Sound

by Sarah Drummond

  His words “sealers”, “boat”, “during the storm”, “native women” floated across the muddy, trampled ground to Billhook. He wanted to hear more. Jimmy the Nail must have spoken to someone aboard the brig. Asking for rations no doubt. Offering up Dancer and Sal for flour even.

  Again, the Major looked at Billhook. He waved him over.

  The Major smelled like salted pork and sweat. Although he had not broken the prisoner’s skin during the flogging, his fingers were spattered with blood. He held Billhook with blue eyes so clear and knowing, that after watching the prisoner’s punishment and challenge, Billhook struggled to maintain his gaze. His shame surprised him. He could see the right and the power in the man; that the Major was happiest being in control of other men. But his wasn’t the look of a tyrant. His entitlement as leader was earned by steady, clever labour and by knowing when to beat a man and when to be kind.

  “William Hook, I have word that your friends are aboard the Amity requesting victuals.”

  “My friends,” Billhook repeated. “Victuals.” He was hungry and the words he had been planning since he saw the Englishmen on Green Island ran away from his mind, not to be found.

  “They tell the lieutenant that they are crew from the Governor Brisbane and the Hunter and that they have been cruelly abandoned by their masters for up to eighteen months now.” Billhook nodded. The Major continued. “Are you associated with these men?”

  “I have been so, sir, though I am now cast out from them.”

  The Major considered this piece of information, his chin and eyes turning to one side. “Mmm. I have given orders for your crew to be kept aboard the Amity tonight. In the morning I will conduct interviews.” The Major sighed. “One of our best men was speared by the natives yesterday. The blacksmith.”

  “By the men on Michaelmas?”

  “You know of the natives who were left on Michaelmas Island?”

  “I do.”

  “You have much to tell me.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Billhook breathed in and with a ragged voice, told the Major of his concern for Moennan and Tama Hine. “Returning the girl Moennan to her people will make the blackfellas pleased with you,” he said. “You could do that, sir.”

  The Major looked intently at Billhook. “The women who presented today were from Van Diemen’s Land, not King George Sound.”

  “Sir, three are from this coast. Two were carried off when we marooned the black men on the island.”

  “And were you present during the killing of the native on Green Island?”

  “Yes, sir. I know who shot him, sir.”

  “William Hook, you will provide a statement to me naming this man and the events on Green Island in the morning.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Is this murderer one of the men who came into the harbour during the storm today?”

  “I do not know sir.” Billhook fingered an orca tooth at his throat. His belly grumbled. After the intense exchange of information, he became aware again of the strange people, animals and labour around him. The order of things was about to change, he thought. He didn’t like it. But he understood it. He laid out his mistruth to the Major in his most careful English. “He is the same man who took Tama Hine and Moennan away. His name is Samuel Bailey.”

  44. PRINCESS ROYAL HARBOUR 1827

  He woke in the bottom of the navvy’s jolly-boat, wrapped in a sail. Something stabbed at his ribs, and then again. He grunted away from the pain and shut his eyes but the poking continued. What was this? This sharp shunting at him?

  In the gloomy sky, he saw the outline of a man, leaning over the boat.

  “Smidmore. Stop. Stop it, man.”

  Trying to sit up, he remembered the tousle-headed lieutenant handcuffing him to a shackle on the boat, before tucking him in to his sail. He wrenched at his chain in frustration.

  “Thought I saw you on the rocks yesterday,” said Smidmore. Water dripped from his long hair and onto Billhook’s chest. “Right before I fetched that tack in my eye. Dancer, I reckon she saw you too. What you doing here?”

  “Where are the girls?”

  “Sal’s gone with Randall to the Swan River, looking for seal.” Smidmore was heavy on Randall’s name. He still smarted from his loss of Sal. “Mary is out on Breaksea.”

  Billhook wriggled upright and wiped aside the canvas. His back ached from the boat’s ribs. “No. Where is the kid?”

  “Oh!” Smidmore laughed, nastily. “Of course. The kid.”

  “Where is she, Smidmore?”

  “She ain’t with us.”

  “Where is Tama Hine?”

  Smidmore leaned in to stare close at Billhook. “I should kill you now, you fucking black traitor. While I got the chance.”

  “I took the girls to keep Bailey off them.”

  “I have no quarrel with you there, Billhook. Even pinching the boat. Everyone for themselves. Nah, the story you been giving to that Major nob about the blackfella on Green Island. You told him I shot the man dead.”

  “No.”

  “The lieutenant came aboard and said we was to give statements today. That they knew about the shooting. They took our guns. Six guns they got. And our boat. I’ll swing for that killing, Billhook.”

  “No white man ever swung for shooting a blackfella.”

  “Makes it a better reason to finish you off now. I’ll not be going back to captivity, nor threats of the rope, Billhook. I be going back to Kangaroo Island. I’ll take you and this little boat, right here and now.”

  “I said Bailey did it. I said Bailey shot the blackfella.”

  Smidmore began to laugh quietly, as the sky was lightening in the east and he didn’t want to be heard by stirring soldiers. “Bailey.”

  “Where are the girls?”

  Smidmore pushed himself away from Billhook and the gunwales of the boat. He turned and walked back into the water, wading through the shallows. Just as he began to despair of an answer, Billhook heard the sealer mutter, “Bailey’s got them on Eclipse Island.”

  45. PRINCESS ROYAL HARBOUR 1827

  From early in the morning, people from the country surrounding King George Sound began arriving at the English garrison. First came two young men, their chests and arms painted. Then three older men and some boy children dressed in small cloaks. As the shadows began to shorten, one of the boys left and returned with three elderly women, one of whom walked with the aid of a stick. The two other women helped her when she failed. Billhook watched her fold her legs and sink down onto a kangaroo skin prepared for her. Powerful old kui, that one, he thought. The warriors had decreed the scene safe enough for her to attend. The shape of her face traced echoes of Moennan and he wondered if she was Moennan’s grandmother.

  All day they waited. Occasionally one of the men would groan with impatience and leave the garrison. The old women and a boy sat under a tree, looking glummer as the sun climbed the sky. The Major busied himself with domestic matters: transcribing Billhook’s statement of the killing in his tent, occasionally coming out to clarify something with Billhook, or inspect the construction of the livestock yards. Major was as impatient and nervy as the countrymen and women. He needed this day to go well.

  Pigeon was shipped to shore from the brig, where the other sealers were still being held.

  “Major Boss wants me to talk to these blackfellas here,” he told Billhook, looking proud of his new role as negotiator. “Keep ’em happy, you know.”

  Billhook shook his head and walked away, remembering Pigeon’s gleeful face as he dragged a teary Moennan out of the bush. Something dark in him hoped the old kui would recognise Pigeon. But the old people would get no justice from this sorry tale and as the day wore on, he became afraid that they would not even get their countrywoman back.

  As the sun started its decline into the western coast hills, a great shout went up. The countrymen had been watching the channel and they were first to see Lieutenant Festing’s skiff sail into the harbour. The M
ajor quickly told Pigeon to explain to them what was going to happen. If she was in the boat, the Major would personally walk her to her family and present her, he said. He directed Pigeon to stay with them and comfort them until she arrived at the garrison.

  “You, William Hook, you stay here with Corporal Shore.”

  He spoke to the other soldiers in hushed tones, so that Billhook couldn’t hear his words. The Major must want a show here, he thought, a show of English power. No more blacksmith ambushes.

  The Major paced back and forth, waiting for the boat. He snapped at the surgeon who hovered about him like a terrier. Then he walked down to the shore. The soldiers followed, some hastily donning their red jackets, others checking their guns.

  Billhook could see the skiff’s sails being lowered and the men fitting oars to crab into shore. Then his view was ruined by a dozen privates crowding the boat. He saw one man lift out a ragged bundle and walk to the shore. Another man carried a larger cargo ashore. At the garrison, the mood intensified. The kui talked quickly, her words pitching into short wails. A countryman patted her, soothingly.

  Live fish could have swum in Billhook’s stomach. He tried to see between the soldiers as they closed around the boat again. Was it them? Tama Hine? That little bundle? And Moennan? Were they alive? For a moment he closed his eyes and appealed to his mother. Mother, what have I done? Have I done right this time?

  In swift, coordinated movements, the soldiers stepped away from the boat. They made two lines from the boat to the reedy dune, faced each other and placed out their arms to space themselves. They turned about until they were facing the strange crowd of exiles and countrymen at the garrison.

  “Forward march,” shouted the sergeant. There were other people, including the Major, behind them but Billhook could not see them for soldiers. They marched in two lines towards the garrison, past the white tents and the storehouse. When the first soldiers arrived within twenty steps of where the families, Billhook and Pigeon stood, they stopped suddenly.

  Through the avenue walked the private who’d refused to flog the prisoner Ryan. He led Samuel Bailey, his hands cuffed in front of him. Bailey raised drink-ruined eyes to Billhook but gave little sign he knew him, a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth and that was all. He was shambling, taking small steps. Billhook realised that he wore leg irons. The soldier dragged him from the column of soldiers and took him to the storehouse.

  Billhook expected cries of anger or outrage from the old women, or even a warrior stance from the young men. But they seemed disinterested in Bailey and were either entranced by the Major’s theatre of British justice or, as Billhook was, more intent on seeing who came next.

  The Major carried her. She cried out as he shifted her body in his arms. As they came closer, the kui woman shouted what sounded like a lament and then “Moennan!” Her young countrymen began to weep first, tears streaming down their faces, their hands making graceless, angry gestures. The face of the older man, possibly her husband, hardened, his jaw clenched. The Major put her down and stepped back. A shocked hush fell over the entire congregation as they saw what Samuel Bailey had done.

  Ae, my mother, my mother, you are right. I am one of them. All I wanted was the woman … and I delivered her to this.

  She stood alone with the crowd of people circled around her. Her hair was matted, not with dirt or salt, but blood. One eye was swollen shut. Moennan’s legs were covered in grazes. The deeper cuts looked like knife wounds. Some wounds were festering. She held her left arm against her cloak as though it were broken.

  The old woman was the first to move, helped by her sisters to stand before Moennan. She wept as she gently touched Moennan’s face with her big hands. She spoke to her quickly and softly and Moennan too began to cry. Gradually others came to her side, even the boys who were at first too awed by the sight of her to come near.

  Billhook stood well away, held his hand to his mouth.

  The Major, who had flogged a man only days before, whispered to the surgeon, “Never before have I seen a person so ill-used by another.”

  Small fingers tugged at Billhook’s. He looked down.

  Hine. Tama Hine.

  “Ae, Hine!” He went to grasp the child, to swing her up and into his arms but felt her flinch away just before he touched her waist and so he tugged back at her fingers instead.

  “Tama Hine, my child. Hine.”

  He squatted down to see her proper. Around her neck lay the gleaming string of shells that Dancer had made for her. She looked uncertainly at Billhook and grasped his hand tighter.

  “Did he hurt you? Are you hurt, Tama Hine?”

  She still wore the bloodied pants of the drowned American boy and her fur cloak. Her hair had grown, she had grown, since he last saw her sailing out through the inlet mouth with Bailey and Jimmy the Nail. She nodded and her lips trembled before they squared and tears leaked silently from her closed eyes.

  For several minutes the young Māori and the child stayed where they were, holding hands, eyes closed and weeping soundless tears. He could never make it right again. Not ever, not since the moment he saw Bailey rushing through the scrub with her wriggling under one arm. His tears were not for the child but his knowing what he had done, enough that she stood here now and told him that she was hurt. Leaving his home Otakau on a grand mission of vengeance, to right a man’s wrong that happened years before and here he was helping the wrong man along. As he was happy to see Tama Hine alive, he also felt broken with shame and could not muster the anger he needed to rebuild himself again.

  The Lieutenant’s man who had carried her ashore stepped between them. “I’ll take her to her family now, Mr Hook.”

  “No.”

  “They are waiting for her,” the ensign pointed to Moennan’s family who were clustered about her. They were still sobbing and one of the old women wailed in what sounded like one of Billhook’s family laments. A funereal, yet strangely celebratory, wailing.

  “No. That is not her family.”

  “Mr Hook, it is not for you to instruct me.”

  Billhook released the child and smiled at her through bleary eyes. The ensign took her hand and led her over to the tight, noisy knot of Moennan’s family. The Major and the surgeon went with him and together, the three men presented Tama Hine to them.

  The wailing stopped as they considered the child. The old women looked at her curiously. The young men had seen her with the sealers before. They muttered to the old women. She belonged with the sealers.

  “Hine! Tama Hine!” said Moennan. She spoke to the young men in language and then looked beyond them. She saw Billhook.

  He could see, despite her broken face and closed eye, the same look she’d given him when she’d been surprised in the forest clearing. Startled, defiant, beautiful, but now something new, a knowing coolness. He shivered with that cool glance and then flushed hot.

  Moennan nodded to Billhook and he nodded back. But she was indicating him to her family, not greeting him. She spoke to them and nodded his way again. One of the older men spoke in language to the Major, shaking his head at Hine and pointing to Billhook. The Major, in a moment of bewilderment, called on Pigeon to translate. Pigeon, although he knew no local language, was happy to make himself useful in a transaction that seemed quite obvious to everyone.

  “The child, she not with these people, Boss. They say Billhook. Billhook looks after her.”

  The surgeon gave a blanket to Moennan. She sniffed at it warily and offered it to the old woman. He began to inspect her wounds, applying salve and bandages. She shrieked when he touched her broken arm. He spoke to her gently as he treated her. Finally, with Moennan trussed in white bandages around her head and her arm, the surgeon handed the old woman a small calico bag of ship’s biscuit and indicated that they were for Moennan.

  There was an odd, formal moment, spoken in two languages from opposite ends of the world, between the surgeon, the Major and Moennan’s family. When they had finished talking Moenna
n left the garrison, one of the older men walking close and guarded beside her as though in a marriage ceremony, the old women and children following behind them. They stepped through the reeds and purple flowers, around a perfectly round granite boulder, and into the red gum forest where the sea eagles nested. Billhook saw a flash of her stark, white bandages, and then he never saw her again.

  46. KING GEORGE SOUND 1827

  The Māori left on the ship with the little girl and Moennan did not see Wiremu Heke nor Tama Hine again. Six moons later she birthed a child, a fine, strong boy and she named him after the surgeon who had cared for her when she returned from the island. The surgeon continued to give extra food to her and her boy, and he was the only white man the other women would talk to, for a long time.

  It was good that Bailey and Heke and even Hine were gone, for they brought only chaos with them, and no law. But she still thought of them. When she remembered those terrible days on the island and the fear and the shame, she made a picture of the inlet again. That night on the water, when she was the tallest, moving that boat across the water with her big stick. How powerful she was. How quiet they were. Only the drips falling from her stick into a sea flashing with light and colour. And Wiremu Heke whispering to the child, “Fire in the water, Tama Hine. There. Hine. There. Fire in the water.”

  47. THE AMITY BRIG, FEBRUARY 4TH–20TH 1827

  The brig is a pig. The brig is a pig, was Bailey’s song as the Amity rolled with a following wind, sloughing and wallowing into the troughs. She’s a nasty little pig, this shit of a brig. His hands grasped at me whenever I passed the crate he was locked within. At night, as we tried to sleep in the swinging hammocks under deck and Tama Hine shut her eyes tight and pretended to sleep, I heard him singing his grievous, shambling versions of a sea shanty. Give me truth and give me clemency, Darky Hook, for I did not shoot the blackfella.