by David Field
As they approached Bennelong’s hut, he raced out and embraced Barangaroo, before apparently ordering her into his hut. Then he turned back, embraced Daniel in a tight body hug and let fly a torrent of words in his own language, of which Daniel was only able to make out ‘Dan-Woo’ and ‘Friend’.
10
As predicted, the next ship to arrive was the stores vessel Justinian and her cargo was eagerly unloaded by teams of convicts under military guard. Two weeks after that, the first of the male convict ships began limping into the Cove and dropping anchor and within two days they had run out of tents to house the half-dead victims of what, upon investigation, turned out to be a massive fraud by the owners of the chartered vessels, who had been paid for the number of convicts they had taken on board, whether they arrived alive or dead. It was necessary to open a new graveyard and Reverend Johnson no longer needed to carry his prayer-book to funerals, since he knew the words off by heart. However, he steadfastly refused to preside over mass burials, which earned him the grudging respect of the convicts who had been in Port Jackson for some time and could well appreciate what the dead must have suffered. A decent, respectful, Christian burial was the least that they could be afforded.
In mid-July, as George snapped to attention to collect his daily orders from the weary-looking governor, Phillip invited him to take a seat. He called for a pot of tea and offered a cup to George before sinking back in his padded chair and sighing.
‘We’re in deep shit, Captain.’ When George didn’t reply, the governor clearly felt the need to unburden himself more fully. ‘The Second Fleet brought us only dead bodies and more mouths we can’t feed. I’ve already written a despatch to the Admiralty which hopefully will have certain treacherous shipping agents hanged for murder and that will be going back on the Lady Juliana, since she’s under orders to return with all speed to collect another lot. I’ve also asked London to relieve me of my office.’
George’s eyebrows shot up in surprise and Phillip smiled.
‘You can hardly be surprised, Captain. Call me a rat leaving a sinking ship, if that analogy isn’t too close to the quick to be amusing, but you must have realised for yourself that this experiment has failed. The Justinian didn’t unload enough supplies to even feed the extra convicts that the Second Fleet delivered and we were already short. My health has taken a decided turn for the worse since we’ve been out here and I cannot in all honesty blame it on the climate. Defeat has a debilitating effect on a lifelong military man such as myself and if I stay here much longer I’ll be joining those poor buggers in the new graveyard we’ve had to open.’
‘I’ll be sorry to see you go, sir,’ was all that George could say. ‘Could I ask if you’d recommend me as adjutant to the next governor?’
‘You may not be here yourself, George,’ Governor Phillip told him. ‘The choice will be yours, of course, but that’s the main thing I have to tell you this morning. Captain Paterson came ashore carrying orders to establish a new marine regiment out here, completely independent of the Corps we have at present. The thinking back in London is that your men were only ever required to guard the convicts on the way out here and provide an armed guard while we got established. You are all entitled to return on the vessels you see anchored in the Cove and be demobilised back in London.’
‘What if we don’t want to go, sir?’
‘That will depend upon whether or not I’m replaced, since I imagine that any new governor will have his own ideas. But if it’s left to me, a distinct regiment will be formed from those of you who wish to remain and I’d be a lot happier if you would assume command of it. But if you’d prefer to go back to London with your new family, I’ll authorise their return passage as well. Clearly you’ll need to think things over, but I want you to pass on to your men that they’ll be free to leave in a month or so, should they wish. Any who choose to remain will obviously be drafted into your new regiment, should you also decide to stay.’
‘As you say, sir, I need to think about it. And of course I’ll need to consult Rachel, but surely she can’t leave the colony without a free pardon?’
‘And do you think I wouldn’t grant her one, after all your service to me?’
‘That’s very generous of you, sir, but we wouldn’t want to abandon our loyal nursemaid to her fate.’
‘That’s Bradbury’s woman, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, sir, except they seem to be going through rather a difficult phase in their relationship at present.’
‘Well, I can’t grant free pardons to every woman who’s got herself a marine who wants to go back to London. That would obviously encourage the more promiscuous of them to throw themselves at a marine, just to get out of here. Although I wouldn’t blame them.’
‘No, sir.’
Governor Phillip sat thinking for a moment, then looked back at George. ‘Talking of Bradbury, he seems to have a unique gift with the natives, does he not?’
‘They certainly seem to trust him sir, why?’
‘Are the natives still keeping watch on us from up near the brickworks?’
‘Yes sir — there seem to be more of them every day.’
‘And your hut’s up that way, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, sir — I was going to ask you if we might move further down the hill, since you raise the matter. Rachel and Martha are getting quite nervous.’
‘But you have other marines up there, do you not?’
‘Yes, sir, as it happens. The hut next to ours has five marines in it.’
‘And what detail are they on?’
‘Just lately they’ve been in charge of unloading parties from the new fleet.’
‘Why don’t you put them on brickworks detail? That way, they can guard you from over-curious natives as well.’
‘I did think of that, sir, but they’re only young and a bit hot-headed and I’d be scared that they’d provoke an incident.’
‘Even with Bradbury in command of them?’
‘I’m not sure I follow you, sir.’
‘Bradbury huts down here somewhere, in the Rocks area, doesn’t he? I’m suggesting that you reallocate him to the hut next to yours. That way, he’ll be on hand if the natives get a bit uppity and your women can feel that bit more reassured of their safety. Plus, of course, Bradbury would be closer to his own woman. It might push them together more quickly.’
‘You obviously haven’t seen how they stalk around each other like circling dogs, sir,’ George grinned back. ‘But the idea’s a splendid one and at the end of the day, Bradbury will have to obey orders.’
Daniel’s brain was in a turmoil after George passed on the news. He could, if he wished, return to England, but then what? He’d left civilian life in the first place in order to run away from a broken heart and he had no wish to do so again; nor did he wish to continue in the marines, to be sent anywhere in the world on board some leaky vessel that was under-supplied and probably barely seaworthy. And he couldn’t bear the thought of not seeing Martha ever again.
But why should he stay, just for Martha? To see her daily — as he was more or less condemned to do, now that George had ordered him to move into the hut next to his — was the worst form of mental torture he could imagine. She studiously avoided looking across at him if she was outside with the children and she had curtly cut short every attempt he had made to engage her in conversation. He dearly longed to make her his wife, but the time for doing that was surely long past. He should have done it when she was so blatantly offering herself to him, or was that yet another of her clever performances?
Certainly, it had now become more complicated. It was bad enough that she had been repelled by the idea that he had somehow bought her by obtaining her ticket of leave in return for bringing in Bennelong and nothing would persuade her that he would have done so anyway and that the governor had simply added that into the mix after he’d agreed. What would she say now, if he proposed marriage to her and she knew that by accepting she was being offered a chance t
o return to London with a free pardon? If a ticket of leave was like buying a prize heifer at market, what did that make a free pardon and a return to London? And if they went back there, would she resume her former life and bring shame upon him by getting herself jailed?
He was turning those gloomy thoughts over and over in his head when Barangaroo stepped out of the hut she shared with Bennelong and stood before him, smiling in an embarrassed way. She had something in her hand and held it out towards him. Daniel took it from her and began to admire it and she slipped quickly back into the hut, clearly determined that what she had just handed him was a gift of some sort.
Daniel marvelled at the painstaking work that must have gone into it. It was a long necklace of some sort, made from a strong string that she must have acquired from the rubbish piled permanently at the side of the Commissary Store. Into it she had threaded a dozen or more pieces of patiently polished ornamental driftwood that she must have collected from the shoreline and had interspersed them with tiny shells from the same source. It was a totally unique piece of native craft and at least Daniel had solved another problem. He now knew what to give Martha for her birthday.
11
August 9th dawned and Daniel’s heart was already in his mouth when he awoke and realised that it was ‘the day’. He had a present for Martha’s birthday and an invitation to the select party that George was organising. Surely she couldn’t help but be pleased and perhaps engage in a longer conversation in which Daniel could plead with her to put him out of his indecision. He had made up his mind that if she spurned him once more, he’d return to England, leave the marines and find some sort of commercial position in the City, where his early grounding in the commerce of import and export in his native Bristol might earn him a desk in a dreary dockside warehouse. If she just gave him some indication, however slight, that they might have a future, then he would remain and join the regiment that George was excitedly talking about all the time. Clearly, they were all remaining and Rachel must have foresworn the opportunity of a free pardon in order to remain with George here in the colony, giving him both things that his heart most craved. If only Martha would do the same for him, he would make her the Queen of New South Wales, if that’s what she wanted.
The smell of fish drifted across on the evening air as Daniel walked slowly across the narrow grass division between the huts, feeling like a prisoner being led to the gallows, clutching in his hand the necklace that Barangaroo had given him, wrapped in a piece of gun cloth.
‘Come on in, Daniel,’ Rachel enthused as he stepped into the hut. She raised her voice and called towards the back room, ‘Martha, here’s Daniel, and by the look of things he has a present for you.’
Martha came through and Daniel held the present out. Martha took it from him with a downcast look and opened up the cloth. She gave a slight gasp and a grin of delight flickered across her face before she regained her self-control and looked back up at Daniel with a cold stare. ‘I don’t want a gift made by your whore.’
Daniel choked and turned away, as if hit by a musket ball. He stumbled blindly back out through the front door and raced back to his own hut.
Later that evening, Daniel was lying in bed when he heard the sound of someone creeping into his hut. Quickly grabbing his bayonet he stealthily crept forward and was stunned when he walked straight into Martha. They stared hard at each other in the torchlight above Martha’s head, then both burst out laughing.
‘Come and sit on the front step,’ Martha invited him. ‘We don’t want your men to get the wrong idea and I need to apologise to you. Rachel explained to me that you are not in a relationship with the native woman, and that it was your idea to plan me a birthday party.’
‘The men won’t be back until dawn,’ Daniel told her, ‘but we do need to talk.’
There was an awkward silence as they sat, thighs touching, on the narrow front step under the stars of a clear sky. Eventually it was Daniel who spoke. ‘Can we start again?’
‘What, put me back below decks?’ Martha joked.
‘Not quite, but I think we may have got on the wrong side of each other. I realise that you were insulted by the suggestion that I had in some way ... well, compromised you by getting you that ticket of leave. It was the governor’s sole idea, I swear, and he didn’t come up with it until I’d already agreed to bring Bennelong in.’
‘Bennelong?’
‘That native who seems to regard me as his friend. The woman who made your necklace is his wife.’
‘You were very brave, bringing him in like that, exposing yourself to slaughter. We were all very relieved to see you come back in one piece.’
Daniel reached out and took her hand. ‘How did you feel when you thought I might not come back?’
‘Like someone was ripping my heart out,’ Martha admitted as she squeezed his hand.
Daniel’s voice began to crack with emotion. ‘You’ve no idea what it means to me to hear you say that. I’ve never felt this way about a woman in my entire life, I swear. I just can’t imagine staying out here and only seeing you from time to time and the two of us chatting politely like bored vicars at a church conference. What I’m trying to say is ... well...’
‘You want to marry me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well why didn’t you say so months ago?’
‘I was going to, that night you were dancing with Private Perkin, but I never got the chance.’
‘And I only danced with him to get you jealous. What a stupid pair we are.’
‘So will you marry me?’
‘Only if you assure me that I’m not being acquired like a piece of property.’
‘Wait there a moment.’ Daniel disappeared back inside the hut and reappeared with a small soft felt bag and handed it to her. ‘This was my mother’s and it probably doesn’t fit, but it’s all I have. Martha, will you marry me?’
‘Oh yes — yes!’ Martha squeaked as she threw her arms around him and smothered his face in kisses.
Daniel and Martha were married only three months later, and Martha quickly fell pregnant. Once she discovered that Martha was with child, Rachel insisted on recruiting another nursemaid for her own children. George also took it upon himself to restrict Daniel to the single, but important, command of the men guarding the brickworks.
It was an important duty for several reasons. The first was the urgent need for bricks. The colony had long since abandoned the laborious policy of building in stone blocks, with the result that the Governor’s House and the Commissary Store would stand out uniquely in Port Jackson’s architecture for many years to come. The mud of the Tank Stream had proved to be eminently suitable for the baking of bricks and tiles, with which most of the house-builders among the convict class were more familiar anyway and the Barracks had risen rapidly as kiln after kiln discharged thousands and thousands of their distinctive dark brown product that was carted daily half a mile downhill and was now being converted into a half-decent hospital.
The second reason was because the brickworks had become a recognised meeting point between the settlers and the natives. Bennelong had slipped away from his hut, taking Barangaroo with him, many weeks previously. He had never officially been a prisoner, but the permanent presence of armed guards outside his hut ‘for his own protection’ had been a diplomatic pretence that fooled no one, least of all those being ‘protected’ and the two natives had demonstrated their contempt for their white gaolers by slipping away totally undetected at dead of night. But two weeks later, Bennelong had returned, with no obvious trace of embarrassment or apprehension and had demanded that the governor supply him with a hut of his own choosing, at a location that seemed to be of some ceremonial or religious significance to him on Lookout Point, which soon became more generally known as ‘Bennelong Point’.
But he had also set a precedent and had no doubt reported back to members of his tribe that the settlers — and particular the tribal chief they called ‘Governor’ — could be prevail
ed upon to provide goods and other benefits in exchange for their company and a few simple pieces of advice on what to catch for food, how to catch it and how best to plant seeds in the ground in such a way as to encourage them to grow. The result was the almost daily arrival, at the brickworks, of groups of eager natives who wished to be escorted down to Bennelong’s hut. There was an ever-present risk that young hotheads among the marines might misinterpret their arrival so George had experienced no difficulty in explaining to the governor why it was important to have Daniel on hand, to act as host, guide, interpreter and mediator.
Early one autumn evening, as Daniel and Martha sat on the front step of their two-roomed love palace, holding hands and thinking up children’s names, George shouted across from next door, ‘Bring your table and chairs out into the fresh air and prepare to taste the most amazing seafood you ever experienced.’
A few minutes later he and Rachel appeared from next door, smilingly carrying a plate of what looked like red cornets and a jug of Rachel’s home-made wine. They sat eagerly round the table as Daniel poured the wine and George enthused about his latest acquisition.
‘Some of my men went up to Broken Bay, to escort the governor up the river he’s named Hawkesbury, apparently as part of his policy of expanding the colony. While they were staying overnight, they came across a bunch of natives fishing for these things in the rocks, then dropping them in boiling water and eating them. One of them offered some to Private Gooding and they turned out to be delicious, so the marines spent a whole day fishing for several bagsful, much to the governor’s annoyance until he tried one himself. A bit like the oysters you can get in expensive London restaurants, although you have to mess around pulling off their shells in order to eat the flesh inside. Try one.’
