The Night They Stormed Eureka

by Jackie French

  Mrs Puddleham smiled up at her uncertainly. ‘Howsabout I make us a bit o’ gingerbread to go with the peaches, just for the two of us? An’ maybe a chop each as well. I been keeping a few special in the flour bag.’

  Surely this meeting would be safe, thought Sam. You couldn’t have bands as well as bloodshed.

  ‘Ma, I think we should go to the roll up. It would mean a lot to Mr Puddleham. And he’s right. They’re all right.’

  Mrs Puddleham’s smile cracked. ‘I want you to be safe! I weren’t able to keep my Lucy safe! I want Mr Puddleham safe too. Is that so bad?’

  Sam tried to find the words. ‘I think Mr Puddleham is doing this to keep you safe. Like it’s his duty.’

  ‘Mr Puddleham said the very same word this mornin',’ said Mrs Puddleham, her tone full of wonder. ‘"Mrs Puddleham", he said afore we got up, “a man must do his duty or know forever he’s a coward. We need to stand together to make things right".’

  She took off her apron and hung it over a branch. ‘Come on, lovey. Pull the stew pot away from the coals so it don’t burn. And if any cove steals from a campsite on the diggin’s today he’s nothing but a yellow-bellied snot rag.’ Mrs Puddleham reached into the tent for her bonnet.

  Chapter 21

  How can we find Mr Puddleham in this? thought Sam.

  The crowd stretched for perhaps a kilometre around Bakery Hill. Men jostled, crushed together along the streets and between the tents or up on mullock heaps. Others hoisted themselves onto shanty roofs to try to see. Some of the faces were familiar from the cook shop. The Lemonade Man watched sombrely from a doorway, still dressed in his dusty suit. Even Happy Jack was there, perched on a barrel with his dog in his arms.

  The noise was extraordinary: two bands playing different tunes; men bashing tin plates and billies; and the yells of ‘Roll up! Roll up!’ still ringing around the diggings. Men slapped each other on the back, or shouted at friends across the crowd.

  If only they’d come early and got a good spot! There must be thousands of people here, she thought. Ten thousand? More? Men in mud-stained clothing, men in their Sunday best crumpled from their swags, men with beards that looked like birds had nested in them, and men with raw shiny faces, shaved in filthy water for the occasion.

  Here and there children grasped their father’s hand or their mother’s skirt. There might only be a sprinkling of women at the diggings, but it seemed each one was here. Even the dogs sat still, not scrapping with each other or nosing each other’s tails, but standing next to their owners’ legs as though they too somehow realised that today this crowd was making history.

  Flags waved from makeshift flagpoles — the English flag, the American Stars and Stripes, and lots she didn’t recognise. Men from many nations dug here at Ballarat.

  Someone climbed up onto a sort of stage made out of pit props and stumps of wood, up on the highest point of the hill. He yelled something. The bands stopped playing. Even the big drum was silent. Suddenly you could hear the wind, the cry of a baby in the crowd.

  The man began to speak.

  The crowds grew still, as though they were frozen to the muddy ground. Sam tried to hear the words, but it was impossible. Just that many people, shuffling their boots and breathing, swallowed up the words. Now and then she heard what sounded like a bat squeaking in the distance. Yet the people around her stared as though it was the final of a football season—with no cheering. The world seemed breathless.

  The man on the platform raised his fists passionately towards the sky.

  Why did everyone keep standing here if they couldn’t hear? Then she realised that the words were seeping back, through the crowd, muttered from person to person.

  ‘That’s that Carboni fellow talking. You catch what he’s sayin'?’

  ‘He said, “I hate the oppressor, let him wear a red, blue, black or white coat.” Something like that.’

  ‘Hear! Hear!’

  ‘What’s that? What’s that?’

  ‘He’s talking about political rights — the rights of all of us.’

  Carboni made another fierce gesture to the clouds, then stepped from the platform. Cheers echoed across the diggings, even from those who hadn’t heard a word.

  Another man came forwards. This man’s voice boomed out: ‘If any man here is dragged to the lockup for not having a licence, will a thousand of you volunteer to liberate the man?’

  ‘Yes! Yes!’ The cries were so loud the diggings seemed to sway.

  ‘Will two thousand of you come forwards?!’

  ‘Yes! Yes!’

  ‘Will four thousand of you volunteer to march to the camp and open the lockup to liberate the man?’

  ‘Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!’

  High above, the cockatoos screamed as though competing with the noise.

  ‘Are you ready to die? For the cause?’

  ‘Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!’

  No, thought Sam. I don’t want to die. I don’t want those I love to die.

  Suddenly a hush swallowed the crowd. Another man had come up onto the platform. His voice was softer, but the crowd grew quieter too.

  ‘… we will form a Ballarat Reform League … every man will have a vote …’

  How could so many people be so silent?

  He’s talking about making a new world, thought Sam. My world. The world I took for granted. The world where people can vote, where newspapers can print the truth, where kids can go to school, where we expect police to be honest and judges to stick to the law, to all the laws that parliaments decide. And, no, it may not always work. But when it doesn’t we have the power to change that too, even if sometimes people can’t be bothered …

  And for all these people the very idea of that is more powerful even than the dream of gold.

  The speaker stared out across the crowd. He lifted up his arms. His yell echoed across the diggings: ‘And so what say you all?’

  The noise broke about her like a wave: thousands of voices roaring Yes! in so many languages, but with one heart only. Men fired pistols into the air. More men charged forwards to toss their licences into the campfires around the meeting. Fragments of the burning licences flared into the air.

  How could any cause be wrong? thought Sam, when so many spoke from their hearts. But then she remembered the Nazi rallies on TV, when just as many had roared support for racism and hatred. Those people could read too, and vote …

  What would the Professor have thought of the Nazi rallies? But it was as impossible to find George and the Professor in this crowd as it was to see Mr Puddleham.

  No, she thought, as men shook hands and clapped each other on the back, as though every neighbour was suddenly a brother they hadn’t seen for years. This is right. It’s led to good things.

  I am the only one here who really knows what this meeting means, she thought. Pain and death will come from this. But maybe all the rights I took for granted started here.

  ‘There he is!’ cried Mrs Puddleham suddenly. She pointed to the small proud figure of Mr Puddleham, standing between two burly miners, cheering with the rest.

  Mrs Puddleham elbowed her way forwards like a big ship surging through the crowd, with Sam bobbing along like a dinghy behind her.

  ‘Mrs Puddleham!’ The little man’s eyes lit up. ‘And Sam!’

  ‘Well, yes, we’re here,’ puffed Mrs Puddleham. She took a deep breath. ‘We stand beside you, Mr Puddleham. Whatever you decide, we’ll be beside you.’

  Chapter 22

  DOWN WITH LICENCE FEES!

  WHO IS SO BASE TO BE A SLAVE?

  DOWN WITH NEPOTISM!

  The notices were pinned to every tree and every second tent on the diggings. Sam read them all as she carried the empty tin plates that had held the Professor’s stew back to the gully.

  These days the Professor paid Sam to bring him and George a plate of stew or whatever else was going for lunch. The rest of the time he and George dug for gold in the darkness, while the Professor gave George lessons on everyth
ing from logic to the Trojan Wars. But George hadn’t been there today when she’d called down the mine, or the last few days either. She hoped he was okay.

  Sam wasn’t sure how either history or philosophy was supposed to help George get a job. But even Mr Puddleham seemed to think that knowing about dead heroes and philosophers and languages no one had spoken for hundreds of years was what an education meant these days — an education for boys anyhow.

  She couldn’t see George shut in an office, but it seemed to be what he wanted. Maybe it was better than digging potatoes — especially for someone with as few choices in life as George. And he’d enjoyed being here where things were happening too, even if no one quite knew what was going on.

  It had seemed so simple at the big roll up, thought Sam, as she began to trudge down the gully. After the speeches everyone had voted to send delegates down to Governor Hotham, demanding that every man get a vote, and warning that the colonies would break away from Britain if they didn’t.

  Everyone had cheered again as the delegates rode down the street towards Melbourne.

  But what had happened to them? Rumours were flying around the diggings.

  The delegates had been flung in prison! They were huddled there among the rats. No, they’d been shot! No, they’d been hanged and their bodies thrown into prison graves!

  Something white caught her attention: a sheet of newspaper, blown by the wind. Sam ran forwards and caught it. It was the first newspaper she’d held since she left her own time. Newspapers cost two shillings, as much as most men earned in a week.

  She glanced down at the headlines, then at the date. 18 November, 1854.

  She shivered. The paper might be a couple of days old, but for the first time she knew more or less when she was.

  She looked up as someone called her name.

  ‘Sam!’

  It was Mrs Puddleham, her bonnet slightly crooked and a giant brown-paper bundle under her arm, puffing up the gully towards the Professor’s camp.

  ‘Is anything wrong? Ma?’ she added, because the more she used the word the happier Mrs Puddleham became.

  ‘I was just comin’ to find you. Look what arrived by coach this mornin'!’ Mrs Puddleham beamed at Sam then sat on a log with the bundle on her lap and wiped the sweat from her forehead.

  ‘If it gets much hotter’n this I’m going to leave me petticoats off, I am indeed. But by Christmas we’ll be out of here and down to Melbourne. More breeze down there, an’ we’ll have those fans an’ all, with boys to pull ‘em back an’ forth to keep us cool. We’re that close to getting our hotel now, thanks to all the extra meals we’ve been selling. An’ all due to you.’ She smiled at Sam happily, and handed her the parcel. ‘Well, deary, ain’t you going to open it?’

  ‘That’s for me?’

  ‘O’ course. Got it sent up special like from Melbourne. You open it here, where half the busybodies in camp can’t see it. Go on!’

  Sam tucked the newspaper under her arm and handed the plate to Mrs Puddleham, then untied the string on the parcel — she had already learned that all string and paper was precious these days, and must be tidily folded up and used again. There was tissue paper under the brown paper, and then material. She looked at the folded garment in dismay.

  ‘Ain’t it grand? Hold it up against you, deary.’

  Sam held the dress up. It was pink again, like the lace Mrs Puddleham had given her, the pinkest pink she’d ever seen. It was silk, too, a thick crisp sort of silk unlike any she’d felt before. It had ruffles on the bottom and on the sleeves. Even the ruffles were trimmed with lace. A mass of material gathered at the back.

  ‘You’re going to look a picture,’ said Mrs Puddleham happily.

  Yeah, thought Sam. A horror movie. But Mrs Puddleham was still chattering.

  ‘It’s for when we get the coach to Melbourne. We walked every step here, me and Mr Puddleham, pushing the barrow before us. But we’ll get the coach this time, just like the nobs. And you’ll be dressed as fine as the queen herself. There’s a bonnet too. It’ll be on the coach up from Melbourne tomorrow.’

  ‘Won’t everyone think it weird if you’ve suddenly got a daughter? They’ve only seen me as a boy,’ said Sam a little desperately.

  ‘Let them wonder! Anyhow,’ said Mrs Puddleham dismissively. ‘They won’t wonder much, seeing as how it makes sense for a young girl not to make a show of herself in times like these. An’ we’ll be gone afore their tongues can really wag.’

  She stood up again with an effort. ‘Better pack it up again, deary. We’ll put it in the chest in the tent for safekeeping. We’d best get back before Mr Puddleham lets the stew burn on the bottom — no man ever stirs a potenough, even one as good as Mr P. And,’ added Mrs Puddleham, ‘I bought some eggs up at the shop too, so there’s pancakes, for those who’ll pay sixpence a pop.’

  The dress was safely stowed and there was the usual small crowd of men scraping up stew and watching the progress of the pancakes, when one of them noticed Sam’s newspaper. She’d placed it on one of the table-stumps, held down with a rock, till she had a chance to read it.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Just a newspaper I found blowing about. I haven’t read it yet.’

  ‘Ye can read?’ The man looked at her eagerly. ‘Well, come on, lad, what’s it say then?’

  ‘The paper might be days old. Weeks …’ Sam looked at the Puddlehams uncertainly. Mrs Puddleham’s face shone with pride. ‘My Sam’s the best reader on the diggin’s, ain’t you, lovey? You sit there and read it all out while your Pa and me does the serving.’

  ‘All right.’ Sam sat cross-legged on the dusty ground by the tent. ‘This bit’s an editorial — that’s something written by the editor, the man in charge of this paper, The Argus.’

  ‘Ah, a toe rag of a paper that one,’ muttered one of the men. He had washed the dirt from his face and hands before eating, leaving a muddy neck and wrists.

  ‘Language!’ said Mrs Puddleham sternly.

  ‘Toe rag’s not bad language, missus! Now if I’da said —’

  ‘Ahem,’ said Mr Puddleham warningly.

  ‘Hush,’ one of his companions nudged the first man in the ribs. ‘Let the boy read. Go on, lad.’

  ‘Government by Artillery,’ read Sam.

  ‘Canada could not get a British statesman to listen to her grievances till she broke out in rebellion … we must warn the diggers that it is no slight affair on which they are entering …’

  ‘Heh! They’re saying that we’re going to rebel! They’re bl—bleeding right there then. An’ that ain’t bad language either, missus, ’cause bleedin’s, well, just bleedin', ain’t it?’

  ‘Then bloody ain’t bad language either,’ began one of the other men.

  Mrs Puddleham glared at them. ‘It ain’t the language what’s bad, it’s the ideas. There ain’t going to be no rebelling against the queen around my stew pots. Getting the vote and shoving them trooper blaggards off the diggin’s is one thing. But me and Mr Puddleham are loyal subjects of Her Majesty. Ain’t we, Mr Puddleham?’

  Mr Puddleham looked up from beside the pot, where he was ladling stew onto another customer’s plate. He frowned, but said nothing.

  ‘Mr Puddleham?’ persisted his wife.

  The little man straightened. ‘I served Her Majesty faithfully for many years,’ he said quietly. ‘But lately I have realised —’ He stopped, as though unable to continue.

  The men around the pots stared at him silently.

  ‘I believe —’ Mr Puddleham stopped, and began again. ‘I believe that if it wasn’t for the queen my good wife would not have been made a criminal, simply for the crime of love. I believe if it had not been for the queen our daughter would be alive now. We might have had many children, instead of only dreams. I believe —’

  ‘No!’ Mrs Puddleham surged to her feet. The pan slipped from her fingers into the fire, spilling its batter into the flames.

  ‘But ye’ve got yer son —’ began o
ne of the men.

  Mr Puddleham ignored him. He stretched out his arms to his wife. ‘My dear wife, I am sorry. But a man must speak the truth, or be no man at all. He must do what he thinks right.’

  Mrs Puddleham was sobbing now, her husband’s arms around her.

  Sam wrapped a bit of sacking around her hand and reached into the flames for the frying pan. I’ll have to soak it, she thought, to get the burned stuff off …

  She tried not to hear Mrs Puddleham’s sobs, the muttered words from Mr Puddleham. vaguely she was aware of the men gulping the last of their stew or dumplings and slipping out into the growing shadows, leaving them alone.

  Of course she wasn’t the Puddlehams’ child. They knew it, and she knew it. It was all pretend; they were just people who needed each other for a while. She lifted the pan, then thrust it into a bucket of water.

  ‘Sam?’ It was Mr Puddleham. He kneeled down beside her, and lifted her chin with his fingers to force her to look at him.

  ‘Sam — you are our daughter. Back then — I didn’t mean you weren’t.’

  It was the most he’d ever said to her, she thought. It had always been Mrs Puddleham talking and him agreeing. He had never really wanted her.

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  ‘You are. You’re not our Lucy — never mind how much Mrs Puddleham wants you to be. But you’re our daughter because … well, because, that’s all. You are and that’s all there is to it, and nothing’s going to change it.’

  Sam let go of the pan. ‘I can look after myself, you know. You don’t need to worry about me. I’ve been doing it for years.’

  ‘Well, we’ll look after you now,’ said Mr Puddleham with dignity. ‘And you’ll look after us. Family, that’s what we are.’

  Sam pushed the tears off her cheeks. She hadn’t even realised she was crying.

  Mrs Puddleham kneeled down awkwardly and gave her a hug too. It smelled of stew and pancakes and sweaty clothes. It might have been the best hug Sam had ever had. For the first time she felt easy lifting up her arms and hugging the big woman back.