The Australians 05 - The Adventurers by William Stuart Long

Author:William Stuart Long [Long, William Stuart]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780440103301
Google: wZQoNAxg6NUC
Amazon: 0440103304
Publisher: Dell
Published: 1983-07-01T14:00:00+00:00

14

The transport Conway was ploughing through heavy seas, six weeks after leaving Capetown, when Murdo was summoned unexpectedly to the master’s cabin. It was after midnight, and he had been sleeping soundly; he wakened, bleary-eyed and resentful, to find Sergeant Holmes roughly shaking him.

“The devil fly away with you, Sergeant!” he exclaimed irritably. “What do you want at this hour?”

“It’s not me that wants you, sir,” the big sergeant returned, unperturbed by his reception. “‘Tis Captain Barlow. And you’d best bestir yourself, Mr. Dean, for the matter’s urgent. There’s mutiny afoot!”

Murdo swore under his breath but, with visible reluctance, climbed out of his cot and reached for his breeches, shivering as he donned them. It was bitterly cold in these southern latitudes, and even below decks the icy wind struck chill into his bones.

“Captain Barlow, Sergeant,” he said, thrusting his feet into his boots and standing up, bracing himself against the ship’s roll, “has claimed that the prisoners were about to mutiny no less than a dozen times since we sailed. It may be even more—I’ve lost count. But on every occasion in the past, his fears have proved to be groundless. The poor bloody prisoners are fettered and half starved.”

“Not this time, sir,” Sergeant Holmes asserted with grave conviction. “This time they mean it—one of ‘em brought warning to the captain. I’ve turned our men out and posted ‘em under arms, with full pouches.”

He went into careful detail of the precautions he had taken, but Murdo scarcely listened. On each of the previous occasions, the precautions had been precisely the same—the sentries doubled, every hatchway leading from the prisoner’s quarters on the orlop guarded, and two men, with loaded muskets, posted outside Captain Barlow’s cabin, at his specific request.

It was, however, a wonder that the poor devils of convicts had not attempted to take the ship long before this, Murdo reflected grimly, as Holmes handed him his damp, salt-encrusted scarlet tunic and he struggled into it. Heaven knew, they had been provoked almost beyond endurance during the past months. Barlow’s cargo of trade goods occupied space that should have been theirs, with the result that all one hundred and seventy of them were confined in foul, verminous darkness in the bowels of the ship, heavily chained, permitted little exercise, and compelled to exist on food that bore an unpleasant resemblance to hog-swill.

George De Lancey had protested strongly and demanded improvement in the prisoners’ conditions, but Barlow had done little to meet his demands. True, he had ordered the orlop fumigated before the ship made port at Rio, but rather because he feared the censure of the port health authorities than because of De Lancey’s condemnation. The two men were no longer on speaking terms, and the atmosphere in the cuddy was, in consequence, somewhat strained, with the mate, Henry Fry, taking De Lancey’s part but afraid to do so openly, and the other ship’s officers ranging themselves aggressively against him.

He himself . . . Murdo sighed, regretting the cowardice that, he freely acknowledged, led him to take a neutral stand.

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