by Peter Watt
There was no work during the Yuletide break and the men in Lachlan’s team luxuriated in the days away from the gruelling work site. Early in the new year, Lachlan found himself drawn to Hyde Park, where he wandered amongst the holiday-makers enjoying the open air. He was always on the lookout for Amanda and was rewarded one day when he saw her strolling with a tall young man at her side. Lachlan felt his heartbeat increase, watching the two walking together. Then for a moment the young man at Amanda’s side disappeared, seemingly to fetch something for her, and Lachlan hurried across.
‘Hello, Miss Lightfoot,’ he said and she turned to face him under her parasol.
‘Oh, hello, Mr MacDonald,’ she responded in a startled way, glancing around her quickly. ‘Happy new year.’
It was clear Amanda appeared uncomfortable in his presence and Lachlan suspected strongly that it had something to do with the young man.
‘You must know that I am in the company of a dear friend,’ she said, averting her gaze. ‘I don’t think that it is appropriate that you and I be seen together.’
‘I am just a friend greeting you a good day,’ Lachlan answered, concealing his hurt. ‘I hardly think that is inappropriate.’
‘Well, Sir Percival Sparkes will be back soon and it might be better if you take your leave,’ Amanda replied, this time looking him directly in the eyes.
‘I was hoping to see you. I had a small gift for you – a token of meeting you. I realise Christmas has passed but I would like you to have it anyway.’ He reached into his pocket and produced a pearl at the end of a gold chain. He held it out and placed it in Amanda’s hand. She stared at the pretty piece of jewellery, her mouth partially agape in her surprise.
‘I cannot accept this,’ she said quietly. ‘It must have cost a small fortune.’
‘It is nothing,’ Lachlan retorted, attempting to shrug off the expensive item, which had cost him his entire winnings from the wager he had inadvertently won against himself.
‘One day I will be a famous explorer like John McDouall Stuart who I have read has just returned after his journeys into the centre of South Australia. Then I will be rich and buy you more pearls.’
‘Mr MacDonald,’ she said, ‘I do not want you to have the wrong idea, but both society and my situation dictate that we can only ever be acquaintances. Sir Percival is my beau and it is possible that we may wed in the future. He has prospects in his family business and we have known each other for many years.’
‘And I am nothing more than a labourer you know very little of,’ Lachlan said, the bitterness edging his reply. ‘I do not intend to remain a labourer for the rest of my life.’
‘I believe that you are a highly intelligent young man who will one day make something of your life,’ Amanda replied sadly. ‘But, for now, you must find your way as I am finding mine. I am sorry, Mr MacDonald, if you were under some misapprehension about our brief meeting before Christmas. Please, you must take your gift back.’
Amanda attempted to hand back the necklace but Lachlan shook his head.
‘It is yours to keep,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to tell anyone where it came from. Keep it to remind you of the man you met in Hyde Park who thinks that you are the most beautiful woman he has ever come across in his life.’
Lachlan turned, and walked away quickly to prevent Amanda seeing the terrible pain of rejection in his face. He did not turn back to see her standing alone with tears in her eyes clasping the pearl necklace in her hands.
The Christmas and new year period of 1862 had been one of the most wonderful times in John MacDonald’s life. He and Nicholas found love in each other’s company, although their relationship had to be kept a closely guarded secret. Neither society nor the law were sympathetic to what was termed the abominable crime of sodomy and their unacceptable affection for each other could get them arrested as felons.
When Nicholas purchased a cottage on Port Phillip Bay, they had a retreat to which they could escape from the world that would punish them for their feelings. It was a place of peace where they were able to stroll along the foreshore, read books and poetry together as well as share intimate meals.
As summer came to an end, John had not as yet invested his money and while sitting outside one starry night with Nicholas and sipping a fine port he raised the matter of returning to the real world of commerce.
‘I cannot continue to avail myself of your kind hospitality, Nicholas. It is time that I put my money to work.’
Nicholas leaned back to stare at the constellations wheeling slowly overhead. ‘I think that you may be able to take advantage of a very opportune time coming up,’ he said. ‘If there has been one thing that has made fortunes for the speculator, then it has been when England has gone to war. Men of foresight have always seized the opportunity of feeding the war machine of Her Majesty, God bless her.’
John glanced at his lover with surprise. ‘But Britain is at peace. We have not had a major conflict since the war in the Crimea against the Russian Tsar.’
‘Ah, but you do not follow the journal reports of that island to our east, New Zealand,’ Nicholas replied smugly. ‘If you had, then you would realise that the Maori have not been defeated and from what I can glean from the reports, Governor Grey has engineered a road from a place called Drury to Pokeno. That gives him access to the Waikato district from Auckland and the Maori have ordered all white settlers to leave the Waikato district, because they see the road as being a colonial effort to seize their fertile traditional lands. If I know British pride, the Empire will not tolerate being dictated to by its brown-skinned colonised peoples. There will be a war waged and you and I are in a position to supply government tenders with two vital commodities: rum and beef.’
John knew little of the colony of New Zealand – except that it consisted of two islands to the east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and that it had once been under the jurisdiction of New South Wales. He also knew that the country was inhabited by a fierce, war-like native people who practised cannibalism from time to time.
‘Do you really think so?’ John asked in his ignorance.
‘Well, I am going to play my hunch and speculate that there soon will be a call for tenders to supply the military commissariat. All one has to be is in the right place at the right time to satisfy the demand and I have a rather good idea how we can do that using a new invention designed by a fellow Scot of yours by the name of James Harrison. His invention has not been exploited to its full potential but I can see it could help us make a fortune.’
John was intrigued. The seemingly indolent Nicholas Busby was forever reading articles from the library and perusing the newspaper journals from cover to cover.
‘What invention?’ John asked.
‘It is something called refrigeration,’ Nicholas replied. ‘In a nutshell, he has invented a device that can turn out around three tons of ice a day. It is currently being used in the Geelong brewery to cool the building. It seems Harrison got the idea when he was cleaning typeprint with some ether and noticed how it left the metal surfaces cold to the touch. So he extrapolated from that and by putting gas under pressure was able to come up with a device that cools the air to the point of freezing. But you colonials, being as stupid as you are, have resisted his invention and Harrison has gone bankrupt, losing his newspaper the Geelong Advertiser to creditors because he put his money into his invention.’
‘Refrigeration,’ John mumbled. ‘But how does that help us?’
‘You can be rather obtuse, Mr MacDonald,’ Nicholas sighed. ‘Imagine if we could buy up a lot of beef at a cheap price, have it slaughtered and then keep it cold to avoid decomposition. We could then have the meat canned and sold off to the army. The refrigeration would help us stockpile meat. Who knows what else will come from Harrison’s invention. No doubt, the colonies will one day be shipping lamb and beef to old England herself by using refrigeration.’
John could see Nicholas’s vision – if not Harrison’s dream – but still
felt a pang of fear. What if Nicholas was wrong? He questioned himself. Was it possible that he would lose all he now had?
‘I have always sworn to find my brother and sister so that they may share in the legacy left to us,’ he replied quietly. ‘This venture could cost me all that we have in this world.’
‘I know of your crusade,’ Nicholas said gently. ‘But I am offering you the opportunity of a lifetime to turn what you have into a fortune beyond even your dreams. Then you would be able to allow your brother and sister to share that fortune with you. All you have to do is trust me.’
John pondered on the proposed venture, staring into the dark night. ‘I trust your instincts,’ he finally said. ‘I must have to have met you in the first place.’
Nicholas smiled and leaned over to take John’s hand. ‘Now, all we have to do is get hold of a refrigeration machine, buy a meatworks and build a cannery,’ he said. ‘I will warn you that we are in for a lot of hard work and will have to trust each other’s decisions in matters pertaining to the enterprise. I can assure you that I have most of the working capital that we may need and you can consider that my dowry bestowed to you in our union.’
The die was cast and John felt both elation and fear at what was ahead of them. All they really needed for their product was the promised war in New Zealand that Nicholas had forecast. If he was wrong then they could find themselves living on beef for a long time to come – along with the debts incurred in setting up such a large enterprise.
FIVE
Winter had come to the Southern Hemisphere. In the dark, early hours of the morning, Lachlan lay on his bed under a thin blanket, feeling the Sydney cold and knowing that in a few minutes he would have to rise to prepare for another day on the work site. So much had happened in the past few months in the small world around him. He had lost two good friends; one to death and the other to God knew where.
His friend Michael Duffy had been accused of the murder of a well-known Rocks criminal and had fled Sydney. A rumour had circulated that the killing was the result of an impossible love match between Michael and a high-born young lady; another rumour said that he had been seen in the colony of South Australia. Even Kate Duffy was gone from Sydney. Married to Kevin O’Keefe, she had journeyed to the colony of Queensland.
And Jimmy had died. The doctor said it was pneumonia and Lachlan had watched day in and day out as the insidious sickness ravaged his young friend’s body. Jimmy had refused to miss work and eventually this had been a contributing factor in his demise. That had been in April, three months earlier, and Lachlan, along with old Harry the works supervisor, had stood in the rain at the cemetery, watching the muddy earth shovelled into the grave. Jimmy’s last resting place, unacknowledged by any impressive monument, had simply a wooden cross with his name and length of life inscribed on it. Other than the grave-diggers, Harry and Lachlan had been the only two to say farewell to Jimmy that day. Afterwards they allowed themselves the luxury of retiring to a hotel to get drunk to the memory of the man who had been a firm friend to one of them and good employee to the other.
A cold wind whipped at the loose tin sheets on the boarding house roof and in the dark Lachlan eased himself from under his blanket to dress for another day on the construction site. For a moment he sat at the edge of his bed and reflected on his dream of being an explorer. He had allowed the mere fact of surviving financially from day to day to keep him from his dream, he knew. But apart from the twenty pounds in the bank from the sale of old Duncan’s property, he had little else in the world other than the clothes on his back and a couple of battered books of poetry. The loss of Jimmy had hit him hard and this, coupled with Amanda’s rejection, made him feel lost and alone. He cursed himself for the self-pity. At least it was Saturday morning and, all going well, old Harry just might give them an early break if the rain persisted. Lachlan knew that he would go to the Erin Hotel and get very drunk. The alcohol made him forget his situation for a while and it was something that he was doing much too often lately so it was also having an adverse effect on his income. Life had seemed to come down to hard work and equally hard drinking. Old Duncan Campbell would have rolled over in his grave if he knew about the drinking binges, Lachlan thought, slipping on his trousers over his long john underwear. Breakfast would be on the table downstairs and the young man suddenly felt a flash of warmth for the kindly landlady who never missed ensuring her boarders were well fed before they departed for work.
Driven off the construction sites and streets by the rain, the Erin Hotel was packed with working men, smoking pipes and sitting around tables drinking hard spirits. Lachlan felt the warm glow of the rum seeping through his body as he leaned against the bar. He was drinking alone, sometimes chatting to Max Braun who was working behind the bar, and had been pleased when he saw Daniel enter the public house.
‘I see that you are back again,’ Daniel said by way of greeting, pushing a space between Lachlan and a drunken tannery worker who smelled of foul chemicals.
‘Not much else to do with myself,’ Lachlan slurred.
‘I don’t know about that,’ Daniel replied with a frown. ‘You have always struck me as a man with prospects, despite your current circumstances.’
‘Nice to know that someone has a bit of faith in me,’ Lachlan replied. ‘Because I don’t know where to go from here.’
Max placed a tumbler of lemonade on the bar in front of Daniel. ‘I don’t think drinking is going to help,’ Daniel said, raising his glass.
‘It doesn’t hurt,’ Lachlan replied and raised his glass in a mock salute. ‘It has a nice way of making the world go away. Why is it that you aren’t having one on this fine Saturday night?’
‘I have to study this weekend,’ Daniel grimaced. ‘I have mid-year exams for law this week.’
‘Ah well, I shall raise my glass to the up-and-coming lawyer and to my old but brief friend Michael Duffy, wherever he may be in this big world,’ Lachlan said, somewhat unsteady on his feet when he straightened up.
Daniel was concerned for the young Scot, having noticed his deterioration over the last month, and he glanced at Max for support. Max understood what young Daniel meant and leaned forward to speak quietly into his ear. ‘I vill make sure he gets a bed here tonight,’ he said quietly.
Daniel nodded his appreciation. The streets of Sydney were dangerous for anyone after the hotels closed. Even Michael Duffy had learned that when he had once been ambushed by a couple of thugs from the infamous Rocks district.
Lachlan continued to drink until he remembered nothing more of the evening.
He awoke on Sunday morning between clean sheets and for a moment was completely mystified as to where he was. It was a small room cloaked in semi-darkness. His head hurt more than usual after a night of heavy drinking and he felt very ill. At least the ceiling was not spinning but deep down he thought death might be preferable to the way he felt.
Muffled voices came from beneath his feet and when he strained his ears he could recognise Bridget Duffy’s voice chiding Daniel to get out of bed and go to Mass. So he was in the Erin. But how had he ended up in a bed? The question nagged him but his answer came when the door opened to frame the stocky build of Max Braun.
‘Goot morning, my friend,’ Max greeted, holding a pail of water in one big hand. ‘I thought you might need this to clean up.’
Lachlan half raised himself into a sitting position and yelped his pain. His ribs hurt and he did not know why.
‘You haf a bit of pain,’ Max said, setting the pail down by the side of the bed. ‘It must have been from the fight last night.’
‘What fight?’ Lachlan asked softly lest his head fall off at loud noises.
‘The fight you had vif me,’ Max grinned. ‘You lost.’
‘Damn!’ Lachlan swore. ‘Did I really have a fight with you?’
‘Ja, but you did not mean it,’ Max answered graciously. ‘It vos too much drink and not enough sense, my young friend.’
‘I’m sorry, Max,
’ Lachlan groaned. ‘You know that you are one of the few friends I have and I would never mean to fight with you.’
‘That is all right,’ Max grunted, waving off what he considered an unnecessary apology. Clearing the bar of drunken trouble-makers was second nature to the old seaman, who had brawled his way through some of the most infamous sea ports of the world, from San Francisco to Hamburg and many others in between.
‘You must clean yourself up,’ Max said. ‘You have a fine gentleman visitor who wishes to meet with you.’
‘Who is it, Max?’ Lachlan asked, sitting up in the bed and clutching his head in his hands. ‘God, I swear I will never drink again.’
‘I do not know,’ Max shrugged. ‘He has a pretty red-coat uniform and a fine pair of horses for his carriage.’
‘I think I know who he might be,’ Lachlan said. ‘But what in Hades does he want to see me for? That is the question.’
‘Then you must clean yourself up and find out,’ Max said, exiting the room to join the Duffys downstairs.
Lachlan eased himself out of the bed and pulled on his clothes that lay on the floor in an untidy heap. It was obvious that Max had undressed him for bed the previous evening and not Bridget. For that, Lachlan was grateful.
He stuck his head in the pail of water and wiped down his face with a towel he found on a sideboard with a mirror. When Lachlan stared at his reflection he noticed two very red eyes looking back at him. Stubble dotted his chin and his hair lay flat against his head where it had been wetted down.
By the time he stumbled downstairs the Duffy family had departed for church, leaving only Max and a parlour maid to look after the hotel. Lachlan saw the officer standing in the bar in his bright dress uniform.
‘Good morning, captain,’ Lachlan said with as much dignity as he could muster for a hangover. ‘How may I help you?’
The officer turned to Lachlan and sneered, looking him up and down as if inspecting one of his troops on parade. ‘You do not look very formidable, Mr MacDonald,’ he said with a snort. ‘Not in your present condition.’
