Storyland

by Catherine McKinnon

  She should have known I would win out.

  If she had done what I had told her, this would never have happened.

  Her fault, not mine.

  Hardly a breath in her now.

  Not long and she will be gone.

  The wind stirs the trees.

  The flap of wings above, pelicans flying

  Will Martin

  1796

  across the sky. The Indians run along the sand and stop, several yards from us, all sun-smiles. We are as still as gravestones. Mr Bass and the lieutenant have had no time to gather a weapon. But I am ready, a burning stick in hand.

  The natives keep dimpling. Is it a trick?

  The Indian named Dilba steps forward. The lieutenant and I step back, but Mr Bass does not. Dilba, gabbling in his language, and jabbing a finger northwards, seizes Mr Bass’s arm and pulls him along the shore.

  ‘Ah,’ Mr Bass calls back to us. ‘He thinks we do not know where Port Jackson lies.’

  The lieutenant said we were going north, but we went south. We cannot tell Dilba about our stratagems, yet he thinks us clodskulls.

  If your enemy thinks you a clodskull, what then? Might it not make them braver? Is it not better for them to fear you?

  ‘Thank you,’ Mr Bass says to Dilba, who I remember cannot be our enemy after all, as he speaks the Port Jackson tongue like Na and like Baneelong.

  The lieutenant mimes how we must first sup before we sail. Dilba and his friend watch closely, then laugh.

  We are stood around the campfire.

  The green sea is shiny.

  The yellow sand is warming.

  The scissors that Mr Bass has used to scale the fish lie on the ground, glinting.

  Dilba’s friend picks them up and walks away, his feet on the sand go whoosh, whoosh like silk on a lady’s dress. The lieutenant mimes what you can do with the blades. Then, with friendly gestures, but with a nervous air, he grasps the scissors from Dilba’s friend. His move is too hasty and the Indian knows it.

  Dilba steps forward, his tall figure towering over the lieutenant.

  For a tick-tock all is wave crash.

  Eyes back and forth.

  The lieutenant, laughing in pretence, takes hold of Dilba’s beard.

  Dilba swipes away the lieutenant’s hand, darts back. Eyes toing and froing.

  The burning stick is still in my hand. I wait. Are we friends or enemies? It is yet to be confirmed.

  The lieutenant grabs a clump of his own hair. He snips it off and offers it to Dilba who takes it, stares like a mute. The lieutenant again reaches for Dilba’s beard. Dilba, wary. The lieutenant raises the scissors and snips. He holds a clump of Dilba’s beard in the air.

  Tick-tock.

  Dilba grins.

  The lieutenant leans forward, takes another snip. Dilba’s friend laughs and points. The lieutenant snips and snips until Dilba’s beard is trimmed and his hair cut. The friend doubles over he is laughing so much.

  The Indians laugh like us, only they laugh more. This is my discovery.

  Dilba’s friend wants his hair shorn now. We all come closer as the lieutenant snips. Mr Bass sings a barber’s ditty, and Dilba sings it after him, in perfect English, in perfect tune. It is no mean feat. Uncle Hilton and Mama would be astonished at his skill. The Indians are our friends, it is clear.

  Gulls circle above, and the fire spits. The fish is cooked. We sit and eat, pulling the flesh from the bones. We invite our friends to join us. They eat the same way we do. This is proof that they are not cannibals.

  ‘Bādo?’ Mr Bass asks Dilba, scooping up imaginary water.

  Bādo is the word we learnt for water.

  Dilba points south. ‘Water,’ he says, copying Mr Bass’s action for scooping water.

  ‘River?’ Mr Bass asks.

  ‘River, there,’ Dilba says.

  Dilba speaks only some words of English, but his accent, Mr Bass says, is splendid. Dilba raises his head the way Na does to indicate direction.

  ‘River?’ Mr Bass points south again, to confirm.

  ‘Yes,’ Dilba says. ‘River, there.’

  Mr Bass and the lieutenant look to each other. Maybe this is the river Henry Hacking has talked about? Or if not, it may be another river, not yet seen by Hacking or any other, except for Dilba and his ilk. The thrill of it. Maybe this is the river that, with waters deep, will lead us to the heart of the land. Maybe this is the river that will make rise our monument.

  What strange twists of fate. We would not have come this far south if not for water spoiled by storage in a wine barica. And where I had felt bad about the troubles we have endured, now the fate of those actions may lead to a great discovery.

  But this swelling does not last long, for, as Mr Bass and the lieutenant debate the river, I spy Dilba’s sly look to his friend.

  A look of malice?

  I remember the cannibal story from Calcutta. I remember also the lieutenant’s words. Do not let your enemy know your next move. Could these Indians be feigning friendship? What might be their next move? Dilba’s eyes are half-open. Eyes half-open mark men that are slippery in their thoughts. Uncle Hilton told me this for he has always played Iago with a half-open eye. The lieutenant and Mr Bass, not having stage skill, see none of it.

  ‘Mr Bass, the wind is the wrong way about for returning north,’ the lieutenant says.

  ‘It is indeed,’ agrees Mr Bass, with a wink to me. ‘Lieutenant Flinders, are we not in desperate need of water?’

  How to tell them what I know about Dilba without giving away the game?

  ‘Impossible to return north without water,’ says the lieutenant.

  ‘Agreed,’ says Mr Bass. ‘Unquestionable that it is impossible to return north without water.’

  Lieutenant Flinders and Mr Bass both turn to me. ‘Mister Martin?’ they chorus.

  They are speaking as if I am to decide. I am baffled. I nod my agreement, we need water. My throat is so dry it is hard to swallow.

  ‘So be it,’ Mr Bass says and rubs his hands above the fire.

  ‘So be it,’ Lieutenant Flinders agrees.

  ‘We will sail to the river,’ Mr Bass explains to Dilba who has not understood.

  Now I spot their ruse. They are rehearsing what to say to the governor. If the governor asks, Why did you disobey my instructions and sail further south? Their reasons will be practised. True, we are all in desperate need of a drink. But Mr Bass and Lieutenant Flinders have a greater intention. That intention lies between words, or behind them. This river could change our destiny is what they think.

  Lieutenant Flinders mimes us all getting in the boat and sailing south. Dilba claps his hands and points. He will show the way. Mr Bass and the lieutenant begin to pack our things.

  I stand by the fire. If I do not move, Mr Bass will notice me. Then, I will signal by my eyes that we cannot go. But Mr Bass and the lieutenant continue packing. Reckless with ambition, they pay no heed to me or the Indians. I run to Mr Bass.

  ‘Sir, what if the Indians mean to trick us?’ I whisper.

  ‘It was we who asked them to assist in our search for water,’ Mr Bass says. ‘And I lie not when I say I am blasted thirsty.’

  ‘Must we not obey the governor’s orders to the letter?’ I ask.

  Mr Bass gives me a sour look. ‘And that was to find a river.’

  ‘A river that joins the sea just south of Botany Bay,’ I say. ‘We are a long way from that mark.’

  ‘Are you afraid?’ he asks me.

  ‘No,’ I say, for I will not have him think me cowardly. But I curse the day I did not check the barica was clean. Curse the day I asked to crew Tom Thumb. Curse the day I left England.

  As I stomp out the fire I spy Dilba watching me. His hand flicks up. A signal to his friend? I pretend not to see.

  We shove off from the shallows, Mr Bass at the helm. The lieutenant and I step the mast, and we set sail. Dilba sits next to Mr Bass. Mr Bass has put on his red coat, as if to mark the importa
nce of the occasion. Dilba’s friend sits silent at the bow, as if he does not like to travel by boat. I will have to watch them both, for my elders, in their rashness, are like babes.

  Out on the ocean, the water is choppy. All around us is blue sea. In the far, on the horizon where the sun rises each day, strings of clouds in neat rows, like the sheet music Uncle Hilton uses to sing. Over on shore, for a very long way, it is scrubby bush and high sand dunes. Beyond the dunes are two hills, Hat Hill, and the other, not yet named perhaps, and running between the hills and on either side of them, the green escarpment.

  The wind picks up and we are sailing fast.

  ‘To the river,’ Mr Bass says.

  Dilba watches him. ‘Yoorongi,’ he says and points south.

  ‘Wild duck?’ Mr Bass asks.

  ‘Yoorongi in water place?’ the lieutenant asks.

  ‘Moremme,’ Dilba says.

  ‘He says yes,’ Mr Bass tells the lieutenant. ‘What else?’ Mr Bass asks Dilba.

  A wave comes crashing over the side of Thumb and when I look up, wiping water from my face, Mr Bass and Dilba are laughing.

  ‘What?’ Lieutenant Flinders leans forward to hear.

  ‘Dilba tells me that at this river there is Indian corn and potatoes,’ Mr Bass says. ‘But more than that, he swears there is a beautiful white woman who tends it all.’

  ‘Ah,’ the lieutenant shouts. ‘Then he has known explorers before us. Or whalers.’

  Dilba points to me and this makes Mr Bass laugh louder. My cheeks flush with heat. I turn away. Usually it is Moore, the ship’s master, who stirs me about women. I always feign boredom. I know what goes on. It is all over the cove. If a man has stirrings, no mind the flavour, anything can be supped. White or black, woman or boy, even child, all is there and up for trade. If no coin is had, spirits will do, even flour. When Mr Bass lets me have free roam, Na and I kick around the campfires at night. We see those that go cock-a-hoop for a bit of flesh. Hoary Bogarty growls as he distributes goods from the store, but to see him with a woman by firelight and watch how he fondles her bosom is to see how he fair turns into a dribbling pup.

  Mr Bass calls to the lieutenant. ‘Matthew, Dilba is offering you the white woman.’

  ‘No white woman could live so far from civilisation,’ the lieutenant shouts over the splash of waves.

  I look across the sea to the scrubby land. Before we left Sydney Cove two escaped convicts were reported to be living with Hawkesbury tribes. But there are farms on the Hawkesbury that the escaped men raid. This far south, there are no farms to be had. Few animals. That is why there are cannibals. To live here would be too great a risk. Even Cook did not land in this wild place.

  Seawater spurts before my eyes. I lean over the gunwale and spy the sleek back of a dolphin. More romp in the water alongside, swim under the boat and to the front of Thumb where they rise up through the air with newborn squeaks. I eye one for his scarred back and swear he eyes me in return. The dolphins swim off in haste. I look starboard and see, in the water beyond, a feeding hubbub. Silver fish jump from the water to feed on smaller prey. Circling them, dark-finned sharks. Above, gulls swoop to pick off what they can. It is as if all creatures of the sea and air have come to join a flipping, flapping dance of death.

  I grip the gunwale. This sight is a bad omen, surely.

  We sail towards the beach. The escarpment runs along the land like a giant’s arm, cradling trees from hilltop to shore. No river is visible beneath the canopy of green, but I spy the glint of water trickling through the sand dunes. The others see it too.

  ‘Our river,’ shouts Mr Bass. ‘Soon we will be drinking fresh water.’

  We strike sail and take up oars.

  Splish, splash, splish, splash, to dare is to do.

  ‘It is no more than a stream,’ the lieutenant calls as we get closer, disappointment dripping from him.

  ‘It may widen past the bend,’ Mr Bass replies.

  The entrance to the stream is a yeasty beast, and the wind howls like a child in tantrum. No way to enter yet Dilba, pointing and waving, his language his own, gives directions like a ship’s captain. We navigate the surf as if it were a rocky path – straight towards the mouth, then one side, then the other. Soon we are through and rowing upstream against a strong tide.

  Dilba and his friend jump from Thumb and splash through the shallows. They begin to stride the wide sandy bank beside us. They call out. I cannot catch their words.

  Our boat scrapes the bed of the stream and I turn my attention to pulling. The lieutenant joins with me. From shrubs on the shore, men appear, like tricksy spirits: first one, then another and another, as if the land is coughing them up. Dilba and his friend have their backs to us. I cannot spy their countenance. The Indians from the bush stand and stare at us, then at Dilba and his friend. I count the Indians. Ten have gathered. The men have grizzled beards that go to their navel and sharp bones through their noses.

  No one speaks. They have a spirit way of talking. It must be that.

  All is still.

  And then, when I think they must be threatening even to Dilba and his friend, the Indians begin to shout and laugh and stroll along the bank. Their dogs run to the shallows but do not bark. Are they devils in dogs’ bodies?

  The Indians wave and call to us, Soga, Soga! – but could their friendly be a trap?

  Mr Bass says they call out Soga for soldier and it is because of his red waistcoat that is the same colour as a soldier’s. Dilba, striding the shallow water, points to the hills. We look that way and now spy a shimmering lagoon.

  ‘But the stream is scarce deep enough to get us there,’ says the lieutenant.

  ‘Once there, we would have to wait for the tide to get us back down,’ Mr Bass says. ‘We are too vulnerable,’ he warns, eyeing the men on shore.

  ‘We must dry our powder and clean the muskets or else we have no safety,’ the lieutenant whispers. ‘Then, if we are armed, we could walk to fresh water.’

  Mr Bass studies the men on shore. ‘The mood appears light. Perhaps we could risk going ashore here.’

  ‘Or turn now, go back now,’ I say.

  ‘We need water,’ the lieutenant says. ‘Without it we will die.’

  ‘They mean us harm,’ I say.

  ‘To show fear would be a mistake.’ The lieutenant ships his oars. ‘We have no arms in working order. If we retreat now they could easily overcome us. But their intentions may not yet be formed. If we keep them friendly, go ashore, find water, dry the powder, we will be prepared for attack on land or sea.’

  Birds swoop across the stream, catch buzzing insects in their beaks.

  ‘Are we for shore?’ Mr Bass asks.

  ‘Yes,’ says the lieutenant.

  Mr Bass turns to me. ‘Will?’

  The Indians are shouting. I go to speak but all is slow and heavy and I hear only insect hum. No, I am not for it. Yet Mr Bass will think me cowardly if I say so.

  ‘Good,’ Mr Bass says, as if I have answered.

  He jumps from Thumb and, splashing through the water, begins to haul the boat to shore. The lieutenant and I clamber over the gunwale and join him. As soon as we step on land the Indians circle us. They touch our hair and finger our clothes.

  ‘Bādo?’ Mr Bass asks for water, his question almost a command.

  I haul the barica out of the boat.

  Dilba points to the lagoon, wants us to walk that way.

  ‘No.’ The lieutenant hits the gunwale. ‘We stay with our boat.’

  Dilba runs along the sand, pointing and jabbering, but too on the hop for me to catch even one word.

  I stand away to observe the belly of water he indicates.

  An old Indian grips my arm, bends it back, and pushes me into the shrubby trees. The surprise takes my voice away.

  This is it, I think, I am soon to meet my end!

  In his hair I see yellowed teeth. Human? Such as cannibals wear?

  A few steps into the trees, I stumble. When I loo
k up the old man is pointing to a small pond. He smiles, revealing the pink of his mouth. It is water he is showing me! He has no evil purpose. The teeth, I now see, are kangaroo teeth, like those our Port Jackson natives wear.

  I kneel on the sand and put my lips to the water to test for salt. I have had worse at the Tank Stream. I drink in all I can. The water cools my face. Leaves dance in the air. The old man sits next to me, runs his hand through the sandy soil, then pats it.

  ‘Bamal,’ he says.

  ‘Soil,’ I say. I have played this word game before.

  I fetch a rough stone and rub down the barica, sluice it with water and fill it as far as I can. The old man babbles in his own tongue. I talk to him with the Port Jackson speak I learnt from Baneelong, but he does not understand.

  The old man lays a rock axe on the ground. I spy it at first with caution and then with interest, because Indian tools fetch a high price back in London. The hewn rock is many interesting colours, bluish green and brown, and the handle is made from a strong dark wood bound with twisted vine. I offer to trade my hat, but the Indian shakes his head. The more I look at the axe, the more I think how useful it would be on the journey home and how it would impress all on the Reliance. I offer to trade my shirt but still the Indian shakes his head. I try to impress him with our expedition.

  ‘We are looking for a big river.’ I make my arms bend, like the flow of a river. ‘Swoosh, swoosh,’ I say.

  The old man pats the earth.

  ‘No, no, river,’ I say. ‘Big enough to sail ships down.’ I stand and move in the wind, like the sail of a boat. The old man laughs and shakes his head as if it is me who is the halfwit. I mime unloading a large vessel but he is no wiser to our purpose.

  He refuses the deal, and I know I must give it up. As we go to leave I help him stand to show I have no bad feeling about our lack of trade and that makes him laugh even more. They can be a jolly lot, the Indian men.

  When we come out of the shrubs Lieutenant Flinders and Mr Bass are in a huddle with Dilba and the other Indians. The old man lopes over to them. I follow but get seized by a branch and stop to untangle myself.

  The lieutenant shouts my name. He and Mr Bass stride over to me.