‘Why did you come back, Mr Black?’
He met my eyes. ‘Because Norfolk Island has only one ruler. And it will never be John Black.’
‘But didn’t you like it there? You had a hut and a wife and a baby and a pig.’
‘And it was a good pig.’ It was hard to tell if he was joking or not. ‘I asked to come back, and Major Grose said I could.’
‘But your wife?’
He shrugged. I remembered John Black saying how his father had many wives, how he’d have Indian wives. Maybe a wife wasn’t as important to John Black as it was to someone like me, who’d have only one wife — if I were lucky. There were so few women in the colony; if it didn’t change, I reckoned most men would spend their entire lives unmarried. There’d been a plan to bring women to the colony from Tahiti, but it hadn’t happened.
‘I’m good with a musket now,’ said John Black. ‘I’ll be a shooter for the hunting parties.’
I shivered, just a little, at the thought of John Black with muskets and powder and shot. I could see why Major Grose might think such a big man would be a useful hunter and bring back lots of meat. But Major Grose did stupid things, as well as mean ones. Was his decision to allow John Black back into the colony, to give him a musket and shot and powder, stupid?
‘Thank you for your help today.’ I wanted to ask him not to help again, but that would be wrong, because Mr Johnson would say it was good for John Black’s soul to help build a church. And we needed the help.
John Black just nodded. ‘I will be out with the hunting party tomorrow. But my men will make sure no one harms good Mr Johnson or his church.’
The hairs on my neck prickled at the way John Black said ‘my men’. But he had helped with the roof beam and shared the pasty and stopped the man who was going to throw a stone at me. Nor it seemed had he spoken to anyone of Mr Johnson helping him that night.
But I was still glad to see him walk away down the crooked muddy road. And as he walked, men came to join him, walking just a little behind.
John Black may not have become king of the Indians, nor king of Norfolk Island either. But he looked a bit like Caesar anyway.
CHAPTER 8
Talking with Elsie
It was a scratch supper that night. Sally had burned the stew and taken to her bed again. She was doing that a lot lately. I was pretty sure she was on the rum again, now so much of it was being brewed in the colony and imported by the officers. Mr Johnson wouldn’t allow rum in the house, but when Sally came back from her afternoon ‘walks’ you couldn’t mistake the smell.
Sally had told us it had been the rum that led to her ruin in England, stealing to pay for rot-gut. She’d been fine while there was no alcohol in the colony, but now her breath was foul and she used bad language.
I scraped the stew out for the hens, who ran at it, clucking. There’d been a good hunk of kangaroo wasted in that stew, brought to us by one of the men Mrs Johnson taught. Who knew when we’d get another piece of meat? Even Governor Phillip hadn’t given Mr Johnson convict shooters to hunt kangaroo and wild ducks and other game for him, like the officers all had. But, before Major Grose, there had been enough officers who admired Mr Johnson to bring us all the wild meat we needed.
But not now. The new officers who had come when Governor Phillip had left only wanted to make money, and didn’t care what laws they broke to make it. What decent officer wanted to come to a wild place at the end of the world, filled with convicts? I reckoned we’d got every crooked or no-hoper soldier in England.
They were officially called the New South Wales Corps, raised especially to come to the colony. But everyone called them the Rum Corps, what with them being the only ones who could sell it. Ships that should have brought us food or cloth or tools or medicines only brought rum now. Just like back in England, rum was a way to forget you were hungry or that your roof leaked — and now there was more to forget too. Like that you’d never see the land where you were born or your family there again. Most of the lags had been gin drinkers back in England: they could get drunk for a penny in London — the same cost as a bowl of watery stew — dead drunk for tuppence, and clean straw for nothing.
Now rum and its masters ran our colony.
I washed the pot out in the garden, and scrubbed the burned stuff off as well as I could with sand. It was our only big pot. Then I picked some corn and dug up a bucket of potatoes to replace the stew.
Mrs Johnson looked up from putting wood on the fire as I came in and tried to smile. ‘Thank you, Barney.’
I gave her a quick look. Had she been crying? She looked tired. She had two toddlers to look after now, as well as run the house and the school — all with only Sally and Elsie to help.
I was tired too. We all were. Major Grose had taken all of Mr Johnson’s convict workers from him except for Sally — even old Scruggins — which meant it was just Mr Johnson and me to work the garden and the two big farms. I’d ploughed one of them, to leave it fallow, and put the sheep on part of the other, which Mr Johnson said would make the crops grow better when we had time — or labour — to farm them properly. It was all we could do to keep the vegetables growing just for our household, and the fruit trees.
Elsie took the pot from me, then the potatoes and corn. She shook her head at Mrs Johnson, who’d made to come over to the kitchen table, and gave the gesture that meant, ‘You sit down.’ Elsie might not talk, but she was good at making us understand what she meant.
I sat down too — it was so good to sit — and whittled a toy pony for Henry to occupy my hands, while Mrs Johnson took up the mending.
Elsie peeled those potatoes and chopped them up, then scraped the kernels from the corn. She fried the lot in chicken fat in the big skillet, then added a lot of beaten eggs, tossing it this way and that so the whole thing puffed up, light as a cloud.
I’d never seen Sally do that, nor Mrs Johnson. Had Elsie invented a new way of cooking? Or had she learned it . . . wherever she was before here? I wondered what it would taste like. But I was so hungry by then I’d have eaten an emu, feathers and all.
I set the table — it was funny to think I’d never even known you set a table with plates and cutlery till I’d met the Johnsons, much less how to eat with a fork in one hand and a knife in the other. Elsie put the egg dish still in its skillet on the table on a trivet, so as not to burn the tablecloth.
‘Did you work out how to make this all by yourself?’ I asked Elsie as Mrs Johnson began to serve out the eggy vegetables, little Henry on her knee, while Elsie tried to keep Milbah’s food on the plate or in her mouth, not scattered about as she waved her spoon. I took a mouthful. It tasted grand, even better than the kangaroo stew would have been.
‘It’s called an omelette,’ said Mrs Johnson. She sounded worried as well as tired. Mr Johnson’s long walks to Rose Hill and back were dangerous, not just tiring, with convicts about and Indians with their spears. Many of the Indians had become the colony’s enemies by then. Governor Phillip hadn’t done much good trying to make friends with them, but at least he had tried. Major Grose didn’t even seem to think they were people.
‘Well, it’s right good, anyways,’ I said, which made Elsie smile. But I caught her watching me. Elsie was always good at knowing when I had something on my mind.
Mrs Johnson went to bed straight after supper, and the children did too. Sally still hadn’t appeared. I helped Elsie wash up. I was thinking of my bed as well, for it had been a hard day’s work, when Elsie took my hand and tugged me to the door.
I knew where she was leading me. The big rock Birrung had shown us was the place we went when we needed to be alone. Sometimes I hoped Birrung might be there too.
But there was no one on the rock as we approached it, its flat top dusted with fallen gum leaves.
I scrambled up first, then held out my hand to help Elsie up. She was as nimble as me, I reckoned, but climbing wasn’t as easy in a skirt.
We sat together in silence for a while, just loo
king down at the harbour. There were usually sailing ships now, as well as the Indian women’s canoes. Some of the Indian men had taken to fishing as well, selling their catch to the colony. Their canoes were bigger than the women’s. I’d have liked one of their canoes myself. If Birrung had been with us, I could have asked her if I could trade for one so I could use it to try fishing myself.
But there was no time for fishing now, I reminded myself. Just work in the fields in the mornings, digging and planting and harvesting, as well as chopping wood to cook with and lugging in water from the well, and building the church in the afternoons.
Finally Elsie nudged me with her elbow. She looked at me inquiringly.
‘I’m worried,’ I admitted.
Elsie nodded, as if she’d guessed.
‘I’m worried that Mr and Mrs Johnson might leave the colony.’ I hadn’t put it into words before. Our house there was the best I’d ever known, and my life too, despite all the hard work. But Mr and Mrs Johnson were gentlefolk. They’d surely live in an even better house back in England. And Mr Johnson would have a proper church and Mrs Johnson a servant who didn’t smell of rum.
‘Mr Johnson’s making himself ill with all the work. And every day there’s something to hurt him more.’ Just the Sunday before Major Grose had ordered all the soldiers to stand up and march away halfway through his sermon. ‘What’ll happen to you and me if they go back to England?’
Elsie nodded, obviously thinking about it too.
We’d still get rations, like everyone in the colony. But Mr Johnson would need to sell his farms and house to help support his family till he got another job in England, so we wouldn’t have anywhere to live. Mr Johnson had already told me that he and Mrs Johnson couldn’t afford to pay the passage for me and Elsie all the way back to England, and anyway, there were more chances for me and Elsie in the colony. Or there had been, till the Rum Corps took over. ‘Major Grose wouldn’t grant me land. Even Governor Phillip wouldn’t have till I’m older. But Major Grose isn’t going to help any friend of the Johnsons, ever.’
What work could I do? The colony was almost entirely convicts and soldiers and their families. Why would an officer pay me a wage when he could have a convict work for him, free, and be given the rations to feed him as well? Elsie was a better cook than anyone in the colony, but I could see an officer giving Elsie a job for other reasons, and not good ones. She had grown right pretty in the last couple of years, with good eating. And in any married officer’s house she would be treated as a servant. At the Johnsons’ we were like family.
But we weren’t their family. One day the Johnsons would go back to England, and we would stay where we were.
Would we be homeless again? There were lots of orphans these days, younger than us, wandering the streets, their mothers too drunk to bother with them, probably never knowing who their fathers had been.
‘Sally’s on the rum again,’ I added. ‘You notice how often she smells of drink?’
Elsie nodded.
The Johnsons had soft hearts, but they couldn’t put up with a drunk servant in the kitchen or looking after their children much longer.
‘I’ve got the money I made whaling,’ I said. ‘Maybe some convict who has land is tired of working it and would sell me a few acres down Rose Hill way.’ If I could build a church, then I could build a hut, and yards for the sheep. I could sell the wool and buy more land . . .
Elsie looked at me in horror, like she had when I’d left her to go whaling.
I laughed. ‘The farm would be for you too, you ninny. Then we’d both be safe. Maybe when the next governor arrives he’ll take Mr Johnson’s side.’
Elsie smiled at me. She didn’t often give smiles like that, like the moon suddenly rising all golden out of the dark. I hesitated, then put my arm about her waist. She leaned against me, small and warm and comforting.
We managed together alone before, I thought. Well, survived, anyhow. And we were older now. We knew more: how to keep sheep, and milk a goat, and make cheese, and grow corn and wheat and potatoes, and skin a kangaroo, and make a wattle-and-daub wall.
‘We’ll do,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ said Elsie.
It was as if the rock had flown like a seagull. I stared at her. ‘Did you just talk?’
‘Yes,’ said Elsie. Her voice was soft, with a strange lilt to it.
‘Say my name.’
She grinned. ‘Bar-ney.’ She had a strange way of saying that too.
‘Say something else?’
Elsie shook her head.
‘Have you been able to talk all this time? Elsie, say something again!’
She shook her head once more, with that look on her face that meant I could ask while a ship sailed to England and back again, but she wouldn’t answer.
I’d thought I’d heard her talk before, say, ‘I love you, Barney,’ before I went to sea with the whalers. But this was the first time I was sure.
‘Elsie, please! Could you talk all the time?’ I wanted to ask her how she’d come to the colony. I wanted to ask her a million things. But she was as stubborn as a ewe who is going to get that bit of grass beyond the pen, even if her neck gets stuck reaching for it.
But Elsie could talk. At least I was sure of that now. And one day she’d talk to me again.
A shadow flew over us, and then another. The fruit bats, flying from the roosts to look for fruit. We’d had to put nets over some of our fruit trees at Mr Johnson’s other farm at Kissing Point. I’d need to start to keep all the fruit seeds, I thought, to plant my own orchard one day. Seeds still grew after a year, or even two or three. Or I could make bags of paper bark and fill them with dirt and plant my fruit trees in them, so me and Elsie could take them with us if we had to leave.
It would be dark soon. I slid down, then held up my hands to lift Elsie down too. Her waist was small, but she felt strong. And she had spoken! Really, truly spoken!
It wasn’t till we were nearly home, the starlight bouncing on the harbour, that I realised I hadn’t told Elsie about John Black.
CHAPTER 9
Caesar!
1793
But John Black had become Black Caesar now. It was as if the whole colony had forgotten he’d ever just been John.
Black Caesar held his head high as he marched down the muddy streets, the lags standing back as his gang strode along behind him. Sometimes he even came to Sunday services, sitting on one of the chairs placed in the shade of the big fig tree in the front row in case officers or other dignitaries appeared, standing for the hymns and bending his head for the prayers. His men stood around out in the sunlight, though none seemed to know the hymns Black Caesar sang in his loud voice and slight musical accent.
By August our church was finished, shaped like a cross itself, built with love and dedication, the daub walls coated thickly in clay mixed with tussocks. Black Caesar’s men still kept watch over it, it seemed, for no one had toppled our walls at night, or even splattered them with cow manure.
Mr Johnson paid ships’ carpenters himself to build pews to seat five hundred people. It was a fine day, that August, when he preached in a church in our colony for the first time. We sat in the front row, me and Elsie and Mrs Johnson. Behind us there were only thirty men and women, forty at the most. I had no heart to count them, not in that church we had built with such hopes.
But Mr Johnson toiled on. If few came to church in the cold light of six am, if the Rum Corps officers still urged convicts to pelt him with muck, still others came to the church after their working hours were over, to learn to read and figure, and there they heard the word of God and saw God’s love in Mrs Johnson as she moved between the classes, for she had trained convict women now to teach the others. One hundred, two hundred men, women and children a week came to the church classes to learn, even if they did not come to Sunday prayers.
Sally left us, yelling and defiant and drunk, when Mrs Johnson reproached her for swearing in front of the children. I soon heard she wa
s cooking down at a rum shanty near the harbour. I never went there, nor did I think she would want to see me.
Every night, as I heard Mr and Mrs Johnson talk in low voices in their bedroom, I wondered if they might announce at breakfast that Mr Johnson had applied to go back to England. But despite the hard work, the insults, the colony turning its face to evil instead of good, they did not once say, ‘We can take no more of this.’
Slowly I came to realise that perhaps this man and woman were the only ones in the whole colony who had chosen to be there, not because they had no better job to go to, like the officers of the Rum Corps, but because the Johnsons knew that the convicts in this land needed them, their guidance and their teaching.
As for me and Elsie: we worked, and worked hard. But I was happy. I loved watching the fruit trees grow. Our vines had so many grapes now that it took two days to harvest them all — or would have if every year half the fruit wasn’t stolen. But as Mr Johnson said, the trees, the vines and the gardens gave far more than we needed. If hungry people took some for themselves, then it just meant less work to give it all away.
I’d made friends with some of the convict lads, a few years older than me, who helped build the church. Sometimes we trapped bandicoots together — you’d be surprised how much good eating there is on a bandicoot, if it’s stewed with potatoes and herbs — or went fishing from the river banks, gossiping about what officer had got the biggest land grant, or who had been whipped that week or hanged. I didn’t join them often — there was too much work to do — but it was good to talk and laugh with other boys.
And Elsie? I didn’t know. She liked cooking, sure as eggs; liked helping look after Milbah and Henry. But while Mrs Johnson spent half her time down at the church, teaching, Elsie never left the house and garden, except to go to church, where no one spoke to her, or to our rock or down to the harbour or out picking wild berries, on Sunday afternoons, with me. And as far as I knew, she’d never talked again.
The Secret of the Black Bushranger Page 5
