Morgan's Run

Paths were cut through the vine (coming to be called “Samson’s sinew” from its immense girth) up the flanks of the mountain from the new Cascade road, and work was finished in time for the bird catchers to set out in daylight of the first day, armed with sacks. Salt meat rations were cut to three pounds a week and the quantities of bread, rice, pease and oatmeal were halved. The Mt. Pitt bird would have to fill up the ration gaps.

Rum was reduced to a half-pint of very watery grog a day even for the officers, which did not worry Lieutenant Ralph Clark in the least; he was still able to trade his share of it for badly needed shirts, underdrawers, stockings and the like; hardly any of his property off Sirius had reached him, though he caught glimpses of it on some convict’s back. Nor had Major Ross got his property off Sirius, but he bore his losses with a great deal less whinging than Clark, a natural complainer.

Potatoes were issued whenever they were dug at the rate of a few between each dozen people, and harvested vegetables were shared equally. Perhaps because green vegetables owned so little substance—and especially because scurvy was nonexistent—there were always more than enough of them to go around; people would rather eat anything (except fish) than a huge bowl of spinach or ru

It was going to be a long, desperate business. Supply, the Major knew, would not return. The thirty-four-year-old Cha

Robert Ross believed as ardently as Arthur Phillip that whatever perils and privations the future might hold, those people in his charge must not be permitted to sink below the Christian standards of any British community anywhere. Somehow morality, decency, literacy, technocracy and all the other virtues of proper European civilization must be preserved. Were they not, then those who did not actually die would be nothings. Where Ross differed from Phillip lay in the more abstract virtues of optimism and faith. Phillip was determined that the great experiment would succeed. Ross simply knew that all of it—the time, the money, the property, the pain—was utterly wasted, sucked into the maw of ignominy to leave no trace behind. Which conviction, rooted though it was, did not deter him in the slightest from exerting his every effort to deal with matters those posturing fools in London had not even taken into account while they listened to Sir Joseph Banks and Mr. James Maria Matra and drew up their fine Heads of a Plan. How easy it was to move human pawns on a global chessboard when the chair was comfortable, the stomach full, the fire warm and the port decanter bottomless.

The diet of Mt. Pitt bird brought no protests from anyone. Its flesh was dark and tasted slightly but not offensively fishy, it oozed very little fat when spitted or stewed, and at the begi

For Richard, who walked the five-mile round journey every other day and enjoyed his Mt. Pitt poultry very much, the arrival of the bird led to the temporary loss of his garden guard. John Lawrell was apprehended by the Law Martial patrol after curfew dragging a sack; when told to halt he tried to flee, got a musket butt on the head and was thrown into the guardhouse. A week later he was released, still nursing his aching pate, and given a dozen lashes with a medium cat.

“What on earth possessed ye, John?” Richard demanded at Turtle Bay, whence he had marched the moaning Lawrell as soon as his day’s work at the sawpits was done. “Sixty-eight birds!” He threw a dipper of salt water onto Lawrell’s back unsympathetically. “Will ye stand still, damn it? I would not need to do this if ye’d just get up the gumption to walk farther into the water and duck down.”

“Cards!” gasped Lawrell, teeth chattering; the wind was due south and very cold.

“Cards.” Richard led him out of the water and patted his welts dry with a rag. “Ye’ll live,” he said then. “Jimmy Richardson did not lay it on hard, ye’re not bleeding much. Were ye a woman, ye’d not have fared so well. And what do cards have to do with it?”

“Lost,” said Lawrell simply, following Richard down the road past the outermost row of houses. “Had to pay somehow. Josh Peck said I could save them a walk and get their birds for them. But I did not know how heavy the sack would be, so I was too slow to get back before curfew.”

“Then learn from this lesson, John, please. If ye must play cards, play with decent men, not cheats and liars like that lot. Now go on up the vale to bed.”

After several moves, Stephen Donovan now had a very good house just to the east of the Cascade road, and Nat Lucas an equally good house on an acre of flat ground beyond him. The swamp did not encroach on this area, but Major Ross was busy trying to drain the swamp by digging an outlet to Turtle Bay. Flat land was arable land, and all the tiny brooks which fed the Arthur’s Vale stream could not contribute enough water to force an exit to the sea; the swamp was a terminus using up growing space.

“Come!” Stephen called when Richard knocked.

“I have just sent my erring guard to bed,” said Richard, sitting down with a sigh. “Peck and the rest called in his card debts by making him bring them birds. Oh, he is a nodcock!”

“But useful. Here, share my fish. The coble got out today and Joh

“I would rather eat fish any day,” said Richard, tucking in, “and why the craze for female birds gravid with egg I do not know. I will repay this kindness by digging ye a handful of potatoes tomorrow. Mine are coming on nicely, one reason why I am glad to have Lawrell back on duty now I can keep a third of my produce.”

“Is anybody speaking to you yet?” Stephen asked when they were done, the dishes washed, the chessboard set up.

“Not among those who have sided with my wife—Co

“She is in love with you, Richard, and scorned,” Stephen said, thinking that enough time had gone by to bring this aspect up.

Richard stared in astonishment. “Rubbish! There was never love between us. I know you hoped that marrying her might lead to love, but it did not.”