Read Online Wild Island by Jennifer Livett - Free Book Online

had attended trials of the new howitzers during the War, and afterwards complained of a singing in the ears. England’s greatest ear doctor poured a solution of lunar caustic—nitrate of silver, you know—into the Duke’s ears, after which the Great Man was completely deaf on one side and suffered much with pain and headache.
    ‘A barbaric treatment, to be sure,’ said Casey that night. Booth was lodging with Casey; the Franklins were in the Commandant’s cottage.‘But they had nothing else in those days. Perhaps the Governor’s deafness accounts for the rumour of his slow wits?
    ‘And no trouble yet from Montagu or Forster?’ Casey added.
    ‘No trouble,’ said Booth, ignoring both the ‘yet’ and the one very small sign he had noticed. It had arisen on account of the continuing rain, which Lady Franklin hardly seemed to notice. At the boys’ prison at Point Puer, stray drops evaded the brim of her bonnet and ran down her straight nose. She brushed them aside unheedingly, listening attentively to Sir John’s questions and Booth’s explanations. The boys were allowed to bathe in the sea in summer? Were taught trades as well as religion? She admired the boots made by the apprentice cobblers and the seating forms made by the carpenters. Where was the fresh water? Ah! A disadvantage, to have to haul it in. She tasted the soup and pronounced it ‘palatable’.
    Out in the rain again, Montagu walked beside her, trying to keep a large black umbrella over her head and his own, but in her bright eagerness Jane Franklin was always darting ahead of this protection. Just when he had the umbrella poised equally, she would move forward with an enquiry about sawpits, or to peer at some object of interest. Montagu’s dilemma was amusingly clear. Must he stretch out his arm to make the umbrella cover her, thus baring his own beautiful tall black hat to the rain? Or put himself to an undignified trot to keep up with her? Montagu disliked rain as much as the cold, everyone knew. He believed himself more than commonly subject to the grippe. The little comedy appealed to Booth’s strong sense of the ridiculous.
    Montagu solved the problem by pausing abruptly as though recalling an urgent matter. He beckoned to Forster and they stood talking as Lady Franklin went on, her attention leaping ahead. Sir John’s young aide moved in with his own umbrella, catching Booth’s eye as he did so, and Booth saw that he too was amused. An indication that Montagu’s loyalty would not stretch far? That his own wellbeing was paramount? Booth thought Lady Franklin had also noticed the little stratagem, although she gave no sign of it. The next day, as the rain continued, Montagu stayed indoors.
    In a few words, Char, a more agreeable or pleasant visit could not have been , Booth continued the letter in his head. Quite pleased at the satisfaction Her Ladyship, Sir John and all parties expressed with their trip .
    The single dissenting voice had been that of Mrs Evans, a sister-in-law of Sir John’s, visiting the colony with her doctor husband. Several times she quietly lamented the hard lives of the convicts, clearly afraid to offend, but determined to show she was ‘Anti-Transportation’. The prisoners were well fed and housed, she conceded, but nothing could make up for exile from England. Her protest became more visceral a fortnight after the Port Arthur visit, when the party reached Flinders Island. The Franklins had asked Booth to continue with them on this leg of the tour to see Wybalenna, where the remnants of the aboriginal tribes in Van Diemen’s Land had been rounded up and transported to live, or conveniently die. When they came to the black people in the infirmary here, words failed Mrs Evans; she cried out in distress and hurried off to be sick.
    Mind you, Booth had been shocked himself. None of the party was prepared for what they saw. Emaciated bodies lying in rooms filled with the stench of illness and death. The black