Killigrew and the Incorrigibles Read online

  Killigrew and the Incorrigibles

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Historical Notes

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  Killigrew and the Incorrigibles

  Jonathan Lunn

  For James Hale

  Prologue

  Norfolk Island, 1850

  ‘Wyatt’s out,’ Solomon Lissak announced, joining his messmates at one of the tables in the lumber-yard, where the convicts ate their meals.

  Robert Murdoch looked up from his bowl of salt beef and cornmeal. ‘You’re sure?’ he asked, his face pale.

  ‘Heard it from Speeler.’ Lissak was somewhere in his sixties, an old lag with grizzled hair and precious few teeth left.

  ‘Gammon,’ snorted James Vickers. ‘Wyatt’s dead.’

  ‘Says who?’

  ‘Says Dick the Crow,’ asserted Vickers. ‘Anyhow, there’s no way anyone could survive a week in the water pit, not even Ned Wyatt. Not after two hundred on the triangles. I heard he was half croaked when they put him in. If he’s coming out, they’re dragging him out dew-beaters first.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ Lissak said dubiously, waiting for his turn with the cutlery.

  There were nearly a thousand men at the tables in the lumberyard, all of them dressed in the black and yellow ‘magpie’ fatigues of ‘incorrigibles’ – men who had proved themselves beyond redemption by repeatedly reoffending even after they had been transported to the Australias. For this they had been further sent to Norfolk Island, the most notorious penal colony in the world. During the day they were put to work at various tasks, labouring in the fields or building the new gaol. At noon they had one hour off for dinner, when they were herded into the lumber-yard and issued with one mess-kit – knife, fork, spoon and pannikin – between six men, forcing them to eat in rotation or use their fingers.

  Black-uniformed guards armed with carbines patrolled the walls that surrounded the lumber-yard, keeping an eye out for trouble. When Lissak had first arrived on Norfolk Island six years earlier, the lumber-yard had been the domain of The Ring, and even the guards had been afraid to enter it. A warder that treated a member of The Ring too brutally might be murdered; The Ring had plenty of members who preferred to guarantee themselves the death penalty by killing a warder than go on living in the hell of Norfolk Island, in spite of the few comforts membership could secure.

  But things had changed in the three and a half years since John Price had taken over as commandant. When Major Childs had been in charge, The Ring had operated openly, so that the settlement had only been able to run with the tacit consent of the ringleader, Jacky-Jacky Westwood, as much commandant of the island as Childs had ever been. But things had got out of hand. The convicts mutinied and Price replaced Childs as commandant, punishing the ringleaders ruthlessly. The Ring had, to all intents and purposes, been crushed.

  A few months later Ned Wyatt had arrived on the island, and slowly and surely started building his own ring. He had never raised it to the scale it had operated on under Childs – Price would never have allowed that – but Wyatt was cleverer than Jacky-Jacky had been and he worked more subtly. In some ways, his Ring was more dangerous than Jacky-Jacky’s had ever been.

  Solomon Lissak had never been a member. As a cracksman, he had only ever worked with a partner, never in a gang, and he had always loathed violence – to him, it was the mark of an amateur. You found a partner you could trust – trust with your life – and stuck with him through thick and thin. He had only once made the mistake of working with a gang; that was how he had got lagged in the first place. But he knew better than to cross The Ring, so he kept his head down, his mouth shut, and stayed out of trouble. That was the only way to stay alive on Norfolk Island. And the only way to stay sane was to dream of escape.

  No, he told himself. Not dream – plan. Fools dreamed; those that wanted to get anywhere in life planned. And Lissak wanted to get off Norfolk Island. He was an old man now, with perhaps not many years left in him, but he wanted to be free again before he died. In the past he had escaped from just about every penal colony the Australias had to offer, but the police always seemed to catch up with him.

  And Norfolk Island, by the very virtue of the fact it was an island, was a horse of another colour. He had a hundred and one plans for breaking out of the prisoners’ barracks and getting on board a whaler, but how to stay undetected as a stowaway until the ship touched land again, perhaps weeks later? It could not be impossible – the word ‘impossible’ had no meaning in Lissak’s vocabulary – but it would be very, very difficult.

  So he drove himself mad by trying to stay sane with plans of escape; but in a place like Norfolk Island, madness had its uses. Wyatt was as mad as a hatter, and people feared him for it. Lunatics were unpredictable, and unpredictable people were frightening. That was why Lissak had cultivated a little insanity of his own. Or perhaps he had always been a little mad. Back in London, his young partner had always said he was crazy. ‘As crazy as a fox,’ Lissak had replied proudly.

  ‘Foxes are cunning, not crazy.’

  ‘Ain’t I cunning too?’ Lissak had demanded, and his young protégé had been forced to concede the point.

  A startled exclamation from Vickers broke Lissak out of his reverie. ‘Jesus Christ!’

  Lissak looked up and saw the convict staring towards the entrance to the lumber-yard. He followed Vickers’ gaze, and as he did so an awed hush fell on the convicts gathered there.

  Ned Wyatt was being escorted into the lumber-yard by two guards. They flanked him on either side, but as soon as he was across the threshold he shrugged off their arms and took a couple of tottering steps forward. He was in his mid-thirties, haggard and emaciated like all the other convicts, but toughened by years of hard labour. His hair was flaming red, and a greasy beard only partially covered a powder-burn on his right cheek. He had the palest grey eyes Lissak had ever seen, the irises so light it was hard to tell where they ended and the white of his eyes began.

  Wyatt wore thirty-six-pound irons – as if those could keep him out of trouble – and brand-new fatigues. Presumably the clothes he had been wearing when he had been put into the water pit a week earlier were no longer fit to be worn, not even by one of the forgotten incorrigibles of Norfolk Island.

  The water pit was just that – an oubliette waist-deep in brackish water in which convicts were lowered for days on end as a punishment. The theory was that a man in the water pit could not sleep for fear of drowning, but Lissak – who had so far managed to steer clear of it – had heard that there was a way you could wedge yourself into one corner to remain upright as you slept. As far as the commandant’s punishment log – for the consumption of the comptroller-general of convicts in Hobart Town – was concerned, the water pit was no longer in use, but there were many ways of punishing convicts which were not officially in use yet were still common
enough on Norfolk Island – and to these the latest commandant had added a few ideas of his own.

  An awed silence hung over the lumber-yard as Wyatt stood there, swaying on his feet. He looked as if he might collapse at any moment, but then he lifted his head to reveal a triumphant expression on his face, and raised two clenched fists in a victorious gesture.

  A roar of approbation went up from the other convicts, and then they began to stamp their feet, hammer their cutlery against the tables, or bang mugs against mess-kits, making a tremendous din.

  ‘Stop that!’ roared the superintendent, struggling to make himself heard above the pounding. ‘Stop that noise at once, d’you hear? Stop it, I say!’ He ordered one of the guards to take the names of every man present, but he might as well have saved his breath. On Norfolk Island even the slightest infraction of the rules could be punished by a ‘scroby’: an agonising thirty-six lashes of the cat-o’-nine-tails. But when so many men were openly defying the superintendent it was impossible to punish them all. Every day John Price thought of new ways to crush their spirit, but once again Ned Wyatt had proved to them that sometimes the human spirit could be unbreakable. The commandant and the convict had been on a collision course from the moment Wyatt had arrived on Norfolk Island, and even with all the warders, guards and the soldiers of the garrison at Price’s disposal, Lissak was not convinced that the commandant was fated to win.

  The pounding only died down when Wyatt crossed to where Lissak and the others sat and joined them at the table, and even then it did so slowly. Without waiting to be offered, Wyatt took the pannikin and spoon from Murdoch and proceeded to shovel cornmeal into his mouth while the other five members of the mess stared at him in astonishment. Only when he had polished off the last of the food, without regard for anyone who might still be waiting their turn to eat, did he look up at them.

  ‘What’s the matter, lads? Aren’t you pleased to see me?’

  ‘Course we are, Ned!’ said Vickers, and there was general hand-clasping and back-slapping in which Lissak reluctantly joined. Known as ‘Buzzing Bob’ because he had been a pickpocket – called a ‘buzz-cove’ in thieves’ cant – Murdoch remained where he sat, ashen-faced.

  This was not lost on Wyatt. ‘What’s the matter, Bob?’ he asked, grinning. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost!’

  ‘I… We’d heard you were dead!’ stammered Murdoch.

  ‘I wouldn’t give that bastard Price the satisfaction!’ sneered Wyatt.

  ‘Any idea who peached on you, Ned?’ asked Vickers.

  Wyatt shrugged. ‘One of Price’s dogs, trying to avoid a scroby.’

  One of the many ways Price maintained order on Norfolk Island was by maintaining a network of spies and informers, known amongst the convicts as his ‘dogs’. Any dog who failed to keep Price supplied with information received a flogging, so they often made things up, getting innocent inmates punished rather than suffering a scroby themselves. But it was a brave dog that had trumped up a charge against Ned Wyatt.

  ‘We’ll find him,’ said Murdoch. ‘Ain’t that right, lads?’ The others murmured their assent.

  ‘Don’t bother,’ said Wyatt. ‘Whoever it was, he ain’t worth it.’

  This prompted some raised eyebrows around the table. Ned Wyatt was not known for his forgiving nature.

  ‘Don’t you lads get it? That’s exactly what Pricey wants us to do. Breed suspicion amongst us, keep us at one another’s throats. Well, I’m damned if I’ll play his bloody game.’

  ‘But supposing whoever it was betrays our plans next time we try to make our lucky?’ asked Vickers.

  ‘You got an escape plan, Fingers?’ asked Wyatt.

  Vickers was known as ‘Jemmy Fingers’, not because he was light-fingered – in fact the crime he had been transported for was rape – but because he had a peculiar habit of sucking his fingers. Now he shook his head and sucked an index finger.

  ‘We’ll worry about that when the time comes, then. Whoever peached on me, I know none of you lads did it. If we keep our next plan to ourselves, there’s no way anyone can betray us. Right, Bob?’

  ‘Right, Ned,’ stammered Murdoch.

  Wyatt grinned. ‘No need to look so scared, Bob. The past few days in the water pit gave me a lot of time to do some thinking. If you’re afraid I’m still bearing a grudge over that fight we had about the baccy, forget it. I have. If we’re all going to stay alive long enough to get out of here, we’re going to have to stick together. These other bastards may cheer when they see me walking after a week in the water pit, but there’s plenty of Price’s dogs amongst ’em who’d sell their own mothers for a fadge. From now on it’s just the four of us.’ He held out his hand to Murdoch. ‘Pals?’

  Murdoch hesitated before taking Wyatt’s hand. Lissak could not blame him: even after that heart-warming speech, he would not have put it past Wyatt to pin Murdoch’s hand to the table with one hand while driving a knife into it with the other. But Wyatt just clasped Murdoch’s hand – admittedly making him gasp with the strength of his grip – and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘That’s more like it.’

  The bell rang then, signifying the end of the dinner hour, and the convicts had their irons inspected for signs of tampering before being escorted back to their assigned tasks. Lissak and his messmates did not have far to walk: that day they were assigned to the limekilns, on the sea-wall overlooking Sydney Bay. In the lagoon, the gaol-gang – three dozen of the worst convicts on the island – worked waist-deep in the wet quarry, under the supervision of a detachment of soldiers from the garrison, who watched them from the pier that jutted out into the lagoon. The breakers boomed monotonously against the reef, and beyond the wide blue Tasman Sea stretched some nine hundred miles to the east coast of Australia.

  The coral quarried from the lagoon was put in the kilns and burned down to provide quicklime for the cement used for building the new gaol being constructed to replace the old one, where the gaol-gang were held at night. The latest load of lime had been cooked a week ago, and only now had it cooled sufficiently to be slaked in water. Lissak and his messmates were put to work raking the stones and ashes out from the side holes in the kilns. It was dangerous work, and they had to be careful of the clouds of dust that were kicked up: the quicklime burned, and if it got in your eyes it would blind you permanently.

  They had been working for about half an hour when Wyatt turned to one of the two warders supervising them. ‘Can I have a word, Mr Lang?’

  Had any other inmate on Norfolk Island asked to ‘have a word’ with one of the warders when he was supposed to be working in silence, he would probably have earned himself a scroby for his impertinence. But Wyatt was not just any convict. The last warder who had marked him down for a flogging had been found dead a week later, expertly garrotted. Wyatt had had a cast-iron alibi, of course. Nowadays when Wyatt asked to ‘have a word’, warders generally listened.

  Wyatt put down his shovel and crossed to speak to the two warders in a low voice. Judging from the expressions on their faces, they did not like what he had to say, but they nodded and turned away, disappearing around the side of the kilns.

  ‘Where are they going?’ Murdoch asked as Wyatt returned to join the others.

  ‘I told ’em to take a break, smoke their pipes,’ explained Wyatt, rubbing the powder-burn on his cheek with the heel of his palm. ‘So we won’t be disturbed for the next five minutes.’

  Murdoch stared at him, and then turned to run. But Vickers had already stepped up behind him and held him fast. Powerless to move in his fellow convict’s grip, Murdoch started to scream for help.

  He was quickly silenced by a punch from Wyatt, and his head dropped down. ‘Shut up!’ Wyatt grabbed a fistful of Murdoch’s hair and pulled his head back to look into his eyes. ‘You stupid bugger. You know what hurts the most? It’s the way you insult my intelligence. Did you really think I wouldn’t find out you were the dog who peached on me to Pricey?’

  Wyatt kicked Murdoch’s legs
out from beneath him, and Vickers released him in the same instant so that the pickpocket crashed to the ground, cracking his head on the flagstones.

  ‘Don’t worry, Bob,’ said Wyatt. ‘I ain’t going to croak you. Let’s face it, dying is a release from this hell, and after that scroby you got me I don’t feel like doing you any favours. But I can’t let you go on spying for Price, can I?’ Wyatt picked up his shovel once more, and scooped up some of the quicklime. ‘Hold him, Fingers.’

  Murdoch was dazed, but not so much that he could not realise what Wyatt intended. He tried to get up, but Vickers crouched over him and held his head down. His teeth bared in a savage grin, Wyatt deliberately tipped the quicklime from the shovel over Murdoch’s eyes.

  The agonised shriek that issued from Murdoch’s lips sent a shudder down Lissak’s spine. Vickers stood up and backed away, leaving the blinded pickpocket to thrash about, his body convulsing in agony. He tried to rub the quicklime out of his eyes; in his agony he had forgotten that only worked it in deeper. The only thing that might possibly have saved his sight then was to wash the lime out of his eyes with water. There were barrels of the stuff standing by for slaking the lime, but neither Lissak nor any of his messmates dared to risk Wyatt’s wrath.

  ‘It’s a pity we couldn’t see eye to eye,’ said Wyatt. Vickers giggled hysterically.

  Lissak felt sick.

  The two guards came back at a run. When they saw Murdoch writhing on the ground and realised what Wyatt had done, they blanched.

  ‘Jesus, Wyatt!’ gasped one. ‘You said you was just going to rough him up a bit. You never said nothing about—’

  ‘Buzzing Bob’s had a little accident,’ Wyatt said with a smile. ‘Ain’t that right, lads?’

  No one argued.

  Murdoch had exhausted his breath now and his screams had died to a sobbing, the pain of his eyes doubtless diminished by the destruction of so many nerve-endings. Nevertheless, his earlier cries had been loud enough to have attracted the attention of the man who broke off one of his frequent rides about the settlement to come galloping up to the limekilns on his horse.