in vain to work on various documents relating to an array of colonial management business. He is being frustrated in this endeavour by an expensively-dressed and very attractive young woman who is pressing him in a simpering voice while she toys with a scale model of elaborate buildings and bridges mounted on a table in the centre of the amply-proportioned room.
“Oh go on, Papa,” she whines, “just a little dinner party. It’s so boring here, and it’s been positively ages since we had a dinner party.”
The Governor barely looks up, continuing to write, brow furrowed with battling concentration. He responds with gruff matter-of-factness: “About six weeks, I believe.”
“Yes, well, six weeks in this place is an eternity!” she bleats. “Honestly, it’s a social desert. And anyway, that dreadful ‘Lady’ Anastasia” (the ‘Lady’ is placed by the young woman in the most derisive of audible quotation marks, accompanied by a grimacing parody of a smile) “has had another of hers since then. You don’t want us to be shown up by her, do you?”
The Governor shrugs non-committally at this, not unduly concerned by the finer points of such competition. Frustrated by this lack of suitable response, his daughter half-turns and swats petulantly at the model, slightly dislodging a balsa-wood roof. Finally and irreversibly distracted from his work, and concerned for the wellbeing of the architectural plan, the Governor scrambles to his feet and emerges hurriedly from behind the desk to interpose himself between his colonial vision and its impetuous attacker.
In real life, Sir Henry is considerably less physically imposing than his portrait makes him appear. He is in fact, it must be said, rather short.
“Yes, well my dear Felicity,” he harrumphs impatiently, “it’s a little early to be making socialising quite our top priority.…” He replaces the model roof and plants his diminutive frame firmly between his daughter and the imperilled work “… since I am, after all, supposed to be running a penal colony – with or without the proper degree of loyalty from my subordinates, or anything approaching the requisite level of support from the Colonial Office.”
Now it’s his daughter’s turn to brush aside irritating trifles. “Well,” she retorts with a pout, “you certainly gave me the impression the social life here was a high priority when you went to such lengths to persuade me to come rushing out here the moment I had completed Finishing School. As I recall, you said …”
But her father is mercifully spared the reiteration of his own arguments at that time by a knock at the door.
“Enter!” barks the Governor. And Polly the maidservant comes in, back from her work outside with the pigs and the washing. She curtseys perfunctorily.
“Ship’s come in, Your Excellency”, she informs him.
“Ah.” His eyes sharpen. This is welcome news indeed to Sir Henry: the ship will bring keenly-awaited settlers, troop reinforcements, livestock, goods – particularly some of the finer building materials not available from the limited natural resources of the colony. Especially not from this particularly limited part of it.
His daughter, too, cheers up immediately at the news. “Oh, at last,” she squeals, clapping her hands together with childish enthusiasm, “my pianoforte! At least now I can have some decent music.”
“Indeed you shall,” agrees her father, “and not only that, but some new company as well. Your cousin, our new colonial surgeon, will be on board the …”
But Felicity ignores him, her mind on one thing only. She brushes her father lightly aside and turns to her convict maidservant: “Get some men down there straight away to bring it up at once - and mind they take special care with it.”
“Yes, milady”, mutters Polly, with long-suffering weariness, turning towards the door.
The Governor is long inured to the reality of being unable at the best of times to command his daughter’s attention for more than a few moments. He makes no further attempt to do so - instead returning to more practical matters. “Oh, and send Major Bascombe in, would you,” he directs Polly’s departing form.
He retreats with some relief behind the safety of his desk as the convict girl scurries out, followed by Felicity, who prattles instructions at her to which she is paying just as much attention as she needs, but no more.
“The ship has come in!” “Ah, the ship is in, thank God!” “It has arrived at long last – the ship!” Word now spreads like a forest fire throughout the settlement.
Imagine for a moment the excitement of waiting for a loved one to return from an absence of a day or a week. Or for the arrival in the post of letters from family or friends. Confirmation of new employment. A birthday present. A long-awaited purchase.
Then imagine such anticipation accumulating over several months – and in the absence of any other form of long-range communication. Now we begin to understand the magnitude of impact of the cream sails’ arrival in the bay of Port Fortitude. This ship is a thinly-stretched lifeline. It bears the preservation of life and health, the reuniting of families and friends, and the maintenance of contact with what for many is still thought of as “home”.
Nevertheless, with whatever enthusiasm the ship may be greeted by some, there is at least one of its passengers who will be more than pleased to see the last of it.
3. FIRST CONTACT
The longboat, having with a small lurch negotiated the task of bumping its bow up against the jetty (and I having negotiated the suppression of further retching at this movement), settled unsteadily into place against the rough timber posts.
I may have been the last to have been cajoled aboard the boat, but I was hell-bent upon being the first to depart from it. One final taste of the damned sea awaited me, however, as I attempted to scramble from the boat onto the rudimentary wharf. Again in my haste to be ashore, my foot caught the gunwale and I was propelled with an exasperated cry, sprawling headlong over the side, cannoning off the mooring post and sliding once again down into the briny.
Fortunately I maintained my grasp upon the post and managed to haul myself (this time without assistance) up onto the rickety structure, where I lay amid fresh howls of mirth, spitting mouthfuls of salt water. I scrambled to my feet and stood dripping upon the timbers as my trunk was dumped alongside me. I mumbled a word of thanks to the sailors as they and the other passengers scampered nimbly past me and off along the jetty, still chortling at my clumsiness. Then I drew a deep breath of humid, salty air, narrowly suppressed one last retch, and turned towards the beach, squinting into the bright sunlight. A few lurching steps along the creaking jetty and onto the golden sand, and there I was – upon dry land at long, long last.
I looked up – and at once a most extraordinary sight confronted me.
A grand piano stood in full glory upon the sand, glistening with salt spray. Fearing that delirium from the gruelling voyage might have addled my brains, I shook my head and blinked – but there it was still, standing grandly on its three carved legs upon this remote Antipodean beach. From somewhere in the back of my mind I fancied I could hear a Scottish waltz playing dimly. That, however, was definitely my imagination, I determined – while the piano itself was assuredly not so, remaining in place even after I had shaken my head with what vigour I could manage without renewing the nausea.
I must have stared at this vision for some moments before a brace of hefty fellows rushed up past me and surrounded the instrument, attaching ropes to it with a flutter of argued cross-instructions to each other. Slowly they hauled upon the cords and, staggering under the piano’s weight, bore it slowly off up the beach.
I watched them depart over the dunes into the strange and tangled vegetation. Then I looked