The Smuggler's Curse (23 page)

With one hand clutching the donkey's bridle to settle it, the Captain leans out over the cliff and heaves me one-handed straight up and into his arms in a single movement. He crushes me against his chest as I shiver and shake until the horrors slowly ease.

‘Cap… Cap… Captain,' I stammer, too shocked to speak properly.

‘Don't do that to me again, Red,' he whispers hoarsely. ‘We've come too far to lose you now.'

I nod my head, still not quite believing how perilously close I have just come to certain death. Below, another massive wave smashes into the cliff, sending spray flying, just to remind me of my lucky escape.

All night the trek continues, the slippery, rain-sodden track continuously rising up the side of the cliff until eventually it begins to level out. I take every single step
carefully for the rest of the journey. Finally, as the feeble glow of dawn starts to reflect off the sea, and after one of the longest, most miserable nights of my life, my legs and my palm aching, we change direction, heading downwards and inland.

I sigh with relief as the path flattens out. We are now heading gradually downhill on a wider but even muddier path. Several times, I slip and land on my knees as my feet become stuck in the black, treacle-like mess. My new clothes and boots are never going to be the same again.

‘Look!' calls Briggs. A faint light flickers in the distance, and I make out the silhouette of a building at the edge of a rock-lined cove. This one is even more hidden. It is just like a bottleneck with the entrance obscured behind jagged boulders. Waves crash against the rocks throwing up white spray. As we grow closer, we see a hut made of local granite set back from a rocky beach, surrounded by more massive boulders. No one could come across this concealed building by accident.

The light glows from a window beside a solid-looking front door and looks warm and inviting. I can think of nothing better than getting inside that room out of the driving rain and tucking up by a roasting fire.

The Captain bangs on the door and moments later, it is flung open by an enormous woman. ‘Well, blow me
down, Captain James Bowen, you gorgeous man,' she chirps. ‘We've been expecting you. Thought the Customs Johnnies had finally done for you. Starting to get a mite worried, I was.' She looks out over the Captain's shoulder at the weather. ‘But if ever there was a night you'd come, this'd be the one. Blacker than a bishop's heart, it sure is.'

She stands filling the doorway, so fat she almost blocks out the light behind her.

The Captain pulls off his glove, reaches for her hand, leans forward, and kisses it delicately. ‘Mrs Baxter. You're looking as lovely as ever. And, unfortunately, your old crook of a husband is not at the end of a noose yet, so I'm destined to remain a bachelor. Though I see they'd need a thicker hanging rope these days,' he says. ‘You've been feeding him well these past few months.'

‘Where is that hopeless excuse for a man?'

As she says it, Mr Baxter, the hopeless excuse, arrives. He had been leading the last donkey in the line.

‘Get a move on,' she calls, ‘so the Captain can come in out of the weather and I can shut this damn door! I'd rather be curled up by my fireplace with this charming creature than looking at your ugly mug any day. So help me that be the truth. Well, best get them donkeys in the stable, then get yourselves inside here for a warming ale.'

To the side of the house, a stable has been built right against the cliff. It doesn't look anywhere big enough for our train of donkeys.

Mr Baxter appears holding a flickering lantern aloft.

‘Help me with the door, boy.'

It opens outwards, so I grab the edge and heave. The door creaks open on big, rusting hinges. Inside, beyond several empty horseboxes and piles of hay, at the back wall, another timber door covers the rock face.

‘Give me a hand with this one too, boy,' Mr Baxter commands. ‘It's on rollers. This way.'

Together, we haul the heavy door sideways. I am surprised to see it covers an enormous cavern carved into the cliff face. In the lantern light, I make out a space the size of a shearing shed, full of barrels, drums, trunks and
boxes of all sizes. They fill the walls on all three sides.

‘My favourite location, this treasure trove,' says the Captain, admiringly. ‘As safe as the Bank of England. You can't get a boat into the cove unless you know it well. More than one skipper who tried has had his keel ripped out from under him on jagged rocks just beneath the surface out there. And the only track in is the one we just took along the cliffs, and only fools and suicides want to follow that.'

He is not wrong there, especially about the fools.

‘Then how do we get the cargo out again, Captain?' I ask.

‘There's a hidden track through the rocks and inland. You reveal that at your life's peril.'

‘That you do, boy, at your life's certain peril,' growls Baxter, sliding his finger across his throat, menacingly.

‘He's one of us, Baxter. Most definitely. Aren't you, Red?' says the Captain.

I nod enthusiastically.

‘He's Mary Read's boy, you remember? From the Smuggler's Curse up in Broome,' continues the Captain.

Baxter peers closer at me for a second. ‘I'd hardly know you, looking like that,' he says, his tone suddenly much friendlier. ‘You're Mary Read's son then? Well, I'll be. Look at youse, grown. Almost a man. I remember
you as a wee boy, not that long ago when I was last in Broome. The Captain, he's been working youse hard then since I last saw you, eh? Making a seaman of you, eh?'

‘Should I live long enough,' I reply.

‘Stick with Black Bowen and it'll improve your chances of getting to manhood, to my way of thinking,' continues Baxter.

‘I don't know about that,' replies the Captain. ‘We've had a few tense moments this journey, haven't we Red? More than a few close shaves. Pirates out of Malaya trying to blow us to kingdom come, and then a whole army of Dutchmen trying to skewer our gizzards.'

‘At least God is an Englishman,' laughs Baxter, ‘and spared you.'

‘He must indeed be. And a colonial Englishman at that. We've survived so far, and Red has shown plenty of backbone.'

I feel myself blushing, which makes me blush even more, so I busy myself with the unloading.

‘Littlemill Distillery,' says the Captain to Baxter. ‘Smoother than silk. Slips down a treat. Though it would want to. It took the Devil's own sweat obtaining it, this cargo did.'

‘Littlemill?' queries Baxter, suddenly impressed. ‘You haven't? You haven't found the fabled lost shipment?
You have got to be pulling my tail. Is it as good as the legend says? Or do I need to use my imagination?'

‘I'll exchange you a bottle for a decent fry up from your good lady wife,' replies the Captain.

‘Mind that it is only breakfast she serves you up. She has always had a soft spot for you, young Bowen.'

‘It's not good manners to stir the ashes of another man's fireplace, even on such a cold morning as this,' laughs the Captain. ‘Eggs and bacon will be sufficient. That'll warm me amply.'

‘Youse'll do well to remember that,' says Baxter, smiling broadly but holding up a clenched fist.

‘We'll rest here until nightfall, with your permission, of course,' says the Captain, changing the subject. ‘Then it's off to Kalgan Creek to unload most of …'

‘Kalgan Creek? You sold the Littlemills to Simon Turner?'

‘His sort gets as thirsty as the best of us,' continues the Captain. ‘More so. And he has the contacts with the shipping companies heading east to Melbourne and Sydney. He'll be able to on-sell the lot for the most handsome profit. Besides, Simon and I are old school chums. Thick as a lump of coal he was, back then at school, but he had enough sense to marry Caroline Fortescue. Lovely woman that she is.'

‘Wasn't she one of your … er, conquests, Bowen? asks Baxter. ‘I seem to remember …'

‘Blow me down, a man's reputation is a hard-won thing. And lost on a mere rumour. See you remember that, Red. Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit and lost without deserving.'

‘Is she pretty, Captain?' I ask daringly, ignoring his Shakespearean quote.

‘Cheeky knave, isn't he,' says Baxter.

‘I let our Red have plenty of rope,' says the Captain. ‘He's saved our bacon on several occasions.'

‘And that is not the only reason,' someone at the back of the store shed mutters, quietly.

‘Now, speaking of bacon …' continues the Captain, ignoring the comment.

We wait, resting, until the afternoon, before reloading the donkeys and leading them out towards Kalgan Creek. ‘It'll be getting dark by the time we reach Frenchman Bay Settlement, across the water from Albany,' announces the Captain as we set off. ‘But keep your wits about you meanwhile. Frenchman Bay, then Kalgan Creek, and then home.'

Home! After all these hair-raising weeks, I will soon be seeing Ma and everyone at the Curse again. I can feel my footsteps getting lighter and the weight of tiredness coming off my shoulders. Then I remember we still have to cross miles of countryside with a donkey train loaded with a king's ransom in illegal cargo, and possibly a regiment of Customs officers after us.

Luckily, the rain has stopped, but the track we trudge
along as we leave the store shed and head inland continues as slippery as the path the night before. On both sides of the track, the breeze blows patterns in paddocks of green wheat stalks. They seem to spread out forever. I have never seen anything like this before. It is so completely different from home. In the distance, massive trees as high as windjammer masts point skywards. With the grey, cold rain, the mud and the green fields, this part of the world is more foreign to me than Sumatra and Singapore.

Within a hundred yards, one of my boots sticks in the black, clinging mud and I topple forward, ending up flat on my face.

‘Red,' laughs Mr Smith, ‘I remember when youse first come on board the Dragon youse couldn't stay on your feet then neither.'

We trudge through a forest of enormously high trees with bush on either side so thick that hardly any light penetrates. It is as if midnight has arrived hours early.

‘Not long now, lad,' continues Mr Smith, leading the donkey behind me.

The forest clears and the track opens into a wheat paddock surrounded by the tall Karri trees, with one mighty one near the centre that the loggers must have missed. They have cut down vast swathes of forest since
settlement. I read at school that thousands of massive trees have been felled and turned into railway sleepers in foreign countries, making people like Mr Turner even richer, as if that is at all possible.

At the edge of the paddock, a farmhouse stands derelict, the walls covered with moss and lichen. In the fading light and swirling evening mist, and with its roof missing, the old house reminds me of a dead man's skull, with the vacant windows like eyeholes. Behind the house, half-a-dozen blackened gravestones stand like a row of rotting teeth. I shiver and pat my donkey's neck, mostly to reassure myself I suspect.

‘You won't want to be here later,' says Briggs, teasing me. ‘A graveyard in the dark. Spooky noises. Ghosts and ghouls, eh, Red. Scared?'

‘No,' I reply unconvincingly. ‘It's just that …' I cannot help wonder whose graves they actually are. No names have survived on the weathered stones.

‘It's not ghosts that'll be the death of us,' interrupts the Captain, turning to look back, ‘but Customs officers. And other gangs. Let's just hope word hasn't got out.'

‘Mr Smith?' continues the Captain. ‘The rest of us will wait here but can I ask you to skip ahead and scout about. Take Red with you, and keep your heads down. If you see anything, send him back to report.'

The wheat crop stands high, thick and green. Bent double, Mr Smith and I make our way towards a small hill scattered with large, granite boulders.

‘If they is going to be anywhere, there is the spot,' says Mr Smith quietly, pointing ahead to the outcrop.

Mr Smith and I change direction, and head up the hill, giving the outcrop a wide berth and taking each step carefully so as not to make a noise just in case someone is waiting in ambush. I can feel the familiar dread rising as, once again, my heart starts beating more loudly. I remind myself I am about to become a very wealthy young smuggler and I feel a bit ashamed for being such a coward and not willing to take a few chances for all the riches. But who wants to be the richest person in the graveyard?

We smell them before we see them, the smoke from their pipes and stale sweat drifting up towards us. They are down the slope from us gathered by the outcrop just as Mr Smith predicted.

‘It's them Frenchman Bay mongrels. The Dickson mob,' whispers Mr Smith. ‘That big one at the back, near the over'angin' rock? Couldn't miss 'im nowhere. Jed Dickson 'e is. A pox on 'im.'

Mr Smith and I can see seven men behind the boulders.
Jed Dickson has a pistol at the ready and leans forward, balancing his weight on his elbows. At least three of the others have slumped forward, across the boulders, obviously asleep. One is even lying on the ground snoring.

‘Shall I go for the Captain?' I whisper.

‘Hmmm,' says Mr Smith. ‘No, no need to bother 'im. We can 'andle this.'

‘We can?' I ask, incredulously. ‘There're only two of us.'

‘And only seven useless fools. Look at 'em. 'opeless. Just watch me back, Red, like the Cap'n learned you.'

I pull my Colt from my belt and ease back the hammer, covering it with my left palm to muffle the click.

Mr Smith looks back to make sure I am ready, and then charges towards the granite boulders, stops and rams the end of his rifle right into Jed Dickson's bum. Dickson jerks upright, his eyes nearly bulging from his face.