Nanberry (14 page)

P
ACIFIC
O
CEAN
; S
YDNEY
C
OVE
, J
UNE
1791

Waves with white froth, swelling high above the ship, trying to smash the little vessel to tinder. A hammock warm from the body of the man who had gone to take his place up on deck as the next lot of crew had their few hours of sleep. Mutton so salty it left blisters on his mouth and ship's biscuit that crawled with weevils. No place to relieve himself except on the perch at the rear of the ship, the sea slapping below him. Sunlight cleaning the sky and spearing off the sea.

A world of sea and sky, and the far-off thin scrape of the horizon.

He had been sick the first two days; had had to run to do Captain Waterhouse's bidding in between vomits over the rail. By the end of the second day he crawled to his bunk, on his knees with weariness.

On the third day he woke up with his stomach where it should be. Even emptying Captain Waterhouse's chamberpot didn't
make it heave. There was fish and potato stew for breakfast. He ate ravenously, perched on a great coil of rope, the sails flapping, ropes creaking, the lookout high above on the mast. One day
he
would be up there, high over the ocean. An albatross sailed lazily past it. He felt like waving to it. ‘Hello, friend! I am master of this world too.'

And then the smudge of green that was Norfolk Island. Impossible to find a green speck in an endless ocean, but somehow Captain Waterhouse had done it, not just once but many times.

This was how Governor Phillip had found New South Wales, after a journey almost as long as the seasons all put together. He had followed the stars like the moon found its way across the darkness. For the first time he felt true awe of the English. Houses, muskets, metal axes, fields of corn were nothing compared with the glory of surging with knowledge across a trackless ocean.

It was hard. He was the youngest on board. Even if his work was mostly cleaning for Captain Waterhouse, fetching and carrying, it still pushed his body to its limits. But he loved it. This was what a warrior did: accepted pain and hardship, whatever it took to do all that a man was capable of doing.

He would be a sailor, a man who conquered not just another few warriors, but the sea.

The southerly filled their sails as the ship bounced into the smoother waters of the harbour. The wind smelt of ice, of the mysterious land the other sailors had told him about, where the water turned solid and could burn your fingers and rot your toes away, where rain fell in white flakes from the sky.

One day I'll go there, he vowed. One day I'll go everywhere.

But it was good to see the harbour again — to smell the trees, the soil, the cook fires. It was even good to smell the privies of the colony, as the ship anchored and the ship's boat brought the sailors back to shore.

He had half hoped Father White had heard the
Supply
's sail had been seen out at sea and would be waiting for him in the crowd on the quay. But the message mustn't have reached him, or perhaps he had work he couldn't leave.

Nanberry waved goodbye to Johnnie One-Leg, the cook, and Fat Jack, who was so thin you could feel his back when you poked his belly, and shouldered his duffel bag for the walk up the hill, ignoring the yells around him.

There was always a crowd when a ship came in: women after the sailors' money, grog sellers, shanty owners offering a place to sleep. But mostly the convicts and brats and soldiers were just there because a ship arriving was something new to see, like a hanging or a flogging, something to break the boredom of their days.

Once, you had known everyone in the colony by sight, even if you didn't know who they were. But more and more convict ships came now, more sick and starving to be tended at the hospital till they could work on the farms or roads. The colony was full of strangers now. There wasn't a face in the crowd that he knew.

He stared. The people at the other end of the cove weren't looking at him and the other sailors from the
Supply
, but at a canoe pulled up on the muddy sand. It wasn't a woman's bark canoe; it was the biggest he had ever seen, chopped from a whole tree trunk. A net inside was filled with the silver gleam of fish.

He wriggled his way through the crowd, careful to keep tight hold of his duffel bag in case some rogue grabbed it. Who could have built a canoe like this? A young man with dark skin, in a red shirt and tattered trousers, passed over a giant fish in
exchange for a loaf of bread. As Nanberry watched, the youth lugged out a sack of fish. He grinned and grabbed a hatchet from a balding convict in return.

It was Balloonderry.

‘Balloonderry!' he called.

Balloonderry laughed. ‘The sailor is back,' he said in their own language. ‘It's good to see you, Nanberry Balloonderry, my brother.'

‘It's good to see you, Balloonderry Nanberry. The canoe?' he added eagerly. ‘Did you build it?'

Balloonderry grinned. ‘It took me a whole season to make one that floated. I used my white-ghost axe. The white ghosts down at Parramatta are hungry for fish. Just like the white ghosts here. They don't know where the schools hide when the winds come, or when the mullet feed. I am the best fisherman in the colony.'

‘You like the English now?'

Balloonderry hesitated. ‘They are interesting. Some of their things are good.' He met Nanberry's eyes. ‘But I am still Eora.' The word meant
of the people
— the whole people. There were so few Cadigal, Guringai, Dharug now. The old clan barriers were fading.

‘You haven't been initiated,' said Nanberry carefully.

Balloonderry looked at him sternly. ‘I have been showing the Governor the land of Parramatta. I have been doing many things. But I will be initiated soon.'

‘You know the Governor now?' How could so much have happened since he last met his friend?

Balloonderry laughed again. He said carefully in English, ‘I stay at Governor Phillip's house at Parramatta. Today there are many, many fish. I bring fish here.'

His English was good. Not as good as Nanberry's, but better than Bennelong's or Booroong's, better than any other black
person Nanberry knew. Once again he felt pride that this young man was his brother. ‘You speak like an Englishman,' he said.

‘It's useful,' Balloonderry admitted in their own language. ‘The white ghosts are too stupid to learn our tongue.' His eyes strayed to the
Supply
, swaying at anchor on the tiny waves of the harbour. ‘And you sailed in that?' There was no mistaking the admiration and envy in his voice.

‘Yes.'

‘It is so good to see you, brother.'

‘And you.'

Balloonderry gazed at him. ‘Come and stay down at Parramatta. We'll fish together. You can tell me about sailing in the big ship.'

It would be a while before the
Supply
sailed again. Nanberry needed to see Father White, to eat Rachel's cooking, to sleep on a mattress and not think the ground below his feet was going up and down.

He grinned. ‘Yes,' he said. ‘In a few days I will be there.'

S
YDNEY
C
OVE
, J
ULY
1791

It was good to be home, to tell Father White about the towering waves and hear his stories of ships he had sailed in too. Why had he never known how many ships Father White had sailed on when he was younger?

Rachel fussed and made him wash his hair before he came inside, to get rid of the ship's lice. She boiled his clothes too, holding them on a stick and shoving them into the big pot while he changed into his spare trousers.

He loved it all.

Rachel and Father White shared a room now. He didn't give the matter much thought. That was what men and women did.

Even after a week at home, it was good to sleep as late as he wanted to, his body recovering from the effort of the voyage. It was even good to feed the o'possum young gum leaves, to watch the silly creature hold them in its paws and nibble them, staring back with its big black eyes.

Best of all was to sit at supper as the early night wrapped its coldness around the colony, the fire flaring in the hearth, Father White on one side of him and Rachel on the other, the table piled with weevil-less fresh bread, butter that didn't stink, roast lamb with potatoes and greens, a giant pudding filled with apples from the storeroom and dried grapes.

‘More lamb, sir?' Rachel filled the Surgeon's plate again. Nanberry held out his plate too.

The Surgeon took a bite of lamb. ‘I forgot to tell you — you know that young native fisherman who's been supplying the garrison down at Parramatta?'

Rachel nodded. ‘I traded some hearth cakes for his fish when he came to the quay last week.'

‘Well, you may not get the chance to buy any again. Some rogues wrecked the lad's canoe a few nights ago down at Parramatta. The boy was quite cut up about it. Appeared at the Governor's house at Parramatta covered in red mud, danced about and yelled.'

‘What did the Governor do?'

The Surgeon shrugged. ‘They found the men who did it. Convicts, jealous of the boy's trade. They got a good flogging. Phillip gave the lad a few trinkets and told him one had been hanged. A lie of course, but it seemed to calm the boy down.' He took another bite of lamb.

Nanberry sat still. His friend's canoe — that wonderful canoe, like no other ever made, the canoe that had taken a whole season to perfect, destroyed. His friend, lied to. Given ‘a few trinkets' to replace a canoe.

Rage filled him; he didn't let it show. He was good at not showing what he felt now. Sailor or warrior, you ‘took it on the chin' as Captain Waterhouse would say. You never let it show that the blows hurt you.

There would be no journey down to Parramatta now. He doubted Balloonderry would even stay there, betrayed and bitter as he must feel.

The meat tasted like dirt now. Nanberry pushed away his second helping.

S
YDNEY
C
OVE
, A
UGUST
1791

‘Two head wounds, eight scurvy cases, a case of the stone, a madman who thinks the flies are talking to him and a baby with a fistula. What a day,' said the Surgeon as Rachel hung up his coat and knelt to take his boots off. She put them outside for Big Lon to polish.

‘Any other news?' Rachel gestured for Nanberry to sit at the table. She had fried the kangaroo collops in the giant skillet, and added a dust of flour and water to make their gravy. The cornbread was already on the table, along with the butter, and a jug of Rachel's fresh ale.

‘More officers' quarrels. I stay out of it. Oh, and that native fisherman. He's in trouble again, it seems. The skull fracture patient they brought up from Parramatta a few days ago was able to talk this morning. Told me that the native speared a convict. I asked the Governor about it this afternoon, when I called in to check his shoulder.'

‘It's still hurting him?' asked Rachel.

The Surgeon nodded. ‘It's more than inflammation, I think. Perhaps an infection in the bone.'

‘But the native?' asked Nanberry quietly.

‘What? Oh yes. Balloonderry. Phillip said the lad had the hide to paddle another canoe right up into the harbour after his crime. Wanted to ask him for a pardon, I suppose. Phillip ordered the guards to arrest him.' The Surgeon shook his head. ‘That Bennelong is staying with the Governor again. He shouted a warning and the young man vanished.'

‘When did this happen?' asked Nanberry. He tried to keep expression from his voice. Father White knew Balloonderry's name. He didn't think he would connect it with the friend his foster son had made the year before, though.

The Surgeon shrugged. ‘A week ago? I didn't ask. Pity — Phillip told me that the lad had promise. He was even thinking of taking him to England to show the Royal Society what a native is like. But he's for the gallows now — if they don't shoot him first.'

Nanberry sat frozen. His friend in trouble. More than his friend — his brother. The exchanging of names had been an impulse, but the bond still held.

Suddenly Big Lon pounded on the door. The Surgeon sighed. ‘Will the man ever learn to knock politely?'

‘No,' said Rachel. She stood and opened the back door. Big Lon was panting. He must have run up the hill.

‘Sir, the Governor sent for you. Word is there's a band of natives assembled across the cove. That there Balloonderry is the ringleader. Governor's gettin' a party to fight them and bring the blighter back. He wants you down at the barracks — likely to be injuries with them big spears, sir.'

The Surgeon nodded wearily. ‘Merciful Heavens. Is there no end to this?' He stood up. Nanberry waited till he had left with his brown medical bag, then slipped out of the door too.

How long would it take the soldiers to get ready? A long time, he thought — they'd get into their uniforms, check their powder and muskets. They'd march, in their heavy boots, their muskets over their shoulders.

He could follow where they went. He could warn his friend. If he was seen he'd be punished — even hanged, perhaps. That's what they did to anyone who helped someone who had speared a white man. Even Father White mightn't be able to save his son from hanging.

Nanberry grew still. He was Nanberry, the Surgeon's son, in his good clothes, his hair tied back. But if he took off his clothes, untied his hair …

It was strange to stand naked in the night air. I am not Nanberry White, he thought. I am … who am I?

Nanberry Buckenau Balloonderry. My brother's brother. He began to run through the night, keeping to the bush behind the straggle of huts. An owl hooted above him.

It was hard to run at night, despite the moonlight, bright enough for shadows. He stumbled, skinned his knees. He kept on going.

Slowly it became easier to see by moon-and starlight. It was as though his feet knew where to go. He looked down, hearing the whisper of long-gone Aunties: ‘Look at the ground, not the bright sky, if you want to see in the dark.'

The night wind felt sweet on his skin.

Then faintly he heard it, down by the harbour: the thud of soldiers' feet.
One two
,
one two …

They were marching to attack.

Where were Balloonderry and his companions? No time to find them now. ‘Jiriyai!' he screamed. He had forgotten the war cry, but it came to his lips now. Soldiers! ‘Jiriyai!'

‘Jiriyai!' The call echoed back between the trees. He ran down to the water, moving more slowly now among the rocks.

The moon sent a breeze of silver across the sea. All at once rock shapes turned into warriors with white paint on their bodies. Young men — not yet initiates — stood with them. Even the young men had spears.

Balloonderry stood tall in the moonlight, his spear even taller by his side.

‘The soldiers,' Nanberry panted. ‘They're coming.'

Balloonderry grinned. ‘Nanberry, my brother, we know. We are waiting for them.'

‘But they have muskets …'

‘We know that too.'

They could have been pictures on the rocks, they were so still. Nanberry shook his head. He had expected them to run away as soon as he warned them.

They were going to fight.

The sound of marching drew closer. The soldiers appeared around the curve of the beach, their muskets over their shoulders, their bayonets fixed. They still hadn't seen the warriors, waiting by the rocks.

He should run before they saw him, before they recognised him. He should run before they attacked. The last time there had been a clash of warriors and soldiers he had been on the side of the English, a boy cowering in a boat.

He was on the wrong side. Or was he?

Balloonderry didn't look at him now. Instead his gaze was on the soldiers.

Suddenly one of them gave a cry. They had seen the warriors. ‘Halt!' The soldiers stopped. The ones in front knelt in the sand, and aimed their muskets. The others stood behind them, aiming too.

No one moved.

‘Balloonderry, I arrest you in the name of the King. Step forward and no one will be hurt.'

The silence grew. Then Balloonderry laughed.

He stepped forward, his smile friendly. His spear had vanished. He held out his empty hands in a gesture of peace. The warriors behind him grinned too, their teeth white in their beards, although they still held their spears.

Slowly, step by step, Balloonderry crossed the sand to the waiting soldiers, his hands still out, the smile still on his face. The other warriors followed him. Only Nanberry lingered in the shadow of the rocks.

What was going on? Surely Balloonderry wasn't giving himself up! He'd be hanged on the gibbet on the hill, his legs dancing as he died …

It felt wrong, the slow step of the warriors, the smiles …

Suddenly Balloonderry snatched at a musket. All at once Nanberry understood. The soldiers were no warriors. Take away their muskets and they were helpless against spears and war axes.

Black shadows scuffled with red uniforms in the moonlight. It was impossible to see exactly what was going on.

I should help, thought Nanberry. But he might make things worse. This had been planned, but he had no idea what the rest of the plan might be.

A spear gleamed as it flew in the moonlight. A musket cracked. A man screamed — a native man, but not Balloonderry.

Then the warriors were gone, black shadows lost in a black night. The soldiers stood, confused, alone on the moonlit sand.

Nanberry moved back silently till he was hidden by the boulders. Where had the others gone? Why hadn't they taken him with them?

But he was Nanberry White. He needed to put on his clothes again, and run to his father's house. The Surgeon would be waiting at the barracks, to tend any wounded.

The soldiers muttered. They began to straggle back along the beach, no longer marching in formation. Nanberry started to walk back up the hill. He half hoped that Balloonderry might call him quietly from among the trees. But only the owl hooted.

I risked myself for nothing, thought Nanberry. Nothing changed because I ran to warn them … No, he stopped. I am what's changed tonight. Yesterday I was an English boy. Tonight I ran to warn my brother.

Black brother. White father. He looked at his hands in the moonlight, his naked body. His black body. His knees hurt. He rubbed them, then began to limp back home.