Tongues of Serpents

‘If such a man is to be found, I can see no reason he would willingly confide his opinion, in so delicate a matter,’ Laurence said, throwing in, and gathering the cards up to sort out afresh.

‘I have letters of introduction to some few of the local factors,’ Tharkay said, a piece of news to Laurence, who wondered; so far as he knew, Tharkay had only come to New South Wales to indulge an inveterate wanderlust; but of course he could not intrude upon Tharkay’s privacy with a direct question.

‘If you like,’ Tharkay had continued, ‘I can make inquiries; and as for reason, if there is discontent enough to form the grounds for your decision, I would imagine that same discontent sufficient motive to speak.’

The attempt to pursue this excellent advice now having ended in public ignominy, however, Bligh was only too eager to take advantage and press Laurence further for action. ‘Dogs, Captain Laurence, dogs and cowardly sheep, all of them,’ Bligh said, ignoring yet again Laurence’s attempt to correct his address to Mr. Laurence; it would suit Bligh better, Laurence in exasperation supposed, to be restored by a military officer, and not a private citizen.

Bligh continued, ‘I imagine you can hardly disagree with me now. It is impossible you should disagree with me. It is the direct consequence of their outrageous usurpation of the King’s authority. What respect, what discipline, can possibly be maintained under a leadership so wholly devoid of just and legal foundation, so utterly lost to loyalty and—’

Here Bligh paused, perhaps reconsidering an appeal to the virtues of obedience, in the light of Laurence’s reputation; throwing his tiller over, however, Bligh without losing much time said instead, ‘and to decency; allow me to assure you this infamous kind of behaviour is general throughout the military ranks of the colony, indulged and indeed encouraged by their leaders.’

Fatigue and soreness at once physical and of the spirit had by now cut Laurence’s temper short: his ribs had grown swollen and very tender beneath the makeshift bandage; his hands ached a great deal, and what was worse, to no purpose: nothing gained but a sense of disgust. He was very willing to think ill of the colony’s leadership, of Johnston and MacArthur, but Bligh had not recommended himself, and his nearly gleeful satisfaction was too crassly, too visibly opportunistic.

‘I must wonder, sir,’ Laurence said, ‘how you would expect to govern, when you should be forced to rely upon those same soldiers whom you presently so disdain; having removed their ringleaders, who have preferred them to an extreme and given them so much license, how would you conciliate their loyalty, having been restored at the hands of one whom they already see as an outlaw?’

‘Oh! You give too much credit to their loyalty,’ Bligh said, dismissively, ‘and too little to their sense; they must know, of course, that MacArthur and Johnston are doomed. The length of the sea-voyage, the troubles in England, these alone have preserved them; but the hangman’s noose waits for them both, and as the time draws near, the advantages of their preferment lose their lustre. Some reassurances, some concessions: of course they may keep their land grants, and those appointments not made too ill may remain …’

He made a few more general remarks of this sort, with no better course of action envisioned on Bligh’s part, so far as Laurence could see, than to levy a series of new but only cosmetic restrictions, which should certainly only inflame men irritated by the overthrow, by an outsider and an enemy, of their tolerated if not necessarily chosen leadership.

‘Then I hardly see,’ Laurence said, not very politely, ‘precisely how you would repair these evils you condemn, which I cannot see were amended during your first administration; nor is Temeraire, as you seem to imagine, some sort of magical cannon which may be turned on anyone you like.’

‘If with this collection of mealy-mouthed objections you will excuse yourself from obliging me, Mr. Laurence,’ Bligh answered, deep colour spotting in the hollows of his cheeks, ‘I must count it another disappointment, and mark it against your character, such as that is,’ this with an acrid and unpleasant edge; and he left the dragondeck with his lips pressed tight and angry.

If Bligh followed in his usual mode, however, he would soon repent of his hasty words and seek another interview; Laurence knew it very well, and his feelings were sufficiently lacerated already that he did not care to be forced to endure the pretence of an apology, undoubtedly to be followed by a fresh renewal of those same arguments he had already heard and rejected.

He had meant to sleep aboard the ship, whose atmosphere had been greatly improved: the convicts having been delivered to the dubious embrace of the colony, Riley had set every one of his men to pumping the lower decks clean, sluicing out the filth and miasma left by several hundred men and women who had been afforded only the barest minimum of exercise and liberty essential to health. Smudges of smoke had been arranged throughout, and then a fresh round of pumping undertaken.

With the physical contamination thus erased, and the hovering and perpetual aura of misery, Laurence’s small quarters now made a comfortable if not luxurious residence by his standards, formed in his youth by the dimensions of a midshipman’s cot. Meanwhile the small shelter on the dragons’ promontory remained unroofed and as yet lacked its final wall, but Laurence felt bruised more in spirit than in body, and the weather held dry; he went below only to collect a few articles, and quitted the ship to seek refuge in Temeraire’s company.

In this mood, he was by no means prepared to be accosted on the track back up to the promontory, by a gentleman on horseback, of aquiline face, by the standards of the colony elegantly dressed and escorted by a groom, who leaned from his horse and demanded, ‘Am I speaking with Mr. Laurence?’

‘You have the advantage of me,’ Laurence said, a little rudely in his own turn; but he was not inclined to regret his curtness when the man said, ‘I am John MacArthur; I should like a word.’

There was little question he was the architect of the entire rebellion; and though he had arranged to be appointed Colonial Secretary, he had so far not even given Riley the courtesy of a call. ‘You choose odd circumstances for your request, sir,’ Laurence said, ‘and I do not propose to stand speaking in the dust of the street. You are welcome to accompany me to the covert, if you like; although I would advise you to leave your horse.’

He was a little surprised to find MacArthur willing to hand his reins to the groom, and dismount to walk with him. ‘I hear you had a little difficulty in the town today,’ MacArthur said. ‘I am very sorry it should have happened.

‘You must know, Mr. Laurence, we have had a light hand on the rein here; a light hand, and it has answered beautifully, beyond all reasonable hopes. Our colony does not show to advantage, you may perhaps think, coming from London; but I wonder what you would think if you had been here in our first few years. I came in the year 90; will you credit it, that there were not a thousand acres under cultivation, and no supply? We nearly starved, one and all, three times.’

He stopped and held out a hand, which trembled a little. ‘They have been so, since that first winter,’ he said, and resumed walking.

‘Your perseverance is to be admired,’ Laurence said, ‘and that of your fellows.’

‘If nothing else, that for certain sure,’ MacArthur said. ‘But it has not been by chance, or any easy road, that we have found success; only through the foresight of wise leadership and the strength of determined men. This is a country for a determined man, Mr. Laurence. I came here a lieutenant, with not a lick of property to my name; now I have 10,000 acres. I do not brag,’ he added. ‘Any man can do here what I have done. This is a fine country.’

There was an emphasis on any man, which Laurence found distasteful in the extreme; he read the slinking bribery in MacArthur’s pretty speech as easily as he had in Bligh’s whispers of pardon, and he pressed his lips together and stretched his pace.

MacArthur perceived his mistake, perhaps; he increased his own to match and said, to shift the subject, ‘But what does the Government send us? You have been a Navy officer yourself, Mr. Laurence; you have had the dregs of the prison-hulks, pressed into service; you know what I am speaking of. Such men are not formed for respectability. They can only be used, and managed, and to do it requires rum and the lash – it is the very understanding of the service. I am afraid it has made us all a little coarse here, however; we are ill-served by the proportion of our numbers. I wonder how you would have liked a crew of a hundred, five and ninety of them gaolbirds, and not five able seamen to your name.’

‘Sir, you are correct in this much; I have had a little difficulty, earlier in the day,’ Laurence said, pausing in the road; his ribs ached sharply in his side, ‘so I will be frank; you might have had conversation of myself, or of Captain Riley or Captain Granby, as it pleased you, these last two weeks, for the courtesy of a request. May I ask you to be a little more brief?’

‘Your reproach is a just one,’ MacArthur said, ‘and I will not tire you further tonight; if you will do me the kindness of returning my visit in the morning at the barracks?’

‘Forgive me,’ Laurence said dryly, ‘but I find I am not presently inclined to pay calls in this society; as yet I find the courtesies beyond my grasp.’

‘Then perhaps I may pay you another call,’ MacArthur suggested, if with slightly pressed lips, and to this Laurence could only incline his head.

‘I cannot look forward to the visit with any pleasure,’ Laurence said, ‘but if he comes, we ought to receive him.’

‘So long as he is not insulting, and does not try to put you in a quarry, he may come, if he likes,’ Temeraire said, making a concession, while privately determining he would keep a very close eye upon this MacArthur person; for his own part, he saw no reason to offer any courtesy at all to someone who was master of a place so wretchedly organized, and acquainted with so many ill-mannered people. Governor Bligh was not a very pleasant person, perhaps, but at least he did not seem to think it in the ordinary course of things for gentlemen to be knocked down in the street in mysterious accidents.

MacArthur did come, shortly after they had breakfasted. He drew up rather abruptly, reaching the top of the hill; Laurence had not yet seen him, but Temeraire had been looking over at the town – sixteen sheep were being driven into a pen – very handsome sheep – and he saw MacArthur pause, and halt, and look as though he might go away again.

Temeraire might have let him do so, and had a quiet morning of reading, but he had not enjoyed his meal and in a peevish humour said, ‘In my opinion it is quite rude to come into someone’s residence only to stare at them, and turn pale, and go, as if there were something peculiar in them, and not in such absurd behaviour. I do not know why you bothered to climb the hill at all, if you are such a great coward; it is not as though you did not know that I was here.’

‘Why, in my opinion, you are a great rascal,’ MacArthur said, purpling up his neck. ‘What do you mean by calling me a coward, because I need to catch my breath.’

‘Stuff,’ Temeraire said, roundly, ‘you were frightened.’

‘I do not say that a man hasn’t a right to be taken aback a moment, when he sees a beast the size of a frigate waiting to eat him,’ MacArthur said, ‘but I am damned if I will swallow this; you do not see me running away, do you?’

‘I would not eat a person,’ Temeraire said, revolted, ‘and you needn’t be disgusting, even if you do have no manners,’ to which Laurence coming around said, ‘So spake the pot,’ rather dryly.

He added, ‘Will you come and sit down, Mr. MacArthur? I regret I cannot offer you anything better than coffee or chocolate, and I must advise against the coffee,’ and Temeraire rather regretfully saw he had missed the opportunity to be rid of this unpleasant visitor.

MacArthur kept turning his head, to look at Temeraire, and remarked, ‘They don’t look so big, from below,’ as he stirred his chocolate so many times it must have grown quite cold. Temeraire was quite fond of chocolate, but he could not have that, either; not properly, without enough milk, and the expense so dear; it was not worth only having the tiniest taste, which only made one want more. He sighed.

‘Quite prodigious,’ MacArthur repeated, looking at Temeraire again. ‘He must take a great deal of feeding.’

‘We are managing,’ Laurence said politely. ‘The game is conveniently plentiful, and they do not seem to be used to being hunted from aloft.’

Temeraire considered that at least if MacArthur was here, he might be of some use. ‘Is there anything else to hunt, nearby?’ he inquired. ‘Not of course,’ he added untruthfully, ‘that anyone could complain of kangaroo.’

‘I am surprised if you have found any of those in twenty miles as the crow goes,’ MacArthur said. ‘We pretty near et up the lot, in the first few years.’

‘Well, we have been getting them around the Nepean River, and in the mountains,’ Temeraire said, and MacArthur’s head jerked up from his cup so abruptly that the spoon he had left inside it tipped over and spattered his white breeches with chocolate.

He did not seem to notice that he had made a sad mull of his clothing, but said thoughtfully, ‘The Blue Mountains? Why, I suppose you can fly all over them, can’t you?’

‘We have flown all over them,’ Temeraire said, rather despondently, ‘and there is nothing but kangaroo, and those rabbits that have no ears, which are too small to be worth eating.’

‘I would have been glad of a wombat or a dozen often enough, myself,’ MacArthur said, ‘but it is true we do not have proper game in this country, I am sorry to say I know from experience: too lean by half; you cannot keep up to fighting weight on it, and there is not enough grazing yet for cattle. We have not found a way through the mountains, you know,’ he added. ‘We are quite hemmed in.’

‘It is a pity no one has tried keeping elephants,’ Temeraire said.

‘Ha ha, keeping elephants, very good,’ MacArthur said, as if this were some sort of a joke. ‘Do elephants make good eating?’

‘Excellently good,’ Temeraire said. ‘I have not had an elephant since we were in Africa: I do not think I have tasted anything quite so good as a properly cooked elephant; outside of China, that is,’ he added loyally, ‘where I do not think they can raise them. But it seems as though this would be perfectly good country for them: it is certainly as hot as ever it was in Africa, where they raised them. Anyway we will need more food for the hatchlings, soon.’