaps it was His last attempt? If His last, then He gave it no people. Which might lead a man like Jem Thistlethwaite to say that God had come to the conclusion that Man was not a desirable addition to His menagerie.

“Are there any snakes?” he asked Nat Lucas, whom he liked very much, as he did old Dick Widdicombe, full seventy years old-why had London sent aged men to hew out a new place?

“If there are, they have remained invisible,” Nat said. “No one has seen a lizard, a frog or a leech either. Ground animals seem to be absent save for the rat, though it does not look like our rats. The Norfolk Island one is a soft grey with a white belly and is not enormously large.”

“But it eats anything,” said Ned Westlake. “A rat is a rat.”

At dawn on the morrow Richard turned his footsteps eastward, choosing to walk along the sand of Turtle Bay before scrambling up and over to yet another lovely beach, this one unprotected by a reef; here the sand had spread inland upon a raft of petrified logs, and beyond this beach some distance around the shore reared a massive cliff. Yet more pine forest; it truly was everywhere, and always impenetrable. The only way he could proceed was to hug the rocks, a dangerous alternative in the face of a heavy sea. Today, however, was perfect weather, and the brisk breeze blew from the northwest. The tide was on the ebb, so he must make sure that he returned before it reached half-flood. Two little brooks joined forces in a small flat area beyond which the water glowed an ethereal aquamarine. For a short while he tried to climb up the cleft which led to that mighty headland, but gave it up. Not sensible.

So he returned to Turtle Bay to discover two men he had not seen before heaving a gigantic turtle onto its back, where it lay, flippers waving, utterly helpless.

They had to be brothers, and they did not wear the look of men who had spent time in an English prison. Both spare, young, decent-looking; brown of skin, brown of hair, brown of eye.

“Ahah! Ye must be Morgan,” said one. “I am Robert Webb and this is my brother, Thomas. We go by our full names. Help us to tether this beauty-there will be turtle for dinner tomorrow.”

Richard helped tie a rope firmly around the creature’s chest where its flippers would prevent the rope’s sliding off.

“We are the gardeners,” said Robert, who, if he were not the elder, was certainly the spokesman. “I thank ye for bringing us women. Thomas is not keen for a woman, but I was desperate.”

“Whom did ye choose?” asked Richard, wondering why he was to be thanked.

“Beth Henderson, a good woman. Which means Thomas and I have come to the parting of the ways,” said Robert cheerfully, while his brother grimaced. “He has gone to live with Mr. Altree in Arthur’s Vale, where there is much planting going on.”

The turtle was hauled into the water and towed, the men knee-deep, around the point of Turtle Bay. Richard helped the Webbs bring it up the straight beach near the landing place, then left them to return to his hut.

“Lieutenant King was looking for you,” said Joey.

So off Richard went again; he found the Commandant at the site of the second sawpit, excavated in soil and so needing to be shored up with timber.

“There is turtle, sir,” said Richard, saluting.

“Oh, splendid! Dashed good!” King turned to walk off a little way and faced his head sawyer. “I do not allow many turtle to be turned, otherwise there will end in being none,” he said. “Nor do I permit the eggs to be dug out. ’Tis not as turtle-populous as Lord Howe Island to begin with, so why ruin a good thing?”

“Aye, sir.”

Lieutenant King then demonstrated one of the more exasperating facets of his nature: he clean forgot what he had said two days ago when he congratulated his sawing teams and gave them time off until Monday. “Ye’ll be back sawing tomorrow,” he announced, “and I intend to build a third sawpit farther up the vale beyond where the dam will be. That means more sawyers. I understand enough about the work to know that it is exceeding hard and cannot be done by weak men, but I leave it to you to pick out the men ye want, Morgan. Ye can have your choice of any provided they are not carpenters. The old pit’s shelter is up, so ye’ll start sawing there tomorrow-planks for the granary ceiling. And ye’ll continue to do this on Saturday, even though by rights the day should be yours. I need the granary finished, there are crops close to harvesting.” He prepared to go. “Think about whom ye want, Morgan, and let me know on Monday.”

“Aye, sir,” said Richard woodenly.

Two sawpits meant four teams: three sawpits meant six teams. Christ, he would never have a chance to saw! Ned Westlake, Bill Blackall and Harry Humphreys could not seem to learn to use a file properly. The only man who had shown any kind of aptitude was Will Marriner, who would have to be left at the old sawpit to sharpen while he hied himself to Arthur’s Vale. The saws needed touching up every ten to twelve feet along a cut. But who would be willing to saw? Men hated it, did it grudgingly. Weasels like Len Dyer, Tom Jones, Josh Peck and Sam Pickett were impossible. John Rice, one of the originals, had the build for it, but he was the ropemaker and therefore unavailable. John Mortimer and Dick Widdicombe were too old, and Noah Mortimer was an idler, always in trouble for not pulling his weight. If a man disliked physical labor, he was not capable of doing any work without being driven to it, and that was Noah. The very young original, Charlie McClellan, was another such.

Who then off Golden Grove? John Anderson, yes. Sam Hussey, yes. Jim Richardson, yes. Willy Thompson, yes. But that was the end of the supply. Richardson, who had taken up with Susannah Trippett, would manage the job with equanimity, if not enthusiasm. Hussey and Thompson were peculiarities, already busy building themselves huts of their own because they could not bear company; they both reminded Richard of Taffy Edmunds. As for Anderson-he was an unknown quantity. At divine service on Sunday at eleven in the morning, Richard thanked God for his convict status: it would never be in his province to order a man flogged. He had to find other ways to ensure that his sawyers worked, chiefly by pairing one good man with one doubtful one. Never two doubtfuls together.

“Four teams are as many as I can scrape up,” he informed Stephen when they met at Turtle Bay for a swim on Sunday evening. “I am doomed to sharpen forever, it seems. Such a simple job, ye’d think, Mr. Donovan, and yet most men lack the-the idea of it. They take no care to set the teeth at the right bevel, nor do they have the eyes in the tips of their fingers a man must have. Oh, I wish I had Taffy Edmunds! Not only can he sharpen as well as I, but he would like it here.”

“More are coming, so I understand, though Supply cannot carry many at once. And, since they are finding some trees they can cut in Port Jackson, I fear ye won’t see Taffy landed here in a hurry. Richardson is a good, strong fellow, he will work out, I think. Who knows? Perhaps one of this second four will turn out to have a talent for sharpening. Though why, Richard, ye should want to saw yourself baffles me,” said Stephen.

“Because to the men who saw, my job is child’s play. I sit cross-legged like a tailor and appear to be doing nothing. One reason why I put them all to it, and will go on putting them to it. Each of them knows that if he should prove good at sharpening, he has a comfortable job. When they fail, at least they know that sharpening is a job of patience and skill.”

Stephen lay back on the sand and stretched voluptuously. “Ye would think,” he said, “that Johnny, being a seaman, would be down here with us. But no, he would rather be outside our house, planing or polishing some fancy piece of wood. He will have finished the balusters for Port Jackson’s Government House by the time Supply returns, whenever that might be. How isolated we are! More than a thousand miles across an empty ocean to the only other place an Englishman can be found. I feel it every time I look at the horizon. This isle is a gigantic ship at anchor in the midst of a nowhere, surrounded by infinity. It is completely its own entity.”

Richard rolled over to dry his back. “I do not feel that this isle is small, though I agree about the isolation. To me, Norfolk Island seems quite as large as New South Wales. Here lies a certain privacy. I do not feel as if I am a