Pirate Boy of Sydney Town

by Jackie French

  So it would be Captain Danvers who marshalled the attack, Ben realised, for all his father’s talk of generals in the rear. The men would fight and die, and his father would take the profits. Just as he had from so many other ventures in which men had died from shipwreck or disease.

  Ben wondered suddenly how much of his comfortable life had been won through the deaths of others. Even heroic Sir Roderick Montclaire, the founder of Badger’s Hill, had won his land by conquest. Had Sir Roderick ordered his men to take the hill while he stayed in the rear?

  ‘Sir, why have we come if we aren’t going to fight?’ Or lead the fight either, he thought.

  His father gave a bark of laughter. ‘And let Danvers have my ship, treasure and all? Give him half a chance and he’d sail off with her, paint another name on her at the next port, and I’d never see her again. But Danvers won’t risk mutiny. News like that gets around. Men won’t sail with a mutineer.’ He changed the subject quickly. ‘What’s that on your bed?’

  ‘A map of New Holland, sir. Someone I met in the colony gave it to me.’

  ‘Let me see it.’

  Ben handed it over reluctantly.

  But his father gave it only a cursory glance. ‘A copy of Flinders’s map. The Governor has one too. I had a copy of it made for Danvers.’

  Of course the Governor would provide ships that called into Sydney Town with the latest map to copy. Ben took his back and folded it carefully in his jacket. He returned to sit on his bed and wondered what he would say if he could write to Sally now.

  Dear Sally,

  Tomorrow, or the day after, we will reach Shark Island to await a Dutch ship. We will fire on it and cripple it, and our crew will take its treasure while my father and I hide. I had thought I would be fighting the King’s enemies to win a fortune, but instead . . .

  He could not say the words.

  He sat silently as Higgins arrived to remove their dishes and the leftovers he would undoubtedly eat himself. He always cut more slices of ham or pudding than Ben and his father would eat.

  At last his father blew out the candle. Ben listened to the creaks of the ship, the slap of waves, the flap of sails above, the scratch as rats gnawed the hull, as the long hours passed as he tried to sleep.

  They reached Shark Island the next afternoon, manoeuvring carefully around its rocky edges to the smoother water facing the mainland. The Golden Girl had already dropped off four men at two positions further south to stand lookout for Dutch ships. They were in pinnaces, fore-and-aft gaff-rigged, single-masted cutters that could be rowed as well as sailed.

  Each pair of men had a barrel of water, stores and a hatchet so they could cut and erect a pole, guyed with ropes to keep it steady, with a crosspiece from which they would take turns looking for sails on the horizon. The first pair would light a signal fire as soon as they glimpsed a ship. The second would light another fire to alert those on the Golden Girl.

  Ben watched from the rail as men lowered the longboat to go ashore on the island to look for the fresh water the mapmaker had indicated. Shark Island was low and sandy, except for a vast dune covered in scrub and scraggy trees. Thin lips of waves rose up the sandy beach and flopped back.

  Birds rose in angry complaint at the disturbance of the ship’s boat’s arrival, strange birds with strange cries. Seals and sea lions flapped across the sand and slid into the waves, as if they knew they’d need a safer resting place now men had come. The air stung with the smell of bird dung, sharper than the tang of sea and sand.

  The mainland looked dry and sandy too, with clumps of dull-leafed shrubs, barren compared even to the tall, thin-topped trees of the forests of the east. But the river glimmered blue and inviting. Then suddenly Ben saw them — a tiny fleet of black swans, as dark as their name, gliding out from the reeds at the edge of the river.

  ‘Good eatin’ on a swan.’ It was Higgins, at his elbow.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘’Cause only the King is allowed to eat ’em.’ Higgins gave his gap-toothed grin. ‘I reckon we’ll all be eatin’ swan soon, eatin’ like kings.’

  Ben watched the swans paddling over the shallow water where it rippled across the sandbank, unaware of the threat on board the Golden Girl. They weren’t just meat, he thought, like the convicts weren’t just cargo. But Ben ate meat. And the comfort of his life was based on human cargo . . .

  ‘Are you going to fight too, Higgins?’ he asked impulsively.

  ‘Course. Only them what fights gets a share of the takings.’

  ‘And my father.’

  Higgins gave a secret smile. ‘And your pa of course.’

  ‘But you haven’t been in the Navy, have you?’ Ben asked. ‘Or the Army? How do you know how to fight?’

  ‘I been fightin’ since I were a sparrow. Don’t you worry about me. The streets I come from are better trainin’ than any battlefield.’

  Ben stared at him, taking in the wizened features, the claw-like hands. Higgins laughed and cuffed him lightly about the ear. Ben flushed at the indignity.

  ‘I can take care of meself, Sneezer.’

  The longboat returned with its two barrels of fresh water, all it could carry. Men hauled them aboard and sent down empty ones. This time Guwara clambered down the ladder to the boat as well, carrying two long spears and a short one, each with sharp-barbed tips. Ben wondered what there was to hunt on the island now the seals and sea lions had taken to the water. Surely no spear could catch birds on the wing. The men would have to use their muskets.

  He stayed on deck, sitting on a coil of rope while sailors scrubbed the deck around him or mended sails ripped in the southern gales, and the carpenter mended a cracked spar. He waited for the sound of muskets to show the men had found game. But the only sounds were the lapping of the water and the high raucous cries of a mob of black-feathered birds overhead, too small for swans. There wasn’t even any sign of the Indians that Mr Flinders had said lived on this side of New Holland too, though far inland he thought he saw a smudge that might be smoke.

  ‘Ahoy there!’ someone called.

  Ben ran to the side of the ship and looked down. The longboat had returned and was sitting low in the waves. The water barrels must be full again. The two sailors clambered up the rope ladder, carrying bloody sacks on their backs. Guwara followed them, carrying only his spears.

  Ben glanced around quickly, in case his father saw him consorting with the men. But there was no sign of him. ‘I didn’t hear any shots,’ he said.

  ‘Didn’t need to waste powder,’ one of the sailors said, gesturing at Guwara. ‘Billy-Boy here reckons hoppers are good eatin’ — better than that salt mutton. And guess what else he got?’ The man grinned, showing a gold tooth that he must have got in Sydney Town if he was an ex-convict, Ben thought, for anything so valuable would surely have been stolen from him in a convict hold.

  ‘What?’ he asked.

  The man leaned close. ‘Billy-Boy speared us a shark, though he says he ain’t gunna eat it. Them Indians got strange ideas sometimes. It’s a good omen, lad. We’ll be eatin’ shark tonight instead of sharks eatin’ us!’

  The two men took their haul down to the galley, while other sailors hauled up the longboat. The Golden Girl needed to be ready to move quickly if any sails were seen. Guwara lingered, gazing across the scrubland.

  ‘You’re a good hunter,’ said Ben tentatively.

  ‘Yes,’ said Guwara.

  ‘Could you teach me how to use a spear?’

  It was an impulse, something to lessen the boredom of waiting. His father would be furious, but Ben didn’t regret asking.

  Guwara assessed him for so long that Ben flushed.

  ‘I’ll teach you,’ he said at last. ‘But not on the ship.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘No man touches my spears but me. If the others see you do it, they’ll want to try too. They’ll break them. You and I take the boat out at first light tomorrow.’ And he strode over to the hatch.

  CH
APTER 14

  The ship stank of boiled hopper that night. It was so tough that Mr Huntsmore pushed his serving away and demanded ham instead, though he accepted a cut of the shark, which Harry One-Eye had dressed with lime juice and butter.

  The wind rose again in the night. It was still so strong in the early morning greyness when Ben went to meet Guwara that he had to lean forward to stay upright on deck. Mr Huntsmore was still asleep in the cabin. Ben wondered what he would say when he heard his son had spent the day with an Indian. But his anger would be worth it to learn to use a spear.

  He nodded to a sailor who was already scrubbing the deck and to two men with fishing lines dangling over the rail.

  Guwara was already waiting for him, spears in hand, a pile of sacks at his feet.

  ‘Captain says we can take the boat,’ he told Ben. ‘I said I’d get more meat without the men making so much noise.’

  He nodded at Ben to pick up the sacks.

  I’m the owner’s son, thought Ben. I don’t carry sacks.

  Guwara laughed, seeing his thoughts. ‘A warrior only carries his spears.’ He waited.

  Ben picked up the sacks, then followed Guwara down the rope ladder to the waiting ship’s boat.

  Warriors, it seemed, did not row either. Ben pulled at the oars, and soon felt blisters forming. It had been more than a year since he’d rowed on the lake at Badger’s Hill. Thankfully, it only took ten minutes to row across the bay to the sandy beach that curved towards the mainland. Birds yelled at them and at each other and at the rising sun.

  Ben pushed off his shoes, pulled up his trousers, then leaped into the shallows to heave the boat up the sand. It didn’t move. He tried again, embarrassed.

  Guwara grinned. He jumped out too, his bare feet landing in the water, and grabbed the edge of the boat as well. Together they eased it up onto the beach. Then Guwara leaned into it and picked up his spears.

  The sun rose higher. The wind grew hotter, but didn’t lessen.

  By midday, Ben had learned that Guwara’s spears were made from the flower stalks of a special tree that didn’t grow on this side of New Holland, bound together with the tree’s sap and with hopper sinews. But another kind of spear could be made from a branch soaked in hot water, then buried in hot wet sand to straighten it, because only a truly straight spear would fly straight.

  But Guwara wouldn’t let Ben bury the stick he’d chosen. ‘Only a warrior may make a spear.’

  ‘How do I become a warrior?’ Ben thought of the battle to come.

  Guwara gazed at the white beaches on the mainland, as if remembering. ‘You learn,’ he said at last. ‘You study the country, the law, the skies. And then you enter the circle and . . .’ He stopped, smiling.

  ‘And what?’

  ‘And then you find out what makes a warrior. But a boy can learn to cast a spear. First you need to learn to stand, like this. Now keep your hand steady. Level the spear to your eye so the point is on the place you want it to land.’

  By the time the sun rode down the sky, Ben had hit the bush he was aiming at five times, and tussocks he hadn’t been aiming at more times than he could count. But he was just beginning to understand the movement and balance needed to cast a spear, and also the amount of strength he would need to cast one hard enough to kill even one of the small hopping animals in the scrub about them.

  At last Guwara took the spears himself. ‘Stand like I do,’ he said quietly. He straightened and lifted one leg, one elbow, hiding the spears close to his body.

  Ben tried to copy him. Within minutes his leg ached, his shoulders too. The wind snickered, buffeting them.

  A hopping creature peered from behind a bush. It bounded out slowly, followed by another. Guwara didn’t seem to move. Only his spears flickered, cutting the air. The animals lay twitching on the sand, then were still.

  Guwara nodded to Ben. ‘Put them in the sack.’

  ‘Should I skin them? Gut them?’

  ‘The crew can use the insides as bait to fish with. The hides will keep us warm when we travel south again.’

  Ben bent to the still-warm bodies and thrust them into the sack. ‘I’ve never seen anyone move so fast.’

  ‘You’ll do better tomorrow,’ Guwara told him.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Guwara.’

  A laugh. ‘No mister, just Guwara. Though I have other names too.’

  ‘Why do you use Billy-Boy?’

  ‘I don’t. The white men do. But not a boy who uses my spears.’ He grinned. ‘One day I may tell you all my names.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Ben, humbled.

  Suddenly Guwara held up a hand for silence. He pointed into the waves by the beach. A school of bright fish flickered through the water, each no larger than a man’s hand, and then a hook-shaped fin. The water was so clear Ben could see the outline of the massive twisting body underneath it, the jaws that looked set in a savage grin. Shark.

  Guwara passed the spear to Ben.

  He couldn’t do it. He would lose the spear in the water. Guwara would need to swim after it, even though he was a warrior, because the stupid white boy couldn’t even swim . . . But if Guwara swam after the spear, the shark might kill him.

  Ben cast the spear.

  It struck, lurched. The giant shape surged out of the water, rolled, taking the spear with it. Ben splashed towards it as the vast mouth opened further, lunged . . .

  The shark jerked back as another shorter spear flashed into its belly, Guwara still gripping it. The giant fish shuddered, twisted, trying to wrestle away, but Guwara held firm.

  Ben managed to grab the first spear again. The shark struggled, its tail flashing, lashing. Then suddenly it lay limp below them in the water, its life gone.

  Ben leaned on the spear, half-triumphant, half-terrified, wholly exhausted and exultant.

  Guwara laughed, not even out of breath. ‘Tomorrow you will do it better,’ he said again, then stopped and pointed south.

  Smoke rose from the mainland, a thin spire in the sky.

  ‘Signal fire,’ breathed Ben.

  ‘Yes. Too much smoke to be from people who live here.’

  Ben stared at him. ‘I didn’t know there was a colony in the west. There are no houses.’

  Guwara looked at him impassively.

  ‘You mean Indians,’ said Ben. ‘I’d forgotten that Mr Flinders said some Indians lived here too.’

  A pause. Then Guwara said, ‘I am a Cadigal man, just like you are English. The people here are Noongar.’

  ‘How do you know? From Mr Flinders?’

  ‘We know,’ said Guwara shortly. ‘We trade. I ask the . . . the people who talk, who trade and know many languages . . . to ask what nations live here in the west when I knew we were coming.’

  ‘But how did they find out? We’re so far away from . . . from your people?’ It was as if a new world was opening up. An impossible world, where Indians knew more than Englishmen.

  But all Guwara said was, ‘We must hurry. The ship must leave.’

  Mr Huntsmore was already up on the quarterdeck with Captain Danvers when Ben and Guwara clambered up the ladder. Sailors immediately hauled up the ship’s boat and fastened it securely to the side. Others hauled on the massive chain that held the anchor, while others swarmed up the shrouds to set the sails. Ben hoped he and Guwara hadn’t delayed the sailing.

  The ship surged northwest as her sails filled. Mr Huntsmore gestured for Ben to join him and Captain Danvers. It seemed Ben had escaped his father’s anger, possibly even a beating.

  ‘High tide too,’ Ben’s father was saying to the captain as Ben climbed the steps. ‘And the wind in the right direction.’

  Ben peered out to sea, but even his young eyes could see no sails. The ship must still be far south.

  ‘How long till the ship gets here, Danvers?’ demanded Mr Huntsmore.

  Captain Danvers glanced up at the sails, then the cloudless sky. ‘In this wind? Three hours if they are carrying full sail, but I doubt they’ll risk t
hat at night, not with the rocks around here.’ He grinned. ‘The timing couldn’t be better.’

  ‘So what do we do now?’ Ben’s father asked sharply.

  Captain Danvers smiled. ‘We wait for morning, when they will come to us.’

  Two hours later Shark Island was behind them, and other islands too. The mainland was a blue haze over to the right, almost lost between the smudge of sea and sky. At last Captain Danvers ordered the billowing sails furled.

  The wind came in hard, cold breaths. The Golden Girl rocked as the waves crashed against her sides, white froth coating the roughened wood of the deck. As the sky and sea faded into greens then grey, men ran to check powder and shot, and to move cannons and cannon balls so the ship still balanced straight upon the sea.

  Ben sat on the coil of rope and watched the activity till Higgins came to fetch him.

  ‘His Nibs wants you. Time for some gruntin’ peck and murphies. Ham and potatoes,’ he added when he saw Ben didn’t understand the thieves’ cant.

  Ben stood up stiffly.

  ‘You scared?’ Higgins asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’d be bird-witted if you ain’t. It’s goin’ to be bad, Sneezer. Keep mum and do what yer pa tells you.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t like him,’ Ben said.

  Higgins shrugged. ‘He’s a flash cove and a mongrel, but he knows how to save himself while others die for him. Stick with him tomorrow and you should be right. Now move yer pins. I want me grub, and I can’t eat till His Nibs is finished.’

  Supper was cold: cold potatoes and cold shark meat for the men; cold ham, potatoes and pudding for Ben and his father. The hopper and shark meat that Guwara and Ben had caught would not be cooked tonight. It sat preserved in salt in a barrel. The ship dared not show a gleam of cooking fire in the darkness, or a hint of smoke tomorrow, lest the Dutch ship see it. The Golden Girl must seem to be lying abandoned in the morning.

  It was hard to sleep, the rolling and yawing of the waves too unpredictable. Nor was Ben able to imagine what tomorrow might be like. Maybe nothing would happen at all. The Dutch ship might slip past them in the night. Some captains did forge ahead despite the darkness, especially if bad weather was coming. Or perhaps the Dutch ship had sailed further west so as not to risk shipwreck near the coast.