‘The first thing I notice is you were brought up in the Smuggler’s Curse Hotel in Broome. Even as far away as we are in Perth, that hotel is a well-known house of ill …’ He stops and frowns even more. ‘Well, an establishment not held in high regard. I notice, too, that your legal guardian is the somewhat notorious Captain Black Bowen. His reputation as a smuggler, womaniser, tax evader and drinker precludes him from mixing in decent society. He is lucky he has never actually faced me in court. I am at a complete loss to understand how he has guardianship of a minor. In fact, I am disgusted. Words fail me.’
He pauses and stares at me intently as if trying to scare me. I try not to let it show, but it is working. I am terrified out of my wits. I can feel my left knee shake.
‘Then, on top of this unfortunate background,’ he continues, ‘you go and disgrace yourself in school with the most appalling act of brutality. You have been given the best chance to overcome your surroundings and unfortunate circumstances, with a good education, but no boy, you revert to the manners and behaviour of a common guttersnipe. You, young sir, are an ungrateful wretch. Many children of the lower classes would gladly make the most of such an opportunity for a decent education, but not you. It seems you are little better than a godless pirate.’
‘Excuse me, your honour,’ interrupts a second court official, ‘I have Master Read’s school record and his bank statement, as you requested. It may influence your decision here, sir.’ The official hands the statement up to the magistrate.
He looks at the top paper and coughs in surprise. ‘How much?’ he cries angrily. ‘This boy has a bank account like that?’ He composes himself. ‘This is even worse. A boy of such privileged and ample means, beyond ample means, I might say, ends up fighting like a common hooligan, but even worse, attacks a man of God! You, ungrateful young sir, should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself.’
I am not in the least ashamed of myself. Not one little bit. In fact, Brother Christian is lucky it was me who assaulted him and not Captain Bowen. All I would have had to do on his next visit was mention his behaviour to the Captain and Brother Christian would be lying in the morgue with a dagger in his throat. He got off lightly as far as I can see.
Magistrate Roe glares down from his bench at me, his face full of hatred, or maybe it is just jealousy at my hefty bank balance, his pale eyes almost skewering me. ‘Well, are you?’
‘I was just defending …’ I protest, but he cuts me short.
‘Enough! There can be no excuses. None! Brother Christian, the man you so cowardly attacked, is a member of the church. The church is the last bastion against our decaying society. Enough of this. I am disgusted with you.’ He clears his throat and then leaves a long silence before declaring, ‘Master Red Read, I officially proclaim you to be a Juvenile Delinquent, and you will be punished accordingly. Because of your age, I am not permitted to sentence you to a long jail term with hard labour in Fremantle Prison, as you justly deserve. However, I can give you a lesson to make you mend your heathen, brutal ways. A good birching is what you need, and I am here to see that is precisely what you will get. Typically, for assault by a minor, you would receive six lashes with a birch, but as Brother Christian is a member of a holy religious order, unselfishly serving his fellow man, I think twenty lashes is more appropriate.’
I gulp, hardly believing what he says.
He continues. ‘Twenty lashes with a birch, in public, as a warning to any other young hooligans of this parish who believe they can carry on like wild animals in a zoo, and you can remain in the Perth Lock-up until your so-called guardian sees fit to collect you. Until then, you can reflect on your well-deserved punishment.’
‘Phew!’ I hear Constable Kelly whisper beside me.
Magistrate Roe pauses for a moment to gather his evil, monstrous thoughts. ‘In the meantime, I am going to write to your mother and inform her that she was ill-advised in appointing the crook Bowen as your legal guardian, damn his criminal hide. In my next official visit to Broome later this year I shall expect to see changes, or else. Mark my words!’
As his words wash over me, I think all I really hear is twenty lashes with a birch. I have heard about birches. They are just like the old British Navy floggings that Mr Smith told me about, except, rather than a cat-o’-nine-tails, a birch is half-a-dozen green saplings about the thickness of fingers tied together like a witch’s broom. They are used to beat the bare bums of delinquent boys, of which I am apparently the new king. Then I remember Constable Kelly telling me that no matter what the magistrate says I have to reply, ‘Thank you, your honour.’
‘Thank you, your honour,’ I mumble, the words nearly choking me. I wipe my sweating palms on my pants and feel drips of sweat running down my face even though it is not a hot day.
‘Constable Kelly,’ he barks, ‘take this appalling wretch out of my sight! Before I order fifty lashes.’ He slams down his gavel, the sound just like a rifle shot. Oh, how I wish it were a rifle shot, to his head.
Oh, and how I wish Captain Bowen were with me now. If he had been, the magistrate would be laughing on the other side of his face. The point of the slim dagger in the Captain’s boot would have been at Roe’s throat and remained there until he changed his mean, maggoty, magistratey mind about beating me. Nothing could be more certain. I would be out of his sight alright, and no doubt my face would be the last thing he ever saw.
Constable Kelly looks after me at the lock-up.
‘Do you know my boy, Ned?’ he asks me the next morning when he arrives with my breakfast tray. ‘He goes to Christian Brothers too. About your age. We christened him Jack after me, but everyone calls him Ned.’
‘I do know Ned,’ I reply, happy that Constable Kelly at least seems kind, ‘but he’s in a year below me, and a day boy, so I don’t get to talk to him too much.’
‘That Brother Christian. Ned reckons he’s a nasty piece of work and you gave him what he had coming.’
I look at his face in surprise. Is that the tiniest trace of a smile he tries to suppress? He almost winks as he turns and leaves.
Alone again, I wonder what lies ahead. The next few years had been pretty well planned for me. There was to be school, and, of course, exams and sport, and, hopefully, an occasional visit from my ma and from Captain Bowen whenever they had to visit Perth on business, and the Christmas holidays back in Broome. But now? I’m terrified of the thought of the upcoming birching. My heart starts to race again just thinking about it. I try not to cry, but I feel a tear escape from my eye and run down my cheek. I wipe it away with my sleeve and sniff, feeling very sorry for myself.
Over the next few days, Constable Kelly brings me my meals on a tray each morning and afternoon, and he also includes apples and pears from his fruit trees at home. He must have seen how bored I was with nothing to do all day except worry and wait for the beating, because on the third day he brings several books that belong to Ned for me to read. He also hands me a small pile of paper, envelopes and a pencil so I can write home to my mother. I hope she is on a ship heading south to come and collect me.
I am much relieved at Constable Kelly’s thoughtfulness as the boredom has been mind-numbing. The books are really good. One is on medieval warfare full of incredible weapons, another is a biography of General Gordon and the siege of Khartoum in Sudan, and the third is a brand-new novel called Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling. It is about a boy who is taken away to sea, just like I was, except he was on a Portuguese fishing boat and not on a smuggler’s schooner being shot at and half drowned or hanged, like me.
‘The cells are at the far end of the building, but I’ll make sure that none of the remand prisoners can get near you,’ he announces, then pauses. ‘Not that I think you can’t look after yourself. Oh, and I bought you this,’ he continues, holding up a kerosene lantern. ‘It’ll be enough to read by.’
‘Thank you very much, Constable Kelly,’ I say, genuinely pleased.
I sit on my bed reading until eventually the wick on my lantern burns d
own, flickers and the light begins to fade slightly. I really identify with the hero, Harvey Cheyne, who is a bit older than me and a fair bit more courageous than I am. Though, the way I feel lately, I think just about everyone in the whole world is braver than I am.
In daylight, the once whitewashed walls of my room are grubby and stained with all sorts of grime ingrained into the plaster. On the wall opposite the end of my bed, someone in the past has drawn a lifelike picture of a man with long hair, holding a book. Next to him is another picture of an old-fashioned sailing ship with a high stern. I hadn’t noticed until now, but in the flickering lantern light, beneath the pictures, I can see faint letters, maybe scratched with charcoal, but not clear enough to be read. I move the lantern to the foot of the wall to see if a different angle will make it more distinct. It does. At head height are three crosses like you see in a church, the middle one taller than the others. The words wilyum dampeer bulyon are right below them. Below that, someone has drawn a ragged circle, like a frying pan with a stubby handle on the top. On either side of the circle are darker smudges. Beneath that is written kokonut ilind N tip Hom and 100 100 100. The marks could be anything. I don’t speak any other languages except a smattering of Japanese I learnt from the pearl divers in Broome and a bit of Malay from Teuku. It doesn’t sound like either of those two.
I bring my face closer to the wall. I find several new words even fainter, duk duches priz guam, 1710 and then, het kerkhof der europeanen. The final ones are scratched even deeper, kersd be wornd. Finally, the lantern goes completely out and I’m plunged into darkness.
I awake next morning as Constable Kelly bangs on the door and swings it open. ‘It’s Saturday,’ he announces cheerily as if it is my birthday. ‘My Ned said he’d come and visit you today if you’d like that?’
‘Yes, please,’ I reply eagerly. Someone to talk to. At last.
‘Anything you’d like him to bring?’
I glance at the wall, remembering last night. ‘An atlas would be good. Could I borrow one of those?’ There is something about the words and the map on the wall that interests me. Of course they interest me. I’ve read Treasure Island, lots of times. It is my favourite book ever, so I know all about maps and treasure. Could this be a treasure map? I suspect so. I sure hope so.
‘We have a Webster’s Encyclopedia at home with a lot of maps in the back. Will that do?’ asks Constable Kelly.
Around lunchtime, Ned arrives carrying the fat, brown encyclopedia, a packet of sandwiches and some biscuits his mum made. He stays for about an hour, telling me about school. ‘Red, you are the hero of the whole school for sorting out Brother Christian. It is all anyone has talked about, all week. How you nearly killed him.’
I look at him, surprised. I suppose the news got around the school pretty quickly.
‘Red, can you tell me?’ he asks. ‘They say you were really going to kill him. That you picked up a chair and smashed it over his head. They say that you were so angry that if you had had a knife, you would have gutted him from head to toe. They say you have a Colt pistol in your locker but couldn’t get to it in time, or you would have shot him six times!’ he says, getting more and more animated.
‘Yes, and I would have stopped, reloaded and shot him six more times,’ I reply, not at all seriously. ‘If you had seen what he did to poor little Albert Thomas, you would have done the same. Your Uncle Ned, the bushranger, would have been proud of you if you had.’
‘Er, Ned was not really my uncle,’ he says, sheepishly. ‘I just tell everyone he was. My uncle is Syd.’
‘Does he wear a bucket on his head, like the real Ned?’ I laugh.
‘Well, yes, he did once,’ he replies, starting to giggle. ‘He’s a dunny cart man, and last year he tripped off his cart and landed headfirst in a poo pan. And it was full.’
We both laugh uproariously at the thought of it until Constable Kelly comes to the door. ‘What’s this, Ned, are you telling Red about your Uncle Syd? Nothing else in the whole world could be that funny. Poor blighter.’
But then Constable Kelly starts laughing as well. It sure must have been a sight to see.
THE BIRCHING
It is Monday at precisely noon. I know this as I can hear the distant bells of St Mary’s Cathedral ringing out the time when Constable Kelly arrives accompanied by two other policemen. The tall, unfriendly one with the scar doesn’t even look at me.
‘I’m afraid it is today, Red,’ Constable Kelly announces as soon as he opens my door. ‘I’m sorry, really sorry, but we have no choice. You had better prepare yourself.’
Prepare myself? How? I can feel the cheeks of my bum tighten in anticipation. I have heard birching is like being branded, like cattle hands do to calves, and the calves don’t seem to like it one little bit.
Constable Kelly swings open the door in the limestone wall that leads outside. My eyes take a moment to adjust to the sudden sunlight, then I can see out into a large open courtyard opposite the new library. I glance nervously about. At least fifty people mill around, apparently all wanting to see the happy spectacle of me being birched. The tall policeman roughly grips my left arm and leads me outside.
Brother Christian and Magistrate Roe stand talking to each other and chuckling like they are great mates. I can’t believe my bad luck that they are friends. Typical. The brother looks at me and smiles teasingly like a cat that has captured a mouse. ‘Revenge is sweet’ is plastered all over his ugly, mean-looking face, still battered and bruised. I had never seen him look so happy during my six months at the school, even with one of his eyes black and swollen half closed.
What really takes my attention in the centre of the courtyard is a narrow leather-covered bench with two legs at one end propped up on bricks to form a slope. I am led to it and placed at the low end. Constable Kelly moves to the far end, at the top of the incline.
‘Now, Red,’ says Constable Kelly, ‘you have to drop your pants.’
‘In front of everyone?’ I plead.
He shrugs, confirming it. No answer is necessary.
Reluctantly, I slip my braces off my shoulders and fumble with my fly buttons. My pants fall to my ankles, leaving me naked from the waist down. I can feel my face burn bright with embarrassment.
‘Now lean forward and lay against the bench, put your hands in the air and give them to me,’ he says kindly. He takes hold of my wrists and gently pulls me forward, so my front is against the leather padding. I turn my head slightly and see a new constable, who is bigger than the other two, standing to the side and just behind me. He grips the birch in massive hands. It does indeed look like a witch’s broom only more sinister, and so much more menacing.
‘Red James Read,’ he announces loudly so everyone in the courtyard can hear him, ‘I, Constable Reginald Snipe, on behalf of the Crown, Her Gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria, have been appointed to duly administer the lawful punishment to you as prescribed by the court …’
I lose all sense of hearing, and instead of his voice droning on, a noise like rushing water fills my ears. I close my eyes. I do not hear him finish, nor the swish as the branches flash down and lash against my bare bum. In fact, I don’t feel a thing for about a full second, but then the most excruciating pain I have ever experienced surges through me as if I have indeed been branded with a white-hot cattle iron. The pain is even worse than when the mainsheet of the Black Dragon ripped through my fingers during the storm off Sumatra, and the sisal rope tore off half the skin from my palm. I think I am going to be sick. I decided earlier that I would not cry out, no matter how bad it felt, but I now know that it will not be possible. I know for definite I will blubber like a baby and probably cry for my mother, in front of everyone. I suddenly realise that I am not half as hard as I imagined I had become over this last year while at sea. In fact, I am no better than the little kid on deck who tried not to cry when he thought his mother had sold him as a ship’s boy.
The second lash is even worse. My eyes feel like they are about to
bulge from my face. The pain this time is lower, across the top of my legs. I gasp at the force of it and then gasp again as the stinging stripes spread like white heat. My head fills with mist. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. There is a roaring in my ears. I am going to throw up.
The next one drives all the breath from my body. I think I might have cried out, but the pain stops me from thinking straight.
Just before the fourth stroke, I feel the pressure of Constable Kelly’s hand on my wrists ease slightly. I open my eyes and see him look up. Panic crosses his face for a brief moment before a small, odd smile appears on his lips. There is movement behind me, and the laughing crowd falls strangely silent.
‘I think that is enough, Constable Snipe, don’t you?’
I recognise that voice. I know it as well as my own. Tears of relief suddenly flood my eyes. Never, ever, have I been so glad to hear it. It is suddenly all over. Just as well, as I know I cannot stand another stroke.
Constable Kelly drops my wrists and looks to Magistrate Roe.
I reach down to pull up my pants, and turn. Standing not ten feet away, there he is, dressed not in his usual sea clothes, but in a black suit with a starched collar and a tie, looking more like an undertaker at a graveside than a sea captain. The crowd parts as he emerges from the back. Captain Bowen catches my eye and winks, the look on his face instantly reminding me of the time last year, seconds before he killed the Dutch commander who was about to hang me.
‘Mag-is-trate Jeremy Roe.’ He says the word magistrate mocking every syllable. ‘I thought this might be your doing.’
The magistrate looks about in confusion, suddenly very nervous. The crowd remains quiet, as if expecting, what, a gun battle? It is obvious they all know who the man dressed in black is and of his fearsome reputation.
‘Mister Roe, it is time to end this,’ the Captain says calmly and quietly. ‘Don’t you agree.’
The magistrate is so flabbergasted by the sudden turn of events that he just nods in agreement as if he has lost the power of speech. He looks about in confusion. He doesn’t know what to do or how to react as the Captain approaches him and puts his hand on his shoulder. The Captain leans right forward and says very quietly in Roe’s ear, so that only a few of us can hear, ‘Jeremy Roe, big-shot city magistrate these days,’ sneers the Captain, sarcasm dripping from his voice. ‘I remember you from Derby, you snivelling, weak-as-camel-pee hypocrite. The lives you have ruined, hiding behind that magistrate’s bench and doling out pedantic justice like some latter-day King Solomon. Like some latter-day music-hall clown more like. You are lucky I don’t shoot you down in the street like a rabid dog.’ The sarcasm in his voice turns to rising anger. ‘Remember my crewman Bert Collins from Derby? Sixteen years you gave him for stealing a pearl. Sixteen years! Or the widow Molly Eddows? Five years for stealing food for her six children after she was widowed in a cyclone. You are a heartless barnacle, Roe.’
The Wreckers' Revenge Page 2