Castle Hill Rebellion

by Chrissie Michaels

  Kitt chose this minute to arrive. She always joined us for the Mass. By way of greeting, she sneaked up behind and tugged at my ears. I nearly jumped out of my skin. Pat must have seen her coming. He dodged out of the way, leaving my question unanswered.

  ‘Your ear holes have yellow plugs of wax fit to light up the whole of Parramatta!’ Kitt said.

  I grimaced and pulled away. Kitt was fond of poking and pestering. She would have us hot oiled and smelling like her flower posy.

  ‘Have you been keeping out of harm’s way, then?’

  ‘Nothing since we let the Banshee loose, Mathairin,’ little mother, I replied in Irish, still smarting.

  Her face clouded over. ‘Are you thinking I overreached? Should I be visiting the confessional?’

  ‘And why would you be needing forgiveness, my child?’

  We turned to see Father Dixon behind us, dressed in the black vestment and white-laced linen he wore for sacred duties.

  ‘Good morning, Father!’ Kitt and I rushed out the greeting in chorus. Pat’s followed as an echo. We could have been singing in rounds.

  ‘We were only looking out for Pat, Father,’ I said feebly.

  ‘As you should do,’ he muttered, fumbling with his fob chain and drawing out a pocket watch. It must be nearing nine o’ the hour. For sure he must be keen to begin.

  He looked my way. ‘Be sure to speak with me before you leave, won’t you, Joe?’

  I knew why. To encourage my writing.

  We went to stand at the foot of the open-air altar. Father Dixon has to rely on Governor King’s say-so to preach, which he gave last year. But there is no church for Roman Catholics in New South Wales, only a Church of England, St John’s, not long built in Parramatta, where the Reverend Marsden preaches. He’s a parson to his own flock on a Sunday, and a flogging parson to us every day because he’s a magistrate, overly fond of sentencing the lash. That’s what everyone calls him, the Flogging Parson.

  Father Dixon said we must keep our patience; that God don’t mind if we have to stand or kneel in the dirt as long as we keep praying. And so, when our good priest faced us, spreading his arms wide in a blessing, ‘In nómine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti ...’ we did not take much convincing to settle into prayer, especially with the constables policing back and forth.

  At the end of the Mass I made my way over to the good Father. He pressed a wad of loose papers into my hand. His sermons were written on one side, but the back of the paper was unmarked. I used them to practice my spider-like handwriting.

  ‘You know what they say about the pen, Joe?’

  ‘’Tis mightier than the sword, Father.’

  ‘Good lad. There is much wisdom in the words. Make sure you live by them.’

  Father Dixon was a peace-loving soul. He would never fire a musket, draw a sword, or jab at anyone with a pike. Even so, in the days following the rebel defeat at Vinegar Hill in Ireland, the redcoats had captured him in the round-up and shipped him out here to New South Wales.

  ‘Have you made a new quill?’

  ‘Plenty, Father, from magpie feathers.’

  ‘Ink powder to mix?’

  ‘With a few dabs of water, aye, Father. You gave it to me after last Mass.’

  ‘So I did!’

  Mr Johnston and Mr Cunningham were in conversation nearby, close enough to see and hear.

  They caught Father Dixon’s eye. A friendly nod passed between them.

  ‘A good day to you, James,’ said Mr Johnston.

  ‘Top o’ the day, James,’ Mr Cunningham added.

  I never knew anybody but Mr Johnston and Mr Cunningham who dared call a priest by his first name.

  ‘And to you, William; Philip.’

  When Father Dixon had gone on his way and I was standing clutching my papers, Mr Johnston beckoned me closer. ‘A word with you, Joe.’

  Mr Cunningham nodded at me. I felt his eyes boring into mine and I blinked and looked down. Pat works under Mr Cunningham; he is the overseer of the stonemasons at the prison farm. His hands were big and square and calloused, from setting many a stone in place. Like Mr Johnston, he had fought as a captain, battling redcoats for the United Irish, then was sent to the colony as a Political convict. Governor King must have heard Mr Cunningham was once a stonemason, for he put him to a block-laying test. When Mr Cunningham worked faster and more precisely than any other, he was put in charge of his own work gangs.

  ‘What’s this I hear about some English convict lad from our prison farm giving you trouble down at the creek?’

  ‘Twas Mr Cunningham who spoke.

  I began my infernal blinking. How had he heard? Come to think of it, Pat had never answered me when I asked at the muster line. I wondered if Mr Cunningham knew that I never stepped in for Pat. The memory made my heart lurch. I felt the need to puff out my chest. ‘Aye, Mr Cunningham, but we scared him away.’

  My reply was too hasty. The words came out like a boast. I felt my face flame up.

  ‘I thought the foolish lad had heeded our warning over the new year,’ said Mr Johnston, shaking his head.

  ‘Best we have another word, then.’ When Mr Cunningham spoke of stepping in, you had to be a bit careful. Cunningham of Kerry, isn’t he? That is what the croppy boys call him. Mr Cunningham may be a middling gentleman and an expert stonemason, but he is fierce. He had taken part in a mutiny on board his transport ship, and when that failed he had suffered the lash without flinching. Hardy, is it. Strong. I would not wish to be on his wrong side.

  ‘No need!’ I rushed. ‘Kitt outwitted him. I mean, in the main it was Kitt who did the scaring.’

  The corner of Mr Cunningham’s mouth lifted. ‘So Kitt won the day, did she?’

  I hadn’t realised Pat was standing behind until he uttered, ‘Ahy. Uh. Genst. Thuh. Ing. Lish.’

  This made Mr Cunningham chuckle. ‘Against the English, indeed. Then Ireland’s favourite daughter Kitt is, to be sure.’

  ‘Father Dixon tells us you have taken to writing like a duck to water, Joe,’ continued Mr Cunningham, which gave me a jolt. ‘Good lad. The future will be brighter for us all one day, thanks to good priests’ schooling and good childer learning, even though ‘tis done on the sly from the English, eh!’ He patted me on the shoulder; the tap was strong, and I flinched. I am niggled by patting, light or hard, excepting Pat’s nudges, and excepting Kitt sometimes.

  All the same, I raced away with Pat, leaving Mr Johnston and Mr Cunningham to pick up their own conversation, the praise jamming in my throat. For Father Dixon to convey so!

  Kitt stamped her foot when we approached her. ‘About time! Having me waiting all this while, when we should be at the Field of Mars.’

  ‘Again?’ I wailed. ‘Can’t we do something different?’ Joshua! Joshua! Joshua! She was only wanting to spy on Joshua Holt and his parents, the Holt farm being at the Field of Mars, near the estate of Paymaster Cox.

  ‘Happen you prefer to dig a kitchen garden today?’ Kitt said. ‘By yourself it’ll be! Or sit drinking with the likes of that bully London, until you slip under a table senseless with grog?’

  ‘You saw him do that?’ Her look told me she had and it hadn’t been charming.

  ‘Pat’ll be coming with me, there’s a lambkin.’

  ‘Ahy,’ Pat said, quirking a shoulder up in a half-shrug, wanting me to agree in case he had to suffer Kitt’s petting words alone.

  I gave in. ‘All right, I’ll come.’

  ‘What’s keeping you, then?’

  Every Sunday afternoon the Holts travel by open surrey to their own church service, the mission one for Protestants. The trail they use cuts through a forest of blue gums. For the last three Catholic Sundays, Kitt has made us duck into hiding behind a vast trunk, so she can peek at them riding by. She is fierce shy of Joshua’s parents and thinks ‘tis not the right time for her to meet them face to face.

  Even if we see Joshua, it’s not as if I can step out and ask him about that work shed, I thought disma
lly.

  Since our last visit, a fire had scarred the track. The dry air held a clinging tang of scorched tree oil. When I breathed in, the back of my nose tickled and my chest gave a wheeze. Where the blue gums had stood, blackened tree-stump scarecrows loomed. A gloomy quiet surrounded us. The birds had upped and left.

  Of a sudden the wind picked up and whizzed past my hands. My writing paper fluttered into the air like a rush of white butterflies.

  ‘Kwik!’ Pat mouthed, giving me one of his everlasting grins. He swooped like a magpie. I joined in with him, jumping and whooping and wheezing and pouncing on Father Dixon’s old sermons. Our noise broke the gloom of the place.

  ‘Hush, lads!’ Kitt beckoned us swiftly. A rattle of wheels approached the corner of the track. ‘Let’s find somewhere to hide before the surrey comes.’

  ‘Cay. Vah,’ Pat whispered, pointing to a stone ridge in the near distance.

  We ran over and tried to squeeze in. And a tight squeeze it was. Pat’s elbow was sticking in my side.

  ‘Can you see out, Joe?’ whispered Kitt. ‘Can you see Joshua?’

  ‘Wait on,’ I whispered back. The horse leading the Holts’ surrey turned the corner in a brisk trot. A convict driver held the reins from the front bench of the light carriage. ‘He’s sitting facing his mother and young brother.’

  ‘What’s he doing?’

  ‘He’s leaning back against the cushioning. ‘Tis smart studded leather.’

  Kitt snorted. ‘Tell me about him, not his seat!’

  ‘He’s glancing at the burned-out trees.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And his eyes are sweeping past this cave.’

  ‘They are?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ I was making up this actual detail, is it.

  ‘And his parents?’

  I told her what she wanted to hear, that Mrs Holt was dressed forbidding smart and that Joshua’s father, with his wild, mutton-chop whiskers curling down each cheek and under his chin, was riding behind, dancing his horse. A dark cape sprawled over his shoulders and a tricorn hat jolted up and down on his head to the beat of the trot.

  Joshua’s father dresses like a general set for battle. He wears the cape even when a day is blistering hot, like today. His tricorn is plumed with feathers. That is because he is the great General of Wicklow. He led an army of rebels in the 1798 rebellion back in Ireland and saw a victory at Ballyellis before having to surrender after Vinegar Hill. I am fierce in awe of him.

  The Holts are true gentleman and lady. Being a gentleman gave high rank to even a rebel convict like General Holt. He had been permitted to stay above deck for the sea journey on the Minerva, while Joshua and his mother came free, allowed to sail with him, so they could remain together. They spent the months on board in company with Paymaster Cox and his family.

  ‘They’ve gone,’ I whispered. ‘Oh, no!’ There was a flash of scarlet not far from us ...

  ‘What?’ whispered Kitt.

  ‘Red. Kotes.’ Pat’s elbow nudged me hard. He had seen the redcoats too. ‘Stay. Kwi. At.’

  Something must be wrong for redcoats to be snooping around. Before the December harvest most were recalled to Sydney Town. Only a small garrison remained at the Parramatta barracks. The soldiers tended to leave the patrolling to constables.

  I drew a deep breath inwards. We were up to no harm, but none of us liked being questioned by the redcoats.

  I caught a whiff close up of Kitt’s scent. She smelled fresh and nice. Cider vinegar, aye, with a drop of lavender water, only it made me want to cough. I tried to stop myself by thinking about how a ewe uses smell to pick out her lambs, and I got to wondering what made Kitt pick us out to be friendly with, out of all the young lads in the colony. Then before I came up with an answer, I moved onto wondering what we boys smelled of to her. All kinds of chancy things, I expect, considering the only thing coating my skin from one day to the next is sheep grease, dust and dung. And that made me want to cough even more.

  At last the smack-smack rushing of the redcoats’ boots grew fainter. We edged slowly out into the open. Or I did. Pat pushed past, waving an imaginary bayonet. In return I lunged with some mighty thrusts and parries.

  Kitt strode between us and said sharply, ‘Will you lads stop playing redcoats. You’re unnerving me.’

  For a time she made Pat and me walk side by side. I amused myself by sticking my tongue inside my cheek.

  Kitt noticed. ‘Stop making mushroom faces at me, Joe.’

  Ah, she took me wrong, I wasn’t pulling a face at her. But I think she was after remembering putting me in to fight with London that day by the creek, because soon after she gave in, ‘Go on, then, have your fun. After what I did last week I can only be blaming myself for giving you lads such fighting notions.’

  Thursday, January 12th in the year of 1804

  This afternoon I was taking advantage of the quiet, half-dozing in the shade, more asleep than I should have been, when I heard frantic bleating. One of the ewes had stumbled in a rut. This one was Lettie, a favourite of Kitt’s. She gave Lettie the name. Somehow Lettie had ended up on her back and was having trouble regaining her footing. Her leg was scratched by prickly twigs.

  The rest of the flock clambered into a huddle and went still as statues. They must have smelled danger. That’s when I spotted a sandy-brown dog skulking on a rocky ledge, eyes glued on the helpless sheep. A dingo dog, is it. One of them crosses between a fox and a wolf, with a mouth-watering taste for fresh mutton. Usually, they only bothered roaming sheep after dark.

  I made no attempt to approach. Instead, I hollered, ‘Go away with you!’ and threw a stone full-pelt at the hard dirt by the dog’s front paws. You could tell it didn’t like the telling off. Had a sulk, is it, stuck its brushy tail between its hind legs and went slinking away.

  I hauled out Lettie. She stood wobbling on shaky legs. The flock bunched around. I knocked two sticks together to move them on. They don’t like noise and backed away. I followed, not keeping too close and not banging too loud in case they ran amuck. They travelled slowly, taking a steady course along the hard-beaten path that had formed from our daily trek. They knew where we were heading.

  I felt a mighty relief as we came to our clearing and I quickly penned them in. If Lettie had been injured or the flock had scattered through the bush, I would have had plenty of extra work rounding them up and Joshua Holt would be none too pleased. I was still waiting for him to return. Sooner, rather than later, he was bound to show up wanting a report.

  Friday, January 13th in the year of 1804

  Today, still none the wiser as to what change was coming to the farm, I was scooping hand-cups of water from the creek, not far from where the sheep were lazing around in the grass. The water was cooling to the tongue, and looked like sugar toffee but tasted brackish, so I was spitting out more than I was swallowing.

  I heard the lashing call of a whip bird, and looked skywards, surprised to see the sun at the peak of noon. Already? I felt my stomach heave. How could I have flabbergasting forgotten? This was Friday the thirteenth. The day the devil comes a’roaming. By anyone’s reckoning ‘tis an unlucky day to be out and about. Worst of all this particular hour invited the noonday devil. ‘Tis then I sensed someone standing behind. My shoulders stiffened.

  I whirled around and came face-to-face with the croppy who had spat at London’s feet the day the work shed was built. Why was he back? I was wary.

  ‘Could do with a wet myself,’ he said in Irish, squatting alongside me and cupping his hands together to scoop out some of the water. His voice was raspy, like a bullfrog was croaking in his throat and he needed to cough it up. He drank his fill and then threw a handful over his head and face. There was a reddish stubble on his chin and the skin on his nose was peeling from the sunburn.

  ‘Dia dhuit.’ He continued to speak in his croaking Irish.

  ‘Dia is Muire dhuit,’ I replied to the greeting.

  ‘Conas atá tú?’

  I fell ba
ck into guarded English. ‘I am well.’

  ‘Am I speaking with Joe Daley?’ Again, in the Irish. He was a restless, fidgety character. He kept looking over his shoulder.

  I nodded. ‘Aye, I am he.’

  ‘Hear you are a quick-witted lad. Been doing some schooling on the sly.’

  ‘A little,’ I said guardedly. ‘With thanks to Father Dixon.’

  ‘Man of the Lord, he is. Did you know he was shackled to a dead man for days on his transport ship?’

  My eyes widened in shock.

  He shook his head. ‘Terrible. Terrible.’ There was a silence between us before he went on. ‘Hear you also had a knack of loosening all manner of things from their rightful owners’ back in Dublin?’

  His knowing so much came as a shock. True, I had been part of Old Mullins’ gang of lads. My way of surviving.

  ‘I left thieving behind,’ I told the croppy. ‘Less trouble tending sheep.’

  ‘Trouble always follows the likes of us. No avoiding.’ Being Irish he meant, having the emerald blood coursing through our veins. ‘So, Joe Daley, I’ll be joining you here, then. Blacksmithing.’ He pointed in the direction of the farmhouse site.

  ‘You’re to work a forge on this farm?’

  ‘Paymaster Cox wants to supply his estate with his own metal goods: gates, grilles, tools, pots, horseshoes and the like. Brought me in from the prison farm, and handed over the tools to smithy with.’ A muscle in his jaw twitched. ‘Whatever a redcoat asks for, a redcoat gets, eh? One of these days Cox and his Corps may get more than they bargained for.’ He spat on the ground and gave a mirthless laugh. ‘So, Joe Daley, you’ll be guessing I was a smithy in my village before I joined the fighting at Vinegar Hill? Name’s John.’

  Oh, the firepit and hearth? A blacksmith’s forge. Aye.

  He stood up. ‘You know who I am now, lad. There’ll be no more skulking in the bushes.’

  I reddened. He must have spotted me taking cover from London and Joshua the other day. I mumbled, ‘Uhhuh,’ wishing he would disappear and leave me alone. His menacing ways were unnerving. Mebbe he was the noonday devil, masked as a croppy boy.

  Croppy John. Aye, that is the name I shall give him.