Corroboree

by Graham Masterton

  Christopher whispered, ‘Eyre? What did you make of all that? He’s quite a philosophical chap, isn’t he, for a blackie? Never heard one speak like that before. Didn’t know they could.’

  ‘Well, he was well-educated,’ Eyre remarked.

  ‘Somewhat bitter, though, what?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you be, if your mother had been beaten to death; and everywhere you looked your lands were being taken over by strange people from a strange country?’

  Christopher propped himself up on one elbow and stared at Eyre through the darkness. ‘What do you mean “strange people from a strange country”? We’re English.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Eyre. ‘Now, let me get some sleep, will you?’

  Christopher was silent for a while, although he didn’t lie down straight away. ‘Eyre,’ he said.

  ‘Mmph?’

  ‘Eyre, I beg of you, please don’t get me wrong. I know that I’ve been complaining rather a lot today. You know—about bringing Arthur with us, and all that trouble we had with Chatto. But I wouldn’t have missed coming along with you for anything.’

  ‘That’s all right, Christopher. Now, please get some sleep.’

  ‘Very well. But just remember how much I admire you; how much loyalty I have for you. Just remember that in the final reckoning I dearly love you.’

  Eyre was almost asleep. His mind was already beginning to swim in some deep dark silent billa. ‘Yes, Christopher,’ he said, and his voice sounded in his ears as if it were echoing across thirty centuries of lonely Australian nights.

  Eighteen

  It was a few minutes past five in the morning when Joolonga shook Eyre’s shoulder and told him that they were being followed.

  The day was chilly and grey, and there was a coastal mist over the landscape, so that Eyre felt as if he had been awakened into a world of phantoms. The fire had burned out, and Weeip was clearing away the ashes to build up a fresh one. Midgegooroo, stolid and silent, was feeding the horses. Arthur, already awake, was sitting on one of their packs, carefully scraping away at his scalp with a barber’s razor.

  Joolonga said, Two, perhaps three men are riding towards us from Tandarnya.’ For some reason he used the Aborigine name for Adelaide. They are coming quickly, in the manner of riders who wish to catch up with us.’

  Eyre pushed aside his blankets, and stood up, tugging at his tousled hair. He frowned through the mist in a south-easterly direction, but all he could see was the shifting silhouette of the horses, and the grey blotchy shadows of the mallee scrub.

  ‘How do you know?’ he asked Joolonga.

  Joolonga touched his ear. The ground tells me.’

  Eyre said, ‘Show me.’

  Flicking up the tails of his fancy coat, Joolonga knelt on the ground, and held his ear against it. He listened for a while, and then he said, ‘Yes. I hear them still. They are closer now, maybe two miles, perhaps not so far. Two men.’

  Eyre crouched down beside him, and pressed his ear to the earth, too. He closed his eyes and strained to pick up the slightest drumming, the slightest vibration. But all he could hear was the shuffling of their pack horses, and the crackle of the dry twigs as Weeip lit the fire, and the sharp scratching noise of Arthur’s razor.

  ‘Nothing,’ he admitted, sitting up straight.

  Joolonga stood up. ‘You have to listen with your mind, Mr Walker-sir. The land will speak to you if you allow it to talk inside your head.’

  Just then, Christopher came over, walking stiffly. ‘What’s up?’ he asked. ‘Do you know something, I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to sleeping on the ground. I feel as if I’ve been pummelled all over by an entire company of dancing bears.’

  Eyre said, ‘Joolonga says there are two men following us, not more than two miles away.’

  ‘Mr Chatto and Mr Rose?’ Christopher suggested, at once.

  ‘I don’t know, but it’s likely. I can’t think of anyone else who would want to come chasing after us at five o’clock in the morning, can you?’

  ‘Maybe we left something behind,’ said Christopher. ‘Maybe somebody’s riding after us with extra food, or clean laundry.’

  Eyre said, ‘You checked our stores, Joolonga. Is there anything missing—anything that Captain Sturt would want to send out after us?’

  Joolonga shook his head. ‘Everything is in apple-pie order, Mr Walker-sir.’

  ‘Well, they needn’t necessarily be chasing us, need they?’ said Christopher. ‘They might just be travelling in this direction on business of their own.’

  ‘I suppose that’s possible,’ said Eyre. But Joolonga shook his head again.

  ‘They are coming after us, Mr Walker-sir. They are coming too quick for ordinary travellers. There is no settlement for twenty miles, and if they were ordinary travellers, they would be riding much more slowly, these two men are riding as if they do not think they will be going too far.’

  ‘Then it must be Chatto and Rose,’ said Eyre. He stood up, too, and brushed the knees of his britches. ‘I should have realised they were too persistent to let us go. After all, they won’t be paid their bounty, will they, nor their travelling expenses, not until they take Arthur back to Botany Bay.’

  Arthur came over, towelling his head. ‘You lot look like a week of wet Wednesdays,’ he said, cheerfully. ‘Didn’t you sleep?’

  ‘Chatto and Rose are coming after us,’ said Christopher. ‘At least, that’s what Joolonga seems to think.’

  Arthur looked from Eyre to Christopher and then back again. ‘How can he tell that?’ he asked. ‘It’s as thick out there as a bowl of prison-house porridge.’

  ‘He can hear the hoofbeats,’ Eyre explained. ‘There’s a slight chance that it isn’t them; but a far greater chance that it is.’

  Arthur pulled a face. ‘Well, then,’ he said. ‘It seems as if they won’t let an old government pensioner go free after all.’

  ‘We can’t let the buggers have him; not now,’ protested Christopher.

  ‘I don’t intend that they shall,’ Eyre told him. ‘Joolonga, how long would it take us to saddle up and get out of here? Could we do it before they reach us?’

  ‘No, Mr Walker-sir. Five minutes, and they will be here.’

  ‘In that case, break out two rifles; powder and ball.’

  ‘Now then, Mr Walker, you can’t go doing a thing like that,’ Arthur spoke up. ‘Those two fellows have letters of authority from the Governor of New South Wales, and from Colonel Gawler. If you were to harm them at all, sir, even a scratch, they’d have you locked up and flogged and sent out to Norfolk Island, before you could say cheese.’

  Eyre turned to Christopher.

  ‘Rather risky, I’d say,’ Christopher told him. ‘Not that I’m afraid, mind. Just judicious.’

  ‘Break out the rifles,’ Eyre instructed Joolonga. ‘Make it quick, too, will you? They’ll be on us in a minute or two.’

  Joolonga called to Midgegooroo, and Midgegooroo unbuckled one of the horse-packs, and drew out two Baker rifles wrapped in waterproof oil-cloth. He brought them over, as well as a satchel filled with powder and shot. Eyre silently unwrapped one of the rifles, watched with solemnity by his companions, and then crouched down on the ground to load it, the way that Captain Sturt had shown him. He wrapped a lead ball in a patch of calico, rammed in into the barrel; then put a pinch of priming powder on the pan. Once the rifle was loaded, he handed it to Christopher, and loaded the second one.

  ‘I’m not at all sure I’m going to be able to use this,’ Christopher protested.

  ‘Well,-with good luck, you won’t have to,’ said Eyre.

  Arthur said, ‘Begging your pardon, Mr Walker, I’d much rather give meself up. You they may flog; me they’d hang.’

  ‘I refuse to allow it,’ Eyre insisted. ‘You’ve come this far; and now you’re an indispensable member of this expedition. Apart from that, you’ve served your time, and if they send you back to the penal colony then no justice will have been done, of any kind.’


  Almost at that moment, they heard hoofbeats for the first time, muffled in the mist. Then two riders appeared, both wearing large bush hats and masked by scarves. They slowed down as they came past the line of pack-horses, and then drew their horses up only ten feet away. Their horses snuffled, and blew out vapour, and scraped at the ground. The riders themselves remained silent and upright, their eyes gleaming above their masks like the eyes of predatory animals, silvery and avaricious.

  Eyre stepped forward, holding his rifle in one hand, upraised. The nearer of the two riders wheeled his horse around, so that he was well off to Eyre’s left side; making it far more difficult for Eyre to shoot at both of them quickly. The rider seemed to have judged, probably rightly, that Christopher would not be inclined to fire, and that Eyre was the only man he had to worry himself about.

  Eyre said, ‘Show yourselves. Are you robbers, or what?’

  The nearer rider pulled down his scarf. Eyre’s suspicions had been correct. It was Mr Chatto, his face looking even more milky and translucent than ever, like a glass jug filled with cloudy water. There were sooty circles under his eyes, which was hardly surprising. He and Mr Rose must have ridden out of Adelaide a little after midnight to catch up with them here at dawn.

  ‘You would be doing yourself a kindness, Mr Walker, if you laid down your rifle,’ he called to Eyre.

  Eyre said nothing, but lifted the muzzle of his rifle a little higher.

  ‘We want Mortlock, that’s all,’ Mr Chatto declared. ‘If you co-operate with us, and give us no trouble we will say nothing to the authorities about your own involvement in this affair. And I believe you already know that you could well be arrested for giving aid and succour to an absconded ticket-of-leave man.’

  Eyre said, ‘Turn your horses around, Mr Chatto, and go back to where you came from.’

  ‘Not without Mortlock, I regret.’

  ‘Your regret doesn’t interest me in the slightest. Either you go back to Adelaide now, and tell your paymasters that you were unable to find any trace of Mr Mortlock at all; or else I will shoot first your horses and then you.’

  ‘That, Mr Walker, would not be wise.’

  ‘Perhaps not. But it would be wiser than letting you live.’

  ‘That would be murder,’ said Mr Rose.

  Eyre shook his head. ‘Whatever you believe, Mr Chatto, disinfestation is not a punishable offence. If you happen to kill a louse, or a leech, is anyone concerned about it? Killing you two would be no more criminal than ridding the mattress of Australia of two particularly unpleasant bedbugs.’

  Mr Chatto’s horse began to twitch, and shake its head. It could probably sense through the grip of his thighs that he was angry. But with Eyre, Chatto remained white-faced and utterly calm; although he never took his eyes away from Eyre’s face, no matter which way his horse turned itself.

  ‘Mortlock,’ called Chatto, to Arthur.

  ‘No Mortlock here, friend,’ Arthur replied.

  ‘Well, whatever you’re calling yourself, step forward.’

  Arthur came around the camp fire, and stood in front of Mr Chatto, quite close, with his arms folded.

  ‘Will you give yourself up without protestation?’ Mr Chatto asked, still keeping his eyes on Eyre.

  ‘Mr Ransome is a member of this expedition,’ Eyre answered firmly before Arthur could open his mouth. ‘As such, he enjoys special protections and privileges, quite apart from the sponsorship of the Government of Southern Australia.’

  ‘His name is Arthur Stanley Mortlock and he is under arrest; to be taken back to New South Wales in chains.’

  Eyre cocked the hammer of his rifle; and in the misty atmosphere of the morning, it made a loud, flat click. He raised the gun and pointed it directly at Mr Chatto’s head. Mr Chatto blinked slightly, and drew himself back, as if someone were waving their hand too closely in front of his face. ‘You would be well advised to put that down, you know,’ he told Eyre, his voice anxious and nasal.

  ‘You, for your part, would be well advised to go back to Adelaide and forget about anyone called Mortlock,’ Eyre cautioned him.

  ‘That’s impossible, I’m afraid. I have a job to do. Mr Rose has a job to do.’

  ‘You have a count of five to turn around and start riding away,’ said Eyre, in a constricted but level tone. ‘Then, I will fire at you.’

  Mr Chatto said, ‘Killing me won’t bring you anything but grief, Mr Walker.’

  ‘You sound as if you don’t mind the idea of being killed.’

  ‘I have friends, Mr Walker. No matter what happens to me, my friends will always make sure that I am revenged. In a way, it is nearly as good as being immortal. They will tear you to pieces, Mr Walker, I assure you, and feed you raw to the dingoes. You will be dog meat, if you kill me; I warn you now.’

  Eyre said, ‘One.’

  Mr Chatto stayed where he was, watching Eyre with that white-lantern face of his. Joolonga said, ‘Mr Arthur should go, Mr Walker-sir. No good is going to come of shooting this man.’

  ‘Two,’ said Eyre.

  ‘For goodness’s sake, Eyre, think what you’re doing,’ put in Christopher. ‘I mean, really. The poor fellow already offered to give himself up. There’s going to be the very devil to pay if we open fire on these chaps.’

  ‘Three,’ said Eyre, and then, ‘You, Christopher—you were the one who said we couldn’t let the buggers have him now.’

  ‘Yes, but I didn’t think it would have to go as far as actually—’

  ‘Four,’ Eyre announced, quietly.

  Mr Chatto loosened his horse’s rein, and then unexpectedly swung himself out of the saddle, and in two steps was close beside Arthur, with one arm around Arthur’s shoulder, as if they were the very best of friends, posing to have their picture taken.

  ‘Now then, Mr Walker,’ he called. ‘Don’t you think it would be foolhardy of you to shoot at me with your cousin here so close? A Baker’s an accurate weapon, I’ll give you that, but somewhat out-of-date. I’d hate to think what the consequences might be if you were to miss.’

  ‘Step aside, Arthur,’ Eyre instructed him, tautly.

  ‘Ah! So you admit at last that he’s Arthur!’ grinned Mr Chatto. ‘Well, now, that makes my task a little easier. Mr Rose, will you please take this gentleman’s rifle away.’

  Eyre took two or three steps back, and turned; but it was too late. Mr Rose had been shifting his horse right around behind him, and was now pointing a pistol at him from out of the folds of his riding-cape.

  ‘The other rifle, too, Mr Willis, please,’ said Mr Chatto.

  Christopher hesitated, and then let the Baker fall to the ground with a clatter. Mr Rose dismounted, and came across to Eyre with his pistol now openly displayed, his hand held out for Eyre’s rifle. There’s no shame to it, sir,’ he smiled, trying to be consoling. ‘We’re professionals, and you’re an amateur. We don’t expect you to be any sort of a match for us; not when it comes to tracking down beasts like our chum Mortlock here.’

  ‘I object to you calling him a beast,’ Eyre replied, coldly.

  ‘Nonetheless, a beast he is,’ said Mr Chatto. ‘A beast that walks on two legs, and has the rudiments of speech. A beast that sometimes has wonderful charm; to beguile such unsuspecting people as may give him shelter and assistance. But a beast who is nothing much better than any other crawling, shambling creature of the Australian forest. A beast who thieves and kills in order to survive, and who has been condemned to Hell so thoroughly that he has no qualms about thieving and killing again. For what do you have to look forward to, Mr Mortlock, but the noose, and then the countenance of Satan?’

  Arthur didn’t answer. For all that he had offered to give himself up, he appeared to be stunned by his recapture. Mr Chatto said to him, ‘Come here then, cully,’ and led him across towards Mr Rose’s horse, where there were chains and steel circlets hanging from the saddle; and as he walked across the campside, Arthur stumbled and almost lost his balance, like a Finniss Street
drunk.

  From the other side of the blazing fire, Joolonga and Midgegooroo and Weeip watched in respectful silence as Arthur was chained up. For South Australian Aborigines, the sight of a white man being treated as badly as a blackfellow was both frightening and fascinating. Arthur remained silent, his face set solid, his eyes already looking far beyond this misty morning to the cells in which they were going to lock him up; and the bloody wooden frames on which they would flog him; and further still to the tangled and rotting vegetation of Macquarie Harbour; and the suffocating madness of solitary confinement, and death.

  Last night he had told Eyre and Christopher how the prisoners used to draw straws; one to be a ‘murderer’ and the other to play his ‘victim’. Then, in full sight of the guards, the ‘murderer’ would cut his willing partner’s throat, so that the guards would have no choice but to take him, and hang him. ‘In that fashion, two men would get blessed relief for the effort of killing one,’ Arthur had explained. ‘And the rest of us would make book on who picked the straws, and at least have a little excitement to pass the day.’

  He had described how a friend of his called Billy Pegler had laughed for joy as he had been slashed from one side of his neck to the other; and how he had still been laughing in bubbles of blood as he collapsed to the ground.

  Eyre felt that he would almost be doing Arthur a service if he were to pick up his rifle and shoot the poor man dead before Chatto and Rose could take him back.

  It took only four or five minutes for Arthur to be shackled, with circlets around his ankles, and handcuffs around his wrists, joined behind his back by a long running-chain. He stood beside Chatto’s horse with his head bowed, averting his eyes from everyone around. He was an untouchable again, now that he was chained up; an old hand. He appeared to Eyre to have lost his humanity, and to have reverted to what Chatto believed him to be, a beast.

  Christopher blurted out, in an agitated voice, ‘Oh God, Eyre, is there nothing we can do?’

  Without bitterness, Eyre said, ‘You could have kept your eye on Rose, while I was warning off Chatto.’