There was something similarly fluid about Row’s manner. His bird-like brown eyes darted this way and that as he observed those in the tent, his body swaying as he glanced about, his hips rolling. Sometimes he rocked back on one foot as if allowing a runaway carriage to thunder by, not for a second taking his eyes off whatever was his quarry, all the while still maintaining a conversation.
Row ran a hand across his oiled black hair, smoothing it down.
‘Excuse me a minute, won’t you?’ he said to the trooper beside him as Niall approached.
‘Mr Row?’
The showman pursed his lips and nodded in reply.
‘I’m Sergeant Kennedy. Mr Stanfield, the commissioner, has asked that you drop by his hut when you are able.’
Standing closer to him, Niall saw how white Row’s skin was – and white rather than pale. Even a pinched nose hadn’t rendered him unattractive. But it was more the energy inside him, a watchfulness, an inability to stay still for even a second, that made others take note.
‘Yes, I know Charles Stanfield,’ he answered. ‘I’m sure I’ll be seeing him very soon.’
‘I’ll let him know.’
‘If I don’t see him first.’
Niall paused, not quite sure how to continue the conversation. The commissioner had said nothing to him about knowing Row.
‘I’ll leave you to it then,’ he said hesitantly, walking off to find Smales stuffing his hands into his pockets at the brazier.
‘I thought you were supposed to be checking on the timber?’ Niall said to him.
‘I did, but it looked all right.’
‘Must’ve been a quick check.’
The other troopers smirked at Smales being caught out.
‘Something else, though,’ Smales said, quickly changing the subject.
The sergeant raised an eyebrow, which made the troopers laugh again.
‘Serious. Near Chinaman’s Bridge, all these people getting sick.’
‘What sort of sick?’
‘Serious.’
Chinaman’s Bridge was three-quarters of a mile away, close to the most north-western point of the diggings, and it crossed Mosquito Creek itself where the first few specks that started the stampede for gold were discovered.
‘There’s a camp there,’ Smales continued, ‘and they’re all dropping like flies.’
‘Fever? Or what?’
‘They say they’re all tossing it up.’
‘Could be bad food.’
Smales shook his head. ‘There’s too many. They got the shits too.’
‘What about being hot and fevers?’
‘Didn’t ask. I’m not a quack, am I?’
Niall glanced around the tent and they all seemed to be looking at him. An unsettling feeling ran through him.
‘And how many people did you say?’ he asked more softly.
‘Stacks.’
‘It’ll be the Orientals,’ one of the troopers, Barkley, cut in. ‘Bringin’ disease with them ever’where they go.’
Niall shot him a stern look. ‘How do you know that?’
‘Happened up north. In the diggin’s in New South, ever’where. Ever’one says it.’
‘Is that right?’
‘Yes, it is. There’s lots of diggers here not very happy about it. Messin’ up the claims and the water. Takin’ gold belongs to others. Somethin’ should happen.’
‘You just keep out of that.’
‘Well, I’m just tellin’ yer,’ the trooper said, then sucked in his lips. ‘Somethin’ will happen.’
‘And if I hear that you have anything to do with it, Barkley, you’ll get more than a little messing up. You just keep your backside out of it. We don’t know what’s going on yet. And I don’t want you or anyone else making things worse than they already are. Understood?’
The trooper nodded.
‘Good. Now all you blokes have got better things to do than warming yourselves up around here. Off you go.’
Sickness on the diggings was bad enough. Sometimes it was just a matter of being so worn down, so half-starved and cold and lonely, that there was no defence against anything. But disease was something else and there were diggings where influenza and diphtheria cut everyone down before it. Every goldfield grew a makeshift cemetery of simple nailed crosses much bigger than it should have.
Diarrhoea, vomiting, fever and a lot of them struck down. It sounded like typhoid, something he’d seen before. If it was, the whole diggings would be in more trouble than just missing miners, floods and the inconvenience of not being able to dig.
8
It wasn’t long after Charles Stanfield returned from supervising work on his boat that he heard footsteps outside his hut accompanied by the telltale jangling of a watch chain. He waited for the footsteps to pause, like a breath, before their owner rapped on the door.
When the visitor announced himself the commissioner leant back in his chair, stalling a moment before calling, ‘Enter!’
The door opened, revealing Alfred Row, a trifle peeved no one had come to welcome him, shaking droplets from his hat and wondering where to place it before the commissioner pointed to the hatstand behind him.
‘The devil’s own weather,’ Row grumbled.
‘And you the very devil to be out in it,’ Stanfield replied.
Accepting the commissioner’s unspoken invitation, the showman slumped in the only other chair in the room, which served primarily as an office, a more formal room set apart from the living quarters.
‘And a pleasure to see you again, too, Charles.’
‘How long since I last enjoyed your company, Alfred?’ the commissioner inquired. ‘Three, four months?’
‘Something like that.’
‘And still dressed to the nines, I see.’
Row brushed some dampness from his sleeve, picking lint from the white piping at his cuff.
‘I like to maintain a good appearance,’ he said curtly.
‘As you always have.’ Stanfield allowed silence to fill the room before continuing. ‘I am pleased you are here, all the same. As it turns out, your timing is perfect. On several fronts and for reasons I could never have foreseen.’
‘I’m glad to be of use then. But this diggings,’ Row scoffed. ‘And flooded! Everything is mud. Who is going to turn out to see us when the weather is like this, if there’s anyone left? We passed a stream of people heading in the opposite direction as we were coming here.’
‘There is still a crowd, and in the manner of a crowd they will come once a handful is induced to attend.’
‘We’ve never run a performance in a backwater like this, ever. This isn’t what you led me to believe.’
‘You can hold me to my word. You will make a pretty penny from this place. A backwater it may be, but a backwater that contains more than enough of a silver lining for you.’
‘It doesn’t seem like it from the little I’ve been able to see so far.’
‘Appearances are nothing. There is truth in front of you if you only care to look.’
‘If you say so.’
‘You will see.’
Row leant forward in his chair, which was uncomfortably far away from the commissioner’s.
‘Mind if I take a pipe?’ he asked.
‘You do as you please,’ the commissioner answered.
‘Thank you.’
The showman extricated a fine walnut pipe from his pocket and stuffed the bowl with threads of tobacco from a small tin and, employing the commissioner’s hearth to ignite one of many thin twigs about two inches long he carried in another pocket, used the twig to light it.
‘All that rigmarole for a few breaths of smoke,’ Stanfield said.
As he puffed out, Row said, ‘One of the few pleasures that won’t get you into any kind of trouble.’
He sat with his thin black-trousered legs crossed, noticeably happier with his pipe.
‘After Bendigo, this place doesn’t look like a step forward for you,’ he ventur
ed.
‘I am solely in charge here, Alfred. That’s what I would term a promotion,’ Stanfield said, then clapped his hands together, to indicate the conversation was to move on. ‘Now, I would like to plan a few things with you. I have some suggestions.’
Row stared at the smoke rising from his pipe, still not quite satisfied with how it was burning. ‘To do with my circus? Or something else?’
‘First things first. Let us discuss the performances to begin with.’
Row appraised Stanfield over the bowl of his pipe. ‘The circus is my domain, Charles. That is what we agreed.’
The commissioner ignored him. ‘You have at times included in your entertainments a recreation of the Battle of Trafalgar …’
Row studied him distrustfully. ‘When some of my troupe were trained to play their various parts, yes. And I recall you were particularly enthused by it in Bendigo. Your grandfather, was it, actually served under Nelson?’
Shifting a little in his chair, the commissioner dropped his head in agreement. ‘Correct.’
‘But this is a smaller place, a much smaller place. We’ve shown it in Melbourne and Geelong … I no longer have all those people with me and if anything we would need to scale back what we do.’
‘Nonetheless I would like to see that performance go ahead.’
‘But out here? In the middle of the countryside? But there’s nothing out here even resembling the maritime.’
‘Except for the vast expanse of water all around us.’
‘You aren’t suggesting we stage it on these floodwaters?’
‘Of course not, Alfred. Steady yourself. In fact, the flooded river will yet provide a stage for a genuine Victory. It is the name I have chosen for the boat we are constructing to rescue some miners from the other side. But within your tent, nothing need be absolutely historical. There are ways and means of representing a story so it holds its meaning and is entertaining to boot, as I am sure you are well aware.’
‘But Trafalgar …’ the showman murmured.
‘You will see. They may be nothing, these men here, but never underestimate the interest in a good story.’
‘But why that story again and not something else? Wouldn’t you want something more suited to this country, not that old English bilge? I found people were becoming less and less interested in it.’
‘There are a number of reasons why, and it is not “old country bilge” as you may suppose. It is important that we wave the English flag in these far-flung outposts too,’ the commissioner said. ‘Ballarat showed there are those from Ireland, England too, who like to think they have an opportunity here to undermine authority. It is as well to remind the general populace of the English spirit that will prevail, and that we indeed have their best interests at heart. And your Trafalgar performance will serve another purpose, in addition.’
‘Which would be?’
The commissioner paused uncomfortably.
‘I have been the victim of some misfortune,’ he said, more quietly. ‘Some unpleasantness.’
‘Here? I’m not surprised. When?’
‘Some time ago.’
‘And may I inquire as to the nature of that unpleasantness?’
‘No, you may not. There is no need for any elaboration from me on that particular point just yet. You will know soon enough.’
‘As you wish.’
‘I also need you to bring forward your performances.’
‘To when?’
‘As soon as possible.’
‘We’ve only just arrived, as you know,’ Row objected. ‘And then not all of us are here. We’ve still a good number who have to join us. The road to the south is a quagmire. We can get through, but travel is not what it would have been even a week ago.’
‘Then you may have to improvise.’
‘By when?’
‘In two days time. In two days time I would like to see your entertainments drawing their first paying customers.’
‘Two days is impossible, Charles. We’ve barely raised the tents. The animals don’t start arriving till tomorrow at the earliest. Supplies coming here haven’t been the only thing held up by the weather. I can’t hurry along people I can’t get in touch with. And then I have to get Trafalgar up again from scratch without all the costume and settings I had in the past.’
‘Two days, Alfred. Two days or I will ensure you and your troupe don’t perform here at all.’
‘You’re presuming heavily on our relationship, Charles. Why the rush?’
‘There are several reasons,’ the commissioner began, brushing the shoulder of his red uniform, though there was nothing there to brush away. ‘You’ll appreciate that with all this water, this flood, there is a pressing need to provide these miners with some distraction, some entertainment to take their mind off other things until they can resume their business. Certain other matters now contribute to the urgency.’
‘What certain matters? You mean that unpleasantness you speak of?’
‘Correct.’
‘We had an arrangement.’
‘And that arrangement still stands. But I insist on this point. You must trust me when I say the haste is unavoidable. And the sooner you are in receipt of paying customers, the sooner your profits will commence.’
The showman dug his thumbs into the waistband of his trousers, stretched his legs forward and quickly weighed his options.
‘It would have to be a shorter performance,’ he said. ‘At least for the first show or two. Until we have time to set ourselves properly.’
‘No, no, I want it to be the same performance every night. There has to be some certainty to what we are doing. We had an agreement for four nights and that is not going to change.’
Row shook his head. ‘I don’t have the men. For the tickets, for keeping things in order, or managing the animals. And, of course, we don’t even have the animals here yet.’
The commissioner smiled thinly.
‘The men I can help you with.’
‘I don’t want people who don’t know what they’re doing.’
The commissioner waved that aside. ‘I will provide you with some men who will do as they are told.’
‘Who?’
‘I have called in some special troopers from Bendigo, some loyal people I can trust, who will do other work for me besides. One is arrived already. The others will be here this afternoon and I will send a number of them to you.’
‘How will I know them?’
‘The one in charge is a big fellow, name of Ramage.’
‘I suppose, if they aren’t too stupid.’
‘You will have to cut your coat according to your cloth, Alfred. And there is one more thing.’
The circus owner looked at him inquiringly.
‘Nothing, none of our conversations, this one or any other, is ever to be repeated outside of this room.’
Row uncrossed his legs and looked about for somewhere to knock his pipe into. The tobacco was suddenly disagreeing with him.
‘As you wish,’ he replied.
‘I think that will be all for the minute, then, except …’ the commissioner said.
Row looked at him expectantly.
‘That wretched flag flying atop your tent. Please take it down before our performances begin.’
9
Niall had the police cook prepare him an early lunch while waiting for Smales to return from his check of the boat, and he ate alone in his quarters. Because of his rank he had his own hut inside the police compound, unlike ordinary troopers who shared living quarters, sometimes six of them together. His meal was a stew of small potatoes poking out from a stodgy mess of gravy and stringy meat. He ate it uncomplainingly; in his time he’d had much worse.
As he spooned the stew into his mouth he recalled what had been dished up to him on the transport to New South Wales: meat so sharp with salt it rasped his throat, hard biscuit, watery cabbage soup that stank of rot. And that was itself a vast improvement on what the prison hulk had
offered, where along with several hundred others he had to bide his time until a suitable vessel could be found to ship them away.
On that transport ship, the Eleanor, locked behind bars on the prison deck and with the ceiling above them so low that standing upright was impossible, he had learnt that the Bedfordshire Kennedys were very minor marks up the scale of criminality. With him was a sweating, malodorous cargo; razor-eyed monsters ready to slit a man’s throat if he looked the wrong way. On leaving England he’d been allowed to take very little with him and conditions in their quarters were so cramped anyway it was hard to say what belonged to whom. Sleeping side by side with other prisoners in hammocks suspended from the ceiling, in the humid dark he heard scurrying beneath the hammocks as if rats were at work. He turned a blind eye to the steady theft of his possessions only to crack when a cocky Londoner reached into his bag to take the one item left in it that wasn’t clothing.
It was a simple fork, a tarnished silver fork with bent middle tines, the one thing his mother had given him to take away. The Londoner had taken it brazenly during the day when the main hatch was open and light spilt down the hole, the thief daring him to his face to do something about it. Niall was then only sixteen but growing. In the split second the thief turned his gaze, seeking the laughter of his mates, Niall snatched a broken iron manacle he’d hidden in his bedding and smashed the man down into narrow space between two support beams. By the time other convicts pulled him away the Londoner lay bloodied and unconscious.
The uproar immediately drew warders who dragged Niall up on deck. The Eleanor’s captain ordered him flogged. From then on he was forced to defend himself over and over till the ship reached Sydney Cove, and it was only then, as other prisoners were being ferried to the shore in longboats, that he discovered there was to be another leg to his journey with a select few others – the trip to Van Diemen’s Land.
And nothing could have prepared him for what lay waiting at Macquarie Harbour, as bleak and isolated a place as it was possible to imagine. Roaring westerly winds bucking off the ocean lashed the settlement relentlessly; the waters surrounding the prison squid-ink black and deep, the inland forest impenetrable.
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