The Soldier's Curse by Meg Keneally Page B

can. A powerless priest in a cradle of the heathens. Don’t think, lad, that all of the work of Our Lord and his Blessed Mother needs to take place in the glare.’
    Mrs Mulrooney, having now distributed tea, reflexively crossed herself.
    â€˜Who’s died?’ asked Monsarrat.
    â€˜One of my plastering crew. Fellow called Jeremiah. He was taken ill a few weeks ago but kept working. Well, in honesty I didn’t give him a choice. Not until he wasn’t able for it. You’d not believe the ruses they pull sometimes.’
    â€˜And taken, from what I understand, by the same malady that torments Mrs Shelborne, or something very like it,’ said Hanley.
    Mrs Mulrooney’s eyes made brief contact with Monsarrat’s, then directed themselves towards the floor.
    Monsarrat sought to salve his own rising sense of unease by burying it in administrative activity. He stood, placed both hands on the table and leaned forward on them. ‘Private, are any others amongst your plastering crew ill?’
    â€˜Not deathly so. One of them has a cough, not looking his best. But that’s not unusual. He’s still able to work.’
    â€˜Anyone else of whom you’ve heard?’
    â€˜No, not like that anyway.’
    â€˜Father, have you ministered to anyone with a similar sickness?’
    â€˜No, Mr Monsarrat, nor have I heard any rumours.’
    â€˜Mrs Mulrooney … are you feeling well?’
    Mrs Mulrooney drew herself up, offended by the implication that something as trivial as a wasting sickness could render her incapable. ‘Apart from a certain lack of sleep, my health is excellent,’ she said.
    â€˜I am pleased to hear it. Private, may I suggest that you confine your crew to the sitting room for the morning?’
    Slattery, for all his regard for Monsarrat, did not appreciate receiving orders from a convict. But he was not unintelligent and saw sense in what Monsarrat was suggesting. ‘I suppose so,’ he said. ‘Until when?’
    â€˜Until I have had a chance to deliver a report.’

Chapter 7
    Monsarrat meant to make two reports, in fact. With two purposes. To the same man.
    He found Captain Diamond by the river, gazing at a work crew and their overseer working on the breakwater. After the rains, the frogs were competing with the sound of the convicts’ tools, although Monsarrat didn’t approve of their song. They didn’t croak like any self-respecting frog. They tapped, in mimicry of the sticks the natives used to accompany their strange crooning. For Monsarrat, the sound was unsettling, being not far removed from the tap on the door at his Exeter lodgings, the tap which had ended his liberty and sent him here.
    Diamond observed the worksite from horseback, on a sturdier and less refined beast than someone of the officer class would be used to. Nor was he self-evidently anymore an officer. For this dirty work, he had replaced his beloved parade ground reds with duller clothes, making him look from a distance like a reasonably prosperous farmer.
    With the commandant away on the hunt for the fabled river, the works which had been approved before his departure were being undertaken with more than the usual haste, to clear the building schedule for his return so he might look with favouron more important projects. A report on the poor state of the barracks roof, for example, sat amongst the increasing sheaves of paper Monsarrat had laid by for the major.
    Diamond looked at Monsarrat sharply when he stopped beside the horse. ‘You have a report for me?’
    â€˜There is no change in Mrs Shelborne’s condition. Or at least in the way it manifests itself.’
    Diamond spat. ‘The major should have a soldier for a secretary. Not someone who spends words like a drunk. Is she any worse, or is she not?’
    â€˜The digestive disturbances, the bouts of coughing and the convulsions are no more frequent than they were