Nanberry

by Jackie French

  Nanberry sat still. His friend’s canoe — that wonderful canoe, like no other ever made, the canoe that had taken a whole season to perfect, destroyed. His friend, lied to. Given ‘a few trinkets’ to replace a canoe.

  Rage filled him; he didn’t let it show. He was good at not showing what he felt now. Sailor or warrior, you ‘took it on the chin’ as Captain Waterhouse would say. You never let it show that the blows hurt you.

  There would be no journey down to Parramatta now. He doubted Balloonderry would even stay there, betrayed and bitter as he must feel.

  The meat tasted like dirt now. Nanberry pushed away his second helping.

  Chapter 39

  NANBERRY

  SYDNEY COVE, AUGUST 1791

  ‘Two head wounds, eight scurvy cases, a case of the stone, a madman who thinks the flies are talking to him and a baby with a fistula. What a day,’ said the Surgeon as Rachel hung up his coat and knelt to take his boots off. She put them outside for Big Lon to polish.

  ‘Any other news?’ Rachel gestured for Nanberry to sit at the table. She had fried the kangaroo collops in the giant skillet, and added a dust of flour and water to make their gravy. The cornbread was already on the table, along with the butter, and a jug of Rachel’s fresh ale.

  ‘More officers’ quarrels. I stay out of it. Oh, and that native fisherman. He’s in trouble again, it seems. The skull fracture patient they brought up from Parramatta a few days ago was able to talk this morning. Told me that the native speared a convict. I asked the Governor about it this afternoon, when I called in to check his shoulder.’

  ‘It’s still hurting him?’ asked Rachel.

  The Surgeon nodded. ‘It’s more than inflammation, I think. Perhaps an infection in the bone.’

  ‘But the native?’ asked Nanberry quietly.

  ‘What? Oh yes. Balloonderry. Phillip said the lad had the hide to paddle another canoe right up into the harbour after his crime. Wanted to ask him for a pardon, I suppose. Phillip ordered the guards to arrest him.’ The Surgeon shook his head. ‘That Bennelong is staying with the Governor again. He shouted a warning and the young man vanished.’

  ‘When did this happen?’ asked Nanberry. He tried to keep expression from his voice. Father White knew Balloonderry’s name. He didn’t think he would connect it with the friend his foster son had made the year before, though.

  The Surgeon shrugged. ‘A week ago? I didn’t ask. Pity — Phillip told me that the lad had promise. He was even thinking of taking him to England to show the Royal Society what a native is like. But he’s for the gallows now — if they don’t shoot him first.’

  Nanberry sat frozen. His friend in trouble. More than his friend — his brother. The exchanging of names had been an impulse, but the bond still held.

  Suddenly Big Lon pounded on the door. The Surgeon sighed. ‘Will the man ever learn to knock politely?’

  ‘No,’ said Rachel. She stood and opened the back door. Big Lon was panting. He must have run up the hill.

  ‘Sir, the Governor sent for you. Word is there’s a band of natives assembled across the cove. That there Balloonderry is the ringleader. Governor’s gettin’ a party to fight them and bring the blighter back. He wants you down at the barracks — likely to be injuries with them big spears, sir.’

  The Surgeon nodded wearily. ‘Merciful Heavens. Is there no end to this?’ He stood up. Nanberry waited till he had left with his brown medical bag, then slipped out of the door too.

  How long would it take the soldiers to get ready? A long time, he thought — they’d get into their uniforms, check their powder and muskets. They’d march, in their heavy boots, their muskets over their shoulders.

  He could follow where they went. He could warn his friend. If he was seen he’d be punished — even hanged, perhaps. That’s what they did to anyone who helped someone who had speared a white man. Even Father White mightn’t be able to save his son from hanging.

  Nanberry grew still. He was Nanberry, the Surgeon’s son, in his good clothes, his hair tied back. But if he took off his clothes, untied his hair …

  It was strange to stand naked in the night air. I am not Nanberry White, he thought. I am … who am I?

  Nanberry Buckenau Balloonderry. My brother’s brother. He began to run through the night, keeping to the bush behind the straggle of huts. An owl hooted above him.

  It was hard to run at night, despite the moonlight, bright enough for shadows. He stumbled, skinned his knees. He kept on going.

  Slowly it became easier to see by moon-and starlight. It was as though his feet knew where to go. He looked down, hearing the whisper of long-gone Aunties: ‘Look at the ground, not the bright sky, if you want to see in the dark.’

  The night wind felt sweet on his skin.

  Then faintly he heard it, down by the harbour: the thud of soldiers’ feet. One two, one two …

  They were marching to attack.

  Where were Balloonderry and his companions? No time to find them now. ‘Jiriyai!’ he screamed. He had forgotten the war cry, but it came to his lips now. Soldiers! ‘Jiriyai!’

  ‘Jiriyai!’ The call echoed back between the trees. He ran down to the water, moving more slowly now among the rocks.

  The moon sent a breeze of silver across the sea. All at once rock shapes turned into warriors with white paint on their bodies. Young men — not yet initiates — stood with them. Even the young men had spears.

  Balloonderry stood tall in the moonlight, his spear even taller by his side.

  ‘The soldiers,’ Nanberry panted. ‘They’re coming.’

  Balloonderry grinned. ‘Nanberry, my brother, we know. We are waiting for them.’

  ‘But they have muskets …’

  ‘We know that too.’

  They could have been pictures on the rocks, they were so still. Nanberry shook his head. He had expected them to run away as soon as he warned them.

  They were going to fight.

  The sound of marching drew closer. The soldiers appeared around the curve of the beach, their muskets over their shoulders, their bayonets fixed. They still hadn’t seen the warriors, waiting by the rocks.

  He should run before they saw him, before they recognised him. He should run before they attacked. The last time there had been a clash of warriors and soldiers he had been on the side of the English, a boy cowering in a boat.

  He was on the wrong side. Or was he?

  Balloonderry didn’t look at him now. Instead his gaze was on the soldiers.

  Suddenly one of them gave a cry. They had seen the warriors. ‘Halt!’ The soldiers stopped. The ones in front knelt in the sand, and aimed their muskets. The others stood behind them, aiming too.

  No one moved.

  ‘Balloonderry, I arrest you in the name of the King. Step forward and no one will be hurt.’

  The silence grew. Then Balloonderry laughed.

  He stepped forward, his smile friendly. His spear had vanished. He held out his empty hands in a gesture of peace. The warriors behind him grinned too, their teeth white in their beards, although they still held their spears.

  Slowly, step by step, Balloonderry crossed the sand to the waiting soldiers, his hands still out, the smile still on his face. The other warriors followed him. Only Nanberry lingered in the shadow of the rocks.

  What was going on? Surely Balloonderry wasn’t giving himself up! He’d be hanged on the gibbet on the hill, his legs dancing as he died …

  It felt wrong, the slow step of the warriors, the smiles …

  Suddenly Balloonderry snatched at a musket. All at once Nanberry understood. The soldiers were no warriors. Take away their muskets and they were helpless against spears and war axes.

  Black shadows scuffled with red uniforms in the moonlight. It was impossible to see exactly what was going on.

  I should help, thought Nanberry. But he might make things worse. This had been planned, but he had no idea what the rest of the plan might be.

  A spear gleamed as it flew
in the moonlight. A musket cracked. A man screamed — a native man, but not Balloonderry.

  Then the warriors were gone, black shadows lost in a black night. The soldiers stood, confused, alone on the moonlit sand.

  Nanberry moved back silently till he was hidden by the boulders. Where had the others gone? Why hadn’t they taken him with them?

  But he was Nanberry White. He needed to put on his clothes again, and run to his father’s house. The Surgeon would be waiting at the barracks, to tend any wounded.

  The soldiers muttered. They began to straggle back along the beach, no longer marching in formation. Nanberry started to walk back up the hill. He half hoped that Balloonderry might call him quietly from among the trees. But only the owl hooted.

  I risked myself for nothing, thought Nanberry. Nothing changed because I ran to warn them … No, he stopped. I am what’s changed tonight. Yesterday I was an English boy. Tonight I ran to warn my brother.

  Black brother. White father. He looked at his hands in the moonlight, his naked body. His black body. His knees hurt. He rubbed them, then began to limp back home.

  Chapter 40

  NANBERRY

  PORT JACKSON AND THE BACKFIELDS

  (NOW HAYMARKET AREA), AUGUST 1791

  He hung around Government House and the soldiers’ parade ground now. He used his trip to Norfolk Island as an excuse to chat to the soldiers on guard. He slept at Father White’s house. He ate at his father’s table. No one knew that now he listened. Now he watched.

  That was how he heard that Governor Phillip knew that Balloonderry’s warriors were camped a mile beyond the brickworks and had sent orders to find them — and shoot them if they attacked with spears.

  This time he stripped off his clothes in daylight as soon as he was away from the parade ground. Nanberry the native, not Nanberry White. He ran, the bushes pricking at his skin, grateful for the muscles won as a sailor.

  There was no campfire smoke spiralling into the sky to tell him where they were, but he could smell where smoke had been. He turned and scrambled up the gully. The lilly-pillies were blooming, white flowers that smelt of honey, and the grass orchids with their sweet tubers underground …

  He thought he had forgotten. He hadn’t. His bare feet were so silent on the ground that the warriors looked up, startled, as he burst into the campsite.

  They looked to be the same men and youths who had gathered before. They lay against trees or sat by the ashes of the fire, picking the last meat from a roasted badagarang. They didn’t wear white paint today, but their spears were long, barbed war spears, not fishing ones. At first he couldn’t see Balloonderry, then noticed him among the others.

  ‘The soldiers are coming! They plan to shoot as soon as they see you this time!’

  Balloonderry stood up without haste. ‘Then we will make sure they don’t see us. Thank you, my brother.’

  The other warriors picked up their spears and ngalangala, their war clubs, and began to stride into the trees.

  ‘Where will you go? Back down to Parramatta?’

  Balloonderry hesitated, then nodded his acceptance of Nanberry’s loyalty. ‘Across the harbour. The English won’t bother walking there, and we can see their boats if they try to hunt us.’ He paused. ‘Do you think the Governor will stay angry?’

  ‘You want to come back to the colony?’

  ‘I don’t want to be hunted like a badagarang. I want to fish the harbour again.’ He met Nanberry’s eyes. ‘The Governor said I might go to England. I want to see new lands, to ride in the giant boats, like you. Do you think he will forget?’

  ‘No,’ said Nanberry honestly. ‘The English think it is serious to kill a man. A white man,’ he added.

  ‘There is no punishment he will accept, except my death?’

  Nanberry had lived as an English for over two years now, but there was so much he didn’t know. He shook his head — an English gesture. ‘I will ask my father. Perhaps he might know.’ Someone yelled an order in the distance. ‘You should go!’

  ‘Yes. If the Governor says I can come back, will you send me a sign?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘An oar,’ said Balloonderry. ‘Thank you, brother.’

  ‘Balloonderry Nanberry,’ said Nanberry.

  ‘Nanberry Balloonderry,’ said Balloonderry. ‘You will be a warrior,’ he added quietly. ‘One day you will.’ He turned his back and vanished after the others into the bush.

  Nanberry was almost back at the settlement when he saw the soldiers. He hid in a bush as they tramped by with their muskets, followed by the Governor and some officers with swords and pistols, their red coats stained now, no longer as bright as when they had arrived.

  He laughed. Those brave red coats, those big black boots. How could any warriors fight when their red coats made them such easy targets? When black boots made so much noise? How could the English be so clever sometimes, but so stupid too?

  ‘You! What are you laughing at?’ It was a convict, one of the officers’ servants. Nanberry came out of his bush. He wondered if the man recognised him, naked, his hair down. He didn’t care either way.

  ‘The warriors have gone,’ he said. ‘The soldiers won’t find them now.’

  ‘How do you know?’ The man was suspicious.

  Nanberry laughed again. Let the convict report him — the man hadn’t seen him do any wrong. He began to run — not to escape, but for the sheer joy of it, feeling the earth under his bare feet, the air on his skin. No trousers to chafe him, no shirt to make him sweat.

  ‘Hey, you! Come back!’

  But there was no way the servant, small and ragged, could catch him. Had the man ever even run along a beach?

  He was free! He was Nanberry! He was Nanberry … White.

  He stopped running, found the bush where he had stripped off and reached for his clothes, then returned to his father’s house.

  Chapter 41

  NANBERRY

  SYDNEY COVE; COCKLE BAY HOSPITAL, DECEMBER 1791

  The Supply sailed again. Nanberry didn’t sail with it. He told Captain Waterhouse that he would like to sail on the next voyage though, if Captain Waterhouse would let him. Captain Waterhouse agreed, probably because of his friendship with Father White.

  Summer descended on the colony. Smoke from the bushfires in the mountains mingled with the smoke of cooking fires outside the huts, or from the colony’s few proper chimneys. Flies feasted in the horse and cattle dung. The smell of human excrement filled the air. The Tank Stream grew thick with green weed that turned to brown. It stank as well.

  Days passed. He slept, he ate, he wandered around the town. He ate dinner again at Government House with Father White. This time there was no black servant to sneer.

  He listened as Mr Collins urged the Governor to pardon ‘the native lad with so much promise’. He found an oar, and kept it hidden, so he could send a message to his brother if the Governor said he’d give a pardon. But Balloonderry had disappeared.

  The knocking came at breakfast. The Surgeon sighed. More people in the colony meant more illness, more urgent summonses to the hospital. But this knocking didn’t sound like Big Lon or the hospital porters. Rachel opened the door and stared. ‘Sir …’ she called to the Surgeon.

  It was Bennelong. He wore his shirt and trousers, but no boots or hat. He looked unsure of himself. Bennelong had never looked like that before.

  ‘Come,’ he said to Father White. It sounded like a plea.

  ‘What is it, man?’ demanded the Surgeon.

  ‘Balloonderry ill. Most ill.’

  Nanberry froze. Would his father tend a person who might be hanged if the Governor caught him? Would his father call for soldiers to capture him? But the Surgeon simply stood up and took his coat and hat from the peg. He nodded at Nanberry. ‘Ask him where the lad is.’

  It wasn’t far. His brother lay on the ground by the blackened remnants of a campfire. His skin was hot. Sweat beaded his face. He stared at the sky with eyes that didn’t
see.

  The Surgeon halted, then turned to Nanberry. ‘I’ve seen this lad before,’ he said slowly. ‘You brought him to have his hand stitched.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nanberry.

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nanberry. He hesitated. ‘He is the fisherman who speared the convict.’ He knelt beside Balloonderry. ‘Babana?’ Brother?

  Balloonderry didn’t reply.

  Nanberry searched his brother’s skin, but there were no white blisters. Just the heat, the mindlessness of fever.

  ‘Father? What’s wrong with him?’

  The Surgeon felt Balloonderry’s pulse, then laid a hand on his forehead, and checked the whites of his eyes. He shrugged. ‘A fever. Not the smallpox, I think. Measles, perhaps — there’s been an outbreak of that among the children. Influenza, or even just a cold. It could be one of a dozen things. The natives get so sick with many of our illnesses.’

  ‘Can you make him well?’

  ‘We can look after him and hope his fever breaks. Go and tell the porters to bring a stretcher. We need to carry him to the hospital.’

  ‘You won’t let the Governor hang him?’

  The Surgeon sat back. ‘Lad, I don’t know what the Governor will do. But while he is at my hospital I promise he will be safe.’

  Balloonderry was put in the same hut that Nanberry had once lain in. Nanberry sat with him as Father White checked his pulse and temperature again. Balloonderry muttered something, then grew still again, panting slightly like a dog.

  ‘Is he worse?’

  ‘Yes. His pulse is more rapid.’

  ‘But isn’t that good?’

  ‘No. It means his body is struggling with the fever. But his breathing is clear, at least.’

  ‘What can I do?’

  ‘Wipe his face and chest with a wet rag, to try to cool the fever. I’ll send some lavender oil over: add a few drops to the water. It might soothe him, help to cool him too. I’ll send meadowsweet tea. Try holding a little to his lips with a spoon, but don’t tip it down his throat unless he tries to swallow, or he might choke.’