South of Darkness

by John Marsden

  Many times I had, as I said, doubted my impetuous decision to solicit transportation. I had cursed myself for recklessness, and for putting my body, my soul, my life in peril. But now, as we gently progressed between the two capes and the harbour began to reveal itself, I felt overwhelmed by exultation. I hope it is not sacrilegious to say that I can only compare my sensations to those experienced by Christian in Pilgrim’s Progress when he comes to the City and achieves the fulfilment of all his hopes.

  Even those statuesque headlands, dun in colour and bare of vegetation, had a softness about them. One of them, off our port bow, boasted the first evidence of civilisation: a flagstaff and a lookout house, and a column of rocks painted white. As we approached we saw a man emerge from the house and quickly run a flag up the flagstaff, before turning to us, saluting, and then waving in a most friendly manner. Later I found out that it was by means of the flag that the news of our arrival was conveyed to the residents of Sydney Cove.

  Yet we were about to discover the true beauty of the harbour, for that beauty lay within. I trust my readers will forgive me if I say that the gradual unfolding of that inner beauty was analogous to an experience which was, by virtue of my youth, denied to me in those times but which was later to bring me both exultation and fulfilment. Having penetrated the heads, a whole new wonderful world lay before us. I felt that I could spend my life exploring the interior of this remarkable continent without ever truly understanding it. Beauty was mine that day. I incorporated a sense of beauty, an awareness of beauty, an appreciation of beauty into my understanding of the world in a way which I had never previously achieved. The blueness of the water offered sanctuary, as though this water were of an entirely different nature to the water contained in the dangerous and unpredictable ocean we had just traversed. Everywhere we looked were small beaches with sand invitingly white. Here and there we saw islands, rocky but intriguing and, to a boy’s eye, begging to be explored. In all directions were further inlets, where entire navies could safely nestle. Proud trees, many majestic in their height, spread all the way down to the foreshores, thickly carpeting the hills and ridges. Yet even the highest points were not overly precipitous. Certainly the vista was one of wildness, but not threateningly so. I had the sense that we were entering something ancient, yet new; something rugged, yet gentle.

  Fear and awe were on the faces of the men around me. The most hardened villains were as young children, their eyes wide and their mouths open, speaking only occasionally to point out some feature to their comrades. Carmichael, who had earlier expressed such hopes for his destiny in the new colony, was among those most moved. ‘This could be paradise,’ he whispered to me. ‘It is all I dreamed of. I have never seen a sight more lovely.’ Then he added mischievously, and uncharacteristically: ‘Except perhaps for a Spanish señorita I met one night in Bournemouth.’

  I was annoyed with him for making what at my tender age I regarded as a vulgar comparison, even though I had sensed something of the kind myself, with a dim understanding that the harbour had a distinctly female aspect. Nevertheless, I moved away from him a little, gazing across the railing at a group of large white birds far in the distance, circling a tall tree. Then I cried out in astonishment as a family of Indians suddenly appeared, walking onto a rocky outcrop. This was, not surprisingly, the first time I had ever seen anyone of so vastly different a nature to myself and I could hardly comprehend the sight. London had its share of people from different countries, but by and large they strove to fit in. Of course during the voyage I had heard many conversations and much conjecture from my fellow prisoners about the habits and customs of the natives of New South Wales, and I had understood that they would most likely be black in colour and might well wear a minimum of clothing. There had indeed been a good deal of salacious speculation about the appearance of the Indian women, and uncouth anticipation of what might ensue once we made their acquaintance. It seemed that for some men, the opportunity to see a bare-breasted woman walking about freely in broad daylight might of itself make the trip across the world worthwhile.

  Young though I was, I must admit I too felt a certain frisson at the idea of seeing naked or semi-naked people. Life in East Smithfield had exposed me to many sights that would have outraged a moralist, but I had never seen people walking around naked, without shame, as though it were perfectly normal. These Indians were undeniably naked, completely so. They were true heathens in every way. I gazed at them red-faced. There were two men, three women, and half-a-dozen children, the oldest appearing to be perhaps thirteen or fourteen years of age.

  In the bright, strong light of Port Jackson, a light which appeared to allow no grey, or shades of darkness, and with the group no more than fifty yards away, it was possible to see every detail of them. They stood sturdily and gazed at us. One of the men was a little apart from the others, and he struck an unusual pose, his left foot resting on his right inner thigh. He held a long spear, with one end resting on the ground. His stare was unrelenting and his face stern. An older man holding a spear and a piece of wood also gazed at us, with an expression that showed no warmth. The children watched us for a minute, but the younger ones soon lost interest and wandered away. I deduced that they had already seen a number of European ships, so that in their eyes we were no different from other white people who had invaded their sanctuary.

  The watching convicts muttered various lascivious comments about the three women; about two of them at least, for the third was considerably older, and about her the men were vulgarly contemptuous. I moved away even further from their company. Some of the convicts were openly mocking the Indians, and the dignity of the latter was, I am sorry to say, in stark contrast to the behaviour of the men from the realms that would claim the virtues of civilisation.

  I locked eyes with an Indian boy of about my own age who had not followed the other children and who returned my stare boldly. I wondered what it would be like to have a friendship with him, and whether such a thing were possible. No doubt he could teach me a great deal about life in New South Wales, and perhaps I could teach him a thing or two about our manners and customs.

  The vessel continued on her course. I looked ahead, at the little settlement that we could now see clearly in the distance, and when I looked back at the Indians they were gone. I was surprised at how quickly and completely they had disappeared. Their dark skins no doubt helped them to merge into the shadows between the trees. They seemed to be part of the landscape in a way that I could not imagine possible for us pale-skinned folk.

  As we moved on I saw half-a-dozen native canoes in the distance, each one seemingly occupied by a single woman engaged in fishing. Several had infants with them and I saw one woman with a baby at breast. Trails of smoke drifted from a couple of the boats, which led me to believe that they had cooking fires in their crude little craft. This struck me as a dangerous enterprise. Equally dangerous were the canoes themselves, which were tiny vessels and perilously close to the surface of the water. I wondered how the women restrained the infants from tipping the boats over as they frolicked.

  Nearly half an hour later we approached our anchorage, the wind having dropped to a strength less than a butterfly could generate by a vigorous flapping of its wings. For the first time in more than six months we faced the prospect of stepping onto land, but I was not the only one on board feeling considerable apprehension at the thought. It was not just the Indians and the possibility of their being bloodthirsty savages. It was our fellow Englishmen, and the uncertainty surrounding their treatment of us. Would we be immediately locked up in the colonial equivalent of Newgate, with abominable food and wretched conditions? Or did a better situation await? I knew that when we stepped off the Admiral Barrington we would be stepping into an entirely new world. I hoped that it did not in too many ways resemble the old.

  Chapter 32

  The question of the kind of welcome we could expect from the Europeans who had preceded us was answered almos
t immediately. We were surprised but gratified to be received with remarkable warmth. Various small boats, alerted to our arrival by the flag hoisted at the headlands, came scurrying out to meet us. There were cries of pleasure from their occupants, but few questions about events in England or the continent, because, we were soon to learn, two other vessels from the so-called Third Fleet had arrived in the preceding three days: the Albemarle and the Britannia.

  The boats brought some fish and bread, which were welcome sights. There were also a number of Indians nearby, in their canoes, the people just as naked as the ones we had already seen. I did not want to be caught staring, yet I could hardly take my eyes off them.

  The bo’sun blew his long whistle, summoning all hands to bring the ship to her anchor point, and every seaman went to his station and very neatly they worked to bring her up and moor her. And so our long voyage was over! Though we knew nothing of what lay ahead, we feasted our eyes eagerly on the sights of the port: the various small boats milling about the Admiral Barrington, the other ships which sat at anchor, the forested hills, the waves slapping gently against the rocks, and the settlement itself.

  Of all these spectacles, I have to confess the settlement was the most disappointing. We could see a number of buildings, but very crude and poor they looked. Of course it would have been unrealistic to expect anything else, given the short time that had elapsed since the arrival of the first settlers, but it contrasted with the few other townships I had seen in my life, and the contrast was not in favour of Sydney Cove. London, for all its wickedness, teemed with life and had so many grand buildings; Portsmouth was very beautiful, situated so as to gaze across a harbour full of ships; Cape Town was a neat and pretty town framed by the rugged grandeur of the mountains. To be sure, the hills around Sydney Cove were verdant indeed, interspersed at various places by sandstone cliffs and well carpeted by trees, and the stream which evidently supplied the colonists with that most valuable commodity, fresh water, was a pretty sight. It had carved out a shallow valley about two miles across, and at its mouth trickled over rocks into the harbour.

  Yet whilst it seemed that Nature had done all it could to embellish the scene, Man had added little in the way of improvements. There were buildings on both sides of the creek, and some looked quite substantial, but they had a rough and ready air. Most of the buildings were flanked by tents. On the left-hand side of the creek was the only building that appeared to have been constructed with any ambition of permanence. It was surrounded by palisades, but from the deck of the ship I could glimpse gardens within. I found out later that this was the residence of Governor Arthur Phillip, who, unbeknownst to us and probably to him too, was entering his last year of service to the colony.

  We were mustered on deck by the worthy gentlemen of the New South Wales Corps. I had not realised that so many of them were already in the settlement, as I understood it to be a newly formed regiment. Apparently a number had come out with the Second Fleet, and their ranks had been further swelled by marines who had not wanted to go back to England and so transferred to the Corps.

  The soldiers on board the Admiral Barrington had made a great effort to parade in their finest uniforms and were resplendent in red tunics, white webbing and brass breastplates. The members of the Corps who came on board in Sydney Cove were somewhat less proud, and many looked positively shabby: grubby silver braiding around the fronts of their hats, a couple of hats with badges missing, and boots that looked as though they lacked a coat or two of polish.

  Nevertheless, there was much saluting and fine words as Captain Phillips handed us over to the tender mercies of his colleagues. Then the new men were let loose on us, and there was a deal of shouting as they marched up and down the ranks, inspecting us and making us aware of our shortcomings. It seemed that the shabbier the soldier, the more determined he was that we should not fall into his slovenly ways, and so we came in for a good deal of abuse from some of the most indifferently dressed men as they issued dire warnings of our fate should we not conform to the highest standards of behaviour and deportment.

  We were, however, finally disembarked and the sensation of standing on firm ground was so novel that I found myself struggling to keep my balance. It struck me as odd that I felt almost more inclined to seasickness on land than I had done on the Admiral Barrington.

  Conditions on shore contrasted quite sharply to the expectations I had after observing the bluster of the soldiers who had come on board, as they instead echoed the warm attitudes of the people in the bumboats. When we landed we were greeted by a welcoming crowd of at least two hundred people. Quite a few of the convicts were reunited with old friends who awaited them, and it seemed a simple matter for them to obtain permission to go with their comrades to be fed, and even to stay overnight. The rest of us were mustered again and then escorted to the largest of the men’s camps, near a place called Dawes Point.

  If this were a prison, I told myself, it would suit me fine. No one attempted to solicit a bribe; we were not divided into a private area and commons area; we were not confined to stinking squalid cells. We were not even chained or shackled. The residents did not seem in terror of headhunters or giant beasts. We had considerable freedom of movement, although there were stockades for those who abused the Governor’s hospitality, and a curfew for all. We were told that our rations were one pound of rice a week, and four pounds of pork, alongside greens and other vegetables, but that these were dependent upon our working to earn them.

  As we gathered around the cooking fires, the old hands told us stories of how close the colony had been to starvation. Astonishingly, no farmer or gardener had been sent out on the First Fleet, yet the settlers had been provided with various grains and farm implements, as well as livestock, and in consequence of being issued with these supplies were expected to become self-sufficient in a very short time. As a result of the lack of farming experience and skills, many crops had been planted in the wrong season and had failed. The livestock did not fare much better. Cattle had run away or been driven off by escaped convicts or the natives. A majority of the pigs and chickens had died. Some of the pigs had been speared and taken by Indians.

  Of the native animals, kangaroos and opossums seemed to make the best eating, but there was constant competition between the Indians and us, their uninvited guests, for the available wild animals. Fish were often in short supply. At one time there had been an abundance of turtles, but few now were found.

  It was disconcerting to be thrown into this new mix of men and boys, and I kept close to Carmichael that night for comfort and security. In the morning we were mustered again, and many of us were told to fall out and wait at the camp gates. I was pleased to find that my old shipmates Carmichael Lance, Pierre De Lafontaine and Michael Holt were numbered with me in this group. As well, I saw Chris Norfolk, whom I liked well enough, despite his unattractive habits, and Marmaduke Wyatt, the man who had lied so outrageously about his string of felonies and whom I liked not at all.

  We were allowed a couple of minutes to gather our meagre possessions – not a difficult task for me – and then marched down to Farm Cove. A few craft had been warped in for us to board, which we did, and upon pushing off found ourselves on the water once more, bound for a destination unknown to us all until the night before, when we had been advised by the old hands of our likely assignment.

  It seemed we were to sail up a river to a place called Rose Hill. I shall, however, henceforth refer to it by the name of Parramatta, as it was renamed such by Governor Phillip just after we arrived there. The name Rose Hill was then applied to a neighbouring area, a change which caused some confusion.

  Farms were apparently being established at Parramatta at a great rate. The soil around Port Jackson had been adjudged unproductive, but the Parramatta soil was considered much superior.

  Although there is always a sense of dread, or at least nervousness, when en route to a destination about which little of any s
ubstance is known, it was nonetheless a pleasant trip, with much to see. I had been told on the Admiral Barrington that the swans of New South Wales were as black as the Indians, and I had disbelieved it, imagining I was being teased. But it seemed that on this other side of the world everything was upside down and topsy-turvy, even the swans, for before long we had disturbed a flock of at least a hundred, and certainly they were blacker even than the natives I had seen.

  It was hard to imagine men wanting for food, because shortly after sighting the swans we saw geese, and later a flock of a huge white parrot-like birds, wheeling around a dead tree and screeching at each other as though all the demons of hell were in pursuit of them. I had never heard such a raucous noise, outside the streets of East Smithfield at any rate. They were so loud that I put my hands over my ears, which made Carmichael smile and say: ‘They are like the crowds who mill around the gallows at a public hanging in London.’

  ‘But they look like angels,’ Chris Norfolk said, and I was bound to admit he was right, for I do believe they were the whitest creatures or objects I ever did see.

  The trip to Parramatta proved a short one, and by mid-afternoon we found ourselves surveying a pleasant prospect. The temperature was comfortably warm, leading me to renew my faith in the opinions of the returned convict I had met in the Pie and Peas, and certain it was that most men had their shirts off as they luxuriated in the temperate climate. The land in every direction had a park-like aspect, with attractive grasses and tall trees, but plenty of room to walk among them without difficulty. Quite a number of acres had been cleared already for farming, and various houses and barns erected. Far in the distance, to the west, towered a mountain range that had no apparent end in either direction. It looked wild and rugged, a barrier both deterring and tantalising.