Mosquito Creek

by Robert Engwerda

  Again, Alec refused to answer.

  ‘They can only say no and no harm done. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.’

  Merriman got to his feet, racked by another coughing fit, finally standing as upright as the damp confines of the tent allowed. Alec watched his stooping figure and it occurred to him that this was how Merriman might have acquired his posture in the first place – long hours of bowing his head inside a tent.

  ‘Thank you, ladies and gentlemen,’ Merriman repeated more softly, gently tugging the end of his black beard. ‘I will avail myself of that tasty morsel of bread. And thank you again. Just a tiny piece of the mutton. If you have a little relish that would be appreciated too.’

  Alec flicked another glance to see if Merriman was joking for his benefit. But when he caught the Englishman’s face it was long and expressionless, his black eyes even more sunken. The dog-look was back over him, Alec half-expecting him to break into a snarl and lope outside, slink off skinnily into the rain.

  Merriman paced a few steps back and forth, irritating his partner as he occupied what little space there was. It was wet outside and there was nowhere to go. They’d let the fire burn out because there was nothing to cook and their dry timber had diminished to a pathetic bundle of sticks. Besides their stretchers and a couple of piles of clothing, a few dirty pots and pans, two leather bags with their personal bits and pieces, there was nothing to distract them from the predicament they were in.

  ‘It’ll be the Geelong camp,’ Merriman said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘No what?’

  Alec lay on his back on the stretcher so his legs weren’t brushed by Merriman as he paced about.

  ‘It’s not a good idea.’

  Merriman stopped. ‘You don’t even know what I’m going to say.’

  Alec closed his eyes. ‘They won’t give you any, that’s all.’

  ‘And you or I won’t know that until we ask. Or until I ask, seeing you’ve no spine for it. I’ll go over there, thank you very much. I’ll be polite. See if they have anything to spare.’ When Alec didn’t respond he continued, ‘What can they say, eh? If I ask properly and go about my own business?’

  He was pacing again, waiting for some kind of approval. When it wasn’t forthcoming he jumped across to the tent opening, peering out into the rain as if daring it to challenge him too before he speared a final barb at his partner.

  ‘If there’s any luck, don’t you be expecting to have some of the proceeds,’ Merriman threatened. ‘Don’t expect me to do all the work and you lie back and take all the benefits.’

  Alec rolled onto his side as Merriman strode away from the tent. Something inside the Englishman made him push that little bit beyond barriers others wouldn’t cross, he thought. It wasn’t recklessness or even courage but something more childlike, not being able to hold out a minute longer for anything he wanted. As he lay on his bedding Alec heard wind fretting against canvas more forcefully now, his thoughts pricked by the call of startled birds whistling past. From further away came the push of the river, stealthily and insistently, but menacingly too. Sometimes Alec imagined he heard the floodwaters creeping closer or was unnerved by the telltale groan of a red gum preparing to fall. He glanced up instinctively but there was nothing to see: only damp canvas mouldering a foot above his head.

  Feeling horsehair bedding wet and scratchy under him, he wondered how long it would be before he fell ill. The relentless cold worked its way not only through everything outside but into him too, through his clothes, through his thin clinging skin, into his limbs stiffening muscles, into his back, till it found its way inside his veins, slowing and chilling his blood until every movement became an effort. Even turning on his bed now required some will to do it.

  He thought that if he just let go he could sleep a very long time. Hunger was eating at his insides but his weariness was becoming an even greater burden.

  You have to get up, he told himself. Get yourself going. Move your legs.

  But then he also thought he would try sleeping for a bit, conserve his resources now that their food was all gone, try to regain some strength.

  For a while he fell between sleep and waking.

  He remembered a time Emily had been away with her family to the country. She’d posted him a sketch she’d drawn where they were staying, a note on the back promising, It won’t be very long now, will it? And they didn’t last until their marriage that summer, their resolve breaking a week before, when they found themselves lovers as they always wanted to be. Those days went by in a trice. Even here, perhaps because she was so distant now, he could recall in precise detail the delicious slip of her skin on his, the feel of her mouth on his, the humid tangle of her hair across his face. He could go back to her, be repentant and start again. But even thinking that seemed impossible here where everything was blurred and out of reach, impossible even.

  He slept and all was close and real as he dreamt he was a boy in a grand house in a bustling city with gas lights and crowds of people taking the evening air. It was Christmas as he lay in a wooden bed with white sheets and pillows, the one window open to balmy night and the sounds of passers-by outside as the yeasty smell of fresh bread came wafting through. He could hear his father happily talking outside with Emily, his feet echoing on the cobbles, the smell of his pipe rich on the air. He wanted to be with them and speak with her but was pinned to the bed by the weight of his tiredness. As he listened he heard other steps approaching, his father’s voice anxiously calling – Who is it? – without answer, and the more he struggled to rise from the bed the harder the invisible force pressed him to it. A sound of jostling and raised voices including his father’s came more fearfully and a woman railed for help as he tried returning their cries, his mouth open to yell without a single sound issuing from between his lips. What is it? a voice inside him demanded. What is it?

  He was startled from his sleep, thrashing on his stretcher.

  Someone was there.

  ‘Help me!’

  It was Jack Merriman.

  ‘For heaven’s sakes! You frightened me to death!’

  ‘Is there light?’ Merriman asked.

  ‘It’s too early for a lamp.’ The fire outside was long gone out with no chance of getting it going again for the time being. ‘How long have I been asleep?’

  Alec’s eyes were struggling to make out Merriman properly and he felt sick from being woken so suddenly.

  The Englishman mumbled some nonsense before slumping to his bedding.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ Alec asked, but he could already see what had happened.

  Merriman had been on the receiving end of a terrible beating. His face was swollen with blood streaming from his nose. Another wound split the middle of his chin. Trying to find a comfortable place on his bed, Merriman eased his body this way and that, finding more reason to weep at every turn, his hands held up as if to keep them away from contact with anything.

  ‘Let me look.’

  Alec came over to see him better. The flesh around Merriman’s eyes was puffy, one eye already closing. There were more cuts on his face, he saw, fine cuts as though someone had used a wet branch on him. His other eye was badly bruised and seeping some watery pus. The gash on his chin oozed red down the neck of his shirt.

  ‘I’ll see if I can get something to stop the bleeding. Can hardly see what I’m doing.’ He shook out his handkerchief, folding it over and over again to make a bandage. ‘This might work.’

  There was trouble tying it fast though. In the end he had to get Merriman to clasp it awkwardly against his wound to staunch the flow of blood.

  ‘What happened?’

  Merriman’s black eyes tried opening a little before he gave up. He was struggling for breath. Cold and fright were deep inside his lungs and it was several minutes till he could gather enough calm to squeeze a scattering of words out.

  ‘I went over to the Geelong crowd,’ he said, slowly slurring his words. He leant and spat a brok
en tooth onto the ground. ‘Thought they might have something they could share. There was a fire. Cooking something. Could smell it. Meat.’

  ‘So they beat you up for asking for some food?’

  Merriman moved his right side trying to find more support for it, shaking his head.

  ‘There was food there. Fucking shearers.’

  ‘And you asked for some?’

  ‘Didn’t even get the chance. Told me to clear off before I could say anything.’

  ‘So then what happened?’

  Merriman lay still, thinking perhaps but preoccupied with his pain. He pressed the bandage tighter, gingerly feeling his eyes with his other hand.

  ‘Went off and waited for a bit. Till they’d finished.’

  ‘Finished what?’

  But Merriman was testing himself for wounds he imagined might be there, broken ribs or bleeding inside.

  ‘I waited for a bit. They had enough. Didn’t need it all. I could see it when I was there. All that food and not even a little bit for me.’ With every sentence his voice became more plaintive. ‘They didn’t need it all.’

  ‘You don’t look so good. Don’t move around so much. Rest.’

  But the Englishman squirmed and grimaced, his body writhing of its own accord.

  Alec found a spare blanket among his own things and, wet though it was, spread it carefully over Merriman, tucking it in under him, his companion still trying to keep his arms away from his body.

  ‘You done something to your arms?’ Alec realised they looked like they had been burnt.

  ‘They kicked me,’ Merriman cried, carefully moving his arms and hands closer to his face showing how he’d tried to protect himself. ‘And burning branches.’

  Alec shook his head in dismay. ‘You try to sleep now. That’s the best thing.’

  It was too hard to tell how badly he’d been hurt. He could have had bones broken. The best possible thing for Merriman was that he’d just worn some bruises. The cuts on his face would take care of themselves. The swelling, too, and burns, would settle quickly enough.

  ‘Are you going to do something?’ Merriman shivered from his blankets.

  Alec thought. ‘It’s too wet now. I’ll go and see them later.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘After the rain is gone. Sleep now. It’ll be better for how you feel.’

  ‘You could get Bill and that other bloke,’ Merriman stuttered with sudden cold.

  ‘Kentucky?’

  ‘Get them and sort out that Geelong scum.’

  ‘We’ll do something later.’

  Merriman groaned and coughed but after a while did fall into sleep, snatches of imaginary conversation issuing from him at times quietly, at other times wildly. It was as though his prone body and the person speaking, calling, spewing forth, were two entirely different people. Perhaps this was what ghosts were, Alec thought. While your body was asleep this other person escaping was who you really were.

  He thought he could hear unnatural sounds outside but he chided himself for being so foolish. Nothing could be out there, not in the rain that was pummelling down now. At the same time he found himself straining to listen for footsteps crunching wet twigs or boots taking another step forward on the rocky quartz that blistered through the ground’s surface here and there. He imagined the heavy, sodden trousers of the Geelong mob brushing their way through low, dripping undergrowth on the centre of the island, them soundlessly carrying hammers with square, iron heads, ready to finish off what they’d started, and anyone else who was in their way into the bargain.

  Something then made him think of Phillip Oriente and his unpredictability.

  Alec lifted his head to listen the better.

  He imagined the scene when he, Bill and Kentucky went to confront the Geelong diggers. Two of them and the boy digger facing his group. They’d find them hanging around their camp, poking and stabbing their fire alive, their heads turning when they first heard them coming. The three of them rising and standing close together, phalanx-like as they approached. What would he say? What could he say? Their faces stony, showing nothing. They’d be ready, one of them waving a pick handle as they came closer. Stay away if yer know what’s good for yer! Faces set, minds made up. Even the boy would have turned mongrel, encouraged by the example of the two men and the understanding that time was slipping away for all of them. For them the first attempted theft would only be the start of what was sure to come.

  Alec stared at the canvas above and was surprised to hear a mosquito buzzing somewhere in the tent. Maybe he’d have to see how things went tomorrow, play it by ear. Not many town rules applied out here and the strong always preyed on the weak. Now and then he’d seen notes nailed to trees inquiring of the general goldfields populace whether anyone knew the whereabouts of Peter Masefield or Sarah Wicking or Charlie Burroughs, the latter A boy of 10 years, with tawny hair and thin build, fair complexion. Last seen in the vicinity of Ryan’s Store.

  Mostly they vanished without trace. There was little mercy here for straying children, never mind an ordinary digger.

  And you never knew who you could trust, if anyone, even among those you camped with. You formed partnerships on a squint and a handshake, throwing in your lot with people you’d just then met. They could soon turn out to be lazy or needy, liars or drunks quick to throw punches. You wouldn’t know you’d made a mistake till you woke to find your share of the gold missing, or worse.

  He remembered how one night, very late when he was about to turn in, he caught Phillip Oriente at the edge of the firelight, hovering like some dog waiting for a scrap to eat. But it wasn’t food he’d come for. He sat himself down on one of his camp chairs – nothing more than rickety poles nailed together with canvas for a seat – and watched the fire like a lover, his eyes fixed on it all the while. For a long time he said nothing.

  Alec was confused about what he should do or say, to try to snap Oriente from the trance he was in.

  ‘Was there something … ?’ he began.

  And Oriente turned then, the first moment he’d looked away from the licking red flames and glowing fractures of wood, and said, ‘Do you know what it’s really like to love someone?’

  ‘I’m married,’ Alec had answered awkwardly.

  ‘But really love someone?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  He wasn’t used to that kind of conversation and was uncomfortable in it, especially with someone he barely knew.

  ‘And be in love with someone who you believe feels the same about you and leads you to think that, so it runs deep through your blood and fills your head with every wild idea? That was what it was like for me, what I believed and was led to believe. But then to be with someone who denies themself because of pride. That was it, Napier! Pride! Abandoned for nothing less than pride, because … Is that right? Was that fair that I should be treated so?’

  Oriente had risen from his chair.

  ‘Steady on …’

  ‘Do you really think it was?’

  ‘It’s not for me to say.’

  Oriente snatched up a length of dry branch from beside the fire and smashed it back and forth through the jumble of burning wood, sending embers and flames scattering around the camp site.

  ‘Hang on! That’ll do!’

  Alec had jumped to his feet as well but Oriente’s rant was brief and without any word of apology the miner had stalked off and disappeared into night, carrying on the next day at their claim as if nothing had ever happened.

  18

  Niall made his way to the commissioner’s hut relieved that the eviction of the Delaneys and the transportation of the sick to their property were going along well. He wondered though about Delaney saying he recognised him, as he had no recollection of seeing the settler anywhere else but up at his property He’d never met anyone like him during his time in western Victoria, so the only place would have to have been Van Diemen’s Land – Macquarie Harbour or Hobart Town. He definitely had no memory of him from the Harb
our but Hobart was sometimes a blur, one short-lived job and one doss-house following another. Maybe he’d been there.

  In any case, Delaney claiming to recognise him left a nagging feeling. His daughter Sarah stayed on his mind too, though for a different reason.

  Outside the commissioner’s hut he noticed a pile of old books and clothes dumped in wet grass.

  ‘You want me to get rid of those?’ he asked after the door was opened to him.

  ‘It’s not important, I will have someone else do it,’ the commissioner answered. ‘Come in.’

  He pushed a length of wood into the fire before they sat down at his desk.

  ‘Not even space to be seated civilly with someone. Just this table. I suppose it is all business here.’

  ‘We’ve shifted the first of the sick to Delaney’s farm,’ Niall said.

  ‘Delaney?’

  ‘The settler out on the west road. We’ve taken over his farm.’

  ‘Good. Hopefully we will restrict the spread of the illness. Time will tell. Still, we are acting quickly and that is the most important thing. I have had the doctor make a visit to the creek camp and am expecting a report from him any minute now, too. How goes it with all our other goldfield business?’

  ‘It looks like we’re going all right. They’re making good progress on the boat —’

  ‘The Victory.’

  ‘Yes, the Victory. The bottom sections are in place and the timber cutters are doing a good job. What seems to be taking the most time is sawing the timber into the right width and weight of boards. When you see it taking shape you realise it’s not such a small boat after all.’

  ‘It will make for an impressive sight when it takes to the water.’

  ‘It really will.’

  ‘Would you like to be one of the oarsmen when the time comes, Sergeant?’

  ‘I’m not sure, sir. I’ve never rowed any kind of boat.’

  ‘You will be no different, then, from most of the crew, I expect. Anyway, we can see when we are ready. Anything else? Any sign of trouble with the miners?’