The Penal Colony (16 page)

“I formally recognize his absolute authority
and in this recognition beg for admittance to the Community.”

“You are one of us now, Mr Routledge. Please
get up.”

* * *

When the interview had ended and the Father
had retired to his own part of the bungalow, Appleton took
Routledge into his office, a square, cramped room furnished with a
shaky laminate-surfaced table and lined on two sides with shelves.
Appleton had brought one of the pressure lamps. He hooked the
handle over a wall-bracket, motioned Routledge to be seated in the
battered easy chair, and sat down himself behind the table.

“This won’t take a minute,” he said. “As it’s
so late, we’ll have our main talk in the morning. Please be here at
six o’clock.”

His authority had returned.

“You’ll find we tend to rise and go to bed
earlier on Sert, especially in summer. It saves paraffin and
candles.”

Especially in summer.
There came to
Routledge’s mind the first true inkling of the immense period of
time, season after season, year after year, during which he would
be stuck on this rock.

Appleton gave him a moment’s scrutiny before
going on. “I just want to mention a few points of etiquette. As the
Father has told you, we have no currency in the Community, other
than respect. A man’s place is hard-earned and he does not take
kindly to lack of recognition of that place. Certain standards of
behaviour have therefore evolved which are very different from
those obtaining on the mainland. The Father’s name is Liam Michael
Franks. At no time will you call him anything but ‘Father’. Address
other members of the Community by their title and surname. When you
know someone sufficiently well he may allow you to call him by his
surname used alone, except in the presence of inferiors, when it is
usual to adopt the formal mode. Intimate friends may use forenames
if they wish, but this is not often done. Unless he volunteers the
information, it is considered impolite to ask a man about his
criminal record. When a man of superior rank enters the room, you
stand up. This can be tricky in the beginning, and it will be
understood if you make some mistakes. For the first twenty-four
hours in the Community, you are our guest. After that you must work
in accordance with the rules; in other words, as directed by the
Father. If you do not work properly you will receive no food and
you may be denied accommodation. If you persist in not working you
will be expelled. Expulsion is final and irreversible.” He sat
back. “I think that just about covers it for tonight.”

“May I ask a question?”

“That depends what it is. You’ll have plenty
of opportunity to ask questions tomorrow, and on any topic you
like.”

“Did the Prison Service send over my personal
effects? I had some photographs of my family.”

“They’ll probably come on tomorrow’s drop, or
next week’s.” Tomorrow was Tuesday, helicopter day. “Now,” he went
on, “you’ll be staying with Mr King, your guardian, until suitable
accommodation is made ready. That’s one of the things we’ll be
talking about in the morning.” Appleton stood up. “Mr King is
expecting you. Your issue has already been delivered to his house.
I’ll take you there. You might not be able to find it in the
dark.”

The shack was much as Routledge had
remembered it, except that it seemed King had made an attempt to
tidy up. The pallet was still there, although the sleeping-bag had
been replaced with grey blankets, and another blanket, folded, had
been provided as a pillow. It did not look very comfortable, but at
least it seemed clean.

King said, “Can I offer you something, Mr
Appleton?”

“No, thank you all the same, Mr King.”
Appleton moved back to the door and opened it. “Six o’clock, Mr
Routledge. Don’t forget.”

“I won’t.”

“Mr King has a clock. Well, good night,
then.”

King secured the door behind him and gave
Routledge a half smile which Routledge interpreted as evidence that
King, while not relishing the idea of sharing his accommodation
with another, would do his best not to show it.

“You’re a bit of a celebrity,” King said.
“Word’s got around about the crossbow. They’re saying you took it
off James Martinson. Are they right?”

“Yes. I suppose they are.”

“Did you go to Old Town? By the way, do take
a seat.”

Routledge decided to leave vacant the chair
indicated, for it was the one King had occupied on the first night.
Instead he sat down on a low stool by the hearth.

“Would you like a drink? Some Village Black
Label?”

“‘Black Label’?”

“Whisky. What passes for it.”

Routledge was very tired; what he wanted most
of all was to lie down and close his eyes. “That’s very kind. But
only if you’re having one.”

King rummaged about in a box by the wall and
produced a bottle, about a third full, of what did indeed look like
whisky. He then produced two glasses and poured Routledge a double
measure.

“Water?”

“No thanks.”

“Here’s to you, Mr Routledge.”

Routledge saw that the words had been
sincerely delivered, and was touched. The whisky was not as bad as
he had expected. In fact, he had drunk worse in pubs on the
mainland.

“Mr Thorne makes it,” King said. “He’s trying
to get some juniper bushes on the go to try his hand at gin as
well.”

“It’s very good.” The glass was shaped like
the bottom half of a jamjar: which is exactly what Routledge now
realized it was. “This is interesting,” he said. “How did you make
the glasses?”

“Oh, Mr Ojukwo makes those. People give him
jars or he gets them from the shore. He ties a loop of string round
the jar, wherever he wants the height. The string’s soaked in
paraffin, set fire to, and the glass weakens along that line. Then
with a bit of careful tapping the joint breaks, and he grinds the
edge down by hand.” Having as expeditiously as possible discharged
the duty of imparting such mundane information, King took another
sip and said: “You didn’t say whether you’d been to Old Town.”

“I was taken there against my will. But I did
manage to avoid the lighthouse.” This was as close as Routledge
thought he ought to come towards thanking King directly for having
warned him about the two outsider towns.

“Would you prefer not talk about it?”

“To be honest, I’m just tired. I’ll tell you
anything you want to know tomorrow.”

King downed the last of his whisky. “I’m
pretty well knackered myself. I’ve got to be up early again
tomorrow.” He took Routledge’s empty glass. “I won’t wake you up:
you sleep on till, say, five fifteen. Have my alarm clock, and
you’ll find a bit of breakfast on the table.”

“You’re a good boy, Obadiah Walker,”
Martinson said.

“Got to help your mates,” Obie said.

Martinson winced again. He was bleeding more
profusely now. The glistening prong of splintered bone, shocking in
its stark, unnatural whiteness, was still protruding from the flesh
of his left calf. “Holy Jesus, Obie, get it over with.”

Stretched out on his goatskin sofa, Martinson
had so far borne his ordeal without complaint. Obie brought the
lamp closer. Going by what he remembered from cowboy films on TV,
he was trying to clean the wound before setting the break with
splints and a length of old shirting; but he did not really know
what he was doing. He had never seen a broken leg before, least of
all anything like this.

The bone had been smashed rather than
snapped. Martinson had been struck with a club and knocked down
from the lighthouse gallery. Besides breaking his leg, the fall had
left him concussed and with extensive heavy bruising, especially
about the chest and left shoulder. The skin on his face had been
badly grazed. In fact, he was in a mess. It was a miracle he had
survived at all. He had lain on the asphalt, unconscious, for the
whole afternoon before anyone had been able to reach him. The only
reason he was alive now was that Peto had waved the white flag –
not for Martinson’s sake, but because he had decided to give in to
Houlihan’s demands. The fighting, for the moment, was over.

For Peto it had been a disaster. Besides a
number of vicious skirmishes, there had been three pitched battles,
the first of which, on Thursday afternoon, had been started by
Houlihan. Then on Sunday, before the Old Town forces had been
repulsed, Peto had tried to set fire to the lighthouse.

The final battle, today, had again taken
place at the lighthouse. Lured there by Houlihan, Peto’s men had
been ambushed and routed. Martinson and some others had tried to
scale the tower, hoping to get their hands on Houlihan himself, but
to no avail. No fewer than fifteen towners had been killed,
bringing Peto’s losses since Thursday to twenty-seven, with many
more injured. In addition Peto had been forced to give Houlihan his
whole flock of goats, his binoculars, and, most humiliating of all,
a hostage to good conduct in the form of his present catamite, the
blue-eyed and fair-haired Desborough. What was already happening to
Desborough at the lighthouse could be imagined all too well.

Nothing had yet been said, but Peto’s loss of
face had been so great that Obie wondered how long it would be
before his leadership was called into question. There was no sign
that Peto was planning to launch the revenge attack that alone
could restore him in the opinion of his men.

Martinson, however, had only enhanced his
reputation, especially through the lunacy and daring of today’s
attack on Houlihan’s quarters. If Martinson hadn’t been injured,
and if he held ambitions in that direction, Peto might eventually
have had a serious rival to contend with.

Such matters exercised Obie only so far as
his own safety was concerned. He had become identified as one of
Peto’s council, and although that had been at Peto’s instigation
rather than his own, he had readily accepted the advantages and
benefits the position had conferred. By so doing he knew he had
earned himself grudge in certain quarters of the town. If Peto fell
he might be in trouble, for he could not go to Houlihan.

Alone perhaps at Old Town, Obie had detected
a pattern in Martinson’s behaviour during the fighting. On several
occasions Martinson had fudged or disregarded orders which, if
carried out, might have had severe consequences for the lighthouse
settlement and the generality of its inhabitants. His disobedience
may even have cost Peto victory. Martinson, it seemed to Obie, had
been pursuing a private purpose. To the exclusion of all else he
had been trying to get his hands on Houlihan himself, with the
secondary goal of wiping out certain members of the brain gang
which had contributed so much to Houlihan’s strength and
success.

Obie was beginning to wonder what Martinson
was up to. It could no longer be assumed that he was unambitious.
But if he were simply planning to take over from Peto there would
have been a showdown, or a straightforward murder, in the
time-honoured way, followed by a reshuffling of power inside the
Town. No: he was after something larger. Obie had always known he
was mad; now he suspected him of the deep capacity for cunning and
foresight which psychopaths often possessed.

For if Martinson had succeeded in killing
Houlihan and his closest supporters, might he not then have turned
on Peto? And afterwards, in the flux of two leaderless communities,
might he not have advanced himself as the leader of all?

Until now Obie had imagined that, as far as
it was possible to be so on the island of Sert, Martinson was
reasonably content with his lot. One or two remarks he had made, at
long intervals, about the Village had led Obie to believe that
Martinson’s resentment of Franks went rather further than most
people’s. But this evening Obie had remembered that Franks, like
Martinson himself, had come over on the first boat. The two men had
been at Dartmoor together, and had, for a time, been on friendly
terms. Yet there was no suggestion that Martinson had ever been
asked to join the Village. Indeed, Martinson had been instrumental
in starting the war between Franks and Barratt that had led
ultimately to its foundation.

Franks had only survived this long because
his opponents were in disarray. United – under Martinson, for
example – they could make life in the Village much less cosy. They
might even get the helicopter back.

Obie took a third bowl of boiling seawater
from the fire and soaked a fresh pad of shirting. He had used
seawater for its disinfectant properties: there was nothing else,
not even the whisky the cowboys always seemed to use. As he dabbed
at Martinson’s raw flesh, Obie prayed that Peto would remain for a
while longer yet. With Martinson out of action, the way was open
for Dave Nackett or Dog or one of the other hard men to issue a
challenge. Whichever of those won the contest, Obie could expect
unpleasantness or worse. The way things looked tonight, Peto would
go eventually. If he had to have a successor, Obie wanted it to be
Martinson.

That was the reason Obie was here now. The
other blokes had merely dumped Martinson in his hut after the
battle. Because he was in bad odour with Peto, no one had wanted to
take the initiative to help him.

“I finished cleanin’ it now, Jim. I got all
the bits out.”

“Good. That’s good, me old mate.”

“I’m goin’ to have a go at settin’ it. Hold
on tight.”

“Did I say you was a good boy, Obie? All the
boys in this town, you’re the only one what gives a toss.”

“Florence Nightingale, that’s me.”

He made the first tentative approach towards
reducing the alarming angle at which the leg was bent, and for the
first time Martinson gave a low groan, which, as Obie slowly
increased the pressure, intensified and became a horrible shout of
pain.

* * *