The Prisoner

By Adrian Scott

Australia's first 50 years was a time of harshness, brutality, and cruelty not often seen in the annals of our world. And these forms of treatment were not always committed by the prisoners.
One man, sentenced to transportation for a crime we would regard, today, as minor, finds his life tormented by only the most vicious of treatment - yet, at the end, discovers that sometimes even one's most cruel of masters can be worth dying for.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Adrian Scott
• Release date: Apr 19, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301009985

Adrian Scott

I have been writing short stories since 9 years old, changed to writing novels 4 years ago. in that time, I've written 69, now working on my 70th; thirty-one of which have been published in the US by Renaissance ebooks and Publishing by Rebecca J Vickery. I am also publishing on Smashwords. Society of Vampires volume 1, published by Rebecca J Vickery, Publishers, US; has also been forwarded by Rebecca to Francis Ford Coppola for consideration as a movie. So it's all go at the moment. I have three daughters, all of whom I regularly see. My wife of 31 years, Penny, passed away on March 17, 2011. I live in a retirement village in Caboolture Queensland with my dog, Scamp. He is my main critic and friend.

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The Prisoner

By

Adrian Scott

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2011 by Ian T. Foster, M.A.

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First Publication Rights Only

Ian T Foster, M.A;

Unit 73/130-132 King Street

Caboolture Queensland 4510

Phone: [phone]

Email: [e-mail]

http://www.adrianscott.info

CHAPTER ONE

March 18th; 1821: Dawn had barely risen when they came for the prisoner.

Tossing restlessly on his narrow bunk, he had been unable to sleep through that first long night because of rats that gnawed at the edges of the thin horsehair mattress that lay between his body and the hard wooden boards of his bunk, and bedbugs that crawled and crept through the thin, moth-eaten blanket they had given him.

He heard the door of his cell open on squealing hinges, heard the heavy tramp of booted feet, and suddenly he was seized by the shoulders and almost lifted bodily upright, to stand, half-awake, beside his bunk whilst manacles were fastened about his wrists and the short, heavy chain that linked his ankles was checked. Then he was dragged from the tiny cell in which he had spent his first night ashore in Sydney, and hauled down the narrow corridor to the parade-ground.

A hand landed heavily between his shoulder-blades, and he stumbled out into the pre-dawn chill as a group of six armed guards, bayonets fixed to the muzzles of their muskets, formed themselves in a ring about him. Before he had time to even glance quickly about his new home, the squad began marching, the prisoner dragged along in their midst by a short length of hemp that was fastened about his neck, the other end held by a swiftly-moving soldier.

He had a sensation of a long, narrow, cobbled roadway that stretched before him, the smell of the sea from somewhere to his left, the wash of the tide on the rocks that littered the shoreline, and no more.

Along Hickson Road they marched, the tall man stumbling along in their midst, prodded occasionally by a rifle-butt slammed into his back.

Early morning workers stopped to watch the parade, the mass of soldiers in their coloured uniforms, the officer at their head and, almost lost to sight in the centre of the ring of guards, the prisoner. They marched to the end of Hickson Road and out into George Street, a wide thoroughfare designed to allow drays and teams of eighteen bullocks to turn about in its width, and continued on their way, ignoring the curious onlookers beginning to gather on the footpaths to either side.

As some of the more voluble members of the crowd began to catch sight of the prisoner, stumbling along in the midst of his guards, his hands shackled, his feet, because of the chain linking them, causing him to stagger and fall occasionally as he tried to keep up with the marching platoon of soldiers, voices were raised in protest. One man, a huge, hulking bear in dirty dungarees and workshirt, hoisted a small shard of broken tile from beneath his feet and sent it sailing into the red-coated phalanx, accompanied by a raucous cry of: Dirty, stinkin’ bastards!

Almost immediately, twenty yards behind the ‘parade,’ the prison-gates opened again, and a brigade of marines exited at the double, weapons at the high-port, raced past their fellows, and lined both sides of George Street, facing the crowd. As thumbs pulled back on musket-hammers and a repeated metallic ‘click!’ was heard, the crowd fell silent...with the exception of the bear, who glared into the eyes of the soldier immediately in front of him, then carefully and unerringly spat on the toecap of the man’s highly-polished boot, then stood, arms folded, smiling sardonically.

With nary a change in his dour expression, the soldier took one pace forward, and the butt of his musket connected with the chin of his attacker.

The bear staggered, shook his head, then resumed his place, his fists doubled, the muscles along his arms bulging.

A shot rang out, shattering the morning stillness, and the huge man suddenly clutched both hands to his midriff, where a large red blossom had opened, and as blood pumped from his abdomen, he sank slowly to his knees, then toppled face-forward into the gutter.

Leave ‘im be! the young soldier growled as an overweight woman bent to do what she could for the victim. She looked up into the eyes of the uniformed man, busy reloading his musket, stared again at the groaning figure at her feet, then melted back into the crowd.

As the large man’s lifeblood slowly trickled away down the gutter, an angry muttering began, picked up and carried from voice to voice. The crowd pressed forward, and from behind the soldiers lining the roadway, a middle-aged officer, his shoulder-epaulets shining in the dawn sunlight, cried "Ready!" and rifles swiftly came to each shoulder, the muzzles pointed straight at the crowd.

The forward movement of the throng stopped. The muttering did not.

Along the road and past the corner of King Street the parade continued, its collective pace timed to the beat of a lone drummer, past shops and dwellings and workhouses, to the junction of George and Market Streets, where an armed squad of men awaited the arrival of the prisoner. Out in front of them stood a giant of a man, a sergeant, a cat-o’-nine-tails coiled over one shoulder. He wore no shirt, the red braces of his trousers appearing incongruous against the worn, unwashed, and tattered undershirt. As his little pig eyes caught sight of the prisoner, a slow grin split the fat face, and he jerked the leather coils down off his shoulder and