Mosquito Creek

by Robert Engwerda

  And now he had taken this course and set himself to it – committed to it because others were involved – he knew there was no turning away. Somehow his conscience pricked him nonetheless and he felt deeply uneasy.

  Row didn’t notice him to begin with. For the first time the commissioner heard a squealing of animals somewhere behind the tent from an area that had been fenced off since the first arrival of Row’s troupe. He thought of a time he and his brother had been taken into Chatham by their grandfather to visit relatives, a favoured uncle among them. Uncle Bryant had like many of their family served with the navy but was retired all the years he knew him. In all respects and manner a charming and distinguished gentleman, his one eccentricity was the pet monkey he led on a chain everywhere he went, including on his many visits to friends and family and expeditions through the town. What may have seemed a delight to most – this creature as a companion – was in fact to young Charles a cantankerous, hissing creature that no one but Uncle Bryant ventured too near to.

  That was the sound he was hearing now, the sound of alarm from Uncle Bryant’s monkey.

  In due course Row spotted the commissioner through the bustle of others and motioned him to a quiet space away from where most of the work was taking place.

  ‘Is everything running according to schedule?’ Stanfield asked quickly.

  Row, dressed today in a new suit of soft cream and black shoes, flicked his head back and forth, gesturing to one of his workers to hurry up.

  ‘There is no schedule, Charles,’ he replied. ‘We have a show tonight and we have to be ready for it. That’s all there is to it.’

  ‘And my box is progressing well?

  ‘You can see for yourself.’

  ‘Thank you. We must all be ready.’

  ‘We still need to discuss this gentleman of yours, though. You haven’t fully explained what it is I need to do in respect to that particular matter. And thinking about it some more, I hope you don’t mind if I speak in generalities only.’ He smiled weakly. ‘A blind eye and all that. I have a business to manage.’

  The commissioner waited until a worker strolled by them.

  ‘As you wish. There will be nothing specific you need to do, Alfred, apart from continuing your performances as planned. Except for one thing. I will have my men stationed close to my box. At the end of the re-enactment of Trafalgar, when Villeneuve meets his death, we will require a distraction, something to take all eyes away from my troopers escorting our gentleman from the arena.’

  ‘What did you have in mind?’

  ‘That is where I will be relying on your ability to create a scene. It is much of a muchness to me what that is so long as we can spirit our friend away without it attracting too much attention.’

  ‘It would’ve been much better, you know, to have all this taken care of somewhere else,’ Row said glumly.

  ‘And believe me when I say I am much of the same mind, except that we do not have that luxury.’

  ‘Couldn’t you have asked him to meet you somewhere else?’

  ‘You are forgetting that it is he having the contact with me. He knows where I am. I have no notion of where he is hiding.’

  ‘And no one else had any luck in finding out?’

  ‘No, as I have explained. So there we have it. It has to be here and it has to be tonight.’ Stanfield shot him a hard look. ‘It is not my preference that things should happen in this way either.’

  ‘Perhaps I could do something with the animals,’ Row considered.

  ‘Or an act that will be unexpected or raucous enough to draw all eyes to it.’

  ‘What about if we picked him out before he entered the tent?’ Row said suddenly, surprised he hadn’t thought of this earlier. ‘We know what he looks like.’

  The commissioner shook his head, disappointing the showman.

  ‘He will not appear if he sees us anxiously awaiting him. And whoever else we might have at the entrance would mean no guarantee of sighting him. He could be in costume or disguise. I would not put anything beyond him. It might not even be him appearing tonight.’

  ‘What do you mean? He said he was exchanging the items, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, but I would not be at all surprised if he sends someone in his place or conjures up some other kind of trickery.’

  ‘He has us over a barrel then.’

  ‘For the moment, Alfred. Only for the moment.’

  ‘Are you all right?’

  The commissioner found himself a little tremulous.

  ‘Thank you, yes.’ He bowed his head and drew his hand down over his face as though weary. When he opened his eyes again he continued. ‘I don’t want any unnecessary fuss when the time arrives for my troopers to apprehend him. Everything must be carried out as discreetly as it can be. He will be flighty and we must make sure we do not frighten him off before we take charge of him.’

  ‘And once you have him?’

  ‘All I am interested in is the return of my relic. And I thought you were not to be interested in the details?’

  ‘You’re right, no I’m not,’ Row said hastily.

  The commissioner cast his eyes over the constructions going on around him.

  ‘What you must do is ensure there are no restrictions of my view over the entertainments. I will have my men with me. Do not impede any movements of miners in my vicinity. When our fellow sees me he will come close enough. I will signal him in a way he will understand.’

  ‘Your fellow.’

  ‘My fellow, then.’

  ‘And what sort of signal?’

  ‘That is irrelevant to you, Alfred. I am asking nothing of you except what I have just said. You and your men can turn your blind eye to everything going on around you. My men will take care of the rest.’

  ‘And what if he doesn’t turn up?’

  ‘He believes he will receive his two hundred pounds.’

  ‘And if he still doesn’t?’

  ‘Then we will have wasted our time.’

  ‘Till tonight, then,’ Row said, as one of his men waited expectantly nearby to speak with him.

  ‘Until tonight.’

  24

  Stanfield removed himself from the circus tent and walked back in the direction of his hut. The sun was startling in its intensity as it climbed higher through blue skies, his gaze unused to it.

  There were no guarantees Phillip Oriente would make an appearance tonight. He understood that Oriente might have skipped through half a dozen towns by this time, saying whatever he liked to whoever he liked. Out there in this wilderness he could roam like a wild animal and wreak whatever havoc he pleased.

  He felt his heart beating faster, his arms and chest suddenly warmer and heavier in the winter overcoat. He was not so certain now that Phillip would come, and nor was he certain that he wished him to.

  At the police yards the trooper Ramage was waiting for him.

  ‘You want to talk with me here, then?’ the constable asked.

  The commissioner looked around.

  ‘Perhaps not here. Over near the stables where you can advise me on some matters to do with horseflesh.’

  They moved to where the police horses were yarded, with stables not much more than a long rectangle of small pens walled by crude slabs of timber, with wider sheets of bark and brush mostly keeping the rain out from above. The front of the stables was open to the elements. Some dozen fit-looking brown horses were wandering the yard in the sun tugging desultorily at scatterings of hay. Only two mounts were left tied up in the stables, both with water and straw against the back wall.

  ‘These two here been crook,’ Ramage told the commissioner as they ducked under the rope and into the pen where a black colt was tied. The animal only backed away slightly from them as they stood inside to talk.

  ‘It might be best if you stay out of sight as much as possible,’ Stanfield suggested. ‘From now on I want you to be out of uniform too, please. Until we have concluded our business.’

  Ramage
cast a glance at the horse, as though summing up how much he might get for it in a sale somewhere.

  ‘I saw your man this morning. Out on the road where we’ve put the sick ones,’ he said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The sergeant. Kennedy. Got a smart mouth on him too, he has.’

  ‘Sergeant Kennedy is the least of our concerns. He is a good policeman too, even if at times he takes too much interest in matters he shouldn’t.’

  ‘I hope for his sake he doesn’t take too much interest in me, then, or I’ll have to pay him back some with dividends.’

  ‘Let’s concern ourselves just with the business at hand, shall we? About tonight.’

  Even though he was familiar with Ramage, the commissioner could never get used to the size of the man, the sense of threat about him. There were red scratches on his face, his hair too long and greasy.

  ‘What was it you wanted, besides helping out at Row’s?’

  ‘You remember that miner who stole from me in Bendigo? That one I had you and the others search for?’

  ‘We never found him.’

  ‘No, we didn’t. But it seems as though we will have a second chance tonight. I have information he will be at the entertainments and I want you and a few others stationed near me so we can apprehend him when he shows his face.’

  The commissioner explained at what point in the show they would make their move for Oriente.

  ‘And then?’ Ramage asked.

  ‘And then you are to remove him from the tent and take him away somewhere out of sight until he tells you where he has hidden that item of mine. Use some persuasion if you have to but I do not wish to see the man harmed. Once we know he is no longer telling us stories, and we have our possession back, you will send him on his way. Make it clear to him he is never to return to this place.’

  ‘That shouldn’t be a problem. If he turns up.’

  ‘We shall find out soon enough. But listen to what I have told you. You understand that this man is not to be hurt, that the most important thing is the return of my possession?’

  ‘I get it,’ Ramage answered, eyeing off the horse and running a hand down its flank.

  ‘That will be enough, then,’ the commissioner said. ‘Make certain you and the others appear on time tonight.’

  As Ramage sloped away to take care of his affairs the commissioner felt himself sagging under the weight of all the matters preoccupying him and had no desire to return to the confines of his hut where he would be left alone with his thoughts.

  Instead he found himself heading in the direction of the Victory, thinking he would personally inspect its progress. And the walk would do him good, expel the stale air from his lungs.

  Another of the goldfield troopers recognised him and offered his company but the commissioner waved him away before setting off in the direction of the boat.

  Everywhere here was a chaos anyone new to the goldfield would have found unimaginable. It was as though an enormous battle had laid the entire landscape to waste. It was like nothing he’d seen before. And while on the one hand it was becoming familiar now, every time he opened his eyes he still expected something different. He wasn’t sure what.

  Sunlight washed warmth over the goldfield and he peered again at the unaccustomed glare above him. The spring rains were a portent of the season ahead, hotter days. Quickening his step, he felt himself growing increasingly warm inside his coat.

  It was a fair distance across ravaged ground to where the boat was being built but no one paid him any mind as he picked his way around claims, till he decided to veer southward where a strip of relatively untouched ground allowed him to lengthen his stride. A miner caught his eye and gave him a curious look as if trying to place him before thinking himself mistaken and returning to pushing mud through a sieve.

  This glorious day over him now was so at odds with how he was feeling. He ruminated over the drama that would be played out before too many hours and which rattled into his head in the most disconcerting way at the most disconcerting times. It should not have come to this and he was perplexed as to how it had. What had begun innocently enough had become a viper turning on itself.

  In his mind he began composing his thoughts, a letter, of what he would say to his family in England, and in particular to his father, if he could talk to them here. And if he could screw together the courage to say it.

  At the outset let me say that it has been a disappointment not to have received a single communication from you during my time on the goldfields. The quarterly report for the government is about to be delivered and I cannot overstate the importance of that document in terms of the politics of this newly minted colony and my status here. Should it be received favourably I anticipate a recommendation suggesting a post in Melbourne more commensurate with our family’s standing.

  Then he thought, what would happen when Phillip Oriente was cornered or captured if he felt his only way of protecting himself was to attack him, release a stream of venom that might paralyse him and send its poison all the way back to England? What would be the result then?

  He tacked to a narrow path affording an increased pace. Winter grasses trampled flat and wet survived here though they were slippery underfoot when he trod the more luxuriant patches. Stumps of trees nearby bore testament to earlier days and even some of these, he noticed, had been attacked again for firewood and shoring, their bark stripped away. A series of initials had been carved deeply into one, no doubt by an optimistic party of miners celebrating their arrival on the goldfields and their prospects of good fortune. He thought they might be a long time departed from this goldfield and wondered if they knew Phillip or had travelled in his company.

  You must not believe the lies that are spread from these parts because this is not a real place. When the sources of gold are exhausted a population disappears with it. A town of ten thousand people can be reduced to little more than a hundred overnight, more lying buried in the cemetery than remaining near it. Nor are the inhabitants of a goldfield people as you or I would know them. Everything here is built on rumour and gossip, every conversation designed only to advance the interests of the speaker. When a person occupies a position such as I occupy here there are many enemies and very few friends. Everything I do is subject to scrutiny.

  He had to pause a second, take a breath and undo the top button, the top two buttons of his coat. It was warmer than expected and he found he was unused to the exercise. The exertion was pleasing but now that he’d stopped he felt too hot and a little faint, light as air.

  There has been no mishap at home I trust? It is difficult to be the gauge of anything here being so far not only from the city but also from vessels carrying the mails. Or perhaps the letters have been delayed on their journey or pilfered somewhere along the way. We have any amount of trouble here with thieves and highwaymen lying in wait for any defenceless soul going about their business. The gold and mail coaches are particular targets.

  He looked around him, breathing deeply. This was an elevated part of the diggings, left more or less untouched because it was so. It was the old creek beds and the gullies still finding most favour with the miners. Somewhere between where he was standing now and the river was the Victory, his vessel. From this distance he could spy the merest flutter of canvas above the boat but he began feeling disquieted because it didn’t seem to be getting any closer.

  I feel Grandfather was treated unfairly. He was the one ready to accept blame when there were always others only too willing to burden him with it. You, Father, you were the one who treated him so. Banishing him from the dinner table and having him eat his meals away from his family as though he was no better than a servant was your doing. And while I stayed with Mother and yourself I know I too had been banished long before I set foot in this country.

  He mopped the back of his neck with a handkerchief while loosening another button on his coat.

  He headed in a more direct line to the Victory. As he walked down a slight hollow and
then back out of it he was afforded a clearer view of the ruffles of breeze playing the canopy above his construction. From somewhere he heard a burst of cheering. He halted his progress again but there was nothing to be seen as he scanned the diggings; everyone seemingly busy with their usual pursuits. Perhaps it came from the circus tent, he thought, some piece of equipment that was difficult to manage finally steered into place or one of the higher rows of seating pushed up into position.

  His father had once taken him and Terence to London when still in the employment of the navy and when his prospects were good and his children young. Most of the that trip had been spent following him around to various offices and places of supply, and sometimes they were left in the care of a distant cousin, a girl much older than them who had no more regard for them than if they were urchins off the street.

  The morning before they were to leave again for home in the country their father had gathered them up excitedly and crammed them into a hansom cab saying there was something they must really see. ‘A surprise,’ he said, sweating with anticipation as the horse pulling them was whipped into a lather by the driver, urged to make good speed. Whatever it was, their father would not tolerate them missing it and at intervals he checked his watch and shouted to the driver to make good time. The cab clattered through a succession of narrow and rickety streets where every second shop seemed to be in the business of drapery or tailoring or, curiously, the supply of machinery and materials for the manufacture of glass.

  The horse tired the more brutally it was flogged by its driver and they ran suddenly into more open streets along the Thames, pushing further and further upstream past boat moorings and disreputable-looking characters slinking by. The tide was out and the exposed river banks muddy and stinking. Here and there thin boys were wading out into the mud with sacks, retrieving any object they thought useful. No older than he and Terence, these pale boys sank up to their knees with each step, their sacks dragging behind them on the mud, caps pulled down tight over their bony heads so they seemed more derelict old men than boys.