distance away was a solitary, scruffy-looking, rather pot-bellied fellow wearing a dirty and tattered arrowhead-patterned shirt, baggy britches and a large and very ragged straw hat slung low across his brow, obscuring much of his face.
I moved up the dune towards him and hailed him. He looked slowly up, jowled and stubbled face half hidden beneath the hat, and I could not help imagining myself being rather smartly sized up as there came a gravelly but lilting Irish brogue:
“What can I be doin’ for you, sir?”
“Ah, could you direct me to … er, Government House, if you please?” I enquired.
He turned and waved one finger lazily up the beach towards the dunes. “That’d be straight over the dune, sir. Just follow the track. Yer can’t miss it.”
I followed the vaguely indicating digit up the sloping sand and saw behind it a steepish, wooded rise. Then I looked back uncertainly at my heavy trunk, still sitting upon the jetty, and ventured to inquire: “Er … would my trunk be safe here, for the time being?”
The fellow glanced quickly at the trunk. Then he turned to me with a reassuring though still only partially visible smile under the shreds of hat. “As houses, sir,” he said. “As houses.”
“You’ll … see to it?”
“In person, sir,” he reassured. “Just you leave it to me.”
Something in the tone of his voice encouraged me to follow this course. I nodded in acknowledgment to him, and the ragged hat nodded back, the face remaining mostly hidden. Then he turned slowly back toward the bay and remained propped against the post, looking out to sea, as I drew in my breath and headed past him.
Slowly I trudged to the top of the dune, stumbling upon the heavy sand - as what the sailors had referred to laughingly as my sea-legs sought to adjust to the now unfamiliar lack of any lurching motion beneath.
As I concentrated upon this simple but challenging task, I was startled by a sudden noise nearby and I turned suddenly at the sound of a loud lisping bellow from somewhere above: “Look out there, stand aside!”
I leapt out of the way barely in time to avoid being trampled upon by what I at first thought to be a horse. Certainly it was a hooved creature, sandy brown in colour. I soon realised, however, that it was not the right shape for a horse - being larger and distinctly humped in the back, with an extraordinarily long neck and strange visage featuring large lazy eyes and a set of bulbous pouting lips. This, I knew from a previous voyage to the East, was a camel.
Perched atop this beast was a wild, bearded figure in a very dusty khaki uniform and a pith helmet. He cast a fierce and manic glance down at me, waving me aside with brute imperiousness as he swatted the flies away with a gold-rimmed fan. Behind him, draped over the camel’s hump, was an assortment of baggage, with various spears and an array of carved and shaped wooden implements jutting out in all directions.
Sauntering along beside, the creature’s bridle in hand, was an ebony-skinned man whom I took to be a native of these parts, bare-chested but wearing rough baggy trousers tied with a rope belt. He turned with a desultory shake to his unkempt shock of curly black hair, and gave me a broad and vague grin, the large white teeth in stark contrast with the shiny black face surrounding them.
This eccentric procession moved past me with a slow rumble of hooves and a rattle of implements. I stared open-mouthed at their disappearing forms heading down behind the next dune.
Then, wondering what bewildering vision could possibly await me next, I looked down the landward side of the dune for the opening between the scrubby trees to the rough-hewn track leading up to the settlement.
The Governor, still in his office, is moving objects around within the miniature world of his model. He rubs his chin, pondering the placement of some future ambitious construction. Casts his eye absently about, allowing it to linger for a moment on his own painted image high on the wall.
My predecessor might not have had the stamina to endure here, he thinks – poor chap lasted a mere two years before succumbing to a weak heart fuelled by an excess of liquor. I, however, I am most assuredly made of sterner stuff. I will show them. Subconsciously he draws himself up straighter.
A knock is heard. Sir Henry frowns at this intrusion into one of his increasingly rare quiet moments.
“Enter! Ah, Bascombe.”
Major Geoffrey Bascombe, the Governor’s Adjutant, enters. He wears the red coat, white breeches and crossed sashes of His Majesty’s Army Corps. He carries a sheaf of papers and a set of enormous sideburns. Well, he’s not so much carrying the sideburns – they have, in fact, more of the appearance of carrying him.
He takes a few starched steps forward and salutes stiffly, chin thrust prominently forward as if to provide a base for the sideburns. The Governor returns the salute perfunctorily.
“The ship has come in,” Blythe informs him, “with, I trust, our new surgeon aboard. Make sure his quarters are in readiness at the barracks, would you.”
“Sir.” Bascombe thrusts some papers under the Governor’s nose. Blythe signs them without appearing to look at them. His tone carries a quiet but firm warning, eyes engaging the direct gaze of the Major.
“And Bascombe … try and keep him out of trouble, would you?”
A slight grimace crosses the face of the Major as he retrieves the signed papers. Just what I need, he thinks – more work. As if my list of duties was not already sufficiently onerous, without having the Governor’s babysitting added to them. “I shall do the best I can, sir”, he undertakes with the requisite evasive respectfulness. He salutes again and heads for the door.
“Mmm. Not sure I find that particularly reassuring,” mutters the Governor. He runs a hand over his thinning pate and swivels back to the relative security of his model colony.
Glancing back in the direction of the jetty from the top of the sand dune, I could see the unloading of the ship proceeding languidly, if noisily.
A number of people had emerged onto the jetty and appeared to be taking a proprietorial interest in the various items being unloaded.
Most prominent among these observers, I noticed one very grand-looking couple, of whom the lady, a statuesque woman carrying a parasol - appeared to be exuding a most commanding presence. She was issuing instructions to sailors and labourers as to the transfer of livestock and other goods
with the imperiousness of an army general.
A great many boxes and barrels marked FLOUR and SUGAR – and many more marked RUM - were being hauled ashore; also visible were cages of pigs and goats, together with pots of plants labelled GORSE, LANTANA, PRICKLY PEAR and something called “BITOO BUSH”.
I noticed now what appeared to be a number of large rats which came scurrying out of holes in boxes or bags and darting off into the bush. They were pursued by several domestic cats of various shapes and sizes. These in turn were chased half-heartedly by shouting men making cursory attempts to recapture them among the impossibly dense foliage, before returning with resigned shrugs to their unloading.
I half-slid down the sand and into the gap between the trees marking the base of the rough stony track which wound upwards into the strange coastal forest. Turning to either side I beheld, at close quarters now, the strange forms of the local vegetation.
As sand gave way to rocks and soil, there emerged low clumps of reeds and grasses, among clusters of succulent groundwort,