LINGER AND DIE
by Neil Brooka
PART ONE of a steemit weekly serial
Original content linked here from my website at www.neilbrooka.com
Chapters will be linked here as published.
Synopsis
1839, Melbourne, Australia. A prison hulk appears in Port Phillip Bay leaving her captain and two escaped convicts in its wake. Meanwhile, a forger wanted by the law, washes up on the beach with her dead son, a handful of counterfeit sovereigns, and a secret volatile enough to destabilize an entire continent.
Why is this book free?
This is my first novel. Having no idea what I was doing, I sent it to a bunch of publishers, completely unaware this made the book ineligible to be sold on by an agent. With a shrug of my shoulders, and having no way of paying for an editor, I decided to put it up for free.
Enjoy.
Copyright and Dedication
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents
either are the product of the author’s imagination, or are used
fictitiously.
Copyright © 2015 by Neil Brooka*
*1DQAPXui9BH8Z8tnLFhS6KLvkgTpyYRsbG
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
This book is dedicated to the five nations Kulin alliance:
Dja Dja Wurrung, Taungurong, Wathaurong, Wurundjeri, and Bunurong.
Lest We Forget.
PROLOGUE: PORT PHILLIP DREAMING
Over the ocean, convict boots rattle lamp-lit decks, all together, down, down, down. Above their heads they hear the same; below their feet, a deck below, the message passes. Three decks worth on this great prison hulk. Three decks of sick and shit and mouldering calico.
Nerve-sick marines scuttle guts over gunwales as the war beat rises, but relief is on its way. With cries of 'land' and 'light' and 'pilot on deck' the rumbling boots break rhythm like rain. A navigator to take them through the heads. A navigator to see them through the calms of Port Phillip Bay.
Beneath the waves, timbers shudder, down, down, down. Back to a place where the light can never reach. Back to the Dreamtime. Over the Birrarung river, curving to the west through a future Port Phillip heads, an eaglehawk soars upon the ancient landscape. Like a falling star it dives into the river to explode with Birrarung earth clutched in its claws. From the seeping clay they fall and land as two Kulin men created. The crow laughs. The snake hisses. The men cut down trees to drag through the sacred water. Bunjil swoops and from the timbers Kulin women emerge. Only now does the eaglehawk rise to take its place in the stars with its kin.
Through time they stand; not hearing the glacial melt-waters creep along the plains, nor the impending slow march of colonial boots marking time above that frozen axis. Timbers shudder.
CHAPTER ONE - ABSCONDER
Under the heavens and the waves and the roar of the ocean all she could hear was her son's fading voice.
"Am I shrinking? It feels like I'm shrinking. It's cold. Are we inside again?"
Another surge of ocean and her world became liquid silence. Had she seen gold falling between plumes of sand, or simply the glint of fish scales in passing? The mother’s eyes squinted against the ocean spray eroding the curtain of water now falling from her brow.
"Am I shrinking?"
"You're here."
Frustrated with her own latent responses, the woman struggled to stir the boy in her arms.What'll we do, Brendan had asked her,when we get free?Go back home, she had explained.Back to Scotland. Start making money. Money is what makes a man, you remember that.
"Brendan?" Her own voice came to her as a shock. It was slow and slurred, and the thick sounds trickling from her throat disgusted and terrified her into a sudden, adrenalin fuelled sobriety.
"I'm all right mum."
Leaning into his soggy frame a gush of wind reeled over her sodden, billowing dress, and when she spoke her jaw clenched the words through cold.
"Next time I promise. Next time we'll make it. We'll find some more and we'll make it."
The boy was lucky to be rid of her in death, she told herself. Lucky to have had a way out from her own torturous, incompetent piloting through the seas of life. A burden to her son. He had died of exhaustion trying to save her, she was sure of it. Nothing else mattered. He had been her reason.
Her eyelids surrendered.
Above the mother and child – in that year of eighteen-hundred and thirty-nine – seagulls circled in the cold grey sky of an early October morning. Occasionally, when the wind hushed its roar, distant sounds of old men on a morning stroll down Sandridge beach could be heard.
Through the mother's fevered dreams the voices came:
"Sailing for home that one," the first of them said, his Geordie accent croaking against the chilly air. “I heard she's a fine hulk, with a fine crew, and if it weren't for the strange circumstances, I might have taken her me'self.”
"Taken her?" said the other. It was a slightly younger, more playful voice, but still old and rickety none the less.
"Like Mable grogged up to the gills taken her. I'd have rode that bitch on the low line straight back to London."
"You didn't hear?" the other began. And now the two voices remained constant, as if standing before the terraced ocean. “Granted, it's not public knowledge, but she'll not be going back to London at all. They announced it when she cast. It was a ruse brother, a ruse. They're on her majesty's service to Botany Bay. Can't you see she's a prison hulk?”
"A plain old prison hulk?" The Geordie paused in thought. “Why would they be taking prisonersfrom Van Diemen’s Land?”
"Transport to Norfolk Island, I heard. The worst of the lot, that bunch –"
For a time the voice became drowned out beneath the seagull screed.
"Pardon, mate?"
"Would you look at that."
"My eyes are shot mate. What you see?"
"There's a longboat in the water. I wonder ... Did it come from the point or the ship?"
"Can't be from the point, old friend. She'd barely be at Williamstown by as much as I can see."
"They're pulling to the head."
"Hey Mick?" the older voice began. “My eyes might be fucked, but is that someone out in the surf?”
"Where?"
"There – I thought it was a mound of seaweed..."
"Holy hell, you're right," the voice wobbled into action. “Get to it.”
"I'm too rickety to be playing on the water see?"
The mother's eyes fluttered open. Above her – the wrong way up – peered an old salt of a man between two white muttonchops.
His eyes fell over her body; her arms fell free of nothing. The old man's gaze shifted as if distracted by something in the water. A dripping hand reappeared above her, raining sand and seawater upon her pale face. The man had produced a golden coin – a sovereign – from the ocean. It was almost the size of his ever widening stare. His eyes darted up to his mate with a flash of greedy resentment. The other had, obviously, not seen the golden wafer. In a flash it had vanished into his waistcoat pocket.
"Hell," the other said. “It's a woman. And look here ...”
But she heard no more. Not the panicked wheezing of the two men dragging her body up the beach, nor their barks of distress as they called for help, or the sickening thuds of their attempts to beat the life back into the boy's frail body.
"Quiet now, she’s coming to."
Two sets of worried eyes looked down from the material world above.
Against peddling feet, tear-damp bedsheets twisted and jerked with wave upon wave of comprehension in these first few seconds of consciousness. The mother’s lips contracted over her small yellow teeth and her own salt water fell silently between the many creases of anguish.
"Now again ... your name. Can you tell us your name?"
A patronizing, middle aged woman’s face – tied back by greasy auburn hair and a buttoned down countenance – strained to hide flashes of a hungry curiosity in her patient’s frail response.
"The boy?"
The two words fell somewhere between a question and statement, as if made through the pain of a truth already known but not wanted.
"Quiet now."
She closed her eyes upon a fresh wave of tears.
"The poor lamb's been crying in her sleep. Can't remember a thing, and I am flummoxed as to what can be done."
"She asked of the boy before?" came a thundering Lincolnshire drone.
"Well of course she did."
"Her heart still has memory then at least."
The miserable figure opened her eyes, clawed her way from under the quilt and attempted to make out the blur from which the male voice of authority had come.
The woman rushed forward, clasping her patient’s arm.
"Mr Tulip's here like I said he'd be." Her head darted toward the fuzzy outline.
The bedridden lump fell back, tensed her body and began the pointless fight of a drowning woman.
"Aye, it's all right sweet, its all ship shape. He's the Chief Constable, see?"
And now chief constable William 'Tulip' Wright moved into focus.
"Good morn'in my flower, and how's our memory this fine day?"
The first thing she could make out through the fugue of grief and fever, was his cherry red vest beneath a deep green coat. She had the impression of a wild boar dressed as a dandy.
Tulip thrust his hands into his pockets and his heavy Oak cudgel brushed against his snuff-coloured corduroy tucked tightly beneath yellow-topped riding boots.
His latent words sank like lead in her belly. Her memory. Unfortunately she could remember everything.
"I ..."
"Ah, it's fine. I'm sure it'll come to you." His large bushy eyebrows sloped with pity as a fat paw came up to swipe the shine of a days work away from his wave of a nose. He turned to the woman beside him. “I'll just leave this with you then shall I?” He placed a folded letter in the landlady's hands. “Mrs Umphelby, here, is as fine a nurse as you could hope for.” He motioned towards the tight lipped woman. “Well ... until you're well enough to give me a visit ...”
"Did you say your name was Tulip, sir?" The feverish Scottish lilt seemed to squirm like a cut snake from her mouth. “Only my mind ... I can't be sure.”
"A nickname," he said. “Just a silly nickname. Well, I'll be bidding you farewell then, Miss or Mrs Doe I suppose, although there's nothing doe like about you. I think Miss Wolf would be more fitting?”
"A Wolf. Yes, sir. Those eyes. That hungry wild stare," Mrs Umphelby took a step toward the bed, “but she'll come to her senses soon enough if I have my way.”
"Good'o, Mrs Umphelby, I'll be off then, and don't you let her out of your sight."
Mrs Umphelby stared back down at the mystery before her, and although she was unaware of the deception – that her patient had lost her memory, a hint of suspicion still crept between her thin eyebrows. It was only for an instant, but it was enough to notice.
"Doe? Is that who I am?" The invalid tried to sound as innocent as she could manage.
"Oh hush, why that's just what they call someone they've not yet identified, missy. John Doe, Richard Roe, it's all names for the nameless, now," Mrs Umphelby held the sheaf of paper before her scrunched up eyes, “would you mind ... I don't suppose you can read can you? I'll call Master Turpin,” she added before an answer could be given.
A few short moments later, Master Turpin – a balding man dressed neatly as a valet – stood before the two, the letter mere centimetres before his arched lip.
"Let's see here now," he said. “It's a letter from Mr Wright – a letter from Tulip. Let's see here.” His lips began a painfully slow, yet soundless composition.
After a few minutes Mrs Umphelby could take no more. "Turpin, the note ..."
"Ah yes," he managed to tease out, “It says,” He scratched his chin and looked slowly toward the bed, “with propriety he has your – Miss Doe's – belongings and a few questions for their return.”
"Withpropriety?" replied Mrs Umphelby her eyebrows adding another question mark.
"That's what it says."
"Belongings," the pale face on the pillow said, “don't remember –”
"Just relax little lady, you're not at all well. Not at all."
"My dress?" she said, struggling once more to raise her head.
"It's here, its here. Clean and dry, but" Mrs Umphelby leaned over her patient, giving her a sample of her foul breath, “it really won't do. Such asimple thing. I have spares of course, and here at The Angel Inn we cater for ... Well ... We'll see about it when you're well enough to comprehend.”
All at once introspection came over her like the heavy blue waves that had washed her upon the shore. They were not the clear ice-cold waves that had been the death of her son, but waves of the psyche that glistened with golden coins and a sick, sinking feeling from those many years of hard work falling to the bottom of Port Phillip Bay. Down, down, down they sank. A life – she had promised him – of ease and plenty, of revenge. Of taking back what was rightfully theirs. What should have been theirs. Down further still she sank until she was sick to her stomach with bitter hatred, guilt and failure.
"A mystery a mystery you are," Mrs Umphelby said quietly to herself before locking the door and leaving the Jane Doe to her own indistinguishable sobbed out mutterings.
After what felt like two breaths later the once mother awoke to a morning sunbeam playing over her face against the swaying curtains.
With rejuvenated grief she threw herself upon her side, contracted her body and curled an arm about her head. The empty, coughing sobs could ring no more fluid from her swollen tear ducts. Matted lashes caked with sleep were already beginning to melt free of one another as her breath condensed against the cold morning air. As she pulled the sheets into her hollow stomach, ideas of ending it all played across her mind.
On the ceiling above, a high beam attracted her gaze. Her eyes wound their way down, quite naturally, toward a curtain sash. Then to the window and the top of a chimney peeping up from somewhere below. How many stories, she wondered, would it take to end her life? Would the sash hold her weight beneath her neck? Her mind moved on to the man in the red waistcoat. He had had the jolly face of a butcher with the naturally sinister overtones of someone used to dealing in cuts of meat. An image of the gallows came and her face hardened. She would turn herself in.
Having managed to rise slowly from the bed she knelt down in prayer.
"Mary," she said, “my name is Mary – ”
But still the truth refused to come.
"– Draper" she added weakly, “and you shall know me and judge me in heaven.”
Mary Draper struggled to her feet. Her linen chemise under-shirt unstuck itself from her drying skin, and a wash basin by the window presented itself accordingly.
She felt as if she was doing her son's memory an injustice as the cold water and flannel worked to remove the many tracks from her face. Every time she tried to think of him the image of his small body – struggling to keep them both afloat beneath that billowing dress – flashed before her eyes. She would have finished up like the docker had it not been for Brendan.
She slapped her face with her cupped palms and attempted to push the sickness away as the view of the street below took hold of her attention. Little boys and girls skipped and scuffed their way up the unsealed street, followed by the occasional dog. Along the block, to her left, stood three tall buildings; a grocer and two stores markedT. Robin, J. Smith andHeape & Grice. They reminded her of the weatherboard buildings in the young Californian towns she had visited as an equally young woman. The children below reminded her of those carefree years in the new world where she had met her husband.
The cold water hit her face once more, and her focus returned to present-day Melbourne. She peered up Queen Street to where The Royal Highlander Hotel stood tall in the distance. She knew the town well enough to vanish and never be seen again, but ... Her eyes drifted down to nowhere in particular. The correct course of action made itself know as the top-heavy green coat humped it's way down the street. As far as Mary could tell, Tulip had gone in the direction of the Royal Highlander – possibly for breakfast or a morning drink.
Keeping her eyes on the strolling, brightly dressed chief constable, she pulled on her modest black dress that had been left for her on a chair near the bed. Another swoop of terrible guilt hit her hard in the gut as she handled its sturdy folds. She hadn’t been able to remove the thing in the water; the gold sovereigns sewn into the lining had been enough weight to require the life of her son to keep them both afloat. Running her fingers along the lining, she pause at the last lump in the row. It was slightly smalled than the other hidden forms, more oval than round and a good deal less weighty. A fraction of an ounce lifted from her grave countenance.
When the dress finally sat heavy on her shoulders a sickness came over her that clawed at her neck, adding to her resolve in what must be done. She would turn herself in and let the law give her son justice. She would climb the stairway to the gallows.
Mary stuffed some newspaper into the pair of old boots Umphelby had left her, found a bonnet likewise and made for the door that she remembered had been locked. It didn't take long for her to slide another piece of newspaper under the threshold, and to push the key out with a bobby pin. As it fell with a dull rapport upon the newspaper she waited for any reaction by the stair. None came, and so she withdrew the newspaper, placed the key in her own side of the lock and turned.
"Boys, we'll have no trouble here, no trouble if you please," said the publican, leaning into the bar of The Royal Highlander Hotel.
The two deeply tanned stockmen waved the prospect of trouble away as if it was nothing more than an annoying fly. Instead they continued on toward Tulip, who was sitting by the wall, tucking into a large fried breakfast.
"We were told Tulip liked filling his face here," the larger of the two said, standing directly in front of the masticating constable.
Sitting with her side to the three men – half hidden behind a pillar – sat Mary, sipping her tea and staring up at a crudely drawn mural of a brass band made up of cats and dogs. Tulip hadn't even noticed her as she'd twisted this way and that to scrape enough coppers together (stolen from the till of The Angel Inn) to get some tea and toast for breakfast. And so she had sat, waiting for the right time to interrupt the boorish man, whenever he might next come up for air. Judging by the heavy lip smacking, tea slurping commotion taking place as the two stockmen stood before him, this was not likely to happen unless the plate was emptied, or an act of god intervened.
"Pull up a pew lads and let me know what's grieving you," said Tulip through a mouth full of egg-dipped bread.
"Lads? Lads? For Gods sake, don't tell me he's a Lincolnshire piggy," the smaller of the two said.
"Cheeky kelterments ..."
"Henry Onions," the little bestubbled one said.
"And Pete Onions at your service."
The two men dragged seats before the small table to sit with their filthy trousers wide, exposing their saddle worn crotches to the unfazed Tulip.
"So this is the new chief constable is it? You, that came swanning in to take custody of our yields," said the one called Pete.
"Dresses like a dandy to boot," added Henry.
"A boar dressed as a swallow if ever I saw one."
"A boar? A gentle harmless piggy I assure you," Tulip replied with a soft, dangerous laugh.
Pete leaned his long torso forward, and Mary, stealing glances at the two, caught a sudden whiff of horse manure, sweat and stale urine.
"The hard work's been done," Pete croaked, “the dirty work, and more's the fun, and we have no qualms with city folk moving in on our land.”
"I can tell you lads, it weren't nepotism that got me this job." Tulip gave Pete his eye for the first time in the conversation. “But that's up to you to do your homework. Now if you don't mind, my victuals be wanting.”
"Ungrateful ... Do you know whowe are then?" Henry smacked a hand on his mates shoulder. “Listen: We did the dirty work see? The work no one liked talking about here. We were the first. We cleared the land of its troubles.”
"And I must commend you all for taking out the most militant of their tribes, but they seem agreeable enough to me at present," said Tulip, still giving Pete a dead man's stare.
The large Pete leaned further forward, dragging Henry's hand from his shoulder.
"We seized it. We fenced, ring barked, and culled. The green grass of Melbourne is fertilized with the blood we put back into the soil." Pete jabbed the air. “The late Batman, rest his soul, was a slippery cunt. He gave the blacks a few bits and pieces and is claiming he bought the land from them; our land. It's incredible.”
"Am I not he in his stead? Speak ill of the dead and I shall have you locked and strapped up in one of those –" Tulip looked to the landlord. “What you call'em madman gansey?”
"Straight jacket," the landlord answered.
"Right. What use unloading your grief upon the realm of the dead – unless you want the stee'to heaven, and I can arrange that. You can talk to him while your feet dance the hornpipe in the air, from a rope, by your neck." Tulip returned to his breakfast.
"You threatening me? I ... We come up here for your help." Henry was standing up now.
"Well then man, air your grievances. I am here and alive and have no qualms with you as of yet."
The two stockmen looked at each other and Henry returned to his seat.
"Right, well. As I was saying. Henry and I were camped up the bottom end of Williamstown with our associate, Jimmy McGee, keeping an eye on our run. We'd had evidence, you see, of indigenous interventions – regarding the stock. So we already had our guns readied and our eyes peeled for mischief." Pete moved his seat closer. “We were just having our tea when we noticed the Valhalla leaving port. A strange thing, that ship. Do you know of it?”
"I knew of it, yes. To London from Van Diemen's Land was the official story," Tulip replied.
"Well that's what we thought until Jimmy started fiddling with his spyglass. What he saw was not a ship at all."
"A dray? Or perhaps one of these new steam contraptions I wonder?" said Tulip more to himself than the two before him.
"A Hulk. The Valhalla was a fat fuck prison transport, plain as day. Now we guessed the whole affair had been covered up – so as not to alarm the residents of this new city. I've plenty of convicts in my employ, but these boys were in the black and yellow. They were hard timers. We guessed they were being shipped to Norfolk, or some such thing. It doesn't matter," Pete said.
Henry crossed his arms and lent back in the chair to emphasize his brother’s point.
"I was aware of the situation," said Tulip softly.
"Were you aware that it was the government men," blurted Henry, “that were in charge of the ship when she passed Williamstown?”
"Government men? You mean convicts? Nonsense."
Henry grabbed his brother's shoulder for him to backup his words.
"It's true," said Pete. “They had a bayonet to the throat of a red-coat while the boys swung from the rigging like rabid monkeys.”
Now it was Henry's turn: "They were certainly taking their sweet time getting the sails up. We got the feeling they were indulging their newly found freedom. We were just about to ride for town when a longboat hit the water."
"Henry here, and Jimmy too, was all fired up at this point," said Pete, “then Jimmy told us to ride and that he'd see to securing the situation with the landing. Well we was just saddling up our horse when we heard the rapport. I rushed over in time to see Jimmy's guts and blood being drank into the sand and a group of Natives all milling about. One of them had a rifle in hand.”
"Natives? What of the longboat?" Tulip said, eyes darting between the two men.
"We ran before looking, sir," said Pete.
"We're not cowards," Henry added, “but we've been around long enough to know the right time to fell a blackskin, and that was neither the time, nor circumstance in numbers favouring us.”
"Absconders, native rebellion, a dead body and a washed up lady," Tulip said, rubbing his heavy chin before noticing his audience's confusion. “A night ago a young woman was found washed up on the beach claiming to have lost her memory. Shortly after, the body of a docker washed up not a half mile of where she had been found.”
The hair upon Mary's neck bristled and a cold prickling sensation crawled up the front of her body to her face. The docker .... She could easily remember his evil little face.
"I was supposed to have had word from the captain of the Valhalla by now; he was meant to land in Williamstown and send word to me by semaphore –"
A crony shriek came from the swinging bat-wing doors of the Highlander.
"Miss Doe," squawked Mrs Umphelby.
Mary looked up with a start. The sleek landlady seemed to have materialized out of nowhere. To her horror, everyone in the room was now turning to the source of the landlady's distress. Tulip ducked his head down to catch Mary's red face beneath the protection of the bonnet.
"Miss Doe, I've been looking for you everywhere," yapped Umphelby.
"Spying are yeh?" cried Tulip as he moved to apprehend her.
The two images – one of the docker, the other of Tulip seizing her arm – conflated.
"What's a shrewd young lady of legitimate wealth doing sneaking off to stowaway on a London bound ship?" Had it been dead-] man's voice from the depths, or Tulip's voice in the present? She tried to concentrate as the image of her son’s limp body on her lap knocked against her in the surf. “Makes you wonder how much more the lady has tucked all up in there.”
Her world was spinning. Mrs Umphelby was rushing to her aid as Tulip shook her. He was saying something but the dockers' voice was all she could hear. "I'm just saying, like. Gold weight is an express route down to Mr Jones, below, if a lady should fall overboard."
"Where do you think you're off to, Miss Doe" Tulip was barking at her. “What are you doing spying on me here? What is your name? Damn it I'm not buying this act!”
CHAPTER TWO - LEAVING VALHALLA
"Those chains will sink you down."
The hammer strike rang cold across the ocean and the next prisoner stepped forward.
Screweye – overbite hooking his lower lip – made a jolly whistle upon the roof of his mouth and jumped his brow and grinned.
"I'll be gentle, Johnny Potato," he said.
Johnny, a wretched looking convict in his late fifties, stood twitching like a scarecrow in the wind, stark yellow and stiff with fear. Most if not all of the men had either a combination of yellow and black, or simply plain black fabric. Some, who had been particularly violent early on in their convict careers, simply wore the clothes they'd come in on. Johnny, in his own canary-yellow duds, however, hinted at a more romantic, even heroic, political prisoner class.
In reality, for those who knew anything about him, the truth was many leagues less romantic by far. When Johnny had been around the age of ten he had been inadvertently mixed up in the Irish rebellion of 1798 when he had been hawking copies ofThe Northern Star – a banned publication of the Society of United Irishmen. He had only really became aware of the significance of what he had done during the proceedings of a tumultuous group trial. His fellow convicts had treated him well enough, but as the years had passed and the shine had tarnished, eventually what little camaraderie he'd had with his fellow Irishmen had all but evaporated from an already shallow pool of a joke.
"HuzcHugh –" Screweye sneezed, leaning to the ocean to empty his nose one nostril at a time, down the larboard bow of the ship. “– fucken wattle spores on the wind,” he croaked.
Johnny's frozen expression – of rude surprise at the sneeze of the man about to bring the hammer between his legs – was reflected in Screweye's red scalp flashing past him. He clenched his jaw as the hammer broke his chains.
Screweye's accuracy was not the best in the world, so it was agreed that the men should file their own cuffs. Attacking the single chain that ran between their ankles, however, was a much more realistic task for Screweye to perform.
Johnny's chains hit the deck.
"Where's he think he's going?" Screweye squinted after Johnny's scuttling form, heading toward the captain's quarters. “We’ve left your Captain Macanochie ashore at Williamstown, I’m sorry to say, so you’ll have to find another date to varnish.”
The back of Johnny's yellow jumpsuit disappeared fore. A rolling salute of his boots upon the stair was all he left in his wake.
"Next," barked Screweye, and another convict stepped forward.
As the sun lowered over the yardarm, and men accumulated like chimps upon the deck of the Valhalla to wait for a spare file, nervous laughings and murmurings were the prelude to the dawning realization of what had been accomplished. All of these men upon the prison hulk had nothing to lose from the escape but a life on a tiny prison-island somewhere between the head of New Zealand and the foot of New Caledonia.
From Van Diemen's Land they had headed express to Melbourne, anchoring for long enough to launch a longboat to Williamstown for the captain to get any news and maybe to restock a few of his own choice supplies. It had been the perfect time to take control of the ship and to set her new course – not for the next stopover at Sydney – but express to the whaling harbours of New Zealand, were it was agreed they should all find their new lives awaiting.
New Zealand was a fresh new land with proud natives apparently generous with their women, where they could find plenty of game and timber. A few of the lads had made plans to take the hulk to more civilized lands, but the majority of the men knew that the arm of the empire was long and its sympathizers too many, to evade recapture. New Zealand was the kind of place you could disappear into and still survive. Australia was the opposite.
While the final few men heated their chains upon the furnace, Johnny reappeared from below to stand before the stern-faced Mr Beeves, who had taken, planned and carried out the majority of the operation.
"What, Johnny? What is it you're wanting?" he said between two cracked lips.
Johnny leaned forward and Beeves leaned back.
"Speak plainly," said Beeves in the same action.
"This isn't going to end well, Mr Beeves," Johnny said with an earnest Belfast lilt, his eyes darting to the mainland.
"Oh for fuck's ... Look, if you don't like it, the brig's all below," said Beeves, trailing off into a grumble. “Bringing all your cynicism down upon us.”
Screweye stepped back from the last chain broken. Before a slightly hurt Johnny could make himself understood, four words were screamed up into the rigging to produce a chorus of cheers. Moving quickly toward the men on the decks, Screweye screamed for a second time:
"Open the rum rations!"
More cheers erupted. All turned to shake the next man's hand, to slap a back and to declare 'well done' and 'thank god' for their freedom.
"The chief bull says he hasn't the key," came a voice through the din.
"Torture him then. Break down the doorand torture him," called Beeves in response.
All cheered, drowning out Johnny's next pained attempt for Beeves’s attention.
"Listen mate, the point is just yonder," he pleaded, pointing toward the makeshift semaphore tower at Gellibrand’s Point to the right of the bays scoop.
"Maybe so is the superintendents welcoming party," said Beeves to Johnny's ear. “Heck, you're a strong bloke. I reckon you could swim from here.”
Just now, a convict known as Hope took Johnny and Beeves under his armpits. Wheeling them to face the open ocean, he called: "To their open arms. But there's softer arms we'll be taking to, lads."
He was referring to the equally hopeful whalers stories they'd all, no doubt, heard of the obliging native women waiting for their arrival in New Zealand.
"For fuck's sake –" mumbled Johnny, “you believe that shite?”
"Fuck you, Johnny. Blockhead's right. TO THE BRIG. To-the-brig. To-the-brig ..."
"Inciting descent. Hankering for little Caesar's spot in the elements are ya? Would ya like that Johnny, ay?" Beeves slapped Johnny’s back, pointing out the man that hugged the mast with his shackles.
Nicknamed after the first bushranger, Black Caesar, of old, the large West Indian grimaced against his shackles. No one had bothered to untie him since the escape and Johnny suspected no one would.
"So much for emancipation," Hope said, dancing about Caesar's mast.
Caesar followed Hope with eyes full of murder, never once breaking gaze with each slap Hope inflicted upon his face.
"Or maybe the perch?" said Beeves pointing up to the crows-nest aloft. “Nice and private like. Always a good spot to beat one off the mainsail.”
"Give dem little Caesar here a few frothy droppings to moisten his mouth on." Hope jeered at Caesar, who was now smiling defiantly back at him.
"You, him hab childer? Gemmen and lady feel de same way? 'Mancipation gib gemmen lady right de finger ring?" Hope mocked back and forth between Johnny and Caesar. “That right, nigger lover?”
"Only if Johnny's up for it," Caesar replied in a flawless diction Hope could never match if he tried.
"He'd like that I reckon he would," Beeves said, punching Johnny in the shoulder and moving on.
By now the hubbub on deck was beginning to ease as the men awaited the release of the rum rations. Through the jovial atmosphere, Johnny rounded upon Caesar's mast.
"Cross my palm with silver, mate, they'll probably perish before you ever die of exposure." Johnny was referring to the ships complete lack of rations to make it to New Zealand in a single bound. “Great whores that they are,” he added, discretely addressing the West Indian negro.
"Don't even think about opening that gob," came a voice over Johnny's shoulder directed at Caesar.
Beeves had apparently reinstated the ships rule of talking to a prisoner lashed to the mast, and so he rounded upon Johnny and said: "And you ... do you know the punishment for breaking lip curfew on contempt of punishment?"
"Surrendering the key to the rum tank?" Johnny asked, a cute look on his face as he took the key from his neck. He had taken it as soon as his chains had been loosed with a bargaining chip in mind amongst these murderous thugs.
Beeves' inflamed face seemed to quench at the sight of it. Judging from the hammering coming up from below, the boys had still not got into the heavily fortified cabin.
"You beauty," cried Beeves, “All is forgiven, my friend, all is forgiven.”
In a blink of a sun-shot eye Johnny had become saviour and saint upon the darkening decks of the Valhalla. Slowly he sipped his rum and smelled the pages of the book he'd stolen along with the key. He was afraid he'd almost forgotten how to read entirely, having been denied material of any kind but newspaper to wipe is arse with. The Hobart Advertiser was true to its name in content. He felt he knew every establishment that had ever existed between the two ends of Australia. In the fading light the words of Mary Shelley warmed his heart, while the rum did its equal share in turn. Peace in the pages. He smiled to himself.
"Cheers mate," he said as another stumbling convict poured a portion into his cup.
"No ... No Norfolk hellhole for us mate eh? No Newgate hornpipes, or spinning wheels. Gonna find myself a sweet tropical paradise. Gonna have adventures and fuck the natives and they'll write stories of me. I'll raise me skirts to Boswell like Mary Lynch and get a pardon. What's that you got there?" he added, jabbing at the book and sending a streak of rum down Johnny's yellow jumpsuit.
"Shelly."
"What'cha wanna book for? What's wrong with you? Why ain't you drinking nothing?" The lush peered into Johnny's almost full to the brim cup.
"But Iam drinking nothing," Johnny said with a grin in a poorly timed reference to the drunkards turn of phrase.
"Give me that shit," said the drunk, clearly hurt. “Only reason is you've bin treated,” the man grasped for Johnny's cup, “s'cause you were sneak enough to think of the key. How – how is it you got the key if the cabin was locked in the first place?” The drunk smiled stupidly to himself. “You'd have locked it behind you so as to have a bargaining schip with Beevsy didnt'cha?”
The convict snatched at Johnny's cup, spilling half of it and downing the rest in a couple of gulps.
"What difference it make?" Johnny said, placing the book on the railing as the convict gulped down the cup of rum.
"You know the reason no one likes you, you yellow bellied cunt?"
Johnny knocked him out in a single sharp blow to the jaw. The drunkard dropped, smashing his head on the side of the railing. He moved no more. Johnny didn't bother to check if the man was still breathing or not. Instead he headed below. It was time to put his own plan into action.
"Have a drink Johnny Spud," they yelled at him as he made for the stair.
"Drink Johnny, drink Johnny, drink Johnny, drink!"
He took a cup and downed the lot just to shut them up. He needed to keep his wits about him ... to keep a clear mind. As he descended below decks he tried to think of the provisions he would need. It was understandable – the risk it would be to raid the mainland of supplies – but there was no way in hell the crew would make it to New Zealand whole in the shape the ships stores were in. Water was of chief concern. He guessed what they did have would last them maybe a quarter of the way of the planned direct route. Originally the hulk was scheduled to take on fresh supplies at Botany Bay. This was now out of the question. He was surprised enough as it stood that Beeves had not ordered them to sail as soon as the ship was taken. But Beeves was obviously not completely idiotic. This is what the men had demanded. Their justice.
All night they sang and stomped and rolled about with one another. As the hours grew early into the next day, Johnny forced himself to stay awake and alert. When a woman’s screams began wafting up from below deck he decided to make his move.
"Please," the woman sobbed as Johnny passed the reptile-house of the first cell block deck. He quickened his pace.
All along the central walkway to the back, where the galley lay for this level, men gorged themselves upon loaves of bread and beef and cheese. The woman’s hands had been bound between the bars, and Johnny guessed that by sun-up every single one of these wretched men would have had their turn upon the captains wife.
"Wha'cha looking at Johnny?" said the currant occupant wedged behind the poor woman, a cup of rum in one hand, an entire loaf of bread in the other. “You're sucking the wind from my sails.”
Johnny changed his mind in his calculations. They wouldn't see more than a couple of miles of open ocean before the supplies ran dry. Leaving what remained of the stale bread supply, Johnny instead went for two bags of flour, a sack full of slippery ham and a large pot full of what smelt like pickled cabbage. All of this he secured in a wide metal basin.
Giving himself plenty of time for the morning sunrise to peep enough above the horizon – to blind any onlookers – he took to ferreting out any other odds and sods he might need. In the end he settled upon a large box of matches, a short carbine rifle, a handful of shot and a powder horn for charges. He would have to make every shot count.
"Hey you, Johnny boy. Over here."
He had just been struggling with the idea of getting the longboat in the water when the deep voice came again.
"You'll need two to lower the longboat, Johnny."
It was Caesar. No one was taking a single bit of notice of them as Johnny squatted down next to the negro, who had been trying his best to remain invisible. There was no danger of that. All of the men on deck were lucky if they could see a few feet in front of them. Someone had found a set of small-pipes, and the mass of the convicts had gathered up the bow of the ship, dancing and stomping on the timbers as the tune wobbled in and out of earshot.
"You’re not gonna fuck me over?" whispered Johnny.
Caesar smiled back up at him, looked around the deck and shrugged his shoulders.
"You’ve got to promise not to fuck me over, see?"
"I’ll help you row ashore," said Caesar “but don’t be expecting me to pledge alliance to a convict.”
Johnny cut the ropes. Chains still attached, Caesar loomed up to full height in the dim early morning. Johnny stepped back, stumbled into a cower before slowly rising, trying to mask the flinch with a curse. It didn't take much time to lower the boat, and before long they were hauling as hard as they could through the cold soup of the bay.
"Do you think they've spotted us?" said Caesar, sitting astern with his back to Johnny as they rowed.
"I think they'll be more glad than disappointed. Fewer mouths to feed."
"But they're keeping the crew aboard?"
"Aye, but I don't think they intend charity. Probably end up having to cannibalize the poor sods, the way their stores were looking."
"Good riddance."
"Did you know there were civilians on board? One of them was being violated." Johnny glanced over his shoulder to check their course.
"And what did you do about it, big man?"
"Did any of them spareus a glance?" Johnny replied. He felt bad in saying it, but they had chosen their lot in life. Fuck them. If the lady wanted to marry a Captain, and if the daughter chose to stick with them, then they were a part of the colonial virus as far as he was concerned.
"Us? You were put on this track for your own reasons. I was simply born," said Caesar between row strokes.
"How many times you escape?"
"Twice blackbirds, twice the law."
"Where'd the birds pick you from?"
"West Indies." said Caesar. “Don't know from what island to be sure. I was too small to see her chains cast off,” he added, referring to the new autonomy of the region.
"But you did end up fouling the law?"
"Emancipation."
"Huh?"
"I walked free – to begin with, at least. Turns out a nigger my age got six years left in him as compensation for the slave owner. Counted as escape. What about you?"
"And what makes you so sure of my guilt?"
"That a book there?" Caesar shot back.
"I see what you're getting at, but trust me brother, being a learned man can be just as dangerous as being black if your class don't fit you." Johnny was far from 'learned'.
"You," Caesar said, “are not my brother.”
"I’ve had my share of prejudice," said Johnny earnestly, oblivious to Caesar’s rising brow, “you can chase the man from the church, but you can’t chase the church from the man. Yep, I’m an Irishman till the bitter end.”
Caesar scoffed.
"A serf to the Roman empire are you? Please yourself."
"You don't think we'd be better as a pair?" said Johnny, ignoring the insult.
"Not a chance."
As soon as they landed upon the shore Caesar went for the gun in an instant. Johnny knew he had been too trusting of a man who had none left to give. Still, Caesar didn't seem interested in Johnny's other supplies. He did, however, pick up the book which had been lying in the hull of the boat. For a moment Johnny thought he was going to toss it into the ocean.
"Thanks," said Johnny, as Caesar placed the book carefully atop the pile of goods in the basin Johnny was holding. “Listen,” he offered, “no offence mate, but you won't survive out there on your own.”
"I can look after myself. You are the one without a gun." Caesar smiled. “Good luck Johnny boy.”
"I've a feeling I'll be safer without it," he said to himself.
He had hardly taken more than a few steps before he heard the gunfire.
"Run!"
Johnny heard the words as the negro attached to them dashed passed him. It looked as if Caesar had fired the carbine. Johnny turned on the spot to see a group of five Aboriginal men strolling up the beach toward him in the dull early morning light. He didn't drop the heavy basin as they surrounded him. They were clearly more interest in Caesar, who had thrown himself over a sand dune where he was, presumably, refilling the muzzle.
"I think you've given him a freight," Johnny said, not expecting a reply. “I'd watch his shooting though. He-good-shot.”
"No lead," one of the men said.
"Letting him waste powder," another said.
"Johnny?" came Caesar's voice over the dune.
"Caesar, would you come out and stop wasting our powder? They know it's not loaded."
"What do you meanour powder?" Caesar’s head appeared at the top of the dune, apparently surprised to see Johnny standing amongst the harmless natives.
"I told you you'd die out here, and I know for a fact you're not heading to Williamstown. The bush is no place for a white man."
"What are you –"
"Look out."
A man – a white man with a flintlock pistol – had appeared behind Caesar.
Caesar rolled over upon his back to meet the man with his own freshly loaded carbine. Johnny saw the smoke from the white man's gun before her heard the two rapports popping one after the other. The white man was already falling as the sounds came through the wind.
"Fuck me, what have you done?" said Johnny when he had reached the top of the dune.
"He shot at me point blank." Caesar stumbled to his feet to check his blood flecked convict duds for the wound.
"I think he shot wide, mate."
This statement didn’t stop Caesar from trying to find the musket hole that must surely have been located somewhere in his body. As Caesar continued twisted this way and that about himself, an elder of the group stepped forward. He examined the body of the white man, his eyes wide with fear. They spoke at lightening pace, first pointing to the body, then to Caesar.
"Mischief, that one," the oldest of the lot finally said, pointing at the dead stockman. “Jimmy McGee. Family all along here. Killers.”
"Family of killers?" Johnny repeated to himself.
"Well I did them a favour then," said Caesar.
One of the younger of the men jumped forward, over the lip, of the Dune as if he’d seen something. By the time Johnny had stumbled up with the rest of them he was just in time to see two men sprinting off into the scrub.
"There," he said. “There was another two, look. Lets get’em, come on.”
"Why?" Caesar said, looking at Johnny as if he had lost his mind.
"You know what you've done, you daft cunt?" Johnny snapped, “This McGee here is dead – killed by a convict, surrounded by a bunch of blackskins.”
"Angry are you? Are you scared little Johnny?" Caesar was grinning at him, reloading the carbine at a leisurely pace.
"Fuck you. It's them they'll fucking crush," Johnny pointed to the stony faced natives, “and you and I they’ll rat on. Don’t you see? It'll take them less than a day before those lads ride into Melbourne. We’re done for – and so are this lot.”
"Horses," Johnny turned to the blackskins, “do you know if they had horses about?” While he spoke, Johnny stripped the stockman of his boots, trousers, and shirt.
"Them boys camped up there," the elder said, pointing to the beginning of the tea-tree scrub near where the two stockmen had vanished.
Before Caesar could so much as twitch an eyelash, Johnny had snatched the carbine in one hand, the bunched up clothes in the other, and was already halfway down the dune.
"Hey, where are you ... Hey!" Caesar's voice bounced with each step as he, too, attempted to run down the dune, while still holding the heavy chain between his ankles.
"I'm going to cut their throats before they can sing," called back the stumbling Irishman.
After only a few paces into the thicket of dense tea-trees, Johnny had lost all sense of direction. There were so many little tracks criss-crossing through the gnarled branches that he hardly knew where to turn. Only when he stopped to recover his breath did he finally hear the sound of pounding hooves upon earth. With a final burst of energy he made it to a small clearing that seemed to lead out into a much wider track. A single horse stood tied to a black, sap-encrusted wattle tree trunk.
"Johnny ..."
By the time Caesar’s breathless voice exploded into the small clearing, Johnny was already pulling off McGee’s trousers and boots. His old yellow convict duds lay crumpled in a heap.
"I'm taking the horse," snapped Johnny, jumping on one leg as he pulled on McGee's riding boot. “And as for your half-baked plans of roughing it ... see how a few days, never mind months of solitude in the bush, will do for your romantic ideas of freedom. And trust me sonny boy, those Abbos back there are not going to be your greatest allies in your survival – seeing as how you doomed them all to death and all.” Johnny pulled the shirt on.
"There's only one horse," Caesar panted.
"Of course there's only one fucking horse," Johnny grasped the reigns and struggled to strike it lucky in a stirrup. “You want to come with me now?”
"My horse," said Caesar, picking up the carbine Johnny had left upon the ground. “My clothes.”
"Alrighty, big man, you’re the boss." Johnny began pulling the shirt off. As he wrenched the final boot from his clammy foot, Caesar bent down to re-adjust his shackles. His feet were covered in blood.
The boot came down hard upon the back of Caesar's head.
"My fucken horse."
End of PART ONE.
If you liked it make sure to keep an eye on my blog, and check back next Sunday for PART TWO.
Neil.