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

by David Field

  ‘Do you really think the land would support sheep?’ George asked.

  ‘Without a doubt. The only real risk would be that the natives would spear them all at night, before we got to culling them ourselves. We’d need to build a massive fence around the stock grazing land and post men with muskets at regular intervals.’

  ‘As you probably know, the governor has in mind a vastly expanded experimental farm,’ Jim Ruse chimed in, before puffing out his chest and adding, ‘As a matter of fact, he’s asked me to manage it for him, but I suppose I’ll be working from behind a ten foot stockade.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Daniel told him. ‘We managed to strike up a decent relationship with the natives in Sydney and I’m sure that if you somehow found a way of rewarding some of the locals out here to guard your animals for you, they’d be safe enough.’

  ‘Daniel has a way with the natives,’ George explained. ‘But I suspect that the lot out here are a different tribe altogether. What do the natives call this place? The governor shares Daniel’s enthusiasm for peaceful co-existence and would deem it a bonus if he could at least get its name right.’

  ‘You have a choice of two possibilities,’ Macarthur told him. ‘The natives on this side of the river call it “Paramada”, while on the far side it seems to be called “Burramatta”. It may be neither, of course, but we hear the words so often that I think they’re place names. Either that or they are terms for “white bastards who stole our land.”’

  ‘John!’ his wife protested.

  ‘Sorry, dear — I spend too long with soldiers. But I was a soldier when you married me, so you knew what to expect.’

  ‘And how long do you intend to carry on being a soldier?’ George asked craftily, remembering their earlier conversation and in the belief that he might be more truthful in his wife’s presence.

  ‘Until he can get out decently and earn a proper living!’ Elizabeth announced on his behalf.

  Macarthur sighed. ‘Elizabeth fails to appreciate that one cannot resign from the army as easily as one can from, for example, a post in a bank or a trading company. I’ve notionally got another year or so to go, but there’s no reason why I can’t begin to chase my dreams on a part-time basis. A sheep farm out there somewhere, with enough soldiers under my command to ensure that they’re properly guarded.’

  ‘I’ll try to pretend I didn’t hear that,’ George joked, ‘since you’ll still be under my command even when these new arrangements come into force. But then you’ll be the Commandant of Rose Hill Barracks as part of the Fourth Company of the New South Wales Corps, with this mystery man Grose as your ultimate commanding officer, William Paterson as his absentee dogsbody and the governor running a very poor third place.’

  ‘Is it true that the governor’s losing his grip on the colony?’ Elizabeth asked. ‘We hear rumours to that effect all the time, but we’re so far away from where it’s happening, stuck out here in the middle of “woop”, as I call it. That’s the noise the birds make out there,’ she explained when Daniel burst out laughing.

  ‘That was a wonderful imitation,’ he congratulated her. ‘You and my wife will get on handsomely. She’s an actress and a talented mimic.’

  ‘An actress?’ Elizabeth echoed. ‘How simply wonderful! I do so miss the theatre.’

  ‘You may not be missing it for much longer,’ Daniel told her. ‘The governor wanted Martha — that’s my wife — to open a theatre of some sort in Sydney, but there’s no reason why she couldn’t start here.’

  ‘The main problem would be the lack of women,’ Elizabeth replied wistfully. ‘One or two of the men are married and of course we have a few female convicts employed in menial tasks, but clearly convict women would be quite unsuitable for the theatre.’

  13

  Sarah Biddle, Rachel’s convict nursemaid, was able to make good her claim to midwifery skills twice in the middle months of 1792. First was the delivery of Matthew, Daniel and Martha’s firstborn, on a hot sultry night in mid-May. Martha’s screams and pleas for mercy woke everyone within a half-mile radius, as Daniel paced nervously up and down outside their hut, listening with foreboding and dread to what sounded like Martha’s last few moments on earth, but consoled by Rachel’s regular trips outside from the back room in which the child was being delivered and in which she was periodically holding Martha’s hand and mopping her brow.

  ‘She didn’t really mean that, you’ll see,’ Rachel assured him as they heard Martha scream ‘Never again!’ for the fifth time. Then it went quiet and Daniel began mentally planning Martha’s funeral until Rachel hurried outside with a small, bawling bundle with a screwed up red face that reminded Daniel of one of the rats they had spotted on the river bank during their upstream journey to Rose Hill.

  ‘There you go,’ Rachel enthused as she handed him the bundle. ‘Congratulations and before you ask, Martha’s fine. She’s asleep right now, but by sun-up you’ll be able to go in and try to convince her that he’s the most beautiful baby you’ve ever seen.’

  ‘Thanks, Rachel,’ Daniel said. ‘You really are such a wonderful friend to Martha and I and I’m sorry if we kept you up all night.’

  ‘I’d never have been able to sleep through that racket anyway,’ Rachel assured him, ‘and I bet if you were to go up the lines of huts on either side of us, you’d discover that everybody else is awake as well. But I wanted to see if Sarah really was fit to act as my midwife in a few weeks’ time and I’m happy to report that she is. Unless you and George are thinking of joining a monastery, I think we’ll retain her services for the meantime.’

  In July, it was Rachel’s turn to do the screaming, Martha’s choice to mop her brow and Sarah’s second opportunity to demonstrate her skills. Robert Johnston was a healthy seven pounds in weight and a week later George insisted on ‘wetting the baby’s head’ with some lethal concoction he’d brought back after a barracks inspection at Rose Hill two weeks previously and which generated a hangover that lasted them both for two days.

  During Matthew’s first few weeks of life, Martha adjusted to the unfamiliar but delightful sensation of having a helpless child at her breast and Daniel insisted on getting up during the night feeds in order to make tea on the woodstove that had been gratefully constructed by one of his convict brick workers whose trade had been in metalwork until transported for forgery of coins of the realm and whom Daniel had opted not to report for turning up drunk for duty one day the previous September. George had taken one look at the bags under Daniel’s eyes, declared him medically unfit for duty and given him two weeks’ unofficial leave. Then he called in the favour when Governor Phillip decided to make one of his regular inspection tours of Rose Hill, taking with him, for his first visit to this increasingly important outpost, the recently arrived Lieutenant-Governor Francis Grose, who had dropped anchor in the Pitt on the same night that Martha had given birth.

  ‘What’s he like?’ Daniel asked as they walked alongside each other down the slope to the harbour, keen to catch up on all the news and gossip following several intensive months up at the brick yards and several weeks on ‘new father’ duties.

  ‘Seems affable enough,’ George replied. ‘Certainly a distinct improvement on Ross, who went back on the Neptune, along with rest of his deserters. He’d only been back from Norfolk Island a week when he picked a fight with one of Grose’s lot and the governor used that as the final excuse to kick his arse and send him home.’

  ‘There’s an old saying about “Out of the frying pan into the fire”,’ Daniel reminded him. ‘How do we know that Grose will be any better?’

  ‘It’s not Grose you need to worry about, it’s Paterson, if he ever comes back from his exile on Norfolk Island. Grose looks every inch the lazy bastard Macarthur made him out to be, but you can form your own opinion — there he is, down on the wharf with the governor. We’d better step lively.’

  The journey up river was uneventful, but some thirty minutes before they reached the landing jetty in the shallo
ws where the sea met the fresh water, Daniel was surprised to see a much more substantial wharf on the south bank, jutting out into the deep water mid channel, which the helmsman of their cutter carefully skirted round. Governor Phillip waved over at it as he caught the look of surprise on Daniel’s face.

  ‘I’d forgotten that you haven’t seen this before, Lieutenant,’ he beamed. ‘It was only finished last week and has yet to be christened, but it will take deep water craft direct from the Cove. That way we can get supplies directly up river without the need to store them temporarily in Sydney, where they can get pilfered.’

  ‘I’d take a guess that the governor’s planning to move his headquarters up here sooner than we thought,’ George muttered under his breath to Daniel.

  ‘And your guess would be correct,’ came a voice from behind them and both men turned deep red when they realised that Lieutenant-Governor Grose had been listening in to their conversation. Grose nodded over the top of the river bank on their left-hand side and added, ‘If you look carefully, I think you’ll see the start of a straight road, intended to be several miles long, which will link the wharf with the new town. The governor asked me to find out the native name for the area, so that he can apply it to this new town he’s so keen on. Any ideas?’

  ‘Last time we were out here together,’ George replied, ‘Lieutenant Macarthur gave us a choice of two native names. One, so far as I recall, was “Paramada”.’

  ‘And the other was “Burramatta”, to the best of my recollection,’ Daniel added.

  Grose thought for a moment. ‘Let’s combine the two, shall we?’ He raised his voice to attract the attention of the governor, who was standing up in the bow of the boat, trying to get a better look over the bank at the convict working party that was building the new road he’d commissioned. ‘Governor,’ Grose shouted, ‘we have a name for your new settlement — “Parramatta” — a combination of two local native names.’

  ‘Excellent!’ Governor Phillip beamed back. ‘“Parramatta” it shall be.’

  As they breasted the short hill at the top of the well-worn path from the old landing jetty and past the river weir, then took in the valley below them, Daniel’s eyebrows shot up in surprise at the development that had been taking place since his last visit there some months previously. There was a long straight road leading out from the barracks compound, down the rise and along the bank of the river, back in the direction from which they had come, which was clearly the other end of the road that was still under construction at the deep water wharf. On either side of the road men were already in the process of erecting daub and wattle convict huts of the type with which Sydney had begun its days, except that these had thatched roofs rather than those of the ‘slab’ variety.

  In the barracks complex itself, the governor’s house was all but completed and next to it was a stores building part-constructed from brick. A third building, upon which work seemed to have been temporarily halted, was no doubt intended as a hospital and everywhere one looked within the compound there were signs of bustle and activity, with men carrying hods of bricks and lengths of timber, while others appeared to be mixing mortar in large piles, which other men were carrying in consignments to those who were laying bricks.

  Below the compound, between the barracks and the river, was a large field that had been divided into three strips. In one could clearly be seen the stubble of last season’s wheat crop and men turning it in by hand, using hoes to plough the rotting residue into the existing six inches of dark, fertile-looking soil. Next to it was half a field of yet to be harvested maize, suggesting that the first half had already been taken from the ground, while at the far end was a small hut, in front of which lay a cottage garden that from a distance appeared to be planted with cabbages, turnips and potatoes.

  ‘That’s the experimental farm,’ Governor Phillip shouted back proudly over his shoulder. ‘Ruse has done a wonderful job and all the land further upstream as far as that clump of trees has already been deforested ahead of the expansion that will begin once the weather cools. Then Macarthur has some scheme or other in mind, so I’ve given him a few acres beyond that to play around with.’

  Daniel strained his eyes, but the line of trees partially blocked his view, although what was growing beyond them looked vaguely familiar from his voyaging days. He looked back closer to hand and his eyes lit upon a group of natives fishing in the river, with only a crude fence between the river bank and the boundary of the experimental farm. ‘Presumably they have look-outs in the garrison, to prevent the natives making off with the crops, or attacking Ruse’s cottage and all these huts along the road?’ he asked George.

  George looked slightly taken aback by the question and replied simply, ‘We need to talk about that. Remind me on the return trip.’

  There was a volley of fire from the walls of the palisade and a Union Jack rose into sight up the flagpole as the visiting party approached. Lieutenant Macarthur was waiting to welcome them, along with a detachment of his men and Daniel cheerfully shook his hand upon their being reacquainted. Then there was the predictably splendid three course dinner, with roast emu and locally grown root vegetables, washed down with cider made from locally coaxed sour apples. A lemon syllabub completed the handsome repast.

  Daniel was curious. ‘I’m no cook, but don’t you need sugar for the syllabub?’

  ‘Indeed you do,’ Elizabeth Macarthur confirmed, ‘and you can thank my husband for that.’

  Suddenly Daniel remembered what was so familiar about the plants he had seen growing on the Macarthur allotment. ‘You’ve planted sugar, haven’t you?’ He looked across the table at Macarthur. ‘I remember those cane plants from my time in the West Indies.’

  ‘I didn’t have to plant them,’ Macarthur told him. ‘They were growing there naturally and I too spent time in the tropics, where they grow like weeds. The same with bananas, which I’ve discovered further down the valley. I learned enough in Barbados to be able to propagate more of both, so life out here will soon be much sweeter.’

  ‘How are you going with the natives?’ Grose asked.

  ‘No trouble at all for the past six months or so. The only incidents were recorded in my log, but they were just minor acts of theft.’

  ‘Bradbury here will be dealing with those once he moves out here, or so Captain Johnston tells me,’ Governor Phillip announced.

  Daniel dropped his dessert spoon and glared round at George, who turned slightly red.

  ‘That was what you were to remind me about on the return trip,’ he mumbled apologetically.

  After the dinner, George walked outside to light his pipe and Daniel followed him out, intent on gaining more information about what had dropped out around the dinner table, but was distracted when Macarthur came out behind them and in a low voice full of conspiracy invited them to take a walk with him across the compound. There was what looked like an abandoned convict storehouse close to the fence, with a massive padlock on the solid wooden door. Macarthur took a large key from his tunic and opened it up, to reveal a collection of pots and pans, tubes and buckets, arranged in a very specific way.

  George looked at it disparagingly. ‘You brought us down here to admire your cooking equipment?’ he asked.

  ‘No — his still,’ Daniel replied. ‘I remember those from the tropics, too. Presumably you’re converting some of the sugar into rum?’

  ‘Most of it,’ Macarthur confirmed with a self-satisfied grin. ‘I’ll be starting on the first batch in a few weeks, now that we have a decent supply of molasses. They’re in another shed, towards the back. We ran an experiment a few weeks back, but the end product was almost undrinkable, so I gave it to George. Remember, George, I told you that it was to put on your garden vegetables, as a sort of concentrated compost? How did it go, by the way?’

  ‘As a compost, it was a failure,’ Daniel told him with a sideways scowl at George, ‘but we both had hangovers for two days.’

  ‘The next run should be much bette
r,’ Macarthur told them. ‘Then I’ll have the only rum manufacture in the colony. The governor doesn’t know about it and I’d be obliged if you’d let me pick the appropriate time to tell him.’

  ‘Surely he’d be pleased to see you adding to the colony’s supply?’ Daniel suggested.

  Macarthur snorted. ‘I didn’t go to all this trouble just to supply the Commissary Store, even in exchange for shovels and pickaxes. You may not have noticed, but the last few ships to land in Sydney Cove have brought out settlers who aren’t convicts. They’ve been given land by the governor, free of charge and they’re hoping to farm it.’

  ‘So?’ George asked.

  ‘So,’ Macarthur repeated, ‘put your hands in your pockets and tell me how much coin you have.’

  ‘A few shillings,’ George admitted, and Daniel nodded to suggest that this would be approximately the sum total of his loose change.

  ‘And where did it come from?’ Macarthur asked.

  George had to think for a moment or two, before he replied. ‘I think I brought it out here with me, now I come to think about it.’

  ‘And you?’ Macarthur asked Daniel.

  ‘Me too,’ Daniel admitted.

  ‘Precisely,’ Macarthur nodded triumphantly. ‘And I’d be willing to bet that neither of you has found anything to spend it on in all the time since you landed, because you’ve been supplied with everything you need from the Commissary Store. The governor’s obviously got it in mind to establish an entire new nation out here, starting with these “free settlers”, as he calls them. The first few convicts will have completed their sentences in the next year or so and none of these people will be able to simply draw supplies from the Commissary Stores. How do you think they’ll do business with each other?’

  George and Daniel shook their heads, unable to answer.