Pirate Boy of Sydney Town

by Jackie French

  The boy grinned. ‘Sally’s got a follower!’

  Sally glared at him.

  ‘Hush, Frederick,’ said Mrs Appleby. ‘Mr Huntsmore will think you have no manners at all.’ She gave Ben a slight curtsey. ‘I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr Huntsmore.’

  He bowed politely. ‘A pleasure, Mrs Appleby, Mr Appleby, Master Appleby.’

  ‘We’ve got pies for breakfast!’ said Frederick, failing to bow entirely. ‘They ain’t got maggots in them either, because Ma made me sew them in oilcloth soon as they were cooked to keep the flies off.’

  ‘Won’t you sit down?’ asked Mrs Appleby, gesturing to a patchwork rug.

  Ben sat as Mr Appleby stirred the coals of the fire nearby. Mrs Appleby opened a basket and began to place food on the blanket. Small meat pies and a larger one Ben thought must contain fruit; a fresh cheese in a tin container; real bread, made with yeast, the first true bread he had seen since dinner at Government House; butter, slightly melted, in another tin can. There was a single knife to cut the bread and spread the butter, and a pannikin for each of them, which Mrs Appleby filled with sarsaparilla tea from a tin on the fire.

  Ben sipped the hot sweet tea, then bit into a pie. Mutton, seasoned with herbs, and possibly the best he had ever eaten. ‘This is delicious, Mrs Appleby.’

  She flushed with pleasure. ‘Sally helped with the baking.’

  ‘We have an oven now,’ said Sally. ‘Papa made it from an ants’ nest.’

  Ben didn’t see how an ants’ nest could be an oven, but nor did he want to seem ignorant, so he said nothing. He bit into the pie again.

  ‘Did you know that if you leave a sheep’s head on a meat-ants’ nest, it’s bare in three days?’ asked Frederick.

  His sister gave him a look and changed the subject. ‘Mama used to cook at Government House.’

  Ben glanced at Mrs Appleby. He wondered what crime she’d been sentenced for. Was she free even now? Maggie had told him that convict women were usually permitted to marry even before they had served their full sentence, and then assigned to their husbands. But there was no polite way to ask.

  Mr Appleby smiled at his wife. ‘She could have married any officer in the colony. Instead she chose a would-be farmer with a dozen sheep and two shirts to his name.’

  ‘And a land grant on his marriage,’ said Mrs Appleby.

  ‘Well, yes, there was that.’ He took her hand.

  ‘I knew just what I was doing,’ said Mrs Appleby firmly.

  Suddenly Ben realised Higgins had been completely wrong. Undoubtedly the Applebys were glad for Sally to have the friendship of a free man’s son, and a shipowner at that. But Sally was no village girl with few opportunities for a good marriage. She was one of the few free women in a colony where men outnumbered women ten to one. She could cook, tend a farm, and she was beautiful. Sally would marry where she chose.

  He smiled, suddenly more relaxed than he had been since the day of the Harvest Home feast back in Badger’s Hill. Indeed, when he shut his eyes, he felt he could have been there: the taste of good food, the bees humming in the tree above, the scent of horses and blossom.

  He opened his eyes to find Sally smiling at him. ‘Will you try the apple pie, Master Huntsmore? I mean Ben.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He bit into it. It was as good as the mutton pies, a real taste of home.

  ‘When does your ship sail?’ asked Frederick. ‘Can I look on board? Where are you sailing to? What cargo are you carrying?’

  ‘Hold!’ Mrs Appleby laughed. ‘Let the young man eat his pie first.’

  ‘We sail for Calcutta with tomorrow morning’s tide,’ said Ben, flushing at the need to lie. But that was the story his father had told him to tell. ‘We carry wool and seal oil to trade. We’ll pick up a cargo of spices there, for England.’

  ‘Can I see your ship?’ demanded Frederick again.

  ‘I . . . I would have to ask my father.’

  Who would almost certainly refuse, partly because he would see no profit in an acquaintanceship with a colonial farmer, but also in case sharp eyes saw that the ship carried only enough cargo to avert suspicion from the chandler, who assumed Mr Huntsmore had bought the rest of his cargo directly from the Marsdens or the Macarthurs or other wealthy landowners who had no need of an intermediary. The Golden Girl needed to travel light and swift.

  Frederick seemed undeterred. ‘Have you ever seen a mermaid?’

  Ben shook his head.

  ‘Been wrecked then?’

  ‘No.’

  Frederick looked disappointed. ‘I heard of a ship that was becalmed for almost a year and the sailors ate each other, and then —’

  ‘Fred, we need more firewood,’ said Mr Appleby calmly. ‘Would you mind gathering some?’

  ‘But, Pa, all the sticks around here have been picked up already.’

  His father gazed at him.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Frederick sighed and stood. ‘I would like to see your ship, Mr Huntsmore, if your father says yes. And if you need a cabin boy —’

  Frederick caught his father’s expression, bowed swiftly and headed off towards the distant trees.

  ‘He’s a good lad,’ said Mr Appleby. ‘Please pay him no mind. We would not presume to trouble your father.’

  ‘Nor is Frederick going to be a cabin boy,’ said his mother firmly.

  Ben wondered what they would say if they knew where the Golden Girl was truly headed. Both Mr and Mrs Appleby had been thieves when they were very young, but it was obvious they were not now. Mama would have liked them, he thought. They were a little like Badger’s Hill’s tenant farmers, the kind you joined for Sunday dinner sometimes after church, or drank parsnip or rhubarb wine with in their parlours.

  Mr Appleby cleared his throat. ‘I have a farewell present for you, lad.’ He reached into his coat and pulled out a sheet of cheap brown paper.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Ben politely, taking it. It was a map, drawn simply and by an amateur’s hand, for it bore none of the neat calligraphy or embellishments of a professional mapmaker. But the outline was clear and looked exact, and the lines of longitude and latitude had been marked with a straight edge where they were supposed to be, for parts of it were familiar to Ben.

  ‘It’s a copy of Mr Flinders’s new map of New Holland,’ said Mr Appleby. ‘The whole of it, made when he sailed around the entire land a few years ago. It’s more accurate than the maps most sea captains still use, for theirs are made up of the chart markings of different explorations all pieced together. This is the continent entire.’

  ‘Thank you, sir!’ Ben said again. ‘It’s a most precious gift. Did you make it?’

  ‘No, Frederick drew it.’

  ‘Frederick!’ Then Ben added quickly, ‘I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t mean to imply —’

  Mr Appleby laughed. ‘That Fred is a ruffian? Well, he is, but he writes and draws a neat hand too.’

  Which means that Fred must have some schooling, thought Ben, though he didn’t like to ask what quality of school was available here.

  ‘You might like to follow the course of your ship till you leave the coastline. And if you ever come back, maybe the map will show you your progress towards us,’ Mr Appleby said as he helped Mrs Appleby to her feet.

  ‘I need to buy a frying pan, if there’s one to be found today,’ she told Ben. ‘Sally, will you entertain Master Huntsmore till we return?’

  Sally blushed. ‘Yes, Mother.’

  She and Ben sat silent till her parents had disappeared over the hill.

  ‘I like your family,’ said Ben.

  ‘Thank you. May . . . may I ask you something, Master Huntsmore? I mean Ben.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘May I write to you? I don’t mean to be forward,’ she added quickly. ‘I know you may never return to New South Wales. We will probably never meet again, but I would be so interested in what you’d write of other lands and your time at sea.’

  She didn’t know what she was asking. N
or, if the Golden Girl’s expedition was a success, could Ben write of it. Not just because his father would wish their hunting ground to be kept secret, but because war and privateering weren’t topics that a young lady should hear about.

  Yet he found himself saying, ‘I’d like to write to you. Very much. My father’s agent in London will know where to forward a letter to. Please do write to me.’

  To his surprise, he found he meant it.

  CHAPTER 9

  Five hours later Ben sat in his and his father’s cabin aboard the Golden Girl. The scent of lavender polish on the wood reminded him of the lavender he’d given Sally. But the ship still stank of death. He hadn’t had the courage to ask his father how many of the hundred and twenty convicts taken on board at Plymouth had survived. He was too afraid that his father might neither know nor care.

  The ship creaked about him and he heard the furled sails flap like giant imprisoned bats. His father’s voice gave orders to Captain Danvers, and there were calls from the crew above and the sudden thudding of feet. The ship lurched as the sails were hoisted.

  A scratch on the door. Higgins grinned at him. He’d filled out even more in Sydney Town, but nothing could change his weasel-like features. ‘We’re off. Want to catch a last glimpse of your sweetheart?’

  But Sally was gone, riding in the farm cart with her family back to the Hawkesbury, carrying the frying pan and the bunch of lavender, as well as the memory of a few hours with a boy from home. No, not home, Ben realised. Neither Mr nor Mrs Appleby seemed to have any longing for the land of their birth, and Frederick would probably rather sail to a cannibals’ island than to England. And Sally?

  ‘One day I’m going to cross the Blue Mountains,’ she’d told him during those magic hours together. ‘Papa and Mama crossed half the world to come here, a place no one from England had seen for nearly twenty years, and then only just for a few days. I want to see new lands too. Drove sheep across the mountains. Find an inland sea maybe, or a new river.’

  ‘The River Sally?’ Ben had teased.

  She’d laughed. ‘I don’t need a river named after me. I just want to be there. Do things. Look over my acres when I’m old and see my great-grandchildren and think, All this is a farm because of me.’

  Suddenly, reclaiming Badger’s Hill seemed tame. And yet to do it they’d need to face the enemies of the King and seize enemy treasure. That wasn’t tame at all.

  ‘You don’t want to visit England?’ he’d asked her.

  She looked surprised. ‘Why should I?’ She laughed again. ‘England has already been discovered. But I’d like to hear about it,’ she added quickly, ‘if you’ll write.’

  It cost sixpence to send a letter to England — Ben had sent one to the rector, telling him about his mother’s death and their arrival here, and asking how the servants and tenants were faring under their new landlord. The Applebys must be doing well if they could afford sixpences to write back and forth to England. Five months to get a letter, five months for your reply to travel back to England, assuming the ship didn’t sink or the mail chests get sodden in a storm. Once Ben arrived back in England, he and Sally might exchange one letter each a year perhaps . . .

  ‘Ain’t you comin’ up on deck?’ Higgins asked, still waiting for Ben’s answer.

  Ben shrugged.

  ‘Scared, boy?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Well, if you ain’t, you should be,’ said Higgins flatly. ‘We’re headed down to iceberg country, and then into battle. You know why your pa’s carryin’ so many crew? It’s not just to outnumber the Dutchies. It’s ’cause half of ’em will be dead afore this voyage is ended, cut down or taken by the scurvy or shot or drowned.’

  ‘Then why did they join the ship?’ Ben replied.

  ‘You really don’t understand, do you? Oh, I’ve heard your pa moan about havin’ to make his fortune back again, but what he made on the voyage here is enough to keep him and you in comfort all your lives. This is about making himself, and you, rich is all. But for them like me . . .’ Higgins shook his head. ‘Every man on this ship — yes, even the captain too — knows what it’s like to have the hunger eat at you, till you try to drown it in the gin ’cause you can get enough gin to make you drunk for a penny, but bread costs threepence.’

  Ben stared at him. Higgins met his eyes.

  ‘We knows most of us won’t see the end of this voyage alive. But the crew shares a third of the gold taken, not to mention what we can grab for ourselves. The fewer of us left, the more treasure there’ll be to share — and it’ll be enough to keep each man fed and to build a new life.’

  ‘What kind of life do you want?’ Ben asked, curious.

  Higgins grinned. ‘Like what I had before, but better. A tavern of me own, a mob of boys to work for me.’ The grin vanished. ‘Back in Lunnon Town, ’cause that’s where my woman’s waitin’ for me, but she won’t wait seven years. Two maybe, if I can get back in two. That’s where this ship is goin’ to take me.’

  ‘I didn’t know you were married.’

  The grin again. ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Mr Higgins . . .’ Somehow the ‘mister’ had slipped into Ben’s speech. ‘Is it going to be very bad?’

  ‘Yes,’ Higgins said flatly. ‘Worse’n your pa will admit to himself. Men like him only see what they want in their future. It’s goin’ to be hard sailin’, or worse, and hard fightin’ too. We got a good chance, but that’s all. A chance. Why d’you think I told you to stay in Sydney Town?’

  ‘Because you thought I was a coward,’ Ben said.

  ‘Bein’ scared don’t make you a coward. Well, unless you can swim, it’s too late now. Come and say goodbye to Sydney Town, boy.’

  Ben followed him up to the deck. The ship was approaching the first small headland out from Sydney Cove, and he saw blue water, blue skies and white caps where the breeze ruffled the waves.

  He looked back at Sydney Town. The stop-work bell must have sounded on shore for the streets looked empty, except around the rum shanties by the wharf. Decent men would be tending their gardens, the women their cooking pots, the thieves and cut-throats practising the crafts they’d brought from England, the Governor perhaps dreaming of yet another grand building to be constructed at the end of the world. Perhaps Governor Macquarie might even make this place of mud and rags somewhere people wished to live, Ben thought, not just those forced to come here by law or poverty.

  Seagulls soared above them and, even higher, a vast bird like an eagle circled. No Indian women fished this afternoon, but an Indian man in a far larger canoe hauled in a bulging fishing net out by a small island. To Ben’s shock, one of the Golden Girl’s crew stopped scrubbing the deck, ran to the rail and called out to the fisherman in an incomprehensible gabble.

  Ben stared. The sailor had black skin! And not the blackness of the ex-slaves from America or Jamaica he had seen in London, but the colour of one of the Indians of New South Wales, even though he was dressed like the other crew in ragged sailcloth, his feet bare.

  ‘Danvers! What’s this?’ Ben’s father had appeared from the forward deck. He pointed angrily to the Indian sailor. ‘I said I wanted men who could sail and fight.’

  ‘That’s Billy-Boy, Mr Huntsmore. He’s crewed on half a dozen ships before. Some of the Indians really take to it. Billy-Boy knows this coast, sir. I’ll show you. Hey, Billy-Boy! Come here.’

  The young man stopped his exchange with his friend and ran over to the captain. ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘Tell Mr Huntsmore here what the wind will do in the next two days. Big wind blow from where, eh?’

  ‘Big wind blow from that way, boss.’ Billy-Boy pointed to the north. ‘One day, two days. Wind stay strong.’

  ‘Back to work, Billy-Boy,’ said Captain Danvers.

  ‘Yes, boss.’ The young Indian made some sort of signal to his friend in the canoe, then walked back to his bucket and holystone.

  ‘Let me run my ship, sir,’ the captain added to Mr Huntsmore in a low to
ne.

  ‘Very well, Danvers.’ Mr Huntsmore headed below towards his and Ben’s cabin.

  Ben stayed up on deck. Partly because he wanted to see the country he would probably never glimpse again; and partly because he didn’t want his father to guess his fear.

  He was afraid of the voyage, the vast waves again, the violence to come. But he was also curious. He had only seen Indians in their canoes or wandering the streets. He hadn’t thought they would be able to crew a boat.

  He crouched by Billy-Boy, who was again scrubbing the deck with the holystone to keep its surface from getting smooth and slippery.

  ‘Billy-Boy, can you understand me?’

  The young man looked up. ‘Yes, boss.’

  Ben tried to think of the simplest way to ask where the Indian sailor came from and why he chose the danger of the sea. ‘You like being on big canoe?’

  Billy-Boy stared at him, expressionless.

  Ben pointed to the canoe behind them, then to the deck of the ship. ‘That small canoe. This big canoe. You like big canoe?’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  ‘Why? We go to big storms. Big waves.’ Ben pantomimed cold, then pointed south. Suddenly he didn’t want this simple savage to die because he hadn’t understood the danger they were sailing towards. Perhaps he might even be able to swim to shore from here. ‘Bad!’ He shook his head. ‘Lots of danger! You go home.’ He pointed to the shore. ‘Safe, eh?’

  Billy-Boy looked around. No one was close enough to hear their conversation above the competing noises of sails and seagulls.

  ‘I can speak English properly,’ he said calmly. ‘And I know the winds, the tides, the song of the whales and the tracks the fish take through the seasons.’

  Ben stared. His accent was that of an educated wealthy man, not even that of a servant. ‘How?’ he asked.

  ‘My friend taught me. He’s a sailor too — Nanberry White. He was adopted by Surgeon White as a boy.’ Billy-Boy shrugged. ‘My people usually speak several languages. Maybe it’s easier for us to learn a new one than it is for Englishmen.’