Fled

by Meg Keneally

  She held Charlotte on her lap, rubbing her back as the girl coughed out gobbets of salt water-infused phlegm, then laid her down next to her brother where she slept, exhausted from the effort. Jenny lay beside them, leaving them to the shade of her shawl, fully exposed to the sun but no longer caring; she could feel the itch of the blisters on her face and doubted any worse damage could be done.

  She had slept on the boat, after a fashion. Slept through short snatches of the storm, through longer periods of the calm before it. She had not, though, allowed herself to surrender fully to unconsciousness. The ropes tethering her children to her could snap, or Bruton could decide they were a drain on resources and attempt to rectify the situation. The boat could keel over. She knew, even in her sleeping mind, that she could not afford the seconds it would take to struggle to full consciousness.

  So now, for the first time in weeks, she closed her eyes and welcomed sleep.

  Jenny was woken by the sound of Charlotte laughing.

  It was a sound she had not heard since the first day or two of the voyage, and then infrequently. It had once been a sound as common as birdsong. But birdsong had been in short supply since they’d taken to the sea, except for the flat and rasping voices of the gulls, and childish laughter had become almost non-existent.

  As Jenny sat up she felt her clothes stiff around her, salt inhabiting every available space between the threads, making the fabric as abrasive as bark. She glanced over at the men, who were sleeping further down the beach. Then at Emanuel, who was still sleeping, and she fixed her eyes on his fragile chest to make sure it was rising and falling, before seeking the source of the laughter.

  Charlotte had risen. She was still coughing, still thin, not dancing about the shore as though trying to make as little contact as possible with the earth. She was walking slowly and occasionally crawling, following something up the beach.

  The tide was coming in, and Jenny sprinted down to her daughter in case it began to lap at her, tried to claim her. And she saw what Charlotte was chasing. The girl was not, as Jenny had feared, crawling out of weakness. She was crawling because that was what the small turtle was doing.

  Charlotte had seen creatures that girls of her age in England would consider monsters, and that their parents would dismiss as fantasies. But Charlotte had never seen a turtle. Had never seen a drawing of one, had never been told of them.

  She looked up at her mother. ‘Is it a sea dragon?’ she said.

  Jenny laughed, a chuckle that ended in cough. ‘No, duckling. It’s a turtle.’

  ‘I will name him Corbett,’ Charlotte announced.

  Jenny did not want her daughter bestowing a name on the turtle, and an identity that came with it. She knew the fate she intended for the creature. But she was seeing her daughter smile, a smile that had disappeared under the weight of tons of water.

  This turtle, Jenny decided, would be saved.

  ‘Hello, Corbett,’ she said to it, curtsying as she and Charlotte had done at Sydney Cove.

  And Charlotte was off again, crawling close to the water’s edge to keep pace with James, who was clearly seeking a way back into the ocean that Jenny had been happy to leave.

  ‘I think Corbett wants to go home,’ said Jenny. ‘Shall we help him?’

  She and Charlotte nudged the turtle out into the water, watching him as he moved far more quickly, gracefully than he had on the sand.

  ‘Has he gone home?’ asked Charlotte.

  ‘Yes, duckling. I believe he has.’

  ‘Can we go home?’

  Jenny sat on the sand, crossing her legs and dragging Charlotte onto her lap. ‘We’re finding a new home, now. One where there is plenty of food and no mean people. Where we can do what we like.’

  ‘And we will be there soon?’

  ‘I hope so. We might need to be in the boat for a bit longer, but we are on our way.’

  Charlotte frowned, nodded and coughed again. Jenny brought her back to the makeshift lean-to, the shawl now dry and warm. She settled Charlotte next to Emanuel, rubbed her back and hummed until she drifted off to sleep, and then went to tell Dan and Carney about the turtles and to insist that they be slaughtered out of sight of her daughter.

  Jenny didn’t tell her daughter what she was eating that night, nor did the little girl ask. All of them would have eaten anything given to them, their hunger obliterating curiosity.

  There was a broad, flat rock a few paces from the water’s edge, where strips of turtle meat were laid out each day to dry. They had hopes of finding more turtles, and other food besides, but they knew to prepare for scarcity.

  They soon discovered that the fat of the creatures, boiled down, helped in sealing the seams of the boat, together with soap.

  Jenny took Charlotte with her sometimes underneath the upturned boat, elevated on some small rocks, and taught her to look for the chinks of light, the betrayals of gaps. Charlotte yelled to Dan, and they would get out of the way while soap and fat was drizzled, closing up the small openings that would otherwise, over time, admit enough of the ocean to drag the boat down.

  There must have been fresh water somewhere to feed the trees that sprouted the strange fruits they ate. The water, though, must be buried underneath the ground where it was doing them no good. Had there been springs or streams, and had Harrigan suggested it, they would have had trouble resisting his usual entreaty to stay where they were. The place felt insubstantial, dangling off the edge of a mainland they could no longer see, beyond the blank face of the ocean and the horrors the wind sculpted from it. Jenny didn’t know how far they would have to sail, in the other direction from the mainland, before they hit another landing place. Perhaps they never would.

  If they did, though, they would need to explain themselves.

  Jenny had not allowed herself to imagine their journey ending, to hope for a life beyond the waves. But they had come impossibly far already, and might yet get further. She had accepted the possibility that their journey might end at the bottom of the sea, but she would not have it end in a gaol cell – a certainty if they were known to be convicts.

  Dan and Carney had the chart, brittle from being salt-soaked and then dried, spread on the upturned hull when Jenny approached them. ‘Vorst told me of this place. The small islands stretch a long way to the north. One of them, surely, is bound to have some water.’

  ‘Vorst told you a lot of things,’ said Jenny. ‘And what will you do if he was wrong, or if he lied? Will you sail to Batavia and ask for your money?’

  Dan scowled at her and turned back to the chart.

  ‘Dan, whalers let crew bring their family aboard, sometimes, don’t they?’ she asked.

  ‘I suppose. Why?’

  ‘Because wherever we sail, we will need to explain what five men, one woman and two children are doing on an open boat.’

  Carney looked up. ‘The crew of a wrecked whaler?’

  ‘We will not be the crew of anything if you do not leave me in peace with this chart,’ Dan said.

  ‘It makes sense, though,’ said Carney.

  ‘And names,’ said Jenny. ‘We will need names. Keep our Christian names, perhaps. Easier to remember, harder to get caught out. But change our last names. John, your mother’s maiden name?’

  ‘Larkin,’ said John.

  ‘So you are John Larkin. Tell the rest to start thinking of themselves by their mothers’ maiden names. We should stay with what we know as much as we can. Dan – your last name could be Trelawney.’

  Dan stared at her for a moment, gaping.

  ‘You want me to take your maiden name?’ he said after a moment.

  ‘You know it. So do the others. It will be safest.’

  Dan pounded his fist on the upturned hull, and it creaked alarmingly.

  ‘That fat hasn’t set yet,’ said Jenny. ‘If water starts seeping in, I’ll know why.’

  He opened his palm and showed it to her. A red, suppurating gash ran along its length, fringed with blisters. His finger
s were dotted all over with red where splinters had wormed their way in.

  ‘I held that tiller,’ he said. ‘I’ve held it for weeks now, weeks and weeks. I’ve used it to steer into waves taller than any building I’ve seen. And you’ve tied yourself to your bench and slept. And now you want to foist your name on me.’

  ‘You didn’t hold it all the time,’ she said. ‘Carney had a go too, when you slept.’

  Dan spat on the ground and walked off towards the water, wading in to his ankles, his shoulders tense. He looked out to sea as if some other islands might have appeared during their argument. She should not, she thought, have goaded him. She should let him have his moment, praise him for destroying his hand in service of their escape. She would have, perhaps, had he not insisted on holding himself forth as the unquestioned leader, the one who had conceived the plan and brought it into being without assistance, king of their small floating colony.

  She thought of walking down to him, of agreeing with him, giving him the praise and thanks he always seemed to be after. This would, though, make him more demanding, embolden him to go further in imposing his will on the rest of those in the boat.

  Carney would take it, had always been Dan’s lieutenant. Langham was used to Dan’s authority going back to the Charlotte. Harrigan had occasional moments of lucidity but was in no condition to object to anything. Jenny thought that the farmer might become a little overbearing himself once he was recovered and given something to farm, and his skills became more important to their survival than those of the mariners. For now he was in a constantly moving, unfamiliar country and would place his trust in whoever yelled the loudest. But Bruton had come because he did not want to be shouted down, did not want to submit. He would be even less likely to submit to another convict than an officer. Yet another argument, on yet another mountainous sea, was something Jenny wanted to avoid.

  But in the end, there was only one real impediment to her walking down, squeezing Dan’s tense shoulder, looking at a shredded hand and exclaiming over the bravery of its owner. She had not, for the most part, been sleeping when she had tied herself to the bench. She had been bullying, cajoling, encouraging, yelling, doing everything to keep them focused, to keep them from killing each other while Dan at the tiller kept the ocean from killing everyone.

  She had been, all that time, keeping the children alive.

  But he had not, in all the talk of water and islands, once mentioned Charlotte and Emanuel. He had not, once, expressed happiness at the idea that they were still alive. He had not, once, mentioned Jenny’s role in keeping them that way.

  CHAPTER 26

  Six days of eating fresh turtle meat, six days of searching for water in places that they had searched many times, and collecting as much as they could from the afternoon rains, Jenny using broad leaves to trickle it into Charlotte’s mouth. Six days of melting turtle fat, sealing the boat, drying meat for the onward journey. Resting, sleeping without fear of being cast straight from a dream into the sea.

  Dan, of course, got his way. They would weave through the islands he was sure lay just to the north, outcrops which Vorst had told him were surrounded by water too shallow for a brig, or a snow like the Waaksamheyd. But plenty of depth for a small cutter, and plenty of protection from the worst of the winds.

  Charlotte leaned over the gunwale, trailing her hand in the clear water.

  Jenny had never been able to see the bottom of Penmor Harbour. In Sydney Cove, there were days when she could see the dark shadows beneath the surface, kelp beds that often disappeared from view when the water had been churned up by a storm or heavy seas. But she had never been able to see the bottom of the ocean from a boat. This water, though, was miraculous. On the sea floor she could see the shadow of the boat moving along, distorted as it travelled over brightly coloured trees and domes. And she was grateful to it, so grateful, this element that had nearly drowned them. It kept Charlotte in a state of still wonder, leaning over and focusing on coral hillocks studded with small fish.

  Unfortunately the fish were a little too small for the convicts to eat. They tried island after island, looking for water and more turtles. They found enough water to keep them going, but never again saw small dark smudges moving along a beach. The best they were able to manage was shellfish, small and tough, the kind anyone with a choice would reject.

  Every few hours Vincent would get out the chart, spread it on the bench in front of him – which was now blessedly dry – and make calculations with his quadrant. ‘Gulf of Carpentaria,’ he said one afternoon. ‘If we can get across here, perhaps get water, we’ve then got a straight line all the way to Coepang.’

  A statement like that might have excited Jenny, earlier in the voyage. She had stopped believing that they would ever finish sailing. A large part of her had accepted the fact that she would continue to live on the ocean, scavenging for water and turtles and shellfish, until she was old and covered in salt sores and had forgotten what it was like to walk on land.

  So she was happy, at first, when another island appeared. This one had well-built huts on the shore, tall enough for a tall man to stand in, made out of bark and leaves. There seemed, at a quick glance, to be enough space under those roofs to house at least a hundred people.

  There would definitely be water.

  Dan nudged the tiller across – he had recently wrapped his hands in fabric from the hem of her skirt, and brown blotches were seeping through. ‘Just two of us will go out this time,’ he said. ‘Two is enough to get the breakers filled quickly, and if they turn out to be unfriendly it will be easier to get away.’

  No one on the shore was unfriendly, because no one was there, so John and Bruton dragged the flagons over to a small spring behind the huts and filled them with enough water for several days. They were so weak from the lack of it they had trouble getting the flagons back into the boat.

  There was a reason, though, that no one was at the huts.

  As the convicts soon discovered, they were all on the next beach around, preparing to launch an attack.

  Jenny, with nothing to do but hang on to the children, was constantly looking about her. She saw them first. Two long, sturdy canoes with matted sails, each holding around twenty men.

  A man stood in the bow of the first canoe, shell adornments draped over his shoulders, and behind him more men were standing. The second boat was just behind them, and Jenny could see more massing on the shore.

  ‘Dan!’ she yelled. ‘Dan, look! They are coming!’

  The men had been resting, a light and favourable wind filling the sails and pushing the boat along in a desultory fashion – now snapping the sheet tight, now letting it lie limp – but moving fast enough so that it hadn’t been necessary to row in the midday heat.

  At Jenny’s shout, Dan looked around. ‘Row!’ he called to the others. ‘Row, row!’

  Really, they were in no state to. Harrigan, with his copper hair, seemed to have suffered worse than any of them from exposure to the sun. His face was covered in blisters, and he had returned to the bottom of the boat, staring and occasionally raving, talking to an unknown woman who, he said, had rejected him for a far worse prospect. Bruton leaned over and slapped him on the side of the head, hauling him upright onto a bench and putting an oar in his hand, where he ineffectually moved it backwards and forwards, his cracked lips slightly parted as he gazed ahead.

  The rest of them, though weak, still held their wits and could see as well as Jenny what was coming. They needed no further urging. As she looked back again, she saw that these natives did not have large spears, sharp and thick with a limited range. They had bows and arrows, and some were standing on platforms in their boats, taking aim.

  ‘What do they want with us?’ she yelled at Dan. ‘We’re leaving – can’t they see we are leaving? Why are they chasing us?’

  ‘Seems to me they want to kill us,’ he said. ‘I’ve heard tales, true or not, that some tribes around here are headhunters.’

  Had
she not needed to protect Charlotte and Emanuel, Jenny would have vaulted forward and taken an oar herself. As it was, all she could do was hunch over the children as arrows began to land in the water nearby.

  John Carney, handling the sail, reached in and scooped one out, throwing it into the bottom of the boat where Harrigan had lain until just a few seconds ago.

  The men were rowing, but not in a coordinated fashion. They seemed to have forgotten how to time their strokes with those of their neighbours, so that the boat lurched forward a little to the left and then to the right, zigzagging across the ocean at a pace that was far, far too slow.

  ‘Row on my call,’ Jenny yelled out.

  ‘I’ll take no orders from a woman,’ Bruton yelled back.

  ‘Then by tonight you’ll be a trophy in that village over there, probably the ugliest one they’ve ever taken,’ she called. ‘Now, ready – stroke! Stroke!’

  The coordinated movement pulled them ahead a little more quickly. It also helped that their sail was more flexible than the large mat sails of the canoes, which weren’t able to catch the wind quite as efficiently. With John Carney manipulating their sail, and the men finally rowing in unison, they were able to gain some distance.

  Still their pursuers kept coming.

  ‘Why aren’t they giving up?’ Jenny asked.

  ‘I imagine they don’t get much opportunity to capture a boat,’ said Dan. ‘They’ll give up when they can’t see us any longer.’

  She nodded and hoped he was right.

  They crept forward, dragging themselves by the oars and harnessing as much wind as they could, until the chasing boats began to recede. Eventually, after over an hour’s chase, their pursuers were out of sight.

  Bruton made to haul in his oar.

  ‘They could still be coming, you fool!’ yelled Jenny. ‘They’ll know we might slow down when we can’t see them anymore. They could still be just back there, waiting.’