TimeStorm Read online

  It would take a while for Kite to explain the situation to Captain Forrest, so Blaney strolled to the lower deck. Tommy Travis was practising a knot amid a group of sailors. His retching completed, the boy was again a picture of health, his face screwed up in concentration.

  “Mr Travis!” said Blaney sharply.

  The midshipman dropped his rope and jumped to attention.

  Blaney assumed his most severe expression and walked slowly around the boy, pausing behind Travis’s back to wink at the men. “You are a disgrace, Mr Travis. We may be a stinking convict transport during this voyage, but we are still the King’s officers, not fairground performers!”

  Travis swallowed nervously and studied the buckles of his shoes.

  “Now, fasten your top button, straighten your jacket and your back while at attention. Do you not know these men look to you for their example?”

  The crewmen could no longer withhold their mirth and they laughed as Travis fumbled with his clothing. Blaney joined them. Travis realised the rebuke was not serious, so he smiled, relieved, and stood to attention again, this time a little more cockily.

  “That’s much better,” allowed Blaney. “When you see Mr Kite return from the Fortune, go below and inform the Captain, with my compliments.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “Dismissed.”

  Travis ran to the rail to keep watch, although Kite had not yet reached the other ship.

  Blaney nodded to the men and resumed his walk. Travis was a good lad, he thought. The same age as Blaney when he had first entered the service; just as excited and keen, unaware and careless of what lay ahead. On his own first voyage he had experienced horror and death. He’d grown up very quickly. But all the excitement of this trip was well behind them, so Travis would only have a storm, memorable though it was, to mark his maiden voyage. There would be nothing but plain sailing from now on.

  Never tempt fate, Blaney cursed himself. Touching the wooden rail for luck, he turned to face north. The horizon was disguised by a haze and unaccountably he imagined some terrible sea monster lurking beneath the skyline, its hot breath fouling the cool morning air. It was a strange thought, yet the atmosphere had changed subtly. He cocked his head to one side. Something was brewing.

  Blaney studied the sky for a few moments and was reassured. The Marlin had survived the worst storm he had ever seen. He shook his head. There was little in these placid waters to worry them.

  REDMOND

  Rufus Redmond lay face down in the crowded, stinking convict hold, his body too big for his bunk. Owen Williams gingerly applied a small quantity of milky soothing lotion to his back, the only medication allowed.

  “Softer, damn you,” roared Redmond as a spasm sent flame through his body. Holding onto his hatred of Cross allowed him to rise above the worst of the pain, but every few minutes he had to weather the fires of Hell.

  “S...s...sorry, Rufus.” Williams snatched his hands away and desperately tried to make them stop shaking. His efforts made them worse.

  Snaking out an arm, Redmond grabbed the older convict. He fumbled until he held Williams by the scruff of the neck, then dragged him down and round the bunk until their faces were an inch apart. The agony of the movement made Redmond’s head spin, but he made a game of mastering the pain. As he had done in the past.

  He glared at his captive, imagining the pain transferring from his body to the old man. Williams was a wrinkled, timid, tired looking man well into his forties. He was desperate for protection when Redmond met him in the prison hulk on the Thames and since then had been little more than a personal slave.

  “If you causes me more pain,” Redmond began slowly, feeling Williams’ heartbeat flutter beneath his fingers like a sparrow’s, “I’ll rip yer liver out an’ stuff it up yer arse!”

  Terrified, Williams scuttled away as soon as Redmond relaxed his grasp. After a few moments he managed to steady his hands and resumed spreading the lotion, this time with a touch like a feather.

  Redmond would not have noticed a heavier hand, however. His mind occupied itself with putting a cap on the agony that threatened to overwhelm him. He pictured the pain as the bear he saw at the county fair when he was a boy. In his mind the beast escaped its bonds and circled him, reaching out a deadly claw to rip off his face. But Redmond was too quick. Feinting left as the bear lunged, he knocked it off balance. Then, before the bear recovered, he leapt on its back and put the beast in a secure head-lock. That ought to hold the bastard, he thought, becoming aware of his surroundings again.

  He sighed at the relief the image brought him and looked about. Nothing was changed, as nothing ever would while they were at sea. The convict hold, converted from troop-carrying for this voyage, was more comfortable than any of the gaols and hulks Redmond had experienced. The conversion only entailed the fitting of irons and the filling of every available space with bunks and hammocks, yet compared to what he knew it was luxury.

  Many reminders of the old prisons remained, however. It was a home to every kind of vermin known to man, and sometimes the sounds of men frantically scratching themselves were enough to keep everyone awake. And the smell! He could never get used to the stench emanating from each of his fellow convicts. And although his companions would attest to the fact he could produce his own smells of staggering proportions, Redmond often found his stomach churning in the choking atmosphere.

  The saving grace was that the only grille in the hold was directly above his head. Passing sailors might spit or piss through it for fun, but it was the prime spot. He’d stamped his authority the moment he stepped aboard, bullying his way to this position for him and his cronies. It was a world within a world, where Redmond was the king among convicts. The prisoners occupied areas according to their status, the lowest of them fighting vermin at the end of the room next to the foul-smelling easing chair.

  Only one man dared challenge Redmond’s authority. Patrick Mahoney was a big, lumbering Irishman stupid enough to stumble into trouble, yet cunning enough to extricate himself. Most of the time. He had some thirty followers, fellow Irish rebels, who formed a sullen group only ten yards from Redmond’s territory. Redmond had only a few close followers himself, but he was secure in the knowledge he was feared far more than Mahoney. The Irishmen knew it too, which only added to his resentment.

  Pausing in his thoughts to adjust his grip on his imaginary bear, which was close to freeing itself, Redmond turned his attention to his three close companions. They sat on the next bunk, watching with ghoulish interest as Williams applied lotion to the bloody pulp of the big convict’s back.

  Silas Hand was a short, powerfully built man of forty with slow wits. The monotony of his featureless, pockmarked face was relieved only by a huge hairy wart on the tip of his nose. Despite this blemish, other convicts liked him for his genial nature. Redmond trusted him completely. Hand did not have the imagination to cross him.

  A different kettle of fish altogether, Noah Lockwood was the son of a wealthy country squire. He had received a good education until the age of thirteen, when his father killed himself. The mountain of gambling debts left behind by his father was big enough to ruin the family and his mother went insane, leaving young Noah to fend for himself.

  This he did well, possessing good looks and a sharp wit, and he made a success at one dubious occupation after another, discovering for himself along the way that the wrong kind of people were the right sort.

  He found his true calling at twenty, becoming a highwayman on the Bristol road, aided by Silas Hand, then a petty criminal who became his assistant. For three years they enjoyed life to the full, robbing and whoring and never firing a shot in anger. It couldn’t last, of course. Lockwood’s good fortune eventually ended because of a mistake by Hand.

  Not the kind of man to hold a grudge, Lockwood philosophically accepted the fact he was living on borrowed time. He’d had a good run and viewed life as a series of adventures. Being a convict was merely the latest.

 
Redmond twisted round and saw that Lockwood was staring at him, a handsome young man with a wicked grin and the look of a gentleman, even in his convict rags. He proved highly valuable for his intelligence, which was also the reason Redmond was wary of him.

  “You are truly a fortunate devil, Rufus,” said Lockwood, shaking his head in wonder. “On any other ship you would have got the rope for what you said.”

  Redmond scoffed, his back painfully disputing any good fortune he may have felt. “Cross is a coward, pox on ’im! He daren’t kill me ’cause it’d kill ’im too.” Surprised by his own words, he instinctively knew they were true. “Besides, he’ll be dead ’imself if I has me way.”

  “Not so loud,” warned Lockwood, “those guards have ears like hawks.”

  “Damn their ears!” spat Redmond, looking contemptuously down the hold to the guard area beyond the barred door.

  “Don’t be a fool, man. Cross is at breaking point and you know it. You will only force him into a corner.”

  Redmond looked sharply at Lockwood. He would not allow any other man to speak to him that way, but that was the younger man’s value. He spoke his mind and damned the consequences. Redmond both admired him and resented him for it. He shrugged, but this time kept his voice lower. “I’ve made a solemn promise to meself I’ll murder the bastard ’fore I escapes and...”

  “Escape!” snorted the other man present. “I heard there ain’t no escape from the colony.” Joseph Mogley used a large wooden splinter to pick at his rotten teeth.

  Redmond glared at him with loathing. It was a common reaction to the young convict. In his early twenties, Mogley was thin and pasty, his pointed face badly scarred by disease. His piercing green eyes were in constant suspicious motion, darting here and there, and his head jerked from side to side nervously, and justifiably, given his obnoxious nature. He reminded Redmond of a rat.

  Mogley’s worth was his ability to ferret out odd items such as tobacco, an occasional tot of rum or a piece of fruit. The things that made life more bearable in a God-forsaken place like this. Redmond heard stories of how Mogley persuaded crewmen to part with their treasures and they sickened him. That he had to rely on such a man gave no peace to his stomach.

  “I’m goin’ ter escape to Chiney,” continued Redmond, ignoring Mogley’s outburst. These words were familiar to his men, but he never wearied of repeating them. They fired him with determination. “I’ll make me way north up the coa..”

  Mogley laughed harshly. Redmond’s tolerance had made him reckless. “You’ll not get far. Them black savages’ll cut you up an’ roast yer balls over a fire, they will!”

  Redmond lashed out, his arm catching Mogley a glancing blow to the side of the head. The small man toppled back into the narrow passage between two bunks, much to the amusement of the bored convicts close enough to follow the drama.

  “Seems you heard a lot o’ things,” said Redmond, careful to conceal the agony of the movement. The bear inside his head almost reversed the head-lock, but he savagely forced it down and slammed an imaginary knee into its groin. “I’ll die like a man ’fore I’ll live like an animal.”

  Mogley climbed back onto the bunk, miserable, his hand pressed to the side of his face.

  The interruption over and pain back in its place, Redmond resumed his ritual. “Who’s with me?”

  Silas Hand answered quickly, as though there was a time limit. “Me, Rufus. Nothin’ in New South Wales but sweat ’n toil an’ a early grave.”

  “Noah?”

  “Of course,” agreed Lockwood.

  Redmond grinned tightly, beginning to enjoy himself. “What about you, Williams?” he asked magnanimously.

  Taken aback, the old convict stopped smearing the lotion and scratched his head, leaving a bloody streak. “Didn’t think you’d want an old feller like me along. I’d only slow yer down.”

  Aye, thought Redmond, but used the right way you could just as well slow down any pursuit. “You’re in then. All right, Mogley, what say you?”

  “We’ll all be dead men,” he answered sulkily. “Even if we get by them savages, I heard they’s no better in Chiney. Kill a man as soon as spit in ’is eye.”

  Lockwood raised an eyebrow. “Is that yes or no?”

  “Aye, but don’t say you wasn’t warned.”

  “We won’t, you miserable turd,” said Lockwood, his face filled with contempt.

  Contented, Redmond smiled. The pain was more distant and he could feel the tension leaving his body. He was addicted to the thought of freedom, provided he could sidetrack to deal with Cross on the way out. But that was between him and Cross, not for discussion now. He wanted more assurances. “How many men we got?”

  Lockwood thought for a moment. “Some fifty or sixty to start. The rest will see which way the wind is blowing before they decide to join in. And that’s not counting Mahoney and his mob.”

  Mogley spat noisily on the floor, a string of saliva maintaining contact with his lip. “We’ve no need o’ that bastard or his...”

  “Shut your mouth!” hissed Redmond, causing Mogley to bite his tongue and thankfully dislodge the spittle. “I’ll take anyone I can get.”

  His words paid lip service to the Irish convict, who lay on a bunk not far away. Redmond often fantasised about crushing his bald head like an egg. He glanced down the length of the hold to the barred door. Two guards idled on the other side. Any sound would have to be particularly loud to alert them in the noisy hold. He couldn’t resist a dig. “You hear any o’ that, Mahoney,” he called.

  The Irishman sneered. “When you open that stinking gob o’ yours the whole ship hears!”

  Redmond bit back his anger, adding the words to his reckoning. “What do you say, then?”

  “We’ll escape when we’s good an’ ready and not afore. But we’ll not be killin’ an’ murderin’ our way out.”

  Stupid bastard! thought Redmond. How the devil did Mahoney expect to escape if he was not prepared to kill? No matter, he decided, once Mahoney sniffed freedom he’d strangle his own mother to get away.

  “What’s the plan, Rufus?” asked Hand.

  “I don’t needs no plan. All I needs is a bit o’ luck!”

  BLANEY

  Kite was seated in the cutter for the return journey. It amused Blaney to see that the younger Lieutenant’s cheeks were flushed; Captain Forrest was ever generous with his supply of claret. He hoped Kite was carrying a bottle or two back.

  Behind Kite, sitting in the stern sheets, was Dr James Watkins, his frosty stare sizing up his new berth. Having spent only a few occasions in the company of the surgeon, Blaney did not look forward to meeting him again.

  Tommy Travis saluted and hurried to the Captain. Nodding idly, Blaney picked up his telescope from the becket secured to the rail. He trained the glass beyond the cutter to the deck of the Fortune, where twenty convict women took their morning exercise. They shuffled miserably through a small circle while lecherous marines ensured they remained unmolested by the lecherous crew.

  Filthy creatures, thought Blaney, even though the familiar stirring of frustration clawed at his vitals. Looking more closely at the women, he discovered two or three who were quite passable, certainly no worse than some of the harbour whores he’d seen. He zoomed in on a tall, willowy lass with brown hair. I’d give three months pay, he thought, to...

  “Any of ’em take your fancy, Mr Blaney?”

  The sound of the Captain’s voice close to his ear startled Blaney and he rapped the telescope painfully against a knee. “No, sir,” he replied, embarrassed, “there’s not a lady among them.”

  “I should hope not!” Cross revealed a rare view of his stained teeth.

  Thankfully for Blaney, a commotion diverted their attention to the lower deck, where two stretcher bearers struggled under the considerable weight of Dr Garrett. With relief they put him down at the rail closest to the approaching cutter. Cross walked down the steps, with Blaney close behind. The Lieutenant had no feelings for t
he surgeon one way or the other. His dealings with him were infrequent and cordial. Now, however, Cross’s antagonism was easy to understand.

  His head still heavily bandaged, Garrett lay in a drunken stupor, spittle dribbling from the corner of his mouth onto his collar. A bulbous red nose and blotchy face made him appear twenty years older than the fifty-three he had so far managed to survive. As the surgeon breathed in, spittle made a return journey, causing him to awake coughing and spluttering. Eventually he spat heavily on the deck and turned to the Captain. “I’m not sorry to see the last of these rotting planks,” he said hoarsely. “Your cargo can rot, too, disgusting, mangy lot that they are. I’ll report your conduct, Cross. On a decent ship Redmond would have been hanged for assaulting an officer.”

  Blaney was inclined to agree, but Cross was having none of it. “Fifty lashes are hardly lenient!” he retorted angrily. “And as for a report, mine will ensure you never practice your butchery again.”

  The words were lost on Garrett, who drifted back into his convenient stupor. Why did the Captain have to bite? Blaney wondered. On this trip Cross had managed to lose a great deal of respect, mainly because of Redmond, so there was no need to worsen the situation now.

  A bump against the side of the Marlin signalled the arrival of the cutter, followed quickly by Kite, who shinnied over the rail like a monkey. Blaney heard the rattle of bottles, although Cross chose to ignore the sound.

  At length Kite was followed by Dr James Watkins, who rudely shunned the helping hands of crewmen waiting to hoist him over the side.

  The surgeon straightened his coat and looked the ship over with unconcealed distaste. A tall, thin man in his late twenties, Watkins possessed a head seemingly too big for his body. Topped by curly brown hair, his face was delicate, almost feminine, yet his sour expression destroyed any claim to handsomeness. The corners of his mouth pointed downwards while his nose strained valiantly in the opposite direction. He stalked after Kite to join Blaney and Cross.