The Man From Hell

by Barrie Roberts

  A pair of hands lifted me from the table and I saw a ring of boys about me. Hunter lay on the floor in a pool of blood and over him stood my foster-brother, still holding the stool with which he had struck him down.

  Jemmy the Pick, a locksmith’s apprentice from Brummagem, stepped forward and bent over Hunter. When he looked up his face was white in the lantern-light.

  ‘Glory be, cully!’ he exclaimed. ‘You’ve killed the swine!’

  My foster-brother’s face never altered, but he turned to me. ‘Can you run, Jim?’ he asked. ‘We must be across the Neck while it is still well dark.’

  With Hunter’s keys we opened the store-room on the floor above and there we changed into civilian clothing which had been concealed there by the Ring. Before leaving the barracks we returned to the dormitory, where my foster-brother dabbled our uniform trousers and shirts in Hunter’s blood and crammed them in a flour-sack which he brought with us.

  Jemmy escorted us to the barracks door. ‘How will you do?’ asked my foster-brother.

  ‘We shall blame it all on you,’ said Jemmy. ‘We shall say we was all asleep until it was over and we woke to find Hunter down and you two bolted. They ain’t gonna take us all to Sydney for trial. It’s you as needs to worry. If the puppies or the sharks don’t get you, they’ll hang the pair of you.’

  And with that grim farewell we set out to escape from Point Puer.

  Twelve

  ACROSS THE NECK

  A cold wind whipped across Eaglehawk Neck, whistling in the long, coarse grass and chilling the sweat on our faces. We had run and jogged from Point Puer in good time and now lay hidden in the long grass towards the southern limit of the fence.

  ‘Where are the guards?’ I asked my foster-brother.

  ‘Inside their bungalows,’ he replied. ‘They rely on the dogs. Until they hear the dogs make a noise they have no need to stir outside. If word had reached them that we were out they would be ready for us.’

  ‘How will we cross the fence?’ I asked.

  ‘You,’ he said, ‘will go down to the beach and walk along the water’s edge, but keep your eye on me. Now, you see the curves where the dogs’ feet have marked?’

  I looked, and on the lamplit area of white shells I could see where each dog had marked out the circular limit of its chain.

  ‘You will see me walk out between the last two curves and put this down.’ He reached in the flour-sack and drew out a chunk of raw meat. ‘The last dog on land will go for it and the second one will try for it as well. As soon as you see me put the meat down, run along the waterline to the platform and throw this to the platform dog,’ and he passed me a chunk of meat. ‘Throw it as far along the platform as you can. Then, when the platform dog is after the meat and the land dogs are fighting, go fast over the end of the fence. Right at the end – as far as you can get from the dogs.’

  ‘What will you do?’ I asked.

  ‘Once the dogs start a noise the guards will soon be here. As soon as you’re across I shall run for the end of the fence, as far as I can get from the last land dog and the platform dog, and climb over. Now, there’s one last thing, when you get down to the sea, throw these in the water,’ and he handed me my blood-dabbled convict clothing. ‘With any luck they may find them and think the sharks got us. I’ll drop mine further along when I’ve crossed the fence. Now, have you got it all?’

  I nodded dumbly. ‘Let’s go, then,’ he said. ‘Good luck, Jim!’

  I wished him the same and slid off through the grass towards the beach. The tide was well up and I was soon walking along the water’s edge. Dropping the bundle of clothing into the sea I watched for my foster-brother’s move.

  At last I saw him dash out from the long grass and place his bait before hiding again. In a very short time, the underfed dogs caught the smell of the meat and came out to investigate. I quickened my pace and trembled as the platform dog slouched out of its barrel, rattling its long chain.

  When I judged it time I lobbed my meat as far down the platform as I could and watched thankfully as the black shape of the dog moved off towards it. I dared not wait a second, but now ran to the fence and scrambled up it, dropping thankfully to the sand on the other side.

  ‘Come on!’ I called, as loudly as I dared, for the two land dogs were now snarling noisily over the meat and I feared the arrival of the guards. Suddenly he sprang out of the shadows beyond the white shells and sprinted for the fence.

  I knew his speed and had no doubt that he would be well up the fence before the nearest dog could reach him. I was silently cheering him on when disaster struck. I do not know if his ankle turned or if he lost his footing on the shells and pebbles, but suddenly he was sprawling on the ground.

  I watched in horror as he started to struggle to his feet, only to be dragged down by the end dog. They fought on the ground and I saw him desperately trying to entangle the animal in its chain, but its weight and ferocity were too much for him. Maddened by the smell of blood on his clothing, it tore fiercely at him. I saw it lunge at his throat and heard his ringing cry as it struck. Then he lay still and I saw blood spreading on the white shells.

  I might have clung to the fence for ever, but I heard voices coming and some instinct of preservation sent me running into the darkness. How long or how far I ran that night I do not know. I stumbled through the bush, reckless of pursuit, sobbing aloud, until exhaustion stopped me and I crawled into the branches of a tree to rest.

  The sun was high when I woke. The memory of the night’s events returned and filled me with grief and fear, bringing fresh tears to my eyes. In my despair I contemplated flinging myself into the sea and ending my misery, but the knowledge that my brave companion had made his sacrifice so that I should be free prevented me.

  I knew that Port Arthur could signal an escape to the guards on the Neck in a minute and to Hobart in an hour, and I expected at every moment to hear the pursuit, but I also knew that I must move. My foster-brother had told me that we could find Hobart by keeping the sea always on our left and moving south and with only those directions I set out.

  The miles from Port Arthur to Hobart are such as a sturdy boy might walk with ease in three or four days, but that is by the roads and I did not dare to travel by road. Stumbling through bush and gum forest I took far longer. There in the southern hemisphere the stars were unknown to me, but I knew that the sun’s positions at dawn and sunset were not reversed and, by that and by keeping close to the coast, I made my way.

  At Port Arthur the guards had discouraged us from escaping by telling us tales of escapers who had been eaten by the native blacks and of Pearce who escaped with a party from Macquarie Harbour and killed and ate his companions when they were starving. Raised in the country, I was able to feed myself off the land as I went, though not well. Each night I spent exhausted and still hungry in the branches of a tree, recalling the guards’ stories of bolters who had been bitten by poisonous snakes or eaten by tigers.

  One night I woke in my uncomfortable perch to hear an animal snuffing about the base of the tree. Beneath me I could see a large, dog-like creature with striped flanks staring up at me. I do not know what it was, but I froze with terror and dared not sleep again for fear of dropping into its maw. It prowled the area for the rest of the night, only abandoning its patrol when dawn broke.

  After how many days I do not know I found myself on the banks of a stream so large I believed it to be the Derwent and began to follow it down to the port of Hobart. My clothes were now ragged and stained with my long struggle through the bush, and I knew that I dared not appear in the port as a ragamuffin, but now I was coming across occasional farms and from one I was able to steal myself a new outfit without being detected.

  So I found my way at last to Hobart and, having learned to survive in the wild, had now to learn how to survive in the town. Apart from soldiers, who were everywhere in evidence, the port was also patrolled by a convict police force and both bent their efforts to taking up anyone who
might be an assigned convict misbehaving or a runaway. In those days there were still few settlers in the island and boys on their own were rare.

  I loitered about the wharves and jetties as much as I dared, my ears always alert for word of the sailing of an American ship, for I knew no English vessel would take me. Sometimes I helped the wharfies at their labour for a few pennies, telling them that I was the son of a settler on the far edge of Hobart. I found myself a hiding-place in an old barrel under a wharf, surrounded by rotting crates and debris. There I passed my nights, living on the wharfies’ pence and what food I could scrounge or steal.

  At last I saw a Yankee schooner lying in the harbour, the Sarah Jane. I watched her skipper coming and going ashore as the vessel unloaded and I wondered how long she would stay before a cargo was found for America. I grew more determined daily that the ship would not leave Hobart without me, but I knew that outbound vessels were searched by the convict police and heavy fines imposed on the master and crew of a ship that carried a runaway.

  I was huddled in my barrel one night, musing on this problem, when I heard voices close at hand. I feared discovery and any attendant inquisition, but the sounds came no nearer to my hiding-place.

  As I lay in the dark and listened I distinguished the voices of three men and could make out much of what they were saying. I listened with particular attention when I heard one of them mention the Sarah Jane. To my horror I realised that these were thieves. Somehow they had learned that the captain of the Sarah Jane would be paid for his delivered cargo on the following day and they proposed to waylay him on the foreshore and rob him before he returned aboard.

  Their conference ended and I lay in my barrel, both frightened and elated. Fate had given me the opportunity to be of service to the Yankee schooner’s master if I had the courage to take the risk.

  Next morning the captain came ashore as usual and I saw him stride away into the town. I dared not leave the wharf all day lest I miss his return. At last, in the late afternoon, a carriage came along the wharf and stopped to let the captain out. He shook hands with the occupant of the carriage and strode to the wooden steps that led down to the foreshore. Anxiously I looked around for a sign of the robbers but saw none.

  The Yankee skipper had reached the foreshore and signalled for his crew to send a boat when I saw three men slip from under the wharf and advance noiselessly on his back.

  I flung myself down the wooden steps, calling out, ‘Captain! Captain! Behind you!’

  He turned and, seeing the thieves advancing on him, groped in his pocket for a weapon. Beyond him I saw his ship’s boat on the water, but it would never reach the shore in time to prevent robbery and perhaps murder. As the three villains closed with the American I raced down the beach and flung myself on their rear.

  The attackers were all large, muscular men, two of whom I had seen working on the wharves, and they were armed with blackjacks, but the American put up a stout defence, laying about him vigorously. My assistance was but little, though I attacked as fiercely as I was able and I believe my unexpected presence hindered the robbers. Nevertheless the captain eventually went down and, as he did so, a fist crashed into my face. The last thing I heard before blackness overwhelmed me was a muffled shot.

  ___

  Author's notes on this chapter

  Thirteen

  THE MAKING OF A MILLIONAIRE

  Iwoke to find myself in a bed. My head throbbed, one side being swollen like a melon, and one eye would not open. Feeling the bed beneath me I feared to open the other, for I felt sure that I lay in Hobart Infirmary awaiting shipment to Sydney to be tried for my life. Then the bed moved slightly beneath me and I realised that I lay in a ship riding at anchor.

  Slowly I opened my one eye and saw above me the tall skipper of the Sarah Jane, his face patched with sticking-plasters. ‘Bear up, youngster,’ he said. ‘You’re aboard an American ship and its master is in your debt. You saved my life and the profits of my voyage. If you hadn’t hollered and joined in the fight those wharf-rats would have had me down before my boat got to the beach.’

  I tried to respond, but my mouth was dry. A plump, pleasant-looking lady appeared and gave me a sip of cordial. ‘Don’t you press him, Nathan,’ she said to the skipper. ‘He hardly knows where he is.’

  ‘He knows where he is,’ said the captain. ‘I’ve told him, and you can tell me, youngster, how you come to be here. I’ve seen your back and those tattoos you carry so I know you’re a convict boy. After what you did for me I’m not minded to put you back on shore to be beaten or worse. So tell me who you are.’

  Thus encouraged I told the captain and his wife my whole story. The recitation brought back to me the grief of my loss and I ended in tears.

  ‘He has had enough,’ said the skipper’s wife. ‘What a dreadful tale!’

  ‘There’s no way I could put him ashore now,’ said the captain. ‘Welcome to the Sarah Jane, Jim.’

  ‘Don’t forget the penalties, Nathan,’ said his wife.

  ‘I surely don’t,’ he replied, ‘but if I stay master of this ship then this boy sails with us.’

  I was still fearful of the convict police searching the ship, but Captain Winthrop (for that was his name) seemed so determined to help me escape that I fell asleep happier than I had been since leaving home and only wishing my brave foster-brother had survived to share my good fortune.

  A couple of days later, on a Saturday night, the mate dined with us (I had kept to the captain’s quarters at his suggestion to avoid visitors to the ship seeing me). We had put away the best of Mrs Winthrop’s cooking and the mate and Captain Winthrop fell to business.

  ‘If we can stow the last consignment on Monday morning we’ll sail the same day,’ said the captain.

  ‘There’s no problem there,’ said the mate, ‘apart from young Jim here.’

  The captain stared at him. ‘He will be no problem,’ he declared.

  ‘Well, I see why you would want to help him after what he did,’ said the mate, ‘but some of the crew are talking about the fact you’ve got a convict boy on board and intend to sail with him.’

  ‘And what if I do?’ said Captain Winthrop pugnaciously.

  ‘Well, they’re talking about the fines – a month’s pay off the captain and every man-jack for taking a runaway. That’s hard, captain.’

  ‘If Jim isn’t found then no one’s going to be fined,’ the captain declared.

  The mate was still uneasy, and my own concern had grown throughout the conversation.

  ‘And what about the reward?’ asked the mate. ‘Any man can get a month’s pay and the right to sign off if he informs on a runaway.’

  ‘If any of my crew is fool enough to drop himself on this Godforsaken island with a month’s pay for playing Judas,’ said the skipper, ‘he’ll deal with me before he goes.’

  ‘But we’re in Limey waters here,’ persisted the mate. ‘It’s their law.’

  ‘It’s their law that sent an innocent boy to the end of the world, cast him in among thieves and murderers and worse and flogged him bloody to make a better Englishman of him,’ said the captain. ‘You leave the crew and the Limey laws to me, Mister Mate, and you, Jim, I made you a promise and I’ll keep it.’

  Despite Captain Winthrop’s robust response the mate’s words had worried me and I passed an uneasy night. On Sunday morning the captain summoned me to join the ship’s service. The whole ship’s company was paraded on the main-deck in their Sabbath best. Mrs Winthrop read a lesson and played a portative organ while hymns were sung. Many a covert eye was cast on me during the ceremony, for few of the crew had seen me before, and I could not help feeling that some were calculating their chance of earning a month’s pay from me.

  The hymns done Captain Winthrop stepped forward, his Bible beneath his arm and hands clasped at his back.

  ‘Men,’ he said, ‘you all know that it’s my practice to address a few words to you of a Sunday morning as a kind of sermon. Well, this morning
you can stand easy, for I’m going to tell you a story instead.’

  Thereupon he launched into the story I had told him of my own misadventure, telling it far better than I could have done so that he drew growls of anger from his audience.

  When he had done he called me forward and had me strip off my shirt to show the cane scars across my back.

  ‘Now,’ he told the crew, ‘I would be failing in my duty as a man and as a Christian if I handed this boy back to the redcoats to hang. So he sails with us tomorrow and any as has anything to say against that can say it now,’ and he glowered around him.

  The men shuffled their feet, then one spoke up. ‘None of us here means any harm to the boy, skipper, but what about the fines if he gets caught aboard? We can’t get away without a search–’

  ‘Firstly,’ the captain cut him short, ‘he ain’t a-going to be caught and secondly, if it’s the fines that worry you, I’ll make you this promise – if the worst came to the worst and he was caught then I should pay all your fines. How does that take you?’

  That raised a ragged cheer, but Captain Winthrop was not finished. ‘That leaves but one thing,’ he said, ‘the question of whether any one of you fancies earning a month’s pay and his discharge by betraying young Jim to the redcoats. Well, seeing as it’s Sunday, let me conclude this service.’

  Whipping the Bible from beneath his arm, he opened it and began to read, in tones that rang in the still morning, the verses that tell of the betrayal of Our Lord and the fate of Judas.

  ‘... and his bowels gushed asunder,’ he ended, and shut the Book with a snap. ‘Now I can’t guarantee that such a fate will take any as betrayed young Jim, but I can guarantee that they’ll have to deal with me before they gets their discharge and I have little mercy to spare for varmints. And when you’ve taken your reward and gone ashore you can stay there. You can remain on this damned Limey prison island till you rot, because I shall put the word on you with every master who sails the Pacific.’