Barney and the Secret of the Whales

by Jackie French

  I supposed Sally woke Elsie from her nightmares now. Sally had a tongue like a carving knife, but I’d seen her hug Elsie when she thought no one was looking, and she gave her a drink of warm goat’s milk every night to fatten her up too.

  I stared at Elsie in the slush light. I wanted to say that I missed being the one to chase her nightmares away. Wanted to say that when I came back rich, she wouldn’t have to be a servant when the Johnsons returned to England. Wanted to say that even if we were shipwrecked, or captured by pirates, or becalmed in the ocean, I’d still come back to her, that I’d look after her, always, like she looked after me.

  But all I could say was, ‘Better go back to bed afore Sally finds you gone. And thanks again, Elsie.’

  Elsie gave me one of her smiles. Then she was gone, a white ghost in her long nightdress.

  And I tried to go back to sleep.

  CHAPTER 6

  Off to the Hunt!

  ‘Nothing in that bag needs darning, does it?’ asked Sally suspiciously.

  I shook my head. ‘No.’ My kit held a change of clothing, a blanket washed yesterday by Sally, six handkerchiefs with my initials embroidered on them by Elsie, a Bible from Mr and Mrs Johnson, and a fruitcake.

  ‘Good. ’Cause I don’t want no sailor thinking I don’t keep everyone in this house all darned and proper. Don’t you be losing my good cake tin neither.’

  ‘No, Sally.’

  She looked like she was trying to think of something else to be cross about. Suddenly she grabbed my shoulder. I was expecting a cuff on the ear, but instead she hugged me tight against her apron. It was a bit like being hugged by a big sack of flour. But nice. ‘You look after yourself, boy. You hear me?’

  ‘Yes, Sally,’ I said.

  ‘You’ll probably need longer trousers by the time you get back. More work for me again.’ She gave me a little shake and pushed me towards the kitchen door. ‘Off with you.’

  Elsie and Mr and Mrs Johnson were waiting for me in the sitting room. Milbah toddled up to me and hugged my knees. Milbah hugged everyone’s knees. Knees were all she could reach.

  Mrs Johnson kissed my cheek. ‘You take care, dear child. You’ve got your Bible?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Johnson.’

  ‘And your fruitcake?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Johnson.’

  ‘Make sure you read a chapter a night and have a slice of cake.’ She smiled at me. ‘One for the soul and one for the body. We don’t want you getting scurvy.’

  I picked up Milbah and gave her a kiss and got a sticky one back. She’d been eating stewed pumpkin. And then I followed Mr Johnson and Elsie out the front door.

  And suddenly, there in the muddy track trying to be a proper street, I didn’t want to go. I knew who I was in Sydney Town: Barney Bean who lived with the Johnsons. Everyone in the colony knew who I was. But out beyond the Heads I’d be smaller in the ocean than a tadpole in a pond. Smaller by far.

  We walked down the track to the harbour. People stood on the shore, gawking at the rowing boats ferrying sailors and kegs of food and water out to the ships. There ain’t much to see at Sydney Cove, and this was almost as good as a flogging or hanging.

  One of the sailors glanced at my sea bag. He wore tattered black pants, a patched shirt and a rag of a handkerchief about his neck, as well as a hundred smallpox craters on his face and neck. ‘Which ship, matey?’

  ‘The Britannia,’ I said.

  He grabbed my bag and tossed it into a boat pulled up on the muddy sand. It already had a wooden keg on board and a crate of something and a cage with a bright red and green bird in it, same as the ones that flew over us every day. The sailor saw me looking at it. ‘Captain likes a bright bird in his cabin.’

  I felt a cold wave wash over me. That bright bird, in the darkness of a ship, imprisoned like we had been. But it wouldn’t be dark in the captain’s cabin, I told myself. If men could live on a ship, so could a bird.

  I looked back at Mr Johnson and Elsie. Mr Johnson shook my hand. ‘May the Lord watch over you, and keep you safe, Barney. Ships are guided by the hand of God, not just by their captains. Remember Jonah in the whale’s belly, and keep your faith.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Jonah again. I didn’t think I’d like being in a whale’s belly, even if I had faith I’d get out safe. I suspected there were bits of that story the Bible left out, like whale guts and the whale’s rotting dinner sloshing about.

  ‘We’ll be praying for you,’ said Mr Johnson.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ I said.

  I glanced at Elsie. I wanted to hug her, like we’d hugged each other back in the old days, to keep warm at night as well as for comfort. But it was different now. We were nearly two years older and she was in a proper dress and everyone was looking. I leaned over and kissed her cheek, like Mrs Johnson had done to me. It felt cold from the breeze. Her hair smelled of mutton fat and lye soap and the pancakes she and Sally had made for my breakfast and a scent that was just her own.

  She just stood there. Didn’t try to hug me or kiss me back. But as I turned to go, I thought I heard a whisper. ‘I love you, Barney.’

  I whirled around. But Elsie stood there like nothing had happened, and so did Mr Johnson. Surely he’d have noticed if Elsie had finally spoken?

  So I forced a smile at them and clambered into the boat. Two sailors pushed it down the sand and into the water, then leaped in over the stern and reached for the oars.

  My back was to the beach. I turned again and waved. The two figures waved back, one tall, one small.

  Suddenly I felt proud of the colony I was leaving. We’d come across the world, even if most hadn’t chosen to. And if the huts were falling down, there were good houses too, like ours and the governor’s, and good gardens, and a life in sunlight and freedom, not skulking and starving in the London fog.

  Slip slop, slip slop. I looked at the Britannia, rocking in the waves, getting closer and closer. When we were nearly there, I looked back at the shore again. The tall figure had gone. But the small one was still there, her skirt and shawl flapping in the wind. Waving, waving.

  CHAPTER 7

  Trapped!

  I climbed the ladder up the side of the ship, my bag slung over my back, then I threw it over the gunwale and climbed over myself, nearly treading on a small man, barefoot in a frayed shirt and trousers of old sailcloth, a thousand wrinkles about his eyes, busy with a scrubbing brush. ‘Hey, watch it, matey!’ He peered at me with red-rimmed eyes. ‘Who do you be?’

  ‘Barney Bean, sir. Captain Melvill said —’

  He stood and cut me off with a cuff to the ear. ‘Don’t speak until you’re spoken to. Stow that below and get your carcass up here. There’s work to be doing.’

  ‘But where’s my cabin?’

  He gave a bark of laughter. ‘Cabin? Hoi, Peg-Leg Tom!’ he yelled to a man stumping by on his wooden leg, carrying a bucket. ‘This baby bean thinks he’s getting a cabin. And a wench to do your laundry?’ He gave me another cuff. My ear rang. He gestured to the hatch. ‘Get below with you, then get back up here.’

  I moved out of his reach, over to the hatch. In all my time with Mr Johnson I’d never been struck nor whipped, nor with Ma in the colony either.

  ‘You! Bean Boy!’ Peg-Leg Tom stumped over to me. ‘What you got in your kit?’

  ‘Spare clothes, sir.’

  ‘Any food?’

  ‘A fruitcake, sir.’

  ‘Hand it over.’

  I stood my ground. ‘That cake is mine, sir.’

  He peered at me, his eyes as red-rimmed as the other sailor’s. His skin looked tougher than kangaroo leather, and as dark. ‘And now it ain’t. One thing you get straight, boy. You’re less use on this ship than the ship’s cat, because she catches rats and so far all you’ve done is use up space.’ He held out his hands for my cake. Two of the fingers were nothing but red scarred stumps.

  I looked at his face like wrinkled leather, at his hands, then back at the shore. It wasn’t too late to go back th
ere.

  Peg-Leg Tom chuckled. ‘Thinking of jumping ship, boy?’

  My gaze flew to his face, startled.

  ‘Well, think again. You signed your articles, didn’t you? The papers to be taken on as crew? If you jump ship, you’re a criminal. Seven years’ hard labour.’ He cackled like one of the bright birds in the Johnsons’ garden. ‘I’ll warrant they’ll be very hard ones too.’

  Was he right? I had signed papers saying I’d work for three years. I’d been so proud that I was one of the few in the colony not a convict, and that I could write my own name too. No one had said anything about being a criminal if I didn’t serve all the years. Had I trapped myself with my own signature?

  I could try to swim to shore. I’d copied the way Birrung swam, and it worked. But even if I made it to the beach, there was nowhere in the colony they wouldn’t find me.

  I handed over the cake tin and trod slowly over to the hatch. And suddenly as the deck rocked beneath my feet it all came back to me, the near nine months on a ship like this, locked in the darkness. The terror, even when the sea was calm, that someone would steal our share of the food that came down in buckets from above.

  I could smell us. No, not us, the ones from the First Fleet — the new convicts who’d been on this ship.

  I was ship’s crew now. Three years, I thought. A quarter of my life. Three whole years of this.

  What had I done?

  CHAPTER 8

  The Britannia

  I don’t like to remember that first day. I’ve never breathed a word of it, not till now. Never spoke about any of it.

  There was a space, below the deck, with hammocks. Only four of them because, even though there were ten to sleep in them, when four of us used them the others would be at work or on watch. The captain had his own cabin of course, and the harpooners and the officers shared cabins too, and the sailmaker, bosun, blacksmith and the cooper. The harpooners were almost as grand as the captain on the ship.

  The air was sour down below the deck. I’d forgotten that smell. It wasn’t as dark as it had been on the voyage here, but it was lightless enough to feel the horror come crawling back: day after day of blackness, the ship creaking just like this one did, the sounds of feet tramping above.

  But you’re not trapped down here, I told myself. You can climb that ladder any time you like. So I stowed my kitbag with the others against the inner wall, where it looked like the rest, and headed up onto the deck.

  I spent the first day with the scrubbing brush, then helped fill the scuttlebutts with fresh water, a chain of us lifting buckets from the ship’s boats then passing them across the deck. After that I peeled potatoes for Peg-Leg Tom, who did the cooking: bowls of stew for us and proper food for those who ate in the captain’s cabin.

  Captain Melvill passed me a few times on deck, but never even said hello. I learned fast on the ship: you never stepped on the quarterdeck unless the captain ordered it. You never spoke to anyone more senior than you, and for me that meant everyone. You worked, you ate and you slept. I wasn’t even grand enough to take the captain or the harpooners their meals.

  I was sleeping when we cast off and sailed through the Heads. No one even bothered to let me know.

  I woke when someone kicked me awake. The rocking of the ship and creak of sails told me we had cast anchor, and were out among the waves, away from the shelter of the harbour.

  Back at Mr Johnson’s I’d have washed my face and done my hair and pulled on my trousers. Here we slept in all our clothes, and there was no washing water in our quarters. The air stank of men and salt and ancient sweat. The dim light filtered down from above. I rolled out of the hammock and clambered up the ladder to the deck, and stared around.

  The land was a green and blue smudge to the right of us. On the other side was nothing but blue sea, then blue sky. I ran along the deck to use the seat perched above the heaving dark sea that was our privy before anyone could order me to do something.

  I could cry in private there, thinking of what I’d lost. Mr Johnson had warned me, but I don’t think even he had known it would be so bad. How could he? A gentleman who’d never been on a whaling ship?

  But I couldn’t cry long. A face that was mostly whiskers and rotten teeth yelled at me. ‘You! Wasting time showing the sharks your buttocks! Captain wants you! Up to the quarterdeck. Now!’

  I wiped myself with the rope that dangled into the sea, threw the end of it back down into the churning water, then ran to just below the quarterdeck. Captain Melvill stared down at me. He wasn’t wearing his good suit now, but old trousers made of sailcloth and bare feet, like me. The only thing officer-like about him was his coat, which had once been good, but was now frayed and faded to a grey blue.

  He looked at me as if I was a rat the ship’s cat had failed to catch, then nodded at the foremast. I understood him to mean that I should climb it. I looked up, and up, and up . . .

  About two-thirds of the way up a sailor clung to a length of wood fastened across the mast. That mast was higher than any tree I’d climbed. No tree swayed like that mast either.

  ‘Your turn up there, boy. You’ll take two hours’ watch, each day and night.’ He raised his voice: ‘And the first man who sees a whale gets a silver dollar.’

  Ragged cheers came from all sides.

  A bell sounded. As the wind whooshed the sound about the ship, the man up the mast above me began to climb down. The bell had been a signal, I realised. I’d heard bells on the voyage to New South Wales too, like the bells that sounded in the colony to tell the convicts to start or finish work.

  I waited till the sailor who had been up the foremast reached the deck, jumping the last four feet. His pants were frayed, and his eyes were as red-rimmed as everyone else’s, the irises a faded blue, like the weather had washed out most of the colour.

  ‘Nothin’ to be seen,’ he said, to everyone else, not me. He grinned at me, showing three long yellow teeth and black gums. ‘Up wit’ you then, little chicken. Will we hear you cry for mother? Cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck?’

  I glanced around at the grinning faces. They think I can’t climb the mast, I realised. They think they’re going to have the fun of teasing me, seeing me cry.

  I glanced up at Captain Melvill. He looked amused. He, at least, knew what I could do.

  I grabbed the mast with my hands, and then my knees. Then I scooted up there as though I were a caterpillar finding my way across a cabbage leaf.

  I didn’t stop till I was at the cross-yard. For a moment I was terrified, swaying with the wind and sea. But then I got my legs hooked around the yard. There was a leather belt there too, with two buckles that I fastened around me. I wouldn’t fall now, I hoped, no matter how much the ship lurched below.

  I looked down. The faces still peered up at me. I thought they’d be sorry not to see me burst into tears, or fall. But instead a few clapped. Even Peg-Leg Tom stamped his peg on the deck in approval.

  I looked out at the ocean, the waves curling and threading their way to the horizon, then at the land, its black cliffs with fringes of bright sand at the bays. The sky, so clear and blue. A few gulls wheeled and cried above me.

  A laugh bubbled out of me. Only minutes earlier I’d been almost crying. But up here I was king of the ocean, just as Captain Melvill had promised. No one would cuff my ear up here. I could watch and think and watch some more. I might even see a whale . . . or at least a puff of vapour that said that a whale had come to the surface to breathe.

  A whole silver dollar. I wasn’t sure how much a silver dollar would buy — I’d never handled money in my life — didn’t even know if we had coins in the colony. Food and tools came from the government storehouse, or sometimes you might swap a cabbage for a fish. But a silver dollar sounded like a lot. The men had cheered when they’d heard Captain Melvill’s promise.

  I looked at the blue sea more carefully. The day was growing hotter. Too hot — we’d have a wind from the south by the afternoon, a thunderstorm maybe. I
hoped I wasn’t still up there then, with lightning crashing about me.

  I knew what a whale looked like close up, half a mile away in the harbour. But what would one look like at a distance? The one I’d seen had been a bit like a giant boat, sailing on top of the water. But what if whales swam deep down when they were out at sea? How did I even know what I was looking for? A whale might pass right nearby and I wouldn’t even know . . .

  And then I saw them. Couldn’t miss them, even if they were so close to the horizon it looked like they might swim up into the sky. A giant black head and then what looked like a fountain shot into the sky, and then another, and another . . .

  ‘Whales!’ I screamed.

  I didn’t think anyone would have heard me, not from right up there. But they must have been listening. At once the foot of the mast was surrounded by men.

  ‘Where?’ yelled one of them.

  I pointed.

  ‘How many?’

  I held up five fingers, then shrugged, to show I didn’t know if there were more than that.

  The sailors rushed to the gunwales, shielding their eyes. I could tell from the shaking of their heads they couldn’t see anything. One of them ran to the quarterdeck.

  Captain Melvill listened, then looked up at me. Even from here I could see the grin on his face. The others might not believe I’d seen whales so far away, but he did.

  Suddenly the deck looked like ants were scuttling all over it. Men ran to the ropes. Timbers creaked, sails billowed and cracked. The ship changed course, angling itself so the wind took us where we wanted to go.

  And I saw it all, like I was an eagle, high above. And not having anyone trip over me and cuff my ear either, as I had no idea what to do. So I sat there. Now and then Captain Melvill sent a sailor to yell up at me. ‘Are they still there, boy?’

  I nodded and pointed, my eyes fixed on the black humps growing clearer and closer.

  Suddenly there was a yell below me. ‘There she blows! There! There!’ A sailor on the deck pointed towards the whales.