The road to Castle Hill glowed, white dust in the moonlight. I could see the way clear enough as I ran, though not where I was putting my feet. My toes squished through horse droppings and a puddle of something warm. The men who’d left before me must have vanished in the night, but I knew the way.
I looked back at the shadow that was Parramatta. Where was the fire to call the Parramatta rebels and lure the Sydney Town troopers away from their barracks? I didn’t even know where it was supposed to be. Was the convict who’d run from Castle Hill making it all up, to get a reward from the Reverend Marsden and drinks from tavernkeepers like Ma?
I jogged along the road, looking back now and then for the fire. But nothing flared in the darkness. No army trod behind me either.
Something hopped away on the edges of the road. I began to be afraid. All my life I had been surrounded by others: the tangle of swearing, half-drunk women of the convict huts, the babble of the markets, the smelly security of Ma’s tavern.
I should have waited for the Parramatta signal fire and marched with the other rebels. I should have stayed back at Ma’s. A bed of my own and all the pies I could eat. What had I been thinking to refuse that?
If I turned back now, Ma would forgive me. Oh, she might give me a cuff about the ear, but she’d take me in . . .
I slowed to a walk. Frogs croaked from a pond nearby. Real frogs were never lonely, all in a pond together. A bat fluttered past me, and then was gone. The night stretched endlessly, dark on every side, a patchwork of pinprick stars above made paler by the glow of the moon.
Surely I should have found the army by now! An army would make noise, wouldn’t it? But all I heard were the growls of o’possums, the distant thuds of kangaroos.
Maybe the rebels had decided not to head for Parramatta at all. They might already be downriver, at Sydney Town, or marching to the Hawkesbury . . .
The road stretched into shadows. My footsteps sounded hollow on the hard-packed dirt. I realised I had no idea how long it took to get to Castle Hill. What if I missed the Toongabbie signal fire? What if I never found the army? What if they’d already marched away, to rebellion and glory, leaving me lost here in the darkness? I knew nothing, had nothing, was alone on this dusty track that smelled of night and horses . . .
And suddenly I heard Mr Cunningham’s words again: ‘Together we are strong, boyo. Together we will change the world.’
I was alone, but I was free. For the first time in my life I wasn’t working for Ma or another crib keeper. I had chosen this. I forced myself forwards as the road twisted around a corner.
And there it was, the fire up on the hill, the freedom fire, sparks leaping into the sky and the shapes of men around it.
I had found the rebel army.
CHAPTER 8
Comrades on the Hill
The words challenged from the darkness: ‘Friend or foe?’ An English accent, not an Irish one.
‘Friend,’ I panted.
‘What’s the password then?’
For a moment I wondered what he meant. ‘Death or liberty,’ I offered.
‘Pass, friend.’ I could just make him out in the firelight, convict-drab pants and smock, and a croppy’s haircut. ‘Where are you from?’
‘Parramatta,’ I said.
‘The signal fire’s been lit there?’ he asked eagerly.
‘Not when I left. A convict from Castle Hill ran to Parramatta to give the warning.’
‘Them soldiers had a warning? That’s bad.’ He nodded to the fire. ‘There’s food and drink if you need it, lad. Get some rest while you can. It’s been a hard night and there’s harder to come.’
I crouched down by the fire. Men surrounded me, their faces lit red by the flames, sitting, talking, thinking, remembering perhaps families or battles in Ireland far away. Some lay further back, wrapped in blankets or cloaks, managing to sleep. Others dragged up branches to keep the fire lit.
The fire snickered higher into the night, signalling men to freedom. I gazed around, but I couldn’t see Mr Cunningham.
‘Is Mr Cunningham here?’ I asked the man next to me urgently. He too had a short croppy haircut and wore the rags of a convict labourer.
‘He’s after getting us more weapons and volunteers from the farms around.’ This man’s accent was Irish, so strong it was hard to make out some of his words. ‘But it’s a good spot we have here. If the troopers come tomorrow, we can be seeing all the way down both roads from here, and isn’t a hill like this the perfect place to fight the enemy?’
‘You’ve fought before?’
He laughed. ‘Ye could be saying that. It’s at the Battle of Vinegar Hill I was, and skirmishes against the yeomanry,’ he spat. ‘At Clonmel. That’s where they were after catching me and himself too, all on the word of an informer, may his bones rot forever in the bog.’
‘Is himself Mr Cunningham?’
‘Who else would it be?’ I could see the croppy’s grin in the firelight. ‘He’s a grand leader, that one.’ He looked around the hill. ‘He who holds the high ground wins. It is easier to strike down than up. A man can win even against a man on horseback if he holds the high ground.’
Even as he spoke, a few more shadows moved up the hill to join us. Each spoke the password in the darkness: ‘Death or liberty.’
But too few, I thought. Mr Cunningham had said we’d be a thousand strong by Sydney Town. I reached out and touched the leg of one man who passed by. I vaguely recognised him. He’d been flogged soon after I’d come to Parramatta, two hundred lashes, and I’d dambled a pocketknife and a belt buckle in the crowd. You’ve got to be good to damble a belt buckle, slice the belt off first . . .
‘Is the fire lit yet at Parramatta?’ I asked.
The man shook his head. ‘Not when I left. I heard the news in the street.’ He moved over to another group of men.
‘Hungry, boy?’ asked the cove on the other side of me. He looked like a farmer, a ticket-of-leave man maybe. He even had proper boots and a hat.
‘Yes,’ I said.
He passed me something. I bit. A big hunk of bread and nice, greasy salt mutton. I ate it all and licked my fingers, then shook my head at an offered flask of rum. ‘Can I borrow your knife?’ I asked him. I had a knife, of course, but when you’re small it’s best not to let coves know it.
He looked at me suspiciously. ‘No man takes me knife. What do you want with it?’
‘To cut my hair short like a rebel.’
He laughed. ‘I’ll do that for you.’ He took out a long blade and began to cut my hair, lock by matted lock, so close I felt the breeze on my neck. I was a bit afraid he’d cut my ear in the darkness, but at last he put his knife away. ‘There. You’re looking like a proper rebel now.’
Suddenly the men behind me gave a ragged cheer. I turned. A tall figure climbed the hill, bigger than any man around, his arms laden with muskets. A small group of other men carried more weapons behind him.
‘Mr Cunningham!’ I cried. I surged to my feet and ran towards him, then stopped. Why should he even remember me?
He peered at me in the moonlight, then laughed. ‘Master Frog! And a croppy now too!’
I flushed at the name. I wished I’d pretended I had another name, a good rebel name like . . . I couldn’t think of one. I waited for the men around to laugh.
No one laughed. No one even paid much attention to me, intent as they were on sharing out the muskets, the bags of shot and powder.
‘Hoped you’d come, boyo,’ said Mr Cunningham. He clapped me on the shoulder. ‘It’s death or liberty tonight.’ He looked around, his voice growing louder: ‘We’ll make it liberty!’
‘Where are the others, man?’ asked someone urgently.
Mr Cunningham shook his head. ‘The messages must have been delayed. But sure, the other groups must be coming soon.’
‘No fire’s been lit at Parramatta,’ said the man I’d spoken to earlier. ‘The boy here said an informer ran from Castle Hill and gave the warning.’
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Mr Cunningham frowned. ‘That’s bad. The troops will be watching now for anyone who tries to light it. But if this lad has heard the news, it will spread fast enough. The Parramatta men will be here by the morning.’
He moved to talk to other men. I crept back to the fire and tried to listen to his voice among the others, planning, giving orders. Men slipped off into the darkness, to gather more weapons.
I dozed at last, and only woke when the man I had been leaning on stood up and stretched. ‘Sorry, boyo,’ he said as I blinked.
For a moment I wondered where I was. But there was the freedom fire, the bush and fields about us, the sky pale pink and grey with dawn, the white road stretching to Parramatta one way and the Hawkesbury the other. And all around me a grand company of rebels.
Now in the daylight I could see that most wore convictissue drab, but here and there were the leathers or bright shirts of men who might be farmers or tradesmen, and even suits like Mr Cunningham’s.
But not enough. Nor were there many faces I recognised from Parramatta. What had gone wrong?
I ran down to a clump of trees to relieve myself in private, then climbed the hill again. Men passed around sacks of food: damper bread, cheese and salt mutton. Each man sliced what he wanted and passed the sack on.
I took the sack in wonder. I had never seen food shared like this before. I pulled out my knife, not even afraid now that someone would grab it from me, and openly cut myself a hunk of meat, tore a damper loaf in half, then passed the sack to the man next to me.
I ate. I drank from the water bladders passed around too. Around me, men cleaned their muskets, checked them in ways I didn’t understand, and sharpened knives or pikes. A few men had swords.
‘Still here, Frog?’ It was Mr Cunningham. His eyes looked shadowed. I suspected he’d had no sleep, but they were still the brightest I had ever seen.
He grinned. ‘Look, men! Here’s the youngest rebel of them all.’
‘The lad can be our mascot,’ said a man behind me. He looked starved, with scars along both arms, but his eyes blazed with hope.
‘I can fight!’ I said, clenching my fists.
‘Give him a drum, and we can have a drummer boy out front,’ said someone else.
I drew out my knife. ‘I don’t know how to drum. But I can use this.’
A few men laughed. ‘Hark at the puppy!’ said one.
Mr Cunningham held up his hand. Silence fell across the hill. He turned to me. ‘Stay at the back, lad. A knife is no use against a sword. But when the soldiers fall, grab yourself a weapon.’
‘He’s too young. The lad should go back, sir,’ said an older man with the leathery skin and faded eyes of a sailor.
‘No!’ I began, then stopped as Mr Cunningham put his hand on my shoulder. I could feel its warmth.
‘What is better, to live as a slave or die fighting for freedom? When men tell the story of these days, would you have this lad say, “They sent me away because I was too young”?’
Mr Cunningham looked around the tattered army. ‘Each of you is here by free choice. Some of us will die today. Is there any one of you who would run, rather than die for freedom?’
No one spoke. No one even moved.
Mr Cunningham smiled and patted my shoulder again. ‘The lad stays.’ He turned and spoke more loudly to everyone on the hill. ‘But we need to fall back to Green Hills. We can’t take Parramatta yet. Once we join up with the Green Hills forces, we can march to the Hawkesbury, and hope the Parramatta men can find us there. But first . . .’ He bent his head, as if in prayer.
There was only birdsong in the distance. Men who’d been sitting stood.
‘Here, on this hill,’ cried Mr Cunningham, ‘I proclaim this land the Republic of New Ireland. From this day forth this land will have freedom from tyranny, justice for all men, equality for all.’
Suddenly we were cheering, clapping each other on the back. ‘An’ you’re our king!’ shouted someone. ‘King of New Ireland!’
Mr Cunningham smiled at that. But he shook his head. ‘We’ll have no kings here,’ he said. ‘Each of us is equal.’
But he is a king, I thought, watching him direct us into two columns. Every man here follows his orders just like he is a king.
He was getting the men to count the weapons now, making sure those in the front and behind had muskets in case we met the redcoats.
He had been up a full night and day, but he was tireless, moving along the ranks, a word here, a clap on the back there. Men looked brighter when he’d passed.
‘Ready, men? We march!’ cried Mr Cunningham.
Down the hill, still in our two lines, through the trees, away from Parramatta, across the fields. I couldn’t see my companions of the night. The men around me in the line now were sharp faced, skeletal. One had bloody wrists and ankles where he’d been recently chained. But still he marched, the thought of freedom perhaps giving strength even to his bones.
‘How you goin’, boyo?’ he asked, limping and panting a little with the effort.
‘I’m prime,’ I said, and I was too, with more food in me than I’d ever had and Mr Cunningham striding out ahead of us.
‘You’re looking none too flash,’ said a man nearby to the one with bloody wrists. ‘How many did they give you?’
‘A hundred lashes, two weeks ago it was, given in one lot. It was the Flogging Parson himself who ordered it.’
‘Aye, well, we’ll see how he likes being flogged when we take Sydney Town.’
The men around us gave a small cheer.
‘We’ll roast his sheep on the steps of Government House,’ said a croppy behind us.
‘Ah, I remember roast mutton,’ said another. ‘We had it at my wedding. Six year ago it was now, in the old country.’
‘Reckon the wife’ll be waitin’ for ye, Murphy?’ ‘Murphy’ was something they called all the Irish back then.
‘If she’s not starved, her and the bairn. She was expecting when they caught me. Haven’t heard since.’
‘So you’ll be wanting to ship home then?’
‘That I will,’ said the man called Murphy. ‘Forgot to sentence me, they did, bad cess to all o’ them, so I gets to spend all me days here. And you?’
‘Fourteen years I got, at Liverpool. Served three o’ them. But I won’t go back, not to fog an’ smoke an’ grime. I’ll be getting meself a little farm, and maybe a wife now the officers won’t be grabbing every woman for themselves.’
‘Maybe Ireland’s already free,’ said Murphy eagerly. ‘Takes months or years to get news here. We might sail back to find the English gone.’
‘And cows flying and pigs sitting up on bar stools,’ said the man next to me.
Men laughed, but good-naturedly. Murphy began to sing.
‘Oh, Paddy dear, did you hear the news that’s going ’round?
The shamrock is forbid by law to grow on Irish ground.
Saint Patrick’s Day no more to keep, his colour can’t be seen.
For there’s a law against the Wearing of the Green.’
‘That’s a grand song,’ called someone in front of us. ‘Keep singing, Murphy!’
‘It was sung after Vinegar Hill,’ said Murphy. He raised his voice.
‘I met with an old croppy, and he took me by the hand
And he said, “How’s poor old Ireland and how does she stand?”
“She’s the most distressful country that ever yet was seen
For they’re hanging men and women there for Wearing of the Green.”’
No one else seemed to know the words, but all around me, men clapped to the tune as Murphy sang.
‘Then since the colour we must wear is England’s cruel red,
Sure Ireland’s sons will ne’er forget the blood that they have shed.
You may pull the shamrock from your hat and cast it on the sod,
But ’twill take root and flourish there, though underfoot ’tis trod.
‘But if at last our colour shoul
d be torn from Ireland’s heart,
Her sons, with shame and sorrow, from the dear old Isle will part.
I’ve heard a whisper of a land that lies beyond the sea
Where rich and poor stand equal in the light of Freedom’s day.
‘Ah, Erin, must we leave you, driven by a tyrant’s hand?
Must we seek a mother’s blessing from a strange and distant land?
Where the cruel cross of England shall never more be seen,
And where, please God, we’ll live and die, still Wearing of the Green.’
Mr Cunningham had stalked back along the columns. He walked next to Murphy now. He nodded as the song ended. ‘We’re the land across the sea now!’ he yelled. ‘We’ll strike down the tyrant. And every year, on this day, I swear to all of you, each man in the Republic of New Ireland will be wearing of the green!’
A cheer rippled through the crowd, but a breathless one. It had been a long night, and a long march now. I wondered how much further we had to go. But I wasn’t going to stop, no matter how tired my legs became. Where Mr Cunningham marched, so would I.
The sun rose higher. We marched. We’d left the road now to go cross country. Men broke off at a pond to fill water flasks, then passed them around. I ate more bread and then some cheese. It still seemed strange how these men shared their food. Was this what Mr Cunningham had meant by ‘standing arm in arm’? If you shared the danger, shared your dreams, then I supposed you shared your food . . .
‘Men behind us!’
We stopped and turned. I tried to see between the others.
‘Friend or foe?’ called someone.
Mr Cunningham peered through the trees. ‘Soldiers!’ he yelled. ‘Muskets to the fore, men! Take aim!’
I wriggled back through the crowd to see men on horseback appearing through the trees, with others marching behind them. There were a lot of them, but more of us. I couldn’t count then, of course, but I’ve heard since there were sixty of them, and perhaps four times as many rebels.
‘Too soon to fight yet if we can avoid it,’ said Mr Cunningham grimly. ‘We need time till the other groups can join us. But we still outnumber them. Up that hill, men, then form two lines again. Musketeers in front, pistols and pikemen behind.’
The Secret of the Youngest Rebel Page 3