A Far Distant Land: A saga of British survival in an unforgiving new world (The Australian Historical Saga Series Book 1)

by David Field

  ‘What are they called?’ Martha asked.

  ‘No idea,’ George replied. ‘The natives have a name for them, but like every name they give things, you’d sprain your tongue trying to repeat it. I call them “fish crescents”. What do you think?’

  The appreciative murmurs eliminated any doubt as to whether or not a new ocean treat had been discovered and Martha immediately ordered a bagful for herself and Daniel, should Private Gooding venture north again. Then George’s face assumed a serious look. ‘Actually, this isn’t just a social visit. We all have to make some important decisions within the next month or so. I promised the governor I’d sound out your opinions, but we both hope that you’ll go along with what Rachel and I have decided.’

  ‘We’re finally being disbanded?’ Daniel guessed.

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ George confirmed. ‘That new chap who came out on the Gorgon — Captain Paterson — has already taken over the Barracks with that bunch of marines that came out with him. They’re the spearhead of a new lot to replace us and he came out with a commission as Lieutenant-Governor. Apparently there’s someone higher ranked than him coming over in the next lot and in the meantime the governor’s sending Paterson and his mob over to Norfolk Island. That leaves me in temporary command until the new man comes out, but since we’re being disbanded anyway, there’s no promotion in it for me.’

  Daniel chuckled. ‘I’d love to see Ross’s face when Paterson lands over there and strips him of his command.’

  ‘Apparently Ross’s coming back here briefly, before sailing for England when the Neptune raises anchor. The governor would like to depart with him, but he’s stuck here until he gets a despatch relieving him of command. In the meantime he’s trying to pretend he still runs the colony and will no doubt be very relieved to see the back of Paterson. But the writing’s on the wall for the New South Wales Marine Corps, I’m afraid.’

  Martha seized Daniel’s arm and looked apprehensive. ‘What’s going to happen to us all? We can’t go back, even as service wives, until we’ve served our terms and Rachel and I still have at least another three years out here. Will we have to fend for ourselves?’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ George reassured her. ‘That’s what we need to talk about. The governor asked me to form a new regiment, but apparently Paterson put the dampers on that and insists that any force of armed soldiers must come under the overall command of this chap who’s still in London.’

  ‘What’s his name?’ Daniel asked.

  ‘Grose, apparently. I don’t know what rank he is, but presumably it’s higher than Captain. Anyway, the governor sat down with this Paterson chap and struck a deal. The bottom line is that I’ll be forming a separate company recruited from men of our lot who don’t want to go home on the Neptune and I imagine that will include you, Daniel.’

  ‘Of course it will,’ Martha insisted. ‘I’m sure Daniel wouldn’t want to go home without me, leaving me here to fend for myself and with a baby on the way.’

  ‘If anyone could survive in those circumstances, living by their wits, you could,’ Daniel added, pecking Martha on the cheek, ‘but Martha speaks for both of us. Our child will be born here in the colony and I’ll be here to look after them both, so count me in for the new company, George. I assume I’ll keep my rank?’

  George grinned. ‘Somehow, I thought that would be your answer. But I haven’t told you the whole story yet.’

  ‘Go on,’ Daniel and Martha said, almost in unison.

  ‘Well, as you can imagine, the governor’s pretty miffed that he’s obliged to remain here under the diplomatic equivalent of house arrest, with Grose calling the shots from London, so he wants to move out west, to where you took him a couple of years ago, Daniel.’

  ‘Rose Hill?’

  ‘That’s the place. He’s ordered a house to be built on what he calls “The Crescent”. It seems that James Ruse has managed to grow wheat out there and the governor’s convinced that the whole area could become a permanent food supply for the colony, so he wants to set up an experimental farm out there, with Ruse as its manager and this new company of mine guarding it.’

  ‘What do we know about farming?’ Daniel pointed out.

  ‘I know a bit, about dairy farming anyway,’ George replied. ‘I ran my parents’ food lot business back home and I used to visit dairy farms around the area. I picked up quite a few useful things about cows in the process, like never to stand behind one while it’s being milked. But we wouldn’t be going out there as farmers, anyway. The governor, quite sensibly, is of the opinion that once we start successfully producing food, the natives will be raiding us on a nightly basis. In fact, to judge by Bennelong’s antics, they could probably do it in broad daylight, right under our noses. As a result, the farm will need guarding round the clock. There’s a barracks out there already as you know, Daniel, since you helped to set it up and the suggestion is that we form a separate company of this New South Wales Corps notionally under Grose, but out west and effectively independent, although he somehow expects me to supervise the deployment of men here in my spare time, at least until Grose arrives.’

  ‘What’s it like out there in the west?’ Martha asked Daniel anxiously.

  Daniel shrugged. ‘Pretty wild when I was out there, but the governor may be right about it being good for growing food. There’s fresh water flowing through a wide valley, before it empties into the tidal creek at a point which is a good day’s march inland from here. The only natives we saw were hiding in the bushes as usual, but as George says they’ll soon become more visible when we grow grain and even more aggressive if we begin keeping livestock that they can spear. But I wouldn’t want to go out until Martha’s had the baby. God knows the hospital here’s pretty primitive, but there’s nothing out there.’

  ‘Martha won’t be the first woman to give birth out here,’ Rachel said, having sat silently through the conversation thus far. ‘I got a nurse of sorts when I gave birth to George Junior and this new woman I’ve got — Sarah — seems pretty good with children, although not as good as you were, Martha,’ she added as she leaned across the table and placed a reassuring hand on Martha’s arm. ‘I’ll ask Sarah what she knows about midwifery and if she manages to convince me, we’ll take her with us.’

  12

  During the next few months several more vessels arrived from London and Cork, bringing more marines for Captain Paterson to install in the over-full barracks before he left for Norfolk Island and for George to notionally supervise once Paterson set sail. George had compiled a list of those men who were to form his company and they were drilled daily in the area immediately below where his hut and Daniel’s were located. There were two good reasons for this.

  First of all, detailed plans were being drawn up for the move up-river to Rose Hill and George wanted his men to remain drilled. Secondly, there had been friction between George and Captain Paterson, resulting from George’s conscription of large numbers of convicts with skills he could use. Many of his labourers had found themselves undergoing boat training and had learned to heave an oar in the commandeered ships’ cutters that could be used to transport men and materials a dozen or so miles upstream from the harbour to the jetty on the river from which Rose Hill could be reached following a further short march inland. It would take many journeys to establish the sort of developed settlement that Governor Phillip envisaged and since these journeys were regulated by the state of the tide, in order to make the rowing that much easier, they needed careful planning.

  There had always been a weekly supply expedition, with the result that there were boatmen who knew the channel well and one day in late November, before the weather became too hot, George and Daniel jumped on board the cutter commanded by William Booth, a former Sussex fisherman. Booth stood in the stern with the rudder firmly in his hand as six muscular and bronzed convicts pulled the boat firmly away from the harbour jetty and headed across the bay and into the wide estuary that marked the sea exit of the river they wer
e to follow upstream for several hours.

  The river up which the incoming tide was driving them almost effortlessly became slowly narrower and after an hour or so the man in the bow of their naval cutter stood up and began calling out the estimated depths to the helmsman and indicating with his arms whether to steer right or left. The overhanging vegetation crept right down to water level and occasionally they would spot a snake sliding through the undergrowth down to the water’s edge, or an unfamiliar-looking creature crashing through the undergrowth as it was startled by their stealthy approach. The channel got narrower and narrower, until they rounded a bend and ahead of them on the left was a crudely constructed landing jetty, on which stood an officer and four men in full uniform.

  The boat pulled up alongside the jetty and a uniformed private was detailed to take the rope thrown to him by the bowman and secure it to a bollard that had been driven into the ground at the side. Daniel stood aside to let George out first and there was the customary exchange of salutes and handshakes before George turned to Daniel.

  ‘You presumably remember Lieutenant Bradbury, since he was the man who abandoned you here with your detachment. Daniel, this is Lieutenant John Macarthur,’ George said as Daniel and Macarthur shook hands.

  ‘I forgave him some time ago,’ Macarthur replied in an accent that betrayed him as one born a West Countryman. ‘If you don’t mind a bit of a hike, I’ll show you around and then we’ll have dinner at the barracks.’

  They strode up a slight slope along a well-beaten track, to a point at which water was cascading off a natural waterfall into the river up which they had just travelled.

  ‘As you can see, gentlemen,’ Macarthur pointed out, ‘the sea water is only just below the lip of this natural weir, although at low tide the drop’s about five feet. Upstream is fresh water and downstream is the salt stuff you just rowed through. If you’d care to follow me further up this rise, you can see how we put the fresh water to good use.’

  As they reached the top of the rise, a natural valley opened up before them, halfway down which they could see a modest sized hill, on top of which was the crudely constructed palisade of the barracks and fort.

  Macarthur waved his hand ahead of them. ‘That’s Rose Hill Barracks, obviously. Down below the fort, on the river bank, you can see a paddock of wheat grown by my fellow countryman Jim Ruse. He’ll be joining us for dinner. We have a watermill and Jim grinds his own produce to give us our daily bread. Tastes like sawdust and breaks your teeth after a couple of days, but the governor wants to give Jim more land to cultivate. As you can see, there’s plenty of land to spare and when I finish my term I’m hoping the governor can be persuaded to give me some of it. The grass out there looks suitable for sheep and I learned how to farm those in Devon, in between commissions. There’s probably an inexhaustible market for mutton out here, once the colonists get tired of eating kangaroo.’

  ‘Kangaroo?’ George asked.

  ‘Those bouncy animals you can see bounding around the place on their hind legs. The meat’s very tough and although I’ve never actually eaten horse, I imagine that the experience would not be dissimilar. Kangaroo is the native name for them.’

  ‘The governor’s very keen on maintaining good relationships with the locals,’ Daniel told him.

  Macarthur snorted. ‘He probably won’t be if he comes to live out here. That’s where we’re building his house, by the way,’ he indicated with a wave of the hand towards the elevated ground. ‘Thought we’d better keep it within the compound, unless he wants spears whistling through his dining room.’

  Daniel narrowed his gaze and could make out a large construction inside the barracks compound that appeared to be about six courses high in bricks.

  ‘When do you think it’ll be ready?’ George asked.

  ‘Sometime early next year, with a bit of luck. I’m hoping to impress the old misery, so that when my term ends I might persuade him to grant me some land in exchange for my discharge pension.’

  ‘You’re not signing up for another term in George’s new company?’ Daniel asked.

  ‘No,’ Macarthur replied. ‘I could stay out here forever as a soldier, but my wife Elizabeth has other ideas and she reckons that our two sons would enjoy better prospects out here as farmers rather than as soldiers. Anyway, we’ll have to wait and see how things work out. How are things going with Paterson back there?’

  ‘He thought he ran the colony,’ George said, ‘and in reality he probably did, which is why the governor booted him across the water. I was hoping you’d transfer to my company at level rank when we make the final break, although we’ll still be under the notional command of Paterson and above him that chap Grose who’s still stalking around London.’

  ‘What’s Grose like — have you met him?’ Daniel asked.

  Macarthur shook his head. ‘Never met him, but rumour has it that he leaves everything to his seconds in command. So it looks as if Paterson’s the one to keep well in with, when he’s not picking wild flowers.’

  ‘A figure of speech?’ Daniel asked, amused by the mental picture of a senior military officer picking flowers.

  ‘Far from it,’ Macarthur asserted. ‘That’s how he got his position out here, apparently, by promising to send specimens back to Sir Joseph Banks, one of those armchair jokers in London who dreamed up this whole idea of a colony of New South Wales.’

  ‘Remind me to send him a posy of them when we get back,’ George chuckled. ‘Now tell me how you’re getting on with the natives.’

  Macarthur frowned. ‘They’re a funny lot. They sit out by the river most days, fishing with spears. Occasionally we can hear them singing and dancing quite harmlessly and they even built a couple of huts in clear view of us. From all that, you’d conclude that they want to co-exist in peace with us, but any man going out of the fort alone, or unarmed, is likely not to come back, and they steal any piece of equipment we’re unwise enough not to bring back inside.’

  ‘You heard that we managed to befriend a few of them and even began to converse with them?’ Daniel asked.

  ‘Good luck to you with that,’ Macarthur said. ‘We’ll leave things as they are out here, if it’s all the same to you, Lieutenant. We stay on our side of the fence and they stay on theirs. Talking of fences, here we are. Dinner’s in the main mess hall in an hour or so.’

  After washing his hands and face to get the dust off them before eating, Daniel wandered out of the front door, where George stood smoking his pipe and contemplating the landscape.

  ‘Penny for your thoughts?’ Daniel offered.

  ‘Just looking out there, at all that open land,’ George said. ‘The governor’s talking about expanding the experimental farm and I was wondering if there’d be any land left for Macarthur — or maybe even me.’

  Daniel shot him a surprised look. ‘You thinking of resigning your commission, after persuading me to stay on?’

  ‘I just don’t like the way matters are heading, that’s all,’ George replied. ‘By the sound of it, this Grose fellow in London will just leave Paterson in charge and he and I will never see eye to eye.’

  ‘If you go, I might go with you,’ Daniel said. ‘You’ve always looked after me and if you and Paterson part on bad terms, he’ll have me marked down as one of the enemy.’

  ‘It’s a pity that all these politics had to come out here with us, isn’t it?’ George said as he struck the bowl of his pipe against his boot in order to tip out the spent tobacco. ‘When I signed up to come out here, I thought it would be a brand new start for everybody. No stupid officers, no old enmities, no climbing on other people’s corpses to get to the top.’

  ‘I’m not sure what I expected when I came out,’ Daniel replied. ‘Not that I had much choice. But I certainly didn’t expect to finish up with a wife and child.’

  ‘Me neither,’ George agreed. ‘But the big question is — what do we do if we resign our commissions?’

  ‘Plenty of land out there,’ Daniel answer
ed with a nod towards the miles and miles of open scrub with the occasional patch of forest. ‘Fancy farming?’

  ‘Not really. Right now, though, I fancy some dinner. Let’s go in.’

  ‘What’s it like for a woman living out here?’ Daniel asked Elizabeth Macarthur. She raised her eyebrows over her soup bowl and Daniel hastened to explain his reason for enquiring. ‘Pardon my curiosity, but I’m recently married and my wife’s expecting a baby next May.’

  ‘How nice!’ Elizabeth replied. ‘If I deduce correctly, your real question is what are the chances of a woman safely delivering in this wilderness?’

  ‘Something like that,’ Daniel conceded.

  ‘I gave birth to our first son in an army hospital in Gibraltar, under the tender mercies of a so-called military surgeon who I can only assume was trained in veterinary science,’ Elizabeth replied. ‘Out here my second son was born in a tent in Port Jackson, but the woman who delivered him was a midwife, so was able to tell which end came first. If you possibly can, have your wife taken back down to Sydney when she’s almost due, unless you’re bringing your own midwife with you. I certainly strongly advise against leaving her to the butchers in our so-called barracks hospital, who only know how to stitch up what can be stitched and hack off what can’t.’

  It fell quiet for a moment, just as a convict servant entered the room with a tray full of plates, each of which he served in turn to the lunch guests from the tray he’d first placed on a side table. George looked down at the pie on his plate and sniffed suspiciously at the steam that was rising out of its crust.

  ‘Eel pie,’ Macarthur told him. ‘Speciality of the house.’

  As George plunged his knife into the crust to release the heat, Macarthur reverted to what seemed to be his favourite topic of conversation.

  ‘Like everything, you soon get tired of the taste, even if it is to your liking. One day, if I get my way, everyone will be heartily sick of the taste of roast lamb, although right now I’d give a week’s pay for a plate full of it.’