by Julie Janson
The captain seems to be unable to speak but Mary keeps up the translation: ‘When will more white men come? What do you want from us? Why do you pour over the earth like locusts? Do you want to kill him too?’
The chief motions to the captain and grins. He breaks a spear over his leg and throws it down. Mary stands with limp arms and he laughs at her. She is dumbstruck at his audacity and courage because she knows he may be shot at any moment. The captain stares in disbelief.
Then this great warrior chief is gone; he disappears like a wisp of smoke. He evaporates, leaving only mist hanging in the place where he stood. The earth has no footprint on it. Currawongs sing out in garbling voices.
The broken spear is a challenge for war. They stay for a few minutes then resume the senseless walking, with Mary lurching from tree to tree to keep her balance. The air is thicker than blood. The terrible fear of sudden death is upon them all. Mary knows the warriors are now waiting for the soldiers, waiting to kill them all. It gets late and the party rests. Some guard the horses, terror prickling their bodies. The moon is nearly full and the night is bright. It seems that an ambush is possible now from any side.
The tribal men attack with boondi and spears. There is dust and the stench of the horses’ fear as they are ridden into the oncoming spears. The chief throws a spear and, with deadly accuracy, it slams through a soldier’s chest. Another soldier tries to pull out the barbed point but it causes agony for the dying man. The soft flesh rips on the spear and blood spurts forth. Then, all at once, the native men have leapt down the nearby cliff and, with clubs raised, begin to beat the soldiers. Skulls are split open and brains spill out of their skulls like burst watermelons, while little white teeth are scattered in red pools of gore.
Then the noise of death as people are pushed over a rugged cliff. The warriors are losing the battle and she watches the fighting and hand-to-hand struggle at the edge of the precipice. It is pitiful and terrible.
Mary can hear the crows and the moaning of the wounded warriors and soldiers. She tries to give the wounded men water as their guts push out of the spear holes like little blind mice. Then suddenly, beside her, she sees an old native man who is dying, stretched across a dead soldier with a gaping hole in his shoulder. Shock rushes through her.
The old man opens his eyes and is startled. He smiles, he is with her, now at this moment when he will meet his spirit. She sings to him, humming a half-remembered song, and touches his face, cleaning the clay from his eyes. Her eyes are close to his now, keeping him awake in his pain. If she can pull him away from the dead man under him, she thinks she might be able to save him. Mary cradles his head and slides on her backside, pulling the heavy weight with her. She rips her dress and pushes the material into the gaping wound. If she can stop the blood he might live. The man lifts his head; he wants to speak. He is like her dead father.
However, Captain Woodrow has nearly completed the slaughter and he sees Mary helping the warrior. He crashes through the bush towards him, his sabre drawn. He seems intent on killing every Aboriginal warrior. Mary screams, trying to deflect the blow, but it is too late. The old man is dealt death’s promise as the sabre cuts through his neck. There is screaming now, and she bellows at the captain. She falls onto the man’s chest and is soaked in his blood. His eyes flutter then close. There is nothing she can do. She crawls into a low cave to find some shelter and waits for the horror to stop. The end has come.
Captain Woodrow stands still above the carnage and is wracked by sobs. There are countless dead warriors. His face transforms as he takes in the enormity of the scene. He tosses his sabre away and kneels on the stony ground and buries his face in his hands and prays.
…
Sitting in front of Mary’s cave is an old man kangaroo – seven feet tall. He scratches his chest with black claws and leans back grandly on his huge thick tail. He seems totally unafraid. His ears are erect and twitching. He might take Mary away, bouncing across the rocky escarpment. He watches Mary and then suddenly he is gone, leaping high over bushes.
In the evening, Woodrow lifts Mary out of the cave. She sits in desolation but the captain is businesslike. He commands the remaining twelve men to dig graves.
By the setting sun, the moaning has stopped and the last young wounded soldier has died. They press his eyelids closed and the others line up to pray. They dump the rest of the Aboriginal men’s bodies over the cliff and watch them tumble into the abyss.
The troopers move on and camp by a tall stone face surrounded by dripping water and maidenhair ferns. The horses are tethered and the exhausted men crouch over small fires. Captain Woodrow is now in a dangerous, simmering rage, capable of anything. He grabs Mary’s head and stares into her face. She is now chained by the neck all day with a hand-forged iron chain and hinged circular ring, its bolt strong but rusted.
‘Which way do we go? Up or down?’ demands Woodrow. ‘I think we must follow the creek and not the ridge, yes? Speak up!’
Mary does not reply.
…
At dawn, the captain is anxious to keep moving.
‘Creek better. Horses walk better,’ says Mary. The captain is looking at her with narrowed eyes.
‘Spare me your lying prattle. You are trying to trick me,’ says Woodrow. ‘You’re lying about the best way, aren’t you? Trying to protect murderers? You’re a savage and you want to help that murdering fiend!’ He twists her arm and pushes her against the rocks.
‘I hate you!’ She spits as he throws her to the ground.
‘You traitor!’ he says and strikes her across the face. ‘We shall traverse that ridge, not along the creek to the valley. Watch that you don’t break a horse’s leg. Go now! Our liberty is to be had. For Christ’s sake, be quiet.’
‘Let me go. You might get killed soon. Please, let me go,’ Mary whispers and her eyes beg.
‘You will come and see your handiwork. Push her along, Corporal. Our guide has done her duty for the King and she will be given to you and your men to pleasure yourselves. I have protected her too long.’
Mary wonders if she will have the power to stop an outrage on her body. The smell of these men is disgusting and they have bloodied clothes and will probably kill her afterwards. She imagines finding a sharp stick and hiding it.
Woodrow pushes her onto the track. She cries out ‘Cooee,’ again and again. She has warned her countrymen.
Suddenly there are screams and running, and a tumult of spears is thrown. They whistle through the air and slam into trees near the soldiers. The soldiers run and, with Mary dragged along beside them, keep moving until dusk. Mary sits by the trees and watches the fairy wrens in the grevillea bush. She can hear muttering curses. The air is thick with rage.
The corporal walks up to her and pulls back her hair, his fingers twisting the curls. He tugs as though he will pull the tendrils out. Her eyes are wild and she feels as strong as ten men. The corporal rips her dress from her upper body; Mary crawls along the ground and reaches out for a stick and with a ferocious force, she hits his head. He flinches and grins as she claws his flaying arms, like meat in her hands. Bloody and salty. He flinches and grabs his rifle, bashing the side of her head. Schreeching pain and knives of lightning rush through her head. She slumps against a tree and he ties her arms firmly behind her with rope and wraps it around the bark. She watches blankly as the captain walks off into a clearing, smoking a pipe. Laughter is behind her; she is waiting for the start of the terror. The soldier touches her and pulls her forward. A smack across her backside. Almost playful, then he pushes her face against the tree. The corporal whispers in her ear.
‘My strumpet!’
They move towards her, wanting vengeance and retribution on her poor body. They are laughing.
‘Heathen, savage!’
The men nearby watch and breathe hard and the corporal whispers that he loves her. His sweet words trickle in her ear.
‘I won’t let them hurt you. I might take you away and marry you. I like
black velvet ones. You want me, don’t you?’ The other men laugh. He nibbles her neck and she turns and bites his lip hard. Blood spurts out and he belts her across the face with his pistol.
They beat her with sticks and chains. The misshapen iron hangs by her face. Her tongue lolls against it. The corporal jerks his pizzle over her belly. Another man leans in, with his breeches around his knees; his bad breath clings to her hair like something dead, and she knows that if they rape her she will have to find each one and kill them.
The captain walks back to the clearing and sees the men standing over her limp form and curses, threatening them with his rifle. The men untie her and walk away and he yells after them, ‘Give her the shift to cover herself and leave her be. Haven’t we done enough?’
They are laughing. Someone throws a water bottle at her feet. The captain smokes a pipe and will not look at her. His head hangs low.
…
The first morning light glistens through the trees and smoke whispers over the sleeping soldiers. She has a stick poking in her back and the blanket is wet with dew; she has not slept. The night has been punctuated by sudden cries and she wonders if they are her own. Men have been crying in their sleep and the cries of baby animals echo in the gullies.
She is numb.
As she pulls the blanket tighter around her, she spots the glinting of a broken blade. She stretches the chain as far as it can reach. Her hand quivers as she snatches the blade and hides it in the blanket.
Squatting on her haunches, she pees behind the tree. She examines the lock that fastens the two chains. With the blade she might click it open; she is good at locks. There is a satisfying click.
Later, the corporal is near her again and untethers the chain. All the hatred and rage spills from her like vomit. She sticks the blade into his shoulder and they are bathed in torrents of blood that is so warm and so clean. He tries to throttle Mary, but the neck manacle is in his way. Now she can see her freedom and her face grimaces as he lets her go with a groan and his eyes roll. His body slumps and she presses the blade deeper into him and he screams.
She runs through the scrub as fast as she can, carrying the chain wrapped around her hand. She rushes through the bush, the tree branches tearing at her arms and legs as she stumbles and weeps and runs, running into the mist. Eaglehawks soar above her. They are lifting bits of human flesh into the blue sky. One drifts down to land beside her; the wedge of his tail is tipped in black; his head is smooth with pale flecked feathers like a cap. She asks him where she can run and he flies off on a rise of wind and she follows.
After a long rush through the undergrowth, Mary sees a rock shelter, and although she doesn’t know how deep or where it ends, she goes inside. There are drawings by her people here. It feels safe, like a nest with wombat fur and bat droppings. Axe grinding marks are along the sandstone at the back of the shelter, and she runs her finger in them, cleaning the grooves. She can lie down to rest. Some droplets of water collect in a trickle along the edge of the shelter and she puts out her tongue to drink them.
She will rest now and will seek cold vengeance when the moment comes. Her fingers caress the cuts and bruises on her body. She examines the grazing on her shoulders and knees and knows they will heal. She finds a tea-tree bush and makes poultices of its leaves and presses them against the worst of her wounds. She falls into a deep, healing sleep.
The next morning is warm, and sunlight dapples through leaves; honeyeaters dart through a grevillea bush. She can see the trail back to Windsor and her true country shining silver like a snail’s tracing. Her instinct will lead her along that blackfella path.
She scrapes wattle gum from a branch and stuffs gobs of it in her mouth. She eats raw tubers of daisy yams and sucks nectar from a waratah. She cups the water and slurps up the tadpoles from a small creek, then cleanses away the blood. A fig tree offers sweet sandpaper figs and she gorges on them and saves some in a piece of paperbark which she fashions into a bag with string of a vine. She makes a skirt of bark, and for a moment she is happy; it is quite stylish. The creek ends in a pond of purple lilies and she dives into the water to fetch lily bulbs to eat and chews on the crisp stems. She is full of food, but her bowels open in a sudden rush of stomach pain.
At sunset, crows sing out but she will not watch them fly into the sun; she remembers that this is forbidden, but cannot recall why.
She will go back to find Timmy. There is no other path. Dead men hang stinking on trees behind her and she knows that is not her destiny. She must keep walking. She wills herself to see her children laughing. She sees smoke cleansing the land.
In the night she sleeps fitfully under a rock crevice and wakes up, after nightmares, with a wombat calmly nosing her side.
After walking for three days, Mary is released from the manacle by a farmer who gives her a salve for her wounds and offers her his dead wife’s old house dress to wear. He sets a bowl of gruel in front of her and watches her eat. He is harmless and kindly. He waves her off with a supply of dry beef and damper and she tramps on her own all the way to Windsor and collapses at the South Creek Aboriginal camp.
…
On the return of Captain Woodrow from his expedition, Mary is not allowed to take back her son and is summoned from the Black’s camp to the Magistrate’s court. She is led away by police constables and is placed in a cell to await her punishment. Her name is called and she enters the court room full of trepidation.
The great wooden door opens and Captain Woodrow sits below the high bench of Magistrate Masters. Her face falls and she expects to be taken back to prison. They look at her and say nothing. Woodrow begins to laugh and he doubles over in mirth.
‘What is amusing, Captain?’ asks Masters.
‘The look on Mary James’ face. Like she is about to be drawn and quartered,’ says Woodrow. ‘I am exhausted by killing and do not want her charged,’ he continues.
Mary yells and points at the Magistrate.
‘I cannot be tried by him! He is a monster!’
Masters ignores the outburst.
‘Most unexpected, be quiet! But this is your call, Captain. I will not stand in the way of your kindness; I am not a cruel man. Why, she did endeavour on this occasion to do her best, eh?’ Masters also laughs.
‘I wish to speak,’ says Mary.
‘What it it?’ says Masters as he drinks a glass of brandy.
‘Are there no other magistrates in Windsor? You look too fat, Sir. Why are you always here?’ says Mary. ‘Why don’t you just send me to the pillory now? You, who have taken my child. I have been raped by the men in that regiment. Hit and chained.’
‘Quite so. Members of the regiment who carnally knew you or ravished you are less than pious in their inclinations when engaged in battle. But are they scoundrels? Captain?’ Says Masters.
‘She was ill used, Sir.’
‘Mary, you wish to make complaint?’ says Masters.
‘Yes. Most of all, I want my child back,’ she says.
‘So you want a reward for your service and silence?’ says Masters.
‘Would it help me to make complaint?’
‘No,’ says Masters.
He taps his gavel, drinks more brandy and twitches his beard.
‘You come hither and thither – I am at a loss,’ he says.
‘The expedition was a success in its punitive endeavours but at considerable cost to my men. I regret the miserable events and I am weary of death. I would have her pardoned,’ says Woodrow.
‘She can go? But your corporal has a wound inflicted by her, does he not?’ asks Masters.
‘He carnally knew her and she fought back. He has but a scratch inflicted by a much-abused woman,’ says Woodrow.
‘A scratch, a tiny scratch,’ adds Mary.
‘Is that true, Captain?’
‘Let her go, Sir. I am nearly fifty. These proceedings are of little consequence in the greater world. Enough is enough,’ says Captain Woodrow.
Mary looks at
the captain and he pulls at his collar. But he will not look into her eyes.
‘Farewell, Mary. I hope your life will be better. The truth to tell, I admire your spirit, and I am too old to care too much what happens any longer to this colony. I am off to the subcontinent,’ says Woodrow.
Masters taps his gavel and clears his throat.
‘Mary James, I have your son, little Timmy, nearby for you. He shall be the reward for your compliance, and your precious violin and bow as well,’ says Masters. ‘Now, let your sable friends know that we waibalas are not unkind. Captain Woodrow has been very benevolent towards you, even if you do not recognise it as such. We can see when a favour has been attempted and, although you failed to help with our total conquest of your brethren, we will give you back your child. You may go freely about your business.’
Masters has Timmy brought into the courtroom. He runs tearfully to his mother and hugs her legs. He is healthy and at ease.
‘You can take your little sad canoe and I will give you some supplies, clothes and whatnot. I am not a cruel person. One wonders what will become of you. I feel that we shall meet again and you may be doomed to one day face the gallows, for you are too rebellious,’ says Masters.
Woodrow unwraps a brown paper parcel and hands a teddy bear to Timmy. The child laughs and holds it up to his mother. Woodrow then passes her a small purse of coins. She tucks it in her dress and turns her back on the captain, who leaves the room. She is free.
Mary pushes the thoughts around her head, wondering if people like Masters could change and become better or fairer and less ridiculous. Of course she feels herself growing into a fiercer woman. She could stand up to a bully or shoot him. She knows a bit about muskets now, so having one might be useful. Her rage will keep. She dreams of revenge, simple payback for her torture.
…
Over the coming months, Mary and Timmy make a living performing with her fiddle, playing some songs and jigs at town markets along the Deerubbin, the Hawkesbury River. Each week she travels from Gentleman’s Halt to the small river settlement of Spencer where she collects supplies.