A Far Country

by John Fletcher

  The old man cackled derisively. ‘’Ow you goin’ to do that when you don’ speak the lingo, eh?’

  ‘I’ll find a way.’ But had no idea how.

  He waited until his words had been translated— this is impossible, he thought, if I’m going to be here for long I shall have to learn to speak to them—then smiled cheerfully at Mura’s suspiciously frowning face.

  ‘Let’s go, shall we?’

  ‘You leavin’ us?’ Lew Bone rattled the bars of the cage, his voice congested with rage.

  You want me to strangle him? Jason felt like asking. That way you can be quite sure the rest of them will come after us and kill us all. But said nothing. You couldn’t talk to men like Lew Bone.

  Instead he began to walk purposefully in the direction of the blacks’ camp. After a moment’s hesitation, Mura joined him.

  When they got back the dance was still going on. The air was heavy with dust. The smell of sweat was stronger than when they had left, sharp and acrid in the warm night.

  Jason hoped that their absence had gone unnoticed but as soon as they emerged into the yellow circle of firelight a man, enormously tall and wearing a feathered headdress and leather apron, knobbed wooden staff in his hand, came striding across the clearing towards them. His feet raised little puffs of dust as he walked. He stared down at Jason. The heavy forehead shadowed his eyes like a cliff. Jason set his shoulders and stared back at him, trying to hide his apprehension.

  The man shook the club and spoke threateningly: a heavy stream of sound. At Jason’s side Mura said nothing and neither did he. The man spoke again, voice dark with anger.

  Jason shrugged. ‘No point getting mad at me, mate. I don’t understand a word you’re saying.’

  The man must have recognised the tone if not the words. His eyes narrowed. The wooden club moved in a blur of speed. It struck Jason above the left ear. He saw a flash of coloured lights and the world turned black.

  Pain was a pulsing agony, drowning all else. Slowly, breath ragged in his throat, Jason eased his eyes open to daylight that stabbed him like spears. The pain intensified at once and he shut them again but the flicker of his eyelids had been noticed.

  ‘’E’s comin’ round.’

  A voice he recognised, he thought dazedly. A voice speaking English. The familiar language brought back his last memory, the voice of the huge black chieftain, if that was what he had been, shouting furiously, asking and re-asking the same incomprehensible questions, his cheeky answer, the change of expression in the angry eyes, the scything blow of the wooden club.

  He opened his eyes again. His brother was staring down at him, a look of concern on his stupid face.

  ‘How yer goin’?’

  ‘Where am I?’

  ‘In the cage.’

  ‘The cage?’ He seemed unable to focus on anything, mind as blurred as his eyes.

  ‘They chucked you in ’ere along o’ the rest of us.’

  Tom’s face vanished as he was pushed aside. Lew Bone, unshaven and belligerent, scowled down at him. ‘You done wot I said, we’d be away from ’ere be now.’

  Jason was not strong enough to argue: to talk at all, come to that. He closed his eyes, hoping they would leave him alone. Mercifully, they did.

  When he woke again he felt a little better although pain still beat like a drum inside his skull. He worked his dry mouth and opened his eyes.

  ‘Any water?’ His voice was so weak it startled him.

  Tom brought him a gourd, half full. Jason bent his head and drank, feeling the blessed relief of life slipping down his throat. He wanted to drain the container but forced himself to stop after two mouthfuls. ‘Any more?’

  ‘Drink all you want.’

  ‘No …’ He forced down the temptation, pushed the container away. ‘Have I been here long?’

  ‘Since first light.’

  Tom told him how a group of blacks had appeared out of nowhere, running as lightly as though on open ground and unencumbered instead of carrying Jason’s dangling body through the bush. At first they had thought Jason was dead and the blacks intended to kill them, too. They had decided to break out as soon as the door of the cage was opened.

  ‘And?’ Jason asked.

  Tom shook his head. ‘Never had a chance.’

  Serrated-edged spears thrust through the bars of the cage had held them back while the men unlashed the trap door. They had thrown Jason’s inert body inside, slammed and re-fastened the gate and gone away.

  ‘They’ll be back,’ Jason said.

  Lew growled. ‘Could’ve left us ’ere to rot, all we know.’

  Jason shook his head. ‘Why leave us the water, in that case?’

  But could not understand, any more than the others, why they were imprisoned at all.

  ‘You’d think they’d want us to go,’ Lew said. ‘Then they wouldn’t ’ave to bother with us.’

  Jason turned to the old man sitting blank-eyed in a corner of the cage, mumbling quietly to himself. ‘Seen any other white men since you been here?’

  The man jerked, nervous at being addressed. His eyes wandered then focused on Jason’s face. ‘Eh?’

  ‘What’s your name?’ Jason asked him.

  The sailor sucked his lips over his teeth. ‘Karinja,’ he said eventually. He giggled, eyes squinting. ‘That’s what they calls me.’

  ‘That’s their name for you,’ Jason said. ‘What’s your real name?’

  The old man licked his lips. ‘What you want that for?’

  ‘So I know what to call you.’

  ‘You don’ tell folks your real name.’ The old man winked craftily and lowered his voice. ‘Gives ’em power, see?’

  ‘What sort of power?’

  ‘Power over you.’ He lowered his voice. ‘They kin put the devils on you, they knows your name. Them quinkans.’

  ‘Quinkans?’ Jason repeated. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Demons,’ the man said. ‘They lives in the rocks, comes out at night.’

  ‘Ever ’ear such tripe?’ Lew demanded, exasperated.

  Jason thought, this is all too much for me. I am fifteen years old and I have to think for the lot of us. I have to find out what the blacks plan to do. I have to see if I can do anything to make sure we survive. The others are years older but they’re no help at all. Self-pity stabbed him. It isn’t fair, he thought.

  Quickly he forced the sudden weakness down. His head ached, a thick crust of dried blood matted his hair, he was almost sick with fear, yet would not give up. I have to get us out of here, he thought. Then find some way to keep us alive. They’re the only things that matter.

  ‘Got to call you something,’ he told the old man.

  The sailor brooded for a while. ‘You kin call me Fred,’ he said eventually.

  ‘All right, Fred,’ Jason said, ‘how long you lived with the natives?’

  Fred shook his head. ‘Long time, matey. Years.’

  ‘How did you get here?’

  ‘I were a sealer, see? We was shipwrecked an’ I got washed ashore, years ago.’

  ‘How many years?’

  But years, time itself, had lost all meaning.

  ‘Been here ever since?’

  ‘Like I say, there ain’t no way out. They’re not so bad,’ he added, ‘when you gets to know ’em.’

  ‘Oo cares whether they’re bad or not?’ Lew interrupted roughly. ‘What I want to know is ’ow we get outa here.’

  ‘You don’t,’ Fred told him. ‘Ain’t no water an’ it’s too far to walk wivout it.’

  Lew said, ‘Don’ talk daft! Them savages lives ’ere. There’s got to be water.’

  ‘You’ll never find it. Besides, all the springs are guarded. They don’ let anyone near ’em. You try takin’ any wivout their say-so, they’ll kill you.’

  Jason needed space to think. They were jammed too closely together in the cage for that but he did the best he could, sitting in a corner with his back to the others, trying to work out how they were g
oing to escape. Earlier he had thought he would not leave at all, at least for the present, but being thrown into the cage had changed all that. The sooner he was away from here the better.

  Water and food, he thought, that’s all we need. As long as we’ve got them we’ll manage, especially if we move at night. He grinned, remembering Fred’s words. Maybe the quinkans will look after us. We should take one of the blacks with us, he thought. Someone like Mura. Make him show us where the springs are. God knows how we do it, though.

  Lew Bone would be another problem. He and Tom might manage by themselves but he doubted they’d survive with Lew along. At the moment the bosun wasn’t dangerous because he thought he needed them to help him escape. As soon as he decided they weren’t necessary any more he would turn on them. They couldn’t leave him behind, though.

  Maybe I should kill him, Jason thought.

  The trouble was there was no way he could take Lew in a straight fight. Catch him by surprise, he thought. That would be the only way.

  In the hour before the dawn Nantariltarra sat cross-legged on the turf at the top of the cliff in the forefront of the elders and looked out at the sea. Overhead the sky was a rash of stars. The breeze from the water blew cool on him, the sound of the surf was in his ears. He waited as behind him Mingulta sang the dawn.

  The thread of sound rose. The voice, joined now by another voice, increased steadily in volume. Far away across the dark water the sky turned from black to grey to gold and at last to red. As the light increased the land on that side of the gulf showed as a dark blue line broken here and there by headlands. It was unknown land. From time to time men came from those distant places with goods—shaped flints for weapons, pituri plants, ochre, tanned kangaroo skins—to trade for fish, stone and shells but Nantariltarra had not been there, nor any of the people.

  Some said it was the place where the white men came from. Karinja had come, long ago. Now there were three more. Soon, no doubt, there would be others.

  Nantariltarra had thought that if they could take the young one and understand him they might learn what the white men were like. Of course the youth was too young to know all the secrets of his people. Only the elders would have that kind of knowledge, as only their own elders knew the secrets of the Narungga, but the chance of his meeting with one of their elders was small. Even if he did, the man would never reveal their secrets to him. No, the youth was their best, perhaps their only, chance.

  I must find a way, he told himself. I must break him to our ways and use him for the safety of our people. He must learn, as we must.

  Mura has done well. As soon as I decide what is to be done, I shall release the boy into Mura’s care, as before. We shall keep him with us, teach him our ways, even, in time, bring him to initiation. There will be opposition to that, he thought. But it was the only way if they were to use him to the full. Make him one of us as well as one of them. Use his knowledge against those of his people who come after him. Otherwise they may end by destroying us all, he thought, reflecting on the rumours he had heard.

  The song rose, fell, rose again. A golden blink showed above the distant land. The sea ran with liquid gold. Somewhere birds were calling. All life welcomed the day, the returning light.

  Nantariltarra thought, I can talk about this with no-one. Mura was too young to share the weight of the decisions that must be made. He did not have the knowledge of the people, the spirits, the land, and without that he could not help.

  Nantariltarra was alone. It was a heavy burden yet he would have it no other way. The spirits moved through him so that he and all who came after him would remain in the land that was mother and source of life to all of them.

  The spirits have given the white boy into my hand. He is the sign I have been waiting for.

  I shall not fail.

  Jason turned to the others. ‘Anyone got a knife?’

  Lew Bone laughed. ‘Wouldn’t be givin’ it to you if I had.’

  He doesn’t trust me either, Jason thought. Of course. But it had been a stupid question; naturally they didn’t have knives.

  He studied the earth on which the cage stood. The bare earth was hard and dry, but it was earth, not rock. And in the earth …

  Stones.

  He’d heard that people had used stones as tools for thousands of years. He knelt. The surface of the ground was as hard as any rock. He scraped at it with his nails but barely scratched the surface. He would have no nails or fingers if he tried to dig a hole like that. He took off one of his boots and tried to use the heel but that was no good, either. He would wear out the boot a lot quicker than the ground.

  Frustrated, he looked about him. The others watched, Lew Bone grinning sardonically.

  ‘Ain’t no use, see,’ Tom said. ‘The ground’s too hard.’

  ‘There must be a way,’ Jason said, more to himself than the others.

  ‘There ain’t.’ Lew Bone was dismissive. ‘Like Tom said, we already tried it.’

  Wood, Jason thought, looking at the framework. Wood lashed together by vines. He rattled the uprights experimentally but they were too strong to break.

  Jason set his jaw, thought: I will not sit here and wait for other people to decide what to do with me.

  Fred was right. Even if they managed to break out the blacks could always track them down and bring them back but that was not the point. What was important was to keep trying: to refuse ever to give up.

  He knelt down, checking how the uprights had been driven into the earth. At each corner of the cage unpeeled lengths of gumwood had been driven into the ground. They were rock-hard, rigid, several inches thick. There was no moving them. But the walls were made of lath-like timbers set a few inches apart. He tested one. It gave slightly. So did the next one. He thought about it, went to the middle point of one of the walls and shook it as hard as he could, eyes fixed on the point where the laths entered the ground.

  They moved. Only slightly, but they moved.

  He turned his head, spoke to Tom who was watching him with a placid lack of curiosity. ‘See?’ he said.

  But Tom would go through life seeing nothing.

  ‘These uprights aren’t buried that deep in the ground. And the soil around them’s not as hard as out here in the middle.’ With his fingernails he scraped at the earth around the bottom of the laths. A few fragments crumbled loose. ‘See?’

  Lew Bone was as dismissive as ever. ‘Coupla crumbs. Where does that get us?’

  Jason stared at him. ‘Got something better to do, have you?’

  When he shook the walls the lath itself acted as a lever, helping to loosen the soil about its base. It was cruel work and there was no room for them all to work at once but they took it in turns, crumbling the earth around the base of the central lath, scraping it away, repeating the operation again and again.

  Fred did nothing to help them. Lew tried to talk him into it but he would not.

  ‘Bloody fine bloke you are,’ Lew said, scowling savagely. ‘It’s for your benefit, too.’

  Fred was not interested. ‘I told you, there ain’t nowhere to go. I coulda run away a thousand times over the years. Why should I? This is home, far as I’m concerned.’

  Lew spat. ‘Funny sort of home, you ask me.’

  Not that anybody had: but he left the old sealer alone, after that. Even Lew Bone could see there was nothing to be gained by harassing him further.

  The foot of the lath was buried six inches in the ground. It took them most of the day to get to the bottom but at last they managed it.

  ‘Now what?’ Tom asked, wiping sweat off his face.

  ‘We shovel it all back.’

  Lew scowled. ‘You tryin’ to be funny?’

  Jason was sick of having to justify every word he uttered but knew there was no other way. ‘We leave it, the blacks will see what we’ve been doing when they bring us food, won’t they?’

  So back into the hole the powdered soil went. Sure enough, as it grew dark two women brought them
food and water. One was fat and old but the other was young: pert breasts, bouncing buttocks.

  Lew Bone’s lips curled over yellow teeth as he watched the young one. ‘Could do with a bit o’ that,’ he said. He put his hand between the laths. She laughed good-naturedly but avoided him, all the same.

  ‘Got any sense you’ll leave ’em alone,’ Fred told him.

  Lew turned on him savagely. ‘Don’ you tell me what to do!’

  ‘I seen blokes killed before this.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll kill you too, afore I’m through.’ But Lew spoke mechanically, reaching for the food.

  ‘Don’t take too much,’ Jason warned them. ‘We’ll need it when we get out of here.’

  Neither Tom nor Lew took any notice but Jason kept some of his own back, wrapping it in a square of grubby cloth that he found in his pocket and putting it away safely.

  When they had eaten they dug the powdered earth out of the hole again. Little by little they enlarged the hole until they could move the bottom of the lath an inch or two in its socket.

  ‘We must make the hole bigger,’ Jason said and they did.

  The moon rose slowly above the gum trees, shedding its pallid light over them as they worked.

  Eventually the hole was big enough for Lew to curl his big fist around the bottom of the lath and lever it upwards. It came up only so far but no further. Lew gasped, sweating in the moonlight, muscles standing out along his quivering arm. The lath gave a fraction. Lew redoubled his efforts. There was a crack like a pistol shot and he tumbled backwards, the broken lath clasped firmly in his hand.

  Using the splintered piece of wood as a tool, they made quicker progress. Within an hour they had exposed the bottom of the second lath. Confident now, Lew made swift work of it. The gap was still not wide enough for them to squeeze through but at least they were getting there.

  ‘One more should do it,’ Jason said.

  The eastern sky was beginning to silver by the time they broke the third lath. Freedom beckoned but they hesitated, looking at the gap.

  ‘Reckon we’ll make it?’ Tom wondered nervously.

  ‘Not without food and water,’ Jason said, ‘but I’ve thought about that. We’ll take one of the blacks to find water for us.’