by John Marsden
‘Was there blood?’ I asked, listening in horror and trepidation to this story.
Johnny gave a little nod. ‘It started to spread,’ he said. ‘I staunched the flow as best I could, with a scarf, but I was too afeared to stay. I knew it would be the gallows for me if I was caught.’
He told this story on the third night of our trek into nowhere, our escape into the great inland nothingness of New South Wales. Huddled into Johnny, for protection against the cold and the savages and the beasts of the night, I shook with fear and remembered how Christian had preached to Hopeful that Moses would rather have died where he stood than go one step without his God. And I remembered how Christian and Hopeful, having reached a crossroads and become uncertain of their direction, had been persuaded to follow one who promised to take them to the Celestial City. Instead he had led them astray, until eventually they found themselves caught in a horrible net in which they were pitifully and hopelessly entangled.
Come hither, you that walk along the way,
See how the Pilgrims fare that go astray;
They catched are in an entangled net,
’Cause they good counsel lightly did forget . . .
I could not credit how the stolen food had not choked me with every mouthful, and I bitterly rued the day I had shown kindness to Johnny, for it seemed he was the one who had led me away from the future that Carmichael and the Revd Mr Haddock had shown me, and in consequence I was now to be punished over and over again.
Indeed it seemed before much longer that the punishment was to be a capital one. The next day we reached the foot of the cliffs that formed such an impenetrable barrier to the colony’s expansion and, despairing of tackling the mighty sandstone ramparts in our weakened state, turned north. It was difficult walking on the broken rocks, but the vegetation to our right was too thick to penetrate, and so we struggled on. With every passing hour the desire for food grew stronger, and the lack of it sapped our limbs of strength and our bodies of energy. It was now our third day without food. Even in the cruel streets of London I had never gone so long without some trifle to eat. We did find a few bushes, more like small trees perhaps than bushes, with little orange fruits hanging from their branches. Some pretty crimson and green parrots, of a type I had seen before, were feeding from them, so we took the risk that they would be palatable for humans and filled our pockets. They were somewhat bitter and not at all tasty, but they seemed to do us no harm and doubtless were better than nothing.
That afternoon we came to a waterfall which, had we been in a healthier state, we might have appreciated as a superb example of Nature’s magnificence. The water thundered down upon our heads when we ran into the torrent, the drops striking us with force. We had to shout at each other to make ourselves heard. Bubbles foamed around us as we luxuriated in one of the shallower pools at its base. We drank greedily, refreshing ourselves inwardly and outwardly. Although I could not spare the energy to appreciate the spectacle of the cascade, yet I was grateful for the nourishment the water provided.
Just a few miles further on, however, we came across water of a very different sort. We reached the banks of a broad river and stood in dismay looking out across it. Just under the surface were many green weeds and the water flowed fast across them. As if to further emphasise its speed, Johnny threw in a stick and it was swiftly borne away, being out of sight in less than a minute.
It seemed to me that my life continued to mirror that of Christian’s, for I could not help recalling the great darkness and horror that fell upon him when he found himself in the river, just short of the celestial gates. I told Johnny of this. He stood for a moment ruminating upon the story and then said to me: ‘This fellow, Christian, he was taken then, by the river?’
‘No, indeed.’ I shook my head. ‘He had faith and was saved.’
‘Well then, we need not be too despairing. If he was saved, there is hope for us.’
I thought, but did not say: But we are wicked sinners. The waterfall seemed to have given Johnny new energy, and he began to trek eastwards, along the bank. I followed. A few days earlier I would have said that I had more strength and endurance than Johnny, but now, hungry, exhausted and frightened, I found myself looking more and more to him to take the lead. Besides, he was a man and I was yet a boy.
Nevertheless, by nightfall we were both done in. We had failed to find any way of crossing the river. As is the nature of rivers, it became broader as it spread across the plains. It became slower too, but that was little consolation, as neither of us could swim, and the flow was still quick enough to intimidate us.
We crept into a hollow that had been created by the roots of a tree. The rumblings of my stomach almost drowned out the susurration of the river, but eventually the gentler sound lulled me into a sleep that lasted until dawn.
When Johnny roused, we dragged ourselves up and staggered on our way. Within an hour or so I found myself struggling to take each successive step, so weary were my limbs and so heavy my body. Although Johnny was still in the lead, he appeared to be in no better shape. By mid-morning we had reached a stage where we frequently tripped and fell over disturbances in the ground that ordinarily would have gone unnoticed. A rock, a tree root, a clump of grass . . . these were becoming almost insurmountable obstacles. The worst were the fallen logs, which were numerous. On the first day of our journey, nourished by the food Johnny had stolen for me, and driven by fear of the soldiers, I had easily scaled giant logs that were almost twice my height. Now the effort required to clamber over a sapling no more than a foot in diameter seemed impossible to muster. Most times now when I came to a fallen tree I shuffled off the track towards the topmost branches and went all the way around rather than lift my leg a few extra inches.
I did not even notice when we came to an area where the river spread out across a vast area of shallow water and rapids. I did notice that Johnny had sunk to the ground just ahead of me, and when I came up to him I slumped down too. Without speaking he nodded at the river, which already felt like our inescapable companion. I glanced in the direction he indicated and realised at once that our way to the northern bank lay open.
The awareness gave me a little more strength. After a short rest we dragged ourselves down the bank and breasted the water. I was shocked at how deep it quickly became, but I struggled forward, as I could see that if we survived the first few yards we would have an easier time of it. However, just a couple of steps later I lost my footing and was swiftly carried away. I struggled to keep my head above the water and at the same time flailed with my arms to try to get out of the current. Looking back, I could see Johnny waving wildly, but I had no idea what message, if any, he was trying to convey. Certainly he made no attempt to come after me, to save my life, and I was filled with bitterness at the awareness of how truly alone I was.
I soon realised that I had no hope of swimming against the current to reach the bank on one side or the shallower water on the other. All I could do was allow the flow of the river to take me and at the same time try to ease myself in my desired direction in the hope that I would reach safety before I was sucked under. Already I was so waterlogged that my face was the only part of me not submerged. The wash kept covering my nose and mouth, causing me to inadvertently imbibe large quantities of water. I was in desperate straits when the back of my head struck an object with stunning force. I realised it was an old grey dead tree branch, of great immensity, stretching either side of me, and I somehow found the strength to reach up my hands and take hold of it. Before I lost further strength I dragged myself painfully along it. The water, cheated of its prey, continued to pull at me, but it was impotent now, and at last I found myself standing on a spit of sand and gravel, up to my knees in water so mild that I might as well have been on land.
I spent some time retching and coughing. My head rang with the force of the blow from the tree. I had no interest in Johnny’s whereabouts and did not look for him
until a splashing noise caused me to lift my head, and I found him approaching, and just a few yards away. Unable to speak, I merely shook my head, but I was surprised at his emotion when he grabbed me by the shoulders and stared into my face. Looking at him, I saw that his face was working with deep feelings, and there appeared to be tears in his eyes. I straightened up further. ‘Thank God you’re all right,’ he said. ‘I thought it was all up with you.’
I merely nodded, still unable to speak, but I was impressed at the depth of his feeling. We had been thrown together by such strange circumstances; we had exchanged few words since our first meeting, and even fewer since our escape from the soldiers, and yet I suppose being outlaws from the whole of society caused us to form a bond in a place that was beyond civilisation, where the normal laws and customs did not apply. We had entered a world where we made our own rules.
In the early days of my illicit contacts with Johnny, I had formed the impression that he was barely sane, but now that I had spent all this time with him, I was coming to a different conclusion. He was reticent, not a man for conversation, a self-contained man, but he was clever and resourceful and had a certain strength of mind.
It took us some hours to ford the river. It was by no means as easy as it had appeared from the bank, as indeed I had proved in those first few minutes of terror. There were other deep sections which caused us to make long detours, and some of the rapids were so fast that we were afraid of them. As we neared the northern bank we realised that the same conditions prevailed as on the southern bank. Once again the water was deep and fierce-flowing. We waded upstream, on another sandy spit, hoping to find a place to cross, but were unsuccessful. Eventually the spit ran out and we were facing impossibly deep water again. Heavy of heart, fearing that our venture was doomed to fail, we turned and retraced our steps. At least now the water was with us rather than against us. We continued downstream hundreds of yards until Johnny pointed to another fallen log that straddled the fast current, and by its means, using it as a bridge, we made our clumsy and faltering way across to the refuge of the bank.
Although I call it a refuge, and although I felt a sense of achievement and relief to reach it, what in truth was our achievement? We had no purpose, no destination, no plan. We had certainly outstripped the pursuit by the soldiers, but where were we to go and what were we to do? We had not discussed giving ourselves up, making our way to the nearest settlement and surrendering to the authorities, but the thought was there, in my mind, and with every passing hour of our flight it became more persistent. I did not dare mention it to Johnny, because although the consequences would be awful for me, they would almost certainly be fatal for him. If nothing else, my youth still gave me prospects of escaping the gallows.
Of course there was no certainty that we could even find a settlement in time to stave off the awful ravages of starvation and exhaustion. We had fled in fear, with no thought of our direction, so we were thoroughly lost. We could head eastwards, towards the coast, which was the only direction that might lead us to our own people. The chances of stumbling upon one of the outposts of the colony, however, were no better than the chances of finding the stick Johnny had thrown into the river hours earlier.
Without a word to each other, we resumed our grim journey. We were still heading northwards, but only because the country seemed more open in that direction. We followed tracks that were doubtless made by kangaroos or some other large creature. There was no discernible purpose or pattern to them, and they frequently crisscrossed each other, but some were as good as London footpaths. The ones to which I had been accustomed, at any rate. Nonetheless, as dusk fell, we had both reached the limit of our endurance. Malnourished and weak at the beginning of our trek as we were, we had now exhausted our meagre resources of strength. We fell down at the base of a huge eucalypt tree, and eventually, under the shelter of its protecting arms, I drifted into an uncomfortable and uneasy sleep.
Chapter 38
I felt something prodding my side, and as so often happens in sleep, I incorporated the sensation into my dream. My dream was of the sons and daughters of Job who had been eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house when a great wind came from the wilderness and smote the four corners of the building, so that it fell upon Job’s children and killed them. Somehow I found myself wandering around the ruins, trying to lift the heavy beams in hope of finding some survivor of the disaster.
The prodding in my side became, in my dream, a broken roof rafter which kept knocking against me as I tried to fight my way through the tangled wreckage. Eventually it became too insistent; it woke me, and I realised I was not in the land of Uz but lying on the inhospitable ground of a New South Wales forest, and the annoying poking in my side was not from a broken piece of timber but from Johnny’s fist.
I sat up, pushing his hand away and at the same time brushing my hair from my face. Thus it was that my eyes fell upon a line of four naked savages looking upon us. All were men, standing with such perfect stillness and silence that they seemed as much a part of the landscape as the trees and rocks that surrounded us. Exhausted though I was, I was startled enough to jump to my feet. Johnny followed my example, though more slowly. We stood looking at these extraordinary primitive figures. I had of course seen Indians from the ship when we arrived, I had seen them around the colony, I had seen them wandering freely through the settlement; but out here, they were different. It seemed that wherever we British went, we quickly laid claim to the territory and rendered all others into trespassers. In the labyrinthine forest, these bearded men with their wild hair and dark eyes took on a new stature. Their gravity matched their surroundings. The little I had seen of the English countryside led me to suppose that it was a soft and comforting environment. On the way to Plymouth I had seen farms and cottages tucked into nooks and crannies in ways that made them seem warm, protected, snug. The countryside of New South Wales did not convey those qualities. It was not cruel, in the way in which I imagine the desert may seem cruel, in which the ocean can often be cruel. It was just indifferent. It cared for nothing. It went on forever, unchanging, untouched by the hand of man, retaining no imprint of man’s footsteps. It shrugged off man’s puny attempts to make his mark upon it.
So too the aboriginal people of this country seemed largely indifferent to the new, white residents. They reacted to us when we came into contact with them, of course, but they did not initiate contact with us. I had the sense that if we were blown away one day by a mighty storm they would resume their ancient way of life in a moment. Perhaps a few stories would be told about us, perhaps we would appear in a few of their paintings on rocks, of the kind I had seen in sheltered places along the cliffs near Toongabbie. Yet we would have as little impact on them as Johnny’s stick had upon the river.
So it was with a sense of inferiority as well as fear that I gazed upon them that morning. Would they kill us, as trespassers? Would they butcher us for food? Would they brush us off as we were forever doing with the ubiquitous flies? Would they welcome us as brothers? Surely, looking at us now, they could not see us as a threat. We were gaunt, weak, barely able to stand. We had no weapons; indeed, no possessions of any kind. We were almost as naked as they were: just a few ripped garments clinging to our bony bodies. I hoped that they would recognise our inadequacy as meat for their dinner pots. We had as little to offer as a pair of crows, and everybody knew that crows were the one bird the Indians of this land despised to eat.
Having surveyed us for some minutes, one of them gestured towards us with his head and said something to the others, upon which an excited jabbering broke out. All the men clustered around the first speaker, offering their different opinions no doubt. We were at a loss to understand the nature of the discussion, except that we were evidently its subject. At length Johnny interrupted them by stepping forth and saying: ‘Please take us with you. We need food.’
At the same time he pantomimed the action of eating and rub
bed his stomach. The men looked at him somewhat uneasily, and there was further conversation between them, this time more muted. Finally one of them turned to us and indicated by a gesture of his hand and an inclination of his head that we should follow them. They offered us no assistance, but instead set off at a fast pace. We had no choice but to do as he suggested. For all that they were so far removed from us, we still belonged to the same species. They were the first humans we had seen in many days – I had lost count of how many, but it was either six or seven. If we separated from them there was no certainty that we would ever see another human being again. Anything was preferable to a cold and lonely grave out here in the vast unknown.
It was, however, only with the greatest difficulty that we kept up with the men. They did not appear to walk at a fast pace and yet somehow they covered the ground with such ease as to make it look effortless. When the kangaroo bounds through the forest he does so with great pounding heavy thumps. Yet these aboriginal inhabitants seemed barely to touch the earth. Within minutes both Johnny and I were panting and sweating and stumbling. Not one of the men we followed looked around even once to ascertain our condition.
We were soon struggling to keep them in sight. I was very afraid that we would lose contact with them. We were saved, however, by the appearance of another group of Indian men, three in number, who converged with these fellows from our left-hand side, from the west. When the two groups met they gathered in a crowd, and much delight was evinced by our newfound friends at the fact that a man in the second lot had a dead beast slung over his shoulders. I had only seen a few of these creatures before; they were evidently a type of kangaroo, only smaller, and reddish-black in colour. The tail also appeared to be longer, at least in proportion to the size of the body.
This one appeared to weigh about forty pounds. The hunting party, when I indicated to them my interest in its name, told me it was known to them as ‘bagary’. Because of its colour, the colonists called it the red kangaroo, although later the name ‘wallaby’ was accorded to it, I believe because it was known as such by some other native tribe. That is the name I shall use for it.
