‘I should like to read it very much,’ said Martin. ‘I have always liked your pieces.’
‘The manuscript – you know my wretched scrawl, Nathaniel
– is now being fine-copied by a Government clerk. Corruption has its uses, though I cry out against it.’
‘Is he not allowed to copy, then?’
‘Certainly not to the extent he is copying for me. He is the best pen in the colony, always employed for Government grants and leases, but until my manuscript is done not a single one will he presented for the seal. He was a forger in real life, and when he is sober he can make you the most convincing Bank of England note imaginable, if only the paper is right.’
‘Is there a great deal of corruption in the colony?’
‘Apart from the present Governor and the officers who came out with him, I should say that in one form or another it is almost universal. In the lower branches of the administration for example nearly all the clerks are convicts, often quite highly-educated men; and so long as you are reasonably discreet they will do anything you wish.’
‘Ah,’ said Stephen with some satisfaction. ‘I asked because several of our people in the Surprise have friends who were transported. I waited on the penal secretary to enquire after
them, but it was clear that he did not intend to give me any information; and although Captain Aubrey with his much greater authority could probably oblige him to do so, I fear the intervention might rebound upon the prisoners.’
‘With such a fellow as Firkins I am sure it would. The simple, quite harmless way is to apply to one of the clerks who keep the register. Painter would be the best, a quick, intelligent man. He has had two or three shepherds and some real farm labourers, ploughmen, put in the place of others and assigned to us – rare birds in a population mostly made up of more or less sinful townsmen, and highly valued.’
‘How can he be approached?’
‘As he is a ticket-of-leave man, it is not difficult. A word left at Riley’s hotel would bring him to a discreet meeting-place. It might be wiser for you not to go yourself, however; there are so many informers about, and your encounter with Lowe has set the whole Camden faction so very much against you,
that it might have some ill effect. If you have nobody suitable aboard, I will go myself.’
‘You are very kind, sir, very kind indeed, but I think I have the right man. If I am mistaken, may I come and see you again? I should like to do so in any case, whenever you are at leisure.’
‘One of the many things I like about your friend,’ said Stephen, peering out over the dark waters of Sydney Cove, ‘is that he is not holier than thou, or at least than me. Although he is clearly a virtuous man he is not horrified by moderate sin. Can you make out where the landing-place is? I shall try a hail. The boat, ahoy! Halloo! Show a glim there, you wicked dogs.’
‘If we keep steadily down, as near the shore as possible, I think we must come to it in time; but I wish we had not resisted Paulton’s offer of accompanying us with a lantern.’
The theory was sound, but the night being singularly thick
–
no stars, still less any hint of a moon – their practice was slow, hesitant and anxious until they were overtaken by a cheerful, reasonably sober body of the frigate’s liberty men, carrying links.
‘There she lays, sir,’ they cried. ‘Right up against the wharf, warped in this last tide. Didn’t you recognize her, sir? The Doctor did not recognize the barky.’ The news passed back and a distant voice said ‘Both the doctors are so pissed they did not recognize the barky, ha, ha, ha!’
‘To think that I should not recognize my own ship,’ thought Stephen, standing there on the gangway; and then with a slight twinge of regret he remembered that the Surprise was not his own ship. ‘But what of it, for all love?’ he reflected. ‘The kinds of happiness are not to be compared,’ and walking into the cabin he stood for a moment, blinking in the light.
Jack, at his desk with several heaps of papers before him, did not look particularly happy, but he raised his head, smiled, and said ‘There you are, Stephen.’
‘You have a worn and aged look, brother,’ said Stephen. ‘Put out your tongue.’ He examined it and said ‘You are not yet recovered from your plethory.’
‘It is a plethory of bloody-minded officials that I am suffering from,’ said Jack. ‘Obstruction at every goddam turn. No one knows when Governor Macquarie will be back and most unhappily his deputy served under my father. Where I should be without Adams I cannot tell; but he can only deal with the smaller repairs and shortages, and I want much more than that
– want it with the utmost dispatch, as my orders say.’
‘Adams was wonderfully successful in Java,’ observed Stephen, ‘and with your permission I should like to ask him to carry out some corruption for me too, at a modest level. We went to see a friend of Martin’s, an amiable man who has lived here for some time, and he assured me that there is a universal venality among the Government clerks. He told me the name of one to whom we should apply for news of Padeen and the men and women in the lists I gave you; and it appears to me that Adams is the man to make the application.’
Adams, consulted after breakfast the next day, was of the same opinion. ‘With all modesty, sir,’ said he, ‘I do not think there is any class of men in the service better suited for making a friendly arrangement or mutual accommodation as one might say than the older captain’s clerks. They have seen all the colours of the rainbow, they do not have to top it the nob, and they are not easily done even a very light brown. How much were you thinking of giving for these men’s whereabouts, sir? Their places of assignment, as the regulations call it.’
‘There, Mr Adams, you fairly pose me. Would a johannes do?’
‘God bless you, sir, a joe passes for £4 here. No. From what I have seen I should say a gallon of rum or what they call rum poor souls would be about the going price. We do not want to spoil the market, flashing gold about.’
‘I am sure you are right, Mr Adams. But on the other hand pray be so open-handed that Painter does not spare his time in getting information about Colman. He was loblolly-boy, as I think I told you, and I take a particular interest in him.’
‘Very well, Doctor. I shall do my best. May I go beyond two gallon if a good deal of trouble is required, if Painter has to call in other clerks, for example?’
‘Certainly. Drown him in rum if need be; but first I must fetch you some money for it, and a broad piece or two in case of need; for I do assure you, Mr Adams, that I should not grudge a hatful of broad pieces in this case.’
On the half-deck he met Reade and he said ‘Oh Mr Reade, my dear, tell me, is Bonden away with the Captain?’
‘No, sir,’ said Reade. ‘He is helping Jemmy Ducks make Sarah’s clothes. Shall I fetch him?’
‘Never in life,’ said Stephen. ‘I should like to see how they are coming along.’
They were coming along pretty well. Bonden was the best hand at sewing in the ship, and with his mouth full of pins he was trying a roughed-out nankeen frock, fit for Government House, on a rigid, stock-still Sarah, while Jemmy Ducks, his superior in deportment and worldly knowledge, was teaching Emily to curtsy. ‘Do not mind me,’ he said as he entered their dim retreat. ‘Carry on by all means. But Bonden, when you are free I should like a hand in the Captain’s store-room.’
‘Aye aye, sir,’ said Bonden indistinctly; and the little girls gave him a wan, apprehensive smile.
The Captain’s store-room had a wealth of those geometrically impossible corners so usual at sea, and in one of these, guarded by a massive iron-bound chest made fast to eye-bolts lay Stephen’s tangible wealth, a certain amount of gold, much more silver, and some Bank of England notes, in a smaller chest, also iron-bound, also provided with locks, but also made of wood; -and as he stood there waiting for Bonden it occurred to him for the first time that the rats, in their frenzy of deprivation, might have pierced this box too.
‘They will have spared the gold and silver, I dare say,’ he reflected. ‘But a poor simple creature I shall look if I open the inner drawer and find a comfortable nest of paper chewed small with little pink sucklings in it. This happened at Bally. nahinch, as I well remember; but that was only laundry lists.’