English passengers

by Matthew Kneale

  ‘‘Ah, you have us now, Mr. Bowles,’’ I said sadly.

  ‘‘I should confiscate your ship and cargo, so I should, as Her Majesty’s property.’’

  For all his stern voice the word I heard strongest was ‘‘should,’’ and sweet it sounded. ‘‘The right you are,’’ I agreed. ‘‘Though it does seem a shame, when I’m sure Her Majesty has enough brandy and tobacco to last her nicely.’’

  He should’ve bit me hard for that, but instead he softened a scran. ‘‘This is your first visit to Port Phillip?’’

  ‘‘That it is.’’

  ‘‘Hmmm.’’ Down went the barrel of his pistol to point at the sand, as he pretended to have a little wonder with himself. ‘‘I should lock you up this instant, so I should. But the fact is I don’t like to be too hard on fellows for one mistake. You don’t seem beyond reformation.’’

  I followed his lead. ‘‘You couldn’t be more right, Mr. Bowles. Why, we’d none of us have dreamed of doing such things if our families had not all been starving nearly to their deaths.’’ Was it money he was after? I hoped not, as we had hardly a penny left.

  ‘‘But even if I could treat you with generosity, there’s still the problem of what should be done with your cargo. I must do my duty.’’

  So that was what he wanted. This would be easier. ‘‘Ah, the hard it is.’’

  ‘‘It’s too late to declare it now, as the documents have all been written and signed.’’ He frowned. ‘‘And yet I would like to help you out if I can.’’

  ‘‘The ones back home would be so grateful to you. Why, they’d be smiling and weeping right down to the littlest poor babby.’’

  Now he was shaking his head and bothering that cheating Englishman’s head of his with playing thinker. ‘‘I suppose there is a certain party I know who might just be kind enough to dispose of your cargo quietly, just to keep you out of gaol. Though it would be doing you a great favour, and would be more than a little dangerous for me.’’

  Prices. He was talking prices. All at once we were stepping out of the ooze and onto firm land. Before long he’d blurted a number, this being-just by purest chance—the very amount that was weighing down our friend with the sack. This number was hardly good compared to the glittering sum that Fields had tempted us with, but still it was hardly so terrible either, being a little more than I’d have expected in Maldon, and far and above the bagful of nothing at all that I’d been looking at two moments before. Brandy and tobacco must be fetching handsome sums in this part of the world.

  ‘‘I must warn you, though, that this certain party will accept no bargaining,’’ Bowles growled.

  I was in no mood to play greedy. ‘‘Whatever you say, Mr. Bowles.’’

  With that we were done. As the five of us began walking back towards the boat, the lamp playing on the sand ahead of our feet, my thoughts were looking onwards, having a quick wonder at this weight of gold we’d now be getting—shrunken though it was—and trying to guess how far it would reach. It would keep the ship afloat and the crew fed for a decent while, no doubting, and give us a mighty bit of spare besides. Of course, a ship is hardly much use without cargo. That took me onto thinking what manner of goods—even legal goods—might be worth carrying from this Victoria, or Tasmania, back to where we’d come from. Grain, perhaps? There’d be debts to pay, for sure, but if I added in the last part of the charter fee we were owed by the Englishmen, then it didn’t look so ugly.

  I got no further with my wondering. Without any warning all at once there were fellows jumping out of the dark, and something long—an oar—swung in to my right, catching Bowles on his head, so his pistol dropped clean out of his hand. In the same instant Fields was knocked down to my left. The next thing I knew the lamp had been hurled to the ground, casting all into nearly full darkness, and I heard footsteps dashing away.

  ‘‘You all right, Captain?’’ There was no missing the whine of Kinvig’s voice, which sounded pleased with itself as a voice can be.

  He wasn’t smirking for long, mind. ‘‘You stupid dirt of a one. What did you have to go and do that for?’’

  That had him all amazed, like the dog that’s been kicked for bringing back the stick. ‘‘They were customs, weren’t they?’’ he whined. ‘‘The one with the beard, and holding a pistol, too.’’

  The little fool that he was. I looked round through the gloom. ‘‘Where’re the other two of them gone?’’

  Vartin Clague, who was Kinvig’s helper in this fine cleverness, gave a kind of shrug. ‘‘They ran off.’’

  What luck we were having. ‘‘Ah,’’ I told him, as if it was a fine proper joke. ‘‘So they ran off did they? The one with the lamp and also the one with the bag full to the brim with gold.’’

  That was news to Kinvig. ‘‘Gold?’’

  ‘‘That’s right. The gold that our friend Bowles was going to give us till you had the clever notion of batting him on the head.’’ Picking up the lamp, I had a quick glance about the beach but there was no sign of either. They’d be well gone by now.

  ‘‘I was trying to save us.’’ Kinvig sounded hurt, like the child that’s blamed for what baby broke. ‘‘Didn’t you say we should keep an eye out?’’

  I had a peer at Bowles and Fields. Both were breathing—which was something, at least—though they were out cold. Even if they came to, I doubted they’d feel like trading now. Still I felt we should tell them it wasn’t us had their jink. ‘‘Fetch some water.’’

  Kinvig filled the boat’s bucket with seawater and dropped it over them. Not that it did any good. Now they were just the same as before but wet.

  ‘‘We could wait, I suppose,’’ said Clague.

  The more I looked at them, the more I saw trouble. What if Bowles turned nasty—as well he might—and tried to arrest us? We’d have to knock him down all over again.

  ‘‘Perhaps we should just go.’’ Kinvig was looking scared. ‘‘Weigh anchor and get away from this place.’’

  Even that wasn’t so easy. ‘‘What about Mr. Robins, all ready with his cutter and his soldiers and his cannon at the Heads? Won’t he find it strange if we come sailing up without our Englishmen aboard? Strange enough to hold us and search us and perhaps ask his chief what to do.’’

  The little gorm had never thought of that, of course. The more I looked at this, the less I liked what I saw. Whatever we did was taking chances, but we couldn’t stay here, that was sure. If we could get back to Melbourne and collect the Englishmen, that would be something. Even that would take time, though. ‘‘Get some cord,’’ I told them.

  In a few moments they were trussed nicely. I didn’t want to set Bowles against us any more than was needed, so I had them dragged back to the shelter and leaned against a wall, where they’d be out of the sun. Even that didn’t seem quite enough, though. ‘‘Fetch them a cask of water from the boat, and some ship’s biscuit too.’’ So we arranged these in front of them, all tidy, like a poor man’s picnic. Lastly I wrote a note-unsigned—telling how it wasn’t us who had their gold, but the body that had run off which I put in Bowles’s pocket. Then we clambered back into the boat and rowed away for all we were worth. Brew and the rest were leaning over the side with their rifles as we pulled near.

  ‘‘You’ve been so long, Captain. Whatever happened?’’

  ‘‘We’re raising anchor.’’

  My hope was that Bowles wouldn’t think to kick up a fuss, seeing as he’d been cheating himself My fear was he’d be so riled at us that he’d be past caring (I did wish we’d not thought to douse him with seawater so). Either way it could do us no harm to put a few hundred miles between him and us, and as fast as we might. I dare say there’s nothing to make a journey feel slow than knowing a handful of minutes may mean the difference between gaol and freedom, but still it did seem as if everything that might think of holding us back did just that. Raising anchor can be a troublesome business on the best of days, but this time it was as if we’d dropped it into some
hole half as deep as hell, and it took an age and a half of shouting and heaving at the capstan before the Sincerity was finally freed. Then there was the breeze to fight, this being less friendly to us now we were journeying back the other way. Finally even the moon left us, skulking away behind a cloud, and it got so dark that we were using lead lines to keep from running clean aground. It was nearly dawn before the boats hauled us back up the river. Luckily Melbourne seemed still sleeping, and I saw nobody watching us as we tied up at our berth of the day before. I had half been expecting a crowd of customs and police and such waiting there to shout us hello.

  I called over to Kinvig. After his fine cleverness with the oars he’d be catching every piece of rotten dogsbody work that was in, from finding passengers to polishing the pigs’ backsides. ‘‘Go over to the Englishmen’s hotel and catch them back here. Wake them from their beds if need be.’’

  Away he crept, cowed as could be.

  After that there was nothing to be done but wait. Having been awake all through the night, I thought I might as well go below and try and catch a few moments’ rest. Not that it was easy. The sun was up now, heating the air dank so my clothes clung, while there’s nothing like needing sleep to chase it away. Mostly I just lay there, rolling and twisting like a herring landed on the deck. I must have slipped off in the end, though, as I was woken by a loud banging that sounded like something being heaved over the stairs away forwards. There was a good murmuring of voices spilling down from the deck. At first I was well pleased, supposing the Englishmen and their luggage were coming aboard. It was only when I’d got up from the bed and had myself a stretch that I got to wondering. The banging shouldn’t have been coming from forwards, you see, as that was the fo’c’sle. I thought I’d best take a look. It was as well I did. The first thing I saw as I clambered onto the deck was Ritchie Moore, the sailmaker, and three others of the crew besides, all stood on the old wrecked vessel we were tied to, with their sea chests at their feet, all set to go. It didn’t take book learning to know what was going on here. Like so many rats they were, fleeing away at this little scran of trouble we’d found. What was worse they were cooing at the rest to follow.

  ‘‘Don’t be scared. Come along with us, why don’t you, and dig yourselves a fortune of gold.’’

  ‘‘Get back here,’’ I shouted.

  Ritchie Moore just cackled.

  That was when I got another little surprise, which was chief mate Brew. There he was, on the quarterdeck, looking on smooth and calm as if he was the emperor’s uncle, and doing not a thing to help. ‘‘Why in seven heavens didn’t you wake me?’’ I called out.

  He never even looked shamed. ‘‘I was just going to, Captain.’’

  I guessed his thinking well enough, besides. The little sleetch was weighing up whether to join the others and run. Here was a fine little prospect. If I wasn’t careful I’d lose the whole lot of them, and find myself stranded completely, to be hurled by Australian Englishmen into some gaol, while the Sincerity slowly rotted away like all those other vessels.

  Not that I was one to give up without a fight.

  The Reverend Geoffrey Wilson DECEMBER 1857

  THE CAPTAIN was developing a most unwelcome habit of demanding we leave port at only a moment’s notice. On this occasion his messenger was the little second mate, Kinvig, and a most uncivil sort of messenger he was, too, banging rudely on our doors to rouse us. This may have been merited with regard to Potter—and it certainly was for Renshaw—but it was hardly necessary for myself as, being always an early riser, I was already dressed, and even writing an entry in my diary.

  ‘‘Another unmissable wind, I suppose,’’ I told the fellow, with some coolness, in answer to his impatient demand that I make myself ready to leave.

  ‘‘That’s it. You’re all to come at once.’’

  ‘‘What about breakfast?’’

  ‘‘There’s no time for that.’’

  A man of gentleness I may be, but there are some matters on which I simply will not be bullied, and breakfast is one such, especially when, as in this case, I would be required to pay for the meal in full whether I had it or not. I dug in my heels, informing Kinvig that I was not prepared to throw good money away merely because of some shipboard whim, and when he continued to protest I settled the question—rather neatly, as it seemed to me—simply by taking my place at the dining table, and letting him know that if he did not leave me in peace I would order extra eggs.

  If truth be told the prospect of departure was, for all its suddenness, not entirely unwelcome. Though we had been in port only three days I felt already impatient to leave. The detour caused by the difficult sea currents had been no small one and, in view of Dr. Potter’s scheming, I was much concerned by the thought of how many days, or even weeks, might have been lost to us. Nor was it as if our halting place held much charm. I do not believe that I had ever found myself in a spot so wholly lacking in any sense of the spiritual as Melbourne town, where there seemed only one subject that attracted men’s attention. When, at dinner in our lodgings, I thought it might be of interest to our fellow guests to tell them of our expedition, their only response was to wonder why I was not remaining in Victoria, so I might apply my knowledge of geology to a search for gold. As if there is not greater wealth to be found than mere mineral. When I endeavoured to explain that my purpose was of an altogether higher kind, they displayed little less than rudeness, turning to one another so they might renew their dismal chatter about prices and diggings.

  My two colleagues, astonishingly, appeared to like the town. Ren-shaw, as ever, vanished on the first evening, and the next (I attempted to have words with him, though he insisted he had merely been enjoying the town’s sights, while there was nothing I could prove). As for Potter, he too was rarely to be seen, except impatiently hurrying in or out. I had little notion as to what he was preoccupying himself with until that same morning when the second mate Kinvig came banging on our doors, demanding that we must hurry back to the ship. My breakfast had just been brought when Potter and Renshaw came clumping down the stairs, both looking pale and peeved at being roused from their beds (though I felt full of brightness). The doctor was arguing with Kinvig as he approached.

  ‘‘But this is quite impossible. I have half a dozen packing cases still to collect, all paid for. Also there is Hooper, my manservant. It will take an hour at least to fetch him.’’

  ‘‘Your what?’’ I must confess to feeling more than a little annoyed. It was typical of Potter to arrange such a thing, without so much as consulting myself though I was the chief of this expedition. It had been clearly agreed in London that we would all of us forgo the comfort of servants during the sea journey, as neither the size of the ship nor the funds available to the expedition would permit such a thing, and yet, when I reminded him of this fact, he was quite unabashed.

  ‘‘We’ve reached Australia, have we not? The sea journey is all but over. You needn’t worry, Vicar. Hooper’s wages shall be paid from my own pocket.’’

  If I had known he was planning such a thing I would certainly have hired a servant myself if simply to maintain the dignity of my position as leader. Now there was no time. ‘‘That’s as may be,’’ I told him firmly. ‘‘There may not be quarters for him aboard the ship. No, I will certainly have to raise this matter with Captain Kewley.’’

  That brought a scowl from the doctor, but there was little he could do, being so plainly in the wrong. In the meantime a cab had been sent for the man, and to collect the doctor’s packing cases, all of which took no little time, causing Mr. Kinvig to fidget greatly. I had assumed the packing cases would be nothing more than simple luggage containers to ease his travel, but instead no fewer than six wooden boxes appeared, each of them of the bulkiest dimensions.

  ‘‘What on earth are these for?’’ I asked.

  ‘‘My medical specimens.’’

  My patience was wearing thin. ‘‘You should have sought my permission before you purchase
d them. The ship’s hold may be full.’’

  Do you know, he even stamped his foot. The man simply lacked all sense of respect. ‘‘But we all know it’s empty.’’

  I would not be browbeaten. ‘‘That we shall have to wait and see.’’

  It was soon afterwards that his new servant, Hooper, finally arrived. Though Potter attempted to sing the man’s praises, claiming that he had been in the employ of an eminent doctor colleague of his living in Melbourne, I found him hardly prepossessing. His clothes were poor, while he was possessed of a coarseness, and an aura of thwarted discontent, that led me to assume he had been lured to Melbourne in search of gold and had met with little success. I had found a cart to convey us to the ship, though the packing cases being so oversized, this proved hardly adequate for our needs. Hooper, the driver and second mate Kinvig struggled to load everything aboard, but I’m afraid they did a poor job, and I had to endure a most uncomfortable journey, one of the boxes digging painfully into my back. All in all I was more than a little stiff by the time we finally drew up beside the Sincerity.

  The ship, I was surprised to see, was entirely prepared to depart, with two boats already lowered, waiting to pull her from her berth. Curiously enough, the wind, which Kinvig had said was so unmissable, was not strong at all, blowing in light gusts. I could only suppose that the Captain had been concerned it might die away altogether. He seemed, certainly, in a most impatient and distracted frame of mind. When I tried to raise the matter of Potter’s manservant and packing cases, and make clear my own grave reservations, he seemed hardly even to hear, simply waving me away and ordering his men to load the boxes aboard, which seemed hardly proper. Potter, needless to say, quite beamed.