Stranger in Dixie

by James Fearn

  It was that same afternoon whilst locked in the hold without an armed guard to supervise that the men of the lower deck were called together by Robert Meyers, a fiery Englishman with a reputation for cunningness.

  ‘Listen, lads’, he whispered, his eyes darting about furtively, ‘it’s about time we made a break for freedom, and I reckon I know how we can do it.’

  ‘Have you noticed that the ship’s armoury is on the top deck aft? I’ve seen inside it. There are muskets, which are always kept loaded and cartridge boxes stored nearby. We could break in and arm ourselves if we chose our time carefully.’

  Many of the men looked recklessly enthusiastic. Anything would be better than being locked up like they were. The hope of freedom swamped common sense. Meyers went on. ‘As you know, we are usually allowed up on deck while the guards are having their dinner with only three or four sentries left on deck,’ he whispered.

  ‘Now look at this!’ he said dramatically producing a skeleton key, which he had smuggled on-board at Sheerness. A look of delight spread across the eager faces. ‘With this key, I reckon I can get into the armoury if some of you can distract the guards. With twenty or so of us armed, we could surprise the redcoats and take the ship. What do you say?’ The general enthusiasm was dampened by several who expressed grave doubt about the wisdom of the plot but agreed not to betray their mates.

  The day of the planned bid for freedom arrived, and the convicts mustered excitedly for their dinner. They ate with a sense of nervous anticipation.

  ‘Right boys, let’s go!’ said Meyers. As fast as his chains would permit he hauled himself to the top of the short ladder and pushed his left shoulder against the hatch. It wouldn’t budge. It was stuck fast. He pushed again, harder this time. Not a movement.

  ‘The bloody hatch’s bolted!’ he whispered in desperation. The men sat in stunned silence, their irrational hopes of freedom dashed.

  Accusations of betrayal and protestations of innocence raged for the best part of an hour when suddenly the hatch began to open and a guard of four armed redcoats descended the steps and stood to attention. They were followed by the sergeant and a distinguished officer whose braided uniform left no doubt as to his rank on the Barossa.

  ‘Stand forward, Meyers!’ commanded the Captain, his piercing green eyes glaring at the convict. ‘Your behaviour in recent days has been reported as being highly suspicious. You were seen loitering near the armoury. What were you doing there?’

  Meyers feigned astonishment and assured the Captain that it was just idle curiosity that led him to wander into the aft. The other convicts looked apprehensive fearing that the Captain had discovered their plan of escape and was intent on retribution.

  Turning to the men, the Captain spoke, ‘You men seem to have conducted yourselves quite well since we embarked, and I had been inclined to grant you some relief such as the removal of your chains. But my suspicion has caused me to change my mind. From now on, the hatches will be kept locked and barred except at exercise times.’

  The Captain turned abruptly and ascended the steps followed by the guard. The hatch was locked and barred securely ending a brief flirtation with the idea of escape. Penal servitude in Van Diemen’s Land now seemed a certainty.

  The tedium of the daily routine had long since lulled many of the convicts into a state of torpor. Meals had lost their attraction, and the men went through the motions of deck exercise without as much as a glance at the sea around them. With head bowed and hands clasped behind his back, John plodded mindlessly up and down the deck like a beast of burden deeply depressed.

  ‘Land Ho . . . !’ A clear lone voice rang out from the crow’s-nest. The convicts and their guards looked up in disbelief. Could it be true? Did I hear it right? What tricks is my mind playing on me?

  ‘Land Ho . . . !’ It came again like a bucket of icy seawater on a naked body. A buzz of conversation broke out as the men strained to get a glimpse of the godforsaken place, the notorious Van Diemen’s Land.

  A strong wind from the north kept the ship out at sea for the next twelve hours, but a welcome change to the South-West swept the Barossa in stately sail up through the headlands of a wide river estuary.

  ‘Francis!’ called the First Mate. ‘’Ere at the double!’ John scrambled up the steps to the fo’c’sle, a privileged position indeed. The First Mate stood peering at the Western headland through a small telescope. ‘’Ere, take a look at this,’ he said, handing John the instrument.

  John was intrigued to see small groups of black-skinned natives, some holding long spears and all as naked as the day they were born. He was also struck by the dull green of the leaves of the trees, which seemed to grow right down to the water’s edge. What a contrast to the green of old England?

  The arrival of the Barossa at Hobart Town attracted quite a lot of interest from the free settlers. Groups of them stood along the perimeter of the beach, watching the new arrivals while several of the wives of the more affluent landowners viewed proceedings from the comfort and security of the horse-drawn carriages.

  The convicts were transported to the shore in forty-nine-seat cutters, each with eight oarsmen. The sweaty torsos of the rowers gleamed in the hot sun. Disembarking, they were assembled into groups on the beach again, wearing the leg-irons to which they had become accustomed in the early part of the journey. Here the men were handed over to the queen’s dutiful servants, wearing blue roundabouts with the royal emblem sewn to one sleeve, and carrying a bludgeon in the other hand. Such were the insignia of their office—the constableship.

  No sooner had John and his fellow prisoners placed their feet on dry land than the sternest facial expressions of the bystanders changed into exaggerated smiles of merriment. The men had been so long on-board ship and subject to the ceaseless heaving and tumbling of the ship that it was with the utmost difficulty that they could keep any fixed upright position. Despite their gallant attempts, they staggered like extremely drunken men. The ground appeared to them to heave and roll like the angry waves they had traversed. Even some of them saw the funny side of the situation as they watched the ludicrous antics of their fellows.

  Irrespective of their state of health, the convicts were cajoled and prodded by the queen’s henchmen.

  ‘Come on, yer lazy sluggards, you’ll travel faster than this tomorrer with a cart load o’ stone! My bloody oath, yer will!’ shouted one of the constables.

  A murmur of complaint earned one poor fellow a cuff over the ear from an overenthusiastic member of the constabulary.

  ‘Quiet, yer convict scum, yer got no rights ’ere,’ said the vociferous constable. ’Yer left ’em behind in England. All yer got t’ look forward to ’ere is rocks and roads and plenty of ’em I can tell yer!’

  As John struggled up the gentle slope towards the township, he was horrified to notice four scaffolds upon which the fly-blown corpses of as many men swung to and fro ignominiously in the wind.

  ‘Go on, take a good look!’ yelled the constable anxious to put the fear of God into the prisoners. ‘That’ll be you t’morrer if yer give us any trouble.’ The men shrank back in horror at the sight.

  Further up the track, they passed a road gang, about two hundred in number, heavily chained and shackled and breaking rocks by the side of the road. Sunburnt and sweating like pigs these convicts endured hardship such as John could never have imagined.

  What an ominous reception? Hardly had they set foot on this southern land than they were confronted with gibbets and men toiling in the most abject misery, looking more degraded than so many dumb beasts of burden. These intimidating sights and the implication that such might be their own fate served to burn the iron of servitude still more deeply into their souls.

  Within half an hour or so, the contingent reached Hobart Tench. This was a cobble-stoned square with a church in one corner, a treadmill in another, and various bluestone offices scattered here
and there. The superintendent was there to receive the documentation relating to the prisoners from the ship’s surgeon. These included the indents of the Barossa convicts, their crimes, their sentences, and other biographical details.

  The hot southern sun beat down upon their uncovered heads. John began to feel more unsteady on his feet, and he craved for a drink of cool water. Like his fellow convicts, however, he temporarily forgot his discomfort as the governor of the colony arrived to address the company. Resplendent in naval uniform with a plumed ceremonial hat, the queen’s representative stepped pompously from his carriage to address the assembled company. His resonant voice echoed around the square as he delivered a long diatribe on the advantages to be gained from good conduct and the inevitable consequences of breaches of discipline and unruly behaviour.

  John and another prisoner of similar age were assigned to a gang working without chains in a quarry near a signal station some three miles north of Hobart. One of the two constables who accompanied them treated them harshly and this, together with the unaccustomed hard labour and lack of good food, made them wish they were back in Hobart Town with their erstwhile associates. The younger constable, however, was a more genial character who detested the quarry as much as his prisoners did. He was well read and quite knowledgable about the English Chartists for whom, he confessed, he had a sneaking regard. John’s colourful stories about his own involvement with them in Yorkshire enabled him to establish quite a rapport with his overseer.

  One day, the friendly constable took John aside. ‘Listen, Francis. I can’t stand this place. I want to get back into town again,’ he said. ‘If you and your friend help me, I’ll see what I can do for you. Here’s the proposition. I want you to run away and let me capture you. It’ll mean I’ll have to take you back to Hobart Town. I’ll give you ten shillings if you’ll do it,’ he said encouragingly. ‘But what will happen to us?’ asked John indignantly. ‘Oh, you’ll get a stern warning from the superintendent. That’s all! They’re usually pretty lenient with first offenders.’

  They knew that it was risky, but not being averse to a bit of excitement and desperate to be out of the quarry they agreed to the plan.

  The next day the two lads were sent to carry a log to the signal station and cut it up for firewood. As agreed the constable allowed them out of his sight and said nothing for at least an hour. When they arrived, however, there was no sign of the signalman. The door of the hut was ajar so they peered inside. ‘Can you see any food?’ whispered John. ‘I’m half starved.’

  The signalman’s hut was a wattle and daub cabin with a large blackened fireplace on the wall opposite the door. Several metal plates and mugs lay in disarray on the shelves of a dresser to one side of the fireplace. On a rough wooden table under the window next to the door was a large metal plate with a piece of beef and few boiled potatoes on it. Several large blowflies buzzed annoyingly overhead. Without realising the significance of these persistent insects, the two men wolfed the food down and were searching for something more when they heard footsteps on the veranda.

  John’s fellow convict picked up a two-pronged pitchfork, which stood in the corner of the cabin. As the unsuspecting signalman walked through the door, the prisoners lunged at him pinning him to the door. With one prong of the fork on either side of his neck the signalman, a timid-looking fellow with red hair and freckles, stared at them in abject terror.

  ‘Who the devil are you? What do you want?’ he cried.

  ‘Where do you keep the food?’ shouted John in the unaccustomed voice of a desperado.

  ‘Over there’, the signalman responded nodding in the direction of the dresser.

  ‘Listen boys!’ he said. ‘Go easy on me. I’m a ticket ’o leave man. I know the convict life. Let me go, and I’ll help yer. I won’t turn yer in.’ John looked askance at yet another offer of help.

  But the signalman was as good as his word and upon being released from the door drew from the ashes on the hearth a magnificent damper dusted it off with a bullock’s tail and gave each of them half of it, three or four pounds each, steaming hot.

  ‘There y’are lads, get that inside yer and get out ’o here before I’m caught shelterin’ runaways.’ John and his partner with one hand on the pitchfork, gorged themselves, and having bade farewell to the signalman and walked out into the bush.

  They had gone no more than a quarter of a mile along the narrow track back towards the quarry when they were met by the contriving constable heading in their direction in a horse-drawn cart. ‘Right lads, this is it!’ he whispered excitedly. ‘Let’s go to Hobart.’ He was brandishing his musket in such a reckless manner that John ducked and weaved to avoid his line of fire.

  Within an hour, the three were standing before the superintendent. ‘I apprehended these two convicts, sir, out near the signalman’s ’ut on the river. I don’t think they’re dangerous, sir, just fed up with the quarry.’

  ‘Like some others in this colony, eh?’ said the suspicious official.

  The feigned expressions of fear on the faces of the two runaways seemed to convince the superintendent of the veracity of the constable’s account of events, and he ordered that the two be placed back in leg-irons and set to work on the roads around Hobart. As they were marched out of the superintendent’s office, the constable winked at John and turned to salute his superior officer.

  Although not convicted for his support of the Chartists, John firmly believed that it was his admission of his sympathy for such political views that had influenced the length of his sentence. He was intensely interested, therefore, to discover that one of the members of the gang to which he was assigned was the notorious murderer, Richard Goodman.

  Goodman was a weaver from Lancashire. He had been transported for political agitation as a member of the Chartists, culminating in the death of a policeman in a riot. Despite his protestations of innocence, Goodman was convicted and transported. ‘Police bashing’ had become a frequent occurrence in London and Northern industrial cities, and the authorities were determined to stamp it out.

  Away from the political tensions of Lancashire, Goodman was a model prisoner and spent many hours with John in the road gang, tutoring him in the politics of social equality. It was really this man’s influence that was responsible for fashioning John’s raw rebellious spirit into the disciplined determination that was evidenced later in his life.

  One pleasant autumn morning, John and Richard Goodman arrived at the road construction site. Their first task was to fell an eighty-foot tree and to cut it into logs for firewood.

  The felling of such a tree involved the use of a crosscut saw some eight foot in length and with three-inch teeth. A physically fit man stripped to the waist at either end of this implement could heave to and fro for ten minutes without rest. The refreshing aroma of newly cut timber was some recompense for aching arms and buzzing flies. Indeed some of these old trees would take a pair like John and Richard half an hour to fell.

  ‘Timber . . . !’ yelled John as the forest giant teetered momentarily upon an inch of uncut trunk. The two men ran some ten paces to the opposite side of the tree and watched. It was a tense moment as they wondered if they had cut far enough to fell the giant. But this proud leviathan of the bush moving almost imperceptibly at first rapidly gained momentum and fell with a thunderous crash of branches and leaves to lie ignominiously on the forest floor.

  Suddenly, a scream of pain could be heard above the dying roar. John ran to its point of origin. The sound of an animal’s cry appeared to come from beneath a dense entanglement of greenery. With caution, lest the injured creature should attack, John carefully pulled back the branches.

  ‘My God!’ he exclaimed. ‘Richard look at this!’

  The two men stood open-mouthed as a pair of eyes stared up at them in terror from the face of a little boy with skin as black as the pitch in Thirty-Six Ten’s coffin.

  ‘A nati
ve boy!’ said John.

  ‘Don’t go near him,’ said Richard apprehensively. ‘Goodness knows what diseases he might be carrying.’

  John, however, was more concerned about the little lad’s shoulder, which was pinned by a branch of the fallen tree. Seizing his saw, he cut the limb of the tree carefully and released the boy. He looked no more than five or six years of age. Where had he come from? What was he doing alone in the bush? The questions that flashed through their minds revealed the abject ignorance of the white men about aborigines and their way of life. Carefully lifting the boy out of the leafy trap, John cradled him in his arms. A tear came to his eye as he remembered little Danny back in Sheffield.

  Whilst they had been bending over to attend to the lad, the two convicts had not noticed the appearance of three native men who had come up behind them surreptitiously spears raised aggressively. Richard was the first to notice them.

  ‘God! What do we do now?’ he said in alarm.

  John smiled tentatively and walked towards them and held up the boy gently. The black men lowered their spears slowly and chatted amongst themselves. John and Richard could make no sense of the sound they heard. Whatever language it was, it bore no resemblance to English or French.

  The oldest of the three natives approached John with a grin and took the boy. He mumbled some unintelligible sounds while his companions nodded their heads approvingly and laughed. Their stained broken teeth gave them a grotesque appearance that would have frightened the wits out of lesser men. In that moment of contact between two men of such different cultures, John sensed a common compassion and respect between them.

  At the base camp that night John and Richard told the tale of their chance encounter with the black men of the bush. The light of the campfire, flickering in reflection from the faces of the other convicts, exposed the emotions of fear and awe that John’s embellished narrative evoked in them.

  It was in mid-winter several years after John’s arrival in Van Diemen’s Land that he was selected as one of a party of men to travel north to begin land clearing in the region of Mount Cleveland. This was a hilly area, and it was believed that it would make an excellent terrain for rolling pasture lands once cleared. The soil was good and the climate salubrious making it superb country for agriculture.