The boat sped past the first bar of bright white sand, then lurched and stuck. Deceptive waves rippled around them.
Higgins swore. ‘Curse it, man, they’ll be after us soon.’
Guwara leaped from the boat, sinking to his knees in sand, then gestured to Ben to do the same. Ben took off his boots and stockings, then carefully jumped out too. He felt the sand creep up almost to his thighs. They pushed, but the boat didn’t move. Nor, Ben realised, could he.
Higgins swore again. He held out a hand to Ben, heaving him back into the boat. Guwara had already freed himself. Ben watched him swim to the other side of the boat.
‘Get out! Both of you!’ he yelled, in the excellent English he had used only with Ben before.
‘I’m not . . .’ Higgins began, then evidently realised he had no choice but to obey.
Ben leaped further from the boat this time. The sand below him was firmer and ankle deep only. A splash and a glug, and Higgins landed next to him, giving a muffled exclamation and pressing his thigh with his hand.
Guwara pushed at the pinnace with one hand, keeping himself afloat with the other. The boat began to move. Ben ran forward and grabbed the prow. His legs sank into the sand again, but the boat’s momentum helped him now. A few more minutes and it floated clear.
He grabbed its edge and hauled himself in. Higgins followed, still cursing under his breath. Guwara clambered in beside them and adjusted the sails again. Once more they billowed above and the boat sped down the river, then around a bend. A drift of black swans watched their progress unruffled.
The sea was gone, though Ben could still half-hear, half-feel the vibration of the waves.
‘How long till they miss us?’ asked Guwara.
Higgins sat with his eyes closed, his forehead damp with sweat. ‘Another half-hour maybe. They know we like the boy. They’ll think we’re helpin’ him ashore, startin’ a fire for him mebbe.’ He opened his eyes and grinned sardonically at Ben. ‘Think we’ll be kind and light a fire for you, Sneezer?’
‘Maybe,’ said Ben cautiously.
‘Find a spring of water for him too, maybe get a drink ourselves.’ Higgins nodded at the spears. ‘And some fresh meat would be good. They’ll think you want to hunt for meat for the ship afore they sail.’
The world felt too bright, too strange. None of this could be happening, not his father’s death, not the battle, not this strange and unexpected flight.
‘Please, what is this about?’ he asked, trying to keep his voice even.
‘Told you,’ said Higgins. He moved his legs. For the first time Ben saw the sack Higgins had with him during the battle. ‘Couldn’t take much without bein’ noticed,’ he added. ‘But I got us a hatchet, a jug with a lid on it, a tinderbox and a good big knife.’ He winked at Ben. ‘Even got one of them plum puddins too. You should feel right at home with that.’
Higgins had planned all this, Ben realised. He’d known about the mutiny and guessed that Ben had won enough acceptance from the crew to save his life — with a bit of prompting. He must also have suspected that no one else would risk their life to take Ben ashore. And no one from the ship could have followed them to Rottnest without the ship’s boat, or any of the other places Ben might have been left. But Higgins obviously hadn’t planned to sail into the Black Swan River.
‘I’m holdin’ you to ransom, boy,’ Higgins said, grinning. ‘I couldn’t never go back to Lunnon Town if I stayed on the ship. I’d be strung up as soon as I showed me mug. Danvers might think he can get away with mutiny, but men talk. Only needs a pot o’ rum and a night’s yarnin’, and it’s a hemp necklace for the lot of us. An’ I know how much dash your pa left with Mr Moore back in Sydney Town. It’s a tidy sum, enough to see the two of us right.’ He looked at Guwara and shrugged. ‘Or maybe three of us, Sneezer lad, if you give us your word you’ll share your coin.’
‘You’d trust me?’ Ben asked.
‘Aye, I trust you, Sneezer. So what’s it to be? Share and share alike?’
He had no choice. No, he corrected himself, I do have a choice. I could lie, and then have Higgins taken away in irons when we get back. But that wasn’t a choice he’d ever make.
‘Everything I have,’ Ben said slowly, ‘we share when we get back to Sydney Town.’
If they got back. The vast continent lay between them. But at least now he had a chance.
He looked over at Guwara. ‘Why did you dive overboard?’
‘To go home,’ said Guwara shortly. He met Ben’s eyes. ‘I didn’t understand “mutiny” at first when I heard the men talking. Then it was too late to leave the ship. They would have killed me.’
He looked back to where the waves muttered at the entrance to the river. ‘I love the sea,’ he said softly. ‘I love the ships. But if I stayed on board, I could never go back to my own country. And I have . . . duty there.’ He cast Ben and Higgins a brief look each. ‘Duty you wouldn’t understand.’
‘Now all you need to do is sail through the heads into Sydney Town, matey, and you’re a hero who refused to sail with mutineers. An’ so am I,’ said Higgins, grinning.
Another mutiny, thought Ben. A small one, against the mutineers. The Golden Girl could not follow them down this river. Captain Danvers couldn’t even be sure where the boat had gone. They might have hauled it up out of sight on Rottnest, or on a section of one of the long beaches on the coast, hiding it in the scrub.
‘Told you I look after me own, Sneezer,’ said Higgins, leaning back as the boat rounded another curve of the river, with more dry scrubby land on either side. ‘I’ve never let one of me lads down, and I ain’t goin’ to start now.’
Ben stared at him. He had misunderstood, right from the beginning. Yes, this man had run a gang of children, trained them to steal, to pick pockets . . . But it was to survive, just as Higgins had, on the filthy dangerous streets of London. Ben had trusted the wrong man — the father who had risked his son in the Southern Ocean gales, who had sent him up the rigging — when all the time it had been this thief who was looking out for him.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘Well, so you oughta be,’ said Higgins, panting a little. His face was paler. ‘It’s goin’ to be you an’ me now. When we get back to Sydney Town, you’re goin’ to say how Billy-Boy and me rescued you bravely from the mutineers. I’m assigned to you, remember. Well, to yer pa, may the sharks nibble at him forever, but I don’t think no one’s goin’ to quibble about you inheritin’ a convict from your pa. I think you and me is goin’ to buy ourselves a tavern.’ His breath caught, and he grimaced and pressed his hand to the top of his leg.
‘What is it?’ asked Ben.
‘A scratch,’ said Higgins dismissively. ‘I’ve had worse when a rat bit me.’
‘Let me see.’
Higgins pulled his jacket away to show a rag binding the top of his thigh. It was weeping blood. He managed another grin. ‘Looks like you’ll have to be my servant for a while now, Sneezer. Look after me, like.’
The world seemed to suddenly become real again. A different world.
‘I’ll look after you,’ Ben said, and met Higgins’s eyes. ‘But my name isn’t Sneezer. It’s Ben.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Ben,’ said Higgins, and he held out a twisted claw of a hand. ‘But you know somethin’?’
‘What?’ asked Ben.
Higgins managed a pale grin. ‘You’ll always be Sneezer to me.’
CHAPTER 18
An hour later Guwara bent over the side of the boat, cupped his hands and tasted the water. ‘Fresh,’ he said.
Ben looked around. The country had changed; it was less sandy, with tall trees instead of scrub, though the land still looked barren. There was no grass between the trees, just strange low shrubs that grew down to the water’s edge on one side of the river. The other side was edged with wide mudflats. Birds trod carefully in the ooze, bobbing and pecking, while above them flew gulls and the strange coal-black birds that gave hoarse cries as they flapped
between the treetops.
Guwara changed tack, guiding the boat towards the flats. He jumped out, the mud rising to his ankles. Ben followed him, his feet still bare. The mud felt cold and smooth. Higgins lay in the boat, his face pale and sweaty.
Ben helped Guwara pull the boat over the shallow mud. Ducks flew off complaining. A small furred creature, not quite like any hopper Ben had seen before, gazed at them from behind a twiggy bush, then bounded off with a motion no civilised animal would employ. Ben shut his eyes briefly. If only this were England. There’d be berries to eat, hawthorns and hazelnuts, and rabbits or hares to snare. They could roast hedgehogs, like the gypsies did each year when they camped on the lower meadow.
This land begrudged its people even fresh water. How can we survive here? Ben wondered, suddenly desperate. How can we get back to Sydney Town with only a jug to carry fresh water in? Crossing the Thames was no preparation for a voyage like this. It would be impossible for a boy and an untrained man to sail back to Sydney Town with no knowledge of weather or navigation, or the hundred other things a ship’s master needed. But with Guwara they had a chance. Just a chance.
Could this tiny boat with its single mast even reach Sydney Town? It certainly wouldn’t survive the southern route taken by larger ships. Ben thought of the map Mr Appleby had given him. Flinders had hugged the coastline to create it, and even marked where he’d stopped, though not where he had found water — unless the map was incomplete. Perhaps Fred hadn’t bothered to add all the details of the west or southern coast, assuming Ben would never go there. The Black Swan River was the only river marked on the western part of the map.
Guwara gestured to a pile of grey-white shells under one of the trees. ‘Good camp.’
Ben looked around the clearing. How could they camp without a tent? The wind wasn’t as strong as it had been at sea but it still shivered itself into his bones. He thought about Flinders’s voyage — his boat had dried food, spare sails, tools, barrels to store water . . .
‘We need wood,’ said Guwara, interrupting Ben’s thoughts.
Ben nodded numbly. At least they’d have a fire.
Higgins saw his look. ‘Gimme a hand out, Sneezer lad. You get the wood and I’ll light the fire.’
Ben managed a smile. ‘Yes, Mr Higgins.’
Higgins pulled the tinderbox and axe out of his sack, then pushed the bag under the seat again. He looked at Ben thoughtfully, then said at last, ‘Your pa was a fool.’
‘To lose his ships? His life?’ asked Ben quietly. He tried not to remember the final sight of his father’s face.
‘To never know his son. You go get that wood, lad.’ Higgins turned to Guwara. ‘What d’you say, Billy-Boy? How long should we stay here?’
‘The ship can’t get past the sandbar,’ said Guwara, still evaluating the land around them. ‘They will look for us, but they need to put ashore for repairs. One month maybe. We stay here till then.’
Higgins lowered himself carefully onto the sandy ground. ‘Right you are, Billy-Boy.’
‘His name is Guwara,’ said Ben.
‘Guwara.’ Higgins tasted the word. ‘Why can’t you have a proper name like Ebenezer or Murgatroyd?’
Guwara didn’t answer. ‘Wood,’ he ordered again.
It would take days to cut down a tree, then chop it into firewood, thought Ben. But he took the axe from Higgins, thrust it into his belt and headed towards the stand of trees above the river.
Ten minutes later he had an armful of wood without any need to use the axe. Trees here dropped their branches freely he had discovered. Whatever else they lacked, it would not be firewood.
By the time he’d lugged back a fourth armload, Higgins had a blaze going within an old circle of blackened stones — another sign that others had camped here before. Higgins sat before the fire plucking the feathers from a swan. Another, already plucked, was suspended from a stick to one side of the blaze. Guwara had hunted fast and well.
Higgins grinned at Ben. ‘Told you we’d be eatin’ like kings soon,’ he said. ‘Billy-Boy here even found some roots that might be potatoes if you was a man on a gallopin’ horse what didn’t look too close.’
Ben drew nearer to the fire, shivering. Kings had beds, and a roof to cover them, walls to protect them from the sharp teeth of the wind. He blinked, realising he was shaking from hunger, fear, shock.
‘Sit,’ ordered Higgins. ‘You’ll feel better when you’ve got some grub into you.’
Ben sat. He stared at the fire, the flames. I am alive, he thought. It would be so easy to be dead today. And he had fire and food, and friends too.
Three days later they had built a hut of sorts: four tree-trunk posts with three walls of bark between them, stripped from the largest trees, and partially roofed with more lengths of bark. The fourth side was left open facing the fire, to capture its heat at night but with the smoke blowing away from them.
As Guwara had predicted, there had been no signs of pursuit from the Golden Girl. Now Ben’s shock had worn away he realised that Captain Danvers had probably changed whatever his earlier plans had been. With Ben free, and Guwara and Higgins having deserted the ship and perhaps able to sail towards passing ships to tell the authorities about the mutiny, there was a greater danger of being caught. Mutiny was a worse crime even than murder. Captain Danvers would assume that eventually the three of them would try to make their way south, then east. He might linger a few weeks to try to capture them at sea, but after that he would take the Golden Girl far to the north before he ordered her ashore for repairs.
To Ben’s surprise, their camp quickly grew more comfortable. Furs, roughly dried and still smelling of dead animal, made rough but warm cloaks and blankets. Guwara showed Ben how to use the sap from a spiny plant to glue sheets of flaking bark together to make a kind of cup to carry water. A morning spent lugging rocks miraculously made a fish trap in the shallows further up the river. The fish swam into the trap at high tide and were left stranded when the water receded, so that even Ben could catch them with his hands. Mussel shells became fish hooks — a matter of scraping out the bits of shell around the pinkish hook shape in the middle — to use later on their way back east. Strings of inner bark, plaited then let sizzle in the flame, became thin but tough string. Each night Guwara wove more of it into fishing nets.
The mussels tasted almost like the ones from home. The roots Guwara showed Ben how to dig were too sweet and fibrous to really be like potatoes, but they were satisfying. There was more than plenty at each meal with baked fish, swan, duck or the hoppers Guwara speared, as well as the berries he showed Ben were safe to pick. He even had him collect particular flowers to soak in water for a sweet drink.
Guwara hadn’t offered to let Ben use his spears again, but did give him more lessons on how to creep up to the windward side of an animal so it couldn’t smell them, practising standing on one leg, swaying gently like a tree, looking sideways rather than directly at an animal. Ben’s body ached after an hour of standing still, but it was worth it to see hoppers begin to graze about them — and to have their meat to eat and their rough dried furs for warmth.
It was hard work. It was good work. It meant he slept well, too tired for bad dreams. And using his body this way meant that he didn’t think; didn’t remember the look on his father’s face the moment before his death, all the words he had never said to the boy who was his son.
Higgins didn’t work. His wound had stopped bleeding, but infection seemed to have set in, making him weak and feverish by sundown. He spent most of the day leaning against a cushion made from tussock and feathers stuffed into a roughly dried, crackly hopper skin. It was hardly a pillow to a boy who had grown up with sun-softened linen sheets scented with lavender, but possibly no worse than Higgins was accustomed to.
This morning, he sat with a half-dried hopper skin about his shoulders, sucking listlessly on a leg of swan Guwara had speared the previous night, then wrapped in mud and baked in the coals. Baked swan was softer than me
at cooked above the fire and easier to eat for an almost toothless convict.
The wind spat rain; hard, fierce drops that made the tree leaves droop and dribble, but not thick enough to be true rain.
‘Kings must have good grinders if they like eatin’ swan,’ Higgins said, and spat a mangled mess onto the ground. ‘How about some fish, Sneezer boy?’
Ben glanced at Guwara.
‘We hunt today,’ Guwara said.
‘An’ I want some bleedin’ fish,’ snapped Higgins.
Guwara was silent. Ben was beginning to realise that despite his correct English accent and grammar, there were many words and concepts he didn’t know.
At last he seemed to have assembled the words he needed. ‘We have to carry water. We must hunt for that.’
Higgins snorted. ‘You plannin’ to find some water barrels hoppin’ about the bushes, Billy-Boy?’
Guwara stared at him.
‘My mistake,’ Higgins said. ‘You plannin’ to find us some hoppin’ barrels, Guwara?’
‘Yes,’ said Guwara.
They began the hunt by pushing sharp sticks into the sandy ground to create a small stockade with a yard doorway open to the clear ground by the river.
Guwara stepped back and nodded. ‘Good.’
‘But the fence will fall down if any animal leans on it,’ objected Ben. He thought of the stone walls back at Badger’s Hill, or the solid woven willow fences that even a bullock couldn’t push through.
‘You’ll see,’ said Guwara, and he beckoned Ben to follow him.
They waited in the scrub. The wind lessened as the afternoon drew on, and the rain thickened, more like the wet air Ben was familiar with from home. A drizzle filled the air till shapes grew vague. Finally Guwara touched his arm. A signal.
Ben stood as silently as he could, even his breathing shallow. I am a tree, he thought, waving slightly in the wind.
A thud, and then another. Five of the hopping animals approached, much bigger than the ones they had hunted before. A giant one that must be a male, two smaller, and two juveniles.
Pirate Boy of Sydney Town Page 13
