The Waterboys

by Peter Docker

  Fremantle looks up the little beach to the darker sand above. We’re on the shore of this large bay. From the look of it, we are probably in the vicinity of Garungup, the place of anger. I don’t feel particularly angry. What is this place named for? Maybe hasn’t happened yet.

  There is another course of water flowing over the river soil, staining the sand, and eventually draining into the Darbal Yaragan. This slow water has attracted dragonflies. It is in this direction that the lizard travels. He moves in his unhurried way, and moments later, grabs a big dragonfly in his mouth. The dragonfly struggles, trying to flap his wings. The lizard chews methodically, his jaws moving faster than the eye can see, and each time he crunches back down on the insect, he is arranging it in his mouth until finally he can swallow it in one big gulp. Only the wings are a problem. He has to get the dragonfly really aligned down his throat to fold those wings in as well. In the last flash of the wings, before they disappear, they seem to be red-tinted on the underside. The lizard licks his lips perfunctorily and keeps walking. His attitude is not changed. He ambles off into some dying low-lying scrub at the base of the rock.

  Fremantle takes out his journal and quickly sketches the lizard eating the dragonfly with his charcoal pencil. His sketches aren’t bad. He easily catches the essence of that lizard out hunting. Then he jots down a couple of notes under the heading EDEN:

  No hoofed animals.

  No shame about our flesh.

  Abundance.

  The Angel is in the detail.

  Freshness of observation.

  Wealth but no money.

  Discipline and work but no transaction for private gain.

  God is ever-present.

  Present in the Peace of this place.

  Present in us.

  Fremantle stops writing. He can feel me watching him. He looks up quickly. He looks around. He doesn’t see me. I stand up. He looks for a bit longer, and then goes back to his journal. He can’t see me. I’m not here.

  Fremantle has ochre painted on his chest and face. There are cuts on his upper arms. I watch him feel the wounds with his fingers. The cuts have ash packed into them, and although swollen, are dry and cauterised.

  Suddenly I am gripped from behind by some unknown power. This force has me in its unfocused but specific grip. A force that effortlessly overwhelms me. Both my hands are pinned and also held fast at the neck and shoulder. I am rushed forward straight at Fremantle. I open my mouth to yell a warning but no sound comes. I smash into him with unbelievable speed. We go face down onto the sand. Into the sand we fall. And when we stand – it is just I: Captain Charles Fremantle.

  My head is bleary. I don’t know how I got here. It was a long night. There was a fire. There were Countrymen dancing. Old Countrymen singing. The best sleep I ever had. And now here I am. On a river beach somewhere in Walyalup Country. I remember that much. I don’t remember these cuts on my upper arm. Like sad mouths cut into my flesh. I have been wounded before, and I marvel at the simplicity of the ash poultice, how perfect a solution. It’s still sore though. Even a light touch of the wound sends hot needles stabbing through my flesh. I don’t remember how I got the wounds. I cup each dry wound with the opposing hand and press as hard as I can.

  The pain drops me to my knees. I’m light-headed. I fall face forward into the exact print in the sand. The print I just vacated. But my face doesn’t rest there, confronted by the grainy crunch of the sand. Down I go. Into the sand. Through the sand. I’m accelerating through the Country. It’s agonising, crashing through rocks and dirt. Making a pathway where there can be no pathway. Crashing and thrashing my way through – and then up and out! I come up into this clearing in the forest.

  Some English colonists have set up a ration station – to introduce the natives to our food. Sitting on a horse behind the cart is Captain Molloy. He rests his rifle on the pommel of his saddle as he looks on. His uniform has been patched together with some kangaroo skin, and his beard is wild and woolly. Only his boots shine. The rest of him is dull, like dried blood. There is something familiar about him.

  Up to the cart comes this old Countryman. His proud bearing gives away his boss-man status. His two sons and nephews hang back. These are not the Nyoongar people I know. If Molloy is here then I am much further to the south. The language and appearance of the natives is similar but different. The boss man goes up to inspect the colonist’s wagon, horse and loaves of bread. Over behind these Djenga, the old Countryman can see their sheep watched over by two or three shepherds in a makeshift yard. The old Countryman calls over his two sons and two other nephews to discuss the sheep. They point and talk animatedly. The old Countryman comes up to the wagon where the bread is. He pulls out a loaf and breaks it open. The young Djenga by the cart is happy. The Countryman sniffs the opened loaf. He has a taste. He likes it and so grabs a few loaves.

  The young Djenga is trying to tell him, ‘One loaf each!’ He repeats this loudly. ‘One loaf each!’

  The young Djenga looks back to Molloy for approval. Molloy gives him the nod to proceed. The young Djenga gestures at the old Countryman. When this doesn’t work, the young Djenga tugs on the Countryman’s beard, and shoves him hard in the chest. The old Countryman falls backward, his beard floating up to expose the silky scar ridges completely covering his torso. One of the younger Countrymen, the eldest son, fits his spear into his throwing stick, and slams it into the chest of the young Djenga at close range. Captain Molloy fires his rifle and the spear-thrower is thrown backwards, a huge wound appearing in his chest. Molloy drops his rifle, and a large pistol appears in his fist. I know that pistol. He fires, and a warrior falls. The other Djenga are raising rifles and firing and people are going down as the lead slaps into their bodies. The Countrymen throw spears and run in to grab their Patriarch. One of the shepherds raises his rifle and shoots the old Countryman in the chest. Molloy’s horse appears to be fetlock-deep in blood that flows around him like a creek after rain.

  Down into the earth I fall and race along again. Not sure if I’m being pushed or dragged. Tearing through the earth’s crust, shredding through the rock with each out-breath, and reforming again, and shredding again at unbelievable speed.

  I come up and I’m galloping on a horse across a shallow river. Ahead of me the Countrywomen and children run for their lives. Out to my right I see Captain Stirling, the Governor, also at full gallop. Even at full gallop and swinging a sabre, Stirling doesn’t have a hair out of place. He looks at me for a moment, his teeth bared in something between a smile and a snarl.

  And then we are into them. Pistols. Clubs. Whips. Sabres. Down they go. There is a young Countrywoman running straight ahead of me. Her feet flash across the riverbed sand, her hands pumping the air as she runs, and I gain on her. I am at full gallop and am only just gaining. She is fast. I get to know those muscles in her fine back in such detail, as they tighten and loosen, side by side, as she sprints along. And then my sword is arcing back across my body; my horse draws level, and down the cut goes. The blade goes in just above her ear and splits the top of her head open like a melon. The body of the Countrywoman is flung sideways and lands in the growing puddle of gore at her head. My eyes are looking forward to other targets and the bloodied blade dances at the end of my arm like some carnivorous metal plant, arcing around in the endless sightless quest for flesh.

  ‘Where are the men?’ I’m screaming. ‘Where are the men?’

  The blood stains us like sticky black river mud of Pinjarra.

  I’m dragged down into the earth again. I tear through the Country until I come upon another scene. As I come racing up through the dirt and rocks I can see and hear the action unfolding on the earth’s surface.

  There is a contingent of the 63rd Regiment, the bloodsuckers, drawn up in formation.

  ‘Ready!’

  The rifles of the soldiers go to slant position, across their bodies.

  ‘Aim!’

  I burst free of the earth’s crust right next to them
to see their rifles level at the old man with the prominent bump on his forehead, who is tied to a tree. His eyes appeal to me for help. This is the man that put his Welcome To Country right inside our heads, that first day after we all went into the water. The leader who welcomed us with song and dance and ceremony. I look around. Where is his bright-eyed and burly son? Where is the Governor?

  ‘Fire!’

  The rifle balls slamming into the old Countryman’s naked torso dull the booming report from the twelve muskets, and I am flung back underground. I’m standing back on the little beach by the river. I press in on the scars.

  I know my people. I know what is coming. How can the bond between human beings be so flimsy? We’re in never-traversed-before territory, Djenga and Countrymen alike. Countrymen know their Country. But never before with us on it. Us, the inevitable tide that cannot be turned. The tide of history. How can this tide flow out from our estuary of existence and wipe out Countrymen rights? Whilst upholding our rights? Djenga. European. Tides come in. Tides go out.

  The look of the Countrywomen’s faces as we rode down on them. The fine ropey muscles in the back of that Countrywoman as she sprinted for her life.

  This is all about sheep and cattle. I’m a sailor. An officer. What do I care for livestock? For new colonies? For anything? For this bloody Empire? I am not my father, the Admiral of the Fleet. I am not my brother, Lord Cottesloe. He will say that I owe him because he pulled strings to make my trial go away, to save my honour. It was his honour he was protecting. This price is too high.

  When my tears start to come, each one of them is a child. A child born of agonising birth. Pushing their way out of my birth-canal tear ducts and scalding my skin as they crawl down my face and fall to the sand below. Child after child, tear after tear, forcing their way out. They need to be born, my salty children. They roll down my face, drip onto my chest, and fall onto the sandy beach of Garungup.

  These tears of mine, tears for that slaughtered family, fall like seeds into the earth. Not dead but alive. Alive and contained. Waiting to grow. Tear after tear. Child after child. Seed after seed I cry. I weep. I plant my tears deep into this Country. A feeling swells back up to me from the Country as each tear hits like an orchestra building to a crescendo. The sound that comes out of my mouth I don’t recognise. It might be a sad song suggested into my heart from the rhythm and melody of the waterfall. I howl. I weep. I sing. I plant. Plant my tears. Plant them deep into the Country.

  Fourteen: Swim the Sick Mother

  I’m under water. Inside a huge rectangular fish bowl. I’m on the bottom of the tank, my head jammed strangely in the corner. I have expelled all the air in my lungs. The only thing keeping the water out of my mouth, throat, lungs, and stomach, are my lips, pressed firmly shut. I inherited this thin top lip from my father. My mother had beautiful full lips – I missed out on them. The water pushes in on me insistently, daring me to try to breathe liquid like my fish ancestors. I run my fingers down the outside of my breastbone to feel for the warmth of the hand signal. It’s still there: I’m coming for you. Above the surface I see Mitch the Blood Nut and Torby standing over me. Over the fish bowl. I try to shake off the water but my head is jammed solid in the glass corner. I’m stuck in this watery-grave-fishbowl dream.

  Mitch reaches down, grabs me by the scruff of the neck, and hauls me up. My head breaks free of the fish bowl water and I gulp in beautiful, dry, rotten-body-fear-stinking air. Even through my loathing, I could kiss Mitch. But he doesn’t even know he’s saved me. His hands are dry. There is no water for him. No fish bowl.

  Mitch holds me easily with his big angry red hands. His face is twisted into a leering grin. ‘I do know ya, don’t I?’

  The dressing from my head has fallen off. It’s lying in a heap on the rock-dust floor. The wound on the side of my head is exposed, revealing my face as well.

  Dry the wound out a bit. Do it good.

  Mitch punches me in the face. I fall back in a heap.

  ‘This little girl don’t know which side of her toast to butter,’ snarls Mitch.

  Torby gives a little giggle through clenched teeth.

  ‘Get his pants off!’ says Mitch.

  Torby goes for my fly buttons. I try to knock his hands away and Mitch kicks me in the belly.

  ‘Ain’t got your brother-boys with you now, Bitch!’

  Torby is pulling down my strides. The air in the underground chamber is cool on my buttocks.

  ‘Get his shirt off, too.’

  ‘You gonna suck his nipples, Mitch?’

  Mitch backhands Torby across the mouth. The power-lust is upon him now, crouching over him like a giant, twisted scorpion.

  ‘Shut up! If ya want seconds.’

  Mitch kicks me again and I feel Torby ripping off my shirt. Now I’m naked and scrabbling around on the dirt floor. Mitch is laughing, Torby is chuckling his clenched-teethgiggle. I wait for Mitch to lower his strides. He gets his cock out and is stroking himself to get hard. I steady myself with my hands and sweep my right leg straight through his legs. It’s a good foot-sweep given my weak condition, and down he goes. I flip myself onto my feet and jam my heel into Mitch’s groin. Mitch screams. Torby goes to step in and I joint-kick his front knee. His knee snaps with a loud crack and down he goes. I jam my heel down onto Mitch again – this time his throat. Training. Training is what will get you through, The Sarge always said, may his soul find peace. They’re both writhing on the floor as I take off, still naked, across the crowded chamber. I don’t alter my pace for a few minutes, threading my way through the bewildered Djenga inmates. The faces look pale and sick and confused. They’re shivering, even though I am the naked one. Their limbs are swathed in makeshift bandages as though the whole place is a subterranean leper colony.

  At the far end of the massive chamber there are several smaller passageways leading away into the earth. I choose the opening at the far left and run straight in. Once inside I slow to a walk. The ground is cold and hard on my bare feet. My feet are soft from the years of boot wearing.

  Outside in the main chamber I hear a big commotion starting. Mitch will come again. With mates. I keep walking and the rocky corridor opens out a little and there is a big pool of dark water. There are some artificial lights in here. There are five or six inmates getting water from the dark pool in old Water Board ration tins. They stare at my nakedness, my anxious face. Outside, in the chamber, the big commotion is getting closer. The water gatherers look at me as if to ask what is going on.

  ‘Get out of here and you won’t get hurt!’ I say.

  They hoof it out of there. I get down to the water’s edge.

  I look around for weapons. There’s a rock as big as a grenade near the water’s edge. I grab it. I can see there is no way out. Around the corner come Mitch and Torby with four or five blokes in tow. I start to back away. The only way is into the water. They arrive at the water’s edge as I am about waist-deep. Mitch clocks the rock in my hand. He pauses. He knows that I have training.

  I feel the hand signal lodged in my breastbone begin to heat up until I am warm all over. Then I notice the tiny bubbles popping up out in the middle. There’s something in here!

  The water abruptly breaks open and the Countrywoman from Uncle Birra-ga’s cave bursts through. She swims straight to me and stands up.

  ‘Grab em!’ yells Mitch, and the chasers thrash their way towards us.

  She is holding me firmly and pulling me back into the deep.

  ‘Get em! Get em!’

  ‘Come on,’ she says. ‘The first swim is the longest. We get to breathe after about three minutes. After that it’s two two-minute sections. At the first hole only one can breathe at a time. You go first. Then we swap. Then we go.’

  ‘Grab them!’

  She turns, still holding me, and pulls me under. We dive in and swim down. Straight down. She keeps holding my arm as we go down. We’ve gone four or five metres down when she takes a torch off her belt and turns it on. There is
a white cord in that dark water which shines in the torchlight and disappears through a hole in the rock. The white cord is like the watery version of that single thread spun by the huntsman spider who abseiled off my shoulder in the tank. She goes through first and I follow. The hole is only marginally bigger than the width of my body. We grope our way along the rock, following the white cord that winds its way into the future. We pull ourselves along the rock above our heads. The torch is a tiny light in the vast inky blackness. The rock is pale grey in the torchlight.

  I follow the light, struggling to keep up with the wet-suited Countrywoman, fighting the feeling that at any moment a huge subterranean monster will chomp into my nether regions. Jack’s drugs are still fucking with me. Mitch the Blood Nut is real. The water is real. The monster is in my head.

  Then she is there, shining the torch up into a tiny hole in the rock just big enough to get my head up into.

  Up I go. With my bare shoulders jammed against the rock, my face comes into the air. I suck in oxygen.

  In. Out. In. Out. In.

  Down I go and wait for her to breathe. She’s faster than me. She comes back down, and we take up the cord with our fingers to follow to the next breathing hole. It is the feeling of clinging to my mother that envelops me now. The warmth from the hand signal is wearing off. I’m cold and I can feel how weak I am. I close my eyes and follow the white cord blindly, playing it through my fingers like a fishing line. Her hands touch me and I open my eyes and kick up into the next hole. We come up together, breathing like whales. I think I hear them singing out in the dark water way below us. She shines the torch at me.