The Secret of the Black Bushranger

by Jackie French

  Was she lonely? There were some soldiers’ daughters our age, and convict girls too, working as servants, who came to church, who might have become her friends. Even if she wouldn’t talk — and I wondered now that I knew she could talk why she chose not to — the girls might have liked her company. Some people like talking more than listening, and with Elsie they’d have found a listener, for sure.

  It was like Elsie deliberately kept herself apart from the whole colony, except for the Johnsons and me. But when I asked her one day if she was happy, she just smiled and nodded, then made hearth cakes for supper, which she knew I loved.

  If Elsie had chosen silence, there was nothing I could do.

  CHAPTER 10

  Lashed!

  1794

  The new year came like new years always seemed to do there, with storms and lightning ripping the sky. But the rain was good for the crops and for our garden, even if it drenched Mr Johnson as he walked wearily the fourteen miles to and from Rose Hill each week.

  Month after month went by. Elsie and I spread out grapes to dry for puddings and for hearth cakes. She made cheeses too, better even than Sally’s. Elsie liked making things taste good, while the convict woman had done it as a duty. A grand bean crop — we dried nearly all of it to use in winter — and enough potatoes and corn too so there was some to sell, as well as give away. Mr Johnson even paid me wages, in coins from many lands — all the places that the officers traded for cargoes of rum and other goods — for the colony didn’t have its own money, nor had we enough English coins.

  Autumn came, not like the autumn back in England, with its dappled leaves — except on our fruit trees — but shorter days, the pumpkins and the melons ripening. Then winter, shorter days still, and the hens stopped laying, but still so warm that Elsie picked rhubarb for puddings and hard brown pears and the pale green apples that tasted best after they’d been stored for a few months, like quinces.

  With all our work, we did not even know Black Caesar had escaped again till the knock came at the door, from one of the Second Fleet convicts who had helped build the church. He stood in the wind, holding his cabbage-tree hat on with both hands. ‘It’s Black Caesar, sir! He needs you!’

  ‘Come in out of the weather, man. Edgar Applecorn, isn’t it?’ Mr Johnson held open the door. Mrs Johnson poured him a cup of sarsaparilla tea and Elsie ran for a plate of apple fritters. Mr Johnson shut the door against the cold south wind.

  ‘It’s Black Caesar, sir,’ Edgar Applecorn said again. ‘He ran off, but they’ve caught him. He needs you now, sir.’

  ‘I didn’t know he was gone,’ said Mr Johnson quietly. Once one of the officers like Mr Dawes would have told Mr Johnson all the news. But not these days. Even those officers who still came to church were careful not to seem too friendly with us, for fear of angering Major Grose or Captain Macarthur or the others in the Rum Corps. Nor did Mr Johnson make it easy for those who might be his friends. He used his sermons to denounce the trade in rum and the loss of every vestige of morality in the colony.

  ‘Black Caesar went bush again, stealing from the farms. He had a gang with him this time. He’s going to get a hundred and fifty lashes this morning.’

  One hundred and fifty! It was enough to kill a man. ‘All at the same time?’ I asked. Sometimes a man might be given ten or twenty lashes a week, so he could recover between whippings.

  ‘All together,’ said Edgar Applecorn.

  Mr Johnson shut his eyes briefly, perhaps in silent prayer for the man who must face this deadly punishment. Then he opened them again. ‘If John Black thinks I have any influence to help him —’ he began.

  ‘No, sir,’ said Edgar Applecorn simply. ‘Black Caesar knows he may die of the lash. He says he wants to see you first.’

  ‘To pray with him,’ suggested Mrs Johnson, taking away a lump of charcoal that little Henry was trying to chew.

  I wondered. I think Mr Johnson wondered too. But he fetched his hat and shrugged into his coat, and I grabbed mine. Whatever was going to happen today, I wasn’t letting Mr Johnson face it alone.

  And we set out.

  Have you ever seen a man whipped? I had of course, many times. Sometimes just the overseer’s lash wielded in passing at a slow or reluctant worker — a lash that might cut the shirt and skin and bring up a blister. I’d also seen men whipped at the punishment stake, but I only ever cast a brief glance in that direction before I hurried on.

  Black Caesar’s wrists and ankles were already bound to the stake when we approached, the ground about it black with old blood. Flies buzzed in anticipation. A crowd was beginning to gather.

  But to my surprise Black Caesar greeted us gaily in that deep, rich voice of his: ‘Well, Mr Johnson, I am glad you are here.’

  ‘You would like to repent?’ asked Mr Johnson quietly. ‘God forgives all, even if man does not.’

  ‘Repent?’ Black Caesar laughed. ‘If they should hang me, I’d play a trick on the hangman, so I’d die to the sound of merriment. I do not repent, sir, nor will I ever, whatever they do to me today. But a prayer and a blessing, Mr Johnson. Will you give me those?’

  ‘I will.’ Mr Johnson’s face was drawn and white. He knew that Black Caesar might die, and in agony, as well as Black Caesar knew it himself. Death from the lash was one of the worst a man could have.

  Mr Johnson put his own hands over Black Caesar’s bound ones. ‘Dear heavenly Father, look down upon this man and grant him peace. May all his sins be forgiven, in Christ’s name. Amen.’

  It was a short prayer, but the lash master was waiting. He was a big man, solid-muscled from his job, with a stained leather apron to protect his clothes from the splatter of blood.

  I wondered if Mr Johnson might leave then. But he stood back, at the front of the crowd. His eyes never left John Black’s. I stood next to him. No one jostled us or muttered insults. I suddenly realised that many of those around us must be Black Caesar’s followers, loyal even now.

  Lash!

  The first drew blood on Black Caesar’s side.

  Lash!

  Blood on his back now.

  Lash! Lash! But Black Caesar’s grin held, as did Mr Johnson’s gaze upon his face.

  Lash! Lash!

  By fifty lashes his back was a mass of bloody pulp and his eyes rolled up into his head. The big body at the stake went limp.

  ‘Water!’ yelled the lash master.

  A guard came and threw it over the unconscious man. Black Caesar’s eyes opened. It took a moment, but then the grin came again. It was more like a wolf’s grin now.

  Lash! Lash! Was it my imagination, or were the strokes less fierce now, perhaps to keep the prisoner alive till he had received them all? But could any man take this amount of punishment and live?

  Around me men were counting under their breath. I found I was counting too. Twice more Black Caesar fainted, and twice more opened his eyes when the water splashed him. A hundred and thirty lashes. A hundred and forty. A hundred and fifty . . .

  He was still alive!

  Black Caesar’s grin was stone carved in defiance. His eyes were still open, but his feet trailed behind as four guards dragged him from the lash pole. Four of them to drag one man.

  Around me the crowd was silent, not jeering as they often did when a man got the lash, or at a hanging. Black Caesar may have defied the law of the colony now, living — and grinning — even after a hundred and fifty lashes. But surely he could not live long.

  ‘And men have lost their reason. Bear with me. My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,’ said Mr Johnson softly. ‘And I must pause till it come back to me.’

  I didn’t know that bit of the Bible, though I’d read most of it by now, especially the smiting bits and the songs about the mountains dancing like little rams, just like my own lambs did.

  And then we climbed the hill to home, to wait for news of John Black Caesar’s death.

  CHAPTER 11

  The Slave Who Would Not Give In

&nb
sp; July 1794

  He did not die. Either Major Grose felt mercy or, more likely, Black Caesar’s friends bribed the guards with rum and the giant man was taken to the hospital. When Mr Johnson heard this, he sent me down with soup, but the bowl was taken from me, civilly enough, by one of Black Caesar’s men before I could carry it into the hospital hut. ‘Call by in an hour and I’ll give you the bowl again,’ he said, as if he were the master — or the master’s footman or Caesar’s henchman — and I a servant.

  But I just nodded. I had no wish to see Black Caesar, recovering or dying. Nor did I even know what I wished would happen now.

  If Black Caesar should die, then Mr Johnson’s secret would be safe, and mine. No one would tell of the fish stew and potatoes and cornbread and the bed given to an escaping convict in the night. But how could I — how could any good man — wish a man to die?

  Black Caesar had done wrong. He frightened me too, in a way that was hard to put into words. We had soldiers there, to defend us, but all around were Indians, or French ships might sail up any day and attack the colony now that England was at war with France again — or at least that had been the news from the most recent ship from England. For all I knew we might be at peace with them again, and at war with the Low Countries instead. At any time a foreign fleet might arrive to attack us. Would Black Caesar urge his gang to join the invaders?

  I’d also heard sailors’ stories of pirates who had taken over islands and made themselves kings. Most convicts in New South Wales wore no chains. It would be easy for Black Caesar to talk up a rebellion. There were far more convicts there than soldiers and free men. By the time England knew Caesar had taken control of the colony it might be too late . . .

  No! Impossible. Black Caesar could not rally that many convicts. Suddenly I saw where my feet had taken me. There, in the square by the barracks, two young women stood on a cart, their hands bound, a young officer yelling to the growing crowds.

  ‘What am I bid for them? This one here’s a widow, carefully used. Who’ll give me a flask of rum for her? You, matey?’

  ‘Make it two flasks!’ shouted another man. The girl held her head down. At least she was not naked, like at the slave market, I thought. At least they have not polished her skin. But all the rest was just as Black Caesar had described.

  This woman was a slave, even if the Rum Corps did not use the word. She would stay a slave, for I doubted that the man who bought her would let her free when she had served her sentence.

  ‘Two flasks of rum for that skinny wench? You can have me for a mug full, matey!’

  I looked at the woman next to me. Sally! But it wasn’t the Sally I had known. That Sally smelled of flour and wood smoke and kept herself clean. This woman smelled sour, and her hair was caked with grime.

  The woman turned and grinned at me. ‘Well, if it ain’t Barney Bean.’ She turned again to the auctioneer. ‘You going to ask a price for me too?’ she shouted.

  ‘Rather have a young filly than a broken-down nag!’ someone yelled.

  Sally put her hands on her hips. ‘I can cook, which is more than these two can, I reckon. Cooking lasts. Looks don’t.’ She grabbed my ear. ‘You tell ’em, Barney!’ she screamed drunkenly. ‘You tell ’em what a good cook I am. Go on! Tell ’em!’

  I wrenched myself away from her. This was what rum had done to the woman I had liked. Loved, maybe, at times, when she wasn’t cross with me.

  Now I just ran, away from Sally and the young women on the cart and all the evil in the colony I could do nothing about — and nor could Mr Johnson. I ran till I reached a small cove, and flung off my clothes and waded into the sea, and swam and swam till I felt clean.

  And then I dressed, and went back to fetch the bowl from the hospital, and told the Johnsons that John Black was healing well, which was probably the truth, even though no one had told me. Nor had I asked.

  CHAPTER 12

  Hope

  September 1794

  Black Caesar recovered. His heart was as strong as his body, it seemed. Once again he was put into chains, this time to work on the road gang, the hardest work in the whole colony, breaking rocks to line the street in front of the barracks with cobbles, so the officers could walk or ride without getting mud on their boots.

  When the stop-work bell rang, the road-gang men were flung back into their cells, not left free to play cards or drink rum by the harbour, like other convicts, but made to sit on mouldy straw in the half-darkness, still with chains about their ankles and iron balls attached to the chains they had to drag along with them, even to take a step across their cells, till they slept with rats running across them.

  I knew, for I visited the road-gang convicts each Sunday afternoon with Mr Johnson, the day the road gang did not work, and did not see sunlight either. We brought what little we could to help the lowest wretches in the colony, cold cobs of corn or slices of corn pudding and prayers, which some listened to and a few joined in with, while others turned their backs.

  But Black Caesar neither prayed nor turned away. He watched, but did not bow his head. His black face was hard to see in the dimness, other than the clear whites of his eyes. It seemed that these days Black Caesar would bow his head to neither God nor man.

  He did not speak to Mr Johnson, nor Mr Johnson to him, but took his slice of pudding, his cob of boiled corn, with a smile that almost mocked us, as if to say, ‘You see my body now in chains. But you know my heart is free.’

  As for me, I learned more in those years when the Rum Corps ruled our lives than in my entire life. Not just reading and figuring, or how to grow good corn or raise a roof beam, but how a man and a woman with hearts of goodness could work, day after day, standing strong against the evil that was done around them, when even hope was gone.

  Hope sailed back to our colony in September, one year and one month after our church was opened, with the new governor, Governor Hunter, who had been second in command to Governor Phillip. He had been fighting in the French wars and had now come back to us.

  ‘I tell you, sir, that there would be as much comfort serving in a penitentiary as in this colony.’ Governor Hunter held out his cup for Mrs Johnson to fill with sarsaparilla tea again. ‘The First Fleet came to a land of hope and sunshine. Now rum has made Port Jackson as bad as the dregs of any London slum. But it is my duty to stop the miscreants, each one of them. Stop the officers’ illegal trade in rum, the land grants, the trade in convicts. The officers sell them like slaves, sir. Like slaves! But you know all this too well.’

  ‘I saw them auction two women,’ I put in, trying to believe that I, Barney Bean, was actually sitting next to the governor of New South Wales, hero of the American War of Independence and, more lately, the war with the French, mighty explorer, and now in charge of us all.

  ‘You should send each officer to be court-martialled, Your Excellency,’ said Mr Johnson. He sat straighter now, as if the new governor’s presence had given him strength.

  Governor Hunter looked at him over his teacup, then put it down. ‘Aye, sir, I could. But the officers are many, and I am just one, even though I am governor. If they rebelled, I would be powerless. I must seek only to stop their abuses and, if I can, to redress some of their crimes.’

  The governor took the hearth cake Elsie handed him. ‘Delicious,’ he said, biting into it. ‘Better than at Government House. You wouldn’t like the job of cook to the governor, would you, young lady?’

  I blinked. If Elsie became the governor’s cook, he might take her back to England with the rest of his household when his term of duty was over. Cooks, housekeepers and butlers were important people — hardly anyone got to be a cook so young. Was Governor Hunter serious?

  But Elsie blushed and shook her head.

  ‘Excuse her, Your Excellency,’ said Mrs Johnson. ‘Elsie is unable to speak.’

  ‘Dumb, is she? Poor child. Which reminds me, we must do something for the orphans of this colony. Even on the streets of London I have never seen so many thin-face
d children . . .’

  It was growing dark by the time Governor Hunter left, refusing Mrs Johnson’s offer of supper, with two convicts holding lighted torches for him to see his way back to Government House, and two soldiers with muskets marching behind.

  It was like a fresh salt wind had blown away the stench of the Tank Stream and Sydney Town.

  ‘Well,’ said Mr Johnson. He smiled at his wife. She smiled back, half in shock and half in delight.

  Well, indeed. For in that one afternoon Governor Hunter had given Mr Johnson back his position as magistrate, and the salary that went with it; had offered him boat passage to Rose Hill again ‘. . . and anywhere you need it, sir.’ Mr Johnson was to have as many convicts as he wished to tend his two farms and garden, or help in the house or at the school in the new church.

  Governor Hunter had even told Mr Johnson that all the money he’d spent to build the church, for nails and timbers, and the ships’ carpenters to do the bits he and we volunteers could not manage, would be repaid.

  And for me . . .

  ‘Do you intend to go into the church, young man, like your mentor here? Or the navy perhaps, if we need to fight the French again?’

  I blinked. I’d never even thought of being a clergyman, nor was I ever going to sea again if I could help it. I knew what I wanted, as if my toes had grown roots into the soil of New South Wales. ‘I want to be a farmer, Your Excellency. With sheep, and crops of corn and wheat, and fruit trees . . .’

  ‘Barney is already as accomplished as any farmer in the colony,’ said Mr Johnson.

  ‘Then he needs land, does he not? You are free I gather, Master Bean, not a convict?’

  ‘Yes, Your Excellency.’ I held my breath. I was free, but I wasn’t even sixteen yet, and I’d reckoned eighteen was the youngest I might get a land grant.

  ‘You are exactly what this colony needs, lad. Good hard-working yeomen, of good character, who know the land and what to do with it. Cut down the trees and make the country rich.’ Governor Hunter looked at me with eyes that must have judged many men, on many ships, and in battles with the French too. ‘Have you thought where you might like to farm?’