Tommo and Hawk

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘Maggie, please, Mary ain’t like that at all! If you love Hawk, you’ll do it,’ I begs.

  Maggie begins to cry. ‘Damn ya, Tommo!’ she howls. ‘He don’t need his mama’s money. Hawk could win on his own, I know it!’

  Chapter Twenty

  HAWK

  New South Wales

  June 1861

  Tommo and I are on the road to Lambing Flat. We have been most fortunate, for we have been given permission by Captain Tucker to accompany Caleb Soul in the Tucker & Co. trap to the goldfields. With the right introductions from Caleb, who knows everyone of importance in the diggings, Tommo will be able to arrange a card game quickly. Our hope is to be back in Sydney in no more than three weeks.

  Once I had told him about Tommo’s terrible pains from his head wound, Caleb Soul kindly procured opium for my brother to take on our journey. I know that he will not talk to anyone of Tommo’s addiction. I also hope Caleb will introduce Tommo to some of the big gamblers here and I do not want his reputation tarnished, so I ask Tommo to employ no relocation in his card games.

  Tommo is, of course, most indignant that I would even think that he might use such tactics when playing with a bunch of miners.

  ‘Tommo,’ I warn, ‘there are men here from all around the world. If there are not one or two cardsharps among them, I would be tremendously surprised.’

  ‘And if there is, you still want me to play kosher?’

  ‘If they’re not on the straight then you must make up your own mind. It’s just that I do not wish Caleb’s good name hurt.’

  Caleb Soul is of a sanguine disposition, a man who is most interested in sports. He doesn’t know yet that I intend to challenge the Irish champion—unless the rumours already circulating in the Rocks have reached his ears. However, I shall tell him of my intentions further down the road and thus explain why we need introductions to a card game where the betting is high enough to earn us some of the stake money.

  I must confess, I am full of dreams about the diggings, though I have no desire to search for gold. It seems to me that the true rewards are to be obtained by supplying the men with their needs. If we should win the fight against the Irishman, I have in mind to open a Johnny-all-sorts store, with Maggie and Tommo alongside me. How happy we should be!

  Winning the fight is essential to my dreams for the future, although I do not like my chances against the Irishman. But, I tell myself, for all of our sakes, I must win. If Ho Kwong Choi can teach me the Oriental fighting art and if I can absorb sufficient of my opponent’s blows long enough to keep me in the fight, I hope that my endurance will see me through. I need to learn enough skills to soften or side-step some of the Irishman’s harder blows, until he tires and I can get a decent crack at him.

  I am well aware that I won over Ben Dunn because he had already gone five rounds with the Welshman, while I came fresh to the fray. He is demanding a return bout so that he may regain his title. As he puts it, ‘I will break every bone in the nigger’s overgrown carcass!’ For my part, I believe that the title belongs rightly to him and have said so publicly. But he demands an opportunity to earn both his title and his revenge honestly, and will not hear of taking the champion’s belt. This I have returned to its makers, J.J. Cohen of George Street, asking them not to engrave my name upon it, but to keep it until Ben Dunn chooses to claim it.

  I know that the Bolt, who is vastly more experienced than both Dunn and I, will come well rested to the ring. With the encouragement of the Parramatta Irish ringing in his ears, he will be keen to make a fool of me.

  Tommo reports that the Bolt drinks deeply of Irish whiskey, each dram chased down with a pint of beer. He spends most of his nights at cards and thereafter with various of the women procured for him by Mr Sparrow. He has a drinking toast which he often recites to the amusement of all.

  Your doctors may boast of their lotions

  And ladies may talk of their tea,

  But I envy them none of their potions —

  It’s a pint of best Irish for me.

  A doctor may sneer if he pleases,

  But the recipe for keeping me frisky

  Is the physic that cures all diseases

  A bottle of good Irish whiskey.

  So to Colleen, Bridget and Mandy,

  You may prefer brandy or gin,

  But to make a good Irishman randy —

  Pour a pint of good whiskey in him!

  Maggie keeps a close eye on all the Bolt’s doings at the same time as she prepares to talk up mine. Mr Sparrow has accepted her as his informer and she is already busy in the pubs laying the groundwork for tales of my prowess. I fear she herself may even begin to believe the outrageous stories she concocts in bed of a Sunday.

  Her favourite is the story of my Zulu ancestry. It seems I am the true grandson of one of the greatest fighting generals of Africa, the mighty warrior Dingane—or so the legend goes! Now that I have decided on prize-fighting, to hear Maggie tell it, my natural instincts have come to the fore, and those who would enter the ring to spar with me should tremble in their boots. I can fight two at a time and such is my speed and ferocity that they seldom last two minutes before crashing to the ground, spitting out teeth as they fall.

  In truth, I cannot hope to learn even the most basic rules of fist-fighting in the few months available to me. How will I defend myself against an opponent who is a wily old campaigner, seasoned in every dirty trick of the trade? While I listen with interest to news of the Bolt’s slapdash training, I know also that he has more than sixty bouts against his name, some of them against the best prize-fighters in the British Isles and Ireland. Even if he is past his prime, for a purse of five hundred pounds he will be sure to give himself a good margin of safety when he enters the ring.

  Stamina will be my only chance of success. My legs are often enough described as tree trunks. I hope they will see me through as many rounds as are needed. My strength and endurance must help me to survive in the boxing ring long enough to win.

  With this in mind I have developed my own training schedule, quite apart from what I shall be taught by Bungarrabbee Jack and Johnny Heki when I return to Sydney. At Tucker & Co., much of the liquor is stored in a great loft and pulled up by pulley, with fifty gallon barrels of rum and whisky being hoisted by three average-sized men on the rope. Each afternoon, I lever the large casks up to the loft, working the pulley singlehanded, to strengthen my arms. Then I run up the inside stairs to this same loft, carrying two ten-gallon firkins of port each time, one on either shoulder. Every day I spend longer at these exercises.

  Captain Tucker knows that I plan to fight the Irishman and has announced himself my keen supporter. He has even employed the services of a physician, Doctor Nathaniel Postlethwaite, to check my weekly progress and allows me to train secretly in the loft.

  The road to Bowral and beyond, on which we now travel, is in very poor repair. Since the discovery of gold it has seen much more traffic than was ever intended by its original builders. We pass hundreds of men who are making the journey on foot. Most carry only a swag, although some are equipped with a pick and shovel as well. Moreover, I count fifty-seven drays and carts before we reach Mittagong. These are heavily laden with tents, sluicing rockers, mining tools, bags of flour and sugar, large tins of tea and all sorts of stores and utensils. The drays contain as many as eight men and there are seldom fewer than four aboard a cart. Most men bear firearms, having read in the newspapers that bushrangers abound in these regions. With their equipment, the men of each dray may set up a camp, from where they hope to earn an easy fortune from the generous earth.

  Some of these gold getters look eager and impatient to arrive while others are thoughtful, or wear a dogged, abstracted air. A few men smile sheepishly as we pass, as if half-ashamed of their errand. These men tend to be of the syndicates with cash behind them. Their equipment is new, and their firearms look unused, the butts glossy with varnish. Their horses too are stout, and wear harnesses fresh from the saddler�
�s hands. But as Caleb Soul observes, these smartly turned out men are no more likely to find luck than the humblest man they pass on foot.

  Some of those on foot are still in their city clothes. They are clearly clerks and shop assistants, their coats over their arms and their once-white shirts grimy with the dust and dirt of the open road. It’s as if in the middle of adding a column of figures, or while selling a customer an ounce of shag tobacco or a set of suspenders, they have cast aside the task at hand and set off to seek their fortunes down the Parramatta Road.

  Others are working men, wearing trousers tied with a lace below the knee. They already seem hardened to the pick. No doubt they too dream of finding enough gold never to have to return to their previous station in life.

  Several push wheelbarrows loaded with all their possessions and such miner’s tools as they can afford. Those who have already adopted the clothes of the miner wear gay-coloured woollen shirts and comforters and Californian sombreros of every hue and shape.

  All these men have one thing in common. In every head resides a dream of riches, of castles in the air with flags flying from the turrets. Alas, most will return to their homes poorer than when they left, to find their wives bitter and their children starving. All this I’m told by Caleb Soul, who has observed every aspect of life on the goldfields and has not yet been tempted to give up his job at Tucker & Co. for it.

  In fact, as he reveals to us, Caleb has quite a different ambition. He hopes one day to return to the art of pills and potions, to work as a pharmacist as he was trained to do. ‘Liquor makes ’em sick and my pills and potions will make ’em well again!’ He’ll work at selling grog to the goldfields until he has sufficient to start in the chemist business. He laughs. ‘It’s the same business but at different ends, so to speak!’

  Caleb now suggests, though perhaps only half seriously, that we should both come in with him in the chemist business, as he knows a great deal about medicines and selling, but very little of keeping books. ‘Hawk, you will be the bookkeeper. I hear naught but good things about your penmanship and accuracy. Captain Tucker says your ledgers are a veritable work of art.’

  ‘And me?’ jokes Tommo. ‘What a partner I would make! Good for nothing but cards. I’m most grateful you got the poppy paste for me, Caleb, but that’s about all I ever wants to know about chemicals.’

  It seems as good an opportunity as any, and so I tell our friend of my decision to turn prize-fighter and the real reason for our journey. Caleb greets my announcement with enthusiasm, and my fight becomes the focus of many a discussion.

  We move southwest on the road to Lambing Flat along with a vast troop of men. There are almost as many men returning from the diggings as there are going to them. Their clothes are tattered and they appear half-starved. They are sullen and withdrawn and seldom respond to our greetings. Occasionally one will shake his head and spit at the ground as he passes those headed for the diggings. Mostly they stumble on unseeing, too disillusioned to care about the many fools who follow in their footsteps. Still, I notice that not one of our gold-seeking compatriots turns back at the dismal sight of these broken men.

  After six and a half days on the road, we are well past Goulburn and have entered gold country. We hope to arrive at Lambing Flat shortly past noon. In the morning, we travelled through forested countryside, but it is now as if we have taken a journey to the moon. Dirt mounds and holes abound and not a single tree can be seen. What was once a wilderness of green and living stems has been chopped down to become hoists, crude shaft-heads, sluices, cradles, cabins, rough fences—dry sticks doing service to man’s greed for gold. It rained last night and the dust has settled which, from all accounts, is something to be most thankful for. I am amazed to discover that a town, albeit constructed mostly of shanties of canvas, has risen so quickly on what must have been a wild and sylvan landscape not so long ago.

  There must be ten thousand tents here, some with crude huts adjoined to them, most with bark chimneys of every sort sticking out from the canvas. Some even have small yards with fences and chicken coops, while others are not much more than bark and flour bag humpies. A few shanties have walls of no more than three feet, made from stones piled up together with a pole at each corner, and a canvas roof. We pass a wattle and daub cottage with a single glass window set somewhat askew in the wall, the most solid residence to be seen.

  For every tent or shelter, there appears to be a hundred holes in the ground. If you were to look down from one of the rolling hills which frame the valley, and which themselves are almost as pocked, punctured and scraped raw as the flat ground below, it might seem as though some ragged alien army is camped here.

  The town itself is chock-a-block with miners in woollen shirts and Californian sombreros, these items of headwear being almost as numerous as the ubiquitous cabbage-tree hat. Visitors and newcomers are easily recognised, dressed as they are in their grey or black city clothes, looking as drab as a convocation of curates.

  The main street—if the largest of Lambing Flat’s bumpy thoroughfares may be so called—was churned to mud early in the day. Now the noon sun has baked it dry, and it is so rutted and crowded that we cannot proceed any further. Caleb Soul pulls up beside a large tent.

  ‘We’ll stay around here,’ he announces. ‘Find a spot to pitch our tent nearby. The tucker here is good and the helpings plentiful. It’s only mutton and damper mostly, Hawk, but I know you’ll fancy their bread pudding with plenty o’ plump raisins. They also make an Afghani curry which is delicious taken with rice.’

  ‘How do we reach the centre of town?’ Tommo asks.

  ‘Not sure there is such a place, lad,’ Caleb Soul laughs. Then, understanding why Tommo asks, he adds, ‘Tommo, you must allow me to find out about a card game for you. Don’t do it yourself, or it will be immediately concluded that you are a cardsharp. A mining camp may look like mayhem, but it has its own rough kind of order that must be observed.’

  Tommo has grown to respect Caleb Soul during the course of the journey and nods at this advice.

  ‘Why don’t you accompany me on my rounds tomorrow and get the feel of life at the diggings?’ Caleb suggests.

  He takes out his hunter watch and clicks it open. ‘I will meet you back here for dinner at six o’clock. In the meantime, perhaps you lads could pitch the tent and tether the horses. I’ll arrange for hay to be brought, as there’s no green grass anywhere about! It will be a little cramped for the three of us in the tent, but we shall manage well enough if you can bear my snoring.’

  He moves away, then turns back to us. ‘Oh, mind you don’t pay more than two shillings a night rent to the cove on whose claim we stay. Explain to him why we’re here or he’ll become suspicious.’ He grins. ‘Everyone in the diggings is suspicious of everyone else, and doubly suspicious of a couple of faces they don’t readily recognise.’

  ‘Such as a seven foot nigger and a little dandy?’ I ask.

  Caleb Soul laughs uproariously on his way as Tommo punches me hard in the stomach.

  We soon find a cove nearby who agrees we may put up our tent on his claim and after some argument agrees to a rent of three shillings. I am about to pay him when Tommo stops me.

  ‘Wait on,’ he says to the man. ‘Show us your claim licence, then.’

  ‘What licence would that be?’ replies the man cockily.

  Tommo points to a board nailed to a small post which has a figure written upon it. ‘The licence what shows that number.’

  ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘that licence. Me mate what’s working another claim has it in his pocket. I’ll show it to you at sunset.’

  ‘Right, I see,’ retorts Tommo. ‘That must be the mate what struck it rich in the claim what he staked out the other side of sunset? Garn, piss orf, will ya!’

  The man grins. ‘It were worth a try. Couldn’t lend me a shilling, could ya?’

  ‘Bugger off,’ says Tommo, ‘before me brother belts ya one.’

  So we wander on until we come acros
s a woman outside a bark shanty. She’s feeding a cat scraps from a tin plate and it’s questionable who looks mangier, the cat or the woman. For two shillings she agrees we may pitch our tent and, for another, we may tether the horses to a stump on her claim. She goes in to fetch her claim licence and asks upon her return if we’d like a cup of tea. ‘It’s bush tea but not too bad if you closes your eyes and holds yer nose!’

  We laugh but refuse politely. Our bones ache from sitting too long in the trap and we are both eager to stretch our legs and look around. ‘There’ll be a cuppa here when you gets back, then,’ she says. ‘No sugar though, run out weeks ago.’

  We set off and find what we take to be the centre of the town, though as Caleb has said it’s hard to think of it as such. It’s a hodge-podge of shacks and holes and people—many more people than I had ever supposed.

  Caleb Soul has told us that Lambing Flat, known to all as the poor man’s diggings, is the most profitable market for Tucker & Co. outside of Sydney. As he explained, almost every man who is prepared to work hard and who owns a pick and shovel can make a wage here and some, occasionally, make much more. ‘In the grog business,’ he observed, ‘a lot of men with a little money in their pockets is much more advantageous than a few men with a lot. There are over fifteen thousand souls in this district, nearly all of ’em drinkers.’

  Caleb does not have a very high opinion of the folks to be found here. He says Lambing Flat contains the human dregs from all the other diggings where fossicking for gold is more hazardous. Here, the easiest gold can be found at three feet or less, and the very hardest from sixty to eighty feet. Every soul in these diggings can make a go of his claim if he is willing to put in a good day’s work.