TimeStorm Read online

  An old-fashioned hero,

  dragged into the 21st century...

  literally

  In 1795 a convict ship leaves England for New South Wales in Australia. Nearing its destination, it encounters a savage storm but, miraculously, their battered ship stays afloat and limps into Sydney Harbour. Here, the convicts rebel, overpower the crew and make their escape, destroying the ship in the process. Fleeing the sinking vessel with only the clothes on their backs, the survivors struggle ashore.

  Among the escaped convicts, seething resentments fuel an appetite for brutal revenge against their former captors while, for their part, the crew attempts to track down and kill or recapture the escapees. However, it soon becomes apparent that both convicts and crew have more to concern them than shipwreck and a ruthless fight for survival; they have arrived in Sydney in 2017.

  TimeStorm is a thrilling epic adventure story of revenge, survival and honour set in a strange new world of unfamiliar technology and equally unfathomable social norms. In the literary footsteps of Hornblower, comes Lieutenant Christopher ‘Kit’ Blaney, an old-fashioned hero, a man of honour, duty and principle, dragged into the 21st century... literally.

  Highly Commended

  2013 Jim Hamilton Award fantasy/science fiction category

  Fellowship of Australian Writers (FAW) National Literary Awards

  A great fan of the grand seafaring adventure fiction of CS Forester, Patrick O’Brien and Alexander Kent, and modern action thriller writers such as Lee Child, Steve Harrison combines several genres in his debut novel.

  The book was inspired by a replica 18th century sailing ship on Sydney Harbour and a question from Steve’s brother, Tony: “What if that was a real convict ship?” TimeStorm explores that question in a fast-paced story as a group of desperate men from the 1700s clash in modern-day Sydney.

  Elsewhen Press

  TimeStorm

  First published in Great Britain by Elsewhen Press, 2014

  An imprint of Alnpete Limited

  Copyright © Steve Harrison, 2014. All rights reserved

  The right of Steve Harrison to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, telepathic, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  Use of the Ringbearer font by kind permission of the designer, Peter Klassen.

  Elsewhen Press, PO Box 757, Dartford, Kent DA2 7TQ

  www.elsewhen.co.uk

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978-1-908168-44-3 Print edition

  ISBN 978-1-908168-54-2 eBook edition

  Condition of Sale

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

  Elsewhen Press & Planet-Clock Design are trademarks of Alnpete Limited

  Converted to eBook format by Elsewhen Press

  This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, ships, media organisations and security services are either a product of the author’s fertile imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual services, corporations, vehicles, sites or people (living, dead, temporally displaced) is purely coincidental.

  Contents

  15th April 2003

  Tasman Sea

  13th January 1796

  Sydney

  16th January 2017

  Epilogue – Bathurst

  23rd March 2017

  For Belinda and Sophia

  WILLIAM

  The view from William’s bedroom usually filled him with disinterest. Undulating hills stretched off into the distance, bright green during the wet, brown and dusty, like now, during drought. The two-storey house was built by William’s great, great grandfather Charles in the 1870s, about the time the gold ran out and the cattle business started. And like the portrait of the old man hanging over the staircase, the building was square, solid and dull.

  Everyone else – family, friends, visitors – considered the family pile a magnificent house with stunning views. To each his own, thought William, though today the hills did hold considerably more interest than usual. Or rather, what lay beyond them and heading his way.

  William’s father, Henry, had driven him out to Lone Tree Hill yesterday afternoon, William’s favourite spot on the estate. There was no tree on the hill. Charles had it removed when he built the house as it spoiled the featureless view. He said the landscape reminded him of rolling waves and one would never encounter a tree at sea. William believed he would have liked the eccentric old Charles. His family now were staid and respectable. Boring.

  Henry had puffed a little way up the hill and sat on the parched grass. Although only forty, he was balding and overweight and could have been sixty. He was born middle aged, said William’s mother. He patted the turf next to him and William joined him. They looked out across the dry, brown hills. It was a gusty day and miniature dust tornadoes danced here and there.

  William and his father were not close and an air of disapproval and exasperation was ever present. The latest school expulsion was probably the last straw and he was about to be blasted. Again.

  “Have you thought what you will do when you leave school?” asked Henry. “If you finish a school, that is,” he added.

  “I could leave now, you know. I am sixteen.”

  Henry gazed off into space for an uncomfortably long time. William had been expecting another fight, but there was an unusual calmness about Henry. None of the usual irritation or frustration. It threw William off guard.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “We’ve let you down, Billy. The whole family. We’ve pussyfooted around you, let you do your own thing. We’ve never guided you.”

  William looked at his father as though he were mad.

  “But there’s a reason. And tomorrow you’ll find out.”

  So, here William was, hanging out of his bedroom window waiting for a mystery to be solved. He had no idea what his father was talking about and his questions on the way back to the house were met by raised eyebrows and a tap on the nose. The only additional information was that father and Uncle Jimmy would visit the bank in town before speaking to him. This raised the possibility of them giving him a substantial amount of money, but he doubted it. There was something in his father’s voice that intrigued him and William found it impossible to summon his usual general air of disinterest.

  He spotted the first puff of dust a little after noon, a billowing trail behind the car as it skimmed across a small patch of sand at the first cattle grid on the property. A brief flash of sunlight reflected off the car before it disappeared behind a hill. They were ten minutes away if father was driving, but only four if Uncle Jimmy was behind the wheel. After a moment, William grinned and headed for the stairs.

  The station wagon screeched to a halt outside the house as Uncle Jimmy slammed on the brakes. The car vanished for a few seconds as the dust cloud caught up. The view cleared to show Jimmy’s grinning face through the dirty windscreen and Henry’s look of disapproval. Jimmy hopped out of the car. He was Henry’s twin, but skinny and fit; he could easily have been thirty. He tousled William’s hair as they waited for Henry to ease himself from the passenger seat.

  Jimmy looked at W
illiam and rolled his eyes. “Give me a hand, Billy. We don’t want your old man to strain himself.”

  William followed Jimmy to the back and helped him lift out an old, heavy metal trunk the size of a large suitcase.

  They placed the trunk on the floor of Henry’s study and William brushed rust from his hands. Henry followed them in and poured three whiskeys, smiling at William’s shocked expression as he pressed a glass into his hand. They all sat on the sofa in front of the trunk, William in the middle.

  “Is anyone going to say something?” asked William.

  Jimmy leaned forward to look at Henry. Henry cleared his throat and held up an old key. “Inside that trunk is a message for you.”

  “For me?”

  William stood up, grabbed the key and opened the trunk, the key catching before the lock finally clicked. He leaned forward to see the contents. The trunk was packed with various trinkets and objects, antiques, perhaps. William reached inside and pulled out a very old, thick leather journal and looked at his father and uncle. They both nodded.

  “Read it and we’ll talk later.” Jimmy walked out, followed by Henry.

  William was not sure he wanted to look, but eventually he untied the leather strips and gingerly opened the cover. Inside was a manuscript; a great pile of handwritten yellowing paper.

  William downed the whiskey in one, shuddered and began to read, a feat made difficult by the terrible handwriting. It took him a page to work it out, then he went back to the beginning.

  Hello. We don’t know your name, but we have a huge favour to ask of you. A life and death favour…

  William read for hours and when he finished he was surprised to see it was getting dark. He walked through the house, barely feeling the boards beneath his feet and found his father and Jimmy in the kitchen drinking coffee. They exchanged a glance as William tried to speak. His thoughts whirled around in his head. How could such nonsense be true?

  “Dad,” he said, finally, “can I have another whiskey?”

  BLANEY

  A light swell rolled across the Tasman Sea, pausing briefly to lift HMS Marlin out of its path. The ship’s sails were tethered. Her sea anchor chain dragged against the side and her masts traced lazy circles in the early morning sunlight. The coast lay a hundred miles over the horizon to the west, wisps of cloud the only sign of the vast continent beyond. The colony of New South Wales lay some two weeks, perhaps only twelve days, to the north.

  The sound of bare feet drummed against the deck as the crew hurried to assembly. Their spirits were high now that the first part of the voyage was almost over and soon they would bid farewell to their despised cargo of convicts.

  First Lieutenant Christopher Blaney studied the crew from his position on the upper deck as the men fell into their neat lines. The men laughed and joked in eager anticipation of the coming punishment. Blaney agreed their entertainment had been earned; almost a quarter of the original complement of seamen had been lost in the disaster at the Cape of Good Hope, a misnomer if ever there was one. The survivors had been forced to work like slaves ever since and fully deserved the excesses of their upcoming shore leave.

  Blaney also felt some sympathy for the convicts being roughly herded from below by red-jacketed marines. The contingent of sea-borne soldiers never missed an opportunity to show the prisoners who was in charge and they did so now, roughly jabbing the convicts with musket butts and kicking them into line. The convicts, ragged and undernourished, were pale-skinned from confinement and squinted in the sunlight as they emerged on deck. They presented a pathetic picture, stripped of their dignity and reduced to shuffling, chained and broken men. Blaney wondered how they could live with such humiliation.

  Every officer aboard the Marlin knew the story of these convicts. The heavy journal in the Captain’s cabin detailed their misdeeds. Of the one hundred and sixty-three criminals loaded at Portsmouth, two-thirds had been convicted of the most trivial of offences. Blaney found it sobering to realise that men could be enslaved for many years, and banished from England forever, for crimes no worse than the pranks he committed as a child.

  The remaining third of convicts were incorrigible criminals, saved from the gallows by their relatively good health and their perceived ability to withstand years of backbreaking work in New South Wales. Blaney had made it his business to know them. Cunning, desperate, dangerous men who would kill and maim without hesitation, they stood out in the tightly packed crowd of prisoners. Better fed than the rest because of their bullying, they constantly resisted the marines, yet always knew when to cease their antics before provoking the soldiers into punishing them. But one of them – the worst – had finally gone too far.

  There was a sudden commotion at the fore hatch where a big convict struggled between two sweating marines. Two soldiers already on deck trained their muskets on the prisoner. Rufus Redmond towered over his guards and was not inclined to make life easy for them. The trio looked like two children pulling their reluctant father. At five feet ten, Blaney considered himself a very tall man, but Redmond was almost a head taller. A giant.

  The sight caused the gathered convicts some restrained mirth and incensed the crew into a torrent of foul abuse.

  “Silence!” Blaney bellowed.

  The crew obeyed instantly and the marines reacted quickly and violently against the convicts, bringing them to order. A hush fell over the ship, broken only by creaking timbers and waves lapping against the sides.

  Redmond allowed the marines to tie his hands to a hatch cover fastened against the starboard rail. Further resistance would only prolong his agony. Once secured, he twisted around and glared at the crew, who stood only a few feet away. Despite their hostility and Redmond’s bonds, the front ranks instinctively pressed back against their mates.

  Blaney could not blame them. The tethered convict presented a terrifying sight. In his early thirties, Redmond was built like a bear. He had a long, straggly mop of rust-coloured hair and an uneven growth of red beard clawed high on his cheeks. Peering from this undergrowth, over a large, crooked nose, were two brown eyes of frightening depth. Blaney felt the hatred in them.

  Redmond was an affront to all decent men, Blaney decided, his face hardening. He was no more than an animal. No, Blaney corrected himself, less than an animal; a convict.

  Yet Redmond unaccountably had a hold over Captain William Cross. Every convict had his head shaved regularly, except for Redmond. Each convict was hosed down and compelled to take exercise every week, but not Redmond. Insolence or resisting an officer invoked instant punishment, yet Redmond had been allowed far more latitude than his peers. Until now. Blaney knew Cross well enough to realise that his tolerance of the convict was not in character, but to the crew the Captain’s actions made him appear weak.

  Blaney had often advocated punishment for Redmond during the voyage, but never successfully. Cross met each protest with stony silence and refused to be drawn on his irrational treatment of the prisoner. However, Redmond eventually pushed too hard, as Blaney knew he must. Even Cross could not turn a blind eye to his actions this time. The officers and crew and probably many convicts were about to see Redmond brought to justice. Not the ultimate justice he deserved, perhaps, but real punishment nonetheless.

  Redmond was now tightly secured to the hatch cover, his stained convict shirt stretched across his broad shoulders. The bosun reached up and loosened a few threads of the shirt with his knife, then violently ripped the cloth away from the convict’s back. The assembly gasped at the sight. Even Blaney took in a breath.

  Redmond’s torso was a hideous mess of scars. Long ridges of ugly white crisscrossed his back, some climbing his neck, others snaking beneath his armpits. Blaney wondered how the man could have survived so many floggings. He knew how easily scar tissue opened beneath the cat-o’-nine-tails.

  The bosun and his mate roughly pushed the crew back to give themselves space, each unfurling his weapon. Gripping the stock tightly, the mate whirled the leather thongs high a
bove his head, cracking them skilfully only inches from Redmond’s ear. He grinned maliciously, but the convict hardly flinched, instead gazing out to sea. Irritated, the bosun signalled the mate to pay attention and both men turned to face Blaney.

  Blaney cleared his throat and unrolled the punishment order, surprised by the dryness of his mouth. “Convict Rufus Redmond,” he began, “you have been found guilty of the grievous assault upon the person of Doctor Joshua Garrett, surgeon to His Majesty’s Ship Marlin, on the twelfth day of January in the year of Our Lord, seventeen hundred and ninety-six.” He took a deep breath. “You will receive a punishment of fifty strokes.”

  During the speech Redmond continued to stare out to sea, but as Blaney rolled up the parchment, the convict twisted his head to seek out Captain William Cross, who stood away to Blaney’s left. The look conveyed intense malice, so fierce that Blaney imagined he saw the Captain wilt beneath it. But Cross simply turned away and nodded firmly to Blaney, who addressed the bosun. “Begin the punishment.”

  Bosun and mate flexed their muscles as the young marine drummer struck a slow beat. They quickly found their rhythm, ripping open the convict’s back with alternate strokes. Redmond flinched at each blow as blood flowed freely to soak his trousers, but he did not make a sound. Not yet.

  Blaney looked over the ship. The crew, he saw, approved of the proceedings, laughing, joking and calling out insults with each blow. Redmond had not gone out of his way to befriend any of his captors.