The Night They Stormed Eureka (14 page)

Sam tried to speak, but no words came. How could a father say something like that to his son?

‘I’m thinking you’d best find your Da then, give him your good news.’ Sam hadn’t heard Mrs Puddleham approach. How long had she been listening? ‘You thank him from me for bringin’ the meat. Maybe you can bring us another sheep and bag o’ spuds when you come to help the Professor. Tomorrow even. We can sell all the stew we makes these days, what with our Sam helping.’

‘Yes, Mrs Puddleham.’ George nodded to Sam. ‘Thank you,’ he added softly.

Sam watched him stride along the track. How could George bear it? she thought.

‘Ma Hopgood gave me some of their goat’s milk,’ said Mrs Puddleham conversationally. ‘Which means tongue in white sauce tomorrow. You ever made a white sauce? The secret’s —’

‘His dad doesn’t want him,’ said Sam. ‘He doesn’t want his wife either. Just because they’ve got dark skins.’

Mrs Puddleham took her hand and patted it. ‘Never you mind, deary. You know what I think?’

Sam shook her head.

‘I been going to the Higginses’ near on six months now. An’ I never saw Mr Higgins lift his hand to his wife. She were right sick a month ago. Mr Higgins, he walked all the way here to get a doctor, went from camp to camp askin’ if there were one about. Spent the price of three sheep I’d reckon too, when he did find one. A man like that, he loves his wife, no matter that she’s a darkie.’

‘But George?’

‘It’s my guess that George’ll be back here tomorrow or the next day, no matter if there’s spuds to be dug or onions to plait back home. His pa’ll want the extra learnin’ for him. Best thing in the world, givin’ your child what they need, an’ I reckon George’s pa ain’t no different. Bought a book for him, didn’t he? You can buy twenty gallons o’ grog for the price of a book.’ Mrs Puddleham sighed. ‘Pity the Professor can’t teach you as well.’

‘Maybe he could —’ began Sam eagerly.

Mrs Puddleham laughed. ‘The Professor teach you embroidery? Music? Painting? Thems the things a young lady needs to learn, not that Latin stuff. Come on. The sun’s slipped down the sky and if I don’t get those tongues into the water and cooking the flies’ll be at them, and then where’ll we be? An’ Happy Jack wants his stew, don’t he?’

The little man grinned up at them, not understanding,but wanting to be part of it all. His dog panted in the shade of his legs.

Sam walked over to the pile of tin plates by the tree. She began to automatically ladle out a helping of stew, trying to take it all in. Embroidery? Painting? Fainting at the sight of blood? Was this what it was like to be a girl back here?

One by one men trudged down into the gully and took their places on the log seats. Hands grimed with months of dirt, hands washed in water so muddy it left them dark as George’s, fingers rimmed with old blood from accidents with rocks or pit props, all of them eager for the brief comfort of good food. Mr Puddleham took the money while Sam served and stirred.

Our stew’s the only good thing that’s real on the diggings, she thought suddenly. Striking it rich, governing the country — they were just dreams.

‘Hey, missus! You got any o’ them Welsh cakes?’

Mrs Puddleham looked up from her sheep tongues. ‘What you want with Welsh cakes, Long Tom? They’s sixpence each.’

‘Struck it lucky, didn’t I?’ The man grinned, showing black toothless gums. Years of labour had withered and bent him, but he looked like he could break into a jig around the campfire. ‘Got fourteen ounces out o’ that new seam this afternoon. Welsh cakes all round, on me!’

Mr Puddleham bowed. ‘Our heartiest congratulations, Mr Thomas.’

‘Well ain’t that the bee’s knees then!’ Mrs Puddleham poured her sheep tongues into the water bucket andscooped flour into the basin instead. ‘Get me the currants will you, lovey? An’ the cold drippin’ in the tin. Then put the skillet on the coals. That’s the secret o’ a light Welsh cake — got to have the pan warm right through afore you put them in.’ She rubbed her hands. ‘Reckon we can make a hundred sixpences tonight, on top o’ what we gets for stew.’

The firelight was warm on her skin, but suddenly Sam shivered. Some dreams came true. Which of these men dreamed of rebellion? The Eureka Stockade was coming too.

Saturday was bath day. Even if the whole of the diggings were buzzing about the big meeting this afternoon, Mrs Puddleham washed herself on Saturdays — and insisted that Sam wash too.

‘And the one good thing about this dratted meeting is that there’s no one round to wonder why you washes inside the tent, not out of it like the other men.’ Mrs Puddleham tipped warm water from the pudding pot into one of the washing-up buckets. ‘Don’t know where to put me face sometimes, when some o’ the men around here strips off.’

There’d been cries of ‘Joe! Joe!’ every day this past week, as more and more troopers poured into the diggings to try to control the unrest. Mr Puddleham had already gone up to Bakery Hill where the meeting would take place, like nearly every other man around, and none of Mrs Puddleham’s pleas had been able to stop him. Sam could hear bands in the distance, and dogs barking, as though they too were caught up in the excitement.

Mrs Puddleham resolutely ignored the ‘roll up’ cries as she handed Sam the bucket. ‘An’ now you wash as far down as possible, and then as far up as possible.’

Sam nodded, and ran her fingers through her hair. She’d have to get Mrs Puddleham to cut it soon. And she’d give anything for some shampoo. No, not anything, she thought hurriedly, as that strange, chill wind crept across her skin again.

Mrs Puddleham grinned. ‘I asked my Ma once what poor “possible” had done to get left out. Oh, she gave me the strap for that. I had a welt right around my legs.’

‘She whipped you?’ asked Sam, horrified. Mum lashed out at her, but only with her hands. Never with a strap.

‘Once a week regular as clockwork on Saturday afternoons, and other times as I deserved it,’ said Mrs Puddleham cheerfully. She bent down into the tent, and rummaged in a box. Her backside looked as wide as the rear end of a bus.

‘You take this, deary.’ She straightened and handed a purple bar of soap over to Sam. ‘Smells of violets! Bought it specially for you,’ she added. ‘You may not be able to look like a young lady yet, but you can smell like one. Ain’t none o’ the coves around here will notice,’ she added. ‘They pong worse than cleanin’ out a privy.’

Sam sniffed the soap. By now she had some idea just how much of a luxury any sort of soap was on the diggings. Mrs Puddleham used wood ash instead of soap or detergent to scrub her pots, and water that ash had been soaked in to wash their clothes. She even added abit of wood ash and water to the dumpling mix with some vinegar, to make it bubble and to make the dumplings light. It was another of the ‘secrets’ she’d given to Sam.

The soap smelled of gardens far away. ‘Thank you,’ Sam said softly. ‘For everything.’

‘It’s a pure pleasure,’ said Mrs Puddleham happily. ‘Now you get yourself nice and clean while I make the treacle roly-poly, with a bit o’ ginger to make it special.’ The smile grew wider. ‘And you put this on too.’

She bent down and opened the small chest she’d bought at the store, and lifted out something soft and pink and silky. Sam took it from her.

‘What is it?’

‘A camisole, o’ course. You may have to look like a boy while we’re here, but I want you having nice things against your skin, an’ a nice bright colour too. An’ you can stop using that bit o’ petticoat around your chest.’ She handed Sam a long length of pink lace instead.

Sam stared. It was the pinkest thing she had ever seen in her life. And it was going to itch like mad if she had to tie it around her skin.

‘It’s — it’s lovely,’ she said.

Mrs Puddleham beamed. ‘Nothing but the best for my Lucy.’ She stomped back to the pudding pot, to fill it with more water.

‘I’m Sam,’ whispered Sam. She pulled the flaps of the lean-to shut behind her, then took off her shirt, unwound the strip of petticoat that bound her breasts and began towash, drying each bit before moving on to the next as Mrs Puddleham had instructed her.

She could hear Mrs Puddleham outside, thumping her ginger roly-poly in the basin, and beyond her the cries of the diggings, as she wrapped the length of lace around herself (it itched already), then put on the silk camisole (soft as Mrs Puddleham had promised) and a new shirt. She had just bent down to wash her feet when a drum began to bang even closer to the gully.

‘Roll up! Roll up!’ The words were taken up by dozens of voices around the gully.

Sam washed the rest of herself hurriedly then pulled on her trousers. That was why Mrs Puddleham was adding ginger to the roly-poly, she thought. Whenever Mrs Puddleham was worried she made something special.

She pulled on her socks and boots, then opened the flap of the lean-to and stared at George and the Professor seated by the fire. ‘What are you doing here?’

George stood up. He had a small sack by his side. ‘We been waiting for you! You coming to the roll up?’

‘Sh—Sam is not,’ said Mrs Puddleham, looking suspiciously at Sam as though she expected her to defy her.

Sam shook her head. She was the only person in the camp who knew that tragedy was coming, the deaths and defiance that would come to be known as the Eureka Stockade. There was no way she was going anywhere near a political meeting.

Would today’s meeting be the one that led to the stockade? She wished she knew. But at least she was sure that the further away she was from it — and Mrs Puddleham too —the safer they’d be. The miners’ cause might be a just one, but they were going to lose. And the past didn’t need her presence to happen.

She looked at George and the Professor. George’s face had softened into eagerness. The Professor still stank of drink but he looked different too. ‘Don’t you go either,’ she said suddenly.

George stared. ‘Why not? There’s bands and everything! I ain’t never heard a proper band,’ he added.

‘Yes, but …’ She turned to the Professor. ‘Why are
you
going? You don’t believe in democracy.’

‘No,’ said the Professor gently. ‘I believe that a stupid and ill-educated mob will make stupid and ignorant mistakes. But to leave the government in the present hands might be worse. What is happening on these diggings is evil — corrupt men using the law for their own profit.’

‘But it might be dangerous!’

‘Yes. So Socrates found, when he refused to stop speaking the truth. But there are times,’ for once the Professor’s words weren’t slurred at all, ‘when you need to ask: on which side of the line do I stand? Humans are only capable of seeing small bits in the pattern of history. All you can ask yourself is: is this bit that I do good or is it bad? I think the meeting today will be a good action, not a bad one. There are times when you need to stand together.’ He bowed politely. ‘Good day, Mrs Puddleham. Come on, George.’

George hesitated while the Professor strode off. He picked up his sack and held it out to Mrs Puddleham. ‘Ma sent you a present.’

Mrs Puddleham reached into the sack. ‘Peaches! Why, they’re dearer than gold dust at Wilson’s shop!’ She beamed at George. ‘That’s right kind o’ your ma.’

‘She sent Sam something too. To thank her for gettin’ me book learnin’ with the Professor.’ He handed a cloth square over to Sam.

Sam unwrapped it. It was lace, cream with age, softer than any lace she’d ever felt.

‘It’s a collar.’ George looked at her anxiously. ‘You like it? It’s the only good thing she got. Her mistress give it her when she an’ Da got married.’

‘It — it’s beautiful. I don’t know how to thank her.’

‘What you want to give a boy a lace collar for?’ asked Mrs Puddleham suspiciously.

‘He knows I’m a girl,’ said Sam. ‘His mum guessed too. He won’t tell anyone. Will you, George?’

George shook his head. ‘Not even the Professor.’

Mrs Puddleham looked at him sternly. Something in his face must have reassured her, for she nodded. ‘You’re a right good lad. An’ you thank your ma properly from me.’

George nodded. ‘I’d best be goin',’ he added. ‘Don’t want to miss the band. I wish ye was both comin’ too.’ He ran up the gully after the Professor.

Mrs Puddleham gazed back at the lump of ginger pastry in her basin. ‘You put the collar in your chest,’ she said. ‘Pretty, ain’t it? Thems real nice peaches. Must have ‘em early out at the farm. Howsabout you and I eats them all, eh? Too good for the riffraff round here.’

The drums beat louder in the distance. Men weresinging, too. Mrs Puddleham began to squeeze the pastry flat with her fingers. ‘Really needs a rolling pin,’ she said. ‘An’ a marble pastry board. Keeps pastry cool like nothin’ else, a marble pastry board. But I don’t suppose there’s a single one on the diggin’s. Oh, you waits till I gets a proper kitchen in Melbourne. I’ll show you real cookin’ then. Get me out the treacle tin, deary.’

Sam put the collar in her chest, then hauled the treacle tin out of the lean-to. Ants crawled around the top, in spite of the dish of water it had been sitting in. She wiped them off with a bit of sacking, then handed the tin to Mrs Puddleham, the Professor’s words still churning in her mind.

‘There are times you need to stand together.’ She’d never had a chance to do that. She’d always had to look after herself.

No, she thought, absent-mindedly licking treacle off her fingers. Nick, Liz, Mrs Quant — they’d all tried to help her. It was her fault she’d faced it all alone.

‘There are times you need to stand together.’ The wind blew invisibly again, smelling of time and gum trees. She thought she could hear fifes playing, as well as drums, and the low tooting of a trombone.

Mrs Puddleham smiled up at her uncertainly. ‘Howsabout I make us a bit o’ gingerbread to go with the peaches, just for the two of us? An’ maybe a chop each as well. I been keeping a few special in the flour bag.’

Surely this meeting would be safe, thought Sam. You couldn’t have bands as well as bloodshed.

‘Ma, I think we should go to the roll up. It would mean a lot to Mr Puddleham. And he’s right. They’re all right.’

Mrs Puddleham’s smile cracked. ‘I want you to be safe! I weren’t able to keep my Lucy safe! I want Mr Puddleham safe too. Is that so bad?’