The Clay Dreaming

by Ed Hillyer

  Sarah soon found her place within the text, the point at which their juvenile hero was to be deported to Australia; the sentence of death commuted to transportation for life, for the stealing of two silk handkerchiefs.

  The tale of the ‘plumpuding’ and the ‘poor little doge’ had been at once both horrible and amusing. Sarah felt rather fond of the young George Bruce, so shameless, yet so filled with shame that he should admit to picking pockets on the Sabbath!

  The Life seemed as honest, in its way, as a confessional.

  …then I went put on Bord the royal hadmarl east indamen. to Go to portjacksen. my imployment. during The yage wos to see all the boys cleen to Muster every moring be for the captin. the Ship arived at hir Respictef port. wih the Loos of sevan Soles out of four houndred And thifty. wich captin Bond had on bord. Captin Bond was one of the most Nobelist harts that ever Existed on Earth. For he be haved bouth A father and frind To all on bord. during A passage of four Mounths and four days. I left the ship. And wos sent to towngabbe. my imployment Was carring water to the men. that was fellin The trees to clar that part of the countrey For agerculter. in A few mounths after I Was Seest with the feever. I then wos cuk Hospital. in A short time I recovred my Helth.

  Events moved apace. Sarah primed her pen.

  Port Jackson was a main port of Australia; ‘Towngabbe’, she guessed, the name of another settlement of that colony. As for the ship on board which he travelled, following a few whispered experiments she settled on the Royal Admiral, East-Indiaman – as identified in the Memoirs. Regardless of the dates’ conflicting by as much as two years, it seemed safe to assume the vessel was the same. The captain’s name, Bond, sealed it.

  According to the Memoirs, Bruce had served as ‘bo’sun’s boy’, with no mention of his trial or imprisonment. Calling muster on board ship or carrying water on land – he might have been employed in either situation, even as a convict.

  Sarah turned to the continuation of her transcript.

  I then employed myself in ranging the wilderness collecting of all sorts of insects for the doctor of the hospital. This lasted a very short time. For, one day, as I was taking a bird nest out of a large tree, I fell down on the ground, where I lay for a considerable time, the blood running from my mouth, nose, ears, eyes, and every part of my body where it could find vent.

  Oh!

  I was reported to the doctor by a little boy that was with me. The first of my…

  …relicttion…

  Recollection?

  wos That I found my self. ling on my bck in The hospital. and the docter standing by my Bad side. asking me if I know him. I Answerd in the infirmtith.

  Horrific circumstances notwithstanding, Sarah smiled at the happy accidents of language; his ‘bad side’ for bedside; ‘infirmity’ – well, almost – for affirmative.

  He asked me what I did with the young birds. I told him that I let them all go. He said I was a good boy, and bid me go to sleep, for as I had slept so long that it was a pity to wake me. I asked the doctor how long I had been asleep. He told me fourteen days.

  In one year I recovered my health. I then was sent to Richard Fichgeril (Fitzgerald?) who was Superintendent of that settlement. He took me for his body servant. After a few months I was sent to the Governor General of that Colony, whose name was Frances Groos (Grose? Or Gross?). He asked me my name, and where I was born. I told him. He said that he well know’d my friends (?), and if I was a good boy that he would make me a free man in a short time. Which he did.

  ‘A good boy’, ‘good boy’ – the phrase kept recurring. The Fagin-type character from the Limehouse passages had also used it, but in a sense quite distinct – in praise of his efforts in stealing the widow’s watch.

  as soon as the Govner Had pardained me. I then went onbrd his Majesty scooner. hir name the cumbellin she wos imployed Carring packits to nofick iland commander Lieutenant Bishworth.

  On that separate sheet of paper where she had written ‘Royal Admiral, East-Indiaman, Captain Bond?’ Sarah added ‘the Cumbellin – a schooner, commander Lieutenant Bishworth’, and then ‘Norfolk Island?’ The library was not exactly short of reference books, and at this stage any detail could have relevance.

  And was a ‘brig’ – in the Memoirs – some sort of a prison ship, as it sounded? She would have to ask someone more familiar with nautical terms.

  The Greenwich Hospital clerk, Lieutenant Loveless, had offered to enquire after George Bruce at Somerset House, something she had largely dismissed. She could do worse than to write him a quick letter. She might then forward a brief questionnaire.

  Sarah returned to the manuscript.

  I was in this imploy for five years. then Lieutenant robins cuk command of hir. and went On a yage of discovery. I went with him. the First strange land we mad. two small islands To the wast of portjacksin. the name of thaese islans. are the new year islands. be cases. thay wods discovred on A new year is day. those islands are A bounded with seals. see Elfint bagers porkpine and in the morning and Evening thay both are covred with birds. after We had invested those two islands. we went to invest A harber named port fillips. The enterince of this harbor is very narrow for no ship can go in A ganst the tide. this harbor from the enterince to the head of it His Fifteen houndred miles.

  ~

  Sarah was trying to concentrate. There had been a spattering of rain earlier in the day, while she was still working at the Museum. She recalled the intermittent thrash of it, drumming on the glass lantern of the dome, and how the wind, having risen, had hurried her home. That one brief shower had been the only rain all week. The winds howling outside might hopefully blow the clouds away.

  It is a most beautiful harbour, and abounds with a vast quantity of black swans in all times of the year. As soon as Lieutenant Robins had explored this port, he then returned to Port Jackson. I have forgot one remark. On the voyage that was ingoing on shore the boat was upset with eight men. I was one of the number. Two of them was drownded.

  ‘Ahem…“were drowned”.’

  Sarah found the rattling of the window-frame distracting. Apart from anything else, she worried the noise might disturb her father.

  ‘Would you mind awfully shutting the window?’ she said. ‘Just for a while.’

  Brippoki took a moment to comprehend that she no longer read from the manuscript. He jolted forward from his seat, happy to comply. As he approached the casement the curtain billowed up to meet him.

  The window had been left partially open all day in order to air the front parlour: it had seemed hardly surprising when Brippoki entered in that same way, unannounced, and at his customary late hour. Sarah began to appreciate there were certain benefits to this arrangement.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Now, where were we?’

  At our arrival at Port Jackson we found Captain Flinders, who had lost His Majesty’s Ship Porpoise. He immediately took the schooner and turned all the crew on shore. Taking with him as many of the men that he could stow in her, Captain Flinders sailed for England, leaving behind him half his ship’s company. I was left on shore with the crew. I then took on me the duty of a police officer.

  Sarah tilted one eyebrow in exaggerated fashion.

  I did not hold this office long, for one day I made a seizure of spirits. No sooner had I got it in my possession but drinked it, for which crime I was sent to hard labour for six months.

  Before I had been one month at this labour, a quarrel rose between the Englishmen and Irishmen. I was one of the Englishmen that was in the fight. The battle lasted four hours. One of the Englishmen was past recovery. Several of the Irish was in the same state. The battle ended at night. The next morning when enquiry was made who was the first aggressor, the Irishmen with their false oaths soon turned the Englishmen. I was one of the number that was found guilty. I was sentenced to 200 lashes.

  When the time appointed for my punishment was come, I made my escape into the wilderness. It was in the evening when I made my escape from the h
and of my tyrant.

  Bruce had run from a flogging, just as he had when a small boy, in London.

  The first night I slept without fear.

  Sarah noticed another recurrence, but only because Brippoki had reacted so strongly to it before. Following his fall from the treetops, and his bleeding from every orifice, Bruce had slept a fortnight through. His prodigious, death-like sleep echoed a similar occasion, the ‘extraordinary advent’ at his birth.

  Ever since the earlier reading, Brippoki had been distracted, jumpy. Sarah knew better than to expect any explanation. His spirits were palpably intense, but she could not, it seemed, know his reasons – if reason even prevailed. At every pause, she searched the mysterious depths of his dark eyes, and wondered how she might unlock their secrets.

  Compared to the state in which she had found him the previous evening, he had at least flattened down his hair, and straightened his ragged clothing. He had also cleaned the supper dish.

  The next morning at the appearing of the blessed light from Heaven, I was awakened with the melodious voices of the beautiful birds whom God had made. Here, for the first time, I looked in the lap of Nature, and there I found God in His power and His Wisdom, His Knowledge and his Mercy. I rose and began my pilgrimage.

  I went on my travels through the woods. In the evening I promiscuously met a man who was a settler. He asked me where I was going. I told him:

  – To look for work.

  He employed me and that night introduced me to two men that he was supporting in the day time; and in return, at night, those two men went to the different settlements thieving, and brought him the stolen property. He also told me that it would be better for me to join them than anything he could recommend me to. I consented and went with them.

  Every night, we used to go to the different stock-yards belonging to the Government, stealing sheep, goats, pigs and geese, ducks, fowls – or anything we could catch. In a few days after, we were joined with three more poor miserable sinners like myself. Now being six in number, we went on in a most dreadful way of thieving.

  ‘Most horrid and dreadful,’ Brippoki confirmed, his expression grave.

  Indeed – what progress for a pilgrim, from policeman to a rustler of livestock.

  ‘Premiskisly’, the original text had said. ‘I promiscuously met a man.’ How old would Bruce be? She guessed not far off twenty years of age. The man he met in the woods had turned out another Fagin, and he had fallen into bad company.

  In about two months after, one of my late companions proposed to go to one of his friends to procure some tobacco and salt for all the gain. It was agreed on, and that night we all accompanied him to the border of the settlement, where he told us that his acquaintance lived. We gave him half a sheep to present to his friends. He took his departure from us with that vow to bring us what we then stood in need of. But alas, he betrayed us all. For by this time there was a most desperate hue and cry throughout the whole country, and great rewards for all our lives. And when his friends told him this, he went to the police and put them in a way how to take our lives.

  Her energies flagging, Sarah struggled to interpret her own scrawl.

  The plot being laid, he returned to us. We then went to our place of abode in the wood and there remained till the next night, which was the time that this Judas appointed for our lives to be taken. The tent which we all sleep in, it was in a thick part of the wood, so that no person could get to it without great difficulty, and before it was a large fire from which the heat came so strong that we could not bear any clothing. We were all naked. It was to be so. I could not sleep, for that Great and Merciful God, in whom I put all my trust and hope, He never left me in all my distresses. O my dear brothers, that I could display to you all in net that lively faith I have in that God who made and Created me, then you would not be surprised when you came to hear how many times I have escaped from the hand of my enemies, who sought my life and thirsted after my blood. Nay, I was in Hell, but the blessed Lord Jesus Christ brought me out of it.

  Sarah glanced up, to gauge what effect, if any, the impromptu preaching might have on Brippoki. Hunched in concentration, he listened – intent as always – but made no sign.

  About the midnight hour I thought I heard the sound of a human foot. I with the greatest of care began to awaken the untimely mortals who lay by my side asleep. But the poor weak-hearted creature, who well knew his appointed time to which he had betrayed all our lives, he momently jumped up to his feet and began to shout as loud as he could, and immediately jumped over the fire. This was his agreement with the police officers on the night he first betrayed us, but he was deceived, for half went over the fire and half run through the thick part of the woods. Those three that went over the fire was immediately taken, and in a few days two of them was executed.

  As soon as I got through the thick woods it began to rain, and the night turned so dark that I was glad to sit down by a large tree, where I remained till the morning. I had with me two of the untimely creatures. It was in the wintertime, so that my joints was set with the cold that in the morning, when to rise, I could not, till I was helped by both of the men that was with me. We were all naked.

  Sarah shifted uneasily in her seat. The imagery of men, naked, lost in the woods, evoked something primeval. If the Australian Bush was the Garden of Eden, then these lost souls had been cast into the outer darkness, into a wilderness of night.

  But as soon as I recovered myself, I then went on my travels through the woods, for a settlement named Prospect, which we made in a day and a night’s journey. Our legs and feet was tore in a most dreadful manner by the brambles and briars. There lived a man at this place in whom I thought I could trust my life with the greatest of confidence, but alas when I entered in his house his very countenance displayed the Judas heart that he had in his bosom. Now the Devil had locked his jaw as he does all his servants when he finds their labour in vain. That morning saw the grand archangel with his flaming sword in his hand guarding my poor sinful soul. However, the body of destruction that he had for a partner, she told me that anything I wanted of her husband he would it immediately. I then asked him to go to George Pell that lived in Towngabby.

  ‘Toongabbe,’ said Brippoki suddenly.

  ‘Toon…’ she repeated. ‘How do you say it?’

  ‘Toongabbe. Place near water.’

  The suggestion that Bruce travelled through country Brippoki was familiar with excited Sarah beyond measure. She read on even faster.

  I told him to tell Pell that I and two more men was naked and I wanted clothing for all three. Luker then took his departure from us, and we returned into the wood, carrying with us a large cake made of flour, and a good piece of pork, which his wife had gave us. As we was lamenting the horrid state, almost perished with the cold it being in the depth of winter, we being all naked and as ravenous as wolves with the hunger, one of my unfortunate companions asked me if I know any more of the settlers. I told him I did, for during the time I had been with Dr Caley collecting insects, that I had been from one end to the other of all the settlements that Government had.

  Farr said:

  – Alas my dear boy, your travelling was different then to what it is now. When you was with Dr Caley you was free to travel, but now all our lives is in danger.

  ‘This is one of his companions,’ Sarah explained, ‘a man called Farr, whose speech is here reported. And here Bruce makes answer…’ She assumed a different voice.

  – Well, faith, what you say is right. But let me ask you, don’t you think that I was in as much danger when I have been all hours of the night collecting curiosities? For you know, Farr, that there is plenty of snakes in the wood, and wild beast that would devour a man. But, Farr, you think of the danger that our lives is in by the laws of man, but you don’t think on that Great and Merciful God that brought us three out of the gulf of Hell. I mean, Farr, the night before last night: how that providential God brought us out of the hands of our enemies. Farr?
Don’t despair, God is good.

  Brippoki was nodding.

  Farr said:

  – You astonish me, Bruce, with your discourse, and I am sure that God has gave you a great gift. But it is no time for preaching now.

  Sarah allowed herself a wry smile. ‘Bruce replies again.’

  – Well, Farr, both of you are very cold. Come, let us go and I will take you to a house where you both will get a good warm at the fire. For my part, thank God, I am quite hot.

  Brippoki sat suitably agog. This was as well: sorting out dialogue scenes from a single breathless paragraph had taken up much of Sarah’s day.

  The handwriting at this point had taken on a noticeably different character. It looked to be the work of the same hand, in bigger, bolder print. Maybe nothing more than a fresh writing implement – but if George Bruce, strangely warmed, was beginning to rave, as it appeared, then the note-taker would have been required to write faster, just to keep up.

  I then went to the house of Joshua Peck, where we was received in a most efficacious manner. Mr Peck immediately brought us some old rags to cover our nakedness. Mrs Peck having a large family of children she burst into tears, and taking me by the hand and kissed me, she also told me that Joseph Luker was going to inform the soldiers and police officers that we were on that spot, and she expected them every moment.

  – Mrs Peck, you surprise me, for I sent him to George Pell to bring me clothing for us three.

  Mrs Peck said:

  – Yes, my dear child, I know. For he came to this house to light his pipe about an hour ago. And he told me and my husband that his wife had gave you three bread and meat enough for one day. But he exclaimed that it should be the last that you should eat, for he would have you all shot that day before twelve o’clock, and he swore a most desperate bloody oath.