Before they did, Lightbody came sauntering out of the hut whistling and swinging his arms. ‘I think you’d better see this.’
‘See what?’
‘See what’s inside.’ He stayed hovering by the door, making sure he’d be back in first to show off whatever was there.
Niall cautiously entered the hut behind him, peering into dimness ahead.
‘You don’t have to worry,’ the trooper said. ‘It’s not anything bad. Just …’
Niall followed him into the first room to the right, a bedroom. They couldn’t move more than a few feet into it though, the room being crammed with dolls.
A narrow bed pushed back against the far wall was the only furniture besides a rudely built dresser. Dolls, all kinds of dolls, sat, stood, reclined and pouted from the four corners of the room. They crawled over the bed, perched on the dresser, variously stood and sprawled across every foot of exposed floor, but carefully and in an orderly manner so they gazed across the room fixing eyes on whoever entered.
Niall let out a low whistle.
‘Looks like they like dolls.’
Lightbody motioned him. ‘Come and look at this, then,’ he said, leading Niall to the next room.
‘God, more!’
‘And there’s more.’ Lightbody hurried on. ‘Another room too!’
A third room was also populated by legions of dolls. All kind of dolls. Ones bought in stores, porcelain and fragile with short, reddish-gold hair as though spun by sunlight even here in the gloom of the hut. Others wore taut, stitched blackened skin, some yellow, all dressed in neatly sewn clothes. The needlework was so precise Niall could imagine a woman squinting through glasses getting them just so. Some had beads for eyes, many staring through black button eyes. Other figures were fashioned from cloth with eyes painted in vivid oils, indigos and reds, some inlaid with fractures of silvery shell. Every doll possessed a character all of its own.
The room where the family must have gathered was free of them except where from an occasional table a trio of naked Aboriginal dolls with chocolate button eyes stared miserably out the window.
Wandering in silence through the house Niall began feeling closed-in among this company; inquisitive, sad and mournful glances following him wherever he went.
‘Let’s pack it up and get out of here.’
16
Charles Stanfield drew a fresh sheet of paper, slightly adjusting the position of the inkwell on his desk as he resumed his letter. First light was creaking in where the boards of his hut had been poorly sawn.
As I write this, I am aware of Grandfather in his library at home, his wise head over some ship’s design or ledger full of promises of cargo he had once carried home from some colonial outpost. I thought of you all last night. Perhaps it is the fact of distance or some other quirk but I believe I can see the estate much more clearly now, perhaps more clearly than ever before. How I miss Kent’s rich greenness and being able to wander the fields and roads. I recall Terence once telling me how he went into a tenant’s cottage with Father and sat there while Father conducted some business. Terence could hear a mischievous rustling in the thatch roof over his head, he said, the rustling of mice it turned out. For some reason when I lie awake in bed here I expect to hear that sound myself. But there are only plain sawn planks for a roof here, or shingles when I stare at them, wood for all parts of the construction of buildings in fact. If nothing else this country is good for timber.
In spite of everything, I still have strong memories of summer when we went boating on the Swale with Grandfather, competing with other boats for wind and position and Terence larking about. I did the heavier work, with Terence a great deal younger then. And the other times we made the trip to Chatham dockyards to watch new ships being built or to attend a carnival when one happened to appear on the common near the docks.
We loved Chatham. Terence said he would like to live there one day, right beside the shipyards so he could come and go as he pleased.
The commissioner remembered nights lying in the dark with his brother, blankets tugged up to their faces as they traded accounts of what they’d seen that day, each shoring up gaps in the other’s stories. Close in the pitch night and feeling his younger brother’s warm skin against him they conjured alive the most fantastic wild beasts and adventures it was ever possible to imagine. Terence always slept close to him and sometimes when they whispered in soft voices Terence would reach up with his hands and touch his lips, feel the words as they came from his brother’s mouth.
He set the letter aside as Alfred Row came to the door, on time to the minute.
‘You have me out and about much earlier than I’d normally be, Charles,’ Row complained.
The commissioner ushered him in. ‘No one needs to be aware of our comings and goings.’
‘And they are not likely to at this hour of the day.’
‘There is much to do, Alfred, and I do not wish to leave anything to the last moment.’
Row was dressed in the same suit of clothes as yesterday, save a fresh, pressed shirt. The white and silver trim on his lapels and cuffs shone despite the gloomy light of the hut.
‘There seems to be a lot of commotion going on this morning, though. All the troopers out and about,’ Row remarked. ‘Do you know what it is?’
The commissioner picked at his moustache.
‘There is an outbreak of something over at Mosquito Creek. We are moving the sick to place them in quarantine. Hopefully that will prevent the disease spreading here.’
‘Some of them didn’t look very happy about it.’
‘Much better to be unhappy than dead.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Take a chair, please,’ the commissioner instructed the showman, and they both sat down.
Row looked at him expectantly.
‘So, there was an issue … ?’
The commissioner paused before answering, as if mulling over something.
‘What I want to say to you,’ he began, ‘is not to ever be repeated from your lips.’
‘I gave you my word on that yesterday,’ Row said.
‘And I shall need it again today.’
‘And you have it.’
‘Agreed, then.’ The commissioner leant forward to show the gravity of what he was about to say. ‘This is what has transpired to date.’ He paused again, as if listening for someone outside before continuing. ‘At Bendigo I had some trouble with a fellow who took something belonging to me. I believe this fellow was known to you too.’
‘Oh?’
The commissioner briefly looked away. ‘A person by the name of Phillip Oriente.’
The showman was startled. ‘How are you familiar with him?’
‘I am not. At least not in any great sense. He was an acquaintance aboard the Whitby on my voyage to this country.’
‘Oriente,’ Row mused, rubbing his chin. ‘Yes, a strange sort of cove. He joined us early in the year, more at his insistence than ours. But he was possessed of some talents, for voices, different faces and the like.’
‘And names I suspect, Oriente not necessarily being the one he was born with.’
The showman nodded again. ‘Now I remember. He left us near the end of our last stint in Bendigo. Vanished just like that. And you mean to say he has returned here? And why did you say nothing to me about this in Bendigo?’
‘What would there have been to say, Alfred? He stole my possession on the pretence of making a visit to me and by the time I realised the theft he had disappeared.’
‘I could have sent some of my men after him.’
‘And you do not think I had the very same idea? I did send troopers after him but there was no hope of anyone ever finding him. Neither you or me.’
‘And he has turned up here now?’
‘That is correct.’
‘Of all places, here. Why?’
‘He means to extort money from me in exchange for what he thieved.’
‘He has a cheek, th
en.’
‘He stole from you too?’
‘No, but he left us in the lurch and there were one or two things I would’ve liked to say to him.’
‘You may still have your chance.’
‘This thing he took from you. What was it?’
‘He stole in unawares one night and pilfered an item that holds a great deal of significance for my family and myself. On the surface it may seem a trifle, a small box containing a relic, but believe me when I say that there are people who would be prepared to pay a king’s ransom for such an item.’
‘It’s made of gold, then?’
‘No, wood. Special wood taken from the funeral casket of the great Lord Nelson himself. Oriente stole the box and to the best of my knowledge he still has it. Or so he claims. As you can imagine, the nature of the goldfields being what they are, I never expected to see or hear from him again.’
‘Except that now you have.’
‘Yes, very recently. I received a note purporting to be from Oriente informing me that he was working on this very goldfield and should I wish to have the item in my possession again I would have to compensate him for it. To the tune of two hundred pounds.’
‘Two hundred pounds …’ Row whistled.
‘And then two days ago I received another note making more specific threats against me.’
‘Such as what?’
‘That is of no consequence. Had I known he was hereabouts before he discovered me I should have had him taken into custody immediately and that would have been the end of it. But he is a wily character, distrustful and vindictive, grown worse I believe since we both knew him at Bendigo.’
‘And he was unusual then.’
‘Indeed he was.’
‘And you look at him, clean-shaven every day and well dressed, and you’d think him a scholar or someone going about their business at the courts. It was peculiar enough he took up with us. I wouldn’t have expected him to turn up as a miner picking around in these parts.’
‘Appearance is a poor sort of mirror.’
‘I always thought there was something not quite right about him, though. You say he was a shipmate of yours on the voyage out to Australia?’
‘Yes, and what concerns me is his propensity for lies and distortions. There is an unhealthy belief in this country that the beggar’s word is as good as the king’s.’
‘What should anyone believe about him?’
The commissioner shifted on his chair. ‘I do not know,’ he said irritably. ‘Perhaps that I gave him that item, that he did not steal it.’
‘Yes, but why should you ever give anything to him? Who would believe that?’
‘I’m not certain just what people would believe and that is why I wish to make sure I retrieve what belongs to me through my own agency.’
‘To think of it, I wouldn’t be putting too much stock in the troopers around these parts either. But I’m still not clear how my entertainments fit into all of this.’
The commissioner stood and poured water from a pitcher into a glass, offering the same to the showman, who declined it.
‘When I received the notes from him I knew he was in hiding but still hereabouts. He knows you and your troupe are also about to perform and having had some place with you in the past he understands the nature of your entertainments. In his note he insisted we use the Trafalgar performance as a signal for the exchange of possessions. A taste for the theatrics …’
‘And your money for your possession.’
‘Precisely. And I will not be the victim of petty larceny or cheap threats.’
‘Now I see,’ Row said. ‘Peculiar how it fits in with these other things.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The Trafalgar business. And your Victory rescue boat.’
‘Coincidental.’
Row looked at Stanfield doubtfully and paused a moment. ‘How did he know you had this Nelson treasure, then?’
‘It hardly matters.’
‘Well, have you heard anything further since this second note?’
The commissioner shook his head. ‘Nothing. And I do not expect to. He will be waiting the night of your first performance, you can be sure of that.’
‘And what then?’
‘I will have my troopers at the ready.’
‘These are the ones you are bringing in?’
‘The same. All will be on the goldfield by midday today. Some will assist you where it is needed. A smaller number led by our friend Mr Ramage will be at the first performance and they will need to have access to all the places your men have. I want all this to be kept as discreet as possible.’ The commissioner stared hard at Row. ‘You know that wherever I am stationed I will look after you, as I have in bringing your entertainments to this place, as I made sure happened at Bendigo. We have a good business arrangement and there is no reason to think it will not continue into the future. Are all these matters understood?’
‘Perfectly,’ the showman replied. ‘But perhaps you need to write down for me what you’ll require on the night, so there will be no misunderstandings.’
‘Nothing must be written down. All I require is that you construct a box with a good outlook over the arena and from where I will be visible to all. None of your men must impede anyone’s progress to me on the night. There will be no misunderstandings. I will retrieve what is mine, what rightly belongs to my family.’
17
Merriman slumped on his stretcher, his bedding exhaling a fug of wet horsehair.
‘As soon as we’re off here and I’ve got my gold back I’ll be taking away. If this isn’t the worst place on earth I don’t know what is.’
Alec half-turned on his own stretcher. He was captive to Merriman in this tent. With rain falling outside, under canvas here was his only respite from the weather. It had been like this all morning; an interminable rambling issuing from the Englishman.
‘It’s like the whole world’s been tipped to one side and the scum has fallen down to a little part of it,’ Merriman continued, his black eyes angry. ‘Even England wasn’t as bad as this. But look around this place! Everywhere you go, stupid people! You’d think they held a contest in every country to find the stupidest people they could and then shipped them over here stowage class. You just can’t believe it.’
‘You came here,’ Alec reminded him.
‘I came over here because I thought this place was supposed to be something. In England everyone was talking about this new country where everyone could get up from the mess they were in. Look at it! Who around here is better off? But I’ll be going back to England too. I’ve a good reason for that.’
There was no point arguing with him, Alec knew. Anything he said would be taken as a personal attack forcing his companion to toss something else back.
‘If you had to guess how much rain, what would you say?’ Alec asked instead.
Merriman paused.
‘The last week about six or seven inches,’ he reckoned. ‘Before that maybe another ten. And the ground wet even before that. The water in the river was always going to be high.’
‘Quiet now too, isn’t it? So noisy on the diggings. But quiet here now.’
In his mind Alec imagined water like a massive ring of liquid iron laying siege to their island, locking it in strong and hard and black and deep.
‘You can still hear things,’ Merriman said, pricking his ears and lifting his head as if drawing in the scent of something as well as listening for sound. ‘Listen.’
‘What? I don’t hear anything.’
‘Listen properly.’
Alec strained to pick something out through the rain, concentrating beyond the distant, plaintive sighing of wind, the river rising and carrying itself over the land.
And Jack Merriman was right; there were other noises. A sound of metal came scraping rhythmically back and forth as though a convict was working at shackles on his ankles. There was the intermittent lifting of a voice too when Alec focussed even hard
er on the sounds. Listening was like staring down into water, he thought, snaring a glimpse of something moving just beneath the surface.
‘That Geelong camp’s not too far from here,’ Merriman said. ‘It sounds like they’ve shifted closer. I wonder why.’
‘Maybe it’s just the breeze blowing this way.’
The scraping noise was more irregular now.
‘A spoon going at a frying pan,’ the Englishman decided.
‘You could be right.’
‘Someone having lunch,’ Merriman said, swinging his legs around to sit up on his stretcher. ‘A lovely, plump lunch.’
He was more alert now, sitting hunched over on the stretcher but with his head raised. As he breathed, other faintly metallic, fetching sounds came from his lungs and for a minute he sat trying to control his wheezing. He glanced across and punched himself several times in the chest, coughing up phlegm, then spat a trembling gob on the ground beside his stretcher. Alec looked away.
When he had composed himself, Merriman asked, ‘Is there anything left to eat then?’
‘You know there isn’t.’
‘Nothing at all?’
‘Nothing.’
The Englishman began coughing and hacking again. ‘Got to get something,’ he said.
‘Well, if you can find something, good luck. Maybe something drowned nearby.’
‘I wasn’t talking about that.’ He might have added, imbecile. ‘I was talking about proper food.’
Alec looked through the tent opening into dripping rain and caught thickening sky beyond the spindly, scrappy scrub.
‘Well, there’s none here.’
Merriman slapped himself again. ‘Not here there’s not.’
‘Don’t. You know what will happen.’
‘I’m not saying anything. People might give us something.’
From his sitting position Alec stretched his legs which suddenly felt stiff and aching.
‘You know they won’t.’
‘And there’s nothing left over from yesterday?’
This time his partner just shook his head in reply.
‘It’d be worth a try asking,’ Merriman went on. ‘What can people say, eh?’ When Alec said nothing, he answered himself, emphatically. ‘They can only say no. And what’s the harm in that?’
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