by Peter Docker
‘Is it him?’ Stirling repeats.
I’ve drifted off. I wrench myself away from hypnotising swords and cocks, and push my eyes to search the gloom ahead.
‘It’s him. He’s erected a pavilion.’
Stirling looks again and sees the paleness of the canvas behind the flickering red-orange light. That square shape doesn’t belong. That paleness doesn’t belong either. That tent could be made from the skin of a hundred Djenga. There is a slight movement to my left. A shadow shifts against the steady random rhythm of the dancing fire-shadows. I pull the big pistol from my belt and level it at the sound, thumbing back the hammer, stepping forward so that I am exactly between that sound and Lieutenant Governor Stirling.
Must be one of Bunbury’s men. That’s who we’ve come to meet. Bussell won’t be faraway. I have Molloy’s knowledge. Taking it with me to the congress of killers.
The shadow steps out of the darkness. He is a cruel, thin man holding a rifle low across his body. He sneers at me, and my pistol. My cold eyes drill into his. I see that his sneer is a lie, a cover, a mask. He glances back to the tent. By the time he glances back to me my pistol is away. He shifts on his feet.
‘They’re here, sir!’ he yells back to the tent.
I pull my pistol again and level it at his head. His yelling is a crime I’ll shoot him for. It wouldn’t be the first time. At this range the weapon will rip his face in half.
‘Leave it,’ says Stirling under his breath as Lieutenant Bunbury comes out of his pavilion. It shocks him that I would level my weapon at a white man. Especially in front of Bunbury. I can still remember those Frenchmen falling to our blades, and cannon, and shot. They were as white as fucking white. Cancer is cancer.
‘Another time, then,’ I snarl at the thin man who seems to have completely misplaced his sneer. With his blank face I see the lost child within, almost begging me to help him; to help him get out, to play again, to be loved.
I follow Stirling, but with my pistol still cocked and pointed at the loud-mouthed, cruel, thin fool.
Stirling and Bunbury shake hands.
For a brief moment I think the part of me that knows what I am witnessing will speak up, will know what to say, will galvanise this hard little body beneath me into some dynamic and terrible action, but then the dark mud of anger and despair multiplies itself and clogs up my entire being. I need a drink.
‘Would you care for a drink, Your Excellency?’
‘Good job, good job,’ says Stirling and they go inside.
I lower my pistol and stand near the tent.
Thin-cruel-loud-mouth-fool-boy has a mate, and they stand off a little way and consider my countenance.
I give them a smile.
They think they are hard men. I can see they’re all ex-soldiers. I’m still a soldier. Always a soldier. Just new wars. New rules. No rules. Bloody fools.
‘Are you the one?’ asks Loud-mouth-fool-boy.
‘Which one?’
‘The one who is always with him?’
There are other men standing there now; eight or so blokes who were sitting away from Bunbury’s tent a little bit. I feel their scrutiny.
I look down at what’s left of my Royal Marines uniform. I’ve patched it in several places with kangaroo skin, and the remaining scarlet has faded to dark brown. I can’t replace this jacket. I’m superstitious. I have two pistols in my belt, a knife in my boot, and a double-barrelled rifle slung from my shoulder. My hair is long. My beard is matted. With mud? Blood?
I stare back at them. No inner child in me can they see. Unless their eyes could go around corners and down into deep, deep holes, and even then it would only be the vision of a torn and bloodied corpse. There is nothing so shocking as to view the torn-up body of a child. I look back at them and my gaze is withering like rifle-fire.
I catch snippets of Stirling speaking from within:
‘... Retaliation for the pertinacious endeavours of these savages to commit depredations of property...’ There is the clinking of crystal glasses. ‘...Not one savage would be allowed to remain alive on this side of the mountains...’
Behind me the tent begins to glow red from within. A thick rivulet of blood starts to flow from the tent and right over my boots. I took these boots off a dead French officer. That man could have been my brother. His boots fit me perfectly as though I had been measured up for them in the backstreets of Paris. He walked on the inside of his feet whilst I walk on the outside and always wear away the very rear of the heel. It is a marriage made in heaven, because the more I wear them, the better they level out.
The blood flowing from the tent is thick like crimson syrup. Bunbury and Stirling are wellsprings for that blood – bringing that filthy gore up from deep in the earth. Fremantle has sailed away. The time of blood is upon us. The killing time.
The sum of the parts is greater than the whole.
The scum of their hearts is rusting up my soul.
I stand there, facing those men down, in that river of blood.
They turn and try to get away from the horror.
The river of blood quickens. The tent behind me dislodges, and begins to move away in the blood torrent. I wade to the side to let the tent pass me. It spins drunkenly to the side as it passes me and then collapses completely into the blood, and is quickly submerged.
Stirling and Bunbury are gone. Melted by the scarlet torrent. Everyone is gone. Just me with my swirling blood. Me as the killer. 44 has more shadowy depth than I could’ve imagined. We all have a history. We all have a shadow.
I draw the pistols. If I see someone, anyone, I will fire – in case I don’t get another chance to kill, if I’m going to drown in this blood, that is.
What will I do if I see a woman?
Will I still want to kill?
A child? A woman? A white man?
The blood is rising swiftly. A flash flood. Blood flash flood. Flash blood. It swirls around my chest.
I take a breath and duck under the surface of the blood and suddenly all is quiet. But there is something else now. There are even darker shapes gliding through the blood. Shapes large and ominous.
I wonder if my weapons will fire. I aim at a passing murky form and pull the trigger. Nothing. I drop both of them and slip the rifle from my shoulder. I try to move but can’t, weighed down by my clothes. I pull off my boots, rip off my clothes, and let them be snatched from my hands by the strong current of rushing blood. My lungs are yearning for breath now and my head is dizzy with panic. I fight my way to the surface.
I’m swimming like mad now, not passive but fighting the blood. I’m in a vast sea of blood – and ahead, there is a beach. I kick for it and a little blood wave dumps me on the shore, slamming my face into the gravel beach.
I land naked and exhausted. I pull myself out of the stinking, snarling blood river and lie there, trying to get my breath back.
I’m disturbed by the sound of voices and look up to see a large cohort of blacks. They aim their spears at me and yell at me in their gibberish. I don’t understand. Can’t understand. I try to get to my feet.
They menace me with their spears. They shout at me.
‘Warra! Warra!’
They push me back into the blood.
I don’t want to go. They jab at me and hurl insults at me. I turn and dive back into the blood river and sink to the bottom, allowing my heartbeat to slow, and a great stillness to come upon me.
Twenty-six: Here and There
The truck has stopped. I look out but can’t see anything. I’ve gotta get out. I open the door and fall into the red dust. My weapon thuds softly next to me. In a moment Mularabone is standing above me.
‘Where are we?’
‘We’re here.’
‘The meeting?’
‘Listen,’ he says. I listen, and can hear many songs being sung. Somewhere close by. This is the big Law meeting going on. I rub my eyes. They’re full of bloody dust.
‘I’m going to get help,’ he says
.
‘Don’t leave me.’
‘We’ve gotta hurry. That dust storm will be seen. We haven’t got long.’
‘That blood dust was real?’
‘I’ll get help. Don’t go to sleep.’
‘The blood...’
‘Trying to protect you, bruz. Don’t go to sleep.’
And he is gone. I look down, half expecting to see my clothes bathed in blood and gore, but they are dry. Nondescript is the word I’m searching for. That’s how I feel. Nondescript. Like I’m non-describing myself out of existence. How much blood have I lost?
I sit hunched over. A huge yawn takes me over. As my jaw locks open I hear the rush of blood in my ears. It feels like every cell in my body opens up its skin and yawns in the fresh, cool desert air. The yawn finishes. My muscles relax. My head slumps down onto my chest. I lie back on the earth. I look up at the stars. The weapon is by my side. My hand stays on the pistol grip. My eyelids are heavy. Can’t go to sleep. I sit up and cradle the weapon on my knees. Gotta do something. My hands start to disassemble the weapon. It feels like it was many lifetimes ago that I last did this. But I know it’s only been a few short years. Taken apart and set out on a rock like this, the pieces of steel and plastic could almost be something else: a toy, or some vital medical equipment, or a machine that does something useful. The Sarge used to call it ‘the peacemaker’.
‘Makes peace by killing your enemies.’
I feel his presence all around me. I try to shut him out.
Mularabone and I and all the other soldiers know: killing your enemies can be the least of your worries.
Before I know it, I’m snapping the weapon back together.
The bottom half of my body is warming up. I’m drifting off. I’m in a bath of blood, all warm and sticky. My chest cavity wheezes in and out, up and down like bellows. I’m stuck inside my own punctured lung, filling with blood, drowning in my own liquid. The air pocket above the lung bloodbath gets smaller and smaller. I keep my face up above the blood to suck in precious breath.
My eyes open a sliver, and I see the flickering light. A fire crackles nearby. I hear Mularabone’s voice talking Language. I feel something tugging at me. It’s like that feeling of getting operated on under a local anaesthetic – there is no pain, but a strange feeling of understanding that there should be pain. My eyelids flutter like butterflies, and then fall open to tiny slits. I have my own darkness, all aflutter from the blood coursing through my eyelids, and don’t need that smoky dark from the real night. The fire is built up.
Through my slits I see an old Countryman above me. I don’t know this ancient Countryman but his features give him away as Young James’ father, uncle, or grandfather.
Old James, I’m thinking.
He has hold of the weapon in my grasp and is gently pulling it out of my grip. My hands don’t want to let go. The old fulla is as insistent as he is gentle, and gradually the tension in my fingers gives way to looseness, and the weapon is eased from my grasp. Like that lead bullet being pulled from the deep and secret recesses of my flesh, I feel relieved when it is gone.
I adjust my body on the earth. The pool of blood I’m lying in starts to recede, like I am a giant sponge that has been squeezed and wrung out before being placed here, and now I’m sucking the rich ruby river back into my body. Old James hands the weapon to Uncle Birra-ga, standing just behind. Mularabone takes the weapon from him.
Old James’ face is close to mine. ‘When you go,’ he says, ‘you can be both here and there.’
Twenty-seven: Secret Healing Water Song
I’m lying here, shivering. Feels like I’m lying over there. Near the fire. The built-up fire. Someone built that fire up. But it’s here. The shivers are here, inside myself. They start somewhere in my belly and radiate outwards through my body. I vomit again. The vomit looks like I’ve been eating vanilla ice-cream. Mularabone bends down, and, using a yandi as a shovel, he scoops up the vomit and some red dirt. He walks away a bit and buries it. He comes back and squats.
‘It’s the radiation, bruz. From the Sick Mother.’
‘I know,’ I croak out.
I know the radiation can’t be bad. Must be under five hundred rems. Probably under two hundred. I’d be dead by now, or have a third arm, or something. No, that’s my kids. I don’t have any kids yet.
‘Where’s Nayia?’
‘Keep drinking, brother,’ he says, and holds a piti to my mouth.
My eyes roll around in my head unbidden. I see Old James above me again. He has water in a shallow piti. This is water from the truck. Water from the strong place. The danger place. The grog dreaming place. Mularabone has passed it to him. He sings gently over the bowl of water as though it were his own precious child. His eyes play across the water in the same way that he would massage his grandchildren by the fire at night, to pour his spirit into them, and strengthen them with his loving touch and incantation.
He holds it to my lips and I drink from it. The water is cool and sweet. Living water. The sensation I get when I feel the underground water comes upon me. My ears become warm, my whole psyche is agitated and revved up by that water coming into me, like it is all around me, and I’m swimming in it. Old James drinks the last of the water. As the water enters him, he too is transformed, and I see what the Birdiya saw in me on the ceremony ground near the Darbal Yaragan south in Beeliar Country. His flesh takes on the texture of the surface of a billabong. If I dropped a pebble in him it would surely make a plopping sound and send out little concentric waves. He sits back for a moment and I see his eyes roll back into his head, as though there are some vital instructions written on the inside of his skull that he needs to read. A song begins to fall out of his mouth like the first trickle of a waterfall after rain. His eyes come back and focus on me, and he spits the water from his mouth back into the piti. Other Countrymen behind him peer into the piti and nod and murmur their prayers. Old James sings. His voice starts up high and spirals down through his register to finish in his deep, croaky, chest voice. Each breath is a whole song. His clapsticks keep time with his heart.
‘Keep drinking, brother,’ Mularabone says and holds the piti to my mouth again.
I gulp it down. My mouth feels foreign and chalky.
He is saying something else.
Old James’ song rocks me back and forth as steadily as ocean swells, as though I am swinging in a hammock in a ship on the high seas.
Ghost of History: Arriving Again
It’s the noise up on deck that disturbs me. I’m tired, having completed a long night-time watch.
‘No one ever died of tiredness.’ I hear Fremantle’s voice ringing in my ears. He would’ve got on well with The Sarge.
From the shouting, I’m guessing we’ve made landfall. Captain Fremantle and I have not been able to bring ourselves to speak of it, but now I realise that, from the moment we sailed away from the Darbal Yaragan and our new friend the Birdiya of Beeliar, we were destined to return. It is the way of things. Coming back is our chance for peace within ourselves. We know now how far outside the thinking of Empire we are. I sit up in my bunk and pull my boots on, grab my jacket and head for the deck. I bound up the stairs and the fresh salt air hits me. And there’s something else: the smell of that bush, still miles away, is sweet and dry.
‘Smells like a pint of ale,’ remarks Captain Fremantle on my approach to the poop deck. He turns and trains his new glass on the smouldering coastline. The Countrymen are always burning one patch or another. If you could fly over the whole country like a bird, from coast to coast it would appear like my aunt’s patchwork quilt.
Fremantle’s face is ruddy and beaming as if he’s just stepped out of a steam bath. He offers the glass to me without taking his eyes from the land. I take it and put it to my left eye, squint my right, and the land jumps into sharp relief. There are two ships standing off the river mouth, and it is in this direction that we plough on.
‘Did you dream, Mister Conway?’
> ‘Yes, sir.’
‘I would have stayed awake if I could have,’ Fremantle remarks, almost under his breath.
I lower the glass and turn to him. We’re standing very close. Two men on a precipice. In and around his eyes, ugly dark spirits circle. They are worms that burrow under his flesh and feed on him as they travel. His ears are red from the howling of the dog spirits.
‘Do you think me strange, Mister Conway?’
‘No, sir.’
‘They call me. Call on me to honour my word.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Are you a man of your word, Mister Conway?’
‘I hope so, sir.’
Captain Fremantle’s eyes are drawn back to the Country. The deck rolls under us; that feeling of the riding swell flowing up through my feet and thighs and the answering downward pressure is why I wanted to be a sailor. The power in that water, that is not the water itself, but a wave moving through, and simply using the water particles to continue itself, that power always thrills me. It is indefinable, untouchable, and yet tangible, and inevitable – all in the same moment.
‘What if I have made a contract I cannot honour?’
‘Then you have to make it right,’ I say.
I say what he already knows. He looks terrified by the knowledge.
‘There is no running from this,’ I say.
The captain’s eyes go sharp. He searches me thoroughly, as if sifting through my possibilities. Captain Fremantle seems to have grown a halo of rich golds and greens.
‘You give good counsel, Mister Conway.’
‘History has spewed you back on shore at this precise moment.’
‘Do I know you?’ he asks suddenly.
I look at him. I know him. I cannot say if he knows me. I offer him my face, wide open, so that he can search for his answer.