by John Marsden
I heard tell of a convict who was bitten by one and who appeared to suffer nothing more than he would if bitten by a dog. Yet I also heard of a dog bitten by a snake; the dog swelled up, twisted and contorted in agony, and was dead within the half-hour.
James, who was a country lad, taught me how to catch the snakes of New South Wales by swiftly pinning them down with a forked stick behind their heads or, if such an implement were not available, by pressing a stick across their necks and then killing them at leisure, with a rock or similar. He cautioned me to sever the head from the body and not to touch the head, for fear that the creature might strike with its fangs after death. He said he had been taught this intelligence by a Chinaman.
In St James’s Palace we consumed snakes on at least a dozen occasions, although it was hard to render them as tender as chicken or pork. They had many little bones, which made the eating of them difficult.
The native dogs were sighted frequently enough, and although I have seen them bring down a kangaroo, they had enough discretion to keep away from us. The kangaroos could fight if they were cornered, kicking with their powerful hind legs hard enough to disembowel a man if he were too slow on his feet. For the most part, though, they were timid creatures. The soldiers tried to hunt them, but with limited success. The kangaroos grazed in flocks of twenty or thirty, and at the slightest disturbance lifted their heads and gazed at its source. They would do so for many seconds, and if a soldier was close enough to fire it was then that he stood his best chance; if he did not seize the opportunity the kangaroos would suddenly, with one accord, break away and hop deep into the forest. Their speed was deceptive; they seemed to go at an almost leisurely pace but within seconds were out of sight. Governor Phillip’s greyhounds, of which he was very fond, could occasionally run a kangaroo down, but were sometimes much wounded in the process.
The chief cause of my discomfort in the forest was the insect population. Unless the wind blew hard, mosquitoes were common, and seemed attracted to my soft skin. Ants were numerous, and many of them could sting, particularly a huge ant the size of the two top joints of my little finger. George showed me how to take the immature bud of the bracken fern, squeeze it and rub the juice onto the bite, which gave almost instant relief. He had been shown this remedy by one of the Indian lads.
Despite our fears of headhunters, and despite the stories we had been told of their savagery, the Indians only occasioned fear in me two or three times. They wandered around the huts and tents quite freely, often looking for victuals, of which they sometimes stood in great need. It puzzled me that they suffered such hunger, for I wondered how they had survived in the area so long if they could not easily find food, but no doubt the arrival of several thousand Britishers had put a strain on their resources.
One of their chief methods of hunting game was to set fire to the forest and then wait downwind to spear the animals as they fled. This system, lazy though it seemed to me, was efficient enough in its own way, but did not serve their long-term interests well, as it meant the population of animals was much reduced, not to mention the birds’ nests that were destroyed in the blazes.
The boys of St James’s Palace and I were forever on the lookout for ducks’ nests, and those of other birds too, raiding them at every opportunity and thereby guaranteeing ourselves a good source of additional nourishment.
The Indians seemed more dangerous to each other than they were to us, although they could certainly turn on the white man quickly enough if seriously affronted, for example by the theft of their fishing or hunting tools, or by improper attentions paid to their women. They themselves were extraordinarily brutal to their women, going so far as to knock them unconscious with a club if they gave cause for displeasure. Many of the women had old scars, and almost every time I looked at them I could discern new wounds, particularly around the scalp area.
When a man caused offence to a member of another tribe, the two tribes would meet, and with bodies and faces painted advance on each other with much gesturing and shouted threats, flinging spears and at the same time using their shields to deflect attacks. Eventually the one who had caused the offence, or one of his relatives, was speared by the enemy – most commonly in the leg, and if the offence were very great, speared a number of times. This seemed to discharge the tension to the satisfaction of all concerned, and the wounded man would be hauled away by his tribe to receive the ministrations of whatever primitive medicines his witch-doctor prescribed. There were times, however, when the spearing was fatal, though I formed the impression that this never happened unintentionally. I could only assume it was done as retribution for a crime most serious.
I suppose that when all is said and done, these barbaric battles were not entirely dissimilar to our civilised European custom of fighting duels with swords or pistols at daybreak, to settle some real or imagined score, or indeed the meeting of two armies on the plains of Marathon or Abraham.
At any rate, I became less fearful of the Indians as time went on, and gradually I even became accustomed to their nakedness, although I could not help noticing, young though I was, that some of the girls my own age or thereabouts were quite comely. It was hard not to stare at their nubile charms.
However, neither the snakes nor the native dogs nor the kangaroos nor the Indians posed as much danger as did our own kind, and in particular the convicts who had fled from the confinement of the settlement. Indeed, ‘confinement’ seems scarcely the word when comparing the conditions in New South Wales with the conditions reputed to exist in the Hulks and the conditions I had experienced in Newgate. I was one of many who had never imagined such openness, such vastness as was to be found in this country. The sky was inconceivably immense, the forest stretched forever, the oceans were infinite and the mountains towered in the distance, all combining to impress us with our insignificance. We felt dwarfed by the magnitude of our surroundings. ‘Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth?’ the Lord asked Job, and here on the other side of the world, so far from civilisation, I felt that we had a glimmering of understanding of that breadth. ‘Whatsoever is under the whole heaven is mine,’ said the Lord, and instead of feeling exhilarated by being permitted to stand erect in that immensity, many cowered under it, and ran away, seeking to hide from the presence of God like Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden.
Just a few days after the Admiral Barrington had dropped anchor in Sydney Cove, twenty-one convicts from previous shipments, including one woman, had fled from Rose Hill northwards into the forest. Most were retrieved within a comparatively short time, some surrendering themselves because of hunger, but a couple were never seen again and were thought slaughtered by the Indians. The members of this group believed, as they confessed when they were recaptured, that could they travel but a hundred miles they would find themselves in China! I heard this story told and retold many times, sometimes with doubt cast upon it, but I can attest to its truth, for I was told it by one of the soldiers who stood guard over the escapees in the hospital. And although I joined in the mirth at their expense, my own ignorance of geography was so complete that no doubt back then I too could have easily been persuaded that China was just a brief span up the coast.
There were doubtless others who struck out for far-distant destinations, and there were also many who went but a short distance into the forest and lurked there, committing depredations upon free settlers, soldiers and convicts alike. Theirs was an unthinking existence, for there could be no future other than a lonely death in the wilderness on the one hand, or a flogging and a more severe imprisonment on the other. Occasionally, it is true, an escaped prisoner would be adopted into a native tribe, and of course we shall never know how many such instances occurred, but I believe them to be few and far between. The native people rarely welcomed the attentions of escapees and at times treated them quite brutally, perhaps, it is thought, as some kind of punishment for crimes committed by others, as their perverted system of justice prescri
bed.
Yet there were also many instances of their kindness to our people. It seemed impossible to find a consistency in their behaviour.
When I started fetching water to the men working in the forest, my fellow carriers George and Alec cautioned me that I might encounter renegade convicts. But, George confessed and Alec concurred, they had never seen any, and so I suppose I did not take much notice of their warnings. I was therefore quite confounded soon after dinner one day, when I had resumed my duties and was making for a stand of timber perhaps a mile from Toongabbie Creek, to have an apparition suddenly appear from behind a tree, holding a wooden club above his head in a most threatening manner.
He was a tall man, but very thin, with a prominent Adam’s apple, and no head hair at all. He had a thin straggly beard of recent growth, was dressed in nothing but a pair of ragged trousers and had cuts and scratches and scabs all over his legs and arms and torso. He stared fiercely at me but seemed to have trouble speaking. I stared back into his blue eyes, feeling desperately afraid but trying not to show it.
Eventually he rasped: ‘What have you got?’ He waved the club as he said it, as though to emphasise his question.
‘Only water, sir,’ I replied. ‘Would you like some?’
I had the feeling that he was not in his right mind and I should be careful not to offend or anger him. He nodded, to indicate that he would like water, and I filled my pourer and gave it to him. He drank thirstily, but without taking his eyes off me, then gave the pourer back and gestured that he wanted another serving, which I was glad enough to provide. His eyes seemed to burn holes in me as he drank this second draught, staring at me from above the lid of the pourer. Then he threw it down. I eyed it as it lay on the ground, wondering how I should get it back.
‘Food,’ he croaked.
‘I don’t have any, sir,’ I said, trying to appear calm and unconcerned, although truth to tell my heart was beating quickly.
He suddenly let go of the wooden club, lurched forward and grabbed me around the neck. I dropped the bucket and felt the water spill across my feet as he shook me. I was surprised and shocked by his speed and strength. He felt around my clothes but I had nothing in my pockets except a parrot’s feather, a smooth rock I had found in the creek and a slingshot George had made me. He let me go, pushing me back so that I nearly fell. Then he studied the slingshot for a moment, before thrusting it into the only pocket in his trousers which looked intact.
‘You understand,’ he said, ‘I’m desperate for food. Come back here tomorrow. Bring me food, for God’s sake.’
‘I . . . I’ll try, sir,’ I stammered. ‘No one has much food, as you would know.’
He shook his head and for the first time his eyes wandered away from me. ‘I don’t know how long I’ve been out here,’ he muttered. ‘It’s been so long. You can’t live without people, boy. No matter how bad it is, don’t run off, you understand?’ He began mumbling then, and I could not understand what he was saying. I backed slowly away, but just as I felt I was at a safe distance from him he suddenly turned and trotted off in the opposite direction, leaving his club behind. I saw the tell-tale maze of white scars on his back, the sure evidence of one or more floggings, the mark of the convict. I picked up the pourer and the empty bucket and headed quickly back to Toongabbie Creek.
Chapter 35
I spoke to no one, not even George or James, of my encounter with the man. I knew well enough what would happen if I were caught helping him. So far I had avoided a flogging, and I dreaded the thought of having my back cut to ribbons by the dreaded lash.
The next day I was in an agony of apprehension as to what course I should pursue. Having been among the abused and downtrodden all my life I had a natural sympathy for others in the same condition. Yet the hold self-preservation has on us cannot be underestimated. Leaving our residence the next morning, I paused, irresolute, then thrust some bread and a potato into my pocket, not sure whether I would offer them to the man, should he find me again, or eat them myself.
Mid-morning I delivered water to the convicts working in the stand of trees to which I had been paying twice-daily visits. It had apparently proved difficult at first to find good quality timber in the forests of New South Wales, and I had heard much grumbling about immense trees which had taken great exertion to fell, only for the axemen to find them rotten to the core. It was true also that many of the gums were knotted in such a way as to make them unworthy for certain uses, but the blue gums, the red gums and the trees that we came to call stringy barks all proved suitable for boatbuilding, furniture making and shingles for roofs, as well as their most important function: the construction of houses.
Having made the outward journey safely, I returned in a more serene state of mind, only to be startled as abruptly as the day before by the reappearance of the sepulchral figure in front of me. If anything, I was even more frightened of him than I had been the first time. Certainly he looked even more desperate. He stepped out suddenly from behind a tree and came at me, carrying what seemed to be the same wooden club. He dropped it again as he reached out to grab me. I stepped backwards, pulled from my pocket the potato I had brought, and offered it to him. He seized my arm in a death grip with one hand and took the potato with his other. His eyes burned fiercely as he bit into it.
‘Eat it slowly,’ I urged. I had learned a thing or two about hunger in my time, and I knew that this was the best way to assuage it.
He glanced down at me, and I saw him making a conscious effort to do as I had suggested. Nevertheless, the potato seemed to be gone in a moment.
‘Water,’ he demanded, but I had none left and told him so.
‘More food,’ he said, and I gave him the two hunks of bread. He took a bite from the first one and glanced at me again. ‘You’re kind,’ he said. ‘You’re a good boy.’
I shrugged. I feared that my kindness might cost me dearly. Although I could argue with myself that I was helping him out of fear, the truth was not quite so simple. He did frighten me, but I could have avoided him by taking a different route through the forest. I could have reported him to the soldiers who guarded us. Given my youth, and his obvious frailty, I could probably have run away from him. I did not know why I had done none of those things, except for my feelings for a fellow creature. Perhaps the kindness displayed me by the Piggotts and the Revd Mr Haddock back in London served as some sort of inspiration. At any rate, I did not regret giving him the potato and bread.
‘I have to go,’ I said. ‘They’ll be looking for me soon enough.’
‘But you mustn’t give up on me,’ he croaked. ‘For the love of God, come back tomorrow.’
I shrugged again, fearing that I was being dragged into a quicksand which would sooner or later engulf me. He did not attempt to stop me as I picked up my buckets and turned away, walking through the trees as quickly as I could.
I did indeed bring him food again on the following day, and for all but one of the five days after that. The amount varied. Food was difficult to obtain at the best of times, and only once could I manage a decent quantity for him. Half-a-dozen sheep, apparently killed and mauled by the native dogs, had been brought in to be butchered. We had all eaten well and I had been able to secrete at least a pound and a half of meat for him. ‘But,’ he confided to me, as he gnawed at a bone, ‘I believe my stomach to have shrunk, because it takes so little to fill it now.’ It was true: he ate only half of what I had brought, then loped away into the forest, clutching the remainder of his provisions.
Just those few sporadic meals had brought about some change in his condition. He did not look any less gaunt than before, but he seemed calmer, his eyes less fevered. He no longer threatened me with clubs or words, but waited anxiously for me in the same place at the same time each day.
After a week of this, my talkative little friend, Isaac Rose, who loved information and would scurry down any burrow like a ferret after
a rabbit if he thought there was gain in it for him, said to me slyly: ‘I know you’re stealing food, Barnaby, and I can guess why you’re stealing it.’
‘Oh can you just?’ I said, thrown badly off guard by this unexpected sally. ‘Well, listen to me, my lad, generally them that thinks doesn’t know much, and them that knows a lot don’t need to think.’
I had heard a man say this on the Admiral Barrington. I wasn’t quite sure what it meant, but in my confusion over Isaac’s remark I thought it might buy me time while he tried to sort out the tangle of words himself.
He did look somewhat disconcerted and skulked away, saying merely: ‘You better watch out for yourself, that’s all I’m saying.’
Later I saw him talking to George Bruce and wondered at the subject of their conversation, as they both looked somewhat furtive. I liked George Bruce, or Joseph Druce as he later called himself, for he was a smart lad with a keen mind and a great curiosity about the world. Like me, he had picked up some sort of education, in bits and pieces. He had a great interest in insects, and although he had not been long in the colony, he could already speak with authority upon them. Quite a few of my fellow convicts were able to make good money by gathering specimens of unusual creatures, bones, shells, rocks and vegetation, which eventually made their way back to collectors in Europe. George was already so employed, whenever he had an opportunity, and often added to our food stocks with the proceeds of his enterprise. I sometimes gave him curios I picked up in the forest or along the river, but so far he had treated them all with scorn. ‘Got thousands of ’em,’ he would grunt. Yet once in a while he would slip the item into his pocket even as he disparaged it, which made me doubt the authenticity of his contempt.
