Prison Ship

by Paul Dowswell

  I didn’t like the sound of this. ‘Why don’t we all go off and look separately?’ I said. My mind was racing. Had Richard actually agreed to this? What was going on?

  ‘Come on,’ said Barrie. ‘You’re a country boy, you know your plants. I don’t know nothing that doesn’t appear plucked already and lying on a market barrow. I need you to tell me what’s what. Besides, I don’t want to go wandering off into the bush on my own. We might meet up with a savage or two. Two of us is going to scare ’em off better than one.’

  I looked at Richard. ‘Sounds good to me,’ he said casually. I felt betrayed. ‘You said we had to stick together,’ I thought.

  We went off, Barrie with his pistol and axe, me with my knife. ‘You lead the way,’ I said. I didn’t want him coming up behind me with that axe and cracking me over the head. I carried my knife in my hand, ready for anything.

  ‘You’re a bit jumpy, aintcha?’ he chided.

  ‘I’m looking for savages,’ I said.

  Whenever he grew closer, I tried to get further away. He noticed soon enough, and it began to annoy him. As we walked, a dreadful thought kept entering my head. What was it he and Richard talked about earlier? Had they agreed this together? Had Richard turned against me? If Barrie attacked me and I killed him, would I have to kill Richard to stop him from killing and eating me?

  I tried to think ahead, wondering what Barrie was going to do. Would he hit my head with his axe – try to bludgeon me to death? I felt queasy. How many times would he have to hit me before I lost consciousness? Would he hack my head off?

  ‘Here, what are these?’ he said, pointing to some berries. I thought he was trying to make me peer down at something and then hit me over the head while I looked at it. I took a quick glimpse. ‘No good,’ I said. ‘I tried those the other day. They taste terrible.’

  ‘You never even looked,’ he snarled.

  ‘You don’t believe me, try them yourself.’

  That shut him up.

  Noon came and went, and still we had found nothing to eat.

  ‘Let’s stop and rest,’ said Barrie. ‘Maybe Richard has had more luck? We can sit up there, by that stream.’ He got down and began to drink deeply from the muddy water. I thought then, ‘Why don’t I kill him? Why don’t I get out my knife and stick it in the back of his neck while he’s down on his belly drinking?’ But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill a man in cold blood. Not even a cannibal who wanted to make me his next meal.

  ‘It’s all right, the water,’ he said. ‘Nice and cool.’

  ‘I’m not thirsty.’

  He got angry. ‘Go on, have a drink. It’ll stop you feeling so hungry.’

  ‘I’m not thirsty.’ I was utterly parched. My mouth felt like dried clay. I wanted to drink more than anything else in the world, except dying under a hail of axe blows.

  I was standing close by and he leapt to his feet and grabbed my arm so suddenly it caught me off guard. ‘Go on,’ he commanded. ‘Get your face in that stream.’

  I backed away. ‘Get off me!’

  ‘Here, what’s up with you?’ He was angry now. ‘I just want you to drink so you won’t feel so tired and hungry on the walk back.’

  I felt cornered. The words spilled out.

  ‘I know what your up to. You’re going to kill me!’

  That really fired him up.

  ‘You what?’ His face twisted. ‘What do you mean, yer little shit? Last time I share any of my food with you. D’you think I’d have given you that fish if I was going to kill you?’ He was squaring up to me, ready for a fight. I didn’t fancy my chances. I played for time.

  ‘We know what you did to Bell,’ I blurted out. ‘If you kill me, Richard will kill you.’

  Barrie’s mood changed. Instead of anger, he was icy calm. ‘Will he now. Then maybe I’ll have to sort him out as soon as I see him.’

  I was so taken up with what he was saying I had not noticed him reaching round for the pistol on his belt.

  In an instant he pointed at my head and pulled the trigger. Sparks flew in the flintlock, but the weapon made only a muffled bang. It had misfired.

  He threw it down in disgust and lunged at me at once with his axe, snarling ‘Come on then, let’s get it over with.’

  I dived to the right and pulled my knife from my belt. I thought to throw it at him, but he seemed too nimble to risk such an all-or-nothing move. Barrie lunged again. I thrust my knife up at him. He rolled over and clutched his side. I had caught him in the chest, under the right arm. Blood oozed out, but it was not a deep wound.

  ‘Come on, have another go,’ he leered. We circled each other. ‘Wait for him. Wait for him. When he lunges at you, then you can strike.’ I knew he had a knife too. ‘If he tries to get that out, then you can throw yours.’ I was as ice cold as I’ve ever been in combat. I had to be, and I fought the rising panic that gnawed at my insides with a will I never knew I had.

  Barrie began to scrabble around on his belt, trying to find his knife. It was now or never. I lunged at him but he was too quick and stepped aside. Then things went wrong.

  I tripped on a vine and crashed into a tree behind him. When I staggered to my feet he threw a handful of soil straight in my eyes. As I blinked and coughed I felt a heavy blow at the back of my head. My legs went weak and I fell forward, not to the ground but into a yawning black hole. In the distance I heard someone howl in desperation, as I drifted between life, death and agonising pain. It was me making that terrible noise.

  I lay on the ground too stunned to move, waiting for the blows that would end my life. But I could hear something else going on. A struggle. Barrie shouting, ‘Come on then, you little shit. Come and get a taste of what your pal’s just had.’

  This must be Richard, come to rescue me. I tried to get to my feet but my legs and arms would not do what I wanted. My head felt like it was going to explode, and a red mist blurred my vision. So this is what dying was like. ‘Get it over with. Get it over,’ was all I could think.

  I heard a dull thud – the sound of a heavy blow falling. Then I remember nothing more.

  I came to with a jolt. The back of my head throbbed with hideous intensity, and I could feel a wet trickle down the back of my neck. Three thoughts entered my head. I was still alive. I was in dire peril. Richard had come to help when Barrie attacked me.

  I shook my head in an effort to drive away the grogginess, but that just made the pain worse. I tried to get to my feet. I couldn’t stand and neither could I move my arms. Was I paralysed? As my senses returned I discovered my legs were tied and my hands bound behind my back. Oh God help me. Barrie had tied me up like a beast for slaughter.

  I opened my eyes, dreading what I would see. There was no one in front of me. I rolled over to see Richard lying a few feet away. I wondered if he was dead, but he was making low moaning sounds. Barrie had tied him up too. I rolled around, trying to sit up, and succeeded at last. The bonds were tight and my arms were hurting.

  ‘Richard, wake up,’ I whispered as loudly as I dare.

  He groaned some more.

  Then I heard Barrie’s voice behind me. ‘I was hoping you might be dead. Good thing I tied you up, wasn’t it?’ I swivelled round to see him there with his arms full of fire wood. ‘Thought I’d have me a feast ’ere on the spot,’ he cackled, and dumped the branches and twigs down on a clear piece of rock jutting out through the green and brown forest floor.

  Richard gave a cough. He started to retch, spat a sickly green liquid from his mouth, then tried to sit up. His feet had been tied with the belt he wore around his trousers, and thick vines held his wrists. Barrie had done the same to me.

  ‘Just you stay there, the pair of you. Any trouble and I’ll bury this axe in your head.’

  Barrie busied himself lighting a fire. Which one would he cook? The other would have to watch his friend killed and eaten.

  Barrie seemed to relish the situation. ‘Now, who’s got the most meat on them? I might start with you first, Ya
nkee boy, and save your pal for later in the week.’

  Then he started to taunt us, waving his knife inches from our faces. ‘Wonder who’s the tastiest?

  ‘You look a bit stringy,’ he said to me. I said nothing. No point enraging him, and having him hit me again. I needed to be able to think clearly if I was going to get out of this alive.

  He was enjoying the power he had over us. I thought his hunger must have turned his mind, for he seemed more of a lunatic than he ever had before. Then he walked off into the bush.

  ‘He’s gone for more wood,’ said Richard. ‘If I swing my feet behind your hands, can you undo this belt?’

  We tried. The belt had been tied tight and could be loosened only a little. I wondered where Barrie had learned to tie such a good knot. As I struggled, he came back. ‘Thought you’d try something when my back was turned. Well that’s made up my mind. It’s time to stop messing about. I’ll have you now,’ he leered at Richard. ‘And you can come back to the cave with me for later in the week. Might even give you a bit of your pal to eat, if you behave yourself.’

  He pulled his axe from his belt. Richard stared him hard in the face, showing magnificent courage.

  It was then I saw a large brown snake with yellow bands along its body, slithering lazily between us – just like the ones we had seen at Charlotte Farm. How could I get Barrie to step on it? I started to shout at him.

  ‘Kill me you scum-sucking maggot. Go on, I’ll be far more trouble than him while I’m still alive. Go on, plant that axe bang in the middle of my head. You haven’t got the guts have you, you lily-livered bastard.’

  I tried to spit at him, but my mouth was too dry.

  Barrie stopped in his tracks. He was baffled. Then anger got the better of him. Face clenched in rage he raised his axe high above his head and stomped over to kill me. His foot came down hard on the snake which reared up its head and bit his bare ankle several times. Barrie dropped his axe, yelled ‘What the ’ell was that?’ then screamed in horror as he saw the snake slithering away through the undergrowth.

  For an instant I wondered if he would kill me then and there. But he didn’t. He just sat down on the ground resting his back on a tree trunk, a dejected look on his face. I almost felt sorry for him.

  ‘You clever little son of a bitch,’ he said with a strange detachment. ‘You’ve done for me, haven’t you? We’ve seen those snakes at the farm. Single bite’ll kill a man in an afternoon. Several bites and he’s dead in an hour.’

  He fell silent. Richard and I looked at each other, then at Barrie. We dare not say anything for fear of provoking him. I didn’t want to catch his eye. What was he going to do?

  Time passed. Wind whistled in the trees. Sun shone through the dancing leaves, casting a dappled light on the forest floor. The sky looked beautifully blue. I noticed this all with a vivid intensity because I thought these would be the last things I would ever see. Barrie did not move and had buried his head in his hands. I began to think of home, and mother and father, brother Tom and lovely Rosie, and then of my friends on the Miranda and my sea daddy, poor dead Ben Lovett. He died with an axe buried in his head too.

  My train of thought was interrupted by wild curses. Barrie was working himself into a rage. He started to bang his fists on his temples. ‘My head, my head,’ he said between clenched teeth, as the poison seeped through his body. He looked up at the sky and bellowed in pain, scrunching his eyes shut tight as if the light were too bright for him.

  He lurched to his feet, but the effort was too much and he leaned against a tree and tried to be sick. Then he staggered to his axe, picked it up and began waving it around. He turned on me. ‘You did that didn’t you? You thought I’d come over and tread on that snake. You’ve killed me as sure as a pistol shot to the head.’

  ‘I didn’t know the snake was there,’ I shouted. ‘I didn’t want you to kill Richard.’

  Richard sprang to my defence. ‘He didn’t know. How could he? He was looking at you and wondering what you were going to do.’ Then he overplayed his hand. ‘Let us go and we’ll try to help you.’

  This enraged Barrie. ‘Let you go? I’d rather eat my own steaming bowels.’ He turned from me and gave Richard a vicious kick. There was some strength left in him after all.

  ‘Well now,’ he said. ‘I’m reckoning on going straight down to hell, so another couple more corpses to my credit won’t make any difference.’

  Then he changed his mind, and began to talk half to himself and half to us.

  ‘But what can you do for me? You got any medicine? You got anything on you to stop the poison? You could have sucked the wound, that works sometimes, but you gotta do it straight after the bite. It’s too late now. Let you go? No, I’m going to kill you both before the strength goes out of me.’

  Richard and I exchanged desperate looks. But then Barrie’s mind began to wander.

  ‘Maybe I’ll leave you both tied up. Maybe you’ll starve to death or maybe the snake’ll come back and get you. That’d be all you deserve.’

  ‘But it isn’t all we deserve,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you let us go? We were just trying to escape like you. We’ve done you no wrong. We’ve been helping you to stay alive out in the bush. You said you were going to hell? Maybe, before you die, if you spare our lives, God will forgive you. Think about that Mr Barrie, before you do us in?’

  I didn’t believe it, but it was worth a shot.

  Richard piped in. ‘Think about it! Kill us now, and you’ll die knowing for certain you’re going to hell to roast for the rest of eternity. Let us go, and you can go thinking you may yet be forgiven.’

  Barrie stopped again, and covered his eyes. ‘My head, my poor aching head.’ Then he clutched at his stomach, and bent double in agony. The pain passed and he leaned back against a tree.

  We waited. I had seen men bad to the bone become meek and pious when death approached. Convicts on the road to the gallows in Sydney, two or three of them sitting in the cart along with their cheap wooden coffins, often sang hymns with great gusto, trying to prove to themselves that they were good Christians after all.

  Barrie’s breathing became laboured. Every now and then he would twitch in pain or an arm or leg would start to tremble and shake. I feared he would die and leave us both trussed up. I twisted my arms and wrists inside their bonds. There was some slight give in the vines. I could feel them stretch a little. I moved my ankles too, trying to work loose the belt. But it was less forgiving than the vines and the flesh around the belt was soon cut and bleeding.

  The wind blew fiercely through the trees. It seemed to rouse Barrie from his stupor. He sat up unsteadily, like a man nursing a brutal hangover. ‘I’ve just been talking with Old Nick himself,’ he slurred. ‘He just came to see me. Whiffing of fire and brimstone he was. He said, “You do one more job for me Mr Barrie, before you go …” ’ He was struggling with his words. ‘ “You do one more job for me now, and you can come and work for me, down there in the fiery furnace.” ’ He cackled and roused himself. ‘“Just do in these two conniving little bastards,” he said, “and I’ll take you all down to hell with me.” Won’t that be nice?’ He staggered to his feet, picked up his axe and lurched over to me.

  ‘I’ll start with you,’ he said, and brought the axe down on me with all his ebbing strength.

  I jerked my body over and rolled to miss the blow. He grabbed me by the shoulder. I was surprised by the strength he still had in his hand. ‘Hold still, you little bugger.’

  In that final moment before the blow fell, I found the strength to break the vine shoots around my wrists. I grabbed his hand on my shoulder and bit it with all the ferocity I could muster. Barrie yelled and dropped his axe. My legs were still tied and I could not stand up. As he groped around on the forest floor to pick up his axe I rolled over to snatch a fallen branch and brought it round to land on his head with every ounce of strength in my body.

  It made a sickening thud. He dropped face down and stayed down.


  ‘Quick Sam, before he gets up again,’ pleaded Richard.

  I picked up the axe and severed the vines around Richard’s wrists in seconds, and he quickly undid the belt around his ankles.

  We stood up and looked at Barrie’s sprawled body.

  ‘What shall we do?’ I asked.

  ‘If he’s still alive we should kill him while we can,’ said Richard.

  ‘That snake bite will do for him soon enough. Let’s leave him,’ I said.

  We searched the surrounding bush for our knives, which Barrie had carelessly tossed aside, and took his weapons.

  As we left the clearing Richard said, ‘I knew he was up to something. He’s been toadying with me for a few days now. When he suggested you and him go off to look for food, I thought I’d better follow.’

  I wanted to tell Richard I was worried he’d turned against me. But I knew he’d be angry so I said nothing.

  We hadn’t walked more than five minutes when I was gripped with a terrible doubt. ‘What if the poison doesn’t kill him after all? What if he comes after us?’

  Richard snapped. ‘What do you want to do then? Go back and kill him? I couldn’t stick a knife into a dying man, could you?’

  ‘No, but we could at least keep him company until he dies.’

  ‘Very pious, Sam,’ he snapped.

  ‘But if we’re there when he dies, we’ll be certain he’s dead. Otherwise we’ll spend the next week thinking he’s going to leap out at us at any second.’

  ‘You’re right, Sam.’ Richard looked wretched. ‘I’m just so hungry, and waiting for Barrie to go wastes time when we could be looking for food.’

  ‘You go and fish, I’ll keep an eye on him,’ I said.

  He nodded. ‘I’ll meet you back at the cave. Will you remember where it is?’

  I headed back. As I approached I began to feel afraid. Was I right to go alone? I reached the clearing and a feeling of horror swept through me. I thought I was going to faint, and began to breathe deeply to steady my thumping heart. His body had gone. ‘RICHARD, COME BACK,’ I screamed. The words echoed around the forest, but he made no reply.