Part 13 (2/2)

'Sir, to regard this as an order, he says,' the boy went on, 'and Lieutenant Rooke to consider himself under obligation to be present...' The boy gaped, trying to remember the major's words. 'No matter what, sir, was the gist of it.'

The news had gone around the settlement like a dark flood and in the barracks the mood was ugly. Brugden had been allowed the authority that belonged to a soldier even though he was not even a free man. No one around the table had liked that, or liked the man himself. But everyone knew that nothing could be the same now, because Brugden was the governor's own man.

Silk was the centre of attention. It seemed that he was already master of the story.

'The gamekeepers went to the place near Botany Bay that they call Kangaroo Ground,' he said. 'They saw some natives creeping towards them with spears in their hands and the others were alarmed. ”Don't be afraid,” Brugden said, ”I know them.”'

The room was silent, every man watching Silk as if seeing the picture he was so vividly drawing. But, Rooke thought, how did Silk know it had been like that?

'He laid down his gun and spoke to them in their own tongue, of which he evidently knew a few words, as some of us do. But one of them jumped on a fallen tree and, without the least warning, launched his spear, which lodged in Brugden's side. Where it remains.'

He looked around as if expecting applause.

'And...' Willstead did not quite know what words to use.

'Oh he lives yet. The weapon penetrated his ribs but did not kill him outright.'

There was a stirring around the table, relief or anticlimax, was there even disappointment? Violence had an enlivening effect. As long as someone else was the victim it made the blood pump, gave the world an edge of glamour.

Rooke was surprised at the harshness of his judgment.

Silk had not finished.

'Yes, he lives still.'

His voice was almost casual, so the men had to lean forward.

'He will die, of course. But only by inches.'

'That poor devil,' Timpson murmured to Rooke. 'It could have been you or me, Rooke. Mark my words, there will be no going back from this.'

But Silk raised his voice over the hubbub.

'One of the natives was brought to the hospital. He told us that, if any attempt were made to extract the spear, death would instantly follow.'

A silence fell around the table. Rooke felt a dragging within him, deep and private and inescapable, the way he imagined the spear inside Brugden. You would long to rip it out. That would be the worst, knowing that you could not. You would die with it next to your heart, an enemy closer than any lover.

Gamekeeper. He wondered whether that word had killed Brugden.

'Warungin examined the spear,' Silk continued, 'and without the slightest hesitation p.r.o.nounced the a.s.sailant to be one Carangaray, of the Botany Bay tribe.'

Rooke had heard Warungin speak of Carangaray. The man might even have been one of those who arrived now and then at Rooke's hut, to be entertained by Warungin's mimicry of Major Wyatt.

The anger in the room was like a draught against Rooke's skin or a smell in the air. He shrank into his corner at the end of the long table. He wished he were in his hut, the candle casting its friendly light, wished it yesterday, wished Brugden swaggering about as before, with no spear between his ribs.

Something had ended and something else was beginning. He wanted nothing to end, nothing to begin.

'The gun is the only language the b.u.g.g.e.rs will understand,' Lennox said. 'Mark my words, a few deaths and we would be shot of them for good. Forget all that flummery about amity and kindness.'

At the head of the table, Major Wyatt gazed into s.p.a.ce, hearing nothing.

Silk took it on himself to be the diplomat. 'As we speak, His Excellency is considering the best course of action,' he said. 'He went so far as to condescend to ask my opinion of various alternatives. I a.s.sure you, gentlemen, he has it well in hand, and will act in the interests of every one of us.'

Rooke caught the eye of Willstead, sitting opposite, who rolled his eyes.

'But when, that is the question,' he muttered to Rooke behind his hand. 'How long will they go unpunished, how long before the governor does what he should have done months ago?'

Major Wyatt decided to acknowledge this and thundered from the end of the table. 'Lieutenant Willstead, I will thank you to have a care, if you please, let us hear no more of this!'

Lennox had continued to think about what a musket might do. 'Simple enough matter to round up some of the ones here among us,' he said. 'Make an example. Would soon get back to the rest. They are all in league with each other, you know.'

'They none of them can be trusted,' Willstead said. 'They have never been known to attack in fair fight. They lurk and they skulk and they smile, and attack a man only when he is unarmed. I believe, in fact, that they do not even have a word for treachery in their vocabulary.'

On the word vocabulary Silk glanced down the table at Rooke, but said nothing.

Rooke had no idea whether the natives had a word for treachery. His conversations with Tagaran had never travelled in that direction.

Even in English, treachery was a word with a broader reach than it was ent.i.tled to. What it boiled down to was that the men in this hut had been taught to fight by certain rules. Not fighting in accordance with those rules was treachery.

There might be another way of looking at what the natives did, Rooke thought. He imagined Warungin explaining. Uninvited guests had arrived in his home. They had been pleasant, offered small gifts. But then they had stayed, longer than visitors should, and rearranged the place to suit themselves.

His grandmother had had a saying for it. There are two things that stink after three days, she would say. Fish and visitors.

Late the next day Rooke heard footsteps outside. He leaped up from the table, in his haste knocking over the chair. He almost fell across the room to the doorway. But it was not Tagaran.

For once Silk was grave-faced. He came into the hut, taking a seat in front of the fire without waiting to be asked.

'Well, Rooke,' he said. 'It seems that we are to be sent out on a task of considerable significance.'

Rooke busied himself filling their cups with sweet-tea.

Silk answered the question Rooke had not asked. 'To Botany Bay,' he said. 'Where they got Brugden. The governor summoned me this afternoon. A punitive expedition is to be mounted, which I have the honour of leading.'

Rooke saw a s.h.i.+ne in his eye and something about the corners of his mouth that was at odds with his solemn manner.

'Well done,' Rooke said, and raised his cup.

'Thank you, Rooke! It is gratifying, I own, to have the governor's notice in this matter.'

'Carangaray. That is the name, I think. Of the man?'

Rooke's voice was flat but he noticed with interest that his heart was beating fast. Silk took the raised cup as a toast, clinked his own against Rooke's.

'Carangaray is indeed the name, and my instructions are simple. We are to bring in six of those natives who reside near the head of Botany Bay.'

'Six of the natives? Not Carangaray alone?'

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