‘Moody Bay?’ Mr Bass offers.
‘The theatrical interpretation?’ Lieutenant Flinders is not convinced.
‘Too emotive?’ Mr Bass asks.
‘According to Bligh,’ the lieutenant says, ‘when naming unknown territory, the name must allow others to imagine its function. How it might serve future settlements.’
‘Anchor Bay,’ I say.
‘That might give the impression of large vessel anchorage,’ the lieutenant says. ‘And this is not a bay – it opens too much to the east.’
I hear his dismissal and vow not to speak again, except to agree. This is best with the lieutenant. The only way to stay on the right side of his ledger.
‘And yet,’ Mr Bass says, surveying the surrounds, ‘there is something in what Will says. This bay offers shelter. And that shadowy cliff could be an Arcadian barn.’
Mr Bass throws his melon skin into the sea and wipes his mouth on his shirt.
He grins at me. I bite into my melon to hide my pleasure. Sheltering is not so far from anchoring, is it? How I wish to be like Mr Bass. All is ease.
‘Barn Cove,’ says the lieutenant. ‘It has a lyrical touch and perhaps, as you say George, enough description.’
‘Barn Cove it is,’ says Mr Bass.
We jostle to find a sleeping nook. Not a simple task as Mr Bass’s legs, which do seem longer than a horse’s, jerk about. The lieutenant, thinking himself in privacy perhaps, begins souring the air with foul odours. I tuck one arm under my head and bury my nose in the other. I do not know if sharks can smell but if they can, I will put coin to it that the lieutenant’s inner winds, once released, will keep them distant.
As I wait for sleep I vision fish swarming beneath our small vessel. Do fish sleep? Slap, slap, to dare is to do. Slap, slap, to dare is to do. Mama, you did never imagine me an explorer. Your stage set could not compare to this. For here, there is no Reliance with its shuffle of crew, it is three of us rocking in a tiny boat on the great ocean. This is my second night away from the Reliance. I think now that no other tale ever had this shiver or this shine.
Saturday, March twenty-six, the third day of our journey. I wake. My throat is blistered. There is water about but the wrong kind. I am hot even though it is cold. I say this out loud then regret it.
‘Remittent fever,’ Mr Bass teases.
Mr Bass likes to scare me with horrid diagnoses. He once told me that Mama had a terrible remittent fever. ‘She could die,’ he said, with a face so grim I nearly sobbed in his presence. The fever caused him to stay with Mama night after night until she was cured. At least that is what he proclaimed. It took me longer than it should have to see through his ruse.
‘More like putrid fever,’ the lieutenant says with a sniff at my being.
‘No,’ I say. ‘It is every bone in my body rattled by strange foot-kicking in the night.’
Mr Bass laughs, rubs my head. I pull away. Fifteen is too old for such things, yet Mr Bass refuses to acknowledge it. Why, he is only ten years my senior, and the lieutenant only seven. But to Mr Bass I am still that runt he hired.
Mama had just finished singing on stage when he told her of his offer. ‘No,’ she said, her face puffed and red. She took off her wig and thumped it on the stand.
‘Do not do this, Isabella,’ Mr Bass replied, calmly crossing his legs as he sat beside her. ‘Do not cosset the boy.’
‘He has a gift for the stage,’ she said, holding out her glass for more liquor.
‘He wants the walls cast away, not the walls closed in,’ Mr Bass argued, in his deep-sea voice. ‘He wants the rise and fall of waves, not the stage.’
Mama laughed. ‘Lucky you are not a writer, George, your rhyme is too limp!’
But Mr Bass could convince a fishmonger to buy fish and he proceeded to convince Mama to allow me a life at sea, claiming that if not for his own mother’s restraints he might by now be captain of his own ship. I had begged him to argue for me, having had my fill of rigging stage ropes and mending props, of holding cushions for kings while dressed in hot fabric. Mr Bass’s efforts to convince Mama included the buying of expensive liquor.
‘You are the victor,’ Mama finally said to me two bottles later. She put her hand to my cheek and laughed. I jumped around her dressing room.
That was more than a year ago. Since then, I have travelled further than most have ever dreamt. Despite what Mr Bass thinks, I am not that same boy.
The lieutenant leans over the gunwale, eyeing the shore.
‘Landing is still out,’ he shouts. ‘Those waves would pulp us.’
North, the cliffs are high for some long way, yet we need water, desperately so, and we must land somewhere.
‘South! There, see!’ Mr Bass calls. ‘Low land is visible.’
‘South is away from our river,’ is the lieutenant’s curt reply. ‘No, George, we must bide here until the weather turns.’
‘If we sail south and go ashore, a stream might be found,’ Mr Bass argues. ‘Besides, the wind is for the south, there is little choice.’
‘To continue south stretches our agreement with the governor,’ the lieutenant says.
Lieutenant Flinders does not easily defy an order.
‘How can it be a stretch when the weather itself is telling us what we must do?’ Mr Bass reasons.
The lieutenant is unsure.
‘Remember, this far south no man has stepped ashore,’ says Mr Bass. ‘Save roaming cannibals and one or two pirates who do not warrant merit as they have made no map.’
Mr Bass strikes the right chord, as mapmaking for the lieutenant is like honeymaking for the bee.
‘Cook’s map of this area is scant on detail,’ Mr Bass adds.
It is all the convincing the lieutenant needs. ‘South it is,’ he says, as though the idea was his.
We hoist sail and steer south.
At first, the coast is like the walls of a crumbling castle, only walls where shrubs have rooted. It is forbidding and eye-gobbing. This is not a land of elves and fairies, but one full of misshapen monsters and skeleton ghosts. Then, the castle walls fall away, the land shrinks and is covered with scrubby trees. It becomes sandy beach and stony headland, followed by sandy beach and stony headland, as if God himself had been journeying along the coast practising Port Jackson miniatures before creating the main event. We spy a likely spot for a stream and sail through a gap in the reef but cannot land as the surf is in a beheading mood.
‘Anchor,’ the lieutenant calls.
Mr Bass and I drop anchor well before the surf. My throat is now a hollowed-out log. One of us must swim to shore to search for water.
‘Will, are you up for it?’ the lieutenant asks.
‘Yes,’ I say, pleased not only for the challenge but that he addresses me.
I begin to strip off my clothes. The white sandy beach is curved like a butcher’s knife. Scrubby trees beyond become a green blanket covering the hills. A man might get lost in such a place. For that matter, anyone or anything could hide there, if they knew how to get about. Before we left Port Jackson, stories of cannibals living down south had been all the talk. I stare at the trees.
‘Will, who is the best swimmer, you or me?’ Mr Bass asks.
‘Your stroke has mightily improved,’ I say, unable to take my eyes from the shore.
Mr Bass laughs too loud.
‘Together we can fight all the cannibals that come our way,’ I add, for I cannot abide being thought a coward.
‘Both cannot go,’ the lieutenant says, cheerily. ‘Two men lost to cannibal supper is unseemly.’
‘Then, as I will no doubt make the best stew,’ Mr Bass says to me, ‘should not I be the one to swim to shore?’
This moment is a mark, is it not? We are in a place where no European foot has stepped. Therefore, my swim to shore is unbefitting. It is Mr Bass who should have the honour.
‘In the sea I am a dolphin,’ Mr Bass shouts, as he dives into the water.
I empty the barica and
throw it to him. ‘Do not forget to scrub it out,’ I tease, because the mood has turned easy, and the lieutenant will surely not mind my jest.
Mr Bass floats on his back, takes hold of the barrel in one arm, and begins to stroke with the other. We cheer him on, but the current is strong and, despite our care when dropping anchor, we have drifted to where the waves break.
‘Here, Will, take the helm,’ the lieutenant orders, spying the danger.
Taking hold of the anchor rope, he hauls us back to our dropping point. When we are safe again, I turn to watch Mr Bass. He is midway to shore, his arm like a great oar rowing his course.
But again the lieutenant shouts. ‘Will, the anchor is lifting!’
I whip to attention and spy a growling dog of a wave bolting in. It picks up Thumb. A dazzle of blue sky and salt spray. We ride the wave with terrific pace. I steady the helm but the wave shatters and Thumb crashes in the surf. I fall and roll about, grip the gunwale. A second wave, even larger than the first, splashes over the boat, scoops me up. I am tossed into the water and tumble in white froth until my shoulder thumps onto wet sand. I thud to a stop, water rushing around me. There I lie, coughing and spluttering, a wet rag in need of squeezing, grit in my nose and ears. My cheek sinks in the sand. I spy shells like white pearls, then see the lieutenant, sand-covered, as if newly born from the earth, staggering to his feet.
‘Will,’ he calls. ‘Quickly now! We must use the next wave to haul Thumb to safety.’ He starts limping towards our boat.
I stand and splash after him. Mr Bass, having swum to shore, comes wading through the surf and hurls the barica onto the sand. We grip the gunwale of our small boat that is tossing in a turbulent sea, an enormous swell romping towards it. The wave lip splits around Thumb and we heave with all our might, running with the smash and crash of water and pushing the boat up onto dry sand. Safe at last. Mr Bass and I whoop with pleasure. We eye each other and, for no good reason, race around Thumb, hooting and howling. In our mad calls there is that nameless thing we share, a wild wanting, all fluid and light.
The wind is gusting, kicking up waves that lick the dry sand. It checks our high spirits. The lieutenant begins to pull soggy supplies from Thumb. He lays them on high ground to dry.
‘Will, bail the boat,’ Mr Bass says, taking his cue from the lieutenant but, in truth, having to feign sensibleness as our high spirits will not easily abate.
I climb into Thumb, pull out the bucket and begin to bail, remembering the ride to shore, the rush of wind. I want to hoot but dare not. It would displease the lieutenant. I bail until my arms ache and only stop to rest when the water in Thumb is ankle-deep. It is now that I spy a thin trail of smoke snaking up from the scrubby trees. The howls of dark nature in my head; my imaginings, bloodied and boned. I see how we are as if from above. We three, caught between the snapping ocean and the scrubby foreshore, with a boat no larger than a young one’s toy. I try to speak. No sound comes. Mr Bass and the lieutenant do not see me pointing. I slip from the boat onto the sand, shake Mr Bass’s arm. Mr Bass, still naked, turns to gaze at the forest. The lieutenant does the same.
Yes, I have heard tales of cannibals living south of Botany Bay, but hearing tales is different from standing on a beach knowing one could soon hunt me. Here, death and life are wrangling twins and I am standing in between. In a land that breeds animals with enough spring to jump over huts, and where a bird can be taller than a man, run faster, yet cannot fly, who can tell what rarity we might meet this far south.
We three are hushed, for being here is a step too far beyond our knowing. When I first learnt my letters I stumbled over those that would not jiggle together. I whittled away at them until one day I shaped a word. I felt so shiny with myself for having a whole word in my grasp. But a day later, when Uncle Hilton (a stage player like Mama) gave me one of his scripts to read, I became gloomy, and was truly a most miserable wretch. Before I started my lessons I did not notice words at all, but that day I did, only I had not reckoned on there being so many more to know. Here in the new world it is like we are all just learning our letters.
The lieutenant cannot take his eyes from the smoke. ‘If natives were to run from those trees, there would be no time to get Thumb through the surf,’ he says.
Mr Bass picks up one of the muskets. It is wet and filled with sand. The second musket is the same.
‘Damnation,’ he whispers. ‘We are unarmed.’
In fright, I look again to the smoke rising above the canopy. If the rising smoke signals a campfire, and if that campfire warms cannibals, and if those cannibals have a mind to sup, we have no way to defend ourselves. I peer into the forest. There! Something moves. Animal or man I know not. The tall trees twist in the wind and bend towards us belching forth a flock of wild birds with yellow crests and enormous white wings. The birds fly above then arc south, winging inland from the coast, screeching like monkeys. Aark! Aark! Aark!
Mr Bass is the first to make a move. ‘Get Thumb out past the surf now,’ he orders. ‘I will swim the provisions to you.’
‘No. You and Will take the boat.’ The lieutenant’s face is pinched with worry. ‘I will wade out with the stores and meet you at the wave break while you swim back and forth to Thumb.’
‘And when the cannibals arrive, what then? Have us all made savage supper with your poor paddle?’ Mr Bass flushes red.
So too Lieutenant Flinders. The air is fine ropes stretched tight. I cannot breathe.
‘Bass, my man,’ the lieutenant whispers, ‘I will not leave you alone on this shore.’
‘No more on it, Matthew, you cannot swim!’
When he wants, Mr Bass is commander of all.
The lieutenant’s face is like furrowed land but he must agree. He knows he has no talent in the water. If cannibals came, he could not save himself, let alone Mr Bass, and without doubt I would not figure in his thinking.
‘As you wish,’ the lieutenant says, ‘but first, I’ll pack what might spoil.’
He sets about sorting the stores.
Mr Bass turns to me. ‘From your vantage point at sea you can spy the entire coast. If there is movement, holler with all your might.’
My friend, Na, has shown me how to call across distances with cupped hands to push the sound. I tell Mr Bass this is what I will do if I spy a cannibal.
‘Matthew, go. I’ll bring the rest,’ Mr Bass orders. ‘If it comes to it, our lives are more important than victuals.’
I grip the gunwale, ready to launch. One of the oars is split. I pray it holds together.
The lieutenant stashes the flour and rice, and signals me with a nod. With Mr Bass’s help, we slide Tom Thumb along the wet sand into the shallows, pushing through the waves. Mr Bass takes hold of the lead line and wades back to shore. Lieutenant Flinders and I climb into Thumb and, sitting together on the thwart, row out past the wave break. We pull to a safe distance and drop anchor.
‘Where are the muskets?’ the lieutenant asks.
My heart, a thousand tiny drums. In our rush we left the muskets on the sand. The lieutenant goes to holler but I stop him. I put my cupped hands together and call. Mr Bass looks up but thinking I am signalling danger, searches the forest first, then the beach, before he turns to us.
The lieutenant stands and mimes shooting Indians. At another time the mark of it would set me laughing. He does not intend comic, but comic it is.
Mr Bass, finally comprehending, picks up the muskets and waves them at us. Holding the lead line in his left hand, he runs into the surf. When the water is to his chest, we yank on the lead line, pulling him towards us. He raises the muskets high above his head. We heave. Thumb creaks. We heave again. Seawater splashes. Heave. Heave. The weight of the man! Heave. Then – snap! The line breaks and the lieutenant and I fall backwards. I only have time to spy Mr Bass sinking beneath a wave. The muskets go under with him. When I scramble up, Mr Bass has already resurfaced and is kicking through the water on his side, holding the muskets above his head once
more. The lieutenant hauls in the rest of the lead line.
‘Damaged as we were dumped,’ he says, picking at the frayed end.
Mr Bass reaches the boat, clings to the gunwale. I take the muskets from him.
‘We need a raft,’ the lieutenant says.
‘We could lash the oars together with the mast,’ Mr Bass suggests.
‘That will do it.’ Lieutenant Flinders is up and at the mast.
I stow the muskets.
‘Will, help me here,’ the lieutenant says.
We unstep the mast while Mr Bass clambers into the boat. He uncoils the rope and we three tether mast and oars as one.
‘Now we have a tolerable raft,’ the lieutenant says, grinning. ‘But pray never tell the marines about our near musket loss. They will taunt us for not preserving our artillery.’
I look to the shore. Our stores are spread on the sand. What if cannibals were to come running from the forest? Can they swim? I wish I had asked more questions of Na, who says he has met a hundred such devils.
We lower the raft. Mr Bass climbs down and I toss him a coil of rope that he slings over his shoulder. He settles himself on his knees and uses his arms to paddle in to shore. When he nears land, he rides the surf to the shallows, and jumping from the raft he hauls it up on dry sand. He checks our supplies and discards what is spoiled. The rest he carries to the raft, fastening it with rope.
I eyeball the beach. Only sand glare and tree shadow. Smoke still rises from the forest. No longer a wispy stream, it appears now in short puffs. A signal? Or have the cannibals left the fire unattended?
Outward, I am calm but inside me there is a great bellowing. For now I sense the true weight of my earlier error. If I had checked the barica when Hoary Bogarty had given it over, we three would not be here. I see how one error tumbles into another.
I think of the story that had been the rush of Port Jackson before we sailed. The events in question happened a way back with the tale written up in a Calcutta newspaper and transported by a vessel from that region to Sydney Cove. The report told of how a small boat, with a captain and eight men, set out from the main ship to explore an island. Rough seas caused them to lose sight of their vessel. As they pulled towards shore, the Indians signalled they were friendly and with waving arms directed the sailors to a safe landing place.
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