Codes of Survival -Scripts - a series of short factionalized stories based on historical events in the Subantarctic Islands written by Lloyd Godman to accompany the exhibition and installation - 1993 - © Lloyd Godman

Codes of Survival - Scripts

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1818 - Gallows Pole

Ironic, the golden sun, hung as a bright warm orb in the clear blue sky. It was a sun, in way that I had never known one before. It was warm and bright beyond belief, in a way I could hardly imagine.
 

My eyes squinted as we were lead through the cobbles with cold, hard stoned walls on all sides, to the green grass where the three gallows poles waited for us like dead trees. Was it the sun or something in my soul, I can not tell as a single tear slid down
my taut cheek. With a brawny sniff and a hard swallow, I was a man again and the tear had gone. I could face death with a hard cold stare. Step by fateful step the three of us were led in chains though, escape was far from our heads. And after the disenchanted  experience of the past, none of us would have wanted anything but death as closer to the gallows and our  death we walked. Then as we reached the softness of the green, we were offered one final pipe of tobacco. A last pleasure before we would become a victim of the rope and be judged by our maker.

God it seemed so absurd squatting on the grass in the warm forenoon sun smoking the pleasure of a good pipe, while the gallows waited only but a scant few paces away and the watchful eyes of the smirking guards upon us. The great wisps of blue, smoke curled off into the air with a aromatic air. And then in a flash, the memories of my short life flashed before me.  All the woeful memories of our ill fortune came flooding back.

The chance escape from this very same prison, recollection of an unlocked gate and a dark, dark night, the risk of the  small boat found upon the shore, then stolen from our need to survive and the jeopardy of taking her to sea; for there was no escape on that island and the chance of the open ocean was the only gamble to decide our fate. Then alone on the unforeseeable ocean with no land insight for many days with little nourishment and being found by a sealer en route to the southern islands. Mistaken we were, for we had thought we were safe at last; free from the bonds of our penal days as this captain had offered us all work as an exchange for a passage to England.  We knew the life of a sealer was hard and even dangerous though we had no choice it was clear, so we all agreed.

We had been right on that one for sure, it was as hard as it  comes and one of the crew died in the task, before our eyes, fell from the rigging during a fearsome storm, never to be seen again. Didn't even hear the blighter scream on the way down into his watery grave. We searched for the poor soul but he was gone. We worked our hands till they were hard and calloused with wear and then the coldness of the wind cracked the skin with an added pain. But we endured it, every hour, as for us four there was little choice. We worked our way with the best of the old hands, being certain of our safe passage. We chucked in with them all.

It was on our return that things went sour, for the supplies of  food were not enough for us and the regular crew to sail the months to England. So we were put ashore with a few potatoes and little else on some sparse island to fend for ourselves. It was rotten, but at least, we had thought there was a chance of staying alive in the hope that another ship might call some day to take us away, for there were birds we could kill and cook by a fire we never let die. There was fish abound that tasted fine, and we had even found a sheltered place the potatoes would grow enough for our needs though not large at all.

Then there was the problem of John, dear John. For the first  year or so he was right as the rain, for it fell as good as it  can in this island, to be sure of that. But then he was struck with a mild bout of melancholia. He had to be alone for awhile, and we could yield to that, for at times we would all wander off by our selves for a quiet time of contemplation, until we  could face each other square once more. But he would spend
days detached from any thought of us or the rest of the world, there he would hide, in the darkness of that cave high  on the cliff. It was a dreadfully exposed site if ever one could  chose; and there he would lay for days at a time with nought food, just him in the dark and the wet drips from the roof falling on his thick head.

But his bouts got worse by the month, for each time was longer than the last and upon his return he would swear and  curse all of us and even the air itself. This got worst by each woebegone attack. But the worst of it was the brawls he would pick over the slightest thing and these grew more furious by degrees, until we all felt they were almost vicious and we feared the sight of him in every way. 

Consequently, we felt he would kill one of us if not all, if left  to run amuck, so we had posted a guard in the nights that  we slept, for he could creep through the trees as a rat or a dog and be upon us in the most ungodly of hours to send a  chill up our backs. The man had mislaid his mind, it was  clear for sure. It was as if the forceful winds of that solitary cliff where he lived in that cave were blowing it away with each gale. We had been a gang of four and now it was three and  one meloncleite on the hillock. We couldn't live the way we were, we couldn't face it for another month, so, as evil as it was, we plotted to slay the imbecile at the earliest chance to save ourselves. He had forced it to us.

By fluke or fortune, we three were on the cliff after some sea bird eggs for a meal when the dolt came screaming from the thickets wielding a stout stick in his palm. Charging like a  wounded bull on a full moon, cursing at the top of his voice he rushed straight at the three of us. It was not hard to dodge his unwieldy steps and then with a push send him over the slippery edge in an echoed scream that disappeared with him. We all
thought he would hit the water and be carried away on the tides, and waited for the splash, for it would have been much  simpler for us, but there he was hooked on a rock ledge in  the last gasps of life. 

For weeks we tried to avoid that perilous cliff, but we could  not help being drawn to the edge to peer over and see if he  had yet fallen over into the sea. But no, there he was caught like a fish to a hook, and slowly being pecked apart by the sea hawks, as they do to the other dead creatures on the island.  To rpidly it seemed, the flesh was ripped off and in a matter of weeks, we could see his guts ooze out. Go it was an insufferable sight. In a rotten mass part of it slid over the  edge and landed on a lower ledge further below. But at least  from here it was swallowed up by the gulls and there was no sign of that part of him for us to dwell upon.

But sorrowfully there on the ledge above remained the rest  of his corpse. Sometime later there were bones beginning to show through the parts of the clothing that were worn or pecked away. For the bells of hell I can't tell why we kept going back,  but that we did. We were all pulled by some inner force right  to the brink to peer down time after time, even though we  would all say this would not be done, and we would keep away. 

By the time we left, or at the last time I looked, there was little left but the whiteness of bones and his crumbling clothes, may be the few things in his pockets that he had with him. For our fate had turned for the best, as a ship had called and willingly had taken us on board and away from this ghastly island that held us as free men but still imprisoned our body and souls.
 

It was so good to be free of that gruesome place, that not  one gave half a thought to the events that might be when we would berth in Australia. For if was Sydney this ship was bound for and once we found out, though we pleaded to be taken somewhere else, there was not a chance of that.  We had thought there was a chance to slip unseen in the  crowd of a busy dock, and this we even planned. But it was not to be, and the captain delivered us direct to the  authorities who identified us and duly handed us over to  the penal system to meet our ultimate fate.

In turn they returned us to the horrid site of this colony here in Norfolk island, and after a short internment trial were condemned to hang, without delay. 

Now I had sucked the last wisp of smoke form the  warm bowl of the pipe I held in my trembling hand  and as I raised my eyes to the waiting guards, yes, it was I who was the last of us to finish and it was time for us to be hanged. As I stood there with the coarse, thick rope biting tight on my neck, of all the thoughts and emotions I could have
held, I still dwelled in wonderment at the fourth escapee  and if he still remained lodged on the ledge no more than  bones and a few personal artifacts that had not rotted 
with the threads of his clothes on a forgotten island  somewhere in the south oceans.