Even from this distance I sense his terror. He has never heard a gunshot before.
I revive the fire so that the smoke rises and billows, keeping the mosquitoes at bay, then I stack the rest of the firewood and settle down to wait. But I am restless and long to tell Wouter about the man in the canoe, so I walk a little way down the track. There is no sign of him so I retrace my steps, for I know he will be angry if I don’t stay near the camp.
Yesterday we started to cut and shape branches to make a frame for our hut. I sit down cross-legged and go on with the work, choosing long, flexible sticks and sharpening the ends so that they will sink easily into the soft ground. We have plenty of fallen branches but many are dry and break too easily. As I look up at the trees which surround the camp, I am struck again by the great strips of bark which hang from them. Perhaps we can use this bark to build our hut. I pull at a long piece and it comes away easily enough. Idly, I start to weave it in and out of some of the sticks I have prepared. I sit back on my haunches observing my work, dreaming of a solid, well-built hut.
And it is as I am sitting there, alone with my thoughts, that I see him. It takes a while for my eyes to adjust to the darkness among the trees away to my right, but slowly I am aware of being watched. I have often had this feeling – we both have – but we have never seen the watcher. This time I see him clearly, and I sense that he wants me to see him, for he is standing very still and holds a long spear in one hand.
Although my heart is banging against my ribcage, I stay motionless and take a good look at him. He is small and naked with black skin and black, curly hair which almost covers his eyes, and I notice his wide nostrils and high cheekbones. He looks different from the natives we saw in Africa.
We stare at each other. I dare not move, although I am starting to get cramp in my legs. I wish I knew what to do. Should I raise my hand in greeting, or would he see that as an unfriendly gesture?
Slowly, I get to my feet, my eyes never leaving his face. Still he doesn’t move. Now I am standing alone and unprotected, and I see his eyes slide to my clothes. What can he be making of my cabin-boy shirt and trousers?
I take a step towards him – and still he does not move – but then I hear twigs snapping in the distance and the faint sound of Wouter’s tuneless whistling. For an instant I turn my head in the direction of the waterhole, and when I turn back the black man has gone, melted into the trees.
The sound of whistling comes closer and Wouter emerges. He is carrying a small furry beast over one shoulder and his musket is slung round the other. He crashes into the centre of the camp and drops the beast to the ground. He is in high good humour.
‘There, Jan. This fellow will keep us in food for a while.’
He tells me how he lay in wait until the animals came to the waterhole.
‘Just as well my shot was true, Jan,’ he says. ‘Once they heard my musket, the animals vanished.’
I tell him about the man in the canoe and the man in the trees, and he looks thoughtful.
‘We must conserve our shot, Jan. We don’t want to terrify these Aborigines. We must learn to fish, and to find roots and berries.’
But for the moment we have meat to eat, and I spend the morning skinning and chopping up the creature and salting some of the meat to preserve it. Then I build up the fire and make a rough spit from forked branches, suspending the rest of the carcass over the heat, speared through with a stout stick.
That evening we eat greedily, our bellies satisfied for the first time in months. We have a little more wine to celebrate our kill and Wouter praises me both for my cooking skills and for my idea of weaving bark between the stakes of our hut.
The next day, both full of energy, we make good progress and the hut begins to take shape, although it looks too flimsy to protect us when winter comes. I wonder about this, and start to think back to the daub used in the walls of my family’s home in Bemmel. Taking the iron pan, I make my way down the steep bank to the river’s edge and scoop up a load of sludge, then climb back up to our camp.
Wouter frowns at me. ‘What are you doing, boy?’
I don’t answer. It is easier to show him. I smear the mud thickly over an area of sticks and bark, making a smooth outside surface.
‘See,’ I say. ‘It will hold the bark and the branches in place and make it warmer. And we can cover the mud with clods of earth for roofing.’
Wouter nods. And without a word he strips a long piece of bark off a nearby tree and heads for the river. So, with the cooking pan and the bark, we toil to and from the river with our cargo of sludge. After the first trip we discard our clothes, which are becoming mud-stained, and by the end of the day we are so covered in mud that we are almost black, so we sluice ourselves clean in the river.
Our hut is coming on well, we have food to eat – for the moment, at least – and we are cleaner than we ever were on board Batavia.
As the sun sets on this strange country, its dying rays turn the rocks from grey to orange.
‘It is as if the land is on fire.’ I don’t know if I say this out loud or if it is only in my head, but Wouter doesn’t answer me. He has taken out the journal that Pelsaert has given us and is turning its pages.
‘Will you write in it, Wouter?’ I ask.
He shrugs, and tosses it away. ‘I am no writer, Jan. And who would read it, anyway?’
Soon, weary from all the work, I doze, and my mind wanders. At first, back to my life in Holland with my mother, aged before her time by poverty and child-bearing. Will she care, if she hears what has happened to me? Will anyone? Then to my time on Batavia. The Under Merchant is with me now – too close – sometimes friendly, sometimes mad, with staring eyes, striding about the deck in his red and gold cloak, then screaming and choking on the gibbet.
I shiver, and reach for my blanket. I was in thrall to that man! But I was not alone. All those who did his bidding killed for him without a second thought, believing his promise of a better life and riches in the Indies. Were they all, like me, half-crazed and filled with blood lust? We all obeyed him without hesitating. Even Wouter! On the one hand he was protecting Lucretia from harm, and on the other, carrying out the Under Merchant’s orders to slaughter the innocent family of the preacher. And yet, throughout these past days Wouter has cared for me – an ignorant, stupid, good-for-nothing cabin boy. Without his protection I would have perished.
Wouter tells me not to think about what happened on those islands. But I can’t forget. However busy I keep myself, thoughts crowd in on me and my dreams are terrifying.
Chapter Eleven
Wouter
I try to keep track of time, but the days merge into each other and I find it hard. We must have been here for two months at least, and it is now high summer. We were right to camp here in the shade of the trees and close to the river.
The camp is well established now. We have a good-sized hut and it protects us and our goods, but God, how I long for company! When Pelsaert first told me I was to be lumbered with the half-crazed cabin boy, I would rather have been hanged out there on the island with the rest of them.
I forbid Jan to speak of those dreadful days, but I can’t help thinking about them myself. Things could have turned out so differently. If Weibbe Hayes had not reached the Sardam first and told Pelsaert that we were coming, we would have taken the ship by surprise, overpowered the crew and sailed away. We were winning the battle on High Island – it was only a matter of time before they were beaten. But then, what would our lives have been like, sailing the seas as pirates with Corneliez? Now that we are away from him I recognise his madness – and the madness of his scheme.
And what will my life be like now, burdened with this boy? On the island he was a menace, screaming threats, puffed up with importance because he was under the protection of Corneliez. Corneliez would have tired of him in the end, no doubt, but it amused him to see the boy flaunt his newfound authority and terrorize the poor passengers – some revenge, I suppose, for ha
ving been treated as scum all his life.
I have to admit, Jan has calmed down now and made himself useful. He is, after all, a country boy from Bemmel and he understands the land better than I. I would not have thought of plastering the roof of our hut with mud from the river, nor of weaving the bark between the poles, and I would not have recognised that the ground vines growing near our camp have edible roots deep below the surface. Those roots have been a godsend. Jan digs them out with our spade, slices off the greenery and roasts them in the hot ashes of the fire. When they are split open, the flesh is sweet and flavoursome and they go well with the meat of the strange furry creatures.
A few days ago, I sent Jan back to the sea to scour the rock pools for shellfish. He set off early with a large dish made of bark, and as the afternoon wore on I worried about him and started to walk down towards the sea. But he was unharmed, and I met him returning with his rough bowl full to the brim with live shellfish which he then proceeded to cook, as he had learned to do for Corneliez.
Our diet is better now than it was on board ship and certainly better than when we were prisoners on the island and on the Sardam. My scabs and sores are healing. I feel stronger, with more energy.
The change in Jan is startling. His face is clear of spots and he is growing before my eyes. He is changing from a boy into a man. His muscles are thickening with all the physical work we are doing and his pallor has gone. We hardly bother with clothes now, and our bodies are bronzed from the sun. Most evenings, we climb down to the river’s edge, fill our water bottles and the trusty iron pan with water for the camp, then wash our bodies. We are cleaner than we have been for months and I am growing a mighty beard! Jan’s long hair is bleached blond by the sun and his chin has started to sprout some hair, much to his delight!
At first, we were driven mad by the mosquitoes and flies around us but we have grown accustomed to these and keep up a constant swatting motion with our hands.
Although Jan insists that he saw two Aboriginal men when I was away at the waterhole the first time I shot one of the furry beasts, I have seen nothing of them, although we know they are all around us. They have not visited our camp at night since those early days, but we see smoke rising from their fire a little way up-river and often we sense that they are somewhere nearby, watching us. Are they waiting for us to approach them? Jan is sure that they will be friendly. I am not so confident. But we must make a move soon, for I suspect we may need their help when winter comes and the musket shot runs out.
So far, we have failed to catch a single fish. There is nothing in our supplies to use as a net and even Jan is stumped.
Every day, now, the boy pesters me to seek out the Aborigines. ‘We should go and find their camp, Wouter,’ he says, but I always make some excuse: ‘We must not leave our own camp unprotected,’ or, ‘We need to salt more meat today.’
I have even started to write in the journal Pelsaert gave us, pretending that I am recording our daily progress – anything to put off visiting the Aboriginal camp. Fortunately, Jan is unlettered and cannot understand that what I write is only a rough description of how we have made our hut and found food and water. But I have little learning and I find making the letters laborious.
Jan watches me write and wants me to teach him his letters, but I am no teacher and I suspect he would be a poor student.
‘What are you writing there, Wouter?’ he asks. ‘What are you saying about me?’
I grunt some reply.
I know that we must contact the Aborigines soon, but I am afraid. I am afraid of their strangeness, afraid that we shall not be able to make ourselves understood, afraid that they will slaughter us. It is curious that I, a soldier whose life has been filled with death and violence, should be less eager to embrace the unknown than an unlettered, foolish cabin boy.
But we must make a move soon.
Chapter Twelve
Jan
We have made a good camp here and we are eating well. I am getting stronger by the day and beginning to grow at last. It is a good feeling running my hand over the downy growth of beard on my chin.
I long to explore and make contact with the Aborigines, but Wouter says we should wait for them to come to us, and that one of us must always be here to guard the camp. I would like to go on my own, but Wouter says I need his protection – and that of his musket.
Our supply of flour has nearly run out and I wonder if grain grows anywhere in this place from which we can make more. It would be good to have a change from meat and roots. Time and again I attempt to fish the river. I try spearing fish with a sharpened stick but the river is fast flowing and I never succeed. I need some sort of net with which to trap them.
One day, at the river’s edge, tired from my unsuccessful attempts at fishing, I lie back on a rock with my feet dangling in the water and doze off.
At one point I wake and open my eyes – then close them again quickly, hoping I am still dreaming. But it is no dream. There, on the rock only a few feet away from me, basking in a patch of sunlight which filters through the branches, lies a dragon!
I freeze in horror. It must be a dragon. What else could it be, with its scaly skin and long blue tongue which flickers in and out of its mouth? I start to scrabble away from it but as soon I move, the dragon slithers away into the undergrowth.
It is the first time I have seen such a creature in this land of strange birds and animals, and my thudding heart takes a while to return to its normal pace. And when it does, and I can observe my surroundings without panic, I notice something else. On another rock a little way distant lies a strange-looking net! Is it for me? Cautiously, I make my way over to it, pick it up and turn it over in my hands.
I cannot help smiling. It is so simple. Why did I not think to make one like this? It is made from the tough vines that grow on the ground and swarm up the trees. Stripped of their leaves, the vines are strong and pliant and these have been woven together. The net is long and not very deep, so I realise that it stretches across the river to trap fish as they swim downstream. The net was not there before I settled down to sleep, so perhaps someone has been watching me try to fish – and left me a present!
I look round and, as usual, there is no one to be seen, but I take heart from what I hope is a gesture of friendship and walk upstream, hoping to find another of these nets in use so that I can examine it to see how it is attached.
I hug the net to my chest, thinking of the fish we will eat and wondering who has left it for me to find. I keep a careful watch on the ground; we have been here long enough to know that snakes live by the river and we don’t know if they are harmful or not. Overhead, the parrots shriek and every now and then I shade my eyes and squint up to watch them, red and green as they flash through the air and alight on the pale wood of the tall trees.
Several times I stop and peer into the water, but I cannot see another net. When I reach a bend in the river, I sit down on another rock. I have never been further than this and I wonder whether I should turn back. But I would like to find the person who gave me the net. If Wouter were with me, he would stop me, but he is back at the camp. I have already waited too long for him to agree to visit the Aborigines, and now I have a reason to seek them out. I want to thank them and I want to learn how to set the net.
As I walk, I tell myself that the Aborigines won’t be there. They won’t let me see them and will melt into the trees when they hear me approach, just as they have done before.
I keep walking. The afternoon is well advanced now and Wouter may come down to the river to look for me, but I don’t care. Let him come! Let him worry! I walk on, taking no trouble to go quietly, and as I walk, I wonder, as I have wondered so many times before, what these black people make of me – of us, of our fair skin. Will they know that we have come in a ship from another country, or will they think we have dropped from the sky?
It will be many years before I fully understand the shock they felt when they first saw us and their belief, not that we had
come from another country, but that we were spirits of their dead ancestors come back to them. The Aborigines, after all, knew no land other than their own, they knew nothing of vast ships carrying men from foreign shores, of goods made of metal, of coins and woven cloth, of jewels, or of the great East India Company!
Even though I understood nothing of this on that momentous day when I walked upriver towards their camp, I was not fearful. My previous glimpses of the two men had not alarmed me and I felt sure that they would not harm me; having their gift of a net made me brave.
‘Pig-headed fool,’ Wouter would have said. And he did say this later, but that day I felt that the time was right. They had seen us; they knew we had made a camp; they had given us a conch shell; and now they had left a net for us. What I did not know then was that we had made our camp on the very spot on which they held their special tribal gatherings, their corroborees when all the local tribes come together to trade and to dance out stories of the spirits, their bodies painted up. Our choice of this spot made them believe even more strongly that we were, indeed, spirits of their ancestors come back to earth.
I walk on, sometimes whistling. Every now and then I stop and listen, but still I hear nothing. However, the smell of smoke is stronger in my nostrils now and I know their camp can’t be far away. I walk more slowly, more carefully, aware that any moment I may come upon them. I do not want to frighten them.
The first one I see is a young man, standing in the river bending over a net. He must have heard me approach, but he doesn’t look up and I stay where I am, watching him as he takes trapped fish from the net, bangs their heads on a rock and lays them in a piece of bark. Even though my heart is pounding in my chest, I notice how the net is strung across the river and anchored with heavy rocks.
The Blue-Eyed Aborigine Page 10
