But inevitably some day the Georgette would sail out of Port Jackson, and she would remain behind. Only fools fell in love with a prospect like that.
Four bells sounded ‒ the signal for the end of the last dog watch. Andrew Maclay might carry the air of a man who would carve out an exciting, adventurous life for himself, he might have a swaggering charm and look at her with tenderness in his eyes, but, she decided, he was best put out of her mind before he hurt her as Richard Barwell once had done.
II
Gazing up at the sun, James Ryder breathed deeply, thankful that the seemingly interminable stretch from Rio de Janeiro to the Cape was almost over. More than two hours ago the first excited shout of ‘Land ho!’ had come from the look-out. The echo of the cry spread aboard the ship, passing like a ripple from mouth to mouth. There was a good wind, and every passing minute brought the African coastline into sharper focus. They had made an almost perfect landfall ‒ a fact that amazed Ryder when he remembered the immense distances of the Atlantic rolling behind them.
He planted his hands firmly on the bulwark, watching the faint shape of the land before him. Julia would be glad of this, he thought. She was weary of the cramped space, the discomforts of the pitching ship, and longing for the entry into Table Bay. Recalling this, and her patience during the long voyage, he was struck afresh by her courage. She was a damned wonderful woman, he thought, journeying half-way round the world with a husband and two children, and very little to compensate at the end of it. After many years of marriage Ryder was still deeply in love with his wife. She was a precious thing who gave him more concern than he cared to admit.
It was now over three years since their sons, twins, had been drowned when a fisherman’s boat overturned in the sea off their Essex farmlands. Julia grieved for them mutely and constantly, and the shock of their deaths stayed with her. She became like a ghost, living in a world in which she had no longer any interest. Her husband had seen her apathy, tried desperately, but without success, to rouse her. Finally he begged her sanction to his giving up the farm and taking land in the West Country or the Midlands. But she refused. She would live nowhere in England except with the sound of the North Sea in her ears.
Then at last, in despair, he approached her cautiously with the suggestion of the colony in New South Wales ‒ and, amazingly, she had welcomed it. The idea was a nebulous thing ‒ so little was known of the settlement, it was a prison-country, its citizens felons. Yet, after their first real discussion about it, she was undaunted by the hardships it offered; its loneliness, its extremity. She was enthusiastic, leaving him no choice but to go ahead with the plan he had as yet only played with. She even insisted upon accompanying him to London for an interview with the Secretary of State, Dundas. From Dundas, they went to Sir Joseph Banks, the botanist who had sailed with Cook and landed at Botany Bay. Here, they imagined, they might expect reliable first-hand information. Banks described the new country as a land of promise, a farmer’s land. On the journey back to Essex they were silent, each preoccupied with the story they had heard of the settlement.
They knew that if they settled in New South Wales they would have free land-grants and convict labour; but the drawbacks, too, were great. Reports of flood and famine offered little encouragement to emigrants; so far only a few families had ventured to go there. The sum total of the harrowing tales carried home to England was that they faced a wilderness and starvation. Ryder, contemplating this, might easily have had his enthusiasm dampened. But he was blessed with an imagination and an adventuring spirit which was an easy prey to excitement.
And yet he was not altogether blind to the dangers awaiting the free settlers, and he faced Julia fairly with them, giving her every opportunity to withdraw. But her mind was made up, and she could not be shaken. She left the Essex farm with scarcely a backward glance, meeting the challenge of New South Wales with a formidable determination.
He smiled grimly up at the sky above the billowing spread of canvas. Yes, he thought again, she was a damned wonderful woman!
He began to pace then, up and down the restricted space of the quarter-deck. After about five minutes he halted, his eyes resting reflectively on his two children. They were seated in the shelter of the bulwark, and Sara Dane was beside them. It stirred him to speculate on the possibilities the colony offered his children. If its untapped resources yielded richness, they would be the reapers. They would grow up in loneliness and isolation, estranged from their homeland; but they would grow up with the settlement now in its early infancy, and they would sit astride her promised prosperity.
But what of the ones such as Sara Dane, he wondered, looking long at her ‒ the ones who went out in captivity to populate and work the colony? He shook his head slowly, knowing the uselessness of trying to fathom the thoughts behind those strange eyes. Not Julia ‒ no one, he suspected, except possibly Andrew Maclay ‒ knew why she was here on the Georgette. One could only accept the obvious fact that she was not of the type and class usually found in these transports. But, whatever she was, he was profoundly grateful for the qualities she possessed. She was both nurse and tutor to his children, maid and companion to his wife. It was an unexpected combination of abilities. He saw her lift her head then, and laugh at something Charles had said. The sun was fully on her face, and on her skin where her dress was open at the neck. The sight of her young beauty, highly coloured in the sun, held his thoughtful gaze for a long time.
Finally he turned and began to walk again. But he paused almost immediately. Andrew Maclay, relieved of his watch, was descending from the poop.
‘Good morning!’ he hailed. ‘Welcome sight, isn’t it?’ He indicated the land with a nod of his head.
‘It is, indeed, sir,’ Andrew replied, grinning and sniffing in the freshness of the fine morning. ‘I imagine Mrs Ryder will be glad of a stretch on firm ground. She’ll not find it as gay as Rio, but at least she’ll have a spell from the ship.’
Ryder smiled. ‘I hardly think it’s my wife who will miss the gaiety most. I think you younger ones will be the greater sufferers.’
Andrew said nothing, but for a brief moment his eyes turned towards Sara.
Ryder’s tone had been bantering, but only to cover the disturbance he suddenly felt. Maclay’s attraction to Sara was obvious. It was food for ready gossip in a ship which had had little or no diversion since leaving Rio. The attachment was understandable enough, but Ryder puzzled over the fact that each of their meetings took place where a dozen pairs of eyes might witness it. To outward intent they might be conducting a gracious and leisurely courtship, with their whole lives stretching before them. And yet the circumstances mocked this façade. However unlike one she might appear, Sara Dane was a convict, and Maclay an officer in a company whose prestige was second only to the Royal Navy. The whole situation was incongruous. In most other ships he would have been permitted to take her as his mistress, and the affair would end, with Sara considerably richer, when the Georgette left Sydney and headed for her regular trading route. Ryder had the feeling that that was not what Maclay wanted.
The older man studied his companion gravely. In the hard light Maclay’s eyes were a deep blue; the skin around them, though young, was lined, toughened and browned by the weather. He had a strong mouth and jaw; his speech, his every action, revealed a typical Scottish determination. The paradox of Maclay’s character interested Ryder. He knew that night after night Maclay sat late over cards with whoever he could induce to join him ‒ and he had fantastic luck at them. But Ryder had heard the captain praise his meticulous attention to his duties. He was one of those people who appeared not to need sleep ‒ a seaman with the cool nerves of a gambler.
Andrew, growing restless in the silence that had fallen between them, stirred himself and asked a question.
‘Will you be taking on livestock at the Cape, sir?’
Ryder, with effort, brought his thoughts back to the question.
‘Yes, I hope to. I’ll take on as much live
stock as I can get storage for. They tell me it’s beyond price in the colony.’
Andrew nodded. ‘The plan all round among the officers seems to be to buy livestock at the Cape and sell to the Commissary in Sydney.’
‘And will you be joining this trading venture?’
‘I expect so, sir. It’s reckoned to be a profitable business. And,’ Andrew laughed, ‘I’m not one to turn down that sort of thing!’
The other nodded. ‘I’m told that the man who has livestock does well in the colony. For my part, I don’t intend sitting back and waiting on a precarious harvest. I want cows and pigs. And perhaps sheep.’
Andrew considered awhile, then he said, ‘I’ve been meaning to speak to you about the colony, sir.’ He hesitated a further moment, beginning again diffidently, ‘What is your honest opinion of one’s chance of settling there?’
Ryder eyed his companion gravely. ‘It’ll be no bed of roses. And all who go willingly to New South Wales must go expecting to gamble. Everything seems to be against us ‒ even the seasons are the other way round. We face drought and floods, and damned hard work on empty bellies.’ His voice was rising, his eyes had lightened in excitement. He slapped a closed fist into his other hand. ‘But it’s a settler’s kingdom, Maclay! Why, just think of it, man! It’s ground cattle have never trod! It’s never had seed sown into it! You cannot tell me that, rightly treated, it will not produce!’
‘Yet they still starve.’
‘They starve, yes. But only because the colony is in the hands of naval captains and convicts. What does the Navy know about farming? I tell you, Maclay, New South Wales will only be satisfactorily settled by free men ‒ and men who know farming. With each free settler comes that much more hope of prosperity. Put enough good farmers on the land, and then we’ll see who’ll starve!’
‘You seem to have a great deal of faith in this country,’ Andrew said.
‘Yes, I have faith in it. By God, I have faith in it!’ Ryder leaned forward and prodded at Andrew’s waistcoat. ‘The more settlers the greater the urge for expansion ‒ north and south they’ll go, Maclay, and finally into the hinterland.’
‘Expansion behind the settlement? Surely one can’t rely on that?’
Ryder sighed. He recalled Brooks’s after-dinner tales of the mysteries and dangers of the unexplored continent. They were fetching stories for a man to spin out after a few glasses of wine. With his first-hand knowledge Brooks was able to roll on without fear of contradiction. He was sceptical of the idea of expansion, pointing out that close behind the coastal plains lay a long ridge of smoky-blue, impenetrable hills. Governor Phillip had tried again and again to find a way through them; the expeditions he sent out all turned back, beaten. Brooks believed that they never would be crossed, and that the settlement would stagnate where it was, without ever penetrating farther.
‘Ah, you’re thinking of the Blue Mountains,’ Ryder said patiently. ‘They’re a barrier, I admit, but they won’t stop expansion. Free men will always make room for themselves ‒ as they do in Canada and America. Only if the settlement remains wholly penal will it stagnate.
‘Free settlers will be the making of the country.’ Ryder’s tone dared Andrew’s denial. ‘In the beginning they’ll be so few that they’ll hardly count at all. They’ll live in discomfort, Maclay, mind you that. They’ve got to settle expecting hell. They’ll be isolated, and their womenfolk will suffer, too. But my God, man, how they’ll be rewarded!’ He was smiling, his eyes glinting in the sun. ‘When prosperity does finally come, it’s the early birds who’ll be fat on it.’
Ryder’s smile faded slowly and his voice dropped. The conversation was ended. But as Andrew walked away he was turning over his plan ‒ a plan he had already formed, even before he talked with Ryder, which offered a solution for himself and Sara.
III
Even in the strong sunlight Table Mountain seemed to tower rather sullenly over the neat Dutch settlement and cluster of shipping in the Bay. But Sara and Andrew, standing together by the bulwark, had no eyes for sights that had become familiar to them in the three weeks during which the Georgette had ridden at anchor there; there was little interest for them in the prim, yet strangely uncivilized town. Their attention was fixed on the confusion in the longboat below them, from which a noisy, clumsy cargo of pigs, cattle and sheep was being transferred to the Indiaman. The warm air was filled with the protests of the animals, and in an accompanying boat, safely removed from the despairing struggles of the livestock, the Dutchman who had contracted to supply the Georgette added his shouts and curses to the uproar. The din and the smell grew; yet the determined activity of the scene held them both fascinated. Sara’s eyes met Andrew’s in sudden amusement as a boatman, grappling unsuccessfully with a young pig, lost his balance and fell overboard, the pig clutched tightly in his arms. The Dutch contractor jumped to his feet with a shouted oath. Every eye turned to watch the incredible turmoil of the water, the mad threshing that followed the first splash; the contractor, after regarding the spectacle for a few seconds in fury and contempt, moved into action. Like a flash he reached the end of the longboat nearest the struggling pair. In the speed of his movement he showed his fear of losing valuable property. He leaned down between the two craft and grasped the pig by its neck. With a mighty swing of his arms he tossed it into the boat, where it lay coughing up salt water and squealing in its unexpected misery. Laconically, the contractor indicated that an oar should be extended to his servant. The wretched man was eventually hauled into the longboat by two pairs of hands thrust under his belt.
The work of loading recommenced.
‘Will they complete it, do you think,’ Sara asked, ‘by nightfall?’
‘I expect they’ll continue by lantern, if necessary,’ Andrew said. ‘If this wind holds the captain will use it to get under weigh in the morning.’
With his words Sara’s thoughts were turned to tomorrow’s departure. All day long there had been a sense of unrest about the ship. The officers had made their final buying and trading expeditions among the shipping in the Bay and the stores in the town; the final commissions for the captain had been executed. Most of the livestock was, by this time, consigned to the pens prepared, the water casks scoured and filled. The bustle of leave-taking had established itself in the Georgette. No one seemed to regret the departure ‒ least of all, she thought, the convicts, strictly guarded during the length of the stay in port, because of the fear of an escape overside.
The ship’s officers and company had no great love of the town; it lacked the mystery and heathenish splendour of the trading-posts of the East, nor did the rocky, arid scenery recall any memories of the homeland. They met here a sense of isolation which they feared; the grey-green vegetation was unfamiliar, and there persisted a lonely feeling among them that this was the last outpost of the known world. Between the Cape and the South Pole stretched the ocean, and nothing more. Among the sailors there was a superstitious dread of sailing down into those southern seas. The longest stretch of the voyage still faced them, and now, with the hour of quitting the Bay drawing near, there was an atmosphere of urgency to have it over and done with. Thinking about it, she wondered if it could have been this cloud of forlornness and desolation which had swamped one of the hands, Timothy Brown, last night with a melancholic drunkenness. No one could be certain if his fall overboard was accidental or deliberate. The longboat was launched immediately, but he was already gone. He had slipped down into the dark waters of the Bay without a single cry. When the news of his drowning ran through the ship, the women in the holds became unmanageable, shrieking and shouting foul language, believing that Brown had gone overboard rather than face the horror of the voyage ahead. This morning five of the women, the worst offenders, were in irons.
Sara’s thoughts were distracted by further shouts from below, and she stood on tiptoe to lean farther over the side. A furious sort of quarrel seemed to be going on between two of the boatmen, but not being able to understand wha
t they were saying, she lost interest.
Suddenly Andrew touched her hand to draw her attention; he pointed downwards towards the livestock.
‘I’ve bought my share in that, Sara.’
She answered, ‘I expected that you would. You’ll sell it for a good profit in Port Jackson.’
He shook his head, although she wasn’t looking at him, but still staring down at the loading.
‘It’s not for sale. I’m keeping it for myself. I’m going to apply for a grant of land in New South Wales, and farm there.’
She dropped back on her heels, turned and looked at him with astonishment. ‘Farm … You? A sailor!’
‘I wasn’t a sailor all my life. I was brought up by a Scotsman who was the best farmer in his district ‒ one doesn’t forget the sort of things that have been preached at you like the Bible.’
She shook her head. ‘But … leave the sea and take up farming? Why …?’
‘Because,’ he said, ‘I want to stay in New South Wales and marry you.’
She took a step backward, and her mouth fell open a trifle. ‘Andrew,’ she said faintly, ‘have you gone mad?’
‘I expect I have!’ he retorted. ‘You’ve driven me crazy ‒ witch! I don’t sleep nights thinking about you. And I keep my watches like a drunken fool. I can tell you it’s been hell! Sara, will you promise to marry me, and let me have my peace back again?’
Sara Dane Page 11