The Penal Colony

It is 1997. The British government now runs
island prison colonies to take dangerous offenders from its
overcrowded mainland jails.

Among all these colonies, Sert, 25 miles off
the north Cornish coast, has the worst reputation. There are no
warders. Satellite technology is used to keep the convicts under
watch. New arrivals are dumped by helicopter and must learn to
survive as best they can.

To Sert, one afternoon in July, is brought
Anthony John Routledge, sentenced for a sex-murder he did not
commit.

Routledge knows he is here for ever. And he
knows he must quickly forget the rules of civilized life.

But not all the islanders are savages. Under
the charismatic leadership of one man a community has evolved. A
community with harsh and unyielding rules, peopled by resourceful
men for whom the hopeless dream of escape may not be so hopeless
after all ...

Some opinions of
The
Penal Colony

Herley follows his successful trilogy
The
Pagans
with an intriguing, ultimately uplifting novel of man’s
capacity for salvation, a twist on
Lord of the Flies
. ...
this fast-moving, intelligent thriller goes into top gear.

Publishers’ Weekly

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Author Richard Herley has built a thriller as
tight and disciplined as his inmate society.

Enid News & Eagle

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A gripping novel, as thriller or novel of
ideas.

Library Journal

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... a well devised and gripping novel.

Yorkshire Post

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It’s savagery – not civilization – that lies
like a thin veneer on the human character. That’s the ironic theme
of
The Penal Colony
, an absorbing, offbeat thriller by
British novelist Richard Herley ...

Tension and philosophy artfully mix in this
story, thanks to terse prose, plenty of action and a convincing
milieu. Multiple battles of wits propel the plot as Routledge
struggles with himself, his environment and bloodthirsty human
adversaries to embrace his nature as a social animal and learn the
values of his new society.

Herley explored similar themes in
The
Pagans
(1978-84), a notable trilogy about the Stone Age now
being published in paperback in the United States.
The Penal
Colony
is the trilogy’s equal, casting the eternal love-hate
conflict between individual and tribe in a modern context of solid
adventure.

Vince Kohler,
The Oregonian

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... a well written and a memorable story of a
chilling adventure.

Lake Oswego Review

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Normally I shun such reviewer clichés as “a
real page-turner”, “leaves you breathless”, “can’t put it down”,
considering them to be empty substitutes for critical thought.
Well, there’s always an exception: I’ve weighed those phrases
carefully, and I believe that each of them accurately applies to a
new novel,
The Penal Colony
by Richard Herley.

The Penal Colony
is a gripping novel
of suspense, terror, thrills and adventure. It raises your
intellectual speculation while raising your heart rate. It has been
a long time since I last encountered a book that so successfully
blended those elements along with compelling characters.

... It is a marvelous plot, reminiscent of
Geoffrey Household’s
Rogue Male
in its rendering of
helplessness, aloneness and vulnerability when Routledge is on the
run. Herley is an expert at setting up this kind of story –
heightening the reader’s suspense, easing it, backing into the
resolutions of episodes.

But novels that depend almost exclusively on
plot are generally not very interesting. This novel does not, and
so this novel is captivatingly interesting. By setting his story
only a few years in the future, Herley is asking what sort of
society we are – and becoming.

Within this grand vision are other, subtle,
supporting images, parables and metaphors. The Village, for
instance, is like a monastic community: highly structured,
obedient, non-democratic and headed by a beneficent man called
“Father”. This is in contrast to the utter lawlessness of the
Outsiders, one of whose dominant figures, named Martinson, has a
fixation on Christ, Satan and crucifixion – and a violent hatred
for Father.

Altogether, this makes a neat conceit. These
are all (except Routledge) terrible lawbreakers, yet some have
become law-abiding and others outlaws.

Significantly, on the island are the ruins of
a monastery, one of those guardians of learning in the Dark Ages.
Now we have, in Routledge’s estimation, “the new Dark Ages” with
“Britain wallowing out of control”. There is more than one
reference in the book to feelings of reincarnated lives and
loyalties.

Is the Village, then, an example of how
society can save itself, the way the monasteries once saved
civilization? Maybe, maybe not. The book’s ending would seem to
lead one away from such grand conceptualizations.

Yet it is true that, despite the primitive
conditions, Routledge feels for the first time that he really
belongs, which he never had felt in his comfortable middle-class
existence. The Village offers “the opportunity to be a man”. These
men deal honestly, squarely, fairly and kindly with each other, a
way of interaction most of them had not experienced before.

If I could bring myself to put “perfect” in
front of any noun, which I can’t, I’d be tempted to use it here.
The Penal Colony
came into the office absolutely unheralded,
with little promotion or publicity, which usually means the
publisher has few hopes for it. I really think this novel is in a
class with Walter Miller’s
A Canticle for Leibowitz
, whose
intellectual qualities it shares. I wish for it the same
long-lasting fame and respect.

Roger Miller,
Milwaukee Journal

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THE PENAL COLONY

Copyright © Richard Herley 1987

The Author asserts the moral right to be
identified as the author of this work.

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For my mother

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Routledge became conscious. A foul taste was
on his tongue; he felt nauseous, drug-sick, and at first he thought
he was emerging not from sleep, but from anaesthesia. It followed
that he must be in hospital, in pyjamas, but his skin and limbs
returned a contrary sensation. He was fully and heavily clad; and
hospitals smelled of disinfectant, while this place smelled of damp
wood, and stone, and salt air, and an unpleasant acridity which he
could not quite recognize.

Then he remembered a recent fragment of
dream. He must after all have been asleep: was he dreaming
still?

Above him, dimly illuminated, as if by a
single candle some distance away, he could make out the form of a
low ceiling, crudely made of rough laths and bundles of rushes. The
quality of his sight was unmistakably real. This was no dream.

He had been placed on a low bed or pallet, on
a mattress made of dried heather or bracken. He became aware that
he was completely helpless: he had been zipped into a tightly
fitting sleeping-bag and his wrists felt as if they had been bound
together.

At that moment he understood where he was and
what must have happened to him. The preceding days in the workroom,
supper last night, had given no inkling of this; there had been no
unusual taste in his food. Each day had followed the same routine,
the routine that had been established from the morning of his
induction over six months before. During those days he had
foolishly begun to feel safe, to imagine, somehow, that he was not
after all to be placed in Category Z.

A noise to his left made him turn to the
side. The interior extended for three or four metres, ending at a
sort of hearth, without a fire. Here a large man was sitting, his
back to Routledge, seemingly intent on making or repairing
something in his lap. Beside him, on an upturned crate, burned the
small oil lamp which was giving its glow to the room.

The fireplace and the walls had been
fashioned from irregular blocks of grey stone. Above the hearth,
supported on brackets driven into the interstices, ran a warped
plank which, laden with a jumble of tins, bits of netting,
feathers, plastic canisters, paperbacks, and some dried stalks in a
wine bottle, served as the mantelshelf. Similar clutter filled a
series of shelves to the right. Between them and the low doorway in
the corner there were three or four pegs, each hung with a bulky
mass of clothing, including a trawlerman’s black plastic raincoat,
much the worse for wear.

The man appeared to be sewing.

Perhaps in his terror Routledge had made a
slight sound; perhaps the rhythm of his breathing had changed; or
perhaps the man had felt, at the nape of his neck, the pressure of
Routledge’s gaze. Whatever the cause, he glanced over his shoulder
and, seeing Routledge awake, immediately got up.

With the lamp behind him, the man was in
shadow, but Routledge could see enough to tell that he was of late
middle age, bearded, long-haired, balding from the forehead,
wearing a tattered pepper-and-salt rollneck sweater and shapeless
corduroy trousers.

He came nearer. The acrid smell grew
stronger. He stopped at a safe distance and, resting a hand on one
of the posts supporting the ceiling, bent forward to examine his
captive more closely.

“Welcome to Paradise.” He spoke in a mild,
educated voice, and Routledge began to feel less afraid. “What’s
your name?”

“Routledge.”

“First name?”

“Anthony.”

“Good. It’s on your papers, but I have to ask
you. You were at Exeter, right?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know where you are now?”

“Lundy?”

“No. Sert.”

Routledge shut his eyes.
Christ. O
Christ
.

“Do you think you can manage to walk?”

“Yes. I think so.”

“You’ve got to see Mr Appleton.”

“Who’s Mr Appleton?”

The question was not answered. In a more
businesslike tone, the man said, “If I let you out of your
sleeping-bag you won’t try anything, will you?”

Routledge did not fully understand. What was
there to “try”? But he nodded, and, apparently satisfied with this
response, the man unzipped the bag and helped Routledge to his
feet.

As soon as Routledge tried to stand unaided
his legs gave way. He sat down heavily on the bed, overcome by
giddiness, wanting to fight back the burning taste rising in his
throat; but it was no use. The struggle was lost even before it had
started. He was too weak, too frightened, too stunned by the
realization of what had happened to him. He could not help
himself.

Bending forward, he retched repeatedly,
succeeding only in bringing up a few viscid strings. There was
nothing in his stomach.

“You might have told me you were going to do
that.”

“I’m sorry,” Routledge tried to say. He was
shivering so badly that he wondered whether he were truly ill. A
new fit of retching overtook him.

“Mr Appleton won’t see a man who’s smelling
of vomit.”

Whatever they had poisoned him with, it must
have been a massive dose. “The bastards,” Routledge said to
himself. “The bastards.” For weeks past, months, he had been
struggling to contain his outrage and despair. It had been bad
enough before, but since landing in that cell at Exeter with those
two animals his self-control had been stretched beyond human
endurance. And now that he was here, now that it had finally
befallen him, the worst of all possible fates, there could no
longer be any bottom to his grief.

He began to cry.

The futile attempt to void his stomach had
already filled his eyes with hot tears. Now these were supplanted
by a fresher and more copious flow. His wrists had been so firmly
bound with nylon cord that he was unable properly to cover his eyes
with his hands. This minor indignity alone, heaped on top of all
the others, was enough to move him to further self-pitying
sobs.

Routledge thought he heard the man say
something sympathetic. He felt an awkward hand placed momentarily
on his shoulder.