Pirate Boy of Sydney Town

by Jackie French

  ‘Sauerkraut, sir. It’s what Captain Cook fed his men and not one of them died of scurvy. It’s cheap and lasts well.’

  ‘Well, Mr Porter?’

  ‘I can do you sauerkraut, sir. A pint of rum a barrel.’

  Ben looked at Mr Porter steadily. ‘There are cabbages in just about every garden in the colony. I saw them on my way down here. We could make our own before we sail.’ Or Maggie could, he thought. He’d seen sauerkraut made back home: the cabbage just needed salt and pressing. ‘One pint of rum for six barrels.’

  ‘The barrels alone cost that!’ protested Mr Porter.

  ‘One pint, and we give you six empty barrels in exchange,’ Ben said, glancing at his father.

  His father nodded. ‘Better for our cooper to be repairing barrels than sitting on his backside in a tavern.’

  ‘You drive a hard bargain, sir.’ Mr Porter spat on his hand, then held it out to shake and seal the deal.

  Ben felt a true smile stretch across his face for the first time since he had lost Badger’s Hill. The Golden Girl had made honest money, bringing goods to a colony that needed them. And he’d made a better bargain for the stores than his father could. If this was going to be his life till he could buy back Badger’s Hill, he would be good at it.

  CHAPTER 6

  The air blew clean and salty as they came out of the chandler’s, and Ben could smell a faint tang from the thin-topped trees that clothed the promontories across the harbour. Sunlight flashed silver on the bright blue water. The Golden Girl swayed alongside the wharf; she was the only ship in the harbour now. The Navy ship must have sailed during the days he’d spent sleeping.

  ‘Good thinking back there,’ said Mr Huntsmore. ‘Good bargaining too. We’re going to need strong men. Our crew will be fresh while the Dutch will be weak from the voyage.’

  Ben hadn’t even thought of that, just of the crew he’d seen on the voyage: their legs so swollen the skin became tight and shiny, their black toothless gums. Some had been too weak to move from their hammocks and had been among the first to die of the fever.

  A straggle of convict workmen in dun-coloured smocks shuffled past, two men with whips guiding their progress down the wharf. Soon after, a gust of wind carrying the smell of rotting flesh made Ben look around. The convict gang was still on the Golden Girl, and the hatch had been pulled open. Someone let down a ladder, and hands reached down to help the first filthy skeletal frames into the sunlight.

  Bodies were laid upon the decks. Those who could rolled over to cover their faces. Others stared at the sky, too weak to move. Ben remembered what Higgins had looked like, all bone and rags, but at least he’d had the strength to move. These men’s only sign of life was the movement of their hands as they tried to shield their eyes from the unrelenting harbour light.

  Three days, thought Ben in horror. We have been docked three days and all that time the convicts were left down there in the stinking dark.

  The stench filled the cove now, and his father grimaced. ‘Back to the house, I think. Don’t worry — Danvers will make sure the ship is well-scrubbed before we sail.’

  It was as if Ben had been suddenly drenched with a bucket of cold seawater. He’d let himself be seduced by his father’s dream of riches and his own imagined opportunities for heroism against the enemy. He had wanted to see his father as a hero and an adventurer, but Branwell Huntsmore was a man who saw other people as mere cargo. A man who saw Badger’s Hill as just profit or loss. He was a pirate, even if he called himself a privateer.

  Ben had to get away from him. He had to get away from here.

  He fumbled for an excuse. ‘Excuse me, sir, I . . . I promised Maggie I would buy some eggs for her.’

  His father frowned. ‘Higgins is supposed to do the marketing.’

  But Ben was already running — down the wharf, past the chandler’s and the grog shops with their stench of rum and privies. Away. Away. Away.

  A year ago he could run for hours. Now, twenty minutes left his legs weak and his lungs hunting for breath.

  He stopped and looked around. The shanties by the cove and the neat houses with their gardens, orchards and tethered goats lay behind him. Up on the hill, a convict gang hammered at rocks, breaking them into smaller cobbles, perhaps for one of the roads Mrs Macquarie had talked about at dinner. They were grim-faced men of dust and sweat, their bodies bowed with work. Mrs Macquarie had seemed a kind woman, and the Governor’s vision for the colony sounded good, yet suddenly Ben realised that their grand ambition would be built with slave labour, just as his father’s profit from this voyage had come from convicts too. And the fortune Ben dreamed of would be the stolen loot of other merchants. Did that make him as criminal as any convict?

  Ben tore his gaze away from the labouring men and looked around. He had come to an open area that was obviously a market. People were packing up trestle tables and loading them onto carts as most of their produce would have been sold by mid-morning. Should he try to buy the eggs he’d offered as an excuse to his father? He had coins in his pocket, but no basket to carry the eggs in, and Maggie had said the hens belonging to the house they’d hired were laying well.

  He stepped back as a cart trundled past carrying two well-dressed women seated on cushions. Two men in convict drab were yoked to the cart instead of horses. Most of the stall holders seemed to be men too, not the women he was used to in the market at home. Ben realised he had seen only a handful of women since he came here.

  He was hungry now, and desperately thirsty. But the only stream he had passed was thick with stinking algae, and he didn’t want the ale or rum that seemed to be the only drinks for sale here. He doubted a colony like this would have a teashop. He moved past the market area, then sat with his back to a tree, feeling as empty as the barrels he had promised the chandler. Everyone he’d loved was dead or across the ocean. Everyone he trusted too. He no longer even trusted himself. The boy he had been a year ago would never have dreamed of stealing someone else’s treasure. But the boy he’d been a year ago had been part of Badger’s Hill.

  He closed his eyes. Maybe, when he opened them, he would be back at Badger’s Hill. Mama would be in the library, and Cookie would be singing as she made jam. Young Lon would call for Ben at the back door and they’d go rabbiting.

  There weren’t any rabbits in this land. No beauty, and no honour either. It was a place where criminals dined at Government House. He covered his face with his hands to hide his tears.

  ‘Are you all right?’ A girl looked at him with concern. She was about the same age as he was and dressed in a blue dress rather than convict drab.

  Ben scrambled to his feet.

  ‘Sally? What’s wrong?’ A man approached in the rough garb of a farmer, but the two horses whose reins he held looked good, both carrying bulging saddlebags.

  The girl gestured to Ben. He flushed, rubbing at his eyes, embarrassed to be found crying.

  ‘Here.’ The man offered him a stoppered flask.

  Ben hesitated, then lifted it to his mouth, expecting just to wet his lips with rum for politeness’s sake. But the liquid was a bit like tea and sweet with honey. He drank more deeply, then stoppered the flask and handed it back.

  ‘Thank you, sir. What is it?’

  ‘Sarsaparilla tea. Or a native flower that we call sarsaparilla.’ The man held out a calloused hand. ‘I’m Tom Appleby. This is my oldest daughter, Sally.’

  Ben shook it. ‘How do you do, sir, Miss Appleby. I’m Ebenezer Huntsmore.’

  ‘New chum?’ Mr Appleby laughed when he saw Ben didn’t understand. ‘You a new settler?’

  Ben shook his head. ‘My father owns a ship, the Golden Girl. We’ll be sailing again soon.’

  ‘I saw it in the harbour,’ said Sally. ‘Papa bought some of the cloth it carried. Are you going to be a ship’s captain one day?’

  ‘I prefer farming. You have a farm, sir?’

  ‘I do indeed. Up on the Hawkesbury. Though one day,’ Mr Appleby nodded to
wards the high, blue, distant mountains, ‘I’m hoping to cross those.’

  ‘No one knows what’s beyond them,’ said the girl excitedly. ‘Lakes or rivers or maybe an inland sea.’

  ‘I didn’t know there were free settlers here, sir,’ said Ben. ‘I thought everyone was a soldier or a convict, with a few merchants to supply the ships.’

  Mr Appleby glanced at his daughter. At last he said, ‘I was a convict. Chimney sweep and thief, sent here when I was ten years old. Now I’m a farmer and a good one. Lad, are you in trouble?’

  Ben hesitated again. His entire life was wrong. Did that count as trouble? He cast a quick look at Sally. She smiled encouragingly.

  ‘Yes,’ he admitted.

  Mr Appleby fastened the horses’ lead ropes to a branch. He rummaged in his saddlebags for a large tin, then sat down by the tree. He gestured for Ben to sit again too. Sally spread her skirts beside them.

  ‘Here,’ said Mr Appleby, passing Ben the tin. ‘The world looks better on a full belly.’

  Ben reached inside. It was full of hearth cakes. ‘Thank you.’ He bit one. It was sweet with dried currants. ‘They’re good.’

  ‘I made them,’ said Sally proudly. ‘And I made the butter and dried the currants too.’

  Mr Appleby smiled. ‘Every bit home-grown, our own flour and eggs too. Have another.’

  ‘Thank you. Is the Hawkesbury very far away, sir? Mrs Macquarie said there was no road there yet.’

  ‘No road, but a good track. Sally here is a grand rider. At least she is when she’s not trying to jump fallen trees.’ Mr Appleby looked at his daughter mock sternly, then returned his gaze to Ben. ‘You thinking of running away, lad?’

  Ben hadn’t been. He hadn’t even thought that this land might have farms like the ones he knew. All at once he longed to be among crops again, away from the sea, away from the smells of sickness, greed and death.

  ‘Do you know someone who’d employ me?’ he asked impulsively. ‘I know a lot about farming, sir.’

  Mr Appleby shook his head. ‘You won’t find a job as a farm labourer, nor as an overseer, lad. Not in the colony where any man with land can have convicts assigned to him, and get rations to feed them for nothing too.’

  Ben stared at him. ‘You run your farm with convict labour?’ Once more his gaze swept up to the men breaking rocks.

  Mr Appleby followed his glance, then looked back at him. ‘I do,’ he said frankly. ‘Convict labour creates this colony, lad. How else can we afford to clear the land, or build the roads? But a convict’s life depends on who he’s assigned to. I was sent to one of the best men I’ve known, who’s now godfather to my Sally here. The men on our farm live and eat as well as my family do.’

  ‘But many don’t,’ said Ben flatly.

  ‘No,’ admitted Mr Appleby. ‘Many live condemned to rations that were stale when they left England, and with the fear of the lash. Convict labour is this land’s greatest curse as well as its salvation. But a convict isn’t a slave, lad. No matter how badly he’s treated, every man here knows that within a few years he’ll have served his sentence, or get a ticket of leave.’

  ‘Are there no jobs for a free man?’

  ‘Many, if you have a skill or experience. Almost none for a lad your age. You’re a mite too young to be a farm manager.’ Mr Appleby looked at him carefully. ‘Does your father beat you? Starve you?’

  Ben shook his head. ‘I had typhoid on the voyage here, that’s why I’m thin. My mother died of it. My father treats me well.’

  It was true. Ben was well-dressed, well-fed. All his father had done was lose Ben’s home, his mother and all he loved. None of that, nor even what he planned to do next, was illegal.

  ‘You’re scared of going to sea again?’ Mr Appleby’s voice was sympathetic.

  ‘Not . . . not really.’

  ‘Then what’s wrong?’

  Ben met the kind eyes. ‘My father treats people like cattle. Worse than cattle, because cattle are worth money. He doesn’t care if they live or die.’

  ‘I’ve known men like that,’ said Mr Appleby quietly. ‘Officers of the Rum Corps, captains of convict transports. I was lucky to arrive here under Captain Phillip. He forced us convicts to eat fruit in every port and nearly all of us survived — more than would have if we’d stayed back in England. But most of the ships since . . .’ He shook his head. ‘More convicts die than live. They always will while men are greedy and are paid for those they take on board, not those who live to walk ashore.’

  ‘Sir, I don’t need a wage,’ said Ben desperately.

  ‘Can’t he come and live with us?’ asked Sally eagerly. ‘He could share Frederick’s room. He’s my brother,’ she added to Ben. ‘Have you ever worked with sheep?’

  ‘Yes. I can —’

  Mr Appleby held up his hand. ‘Hush, Sally, you don’t know what you’re saying. I’m sorry, lad. I can’t break the law and take a son from his father. I could be charged with kidnapping.’

  ‘But it wouldn’t be kidnapping if he wants to come,’ argued Sally.

  ‘In the eyes of the law it would. And I’m just a farmer with no influence, not a shipowner who can bribe a magistrate to do his bidding. I’ve got one conviction behind me. If I were charged with a second offence, I’d lose my farm, be sent to Van Diemen’s Land, or worse. What would happen to my family then, eh?’

  Sally was silent.

  ‘I . . . I see,’ said Ben. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.’

  He had been stupid. The Golden Girl was still the only way he had of getting home to England, away from this land of criminals, thin soil and colours too drab or too bright. He would be a fool to trade that hope for life on a farm in the colony. Capturing the Dutch treasure was still the only way he might buy back Badger’s Hill.

  ‘We need to be on the road soon,’ said Mr Appleby. ‘Or we won’t reach home by nightfall. Can I give you some advice, lad?’

  Ben nodded.

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Fourteen next month.’

  ‘Seven years then till you reach your majority. Same amount of time I had to serve as a thief. But I managed it, and so can you. Just survive, lad. That’s what I told myself when my master forced me up those chimneys. That’s what I whispered day after day on the ship that brought me here. Just survive, then one day you can make the life you choose, just as I’ve done. Can you do that?’

  Ben looked at him. A former chimney sweep. A prisoner. One of the wretched trapped in the hold of a ship for half a year, or even more, if he had been held a prisoner in the hulks on the river instead of a jail on land. If this man could survive, and thrive and now be happy, then he could too.

  Ben met Mr Appleby’s eyes. ‘I’ll survive, sir.’

  ‘Good lad. Learn what you can, find out what you truly want in life — and learn what kind of man you don’t want to be too. And if you need me, really need me — if something happens to your father, or you really need to vanish . . . Well, I was younger than you and desperate, and someone helped me then. I wouldn’t have my life and farm without them.’ Mr Appleby smiled at his daughter, then looked back at Ben. ‘There’s an inn called the Sergeant’s Arms. Ask for the sergeant, tell him your story and he’ll send a message to me. No promises, but if I can help you without risking my family, I will.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ Ben met the green eyes that belonged to an ex-thief, yet Tom Appleby seemed to be the most honest man Ben had ever met.

  ‘It can be a good life here in New South Wales,’ added Mr Appleby softly. ‘A grand life. There’s land here for whoever can farm it. And if that’s what you choose when you’re old enough, I’ll do whatever I can to help you get it.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Sally. ‘And maybe, if your father’s ship comes back to Sydney Town, you could come and visit.’

  Now his panic had receded, Ben wasn’t sure he wanted to visit a New South Wales farm — a few paddocks carved out of this land’s ugly thin-topped trees. But these people
had shown him the first true kindness since his mother had died.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I would like that very much.’

  CHAPTER 7

  Four weeks more of Maggie’s stews, spit roasts and soda bread, while the ship’s hold was cleaned, her decks scrubbed, her sails mended, the holes in her hull the rats had gnawed filled. The coopers and the carpenters hammered, and the stores were loaded.

  Four weeks of Higgins’s obsequiousness when Mr Huntsmore was near, and his knowing comments when he was not.

  Four weeks while Captain Danvers gathered more crew members to replace those lost to typhoid and scurvy. There’d be almost three times the usual number of crew; men who would slink on board the Golden Girl at night, and stay down in the hold till the ship was at sea.

  ‘Best we know nothing about it, son,’ advised Mr Huntsmore. ‘I’ll warrant some of the crew haven’t served their sentences yet. But Danvers knows the kind of man we need.’

  Criminals, thought Ben. Convicts. Ex-soldiers turned highwaymen who knew how to fire a musket and wield a sword. And others who knew how to manoeuvre sails even in the lash of the southern winds.

  Mr Huntsmore spent much of the four weeks consulting merchants in the colony. Prices here were high for everything from tea to cloth, all of which must be imported, he told Ben. Rum was the most valuable import, especially now Governor Macquarie had stopped the notorious and corrupt NSW Corps monopoly. The Sydney Town to Calcutta run was proving lucrative, carrying barrels of whale oil and whalebone that was used for all sorts of items that needed stiffening, from umbrellas to corsets, then bringing back tea, cloth, spices, rice and other items the colony needed. The Dutch ship would give Mr Huntsmore back his fortune, and the trade route between India and Sydney Town might be a way to invest that fortune profitably, with less risk than sending ships around the Horn back to England.

  Twice Ben and his father went on picnics organised by the wives of the 73rd Regiment who had come out with Governor Macquarie. The picnickers travelled in small open boats to beaches across the harbour, where convict servants cooked damper in the ashes, and flies settled promptly on the pies and spiced beef. The cooked damper was as solid as a rock, and it was difficult to tell where the ash finished and the bread began.