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barefoot_bard) wrote2015-09-21 03:10 pm
barefoot_bard) wrote2015-09-21 03:10 pm
The Game Of Petty Spirits, Part One
Title: The Game Of Petty Spirits
Rating: M (Suitable for ages 16 and above)
Disclaimers: David Lakey is the creation ofsharpiefan. Tom Carter, Billy Ivey, Dan Tisdale, and Nancy Owens are mine. Most characters who appear are actual historical figures. All other characters belong their respective creators. Neither The Incredible Journey of Mary Bryant nor Banished are mine. No profit is being made from this story.
Story summary: The line between good and bad is often blurred, but two Marines with the First Fleet learn just how easily that blurring happens. Australia, 1788.
Author's Note: There are going to be historical and canon goofs in this. Most of them are probably intentional. I apologise for those that aren't.
The screams in the dark were not only those of the wildlife. There was chaos reigning in the settlement. Chaos that none of the officers showed any interest in even attempting to tame. The Marines stayed safely shut up in their small bivoauc, each man with musket to hand and bayonet fixed, while the very Devil seemed to run amok around them. Tom Carter ran the side of his thumb over the edge of his flint and wished they could be allowed to stop all of it. That they were there to guard the convicts meant also, to him, that they should protect those same convicts from each other. He was no soft heart, having seen his share of hard times in the war, but for Christ's sake.
"We must stop them, sir," Sergeant Timmins was saying to one of the officers, his eyes turned outward on the rampaging male convicts, his hand on his sword.
Mister Clark shook his head. "We will not," he replied. "Governor's orders."
Bugger the bloody governor, thought Carter in disgust. Stupid Navy bastard that he was. He'd want this stopped in an instant if there were respectable people being used so roughly, wouldn't he, but where it was only a bunch of convicts...
"Cor," growled Carter to the man next to him. "There'll be a bloodbaff 'fore dawn, we lets 'em go on."
David Lakey affected a shrug. "Not for us to say, is it?"
"Mebbe it ain't, but we's Marines. This ain't wot Marines does. This sittin' on our arses lettin' them poor lot run all sorta riot an' all. We're 'ere to keep order, ain't we, but them officers'd sooner us look a pack of poxy useless sheeps. Well I ain't no sheep, am I, an' I've 'eard enough've this - "
"I heard that, Private Carter. If one more seditious word comes out of your mouth, I'll have your back laid open."
"Seddishes this, sir," Carter muttered and Lakey rolled his eyes. "If me ol' officer was 'ere..."
Only he wasn't and it was stupid to wish for him to be. Captain Collins had gone away to Portsmouth Division barely a year after they'd all gotten home. Nothing had been heard of him since. Many of the lads had gotten discharges in that same year. Only a few Cornwalls had managed to stay in the Corps. Of them, Sergeant Devlin was perhaps the largest surprise. Or maybe not. The Irishman would probably die in harness.
"There'll be the Devil to pay tomorrow an' no pitch hot, the way this is goin'." Billy Ivey came strolling up beside Lakey and Carter, his musket carried almost thoughtlessly in one hand. The former seaman was half-dressed, as he ever was when off duty. He did not even have his shoes on, Carter noted.
"You's gonna step on somefin' nasty," he told the younger Marine idly. Ivey was almost a distraction from the madness unfolding all around the Marines' fenced-off bivoauc.
Ivey grinned. "Maybe, but that pack of lubbers out there will have it worst. D'you reckon any of 'em will be left livin' by Up All Hammocks tomorrer?"
"Christ, I hope so. Imagine the officers havin' to write home sayin' they'd let the convicts murder each uvver an' all?" Carter curled his fingers around the doghead of his musket and tried not to wince as he watched a mountain of a man grab a shrieking woman by her hips and swing her effortlessly up over his shoulder. Any fool could guess what was going to happen next. The Marine lifted his musket up to the Poise, the flint clicking back to full cock in a completely unconscious motion.
"Stand fast, Private!" Mister Clark snapped, turning sharply toward him.
"We don't stop 'em, sir, they'll kill each uvver," Carter replied flatly. He braced himself and shifted his musket from the Poise to the Present, his eyes and now the musket barrel following the man-mountain as he lumbered toward the deeper shadows. A few more steps and that bastard would be too hard to see, never mind shoot.
The lieutenant was glaring at him. "You will uncock your musket, about turn, and disappear, Private. That is an order."
Carter's nostrils flared as he strove to keep unwise words from slipping out. Any officer worth his salt would see to it this insanity was stopped. He knew that. Christ, every Marine in this bivoauc knew that. But Mister Clark had never seen an enemy, had he. He had never fired a shot in anger or fear, or had that unmistakeable buzz of a leaden wasp flash past his head. He wouldn't know what to do in a bad situation and that was proven here and now. Mister Clark, Carter decided, was the sort of officer who lacked the stomach for firm, decisive action.
"Sergeant Timmins - " Mister Clark began, raising his voice.
The light rasp of a sword being partially drawn and the drawing in of several other Marines toward him ultimately decided the matter. Without a word, but not needing any to make his feelings known, Carter uncocked his musket, jerked the firelock back to the Poise, and about-turned. Then, with his back fully to the lieutenant, he slapped the piece up into his shoulder and marched off, his stride stiff-legged and brisk. What sort of man refused to help the defenceless, convict or not? If Mister Clark wasn't an officer...
"Next time you get a fool notion like that, Carter, you should do it where an officer can't see."
"Next time, I'll bloody well ignore him an' all, Sarn't."
Sergeant Timmins shook his head. "Next time, he'll have you flogged."
Flogged. Ha. Carter grinned humourlessly. "I always did want more stripes." He lowered his musket with much less snap and waved a dismissive hand in Clark's direction. "That beggar's no fightin' officer, Sarn't. He ain't been nowhere but Chatham. Wot good's he - "
"That sorta talk will get you into trouble," Timmins interrupted. "Better you stowed it. If the major hears of it, you will be lucky not to hang."
That didn't merit a response so Carter offered none, choosing instead to duck into the tent that housed him and a dozen other Marines. The sergeant followed him, but offered no further rebukes. Timmins was a decent old hand, though. He knew when to leave well enough alone. Grimacing at the whole situation, Carter opened the musket pan and swept it clear of powder before setting the firelock carefully aside near his cot. There was little hope of sleep with all the racket raging outside but there was obviously nothing better to do. Or try to do. Not if he wanted to avoid being shot himself, though really, that would be a tiny price to pay for doing the right thing... he closed his eyes and tried not to hate himself for being so easily cowed.
"Shame none of them will share with us," one of the lads said wistfully, glancing pointedly at the canvas wall of the tent. "Might be fun."
"Shut up, Buckley," somebody else grumbled.
Carter tossed his crossbelts aside and all but flung off his coat. The long voyage here had given him plenty of insights into the natures of his fellow Marines and several of them had come up wanting in his estimation. That sneering bastard Buckley was one of them. It was telling that when the Marines had paraded to make their choices for women, Buckley had come up empty-handed. Carter himself had emerged from that uncomfortable ceremony without a prize, but he had little interest in having a convict woman. His wife would skin him alive if he dallied and he knew it.
"It's gettin' worse out there," Lakey reported as he came into the tent, the barefoot and barechested Ivey close behind. "I've never seen anythin' like it."
"Aye, be glad for that," one of the other lads told him. "That out there's a riot, that is, an' there's nothin' more terrifyin'."
"Much's you'd know about it, Dan, mate," a third Marine called across the tent.
Dan Tisdale rolled his eyes. "Know more'n you. I was in the West Surreys when we was called out to put down Lord Gordon's riots. Least that had a decent purpose, that did, keepin' 'em papists outta the Corps an' all. This here's jus'..."
"Madness," Carter offered, now lying on his cot but feeling anything but sleepy.
"Anyways," said Billy Ivey, "we'd take a broadside or two 'fore we got that pack of ragin' heathens to strike their colours. Dunno about you lot but I like me pins where they's at."
Spineless twat, thought Carter uncharitably. He glanced up, to where his musket leaned against the head of his cot, and wondered if they'd get called out to settle the rampaging convicts before too much longer. It was unlikely, given Mister Clark's apparent disinterest, but one never knew. The governor might decide he valued peaceful sleep over the lives of his Marines, or Major Ross might feel that a show of force, however belated, was necessary. Or they would sit safely in their bivoauc while the convicts ran amok, inflicting God only knew what horrors on each other until sheer exhaustion brought it all to an end.
He laced his fingers beneath his head and listened to the shouts and screams, and tried to distract himself with thoughts of home.
~
In the bright sunshine of early morning, the destruction wrought by the convicts was all too plain. It seemed to David Lakey that the night had known no peace. Only the coming of dawn had brought an eventual end to the violence played out in the dark. He could hardly credit that they had allowed this all to happen, but then again, the Marines were badly disadvantaged. They might have the firepower but they lacked the numbers. Which, Lakey realised, meant that if incidents like this happened again - or, God forbid, became common - the Marines were in deep, awful trouble.
"Sergeant Ryan," Major Ross barked, appearing from the direction of his own tent, immaculately dressed and looking irritated. "Parade and inspection in five minutes."
"Yes sir."
Lakey suppressed a grimace. The world might be on the verge of ending, but Major Ross would insist on having an inspection beforehand, just to be sure the Marines faced their doom suitably polished and pipeclayed. He lifted his musket and turned to follow an unhappy-looking Tom Carter toward the open patch of ground that was marked out as their parade field. Sergeant Ryan was going from tent to tent, bawling at slower-moving men to get dressed and turn out.
"Looks like the aftermath of a liberty run out there," Ivey observed as he joined the other two. He looked faintly uncomfortable in his uniform, which was something Lakey had noticed about him months ago aboard ship.
"Shut up," grunted Carter as he fell in beside Dan Tisdale.
A glare from Sergeant Timmins, standing a couple steps to the left of the two officers, served to bring all of them to silence. There was a pause of only a few seconds, it seemed, before Timmins barked out, "Company! 'Shun!"
"What happened last night is a sterling example of the class of people we are charged with guarding," Major Ross said without preamble. "Our task will therefore require constant vigilance and strict adherence to discipline. No man in this parade must allow himself to be gotten the better of by these convicts or he is worthless as a soldier. Today, we must assert ourselves as the force of authority here. Directly following this parade, Sergeant Timmins will take his section and rouse last night's rioters and shepherd them immediately to the beach. Sergeant Ryan and his men will provide picquets for the settlement and are to see to it that no one passed the picquet line, in or out."
Great, thought Lakey. That order meant he'd be spending the morning, at least, chasing convicts out of their hiding holes. Just what he wanted. At the major's dismissal, the two sergeants at once bawled for their respective sections to assemble at the double. Lakey, with Carter, Ivey, and the rest of the half-company hastened to fall in by Sergeant Timmins. The Scotsman looked as neutral as he ever did but Lakey's imagination told him that the sergeant was unhappy with this allotted task.
"It is a simple enough job," Timmins told them. "The lot of you will go in parties of five and search every inch of the settlement for convicts. Where you find them, you'll turn them out. At bayonet point if you have to. You are to arrest anyone who resists. Is that understood?"
It was. Understood, if not liked. Timmins detailed the parties, taking the time to add that under no circumstances were any of them to separate. That was fine with Lakey. After last night, he had a strong suspicion that the general mood of the convicts would be less than pleasant. The final order to prime, load, and fix bayonets suggested that Timmins felt that way too. Which, naturally, did nothing to calm Lakey's nerves.
"If nobody gets his head stove in, it'll be a bleedin' miracle an' all," Tom Carter observed as he looked over the wreckage of what had, yesterday, been a fairly orderly scene.
"Ain't you just a bundle of optimism," Ivey said.
"You wanna be the first lad shiftin' that lot out, you go for it."
"Shut up," Lakey admonished, "and let's get it over with."
It surprised him somewhat to be the one spurring the others along, when Carter ordinarily filled that role, but the Londoner's mood had been sour ever since last night. Understandably enough. Without any further grumbling, the five-man detail trudged off to join the others, muskets held firmly and ready. The other groups of Marines were already getting stuck in to their work, bodily hauling men and women alike to their feet when a lack of motivation was evident.
"Gettup, you swine," Carter snarled, flicking a foot out at the slumbering heap that was a very large male convict. "Rutted yerself into a stupor, 'ave you? How 'bout I tickle yer prick wiv me bayonet, reckon that'll rouse you quick 'nuff. 'Wake now? Gettup, I told you, or I'll wrap me musket butt round yer head."
That method of waking the man was not perhaps the wisest one in Lakey's opinon. He took a step backward and charged his bayonet, too wary to let anyone catch him off his guard. Ivey curled his lip up in a half-smile, half-grimace, only to bark out an oath when the big convict grabbed at Carter's foot, which was kicking at him again. Carter didn't even have time to swear before he went crashing down onto his back. In an instant, four bayonets were at the convict's throat.
"You tries a trick like that again, cully, an' we'll fillet you like a side of beef, an' nobody'll say we was wrong," Ivey snapped.
Carter was back on his feet. "Fuckin' shoot him an' have done."
"Get on your feet," Dan Tisdale ordered, ignoring him. "Careful like. We'll take this one down the beach special, lads, 'cause he's one to watch."
The man-mountain glared at them as he picked himself up out of the sandy dirt, apparently unbothered by the sharp bayonets that followed his movements. All the commotion had roused the woman who'd been lying curled up a few feet away, her tattered dress sign enough of what terrible fate had befallen her in the night. She drew her knees up to her chest, covering herself up as best she could, and watched the Marines in a mixture of fear and hate. Lakey suspected he could guess her thoughts and those thoughts were not charitable. Carter had been right. They should have intervened last night.
"I'll remember yer face," Carter promised the large convict, bringing his bayonet up close to the man's chin. "I'll remember, an' I hope before God you put a foot outta line again, 'cause I'll see you swing for it."
The man leaned down toward Carter, heedless of the unwavering bayonet that pricked the soft underside of his jaw. Lakey gripped his musket and brought it up, expecting the convict to swing, but Carter didn't so much as twitch backwards. A proper hard one, him, Lakey thought in slow admiration.
"I," the convict drawled, "am essential to this miserable shit of a place. I am a blacksmith. I will hang for no man. Especially not a soldier."
Carter eased his musket very slowly around, causing the point of his bayonet to carve a tiny circle in the convict's skin before he lowered the firelock. "Down to the beach. Blacksmiff."
One of the lads behind the convict - probably Ivey - gave the man a shove to get him moving, and with a slow, defiant stride, he did. Ivey and Tisdale stayed behind him, muskets at the Port. They were not prepared to tolerate any further trouble from the bastard.
"Don't do that next time, aye?"
"I'll bloody skewer him next time, an' be damned to a hangin' for it."
Lakey shook his head but didn't press the point. Instead, he followed behind Carter as their detail tramped down to the beach in wary silence. He wasn't at all sure why the Londoner had reacted so hotly to this convict, when all of them had been running rampant. Something that had happened during the voyage over? It seemed a possible explanation, if not a likely one.
Getting the rest of the thousand-odd convicts found and herded toward the beach took the better part of the morning. Some were easier to get moving than others. None of the officers appeared until after the last of the convicts were rounded up and waiting in a carefully-watched mass above the tideline. Carter, Lakey noted, stood where he could watch the hulking blacksmith, with Ivey and Tisdale close at his back. Perhaps they knew something he did not?
Then the governor appeared, flanked by Major Ross, Captain Collins, and Lieutenant Clark. All were rigged out in their best dress. That alone told Lakey this part of the morning would not go well at all. He looked away to let his gaze sweep over the sullen, silent crowd of convicts. Controlling them was going to be a damned hard task to bring off, he thought, especially in the light of last night's chaos. The governor's speech, centred as it did on 'severe discipline' and his plan for erecting a gallows, did not fill Lakey with hope or confidence for a peaceable future here. Though... he supposed there was never much chance for that, considering.
Maybe he had been unwise to volunteer for this after all.
~
The past few months been anything but easy. It seemed like the convicts had settled themselves down but the enivornment chosen for the settlement was not the most hospitable. It was hot and dry, with a host of myriad dangers and unknowns. There was never any silence, for the cackling, piercing clamours of birds went on morning, noon, and night. Then there were the natives, with whom there'd been very little contact since arriving, but whose watchful presence was often sensed. No one, convict or Marine alike, went far from the edges of the settlement alone.
Worst of all that was the hunger. Rations had already been cut and the effect was not hard to see. Tom Carter watched the tree-cutting parties trudging back from the forest, looking tired and haggard. The most noteworthy achievement had come in the construction of the governor's house, but in almost every other respect the progress of establishing a colony had been slow. A lot of effort was being made by the convicts, he had to admit. Then again, their own survival depended on the success of the settlement so it was only to be expected that they would work steadily, if not perhaps particularly hard. But to work hard knowing there was only a partial meal to look forward to after that day's work? Little wonder, really, that things weren't coming on very quickly.
His gaze trailed over the assortment of open-sided tents that offered shelter to the fledgling colony's tiny handful of artisans. One of the carpenters, a short-limbed man who was missing the tips of two fingers on his left hand, worked busily at shaping a length of wood for some unknown purpose. A few yards away, another carpenter was sawing a freshly-felled tree into pre-marked lengths. Then there was the blacksmith. Carter felt a shiver of pure loathing dance down his spine. He had kept a close eye on that bastard ever since that awful night, but to his endless frustration the giant convict had not put so much as a toe out of line. There was no sense in openly dogging the bugger, either. That would only put the blacksmith even more on his guard.
Some of the women were tramping back toward their huts from the river, carrying loads of dripping clothes. One of them felt the weight of Carter's gaze and glanced in his direction, then looked sharply away. It was the poor lass who'd been taken by the blacksmith. He had tried a couple of times to talk to her, since he'd promised his wife to look after her sister, but Nancy would have nothing to do with him. Not, he supposed, that he could blame her. He should have ignored Mister Clark and shot that bastard of a blacksmith.
Hell with it. He'd catch her up now and try, yet again, to apologise. As if any apology could undo the hurt that had been done. The best he could do was try. The women had by now reached their little cluster of huts and were hanging out the fresh washing to dry. Carter's approach was met with suspicious, hostile glares and the odd muttered oath. He took care to sling his musket and pull off his hat, hoping doing so might help him seem less threatening. Like as not the attempt was unsuccessful but he was not going to be daunted.
"Nancy Owens."
She ignored him, in fact stoutly avoided looking at him as she wrung a few final stubborn drops of riverwater from a shirt before draping it over a tightly-stretched piece of cordage. Her comrades drifted toward her, closing ranks before Carter had a chance to get too near. One woman came out of the hut cradling a baby and she was the first to speak, eyeing Carter distastefully.
"Better fit you clear off," she told him. "We want nawthin' t'do with the likes of you."
Carter lifted his hands to show he meant no ill. "I'm jus' lookin' in on Nance, ain't I? No harm meant. I wish I'd've shot that sorry goat, Nance. But I will yet." It was the best he could do in the moment, since he was not so stupid as to try forcing his way past Nancy's guardians.
"Off you go, sodger," said the woman with the baby.
Right. Carter inclined his head slightly, slipping his hat back on. "You has any more trouble wiv his like, Nance, you come an' find me, an' I'll cut his painter for 'im." And be damned to what the officers said about it.
He turned to make his way toward the Marines' tents, striving to ignore the daggers being glared at his back by the women. Their bad feeling was more than understandable. The Marines could have brought a swift end to that night's antics but the governor had held them back. The passing of a mere few months was not long enough for the memory of that to fade.
"Private Carter. What is your business with the women?"
"Sir!" Carter stopped abruptly and saluted, surprised by Mister Clark's approach and question. "I jus' wanted to be sure they was doin' the washin' right, sir."
The lieutenant nodded, very slowly. "Mary Broad was not in the washing party, Private, yet you were talking expressly to her. I trust that was because she addressed herself to you first, as I would dislike to learn that you made a visit to the women's huts to see her. For any reason."
"I weren't lookin' to see her, sir." Why in the hell would he?
"Good. I will warn you for your own good that she is to be avoided. Is that understood?"
"Yes, sir."
With another nod and without a further word, Mister Clark walked away. What was that about? Confused, Carter stared after the lieutenant for a long moment. He had heard a little of Mister Clark's odd interest in one of the women during the voyage from home, but had dismissed it as one of the peculiarities bred from too many months at sea. Obviously there was something in those rumours after all.
"Shit," he muttered, casting a final glance over his shoulder toward the women's huts. It didn't surprise him that some of them were still watching. Did any of them know about Mister Clark's interest in Mary Broad? Or no - a flicker of memory came suddenly to him. It was Mary Bryant. The one who'd married the colony's fisherman. Carter whistled to himself. If that wasn't as dangerous as sparks in the magazines, he didn't know what was. He certainly wanted to avoid getting mixed up in that.
"Shit," he said again. If visiting the women's huts to talk to Nancy was going to get him in the lieutenant's bad graces, he had to come up with a different way to go about it. Just as he had to find a way to get that bastard of a blacksmith for what he'd done. Perhaps that was one advantage to being down there on the underside of the world. A little harsh justice could be excused. So long, of course, that he was not caught at it.
Anyway, a big mean bugger like the blacksmith had to have other enemies. Some careful asking around should make that known one way or the other. Hell, who knew? Maybe the convicts would do the job for him with some subtle nudging in the right direction. That might actually be the easier idea. He shouldered his musket and, grinning, went off to find Dan Tisdale. Whatever happened, he'd need help resolving this particular problem and Tisdale was the one lad Carter knew he could trust.
Out here, that counted for a lot.
Rating: M (Suitable for ages 16 and above)
Disclaimers: David Lakey is the creation of
sharpiefan. Tom Carter, Billy Ivey, Dan Tisdale, and Nancy Owens are mine. Most characters who appear are actual historical figures. All other characters belong their respective creators. Neither The Incredible Journey of Mary Bryant nor Banished are mine. No profit is being made from this story.Story summary: The line between good and bad is often blurred, but two Marines with the First Fleet learn just how easily that blurring happens. Australia, 1788.
Author's Note: There are going to be historical and canon goofs in this. Most of them are probably intentional. I apologise for those that aren't.
The screams in the dark were not only those of the wildlife. There was chaos reigning in the settlement. Chaos that none of the officers showed any interest in even attempting to tame. The Marines stayed safely shut up in their small bivoauc, each man with musket to hand and bayonet fixed, while the very Devil seemed to run amok around them. Tom Carter ran the side of his thumb over the edge of his flint and wished they could be allowed to stop all of it. That they were there to guard the convicts meant also, to him, that they should protect those same convicts from each other. He was no soft heart, having seen his share of hard times in the war, but for Christ's sake.
"We must stop them, sir," Sergeant Timmins was saying to one of the officers, his eyes turned outward on the rampaging male convicts, his hand on his sword.
Mister Clark shook his head. "We will not," he replied. "Governor's orders."
Bugger the bloody governor, thought Carter in disgust. Stupid Navy bastard that he was. He'd want this stopped in an instant if there were respectable people being used so roughly, wouldn't he, but where it was only a bunch of convicts...
"Cor," growled Carter to the man next to him. "There'll be a bloodbaff 'fore dawn, we lets 'em go on."
David Lakey affected a shrug. "Not for us to say, is it?"
"Mebbe it ain't, but we's Marines. This ain't wot Marines does. This sittin' on our arses lettin' them poor lot run all sorta riot an' all. We're 'ere to keep order, ain't we, but them officers'd sooner us look a pack of poxy useless sheeps. Well I ain't no sheep, am I, an' I've 'eard enough've this - "
"I heard that, Private Carter. If one more seditious word comes out of your mouth, I'll have your back laid open."
"Seddishes this, sir," Carter muttered and Lakey rolled his eyes. "If me ol' officer was 'ere..."
Only he wasn't and it was stupid to wish for him to be. Captain Collins had gone away to Portsmouth Division barely a year after they'd all gotten home. Nothing had been heard of him since. Many of the lads had gotten discharges in that same year. Only a few Cornwalls had managed to stay in the Corps. Of them, Sergeant Devlin was perhaps the largest surprise. Or maybe not. The Irishman would probably die in harness.
"There'll be the Devil to pay tomorrow an' no pitch hot, the way this is goin'." Billy Ivey came strolling up beside Lakey and Carter, his musket carried almost thoughtlessly in one hand. The former seaman was half-dressed, as he ever was when off duty. He did not even have his shoes on, Carter noted.
"You's gonna step on somefin' nasty," he told the younger Marine idly. Ivey was almost a distraction from the madness unfolding all around the Marines' fenced-off bivoauc.
Ivey grinned. "Maybe, but that pack of lubbers out there will have it worst. D'you reckon any of 'em will be left livin' by Up All Hammocks tomorrer?"
"Christ, I hope so. Imagine the officers havin' to write home sayin' they'd let the convicts murder each uvver an' all?" Carter curled his fingers around the doghead of his musket and tried not to wince as he watched a mountain of a man grab a shrieking woman by her hips and swing her effortlessly up over his shoulder. Any fool could guess what was going to happen next. The Marine lifted his musket up to the Poise, the flint clicking back to full cock in a completely unconscious motion.
"Stand fast, Private!" Mister Clark snapped, turning sharply toward him.
"We don't stop 'em, sir, they'll kill each uvver," Carter replied flatly. He braced himself and shifted his musket from the Poise to the Present, his eyes and now the musket barrel following the man-mountain as he lumbered toward the deeper shadows. A few more steps and that bastard would be too hard to see, never mind shoot.
The lieutenant was glaring at him. "You will uncock your musket, about turn, and disappear, Private. That is an order."
Carter's nostrils flared as he strove to keep unwise words from slipping out. Any officer worth his salt would see to it this insanity was stopped. He knew that. Christ, every Marine in this bivoauc knew that. But Mister Clark had never seen an enemy, had he. He had never fired a shot in anger or fear, or had that unmistakeable buzz of a leaden wasp flash past his head. He wouldn't know what to do in a bad situation and that was proven here and now. Mister Clark, Carter decided, was the sort of officer who lacked the stomach for firm, decisive action.
"Sergeant Timmins - " Mister Clark began, raising his voice.
The light rasp of a sword being partially drawn and the drawing in of several other Marines toward him ultimately decided the matter. Without a word, but not needing any to make his feelings known, Carter uncocked his musket, jerked the firelock back to the Poise, and about-turned. Then, with his back fully to the lieutenant, he slapped the piece up into his shoulder and marched off, his stride stiff-legged and brisk. What sort of man refused to help the defenceless, convict or not? If Mister Clark wasn't an officer...
"Next time you get a fool notion like that, Carter, you should do it where an officer can't see."
"Next time, I'll bloody well ignore him an' all, Sarn't."
Sergeant Timmins shook his head. "Next time, he'll have you flogged."
Flogged. Ha. Carter grinned humourlessly. "I always did want more stripes." He lowered his musket with much less snap and waved a dismissive hand in Clark's direction. "That beggar's no fightin' officer, Sarn't. He ain't been nowhere but Chatham. Wot good's he - "
"That sorta talk will get you into trouble," Timmins interrupted. "Better you stowed it. If the major hears of it, you will be lucky not to hang."
That didn't merit a response so Carter offered none, choosing instead to duck into the tent that housed him and a dozen other Marines. The sergeant followed him, but offered no further rebukes. Timmins was a decent old hand, though. He knew when to leave well enough alone. Grimacing at the whole situation, Carter opened the musket pan and swept it clear of powder before setting the firelock carefully aside near his cot. There was little hope of sleep with all the racket raging outside but there was obviously nothing better to do. Or try to do. Not if he wanted to avoid being shot himself, though really, that would be a tiny price to pay for doing the right thing... he closed his eyes and tried not to hate himself for being so easily cowed.
"Shame none of them will share with us," one of the lads said wistfully, glancing pointedly at the canvas wall of the tent. "Might be fun."
"Shut up, Buckley," somebody else grumbled.
Carter tossed his crossbelts aside and all but flung off his coat. The long voyage here had given him plenty of insights into the natures of his fellow Marines and several of them had come up wanting in his estimation. That sneering bastard Buckley was one of them. It was telling that when the Marines had paraded to make their choices for women, Buckley had come up empty-handed. Carter himself had emerged from that uncomfortable ceremony without a prize, but he had little interest in having a convict woman. His wife would skin him alive if he dallied and he knew it.
"It's gettin' worse out there," Lakey reported as he came into the tent, the barefoot and barechested Ivey close behind. "I've never seen anythin' like it."
"Aye, be glad for that," one of the other lads told him. "That out there's a riot, that is, an' there's nothin' more terrifyin'."
"Much's you'd know about it, Dan, mate," a third Marine called across the tent.
Dan Tisdale rolled his eyes. "Know more'n you. I was in the West Surreys when we was called out to put down Lord Gordon's riots. Least that had a decent purpose, that did, keepin' 'em papists outta the Corps an' all. This here's jus'..."
"Madness," Carter offered, now lying on his cot but feeling anything but sleepy.
"Anyways," said Billy Ivey, "we'd take a broadside or two 'fore we got that pack of ragin' heathens to strike their colours. Dunno about you lot but I like me pins where they's at."
Spineless twat, thought Carter uncharitably. He glanced up, to where his musket leaned against the head of his cot, and wondered if they'd get called out to settle the rampaging convicts before too much longer. It was unlikely, given Mister Clark's apparent disinterest, but one never knew. The governor might decide he valued peaceful sleep over the lives of his Marines, or Major Ross might feel that a show of force, however belated, was necessary. Or they would sit safely in their bivoauc while the convicts ran amok, inflicting God only knew what horrors on each other until sheer exhaustion brought it all to an end.
He laced his fingers beneath his head and listened to the shouts and screams, and tried to distract himself with thoughts of home.
~
In the bright sunshine of early morning, the destruction wrought by the convicts was all too plain. It seemed to David Lakey that the night had known no peace. Only the coming of dawn had brought an eventual end to the violence played out in the dark. He could hardly credit that they had allowed this all to happen, but then again, the Marines were badly disadvantaged. They might have the firepower but they lacked the numbers. Which, Lakey realised, meant that if incidents like this happened again - or, God forbid, became common - the Marines were in deep, awful trouble.
"Sergeant Ryan," Major Ross barked, appearing from the direction of his own tent, immaculately dressed and looking irritated. "Parade and inspection in five minutes."
"Yes sir."
Lakey suppressed a grimace. The world might be on the verge of ending, but Major Ross would insist on having an inspection beforehand, just to be sure the Marines faced their doom suitably polished and pipeclayed. He lifted his musket and turned to follow an unhappy-looking Tom Carter toward the open patch of ground that was marked out as their parade field. Sergeant Ryan was going from tent to tent, bawling at slower-moving men to get dressed and turn out.
"Looks like the aftermath of a liberty run out there," Ivey observed as he joined the other two. He looked faintly uncomfortable in his uniform, which was something Lakey had noticed about him months ago aboard ship.
"Shut up," grunted Carter as he fell in beside Dan Tisdale.
A glare from Sergeant Timmins, standing a couple steps to the left of the two officers, served to bring all of them to silence. There was a pause of only a few seconds, it seemed, before Timmins barked out, "Company! 'Shun!"
"What happened last night is a sterling example of the class of people we are charged with guarding," Major Ross said without preamble. "Our task will therefore require constant vigilance and strict adherence to discipline. No man in this parade must allow himself to be gotten the better of by these convicts or he is worthless as a soldier. Today, we must assert ourselves as the force of authority here. Directly following this parade, Sergeant Timmins will take his section and rouse last night's rioters and shepherd them immediately to the beach. Sergeant Ryan and his men will provide picquets for the settlement and are to see to it that no one passed the picquet line, in or out."
Great, thought Lakey. That order meant he'd be spending the morning, at least, chasing convicts out of their hiding holes. Just what he wanted. At the major's dismissal, the two sergeants at once bawled for their respective sections to assemble at the double. Lakey, with Carter, Ivey, and the rest of the half-company hastened to fall in by Sergeant Timmins. The Scotsman looked as neutral as he ever did but Lakey's imagination told him that the sergeant was unhappy with this allotted task.
"It is a simple enough job," Timmins told them. "The lot of you will go in parties of five and search every inch of the settlement for convicts. Where you find them, you'll turn them out. At bayonet point if you have to. You are to arrest anyone who resists. Is that understood?"
It was. Understood, if not liked. Timmins detailed the parties, taking the time to add that under no circumstances were any of them to separate. That was fine with Lakey. After last night, he had a strong suspicion that the general mood of the convicts would be less than pleasant. The final order to prime, load, and fix bayonets suggested that Timmins felt that way too. Which, naturally, did nothing to calm Lakey's nerves.
"If nobody gets his head stove in, it'll be a bleedin' miracle an' all," Tom Carter observed as he looked over the wreckage of what had, yesterday, been a fairly orderly scene.
"Ain't you just a bundle of optimism," Ivey said.
"You wanna be the first lad shiftin' that lot out, you go for it."
"Shut up," Lakey admonished, "and let's get it over with."
It surprised him somewhat to be the one spurring the others along, when Carter ordinarily filled that role, but the Londoner's mood had been sour ever since last night. Understandably enough. Without any further grumbling, the five-man detail trudged off to join the others, muskets held firmly and ready. The other groups of Marines were already getting stuck in to their work, bodily hauling men and women alike to their feet when a lack of motivation was evident.
"Gettup, you swine," Carter snarled, flicking a foot out at the slumbering heap that was a very large male convict. "Rutted yerself into a stupor, 'ave you? How 'bout I tickle yer prick wiv me bayonet, reckon that'll rouse you quick 'nuff. 'Wake now? Gettup, I told you, or I'll wrap me musket butt round yer head."
That method of waking the man was not perhaps the wisest one in Lakey's opinon. He took a step backward and charged his bayonet, too wary to let anyone catch him off his guard. Ivey curled his lip up in a half-smile, half-grimace, only to bark out an oath when the big convict grabbed at Carter's foot, which was kicking at him again. Carter didn't even have time to swear before he went crashing down onto his back. In an instant, four bayonets were at the convict's throat.
"You tries a trick like that again, cully, an' we'll fillet you like a side of beef, an' nobody'll say we was wrong," Ivey snapped.
Carter was back on his feet. "Fuckin' shoot him an' have done."
"Get on your feet," Dan Tisdale ordered, ignoring him. "Careful like. We'll take this one down the beach special, lads, 'cause he's one to watch."
The man-mountain glared at them as he picked himself up out of the sandy dirt, apparently unbothered by the sharp bayonets that followed his movements. All the commotion had roused the woman who'd been lying curled up a few feet away, her tattered dress sign enough of what terrible fate had befallen her in the night. She drew her knees up to her chest, covering herself up as best she could, and watched the Marines in a mixture of fear and hate. Lakey suspected he could guess her thoughts and those thoughts were not charitable. Carter had been right. They should have intervened last night.
"I'll remember yer face," Carter promised the large convict, bringing his bayonet up close to the man's chin. "I'll remember, an' I hope before God you put a foot outta line again, 'cause I'll see you swing for it."
The man leaned down toward Carter, heedless of the unwavering bayonet that pricked the soft underside of his jaw. Lakey gripped his musket and brought it up, expecting the convict to swing, but Carter didn't so much as twitch backwards. A proper hard one, him, Lakey thought in slow admiration.
"I," the convict drawled, "am essential to this miserable shit of a place. I am a blacksmith. I will hang for no man. Especially not a soldier."
Carter eased his musket very slowly around, causing the point of his bayonet to carve a tiny circle in the convict's skin before he lowered the firelock. "Down to the beach. Blacksmiff."
One of the lads behind the convict - probably Ivey - gave the man a shove to get him moving, and with a slow, defiant stride, he did. Ivey and Tisdale stayed behind him, muskets at the Port. They were not prepared to tolerate any further trouble from the bastard.
"Don't do that next time, aye?"
"I'll bloody skewer him next time, an' be damned to a hangin' for it."
Lakey shook his head but didn't press the point. Instead, he followed behind Carter as their detail tramped down to the beach in wary silence. He wasn't at all sure why the Londoner had reacted so hotly to this convict, when all of them had been running rampant. Something that had happened during the voyage over? It seemed a possible explanation, if not a likely one.
Getting the rest of the thousand-odd convicts found and herded toward the beach took the better part of the morning. Some were easier to get moving than others. None of the officers appeared until after the last of the convicts were rounded up and waiting in a carefully-watched mass above the tideline. Carter, Lakey noted, stood where he could watch the hulking blacksmith, with Ivey and Tisdale close at his back. Perhaps they knew something he did not?
Then the governor appeared, flanked by Major Ross, Captain Collins, and Lieutenant Clark. All were rigged out in their best dress. That alone told Lakey this part of the morning would not go well at all. He looked away to let his gaze sweep over the sullen, silent crowd of convicts. Controlling them was going to be a damned hard task to bring off, he thought, especially in the light of last night's chaos. The governor's speech, centred as it did on 'severe discipline' and his plan for erecting a gallows, did not fill Lakey with hope or confidence for a peaceable future here. Though... he supposed there was never much chance for that, considering.
Maybe he had been unwise to volunteer for this after all.
~
The past few months been anything but easy. It seemed like the convicts had settled themselves down but the enivornment chosen for the settlement was not the most hospitable. It was hot and dry, with a host of myriad dangers and unknowns. There was never any silence, for the cackling, piercing clamours of birds went on morning, noon, and night. Then there were the natives, with whom there'd been very little contact since arriving, but whose watchful presence was often sensed. No one, convict or Marine alike, went far from the edges of the settlement alone.
Worst of all that was the hunger. Rations had already been cut and the effect was not hard to see. Tom Carter watched the tree-cutting parties trudging back from the forest, looking tired and haggard. The most noteworthy achievement had come in the construction of the governor's house, but in almost every other respect the progress of establishing a colony had been slow. A lot of effort was being made by the convicts, he had to admit. Then again, their own survival depended on the success of the settlement so it was only to be expected that they would work steadily, if not perhaps particularly hard. But to work hard knowing there was only a partial meal to look forward to after that day's work? Little wonder, really, that things weren't coming on very quickly.
His gaze trailed over the assortment of open-sided tents that offered shelter to the fledgling colony's tiny handful of artisans. One of the carpenters, a short-limbed man who was missing the tips of two fingers on his left hand, worked busily at shaping a length of wood for some unknown purpose. A few yards away, another carpenter was sawing a freshly-felled tree into pre-marked lengths. Then there was the blacksmith. Carter felt a shiver of pure loathing dance down his spine. He had kept a close eye on that bastard ever since that awful night, but to his endless frustration the giant convict had not put so much as a toe out of line. There was no sense in openly dogging the bugger, either. That would only put the blacksmith even more on his guard.
Some of the women were tramping back toward their huts from the river, carrying loads of dripping clothes. One of them felt the weight of Carter's gaze and glanced in his direction, then looked sharply away. It was the poor lass who'd been taken by the blacksmith. He had tried a couple of times to talk to her, since he'd promised his wife to look after her sister, but Nancy would have nothing to do with him. Not, he supposed, that he could blame her. He should have ignored Mister Clark and shot that bastard of a blacksmith.
Hell with it. He'd catch her up now and try, yet again, to apologise. As if any apology could undo the hurt that had been done. The best he could do was try. The women had by now reached their little cluster of huts and were hanging out the fresh washing to dry. Carter's approach was met with suspicious, hostile glares and the odd muttered oath. He took care to sling his musket and pull off his hat, hoping doing so might help him seem less threatening. Like as not the attempt was unsuccessful but he was not going to be daunted.
"Nancy Owens."
She ignored him, in fact stoutly avoided looking at him as she wrung a few final stubborn drops of riverwater from a shirt before draping it over a tightly-stretched piece of cordage. Her comrades drifted toward her, closing ranks before Carter had a chance to get too near. One woman came out of the hut cradling a baby and she was the first to speak, eyeing Carter distastefully.
"Better fit you clear off," she told him. "We want nawthin' t'do with the likes of you."
Carter lifted his hands to show he meant no ill. "I'm jus' lookin' in on Nance, ain't I? No harm meant. I wish I'd've shot that sorry goat, Nance. But I will yet." It was the best he could do in the moment, since he was not so stupid as to try forcing his way past Nancy's guardians.
"Off you go, sodger," said the woman with the baby.
Right. Carter inclined his head slightly, slipping his hat back on. "You has any more trouble wiv his like, Nance, you come an' find me, an' I'll cut his painter for 'im." And be damned to what the officers said about it.
He turned to make his way toward the Marines' tents, striving to ignore the daggers being glared at his back by the women. Their bad feeling was more than understandable. The Marines could have brought a swift end to that night's antics but the governor had held them back. The passing of a mere few months was not long enough for the memory of that to fade.
"Private Carter. What is your business with the women?"
"Sir!" Carter stopped abruptly and saluted, surprised by Mister Clark's approach and question. "I jus' wanted to be sure they was doin' the washin' right, sir."
The lieutenant nodded, very slowly. "Mary Broad was not in the washing party, Private, yet you were talking expressly to her. I trust that was because she addressed herself to you first, as I would dislike to learn that you made a visit to the women's huts to see her. For any reason."
"I weren't lookin' to see her, sir." Why in the hell would he?
"Good. I will warn you for your own good that she is to be avoided. Is that understood?"
"Yes, sir."
With another nod and without a further word, Mister Clark walked away. What was that about? Confused, Carter stared after the lieutenant for a long moment. He had heard a little of Mister Clark's odd interest in one of the women during the voyage from home, but had dismissed it as one of the peculiarities bred from too many months at sea. Obviously there was something in those rumours after all.
"Shit," he muttered, casting a final glance over his shoulder toward the women's huts. It didn't surprise him that some of them were still watching. Did any of them know about Mister Clark's interest in Mary Broad? Or no - a flicker of memory came suddenly to him. It was Mary Bryant. The one who'd married the colony's fisherman. Carter whistled to himself. If that wasn't as dangerous as sparks in the magazines, he didn't know what was. He certainly wanted to avoid getting mixed up in that.
"Shit," he said again. If visiting the women's huts to talk to Nancy was going to get him in the lieutenant's bad graces, he had to come up with a different way to go about it. Just as he had to find a way to get that bastard of a blacksmith for what he'd done. Perhaps that was one advantage to being down there on the underside of the world. A little harsh justice could be excused. So long, of course, that he was not caught at it.
Anyway, a big mean bugger like the blacksmith had to have other enemies. Some careful asking around should make that known one way or the other. Hell, who knew? Maybe the convicts would do the job for him with some subtle nudging in the right direction. That might actually be the easier idea. He shouldered his musket and, grinning, went off to find Dan Tisdale. Whatever happened, he'd need help resolving this particular problem and Tisdale was the one lad Carter knew he could trust.
Out here, that counted for a lot.
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You crazy amazing person. You write bloody well, too! :D
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Thanks! But. It needed doing, let's face it. :D