English passengers (22 page)

That bridge was worse than all the rest put together. The work was bad, being shifting and cutting great blocks of stone, while every night we had to sleep in boxes stacked up like coffins that were too low even for proper sitting up, and got hot as murder in the warm weather. Worse, the overseer was a bastard of a lasher, while the rest of them in gaol clothes were lame creepers every one of them. I got so wild all I could think of was changing that overseer’s face like he deserved, or bolting, and sometimes I was inches close to making a run for it into the bush, chains and all. I never quite did, though. I bided my time.

No talk was allowed at the bridge, so news was hard to come by, but we always caught it in the end. The first I heard about the Line was from
a farmer who stopped to water his horse. I could see he’d worn gaol clothes in his time, just from his looking at us, as the settlers hardly will notice a man if he’s got chains about his ankles. He never talked to us, knowing that might have made trouble, but to the guard, though he spoke loud enough for all the riverbank to hear.

‘‘Looks like the governor and his army will have to ferry themselves over this one,’’ he said, squinting at that stump of a bridge sticking out from the riverbank, like the leavings of somebody’s arm, which was all we’d done till now. ‘‘When they come through, chasing blacks.’’

That was enough to start a good bit of chatter through the coffin doors that night, with jokes aplenty about Governor Alder playing Napoleon against the crows. After that I heard the guards murmuring about it to each other sometimes, and calling it the Black Line. It sounded as if it would be a proper fuss, too, with soldiers and settlers by the thousand marching across Van Diemen’s Land to scare those blacks into their trap. That got me thinking. Mostly I thought how an army like that will need all sorts of jobs doing, and how any of them would be better than chipping away at stone. What’s more, with so many fellows about, a cove might just disappear and never be missed. Not that I said anything of this to those others. A good thought like that should be hid nicely in a man’s head, like a road-found dollar sewn into his coat hem. Besides, they never deserved any favours from me, that crowd.

So when the overseer started telling how some of us were needed for an expedition I was readier than any, and shouted out my name quick as could be. It was that quickness got me picked.

It felt sweet to be saying goodbye to that bridge, even with a chain clanking at my feet. Us who were going were got up soon after dawn, and then we had to stand waiting while the soldiers had their breakfast. That was when one of the those buggers that were staying thought he’d have a joke, and called out from his coffin, ‘‘Mind you don’t get a spear in your guts.’’ That started them all up, laughing from behind their little coffin doors as loud as they could manage, though it was just rage really, at our getting away. I wasn’t having that. I started making this noise that was something like
ck,
and I gave a nudge to the creepers in front of me till they did the same, and soon they’d all started up,
ck, ck, ck,
till we
couldn’t have sounded more like so many poor miseries chipping away at a heap of rocks, which was what those others would be doing for the next hours and months. That gave a good laugh. I was about to chuck a pebble or two, just for good measure, but then the officers were walking back from their breakfast.

It just took us a little chain clanking and we were round the hill and that foul little stretch of river was gone. It was slow going, and after a few hours we stopped by the shore so the officers could have themselves a little rest and a smoke. That was welcome, and I was lying in the grass, catching my breath and rubbing my ankles where the chains had bit, when I looked up and there he was, riding along the road towards us, all fine and proper in his high saddle, quite the gentleman. My guess was he was on his way to Launceston to sign up for the Black Line like a good King’s subject. It was my old friend Bill Haskins.

He didn’t notice me, I suppose just seeing another gang in convict clothes, but steered his horse to the river for a sip. He did pay attention just after, mind. That was when I got myself up from the grass, picked up a stone, stepped quietly over, helped him down off his high seat and then gave him back a little change for that Spanish dollar and two French coins. I’m still not sure how much I managed before the redcoats grabbed me but I got in a good bit of work and I like to think I put out that fucker’s eye. I suppose it might seem a foolish thing to do, and certainly it wasn’t showing myself improved, but still I can’t say I felt regretful, even though it meant I missed the Line.

Of course, I didn’t know then where that little bit of payment would take me.

I
F A FELLOW
was looking for a good ripe sniff of gun oil then this was the place for him. In all my days I never seen so many muskets all at one time. Ranged along the walls, they were, and leaning against the cases they had been sprung from, filling the air with that newly oiled smell.

The depot had been got up at Oatlands, on the main roadway to Launceston. I had passed through there before and found it a quiet enough spot, just a roadside inn and a few houses, but that day it was lively as could be. Aside from soldiers and convicts there were volunteers like myself by the score, and the throng of the place quite took me back to Norwich on market day. Everywhere you looked there were halloos firing off quicker than crackers on Guy Fawkes Night, as fellows spotted some face they hadn’t seen for a month or a year. I had ridden down with Sam Ferris, Sam being a neighbour of ours, and a Norfolk man too— which is as fine a testimonial as I can think of—and a cheery morning of greetings and news we had. Then we went to get our weapons, which meant a good while of standing waiting. Even when I finally got my musket it was a rough sort of thing, so I was glad I’d brought along two pistols of my own. With it came a pair of handcuffs and a small heap of ammunition that I counted.

‘‘Is that all I get?’’ I said to the army clerk, though it was more for Sam, as he always was one for having a bit of sport.

‘‘Thirty rounds is the issue,’’ said the clerk, looking sour.

I held up the handcuffs. ‘‘What if I give you these back, which I won’t be needing anyway, in exchange for another thirty? That way if I miss once I’ll still bag fifty-nine of the buggers.’’

Sam had himself a good laugh at that. As we walked back out into the spring sunshine, who should we see riding up but the governor himself, playing general, though he was really too pale and scrawny for the part, looking more like some bloody preacher strayed onto a horse. A pair of his officers told everyone to hush and then he gave us all a little speech, thanking us for our help, which nobody minded, though he spoilt it all with some bleating about the blacks, and how we mustn’t harm a hair on their heads, but coax them over with kindly words. ‘‘Think of yourselves as beaters engaged in a grouse hunt,’’ I think he said. Well, if it was applause he was after he got hardly more than a patter, and that was more than he deserved. The fact was he’d never have done a thing if people like me hadn’t started kicking up such a fuss that he got scared.

In the evening Sam and me made for the inn. We weren’t the only
ones, of course, and a merry spot it was, packed to the walls and out into the roadway, everyone knowing this was their last chance for drinking before we began our big stroll through the bush.

‘‘What we should do,’’ I told Sam, ‘‘is down one rum for each bloody crow we’ll bag.’’

That got him laughing. ‘‘It wouldn’t be fair. Why, we’d drink the whole place dry.’’

A sore head I had the next day when we started. The thing about plodding along, step after step, is that it will lull a man into daydreaming. Try as I would, it was hard to keep forever scanning the land ahead, and looking for trouble behind every bush, as my thoughts would wander, perhaps to that storehouse I was looking to build, or to where the price of wool might swing next. Then all at once I’d come awake sharpish at something moving up ahead and my heart would be going faster than a steam hammer. I’d crouch low and tug the gun off my shoulder, and peer round to see if Sam was in sight, or Pete Tanner, who was off to my left, and sometimes they were both vanished, the land having pulled us apart or trees having got in the way, which was a worry. Then I’d look again and see it had all been some foolishness, just a roo, or a branch caught by the wind. It wasn’t that I was frightened, for sure, but being so tired all the time will make a man jittery.

That was the fault of the bloody governor, as you couldn’t imagine a venture worse organized. For a start we didn’t even have tents. Here we were, a proper army, as he’d told us in his speech, and we were left to spend our nights on the ground like so many beggars. I never did get a proper sleep, as there was always some stone or root to punish the ribs, or the rain would start pelting down, finding its way through the mess of branches and leaves that we rigged up as shelters. It was hard, besides, not to keep awake listening. The more days that passed and miles we walked, the more a man would get to wondering if a few hundred savages were bunched up just ahead, perhaps even that crazed Amazon bitch that I’d heard talk of who swore like a trooper and would cut at a man in ways that weren’t to be thought of That wasn’t proper warfaring, that was plain bleeding savagery. Still it was the sort of thing that would come to a man sometimes, especially in the middle of the night.

I wasn’t the only one who was watchful in the dark, either. One time when it was cloudy and there was no more light than in a box, I was just dropping off to sleep when all of a sudden a musket went off, quick as death, over to the east. That had Sam and me on our feet fast enough. For a moment all was quiet, but then suddenly guns started firing off as if this was a proper battle, and from the hill we were stopped on we could watch flashes spitting away in the darkness, as far as we could see. At a moment like that it’s not easy to keep quietly staring ahead into a wall of black nothing. I couldn’t hear anyone coming but that didn’t mean they weren’t there, and the way I saw it there might have been five hundred bloody savages creeping up and thinking we were a gap in the line, so it was sense itself for Sam and me to let off a few rounds, just to warn them away. Finally all went quiet again. Still I can’t say I caught much sleep.

The next morning I expected to hear two dozen blacks had been brought down, but no. Soon after light word passed down the line that all that was found was a few possum prints, which seemed a proper mystery.

There wasn’t much to be done about it, mind, so we packed up and went on our way once more.

M
OTHER MADE US
go about for days near the fire where we’d all got so killed, looking for Tayaleah, though this was some grievous peril as num white men might come back any moment and kill us more. All the while she wailed and called Tayaleah’s name. My worry was that he might step out from some trees and I’d never be free of the little scut after all, but fortunately he never did, and finally Mother let us leave that terrible place. It was my hope that now he was vanished she would give me her cherishings like she should, but this was just some vain hope. No, she just gave me hating looks almost as if it was me who vanished him, while he got more adorings than when he was here. Always she was
recollecting how clever and brave he was, while nobody said this was just foolishness, as they were too scared of getting her angry.

So we went on with our war, going east or south, hither and thither, further and again, till even the forest was strange, with trees I never saw before. That was sad, and often at night I dreamed of the world where I knew all blossom scents, where I could tell the stories inside every rock and river and where Tartoyen and Grandmother were quietly dwelling if they weren’t killed yet. Sometimes we said we wanted to go back, but Mother said it never mattered where we went now because every land in all the world was the same, and everything was just war with white scuts. She was right, yes, as white scuts were everywhere. Hardly one day passed when we did not see one, perhaps far away, chasing sheep or sitting on his tall laughing animal that was called HORSE. If they were in some small place and were few we would fight them. Sometimes we killed them and sometimes they killed us. A few times we found others of ours, lost from their ones, and speaking strangely, and we got more, but mostly we got fewer.

After every war Mother made us walk fast and very far, so they would not catch us all like before. Also she said we never could make big fires anymore, as these would tell num white scuts where we were, and we could only make some small fire put in a hole in the ground, so it hardly did warm us. Those were cold times and hungry too. Sometimes we’d pass many days just eating roots, which never made you feel full. Still, num didn’t kill us in the night anymore, so I suppose Mother was clever in her thinkings.

Then one day I went with Heedeek to hunt without fire, which meant going into forest early, when day was hardly started, and then standing in some bush very still, listening for wallaby’s long feet as he jumped. Heedeek was grown but only just and he never had any wife yet. He had thick hair, coloured red, unless we had no ochre, and it fell all round, like water dropping over some fat stone. He was a little clumsy, tripping on tree roots or kicking branches from the fire when he passed, but he was always kindly to me and never called me heinous names like Mother did. So he got like my old brother.

Heedeek wasn’t a clever hunter, no, and often going with him was just waiting and nothing ever speared, but this morning was different, so
I did surmise. Yes, I stood for just a short time, cold as I must not move or make noise, when suddenly leaves were rustling and some branch was going snap. This was great good fortune, I divined, as others waiting by the fire were hungry for meat, and perhaps I could be their fine hero. From its crashing, so loud, I guessed this must be some fat wallaby, or even kanunnah, who was a little frightening, but we could eat him still. Heedeek gave me a silent look to point where this animal was coming, across that clearing, and I gave him one back to say yes. Then I crouched down behind bushes and got ready with my spear. Sure enough, leaves moved, just where we thought. But then, instead of any wallaby or kanunnah, out walked scut white man holding his gun and killing knife.