The Narrative of Deserter Burman — Greg Pyers

In 1834 Private Benjamin Burman is on the run to a new life in America. But the British Army does not suffer deserters; Benjamin is captured and banished to Van Diemen's Land. Yet even when his sentence is over, his punishment is not done, for he is forever to be reminded of his disgrace by a thick, black D tattooed into his ribcage. It will take the greatest tragedy of his life, awaiting him still in the gold-mining town of Daylesford, to set him free.