Tommo and Hawk

by Bryce Courtenay

  Hawk points to Pat Malone, what’s sitting on the edge of the platform. ‘It is quite true, as my little friend here says, that I lack experience in the prize ring and my stamina has yet to be tested. Some say it was a lucky punch that knocked out Ben Dunn.’ Hawk pauses a moment. ‘Ben Dunn himself has been heard to espouse this theory!’

  A roar of laughter goes up from the crowd and I can see they is warming to my twin. He waits for it to die down before continuing. ‘I admit, Mr Dunn was most tired, having just fought five rounds. But those who speculate on these things and know better than I say that the Irishman will take Ben Dunn with one arm tied behind his back and a glass of good Irish whiskey in the other.’

  The Irish in the crowd cheers wildly. ‘So, if you are an Irishman I will reluctantly accept that your wagers will not be placed on me. If, on the other hand, you are an Englishman, you may well be in two minds, not wishing the Irishman to win, but not too sure of the big nigger, either!’

  Most know what Hawk says is true and they admires him for it. Hawk takes the hailing funnel from his mouth and smiles, ‘til the laughter and clapping settles. ‘But if you are an Australian, then you will know we are a new breed of men and not given to easy surrender!’

  The crowd rises to a new peak of excitement at this and it takes some time to calm down again. ‘In my favour, I have my size and, if you will allow me to say so, a great determination to win. I trust you to make up your own minds about me and not to be swayed overly much by the bookmakers’ odds! I thank you for hearing me out. May your efforts reward you with gold aplenty!’

  Thunderous applause and cheering follows as me brother ends, and the band strikes up ‘The Wild Colonial Boy’. There’s men about me what has tears in their eyes. It’s a brilliant piece o’ work. Hawk’s pulled off what no amount of vainglorious bragging could do, for these ordinary blokes knows sincerity and the honest truth when they hears it.

  Hawk arm-wrestles half a dozen or so miners, one directly after t’other, with no rest in between. He beats all six. But the seventh, a big man, wins ‘cause Hawk is knackered. These are men what works hard with picks and shovels and ain’t no milksops. ‘Luck of the Irish!’ Caleb shouts, as he hands over five quid. He thanks the crowd once more and the show is over. Now it is left to me to do the rest with Jonah Callaghan’s mob.

  The meeting of the Miners’ League is to take place at two. The men has been drinking steadily all morning and many is starting to fall about. Hawk wants me to rest in our tent for he sees how tired I am after my bad night’s sleep. I don’t say no. Sleeping during the day comes natural to me!

  I stops at the butcher’s on me way and buys two pounds o’ chops and a quarter o’ chopped liver. When I gets back to the tent I calls out to Lucy, our landlady. She be a widow what tries to make a living as a washerwoman. If she has a surname, she ain’t giving it to us. ‘Just Lucy,’ she replied when we asked. ‘Me husband were a right bastard when he was alive. I don’t see I has to carry the burden o’ his name now ‘e’s dead, does I?’

  So our private name for her is Just Lucy. ‘Lucy, I brought something for the moggy!’ I shouts as soon as I gets back. She’s out of her bark hut quick smart, carrying the mangy cat what seems to be her only company. ‘Mornin’, Tommo.’ She squints up at the pale sun. ‘Or is it afternoon? It’s me day orf, no washing on the Sabbath, so I’s kipped in a bit.’

  ‘Here, chopped liver and chops for the tabby.’ I hand her the meat and she lets the cat jump from her arms. She unwraps it careful, like it were a late Christmas present.

  ‘Cat can’t eat six chops, Tommo!’ she says soft.

  ‘Sorry Lucy, I doesn’t know much about cats. You’ll have to find some other use for them chops.’ Just Lucy don’t like charity. Since the tea and sugar Hawk bought her, she’s been trying to do our washing and cooking.

  ‘Yer a good boy, Tommo.’

  ‘Nah, I just likes cats! They don’t give a bugger for no one, like me!’

  ‘A likely story! How’d ya go with the packs of cards at the hotel, Tommo?’ she asks, dropping a lump of the chopped liver at her feet for the cat.

  ‘Perfect, Lucy. Matter o’ fact, couldn’t have done better meself.’ I take out a pound and hand it to her. ‘It’s what I promised if it worked, so this ain’t charity.’

  ‘Ten shillings you promised, Tommo!’

  ‘Ten shillings a pack!’ I says.

  Just Lucy shakes her head but takes the money and puts it in her pocket. I see her eyes getting a bit wet.

  ‘No, no, don’t cry, Lucy!’ I says in alarm. ‘It’s yours well earned. How long did ya have to wait in Jeremiah Neep’s shop?’

  ‘All Saturday afternoon, almost. About five o’clock, in comes a young lad and asks for two packs o’ DeLarue cards.

  ‘"DeLarue, eh?” Mr Neep says. “Where’s you from, lad?”

  ‘"Great Eastern Hotel,” the boy says. “Mr Chubb sent me, sir.”

  ‘"Must be an important game. Sold a couple o’ the selfsame packs yesterday. Don’t get much call for DeLarue, too expensive, they is.”

  ‘"Dunno how come, sir,” says the boy. “Mr Chubb just said they must be them cards, no other.”

  ‘I’m standing like you’s told me, right next to the shelf where the playing cards is kept. I puts yer two decks where you said, on the top. Then Mr Neep comes over. “Here we are, then. Right on the top they is, the last two.” He takes yer two packs and wraps them up proper and gives them to the lad, what pays ’im ten shillings. He sends the boy away with a bright red sucker from a jar.’

  ‘And Mr Neep ain’t suspicious, you standing in the shop all afternoon?’

  ‘Nah,’ says Just Lucy. ‘He be a decent man. I asks him if I can stay there so as to ask customers if they wants their washing done.’ She grins. ‘I got two new customers out of it, too! Took Mr Neep’s dust coat ‘ome to wash, for his kindness, like!’

  ‘Well it were nicely done, Lucy.’

  Just Lucy looks at me. ‘Tommo, why’d ya give Jeremiah Neep back the two packs o’ cards you bought yesterday, them brand new and not ever been opened?’

  I points to the moggy what’s busy eating the liver. ‘Cat’s got me tongue, Lucy,’ I says, laughing.

  ‘Oh, sorry, always were a bit of a stickybeak. Too curious for me own good.’

  ‘It ain’t that, Lucy. What you don’t know you can’t be hurt by if someone should come asking questions.’

  ‘You mean I didn’t never go into Mr Neep’s shop, ‘cept to find new customers for washing?’

  ‘That’s right, Lucy. That’s the bonus earned for keeping your gob shut.’

  ‘Happy to oblige, Tommo. Fancy a nice chop fer ya tea?’

  ‘Maybe when I wakes up. Got to get a few winks.’

  ‘I’ll see yer not disturbed,’ she promises.

  Well, I does get disturbed. About three o’clock Just Lucy herself sticks her head in and shouts, ‘Tommo, it’s the miners, they’s marching on the Chinamen’s camp!’

  I dunno how, but I know straight away that Hawk’s there and he ain’t marching with the miners. I runs to the trap and fetches me fighting axe. ‘Be careful, Tommo!’ she shouts after me as I trot down the path to the celestial encampment.

  It be a good mile or so to the Mongolians and I’m half running. As I draws near, I hears the mob shouting and the band playing, and some musket fire in the background. Smoke billows up on the horizon. The running has made me head ache real bad and it’s near time for me smoke. But all I can think of is that Hawk’s in danger. I can feel it in me gut and in the back of me throat.

  I get to the camp to find half of it already destroyed, tents and huts up in flames, people’s belongings strewn on the ground. Two Chinamen lies face down with several miners kicking at them, though I soon enough realise they’re dead. I run towards the noise and suddenly I’m in the middle of the fray. Men on horseback are firing pistols into the air and running down celestials, what are fleeing in every direction, screaming for fear.


  Two horsemen corner an old Chinaman with a scraggly beard. A mob of ten or so men runs over and drags him to the ground. They’re yelling and laughing like wild things. Four men roll the Mongolian onto his stomach and two of ’em holds him down by sitting on his legs. The other two plants their boots on him, on each shoulder and each wrist. Then they both grabs a hold of the Chinaman’s pigtail and, to the count of ‘One, two, three!’, they rips it out of the back of his head. The men all cheer as one holds it aloft, bright drops o’ blood dripping steady onto his dusty boots. Then they begin to kick the old man to death.

  I keep running, looking for Hawk, and pass several more dead Chinamen. All is lying on their stomachs with crimson patches to the backs of their heads, the blood still running down their necks and shoulders. One what I thinks is dead gets up and starts to stagger away, holding both his hands to his gut. But he gets only a few feet before he collapses again. Someone has sliced his gut open and his intestines spill out as he falls.

  In the smoke, white miners shout excitedly as they comes across stuff they wants in the Mongolian tents. Some carries armloads of loot, piled up to their chins — lamps and picks and lacquer boxes and every manner o’ thing you can imagine. One has a sack of rice over his shoulder. It leaks out the bottom, where some wag has stabbed into it, so that he leaves a white trail as he dashes this way and that. Up ahead I sees a mob of about fifty miners, shouting and throwing their fists in the air. I run through the smoke towards them.

  I am exhausted by the time I get to the circle o’ rioters. As I draws near, I sees Hawk standing right in the centre. Oh, shit! I force me way through the yelling miners, pushing them away with the handle of me axe ‘til I gets to the inside.

  There stands Hawk, with a white woman what’s holding a Chink’s baby. Four other Chinamen stand close beside him, three younger men and an older bloke. They’s whimpering and shaking from head to foot—all ‘cept for the old bloke, who stands calm to Hawk’s back. Hawk is holding a pickaxe handle. Most amazing of all, he’s calm and smiling!

  ‘Come on, then,’ he cries. ‘Who’s willing to die first? I’ll take ten of you before you take us!’

  I push through the last o’ the crowd to join him.

  ‘Tommo!’ Hawk shouts. He reaches out and grabs the axe from me. ‘Now it’s fifteen! Fifteen men will die before you harm these people! Who will it be among you, gentlemen?’ He points with the axe. ‘You holding the pigtail, like to be scalped?’ He hands the pick handle to me and whispers, ‘Cover the side.’ Then he raises the fighting axe and takes a step towards the cove with the pigtail. The mob tumbles backwards, falling over each other in their haste to get out of his way. The bloke with the pigtail drops it and runs.

  Just then a man on horseback rides up, raises his pistol and fires at Hawk. His horse shies as the mob runs towards him and the bullet misses, hitting the ground. I use the pickaxe handle like a Maori fighting stick and a second later the bastard is on the ground, with all his teeth smashed and his nose missing. The pistol has gone flying as he falls and quickly I rush to pick it up. The horse gallops away, whinnying, and the cove with his face missing gets up and runs blindly into a hut what’s burning fiercely. Soon his clothes are alight and he’s screaming blue murder.

  Hawk is moving forward with the axe and me with the pistol. The woman and her brat and the four Mongolians keep close. There’s smoke everywhere and not a tent or hut left standing. All around us, the miners say and do nothing as we make our way out o’ the burning camp, passing dead men lying in the dust. In the distance, we hears the band playing ‘Cheer, Boys, Cheer!’

  The woman holding the Chink baby begins to sob. One of the Mongolians takes the child in his arms and lays its head against his shoulder. He puts his arm ‘round the woman as we walks towards the Yass Road, with no one daring to follow.

  When we reach the road, Hawk stops beside the stump of what was once a big river gum. It’s been burnt and blackened but stands solid beside the track. ‘Tommo, go get the trap and meet us back here. Whistle when you get back—we’ll be lying low nearby.’

  I hand him the pistol. ‘Ere, gimme back me axe. I don’t care for this thing. Reminds me of Sam Slit.’ Hawk takes the pistol and gives my axe back. In my hands, the pistol felt big and clumsy and I doubt I could’ve fired it. In his fist, it looks like a child’s toy.

  Almost an hour later I’m back with Caleb’s trap. It’s turned dark and I whistles for me twin. Soon enough Hawk, at first a huge dark shadow, appears. He calls to the others.

  ‘Tommo, I want you to take them into Yass. They’ll be safe enough there. Then head back here as soon as you’re able. It’s a hard pull for the horses with six people but they’ll make it well enough.’

  ‘No sir!’ I says. ‘It’s twelve hours to Yass and I’ve got a game o’ cards to play tomorrow with the bloody Callaghan mob! I’ll never make it back in time. Betcha boots they was in the front of the Miners’ League this arvo!’

  ‘Tommo!’ Hawk exclaims, looking cranky. ‘I’m the weight of two men. I can’t go! It’s too much to ask the horses to pull!’

  ‘They’re game enough. Good nags them two. Take it slow.’ I fold me arms. ‘I ain’t doing it! I ain’t gunna let them Callaghan bastards off the hook.’

  ‘It isn’t safe to play cards with them!’ Hawk yells at me.

  ‘It’s safer than rescuing Chinks!’ I yells back.

  Hawk tries to argue some more. I shrug. ‘I ain’t had me stuff. I’ll be useless in an hour.’ Hawk stops, knowing he can’t win. In fact, I had a pipe o’ poppy when I returned to get Caleb’s trap but I ain’t gunna tell him that. Hawk calls to the Mongolians to climb into the trap. The woman and her baby, the old man and the smallest of the remaining men gets in the front. The other two stands on the back platform, what Caleb uses to carry a couple o’ cases of sample liquor. Hawk climbs in and takes up the reins and I can see it is a tight squeeze. The woman ain’t said a word all along and now she’s feeding her brat by a tit what don’t look too promising a source if you ask me. The baby’s little mouth is working overtime.

  One of the Chinamen steps down from the back platform. He comes over to me and bows low. It’s the man what earlier took the woman’s baby and put his arm about her. He looks up at me in the moonlight and smiles. ‘Me, Wong Ka Leung!’ He sticks out his hand and shakes mine up and down several times. ‘Very good, sir.’ He bows again, then climbs onto the back of the trap.

  ‘I’ll be back Tuesday!’ Hawk calls.

  ‘Yeah, see ya,’ I says. He hasn’t once mentioned the camp or what’s happened, just gone about the business of doing what needs to be done.

  I watch them move off. I’m about to turn and walk back to Lambing Flat when I sees him rein in the horses.

  ‘Tommo!’

  ‘Yeah, what?’ I shouts back.

  ‘I love you!’ Then he’s off in a clatter of wheels and hoofs down the rocky road.

  Jesus! I thinks. Four useless bloody Chinks, a wore-out white whore with a half-caste Chinky brat, and me twin risks his life to save them! When is that big nigger gunna grow up some?

  I begin to walk back to the camp and the card game. It’s bloody cold.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  HAWK

  Lambing Flat

  1 July 1861

  I return to Lambing Flat from Yass shortly before noon on Tuesday, having travelled through the night. As soon as I arrive, our landlady, Just Lucy, tells me that Tommo is still at the Great Eastern Hotel. Just Lucy enquired after him at ten o’clock this morning as soon as the bar opened for business. The barman said that Tommo and the lads were still upstairs. Some of the lads had ordered kidneys and hard-boiled eggs at dawn, but Tommo and Callaghan played on at stud poker.

  This is somewhat alarming news. I unharness the horses and Just Lucy gives them a feed of hay. Meanwhile, I take myself off to the hotel to see Mr Makepeace Chubb. The publican is in a regular sweat when I find him. For the past eight hours, two of the Calla
ghan mob have been stationed in the passage outside the upstairs room where the game is taking place. They will not allow anyone to enter. The publican is afraid they are holding Tommo captive. Since midnight, several bottles of Irish whiskey have been ordered, but no Cape brandy, which he knows Tommo drinks. All the bottles must be left halfway up the stairs, where they are collected by the two ruffians guarding the door.

  ‘Should we not call the troopers?’ I ask, concerned.

  ‘You won’t find them, lad,’ says Makepeace Chubb. ‘They’re all busy investigating the miners’ riots on the Chinese encampment.

  ‘Besides, I hasn’t got a gambling permit and if the traps find out, I’ll lose my liquor licence,’ he adds. ‘They’ll put your little mate in gaol too, with his winnings in the pocket of some good officer.’

  I thank him and return hastily to our camp. The road leading from the hotel is strewn with sleeping drunks. Others sit with vacant expressions, mumbling or shouting insults, each nursing a black bottle and often covered in their own vomit.

  Back at Just Lucy’s, I take the pistol gained on Sunday from the horseman in the Chinese camp. I reload it and place it inside my blouse where it cannot be seen. Next I find Tommo’s fighting axe. It’s where he usually keeps it, wrapped in an oil cloth in his blanket roll, together with his opium pipe and lamp. How I wish I could smash these last two objects and his addiction with them.

  I take some comfort from knowing that Tommo does not have his axe with him. He is deadly with this weapon and could easily take four or five men at once with it. But under the circumstances, he is much better without it. On consideration I too decide to leave the axe where it is, telling myself the Callaghan mob would not kill him on the hotel premises. Tommo is safe enough while he remains at the Great Eastern.

  And so I return to the pub and ask Chubb to direct me to the upstairs room. He takes me as far as the base of the stairway and points upwards before he tiptoes away. The short, narrow stairway is made of timber and without the benefit of a carpet, so there is no possibility of a stealthy approach. Instead, I prepare to bolt up the steps, hoping to take Callaghan’s two guards by surprise.