Mosquito Creek

by Robert Engwerda

  Mud clung stickily to his boots and he could feel their weight as he slowly tramped along. There was no more than light drizzle falling but he was oblivious to that. He tried imagining what it must be like for anyone marooned somewhere by these floods, not knowing if anyone had noticed or what to expect. He thought of his own family in England and wondered if they ever thought of a way of seeing him again.

  His arrest at fifteen was a raw memory, the scrape of which never diminished. At his trial no lawyer represented him because his family wasn’t going to waste money when no boy of fifteen was ever transported. His father would speak for him instead and keep the few shillings in his pocket.

  His two older brothers had been in prison one time apiece, his father twice. Poulterers held no qualms about getting around the game laws by buying under the counter from poachers and in Bedfordshire the practice was common, as were the gangs stealing onto private land at night with nets and guns where a good night’s work might bring the same income as three weeks of more conventional employment.

  It was in the course of such nocturnal activities, himself, his brothers and father were bailed up by a gamekeeper appearing out of black night, his eldest brother letting loose a gunshot into the darkness as they fled. Burdened by a brace of limp hares, he was tardy in his escape and was collared while the rest of his family disappeared quickly out of sight. In the ensuing scuffle he bit his captor’s hand to free it from his coat.

  Though managing to escape he was recognised by the gamekeeper at market a few days later and was quickly taken up.

  At his trial, shaking and forgetting all he’d been primed to say, Niall listened to the summation of his case, wondering how many years he’d serve. ‘From those Kennedys?’ the magistrate asked. It was clear that the law meant to teach him and his family a lesson, because all the previous convictions the Kennedys had been dealt ‘clearly have made no impression upon your willingness to abide by the law’. And because there was a gun, even though it couldn’t be found. And because there had been an assault. There was no alternative then, disappointing though it was, ‘but to inflict a most severe punishment on the defendant’.

  And at that moment he thought his end had come. That he’d be taken from this place to some other place to be hung from the neck till all life expired from him.

  When the magistrate announced that he was to be transported to New South Wales for seven years his first reaction was relief. The wig delivered the sentence in a matter-of-fact manner, already scanning the court for the next case. In dismissing him to the custody of his sergeant-at-arms, the magistrate nodded to Niall and added, ‘A new situation might also save you from the pernicious influence of your kin. Make the most of it.’

  Sweltering in a hulk at Portsmouth later and then on a transport ship he soon learnt this was only the start of what he would have to endure. Locked beneath decks, the fetid odour of grown men all around him, he waited for a rising tide to lift the ship and carry him away.

  6

  Two nights earlier on a rise to the north side of the Murray, almost shouting distance from its bank, three parties of diggers had watched the river swell and spill, and curl snake-like around them in the dark until they were amazed, disbelieving, at finding themselves stranded. Sniffing at the rising waters like anxious dogs not wanting to desert something good, the miners jerked back and forth from their higher ground until they hesitated too long and missed their chance to leave.

  As the men stared incredulously at the flood, their island seemed to float away from everything around it.

  Waves of fog rolled over the water, smothering the scrubby area of undulating land not more than eighty yards between its two furthest points and less than that wide. Struggling camp fires fought damp air as the miners held on to what little dry fuel remained. At the waterline, the agitated diggers meandered in and out of the mist. The general consensus was that the water was still rising but couldn’t keep doing so for much longer. Half of Victoria would go under – for blanky sure – if the floodwaters gained another foot. The diggings themselves had been hard enough; this could only be worse.

  Alec Napier stood among them.

  Besides his partner in their claim, Jack Merriman, he knew the rest of the men only from occasional snatches of conversation and the odd request to borrow some or other piece of equipment. As they came together again with the realisation that there would be no quick end to the floodwaters he was uneasy in some of the company he found himself. Of the two other working teams trapped with him, one was a group from central Victoria: a burly digger they all called Ship, a beanpole twenty-year-old nicknamed Kentucky and their mutual friend Bill, a compact, impatient kind of man with eyes full of grievances. These men were civil enough, though Alec found them always preoccupied with their own claim, with little time for social niceties.

  The other group was an altogether different matter. These were three men too, or rather two men and a hulking lump of a lad. Alec watched them from the corner of his eye. Even taking into account the predicament they were in there was something about them he mistrusted. Their leader had been an itinerant shearer plying his trade around Geelong, the boy his nephew. The third of their group was a lean type, taller than his partners but always looking to them for his cue.

  The shearer, Silas, silently marshalled the other two to stand by his side as he gazed across the floodwaters. There was something of the pack about them.

  Jack Merriman squatted on his haunches and peered into soupy air.

  ‘They’ve forgotten us. Left us like rats,’ he muttered.

  All the stranded men now gathered under a looming river red gum that, besides their tents, afforded the only real shelter on the island. An erratic tangle of scratchy, prickly scrub not much higher than the men were tall covered most of the rest of the island. As Merriman glanced around at the others he felt a trickle of rain run down the nape of his neck.

  ‘They’ve forgotten about us. Who’s going to come?’

  It was Ship who stepped forward.

  ‘Right. So we’ve got seven, eight of us, right?’ he counted, looking around. ‘We should be able to come up with something. We’ve been here a couple of days already. No one is coming. And how could they?’

  Ship’s red flannel shirt flapped free of his trousers, most of the buttons undone down his chest. He had been at Ballarat during the troubles there, Alec knew, acquiring for himself a reputation as a spokesman. Lives had been lost there but in the end the uprising had become a victory for every digger in this new colony.

  Ship ran his fingers quietly through his black beard. ‘So, any ideas?’

  No one, though, could come up with anything of merit as they stared, mesmerised, at the water.

  Alec saw that the boy in the shearer’s party, standing to one side, was probably no older than fifteen. Wrapped in woollen pants and coat with a brown cap scrunched tightly over his head, he was, however, almost as big as his fellow diggers. But the boy’s face was fair and unmarked, his eyes wide taking everything in, so absorbed in their troubles even talking seemed impossible. He clung close by his uncle Silas who had arrived two months previously for his first jaunt on the goldfields. The lean one, Jim Spearitt, waited to see who would take the lead.

  ‘Any suggestions?’ Ship asked again.

  Their gaze followed the moving waters again. Nothing came back to them but silence.

  ‘It’ll be up to me, then,’ Ship said.

  They looked at him.

  ‘And what will you do?’ Alec asked.

  ‘I’m a good swimmer. I learnt when I was a youngster.’ He crossed his arms and felt the strength in them. ‘Swam last year in the bay at Melbourne. Crossed from the wharves past the river and over to the boat club. Two miles, someone said.’

  ‘Different here, though,’ Merriman said. ‘There’s no still water here. Currents will be going all over the place. And all the rubbish in the water.’

  ‘You think the bay was still?’

  ‘I didn�
�t say that. Just said there’s a lot in the water here you wouldn’t know about. You or anyone else. You’d be snagged in no time.’

  Ship turned to face the water through the fog, as if to make a better estimation of the extent of the problem.

  ‘I could swim from point to point,’ he said. ‘Take a breather on some log or climb up a tree. See? There’s enough places to take a rest. I don’t think it’ll be so bad.’

  ‘And the cold?’ Merriman said. ‘The water will be freezing.’

  Ship stared directly at him.

  ‘You think we’ll get any warmer here? How much dry wood have we got left? How much food? Do you think anyone will be trying to rescue us even if they do know we’re here? We have to let someone know.’

  He was right there. They all understood that. The way it was looking, the floodwaters could take up to a week to recede. At worst it might be longer. Rain was still falling, the grey sky sagging and surly across the ragged forest around them. Realistically it was probably still bucketing down over the river catchments.

  ‘When will you go, then?’ Alec asked, when he knew they could think of no alternative.

  Ship stroked his beard again.

  ‘No time like the present,’ he said, leading their small group down to the water.

  Alec strode beside Ship, compelled now by this sudden turn of events. When they reached the edge of their island Alec held his arm out to suggest the angle Ship would have to swim.

  ‘Out that way, I think. You might have half a mile to the diggings but it’s hard to tell how far the water goes.’

  Ship nodded but said nothing. He was steeling himself now and undoing the laces on his boots.

  ‘Let me help,’ Chris, the shearer’s nephew, offered. A decision made broke the spell of fear over him. He tugged at a boot and laughed when it wouldn’t immediately tug free.

  ‘Right,’ Ship said emphatically when both boots and socks were off. He stepped out of his trousers, frills of mud caked to them. ‘Here goes nothing.’

  ‘Better do the shirt too,’ Bill suggested, so Ship peeled that off as well, the digger’s body revealed white as a baby’s.

  He walked almost gingerly to the edge of the water, where mud squelched between his toes. A strong gust of wind suddenly blew and for a moment the fog lifted with it. They could all see further between the eucalypts but if they thought they might see any sign of human activity they were disappointed. Restless sheets of moving water encircled everything as far as they could see.

  ‘Not too flash really, is it?’ Ship murmured, as he waded shivering into the water.

  ‘You’ll be right,’ Alec said.

  The digger’s heavy body looked pale and out of kilter with everything around him, as though he was a foreign creature with no business being where he was.

  He inched slowly further and, when he was up to his knees, splashed forward. He was five yards out when he swore loudly after stepping on something sharp. Nervous and excited, they guffawed on the island. Ship was ten yards out and then fifteen. The water was only up around his chest before another step saw him disappearing beneath the surface. They chortled again as he rose coughing and spluttering. He swung around in the water to grin and gauge their reaction.

  They waved their arms and cheered him on.

  Alec could see him swimming then with slow, powerful strokes, his heavy arms ungainly as they rose and chopped at the water. He could see better than the swimmer what lay ahead of him. It was blowing hard now, rain slashing at the island.

  Once Ship was caught up in a tangle of branch gliding through the water and had to tread water while freeing himself. Twenty or thirty yards ahead of him, though, the first open stretch of grey indicated a gully or low country originally there. It was probably only thirty yards wide itself but the current was noticeably quicker, the floodwaters gathering speed at that point where nothing poked its head clear of the surface.

  ‘The water’ll be frozen,’ Merriman said, in spite of himself. ‘Snow water.’

  ‘He’ll warm up quick enough. Swimming like that he will,’ the shearer’s nephew said and Merriman glared with resentment at him.

  Ship was still maintaining a fairly straight line. When he could begin to see for himself what lay ahead he eased his pace. Before him several great tree limbs drifted nearer, lunging forward before plunging down into the dirty water as though engaged in a race. He trod water and let the branches pass as a bystander might let coaches run by in a busy city street. Alec could see by the current turning him that the swimmer had already crossed into faster territory.

  Kentucky suddenly spoke. ‘He’s got to go now. It’s low country there and he’s got to make it across to the river bank and rest up before he tries gettin’ across the river.’

  For a second Ship hung in the water hesitantly before pushing ahead and swimming hard to his left. It was obvious that he was trying to compensate for the current but Alec had already seen from the speed of drifting branches how ferocious the flood was. Ship was caught in a second and despite his thrashing was carried sideways in a quick rush.

  The diggers ran to their right to follow him, shouting encouragement as they watched his arms flailing against the river.

  ‘He’s getting there!’ Bill cried optimistically.

  ‘Swim! Swim!’ they shouted.

  ‘Just get to the trees. Make it to the trees and you’ll be right!’

  ‘Come on!’ The boy gritted his teeth.

  They willed him on but as they scrambled around the water’s edge it was obvious the current had control of him. Caught like an insect in the tumbling river, Ship couldn’t make any impression on it.

  They chased him briefly before he was lost to sight behind a thicket of bush on the near side of the running water. Alec saw white flashes of his back fleetingly among the scrub, but nothing emerging further along the current where they thought he should be carried out.

  They ran out of land then and were left gaping after the charging water.

  No one wanted to be the first to say anything. In the end it was Alec who spoke.

  ‘He was too far out for us to see what happened. He could be right. The water will have to carry him along somewhere.’

  The wind died and rain fell more solemnly. Damp fog returned with it, drawing a curtain down across the far side of the current beyond where Ship had been taken.

  The diggings suddenly seemed an eternity away, as remote as Van Diemen’s Land. Whatever was going on there would have nothing to do with them.

  They felt deflated, empty.

  Bill shook his head. ‘You see that water? Nothing had a chance in there.’

  ‘Nothin’,’ Kentucky agreed.

  ‘There’s tons of water running through these trees,’ the shearer said, speaking for the first time. ‘Weeks and weeks of rain up in the mountains and now it’s hurrying through here. It must be spread for miles across. We’re stupid for getting stuck.’

  He spat the last sentence at the men around him as though it was their fault.

  His digging partner Spearitt, his brown hair wavy like a child’s, turned to Merriman.

  ‘See those trees in the water? How did Ship have a hope in there?’

  ‘It was you who let him go.’

  ‘And you said something I suppose? Or was it I just didn’t hear it?’

  ‘I told him it wasn’t a good idea. I knew.’

  ‘But you didn’t stop him, did you? Weak as piss!’

  ‘It doesn’t matter who said this or that,’ Alec said, stepping in. ‘He made up his own mind. No one forced him to do anything.’

  ‘But he was doing it for us!’ the boy cried.

  ‘He tried,’ Bill said. ‘He tried and it didn’t work out. Simple as that. Now we’re in for it.’

  ‘Except it isn’t so simple now,’ Spearitt replied. ‘There’s how many of us left? Three groups of people. Seven of us? What’s going to happen to us now? What’s the plan now?’

  ‘We don’t know, anyhow,
’ Alec said. ‘Ship might’ve been carried over to the other side and be heading to the diggings already. There could be someone exploring with a boat or anything. There’s always lots on the Murray. The cockies on this side will still want to sell their goods and that means ferrying across the river. So there could be a chance someone will find him.’

  ‘If he’s alive,’ Spearitt said. ‘And if you can find a needle in a haystack.’

  ‘We don’t need to panic yet,’ Alec said.

  ‘Well, tell me when you want me to start,’ Merriman cut in.

  7

  Set up on cleared ground on the southernmost edge of the diggings the yellow and white canvas ribbing of the huge circus tent was a startling sight, the flag of the Southern Cross rippling at its apex. Beside it was tethered a smaller, plain canvas tent and within it knots of men gathered in talk, all the dress and sideshow of the circus nowhere in sight. Peering in, Niall noticed nothing to this tent beside bare earth, still as dry as bone in places. It must’ve been that, he decided, that was the attraction, the only bit of dry ground any of them had seen in days. He was surprised the circus people weren’t charging for it. He quickly spotted Alfred Row, the circus owner and showman. Not far away, Smales was wasting his time with two other troopers, warming his hands by a brazier.

  Row’s Circus was the commissioner’s idea. Well known in the cities, the troupe’s most northern performance was to have been Wangaratta but the commissioner said he had been in negotiation for weeks, finally persuading Row that he could make a tidy profit by extending his Victorian tour.

  Although Niall had never conversed with Row he knew the circus man had come over after the Californian gold rushes. Inside the tent Niall made his way to where the lean showman stood, furthest away from the entrance, chatting in a familiar way with one of the newer constables on the diggings. Dapperly dressed in a snug-fitting black suit with wide lapels, his buttons all tight, Alfred Row had a presence. To set himself apart from the throng he’d had a tailor sew white piping at the cuffs of his trousers and sleeves. The trim on his lapels was also white but oversewn with close threads of silver so as to appear molten.