The Secret of the Youngest Rebel

by Jackie French

  ‘And what is new about that?’ demanded Mr Cunningham. ‘Isn’t it rebellion we’ve been speaking of every day we take a breath? But while they don’t know who or when or where, there’s naught they can do about it.’ He met Mr Holt’s eyes. ‘Agreed?’

  A pause, then Mr Holt said, ‘Agreed.’

  ‘And what do we do when we’ve captured the Sydney barracks?’ asked the man who had spoken for Green Hills.

  Mr Cunningham grinned. ‘We march to Government House to accept Governor King’s surrender and declare the Republic of New Ireland on Saint Patrick’s Day. And then we plant the Tree of Liberty. May it grow tall and strong in this new land.’

  ‘And for those who prefer the trees of Ireland?’ asked Mr Holt sourly.

  ‘A ship to take them home,’ said Mr Cunningham simply. He looked around the table. I could almost feel his will gathering up their doubts.

  ‘We can do this,’ he said quietly. ‘Haven’t the French themselves assured us they’ll win the war against England any day now? Once the French are on the sea, there will be no force on earth that can take this land from us.’ His voice was so firm and strong the tavernkeeper looked up. ‘One mind, one heart, men. Death or liberty!’

  ‘Death or liberty!’ they repeated. Was it only me who noticed that Mr Holt joined in a beat after the others?

  The work bell tolled down the road. Voices rose outside, tools clanking as men put them down, unwilling to work a heartbeat beyond their allotted time. The barman propped the tavern door open.

  Mr Holt stood. ‘We shouldn’t be seen together.’ He hesitated, then said, ‘We’ll see you next at the barracks in Sydney Town.’

  ‘It will be the Republic of New Ireland by then,’ said Mr Cunningham. ‘And may God be with us all.’

  Mr Holt nodded curtly. He strode out, dropping a coin on the bar. I wondered if I could grab it before the barman saw it.

  The others were leaving now too. I got ready to crawl back to the wall, where I could ease myself up onto the bench again.

  ‘You can come out now,’ said Mr Cunningham.

  CHAPTER 4

  Plots

  I perched on a chair, ignoring the tavernkeeper’s frown. I was with a paying customer, so he couldn’t boot me out.

  ‘How’d you know I were there?’ I demanded.

  Mr Cunningham looked at me seriously. ‘Because I looked for you.’

  ‘Why? I wouldn’t steal from you,’ I assured him quickly.

  ‘I never thought you would.’ Those clear green eyes met mine. ‘You gave me heart when I was doubting, boyo. I walked here from Castle Hill, and doubt walked with me. Isn’t fighting the English what we’ve been doing for hundreds of years now? Fighting and losing our lives, losing our homes, our families. We’ve lost and been lashed for it for hundreds of years now.’ His words were almost like a song. ‘Do you know what it’s like to feel the lash on your back, boyo?’

  ‘Yes.’ I turned and slid my shirt down my back a little. I’d never seen the scars there, but I could feel them.

  He was silent. Then he asked, ‘Who did this to a boy?’

  ‘Floggin’ Dan. He says he needs to keep in practice.’

  ‘I saw you snatch that tart,’ said Mr Cunningham softly. ‘I saw you small and hungry and with no hope of anything that’s better, and I remembered why we’re fighting. I’ve given enough, I was thinking as I walked here. Let me build my own life for a change. And then I saw you, your hunger and your fear. And I heard you say you’d fight for freedom.’

  I looked down at my hands so he couldn’t see that I was crying. I never cried! ‘That Mr Holt was doubting too,’ I managed.

  ‘He was that. But they don’t call him General Holt for nothing. He’ll have the barracks and the armoury waiting for us when the army of the south comes marching up the street.’

  Mr Cunningham stood. His head nearly reached the tavern roof. ‘I’d best be off. An overseer can choose where he spends his working day, but if I’m not there to check the men into the barracks come nightfall, it will be noted.’

  He held out his hand again. Once more I took it.

  ‘When the fires at Parramatta are lit, head down the road to Castle Hill, then climb to the Toongabbie fire upon the hill,’ he said quietly. ‘The word is “death or liberty”. We will meet again, Master Frog. And the next time it will be as free men in the Republic of New Ireland.’

  CHAPTER 5

  Tomorrow Might Be Wonderful

  Mr Cunningham said something to the tavernkeeper as he left, and handed him a coin. I thought it was to pay for his ale, till the man brought me over a bowl of stew and a tankard of ale.

  ‘Present from his nibs,’ he said sourly. He stood there while I slurped the stew down, then snatched the bowl from me in case I stole it once it was empty.

  Other customers had come in by then. He left me at the table, glancing at me to make sure I didn’t run off with his tankard. I gave him a smile the angels would have envied and sipped slowly, till the room was nearly full, then took the tankard to the bar. ‘Thank you, my good man,’ I said, as polite as any gentry cove.

  ‘Stubble it, whippersnapper,’ he muttered, giving me a look as dirty as the floors under Ma’s tables.

  I sauntered out, a plate from another table down me breeches and two ha’pennies in my hand that a cove had put on the bar when the tavernkeeper was busy glaring at me.

  Ma Grimsby’s tavern was just down from the Whipping Fields, handy for the crowd who gathered to see the day’s floggings. She just nodded when I handed her the plate, and put the ha’pennies down her dress.

  Ma had survived the voyage here on the Second Fleet — not many had lived on that one — with a seven-year sentence for thieving. She’d served that as housekeeper to an officer. Some said he’d died of the flux, while others said it was from eating Ma’s pies — but not when she could hear them. She’d saved enough — or stolen enough — to build her shanty by then.

  ‘Not your best haul, Frog,’ she complained.

  ‘Can’t do me best every day, Ma,’ I said. ‘Or it wouldn’t be me best.’

  She cuffed me on the ear, but not hard. ‘Get away with you, and your cheek too. Not so much meat in them pies, Long Henry!’ she called out to the young man filling the pie shells on the bench by the big outdoor oven. ‘What do you think that sack o’ turnips is for?’ Ma shook her head. ‘That young man gets more paddle-pated every day.’

  Long Henry coughed, wiping his mouth on his sleeve and leaving red spots of blood. He was head cully of Ma’s cross crib, with a room of his own behind the tavern. Bill the Rat said Long Henry had a box of coins buried under his bed too.

  Long Henry had been transported when he was nine years old for doing the glass lay, climbing up walls and through windows. He’d learned more skills on the ship to Sydney Town too. They said he’d been a true Captain Tom when Ma first took him in to help her, but every day he seemed to get a little smaller. He could hardly shift the sack of turnips by himself now.

  I went to help him. It was worth keeping on the good side of Long Henry, and Ma too. Those who got on the wrong side didn’t last long.

  I didn’t get to sleep till late that night. Best time to dimbledamble is when men are foxed, but a tavernkeeper on the wise like Ma keeps her rum well watered, so it takes half the evening to get the coves shambling. Not that there was much to snaffle. Ma’s customers were mostly ticketof-leave men with no more coin than’d pay for a dram of rum.

  They drank, and some of them whose brains were rotted by the drink — or had never met Long Henry before — played at dice with him and, dearie me and who’d have thought it, every time they lost. I kept watch on his technique.

  At last the customers left, dribbling out in twos or threes. I followed them, shadow-like, and so did Long Henry. Ma didn’t allow no thieving in her tavern — men don’t come back to where they’ve been skinned — but once they left they were fair game.

  I dambled another handkerchief just as L
ong Henry’s cudgel found a cove who’d been flashing his cash as they played cards. Long Henry could hardly beat a threelegged rat these days. But he could strike a man hard enough behind to bring him down in the darkness.

  Finally the streets cleared. There weren’t any leftovers to eat tonight — Ma’s pies had been good enough for once for her customers to swallow every bit of them — but I didn’t mind, not after that tart and the bowl of stew.

  But it was hard to sleep. The fleas in the straw bit and the lice itched and I could hear the rats scuffle up on the bark roof. The other brats whimpered and snuffled about me — little Spooner, who’d never learned to talk right because the rats had eaten his lip when he was a babe, and Bill the Rat, who’d steal your teeth from your mouth if he had a chance, and ‘King’ George, who’d had his feet burned off when he was tiny.

  Long Henry carried ‘King’ George down to the wharf each morning, a begging bowl in his hands. He didn’t get much coin — not in a place like Parramatta — but it was enough for Ma to let him sleep with us, and sometimes people put food in his bowl too.

  But mostly it was ideas that kept me awake. I’d never had ideas like them before, never met people like Mrs Bean nor Mr Cunningham neither.

  Was there really going to be a rebellion? I’d never even thought before that life might be different: worse, maybe, but apart from that I’d looked no further than the next market day, with the farmers in town and purses to be dambled. The fine future Mr Cunningham spoke of was like diving into a pond where you couldn’t see the bottom but hoped there might be treasure below.

  I rolled over on the straw and pinched off the fattest of the fleas biting my arms. If Mr Cunningham spoke true, maybe New Ireland would have clean straw, or perhaps real beds, even for coves like me. Apple tart for all!

  It was a grand dream. I fell asleep still thinking of it.

  CHAPTER 6

  Rebellion!

  I woke to the sound of Long Henry coughing and Ma yelling at him for being a loll-a-bed. I headed down to the marketplace, but had no luck. Most of the sellers were ex-cons themselves and leery of shufflers around their stalls.

  But when the stallholders had packed up their trestles, I found four bruised apples and managed to sneak a hunk of salt mutton as its owner bent forwards to light his fire, which hushed my gut awhile. No coin for Ma, but she’d had a new delivery of rotgut from a farmer out on the Hawkesbury who’d turned his corn into hooch, so the rum that night would be watered less than usual. There’d be good pickings after.

  The shanty was rollicking and I felt Ma’s eyes on me as I sat, holding an empty mug in a corner. I gave her a slight nod towards a fat cove across the room who looked like he’d have coin in his pocket. The thin one with him with the rat’s whiskers even had a pocket watch on show, just asking for a sharp knife to slit his coat and snaffle it, chain and all.

  Ma might get five shillings for that watch. You’d think that the customers would have got to know that every tavern had brats like us, waiting for them like fleas waiting for a dog. But they never did.

  Fatty headed for the door. I’d just put the mug down and stared at the ground in my best don’t-notice-me pose when I heard yells down the road, more and more of them, spreading as fast as a mob of fleas. A man staggered in, dressed in dusty convict drab and gasping like he’d been escaping from the gallows.

  ‘They’ve set a cottage alight,’ he panted. ‘Up at Castle Hill! It’s rebellion!’

  It was as if a horde of mice had been disturbed in the larder by a hungry cat. Men leaped to their feet; benches were overturned. But no one asked, ‘What rebellion?’ I hadn’t realised so many knew revolution was so near.

  I stayed back against the wall.

  The man who’d brought the news leaned panting against the bar. I recognised him now — one of the convicts from the Castle Hill Farm. ‘Give us an ale, Ma,’ he gasped. ‘I’ve run all the way here with the news.’

  Ma put her hands on her hips. ‘But you didn’t come here first.’

  ‘’Course not, Ma. Had to tell the parson. The rebels whipped Rob Duggan, and they’ll be after Parson Marsden next. He’s in a boat already, heading up to Sydney Town.’ He shook his head. ‘He gave me sixpence for the news. Sixpence for saving his hide!’

  The Reverend Marsden was called the Flogging Parson, and not for nothing. Duggan was the District Flogger, and between them they striped as many backs as they could lay leather to. I’d picked the parson’s pocket once: two silver coins and a blood-stained handkerchief, though I didn’t think the blood was his. He was a magistrate as well as a clergyman. Rumour said he’d sent a servant to the gallows just for trying to shield her face as he whipped her. He hated the Irish too — gave a hundred lashes extra if any came before him.

  ‘You mean them rebels is coming here to Parramatta?’ demanded Ma.

  The man nodded. ‘They were breaking into the Castle Hill armoury for weapons as I left. There’s parties sent out to all the farmhouses to gather more. For pity’s sake, give me a drink, woman!’

  ‘You sure they’re headed this way?’ insisted Ma Grimsby, handing him a tankard.

  He gulped it down, then wiped his mouth and held the tankard out to be refilled. ‘That’s what I heard. They’re going to burn the town! There’s hundreds of them, Ma, and only a handful of troops here.’

  Ma Grimsby took the tankard and shoved it behind the bar. It was obvious he wasn’t getting more unless he paid for it. ‘Well, if they come in here, they’ll have me to deal with. Long Henry, get the muskets from the cellar.’

  Ma quietened the remaining customers with a look. ‘I ain’t on any side,’ she said loudly. ‘I’ll have you all remember that when this is over. I sell rum and mutton pies. But I’ll protect what’s mine. And if anyone thinks different —’

  The night exploded.

  The Parramatta rebels! I ran for the door, but there was no band of rebels to be seen in the street outside. Instead the shots were measured, one by one, above a roll of drums. The New South Wales Corps was calling its men back to the barracks.

  Mr Cunningham’s plan was working, I thought. Soon every redcoat in the colony would be headed to Parramatta. I gazed around, looking for the signal fire. But beyond a few shanty lanterns, the night was still dark.

  Long Henry coughed into his blood-splattered handkerchief behind me. ‘You need to go upriver to Sydney Town too, Ma.’

  ‘Ha!’ Ma snorted. ‘Think I’ll be safer there? There’re as many croppies up in Sydney Town as there are here. I’m staying with me tavern. Now, who’s for another drink?’

  Men shook their heads. Already the crowd was melting out the door. Were they off to their homes or barracks? Or did some have the spark of liberty in their hearts and were headed out to light the Parramatta signal fire, and then to meet the army?

  I stood in the doorway and gazed at the figures beginning to move down the dark street. All across the colony, I thought, men are meeting to overthrow the tyranny. The thought filled me like all the meals I’d never had, all the love I’d never known.

  A life, I thought, a proper life. I’m going to live free in New Ireland!

  I stepped into the street, but a skinny hand grabbed me. ‘Where do you think you’re headed?’ snapped Ma.

  ‘To the privy,’ I said, all innocent.

  ‘Don’t you gammon me, whippersnapper. You thinks you’re joining the rebels, don’t you? Long Henry said you was in Boggin’s with that flash cove Cunningham.’

  I wrenched my arm away. ‘What if I was?’

  ‘You know how many rebellions that man has led? And not one of them has come to naught.’

  ‘This is different.’

  ‘How do you know that, jackanapes?’

  I met her tiny black eyes, like pebbles in her face. ‘There’s men rising up all across the colony tonight, Ma. Going to fight tyranny. We’ll all be free.’

  She stared at me. ‘What are you prattlin’ about? Ain’t I free? Free to sell my rum and
pies?’

  ‘As long as you pay the sergeant his cut each week so the soldiers don’t arrest you and burn the place down.’

  ‘An’ the rebels are goin’ to change that, are they?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said uncertainly. I turned to go again.

  She followed me out into the darkness. ‘Wait, you little fool.’

  ‘I have to go!’

  ‘That you do not.’ For the first time I realised Ma might like me. She lowered her voice. ‘I’ve heard the talk. No one even sees the tavernkeeper. Men in drink don’t hide their words.’

  She looked around, to check no one heard, and the smells of woodsmoke and mutton wafted from her serge skirt as she leaned closer. ‘Death or liberty,’ she whispered. ‘That’s what they been saying. But fine words don’t butter no parsnips. You got to look out for yourself in this world.’

  ‘We can only be free when we stand arm in arm,’ I said.

  Ma snorted. ‘That Irish. Fillin’ your head with nonsense.’ She looked back into the tavern. Only a few old soaks were left inside now, too drunk to know or care if Parramatta burned around them. Long Henry sat behind the bar. He coughed again, shaking his whole frame till at last the spell ended. He leaned back against the wall, exhausted.

  ‘Hear that? Henry’s not long for this world,’ Ma said quietly. ‘You’re a good ’un, Frog. You work hard and you’ve got sense too, or you had till you caught this rebel fever. What say you stay here, all safe, and Henry an’ I can train you up to play the dice, and even take his place one day? A proper bed an’ all the pies you can eat, and a tot o’ rum three times a day.’

  I’d never had a bed, not that I remembered. Nor all the food that I could eat.

  ‘Well? You going to stop here, or follow their death or liberty?’ Ma whispered. ‘Which will you choose, boy?’

  I met her small, mean eyes. ‘Liberty!’ I said.

  I pulled away from her and ran into the darkness.

  CHAPTER 7

  Death or Liberty