Pirate Boy of Sydney Town

by Jackie French

  ‘Waiting off Sydney Heads. The pinnace has gone to fetch a pilot. We should be ashore soon.’

  ‘And I’m goin’ to be your servant. Fancy that.’

  ‘Unless Father objects again.’

  ‘He the captain?’

  ‘No. Father owns the ship.’

  ‘Does he now. Well, ain’t that good. Come on now, Sneezer, give us a hand. Me shamblers ain’t too steady.’

  ‘I told you what my name is!’ Ben said, but reluctantly put his arm around the convict. The man’s bones seemed as thin as a rat’s.

  ‘You got spare clobber?’ Higgins asked as they limped their way across the deck. ‘Clothes,’ he added when he saw Ben didn’t understand. ‘Can’t be a gentleman’s servant in rags.’

  The man was scarcely as tall as Ben was, and far thinner. McStewart’s clothes would be too big, but he could cuff the trousers, tie the belt tight.

  The skeletal arm tightened a little around Ben’s shoulders and Higgins gave a faint triumphant cackle. ‘Well, look at me now, with the gentry as me crutch. Come on then, Sneezer, let’s get me some decent grub. I’m fair gut-foundered.’

  Ben knew Higgins wouldn’t talk like that to his father. But even so, he said, ‘I’ll find you some food.’

  Dressed in proper clothes that hid his skeletal frame, with what was left of his hair combed back, Higgins looked human again. He stared at the ham Ben had set out on the cabin table, the wheel of cheese, the plum pudding and squares of jellied soup, then snatched a slice of pudding.

  ‘This is gentry grub,’ he muttered through the crumbs. ‘This what the crew eat on this ship, Sneezer?’

  ‘No,’ said Ben shortly. He had felt ashamed at eating so well while the men who worked had to eat salt beef blackened with age and so tough they had to cut off bits that couldn’t be chewed, and ship’s biscuit that was sour with weevils.

  His father had laughed when Mama had protested. ‘You want to feed sailors ham and pudding?’ he’d said. ‘No wonder the estate never made a shilling.’

  Mama had said no more.

  Higgins ate ravenously for a quarter of an hour, tearing chunks off with his fingers, washing them down with ale. He’d never make a servant, Ben thought. But at least he’d get a meal or two and some respite from the hell below.

  Higgins stopped eating at last, looking regretfully at the unfinished wheel of cheese. ‘Rum grub that,’ he said hoarsely, and pulled a shred of ham from the ruins of his teeth. He looked at it, then began to chew it again. ‘How’s about a kip, Sneezer?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘A sleep, matey. Rest me shamblers. Don’t think I’ve slept proper since Plymouth, not three to a bunk. Though we all got a bunk to ourselves now mostly, what with so many dead.’ He met Ben’s eyes. ‘But somehow you don’t feel like sleepin’ sound when you might not wake up at all.’

  ‘I’ll show you your bunk,’ said Ben. He hesitated, then helped the convict to his feet again.

  Higgins made his way uncertainly out the door and collapsed on the hammock. Once more he was a pile of bones. A snoring pile of bones.

  Mr Huntsmore didn’t mention Higgins when he came back to their cabin late that night. He must have dined with Captain Danvers. He put a candlestick on the table, undressed, pulled on his nightgown and cap, and slid into bed. The sheets hadn’t been changed since McStewart died. Ben soon heard the faint whistle that meant his father was asleep.

  Ben gazed at the ceiling in the flickering light of the candle his father hadn’t bothered to snuff out. Its wood had been polished before they sailed from Plymouth, but now soot stained the area around the lamp hooks. And even in here, the cleanest, most private place on board the ship, the stench of convicts and the filthy bilges filled the room.

  This is my home now, thought Ben. For though he and his father would go ashore while the ship was unloaded, careened and restocked, they’d soon be aboard again, hunting their fortune.

  And what of Higgins? He did not know.

  Ben woke to footsteps across the cabin floor. The ship still creaked idly around them. The pinnace hadn’t returned.

  ‘Your tea, Mr Huntsmore, sir. And Master Ebenezer.’

  Ben sat up on the trundle bed and stared. Higgins loomed above them, a tray in his hands that held Mama’s teapot, two of her china cups and a plate with some of the oaten biscuits she had carefully baked three times so they’d survive the voyage. No one had served them tea in the morning since McStewart had died.

  Ben reached out automatically for the cup and a biscuit, then recoiled at the sight of Higgins’s skull-like face. The convict’s thin hands trembled slightly, and his red eyes squinted at the light in the cabin, but despite all that he looked . . . like a servant, thought Ben. It wasn’t just that he’d dressed himself in McStewart’s clothes. He was polite. No, more than that — he was deferential, which Ben knew Higgins was not. And how did he know the correct way to serve a gentleman tea in the morning?

  ‘I have taken the liberty of sponging your suit, sir,’ said Higgins. Even his accent had changed. Not quite that of an upper servant but not close off it either. ‘I h’endeavoured to h’iron h’it in the galley, but h’it is not what I might h’achieve on shore.’

  Ben’s father took the cup of tea thoughtfully and sipped. ‘What is your name again?’

  ‘Higgins, sir.’

  ‘Have you seen domestic service before?’

  ‘Third footman to a merchant, Mr Bigges, sir.’

  ‘And you left because . . .?’

  ‘I could see better h’opportunity h’elsewhere, sir.’

  ‘And yet you ended up in His Majesty’s prison.’

  ‘H’unfortunately yes, sir. And now I h’am serving your tea.’

  The two men looked at each other, evaluating.

  Finally Mr Huntsmore nodded. ‘Very well, Higgins. Do you wish to continue in my employ when we land?’

  ‘H’it would be an honour, sir,’ oozed Higgins.

  ‘And more comfortable than breaking stones to build new roads,’ said Mr Huntsmore dryly. ‘Very well. If you continue to give satisfaction, I will arrange to have you assigned to me for the months we are in New South Wales. Thank you, I do not need help dressing. By the way, if my watch, necktie or any article is misplaced, you will hang for it.’

  ‘I would h’expect nothing less, sir.’

  Higgins backed out almost politely, but Ben saw a gleam in his red crusted eyes.

  CHAPTER 4

  The ship’s pinnace returned with a pilot mid-morning. The Golden Girl’s main sails were hoisted and filled with wind, and she slipped through the narrow passage between the headlands into the harbour.

  Ben leaned over the rail. The harbour was so vast! It was so different too, strange yet beautiful. The excitement he’d failed to feel for the last few months began to flicker.

  His first impressions were of dazzling blue and olive green, fingers of drab-coloured trees and black rocks enclosing the most gigantic harbour he had seen. Its waters were calm after the restless seas outside, and ruffled by a breeze that smelled of a strange smoke and unfamiliar trees. The sky seemed too high, too deep a blue for winter . . . and the trees didn’t know the rules: none seemed to have had the decency to lose their leaves. They were thin-topped, as if the fierce sun had sucked away their branches and foliage.

  A dark-skinned woman in a canoe that was floating low in the water looked up at him and laughed. She wore only a string belt, with objects hanging from it. Ben tried not to stare at her. The canoe had a tiny fire at one end, where a naked black child grilled a fish on a stick. It was the first fresh food Ben had smelled since leaving Rio and the first time he had felt true hunger.

  More canoes appeared as they sailed further into the harbour. A fire flickered on one of the golden coves, and he saw black women sitting on the sand and young people diving in the lapping water, laughing, splashing, swimming. He had never seen people swim before.

  Those boys might be Young Lon or Tug
ger, he thought, and wondered where they were now. Had Mr Nattisville let their families stay at Badger’s Hill? Mama had left her pearls with the rector so they might be sold to help those most in need. There had been no time to sell them herself, nor could she risk her husband finding out. The rector had promised to write with news, but Ben knew they would probably sail again before any ship brought a letter. He thrust away the memory of his friends. He had been unable to reassure them when he’d said goodbye and was just as helpless now. His only hope of returning to Badger’s Hill, of buying back the land, was this wild venture at the end of the world.

  A flock of birds flashed overhead, their reds and greens too bright. Seagulls hovered around the ship, their cries different from the gulls’ calls back home.

  Creaking and flapping, the Golden Girl veered past a tiny island. The distant shore had proper houses now, each sitting within distinct squares of garden, pasture and orchard. Some looked neat; others substantial.

  The ship swerved into another branch of the harbour. That must be the port, Ben realised. At first glance it was like the other ports he’d seen on the voyage: rough wooden buildings on the western side of one of the two wharves, and a four-storey sandstone building that must be the Commissariat store, with workshops, sawpits, boatsheds and what looked like a watchhouse within a paling fence. A Navy ship was already docked there.

  Dirt lanes ran higgledy-piggledy up the slope behind the wharves, crammed with the kind of taverns Ben had seen by the docks in London. They sold cheap gin to sailors and bowls of stew the owners swore contained neither cat nor rat. Huts straggled above them on one side of the port, with sagging roofs or collapsing mud walls, but the other side showed cobbled roads leading up to more substantial streets and buildings.

  ‘Puny little place,’ said Mr Huntsmore behind him.

  Ben straightened and turned to his father. He wore the newly sponged and ironed clothes, and a ruby pin in his cravat matched the ruby on his finger.

  ‘What happens now, sir?’ Ben asked.

  ‘You can go ashore if you like. I’ve an agent here who’ll take you and the luggage to the house I’ve hired. I’ll stay aboard to see to the unloading of the cargo.’

  ‘You mean the convicts, sir?’

  ‘No, the real cargo. We’ve ten cases of porter, twelve barrels of tar, five rolls of cloth, four cases of saddlery, a hundred jugs of turpentine, five cases of hats, ten cases of shoes, two boxes of pins, eight boxes of nails, one case of umbrellas, twelve cases of pickles, three chests of tea and two of coffee.’

  Ben blinked. It was an impressive list to remember. But then this was his father’s trade, even if he called himself a gentleman.

  Mr Huntsmore gazed at the town before them. ‘This place has to import most of the necessities of life. The goods should fetch a good price.’

  Ben tried again. ‘The convicts —’

  Mr Huntsmore misunderstood. ‘Yes, Captain Danvers informs me we still have a good amount of the stores provided for the convicts left too. Four cases of cheese, six of biscuit, one of salt butter, eight of flour, though they are not the same quality as the rest of course. No doubt we will still find a buyer. I’m told the custom is to auction the goods on board as soon as a ship arrives.’

  ‘But, sir, when will the convicts be taken ashore?’

  His father looked at him impatiently. ‘The convicts can wait. They have been down there for more than five months, boy. Another few days will make no difference.’

  Except to those who die, thought Ben. Or who go mad in the filth and darkness. Was Higgins mad?

  ‘About that Higgins chap,’ said his father. ‘Do you wish to keep him?’

  Ben stared at him. ‘You told him you’d have him assigned to you.’

  His father shrugged. ‘And have him spit in my coffee if I said no? But Captain Danvers tells me it is almost impossible to get trained servants in the colony. That ruffian may be the best we can manage for a while.’ He smiled. ‘He may also be . . . enterprising enough to stay in our employ when we leave.’

  Ben didn’t like Higgins and didn’t trust him. But he was the only person he knew in the colony now, besides his father. And what would happen to Higgins if he said no? Would he be sent back down into the stench and death and darkness with the others?

  ‘I would like him to stay, sir,’ he said, trying not to let his reluctance show.

  ‘Very well. Will you go straight to the house with him, or stay to watch the bidding?’

  It was a test, Ben knew. Are you worthy to be my son? It was also a chance to learn something of his father’s business. Latin and Greek were of no use to him now.

  ‘I will stay, sir.’

  ‘Good lad. We’ve been invited to dine with Governor Macquarie tonight — he’s the man to impress. The Governor’s word can secure us land grants and convicts to work them, as well as government contracts to supply the colony. That’s how fortunes are made here.’

  ‘But you said we’d go back to England, sir.’

  ‘Oh, we will. No life for a gentleman here. But it would be rash to pass up the chance for investment while we are here. Tell Higgins to make sure your best suit is pressed for this evening.’

  Mr Huntsmore gave Ben a smile and a pat on the shoulder, and strode off towards Captain Danvers.

  Ben turned back to the rail. Men yelled from the wharf, most dressed alike in dun-coloured ragged cloth. Convicts, but not in chains. This colony was a prison in itself.

  Sailors hauled at the capstan, dragging the Golden Girl the final yards alongside the wharf so she could be tied up.

  They had arrived.

  Ben and his father left Higgins giving orders to the convict maid and gardener in the rough wooden house Mr Huntsmore had arranged for them. Higgins seemed good at ordering others around, though Ben still doubted he had seen much domestic service.

  When they arrived at Government House, Ben found it had spacious stone rooms and polished furniture, though back home it would have been deemed sufficient for an agent rather than a person Mama would dine with. Wood fires flickered in the reception room and in the dining room, but though they blazed high and hot, they smelled wrong. Still, Ben was glad of their heat after the cold of the ship’s cabin with just its tiny coke brazier.

  Dinner was only two courses. Ben sat in the middle of the long table, while his father sat next to Mrs Macquarie, a comfortable-looking woman well-dressed in puce silk who kept him engaged in conversation. Ben felt more than tired, as if most of his body still floated on the ocean, leaving a shell of a boy behind. The ground felt odd too, as if he were still going up and down while it stayed still. He helped himself to slices of roast mutton, which didn’t taste like the mutton of home — tougher and stronger-flavoured. The stuffed fish was the wrong shape too, but there was familiar mint sauce to accompany the mutton, and buttered parsnips, roasted potatoes and carrots, as well as the first real bread he had eaten since leaving Rio de Janeiro.

  Scraps of talk floated down the table.

  ‘In a few years I have no doubt Sydney will be as fine and opulent a town as any,’ declared Mrs Macquarie. ‘My husband already has the plans drawn up for the buildings a true city needs. Once the roads are surveyed straight and cobbled, and a proper road is built to Parramatta and then on to the Hawkesbury, we shall really see the colony forge ahead. An ordered, civil society.’

  ‘And one ripe for investment, Mrs Macquarie?’ asked Mr Huntsmore.

  She laughed. ‘I cannot see where your profits might be better spent, sir.’

  ‘Indeed, madam. Mr Moore and I are meeting tomorrow.’ Ben’s father nodded towards a solid-looking man sitting on the other side of Mrs Macquarie. ‘He is looking for capital for his ship-building business.’

  ‘Mr Moore is an excellent and most Christian man,’ said Mrs Macquarie. ‘And his wife does much good among the poor.’

  Ben’s father gave a dutiful smile.

  Mrs Moore, who was sitting next to Ben, looked up as her name was me
ntioned. She had been quiet so far.

  ‘I am so sorry for the loss of your mother, Master Huntsmore,’ she said to Ben. ‘The death of a mother is most grievous.’

  Ben looked at her, startled. She was dressed as a gentlewoman, but her accent was that of a servant. And yet she was dining at the Governor’s table.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Moore,’ he managed.

  ‘Will you be staying in Sydney long?’

  He realised he didn’t really know. He had been too numb to ask questions at the beginning of the voyage, and too ill later.

  ‘Just long enough for repairs and to stock the ship again, I think, and find more crew to replace those lost at sea.’ He thought it better not to mention the typhoid.

  ‘That’s a pity. This is a beautiful country, Master Huntsmore.’

  ‘Indeed,’ he said politely.

  More conversation floated down from the top of the table. The Governor was speaking to the woman on his right, an officer’s wife, though Ben hadn’t caught her name.

  ‘The French remain a great concern indeed,’ Governor Macquarie said. ‘We are at their mercy if they choose to attack us here. The colony has few defences even about the harbour.’

  The woman looked slightly affronted. ‘But you have your troops, sir.’

  Governor Macquarie patted her hand. ‘I warrant they are good men and experienced, but how can a colony as small as ours defend an entire country? What if Napoleon establishes a military base to resupply his ships in the west or the north? It might be years before we even knew of it.’

  Ben met his father’s eyes and for the first time he felt a spark of pride. Surely the French would be less inclined to try to settle on this land if the merchant ships of their Dutch allies vanished along its coast? We are acting on the orders of the Prince of Wales himself, he thought. Maybe . . . maybe even Napoleon himself might be on the ship the Golden Girl took. Napoleon might come south, looking to extend his empire among the fabulous wealth of the Spice Islands, and the Huntsmores would stop the war and free Europe from the tyrant. Being a privateer had seemed slightly shameful back at Badger’s Hill. Here, at the table of the Governor, a man who had fought so honourably for his country, in a colony that might be attacked any day by the French, Ben felt for the first time that their enterprise was also a duty to King and country. He found that he was smiling.