by John Marsden
Yet minutes after he had retired from a warlike dance, I saw him sitting on the ground cradling his young son Mudaree, murmuring tenderly to him and displaying the gentle affection that he always showed the boy.
Following on from a dance celebrating the kangaroo hunt, the most popular dance, which was called for repeatedly, was the creation of Kutuku and a man named Arnapata. It took Johnny and me only a few moments to realise that we were the subjects of this performance. Every notable incident in which we had featured since our arrival in the midst of the tribe, and in particular our attempts to learn spear-making and throwing, climaxed by our ignominious failures at the ambush, was impersonated by these two men for their appreciative audience. The boy Nama-Nama played the part of the kangaroo in the final scene, and he danced about brazenly in front of the men, daring them to spear him. When the twigs they threw missed him by impossible distances he turned and bent over and waggled his hindquarters at them, but still they could not hit him, and he finally bounded away triumphantly, to the delighted laughter of the spectators. Some of the children in particular rolled on the ground in uncontrollable mirth whenever this dance was performed. Johnny and I gritted our teeth and laughed along with the rest. I comforted myself with the thought that at least we were providing the tribe with entertainment, in return for our board and lodgings.
Arnapata afforded me much less amusement a week or so after the hunt, however. Several of the native men had two wives, and as if that were not enough, they were happy to bestow their favours even more widely, as was particularly apparent during and after some of the dances. One of Arnapata’s wives was Baroo, the woman who had been kindest to us when we arrived in the tribe. The least attractive aspect of the Indians to me, as to many other convicts and colonists, was, as has been well documented, the treatment of the women by the men. There was not a woman in the tribe who did not exhibit the effects of this ill treatment, in the form of both old scars and current wounds, which were sometimes horrible to behold. When a man was annoyed by a woman, his almost invariable reflexive response was to deliver a savage blow to her head with whatever weapon came to hand, be it a rock, a club, a fist or, on one occasion I witnessed, a kangaroo tail. A man thought nothing of hitting a woman with the full force of his hand, or kicking her should she aggrieve him. Frequently I saw a wife staggering away from her husband with blood streaming down her face, or a woman stretched insensible on the ground from such a blow. Although the men could be tender and sentimental in their approaches to women, it seemed that their mood could quickly change, and on these occasions they showed no interest in the distress of the victims of their blows, and certainly no remorse. I had witnessed, it is true, similar scenes in London on numerous occasions, but not with the casual indifference displayed by these men.
An area not far from the camp was used by the Indians for the purpose of defecation, although not all observed this nicety. There was complete tolerance of the children when they squatted around the campsite; in fact, during our first few days with the tribe some children seemed to make a point of passing bowel motions in the very near vicinity of Johnny and me, looking at us with an expression of mischievous triumph when they did so. At any rate, Johnny and I certainly used the assigned area scrupulously.
Late one afternoon, right on dusk, as I returned from this place, I stumbled into an ugly scene. Arnapata, it appeared, had just knocked Baroo down, and as I came up behind him, he reached for his spear, which was leaning against his bark shelter, and with the speed and fluidity customary to these fine hunters made to hurl it at her, all in an instant. I believe he was aiming for her leg. I reacted instinctively to her expression of terror, and threw myself forward, crashing into Arnapata’s back. Thrown off balance, he missed her, though only by a matter of inches.
Now it was his expression to which I reacted. The savage does not trouble to hide his feelings, and Arnapata glared at me with such malevolence that I fled, leaving Baroo to her fate. Such behaviour was hardly in accord with the traditions of the British race, but I had not been given the benefit of an upbringing that inculcated me with nobler sentiments, and although I was at last showing signs of beginning the journey towards manhood for which I had yearned for some time, I had nothing like the muscle development or strength of a fully grown native warrior.
I ran straight to Johnny and told him what I had done. ‘Well,’ he said when I had finished my necessarily brief account, ‘there’s no telling what will come of that. But you know the custom of these savages is to spear the person who has offended them. In the leg usually. You’re expected to stand there and let them do it, and then all is forgiven and it’s back to business as usual.’
‘I know that . . .’ I quavered. ‘But do you really think he will want to do it to me?’
Johnny looked as worried as I felt. ‘Who knows what these beggars are capable of?’ he said. ‘It sounds like he was going to do it to Baroo, and so he might well do it to you instead. Maybe it’s time we thought of quitting these comfortable digs and looking for new quarters.’
‘But where could we go?’ I asked.
‘Now how can I answer that? But let’s find out what your black friend is planning. You leave it to old Johnny, and I’ll go and talk to a few of my crewmates.’
He wandered off, leaving me scanning the camp anxiously for signs of danger. I trusted Johnny though. In all our time together this had been one of our longest conversations, but as he had gained in health and strength, both physical and mental, I had observed many skills in him, and many signs of a kind and true nature.
He was back within half an hour or so. When I saw his comfortable smile I relaxed. ‘Is everything all right?’ I asked hopefully.
His smile became broader. Through clenched teeth he said: ‘You look far too nervous, Barnaby. That’s never good. I’m smiling so as to put them off guard. There’s an ugly mood about. None of the hunters would come near me, but I talked to Baroo’s sister.’
I tried to smile back at him. I knew the woman he meant. We called her Baroo’s sister, because she appeared to be in some kind of family relationship to Baroo, but the kinship arrangements in the tribe were too complicated for us to understand.
I also knew that Johnny’s conversation with the woman would have been mostly in sign language. He had learned more of the native tongue than had I, but we were both still sadly deficient.
‘And?’ I asked.
‘She was mightily afraid to be with me for long, but she gave me to understand that some mischief is planned. We seem to make trouble wherever we go, Barnaby boy. It might be time for us to go and make trouble somewhere else.’
‘Perhaps Arnapata will calm down in time,’ I ventured.
‘Well now,’ he said with a loud chuckle, which I knew was for the benefit of any observers, ‘I got the distinct impression that things are rather serious. No, I rather think we need to leave tonight, and with no handshakes or verses of “Rule Britannia”.’
It was the first joke I had heard him make, so I knew things must be serious indeed.
We had our own gunyah, or shelter, these days, made in the same style as those of the tribe. We crawled into it and discussed plans, at the same time keeping a close watch on any untoward movement in our direction. But all was quiet.
In discussing our getaway we had to take into account the fact that our movement through the forest was clumsy and noisy compared to our dark-skinned hosts, and those same hosts possessed extraordinary tracking skills. Having seen them at work many times, I was of the belief that they could track a moth through air, twenty-four hours after it had flown from their sight.
‘Water is our only hope,’ said Johnny. ‘We must get to the river as quickly as possible and launch ourselves into it. Anyone can be silent in a river, and not even Chaginnini can track us there.’
Chapter 42
The smells of cooking drifted through the evening air. The natives were still
feasting on the kangaroos, killed more than a week ago. The slaughter of such a large number of animals had given them a long respite from their usual routine of hunting and collecting food. I believed this to be a mixed blessing for the women, as the men, with so much more time on their hands, had been free to turn their minds to other activities. ‘More fighting and more . . .’ as Johnny had laconically described it, using the crudest imaginable language to conclude his epigram.
We waited until we felt it likely that they would be replete from their evening meal, knowing there would be little activity for an hour or so as they digested their feast. At last, when it was almost dark, we slipped out from our gunyah, taking with us nothing but a couple of knives we had made, a couple of spears likewise, and a wooden club I had pulled out from the ground ‘ready-made’, being nothing more than the root ball of a young tree that had died.
Our shelter was on the outskirts of the native camp, signifying our status as outsiders. So in the space of fifteen yards we were already entering the fringe of the forest. Everything seemed quiet, and I was optimistic about our chances of a discreet departure, until we met with an unexpected distraction. Suddenly the young girl Rainja loomed up on my right-hand side.
Johnny had been teasing me more and more in recent weeks about this girl and her supposed liking for me. I had to admit that she had been behaving in an increasingly flirtatious manner. I had observed many instances of the Indian women acting as coquettishly as their European counterparts, when it suited them, and Rainja seemed to be following the lead of her elders. She had sidled up to me on a number of occasions, offering little gifts such as witchetty grubs, flowers, and driftwood for me to make into dolls. She had insinuated herself between me and Johnny several times during the corroborees, the native dances, and I have to admit that I found the sensation of her naked skin bumping or rubbing against mine almost unbearably intoxicating.
At first I had found the smell of the native people quite repugnant, unless they had recently bathed in the river. But the old man who had been assigned to water-carrying duties with me at Toongabbie, Alec Mildren, had given me a different perspective when we were discussing the matter one day. Being something of a lecher, he took a keen interest in the native women. ‘Do you know, Barnaby boy,’ he said, looking at me with his sharp, twinkling eyes, ‘we smell as bad to them as they do to us.’
‘How do you know that?’ I asked.
He laughed. ‘I asked them,’ he said. ‘I asked one of my dusky girlfriends one day, “Do we white folk smell bad to you?”, and she made a face like she had just swallowed dog droppings.’
I had been more tolerant on matters of odour since that conversation.
As for beauty, the native women, in my humble opinion, ranged as much as did their white sisters, from comely to repellent. Rainja was definitely at the comely end of the scale. Although not much more a woman than I was a man, her cheerful black curls, her soft brown eyes, and the swell of her youthful breasts were a bewitching combination, and I was struggling not to fall under her spell. It was possibly not a coincidence that she had been lurking so close to our gunyah, and seeing her now, I hesitated, realising that I was leaving her forever, and feeling an acute pang in my heart at the thought.
She smiled at me, but her expression quickly changed as she noticed the items Johnny and I were carrying. She looked at us quizzically, nodded to our weapons, then the forest, and asked a question in her own tongue, which was clearly ‘Where are you going?’
I shrugged, tried to smile back, but inexplicably felt tears sting my eyes. Although I had not been in love with Rainja – indeed, I had found her irritating most of the time – now, suddenly, I did feel love for her. I think the true fact of the matter was that I felt desolate at the idea of leaving the tribe. We had been with them for months, and after their initial diffidence they had treated us well, even warmly. For the first time in my life, apart from my brief sojourn with the Piggott family, I had been a member of a group in which I felt safe and secure. Now we were plunging back into the unknown.
All I could do was nod and give her a brief wave, then hurry to catch up with Johnny, who was twenty yards ahead of me and waiting with obvious impatience. Unfortunately I did not know enough of the nature of the female when spurned, for even at her tender age Rainja did not want to let go of what she coveted. She let out a screech like one of the cockatoos to which I had become accustomed since my arrival in the colony. In front of me Johnny convulsed in horror, took a nervous look over his shoulder and began to walk on hurriedly, ever increasing his speed and then breaking into a trot.
Rainja rushed at me, still screeching, and with importunate haste I set out after Johnny. I did not like the situation at all. The two of us went as fast as we dared in the dim light, through the lightly timbered forest, over the broken ground. We had the great advantage that the warriors of the tribe could not use our tracks to follow us in darkness, but if it came to a straight-out race I would not give much for my chances of beating Chagannini on his own turf.
Fortunately Rainja abandoned the chase quickly, but she continued to cry her distress as she stood looking after us. I glanced back and saw her dark figure among the dark trees. A minute later she was out of my sight, but we could still hear her voice. ‘This way,’ Johnny cried to me, swerving to the left. I knew that the path would take us away from the river and into the hills, but before I could ask Johnny his plan he explained it anyway. ‘They won’t be expecting us to go uphill,’ he called. ‘Come on.’
The kangaroos made many paths through the forests, and these were usually distinct and well trodden, although they formed endless mazes of crisscrossing tracks. They had no doubt been used for thousands of years. The natives employed them all the time, and we were on one now.
Before long we were panting hard, struggling with the uphill terrain. Our pace slowed substantially, but I felt as though I had been struck by lightning when I heard the deep booming voice of a native man not far behind me, shouting to a companion. It was a cry of triumph and undoubtedly indicated that he was on our trail. It was so close that I knew he had somehow discerned the path we had taken, and was on it himself. Johnny heard it too, and cried out to me: ‘No good, we must change our tactics.’
Within moments we came to another intersection of kangaroo tracks, and instead of continuing uphill, Johnny took one that went downhill, but at an angle, away from the direction of the camp. I followed faithfully. Over his shoulder he called softly: ‘It’s the river or nothing now.’
I realised that we were in the situation I had feared, having to beat the natives in a race through the forest in which they had spent their whole lives. Desperation lent speed to my feet, and I went downhill at the charge. No sooner had I begun my descent than I heard a strange whistling noise, and an instant later a spear flew past my nose with tremendous velocity. Had I been one step, or even a couple of inches, further down the hill, my brain would have been pierced by that spear, and it would have been all up with me.
If I had been running fast before, I now somehow seemed able to double my speed. I took vast strides, hoping desperately that I would be able to see fallen timber or other obstacles in time to hurdle them. In a few places I leapt down steep drops. Our path seemed to be taking us down a longer hill than the one we had been climbing a minute or so earlier. I could hear Johnny behind me. I had overtaken him at some point, but I did not dare look around to ascertain his whereabouts. I had to concentrate entirely on trying to reach the river without breaking my neck.
Alas, my concentration was not enough to preserve me from harm. Running recklessly down a grassy slope that appeared reasonably clear, I tripped on a small log and flew through the air, turning as I travelled and landing on my back with a tremendous blow that drove the air from my lungs and left me completely winded. Johnny raced by me, calling, ‘Come on, Barnaby,’ and grabbing at my shoulder to encourage me to get up.
I sta
ggered to my feet, somewhat dazed and shaken, and set out after him. My vision was blurred, but we were now in the darkest section of the forest, so vision mattered little.
At last the ground began to flatten and the vegetation to thin out. The light improved slightly. I had glimpses of Johnny, who was about twenty yards ahead of me again. Then I saw the glimmer of water in the distance. At the same time I found I was suddenly running on the characteristic rounded stones of a riverbed instead of the dry grass of the forest. We had emerged much closer to the river than I had expected. Yet at the very moment a tiny wisp of hope unfurled in my brain, a huge native stepped out from behind a tree in front of Johnny. He carried a club as big as me, and with a grunt of triumph he swung it around his head.
It was Chaginnini. Johnny stopped with a sudden lurch, tried to step back and change direction all in one movement, realised it was hopeless, and went into a half-crouch, holding up one arm in a futile attempt to ward off the blow that would crush his head like a hammer on an empty eggshell.
I had no weapons left, having dropped everything in my desperate flight. With an instinct perhaps as ancient as those of the aboriginal people of this country, I picked up a rock as I ran and hurled it straight at Chaginnini’s face.
It struck him in the temple with great force, helped no doubt by the momentum with which I had invested it as a result of my speed. He had been holding the club with both hands, but now one hand slowly fell away from the dreadful weapon and the club was both checked and deflected in its descent. For a few moments the fate of both Chaginnini and Johnny seemed to be in the balance. Then the great hunter toppled forward and fell slowly to the ground, in much the same manner as I imagine Goliath fell when struck by David.
There was no time for celebration; indeed, it would not be seemly to celebrate the downfall of a warrior for whom I felt nothing but respect, but behind me came more shouts, from Indians in pursuit, and now their cries seemed tinged with a new passion, for they had seen the leader of their band fall, and the sight evidently filled them with wild shock and grief.
