Remember Me (22 page)

‘Breakfast?’ he said incredulously.

Mary touched his wet shirt. ‘Take that off and hang it up to dry,’ she said, her face soft with concern. ‘Wrap the blanket round you to warm you up. I could only fry a bit of bread for you, it was all I could get.’

Five minutes later, sitting on a stool in the doorway of the hut, with a cup of sweet tea in one hand and a big piece of fried bread in the other, Will felt much better. The first rays of light were coming into the sky and the bay looked beautiful with a cloud of mist just above the water. It was his favourite time of day, the
birds just waking to sing, the ugliness of the camp not yet visible. It might be winter here, but it was as warm as a spring morning back home. In fact, looking across at the
Sirius
wreathed in mist, with the grey-green of the other side of the bay behind her, he could almost fool himself he was in Falmouth harbour looking out to St Mawes.

He missed Cornwall so much – the little winding cobbled streets, the houses huddled together, that blinding clear light in summer, the big fires in the tavern on a winter’s night. When he thought of the risks the Cornish took with smuggling, it made him smile. Straining at the oars against waves as tall as houses, watching for the warning lanterns on the cliffs that said the excise men were coming – it was a game with high stakes, and only those with speed, nerve and strength dared play. But the winners tossed back glasses of French brandy, fishermen, miners and farm labourers equals with the country squire if they had played their part well.

The lasses there were pretty as well – rosy cheeks, big breasts and sweet shy smiles. The first time he saw Mary, through the grille on the
Dunkirk
, she was like that too. Now she was rake-thin, with hollowed cheeks, and she rarely smiled.

But she’d got up to make a fire and fry him some bread. She kept herself clean, and she didn’t go after other men.

‘Penny for them?’ Mary startled him by coming up behind him and putting her arms around his neck.

‘They aren’t worth a penny!’ he chuckled. ‘I’ll tell
you them for free. I was thinking about Cornwall, the smuggling and the taverns.’

‘Want to know what I’m thinking?’ she asked, kissing his neck.

‘Go on,’ he said.

‘That we get into bed,’ she said. ‘And I warm you proper like.’

Will smiled, and it went right down inside him. Even before the flogging there hadn’t been much love-making, hunger and exhaustion saw to that. But since then it had gone completely; his lacerated back, working on the brick kiln, and further cuts in rations had knocked all the passion out of him.

‘Now that’s a real good idea, my lover,’ he said, turning to grab her for a kiss. ‘It’s been far too long.’

Mary smiled to herself later that day as she washed clothes down at the water’s edge. She’d almost forgotten how special Will could make her feel. It was worth getting up so early, she’d even managed to forget how hungry she was.

In early September Mary knew she was definitely pregnant again. She was thrilled, not just because she’d reached her objective and found a way to prevent Will from leaving her here alone, but because he was genuinely delighted at becoming a father. Yet as always in the colony, any happy moment seemed to be erased by something bad. This time it was a soldier raping a girl of eight. To Mary it brought Charlotte’s vulnerability sharply into focus. Up until then she’d hardly considered what the future for her
child would be – keeping her alive was enough to concern herself with. But when the soldier wasn’t even hanged, but sent off to Norfolk Island, she found herself sobbing with rage.

‘Don’t take on so, Mary,’ Will said, trying to comfort her. ‘He’ll be out of the way there.’

‘But there’s children there too,’ she reminded him. ‘Including little Henrietta, Jane’s baby. You explain to me why you can be flogged just for insolence, but hurting a little girl isn’t thought a real crime.’

‘I don’t know,’ Will said, shaking his head. ‘Any more than I don’t know why they still keep sending a couple of men out to watch me fish. If they weren’t there, I’d sail right out the bay and get a better catch.’

‘We have to think again about escape,’ Mary said fiercely.

‘How can we do that with a little ’un on the way?’ he replied, tenderly patting her belly.

‘Because of this little ’un,’ she retorted. ‘Don’t you want something better for him?’

In November the whole colony buzzed with the news that Lieutenant Bradley and Captain Keltie of the
Sirius
had captured two natives on Captain Phillip’s instructions.

The captured men were called Bennelong and Colbee, and it was discovered they had no wives or children. Lieutenant Bradley, the officer responsible for their capture, got an orphaned native boy who had been taken in by Surgeon White to explain to the men that they weren’t going to be harmed.

Mary watched the whole proceeding with amazement. She had always thought that abducting anyone against their will amounted to harm. She was also sure that the two natives would be even more alarmed when they were subjected to being washed, shaved, dressed in clothes and shackled to prevent their escape.

Just a few days later, news got round that both men had managed to free themselves from their shackles. Colbee got clean away, but Bennelong was caught. The majority of the prisoners found all this highly amusing. They didn’t consider Bennelong to be a person with feelings, more an animal which had to be caged. But Mary was sickened by it – there was something about the tall, well-built black man that touched her. She could imagine his confusion at the peculiar world he’d been dragged into. His people weren’t confined in any way. Home was the temporary shelter of a cave or a mud and bark ‘humpie’. They didn’t have kings or princes in their tribes, every man was equal to the next, so how could he possibly understand the white man’s class distinctions, or his lust for wealth, power and possessions?

Mary saw Bennelong as being in a very similar position to herself, and as such they could be allies. It struck her that if she could show him ways to use his captivity to his advantage, in return he might be persuaded to help her and Will escape.

The weeks went slowly by, and with each one Mary felt more desperate. There were no extra rations here for pregnant women as on the
Charlotte
, and she was so
hungry that she often went searching for the grubs and insects the natives had shown her. During December and January it was blazing hot, she would be wakened at dawn by the sun beating down on the hut’s roof, and there was no respite all day until sunset.

Only the relationship she was forming with Bennelong gave her a little hope. With words of his language she learned from the children she had befriended, she was able to suggest to him that if he played along with Captain Phillip his leg irons would be removed and he could become important to the white man. Bennelong seemed to understand what she meant; on one occasion he showed her half a bottle of rum he’d been given and grinned broadly. He appeared to be happy to stay in the settlement as long as more of it was forthcoming.

Mary knew it was too soon to attempt to enrol his help in any escape plan. Besides, it was impossible when she was so heavily pregnant. There was no possibility of collecting and storing food either, and anyway there were no ships in the harbour. Both the
Sirius
and the
Supply
had gone, taking ninety-six male and twenty-five female convicts, as well as twenty-five children, to Norfolk Island in an effort to eke out the rations a little longer. The
Sirius
was then going on to China to try to get desperately needed provisions.

When they set sail from England they had enough food for two years, and now that time was up. Even though the farm at Rose Hill had produced a good harvest of wheat, there was only enough food to last a few more months, with rations cut yet again. Everyone from
Captain Phillip to the lowest criminal was waiting expectantly for a ship to arrive with more food. Daily, people trudged down to Dawes Point, where they could just about see the flag mast on the South Head at the end of the bay. If the flag was struck it would mean a ship was coming, but day after day they were disappointed.

The fear of dying of starvation was very real now. It showed in every convict’s face, from the bleakness of their eyes to the hollows in their cheeks, and in the slowness of their movements. With so many of their original number taken away by troops to Norfolk Island, and the countless deaths during the two years, Sydney Cove looked like a ghost town, and empty huts were being allocated to people who had previously shared. With a further cut in rations, no one had the physical strength to work a full day. An order was issued that they need only work until midday; the afternoons could be spent working their own gardens. At last Will was told he could fish without a guard, because there just wasn’t the manpower to spare for fishing duties.

Mary had her first labour pains during the early evening of 30 March. She didn’t recognize them as labour at first, assuming they were merely hunger cramps. Will was out fishing and it was raining so hard that the ground was a sea of slippery red mud. She put Charlotte to bed and got in herself, but the pains continued, just strong enough to prevent sleep.

All through the night she lay there, staring up into the darkness, listening to the steady dripping of water coming in through the roof. By then she realized the baby was
coming, but in her weakened state she felt unable to get up and trudge through the mud and rain to seek help.

For the first time ever, she hoped for death. She was exhausted by the daily struggle to survive, and she felt unable to meet the further demands a new baby would place on her. Even the little cries Charlotte made in her sleep didn’t stir her conscience. She hoped that by lying there, ignoring the child struggling to find its way out into the world, it would just fade away and so would she.

But as she closed her eyes and tried to will herself into death’s dark valley, her mother’s face came into her mind. Mary had tried her best to forget her parents and sister. She had long since given up trying to recall their faces and the sound of their voices or wondering if they ever spoke of her. She had even steeled herself not to think about Cornwall and compare it with here.

Yet there was her mother’s face, as clear as if she was standing in the daylight before her. Her grey eyes were full of concern, her mouth slightly pursed as if in disapproval, wisps of grey hair escaping from her linen cap. Her expression was one Mary remembered very well, the one she’d always worn when berating Mary for unfeminine behaviour. Mary remembered then that her mother had always been strong, she’d never shown her anxiety to Mary and Dolly when their father’s ship didn’t return when expected. Somehow she always managed to put food on the table and keep the fire burning.

It seemed to Mary that her mother was trying to send her a message that she must fight for life, for her children’s sake.

With great difficulty she got out of her bed, fumbled in the dark for a piece of sacking to put around her shoulders, and went out into the rain.

The nearest hut was only twenty yards away, but the pains were too fierce to stand up. On her hands and knees, Mary crawled through the mud in agony to get help.

The first dawn light was just coming through the open door of the hut as Mary’s baby finally fought his way out, in the none too certain hands of Anne Tomkin.

‘It’s a boy!’ Anne exclaimed with more weariness than jubilation, as she held the baby closer to the door to examine him. ‘And he looks healthy enough.’

This was borne out by a lusty, angry scream. It was Mary who had to tell Anne to wrap her son in a piece of cloth, to tie the cord and cut it. Anne had no children herself and her husband Wilfred who had gone for more experienced help hadn’t arrived back.

Yet as Mary took her baby in her arms, she forgot the pain, the hunger and even her blood- and mud-caked body. God had given her the boy she wanted, He had spared her life, and that had to mean there was hope for better times.

‘I’ll call him Emmanuel,’ she said softly to herself.

Chapter eight

‘He’s a beauty,’ Will said reverently as he cradled his son in his arms. He’d only just got back from fishing all night, and despite being wet, cold and exhausted he was thrilled to find Mary had borne him a son. ‘And he’s brought us luck! I’ve got a fine big mullet for us.’

When Mary shot him an anxious glance, Will grinned. ‘It’s fair do’s. They gave it to me because of the babby. I reckon things will get better for us now.’

Mary relaxed again and smiled. Will had always been affectionate towards Charlotte right from her early days, but he was almost incandescent with pleasure now as he looked down at his own baby. ‘Do you like the name Emmanuel?’ she asked.

‘It’s a real good name,’ he said, looking tenderly first at his son and then at Mary. ‘A hopeful one, and I’ll make sure he learns to write it too.’

That day was a golden one for Mary. The rain stopped, the sun came out and Will carried her down to the sea to wash her. There had been many sweet moments between them in the past, but never this degree of tenderness and care. He made her comfortable in a makeshift bed beneath a gum tree by the hut, tucked Emmanuel into Charlotte’s
old crib, then cooked the mullet over the fire with a couple of potatoes he’d managed to get from somewhere. Later he took Charlotte for a walk to tell Surgeon White about the new baby, leaving Mary to sleep.

She didn’t sleep, despite the comfort of the food inside her. Will wasn’t the kind of man who spoke of love, but his actions had told her how he felt. There had been times during her pregnancy when she had felt guilty she was trapping him, but that feeling had gone now she had seen his delight in having his own child. They were a complete family now, and whatever life had in store for them, they would cope with it together.

Tench came to visit later that afternoon.

‘I heard your baby was born,’ he said, looking down at Mary cuddling Emmanuel under the tree. ‘I thank God you are both safe and well.’