Birrung the Secret Friend

by French, Jackie

  Then I realised. I didn’t think of England as home. The colony wasn’t just where I lived. It was where I wanted to live, with the harbour and bright birds and Elsie and Birrung, who could swim and save a baby girl and her mother and get us fresh meat . . .

  ‘Can you find wheat? You know, to make flour for bread?’ I felt stupid as soon as I said it. How could a native make bread? Even Birrung?

  Birrung laughed. She reached over to another tussock and shook it, and caught the tiny seeds in her hand. The palm of her hand was lighter than the back. The seeds looked black and shiny. She put them on the boulder, rubbed her rock backwards and forwards over them, then showed me the paste this made.

  It didn’t look like bread. She held it out for me to taste. It didn’t taste like bread either. It didn’t taste of anything much. But damper dough didn’t taste of much till it was cooked either. Would this be like bread if it was cooked?

  ‘You’d need a lot of them seeds to make a loaf of bread.’

  I think she understood me. You never did know how much Birrung understood. She just laughed again. She threw the paste away — threw away good food, when most of the colony were wondering if they were going to starve, as if she knew food was all around her. I reckoned for her it was.

  The shadows were turning into night. The first star winked at us, above the harbour. The waves turned purple with the dusk. Suddenly it was all so beautiful I never wanted to leave, sitting on this warm rock that had soaked up the sun. But we didn’t have a lamp with us, or even a slushie. I said, ‘We better get home. Don’t want to be lost in the dark.’

  Birrung nodded. She picked up the meat that had been an o’possum. She stopped, and pointed at the star. ‘Birrung,’ she said softly.

  ‘You think it’s pretty?’

  ‘No. Yes. My name is Birrung. That is birrung too.’

  ‘You’re called Birrung, like a star?’

  She laughed. I’d got it right.

  Now I knew another native word. I could write words. I could speak native ones . . .

  I pointed up to the sky. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Warrigwul.’

  Did she mean the sky, or the growing dark? Or maybe all the stars that were popping out through the black?

  I pointed to myself.

  ‘Wungarra,’ said Birrung. She touched herself. ‘Guragalungayung.’

  We played the game all the way home, me pointing and her giving the Indian names. I don’t think I said them right. Maybe I didn’t even hear them right. Some of the sounds were strange. But she seemed happy when I tried.

  The stars shone like the embroidery on Mrs Johnson’s best bonnet. We made our way down through the rocks to the huts, looking at our feet. The dark had jumped up at us faster than I’d expected. I was surprised how easy it was to see my feet though and the way ahead.

  I glanced up at the sky. A thousand birrungs stared back at me. Stars . . .

  One broke away from all the rest. It darted across the sky, bright as a thin flame, then vanished, like it had dropped into the sea.

  ‘Shooting star,’ I said. ‘Ma used to say you could make a wish on a shooting star.’

  Birrung stared at the melting gleam where the shooting star had vanished. Her face crumpled, like a used handkerchief. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘That star says bad is coming. Bad, bad, bad.’

  I could see the candlelight in the doorway, and Elsie’s face looking out anxiously, but when she saw us, she scowled and went back in. She scowled at me a lot, those days, despite the harvest and learning how to make corn vinegar and cook dumplings so light they jumped into your mouth.

  There’d be potatoes hot for us on the hearth, and maybe a scolding for being out so late, but not much of one when Mrs Johnson saw we’d brought fresh meat. And tomorrow we’d have meat stew, the one with carrots and potatoes and onions and thyme that I liked best . . .

  Bad? Everything bad had happened already. Prison back in England, those months at sea, Ma dying, those months going hungry, the plague that killed so many of Birrung’s people, and now hunger for all the other men here too.

  What else bad could happen to us now?

  CHAPTER 11

  Death Ships

  June 1790

  The death ships sailed into the harbour, white sails and a blue sea, but only horror on board.

  We danced as we saw them sail through the heads, me and Elsie, while Birrung looked on and laughed. The Lady Juliana had come a couple of weeks before, bringing us food and tools as well as more women convicts. Now there would be more people. More food, more tools. More hope that our huddle of huts might grow into a town and farms.

  Mr Johnson was on one of the first boats out to the new ships. We watched as he climbed back up the hill, me and Elsie and Birrung and Mrs Johnson holding Milbah. Even Sally mixed her pudding outside today, to get a view of what was happening on the harbour: the new ships, the tiny boats being rowed out to them or back to shore. Would he bring letters from friends back home? Presents they’d sent maybe, like packets of seeds, a sewing kit (Sally had broken our last needle), bolts of cloth?

  But Mr Johnson wasn’t smiling as he walked up to the house, his hands empty. He looked like he’d seen the hell he talked about sometimes on Sundays.

  Mrs Johnson ran to him. ‘What is it, dearest?’

  He held up a hand to stop his wife coming closer. ‘Best not come near me. There’s fever on the ships. I might give it to you, or the children. There’s . . .’ He shook his head, as though he couldn’t find the words, this man who shouted out his sermons every week. ‘The convicts are just lying there in the stinking dark below the decks,’ he whispered. ‘The dying and the dead together, while the officers laugh and joke on deck. Naked or in rags. Starved and chained below deck for near a year, no light, scarce any food, lying among the dead, the skeletons and filth.’

  Mrs Johnson stared at him. ‘But why? How . . .’

  ‘Greed,’ said Mr Johnson. ‘No charity. No feeling. The captains kept the wretches’ rations to sell when they got here. The convicts starved to death so the captains can grow rich. At least a quarter of them died on the way here, and most who lived will die tomorrow or next week. Infected sores from the chains, from sitting in filth and salt water for nearly a year. Blind from no sunlight. When we got the first of the prisoners to the shore, they couldn’t stand, too weak to even drink. Just lay where we had left them, in a line, like blind white worms . . .’

  Mrs Johnson handed Milbah to Sally. ‘I’ll get the hospital basket.’ It held bandages that Sally washed and ironed every week and a lotion Surgeon White brewed from one of the native plants. ‘They’ll need help at the hospital.’

  ‘No,’ said Mr Johnson. ‘You will stay here.’ He looked at the rest of us. ‘None of you will leave this house and garden until I return. You understand?’

  ‘But —’ began Mrs Johnson.

  ‘There’s disease,’ said Mr Johnson quietly. He looked at Milbah, then at his wife. ‘Typhus; who knows what else?’ He bit his lip, then added, ‘I’ll sleep at the hospital so I don’t carry infection back here.’

  I thought Mrs Johnson would argue. But she glanced at Milbah, at Birrung and Elsie and me, and she nodded. She kissed her hand, then blew the kiss to him. ‘God be with you,’ she said softly. Somehow in that moment they seemed together, even though they stood apart, and I thought: If I ever marry, I want my family to be like this.

  And then I thought of the white faces down in the dark holds of those pretty ships upon the harbour, the dead and living bodies like white worms laid out on the grass. I wanted to hide up here in our garden till every one of them had got better or died, wanted to stay here where it smelled good and was safe.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ I said.

  Mr Johnson shook his head. ‘You’re a good lad,’ he said. ‘You’re needed here. Take care of the women.’

  Then he left.

  We waited, day after day. Messengers came up from the big tents they’d made int
o a hospital, to pick up the parcels of food we left on the doorstep. I killed three of the hens, for soup, and dug potatoes till my back felt like breaking so Sally could peel them, to feed the sick, the starving. I chopped wood to keep the cook fire going, lugged back fallen branches from the bush, and tried not to feel guilty I was safe and well fed with so many dying, tried not to resent them too, for bringing fear back into our lives, and taking Mr Johnson from us. Tried not to hear Mrs Johnson crying in her room at night for all she smiled as she led us in a hymn and prayer after supper.

  One morning I came into the house early and there was Elsie, already up, frying onions in chicken fat, putting them in the big pot with layers of stale damper and goat’s cheese, then pouring water on top. She put it next to the fire, where it would cook slowly, then began to mix the damper for breakfast — white wheat damper again, because the death ships had brought us stores too. We ate, just as the convicts on those ships had starved.

  Sally came out, yawning and tying the ribbons of her cap under her chin. She peered into the pot. ‘What’s this mess you’ve made, girl?’

  Elsie shrugged.

  Sally shook her head. ‘Don’t see why the master had to bring a dumb girl into the house.’

  ‘She ain’t dumb!’ I yelled. I think we were all on edge back then, with death so much about us. I stood in front of Sally. ‘You take that back! Elsie just can’t speak, that’s all!’

  ‘I’ll say as I think,’ said Sally.

  ‘What’s all the noise?’ Mrs Johnson came out of the bedroom, where she’d been feeding Milbah. She looked at both of us as if one more angry word might make her cry again. ‘The Lord tells us to love our neighbours. At times like these we should be thankful for what we have, not argue with our friends.’

  ‘The girl has filled my good pot with some mess . . .’ began Sally.

  Mrs Johnson made an effort to smile. She peered into the pot. ‘It smells delicious,’ she said.

  Elsie made a face at Sally. She picked up the slate from the shelf, wrote something, and held it up. Sally made out the words slowly. ‘Onion soup. That ain’t how you make onion soup, girl.’

  Elsie shrugged.

  I took a spoon and tasted it. ‘It’s the best soup I’ve ever ate,’ I said. And it was. But soup needed roosters and vegetables to make it taste good. How had Elsie made a giant pot of soup like this with just onions and fat and water and stale damper, and without Mrs Johnson or Sally to teach her?

  Elsie gave me that look that was as close to a smile as she ever came.

  Birrung came in, fastening her apron. She looked at Sally who was still angry, at me indignant, at Elsie looking smug and at Mrs Johnson who was so tired, with shadows under her eyes for worry about her husband. I thought she’d do something to make us laugh. Birrung always laughed. But she just took the basket and went out to collect the eggs.

  We cooked. We waited. Day after day we cooked and waited.

  Mr Johnson didn’t come.

  I tried not to think what would happen if Mr Johnson caught the typhus. If he died, like Ma, I could keep the garden going and chop the wood. I could put on new bark to stop the roof leaking too. I could take care of us all!

  Except I couldn’t. And all of us in the house knew it too.

  Mrs Johnson gathered every bit of cloth in the house: her petticoats, the dishcloths, my spare shirt. Everything we could spare went down to the harbour, to cover the patients’ nakedness, to keep them warm, or to be ripped into bandages to cover the sores where chains had rubbed. Why did I need a spare shirt when these men had none?

  I only left the house and garden once, to get some rations. Old Tom and Scruggins, who were looking after Mr Johnson’s other gardens — but taking it easy, I bet — were supposed to bring rations up and leave them on the doorstep for us. But there’d been no rations on the step that morning, and we’d run out of flour. Sally said it was more than a soul could bear, all this and no bread either . . .

  It was strange, down in the tiny town. The thin wind whispered between the mud huts. There were a few new faces, ghost people staggering about. But mostly there was no one, except on the grass by the shore where the hospital tents flapped in the wind. I could hear a long dull moaning and tried to tell myself it was the wind, not hundreds of convicts, in pain and afraid of the light, not the ghosts of their friends crying, ‘How could man do this to man? How can this be?’

  I stayed away from the tents, like I’d promised Mr Johnson, and even when I saw another person, I kept well away in case they had the fever and I might take it back to our house. I scrambled along the rocks above the harbour though, to see if Old Tom and Scruggins were working like they should have been.

  They weren’t. The bare apple and cherry trees looked dismal in the wind. But there was orange fruit on some of the trees, which meant it was ripe, and no one had pinched it, either because they respected Mr Johnson or because most convicts wouldn’t eat fruit. They said it gave them the runs and stung their gums, and was too new and strange.

  I half filled my bag with the really orange ones — I wasn’t sure what they were. The tangerines were still green. Then I hurried over to the storehouse.

  ‘Why, it’s Barney Bean. Ain’t seen you in an age. How are you growing, little bean?’

  ‘Ha ha. Very well, sir,’ I said politely. ‘Can I have the rations for Mr Johnson’s house?’

  The storeman went in to get them just as someone spoke behind me. ‘What are you doing here, boy?’

  It was Scruggins. He looked tired. Huh. Tired with doing nothing while Mr Johnson was busy, I thought.

  ‘Getting the rations because you didn’t.’

  ‘Well, I’m getting them now, ain’t I?’ But Scruggins sounded weary, not defensive. ‘As you’re here, you can do it. Saves me lugging them up the hill. Tell Mrs Johnson I’m sorry they’re late.’ He rubbed his whiskery face and I realised his hands were trembling. ‘I were down at the tents, holding down this poor bloke while Surgeon White cut off his arm. All rotten it was. Surgeon said it was the only thing that might save him. I stayed with him till he slept. Held his other hand. Man shouldn’t be alone at a time like that. I’ll head back there now.’

  My heart gave a little thunk, like it was made of stone. I’d been bad-mouthing — well, bad-thinking — Scruggins, and he’d been doing far more than me.

  ‘Old Tom down there too?’

  ‘Won’t leave Mr Johnson’s side, except to get him what he needs. You tell Mrs Johnson we see he eats, at least. Can’t get him to rest. He reckons he can feed the sick and tend their bodies and pray for them at the same time. He says the Lord will give him the strength to do his duty.’ Scruggins looked at me, almost man to man. ‘I’ll tell you what, Barney boy. Every convict in this colony thinks that man is an angel. Don’t know how many lives he’s saved.’

  I thought: Mr Johnson saved mine too. And Elsie’s.

  When I got back, I took off my clothes behind the shed and scrubbed them in the trough, then scrubbed myself, over and over, till my skin was red and my hair was sticking up like a rooster’s comb. One louse or flea could carry the ship’s fever, could kill Elsie and Birrung and Milbah and Mrs Johnson and Sally, and me too.

  Then when everything had dried in the sunlight, I dressed and went inside to help Birrung, who was peeling potatoes for more soup. She never slipped down to swim in the harbour now, or went roaming in the dusk.

  It had been weeks since Birrung had laughed. Suddenly I needed to hear laughter. Birrung’s laughter would drive away the shadows that flickered through me after Scruggins’s words.

  I took one of the potatoes and carved it into a man’s face, with holes for eyes, and a pointed nose, and a big grin. I held it up to Birrung.

  ‘Hello,’ I said in a funny voice. ‘I am a potato man.’ I held up a carrot, and made it bow to the potato. ‘Hello, Mr Potato,’ I said in another voice.

  Birrung laughed, just as I’d hoped she would. She picked up a long parsnip, and made it bow
to the potato too, just like Mr Johnson bowed when he met the governor. ‘Hello, Mr Potato,’ she said in Mrs Johnson’s most polite voice. ‘I am Mr Parsnip.’ She laughed again.

  Someone made a noise behind us. I turned. Elsie stared at us from the doorway. Had she been trying to say something? I’d never heard her make a sound before, even when she cried each night the first week we were together.

  ‘Oh, Elsie, come and —’ I began.

  Elsie whirled, her skirts swishing against the floor. She ran to her lean-to. In a few heartbeats she was back, Mrs Johnson’s old hat on her head, and a bundle in her hand.

  I stared at it. ‘What’s that?’

  Elsie didn’t answer. She marched over to the front door, and outside.

  I went out the door too, and caught up with her on the path past the brick pits. ‘Elsie! What are you doing?’

  Elsie glared at me. She nodded down towards the huts huddled around the harbour.

  ‘Are you taking something to Mr Johnson?’

  She shook her head, then gave me a rough push on the chest. She began to march down the track again.

  I caught her arm. ‘Elsie, you can’t go down there. You might catch the typhus.’

  Elsie wrenched her arm away. And suddenly I understood. ‘You want to leave the Johnsons? You’ve got your things in that bundle?’

  Elsie nodded.

  ‘But why? We’ve got it good here! And I’m learning how to grow things and Mrs Johnson is teaching you to cook.’

  Elsie shrugged, her eyes on mine.

  ‘It’s dangerous down there! There’s the fever and . . .’ Things that you shouldn’t see, I thought. Because I reckoned sometime Elsie had seen too much.

  Elsie waited maybe five breaths, in case I said anything more, then turned to walk away.

  ‘No!’ I said. ‘Wait! If you’ve got to go, I’ll get my things too. You can’t go down there alone!’ Mrs Johnson had taught Elsie enough for her to work as a cook for an officer. But she needed someone to take care of her. She needed me. Maybe, deep inside me, I knew I needed her too.