Bloody Colonials. Stafford Sanders

one-eyed appraisal and proceeded to emit as I passed what I can only describe as the deranged cackle of a fiend from Hell.

      As I made my way up the track and further away from the beach, from the greenery on either side of the track rose the trunks of several varieties of tree - some of them quite unlike any that I had ever seen. Smooth of bark but wantonly crooked, apparently shunning a direct climb toward the daunting sunlight which their scrappy foliage failed to shield fully. These ghostly grey-white apparitions instead twisted and turned vaguely upward in a variety of sinister shapes, seeming at times to extend great gnarled claws over my head.

      In amongst these were smaller, darker trees in which nestled the most alarming seed-pods, enormous, bulbous blackish things looking for all the world like deformed heads with bulging eyes and bloated lips, seeming to stare and leer at me from between the fronds of shaggy foliage.

      Looking up at these hideous heads amongst the spectral visions stretched out against the baking pale blue sky did nothing to assist the recovery of my internal functions. Nor did it help my still-shaky legs to negotiate the irregularities of the stony path. Feeling now distinctly giddy, I focused my eyes instead upon the rough track before me as it meandered slowly up the rise through the coastal forest, which became more overgrown the further I advanced.

      After several minutes the path emerged onto flatter terrain. The trees fell away mercifully to either side and I found myself emerging onto cleared ground.

      Before me was an open, crudely mown lawn, before a two-storied building made from rough bricks and blocks of pale stone. Surrounding this were other, smaller brick and timber buildings stretching away across the clearing, some surrounded by small plots and gardens. These were connected by tracks and pathways, leading away towards clusters of rather meaner shacks across a small gully. Some of these ramshackle shelters appeared to be rudely cobbled together from mere leaves and sticks.

      I approached the large stone building uncertainly, walked around the pathway until I found a portal beneath a large sign saying “Government House, HM Colony of Port Fortitude”. I rapped cautiously upon what was apparently the front door.

      After a moment it was opened by a young servant woman of plainish and rather pinkish appearance.

      “Yes?” she inquired brusquely, wiping her hands upon her apron and blowing a strand of sandy hair aside which had loosened itself from her cotton bonnet.

      “Oh. I … could I see the Governor, please?”

      The girl appeared for a moment unable to answer, mouth half open and eyes wide as she scrutinised uncertainly my still damp and no doubt highly dishevelled form.

      Attempting to correct what I admit must have been constituted a fairly poor visual first impression, I cleared my throat and demanded “This is, er, Government House, is it not?”

      “It is”, she managed through the still gaping mouth.

      At this I repeated, rather more slowly and with what I fancied was a suitable note of authority, “Then I wish to see the Governor, if you please.”

      “Oh, that right? An’ who might you be?” she demanded in broad Cockney, with another contemptuous up-and-down scanning. “Look like you’ve been dragged backwards through a mangle, you do.”

      “Ah. Yes. Indeed,” I acknowledged, glancing down at my wretched, emaciated form with an embarrassed grin. “Well, you know … got a bit er, you know, getting ashore. From the, er, the ship.” I gestured vaguely back towards the docks.

      She waited, still looking suspicious and rather less than co-operative. Clearly, some further reassurance would be needed in order to proceed beyond this obstacle.

      “Oh. Ah, I’m Tom,” I blurted. She looked utterly blank at this, and realising that my vague and childish informality would cut no mustard whatsoever with her, I spluttered to correct it: “Er, Thomas … er, Quayle.” I took a deep breath and made another attempt. “Dr Thomas Quayle. The … the new surgeon.”

      “Surgeon?” She echoed, and looked me up and down, one corner of her lip curling upward into her dimpled cheek in palpable disbelief. “You’re a doctor?” I grinned sheepishly in confirmation.

      “Well,” she pronounced most decidedly, ”you don’t look like one.”

      “Well, indeed I am, er, a doctor,” I hastened on, “and not only that, but … er, the.…” But she had already closed the door in my face before I could finish, so that I was forced now to shout through the closed portal: “…the governor’s nephew!”

      It was a mere second before the door opened again, just a crack this time, the pink face peering out. “You what?”

      “I’m the governor’s …”, I confirmed with a small embarrassed cough, “nephew” (this with a fixed grin).

      “Oh.” She appraised me once more, eyes narrowed, considering. Even the slight possibility of such a preposterous claim turning out to be true had clearly changed the state of things; and I must have looked by now as if my patience was wearing rather thin.

      Well,” she determined at last, ”you better come in then.”

      She opened the door and turned to me. “You wait ’ere.” She marched briskly off down a long hallway. I entered slowly, gazing about at the crude stonework of the small foyer, its clay plastering apparently done in a hodgepodge mixture of rich red-brown and silver-grey, its painting by no means completed.

      I stood waiting there for several moments until the maidservant reappeared. “All right,” she said, still with a slight tone of uncertainty, “come wi’ me then.”

      She led me along the hall and around a corner, where she stopped and indicated a solid-looking door bearing a large brass plaque carrying the legend “SIR HENRY BLYTHE, Governor”.

      “Knock there an’ wait to be called in,” she instructed. And with that, off she marched, pausing to cast one more suspicious look over her shoulder, as if to reassure herself that I was not ducking away to help myself to the best silver.

      I drew myself up straight, took a deep breath and knocked, rather more tentatively than I had intended.

      “Enter!” came the daunting bark from within.