A HAZARD OF HEARTS (48 page)

‘Why should I?’

He answered slowly, ‘There are only the two of
us. I do not want you to risk being killed.’

Dumbfounded, not sure she had heard him
correctly, she said, ‘You mean you care what happens to me?’

‘You are Younger Sister. I care for my own.’ She
could not read his face in the slowly gathering light, but she had detected a
tremor in his voice.

‘Li Po, I am very happy that you cared enough to
follow me, but nothing will persuade me to leave. There is someone here who
means more than my life. I must watch over him if I can.’

‘A western man?’

‘Yes.’

‘What can a woman do in a battle? Come with me
and wait beyond the hill until the fighting is ended. You can return to seek
out this man if you must, and tend the wounded, also. Be quick. The soldiers
are coming. I heard them in the woods, moving silently, without drums and
bugles. They will attack at full light.’

‘It’s too late.’ Pearl pointed to the sentries,
sprung to life, shouting and gesticulating towards the north where a column of
cavalry had appeared. Dust rose beneath the horses’ hooves. Behind them
billowed an even greater cloud raised by the infantry and police on foot. The
gap in the barricade was closed and people rushed to their defence positions.
Pearl found herself jostled aside, while her brother disappeared into a group
armed with ploughshares and reaping hooks. She gazed around frantically, with
little hope of seeing J.G. in the melee. Finding herself increasingly in the
way, she scrambled up on the jumble of boxes and barrels to the top of the
stockade to peer at the oncoming force.

The cavalry having reached a point about a
hundred and fifty yards away, now wheeled to the left, while mounted police
formed up on the right flank. Behind them the infantry deployed, with supports
in the rear. From the stockade a volley rang out, followed by sustained fire
from the defenders. In answer, a bugle sounded the ‘commence firing’. The noise
was like a New Year’s celebration, with hundreds of fire-crackers exploding,
and the same smell of gunpowder in the air.

Pearl stared, mesmerised, at the army ranged
against them. There must be four or five hundred, at least, she thought. What hope
did the diggers have against such a trained force?

Out in the open two men fell off their horses,
their red jackets disappearing in the dust of a cavalry charge. All around
Pearl men were hit, crying out as their weapons dropped from useless hands and they
tumbled to the ground. A bullet whistled past Pearl’s head and someone dragged
her down, thrusting her behind a barrel. A body fell on top of her, knocking
her breathless. Her ears were filled with cries and gunshots. She choked on the
smell of powder and smoke as tents were set alight, regardless of the drunken
men within.

Sudden loud cheers announced the taking of the
rebel flag.

‘Kill the bastards, every one,’ a voice screamed
above her head.

In answer another shouted, ‘Give quarter. Give
quarter. Any man who murders a prisoner will be shot on the spot.’

Pearl lay pinned, unable to move for what seemed
a long time, listening to the screams of the dying. For the order to give
quarter was largely ignored. Diggers were being chased down and bayoneted with
brutal glee by a force of men brought to frenzy by the week of waiting to be
attacked in their camp by a foe outnumbering them by thousands. The fact that
their fears had been groundless meant nothing. Acting more like a crazed mob
than units of trained men, they released their pent-up emotions in an orgy of
killing, including innocent by-standers.

When she was later told that the bugle sounded
the ‘cease fire’ only fifteen minutes after the attack had been launched, Pearl
could scarcely believe it. During those minutes, and in the following hour,
twenty-four rebels were killed, with another twenty wounded, while those not
immediately taken prisoner spread out and ran for cover in the camps or down
the road to Melbourne, chased by the troopers.

A woman searching for her husband discovered
Pearl and called men to remove the body which pinned her down, itself staked to
the ground by barrel staves shattered into sword-like pieces. Pearl, erect and
swaying, gazed down at Li Po’s face, contorted in his last agony. Her heart
burned with pain. She would never be able to tell him how sorry she was to be
indirectly responsible for his death. He had only wanted to protect her. He had
cared for her, after all, but now she would never truly know him. Kneeling to
close his eyes with gentle fingers, she addressed a brief prayer to whomever
might be listening, commending a brave soul.

She found men willing to carry Li Po’s body back
to the Chinaman’s Gully camp, where she delivered it into the care of his
compatriots. Then, at last she was free to begin her search for J.G. To her
great relief, he had not been counted amongst the dead. Nor, she noted, had the
leaders of the rebellion, who had mysteriously disappeared, either escaped or
hidden by their friends.

The troopers returned to their camp, taking the
wounded under arrest, while the police raged through the diggings, laying waste
to tents and grog-shops, and chasing frightened men into their holes. Pearl
found her tent with everything in it burned to the ground. All she had left was
her medical bag of immediate supplies. She stood beside the smouldering patch
of earth, her eyes smarting from the heat and ash, her senses bombarded by the
misery of the dispossessed who had lost friends and family in what the soldiers
cheerfully referred to as a ‘skirmish’. There was only one thought in her mind.
What had happened to J.G.?

For the rest of the day she wandered between
Eureka and Golden Point, stopping to help the subdued but angry diggers where
she could, always questioning whether J.G. had been seen. There were plenty of
burns and injuries from clashes with the police, plenty of arguments as to
whether the rebellion had been justified. Not until late in the evening did she
receive a whispered message calling her back to Chinaman’s Gully. Although
tired out, Pearl left immediately, arriving at her brother’s hut to find J.G.
unconscious but tended by the tong himself.

‘Why did you give him sanctuary?’ she asked,
kneeling to examine the deep laceration in J.G’s skull. She had gone ice cold
at the sight, before reminding herself that she was foremost a healer, and had
no time to indulge her nerves.

The old man moved back to allow her space. ‘He
used your name, Younger Sister of Li Po. He claimed to be your friend. Is it
not so?’

‘Oh, yes. He is my friend. Thank you, honourable
sir, for taking him in. All prisoners are being transferred to Melbourne,
whatever their condition, and I doubt if J.G. would have survived the journey
with such a wound.’ She examined the long gash running from below J.G’s ear
across the base of the skull, finding it had been cleaned and the edges
stitched together. But a great deal of blood had soaked into his shirt, and his
skin was pallid. He hardly seemed to breathe, although from time to time he
muttered unintelligibly.

Despite an age-cracked voice and severely bent
back, the old tong was clearly experienced in dealing with wounds. He detailed
the methods he had used on the patient, including compression of the wound
until bleeding had all but ceased, and the use of boiled thread to sew it
together. Reassured, Pearl brought out an ointment of mouldy strained cream and
applied it before bandaging, saying as calmly as she could, ‘You have saved his
life. I am eternally grateful to you.’

‘You are one of us. Also, your fame as a healer
has spread like an ocean wave across the land. It is known that you never
refuse anyone in need. That is the way of an enlightened soul.’

Pearl, thinking of Dr. Hsien Lo, muttered, ‘I
try.’

With the tong’s help she undressed J.G.,
searching for further injuries, thankfully finding only a few bruises. After
wrapping him in a blanket, she cleaned his face where he had bled from the
nostrils, moistened his dry lips and placed pads soaked in cooling herbs over
his eye-lids, then waited for him to come to his senses.

She waited through another day and night, with
only snatched minutes of rest, growing more concerned by the hour. Close to
dawn after the second night he seemed to rise nearer to consciousness, his
occasional muttered words becoming clearer.

‘Tell her...no...must not...angel...stupid to
care... Send the letter...she’ll know then...so sweet...’

Pearl, filled with a wild hope, grasped his
hands and said urgently, ‘What is it, my dear? Were you trying to tell me
something?’

The mutters ceased, and Pearl sat back on her
heels, disappointed. Was she the woman he spoke of? Did he see her as an angel,
and sweet? Was the letter the one that he had entrusted to her, and did it
mention another woman, after all? Jealousy rocketed up to burst in her brain,
shattering her composure, then died away. What right had she to feel such an
emotion? J.G. had never said a word to indicate a more than brotherly affection
for her. She, like so many others, was just his ‘girl dear.’

She stroked his unruly hair, more thickly
peppered with grey than she had realised, smoothed the frown from his forehead
with her thumb, noting how beaked his nose had become, how his eyes had sunk
deep into their sockets. He was so thin. If he didn’t waken and eat soon... To
distract herself, she reviewed her treatment, examining each move to see
whether she could have done more for him. But she knew she had done her best,
given her limited supplies. His recovery now lay with the Gods.

The old tong called in to see the patient and
shook his head, obviously believing another coffin would be ordered before
long. He explained Li Po’s wish to go home, in the event of his death in
Australia, and the arrangements made for his remains to be held with others
awaiting transport to Melbourne and temporary interment before shipment back to
China. Pearl absently thanked him and returned to her patient.

J.G. had begun to mutter again, no names, but a
reiteration of his love for some woman, begging her to come to him, crying out
his need for her comforting presence. Holding back emotion, Pearl bathed his
face, smoothed his hair, tried to reach him with words, but in vain. He could
not be comforted. At last she could stand it no longer.

If she was unable to help J.G. she might at
least assuage her own need to know whom he summoned from the depths of
unconsciousness. Taking the letter from inside her jacket, she read the
superscription - to Messrs Tomlinson and Bryan of Pitt Street, Sydney Town.
Could she violate his confidence and break the seal? There was a time when she
would not have paused, would have been amazed at her hesitation. She put the
letter back in her pocket and wept uncontrollably. She moaned like an animal
unable to vocalise its pain. Life had dealt her many blows, but none like this
– to watch the man she loved with a frightening depth and passion, dying, and
to be unable to help; and never to know whether he loved her in return.

A weak voice penetrated her misery and she
raised her head.

‘Pearl, I feel sick.’

She rushed to the bed in time to help him turn
his head and rid himself of blood he had swallowed. When he lay back,
exhausted, she found herself smiling foolishly at him. ‘You’re awake!’

‘Haven’t I just proved it? Brought up gizzards
and all, I’m sure.’ His own smile was a pale echo of the old one, yet it was
there. He inspected her more closely and frowned. ‘What’ve you been doing to
yourself? Have you been crying?’

‘Never you mind, you busybody. Drink this water
then just lie still while I fetch you some good broth to get your strength up.’
She darted away, all the spring back in her step, her misery dispelled like
mist in the mid-day sun.

Hurrying back, she felt almost afraid to look
inside the cabin in case she had somehow been mistaken, and J.G. still lay in a
stupor from which he might never recover. But her patient waited, staring
anxiously at the doorway, as if he, too, had his fears.

She fed him careful spoonsful, not letting him
talk, while giving him all the news she thought he would want to hear. She told
him about the removal of the wounded, the escape of the ringleaders and rumours
that Governor Hotham would deal severely with the culprits.

J.G.’s mouth tightened. ‘I don’t remember the
action at all. I can recall saying goodbye to you and marching off with the men
to the stockade, and that’s it. A blank.’

‘It’s not an uncommon sequel to a head wound.
You may never remember how you came to be hit. The tong says you were found
wandering empty-handed, in imminent danger of falling into one of the pits.’

‘I’ve lost my guns, then? A pity.’

‘That fact probably saved you from arrest.’

‘We were let down, girl dear.’ His anger and
frustration showed in his voice. ‘Hundreds slipped away the night before the
attack, their hot blood turned to ice at the thought of a fight. Some were the
fiercest malcontents of all, the ones who urged us on, then left us.’

Pearl said gently, ‘It couldn’t have had any
other outcome, my dear. We must just wait to see what action the Governor will
take. There’s talk of considerable support for the miners amongst the populace
in Melbourne. Hotham might find he can’t have his way, after all.’