Dodger (13 page)

Convicts on Abel's Farm was forever being told how lucky we was. In London we was looked down upon by the gentry just for being born poor and living in slums where there was only one privy hole for every hundred arses. But over in Australia we was being given a chance to better ourselves. If we was to put aside our thieving ways and behave like respectable gents, if we worked hard and played the game, we could rise high in that new world. We could serve our sentences and then become proper Australians if we cared to. We could buy cheap land what was bigger than all
Poplar and farm animals or plant crops. We could marry another convict, make an honest woman of her, give her some babies, be our own masters. Now, they would say, would that not be a fair life?

No, I would answer, it would not. Because what these coves have never understood is that London was my home and there was an end to it.

Old Abel Magwitch, the sheep farmer whose name hung over the place where I was sent to sweat, he must have felt the same way as me. He had been transported for thievery many years before and had done wonderful well as an emancipist, making himself a tidy fortune breeding stock. He, who had lived little more than a beggar back in England, had made himself a king down there, an example to us all. Why then, many asked, had he just vanished from sight one day never to be seen or heard from again? Some among us said that he had heard London calling him back like a mother. This I believed as I could hear her calling too.

*

‘“It was the night after the storming of Seringapatam,”' I said to my fellow convicts one boiling afternoon in captivity, ‘“and the brave soldiers of the British East India Company had breached the walls of the citadel, shot the troublesome sultan in the head and stripped his body of all its jewels. They had laid waste to the enemy and, as dusk fell over the cannon-blown palace, their business had moved from slaughtering to plunder.”'

I was sat sweltering on a rickety fence and I fanned myself with an old copy of
Bentley's
what I had stolen from Mr Pebble, the English teacher. Inside that was the first chapter of
The Curse of the Jakkapoor Stone
by George Shatillion and I was now relating what I had read there to my less educated companions. I used to describe scenes I had read in the
Newgate Calendar
to the other
pickpockets in London and I was happy now to provide the same service for these illiterates as long as it got me out of the sheep shearing.

‘“The redcoats swarmed through the palace which, as they had hoped, was a treasure trove of diamonds, sapphires and other jewels, hidden in every room and hanging off enemy corpses. Fine silks was pulled from doorways and windows, statues was smashed for their encrusted gems, and the doors of the treasury was blown open with gunpowder to get at the gold bars within.”' I smiled as I watched my listeners shear their sheep, knowing I was making their labour more pleasurable. ‘It makes you proud to be British,' I said to them.

‘Will you ever shut that bloody mouth of yours, Dinkins?' snapped Sergeant Allhare, who was watching over us with his gun. He knew full well what my surname was; he was just being a turd about it. ‘Get back to work before I shoot you dead and we can all get some peace.'

We was in one of the sheep-pens on the farm and the others was knee-deep in wool. I was in the company of this soldier, three aborigines, two convicted prostitutes, four convicted thieves and two dozen sheep. All we needed was a partridge in a pear tree and it would have felt like Christmas. The abos and convicts was working so hard that I had decided to entertain them with this story what begins in the middle of a true historical battle but soon takes a turn fantastical. A corrupt English officer steals the ancient stone of Jakkapoor and spends the rest of his life being hounded by a vengeful
vetala
, which is what your Indians would call a genie. The story has the vetala showing up in London and threatening to lay a curse upon the officer's innocent daughter if he doesn't hand over the stone. What happens after that I couldn't tell you, as Mr Pebble only had the first three chapters. But during my
time in Australia the novels of George Shatillion had been great favourites of mine and I had become fanatical about him. He was the greatest living Englishman, I would tell anyone who'd listen, and I was forever visiting the small library in the penal colony and pinching whatever they had of his back catalogue. My very favourite was his first novel, the now classic
Thimble and Pea
, peopled as it was with fences, pickpockets and other irrepressible Londoners what reminded me of home. There was an old Jewish villain in it called Ikey Slizzard who was, for me, the best thing in the book.

I carried on reading out the story for them in spite of Allhare's empty threats. There was no danger of him shooting me – he would get in too much trouble. The only way he would have been allowed to was if I had made a run for it and this would not happen as I had long since given up trying to liberate myself. I had made three separate escape attempts during my first year in the colony and each time some aborigines had been sent to track me and drag me back. This was just as well as I would have starved to death if they hadn't and, seeing how I had to suffer through harsh whippings upon every return, I soon lost my taste for taking flight.

‘The rest of you can start taking your wool in,' said Allhare, spitting upon the ground. He was sat upon his horse and looked as bored with the sheep as I was. ‘Dinkins and the blacks will finish the rest.' The others took their metal buckets into the barn and he rode off to talk to some other soldiers what was approaching on horseback. There was only a few more sheep to shear but I got off the fence to help the aborigines finish the job as I had become familiar with some of them over the last few years. Convicts and natives was not known to get along well on the farms – the aborigines looked down on the convicts because we was criminals, and the convicts looked down on the abos because they was
enslaved. But we was both serving under the whip hand of the British Empire so I was prepared to be congenial about it and engage them in friendship. I soon learnt a lot from them about this land, about what you could and could not eat in the outback and about the customs of their tribe. In return they seemed happy to listen to me tell them all about my own country and how much better it was than theirs.

There was not much more shearing to be done on this particular day but the sweat was dripping heavy from my brow as I toiled. I took off my brown convict shirt and wiped my face with it and it was then that I saw something what I knew could only mean trouble. Sergeant Allhare, sat atop his horse over by the farmhouse, was still talking to these two well-dressed coves what had ridden in and who looked most out of place on a sheep farm. They was dressed in neat black suits like they was a pair of accountants and as they spoke to Sergeant Allhare I saw him look over to where we was and point straight at me. I turned away fast, unsure of what this could mean. My instinct was to crouch down by the livestock in the hope that I would be obscured from their view. But as I tried to busy myself and not draw more attention I could hear three sets of hoofs ride over to the pen and Allhare call my name out.

‘Dawkins,' he said but not to me. ‘Jack Dawkins. This is him.'

From my low position I squinted up at the three riders. The sun was behind them and I held up my hand so I could see them better.

‘Are you Dawkins?' said one of the little men in a nasally Australian accent. ‘Jack Dawkins?'

‘From Saffron Hill?' said the next. I said nothing and looked from one to the other as though I did not understand this strange language they was speaking.

‘It's him all right,' confirmed Allhare. ‘The boy you were asking after. He never shuts up about himself.' The two men seemed to be ignoring him and just kept their eyes on me.

‘He's about the right age,' said the first to the second after I said nothing in response. ‘And the records say the lad is on this colony. I think His Lordship will be satisfied.'

The second man still stared at me and I found myself holding his gaze for a few moments. ‘Known any Jews?' he said after a time and then laughed. And then without waiting for my answer the two men turned their horses around, thanked Allhare for his trouble and galloped away leaving me with the distinct impression that I had not heard the last of whatever this was all about.

*

Most mornings in Australia I would be woken either by these great shafts of sunlight beaming in through the gashes in our ripped tent or by some insect trying to fly its way up my earhole. But on this morning, just two days after I had been paid that mysterious visit, I was awoken before sunrise by a man's gloved hand being placed over my mouth and a whisper what was most menacing.

‘Up,' said the voice, and I blinked my eyes open and started to see the strange and unfamiliar face of an aborigine man glaring down at me. This man was not like the ragged natives what I knew from the farm; he was dressed in a gentleman's brown coat and hat, wore a gold ring in his ear like a pirate and the hatred what all the others tried to keep hid from the English was here undisguised. ‘Up with me,' he commanded. ‘Come.'

‘Get up, you little bugger,' said the voice of Sergeant Allhare who was stood behind him. He was holding a candle what reflected a great distorted shadow of both of them upon the walls of the tent. Then the aborigine leaned down and yanked me up from
my grassy mattress, forcing me to my feet. I will not lie to you and say I went without fuss.

‘Murder!' I shouted, waking up all the other sleepers in the tent. ‘They're dragging me to me death, boys! Do something!' The aborigine's hand was around my mouth once more but my fellow convicts was now all woken and watching as I was bundled away. I heard Allhare tell them that everything was all right, that I was just being taken away for a nice chat.

‘Go back to sleep,' he said as I was dragged away screaming, ‘and don't worry yourselves about it.'

Outside, in the centre of the colony, was some soldiers and a much older man in a long scarlet coat smoking a cigar. He was stood beside a covered vehicle what transported us prisoners to and from the colony. I could not see his face too clear as the morning was still dark but he was dressed not in uniform but more in the manner of a rich man. He wore a high stovepipe hat and his whiskers was well-barbered but, as I was pulled towards him by the soldiers, I did not find him genteel. This man, for all his seeming wealth, was one whose pockets I would never dare to pick.

‘This is him, is it, Sergeant Allhare?' he said, his English voice deep and regimental.

‘Yes, Your Lordship,' replied my keeper. ‘As promised.' The man reached into his coat and I flinched, expecting a weapon. Instead he pulled out a thick wallet full of notes and began counting them out.

‘This is more than we agreed upon,' said the man as he handed them to Sergeant Allhare. ‘I expect complete discretion in return.' Allhare took the money and said that his lips was sealed upon the matter. ‘Keep them that way. Now have your men lock him in the back of the van. My associate can keep an eye on him.' I put
up a good struggle as the soldiers forced me into the back of the dark carriage and the aborigine took the lantern and climbed in with me. Once we was bolted in I struggled to see his face in the dark as his lantern was held low. I heard the cigar man say something to the soldiers; it sounded like a warning, a
not a word of this to anyone
, and then they was heard getting into the front and the horses drove away.

The hold of the prisoners' van was strong and wooden and the windows was covered with tarred sheets what was loose enough to let air in but not so I could see well. But the man opposite lifted his light up to hang in the centre of the hold and this gave me my best look at him so far. I remember thinking I had never before seen a face so evil.

‘What's this about?' I demanded of him. ‘Where you taking me?'

‘Shut up, you,' he said. ‘Too much noise.'

We trundled on in silence for what felt like an hour. Through the cracks in the wooden planks I could tell that the sun had come up and the hold's juddering grew more violent as we travelled up and down rocky paths. We splashed through brooks and other shallow waters and every so often I could hear the driver of the vehicle yelling at the nags to go faster still. I was feeling sick with terror at what these men meant to do with me and the speed of the carriage soon became so strong that I had to hold on to the seat to keep from sliding off it. Just as it seemed that we would never stop racing, the horses reared up, the carriage came to a sudden halt and I was sent hurtling from one end of the van to the other. The aborigine hadn't moved. He just looked at me and said nothing.

Next I heard some heavy boots jump down from the front and tread around to behind the carriage. Locks was turned, bolts slid
away and, as the door was pulled open, sharp sunrays flooded the van, causing me to flinch. ‘Pleasure to meet you, Mr Dawkins,' said the red-coated man in a manner that sounded lighter than that in which he had spoken to Allhare, ‘you have had a rare stroke of luck.' I looked over and saw his grey wrinkly face clear in the daylight. He was most handsome for an old boy and he was talking to me as though I had just won a raffle. ‘I hope we can do business together, you and I.' Then he addressed the aborigine. ‘Bring him out of there, Warrigal,' he said. ‘And escort him into the house.'

*

Within half an hour I sat upon the wooden veranda of this big stone house which overlooked the River Hawkesbury, breakfasting with an aristocrat. Lord Evershed was sprinkling sugar on to his half of a grapefruit as we sat on opposite sides of this round table and then he passed the sugar bowl over to me so I could do the same to mine. I took the tiny silver spoon and sweetened both the fruit on my plate and my coffee as he finally brought the conversation around to business.