Nanberry

by Jackie French

  The girl looked up. The o’possum sat on her lap, nibbling at a bunch of leaves. She dropped it back into its basket, as though embarrassed to be seen petting it. ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘Where’s Andrew?’

  ‘Out in the garden, sir. He’s pulling up the carrots and eating them, like he’s never seen a carrot before.’

  ‘I doubt he has,’ said the Surgeon dryly. ‘Don’t let him eat too many. There’ll be no more carrots till the new crop next summer.’ He opened the back door. ‘Andrew!’

  The boy didn’t even look up. The Surgeon called again. ‘Andrew?’

  The boy looked around, then stood up and made his way over to him. He wore his shirt and trousers, but no boots.

  ‘Father White?’

  ‘Come, Andrew, wash your hands and put your boots on.’ He spoke slowly and clearly, so the boy could understand each word.

  The child looked at him for a moment, a carrot in his hand. ‘My name is Nanberry Buckenau,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Not this again! Your name is Andrew White.’

  ‘My name is Nanberry.’ The child clutched his carrot, as though fearful of his adoptive father’s anger, but still determined.

  The Surgeon sighed. The lad was too young to realise a good English name would help him. And he had lost so much. Perhaps it was best to let him keep his old name for now. ‘Nanberry, then,’ he said. ‘Nanberry White.’

  The boy considered. Suddenly he smiled, his face brightening like the harbour gleamed after a winter. ‘Nanberry White!’ He held out the carrot to the Surgeon. ‘Are you hungry?’

  The Surgeon laughed. ‘Not for raw carrots, young man. We’re going down to the harbour.’

  The smile grew wider. For a second White thought that the lad was going to dance in his excitement. ‘To go in ship?’

  ‘In a boat. A big boat, not a little fishing boat. But it isn’t as big as a ship. A boat is a little ship.’

  ‘In a big boat!’ It was as though he had given the lad the crown jewels.

  Nanberry stared down at the harbour, the white caps of the waves gleaming in the sunlight. ‘Will more ships come soon? Big ships?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ the Surgeon lied. You couldn’t tell a child of the fear that no ship would ever come from England, that they had been forgotten, that some idiot in the Admiralty had retired and the whole project had been abandoned, to be found in the files in a decade, too late to send rescue. Perhaps there would never be a ship, or new stores, or gunpowder to keep them safe. And they would vanish into the vastness of this unknown continent. ‘Yes,’ he said again, almost to reassure himself. ‘A big ship will come soon.’

  ‘Father White? May-I-please,’ Nanberry made it sound like all one word, ‘go on a big ship when a big ship come?’

  ‘Yes, lad. Now put your boots on.’

  The boy ducked inside the storeroom, grabbed his boots and thrust his feet into them with no thought of stockings. ‘Father White, do we go on the boat to find birds?’

  The Surgeon felt a smile spreading across his face. The lad loved bird-watching as much as he did. He had an extraordinary talent for finding the creatures too. He could even stand still for half an hour, while the Surgeon sketched a honeyeater poking its beak into flowers, moving as little as possible so he didn’t scare the bird away.

  ‘Not this time, Andrew … I mean Nanberry. The Governor has a job for you to do. An important one.’

  The boy looked up at him trustingly. The Surgeon took the small fingers within his own. Black fingers, thin and dark against his own red and white hand.

  Yes, he was a good lad. Clever and helpful. But this boy was not his son, not really, just as the girl in there was not his daughter, nor the Governor a friend. Phillip was a good man, but that was, in truth, all they had in common: two good men among a company of villains, trying to do their best. He was alone, cast down to the bottom of the world, away from all that he held dear.

  He shut his eyes briefly, and prayed. If a ship came, let it bring not just food, but new orders, new soldiers to guard the colony, a new surgeon and news of a new posting for me. Please, oh Lord, let me go home.

  He opened his eyes, and forced a smile again for Andrew … no, Nanberry. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘The Governor is waiting.’

  Chapter 22

  NANBERRY

  SYDNEY HARBOUR; KAYEEMY (NOW MANLY COVE), 1 AUGUST 1789

  He was in a big boat!

  It was bigger than Father White’s fishing boat. Six men pulled at things called oars, making the boat fly across the water, while he sat with Father White and a man in a red coat.

  It was like magic, bouncing up and down so fast through the water. Already they were past two headlands, and heading for a third.

  No one had explained where they were going. He didn’t care. He was moving faster than a dolphin, faster than a whale!

  And then he saw it. Smoke — the small spiral of a cooking fire.

  The English didn’t make small fires like that.

  The sea and sky seemed to whirl around him. It was as though his past life had slapped him in the face. Some of his people were alive!

  Maybe Colbee was alive, and the Aunties. Maybe they had left in time, so the sickness hadn’t caught them too.

  Nanberry clutched the edge of the boat as the rowers changed course, heading towards the fire. He could make out a group of young warriors, fishing spears in their hands. There was no sign of women or children.

  Was one of those warriors Colbee, or another man he knew? He felt the blood thump through him as the boat drew closer.

  He could see the people’s faces now. Disappointment washed through him, like the cold south wind across the harbour. They were strangers, not Cadigal like him. Guringai, perhaps, or Dharug. No, he thought, this far across the harbour they would be Guringai.

  But what were Guringai warriors doing on the beach now spring was coming? This was the time everyone went inland along the river to Parramatta, to strip the bark for the next year’s canoes. Canoes only lasted one year and the bark was most easily stripped in big pieces after winter rain.

  How could the Guringai women fish if there were no new canoes? Had the women and children died? Was that why there were only warriors here? His world had been torn from him once. Now it seemed some of it was being given back to him, but in pieces he couldn’t understand.

  The boat was near the shore now. Four of the rowers jumped out and dragged it up onto the sand.

  The Guringai men stared at the boat without expression. They did not approach.

  Father White touched his shoulder. ‘Can you talk to them, lad?’ Nanberry nodded. The languages around the great harbour were close enough for all the clans to understand. He had learnt Guringai words, as well as Dharug and many others, at the Parramatta feasts too. ‘Tell them we are good people,’ Father White said slowly. ‘Say we give them much food if they come with us.’

  Nanberry nodded, despite his confusion.

  If some Guringai had survived perhaps some Cadigal had too. Should he leave Father White’s to look for them?

  But they had left him to die! Did he want to leave the land of boats and houses and wonderful new things? Did he want to leave Father White for a clan who had abandoned him to illness?

  ‘Tell the men to come over here,’ urged Father White.

  ‘Guwi!’ called Nanberry.

  The men glanced at him as though Nanberry was a dung beetle, then looked away.

  Nanberry felt a flush heat his body. The men were warriors, with the gap in their teeth from their yulang yirabadjang ceremony. Their noses were pierced with reeds or bones from the nanung ceremony too. Why would warriors like these speak to a little boy? But he was too embarrassed to explain this to Father White.

  The warriors began to walk away.

  ‘Wari, wari!’ cried Nanberry. Stop!

  Two of the warriors halted, the others kept walking. But even those two didn’t look at Nanberry directly.

  What should he sa
y? He couldn’t ask if Colbee and the others were alive. If they were dead their ghosts might haunt him if he spoke their names. Instead he said, ‘Do you know if Cadigal are here?’

  Neither of the warriors answered. They still didn’t look at Nanberry.

  ‘I am Cadigal,’ he offered desperately. ‘I am Nanberry. Please tell me if any Cadigal are alive!’

  The warriors still said nothing.

  Nanberry looked back at Father White and the other English. He had to make the warriors listen! ‘The white ghosts want you to come with them. They will give you all the food you want. Lots of meat, and fish. They have other foods too. There is bread and corn —’

  One of the warriors glanced at him and laughed. ‘What do we want with white-ghost food, little boy? We do not talk with little boys like you. Tell the white ghosts to send a man to talk to us. Go and play with the women.’

  Nanberry flushed again, glad that Father White didn’t understand the warrior’s speech. He had seen things these warriors never had. He had ridden in a boat! He had sat on a horse! He knew how to speak the white-ghost — the English — tongue. He could wear boots.

  Father White took him hunting and fishing and making pictures of the birds, just as though he was a warrior already.

  The warriors were strangers, even if they had the same colour skin as him.

  All at once he knew what he wanted to be now. I will be English, he thought. I will forget the ghosts of Cadigal. I will stay with Father White. I will eat corn and sit on chairs. One day I will go in a big ship with sails.

  ‘Just get them natives close enough so we can grab one,’ muttered a man in a red coat.

  Nanberry forced himself to smile as though a storm wasn’t raging inside. He beckoned to the men, and pointed to the boat.

  The warrior who had spoken to him laughed. He and his friend turned their backs. They leapt up across the boulders and out of sight.

  Would Father White be angry? But Father White patted his shoulder. ‘You did your best, lad. That is all any of us can do.’

  Nanberry didn’t understand all of the words, but he understood their meaning. He sat close to Father White as the boat bounced across the harbour again, forcing himself not to look back towards the beach where the warriors had vanished.

  The world he had known was gone, even if some of its people had survived.

  Yes, he would be English now.

  Chapter 23

  NANBERRY

  SYDNEY COVE; WOOLARA, 25 NOVEMBER 1789

  ‘Come on, lad. You must know more than that.’

  Nanberry looked helplessly from the man called Mr Tench to Father White. Mr Tench wanted to know if there were rivers and grasslands beyond the land explored by the colony. But Nanberry didn’t have the words to explain how to find them. He’d never even been to the big river to the north, or across the mountains — he’d only heard about those places when the clans met to feast at Parramatta.

  But how could he explain all that?

  ‘He’s only a lad,’ said Father White. ‘You can’t expect maps from a boy.’

  ‘Natives!’ The yell came from down the hill. One of the convict porters puffed towards them. ‘Mr Bradley were out fishin’, and caught some natives! They’re coming in to the harbour now.’

  Nanberry followed Father White and Mr Tench as they ran down to the water. People in smelly trousers and ragged skirts crowded on the shore, staring at the boat skimming towards them.

  Father White pushed his way through the rabble, holding Nanberry by the hand. ‘Do you know these natives, lad?’

  Nanberry gazed at the boat. His heart leapt like a dolphin. Colbee! And he knew the other man too. ‘Colbee!’ he yelled, dancing up and down in his excitement. ‘Bennelong!’

  Father White smiled at Mr Tench. ‘I would say the boy knows them,’ he said dryly.

  Nanberry hunted for words to explain. ‘Colbee is very big warrior. Great man. Very, very great man. Wollarawarre Bennelong is a … a man.’

  ‘Not a great warrior?’ asked Father White. He looked amused.

  Nanberry hardly listened. He had only met Wollarawarre Bennelong a few times.

  Colbee! His determination to forget his people vanished in his joy. Some of his clan lived!

  The boat was pulled up onto the shore. Guards stepped forward to grab the two dark-skinned men. They were bound by ropes, tight around their hands and legs and bodies. Bennelong looked frightened, but Colbee stared ahead unseeing. His face was scarred.

  He has had the smallpox, thought Nanberry. But he survived, like me. ‘Colbee! Colbee!’ he called.

  Colbee glanced at him, then looked away.

  Nanberry frowned at his shirt and trousers. He doesn’t recognise me, he thought. I have grown too …

  ‘It’s almost as good as a hanging,’ said a woman behind him. Her breath was foul and her two teeth were yellow. ‘Look at them big savages, naked as the day they was born!’

  ‘Wouldn’t do for you, Madge,’ said another woman. ‘You likes ’em hairy, don’t you?’

  Both women dissolved into shrieks of laughter.

  ‘Colbee!’ cried Nanberry again.

  But neither man even glanced around as they were led away.

  Father White looked down at Nanberry. ‘Come up to the Governor’s house,’ he said gently. ‘You can talk to them there.’

  They walked behind the captured men, the crowd yelling in excitement. It was frightening, being in the middle of so many loud people. Nanberry was glad of Father White, solid beside him. Colbee still didn’t turn around and see him.

  It was good to be inside the Governor’s house. So big, room after room. The Governor stood to meet them, with Booroong, dressed in an English skirt and shoes, and Mrs Johnson and the Reverend Johnson too.

  Booroong gave a shriek of joy. ‘Colbee! Bennelong!’ She ran to meet them, her shoes making clapping noises on the wooden floor, then stopped. Neither man even glanced at her.

  Booroong crept over to Nanberry. ‘Why don’t they speak? Why don’t they even look at us?’

  ‘I think they are scared,’ whispered Nanberry, in their own language.

  ‘Warriors are never scared.’

  ‘Warriors don’t show that they are scared.’

  ‘Perhaps they think we’re ghosts,’ Booroong’s voice held despair.

  They watched as the two men were led off.

  It was morning before he was taken to the hut where Colbee and Bennelong were imprisoned. The door creaked open. Nanberry stared at the two men.

  Their fine beards had been shaved off, and their hair too. Nanberry had seen the patients at the hospital shaved — Father White said it was to get rid of lice, the tiny creatures that made your head itch. The warriors had been dressed in trousers and shirts too. But worse was the big iron ring each had on his leg, tethering him via a rope to a convict.

  Nanberry shivered. ‘No,’ he said to Father White. He pointed to the ropes. You didn’t keep warriors penned like eels in a trap.

  ‘They tried to escape last night,’ said Father White gently. ‘Chewed through their ropes. Luckily savages don’t know how to open doors or windows.’

  Savages. He had heard the word before but didn’t quite know what it meant. Someone who didn’t know about doors or windows, he supposed, but it sounded worse than that.

  Behind them officers in uniforms crowded in to watch the show.

  ‘Speak to them, boy,’ urged Father White. ‘You said their names were Colbee and Bennelong?’

  ‘He is Gringgerry Gibba Kenara Colbee of the Cadigal.’ Nanberry gave the full name. ‘He is my uncle. The other man is Wollarawarre Bennelong of the Wangan people.’ He took a deep breath and turned to the two captive men. ‘It is me, Nanberry.’

  Once again, neither man looked at him. Colbee stared unseeing at the door. Bennelong gazed at the officers.

  ‘Are you using the right language, boy?’ asked one of the officers.

  ‘The lad knows his own language,’ snapped F
ather White.

  ‘They … they do not want to talk to me,’ said Nanberry quietly. ‘They are angry.’ And scared, he thought, but he couldn’t say that. They want a warrior to speak to them, one who has had his tooth knocked out, not a boy like me.

  He couldn’t say that either.

  ‘Never mind, lad,’ said Father White. He shrugged. ‘We’ll give them a few days to settle down.’

  Day after day Father White took Nanberry down to the hut to see the prisoners. Sometimes the warriors were still eating — giant platters of fish that they gnawed down to the bones, and wine and bread.

  But the men never spoke to the boy.

  At last, twelve days after Colbee and Bennelong’s capture, Big Lon brought the news at supper.

  ‘The native has escaped!’

  ‘How, man?’ demanded Father White.

  ‘They was eatin’ their suppers outside when he just plucked off the rope and jumped the fence. He were into the bush afore any could bar him.’

  ‘And the other?’

  Big Lon’s face broke into a gap-toothed grin. ‘Tremblin’ like he were waitin’ for the lash, he’s that scared. Thinks they is goin’ to hang him, I reckon.’

  Nanberry put down his spoon. He stared at his meat pudding. So it was Colbee who had escaped. Colbee would never show fear like that.

  Colbee, free again.

  It had hurt to see a great warrior tied by the leg, shamed in front of so many people. But it had hurt more that his uncle hadn’t spoken so much as a word to him.

  ‘I reckon that savage will talk to the lad now,’ said Big Lon gleefully. ‘Now he’s alone an’ all.’

  Bennelong sat on the dirt floor in the hut. His convict keeper stared, bored, out of the window as he held Bennelong’s rope. Bennelong glanced up as the Governor, Mr Tench, Father White and Nanberry came into the room.

  ‘Tell Bennelong he is not to be frightened,’ said Governor Phillip.

  Nanberry hesitated. How could a boy say that to a warrior? But the Governor was the leader of the colony. His leader …

  ‘The Governor — the beanga, father of the colony — says you need not be afraid.’