Nanberry

by Jackie French

  Didn’t they have the chance now to make a new life for themselves? No chains around their ankles — not unless they committed another crime here. They’d been given tools to dig with and seeds to plant, land for huts and gardens, saws and hammers, as well as pots to cook in. But half the tools had been lost or broken, or simply thrown away.

  She wrinkled her nose at the stench of the man in front of her. Imagine a cove like him touching you! She’d warrant not one in the line besides her had washed since they’d come ashore.

  The convict next to her — a long-limbed, almost toothless man — took his filled pannikin from the Store Master and hurried off. She held out her wooden bucket and some china cups. The other convicts could get their flour and dried peas and meat all mixed together if they liked. ‘Rations for me and for Surgeon White.’

  ‘Aye, I remember. Maria Kent.’ The young man ticked off her name and Surgeon White’s and ladled out her dried peas. His nails were clean, she noticed. She looked up at his face.

  He was only a few years older than her, and his ginger whiskers were tidy — there were no razors for convicts, but most had access to scissors. His hair was trimmed too, and clean.

  He grinned at her suddenly. His teeth looked clean as well, strong and white. ‘Fellow were here earlier, asking for Surgeon White’s rations. But I said as you collected them.’

  ‘Big Lon, I’ll warrant.’

  The Store Master nodded. ‘Big fellow, name of Laurence. I told him to come back with a chit from the Surgeon next time. It’s the gallows for stealing food.’ He looked at her steadily. ‘You want me to put him on a charge?’

  She hesitated. Big Lon was a fool, and lazy. He ate as well as she did, so he had no need to cheat the rations. But to see him hanged, dangling there on the gibbet, his tongue swollen … no, she couldn’t do that.

  She shook her head. ‘I’ll give him a rollicking. He won’t try it again.’

  ‘You will and all too.’ The Store Master looked at her admiringly.

  She blushed. Many men had tried to paw her, but she wasn’t used to admiration. ‘I’d best be off,’ she said. ‘The Surgeon will be wanting his meal.’

  The young man nodded. ‘I’m Jack Jackson,’ he said. He lifted his cap.

  She gave a tiny curtsey, and heard snickers from a woman in the queue behind. Few bothered with good manners here at the end of the world.

  ‘I’m pleased to meet you, Mr Jackson.’ She hefted her bucket up and looked down at the meagre contents. It’s a pity, she thought, that you can’t get a ration for an o’possum. But maybe it had died while she was out …

  It hadn’t.

  She gazed down at the tiny creature. It was so deeply asleep it didn’t stir as she ran a finger across its long soft fur.

  She sighed, and put the stores in a sea chest, where she hoped the o’possum couldn’t muck them up, keeping back the peas and flour. The Surgeon liked pease pudding, all boiled in a cloth till it was firm and savoury. He could have some hot tonight when he came in, and take some cold to the hospital tomorrow. She’d need to make fresh soda bread too.

  She put more wood on the fire — she liked the fresh smell of wood smoke after London’s yellow coal smoke — and mixed the soda bread. The secret of good soda bread was quick making and quick cooking.

  The cooked soda bread smelt so good that it was hard not to gulp it all, leaving none for the Surgeon. She was even used to the sour taste of weevils now. She forced herself to take only a third of the bread, spreading the crust with the end of the gravy from last night’s stew.

  Something rustled on the table. It was the o’possum. It peered up from its sack, big black eyes wide and frightened. Impulsively she dipped a bit of the fresh soda bread into a mug of cold sarsaparilla tea, and handed it to the creature. It took it in both paws, then bent its head, its eyes still on hers, and nibbled it.

  The tiny animal looked so silly she had to laugh. Whoever heard of a beast holding its food like that?

  The o’possum finished the bread, licked its paws thoughtfully, then abruptly scampered down out of the sack onto the floor and up her skirts onto her lap.

  Maria gave a startled squeak, then froze. Would it get into her hair again?

  But the o’possum just crouched in her lap, staring up at her, and sniffing with its tiny pink nose. Suddenly it moved. She started to push it away before it could scratch her or clamber further up her dress. But instead it leant over to her hands. Before she knew it a tiny rough tongue licked at her fingers.

  She nearly laughed. It was almost like a gentleman kissing a lady’s hand. What did the creature think it was doing?

  It could smell the fresh bread on her hand, she realised. It was trying to find more crumbs to eat. Well, the remaining bread was too precious to give an o’possum. It could make do with cold potatoes.

  She picked it up, carefully, in case it bit her, and put it on the floor. But before she could fetch a potato it clambered up the table and into its sack again.

  Who’d have thought it? she thought, a bit breathlessly. Kissed by an o’possum. And she found she was smiling as she swung the broom up to tidy away the cobwebs.

  Chapter 8

  NANBERRY

  THE LAND AND TIME OF SICKNESS

  There was a time that was no real time, and no real place. He lay in a hut that was the wrong shape and smell, with no sounds of the sea or trees. Voices barked around him instead, white-ghost voices, white-ghost smells.

  Hands washed him with cool water. Hands lifted water to his lips. Sometimes other liquids came in the strange hard coolamons. He drank them too.

  He listened for the voice of the man who had brought him here.

  ‘How is the boy doing?’

  ‘Well enough, sir. He ate some fish — even tried to cook it himself on the fire. He might just make it.’

  ‘He’s young and strong. The old man?’

  ‘Died last night, sir. Does Yer Honour want to examine him afore we bury the body?’

  ‘I think not.’ The voice was tired. ‘There is no shortage of bodies to examine now.’

  The sounds had meaning. He had to work them out. He had to find out where he was too. Had the white ghosts taken him across the horizon, into the land of ghosts?

  A kookaburra laughed. Nanberry relaxed. A ghost land wouldn’t have kookaburras. The sickness killed quickly, but he was still alive. Tomorrow I will be well, he thought, as he shut his eyes again. Tomorrow or some other time …

  Chapter 9

  SURGEON WHITE

  PORT JACKSON; COCKLE BAY HOSPITAL; SYDNEY COVE, 8 MAY 1789

  It had been nearly a month since he’d brought the boy and the old man to the hospital. Each day since then the fishermen had reported more sick and dying natives: hundreds of bodies, some in every cove around the harbour.

  The Surgeon had ordered that any still alive should be brought to the hospital. But only two had survived long enough to be placed on a bed, another boy and a girl. The boy had died. The girl was still alive. So was the first boy that they had brought in.

  Now Surgeon White stood next to Arabanoo on the sand of yet another beach and gazed at the bodies scattered among the lapping waves in the early morning light. Some had been dead for days, their bodies pecked at by the gulls. Others might have died only an hour before.

  Arabanoo stood, his hands limply at his sides. ‘Bo-ee! Dead!’ he cried. ‘All dead.’

  The Surgeon touched Arabanoo’s shoulder gently. What did you say to a man when his whole people died? ‘I’m sorry …’ he began.

  Arabanoo stared at the ground.

  The Surgeon ordered the rowers to take them to the coves nearby, in the desperate hope there might be more survivors. But each beach was dark with bodies.

  Arabanoo said nothing. His eyes were full of pain.

  At last they headed back to Sydney Cove. The Surgeon watched as one of the convicts led Arabanoo back to the bark hut where he was kept prisoner, then he headed over the stream to the hospita
l on the west side of the colony.

  His heart clenched with fear as he approached the hospital. Would there be convicts with the smallpox waiting for him?

  Hospital! Huts of mud and wattle, with dirt floors and bark roofs. No medicines left besides the native remedies he’d learnt from Arabanoo. No help for thousands of fierce, storm-racked miles.

  ‘Well?’ he demanded as he stepped into the first hut.

  The convict assistant shook his head. ‘No smallpox yet, sir.’

  ‘Thank God. What have we got then?’

  ‘Man who chopped his finger off. I put a string around it to stop the bleedin’. Boy with a cut head. Needs stitchin’.’

  The Surgeon nodded. Balmain could have, should have, treated them both. But as usual his assistant was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Bring me a hot iron,’ he said curtly. He beckoned to the man in the bloodstained shirt. ‘Shut your eyes.’

  The man screamed as the end of his finger was touched to the red-hot iron. But the wound would be safe now. The man would die neither of blood loss nor infection.

  It took only a minute to stitch the other wound.

  ‘Have the assistants seen to all the patients?’ They had five in the hospital just now: a burns case, a spearing, a head wound and an ulcerated foot, as well as a woman with childbirth fever. He doubted she’d live to see the evening, though the others should survive.

  ‘Yes, sir. Chamberpots been emptied, dressings changed and bandages washed, floors swept. Gave ’em all their soup for breakfast too. Just as you ordered, sir.’

  He doubted it had been just as he ordered. But there wasn’t time just now to check.

  At last the Surgeon trudged down to the small isolation hut housing the smallpox cases. The girl, Booroong, had still been breathing when he’d left this morning. Would she be alive now?

  She was, curled in sleep, her face to the wall. The boy looked up from his plank bed with frightened eyes. The Surgeon forced himself to smile. A bright lad. He’d already learnt a few English words even though he was sick.

  ‘Good morning, lad. How are you today?’ The Surgeon touched his forehead. ‘Hot?’

  ‘Good morning.’ The boy spoke the words cautiously, as though they might bite him. ‘No hot.’

  ‘Good. We’ll soon have you up again.’ He smiled again, hoping to make the boy smile back.

  The boy stared at him, obviously trying to work out what his words meant. Ha! thought the Surgeon. The boy was no fool. Even Arabanoo hadn’t learnt as much this quickly.

  The Surgeon bent down to the girl and felt her forehead. It was cool again, and she was breathing steadily.

  She and the boy would live. Three natives left — two children and Arabanoo — out of how many? thought the Surgeon.

  He glanced out the door. The harbour had turned grey. It would be dark soon. He began the long march away from the hospital and convict huts and back again over the Tank Stream, to his own home among the slightly better dwellings of the marines.

  Sleep, he thought, as he opened his sagging front door, and dreams of England and green fields … Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flicker of white on the harbour.

  He turned, and stared, unbelieving. A ship! He shaded his eyes, peering as the sails bobbed against the blue. No, not the supply ship from England they had been longing for, had expected now for over a year. It was the colony’s tiny ship Sirius, sent to the Cape months before to bring desperately needed flour and seeds for planting.

  It had made it back!

  ‘Maria!’

  ‘What is it, sir?’ She ran out, looking so scared he had to reassure her. He pointed at the tiny ship in the harbour. ‘Sir, are we saved?’

  He had to laugh at that. ‘Scarcely. She’s got supplies for another four months, at most. But at least we’ll have seed to plant this spring, and fresh flour instead of weevils. Now what’s for dinner?’

  ‘Fish stew, sir, and maize pudding. Sir, about the o’possum …’

  He shook his head, tiredness overcoming him again. ‘I don’t have time to preserve it tonight. Tomorrow maybe, or the day after … Now, where is this fish stew?’

  Chapter 10

  NANBERRY

  WHITE-GHOST CAMP, THE TIME OF FEAR AND

  CONFUSION (10 MAY 1789)

  Nanberry lay without moving on the thing called bed. It was made of wood and set above the ground, with sides on it, like a giant container for grass seeds. A thing called pallet was on top of it: some strange skin covering filled with bracken. It crunched when he moved. On the other side of the room Arabanoo sat next to the girl, Booroong, as she slept.

  His world had vanished. ‘Dead,’ whispered Arabanoo to the sleeping girl again. ‘All the people dead.’

  Not just his family, thought Nanberry, but bodies on every beach.

  Everyone dead.

  The laughter, the stories, the world. Gone.

  Would their ghosts whisper on the wind?

  Booroong muttered, half awake. Arabanoo held her tenderly. He lifted a coolamon of water for her to drink, and stroked her hair. Booroong and Arabanoo were from the same clan, which was why Arabanoo talked to her, not him. Booroong had fourteen summers. She was a woman now, though when she was brought in she had been wearing a bungu-skin apron to show she wasn’t married yet. Nanberry was nothing to a warrior like Arabanoo — even a captive one — not till he was initiated as a man.

  But Nanberry could never be a warrior now, unless Arabanoo did the ceremony alone. Nanberry would never be allowed to carry spears, never be able to marry. Would he be a boy forever without the proper rites?

  He lifted the pale cloth he was wearing and looked at the sores on his skin. They were starting to form scabs.

  He was going to live. Just him and Booroong and Arabanoo. Could a warrior, a boy and a girl re-create a people?

  Maybe Arabanoo would marry Booroong. But where could they live? People had died at every beach and every stream. How could they live where their family ghosts must roam?

  Suddenly Arabanoo gave a cry. Nanberry sat up, as Arabanoo opened the cloth — his shirt — and stared at his own chest.

  White blisters puckered the dark skin.

  Arabanoo looked at the blisters for a moment, then stood up, and walked to the door. He looked out at the harbour. The empty harbour, thought Nanberry. No women singing in their canoes as they cooked fish for the small children. No warriors on the rocks with spears.

  At last Arabanoo had looked enough. He came back into the hut, and sat on the thing called chair, as though to wait.

  Nanberry hoped the man called Surgeon would come again soon. The Surgeon had saved him, and Booroong. Maybe he could save Arabanoo too. For only Arabanoo now knew how to make a warrior.

  Chapter 11

  SURGEON WHITE

  COCKLE BAY HOSPITAL, 18 MAY 1789

  Arabanoo was dying.

  The Surgeon sat in the small isolation hut — shoddy, leaking, like every building in this wretched place — and held the old man’s hand. Arabanoo muttered in his fever.

  The Surgeon had ordered the convict orderlies to place the bed so that the translator could see out the door to the tree-clad harbour, the sunlight streaming down like gold rain into the water. But for the past few hours Arabanoo had been beyond seeing anything. His skin was crusted with pustules and his breath bubbled in his chest.

  The Surgeon bit his lip. He had tried every potion he knew: willow bark to bring the fever down, the sap from a red gum tree to open his bowels, even the fern root that Arabanoo had showed him how to use for dysentery. He could cut off a wounded leg and cauterise it with pitch; he could sew up a split head. But against the smallpox he was powerless. If only he had laudanum left, to ease the old man’s suffering. And Arabanoo had borne it all with the serenity with which he’d faced his captivity, the gentleness with which he treated all he met, from the most ragged convict child to the Governor. Phillip’s plan to use the old man as an ambassador was dying too.

  Th
ere had still been no smallpox cases among the convicts or marines. But surely they couldn’t escape a disease as deadly as this for long.

  Further inside the hut the boy, Nanberry, seemed to sleep. Mrs Johnson, the clergyman’s wife, had taken the girl, Booroong, to her home to nurse. She would adopt the girl, she said, and try to train her to be a decent servant.

  Booroong would be safe with the Johnsons.

  ‘Bado! Bado!’ Arabanoo’s voice was so weak the Surgeon had to bend to hear his words. At least the old man was conscious again. Bado meant water, he knew that much. He held a mug to the man’s cracked lips, and watched him sip.

  Arabanoo turned his head so he could see Nanberry. He pulled at the Surgeon’s hand. His eyes pleaded.

  The Surgeon realised what Arabanoo was asking.

  ‘I’ll look after the lad. I promise.’ He meant it. They had taken so much from this man already: his freedom, his people, and now his life. The least he could do was to make sure the child was safe.

  Arabanoo muttered in his fever. The Surgeon gripped his hand again, and the old man grew quiet.

  No man should die like this, away from his people.

  Surgeon White looked out again at the blue harbour.

  He was as lonely as Arabanoo. One could be lonely even with his countrymen around him. Desperately, deeply, and with no end in sight. Who could he share his fears with, here at the end of the world? Only the Governor was in any way a gentleman, and he too was burdened with more than he could stand.

  All of the other officers had provided themselves with a woman — or even more than one — poor convict wretches who had no choice but to smile and try to please their masters.

  He smiled at the thought of Maria. The girl was safe with him. He at least wouldn’t lay hands upon a child.

  Back in England you might meet a man to befriend or a woman to be a wife at the next ball or dinner. But here it was the same faces every day.