The Dutch East India Colony—
Kupang, Timor

June-September 1791

They sailed into Kupang Harbour with a well-earned sense of pride. And yet so long were they from the shores of civilisation that they couldn’t help but gape in wonder at the bustling port. By the time the oarsmen brought the cutter dockside, a crowd had gathered.

Will, standing tall and confident despite bare feet and the rags he wore in place of shirt and pants, stepped off the boat first, and shook the hand of an official who introduced himself as Bruger.

“William Bryant, Master’s Mate on Her Majesty’s ship, the Dunkirk, what went down in a storm some twenty-one days ago,” Will announced, borrowing the name of the hulk they had been imprisoned on back in England, which, if that wreck had ever managed to limp into the open sea, surely would have sunk. “A whaler she was, Mr. Bruger. God willing, some others from our ill-fated ship made landfall here already?”

“No sir.” Bruger, a stout man whose eyes, Mary judged, did not miss much of what went on around the docks, skimmed the cutter’s passengers and looked back at Will. “This is the first ve have heard of this unfortunate thing.”

After a few more questions, which Will handled with aplomb, the cutter’s passengers were placed in a cart and driven for some distance along a street lined with solid colonial buildings. Most of the edifices were squarish, two or three storeys of unadorned stone in the Dutch colonial style. However, the governor’s residence to which they were conveyed was differently designed. Perched on a rise in the centre of a rolling green lawn, it was a two-storey mansion with wings stretching out on either side of the entrance, and verandas which encircled the house, upstairs and down. They dismounted from the cart, but Bruger bade them wait in the courtyard while he went inside to announce their arrival.

They had been standing there several moments when Mary noticed that they were being observed from an upstairs veranda by a man with a visage as stern as a Calvinist minister. Unconsciously, she moved her children so that Charlotte concealed her bare legs from the man’s gaze, and Emanuel, whom she held in her arms, hid her skimpily-covered breasts.

*

A short time later Bruger returned. “The gouverneur vill allow you to draw upon the Crown’s credit such necessities as you require,” he told Will brusquely. “Two changes of clothing complete he has ordered me to issue to you and your men. They are to be quartered in the barracks.” He paused, and said, “Gouverneur Wanjon extends an invitation for you, Sir, as an officer, to lodge here as his guest. With your family, of course.”

Will’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “He don’t want to meet us first?”

“He vill vait until you have been restored to an appearance befitting civilised men,” Bruger said shortly. “After you have been barbered and clothed, all in your party shall return here, at the sunset hour, to take refreshments with the gouverneur.”

“Even . . .” Will slightly inclined his head, “the darky?”

“As you have arrived together, so vill our gouverneur take his first measure of you—after you have been restored to your decent selves, of course,” Bruger said, speaking with such stiffness that Mary suspected he too found it shocking that the governor’s invitation included a black man.

Still addressing only Will, Bruger said, “You, Sir, vill accompany me to sign for the clothing issued to your men. Your vife and the kinder, they go with Mira.” He half-turned, and motioned to an Indonesian girl waiting on the steps of the mansion. “She vill show them to the quarters Gouverneur Wanjon has designated for your family.”

Mary had never in her life glimpsed the inside of such a house. The floors were of hardwood so highly polished that they reflected every foot that crossed them. The furniture was likewise smooth and heavily polished. Yards of exquisite
fabrics draped the windows, and candles in heavy brass holders were set about at frequent intervals. Certain details of the decor reminded her of Captain Smit’s quarters so that, despite its grander scale, the place was not quite so intimidating as it might otherwise have been.

She followed Mira, a petite and perfectly-formed girl who could not have been more than sixteen, along a corridor to a wing of the house which seemed very little used. The Indonesian servant opened the door into a room more spacious than their hut had been back in Botany Bay. It was furnished with not one but two large beds. Fat cushions and patterned rugs were scattered about. Mira crossed the room and threw open a door containing many small panes of glass. Mary stepped out onto a veranda, partly to take in the view of a well-tended lawn and flowering trees, and partly to get past the strangeness of being shut up inside after so many weeks in the open air.

“Come,” Mira said, motioning to Mary with delicate hands. “A bath we make ready, first for the kinder, then for you, Mevrouw.”

Thus was Mary introduced to the first in-the-home bath she had ever seen, which was filled, at Mira’s command, by another servant bringing pails of warm water from a distant part of the house. The children splashed happily in the tub, not overly impressed by a body of water so much smaller than the beaches and lagoons where all their previous baths had been taken. Soap was unfamiliar to them, and of course they got it in their eyes, and set up such a howl that servants came running and fluttered about, trying to console them.

By the time Mary and Mira had fished them out and got them dry, a large Indonesian woman, whom Mira called Siti, arrived with plates of food. Siti herded the children to a small table out on the veranda, and proceeded to feed them food which, except for the rice, was entirely unfamiliar. The children did not object, perhaps because so much of what they had eaten in recent months was altogether strange to them. Siti pushed a few bites of food into Mary’s mouth as if she were one of the children, then shooed her away. Mira tugged her back to the bathroom, where, to Mary’s astonishment, Mira proceeded to bathe her! Mary protested that such a service was for invalids and she was no such thing, but Mira had her instructions (as Mary later learned), and scrubbed her from hair to toenails.

Out and dried off, Mary reached for the rags she had been wearing, but Mira snatched them from her, and handed them to another servant whom she addressed in Indonesian. A wave of the woman’s hands left Mary with the clear impression that the instruction was to burn the clothes.

“No!” Mary cried in alarm, for although Bruger had indicated that the men were to have new clothes, he had said nothing about clothing for her. “I have no other!”

“Come, Mevrouw,” Mira soothed, wrapping her in the towel and leading her back to the bedroom. “We have other.” Mira ran her hands down her own outfit, which was similar to the sari Captain Smit had often had Mary wear, although of sturdier material. “Like this for you, but more special.”

Mira sat Mary in a chair and began to comb and braid her hair. Through the open veranda doors, Mary could see the children cheerfully consuming the food that Siti offered. Charlotte ran in several times to stick tidbits of food in her mother’s mouth, then went out again. Mary realised that just as she as a child had learned to trust the kindness of sailors on shipboard, so her own children had become accustomed to being passed from kindly hand to kindly hand on the voyage away from Botany Bay. Nor did the strangeness of this place seem to frighten them, for had not every day of the past ten weeks brought them into novel surroundings? At last Mary began to relax and, following her children’s example, let members of the governor’s household take charge.

Once Mary’s hair was in braids, Mira wound them round and round her head and pinned them in place. Then she held up a looking glass. Mary had never seen herself in a glass before, although of course she had some idea of her image from having, on a few occasions, gazed into a reflecting pool. The face in the mirror interested her as might the face in a painting, for it possessed many details which she would not have attributed to herself; most notably, the deep clear blue of the eyes and, thanks to constant exposure to the sun, skin quite as dark as that of the Indonesian girl. By contrast, the hair, bleached by that same sun, was much lighter than she imagined hers to be.

The image was, in fact, that of a beautiful woman—more beautiful than Mary had ever been in her life or would likely ever be again. But this above all she failed to register. As a child she had been attended and pampered, much as Charlotte had been on their voyage, but no one had ever spoken of her appearance, at least not in her hearing. Nor had it been a topic of conversation between her and her parents as she grew older. At home as on shipboard, it was her quickness to learn that they remarked on, or her skill in performing a given task. She had never been courted or even had girlfriends during her youth, so the comparisons and competitions that permeate those circles were unknown to her. Physical attentions foisted on her after her arrest seemed a factor of male lust, unrelated to physical charms. In the colony, with so few women about, even hags like Cass and others much more worn out were constantly in demand, suggesting that the only attribute that mattered was the fact that they were female. Will himself had never offered Mary a single compliment beyond one on the crossing, when he had told her her Cornwall accent helped assuage his loneliness.

Certainly Mary’s self-esteem had grown in the past two months, fostered by James’s open expressions of admiration, by the respect of the others, and by her own assessment of an escape well-planned and executed. But in no instance had any of that to do with her appearance. Thus it was hardly surprising that Mary neither registered the mirrored image as that of a lovely woman nor would have given it any importance if she had.

However, she had no time to reflect on her reflection, for yet another servant arrived with a garment which appeared to be a simple tube of light cotton fabric. The dominant colour was burnt umber, with intricate designs woven or dyed into it.

“This kain panjang; you wear now,” Mira announced.

Mira helped her don the long sarong which, when firmly tied above her breasts, left her shoulders bare. Back in England Mary might have felt immodest to have so much of her upper body exposed, but after three years of wearing skimpy shifts made from burlap bags in which rice or flour had been transported to the colony, a gown of simple design and so well-suited to the heat of the tropics felt perfectly natural. Still, recalling the frown of the man who had stared down from the upper balcony as they waited in the courtyard, Mary wondered if the costume covered enough for European sensibilities.

As if reading her mind, Mira draped a gaily printed length of light cotton fabric around Mary’s shoulders. “Seledang,” she called the garment. “This you wear for meet the gouverneur.”

“What about . . .?” Mary pointed to her feet. Her only pair of shoes had fallen apart at least two years ago. Although her small feet had not widened as a result of going barefoot, the soles had grown as tough as leather.

“Ah, I forget!” Mira clapped a hand to her forehead. Then, sizing up Mary’s feet and judging them to be about the same as her own, she stepped out of her slippers. Giggling like a schoolgirl, she placed them on Mary’s feet. Mary herself began to laugh, partly from pent-up tension at being in such strange surroundings and confronted with so many unfamiliar customs, but also because she sensed in Mira something of what Colleen had been to her: a fellow female conspirator; a sister.

Mary had some misgivings about leaving the children, but Mira insisted that they remain with the servants, which they seemed happy enough to do. Mary followed the girl back along the corridor, up a broad stairway, and out to a balconied veranda. A tall black-suited man stood with his back to her, watching the sun drop toward the horizon. Mira slipped away, leaving Mary alone, wondering how she should announce herself.

Perhaps the governor sensed her presence, for he turned and, giving a slight start, said, “Mevrouw Bryant. I am Gouverneur Wanjon. Velcom to Kupang.”

The words were kind although the face above the tight collar was not particularly so. He had the pallor of a man who spends little time out of doors, with skin stretched so tight over his cheekbones as to suggest a struggle with ill health. His eyes and the lines around them put Mary in mind of Governor Phillip’s back in Botany Bay. They were those of a man for whom there is no end of worry, and rarely a reason to smile.

Having had no training whatever in formal behaviour, and too few contacts with those from classes above her own to know what might be expected of her, Mary simply spoke her heart. “Oh, Governor Wanjon! How kind you are to welcome us so. My children went to your Siti straightaway, and ate everything she gave them.”

“I am glad you approve, Mevrouw. Some say the natives cannot be trained, but my babus are as fine as any servants to be found in Amsterdam. They speak Dutch, and vhen castaways from the Bounty were mit us two years ago, Mira even learned English. Goot vhen ve have visitors from the British Empire such as yourselves,” he said stiffly.

“And how often is that, Governor? That British ships call in?”

“Vell now, many Dutch vessels stop in Kupang, but not so many from your country.”

A servant approached with a tray of drinks. Wanjon motioned toward them and asked, “Vill you take refreshment, Mevrouw Bryant?

Mary smiled up at him. “I do not drink liquor, Sir, and your Mira served me tea but an hour ago. I am content to drink my fill of sweet evening air, if this would not offend you.”

Something close to approval softened the governor’s judgmental gaze. “Indeed, Mevrouw, the drink you speak of is my own favourite at this hour—.” He broke off and turned his attention to the doorway as Bruger led the men from Botany Bay onto the veranda. “But perhaps the men in your party vill prefer something stronger.”

Mary stared at the men, or more particularly, at her husband. Will stared back at her with equal amazement. Neither had ever seen the other so well-dressed, barbered, and combed. Will moved quickly, possessively, to Mary’s side. Bruger followed and made the introductions.

“Gouverneur Wanjon, this is Master’s Mate Bryant. Mr. Cox, Mr. Morton, Mr. Lucas, Mr. Butcher, Master Pippin, and,” motioning to Bados, who remained in the background, “Baxter Walker from the West Indies. All were members of the Dunkirk’s crew. Mr. Brown here is the only civilian.”

Wanjon’s eyes moved down the line of men as Bruger spoke, and settled on James. “How came you to be on this ill-fated vessel, Meneer Brown?”

“As an accountant with the firm, Governor, sailing for the first time on one of our company’s ships,” James replied. “It was only by God’s grace that I fell into the sea in reach of a boat.”

Wanjon gave what might have been a sympathetic nod, and addressed his next question to no one in particular. “And your companions, did they go down mit the ship?”

Matey stepped forward. Bowing his head in a way meant to convey both sadness and respect, he spoke in a broken voice. “I ‘spect they did, Sir. Quick as she sank, there wasn’t no time to lower the boats. Our’n had scarcely touched the water ‘fore the deck tilted and I meself was flung into the sea.”

“Vhat a tragedy! Do you think your captain vas to blame, Meneer Bryant?”

“Oh, no, Governor,” Will said with a fine show of loyalty. “‘Twas the heavy seas, with nothing more to be done than what he’d done. When lightning hit the mast, well, that was that. Master Pippin here was cabin boy, and the last in our bunch to see the captain.”

Thus cued, Pip spoke with trembling emotion. “He gave a compass, chart, and quadrant into me hand and said to me, go into the boat with the Bryants and their children. I barely had time to do as I was bid ‘fore the ship slid sideways and them not already in the boat went falling every which way.”

“These worthy seamen,” Will cut in, motioning to Luke, Cox, Matey, Scrapper and Bados, “got washed from the deck close at hand so we fished them out. What with the wildness of the sea and the night so black, ‘twere no more we could do.”

Wanjon nodded, seemingly satisfied with the recitation, and motioned to the servant to come forward and serve the glasses of cognac. Mary darted a quick glance at James and saw that he was pleased with the way the men had delivered the lines he had taught them.

“Tell me, Meneer Bryant,” the governor addressed Will. “Are you villing to vork vhile you vait for a ship to England?”

“Yes, indeed, Governor,” Will assured him. “Cox here was ship’s carpenter, and a fine one he is. I’m a seafaring man myself, but I know fishing. If you could supply us with nets and such, I’ll take these other boys and we’ll bring in a right good catch.”

“I vill do it,” the governor said, looking sternly pleased. And to James, “The accountant of the Dutch East India Company took sick three months ago, and is not yet himself. Perhaps you vould care to assist in his office?”

“With great pleasure, Governor. I would be most grateful for the opportunity.”

Wanjon’s gaze moved to Bados. Apparently seeing nothing amiss in the fact that Bados had not been served a drink, he asked, “Vhat about you, boy?”

“I fish, Sir,” Bados replied in his deep, rich voice.

“Our men are never idle when there is work to do,” Mary attested quickly.

“Indeed, Mevrouw. No one is idle in this colony,” Wanjon said coldly.

Although a simple statement of fact, Mary took it as a rebuke. Wanjon had conversed with her readily enough when they were alone, but she sensed his displeasure at her speaking up now that there were other men present, and so she said nothing more.

Wanjon spent barely half an hour with them, his grey-blue gaze falling first on one and then another. Mary noticed that when a comment or gesture satisfied him, the stern look was often accompanied by a slight nod of approval, and when it did not, the eyes narrowed with skepticism or displeasure.

“On the morrow,” he said to the group at large, “Meneer Bruger will accompany First Mate Bryant to acquire the supplies needed to outfit your boat for fishing. And you, Meneer Cox, if you are so inclined, might go with him to a carpentry shop where you will be offered work.”

Apparently satisfied by the nods and murmurs of agreement, Wanjon ordered a servant to have the cart brought around to take the men back to the barracks where, he informed them, dinner would be served in due time, to supplement the hastily-prepared meal they had been given upon arrival.

As James started for the door with the others, Wanjon said, “Perhaps, Meneer Brown, you vould care to join First Mate Bryant and his good vife at my table tonight, that ve might have an opportunity to discuss your interim employment with the Dutch East India Company.”

It was not put as a question, any more than his instructions to the others had been. James understood as much, and responded diffidently, “It would be an honour, Governor.”

After Wanjon left the room, Bruger further clarified what was expected of James by adding, “Dinner will be at eight o’clock, making it not worthwhile to return to the barracks. Perhaps you would care to visit with the Bryants in their quarters until the appointed hour.”

So James went with Will and Mary along the corridor leading back to their bedroom. Mira greeted them at the door with a finger to her lips, and pointed to the children, curled up like kittens and fast asleep in one of the great beds. Then she slipped out, saying she would return to let them know when dinner was served. Mary motioned to the men to pass through the room and out onto the veranda, so as to not disturb the children.

“Ain’t we done well!” Will gloated, as he flopped into a chair at the small table on the veranda. “The governor’s a sour old puss, but that’s the way with all them high mucky-mucks. Amazing generous he is for a Hollander.”

“Let’s hope we don’t have to spend much time in his company,” James said in a worried voice. “Did you notice how he judged our men by the way they handled their liquor?”

“How’s that?” Will asked in surprise. “Why, wasn’t nothing served but them wee glasses filled one time over. My Emanuel could handle that much!”

“It was not how much they drank, but how,” James explained carefully. “A well-brought up person would sip slowly, savouring the smell as well as the taste, and smiling a little, to show some appreciation. The lower classes, and heavy boozers of any class, gulp it down the way Matey did. Chances are the governor will not mix with them socially again, but you might warn them to not guzzle in public, even if they are given the chance.”

“Aye, I better do that,” Will agreed.

Mary said nothing, but she recalled how Will, while not downing his drink in a single gulp like Matey, had polished it off in a couple of swallows, and that had caused a narrowing of the governor’s eyes. Thus she understood James’s warning to be not for the men but for Will, who would shortly be dining with the governor.

Talk then turned to conditions where the men were quartered. They had been fed immediately, Will told Mary, then taken to a large room in the barracks. There were cots covered in clean linen, with a small chest along side for each man’s belongings—not that any of them had much to call his own.

“I left the musket and ammunition, and some other stuff in the boat for safe-keeping,” Will informed Mary. “I was afeared that if I brought it out, Bruger might take a mind to confiscate it. As it stands, he promised the cutter will be well-watched, and none allowed to set foot on her without my leave.”

“That was a wise decision,” Mary agreed, although she knew, perhaps even before the thought occurred to her husband, that he might one day decide to sell or trade the gun for rum.

A similarly wise decision she herself had made for, in the small bundle she had brought with her, which contained her own and the children’s rags, she had concealed the quadrant, chart, and compass. Unbeknownst to Will, they were now hidden under the bed, and would remain there until she had an opportunity to slip them to Bados.

It was full dark when Mira appeared, announcing dinner and saying she would sit with the children until Mary’s return. As they walked along the corridor behind the servant sent to guide them, James murmured to Will, “Don’t forget, when we are to be seated, to pull out the chair for your wife.”

“What?” Will chortled. “These fine clothes made it so she can’t do for herself?”

James gave a good-natured laugh. “You didn’t notice how heavy the furniture is around here? No three-legged stools will we find at the governor’s table. Sure any woman can pull out her own chair, making a horrible racket and gouging the floor in the process. Weak old men do the same. But a man with good muscle under his sleeves makes that known to other men present by lifting the chair and moving it out quietly for any lady standing nearby.”

This was as much news to Mary as to Will, and caused in her a mounting tension. If they did not know the rules for so much as how to swallow a drink or sit down at the table, how much more had life’s experiences not taught them, which might inform the governor of things about their origins that they needed to conceal?

Mary was spared the strain of making conversation during much of the meal, for Wanjon was more interested in the men. From Will he elicited a credible description of the captain of the ship presumed to have been lost, it having been previously decided that the fictional captain would be modelled on Captain Phillip, whom they had had plenty of time to observe on the crossing. Then Wanjon turned his attention to James, with a discussion clearly meant to determine just how accomplished an accountant James was. It was not until the end of dinner that the governor directed a question to Mary.

“What part of England do you hail from, Mevrouw Bryant?”

“Cornwall, Sir. As does my husband. We are both of us from seafaring families.”

“No doubt they will be overjoyed to hear of your survival of this recent disaster.”

The comment caused such a rush of emotions in Mary that she blanched, and for a second or two could not speak. Then she gathered herself together and said, “My father was lost at sea some seven years ago, and my mother passed away five years back.”

“I am so sorry to hear that.” Wanjon frowned as if something about her statement puzzled him, and asked, “Your father was lost at sea, and yet you did not fear coming abroad with your children on a voyage of long duration?”

Mary laid down the spoon with which she had been stirring sugar into her coffee, and said, carefully, “My father died at sea, and my mother fell ill on land. I did not take it to be the sea or the land that killed them, but rather, that their time had come.” She paused, and when the others remained silent, she added, “A few weeks ago I thought our time had come, but” she smiled across the table at the governor, “here we are.”

As with their earlier meeting, when the governor was ready to conclude the dinner, he said a stiff goodnight and left it to the servants to show them out. One went to bring up a cart to take James back to the barracks. Mary and Will lingered with him, discussing the evening in low tones.

“I think he was favourably impressed,” James said. “But I would not want to endure this ordeal every night!”

“Neither would I!” Will muttered. “Why, the victuals they served up to us in the barracks when we first come in was three times as hearty as this one!”

“Once I see how things are done at the office, I shall try to arrange to work evenings, thus making it inconvenient to dine with him at his accustomed hour,” James decided. “And you, Will, might want to claim that the crew members are still distraught over the loss of the ship and their mates, and they need you around to steady them. Or something like that.”

Will nodded. Then, as if on cue, both men turned to Mary.

“I’ll use the children as an excuse,” she said. “I can say that, although they’re cheerful enough by day, the night gives rise to nightmares related to the wreck.”

“Perfect,” James approved. “Wanjon doesn’t strike me as a very sociable character, and probably prefers to maintain his established routine. Our excuses will relieve him of any obligation he might feel to dine with us on a regular basis.”

A horse-drawn conveyance—not the cart in which they had been brought earlier, but a fine two-wheeled buggy—rolled up the circular driveway and stopped at the foot of the steps. James climbed in and disappeared into the darkness, leaving Will and Mary to return to their room. Leaving Mary to face the moment she had most dreaded since their arrival.

*

She waited until Mira had said goodnight and she heard the girl’s footsteps fade away. Will was already pulling his boots off. “Damned things put a blister on my heel and I ain’t walked a mile in ‘em yet,” he complained. He looked up at Mary with a gleam in his eye. “How come you’re not here along side me already, woman? Never had such a bed as this, now have we?”

“It does beat that wet sand where we spent our first night in Botany Bay,” Mary smiled. Then sobered. “But you’ll have this bed to yourself, Will, whilst I sleep with the children.”

The boot he had just removed dropped to the floor with a thud. He stared at her in astonishment. “What might you be meaning by that, my girl?”

“I think you understand,” Mary said quietly. “I made half the crossing with a child inside me, gave birth on the high seas, and landed to an uncertain fate with a baby in my arms. I’m not going through that all over again on the way back, not with two already to tend.”

“What about me?” he howled. “Have you given no thought to what I been through without no woman for nigh on to three months?”

“I have.” Mary bowed her head. “And I am truly ashamed to withhold that comfort from you, my lawful wedded husband. But I tell you straight, this trip is using all the strength I’ve got. I can’t be taking on one burden more.”

“Lawful wedded husband! Ha!” He jerked off his second boot, dropped it on the floor, and flung himself onto the bed. “Where’d you get that notion? Ain’t none in Botany Bay ever got wedded in the law! How could they’ve been, with no publishing of the banns?”

He glared a moment, waiting to see how she took the news. Mary flinched, but held her tongue.

“Ain’t you got nothing to say to that?” he demanded.

“I’d say we might leave this aside for now, seeing as how we’ve got to keep up the appearance of man and wife to maintain our freedom. I’d say it’s been a long and wearing day. I’d say you might be wanting to get some rest right now, as you’re due to meet with Bruger soon after sunup.”

With that Mary snuffed the candle and stepped out onto the veranda. The warm night air held the scent of unfamiliar flowers and just a little of the sea’s salty smell. Thoughts ran through her head, so tangled with emotions that she had trouble sorting them out. She did not love Will, had never loved him, but she felt an enormous sense of obligation. Not because they were married—if they were—but because he had saved her on the night of their landing. Was her engineering their escape from the penal colony payment enough for that, or did she owe him the rest of her life? And if she did, what was that life worth to her? For she knew full well that she had refused to lie with him not only to protect herself from pregnancy, but because she preferred another.

As she stood there in the tropical night air with a breeze caressing her skin, another thought surfaced which so surprised her that she turned it over in her mind a few times to determine its validity. She had expected Will to be violently angry, even to the point of taking her by force; an act against which she had no defence. Now, replaying the moment in her head, she realised that although he had been angry, he had accepted her decision with surprising acquiescence. His only retort, really, had been that bit about not being lawfully married. Offensive as it was, it had come as no shock. Back in Botany Bay, Will often bragged that as soon as his time was served, he expected to become a wealthy man by selling fish in the colony. The boast included a declaration that once he acquired some wealth he would be a man about town, not bound to any one woman.

Was this, then, where Will imagined himself to be? That, having vaulted into freedom, he was now poised on the brink of becoming an affluent businessman, if not in Botany Bay, then here in Kupang? In going about the city with Bruger, had those beautiful Indonesian women caught his eye and ignited his fantasy?

Exhausted as she was from the day just ending, which had brought more changes of scenery, more encounters with strangers, more new customs and new experiences than she might have had in a year back in Botany Bay, Mary suddenly felt her emotional turmoil subside. Marriage vows or no, Will’s possible lack of commitment made her own longing to be free seem less shameful. She tuned her ear to the bedroom. Hearing Will’s even breathing, she slipped out of her sarong and slid into the other bed beside her children. Within seconds she was sleeping as soundly as he.

*

Mary woke to a tapping. The children stirred beside her. Will was nowhere to be seen.

“Mevrouw?” It was Mira’s voice, coming from beyond the door.

Mary called out that she was awake and Mira came in, followed by a servant bearing a tray of food. As before, it was carried out to the little table on the veranda.

While the servant took the children in hand and got them into their clothes and to the table to help themselves to whatever caught their fancy, Mira helped Mary do up her sarong and brought a basin of water for her to wash her face.

Mary had known of servants who cleaned, as she herself had done for doctors, but in her experience, personal services such as Mira now insisted on providing were limited to what mothers did for small children, or what one might do for an invalid. She tried, as she had the previous day, to persuade Mira to let her do for herself, but Mira would have none of it.

At last, in a small struggle for the comb over who should do her hair, Mira cried out in frustration, “Mevrouw, please! Gouverneur Wanjon orders me do for you as for his wife! One who disobeys our gouverneur is punished!”

It was only then that Mary understood that the Indonesian girl was acting under orders. And that Wanjon had—“A wife?” Mary echoed. “Where is this wife?”

“Ah, the fever took her three years ago,” Mira explained. “Gouverneur Wanjon have no more wife.”

Thereafter Mary did not protest the personal services which Mira felt bound to provide. Having no knowledge of the lives of the upper classes, she did not know it was commonplace for ladies to require such attentions of a maid and, had anyone told her, she would not have believed it. Personally, she found the fussing excessive, and supposed it to be the result of Mira having been trained to look after an invalid woman. But she did not want to interfere with the girl’s training or get her in trouble with her employer, so once again she adopted the compliance exhibited by her contented children, and let Mira do as she wished.

What Mira wished that day was for Mary to come with her to town to purchase fabric to make new clothes for the children. This Mary was thrilled to do, for her children had never owned any garment made from fabric not previously used, first for transporting supplies to the colony, then as clothing for one of their parents. Only when that had gone to rags would the material be patched together into some sort of garment for one of the children.

As Mira guided her along the bustling commercial district, Mary’s head swivelled from side to side, eyes wide with astonishment at all the things on offer. When at last they entered a fabric store and Mira told her to select what she wanted, Mary simply shook her head and said, “You must choose, Mira. I cannot.”

This delighted Mira, who conducted the whole transaction in her own language. When Mary asked about payment, Mira explained that “the King of England would pay.” This was her understanding of charges drawn on the Crown on behalf of the shipwreck survivors.

As they walked further along the street, Mary heard her name called. She turned and saw Cox smiling from the doorway of a carpentry shop, a dusting of sawdust down the front of his new shirt.

“Don’t you look the part of a native!” he greeted her. “But for that crown o’ golden hair wound around your head.” He lowered his voice, and said, “I’m to get a little pay for this work above and beyond my keep. I’m thinking to buy my Florie one of them kind of gowns.” He gestured to the sarongs Mary and Mira were wearing, his eyes settling on Mira. “She’s about her size, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yes,” Mary agreed, and explained to Mira, “Cox has a wife the same size as you. He wants to take her a dress like yours.”

“Kain panjang,” Mira corrected, beaming at the
compliment. “You take her two, one for working wear, one for holidays.”

“Right you are,” Cox laughed, and added, with a wink at Mary, “Can’t you see my girl on her way to church of a Sunday morning, rigged out in one of these South Seas outfits?”

Cox was called back into the shop, and the women walked on. Mira pointed to an upstairs window in the largest building on the street and said, “Mr. Brown, he working there.”

Mary looked up and saw James’s head bent over his work, but he did not glance out the window to notice her passing.

Mary told Mira that, because the wreck had happened at night, the children were having nightmares and she did not wish to leave them after dark. She asked Mira to explain this to the governor, and apparently she did, for that day and each day thereafter, meals were brought from the kitchen and served in their quarters. Mary did not see Will from dawn to dark, and presumed he was taking his meals with the men in the barracks. By the time he came in at night, she was in bed with the children, either asleep or pretending to be.

Once Mary had finished sewing decent clothing for the children—sewing being a skill her mother had taught her well—she spent a good deal of time with them out of doors, letting them run about, climb trees, and frolic on the lawn. She occasionally saw Wanjon observing them from an upstairs balcony, as he had on the day of their arrival. He seemed to confine himself to the opposite wing of the house from where she was, leaving it only when a carriage was brought round to take him into town. Thus, without going out of her way to avoid him, a whole week passed when she but occasionally glimpsed him.

She became increasingly comfortable in her new
surroundings, bothered only by the lack of anything to do. Toward the end of the first week she discovered the kitchen and took to spending a good deal of time there, curious to see how the cook, aided by Siti, prepared her exquisite concoctions, often with ingredients which Mary had never seen before.

On one such day, as Mary sat in a corner of the kitchen with Emanuel in her lap, eating from a plate of delicacies the cook had given her to share with the children, she heard suppressed laughter and conspiratorial whispers approaching from outside. A moment later Pip and Mira burst into the kitchen. Mira snatched a fried shrimp from a plate at the cook’s elbow and popped it into Pip’s mouth. He grabbed her by the wrist and pretended to eat her fingers as well, causing them both to dissolve into giggles. They did not notice Mary sitting in a dimly-lit corner, perhaps because they had eyes only for each other. Mira had just turned to steal another shrimp for Pip, when Wanjon’s voice came through the open door.

“Acht, Mira, there you are! And you, Cabin Boy, you are here too? Vhat do you vant?”

It was a question that Mary might have asked, had she had the opportunity. She held her breath, hoping Pip would have a good answer. His frightened look and suddenly stiff posture suggested that he might not. But she had underestimated the boy.

Drawing up to his whole small height, Pip said, “I was wanting to help in your kitchen, Sir. I am very good about the house, Sir.”

“Ve don’t use vhite boys for such vork,” Wanjon said bluntly.

“I can do most anything,” Pip persisted. “If my captain was here he would vouch for me. Why, I did everything about his cabin, and in the galley, too, whatever he bade me do, Sir, on account of what I don’t know how to do, I’m fair quick to learn.”

“Is this so?” Wanjon said. Then, without waiting for Pip to answer, he said, “You make a good pot of tea, maybe?”

“Oh, aye, sir, I can make tea,” Pip fairly squeaked with relief. “That I can do.”

“Vell, this my Siti has not mastered, not like the English. Mevrouw Bryant, I think she vould like good tea.” To Mira he said, “As the hour approaches, you will ask Mevrouw Bryant to join me for tea. If she accept, you, Cabin Boy, make this tea, and Mira, you vill mind the kinder.”

“Aye, aye, Sir! Right away, Sir!” Pip’s voice followed the sound of Wanjon’s steps echoing away.

It was only then, as Charlotte dashed forward and flung herself around one of Pip’s legs, and Emanuel toddled over to grab the other, that Pip realised Mary was in the room.

“Oh, Miss Mary!” he exulted, picking up Emanuel and giving him a great hug. “Did you hear that? Can you show me how to make tea in the right English way? I never done such a thing, and me mum died so long ago, I don’t remember how she did it.”

Mary rose, laughing, from the bench where she’d been sitting. “The same as Siti makes it, only be sure the water is boiling hard. Rinse the pot and the cups, too, with boiling water. Then put in the leaves and boiling water, and serve it that very minute. It’s waiting about that turns the tea cool and bitter.”

“He’ll think I knew all along!” Pip crowed. Again his hand went out to touch Mira as if her presence was some sort of miracle, and physical touch was needed to confirm that she was not a mirage.

Tea was served on the upstairs veranda about an hour before sunset. Mary had dreaded again sitting across the table from the governor, and her apprehension grew when she realised that it would only be the two of them. But conversation proved less difficult than she expected. She adopted the child’s trick of asking questions, which had worked so well with Captain Smit, thereby guiding the conversation toward subjects which did not require her to reveal or invent a great deal about herself and her companions. Wanjon responded to her questions with long-winded commentaries on the history of the Dutch East India company, and descriptions of various places he had served. Just prior to coming to Kupang, he had been in Batavia, which he called “a virtual cesspool of disease.” Mary knew from Mira that it was his wife’s ill health that had caused him to petition the company for a transfer to the more healthful city of Kupang. But either the move came too late or the illness was too strong, for here his wife had been buried.

As clouds along the horizon flamed with sunset colours, Wanjon rose and invited Mary to stand at the railing and watch the sun slip into the sea. The view from the balconied veranda was indeed breathtaking.

“’Tis like a prayer,” Mary murmured. “If there be such a thing as a prayer without words.”

Wanjon frowned, perplexed. “In what way does it resemble prayer?”

When Mary made the statement she had not been prepared to put the notion into words, and struggled to find a few which approximated what she meant. “Well, there’s the feeling of gratitude that wells up in one’s heart, that such beauty exists. And a sense of wanting to make oneself worthy. Is this not something of what we’re meant to feel in prayer?”

Wanjon did not respond, but turned again to stare at the multicoloured sky. Mary could not know what he was thinking, and hoped she hadn’t offended him. It seemed she had not for, when he adjourned their hour of sociability, he invited her to join him on the morrow at the same hour. Thus began a ritual of afternoon tea several times a week. It was stressful for Mary at first, but became less so as the weeks wore on.

They had been in Kupang almost two months when Will came clumping into their room one evening a little earlier than usual, just before Mary snuffed the candle. He did not greet her, but went directly to his own bed and began to undress. With his back to her, he asked, “You got any notion where that darky’s got to?”

“Who? Bados?” Mary responded in surprise. “Why, didn’t he show up to go out on the boat today?”

“Not today nor for a whole week gone by,” Will informed her.

“A week!” Mary exclaimed. “Has no one seen him about town?”

“Would I be asking you if they had?” Will retorted grumpily. “Cox is right there in the middle of everything, and James can see for a good long ways from where he sits. Said last they seen of him was more’n a week ago. Not that they been looking. Figured him to be out on the boat with Matey and Scrapper and Luke and me.”

“Does he not sleep in the barracks with the other men?”

“Nay, not from the beginning. The Hollanders wouldn’t have a black amongst them, so he was put somewhere else, out with some natives. Don’t none of them speak English, nor the Hollanders either, but for Bruger, and I didn’t want to say nothing to him. Not yet, anyway.”

Will flopped onto his bed with an exasperated sigh. “You’d think Bados would be more dependable than that, after we went and brought him with us. And Pip, too, the pipsqueak. I asked him where he got to and he told me the governor’s put him to work here in the house. I can’t hardly put up a fuss, saying as how Pip’s part of my crew and I’m needing him on the boat, not if the governor’s taken a mind to put him into service here. Though why he’d want the boy hanging around here I can’t imagine, when the old fart’s got natives all over the place hopping to his beck and call.”

Mary said nothing to that, although she knew full well the use to which Pip had been put. When she had mentioned to the governor over tea that Pip had assisted in looking after the children during their long and difficult voyage as castaways, the governor had set him the task of minding the children as well as preparing their afternoon tea.

Mary assumed that the governor had done this because Mira, although she continued to provide personal services for Mary according to her own sense of what was required, was also relied upon by Wanjon for a variety of other services. He probably did not want her tied up with childcare all day long. It wasn’t that the children were difficult, for they were generally quiet and easily satisfied. But as Mira had made clear at the very beginning, they, or more accurately the area in which they played, must be watched carefully, for Kupang was home to many poisonous snakes. Given that warning, Mary welcomed Pip’s help with the children, and they, of course, were happy to have him inventing and sharing in their games.

“You don’t really need Pip and Bados, do you?” Mary inquired of Will. “Naturally it’s easier to have a man for each oar, but you and the three you’ve got, you’re the best of the lot.”

She knew as she spoke that this was not strictly true; plausible only in the case of Pip, who was small for his seventeen years, and not as strong as the men. Bados, though, was as strong as any two, and had rowing skills to match his strength. Will had guessed as much at the beginning, which was why Bados was selected for his fishing crew in the first place. But Mary was fairly certain that Will would never admit to the black man being a better sailor than himself, Luke, Matey, and Scrapper.

“‘Course I don’t need them,” Will huffed. “I just expected some loyalty, I surely did, after all I done for them.”

“Maybe the governor gave Bados some other assignment, the same as he did with Pip,” Mary suggested, “and he had no choice in the matter.”

“Aye,” Will replied, sounding somewhat mollified. “That could be what happened. It’s not like I can go questioning old Sour Puss. Even Bruger acts like I’m speaking out of turn when I remark this or that to him. Capt’n Phillip, when he got to be governor of the colony, never acted so high and mighty as that Bruger does when he’s out and about the docks.”

“Well, with a little luck we shan’t be here much longer,” Mary said, and blew out the candle.

“Prayin’ to God that’s our luck!” Will echoed the sentiment. Then added, as an afterthought, “I bet Bados turns up quick enough when an English ship puts into port.”

“Very likely,” Mary said, although she did not think it likely at all. But it seemed even less likely that Bados would have left Kupang without the navigational tools promised him.

The next day, as her hair was being braided, it occurred to Mary that Mira was often sent to town on errands; so she might have seen Bados or would know where he was staying.

“You remember the black man who arrived with us?” Mary asked

“Yes, Mevrouw.”

“Have you seen him about?”

The hands stopped, and for a moment held taut the braid without moving. Then, “No, Mevrouw.”

“Have you heard anyone speak of him? Someone who might know where he is?”

This time Mira let go of the braid entirely, picked up the hand-held looking glass, and said, “Maybe today we make the braids go a different way, loops by ears, and not over the top?”

Mary took the looking glass from the girl’s hand and laid it back on the dressing table. “Mira,” she said. “I have something that belongs to Bados. It is very important. If you know where he is, you must take me there.”

“Maybe I find him, I take things,” Mira suggested brightly.

“No, you take me to him,” Mary insisted. Then added, “Don’t worry, Mira. If Bados doesn’t want anyone to know where he is, I won’t tell. But he is my friend. I must see him.”

Mira hesitated, then shrugged, and said, “Tomorrow we walk to town. Maybe we see somebody who know him. Maybe not.”

Although Mary repeatedly suggested that they walk to town to look for Bados, Mira kept finding excuses until Mary hinted that she might ask Governor Wanjon to find someone else to accompany her. Mira immediately agreed to go with her, confirming Mary’s suspicion that the governor had told Mira from the start to accompany her to town whenever she wished to go.

Pip was left in charge of the children and they set off. They were about halfway along the crowded main shopping area when, far up ahead, something caught Mira’s eye. At first Mary did not know who or what it was, but after a quarter hour of being sometimes hurried along and sometimes slowed down as Mira appeared to dawdle, she realised that they were following someone. The person was a statuesque Indonesian woman. Her height, added to by a basket on her head, made her easy to see at a distance. She soon left the main street and followed a narrow side street which, at the edge of town, became a mere trail.

Mira and Mary continued to follow at a distance, often losing sight of the woman. But as they were now on the trail, which wound through dense vegetation, the direction she had taken seemed fairly definite. Mary, like Mira, hiked up the skirt of her sarong in order to walk faster, for keeping up with the athletic stride of the taller woman was no easy matter.

At one point Mary, drenched in perspiration and totally out of breath, begged Mira to stop and let her rest. Mira complied, saying only, “I see now. We go to the lagoon.”

Mary took that to mean that Mira had figured out where the woman was going and no longer needed to keep her in sight. “Who is this woman we’re following?” she asked.

“Inah. She fisher woman.”

After resting a moment, Mary walked on. Now ahead of Mira, she kept her eyes on the narrow trail, for the vegetation was thick and she was mindful of the venomous serpents said to inhabit this region. She looked up only when a brightness indicated a clearing ahead. As the last low branches parted to give her a view of the open area, she stopped so suddenly that Mira stepped on her heel. The girl murmured an apology which Mary scarcely heard.

A turquoise lagoon glittered in the late morning sun. On the near side was a crescent of white sand, and on the far side, a small hill topped by two or three native huts. The same sort of forested, vine-trailing tropical vegetation through which they had been walking surrounded the area. However, all of those details escaped Mary’s notice. Her eyes were riveted on the woman, standing with her back to them, about twenty yards away. Basket, sandals, and sarong now lay on the sand. For a few seconds the woman stood there, every curve and muscle of back and buttocks highlighted in the sun. Then she flung herself forward in a shallow dive and began to swim toward a dugout canoe floating in the lagoon.

A man in the dugout stood, untied a loincloth wrap from around his hips, and likewise dove into the water. In the second he stood there with his naked, muscular body exposed to Mary’s view, she registered his colour—not copper like the woman, but ebony. Bados, of course. The two swimmers came together in the water and, taking hold of each other, began to play, bringing their faces together, sinking below the surface, rising, caressing, and kissing. After a few minutes of intimate frolic, they swam alongside the dugout, one on either side, and began drawing it toward the shore.

Mira whispered, “We go now. Come another day!”

“Yes!” Mary exclaimed, and turned to follow her back down the trail.

But their movement must have caught Inah’s eye, for she called out sharply, in Indonesian. Mira stopped in her tracks and stood for a moment, trembling. Then she turned around, walked out into the clearing, and called to the woman. Mary heard her name in the conversation that followed, and so came forward to stand next to Mira.

“Bados!” she called. “I’ve come to visit. Do you want us to come back another time?”

Bados’s rich deep laughter rolled across the water toward her. “No, you stay, Mary. But maybe you turn round for a minute, give me time to cover my middle parts.”

Blushing, Mary did as he suggested, and waited till he called her name before turning back to face him. By then, Bados stood on the beach, wearing a wrap-around cloth which covered him from waist to thigh. Inah came out of the water quite naked and, hand on one hip, let loose a torrent of Indonesian at Mira.

As Mira responded, Inah picked up her sarong from the sand, shook it off, and proceeded to dress. Mira rushed forward to help her tie the sarong, but Inah brushed her hands away as if they were bothersome insects.

“So this is where you’ve been keeping yourself, Bados!” Mary exclaimed.

“You not be giving me away to the others, will you, Mary?”

“Of course not!” Mary assured him. She glanced toward Inah, whose conversation with Mira seemed somewhat unfriendly. “What is she saying?”

“Can’t tell,” Bados replied. “I don’t know Timor talk, just a few words. And Inah speak no English. But she my woman now.”

“Is that so?” Mary laughed. “If you don’t speak the same language, how do you know she’s your woman?”

“Is true,” Mira confirmed. “Inah say me she keep this big man.”

“Inah be coming with me to that island, Mary. I need the chart and compass.”

“Do you remember how to use them?” Mary asked.

“I remember everything James showed me. I take them, I take the boat, and Inah and me, we go back to that island.”

“Are you sure she understands what you have in mind?” Mary asked doubtfully. She looked at Mira. “Ask Inah. Does she understand Bados wants to take her to a distant island?”

There was another rapid-fire exchange in Indonesian, then Mira translated to Mary. “She say if he has a big boat, she go with him wherever he wants to go.”

“You know Will’s using the boat for fishing,” Mary reminded Bados. “And just the two of you, when there are six oars to manage—are you sure you can handle it?”

“I take that boat.” Bados repeated stubbornly.

“Inah has many brothers,” Mira explained. “Brothers have wives. Some tired of these Dutch, make life in Kupang so hard. Their boats small, like that.” She motioned to the dugout in the lagoon. “Can’t go far. But in a big one . . .” Mira shrugged.

“I see. All right, Bados. I’ll bring the compass and chart as soon as I can. But you be careful when you take that boat. It’s well-guarded at night, and if they catch you—,”Mary’s voice and eyes reflected her concern.

“Don’t you worry for me, Mary,” Bados interrupted kindly. “I already know what they do to a black man when he go stealing cucumbers from a kitchen garden. Nobody have to speak about how short my life be if I get caught stealing that boat you already stole. But they’ll not catch me this time. I be getting back to that island or death take me in the act.”

Inah spoke sharply to Mira again in Indonesian, and again Mary requested translation. Mira, looking more frightened than before, said, “She said we must not tell that Bados is here. If we do, she will put a spell on us and we will die.”

Bados laughed and wagged a finger at Inah. She caught it and bit it playfully, but with enough force to let him know that she was not intimidated.

Mary was not bothered by Inah’s threat, since she had no intention of telling anyone. What concerned her was the realisation that perhaps too much had been said already in Mira’s presence. She gave the girl a worried look. “You will not speak of this to anyone, will you, Mira?”

Mira shook her head. “No, Mary. I want no spell on me. But this talk,” she drew a circle with her finger to include all of them, “very dangerous!”

Bados nodded, then did a surprising thing. He took Mira’s hand and Mary’s, and laid one on top of the other. Then he reached for Inah’s hand, which he put on top of Mira’s and Mary’s, and finally he placed his own hands, top and bottom. Mary knew no custom such as this and, by the puzzled looks on the faces of the other women, surmised that they did not either. Still, the message was clear: that they were together in this conspiracy, and must trust one another.

Given that some in this little circle were virtual strangers to others, she did not know how much trust there could be. But it did not seem that they had any choice.

Mary and Mira walked back to town more slowly than they had come. Despite shade cast by the dense forest, the heat was stifling. Although Mary tried to banish images of Bados’s and Inah’s nudity from her mind, they lingered and thrilled her. She had once seen a picture that depicted Adam and Eve in the nude, eyes downcast, hands covering their private parts. The painting conveyed neither Eden’s paradisiacal qualities nor the couple’s pleasure at being there. Yet the unashamed nudity of Bados and Inah had conveyed both paradise and pleasure, along with a sense of freedom. And all of it as far removed from her own life as a return to the Garden of Eden.

They had reached town and were passing through Kupang’s commercial centre when James leaned out the window of his office, and called, “Mrs. Bryant, a moment if you please, that I might have a word with you.”

Mary stood in a slim strip of shade cast by the building, and waited with apprehension, for she had caught something of anxiety in James’ voice, and knew it must be serious for him to hail her in public.

When James reached her side, he glanced at Mira in a way which indicated a desire to speak to Mary in private. The girl tactfully wandered a few yards away to gaze into a shop window, although, Mary suspected, not so far that she couldn’t overhear what was being said.

“I am sorry to convey bad news,” James said hurriedly. “But Will has been brawling down at the docks, in plain view of everyone.”

“When was this?” Mary asked in dismay.

“Yesterday. As I heard the story, they came in with a good catch and were unloading it when Matey started drinking from a bottle of rum he had stashed on the boat. Will ordered him to wait until the fish was delivered, and they got into a fist fight in front of a crowd there on the dock.” James drew a breath. “That’s not the worst of it, Mary. Apparently they screamed obscenities at each other which included references to Botany Bay!”

“Oh no!” Mary gasped. “And word of this has spread already?”

“I don’t know how much was understood by the bystanders,” James admitted. “Bruger, of course, speaks English but he wasn’t there, and got the story second hand. I heard him later, in the hall outside my office, reporting the incident to Wanjon.”

“What did he say?” Mary asked, her chest tight with apprehension.

“Only that the fight was broken up by Luke before the gendarmes arrived. Bruger asked Wanjon if he should take further action, but the governor said that would be awkward, given that you and Will are guests in his house. Then—and here is the part that alarmed me, Mary—Bruger said that Bryant and his men have more knowledge of lowlife than seafaring. So their rough ways have been noticed! Wanjon brushed that off, saying, ‘All Englishmen are lowlife. Such as Bryant would never be an officer in the Dutch navy.’”

James paused, and added, “There was one more thing, Mary, and you can take pride in this. Wanjon said that the wife—meaning you—‘is very gracious.’”

Mary was silent for a minute, mulling over what he had told her. “I suppose I haven’t made any serious missteps in his presence. But what about Matey? What shall we do?”

“I don’t know. Will could put a stop to it, but he won’t. Once the day’s catch is in, he matches Matey drink for drink.” James took a deep breath. “It is a certainty that from now on all our men will be watched. When Bruger asked if he should take any action, Wanjon said, ‘We will wait. A fool is never a fool only once.’ I shudder to think what might happen if they get rowdy again, or loose-lipped.”

“I will speak to him,” Mary promised. “But I doubt it will do any good.” She hesitated, and added, “We are, in a sense, estranged from one another. Will leaves before I wake in the morning, and rarely returns before the wee hours.”

“I understand,” James nodded. “But do try. I will talk to Matey, for in drink it is he who sets the pace. Will, and Scrapper, of course, follow his lead, and Cox is a hard drinker as well. Then Luke is not to be left out, so he goes along with them. Bados and Pip are the only ones I’ve not seen around, drinking to the point of foolishness.”

Mary glanced toward Mira with a slight smile. “Pip has been otherwise occupied. Bados as well.”

“Ah yes.” James’ eyes slanted with humour. “I saw Bados following a magnificent Indonesian woman a few weeks back. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen him since.”

Mira wandered back toward them, and Mary guessed, from the overly-innocent look on the girl’s face, that she had overheard at least some of their conversation. “Mira,” she asked directly, “Did you know about my husband’s fight on the boat yesterday?”

“Yes, Mevrouw.”

“Did the governor speak of it to you?”

“No, Mevrouw. He does not speak of such things to me.” Mira hesitated, then added, “I think he does not want trouble for your husband.”

“The governor is a kind man,” Mary acknowledged. “I’m sure he would not make trouble for us. What I am afraid of is that my husband will make trouble for himself.”

*

Mary did not talk to Will that night, as she had promised to do, because he did not return to their room. This she discovered when she woke from a dream, a dream in which it was she, not Bados, standing in the canoe, feeling freer than she had ever felt before and not concerned about her nudity, not even aware that she was nude until she was in the water with James, wrapped in his skin as he was in hers.

She woke damp, but it was the salty wetness of her own perspiration, not that of the lovely lagoon. Dawn had already greyed the sky. The coverlet on Will’s bed was smooth, as the maid had left it, which indicated that he had not returned. Mary slipped out of bed and went to stand on the veranda, watching the sunrise. She ached with longing for the kind of freedom Bados and Inah seemed to have, and she envied Mira, who could at least share touches and laugher with the man she loved. Yet she, who had brought them this close to their dreams, still languished oceans away from the fulfilment of her own.

Mary saw Bados once more, about a week after her first visit. This time she found him sitting on a bench next to one of the huts across the lagoon. He was playing his flute—a newly made one, Mary noticed—while Inah accompanied him on a stringed instrument that resembled a lute. The pair continued to play as Mary and Mira approached, and laid aside the instruments only when they were standing before them. Mira applauded delicately. Mary unwrapped the navigational instruments from her seledang and handed them to Bados.

Bados turned to Inah. “You see. I told you she would bring them.” He motioned to Mira. “You tell Inah, Mary is our friend.”

Mira made the translation, then said, shyly, “I also your friend, Bados.”

He grinned. “If you didn’t tell anybody where I’m at, I guess you are.”

“More friend than that,” Mira insisted. “Pip and me, we want to go with you.”

“Go where?” Bados asked in surprise.

“To that island,” Mira said, and repeated the request to Inah in her own language.

Bados looked thoughtful, and opened his mouth to give what Mary judged to be a positive response, but Inah interrupted sharply. Mira hung her head in shame.

“What’s Inah saying?” Bados wanted to know.

“She said I am nothing, just house girl. Not strong for work, not smart to learn,” Mira confessed. Then added hopefully. “But my Pip, he is very smart, yes?”

“Pip’s a good boy,” Bados agreed. “But he’s a white boy. He’ll be wanting to go back to England with the others.”

Mira seemed to give up on Bados understanding, and appealed to Mary. “Pip want to marry me, but Governeur Wanjon will not allow,” she said hopelessly.

“Have you asked the governor?” Mary wanted to know. “Maybe he—.”

But Mira was shaking her head. “I cannot go. I his babu.”

“What’s a babu?” Bados asked. “That mean you his slave or something?”

“His babu,” Mira repeated, leaving them still unclear as to the extent of the governor’s control over her life. She spoke again to Inah, and Inah nodded, a bit more sympathetically this time. Mira made a prayerful motion with her hands, and Inah shrugged.

“We think about it,” Bados said finally. “Pip’s little, but he can row like a man. And you,” he grinned at Mira. “You’d be worth something to tell me what my Inah’s saying when we’re not grasping each others’ meaning.”

*

It was now early August, two full months since their arrival, and still no European ship had called in at Kupang. Mary did not see James again, but guessed that his talk with the men had not done much to modify their behaviour. Will, when he came back to their room at all, stumbled in late at night reeking of rum. His arrival was not particularly quiet, and she could only hope that it did not wake Governor Wanjon in the other wing of the house.

Mary had a great deal of time on her hands. She had no responsibilities other than tending her children, and even that pleasant chore she could discharge onto Pip whenever she wished. Not since she herself was a small child had she had the luxury of so little labour and so much time to muse and meditate. The experience worked strange spells on her. Sometimes she would wake in the night filled with longing for James, and slip out onto the veranda where she could gaze at the stars and imagine him beside her. Often the fantasy placed them in Cornwall, gazing at this very same sky albeit with stars in very different alignments. Or she might imagine them aboard a ship bound for Canada, where yet another life awaited them.

Then there were nights when she woke in terror from a dream, remembered or not, in which she and her children had seemed in great peril. In those frightening moments she would turn her head to listen closely to the breath of first one and then the other of her children, stroke back the hair from their foreheads, and run her hands along their small, smooth limbs. Reassured that they were safe and sweetly asleep, she herself might fall back to sleep. Or she might not.

Three things lurked in her mind like great crouching beasts. There was the fear that Bados would get caught trying to steal the boat and be hanged before her very eyes, for which she would surely hold herself responsible. There was the fear that Will or one of the others in their drunkenness would spill out who they really were. And there was the fear that she herself might make some slip which would reveal to the governor that she was not the wife of an officer at all, but an impostor, a convicted criminal.

These things tormented Mary, not only at night but sometimes in the bright light of day. Wandering around the beautiful grounds of the governor’s home, dressed in yet another of the exquisite sarongs Mira provided for her, watching her well-clothed children frolic about on legs that had grown plump, fear stalked her even during those languorous hours.

Little wonder that she sometimes rose at night and slipped out onto the veranda where the flower-perfumed darkness aided her in conjuring a fantasy of loving James in the flesh as well as in her imagination. Only then did the crouching fears back off, allowing her something approximating peace.

Fears and fantasies alike she put aside when Mira came with an invitation from Wanjon to join him for tea. Mira was always on hand, as she had been that first day, to ensure that Mary was bathed, dressed, combed, and braided before the appointed hour. All Mary had to do was climb the stairs to the second-floor veranda, where she would find Wanjon waiting.

It was on such an afternoon at the very end of August that she sat down to tea with him with a sense of actual pleasure, for she had learned to read his moods and could see that on this day he was much at ease. To a casual observer it might seem that nothing had changed during the two months he and Mary had been taking tea together. He continued to adhere rigidly to the single hour before sunset, that hour ending after they stood at the balcony railing to watch the red ball as it touched the horizon and melted into the ocean. Given that they had by now engaged in this ritual a dozen times or more, it was hardly surprising that there had been modest changes, both in the content of their conversation and in their appreciation for each other’s company. They talked more easily now; Mary, because her confidence in her ability to give acceptable responses had grown, and the governor because he had discovered that Mary was genuinely interested in the subjects upon which he chose to discourse. On this day which, unbeknownst to her, was the last time they would share this pleasant hour of sociability, he said as much.

“The nautical adventures of Europe’s great explorers, crime in the colonies, the difficulties of Dutch traders—you are the first lady I have met who converses on such subjects, Mevrouw Bryant. Tell me, vere did you gain your knowledge?”

Naturally Mary had made good use of the things she had learned from Captain Smit, but she had not been aware that these were subjects about which most well-bred women would be ignorant. The truth, or part of the truth, was as good a reply as any. “Perhaps men discuss serious matters more freely in the presence of ladies on shipboard, where they cannot escape,” she told Wanjon with a smile.

The governor laughed—not something he did easily or often—and Mary felt encouraged to continue. “And the conversation of wise men interests me,” she confided, aware of the flattery implicit in her words. “Perhaps I listen more than I should.”

Immediately the governor grew serious. “It is no vaste of time to listen ven one does so intelligently, Mevrouw Bryant.”

Mary was trying to formulate an appropriate response to the compliment when a racket from downstairs attracted their attention. Will’s voice and heavy tread rose above a clamour of servants’ voices and—was that James, trying to cajole him into going to his room? But the voices came closer as the footsteps moved ominously up the stairs.

By the time Will stood teetering in the doorway, Wanjon was on his feet. His face was a mask of disapproval, but he spoke with stiff, and probably feigned, cordiality. “Gentlemen! Just in time for tea, is it? Or something stronger perhaps? Normally I vait for the sun to set, but a little earlier, I see this is no problem for you, Meneer Bryant.”

“Thank you, Governor,” James responded quickly. “But Mr. Bryant has a fierce toothache. He—”

Will, speaking in a slurred voice, interrupted. “One little nip to tide us over till dinner would be welcome, Gov’nor, an’ I thank ye kindly. A pleasure ‘twould be to sit me down with me little wife and such a gentleman as yerself, Sir. A man likes that sort of thing after a hard day’s work, he does.”

Mary rushed to Will’s side, exclaiming over her shoulder, “You must excuse us, Governor! I believe the rum my husband took for pain makes us not fit company. I must do what I can for his comfort.”

Will cast the governor a triumphant look and beamed down at Mary. “As ye say, little wife. We’ll be off to see what you got in store for me comfort.”

James and Mary managed to get Will turned around, down the stairs and along the hall. As they reached their room, Mary realised that Mira was following anxiously behind.

“Mira,” she whispered urgently. “Tell Pip to keep the children outside or down in the kitchen as long as he can! Time for my husband to fall asleep!”

“Yes, Mevrouw!” Mira replied, and scurried away.

By the time Mary entered the room, James had Will seated on the bed, and had knelt to unlace his boots.

“A fine flunky ye make, Jamie,” Will chortled. “A gentleman’s flunky I’d say. But ye needn’t go to such bother. I been in the hay with this ‘un,” he waved his hand in Mary’s general direction, “with me boots on before.”

James cast Mary an anguished look which she read too well. It said that he did not want to leave her alone with Will, but neither did he want to remain, knowing that his presence only intensified the humiliation she was already suffering.

“Go, James,” she said firmly. “I can manage.”

“Righto,” Will chortled. “We’re wanting it to be just the two of us now, we are. Whyn’t you go finish slopping down tea with Gov’nor Sourpuss?”

Reluctantly, James moved toward the door, but went out only when Mary urged him. Jerking her head toward Will, she closed her eyes in a gesture of sleep. James nodded with understanding, and said, “Good evening, Mrs. Bryant. And a good evening to you, too, Will. See you on the morrow.”

Will did not respond for he had fallen back on the bed. His feet, clad in unlaced boots, still rested on the floor. Within minutes he lapsed into a drunken snore.

Mary slipped out and down to the kitchen, where she found the children being fed. To avoid offending the cook she ate a little herself, although she had no appetite. Then she took the children back to their quarters, explaining on the way that their father was sleeping and they must be very quiet when they entered the room. She tucked them into bed and climbed in beside them without bothering to undress them or herself.

They were soon asleep, but Mary was not. After a while she got up and tiptoed out to the veranda, where she tried and failed to conjure a fantasy that might bring her peace. The beasts of fear that skulked at the edges of her mind were more present now than ever. Even that first day when they were yet unpractised at passing themselves off as shipwreck survivors, with the governor’s sharp ears and eyes judging every word and gesture, she had not been in such a state of anxiety as this. It was as if the night-time darkness that had closed in around her was the thing to be feared. As with so many of the dangers she had faced, there was no way to run from it. No place to go.

There was a flicker of light behind her. Mary turned with a start and saw that Will had wakened and lit a candle. He staggered to his rucksack, which had been dropped on the floor, and from it took a bottle. Uncorking it, he sank down in a chair and began to swig. To Mary’s alarm, she saw that it was more than half full.

She stepped back inside the room. Will lowered the bottle and looked at her with a crooked grin. “Come here, Mary, and sit upon me knee.”

“Will,” she said quietly, trying to keep scold and anxiety out of her voice, “you must stop drinking.”

She reached for the bottle but he held it away from her, and deliberately took another long gulp. Then he wiped his mouth and sneered, “Since when do you tell me what I must, Madam? Since you become a lady and started taking tea with the gov’nor?”

“Will, please,” Mary pleaded. “Can I refuse when he offers me a cup of tea? We are his guests. We cannot rile him!”

“I cannot? I cannot? Why, surely I can. I got you to keep him sotted, just like you sotted that old Dutch bastard back in Botany Bay!”

As he spoke, Will lurched to his feet, jerked the top of Mary’s sarong to her waist, and grasped one of her breasts.

“No!” she whispered, backing away, and thought him put off when he tipped the bottle again and gulped several times more.

Then, carefully, he set down the bottle, and without warning, slapped her across the face with the hard-knuckled side of his hand. She dashed out onto the veranda, but Will was right behind her. There he caught her and hit her again. Then, half-seated on the veranda rail, he tried to pull her to him. Mary gave him a shove with all her strength. He toppled backwards over the rail, landing on the lawn with a thump.

“You whore!” he bellowed. “You’ll answer for this!” He got to his feet and reached for the railing to haul himself back up onto the veranda.

“You come over that rail, Will Bryant, and I’ll scream to bring every soul in the house! You’re the one who will answer—to the governor.” With that Mary fled back into the bedroom, locking the door behind her.

Will stared through the veranda railing at the locked door. “Bleedin’ bitch. Gonna rat on me, is she? Wants me out of the way, that’s what. Well, we’ll see about that!” Off he staggered, either to the front of the house to be let back in, or to the barracks to spend the night.

Hoping he had headed for the barracks, Mary blew out the candle and climbed into bed without undressing. In the darkness she heard, not for the first time, the plaintive tinkle of a piano coming from Wanjon’s wing of the house.

Will heard the sound, too, and followed it, although Mary learned this only later, when Mira related what had transpired. Mira said that, despite her efforts to prevent Will from going unannounced to the governor’s quarters, he barged right in. Outraged by the intrusion, Wanjon rose from the piano and roared, “Bryant! I do not invite you here!”

To which Will responded, in what Mira described as a very impertinent tone, “Beggin’ your pardon, Gov’nor. Not up to snuff, am I, for private chit-chat? My lady wife, now, bet you’d be glad enough to have her pay you a little visit.”

“You are drunk, Bryant. Go to your quarters at once.”

“Now, Sir, if it’s my wife you’re wanting, you can have her. Not for free, mind you. Old Captain Smit back in Botany Bay give her a chart and a compass and a musket to boot for spreading them bonny legs. If she’s doing the same for you, why—.”

“Godverdomme! Sit down, Bryant!” the governor commanded. Then he told Mira, hovering in the doorway, to fetch Bruger at once with a contingent of guards—a command which, being in Dutch, Will apparently had not understood.

As the governor was instructing Mira, Will was saying, “You not being an Englishman, I can see how you mighta been fooled. But ‘tween you and me, Gov’nor, our Mary ain’t the lady she makes herself out to be. ‘Twas for stealing a cloak she got transported, with one brat born on the crossing long before she hooked up with me. I was all for staying in Botany Bay. My time’s now up, y’see. I’m a free man. I woulda done well there. But Mary was set on getting out, and laid such plans as you wouldn’t believe could be worked by a woman’s mind. Never knew a doxy with such a talent for having her way with men.”

Mira understood something of the slurs being made against Mary’s character, but did not know the meaning of Botany Bay, thus did not grasp that Will had confessed to their being bolters. Had she understood this, she would have gone to warn Pip. But she recognised only Wanjon’s anger at Will for invading his privacy, and never guessed the disaster those words portended for all of them.

Mary, as yet knowing none of this, heard the piano music break off abruptly. She feared that Will had created some sort of ruckus on the other side of the house which had caught Wanjon’s attention. It required no prescience on her part to know that the beast of human error which she had so long feared was about to pull her into its maw. She stood looking down at her sleeping children, wishing she had the courage to end their lives and her own at this moment. If she could have done that, she felt that she would be able to endure whatever afterlife awaited her for the crime, knowing that her children had died in sweet innocence, having spent the last months of their life in peace, plenty, and freedom.

As for herself, she felt the impulse her father must have felt that night he pointed his little boat into the storm and shouted, “At least I’ll die a free man!” Except that he had known freedom and she had not; at least, not as her mother had known it, free to come and go as she pleased, in her own cottage or on shipboard, free to go wandering in the woods or along the shore. Free to lie in the arms of a man she loved.

The bedroom door burst open. Mary turned to see Mira, tears spilling off her face in every direction. “My Pip, Mevrouw! They have taken him! And your husband! And now to the barracks for the others!”

Instantly Mary knew that, incredible as it seemed, Will must have revealed that they were not shipwreck survivors, but escaped convicts.

“I thought the guards came only to take Meneer Bryant, so angry was the gouverneur with him for entering his room,” Mira wept. “I did not know they would take all!”

“You must run fast to Bados!” Mary ordered the girl. “Tell him what has happened!”

“No, no! It is night! I am afraid!”

“You must!” Mary pleaded. “Or he will be taken, too.”

“But what of you, Mevrouw? And the kinder?”

“We are in no danger,” Mary assured her. “We have done no wrong.”

“Ah, but you do not know—,” Mira stopped herself, as yet unable to tell Mary what Will had said about her.

It hardly mattered. Mary guessed—not Will’s exact words, but close enough. She stepped out onto the veranda, wondering whether she could find her way across the city to the trail leading to the lagoon. She saw shadows moving about on the lawn, and realised that guards had been posted around the house. Already she was a prisoner.

Mary turned back to the Indonesian girl. “It is the last great favour I ask of you, Mira. If you can bring the news to Bados, it may save his life. I will return the favour by asking the governor to pardon Pip, for he is but a boy.”

Mira gave Mary a wide and wet-eyed look, then ran off down the corridor. Mary did not know whether the girl would carry the terrible news to Bados or not.

The fact that she was not taken into custody that night, and Siti brought breakfast trays as usual the next morning, gave Mary a slender ray of hope. She did not know Wanjon well, but she knew him well enough to be sure that he was mulling the matter over, perhaps even praying for guidance, as he was a very religious man. Had Will told him how and from whom she had acquired the navigational instruments? And if so, what effect would that have on his decision? Would he damn her for having traded her body for the items needed to facilitate their escape? Or, knowing a fellow Hollander to have been involved, would he be more lenient? Would James, having proven useful to the Dutch East India Company, be treated differently? Would her speaking up for Pip have any effect? And what lay in store for the children?

All day these and other thoughts tormented Mary. When the children grew restless, she walked out of doors with them, as was her custom. No one stopped her, but soon a servant approached and said that by the governor’s orders, Mary must return to her room. Mary obeyed, expecting Wanjon to send for her at any moment. But he did not. Nor did Mira appear that day. Dinner trays came at the usual hour, delivered by servants who spoke no English, so Mary had no way of finding out what had happened to the others. Night had fallen and the children were already asleep when Bruger himself came to fetch her.

He led Mary, not to the upstairs veranda where she had always met the governor before, but to a study lined with books. Wanjon, seated behind a desk of dark polished wood, did not rise when she entered, nor did he invite her to sit. Although he was not looking down from a high bench like the judge who sentenced her to be transported, his countenance was much the same. Mary grasped at once that Wanjon was about to sit in judgement on her.

She stood before him as she had on that first afternoon, dressed in the sarong Mira called a kain panjang, with a simple seledang around her shoulders for modesty’s sake, long golden braids encircling her head like a crown. Wanjon glanced up when she entered, then dropped his eyes to a page of notes on the desk before him.

“Your husband has informed upon you, Mevrouw. Have you anything to say?”

Mary took a deep breath. “I ask but two clemencies of you, Governor, and neither for myself, for I am indeed a bolter from Botany Bay. I would ask only that you be lenient with the boy Pip, for he is but a child who had no say in the matter of coming with us. And I beg mercy for my children, who have committed no crime. Pray let me leave them in your care.”

Wanjon continued to stare at the papers on his desk, for the longest time not speaking. At last he said, “I do not vant persons in this house who remind me of—.” He swallowed hard, and when he looked up at her, his eyes were sad. “No, Mevrouw Bryant. The Bible tells us that the sins of the parents vill be visited upon the children. It is the vill of God.”

Mary had mentally practised her plea for clemency, and had hesitated only slightly before delivering it. But the governor’s use of the Good Book, which her mother had revered, to justify his own lack of compassion so outraged her that words she never should have spoken rushed hotly out of her mouth.

“A God who punishes the innocent is no better than ourselves!”

Wanjon’s eyes bulged with shock. “For shame, Mevrouw!” To Bruger, who lingered in the doorway, he called a rapid command in Dutch.

Mary was marched out of the governor’s office, down the corridor to her room. “Take your kinder,” Bruger told her. “It is to the dungeon you go.”

Mary stared at him in disbelief. “My children are condemned to prison? For what? The crime of innocent sleep?”

“I am so ordered,” Bruger informed her stiffly.

Mary turned to look at her children, sleeping peacefully in the great soft bed. The thought of taking them up from there and laying them down on a cold dungeon floor was almost more than she could bear. Bruger must have envisioned a similar contrast because he said, grudgingly, “If you take a pillow for the kinder, I think it vill not be missed.”

Mary looked longingly at the many eiderdown cushions scattered about the room. Any one of them would have made a comfortable cot for a child. But pride intervened, coupled with an irrational anger over which she had no control. Speaking in a voice as cold as her blood was hot, she said, “Had the governor offered the cushions as charity for my children I would have accepted. But I will not be accused of stealing, even for their sake. You are my witness, Mr. Bruger, that we leave this room with only the clothes upon our backs, which the governor did kindly provide us. If they are not our own, but only on loan, do inform me and they shall be returned on the morrow. And we shall go forward more naked than when we arrived. As your governor pleases.”

With that she hoisted the children into her arms. Charlotte whimpered and Emanuel began to sob, not a common thing for either of them to do when wakened. No doubt they had felt the extreme tension that had permeated the household during the previous twenty-four hours, and perhaps they had not been sleeping so peacefully after all. Even Emanuel, as he dropped his drowsy head onto Mary’s perspiring shoulder, must have smelled her fear and fury.

Bruger assigned two guards the task of escorting Mary to the fort. As no conveyance was provided, it was a long walk and a slow one. With Emanuel in her arms, Mary matched her steps to Charlotte’s as the sleepy child stumbled along beside her. The guards, perhaps feeling a small degree of regret for the duty they were forced to perform, did not hurry them.

It was a bright and windy night. As they approached the waterfront, Mary saw, far out, a boat. A dark sliver on the water, it raised a sail which had the same shape as the one on the cutter which had brought them here. The sail crossed a path of moonlight and disappeared from view.

Mary tightened her arm about Emanuel, and squeezed Charlotte’s hand. “Look at the moon, darlings. It’s on its way to England.”