Free Lieutenant by Kate Grenville Page A

supply ships were nowhere to be seen.
    ‘Those buggers have forgotten us,’ Timpson said sotto voce to Rooke, running a finger around his plate and sucking at it. ‘Spat us out and said good riddance. Or else the ships are all wrecked. I wish to God I had not volunteered.’
    It was Timpson’s first appointment and he had not yet learned to hide his homesickness. As he ate he was inclined to dream aloud of his favourite meals, especially his mother’s hotpot with braised leeks. Rooke too had caught himself daydreaming about a dish of new potatoes with butter and parsley and salt, and a nice fresh mutton chop to go with it.
    Around the table, on which every plate soon gleamed, Rooke thought there was not a single man who believed that His Majesty’s newest settlement would last. It was only a matter of whether they all starved first.
    At the end of the meal the governor rose in his place, looking so spindly and angular that Rooke was put in mind of Newton’s Mathematical Bridge.
    ‘Good evening, gentlemen, and my thanks for your hospitality.’
    He glanced down at his plate and hesitated as if regrettingthe ironic possibilities of the remark.
    ‘It is my intention to take a party of men into the hinterland. I hope to locate whatever it might offer that could be turned to account.’
    Turned to account . They all knew the fact behind that fine turn of phrase: Nothing will grow at Sydney Cove and our store is running out .
    ‘I am confident also that we will fall in with natives more prepared to parley with us than those we have encountered here.’
    Rooke thought of those two men who had walked past him as if he were a rock or a bush. Every day his first act was to go outside and see if they had returned.
    The governor stretched his face into his approximation of a smile.
    ‘I wonder whether any of you gentlemen would care to be of the party.’
    Rooke did not stop to think, jumped to his feet.
    ‘Lieutenant Rooke sir, I will go.’
    Birds—mammals—ants and their habitations . This was his chance to see more of New South Wales than the speck of it he was so far familiar with. And if there should be an opportunity to parley, who better to do it than a man who knew five languages?
    Silk was only a little behind.
    ‘Captain Silk also, sir, at your service,’ he called out.
    At your service , that was a better form of words. Rooke tuckedit away. Less like a schoolboy than I will go! He felt himself blushing, but no one was watching.
    ‘Thank you, gentlemen, I am obliged to you.’
    After the meal Silk hung back.
    ‘My word, Rooke, I thought myself the quickest jack-in-the-box in the regiment, but I see I must not be complacent!’
    Rooke tried to frame a reply, but Silk did not wait.
    ‘Prickles, sunburn, mosquitoes, and, I doubt not, snakes. Perhaps unfriendly natives too. However, the worse it is to experience, the better it will read on the page. The natives are what I need. Their shyness is disappointing. This expedition may provide an opportunity to chat to the elusive fellows. And whatever other outcomes, we will have brought a little favourable attention on ourselves.’
    He winked.
    ‘The long view, my friend, never lose sight of the long view of our time in New South Wales.’

T he long view was hard to keep sight of when faced with New South Wales one yard at a time. Rooke sat in the cutter with the rest of the party, hearing the dip and suck of the oars as the sailors propelled them along the harbour towards the west. In the bow, the governor had a thwart to himself, peering with his telescope. Silk sat alertly behind him, now and then leaning forward to respond to some remark from the governor that Rooke could not hear. Beside Silk, Lieutenant Willstead also leaned forward, his bony face eager, trying to make his mark. Willstead had been on Sirius . All the way across the Atlantic, all the way across the Great Southern Ocean, Rooke had watched him trying in vain to make his mark with the governor.