The sun beat down relentlessly and lit up the waters of Sydney Cove like a sparkling jewel.

Thomas, hands bound behind his back, lifted his head and took in the scene, rolling green hills, gum trees gently folding down towards the docks.

On the shady grassy parkland, people were gathering. Women in their bonnets minding their children, officers milling around trying to keep the crowds calm and ordered.

Thomas took it all in as best he could through misty eyes before a rough cloth was shoved over his head and he was pushed from behind. He stumbled forward and felt a hand steady him, holding on to his arm, and then a squeeze.

“Ok mate? It’ll be over before you know it”.

Thomas’ legs were shaking, his heart hammering in his chest, his breathing ragged and choked as the raw scent of the straw bag over his head filled his mouth and nostrils.

From memory he knew there were about five paces to the steps of the gallows, and five stairs, and his stumbling advance towards them propelled him forward.

He could think of nothing now but the steady hold of his executioner, William, who was somehow both rough and gentle at the same time as he guided him using the pressure on his back. “Up yer go now. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. There”

Now there was only sound – a woman’s jeering cut through the crowd. “Hang the bastard!” and a wail of a baby also floating on the air.

He felt the sun beating down on the back of his neck. Trembling, trembling, shaking, shaking. Flashes of his life came and went, his boyhood on the river in London, the wet dank rooms he grew up in, his sweetheart’s hazel eyes, her smile; the stinking hold of the ship, a cold hard cell… and his mother’s worried face.

“Bend your head mate”, he heard William’s voice kindly but resolute but it seemed so far away. He felt the rough noose around his neck choking him already as his eyes bulged in the muffled darkness and he thought its okay I’m going to suffocate before my neck breaks.

The last thing he heard was jubilant cheering ringing out across Observatory Hill, so loud it filled the whole of Sydney Cove.