Far From Botany Bay

by Rosa Jordan

  The centre seat was occupied by Luke and Cox. Luke’s freckled face was creased by a grin as he endeavoured to teach the carpenter to handle the oars. “It’s the hat,” Luke teased, pointing to the rag Mary had hung over Cox’s bald pate to protect it from the blazing sun. “Too bad we ne’er thought to swipe Old Phillip’s topper. What with a brain so blistered, you keep forgettin’ it’s an oar and not a hammer you’re swinging.”

  “You got enough hair for both of us there,” Cox shot back, casting a glance at Luke’s reddish, shoulder-length strands, banded back with a twist of rope. “Whyn’t you chop off the bottom half and hang it over my poor fried dome?”

  As Luke trained the carpenter, Will, seated on the foremost bench, instructed James, who sat beside him. The two were about the same size, just under six feet tall. But in other respects they differed greatly. Will’s deeply tanned torso rippled with muscle, while James’s office job had rendered him so pale that he dared not remove his shirt for fear that the sunburn beginning to redden his face would spread fire across his upper body.

  When James lifted a hand to wipe sweat from his brow, Mary saw that his palm was raw with broken blisters. The bleeding hand returned to the oar and James continued to pull without complaint. Will must have seen the hand as well, but showed no sympathy. He needled James by reminding him that all his book learning and jiggling of numbers were now the most useless of skills. “A fine burden you’ll be till you learn to pull your weight,” Will gloated. “If’n you ever do.” And a few minutes later, “Now didn’t I tell you don’t do like that? You keep making a mess of it, don’t expect me to stop these other boys from flinging you over the side.”

  Not at the oars just then were Bados and Pip. They were engaged in hoisting the cutter’s single sail. They did so efficiently, Bados being the biggest man in the group, and experienced at sail-rigging. Pip, although small, was nimble of body and quick to follow Bados’s instructions. This last, Mary noticed, was not something others on Will’s crew would do. Mary surmised that Will had observed as much and that was why, when there was a job requiring two men, he regularly teamed Bados with the boy. In this way he could make use of the black man’s abilities without evoking the kind of dissent that might have occurred had he tried to put Bados in charge of a white man on his crew.

  As Mary took stock of her companions, her main concern was their thinness. She had gained a little weight during the three months of occasional feasts at Smit’s table, but the others had not had that advantage, and the years of malnutrition had pared them to the bone. Of all the disasters that might befall them, the one Mary dreaded most was the thought of slow starvation.

  She had known at the outset that they would likely be sailing for at least one night and day, and maybe a second one as well, depending on how far they travelled and where they found to come ashore and rest. A river mouth was the most desirable, for they would need fresh water soon. Despite the necessity of conserving supplies for the long journey ahead, with uncertain sources of food along the way, she had prepared balls of rice and beans and baked potatoes that could be eaten by hand as they travelled. She thought it unwise to have the men weaken at the outset, when survival depended on putting as much distance as possible between themselves and any parties sent out to fetch them back.

  A little after midday, she held up a tidbit of food and motioned Will to come forward to have a word in private. He hesitated a moment, then called for Bados to take his oar.

  When Will came to her, Mary asked in a low voice, “Do you think the governor has sent a boat after us?” She handed him the bite, and waited to get the answer she expected.

  “Sure he’ll be fool enough to do that,” Will chuckled. “Useless though it be, when we’ve got the swiftest boat in the colony and my men at the oars. There’s not one among the mariners who can match the least of my crew when it comes to rowing!”

  “Yet if he sends a party overland by some shorter way, might not they be lying in wait for us at some likely river’s mouth?”

  Will considered this possibility a moment, then as Mary had expected, nodded assent. For he was not stupid, her husband. It was simply his disinclination to think a thing through. Mary saw that this gap in his thinking was hers to mend, and sooner rather than later. If she waited too long and then showed herself to be at odds with his decision, as had happened this morning on the issue of whether they should take the first river mouth they came to or continue rowing through the day, conflict was sure to follow.

  Thus, early in the afternoon, she planted in Will a good reason for continuing through a second night, and waited to see if it would take root. As it happened, two things occurred which supported what she knew to be the safest course. First, no good landing place presented itself, in part because she had charted a course due north. This put them some distance out from the shore, which curved to the west just above the neck of the Sydney Cove. Second, as the sun dipped closer to the horizon, the wind came up and blew in such a way that they were able to use the sail and give the men a rest from rowing. Thus, when Will informed them that they would continue on through the night, and begin at daybreak to skirt the coast in search of a river mouth where they could take a good long rest, all could see that this was a right decision—and not see that Mary had any hand in it.

  They could hardly have been luckier in their choice of a place to put ashore than the small river where they harboured late on their second day out—this after more than forty hours of rowing and sailing. They encountered no natives who might have objected to their landing, and they were able to help themselves to what the area offered, which was, in fact, an abundance of many foods which they already knew and valued.

  Will sent two men down to collect shellfish, and took three others with him to cast the net for fish. Mary asked Cox to chop a cabbage palm and peel it, layer by layer, down to its delicate, edible heart. James she directed to gather wood and build a fire, for however limited his other skills, this was something any man would know. Then she asked him to pick leaves from sarsaparilla creepers among the rocks, these being familiar to all in the colony for the sweet tea they yielded.

  By the time Will and his men returned, two kettles boiled, one for tea and a second one, with a handful of rice and a little salt thrown in, awaiting the fish that they brought back. Mary handed each man a bowl of tea to hold them while the stew simmered to readiness.

  Mary used her own tea time to nurse Emanuel, then went to check on Charlotte. The three-year-old sat near Bados, who was showing her how to draw designs in the sand.

  Luke, sprawled on the ground nearby, peered at Bados’s sand drawing and asked, “What’s that supposed to be?”

  “A palm tree like grows back home, in Barbados,” Bados explained.

  “Barbados, eh? I heard tell it’s a pretty isle.” Luke clicked his tongue in sympathy. “Bet you’re sorry you ever set foot in England. What got you transported?”

  “Cucumbers,” the black man replied.

  “What’s ‘cumbers?” Charlotte wanted to know.

  Bados made a rough sketch in the sand. “Looks like a fat green stick, and good to eat. Stole seven of ‘em from a kitchen garden. A year I got for every one.”

  Luke sighed. “Nothing I’ve missed like fresh vegetables. Last good meal I had was a big vegetable stew with a couple of poached rabbits tossed in.”

  “You got transported for poaching?” Mary asked in surprise.

  Luke grinned. “More because I riled the gamekeeper. But he riled me first.”

  “How’s that?” Bados asked.

  “He caught me with the rabbits fair and square. Said he wouldn’t turn me in, but was gonna keep my rabbits. It was him standing there, fat as a squire’s hog, saying how much he was gonna enjoy them rabbits roasted. And me fair hungry, with two kids at home who hadn’t had a scrap of meat for weeks. Got me in such a rage I knocked his block off
and took me rabbits home to the wife. Was just finishing the meal when he come with the law.”

  They all laughed at Luke’s audacity, if not at the outcome. Their talk of food reminded Mary of how hungry everyone was. She laid Emanuel down to nap on a scrap of canvas in the shade, told Charlotte to sit beside him, and set about ladling bowls of stew.

  Once and twice over, Mary filled the bowls, with the men allowing as how it was the finest meal they had ever eaten. Mary felt deeply satisfied, and not only from the food. The ingredients in the stew had been commonplace in the colony, if never so plentiful as this. The richness they tasted—she knew, for she tasted it, too—was the flavour of freedom.

  She was about to refill her own soup bowl when she noticed that one filled previously still remained. She looked about to see who might be missing.

  “Where’s Cox?” she asked.

  “Yonder,” Will said, jerking his chin toward the shore.

  Mary saw him sitting on a rock, bald head slumped on his chest like a man condemned to die. She picked up his bowl of fish stew and walked down to where he was.

  “Are you not hungry?” Mary asked, supposing that his sunburn had given him a fever.

  Cox shook his head, and made no move to take the bowl she held out to him.

  “What is it, Coxie?”

  He let out a sigh which was more like a groan. “’Twas bad of me to leave like that, Mary, without a word to Florie, no goodbye nor nothing.”

  “She knew you were going, Coxie. I know she did.”

  “Don’t that make it even worse? Her sitting there sad as a whipped puppy, waiting for me to do whatever I was gonna do. Florie’s mind’s been fuzzy, you know, ever since that first night the women came ashore. I was the fifth or sixth bloke on her, and I saw she was right off her head.”

  “That’s two years past, Coxie, and you did look out for her all the time since,” Mary reminded him gently.

  Cox choked on a sob. “But who’s looking out for my Florie now?”

  “Come, have some stew,” Mary urged. “When you get to England you can write to her.”

  “Yes, damn me, that I’ll do. Florie would like that,” Cox conceded, and did not resist when Mary lifted his big paw and placed the bowl of stew in it.

  They stayed in that place two days, long enough to dry fish to add to their provisions, and to stow the supplies in a more orderly fashion. Then they sailed two days more, and again went ashore. The second spot they chose for rest and replenishment was even more pleasant than the first. Just a little way back from the beach, they found a shady glade and a place where the river formed itself into a pool, ideal for fishing and bathing.

  “’Tis fitting,” Mary told Will with a smile, “that your son should celebrate his first birthday in such a perfect place.”

  “Aye.” Will took the baby from her and tossed him aloft, to Mary’s consternation and to the child’s delight. “Had we a bottle of rum, we’d toast you in style, my boy!”

  Mary for her part thanked all the stars in the firmament that there was no rum to be had. Nor could she understand, when she watched the group take its ease after another plentiful meal gathered from their surroundings, what Will and his companions felt might be added by inebriation. Back in Botany Bay, yes, she could easily understand why one might wish to drink oneself into a forgetful stupor. But in an Eden such as this?

  Looking about, it was hard not to compare this place to the colony, and to feel that in less than a week they had travelled from Purgatory to Paradise. Music from Bados’s flute floated on the air. James sat with his back against a tree, writing in his journal. Matey was at work repairing a sail, while Scrapper mended a hole in the fishing net—until Luke challenged Cox to an arm-wrestling contest, and the others stopped to watch and cheer.

  Mary wandered over to the fresh-water lagoon where Pip and Will were playing with the children. She sat down on the bank and dangled her feet in the cool, clear water. Will, with a mischievous glint in his eye, handed Emanuel to Pip. Grasping Mary by the ankles, he pulled her laughing into the water. This she would recall later as the one and only time they ever joined in play. And play they did, the children splashing around them, all through the hot afternoon of Emanuel’s first birthday. Not till the sun went down did they drag themselves out and return to the fire, which James had kept burning, to feed the children again, and to help themselves to more of the plentiful stew.

  Then each person curled up on whatever bedding they’d had the wits to bring and fell asleep, except for Bados, who stayed awake for a time, playing his flute.

  Again they sailed a full day and straight through the night. Mary stayed in the bow of the boat with the children, and used the compass to determine their north-westerly course. They followed the shore (but not too closely), slowed by a current which flowed in the opposite direction, but often aided by the wind, which let them make full use of the cutter’s single sail.

  Mary was always glad when dawn came and, compass in hand, she could determine that they were on course. But if dawn was a relief, the heat of the day, when the sun fell full on them, was not. During their first week out, both Cox and James, unaccustomed to working out of doors, suffered terribly from sunburn. At stops along the way, Mary gave them cooling poultices made of leaves and fat, but the burns already inflicted they could only endure. By the end of the second week they were as brown as the others; a fortunate thing for, as they travelled north, the intensity of the sun increased.

  One late afternoon, they landed in a likely-looking cove and sighted, just beyond the trees where they had put ashore, a curl of smoke indicating a native encampment. Will took the musket, which was their only weapon, and the men approached cautiously, by twos, a little spread out. Mary waited with the children back at the boat, to see what the situation might be. It was only a couple of minutes before she heard Will shouting for her to come. With Emanuel in her arms and Charlotte by the hand, she made her way along a well-worn trail until she emerged in a clearing. There were a few crude huts and, in front of several of them, smouldering fires with meat roasting atop. But not a soul in sight.

  “Is no one about?” Mary asked.

  “None we’ve spied,” Will told her. “What you see is what we seen when we got here.”

  Matey grabbed a hunk of meat off some aborigine’s fire. “Looky here, boys! The wogs have laid on a party for us!” the old sailor chortled. He flipped the meat from hand to hand to cool, then set to gnawing it like a dog.

  “Will, do you think—?” Mary was about to ask if he thought it was wise to go thieving from the natives, who might not have run away so far that they couldn’t come back and attack. But it was already too late. Others were now doing as Matey had done, running from fire to fire, snatching up and squabbling over whatever was cooking there. Only James held back, along with Will, Mary, and the children. But he too must have realised that there was nothing to be done.

  “Shall we camp here, then?” Mary asked. “Or back on the beach?”

  Will squinted at the sky. “Here, I reckon. If it rains, we can shelter in these huts.”

  “Then I’ll go back for the kettle and other needs,” Mary said.

  “You do that,” Will said, and then, seeming to notice that she had a baby in one arm and a toddler clinging to her skirt, said, “You, James. Lend her a hand.”

  It would have been easier to leave the children there, but Mary sensed that it would not do for her to go alone with James, for if Will did not notice now, he might remember at some time in the future and hold it against her then. Thus she, James, and the children made their way back to the boat. They did not speak, nor did Mary feel it necessary.

  James had said before, when commenting on how he had observed her mind at work, “Are we not alike in this?” She still felt a kind of amazement that he should have recognised the seriousness of her thoughts,
and judged them to be in any way equal to his own. But there were moments such as this, as they walked in silence to the boat and back again, when she did indeed feel them to be joined in similar thoughts—or in this case, a similar foreboding.

  At dusk a light rain began to fall, so they took shelter inside the crude huts. Mary suggested to Will that perhaps he should post a watch. He agreed to send Bados to sleep in the boat, but scoffed at the idea that a watch was needed in the camp.

  “They ran like rabbits,” he pointed out. “Scared plumb out of their wits. Probably never seen civilised folks before. They didn’t attack us by day, sure and they’ll not risk it by night.” With that, he rolled over and fell asleep.

  Mary said no more, but had Bados carry all of the cooking pots back to the boat rather than leave them lying about. Then she lay down inside a hut with her children and, uneasy though she was, soon fell asleep.

  She woke sometime in the night. Through the doorway of the hut, she saw an aborigine woman soundlessly collecting things left behind. Other shadows flitted through the camp. Before Mary could make up her mind whether to awaken Will, they were gone.

  Mary rose at dawn, for by then the weather was so warm that it was better to do whatever needed doing during the cool of the morning. Emanuel and Charlotte were awake as well, and James, when he heard her murmuring to the children, roused himself to collect wood and build a fire. Bados appeared soon thereafter, bringing the things she needed to make breakfast. The rest slept on. With no one to order them about, only the smell of cooking food would entice them to rise.

  Mary had only taken the first johnnycake from the fire and handed it to Charlotte when she heard Scrapper shout. She looked up to see him dragging Pip violently from sleep by the hair of his head. “Who took my shirt? Were it you, twerp?”