Hobart, 1848

He wished they wouldn’t come and gawp. It was bad enough as it was without the slack-jawed locals gathering round for their final pound of flesh. Wasn’t the damn trial enough? In his mind’s eye, he walked up the gangway, stared them eyeball to eyeball and told them all to piss off like the miserable shits they were. He longed to do it, haul his sorry carcass and gammy leg back up the gangplank, but knew that if he did the Governor, the Comptroller-General, his commanding officers, the newspapers and the Anti-Transportation League would be queuing up to skin him alive. The press were testy enough recently without another member of the establishment snarling at the citizens.

The cry went up, and Captain Alexander knew what was coming. The sound was familiar, the rattle and clank of the convict troupe. The crowd started to jeer and he cursed them darkly under his breath, while the armed troopers nearby bristled, bayonets twitching. The men being drummed from the gaol-house looked more thoroughly miserable, more downcast than anything he’d seen. More upset, in fact, than his men when he told them where they were going next and with what; that took a lot of explaining, not to mention a few promises of pay rises.

The prisoner at the head of the limping human caterpillar, dressed in canary yellow and looking like he hadn’t shaved in a decade, was caught full in the face by what seemed to be a rancid cabbage. The man hardly flinched and merely turned, rattling irons and all, in a strangely fluid motion, with such a look of silent sorrow that his assailant in the throng fell back, cowed. Alexander smiled, pleased that at least one of those bastards would think twice about coming the next time prisoners were being shipped out. His second, Lieutenant James, glanced up at him fearfully. Alexander shook his head to reassure him that this journey would be no trouble at all.

In reality, he had no idea. Oh, he had transported convicts before, mainly the odd shipment down to Port Arthur when the colonial courts had been busy, and he’d sailed aboard one transport from Portsmouth a few years back, before he’d been promoted and discovered that not everyone in the Australian colonies lived life in a violent, alcohol-filled fug … but this was something else. He watched the men with fascination as they shuffles forward, manacled at their hands and feet and threaded together by one long chain. Despite the distress on their faces, Alexander found something clownish in them, the way they staggered from side to side under the weight of their irons, always threatening to fall but never quite tipping over. He was used to seeing a bit of a struggle, plenty of swearing, curses aimed at the ship’s surgeon or the fat parson, maybe even a tattered boot in the face for the man who removed their ankle irons when they climbed aboard. He found their silence disturbing. It was resignation, as if something within these men – who had known chain gangs, penal settlements and the wrong end of the cat – had snapped. The whole procession could have been mistaken for a death march.

He had them assembled on deck and now their only restraints were the shackles around their hands and the detachment of marines stationed around the circumference of the deck. Alexander had had a blazing row with their officer, Major Lennox. Didn’t he know what these men were? What they’d done? Didn’t he read the newspapers? Think of the officers’ women and the danger they would be in! Do you really want these … fiends, argued Lennox, given that much freedom? It had taken a while to convince the wind-ridden old major, but he agreed in the end, though only if the entirety of his men were at hand and armed to the teeth and ready to fall on anyone brave enough to even sneeze out of turn.

Alexander did indeed read the newspapers, though he tried not to if he could really help it. But the law must be satisfied, or at least that’s what the leader writers had screamed apoplectically each day for the past three weeks. They wanted blood, mass executions, men strung up fish down at the harbour, apocalyptic punishments beginning with solitary confinement for life at the very least. The judge had ordered that only three men would hang, and hang they did, dressed in white linen and weeping with their priest at their side, the poor bastards. They got a bigger crowd than this bunch ... The rest, the twenty or so men all craning up to see him, had escaped the gallows. Alexander couldn’t help but think that they might come to rue that near miss, for he knew just as well as they where the journey would take them. He knew the official line, that this was the deterrent second only to death, something to scare the ill-behaved with at bed-time. He knew the official line, these men were the lowest of the low, permitted only to live by the grace of His Majesty at His Excellency’s recommendation, and who would serve out the rest of their miserable existences as an example to the depraved in the colonies and the Mother Country. He also knew the tales told among the prisoners, the camp-fire horror-stories about what they did to men out there, the implements they used, of mass graves and torture out of sight of anyone who cared. He had also picked up a tale or two down at the pub from a whaler who had passed by the island and dined with the island’s commandant. Perhaps the prisoners weren’t far wrong.

He gazed out over their upturned heads, most of them squinting against the harsh Vandemonian light. ‘Beasts in human form’ was one of the favourite phrases of the papers. They didn’t look much like animals to him; all Alexander could see was a phalanx of pale and trembling prisoners who looked as though would all break into one tumultuous plea for mercy at any moment. He began to speak to them, the usual rules the Comptroller ordered to be read out before every journey – they would be treated sternly but fairly, if they behaved the passage would be as painless as possible, etc. etc., the usual crap. No reply greeted him other than a few imperceptible nods, and their passivity set him slightly on edge. He glanced at Lennox, who was sweating and compulsively fingering his sword’s scabbard. Alexander couldn’t tell whether the big Major was twitchy or just feeling the starch of a uniform which was obviously a size too small for him, under this pounding sun. Alexander nodded to him, and Lennox bellowed something incomprehensible to his men who began to prod the prisoners towards the hold. There was no resistance, save a few surly glances, and the men whom the entire colony had come to detest were thrust down into the darkness below.

Arrival

Alexander scraped the sleep from his eyes, shielding them against the fierce Pacific sunrise, pluming yellows and oranges over the horizon. A joyful cry came from high in the ether and initially made little sense to his fogged ears. He glanced up at one of the crew in the rigging, bellowing away like a joyful child. The long journey from Hobart to Norfolk Island was coming to an end and joyful glances were exchanged between the crew, the soldiers lounging on the deck and the few officers’ ladies who were taking in the morning sun after breakfast, under a call of “the land! the land!”

Alexander smiled to himself and eased himself onto the poop deck gingerly, using his stick to balance himself. He hoisted his telescope to his good eye for a glimpse of the Island. They had been spotted and a flag from the hill was raised, signalling that they could approach. He lowered the telescope to turn and bark some orders when from beneath his feet, down in the hold, came a sound Alexander never forgot for the rest of his life. It began as a growled groan, guttural and rich with fear. It quickly changed into a moan, a requiem of terror, and was joined by the low scraping of chains which reverberated around the ship, causing all around to stare down fearfully at the din from below. The prisoners had heard the call too, finally aware to the reality that all they knew was far gone; all ahead was cruel and uncertain, shrouded in the gloom. A chill settled over the deck. All was still, but for the continuing wail as Norfolk Island hoved into view.

“The land … the land…”