Sara Dane

by Catherine Gaskin

  Here Jeremy sprang past her, racing down the steps to take the bridle of the horse; a scatter of small stones flew up as it was brought too sharply to a halt. Sara recognised it immediately as the dark chestnut which their nearest neighbour, Charles Denver, had brought out with him from England. The man riding it was his overseer, Evans.

  At the top of the steps she paused. ‘What is it?’

  Evans was dishevelled and breathless. He gazed up at Sara for a few seconds while Jeremy tried to quieten the horse. At last he leaned forward and called out hoarsely, unbelief in his voice, ‘It’s the convicts, Mrs. Maclay! They’ve broken out!’

  Sara’s own voice was strained, like Evans’s. ‘What’s that? Whose convicts?’

  ‘Ours! They’ve murdered Mr. Denver!’

  She clutched the veranda post. She felt an appalling sickness suddenly swamp her, and for a moment she could think of nothing but the closeness of Kintyre to the neighbouring farm. An outbreak! Her hands clenched. This was worse than the flood, worse than the skirmishes with the natives. It was worse than anything the bush could offer in terror and violence. Through her fear she knew her desperate need of Andrew now. Charles Denver had been murdered, and perhaps their own lives were threatened by this outbreak; she and Jeremy faced it alone.

  She thought of this a moment longer, and then forced herself to walk calmly down the steps until she was standing beside Jeremy at the horse’s head.

  ‘Tell me what happened,’ she said.

  He breathed deeply, and she could see the sweat matting the lank hair on his forehead. His shirt was soaked, and with a fresh stab of fear she saw bloodstains on his hands. The blood was dry and caked around his nails.

  ‘I was driving six head of cattle back from Sam Murphy’s,’ he said, panting, and trying to get his breath. ‘As soon as I got in sight of the house, I knew something was amiss. Didn’t look right, somehow ‒ but I couldn’t exactly put my mind to what was wrong. I didn’t have time to think much about it because someone started shooting at me from the house. I rode down to the river, out of the range ‒ and that was where I found him.’

  ‘Him?’ Jeremy said tersely. ‘Mr. Denver?’

  Evans nodded. ‘Aye, Mr. Denver. His skull smashed in with a pickaxe ‒ the back of his head.’

  ‘Good God!’ Jeremy said.

  Sara’s eyes moved again to the bloody hands. She stared at them, fascinated and repulsed.

  ‘He was dead, of course?’ was all she said.

  ‘Dead, aye! When I left this morning he was supervising the building-up of the bank, in case the river rose again. He must have turned his back on them. There was the other supervisor, O’Brien, with him. God knows what happened to O’Brien. More than likely he’s joined the outbreak. They’d loot the house for food and firearms, and then, probably, take the boats to cross the river.’

  ‘What about the women on the place?’ Jeremy put in quickly.

  ‘There were two convict women,’ Evans answered. ‘Can’t say what became of them. Probably with the men.’

  ‘How many men?’ Sara asked.

  ‘Ten, ma’am ‒ and O’Brien, if he’s alive.’

  She ran her tongue over dry lips. ‘How many guns?’

  ‘Mr. Denver had four.’

  ‘Four …’ she repeated. Her eyes searched his tired, taut face. ‘You came here immediately?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. As soon as I found him, I came.’

  ‘Did they see you come this way?’

  ‘Don’t see that they could help it, ma’am. And they’d probably guess that I’d make for the camp to get the troops.’

  ‘That’s true,’ she said. ‘Yes, of course, they would.’

  Jeremy burst out. ‘Hell! They’ve picked their time well for this. I’ll swear there’s no more than two or three men of the detachment still on the Hawkesbury. They’ve all been sent to Sydney or Parramatta to make a good muster for the Governor’s parade.’

  The truth of his words struck Sara. She clung to the bridle for a moment in silence, afraid to let go for fear she would stumble and fall. The cunning of Denver’s convict labourers enraged her ‒ they had known to wait until the troops stationed in the district to keep down the natives had departed before they rose to their murder and looting. She looked at Jeremy, knowing well that his face must be a mirror of her own expression, grave and fearful, as they each made a swift reckoning of the extent of the danger.

  She turned again to Evans. ‘You’ll ride immediately to Parramatta for help. They can’t have sent all the troops on to Sydney. Tell them they’ll have to muster horses from somewhere ‒ if they wait to send a detachment on foot, it will take anything up to two days to reach here.’

  Evans looked doubtful. ‘It’s twenty miles, ma’am, and I must stop by each farm on the way to warn them. Unless the moon’s clear, I’ll not get speed out of this horse. There’s no telling what time I’ll reach the town.’

  Sara said sharply, stamping her foot in impatience, ‘Oh, damn you, can’t you understand that you must get help here quickly! Whatever time it is they must make up a force and send it immediately. Three soldiers with a musket apiece won’t hold down a gang of murderers. Tell them they’ve got to send all the firearms they can spare. We’ll need them.’

  She let go of the bridle abruptly.

  ‘Now, go as quickly as you can.’

  But Jeremy’s hand still held it. ‘You’ll go as well, Mrs. Maclay.’

  She regarded him fiercely. ‘Go? Why should I go? I’m staying here!’

  ‘You’ll go at least as far as the Murphys’ house. They’ll not reach there too quickly.’

  Her voice choked with anger. ‘I’m staying here ‒ where I belong! No convicts are going to take my house while I run off and leave it to them. I can fire a gun, and I suppose I can shoot a man as well as most if I’m forced to.’

  Jeremy’s chest heaved. ‘The baby?’ he said levelly.

  ‘David will stay here,’ she replied swiftly. ‘At the moment he’s as safe here as anywhere else on the Hawkesbury. How can we tell which way they’ll go? They may pass by Kintyre altogether, to put the troops off their trail. They may cross the river right away, and if they do, that’s the last we’ll hear of them. If I take David in the cart, I may meet them on the road. Staying or going ‒ it’s a chance.’

  Jeremy wouldn’t let it go at that. He said loudly, ‘But I’m responsible …’

  ‘Since when have you been responsible?’ Sara demanded hotly.

  ‘In your husband’s absence …’

  ‘This is one time when I give the orders,’ she retorted. ‘And that applies to you, too, Evans. Now, go ‒ at once!’

  With that, she stepped back from the horse. But Jeremy waited a few moments longer, obstinately clinging to the bridle, looking for some sign that she was weakening. She returned his gaze coldly, daring him to make any further show of defiance. Then he glanced up at the grim, white face of the man above him, and with a gesture of hopeless anger, he relaxed his hold. Evans touched the horse with his heels; it wheeled quickly, raising a shower of broken earth, and started down the slope again.

  Sara and Jeremy had no time to watch it out of sight; instead they turned to each other immediately. Anger still flared in each face, but it faded in the swift realization they both had of their aloneness in a danger which had come upon them too suddenly. The sounds of the galloping horse were dying fast; with them, it seemed that their link with the world of security and peace was gone. Their eyes met in a moment of full comprehension of their plight. Then Sara jerked her head, motioning him back towards the house.

  On the steps she glanced over her shoulder. What she saw made her clutch Jeremy’s arm in alarm.

  ‘Look! They’ve fired Charles Denver’s house!’

  He swung round. Together they looked in the direction of the neighbouring farm; a faint column of smoke drifted above the trees. It seemed no more than a wisp, but it came from a distance of almost two miles. On any other day it would
have passed for the burning of timber on a newly cleared space; it would have gone unnoticed. But they knew, both of them, that today the smoke meant that either Charles Denver’s house or his stores were burning.

  She uttered only a single word.

  ‘Hurry!’

  For a second or two Sara stood to see Jeremy stride down the slope to where the main body of convicts were working under Trigg. The only hope of stopping the outbreak from spreading was to lock their own convicts in their huts before they had a chance to realize what was in the air. The devil of it was, she thought, that they were never all in the one place at the same time. Two were working at the moment in the vegetable garden, one in the orchard, and probably one in the stables. Jeremy was alone against them, and with the nagging doubt whether or not Trigg would stick by him if the men broke. She watched him hurrying purposefully across the field, the gun he had taken from a locked cupboard in Andrew’s office held as inconspicuously as possible by his side. Her half-closed eyes followed him a moment, and she prayed desperately that he might be able to fight the odds against him.

  Then she cocked the loaded pistol that he had thrust into her hand, balancing its weight as evenly as she could before turning and going back into the house again. She made straight for the kitchen; the door was ajar and she flung it open, standing squarely in front of the three women. They all raised their eyes at the sudden entry. Their expressions altered from enquiry to amazement and fright as their eyes fell on the pistol.

  The youngest uttered a sharp exclamation in a rough Irish brogue.

  ‘Glory be to God, what’s this?’

  She dropped the potato she was peeling and jumped to her feet.

  Annie drew her hands slowly out of a basin of dough and wiped them in her apron.

  The third, a heavy creature with the dull eyes of a halfwit, gave an unintelligible grunt.

  Sara stood well back from them, holding the pistol with a steady hand. She was afraid, but was, more than anything else, terrified that they would detect her fear.

  ‘Not a word from any of you ‒ do you understand?’

  No one spoke or moved. Sara tensed herself, half-expecting that the young Irishwoman might rush forward in a mad attempt to take the pistol. Her only hope of keeping them under control lay in shutting them up before the shock of the situation wore off and gave them time to think or to plan any action.

  She waved the pistol slightly towards a small storeroom leading off the kitchen; it was no more than a large cupboard, with a shuttered window high in the wall.

  ‘In there, all of you!’ she rapped.

  Immediately the gaze of each of them shifted to the storeroom, then back again. No one moved.

  Sara looked angrily from one to the other. ‘Didn’t you hear what I said? In there with you!’

  Annie wrung her hands, and set up a faint whining. Sara took not the slightest notice, but she was afraid of the Irishwoman. She watched her anxiously, seeing a brief show of emotion on the thin, white face, the shrewd eyes narrowed down, as if she were rapidly calculating the connection between the horseman’s hurried arrival and departure, and now her mistress’s unexpected appearance with a pistol in her hand. Sara realized that this woman was intelligent enough to put two and two together and suspect that trouble concerning the convicts was afoot. Again she gestured purposefully with the heavy pistol. But the other woman, defiant, and playing for time, stood her ground.

  ‘Why?’ she demanded.

  Furious, now, Sara shouted at her. ‘Don’t ask me questions! Do as I say!’

  ‘But I likes to know …’

  ‘Silence! You’ll do as I say! Now, hurry on with you!’

  The Irishwoman didn’t move; she glanced from the cringing Annie to her other companion, standing solidly and open-mouthed. Sara knew beyond doubt that she was reckoning how much support she could count on if she attempted an attack; she knew too that she daren’t lose another second considering the chances.

  ‘You wouldn’t like a bullet through your leg, would you, Mary?’ she said calmly, staring straight into that rebellious face. ‘Because that’s what you’ll certainly get if you don’t move before I count three.’ She raised the pistol a trifle. ‘I haven’t learned to handle this for nothing!’

  The Irishwoman stirred in an agony of indecision.

  ‘One … Two …’

  Annie let out a despairing wail, and the sound seemed to unnerve the other woman. With a final, defiant shrug she submitted, leading the others into the storeroom.

  Sara followed them, the pulse in her throat fluttering with relief, and her wrist suddenly feeling as if its bones had turned to water.

  Grimly fingering her bunch of keys, she faced her three captives as they lined against the wall. Her eyes moved from one to the other ‒ Mary’s expression of sullen fury, Annie’s frightened, cowering stance, the third’s look of dumb wonder. She met their stares coolly, knowing well enough how potentially dangerous they were; an unguarded second, or one sign of weakness, would bring them down on her like a pack of wolves. Give them only a chance of freedom with survival in the bush, and they would strip the house of food and firearms and be gone within a few minutes.

  ‘Remember this,’ she said sliding a key into the lock, ‘if any of you try to escape, I’ll see to it myself that the magistrate sentences you to a flogging that won’t leave an inch of skin on your back. Remember it well ‒ because I mean it.’

  With that she slammed the door and turned the key.

  As she picked up her skirts and sped back along the passage to David’s nursery, Sara’s thoughts were anxiously upon the inadequacy of the storeroom as a prison. Any three women with will and strength could break out of it; she relied, without conviction, on her threats forcing them into docility. It was never safe to rely on the docility of a convict.

  David woke up. He made a good-humoured, crowing noise, thumping his fists together energetically. She snatched up a shawl, bundling it around him, fighting down his hands, eager to play with the ends of her hair.

  ‘Be good, David!’ she said softly, her mouth close to his ear. ‘Be good, now! I’m not leaving you behind to that gang of rogues.’

  He gave a crow of excitement, and his hand closed firmly over a lock of her hair. As she hurried from the room with him he began to pull at it; he pulled harder, delighted with this new distraction; tears came to her eyes; David’s pulling was painful, and she felt sick with fright and anxiety. But there was no time to stop and quieten his restless hands. Clutching the pistol, and balancing the heavy child against her hip, she ran back through the kitchen. Crossing it, she could hear muffled thuds coming from the storeroom. It was useless, encumbered as she was with David, to investigate. And in any case, she told herself, if she were to catch them trying to escape, she could not stand with a gun levelled at them until Jeremy arrived back to help her. So she hardly paused on her way through the kitchen; she went out by the back door, and crossed to the stables.

  Once inside them she drew a deeper breath. It was quiet and dim; the smell of horses and hay came to her strongly, a peaceful, homey smell on that spring afternoon, a smell that seemed to have no relation at all to the world so abruptly turned upside down. The effect was demoralizing; it urged her to rest, to desist from her fantastic scheme. Above, the hay-loft lured her with its security, its promise of a hiding-place. She shifted David in her arms and gazed about.

  At the same moment Andrew’s Arab stallion, Fury, only lately bought from the owner of a trading vessel, stirred and whinnied softly, half-turning his head to look at her. The movement broke Sara’s mood of hesitation. The horses were valuable; the three standing there so quietly, and the one he himself had ridden to Sydney, represented Andrew’s gains of the three years in the colony, his position among its leaders. Not for lack of effort on her part was she going to see them ridden away into the bush by a pack of desperate men, to be most likely killed and eaten when the looted food ran short. She was filled with a sense of great pride in
these animals, and sudden terror in case they should be snatched from her possession.

  ‘Oh, not you, my beauties!’ she murmured to them. ‘They’ll not have you if I can help it.’

  She turned away quickly, dragging down some hay from a wall box, and put David lying on top of it. He mistrusted this strange sensation of being deposited so firmly among the rustling softness. He gave a cry of protest, and his face began to wrinkle uncertainly.

  Sara looked at him in dismay.

  ‘Don’t cry, Davie-boy! Oh, don’t cry now!’

  She glanced around in desperation, and then selecting two long stalks of hay, thrust them into his open hand. For a moment he regarded them in wonder, tentatively placing one in his mouth. The taste seemed to please him; he settled contentedly to chewing on it.

  She left him without another word, turning her attention to fixing bridles on each of the horses. The stallion was always docile in her hands; he allowed her to handle him without stirring. The second horse was her own. It hindered her by nuzzling her face and neck, and thrusting its nose along the folds of her skirt, searching for the carrot she always brought. She talked gently as she worked, striving to keep her hands calm and patient while her mind raced ahead to what might be happening about her … the possible advance of the convicts from Charles Denver’s farm, the women breaking down the door of the storeroom, Jeremy, without help, setting out to round up their own labourers.

  Her hands were stiff and clumsy as she fumbled with the straps. The third horse, a young bay gelding, catching her mood of unease, pulled restlessly away from her. It took her a long time to get the bridle secure.

  ‘Well, you, my lad,’ she said sharply, ‘may be more trouble than you’re worth!’

  She had to decide quickly about David. She took away his shawl, ignoring the cries of protest he let out, finding the hay against his skin no longer soft. Folding it and knotting it at two comers, she hung it over her shoulder like a sling. She picked him up and settled him into it, supporting his weight with her left hand, leaving the right free for the bridles. He didn’t like the new arrangement and set up a persistent, lusty howl.