Barney and the Secret of the Whales

by Jackie French

  ‘He doesn’t have to give me anything, sir.’ I didn’t add ‘for saving his life’ for no one had ever said the words.

  ‘Peg-Leg Tom doesn’t like to be beholden. Says that if he pays you his share of the voyage, then once you’re off the ship he can forget you, and good riddance.’ He smiled to take the sting from the words. ‘So take our coins and good luck to you, Barney Bean.’

  Captain Melvill held his hand out. I shook it.

  I heard him march back up to the quarterdeck, to his whalebone captain’s chair. I looked at the coins in my hand.

  I wanted to fling them overboard, or give them back to Peg-Leg Tom. But Captain Melvill had been kind. I doubted many captains would tear up a boy’s papers and let him go free. Nor could I shame Peg-Leg Tom by giving his money back, so he must sail the seas beholden to a boy who’d rather grow carrots than hunt whales.

  So I put the coins in my pocket. I watched the shore get closer, and closer still. Trees, and rocks, and darker green gullies where I knew bats rested during the day. A wide rock ledge with two old native women resting on it, and Indian children swimming in the rippling waves. I craned to check if Birrung might be there too, but couldn’t see her.

  Garden Island, with its gardens. The ship changed course slightly and there was the colony, nestled among the trees, smoke rising from chimneys and cook fires, the big scar that was the brickworks, the cleared fields. As I looked, I could see people pointing, yelling, running down to the quay. Ships’ arrivals were always the biggest news of the colony, even if we’d only been away a few weeks.

  The last time I’d sailed into this harbour I had been imprisoned below, and there had been nothing but trees and Indians. Now there were houses — well, mostly huts, but a few good houses among them. I had been so scared, back then, thinking the natives might murder us, or giant beasts eat us.

  I had left this place to make a fortune, and to see the world. I had come back with three silver pieces and . . .

  Myself, I thought. I know who I am now. I am Barney Bean, who lives in New South Wales and loves growing potatoes and carrots, and seeing lambs wave their tails in spring, and parrots screeching through the trees.

  The ship sailed closer. Captain Melvill yelled an order. Sailors scrambled up the masts and out on the cross yards to furl the sails. I heard the splash as the anchor dropped.

  I leaned over the gunwale. I could see our house! The young apple trees were green behind it and there was washing on the line. And down on the shore in the crowd Elsie would be waiting for me.

  I stared at them, trying to find the small figure in her blue dress. Where was she? Surely she would’ve come running down as soon as she heard the ship was sailing into the harbour.

  I was home.

  CHAPTER 15

  Where is Elsie?

  It seemed like ten years before I could climb down the ladder into a boat to take me and my bundle to the shore. The ship’s boats and colony’s fishing boats were filled with more important people than me. Even Governor Phillip arrived to find out how the whaling had gone.

  None of the whalers stopped to farewell me. I waited my turn without a single word or wave. At last I threw my bundle down and clambered after it. The rowers pulled at the oars, taking us to shore.

  Most of the crowd had gone now, as there was nothing more to see. But surely Elsie would be waiting for me. I still couldn’t see her, but maybe she was under the shade of a tree. As soon as I stepped out of the boat, she’d run up to me . . .

  Two of the sailors jumped out as we approached Sydney Cove, and pulled the boat up onto the sandy mud. I followed them, then nearly stumbled. My legs were as rubbery as when I’d first arrived here, after all the months at sea. It felt as if the earth was rocking back and forth just like the waves had been. I sloshed through the mud, up to the grass, then looked around.

  Two toothless convicts were smoking pipes under a tree. A woman in a tight dress brought out a tray of homemade ale from a hut to a group of sailors. Call-Me-Bob was among them. He carefully didn’t look at me. None of the others did either. I was a landlubber now, not one of them.

  I gazed around. No Elsie! Everyone in the colony knew when a ship came in! As soon as the flag was raised on the headland, everyone dropped tools and ran to the harbour, hoping for supplies, news from England . . .

  What had happened to her? Terror bit me, stronger even than when I’d faced the shark. Had the brown snake bitten her?

  Why wasn’t Mr Johnson there either, or Mrs Johnson? Had the brown snake bitten the whole household? Had the house burned down . . .?

  Don’t be silly, I told myself. You saw the house from the ship. There was washing waving in the wind behind it.

  But why wasn’t anyone there to meet me? And where was Elsie? I felt a hollow in my heart that had been so full, a few hours before. It wasn’t home without Elsie!

  I pounded up the hill to our house so fast I forgot my sea legs. I looked for any sign that something was wrong as I approached. It seemed almost just as I’d left it, the corn a bit higher, the fruit swelling on the young trees. The potatoes needed weeding and hilling . . .

  But no people. Not even old Scruggins watering the pumpkins. I glanced up at the sky, then the shadows. Mid-afternoon, and the bell had gone for convicts to stop work. That explained no old Scruggins.

  But where were the others?

  I burst through the front door as if there were a bushfire behind me. ‘Elsie?’ I yelled, looking around.

  No answer. But the back door was open, and I could smell smoke. I raced through it, and into the garden. ‘Elsie!’

  ‘Shhh.’ Sally looked up from basting a rooster on the fireplace, like I’d never been away. ‘You’ll wake the baby. The missus has only just got her to sleep.’

  That explained why Mrs Johnson hadn’t been at the harbour. ‘Where’s Elsie? And Mr Johnson?’

  ‘The master’s sailed to Norfolk Island.’ Sally gave the rooster another turn on the spit.

  I stared. ‘Not for good!’ Was Mrs Johnson going to join him as soon as he had a house for her there? Had I finally come home to find that it was about to vanish?

  ‘Of course not, you sluggard.’ Sally would never have dared to use that word if Mr Johnson were here. It wasn’t one of the really bad ones, but he didn’t hold with insulting people. ‘He’s gone to do marrying and prayers and things like that. He told us he’d be back by Christmas, sure as butter.’

  ‘And Elsie?’

  ‘Mrs Macarthur asked if Elsie would cook for a dinner she’s giving the officers tonight. The missus gave her leave to go.’ The Macarthurs didn’t like the Johnsons much, but they were important people in the colony. I imagined Mrs Johnson thought it wise to please Mrs Macarthur with Elsie’s cooking.

  ‘I hope Mrs Macarthur’s paying her,’ I muttered. ‘Elsie ain’t no . . . I mean Elsie isn’t a convict to be ordered around with no wages. There wasn’t anyone to meet me,’ I added, then flushed, because I sounded sulky, not like a sailor coming back from adventures at sea.

  ‘And how could we?’ demanded Sally, waving her basting spoon. ‘You think a welcome-home dinner cooks itself, boy? Soon as we saw the flag raised, the missus said, “That will be the Britannia coming back.” She dug the carrots and potatoes for dinner herself, and did the peas, while I plucked the fattest rooster in the pen.’

  ‘For me?’

  ‘No, for the goat’s dinner,’ said Sally scornfully, waving away the flies. ‘’Course it’s for you. Never knew a boy with such an appetite either. How long you staying for?’

  ‘Forever,’ I said. ‘Whaling’s not for me.’

  ‘Well!’ Sally looked as pleased as if every rooster in the world had promised it’d lose its feathers as soon as she asked it to. She dropped the spoon and gave me the biggest hug of my life, smelling of hot flour and the dripping she used to soften her hands. It surprised me: I didn’t think Sally even liked me. I think it surprised her too.

  She stepped back. ‘Don’
t just stand there, boy. Put your bundle away. And where’s my good cake tin?’

  ‘I forgot it.’

  She sighed. ‘I might have known. Off with you, and have a proper scrub before you come into my clean kitchen again. I’ll be checking behind your ears, so don’t you miss anywhere.’

  ‘Yes, Sally.’

  ‘And put some liniment on those hands of yours.’

  ‘Yes, Sally.’

  ‘And see if the hens have laid any more eggs for a custard. And hurry, because I don’t want my good rooster drying out.’

  I grinned at her, and padded up the stairs to the attic where I slept. Yes, I was home.

  Mrs Johnson kissed me when I came in from the washhouse, and smiled and hugged me when I said I wasn’t going to sea again.

  ‘We need a man about the house with Mr Johnson away,’ she said. I felt prouder than I had when I first climbed the mast. Proudest day of my life, I reckon.

  Mrs Johnson gave a prayer of thanksgiving for my safe delivery when she said grace before the meal, and another prayer hoping that Mr Johnson’s ship had reached Norfolk Island safely and that no waves or wind would buffet him so he could come back to us.

  ‘Amen,’ I said loudly. I hated thinking of Mr Johnson facing those giant waves. I’d been going to tell everyone how big those waves had been. But I couldn’t now, not with Mr Johnson still to sail home.

  And it was home. There was roast rooster with giblet sauce and roast potatoes and carrots and turnips and parsnips and rhubarb pudding and custard. Milbah woke up and sat on Mrs Johnson’s lap and dribbled, and Mrs Johnson told me all the colony news: how the starving convicts were getting better in Mr White’s hospital, and that the hens were laying well again, and that the captains of the convict ships had been asked to bring another thousand tons of supplies for the colony but had metal and rope to sell in Bombay instead, and how two of the convict women in the school were reading so well she had made them teachers.

  And I ate and listened, and had a second helping of rooster and potatoes and a third helping of rhubarb pudding, then played horsie with Milbah on my knee.

  But it all seemed wrong without Elsie.

  I pushed back my chair.

  I could have found Elsie just by following the smell of fresh bread rolls wafting up the muddy track. Elsie made the best bread in the whole colony.

  But I knew where Captain Macarthur’s house was. Everybody did. Captain Macarthur was a member of the New South Wales Corps that had come on the Second Fleet and who were already making themselves fortunes buying all the stock on the ships then selling it at a profit. Those officers lived like gentlemen. I knew not to knock on the front door, at the Macarthurs’.

  The back door was open to let out some of the cooking heat. And there was Elsie, in her blue dress and a big white apron, bent over three fat ducks roasting on the spit. I knocked on the doorjamb and she turned.

  ‘Barney!’

  I blinked. Had Elsie really said my name?

  But before I could say anything, she was hugging me, tight as an octopus, like she’d never let me go. I hugged her back, then stood and studied her. She looked fine, even with flour in her hair. ‘Elsie, did you just speak?’

  For a moment she looked . . . surprised? Guilty? I couldn’t tell. Then she grinned. Not a little smile, but a true wide grin. She took off her apron and slung it over her shoulder, then took my hand. She led me out of the kitchen, leaving Mrs Macarthur’s ducks to burn.

  Those burned ducks weren’t going to make Mrs Macarthur any friendlier with the Johnsons, but I didn’t care. I was with Elsie again.

  We held hands, running up the muddy track to home, past the convict huts with sagging roofs, the officers in their red uniforms with white hands that never touched a spade, women staggering like ragged skeletons, still recovering from the voyage here.

  But the breeze sang salt and sunlight across the harbour, and Sally had promised fried-up potatoes and leftover rooster for supper, and one of her boiled corn puddings, and Mrs Johnson would read to us while her foot rocked Milbah’s cradle.

  It was so good I yelled with joy, and Elsie laughed. I didn’t know if I had heard her speak or not, but she had a pretty laugh.

  But then I thought of the coins Captain Melvill had given me, of the dead whale that might be living if I hadn’t spied it. And my laughter dried up like a shallow well in summer.

  CHAPTER 16

  Home!

  Mr Johnson was back before Christmas, just like he promised, safe off the Queen. Elsie saw the flag first and ran to the potato patch where I was digging and tugged my hand to see it too. So except for Sally we were all down at the beach as Mr Johnson was rowed ashore, brown as a walnut from his time at sea and hungry as a horse, he said, for a proper dinner.

  It was even finer than the one to welcome me. Sally had made two vast plum puddings, one to boil again for his return and one to keep for Christmas, and red currant sauce for the rooster, because the currant bushes were fruiting at last, and the first cucumbers and melons of summer ripe too, just like they were as happy as we were to see him.

  I didn’t want to spoil his homecoming. So I waited till we’d had dinner, and he’d told us about Norfolk Island, all green floating in the blue sea, and Mrs Johnson had told him our news, and then evening prayers, because it was dark and bedtime by then.

  So it wasn’t till after morning prayers that I said, ‘Mr Johnson, could I have a word with you in your study, please?’ I was proud of the gentleman-like way I said it too.

  Mr Johnson looked startled. ‘Of course.’

  He led the way across the big main room and into his study, then shut the door behind us. ‘What is it, Barney?’

  I dug the silver coins out of my pocket and held them out to him. ‘I want you to have these, sir. To build your church.’

  He looked at them, startled once more. ‘Do you know how much these coins are worth?’

  I didn’t know their names, but I knew how much they would buy. Enough sheep or goats to start my own herd. I knew what the coins weren’t worth too.

  They weren’t worth a whale’s life.

  ‘Are you sure you want to give these away, Barney?’

  I wanted to tell Mr Johnson how he’d taught me about Judas getting thirty pieces of silver for betraying Jesus. And now I’d got three pieces of silver for helping destroy that whale. But I’m better at thinking things than saying them.

  Mr Johnson was good at seeing what others were thinking. He nodded and took the pieces of silver, then unlocked his big sea chest and put them inside, then locked it up again.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘It is a wonderful donation, Barney, and to the best cause in this country. But there is another matter I need to speak to you about.’

  My heart froze. Was he going to tell me he and Mrs Johnson had decided to go back to England when the other ships that had brought the convicts sailed home? And I’d just given away the only coins Elsie and I had . . .

  Instead he said, ‘You have been a hard and faithful worker these past two years, as well as a much loved member of our household. It is time I paid you your wages.’

  He took the key and opened the chest again, then removed the silver pieces. He held them out to me. ‘Your wages, Barney Bean.’

  I looked at them. They weren’t whale money now. They were wages from a good man, for good work I’d done. Somehow Mr Johnson had changed those coins just by putting them in his sea chest and then taking them out again.

  I took them, grinned, then handed them back to him. ‘Will you keep them for me, sir? Less chance of some blackguard pinching them from you than from me.’

  ‘Of course. I hope one day I can add to them for you too.’

  He locked the sea chest back up again, then put his hands on my shoulders. ‘I’m glad you’re back, Barney Bean. We all are.’

  I went out with a free heart to chip the weeds from the young corn. I was back where I belonged and I wasn’t ever sailing away again, ever. I wa
s going to grow fruit trees and potatoes and put down roots of my own, deep into the land. I’d make my living selling good food to fill people’s bellies . . .

  And the whalers will buy what you grow, said a whisper in my mind. They’ll buy your apples, your potatoes, to provision their ships. If they make you rich, Barney Bean, it’s the same as if you had thrown the harpoon or called out, ‘There she blows!’

  Or would it?

  I didn’t know. And just then I didn’t care. Because the parrots flashed green and red through the trees — free parrots, not locked in a cage on a ship that had been carefully scrubbed of any stench of death — and somewhere out there beyond the harbour, the great whales surged through the ocean. And just now I would try to forget the one I’d seen die in such pain and desperation, and would rejoice instead in those that lived, with beauty and with gladness.

  Yes, this was home.

  AUTHOR’S NOTES

  This is Australia’s secret, as well as Barney Bean’s. Our nation was built on whaling. It is possible that even if Arthur Phillip hadn’t led the First Fleet halfway across the world to found a colony in Australia, the land would have been settled informally within a few years in a series of whaling and sealing camps, with farmers following to grow crops to supply them, and chandlers — merchants who supplied ships — following in their turn.

  For the first fifty years of the early colonies around Australia, our nation survived by selling fresh food, firewood, barrels, cord and other goods to whaling ships. The only other well-paying goods that Australia could send to England — ones that would last the nine-month voyage — were bales of wool, and there was too little of that for many years to bring much money to the colony. England had no use for Australian meat, even if it could be salted well enough to survive the voyage, and other goods like eucalyptus sap or eucalyptus oil or wattle bark for medicines and tanning were only sold in small amounts.

  But by 1800 Australia was growing enough produce to supply whaling and sealing ships with mutton, potatoes and other vegetables, as well as making barrels and importing and selling other materials ships needed. Without that trade there wouldn’t have been the fast growth of small family farms, supplying not just the convict workers and the soldiers, but the ships that used Port Jackson as a base for the profitable whaling trade, as well as sealing — killing seals by clubbing them to death on the Bass Strait islands and harvesting their fur.