Into That Forest (13 page)

It were early morning and the city were asleep. A thick mist made it hard to see where we were going. It seemed like we were the only people alive and the hooves and wheels of the buggy sounded loud and harsh on the cobbled streets. Both me and Becky were gobsmacked by how large and scary were this town. It smelt different too; of chimney smoke, horse shit and rotting fish.

When we arrived in the centre of Hobart, Ernie rode off with his packhorse and Mr Carsons took us to a hotel. Once we were in a room he washed and bathed the both of us. He put Becky in a new dress, and some old trousers and shirt on me cos he knew I would tear up any dress they tried to put me in. He were hurrying and were up to a purpose. While I were pondering just what this hard man were on ’bout, he grabbed me, tied me up to a chair and put a gag round me mouth. He did it with anger cos I think deep down he blamed me for what happened to his daughter. Becky tried to stop him but he slapped her hands away and despite her threat yawn told her in a stern, no-nonsense way that he had to be obeyed. His gaze were so strong and his voice so tough that she stopped trying to rescue me. He took her to the door. I cried out her name from the bottom of my heart, sensing they were taking her from me but it must have sounded like I were merely coughing cos no real words escaped from the prison me mouth now were in. Becky tried to say something to me but her father shoved her into the hallway before slamming the door behind him.

What words can I use for how I felt? I had this fist of terror in my heart. I knew he were taking her from me. I managed to stand up with the chair still strapped to me bum and get meself to the window. I looked down and seen a white-faced Becky in the buggy next to her father. I hit my face against the window trying to get her attention, but she must have been in a state of shock or maybe she didn’t hear. Her father cracked his whip and the buggy drove off and as it did Becky turned round and looked up at me. She were weeping and so were I.

I watched the buggy vanish into the fog. I had to find
where it had gone. I rocked from side to side on me chair trying to
free meself. It took me an hour but I managed to wiggle out of the ropes. I tried the door but it were locked. There
were no way out except for the windows.

The problem were I didn’t know how to open them. I tried to lift one up but it were locked with a piece of metal like the wings of a butterfly. I were beside myself with desperation so I picked up the chair and smashed it against the window. It shattered and I looked out, but it were clear that if I jumped down into the street I would hurt meself so I crawled onto the ledge and reached out for a drainpipe. Once I grabbed it I were able to shimmy me way down til I were close enough to jump onto the ground. After I got me bearings, I chased after the buggy in the direction I thought it had gone.

Pretty soon I were lost. I sniffed the air and smelt something familiar, something that brought back memories of me father. I followed the smell and found meself down at the wharf. There were a ship there and men were carrying boxes and food up the gangplank. I had an eerie feeling that the ship had something to do with me father. After a time I recognised the stink that coated the ship - it were the smell of whales, that clung to me father’s skin for weeks when he came home from the sea. I were so caught up in the feeling that the ship had something to do with me father that I didn’t hear a buggy arrive. It were Mr Carsons and Ernie. They had been looking for me. I asked them where Becky were. They said nothing. I pointed to the ship and told them that me father were on a ship. I don’t think they heard me right and Mr Carsons asked if I wanted to board the ship to find me father. I were shivering with a sense of losing Becky and me father so I weren’t thinking straight and I had this fancy that he were alive.

While Ernie waited with me, Mr Carsons went on board. He disappeared for half an hour and then came out onto the deck with the captain and pointed to me. The captain stared at me for a long while, like he were debating something with himself and then the two men shook hands. Mr Carsons joined us and we drove back to the hotel. Ernie took me up to the room while Mr Carsons went off to do something. Ernie cut me hair and said that me name was Harry. I shook me head. Me name were Hannah. Mr Carsons came back with some clothes he had buyed for me. They were boys’ trousers and shirts and boots. They knew I didn’t like shoes or boots, but they forced them on me. They had me walk round the room many times with fat Ernie miming how I should walk. I soon picked up that they wanted me to walk like a boy. They acted out for me how to walk tough. They were talking to me about something I didn’t understand when Mr Carsons said to Ernie,
Show
Harry
. With that Ernie pulled down his trousers. I almost fainted when I seen his huge privates under a ledge of fat. Then, without warning he pulled down my trousers. They looked at me quim and shook their heads. I didn’t get it. They did it again, only this time they put their hands over their eyes and shook their heads. They clicked their tongues with irritation and Ernie pulled up my trousers again and pointed to his privates. I felt like a dog being taught a trick I didn’t understand the reason for. Ernie pulled up his own trousers and then yanked down mine. They covered their eyes and shook their heads again. The penny dropped - they didn’t want people to know I were a girl.

They took me down to the ship as it were preparing to sail. Captain Lee were there to greet us. He shook me hand as if I were a boy and called me Harry. He said something about me father. It were obvious he had known him. Captain Lee had a grey beard and kindly eyes. Ernie told me to look at Mount Wellington and tell me what I seen. I told him I seen a stick with a piece of cloth on it on its very top. The captain were impressed cos me eyes were sharper, sharper he said than any eyes he knew. Mr Carsons led me up the gangplank onto the deck while the crew were hurrying back and forth loading the ship.
Home
, he said to me,
This is your home now.

When I said,
Me father? Becky?
he said aye, that if I stayed on the ship I would find them both. I took his words for the truth. He ordered me to climb up the rigging to the topmast and onto the crow’s nest. I were nimble like a native cat, I have to say. I crawled up the rigging and then on to a spot on the topgallant crosstrees. They seen I had a head for heights and me sharp eyes could see for miles past Hobart town, past the harbour into the haze of the horizon a long way away. Down below the three men staring up at me were just specks like three flies stuck to sticky paper, and I knew, as if my father were whispering in me heart, that this spot up in the clouds were to be part of me job. It was me keen eyes that Captain Lee wanted.

When I returned to the deck, Captain Lee and Ernie and Mr Carsons were grinning. I pointed to the sea and asked as best I could where Becky and me father were and Captain Lee said aye, they were out there and I would find them after a long time. I had no idea of what a long time meant so I were happy to hear it. Mr Carsons and Ernie shook me hand and left the ship.

We set sail a few hours later. Captain Lee had me sleep in his cabin on the floor under his desk. He showed me pictures of whales and told me what to do if I seen one. He said I were never to eat with the crew but only with him. He told me to shit and piss in the early hours of the morning when there were hardly any crew on deck. He were real fond of maps and liked to show them to me. He pointed out where the ship had been before and where there could be whales. He had me learn the names of oceans and islands we were going to next.

The first few weeks the ship were bouncing, tossing, turning, rolling, jumping through wild waves and freezing wind that were like nails spearing me face. It were not til we were moving north into the Pacific that the seas calmed and the days grew warmer. Now I could spend me days aloft. I knew I were supposed to be gazing for whales, but after a time on the top of the ship you feel awfully distant from those ants below on the deck, and you dream. I dreamed of finding me father, maybe in one of those countries or islands I seen in Captain’s Lee’s atlas. Captain Lee always sent me up a few hours before dawn cos he knew I could see far in piccaninny light. I watched twice a day, before dawn and into the early hours of sunlight, and an hour or two before dusk when me eyes could see further than any other whale-spotter. I took a speaking trumpet with me cos me voice were light compared to the others on whale watch. So there I were, on top of the ship like a spider in the centre of a giant web of ropes, searching, searching, searching the horizon for a spout, ever so faint. Just a tiny puff and I knew what to yell out. Sometimes it were hard not to drift off in me head. The seas seem without end, the horizon is always the horizon and you never get to it, the ship rolling from side to side like a rocking chair putting me in some sort of trance, and I were not alone, behind me were another crewman on look-out duties and he - whoever he were, cos the men could only stand the job for two hours at a time - would be in a trance too and sometimes on sultry days when we were hardly moving, the ship swayed like a pendulum but it were as if time stood still. The regular rocking rhythm put we watchers on the main and mizzen mastheads into a daze where time, place and even our bodies did not exist.

When I looked behind me I seen a wake of water at the stern of the ship and I’d watch the wake slowly vanish, and it seemed to me our ship left no mark on the sea and even our ship did not exist. I began to see the ocean had many colours from bright emerald to a dirty grey. I’d stare at the quivering water, seeing that just beneath the surface it were shivering with life, teeming with the shadows and silhouettes of fish, the fish only becoming real when they jumped out of the sea into the air and flew for a few moments or the triangle fin of a shark or dolphin cut the surface. Then there were the times just after dusk or before dawn when the sea squirmed with dots of bright lights, like thousands of tiny lamps.

Other times I felt as if I were no longer attached to the ship, but like a sea eagle drifting in an air current, unattached to the earth and sea, carefree and happy as I daydreamed ’bout Becky and me father. Oh, it’s hard to remember exactly what these fancies were. I suppose if I whacked me noggin a few times I might remember in detail, but it were so many years ago that it’s vague, like seeing a thing slowly emerge from a sea fog or mist and you don’t know if it’s a whale, a demon or a ship til it’s practically within touching distance. For some reason I got it into me noggin that Becky were waiting for me on some other ship and that she had been taken on board like me. When I seen a ship passing close by or anchored in a harbour I’d rush up to me possie and I’d be looking down on the deck of the other ship, trying to spot her. I had to cling to this dream just as me mind was clinging to the thought that me father had sailed down the Munro river out to sea and landed on some tropical island. You know, I seen a magician once and he put a dog in a box and when he opened the box the dog was gone. But then it barked and you know what? It were now sitting on a woman’s lap in the audience. That’s the only way to describe it. I were waiting for Becky and me father to appear elsewhere, somewhere, cos even a dog could appear after disappearing.

Whales were hard to find, that much were clear. We had been sailing for two or three months and the sea were empty of them. We seen dolphins, sharks, flying fish and stingrays. We seen natives in canoes, and whaling ships returning to the United States full as a goog with sperm oil - they were easy to spot at night cos they used the whale oil for their lamps and torches. We seen them pass glittering like fairy lights in the night. Captain Lee hated those ships cos he said they were skiting with all their lamps and were trying to make whalers like us seem like failures. He used to grumble and turn away from the cabin window when he seen such braggart whalers. I knew to say nothing while he’d sit in his chair, sighing and lost in thought. Sometimes he’d talk to me, not wanting me to talk back, you know, how you talk to a dog. He were in pain. I had seen that stare on a man before. It was the look of Mr Carsons when he despaired of me and Becky becoming human again.

I kept me distance from the other crew and cos I slept in the Captain’s quarters they knew I were under his protection. It were a crew of men from across the world: Australians, Maoris, Hawaiians, Americans, English, Poles, you name it. They’d sing when drunk and I’d hear their voices echoing through the whole ship as they sang of women, drinking and longing for home, whatever home they came from. I’d sit on deck and watch the crew show off their tattoos, some with pictures of naked women or anchors or dragons or hearts with arrows through them. Captain Lee asked Specky his cabin boy to teach me to talk proper. Specky was short for speck, Flyspeck - he were small. Like me he couldn’t write or read but he would take me round, inside, on top of the ship, teaching me the names of objects. Sometimes I looked down from me possie on the topgallant and seen him grabbing some fellow and pointing up at me in me heavenly nest and laugh, like he thought I were funny and he’d twirl his finger round the side of his head and laugh again. I knew he were poking fun at me and sometimes I thought of whacking him just at the memory of him taking the mickey out of me. It would be easy cos he were ’bout my height and skinny like he were a skeleton with only a paper-thin skin wrapped round his bones. Once when we were anchored near an island the crew undressed Specky and threw him into the lagoon cos he were so on the nose. I swear that when they dragged him back onto the ship and he flopped on the deck gasping for air that I could see his heart beating, like he were one of those geckos whose heart you can see under their thin pale skin. I felt sorry for him then - I knew what it were like not to be seen as human.