The Secret of the Black Bushranger

by Jackie French

  ‘I stared back at the slaver. I was the king’s son. I would never be sold!

  ‘My father did not look at me either, nor my mother. He simply nodded, then gestured to his men to open the chests. He stroked the muskets. My father loved these muskets, more than his own people, the people of our village. Muskets make even a weak man strong, and a stronger one mighty.

  ‘My father turned his back on me, holding his new musket. He did not look as the slavers wrapped my hands in chains, tied a chain to my leg so I could not run away. Father did not look. But he knew.

  ‘My mother screamed. She still screamed as we were led away, heavy in our chains. And that is the last I remember of my village, my mother’s screams, and the happy laughter as my father’s men took their new muskets.’

  CHAPTER 4

  Slave!

  John Black looked around the kitchen. ‘Are there more potatoes, sir?’

  I put the pot on the fire again, and poured in water then added more potatoes. There were big sacks of potatoes in the lean-to where I slept. Back then living with sacks of potatoes was better than living in a palace, better even than Government House, which was the only real building in the whole colony. I bet even Governor Phillip didn’t sleep with sacks of potatoes!

  John Black was still speaking in that low, even voice, too soft to wake up the girls and women. Or was it? Suddenly I saw a door open, just a crack. Birrung, or Elsie, or both girls must be listening at the door. But not Sally. If Sally had been awake, she’d be demanding to know who was messing up her clean kitchen. I looked back at John Black, hoping he hadn’t seen the door open. He might be sitting quiet now, but I didn’t trust him.

  ‘The slavers led us to a shed with bars on the door and no windows. They locked us in there, for a day and a night or longer, for we had no way of knowing if it was night or day. No food, no light, no water. The women cried, and the children, and the young men. But I did not cry. I was the son of a king. I sat and planned how I would lead my people to freedom, even though I was just a boy. The time passed. Our thirst grew, till no one had the strength to scream or cry. Later the older slaves said we were left there to soften us, to teach us we had no will of our own now, but must do what the masters said. At last, when we had been silent a long time, the door opened.

  ‘The light burned my eyes. We were weak from lack of food and water, too weak to run, or even crawl. I had planned to strike the first guard who grabbed me, to run and call the others to run too, to hide among the trees. But my legs were weaker than tree sap. I drank the water when someone pushed a bowl into my hands, then ate a bowl of root porridge, but not much, for the slavers only gave us enough food and water to have the strength to walk along a dock and then a plank onto a ship.’

  ‘Like the ships we came on here?’ I asked.

  John Black shrugged. ‘A ship is a ship to a slave. A dark hold that stank, and water all about us down there that stank too. Once a day a few buckets were lowered with water, and then with a little food. Some people died, for they did not have the strength or courage to grab their share. But I was the son of a king. I fought for food. I fought for water. And so I lived.

  ‘Then finally the ship was still, just rocking side to side.

  ‘One by one they let us slaves up the ladder onto the deck, into the sunlight that burned us after so long below. They chained me again, while I was still blind from too much sun. They led us down the gangplank chained in a line together, still too dazed to see. And then they took my clothes,’ said John Black. ‘They hosed me, hard, to clean off the filth of muck and rotting flesh from those who died, whose bodies had floated around us, the filth that coated each of us down in those ships. An old slave woman came and rubbed my skin with pig fat. I thought it was to ease my pain from the chains and the sores from being so long in the filth and water below. But it was not.’

  John Black looked straight at Mr Johnson. ‘It was to make me shine in the daylight. Naked and in chains but with shining skin, we were led to a platform: me, women, boys, girls. Men yelled about us. It was only later that I realised those yelling men were selling us, and others bought us.’

  ‘Evil,’ said Mr Johnson quietly. ‘A man cannot be bought and sold with coin.’

  ‘And yet we were. One by one we were sold and led away. Then I was sold too. I know now that my new owners were Dutchmen too, like the slaver who had first bought me from my father with a musket. But then I only knew that my new masters had whips, just like my old ones, and that I wore chains, so heavy I could not run or fight, or even stand straight. The watchers laughed at us, pointing, as we straggled away from the slave market, our backs bowed like monkeys in our heavy chains.

  ‘The new masters fed us mashed root porridge on the docks, laughing as we struggled to lift the spoons to our mouths with our wrists chained. Then they led us onto another ship. They shoved us down the ladder into the hold, still in our chains. I did not even try to fight, for I was weak from lack of food and light, and still half blind. A chained boy cannot fight men with whips. A starved boy cannot run. Once more I sat in darkness, while the ship’s water sloshed about me, stinking of rotting people, the alive and the dead.

  ‘The ship sailed. Sailed into a storm, the waves tossing us. Our chains swung, chafing us, hitting us. People screamed and people died. At last the ship swung around instead of surging forwards. I thought we had reached land again. But we had not.

  ‘Once more we were called up onto the deck. As my eyes began to see, I realised there was no land nearby, just endless sea and sky, with no wind to fill the sails. We stood in line in our chains while our masters inspected us. They grabbed any man or boy who staggered, or who tried to stop them feeling their muscles or breath of their chest. One by one the slavers threw those men or boys overboard. They laughed as sharks grabbed the bodies, betting on who would be eaten first.’

  ‘But why?’ I asked. ‘Why kill some of you if they’d paid money for all of you?’

  ‘The voyage took longer than they thought it would because there was no wind. A ship needs wind to keep on sailing. There was not enough food to keep all the slaves alive. Only the most valuable were kept. It was better to have some slaves strong enough to walk ashore than have all of us weak and dying.

  ‘Then a slaver inspected me, poking my stomach, hard, to see if I would collapse. My legs shook, from so long below. But I knew they would kill me if I staggered. The man inspected the boy next to me, a younger boy who had weeded with the women in the gardens with me. He fell to the ground when the man punched him, rolling and crying. He screamed as the men lifted him up. He screamed as they threw him over the rail. He screamed all the way down to the water, then shrieked as a shark tore him. I hear his screams now, every time I look at a man who would make men slaves.

  ‘I stood there, up on deck, as the slavers came down the row again, to select even more of us to throw away. Suddenly I staggered as the deck shuddered under me. I thought, I am too weak to stand! Now I will die.

  ‘But it wasn’t weakness. It was wind at last! The sails filled and flapped above us. Our masters cheered. The sailors shoved us below again, into the dark and the stink. And time passed. Every wave that lashed against the ship said, “Slave. Slave.” Once more I did not know if it was night or day. All I knew was that sometimes there was a crack of light, and then a bucket of food or water, and each time I saw that light I must fight every man to eat and drink enough to stay alive.’

  ‘Dear Lord,’ whispered Mr Johnson. But it was a prayer, not swearing.

  ‘I do not know if it was days or weeks before we heard explosions, each one louder than musket fire above us, and screams and splintering wood. Strange voices yelled new cries. Finally the hatch was opened.

  ‘We were hauled up on deck again, the living still chained to the dead. I could not see. The light was too bright after the darkness, but the deck was sticky on my bare feet, not from salt water, but from blood. I felt and heard the dead being unchained, heard the splash of their bod
ies as men threw them overboard. I waited to be thrown to the sharks too, for now I was almost too weak to stand.

  ‘Instead men tugged my chains so that I staggered across the deck, down a ladder and into a small boat, where men rowed us to another ship. We were hauled up onto it in a net like fish, a crush of us, but I never knew how many, for I still couldn’t see. The bright light stabbed my eyes. And then another deck, another ladder down into a dark, wet hold, still in our chains. More days, more food and water dropped in buckets. And then the ship stopped, and we were lowered in the fish net again. But then I stood on the firm ground, even if it seemed to shift under my feet. I heard the clank of metal. And at last my chains were taken off. We had reached the land called England.’

  ‘You were free!’ I breathed.

  John Black laughed. ‘Free? I have not been free for a single day, boy, since the slavers dragged me from my village. But at least my chains were gone. Old men tended our sores in a place they called a Poor House hospital. They gave us food, soups with strange bread and stranger vegetables. It was bad food, and never much, but it was enough to give me life. My sight returned, though it took months to clear. My teeth that had begun to fall out grew firm again in my gums. And I was taught English by an old man there, or enough to speak a little of it.

  ‘At last when I could stand a cart took me to a big house, bigger than I had ever dreamed possible. The servants put me in satin clothes and called me a page boy. They fed me well, all the bread I wanted to eat, and all the meat. They taught me how to bow to the master and mistress, how to speak and dress. I learned quickly, for wasn’t I the son of a king? I learned to carry parcels, to ride standing on the step of a coach while the master and mistress rode inside and people marvelled at my black skin under the white wig they had me wear. I knew that as long as I did these things I would be given food to eat, all the food I needed, and safety while I slept.’

  Ma could have had that, I thought, if she had sent me to the workhouse and become a servant. Instead she stole for me, and was sent here, and died.

  But John Black still told his story. ‘I listened to the new speech about me, and as I learned more words I tried to find out what had happened to me.’

  John Black paused, his eyes staring into the dying coals of the fire as he recalled the strange flow of events that had brought him across the world to England, and then across the world again to sit in a small house with a chaplain and a boy, all of us here at the end of the world.

  ‘You had been captured in England’s war with the Dutch,’ suggested Mr Johnson quietly. ‘Our ships raided Dutch ones and took their cargo. The captain of the English ship would have kept you all chained in case you mutinied and tried to take the ship. But once in England you could not be sold as a slave. Englishmen in other countries may own slaves, but not in England.’

  John Black laughed. ‘Not a slave? My chains were still there, even if they could not be seen. I had to obey my master and his servants. I had to smile and bow to every man or woman whose skin was white. I had to sit on the kitchen step in the rain or fog to eat, for the other servants would not eat with a black boy. But the food was good. I ate and I grew, till the butler said I was too big to be a page boy. I must work in the fields instead. I think he was frightened by my size.’

  John Black smiled, a smile that frightened me. ‘He were right to be scared,’ he said softly, ‘for in my heart I knew I would not stay a slave. One day I would claim my freedom. One day I would take revenge on that butler and all who’d taunted me or chained me.’

  ‘“Vengeance is mine,” said the Lord,’ said Mr Johnson. ‘It is not right for us to take it.’

  John Black shrugged. ‘It didn’t matter. I did not know how to take revenge on him or any other, or even where I might find freedom.

  ‘But I did know that I was hungry again. Starving. Because now that I worked out in the fields I did not have enough to eat. A man like me needs three or four times the food of a puny Englishman. I stole bread from the kitchen to stay alive. I stole money to buy more food. And one time they caught me as I tried to buy bread to fill my belly. They sent me to the court for trial and put me on the prison ship. And now I am here. Here where once again men chain me like a slave, order me like a slave, starve me like a slave.’

  John Black stopped speaking and looked from Mr Johnson to me, then back again. ‘But I am not a slave. Never, no matter what they do to me. They call me John Black. No one here can pronounce my true name, so I have taken another. I will be Black Caesar. Caesar was a king. If I must stay in this strange land, then I will be king here!’

  He gestured at the bedroom door. ‘Come out!’ he ordered, suddenly sounding like the prince he claimed to be. Elsie and Birrung obeyed, wide-eyed in their nightdresses.

  I said quickly, ‘Elsie can’t tell anyone about you. She can’t talk. And even if she could speak, she doesn’t know anyone to talk to.’

  Elsie was a mystery, had been since I first found her, huddled and crying among the rocks. Not even Mr Johnson could work out where Elsie had come from, for she wasn’t on the convict lists. Her clothes weren’t the ones issued to the convicts and their children like me. Elsie wasn’t the daughter of one of the soldiers either — after nine months at sea crammed up in the ship together, someone would have noticed her. But who else could there be here in the colony, except the Indians? Elsie had brown eyes and tanned skin, but she wasn’t an Indian like Birrung.

  But John Black looked at Birrung, not at Elsie. Elsie was just a skinned rat back then, before she fattened up on good food, but Birrung was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen, with her black curls and laughing eyes, about fourteen, four years older than me. ‘Birrung doesn’t talk to other people either,’ I added quickly.

  The Johnsons had adopted Birrung after most of the Indians died of the plague. She’d had the plague too, but she got better.

  John Black smiled at Birrung, with her shining hair and big brown eyes. ‘I will be king of the black men here,’ he said softly. ‘I will be king of the whole colony. And I will have wives like this girl here.’

  ‘Birrung will choose her own husband,’ I said, too loudly, for Mr Johnson held up his finger to his lips. Elsie glared at me, though I couldn’t tell why. All I’d done was defend Birrung, and her too!

  Mr Johnson turned to John Black. ‘I’ve told you I cannot give you sanctuary. Tomorrow I must tell the governor you are here. All I can do is ask him to forgive you and show mercy. But tonight at least we can give you a bed in the storeroom. Barney, you will sleep in a blanket on the floor in here. It’s only for one night.’

  I had been sleeping on far worse when he and Birrung rescued me. I nodded. But I didn’t like the thought of John Black in our storeroom, where he could steal all the food he wanted. And what if he weren’t there when it got light in the morning?

  I looked at Mr Johnson’s face. And then I knew. Mr Johnson would keep God’s law, give food and drink to those who hungered and were thirsty. In the morning he would keep the law of the land, and tell Governor Phillip that John Black had escaped and come to us.

  But in the morning, Black Caesar would be gone.

  CHAPTER 5

  A Thief in the Night

  It was a grand Christmas, that first one, sitting in the second front row, just behind Governor Phillip, while Mr Johnson preached his sermon under the giant fig tree. We had shade, but it was hot for everyone else out in the sun.

  There was no sign of John Black. He’d vanished before next morning’s light, just as I’d known he would. But Mr Johnson never spoke of him, and nor did I, nor Birrung.

  I was glad he was gone. He had been through bad times, but so had I. So had all of us, even Birrung, so many of her people dying all about her, so that bodies lay on every beach in the harbour.

  But today she was happy, so happy she shrugged off her blue dress and dived into the harbour as we walked back from the Christmas service. The waves danced about her as she swam. I’d never seen anything
as lovely as Birrung in the water. I looked and looked, till Elsie tugged my hand, and I followed her and Mr Johnson and Mr Dawes, one of the officers and Mr Johnson’s friend, up the hill, while Mrs Johnson waited for Birrung to swim back to shore.

  Then we had Christmas dinner, the best dinner of my life — roasted roosters and vegetables and pudding and the first fruits from Mr Johnson’s trees. I’d never had a meal as fine as that, sitting at a proper table, with gentlemen like Mr Dawes and Mr Johnson, as if Elsie and I were gentlefolk too, and Birrung sitting opposite, smiling and laughing and talking better English than most in the colony, even if she’d only been learning it less than a year.

  Next day was Boxes Day. I hadn’t known that gentlemen and ladies gave boxes to servants or people who needed things on Boxes Day — no one had ever given me a present back in England — but then I’d never met gentlemen nor ladies there neither, not even to hold their horses, for they had grooms for that, though a shopkeeper might give me a penny for holding his nag.

  The Boxes Day presents were handkerchiefs for me and Elsie and Birrung, all hemmed with tiny stitches by Mrs Johnson and with our names worked on them, and a small daisy too on Elsie’s and Birrung’s. I’d never used a snot rag, just my fingers wiped on whatever I passed. This looked too beautiful to use.

  Then there were more presents to carry down to the convicts in hospital and in the gaol cells, slices of corn pudding Sally had made sweet with dried berries, and pumpkin fritters. I wondered if Mr Johnson would ask me to help carry the baskets. I didn’t want to go back to the hospital — that was where Ma had died after the oyster shell cut went bad.

  But Mr Johnson went by himself, telling us to make sure Mrs Johnson rested — I knew she was going to have a baby, though no one talked about things like that, at least not to boys my age. As Mrs Johnson had gone to lie down, Sally told the three of us to get out of her hair. I think Sally wanted a nap too.