Band of Gold

by Deborah Challinor

  ‘Why don’t you go back to the hotel and ask her?’ he said to Israel. ‘Christ almighty, boy, it’s what I’m paying you for.’

  The bespectacled Mr Chen, attired in his smart suit and a beautiful panama hat, had brought with him a mah jong set, and he and Kitty spent the remainder of the afternoon and the evening in the hotel lounge drinking tea and playing. The tiles were exquisitely crafted and decorated, and from time to time a small crowd gathered, enjoying the novelty of watching such a skillful Chinese game. Initially, the Criterion’s proprietor inquired privately of Kitty whether she and Mr Chen intended to embark upon a marathon gambling session and, if so, could they please hie themselves elsewhere as the Criterion prided itself on its genteel and sober reputation, but a very tart reminder from Kitty that she was a paying guest, and entitled to use the facilities and receive visitors, soon shut him up.

  Mr Chen perched on a sofa while Kitty sat opposite in an armchair, enjoying the opportunity to relax a little and use the skills she’d learnt occasionally playing mah jong with Wong Fu at Ballarat. Israel at first refused to sit next to Mr Chen, but after an hour he had drawn closer, attracted by the bright colours on the tiles and the distinctive sounds they made as they were moved about, until finally he was almost on the Chinese man’s knee.

  Amused, Mr Chen began to explain to him how the game was played, and by the time Israel dashed outside to use the privy, he was moved to remark, ‘He is quite intelligent, is he not, for an uneducated, snot-nosed, white-skinned boy?’

  Kitty laughed, but when Israel had not returned almost an hour later she began to wonder where he was. By the time he did come back, several men had called at the hotel, each asking to speak with Kitty. Mr Chen dealt with them on her behalf, saying little to her afterwards except that they did not have anything to offer except deliberate falsehoods manufactured to separate Kitty from her money, and tenuous sightings that would have proved erroneous had they been pursued.

  At eight o’clock they ate supper, and Kitty noticed that Israel had again disappeared.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Kitty cautiously opened her door, peering out at Israel through the small gap. ‘Oh, it’s you. Where have you been?’

  ‘Out an’ about.’

  He’d been sitting in yet another pub with Mr Royce, who’d turned out to be not such a bad-tempered bastard after all. In fact, he’d told Israel not to call him Mr Royce because, he reckoned, it made him feel like he was a hundred years old, and to call him Daniel instead. And he’d bought Israel two glasses of ale and a lovely steak-and-kidney pie, so Israel had sat there calling him Daniel and chatting away and having a high old time. Actually, Daniel had done most of the talking—and a fair bit of drinking. So Israel had gone back with him to his shit-hole of a boarding house and made sure he’d got to bed—well, on it, at least—then come back here.

  When Kitty told him there had been no news, Israel heard the weariness and disappointment in her voice, and had no idea how to make her feel better.

  ‘Will you sleep out here again?’ Kitty asked.

  Israel nodded.

  ‘Look, why don’t you come in and sleep on the chair inside. I don’t mind.’

  Israel felt a very disconcerting stirring in his loins, and quickly shook his head. ‘Nah, I’ll be all good out here.’

  ‘I’m not entirely sure why you’re sleeping on my doorstep anyway, Israel,’ Kitty remarked.

  ‘Well, ’cause I’ve—’ Israel stopped himself just in time. He’d almost said because he’d been paid to, but that wasn’t actually it, not anymore. He was doing it because he wanted to. He wanted to know what was going to happen to Kitty Farrell, and he wanted to help her if he could. And, to tell the truth, he wanted to help Daniel Royce as well. The pound coins were neither here nor there now, although he certainly wasn’t giving either of them back.

  At a quarter to four the next morning, someone stood on Israel’s arm. Jerked out of a moderate sleep, he yelped and rolled out of the way.

  ‘Boy, wake up!’ a voice ordered. Its owner gave him a light kick in the ribs.

  Israel staggered to his feet, saw that his attacker was the Chinkee who had barred him from riding in the cab with Kitty, and struck out with a fist.

  ‘Stop that,’ So-Yee said, casually blocking the punch with the side of his hand. He rapped on the door. ‘I am here to see Mrs Farrell.’

  Kitty answered in less than a minute, and Israel wondered whether she had even been asleep.

  ‘So-Yee! Is there news?’

  ‘Yes. May I enter?’

  Kitty stepped back. ‘Of course.’ She let him in, not minding when Israel slipped in behind him.

  So-Yee stood in the middle of the room. Kitty noted that he looked very grim, but then she had never seen him look anything else.

  ‘I have news,’ he began. ‘It is both good and bad.’

  Kitty’s stomach began to churn.

  So-Yee continued: ‘Your husband was indeed held captive in premises in Lonsdale Street, incapacitated from wounds. The day you yourself arrived in Melbourne, and for that reason, he was taken from there and transported to Geelong—’

  ‘Geelong!’ Kitty gasped.

  ‘Yes, where he is presently incarcerated in a building near the Corio Bay waterfront.’ He slid a hand into his tunic and passed Kitty a folded square of paper. ‘This is a drawing of the location of the building.’

  Kitty opened the paper and studied it. ‘But I don’t understand, So-Yee. Who is holding him prisoner? And why?’

  So-Yee looked even more grave, if that were possible. ‘Wong Kai has not been able to ascertain why, Mrs Farrell, but he has discovered who.’

  And when So-Yee told her, Kitty felt fear settle on her like an icy, black cloak.

  ‘I’m slipping!’

  Astounded that someone who had worked in a stable since they were nine had never ridden a horse, Kitty reached an arm behind her back, grabbed a handful of Israel’s shirt and yanked him upright again.

  ‘For God’s sake, will you hang on! We’re nearly there!’

  His arms tightened around her waist and she felt him tuck his bare feet between her calves and the saddle flaps, holding on for all he was worth. She could see the docks not far away, and the long finger of Australia Wharf where the Katipo was berthed. A few minutes more and they would be there.

  It would take a day to travel to Geelong overland, but only four hours by sea, perhaps as little as three if the winds were good—and if the Katipo could be sailed at something close to her maximum speed.

  Daniel sat on the edge of his cot, scratching viciously at a row of flea bites down his leg, and cursing a noisy bloody bird outside his window that was insisting on heralding the approaching dawn with unnecessary cheer.

  He’d been awake since two o’clock and had finally decided he would talk to Kitty. He was tired of skulking around after her, and paying good money to a boy who smelt of horse shit to find out what was going on when he should be doing that himself. And if she refused to see him, then he would simply slip back into the shadows and wait.

  He opened the lid of his watch—half past four. It was early, but now that he’d made up his mind, he realised he couldn’t wait. He splashed his face with cold water from the cracked ewer, cleaned his teeth with powder and spat it out the window at the irritating bird, pulled on his boots and walked the quarter-mile to where McCool was stabled. Even at this hour and with the sun not quite up, the streets of Melbourne were busy, fruiterers and fishmongers and butchers setting up stalls for the day’s markets, and carts and barrels and yapping dogs blocking alleyways and lanes.

  Outside the Criterion Hotel he looped McCool’s reins over a rail and went inside. Here, too, the staff were already afoot.

  ‘Help you, sir?’ someone asked Daniel as he stood in the foyer.

  ‘No,’ he replied as he turned and walked up the stairs. He knew which room Kitty occupied because Israel had told him.

  He located the room, although the b
oy wasn’t sleeping outside the door as he’d been expecting, knocked gently and waited. He knocked again, loudly this time. Still nothing. He pushed the door and it swung open.

  Kitty wasn’t there. Feeling faintly guilty, he went in and looked around. Some of her things were scattered about—the dress she had been wearing the last time he’d seen her, a chemise, a pair of button boots, some toilette articles. A nightdress was tossed across the unmade bed, and a few bits and pieces abandoned on the floor. Everything, in fact, suggested she had gone somewhere in a hurry.

  He stared briefly at the tableau for a moment, then hurried out of the room, along the hall and down the stairs, almost knocking over a housegirl coming the other way carrying a teetering armful of sheets. The stables were behind the hotel, and he accosted the first person he saw, a fat-bellied man sitting on a barrel enjoying a pipe in the first rays of the morning sun.

  He seemed to take an irritatingly long time to formulate his answer. ‘A good-looking woman with black hair, you say? On a chestnut mount? Aye, ’twas less than an hour ago. Wearing trews, she was. Quite a sight to behold, and not one ye see often, I have to say. Trews and a man’s jacket. Very nice fit, too, the trews. Took off on a man’s saddle, to boot—’

  ‘Where was she going, did she say?’ Daniel interjected.

  The man appeared not to hear him. ‘Had my young stable boy with her, too. Or should I say, ex-stable boy. Had to inform him he no longer has a job here. Can’t be doing with unreliability, can I? Didn’t seem to give a bugger, I have to say.’

  ‘Yes, but where were they going!’ Daniel demanded, wanting to strangle the fat fool.

  The man screwed up his face, thinking. ‘The wharves? Aye, that’s what she said. Rapido? Something like that. I weren’t really listening, ye see.’ He shook his head in wonderment. ‘Them trews!’

  Katipo. Daniel was already running back towards the street and McCool. Why on earth was Kitty heading for the wharves? Where would she be going? And surely she couldn’t be intending to actually launch the Katipo?

  ‘We can’t sail her by ourselves.’

  Kitty said, ‘You’re not sailing her at all.’

  They were standing on the wharf next to the Katipo, Kitty holding Finn’s reins and Israel’s face beginning to go a deep, obstinate red colour.

  ‘Ya said I could come with ya!’

  ‘I said you could come along to look after Finn after I’ve gone. That’s all.’

  ‘But I know where I can put him!’ He pointed vigorously. ‘Me mate works at them stables just down the way there, see? Ya can’t sail a whole ship all on your own!’

  ‘I won’t be on my own,’ Kitty replied calmly, even though her heart was racing and her stomach felt as though it contained two dozen sparrows all madly flapping their wings. She handed the reins to Israel and walked up the gangplank onto the Katipo, calling, ‘Charlie? Charlie Dunlop!’

  There was a clatter and a curse, and Charlie’s grizzled head appeared at the top of the cabin steps.

  ‘Mrs Farrell? Aye, it is, too! Good day to you, Mrs Farrell!’ He clambered up on deck and hurried towards her, his remaining arm offered in greeting.

  Kitty shook his hand. ‘Good morning to you, too, Charlie.’

  Charlie glanced around. ‘The captain not with you? Still making millions out at Ballarat?’

  ‘No, he isn’t.’ And Kitty explained very briefly what had happened, and what she wanted to do.

  Charlie stared at her, aghast. ‘And you want to sail her by yourself?’

  ‘Er, not exactly, Charlie. I want you to captain her; I’ll work the rigging.’

  Charlie’s face went from white, to red, back to almost bloodless again, then erupted in an enormous, gap-toothed smile. ‘You want me to captain her! Old one-armed Charlie Dunlop? With just one rat in the ropes? Lord above! Be a bloody risky business,’ he added, although the prospect didn’t diminish his delight any. ‘Course I will.’ He couldn’t seem to stop grinning. ‘And thank you for askin’. I’m that honoured.’

  And I’m that desperate, Kitty thought. But Charlie had a reputation as a sea dog—he would know what he was doing even if he could no longer physically manage everything.

  ‘What about me?’ Israel called plaintively from the wharf. He hooked Finn’s reins over a bollard and ran nimbly up the gangplank. ‘I can climb ropes and do all that. I can help.’

  ‘Who’s this?’ Charlie asked, regarding Israel down his nose.

  ‘Israel.’ Kitty took her purse from her pocket and withdrew a handful of coins and gave them to the boy. ‘Take Finn to your friend’s stable, then find the tugmaster and tell him to be here in thirty minutes. I don’t care if there are other ships ahead of us in the queue, pay him whatever it takes. Bribe him if you have to.’

  Charlie’s eyes had almost popped out of his head. ‘You’re never givin’ that much money to the likes of him?!’

  ‘I trust him,’ Kitty replied simply.

  Charlie made a disbelieving face. ‘Anyway, tugmaster won’t take heed of a scrap of a boy in bare feet. I’d best have a word with him.’

  He whipped some of the money out of Israel’s hand and marched off.

  Thinking furiously, Kitty walked about, checking that the new ropes were neatly coiled and those sails she could examine from the deck correctly furled, feeling Israel’s eyes boring beseechingly into her. Turning on him so quickly he gave a little start, she said, ‘If I let you come with us, will you promise to do exactly as you’re told?’

  An enthusiastic nod.

  ‘And you will stay on the Katipo at all times, understand?’

  More energetic nodding.

  ‘No running off?’

  Vigorous head-shaking this time.

  ‘No deviating from the plan because you think you know better?’

  Shaking of the head so rigorous that Israel’s eyes almost crossed.

  ‘Good. Now promise me.’

  ‘I promise,’ Israel said, and snapped off a smart salute.

  Kitty contemplated his dirty, exuberant face, hoping she was doing the right thing. ‘Right, then, you can come. Off you go and sort out Finn.’

  Israel trotted happily across the deck to the gangplank, then stopped so quickly he almost lost his footing: Daniel was on the wharf below, sitting on McCool, staring up at him.

  Israel glanced over his shoulder at Kitty, who was shifting a coil of rope closer to starboard.

  ‘Um…’ he said.

  She didn’t look up. ‘What is it?’

  ‘There’s someone here.’

  She raised her head. ‘Who?’

  Daniel had dismounted and was on the gangplank; she’d see him in a second. Israel stood aside.

  Kitty straightened, a look of confusion on her face. She took a few hesitant steps forward. ‘Daniel? What are you doing here?’

  He stepped onto the deck and clipped Israel across the ear.

  ‘Ow! What was that for?’ Israel wailed.

  Unable to decide whether she was delighted to see Daniel, or angry at what he’d just done, she exclaimed, ‘Don’t hit my ship’s boy!’ then slapped Daniel’s face.

  Daniel put his hand to his cheek and had the gall to look aggrieved.

  ‘What’s he ever done to you?’ Kitty demanded.

  ‘He neglected to tell me you were coming down here to the wharves. I had to find out from that fat fool at the hotel stables,’ Daniel added accusingly to Israel. To Kitty he said, ‘You’ve had news?’

  ‘Yes, Rian is being held prisoner at Geelong.’ She stopped, feeling quite a sense of mental dislocation, realising that Daniel didn’t know anything. ‘Daniel, he isn’t dead after all! He was kidnapped after the flood and he was here in Melbourne but—’

  Daniel raised a hand to quiet her. ‘Kitty. Kitty, I know. I know Wong Kai has had his people out looking for information and I know nearly all of it except for the bit about Geelong, and I’ll sail with you if you’ll have me—and I’ll do anything I can to help get Rian back.’r />
  ‘But how do you know?’

  Then she understood. Her head slowly swivelled and her gaze settled on Israel.

  In very clipped tones, she said, ‘I’d like you to take the horses along to your friend’s stables, Israel. Now.’

  Israel ran with a pair of reins in each hand, his arms outstretched so that the horses trotting behind him wouldn’t clip his heels, his rasping breath tasting like metal filings in his throat, and praying that it wasn’t his mate’s day off. It wasn’t and he managed to get a good deal, then raced back along the waterfront to Australia Wharf, terrified that Kitty would be so angry that she might have sailed away without him. But, to his immense relief, he arrived just in time to see the paddle-wheel tug preparing to tow the Katipo out of her berth and into the middle of the Yarra.

  The gangplank was still down and Israel ran up it, pleased to see that Daniel was still on board. Charlie Dunlop was back, too. No one was talking, but that, even Israel knew, was because they were all too busy running around doing the sorts of things sailors did before they sailed. There was a bump and then quite a violent lurch as the tug pulled away from the schooner and the slack between the two was taken up, and Daniel shouted to Israel to pull up the gangplank.

  He stooped and grabbed the end of it, then something made him look up, and freeze. A hundred yards away, near the land end of the wharf, was a line of scruffy, nefarious-looking Chinkees, and they were trotting straight towards the Katipo! Even worse, he could see the one they called So-Yee! He let out a squeak of terror, dropped the gangplank and darted across the deck into the safety of the cabin.

  ‘He didn’t last long,’ Charlie remarked to himself.

  But Kitty, who was fifteen feet up the mainmast, had spotted the group and climbed down as the first of their number stepped onto the gangplank. Mystified, she crossed the deck, then relaxed as she recognised the figure leading the party, although in a black cotton shirt tucked into worn, knee-length trousers he looked notably less dapper than usual. Gone also was his smart hat, and his feet were bare, but his spectacles remained firmly in place.