The Whitest Flower

by Brendan Graham

  ‘The Aborigines soon found out what it meant to have their land taken by this new “whitefella” tribe – fencing. They got driven deeper into the wasteland, with more and more of their hunting grounds cut off from them. At first, they tried to carry on hunting. But Coombes, and other whites, considered the land theirs. So the Aborigines were accused of trespassing on their own lands. Trespassers could be shot – and they were.’

  ‘But what about the constabulary?’ she asked.

  ‘This was out in the bush – there were no police. Once in a while the Aborigines would retaliate – like when Coombes’ men captured a dozen or so Aboriginal women, and kept them penned up, to be used by them. There was a bloody battle – but the Aborigines, with their spears and knives, were no match for Europeans on horseback, armed with guns. Those who weren’t massacred were taken prisoner.’

  Lavelle spared her the detail of what had happened to the captives – how the Europeans, avowed Christians to a man, had vied with each other in their desecration of human life and dignity to teach these ‘black heathens’ a lesson. The depths of depravity to which they had sunk was evidenced by an ultimate act of savagery, in which they had hacked off the penis of one of the Aboriginal leaders. To shouts and howls of drunken laughter, they had sat and watched as the man, bleeding and in agony, had stumbled and pirouetted within the flickering light of their campfire. In this horrific death dance, he had sought the help, the mercy, of his murderers, spattering them and the land they had taken from him with his life-blood. Finally tiring of this display, Coombes had decapitated the man to ‘deliver him from his agonies’.

  Coombes then had the man’s head pickled and sent in a hat-box to London as proof of how ‘we Europeans are winning the war against the savages’.

  No white man was ever prosecuted, despite an inquiry conducted by the constabulary. Coombes had distanced himself from ‘any acts of savagery committed by the scum I am forced to employ, to develop the Crown’s Colony.’ He portrayed himself to the constabulary as an angel of mercy arriving on the scene ‘too late to intervene, except to put the heathen out of his final misery.’ Moreover, he called on the British Government to send more missionaries ‘to Christianize and civilize the heathen blacks’ – a call which corresponded with the Government’s own view as to how Australia’s first inhabitants should be dealt with.

  Lavelle picked up the story: ‘Eventually the Aborigines – pushed further and further to the outer limits of their traditional hunting lands, their women stolen and held caged as prostitutes – had had enough. When Governor Gipps in Sydney got word that a multi-tribal army was massing, intent on wreaking vengeance on Coombes, he put pressure on Coombes to leave the colony. The Aborigines were told that Coombes had returned to England. In return for a few empty promises, they made peace with the Government.

  ‘Coombes, in the meantime, had blackmailed his partners into buying him out of the company by threatening that he wouldn’t leave New South Wales without his share. They knew that if he didn’t leave, they’d all go down. So they coughed up.

  ‘He needed some men to go with him, men who hadn’t been mixed up in the massacre. I was working at a camp a hundred miles north with another transportee, a young lad from County Monaghan called McGorry. Coombes sent for us – he wanted Irishmen for some reason, said we might be thick but we weren’t scum like the English convicts. We didn’t want to go – we’d heard the stories about what Jasper Coombes had done – but he told us: “If you come with me, you’ll be free men. South Australia is a free colony, no convicts are allowed there. If, on the other hand, you elect to stay here … It’s said that the Governor will be looking for scapegoats to assuage the ‘Abos’ – and the Cockney rabble who were involved in this lapse plan to finger the two of you rather than face the consequences themselves.”’

  ‘But surely, if you were a hundred miles away—’ said Ellen.

  ‘The Crown didn’t want to put the blame on their own – they’d have been only too happy to have two Irish transportees delivered up to them. Coombes had us, and he knew it. Though we were ticket-of-leave men, bound not to move outside the area, nevertheless we set off overland for South Australia, along what they call the Murray-Darling route. First, you follow the banks of the River Darling from New South Wales, then join up with the River Murray in South Australia. Coombes had heard there was land going cheap there. He planned to use the money he got when he cashed in his share of the company, to buy up land and sell it on, at a handsome profit, to German immigrants.’

  Ellen had never heard such a story.

  ‘It was a tough trek, and Coombes didn’t talk to us much, but McGorry was great company, kept me going with that sharp Monaghan wit of his – when I could understand him.

  ‘Then disaster struck. McGorry’s horse must have disturbed a nest of snakes. Next thing the horse panicked, baulked backwards and lost its footing on the riverbank. Itself, with McGorry still astride, went into the swirling waters of the Darling. Coombes was thrown from his horse too. I didn’t know which one to go for, Coombes or McGorry. Coombes had got hold of the bank below, but McGorry and the horse were both being swept away.’

  ‘What did you do?’ Ellen couldn’t bear it.

  ‘I turned and tried to get downriver of McGorry, but I couldn’t make it. I saw the current take him out into the middle, and even the horse couldn’t go against it. I had to let them go – I couldn’t save him.’

  ‘And what about Coombes?’ Ellen asked.

  ‘He was still hanging on. The snakes had gone back into the bushland, so I left the horse on the bank and clambered down, holding on to the reins. I thought the horse would never hold me. Then I got onto a rock where I could reach Coombes. You know, Ellen, I was tempted to leave him there. I had a hold of him and his face wasn’t an arm’s length from mine. He must have seen what I was thinking. But it was the strangest thing ever. Never once did he beg me. Never once did even a flicker of fear come into his eyes.’

  The moment had stuck vividly in Lavelle’s memory. Jasper Coombes cared not much for life – neither anyone else’s, nor indeed his own. It had struck a chill in Lavelle – this man, hollowed of all emotions, even self-preservation. A human shell without a soul.

  ‘But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let the river take him, no matter what he’d done.’

  Ellen was filled with admiration for Lavelle. She could see he blamed himself for not saving the young Monaghan lad, but he had done the right thing in saving Coombes – more’s the pity.

  ‘Eventually we made it to Adelaide. Coombes didn’t waste any time in finding out who held the power here. He made contacts in the South Australia Company, which was set up to develop the colony, and soon had the inside track on land surveys. He bagged three thousand acres at a pound an acre, and, within nine months, he’d sold two thousand of it on to the Lutherans at ten pounds an acre. Having been dispossessed of land in their own country, they were intent on holding it here where they could build their German hamlets and live according to the Bible. They were so desperate, they’d pay almost any price. And Coombes made sure they got land – at his price.’

  Lavelle stopped and looked at Ellen, her eyes wide at his story.

  ‘Will I carry on?’ he asked, knowing her answer.

  ‘Coombes looked down on the Germans,’ Lavelle explained to her. ‘He used to say that the Lutherans’ bullocks had more wit than their owners. But he wasn’t above watching what the Lutherans did with the land, seeing how they tilled and cultivated it – cared for it. He watched what they planted, and what grew well.

  ‘A few years earlier, a Lutheran called Johannes Menge had carried out a survey for the South Australia Company. Menge had said that the land would support vineyards and orchards and great fields – there was no better soil in all the colony. So, Coombes started ploughing some of his profits into hiring labour and developing the thousand acres he had left. He planted almond, and peach and plum trees. But most of all, he planted vines. He knew he wo
uld be able to sell the wine to the European immigrants flooding into South Australia. And what he couldn’t sell here he could export, shipping it out of Port Adelaide.’

  Ellen was so enthralled by Lavelle’s description of his adventures in Ireland and Australia, and Coombes’ villainy, that she almost forgot the time. The islandman was a natural storyteller. But she couldn’t help feeling that he had skirted around some of the things she really wanted to know about – and now it was too late.

  Still, as she retired for the night, she had much food for thought. One thing she was sure of: Jasper Coombes was not a man to be trifled with. Nor underestimated.

  30

  The next morning they set off for the Barossa. It would take them two days over the broken and treacherous road. Ellen was feeling surprisingly refreshed, considering how little sleep she’d had, though her head was still buzzing with all that Lavelle had told her the previous night.

  Coombes was in a talkative mood, explaining to them that a Colonel William Light, South Australia’s first Surveyor General, had named the Barossa range in honour of his friend, Lord Lynedoch, who defeated the French at Barrossa in Spain, during the Peninsular War.

  Barrossa – hill of roses. What a beautiful name, thought Ellen, whispering it to herself. It rolled off the tongue like soft rain on summer flowers.

  But she couldn’t take her eyes off Coombes. How could he sit there, so calmly, and talk to them like this, after all he’d been a party to?

  ‘It’s as hot as August,’ Ellen said. And Lavelle laughed.

  ‘You should have been here at Christmas.’ He let them wait for a moment before explaining, ‘Christmas is summertime down here – it’s autumn now.’

  Ellen couldn’t get over this – they had seen no rain since they came, only hour after hour of sunshine. The seasons were all upside down here.

  With each mile they travelled, the beauty of the countryside was revealed to Ellen, and she put all thoughts of the previous night out of her head. Opening out before her was a land of flat plains of open grasslands and gently rolling hills that couldn’t have been more different than the mangrove swamps close to the Port of Adelaide. Coombes pointed out to them the various eucalyptus trees native to Australia – blue gums, river red gums, white ghost gums. A kookaburra startled the newcomers, the bird hidden safely somewhere in the trees, sending out his strange jack-ass’s laugh at them.

  True, the land did not have the stark mountain-valley beauty of Maamtrasna. But it was striking nonetheless with its vast blue sky, and its blue-greens set against the red-brown of the soil. And it looked cared for.

  ‘Who owns all this land?’ Ellen ventured, remembering Lavelle’s story.

  ‘Nobody – it’s just there. Crown land, or maybe the South Australia Company. Nobody yet,’ Coombes answered her, sure of his answer.

  ‘But what about the Australian people who live here?’ Ellen persisted. ‘Don’t they own it?’

  ‘Hah! My dear, there are no Australians,’ Coombes cut in quickly. ‘Only British and Germans and’ – he nodded back at them – ‘Irish, if you like. We are the Australians, and this’ – Coombes pointed to each side of them – ‘all this, was a barren wasteland before Captain Cook. Before we came and developed it!’

  Ellen wouldn’t give in to him. ‘But the land looks ordered, tended to. See – there are the grasses, and there are the trees and the shrubs, but each has its own place. Was this from God’s time?’

  It just didn’t make sense. Land, in much smaller parcels than these vast ranges, had always been important in Ireland – for survival, for handing down. Somebody always owned it. Could it be any different here in Australia?

  She could see Coombes was becoming irritated by her questioning. Kitty, beside her, dug an elbow into Ellen’s ribs, to silence her. After all Coombes was their master, their lifeline in this new land.

  ‘The Peramangk Aborigines live here: they formed the shapes you see around you – the park lands and the woodlands – through their practice of burning-off,’ said Lavelle.

  ‘Burning-off?’ Ellen echoed Lavelle’s words.

  ‘The fire burns up the scrub, and clears the land. The mallee, mulga and other acacias come back stronger, with more seed and fruit. Then the animals return for the seed and fruit, and the Peramangk come for the animals. It’s quite simple really – it’s the circle of life.’

  ‘But what if the fire was to keep spreading?’ Kitty was interested in possible disaster.

  ‘It never does,’ answered Lavelle. ‘Except when white settlers try it!’ And he shot a glance at Coombes.

  ‘Fires – hmph! That’s all they’re good for!’ It was Coombes. ‘These savages! Black savages, wandering the land, bone idle, not a grain of wheat have they grown, not a potato planted – only practising their heathen ways!’

  Coombes’ attack on the Aborigines reminded Ellen of how she had heard her own people described: lazy, indolent, good-for-nothing, priest-ridden Irish. She had already begun to empathize with the indigenous people of Australia, without yet having seen one of them.

  She had not long to wait.

  ‘The gun!’ Coombes shouted. ‘Lavelle – give me the gun!’

  Lavelle made no move, only tightened his grip on the reins.

  ‘Goddammit, man, I’ll have you flogged for this! Get out of my way!’ Coombes shouted, as he jostled Lavelle aside to get at the firearm under the driver’s seat.

  Ellen and the others wondered what was going on as Coombes grabbed the gun and brought it to his shoulder. Were they under threat from some quarter, or had Coombes spotted some animal he just wanted to shoot?

  The latter proved to be the case. But it was not an animal – it was a man.

  In the fraction of a second it took Ellen to follow Coombes’ line of vision along the shiny black metal of the gun’s barrel to the quarry in his sights, Ellen moved.

  She thrust Annie into the arms of a bewildered Kitty, and lunged at Coombes, who was on his feet, slowly squeezing the trigger of the gun. Both Coombes and the gun were toppled out of the cart by the suddenness of Ellen’s action, the gun exploding, harmlessly, into a nearby bush. Ellen stood, defiant, waiting for Coombes to speak as he got up, dusting himself off. But he said nothing, merely glowered as he retrieved his gun and clambered back aboard.

  ‘Drive on!’ he ordered Lavelle.

  She could see that Coombes was angry, very angry at what she had done. She just couldn’t believe that he would shoot down another human being in cold blood.

  The man whose life she had saved had emerged from the bush where he had crouched for cover at the sound of the gunshot. Now he drew himself up to his full height – unafraid – the point of his long spear in the earth beside him. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with black curly hair and a beard to match. He was the first black man Ellen Rua O’Malley had ever seen. And he was almost naked, a fact which drew gasps and gapes from her three younger companions, his only covering being around his lower abdomen.

  ‘A class of a small grass skirt!’ Kitty took delight in recounting to them later, again and again. They were at a distance that prevented them noting fine detail, but they did notice one thing: his face, upper body, and arms, were covered with wide white lines of paint.

  ‘That was a mistake, Mrs O’Malley.’

  Coombes’ ice-cold tones spun Ellen round to face him.

  ‘You were going to shoot him!’ she challenged, just as coldly.

  ‘Yes, I was!’ he retorted. ‘That savage is dressed for war, and some poor settler’s family will rue your action before the night is out. If I’m not mistaken, it was Samarara, one of their chiefs. He’s been leading raiding parties on the farms around here and running off livestock into the bush.’

  ‘Is it any surprise if you take their land, and push them further away from their hunting grounds and their sources of food?’

  The red-haired woman was putting it up to Coombes, Lavelle thought, enjoying this.

  ‘There’s plenty
of land left for them,’ said Coombes. ‘And what do they do with it? Nothing! It just lies there. Those blackfellas won’t lift a finger, never mind do an honest day’s work at tillage, or at improving the land. They only want to be dancing, pagan-naked in the moonlight, clacking their spears and their boomerangs, and blowing animal noises into those hollow tree-logs – what do they call them, Lavelle?’ he snapped impatiently.

  ‘Didgeridoos,’ Lavelle supplied, adding: ‘And, by the way, I think that’s where that fellow was off to – a corroboree. He wasn’t painted for fighting, but for a celebration.’

  ‘Celebration, war, dancing, fighting – it’s all the same to those heathens, they can’t tell the difference.’ Coombes was dismissive of Lavelle’s correction.

  ‘And we can?’ Lavelle threw back.

  Coombes let it rest at that, falling into a morose silence again.

  The rest of that day’s travels passed without incident. That night they reached Gawler, a pretty, well-planned, country town, nestled under the Mount Lofty Ranges, between the North and South Para Rivers. Colonel Light, he of the Barossa Surveys, had located it there in 1839, Coombes broke silence to tell them. She noted how interested he was in anything to do with land or its surveys.

  After dinner, Ellen made a point of seeking out Lavelle. There were still many questions she wanted answered from yesterday, and now there were more – from today.

  She found him almost immediately.

  ‘I knew you’d come,’ he said.

  She tilted her head quizzically.

  ‘Well, any time I looked at you all day, I could see the questions racking up in that head of yours.’

  She laughed. ‘Was it that obvious?’

  ‘Yes,’ he joined her laugh. ‘It was.’

  Lavelle was glad that Ellen had come. He was truly fascinated by her. She read things so quickly, and having sized up a situation she was not afraid to act. He could scarce believe that a woman whose life depended on Coombes, should be so un-afeared that, when it came to it, she had physically upended the man out of his own carriage.