The Night They Stormed Eureka (21 page)

Sam gazed into the dimness. ‘I can’t see a tunnel!’

‘You’re blinded by the light above. Look down at the ground for a moment. Face the ladder then go to your right. Feel your way along with your fingertips on the walls. But don’t touch the ceiling, nor make a loud noise. Go gently, child.’

‘I’m not a —’ Sam bit back the word. She stared to the right. Yes, she could see the tunnel now, an even blacker blot within the darkness, so low she had to bend double.

How did the Professor manage to crawl in here every day? How did he manage to swing a pick? Or did he scrape and shovel …?

Only desperation, she thought as she trailed her fingertips along the rough damp walls, could bring a man into a world like this. Desperation for money to feed a family, to buy land to farm. Desperation for grains of gold that might buy a drink.

If only she had a torch. Or a mobile phone. Or someone to call on the mobile. What if he’d broken a leg? Or his back … Did they even have ambulances these days? How could she get him out?

She could see more clearly now her eyes were adapting to the darkness. Clay oozed above her, below and all around. Every few steps hunks of wood helped keep the ceiling from collapsing. At least she hoped they did. The earth seemed to weigh on her shoulders, even without touching her. The air smelled strange, an almost-bitter taste. But she could smell fresh air wafted in by the sail above too.

‘Professor?’

‘Here.’ He was slumped in the darkness just in front of her, a darker shadow in the blackness, so close she jumped. She squatted next to him, then flinched as she touched something long and cold. But it was just a pick handle. ‘Where are you hurt?’

‘Hurt?’ She sensed rather than saw the shake of his head. ‘Not hurt.’

‘Then why can’t you come up?’

‘Because of this.’ He edged backwards.

Sam looked down. ‘Can’t see anyth—oh.’

It glowed in the darkness as though lit from underneath. She had seen gold before, tiny grains given in exchange for stew, flakes in the cradles by the river. Now for the first time she realised why gold shone in the minds of so many people.

It was beautiful. Even the darkness couldn’t dim it.

‘Is it a nugget?’ It looked so big, she thought, the size of a tub of ice cream … She touched it gently with two fingers. She almost expected it to feel warm, but it was as cold as the dirt around them.

The Professor’s voice was hoarse but steady. ‘Probably. Maybe just a rich seam washed down over the millennia, collecting here. We won’t know how solid it is till we dig around it.’

‘Why didn’t you come and tell us?’

The Professor laughed. The noise sent a trickle of dirt scattering around them. He lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘My dear child — there is at least ten thousand pounds’ worth of gold here. Probably much, much more. That is not,’ he added dryly, ‘news that you want to share with a camp of diggers, not without friends to guard your claim.’

‘Is ten thousand pounds a lot?’

The mine was silent, apart from another trickle of soil behind them. Finally the Professor said, ‘I don’t think I really believed it till now. You
are
from the future, aren’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘I … see. Well, no, I don’t, but all that can wait.’ His voice was suddenly decisive. ‘My dear, this is enough to make you, me, George and the Puddlehams very rich indeed.’

‘Me? The Puddlehams?’

‘You told me the Puddlehams were family, remember?’ He shrugged in the darkness. ‘Without the Puddlehams I would have starved, or been poisoned by a surfeit of my devil. I might have sold the whole mine for a jar of hooch. I had reached the depths of self-hatred, but you and George gave me hope. We will split the money four ways.’

‘The Puddlehams can have their hotel!’ She had wondered if the Puddlehams really knew how much money they’d need for a hotel. But this would solve everything.

‘They can, if that’s their hearts’ desire. And you, my dear? What would you do with a fortune?’

‘You’re really giving some of this to me? I don’t know. I’d have to think.’

He laughed, but softly, so as not to disturb the earth above them. ‘You’ve plenty of time for thinking, at your age. And rejoice that you are a thinker too, that you
wish
to think. So many choose whatever course needs least examination, as though thinking is a poison like my drink.’

‘Professor, what will
you
do?’

‘Don’t sound so worried. I won’t drink it away.’ He was quite sober, she realised suddenly. The slurring in his voice had come from weariness, not drink.

‘I haven’t had a drink for a more than a week,’ he said, as though he’d heard her thoughts. ‘I have been sitting here for … how long? I do not know. Days, I think. I have slept and I have dreamed, and some of those dreams came when I was not asleep. What would I do with money? If I’m not a drunk, who am I?’

‘Who are you?’

For the first time she heard a whisper of pride in the Professor’s voice. ‘What I’ve always been. A teacher. You showed me that. And George. So I will start a school. A school like Socrates’s, a school that has no walls, that is free to anyone who cares to question why the world is, and how it can be better. And George can study there, teach there if he wants to, when he’s learned enough.’

His voice began to slur again, as though he had suddenly realised that he could relax, that friends would come to help him. ‘You know — I do believe I am tired. I would like a wash, a sleep, a bowl of stew. I would like to see sunlight, not just the gleam of gold. Tell Mr Puddleham to get Mr Higgins and George. They can help us dig out the gold, take it to the Commissioners safely. Off you go, girl. Now!’

‘I … I …’ The Professor didn’t know about the stockade, she realised. He’d been here since before the last big meeting. But at least he would be too exhausted to join the stockade till tomorrow, till it had fallen.

What difference could one more man make?

‘George can’t come — I’m sorry, he told me to tell you, but I forgot. His mother is sick — dying, I think.’

‘The Commissioners have guards. Tell Mr Puddleham to bring them …’ his voice trailed into silence.

‘Professor! Are you sure you’ll be all right? I’ll bring you down some food and water now.’

She sensed rather than saw the Professor’s smile. ‘I have sat here so long I am not sure if my legs still work. But yes. I am all right here. I can wait an hour or two or ten. “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow …"’ He sounded like he was going to sleep.

‘Professor!’

‘What?’ he seemed to wake up again. ‘Don’t panic, child. I am tired and I am disoriented and discombobulated and many other things perhaps beginning with
d
that I am too weary to think of now. But if you can bring me some food and water — and a couple of blankets too, if you would be so kind — I will be well enough. I will sit here and count my blessings,’ said the Professor. ‘Or the blessings that are now within my reach.’

Sam hesitated. ‘Professor, have you any paper? And a pencil?’

He reached into his pocket. She felt his fingers in the darkness pressing a page and a short stub of pencil into her hand.

‘Why do you want them?’

‘I don’t know. A feeling.’ She tried to write, but the pencil went through the paper. She ran her fingers across the walls till she found a rock firm enough to rest the paper on. She began to scribble in the darkness.

‘Let me guess. A poem on the prospect of riches?’

‘No. My name. My full name. My address. And my birthday. If anything happens to me — if no one can find me — will you try to explain to the Puddlehams? Tell them I … I loved them. That I didn’t want to go.’

‘You think you are going to vanish? Back to your own time?’

‘No! I’m staying here! But just in case — please? Will you tell the Puddlehams? And George?’ She handed him the paper.

‘My dear … my very dear child. I will make you a promise. If you vanish I will explain as best I can. But I will also set up a trust.’ She sensed his smile in the darkness. ‘I come from a family that is good at setting up trusts, so that disgraced sons cannot inherit. I will see a lawyer to set up a trust so that this girl,’ she heard the rustle as the Professor slipped the paper into his pocket, ‘gets her share of the gold.’

Was it possible? She didn’t know. There were more important things to think of now. ‘I’ll bring you some blankets and water. And Mrs Puddleham sent you some damper,’ she added.

She was halfway up the ladder before she realised he had called her
girl.

Sam ran panting along the road. Men stared and called out questions. A dog barked at her. But she kept on running towards the flag waving high above the stockade. Suddenly for the first time she realised exactly what it meant.

The Eureka flag — not the British one. Flags meant a lot to people in these days. That flag was a sign that the Ballarat diggings no longer belonged to the English, to Queen Victoria and her government.

We are all rebels, she thought. All of us who live under that flag, instead of the flag of law.

Her side hurt. She stopped for a few seconds to get her breath. She could see the stockade itself now. The ragged marching men, their weapons over their shoulders, the muskets, the crowbars beaten sharp into pikes. Suddenly she felt like weeping. Those brave, innocent men, dreaming of freedom, of new laws, of the right to elect a government. How many would die tomorrow?

Should she tell them all to get out while they could? But how could she? Eureka had been a symbol even after it fell. An abandoned stockade would be a symbol of quite another kind.

She began to run again, through the huts, past the store and grog shop. Even today men sat on the verandah with tankards or stone jugs like the Professor’s. It was only as she drew closer to the stockade that she realised something was happening. Men were yelling to each other, and people ran from tent to tent.

To her relief Mrs Puddleham was still there, sitting on a block of wood and leaning against the walls of the wheelwright’s hut. Sam pushed through the crowd towards her.

‘Ma! What’s wrong?’ Sam stopped. ‘Are you all right?’ Mrs Puddleham looked pale. There was sweat on her forehead, even though the fire had gone out and the afternoon wind was cool. But her face lit up when she saw Sam. She pushed herself upright.

‘Lovey! I was that worried. I was just about to go an’ hunt for you. Did you find the old b—blighter?’

Sam nodded, staring at the milling men around them. ‘Yes, he’s fine.’ Suddenly the Professor’s situation faded in importance. ‘What’s happening?’ she added urgently.

Mrs Puddleham shook her head. ‘Naught that matters. Fools of men were yelling, “The redcoats are coming.” Again. But they ain’t. Not yet.’

Mrs Puddleham rubbed her arms. ‘I need me shawl. This wind’s making me chest ache. Who’d have thought it’d get so cold, so late in the year?’ She followed Sam’s gaze. ‘They ain’t really got no chance, have they, deary?’

Sam hesitated. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Brave men with brave dreams, that’s what they are. But they ain’t got the guns to keep off hundreds o’ soldiers and horses. Mr Puddleham said the other goldfields would rise up an’ help us. But they ain’t. Not yet. An’ if they don’t get here soon it’ll be too late, for them up there at any rate. There just ain’t enough o’ them.’

Sam bit her lip. Mrs Puddleham might seem an innocent. But she was no fool. She was a survivor, too. If the stockade could last another few days it might have a chance, she thought. But now at least she could tell the truth.

‘No,’ she said softly. ‘They have no chance.’

Mrs Puddleham nodded. ‘Which is why Mr P won’t leave,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘Not till it’s over.’

Sam felt the chill seep into her heart. ‘But you won’t stay at the stockade with him will you? Or here? You’ll come back to the gully tonight? I —’ Suddenly her words were muffled by the sound of cheering. Sam gazed down the road.

Horses — a great horde of horses, their riders with guns across their saddles or pistols in their belts, galloped towards the stockade. For a moment Sam thought that they were soldiers. But as the horses outpaced the dust cloud from their hooves she saw the riders were diggers, like the men in the stockade.

Men with shaggy beards or mutton-chop whiskers, men with cabbage tree hats, battered top hats or caps, men with rifles by their saddles or muskets or sharp-pointed pikes. They galloped past Sam and Mrs Puddleham andthe stew pots and surged up into the stockade. Sam and Mrs Puddleham exchanged a glance, then ran up after them.

The horses stamped and snorted, their sides heaving and sweating as their riders dismounted. There are at least two hundred men, thought Sam as Mrs Puddleham panted beside her. Men with weapons, young fit men. One of them gave a half salute as Peter Lalor abandoned the reloading practise he’d been supervising and strode to meet them. The man grinned. ‘What’s happened here then?’

Lalor returned the grin. He held out a work-toughened hand. ‘Rebellion.’

The man shook Lalor’s hand, then slapped him on the back. ‘Then count us in. The Independent Californian Rangers Revolver Brigade, at your service.’

Sam stared as the men in the stockade surrounded the newcomers, cheering and shaking hands. Americans! — men from the California diggings. Men with guns, and horses …

There were so many of them! What the rebels said would happen was coming true! The other diggings were starting to rise up against Britain too.

I never read about this, she thought. Mrs Quant told us it was small, not as many men as this …

The wind blew cold about her shoulders.

Suddenly she was aware of Mr Puddleham next to them. For the first time the little man looked bowed with age and weariness. Even his hair was rumpled. But he smiled at his wife and took her hand. ‘Well, Mrs Puddleham.’ He smiled at Sam, too. ‘And my dear Master Puddleham. Do youknow, I think that we might win this. For the first time, I really think we will.’

Mrs Puddleham was fighting back tears. She nodded.

Sam gazed at the men and horses milling around the street. There must be over a thousand men at the stockade now, she thought. Maybe two thousand. And there are thousands more supporters in the camp. They’ve got enough weapons now …