English passengers

by Matthew Kneale

  Tartoyen looked up, like dark clouds had passed. ‘‘Let’s find some more game.’’

  So he and some others went away to hunt. The rest of us started collecting wood for that fire. All was quiet and people were just doing ordinary things, like everything was the same, but of course it wasn’t really. I couldn’t forget Mongana’s mother’s words, saying how Mother wanted to kill me, or the way they all looked at me like I was different from them. When others weren’t watching, I suddenly walked away, but slow, as if I must go pissing or so. Once I was out of their sight I started running. Away I went, faster and faster, till it was as if the trees and bushes were running too, and wind was on my face, and ground could hardly even happen quick enough to catch my feet, and I felt good right through to my bones to be getting away. Down a valley I went, jumping across a small stream, then up that other side and on, till I was gasping and my heart was clapping faster than the rain. Even then I never stopped, but I ran through trees and bushes that cut my legs, hither and thither, till finally I could go no further, and I dropped down by that old log.

  So I lay there, waiting. Of course I never had been all alone before and soon it was curious. Everything was so still. I lay by the log and listened to birds singing and trees moving and they all seemed very loud. By and by my heartfelt desire was for Tartoyen and Grandmother and others to come and find me, and to be piss-poor sorry for what they said, crying and telling me Mother never wanted to kill me after all, which was just lies. Yes, and they could give Mongana and his mother some grievous blows besides, very hard. So it would be almost as if nothing ever happened after all, and those dread feelings deep inside my breast could just go away.

  But that was one vain hope. There were no footsteps, no shouts. Nothing happened at all, except for flies biting and birds calling. Finally it got dark and I knew they wouldn’t come. Suddenly I detested them so I hardly cared that I was alone and had no fire. I even wanted kanunnah to come with his long ugly head and kill me with his teeth. Or Wraggeo-wrapper to drop down from the trees and make me go mad. Truly, I didn’t give one scut about either.

  But kanunnah and Wraggeowrapper didn’t come. In fact nothing happened. I just fell asleep.

  Next day everything was just the same except that I decided to die. I ate nothing and drank nothing and made myself a good bed to die on, out of moss and grass and fern leaves, just beside the log. Then I waited. But it’s not so easy just to die like that. I was itchy where the flies bit and the bushes scratched, and my hands wouldn’t keep still. Also I couldn’t decide whether to die lying on my side or on my back. Till finally it was dark, and again I fell asleep.

  Then, on the third day, something most curious and confounding happened. I awoke and it was just getting light, with a red sky like blood. I was thirsty and hungry. But most of all, even though nothing was new, I got blissful, so much that it was as if I never had been blissful before. Why, I felt weak as if I was crook with some great good fortune and tidings of joy, and it wouldn’t let me keep still so my hands were shaking. That was one puzzle to confound. I wanted to shout and surprise the trees and biting flies. I wanted to be alive whatever Mongana or his mother said. I wanted to be alive even if no single pisser in all the world, friend or hated foe, wanted me to be alive. That still does confound me even in these long-after days, when all the world is so changed. Perhaps it was just because I was so hungry. Or it was that I had discovered my special skill, which was to endure. For that was surely what I had found.

  So I decided to go and find the others, as I never even hated those buggers anymore. Not that this was easy. It was some time since I ran away to that log and even then I paid piss-poor heed whither I was going, while this part of the world was all forest, and thick too, so I never could see any hill or rock or other friendly thing to tell me the way. Those trees were worrisome. One moment I would think I knew them, and was saved, then I would see they were telling grievous falsehoods and were just different trees making themselves look the same. Also I felt light in my head from being hungry so my feet kept catching the ground and making me stumble.

  Finally I reached a path, and though I didn’t recognize which one it was I saw there were footmarks. They looked fresh, just a day or so old, and were enough for all my ones, which was interesting, so I followed, pondering what I would say to them all when I found them, and what they would say to me. I never had been alone like this before and now I felt very brave. I followed them until I could hear birds fighting, which meant something bad, so I went carefully. Sure enough, just ahead that path went into a big clearing and there, looking through leaves, I saw a big crowd of birds, pecking and tugging. It was those three ghosts they were eating. They had spears in them, plenty of them, and were in different places in that clearing as if they tried to run away. So now I knew you could kill them even though they were dead. Why, I felt a little sad for them, though they ate our meat and caused me so much heinous trouble. I threw a stone and made the birds go away, though they just went a short way off, jumping and waiting.

  This was a puzzle to confound. Tartoyen let them go away before, saying we must hunt game instead, so who speared them like this? I went close to look, as it was interesting even after what the birds did. Are you Father? I did ponder. Or you? One had hair just like mine, and when I touched this it felt the same too. Another still had one eye, which was blue as cold days’ sky. Then, when I touched their skin, which was the colour of stone, I saw that it was not really their skin at all but a false one. Beneath was real and this was pale like their raw meat faces. At least my skin was human colour.

  Though it was interesting I was too hungry to stay long. So I threw another stone at the birds and then went on along the path again, following those footmarks. Then, by and by, I smelt a smell, which was the best, finest and most delicious smell, of smoke from a campfire, where meat might be cooking. When you are hungry as piss, your nose will find it, yes, though it comes from behind whole mountains. Hunger makes your eyes tired, you see, and your ears too, but your nose is cleverer than ever.

  Well, that smell gave me strength to make my tired feet walk onwards, till I reached the top of a hill, and there, rising up from the forest, I saw a thin stick of smoke. That was great good fortune and tidings of joy. Yes, I thought, now I am saved. So down I ran, fast as the wind.

  George Baines, Employee of the New World Land Company 1828

  Dearest Father,

  I am sadly conscious of the many weeks that have passed since I wrote to you last, and hope you will not think your son neglectful, but you will know how infrequently a boat is sent from this most remote of places. As to my news, I know hardly where to begin, so great have been the changes to the settlement— and to my own circumstances—that have occurred. I cannot say all has been easy. Often have I thought of you, gazing upon a class of pupils through your spectacles, so stern and wise, and always knowing, with such seeming ease, what is right.

  The final journey from Hobart town—which is hardly more than a sprawling seaport village—was less bad than I had feared, and I was not nearly so seasick as I was coming from England. More troubling altogether was the state of the settlement that was to be my new home. While I knew this had been in existence hardly a year, still I was taken aback by what I found. Aside from Company House, which had been brought down in pieces especially from England, and seemed quite splendid, all the rest was composed of the simplest bark huts, without even floorboards or plasterwork to keep out the wind. I did my best to accept this simplicity without complaint, but to think instead of my enthusiasm for the prospects of this great new company, and my own part within it, until, as winter turned to spring and the winds began to grow kindlier, I became gradually quite accustomed to my primitive little home. I also became more used to the landscape. This is never Dorset, being in every way wilder and less formed, yet it is not without its own charm. I developed a particular affection for the eucalyptuses, that are known here as gum trees. These grow in profusion and possess a won
derful lightness of colour—the way their delicate leaves flutter in the breeze quite raises the spirit—while their tangy scent seems the very essence of this strange land.

  The other company men were friendly enough for the most part. The stockkeepers, who are the foot soldiers of the establishment, and are a tough breed, treated me with more charity than they treated each other, I imagine on account of my youth, and they even gave me a nickname, ‘‘the Little Preacher,’’ because I seemed so serious of expression. It became something of a joke that I wished to reform their ways, which, of course, was far beyond my intention, and even Mr. Charles, the chairman, joined in the game. ‘‘Still not got them singing hymns, Mr. Baines?’’ he would call out when he passed me.

  I was assigned as an assistant to Mr. Pierce, the company agriculturist. This man was not greatly liked within the settlement, and the stockkeepers in particular made no secret of the fact that I had, as they put it, ‘‘drawn the short straw, ’’ talking of Mr. Pierce as ‘‘a strange one’’ and ‘‘not right in his head. ’’ I remained reluctant to give credence to such views, considering it was better to make my own opinion of the man-this being a course you yourself have always advocated-though I confess I found Mr. Pierce did seem a most curious fellow. His face was usually graced with fowns and looks of puzzlement, as if he was too much given to thinking for his own good. He seemed to have as little time for the others as they had for him, though towards myself he was always kindly and patient. My duties mostly took the form of accompanying him on tours of inspection, walking across the company lands to visit the various stockkeepers and attending to any animals that were sick. These walks could be tiring, especially when the weather was bad-which it so often is here-but they were a most effective means of learning about my adopted home, there being, I believe, no better way to get to know a land than to walk across it, feeling its earth beneath your feet and smelling its scents.

  It was on my second such expedition that we came upon some of the Van Diemen’s Land natives. We were crossing an area of open grassland when we caught sight of some sixty of the fellows idling beside a campfire, and I must tell you they were quite the strangest creatures I have ever set eyes upon. They were tall, and some might have even have called them handsome in their savage way, though all, male and female, were in a state of utter nakedness. If their appearance were not startling enough it was rendered more so by the curious way they arranged their hair: the men had theirs stained with some form of red-coloured substance, so it fell in thick strands, lik scarlet ropes, while the women kept their heads close-shaven so they were almost hairless (a style which could hardly have been described as ladylike).

  I would gladly have kept a good distance from the creatures. Mr. Pierce, however, insisted on approaching them-he claimed to have done so several times before, without ever suffering injury-while I, as his assistant, had little choice but to follow. In the event, fortunately, they proved friendly enough in their way, even giving us some meat from a wallaby they had killed and cooked upon their fire, and which did not taste so bad as one might think. Mr. Pierce, who had learned some of their names during his earlier encounters, insisted we remain sitting with them for a good while, even to the neglect of our work, as he attempted to learn words of their language. If truth be told I was more than a little impatient to leave. There seemed no knowing what really lay in their thoughts as they sat around us, so strange and numerous, sometimes touching my hair or my clothes to satiate their curiosity. For all I knew they might be secretly planning to murder us with their spears, which they had with them in great quantity, and which were fearsome instruments, light yet sharp as needles, so they looked as if they would pierce thickest leather.

  When we finally walked back through the rain Mr. Pierce would talk of nothing else but what capital fellows they were. I believe I had never seen him so animated, indeed, clapping his large hands in the air with excitement. I even found his excitability a little troubling. Curious though the natives might be, they hardly seemed the chief concern of a company officer with duties to perform. His partiality would, I believe, have been of less concern to me had it not been for the antagonism between himself and the stockkeepers. As we walked, he insisted on confiding in me that he thought them ‘‘ruffians’’ who ‘‘belonged in gaol.’’ Hearing the man’s resentment of his fellows, I could not help but wonder if, in some strange way, his lonely enthusiasm for the natives was another expression of this same antipathy. It was a thought that I kept to myself.

  It was not long afterwards that I came down with a fever that confined me to my hut. Mr. Charles, the company chairman, and his wife could not have been kinder. They came to visit several times when I was bad, Mrs. Charles bringing me soup to help keep up my strength, and insisting that if I was not better directly I should come and stay in Company House. This was a most generous thought. The building would probably seem of little account to you, Father, who are quite spoiled for architecture, but the longer I remained in the settlement, the finer it appeared, with its verandah and hallway and glass in every window. It was, indeed, the one object that gave our rough settlement an aura of civilization. In the event I soon began to improve, and so never had need to stay there, and yet I do believe the very thought of this grand and kindly sanctuary helped greatly in my recovery.

  Then one afternoon, as I was sitting on a log outside my hut, convalescing in the spring sunshine, I heard shouting and, glancing up, I saw a most curious sight. Into the settlement was striding Mr. Pierce, before him Higgs and Sutton, two of the stockkeepers. Mr. Pierce was quite white with fury, and was driving the pair like some angry dog herding sheep, while they cursed as only stockkeepers know how. As Mr. Pierce passed, he waved at me to follow, which I did readily enough-being more than a little curious-to the door of Company House. Mr. Charles emerged to find himself the adjudicator of a most heated discussion. Mr. Pierce, quite stuttering with anger, claimed that he had found the bodies of two aborigines, both of them buried-though poorly-within fifty yards of the stockkeepers’ hut. Examining these he had found them both to have been shot to death. What was more, he claimed on several previous occasions to have seen the two stockkeepers trying to tempt native women into their hut in a way that he claimed would certainly have provoked their menfolk.

  ‘‘They’re murderers, nothing less, ’’ he exclaimed, ‘‘and they must be taken to Hobart as murderers and hanged. ’’

  Higgs and Sutton were equally vehement in their denials, insisting that they had seen several wild-looking men who they supposed must be runaway convicts, and that these must have been responsible. This seemed hardly a very plausible claim. It was true that there is a penal colony on this side of the island at Macquarie Harbour, to the south along the coast, and it was likewise true that convicts have been known sometimes to escape, yet the distance is great and the terrain notoriously difficult, and as far as is known all escapees had either returned voluntarily or perished of cold and want. It was far more likly that the stockkeepers had killed the blacks. While I felt sympathy for Mr. Pierce, I am afraid his wild talk of hanging hardly added to his case. The two wanted teaching a good lesson, certainly, but they were men we all knew.

  Mr. Charles did his best to calm matters. ‘‘I have made it clear before now I will not permit cruelty to the native population, ’’ he insisted, ‘‘and this will be lookd into with the utmost care. ’’

  It seemed a most reasonable reply and yet Mr. Pierce still remained unsatisfied. ‘‘They will be dismissed?’’

  Mr. Charles considered this hardly proper. ‘‘They have not been proved guilty and so must have a right to be considered innocent. ’’

  His answer elicited a little nod of thanks from the two.

  In truth I suspected the chairman’s thoughts were less concerned with principles of justice than the needs of the settlement, there being already barely enough men to kep all in order. Mr. Pierce, though, showed little interest in such practicalities. He grew red in the face and began
shouting quite needlessly, stammering that this was, ‘‘evil permitted, which is no better than evil done.’’ Such language was hardly respectful, and yet Mr. Charles took it calmly enough, reminding him that it was several weeks before the next boat from Hobart was due, and suggesting that we all attempt to forget the matter until then.

  In the event, this proved hardly possible, as only a few days later matters took quite another turn, when one of the stockkeepers observed a group of blacks deliberately killing some of the sheep. He tried to scare them away, only to himself receive a slight spear wound to the leg. Thirty-five animals were butchered that day, while by the end of that week we had lost a further sixty-four. Our entire herd numbered fewer than five hundred, all of which had been brought hither with the greatest difficulty and expense. What was more, we were expecting the ship Champion to arrive direct from England within the next two months, bringing animals of a type not yet to be found in Van Diemen’s Land, and which were intended as breeding stock. Their loss was not to be contemplated.

  The days which followed were tense indeed. Mr. Charles was often to be seen strolling through the settlement, his fine, noble brow furrowed with worry. He took what measures he could. All were instructed to carry arms at all times, and two men were posted to guard the settlement day and night. The animals and stockkeepers were all moved northwards, closer to the settlement, so that they could be more easily safeguarded: an arrangement that could of necessity only be temporary, the grassland being of limited extent. Such precautions would seem nothing less than essential and yet, I am sad to say, there remained one officer who insisted, and loudly so, that they were wholly misguided: Mr. Pierce. It was as if the man deliberately sought ever greater extremity of opinion, until he could be satisfied by nothing short of plain wrongheadedness. He even opposed the requirement that weapons be carried at all times, his justification being that this was in itself a form of provocation. His suggestion was that we should instead endeavour to communicate with the natives, and persuade them of our regret at what had occurred, while he even offered to go himself, and try and use the few words of their language he had learned. Mr. Charles was not persuaded, needless to say, having the wisdom to see that such behaviour would win nothing more peaceable than a shower of spears.