The Night They Stormed Eureka (10 page)

‘I got it!’ Mrs Puddleham thudded down the track into the gully. Her face was mostly red, but there was white about her lips and eyes. Her collar was soaked with sweat. Her body shook in great heaves as she tried to get her breath, holding out the coins to the troopers.

The trooper bit one of the coins. ‘Seems sound enough,’ he muttered. He lifted his blue cap, half polite and half contemptuous. ‘Unchain him,’ he ordered.

The other trooper retrieved his bayonet and unlocked Mr Puddleham’s chain. It swung by his side as he and his companion strode off, taking the other chained miner with them.

Sam and Mrs Puddleham helped the shaking butler upright. A few seconds later they heard the trooper’s voice, calling down a mineshaft, demanding the occupant come up and show his licence.

‘Mr … I mean, Papa, are you all right?’

Mr Puddleham brushed his coat with the tips of his fingers. His bearing grew erect again, though sweat still rolled down his face and neck, and his hands trembled.

‘Thank you. Many, many thanks indeed.’ He seemed to be breathing in dignity as well as air. ‘Yes, I am quite recovered now.’

What does he really feel? wondered Sam. Was this what you had to do when you were someone’s servant, always schooling your face so you showed nothing of yourself?

‘Them dirty low-life blaggards,’ muttered Mrs Puddleham.

‘But why did you pay him? You’ve got a shopkeeper’s licence!’

‘We pays to keep them quiet. Them as has the power can charge what they likes, and who’s to stop them? What gets my garters in a twist is having to pay twice — but we’re on the edge of two territories here. So the blaggards can pick our pockets comin’ an’ goin'.’

‘You mean you have to pay bribes? But that’s wrong!’

‘An’ what can we do about it?’ Mrs Puddleham’s face was carefully expressionless. ‘Go to the commissioners? The police? Them magistrates? We’d need to pay them an’ all as well. Nay, they’re all as bad as each other. I told you: you can get away with murder on these diggin’s as long as you knows who to pay. And it don’t pay to get on the wrong side of any o’ them, either. I’m just glad we came back when we did. It’d ‘ave cost me three times as much to swing Mr Puddleham from gaol, not to mention the indignity for a man like him, banged up with all them trash.’

Mr Puddleham’s lips tightened. He bent down stiffly to put more wood on the fire, though Sam suspected it was so they couldn’t see his face.

‘Tell you what.’ Mrs Puddleham gave a determined smile. She pressed some more coins into Sam’s hands. ‘You run back to Mrs Wilson’s. Buy us six eggs, and half a pound of their best butter — mind you smells it to check it’s fresh. I’ve got a jar of blackberry jam in the tent I’ve been saving for something special. I’m making pancakes this afternoon to cheer us up. An’ if anyone else wants a pancake,’ said Mrs Puddleham defiantly, ‘they can pay sixpence!’

Sam bit into her pancake and gave a shiver of pleasure. Jam oozed over it, sweet and buttery. Somehow Mrs Puddleham had secrets enough to make everything taste wonderful, even flour and egg and water mixed in an old tin dish.

Mrs Puddleham poured more batter into the frying pan, then slipped an egg slice under it and flipped it over; another quick flip and the pancake was on the plate. Sam spread jam over this one too.

‘Pancakes for anyone as wants them all day tomorrow.’ Mrs Puddleham, licked a dollop of batter off her finger. ‘And yes,’ to Mr Puddleham. ‘I know what the price of eggs and flour is. But I can make them pay. The more we sells the more money we makes. And the more we makes, the sooner we’re back in Melbourne with our hotel. You just keep thinking about that, Mr P.’

Mr Puddleham stared at his pancake and said nothing. He had only eaten a few bites. Nor had he spoken since Sam got back with the eggs and butter, except to thank his wife when she handed him his plate.

‘We’ll have one of they chandelier things in the front, with a hundred candles in it,’ added Mrs Puddleham a bit desperately. ‘Wax candles too, not tallow, so the ceiling doesn’t get all sooty. And carpets on the floor, them ones with fancy patterns …’ Her voice was thick with yearning, as though holding out the dream to her husband would make him see it too.

Mr Puddleham nodded at his pancake.

‘And I been thinking, too,’ added Mrs Puddleham even more desperately. ‘We can start selling mugs o’ coffee. I reckon we could charge threepence a cup for coffee.’

Mr Puddleham looked up from his pancake. ‘No.’

‘Why? We’d make a good profit.’

‘Because if we sell coffee the troopers will claim we’re selling grog as well, and want a cut of what we make.’ His tone was as calm as the sky, as cold as the breeze from the mountains.

‘Mayhap you’re right.’ Mrs Puddleham shifted her bulk and thrust the frying pan into the wooden bucket of water. It hissed till she lifted it back out and began to dry it on her apron. ‘But I tell you something, Mr Puddleham, we need to buy a miner’s right for you, and one for Sam too. Just to be on the safe side.’

‘No,’ said Mr Puddleham.

‘I know it’s two lots o’ thirty shillings gone. But we’re making good money, Mr P, and —’

‘No,’ said Mr Puddleham. Suddenly his face twisted. It was as though years of politeness vanished, showing the real man underneath. ‘I will not pay a penny to dastardssuch as those! I will not give another halfpenny to men who call themselves a government and employ bully boys and wretches.’

Mrs Puddleham stared at him. ‘But —’

‘What would Her Majesty say,’ said Mr Puddleham wildly, ‘if she saw the injustices on these diggings?’

‘I reckon Her Majesty knows how to shut her eyes to them injustices,’ said Mrs Puddleham. ‘We got to look out for ourselves, Mr Puddleham, and not go mixing ourselves up in trouble. We nearly got it all now,’ she added wheedlingly. ‘A nice bit in the bank for our hotel an’ — an’ a daughter again, like —’ She stopped herself, looking unsure of her ground.

Mr Puddleham’s face gentled. He reached out and patted his wife’s hand. But he still shook his head. ‘I will not —’ he began, then glanced at Sam.

Sam stood up. ‘Would you mind if I went to see the Professor? His place is down that way, isn’t it?’ She gestured further down the gully. ‘There’s something I’d like to ask him.’

Mrs Puddleham took a deep breath. ‘Off you go, lovey. You’ll find the Professor’s claim two bends down the creek. But stay away from them troopers,’ she added.

Sam nodded. The Puddlehams needed time to themselves. And she needed something too …

The Professor’s mine stood well beyond the others, as though its owner hadn’t bothered to keep to the areas where gold had been found before, but just decided to dig wherever there was an unclaimed spot. Sandcastle walls of clay and mud surrounded the black pit hole, with the usual sail above. Even the Professor, it seemed, cared enough not to risk dying from poison gas underground.

A bark lean-to stood next to the mine — two poles, forked at the top, supporting another pole, and a single sloping wall made of sheets of bark. Sam wondered if the bark kept out any of the rain, or if the rain just collected and seeped down in even bigger drips. But at least, she thought, it would shade him from the sun.

The Professor sat cross-legged in the lean-to. He must have seen her approach, but he gave no sign. His yellow eyes with their red drinker’s rims stared into the distance. His hands caressed his stone jar. But as she grew closer he lifted one hand in a kind of salute.

‘Good morning.’

‘It’s late afternoon,’ said Sam. Or at least she thought it was, for the sun seemed to be tipped across the sky, and she’d had her lunch. Today seemed to have gone on forever.

The Professor glanced up. ‘Ah, so it is. “Busy old fool, unruly Sun, why dost thou thus, through windows, and through curtains, call on us?” The great John Donne. I have no windows and no curtains, but you are most welcome to call.’ His voice had a touch of mockery again. ‘Sit down.’

‘The troopers are checking licences. I wanted to warn you.’

‘You think a drunk wouldn’t bother with a licence?’ The Professor shook his head. The lank strings of hair brushed his dusty shoulders. ‘They have checked me already. My seam is a reasonable one — by luck, my child, not good judgement on my part. Enough to pay for my licence, as well as my comforts.’ He patted the stone jar beside him. ‘So sit and be welcome.’

Sam sat cross-legged next to him. He stank of unwashed clothes and body, of alcohol that had oozed out of his pores and mingled with his sweat. He smelled like Mum, the smell of being past caring.

‘You never had a wife, did you?’ she said suddenly.

He raised an eyebrow. ‘A perceptive child. No, I betrayed only myself.’

Sam wrinkled her nose. ‘Yeah, right.’

‘And what might that utterance mean?’

‘It never works like that. What about your family?''My family sends me a small amount each month. Not enough to get me home. Just enough to keep me distant, so I don’t embarrass them. Once I thought I could make my fortune, show them they were wrong. But I am a drunk, and nothing more. I have no one.’

‘What about your friends?’

‘Ah, friends.’ He was silent. His hands caressed the jug.

‘Friends help each other,’ said Sam. She tried to stop her voice shaking. She hadn’t been able to yell at the troopers. Now suddenly the fury wouldn’t leave her. ‘You can hardly count Mrs Puddleham’s spoons.’

He glanced at her with sudden intelligence. ‘Did you let your friends help you?’

‘But that’s different —’ Sam stopped. She remembered the day she’d came to school with bruised wrists. ‘What happened?’ Liz had said, and then, ‘We’ll help.’ But Sam shook her head and told some lie. And Liz had looked …

… betrayed.

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I never asked for help.’

He nodded, his thin face slipping into dirty creases. ‘Perhaps we owe our friends the chance to help us.’ He spoke lightly, as though nothing he said could matter. ‘Maybe I betrayed my students too. The ones I bored, so they never knew the true gold of the past. But it’s too late to change it now.’ He sipped from his jug again.

‘People can stop drinking.’

For the first time his voice had some anger. ‘And what do you know of it?’

‘I’ve read about it. Looked stuff up.’

‘For your mother?’

‘Yes. But she won’t admit there’s anything wrong.’

‘Ah, then just like you.’

Sam flushed. ‘Maybe. I’m admitting it now, aren’t I? But you can get off the drink, if you want to enough.’

‘And that,’ said the Professor, smiling slightly as he lifted his jug to his mouth, ‘is the crux of the problem.’ He took a swig and lowered the jug. ‘Why did you really come here this afternoon?’ he added. ‘Surely you weren’t really so concerned I might not have a licence.’

‘What? Oh.’ It sounded silly now. ‘I … I wanted something to read.’

He regarded her over the lip of the jug. ‘Books are your escape?’

She flushed. ‘In a way. But they’re good escapes! Not like that!’ She pointed to the jug.

‘I never said they weren’t.’ He smiled. Two of his front teeth were missing. ‘I don’t suppose you read Ancient Greek?’

‘No.’ The wave of hope retreated. ‘Are all your books in old languages?’

For the first time he looked embarrassed. ‘The only ones that are left. Few men on the diggings can read Ancient Greek. Which is a pity.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The diggers want democracy, my dear. The right of men to rule themselves. Invented in ancient Athens more than five hundred years before Christ. None of the dreams on the diggings are new. Riches, power, democracy. All are old, old stories.’

Sam nodded. ‘We studied a bit about ancient Athens at school.’

‘So you were at school, were you? Well. If you were hoping for a penny romance novel,’ said the Professor gently, ‘I’m afraid I cannot help you.’

‘No. I just wanted a book. Any book … The troopers came,’ she added suddenly. ‘They hurt Mr Puddleham — no, he’s okay now.’

‘Okay?’

‘Sorry — it means, well, all right. Mrs Puddleham had to give them ten pounds. It’s not right!’

He looked at her curiously. ‘I don’t think I have met anyone before who expected the world to be perfect.’

‘I don’t! But you should be able to go to the police or … or write to your member of parliament —’

The Professor stared at her. ‘Exactly who elects the government where you come from? You’re not American after all, are you? I know the Yankee accent.’

Sam shook her head. ‘Everyone votes. If they’re over eighteen, I mean. I can’t vote yet …’

She saw his stare, and blushed. She’d forgotten — women couldn’t vote back here, could they? But then the Professor didn’t know she was a girl.

‘Oh, child of the future. Almost thou makest me believe … One of the diggers’ cries is for the right to vote,’ said the Professor quietly. He had put his jug down now and was regarding her intently. ‘A man needs to have property worth a hundred pounds or more to vote now. Mining licences are paying for the government, paying for the troopers andsoldiers who hunt the diggers for the money, but I don’t suppose there is a man on the diggings who has a vote.’

‘Not even you?’

He grinned, showing his brown teeth. ‘Certainly not a drunk ex-classicist. The red-ribboners — they wear a red ribbon in their hats — even refuse to pay their miner’s fee at all, till all men are given the right to vote.’

‘Not women?’

The Professor gave a patient smile. ‘I doubt many women would care to worry their heads about voting.’

‘Huh,’ said Sam. The conversation seemed to have run out of steam. She stood up. ‘I’d better get back to the Puddlehams. The stew should be cooked. They’ll need help serving it.’

‘They’re your family now?’

She nodded.

‘They’re lucky.’ He looked so wistful, so alone. She bent suddenly and kissed his cheek, despite the straggly beard and smell, and what he thought about women voting.

‘You’re their friend, even if they have to remind you to count the spoons. Mrs Puddleham worries about you.’

The Professor was silent for a moment. ‘Does she? The thought is just a little frightening.’ His eyes went to the jug in his hand.