by Ed Hillyer
Their team captain, too, entered into the spirit with ‘Lawrence’s Feat with the Bat and Ball’, an impressive balancing act à la Tommy Dodd on the London stage – Lawrence appearing to catch a ball, thrown by Bullocky, on the narrow edge of his bat.
Dick-a-Dick, natural showman that he was, had delighted many with his antics, winning the backwards race by a few good lengths. His return to the field met with loud cheers. The programme described the next feature attraction, ‘Dick Dick Dodging the Cricket Ball’.
Carrying in his left hand what appeared to be a short, thick stick, he stood out in the centre of the ground. The audience adjusted their binoculars: seen in close-up, he held a small shield, no more than four inches wide and decorated with carved designs. A curved wooden club, his leowell, extended from Dick’s right hand – a formidable-looking weapon that should raise a nasty bump on anyone’s cranium.
‘Throw ’em ball!’ he cried, beckoning. ‘Throw ’em ball!’ Screaming out his challenge, Dick-a-Dick cheekily invited all comers. Three burly fellows leapt forward, to be supplied with a heap of hard cricket balls. For the benefit of their audience, Lawrence loudly instructed they throw these at the ‘human wicket’ from a distance of less than fifteen yards, at will, all at once if they liked, and as hard as they possibly could.
The volunteers dutifully began to pelt Dick-a-Dick, using nothing less than lethal force. A flurry of activity broke out among the crowds, odds laid and bets taken as to how long he might survive.
Taking no notice of any ball passing more than an inch or two away, Dick baffled every straight ball with a keen intuition. As if blessed with sixth sense, he foretold the precise direction of each attack. Blows accurately aimed at his head and body, he parried with the shield; those on target for his legs he struck at using the club. Sometimes, throwing his club and shield to the ground, he would drop down on one knee, or simply dodge the balls with an elegant sidestep. Those sure not to hit he treated with contemptuous indifference, merely lifting an arm or moving his head a little to allow that the ball might pass, though it ruffled his hair in doing so. Whether standing still or dancing, his attitudes remained at all times picturesque. Jumping, ducking, falling now and then, parrying with the leowell, Dick-a-Dick defied all three throwers until they were completely exhausted.
Not a single ball had found its mark.
He had worked himself forward almost under the very noses of his opponents. Pulling grotesque faces, he grinned and yelled for victory. Excitement grew very great; his impudent assurance incensed and amused the crowd in equal measure.
Amidst the din of cheering, a rough element, their blood up, began to pour out onto the pitch. The entire ground erupted in chaos, and Dick-a-Dick fled.
Sarah Larkin sat high on the stands. Furies screeched all around her. Strangely cool, she lost herself in thought.
She had not told her father of her plans to attend, although, ostensibly, she acted on his behalf. An ardent cricket-lover, Lambert would have welcomed eyewitness reports of a day’s play, especially as an unexpected treat. She really should have paid more attention, and come on an actual match day. If only the idea had occurred to her earlier.
Sarah wasn’t sure what to make of the exhibition just witnessed, even less what her father might think. And, were she completely honest, her presence was owing to no account but her own. Why she felt the need to see the Aborigines again, and quite so soon, she was sure she had no idea. A mild curiosity, that was all.
Thus absorbed in the general mêlée, she was overtaken by a somewhat stranger sensation.
Out on the playing field stood one of the Aboriginal players, immobile as a statue, though wild figures on every side ran to and fro. Hard to tell at such distance, but Sarah thought him the one they had called King Cole. And he looked straight at her. Not around her or through her but right into her. She stared into brilliant black orbs. From beneath a brow broad and severe, pupils black as jet returned her looks. It wasn’t possible: he couldn’t have singled her out in this vast crowd, let alone recognised her. No, she was mistaken.
She blinked and shivered. He stood too far away after all. Hard to see how she might have made out the finer details of his face – and so pin-sharp – let alone meet his eyes.
And then he was gone. There were just blind bodies, rushing back and forth across the grass, and everywhere tumult.
She would remain in her seat until calm once more prevailed, and then make her way quickly home.
CHAPTER XIII
Whit Sunday, the 31st of May, 1868
CUTTING REMARKS
‘Still thou upraisest with zeal
The humble good from the ground,
Sternly repressest the bad!
Still, like a trumpet, dost rouse
Those who with half-open eyes
Tread the border-land dim
’Twixt vice and virtue…’
~ Matthew Arnold, ‘Rugby Chapel’
‘Your mind is not on your game!’
Charles Lawrence berated King Cole for the poor quality of his most recent performance. A brisk day’s play at Maidstone on the 30th had ended, unsatisfactorily, in a draw. ‘We should have won that match.’
‘Sorry, Orrince,’ mumbled Cole.
‘And as for you…cap it all!’ Lawrence turned on Bullocky. He thrust forward a half-empty whisky bottle. ‘Say black’s your eye,’ said Lawrence.
‘Him not belonga me.’
‘You’ve not seen this bottle before?’
Bullocky regarded the evidence sadly: it was still half full. Carefully he weighed his answer.
‘Dat bottle,’ he said, ‘belonga some other pella.’
The merry-go-round whirl of the metropolis behind them, the entire company had returned to the Bear Inn, Town Malling, spare in its comforts. Friday’s violent thunderstorms had abated, turned to drizzle.
‘It’s this sort of day I hate the most,’ sighed Bill Hayman.
‘Pentecost?’ said William South Norton.
The pair stood looking out of the casement window. They occupied the antechamber to the first-floor lodgings reserved to the Aboriginals – a room they had begun to refer to, strictly between themselves, as ‘L’s guardhouse’.
‘The sort of day,’ said Hayman, labouring his point, ‘when the hour of nine in the morning cannot be distinguished from five in the evening. The gloom neither lifts, nor the damp ground dries. It’s like living in a cloud!’
The far door exploded inwards. Almost taken off its hinges, it ricocheted off the wall, shuddering furiously. In stormed Lawrence, knotted up with rage. South Norton raised a weary eyebrow.
‘The maid found this in Bullocky’s bed!’ shouted Lawrence.
They stared at the whisky bottle clenched in his fist.
‘Perhaps it was there to smooth his pillow,’ Hayman suggested.
Lawrence slammed the bottle down next to the fireplace, so hard it was a wonder nothing broke.
‘Let’s hope he remembered to toast Her Royal Highness,’ said William South Norton.
‘The Melbourne Parliament has passed a law against sedition,’ Hayman explained. ‘It is now an offence even to boast of refusing to drink the Queen’s health!’
‘No separation for the colonies…’
‘And they have executed the Duke of Edinburgh’s assassin.’
‘Would-be assassin.’
‘It was a mistake,’ said Lawrence, ‘to attend church this morning.’
‘You insisted,’ said Hayman. ‘Said it was important. “Whit Sunday, when the Holy Spirit descends upon its disciples.”’
The priest had taken his sermon from the Acts of the Apostles, chapter two. ‘A prophecy of fire and brimstone, signs and wonders?’ said Lawrence. ‘It’s stirred up the Blacks something awful.’
‘Put, quite literally, the fear of God into them,’ said Hayman. He had never much approved attempts to Christianise or Anglicise the Australian natives, even in order that they might be saved.
The unhappy pair communicated their differences by addressing themselves to William South Norton – whose back was turned.
‘Even I found it terrifying,’ Lawrence admitted. ‘A blood moon…the Spirit poured out on all flesh.’
‘Perhaps,’ suggested Hayman, ‘you might disallow Bullocky from this evening’s outing.’ One Mr Allerton, ‘an amateur of distinction’, was to present the tragedy of the Danish prince at Town Malling’s Assembly Rooms.
‘No,’ said Lawrence. ‘I’d much rather have him in hand…’
His voice trailed away. William South Norton had magicked a tumbler from somewhere, and casually poured himself a generous measure of whisky. Swirling the golden liquid around in his palm, he took his turn holding forth.
‘My wife and I have enjoyed nursing Little Johnny Cuzens,’ he said. ‘He has, I think, the makings of a first-class player. And that fellow Mullagh, he’s quite the Pilch of your Eleven…up to county form! You work very hard for them, Lawrence, you do. It’s most commendable.’
He raised a toast, no irony intended.
Lawrence’s face threatened thunder.
‘To Her Imperial Majesty!’ said South Norton. ‘Long may she reign.’
He drained his glass. As the contraband warmed his cockles, he warmed to his original theme.
‘Minnie tended Cuzens with her special recipe chicken soup. She says his ears went up like a sow in beans. But the others?’ he said. ‘Odd, superior sort of savages… It’s hard to get friendly with ’em. You’ve a good wicket-keeper in Dick Dick. Big old Bullocky does solid stick-in-the-mud business, all right. As for the rest? Boomerangers and Shake-a-spear-ians. The fielding’s good, but, Mullagh excepted, there’s not a third-rate batsmen among them!’
His emptied glass, upturned, hit the occasional table with a thwack.
‘And that, as it turns out, is the pudding in the bowl…’
South Norton meant well, but it had come out all wrong.
Lawrence’s face darkened: three in the afternoon, and already the grease-merchant was full of new wine.
‘You simply have to get to know them better, William,’ said Hayman quietly. ‘And that takes time.’
Charles Lawrence said nothing. Face turned away, he had begun to brood. The sentiments expressed by William South Norton unwittingly echoed many of the match reports published in his adopted homeland, clipped from the newspaper articles Lawrence followed so avidly – in The Australasian, the Hamilton Spectator, the Melbourne Age and Argus, and the Illawarra Mercury. Following a game played in the sweltering heat of Boxing-day, the Bathurst Times had seen fit to comment on the Edenhope Cricket Club’s new uniforms: how greatly their intelligent appearance stood in contrast to their debased brethren, skulking in the Bush.
Lawrence recalled how, some months earlier – during their first game following his engagement, in the mid-August of 1867 – the fielders had been unable to keep their feet on the ice.
That was how it was in Australia: everything topsy-turvy.
‘We must have a stowaway on board,’ said Lawrence. ‘Is there some Maori tribesman we don’t know about?’
‘Oh, you’re not still harping on about that, are you?’ said Hayman.
Saturday’s edition of The Field had reported, ‘A variation in the black hues of their skin, these men represent the colonies of Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, and New Zealand.’
‘Obviously, they meant New South Wales! I’ll get on to them to print a correction,’ said Hayman. ‘That way, we get another mention.’
‘Art is of no country, indeed,’ huffed Lawrence. ‘Why pay attention, when everyone’s a Johnny Foreigner!’
‘The niggers begin at Calais,’ said William South Norton.
Lawrence rounded on him.
‘For your part,’ he snapped, ‘you might at least keep Malling’s underworld at bay.’
‘You’re not in Pall Mall now, old boy,’ said South Norton, sleek as a cormorant. ‘It’s always pronounced “Mauling” by natives of my age.’
‘Aul the same, dear chap,’ said Hayman, ‘see if you can’t keep that feltmonger Seagar away from the lads.’
Further overtures from the roguish local pelt merchant must needs be discouraged.
‘Last week’s fox hunt was very regrettable,’ said Hayman. ‘We’ll have no repeat of it.’
‘They have need of our protection,’ said Lawrence. ‘They’re like children.’
‘And, like petted children,’ said Hayman, ‘not quite so docile and obliging as on first arrival. They have been rather spoiled by their good reception in this country.’
‘You could both try harder,’ said Lawrence.
Their heads turned, all amazed and in doubt.
‘To do what?’ said South Norton.
‘Keeping Bullocky out of the Bull, for one thing. Or the Prior’s Arms…’ Lawrence sighed. ‘The King’s Arms, the Swan, the Cricketers…so many opportunities for drink in this puddle of a town,’ he said, ‘I’ve lost count!’
‘It can’t be helped,’ said South Norton, ‘if we are famously hospitable.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Lawrence. ‘To the point of finding someone else’s bottle of whisky under one’s pillow!’
‘The honeymoon is over well and truly,’ said South Norton. He moved to recharge his glass. ‘You are annoyed with me because I played for Maidstone, against your precious Blackies,’ he said. ‘I’m not on the opposing team now, you know!’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ said Lawrence.
South Norton threw back the tumbler of whisky, and then set it down. ‘I’ll gladly serve my country,’ he said, ‘and see you on the field!’
And with that, William South Norton swept out of the room.
Bill Hayman laid his head to one side.
‘Don’t piss him off, Charles, there’s a good fellow,’ he said. ‘He may yet come in useful in the days ahead.’
The sounds of song and laughter bled through the partition wall from the next room. No fans of the English rain, all the Aborigines sheltered safely indoors, engaged in some worshipful rite of their own.
‘You should congratulate yourself,’ said Bill Hayman at last. ‘All that hard practice has paid off. The Blacks do very well, everything being taken into consideration.’
‘Don’t they, though?’ said Lawrence. ‘Remembering to pass the port widdershins, and good for parlour tricks!’
Hayman’s breath escaped. ‘Confound it, Charles! You confound me!’ Every attempt to pay the team captain a compliment was turned on its head, and its pockets emptied.
‘You know, my own belief was that their manners should be improved,’ said Lawrence, ‘at first.’ He thought of their time back in Australia, when all seemed right, and good – and everything the other way up. ‘Increasingly, I find myself more attached to the Blacks’ natural character.’
‘Sorry, Lawrence?’ said Hayman. ‘Blow me down!’
A fan of the theatre, Bill Hayman occasionally indulged a sideline as amateur entertainer, his forte being pastiche, or comical ditties in character. Drawing on these skills, he started to strut in front of the fireplace. In mellifluous but mocking tones, to the tune of ‘The Battle-Hymn of the Republic’, so popular of late, he improvised a marching song.
‘Tom Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave!
Tom Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave!
Tom Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave!
His soul goes marching onnnn!’
Hayman teased Lawrence over his favourite text, and in the parlance of civil war, to boot. They no longer spoke the same language.
Bill Hayman clasped at the small of his back – injury, added to insult. The damp was proving no good for his bones. Smarting, he departed, following South Norton down the stairs.
Lawrence drew closer to the only company remaining.
The edges of the old mirror above the fireplace hung ragged, where the silver flaked. He seized South Norton’s empty glass. S
o as not to take up the bottle, Lawrence reached into his pocket and clutched hold of his cherished copy of Tom Brown, like a charm.
Heaven only knew, idle hands got up to no good when left to their own devices. They took to pilfering, poaching and in-fighting, where they might be better controlled by organised games.
His far-travelling children were not blank, like slates. But, otherworldly in their innocence, while neither good nor evil, they seemed of capacity for either – their characters malleable, like clay. Thus impressionable, they might be led anywhere – along the straight and narrow path of righteousness, or else astray. Ultimately, however, it all amounted to the same end. Even with good intentions, they could only be taken advantage of.
Lawrence swirled and spat disgust into the ashes of the fireplace. Rising, he again caught sight of himself in the flyblown, corroded mirror. His face, warped, bloated, stretched across the uneven surface of the glass. Shirked in places, shifting with his slightest movement, it shrank even from itself.
‘“To be, or not to be: that is the question…”’
Onstage, before a full house, Hamlet made his immortal Third Act entrance. A thrill of excitement rippled throughout the theatre audience: young or old, nearly everyone knew these famous lines, even if they did not entirely understand them.
Lined almost the complete length of the second-to-front row, the Aborigines sat agog. It had been over a year since their last trip to watch the ‘drama’, Bill Hayman having taken them to a double-bill of Rip Van Winkle and Nan, the Good for Nothing, at Ballarat’s Theatre Royal.
Hayman glanced down the line and wondered, as he had then, what the show might possibly mean to them. Some of the team members had since departed, and new ones joined. Some at least might never have seen the like.
