Nanberry

by Jackie French

  The o’possum twitched his whiskers. Maria stared at it. ‘Sir —’ she began. Suddenly the beast grabbed her with tiny claws. Before she could even scream, it had run up her arm and over her face. She shrieked as it clung onto her hair. ‘Get it off me! Help, sir! Help!’

  Beside her she heard a strange noise, a spluttering, choking sound.

  It was Surgeon White. He was laughing. This was stranger than any beast. She had never seen the Surgeon laugh before.

  ‘Sir! Help me!’

  Something dripped down her chin. The creature must have scratched her face. She put up her hand. It came down wet, but not red. Yellow … ‘Eeeerk!’

  The laughter became chuckles. The Surgeon reached over and pulled at the beast.

  ‘Ow!’

  ‘It’s tangled in your hair. I’ll have to cut it free.’

  ‘You’ll not cut my hair!’

  He smiled at her. ‘You would rather the beast stayed there all night?’

  ‘No! But not my hair!’ Little scrap she might be, but her hair were her one beauty, long and black.

  ‘Well, let’s try something else then.’ He reached over and took a crust of yesterday’s soda bread from the table, dipped it in water and held it to the creature.

  She felt the beast wriggle on her head and screamed again. ‘Sir!’

  ‘Quietly. You’re frightening it.’

  ‘I’m frightening it?’

  ‘It might be hungry. Let’s see …’

  And the weight was gone from her head, leaving a sour stink. She’d have to wash her hair before she slept tonight, and dry it by the fire too, if she didn’t want to get cold and catch the consumption. She turned around.

  The o’possum sat on the table on its hind legs. Its tiny front paws held the crust, just as if they were hands. As she looked, it bent its head and nibbled. It seemed to like the bread, though every now and then its big dark eyes glanced around suspiciously.

  What a waste of precious soda bread. She waited for Surgeon White to wring the little beast’s neck. Good riddance to bad rubbish, as Aunt Effie would say.

  Surgeon White stared at the animal, absorbed. ‘Interesting. I assumed o’possums ate only leaves. See what else it will take,’ he ordered.

  Maria gaped. It had made a mess in her hair and on her dress and now on her clean scrubbed table. And she was to fuss about and feed it delicacies?

  The o’possum finished the crust of bread. It sat there staring with its big black eyes, its mouth open, panting a little.

  ‘Probably thirsty,’ said the Surgeon. ‘Feed it some water in a spoon. No, sarsaparilla tea.’

  ‘But, sir —’ she began. What if the animal climbed up her again? Those claws hurt!

  The little creature swayed. It looked as though it might collapse on her table.

  Surgeon White scooped it up. It lay still while he put it back with the greens in the sack. He arranged the edges of the sack to give it air, but still keep it dark and covered. ‘Keep it warm by the fire,’ he ordered. ‘I’ll tell Big Lon to put a good log on tonight, to keep the house warm till morning. Try feeding it some tea in a spoon before you serve up dinner. I’d like to keep it alive for a few days before I put it in a preserving jar. It’s … interesting.’

  Maria tried to keep her expression polite. Now on top of everything else she had an o’possum to look after.

  Chapter 4

  MARIA

  SYDNEY COVE, 15 APRIL 1789

  Maria woke when the rooster crowed. She peered at the grey light through the cracks in the storeroom wall. If only she could lie down on her straw-filled pillow, and sleep and sleep … But only ladies and gentlemen had the luxury of all the sleep they wanted. A servant had to be up before her master, and stay up in case he wanted anything before he went to bed too.

  She washed her face quickly, then pulled her dress over the petticoats she slept in. Her shoes were wearing out, so she kept them for Sunday best now, when she went to hear the Reverend Johnson’s service. At least no one could see her bare feet under her well-mended hems.

  She pulled open the kitchen door quietly, so as not to wake the Master, shoved wood quickly onto the coals to get the fire going again — it was a fearful business lighting it from scratch with tinder, steel and a flint — then peered into the sack.

  The o’possum was still asleep. At first she thought that it was dead, but when she touched it with her finger she could feel its heartbeat.

  She pulled back. What was she doing, petting a wild beast? A creature that had made a mess in her hair and scratched her? She had no place in her life for pets, and certainly not for a strange animal like this. For all she knew it might wake up later in the night and suck their blood …

  And ghosts might rise from the well, and sea monsters eat ships, she scolded herself. Other convicts might whisper of imaginary terrors. Not her.

  Almost by itself her finger stretched out, and stroked the beast again.

  She could hear the Surgeon’s snores from the hut’s only other room. It was time to get to work.

  More wood on last night’s coals; then water in the pot to heat for the Surgeon’s tea and for him to wash in. Big Lon was supposed to fetch two buckets full from the Tank Stream twice a day, and milk the goat, as well as tend the garden and fetch and chop the wood, but the good-for-nothing was probably still asleep back in the convict huts.

  She scrubbed the hearthstone so it would be clean to bake the soda bread on.

  It was baking nicely by the edge of the fire when she carried in the Surgeon’s tea. He sipped it sleepily as she lugged in a bucket of warm water, then shut the door to let him dress.

  She’d just put boiled eggs and buttered toast before the Master when there was a knock on the door.

  She dragged it open — its rope hinges had sagged. Mr Balmain, one of the Assistant Surgeons, stood there.

  ‘Sir,’ he said to Surgeon White. The word was respectful, but the way he spoke weren’t. Mr Balmain never seemed to realise that Surgeon White was his superior, and a gentleman, and that Mr Balmain was only an Assistant Surgeon and should show respect.

  Surgeon White looked up. ‘What’s so important that it interrupts my breakfast?’

  ‘Dead natives. Sir.’

  Surgeon White took a bite of soda bread. ‘If they are dead, Mr Balmain, then they do not need my urgent assistance.’

  ‘It looks like they died of the smallpox.’

  ‘The smallpox!’ Surgeon White pushed away his food.

  Mr Balmain nodded. ‘Some of the work parties yesterday said they’d seen dead Indians in most of the coves.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘At least twenty, sir. I sent a couple of the men to bring back some bodies.’

  Surgeon White shut his eyes briefly, almost as though he were praying. He stood up. ‘The smallpox. God in Heaven, what will this cursed land send us next? Is anyone sick in the camp?’

  ‘None reported. Sir,’ he added.

  The Surgeon nodded. ‘Have the bodies put in one of the huts. Tell everyone to stay clear of them — and that means everybody — unless they’ve been inoculated or survived the pox back in England. I want every man in every work party examined for symptoms each night.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Surgeon White shook his head.

  Maria watched as he took his coat and hat, and left the hut. She sat down in his chair to finish his breakfast. She wasn’t no thief now. But no point wasting good food.

  The smallpox. She looked at the faint scar on her hand. Gran had said she’d had the smallpox when she were small. The smallpox had killed her parents, and her uncle too, but she’d survived. You only got it once, they said. If it didn’t kill you, then you were safe from it.

  How many would die if the smallpox spread through the colony? A third? A half? Her eyes grew wide, imagining the horror; mothers watching their babies die, babies crying as their mothers lay in the grave.

  Her face hardened. It wouldn’t affect her. She was
safe. She was sure Surgeon White would have been inoculated, like all the other doctors. And what if so many convicts and marines did die? All the more rations for the rest of them. She wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her jacket. Stupid, stupid tears.

  Maybe so many would die the Indians would attack them, and wipe them out.

  She took up her broom, and began to sweep the hard dirt floor as clean as she could make it. Natives might be lurking, and the smallpox and starvation, but at least she could keep her house clean.

  Chapter 5

  SURGEON WHITE

  COCKLE BAY HOSPITAL; SYDNEY COVE; COCKLE BAY,

  15 APRIL 1789

  Surgeon White stood in the hut of mud and cabbage-tree trunks. It was one of the scattered buildings of his hospital. Four dead bodies lay on roughly made benches: two men, a woman, a child. Pustules covered their bodies, crusted black with dried blood and still oozing yellow pus.

  Balmain had been right. The smallpox.

  The Surgeon closed his eyes for a second.

  Had the fleet come all this way, survived so much, just for the colony to be wiped out by plague? Even if only a quarter of the wretches in the colony died, could the rest of them survive, perched on the edge of an unknown continent with natives all around?

  ‘Governor wants you down at the harbour. Now.’ It was Balmain again.

  The Governor would have said: ‘Offer my courtesies to Surgeon White, and ask if he would be able to attend me.’ But rebuking Balmain would only make the man even harder to deal with.

  The Surgeon gathered his medical bag. It wasn’t likely that the Governor wanted him to join one of his expeditions to survey new lands today. He headed down between the convict huts to the harbour.

  Governor Phillip was already there, next to a fishing boat, with two men to row it — convicts, for the marines felt it beneath their dignity to row boats. Arabanoo, the gentle native the Governor had captured to see if the warrior might be able to broker a peace between the colonists and the natives, was with the Governor to act as translator.

  Arabanoo’s peacemaking had been unsuccessful — the natives still speared any stragglers from the camp, or struck them with their axes. But Surgeon White respected Arabanoo. Never had a prisoner had such dignity, such kindness for all. The man was a gentleman, even if he was a native.

  Arabanoo knew medicines too. When he’d had a touch of dysentery he had demanded the root of a particular fern. It had worked. White had tried the root on his own patients. It was better than any remedy from England.

  The Surgeon nodded politely. ‘Good morning, Your Excellency, Arabanoo.’

  Governor Phillip looked worried. He always looked worried these days. ‘One of the men who was out fishing this morning says there are more sick natives a few coves over. I suggest we look at them ourselves.’

  White nodded. ‘It will be easier to get an accurate diagnosis if I can examine living patients. But Your Excellency …’ He hesitated.

  ‘You believe it to be the smallpox?’

  ‘Nothing else fits the symptoms,’ said the Surgeon frankly.

  The Governor looked back at his colony of huts and humpies, convicts and ragged marines, and at the wilderness of trees and ocean around them. Surgeon White could almost see Phillip’s thoughts on his sombre face. Home — and any help — was nine months away from them now, nor had they any ship big enough to sail from here or even send for aid. ‘Then let us pray.’

  The small cove looked deserted. Only the waves moved, back and forth on the muddy sand. It wasn’t till they drew nearer that the Surgeon could make out a tiny fire, its smoke spiralling up to the sky. An old man sat next to it. As the Surgeon watched, a boy staggered down the sand to fill a container with water, then crept back to pour it over the old man’s head.

  The bottom of the boat hit sand. The convict rowers jumped out into the shallow water, and pulled the boat up so that the Governor, the Surgeon and Arabanoo could get out with dry feet.

  The Surgeon stared at the boy and the old man by the fire. Their bodies were covered in white blisters. Neither of them seemed to have noticed the boat. Even as he looked the boy sank down onto the sand.

  Had the effort of fetching the water been too much for him? Was he dead or sleeping?

  A child’s body lay nearby, so covered in sand and sores it was impossible to tell at first that she was a baby girl. The Surgeon trod across the sand and bent down to examine her. Dead.

  Further up the beach, almost out of sight, a woman lay, her arms outstretched in death, her body swelling. The Surgeon glanced over at Arabanoo. The old man hesitated, still in the boat. He met White’s eye, then climbed out and began digging in the sand.

  ‘A grave,’ whispered White.

  Phillip nodded.

  The girl’s grave was tiny. Arabanoo hadn’t seen the dead woman. The others waited as the translator gently carried the child’s body to the grave, placing it in the hole almost as though the child only slept. He covered the girl with grass, then mounded up the sand.

  The Surgeon hesitated. Should they bury the woman too? But the old man was still breathing.

  The boy gave a tiny moan. He was still alive as well. That decided him.

  The Surgeon turned to Governor Phillip. ‘We need to get the man and boy to the hospital.’

  There was no cure for the smallpox, but at least back at the colony the man and child could be nursed, given food and water. So often, thought Surgeon White, the sick die of thirst or starvation, their friends and family too scared to approach. ‘Take them to the boat,’ he ordered.

  One of the rowers shook his head. ‘I ain’t touching no one with the smallpox.’

  The Surgeon sighed. He and the Governor carried the old man to the boat between them. The Surgeon went back and lifted the boy in his arms.

  He was small and light, only eight or nine years old. He muttered something, and nestled closer.

  The Surgeon felt something ache deep in his heart. How long had it been since he had held a child in his arms? There were convict brats here, but none had needed the attentions of the Chief Surgeon. If he had been posted to India, or had a job in England, he might have been married now. He’d have children of his own. Instead he was on a distant beach, holding a native boy dying of the smallpox.

  The Surgeon bit his lip. He carried his small burden back to the rowing boat.

  Chapter 6

  NANBERRY

  TUMBALONG, THE LAND AND TIME OF SICKNESS

  (15 APRIL 1789)

  The world had been black, but somehow too bright too. Even dreams hurt.

  Someone lifted him. Was it Colbee? They had come back! They would bring sweet water, make the right smoke to send the illness away. Soon he would be well again. Life would be as it had been before …

  Someone said something. At first he thought that it was the sickness that made him not understand. Then he realised.

  They were white-ghost words.

  He opened his eyes. The world swam as though he was underwater. But he could see a boat: not a canoe, or a big ship, but one of the craft the white ghosts could make surge through the water.

  ‘Has he a chance, Surgeon White?’

  ‘I can’t tell, sir. Perhaps, if we can get the fever down.’

  The words had no meaning, but the men speaking sounded kind. Suddenly water touched his lips. Cool, wonderful, fresh water.

  He wanted to ask questions. Where was his family? How did the white-ghost paddles make the boat glide across the water? But he was too weak. The hands felt kind, and they had given him fresh water.

  Nanberry let himself sleep.

  Chapter 7

  MARIA

  SYDNEY COVE, 15 APRIL 1789

  Maria trudged along the path to the stores. They were the only brick buildings in the colony, apart from the Governor’s house. The roofs were made of proper tiles of baked clay too, unlike the others, thatched with dried reeds, though the tiles were already crumbling.

  The Governor had ordere
d everyone in the colony to have the same rations: so much each for a man, a woman, a child. Major Ross and the marines complained, but the Governor had stood firm.

  The marines had shouted even louder when the Governor ordered the rations be reduced again last week: two pounds of salt pork for each man, two and a half pounds of flour — wheat or maize flour, depending on what the stores had most of that week — and two pounds of rice or dried peas and a tiny scoop of rancid butter. Women had two-thirds that amount and children half.

  The flour was bitter with weevils; the sacks of rice quivered with the insects that infested it; and the pork was at least two years old — who knew how old it was when it was loaded on the ships?

  Maria waited in line to get her rations, and the Master’s, trying to avoid the eyes of the men with their thin and filthy faces who’d take a smile as an invitation. Good-for-nothings, she thought. There’s food to gather here, and wood in plenty to cook it and water to wash in.

  But she still wanted her rations. Flour to make soda bread and the peas for a boiled pease pudding flavoured with salt pork meant a taste of home. She’d wipe the sour butter over the eggshells to keep the eggs fresh for when the hens stopped laying in winter.

  There were only a dozen in front of her in the line now; men with shadowed faces, gazing at the Store Master doling out the tiny black lumps of meat, as though they could taste the hard salt pork already; women with thin children clinging to their skirts. She glanced at their hands and then back at their faces. No one had the blisters or sores of the smallpox. No one had even mentioned the sickness this morning.

  Perhaps, she thought, only the Surgeon — and the Governor of course — know there’s the smallpox in the colony. Fools like these might panic, or use it as an excuse to do even less work.