by Scott, Kim
The soldiers had their barracks, the prisoners had theirs. One was of wattle-and-daub, the other of canvas, and although this should have made it the lesser construction it was the prisoners who had erected both under the supervision of William Skelly, and perhaps the tent was the better protection. Skelly thought so. So, it would seem, did some of the blackfellows, since one or two of them would sometimes share its shelter.
No Noongar had slept there for a long time, though. Skelly, for one, didn’t mind, and was glad not to have to listen to the soldiers boasting how their blackfellow friends were ready to share women. He reckoned they lied, and tried not to think about women, anyway. But even a hinge, even drilling or fitting timbers together could bring women to mind.
He was working now, though he’d got himself well out of the rain, and was happy to turn a blind eye to Skelly’s workmates also keeping clear of work when they could. It was Skelly who’d command them when he needed their help. He worked, even in the rain, sheltering in an old oilskin he’d won in a card game with one of the drunken soldiers and then managed to hold on to, despite the man’s protests next day, with the support of many—soldiers and prisoners alike—who’d witnessed it. The oilskin helped, but the rain still reached him so that after a few hours he’d be chilled if he didn’t keep working hard. Might’ve been the rain that made him notice them, as much as anything, since he thought they must surely be very cold, out in this weather. And just the two of them. They’d appeared almost as if they’d dropped with the rain, Menak and that very young boy. They were both in kangaroo-skin cloaks and Skelly, out in the weather himself, noticed how the cloaks were turned fur inward and how large drops of water caught in their hair; the grease they use, he told himself.
Then he realised there were white men trailing behind them. He pushed himself back from the window frame he’d been making, but they didn’t notice him. Menak winked, but never turned to face him, and the heavy-footed men he led just kept walking, a couple of thin horses with their heads held low bringing up the rear. The other men never even saw Skelly, and wouldn’t have said hello to the likes of him even if they had.
He went back to pushing twigs into the rough timbered wall frame he’d made.
Cross joined the commandant to talk with the little group of men who had arrived overland from Cygnet River. Sun-bronzed and foot weary but arriving in persistent rain, they said they’d made good time and come across excellent grazing country. The land awaits development; there is fine hinterland. We had heard of your natives here, they said, and indeed if not for them … and skated over the tensions within their group and how they had become so confused as to their direction. We were helped on our journey, the black people led us here. They are friendly, indeed.
Good grazing country, they said, repeating it among themselves. And they rested, dined and made plans to explore the country all around this port. Land would be granted here, too, they insisted, to those with capital and without need for the purse strings of government. Men like themselves, with initiative and courage. There would be no military outpost and no prisoners but it would be a self-sufficient colony.
Dr Cross had not heard anything of such plans. He would have to leave or stay and consolidate his presence. He declared himself unwell, and retired early.
Bobby Wabalanginy was with Menak and Wooral when they had led the white men into the settlement. They had called on Dr Cross, but could not find him and so they talked with the soldiers and were welcomed. Menak and Wooral let them be, to make themselves known to one another in whatever way they had. Bobby came looking for Dr Cross again the next day. It was mostly young men who came to the huts, not boys, and especially not one as young as Bobby. But Bobby came in, alone.
Where is Dr Cross? he asked a soldier, and the soldier, recognising the boy, tried to explain.
Dr Cross is unwell … We had visitors … They did not lay down to sleep until sunrise this morning.
Then came Dr Keene, one of the visiting expedition party, a medical man like Dr Cross. They shared a name because of that. Dr Keene had a red face; blood vessels rose above the skin of his nose and his breath was like a soldier’s. Oh, you are the boy Bobby? he said. It was not really a question. Dr Cross is unwell, he also said. Could he help? He spoke the same language as Dr Cross, and Bobby knew they were of the same people, but it did not always seem so. Bobby did not really know this man, Doctor, but told him his uncle, someone like a brother for Menak, was sick. Snake bite him. Doctor said I can help, I heal sick men. He was not the one Bobby came for, but he kept on and on wanting to be taken to the sick man and so Bobby took him for a walk saying, Oh I think it was here, or here, oh I dunno now, and they walked and walked and walked but Bobby could not remember where his sick uncle lay. Sorry. He was only a boy, after all.
Could Bobby really trust this stranger, Dr Keene, who grunted and barked when he spoke?
Dr Cross was at his hut later, and Menak joined them as he and Bobby set off, saying he was glad because he had been coming to get Dr Cross, too. Menak easily led the way to where Uncle was and of course then Bobby Wabalanginy admitted he remembered it. But Dr Keene could not come because this time he was the one unwell. Lying on his bed he’d smelled like those soldiers who fell down on the ground from rum-drinking. A group of men sat with Uncle, and two women were at a campfire just a little walk away.
Doctor said he was sorry and he sat beside Uncle with the other men and Menak lay beside the sick man with one hand under his head, comforting him. Seeing the mark of a snake bite on Uncle’s hand and how sick and tired he was, Cross said soft words. I think you know the problem better than me, he said, because I do not think I can help this man. But he bandaged the hand, anyway.
*
Dr Keene came with them the next day, and could only get down on the ground with difficulty; he was a man whose belly overbalanced him and whose legs would rub together as he walked, so he moved with his feet wide apart, rocking like a sailor. He took Cross’s bandage from Uncle’s injured hand, and rubbed the hand vigorously. Vigorously, he said, you must rub it vigorously. He looked at everyone sitting around and again said the hand must be rubbed to take away the poison. But none of them understood this way of healing, and people were crying because this was not as they would do it. Why had Dr Cross brought this man to help? Dr Keene gave Uncle something from a small bottle, and Uncle sat up straight, breathing deeply and casting glances at all the people around him. So it seemed good.
As they walked back to their own huts, Dr Keene talked to Dr Cross angrily. He said these people do not seem to care enough whether the man lives or dies, and his family cannot be bothered to take a little trouble or expend the energy required to heal him. He didn’t seem to care that Bobby trailed along with them some of the way and might be hurt to hear such things.
In the morning Dr Keene again came with Cross to the sick man’s camp. Bobby joined them along the way but when they arrived Cross knew no one there. It surprised him, because the Doctor had told Menak and the others to sit by the patient’s side, give medicine and rub his hand. Once again Keene took off a bandage that was tied very tightly, more on the wrist than the hand. Then Cross followed little Bobby, walking for an hour or more until they reached Menak’s side.
Why, Cross wanted to know, had the sick man been left alone?
Menak told him Uncle would not take the medicine, though they tried and they tried. After a little time he suggested, to reflect the view of those who were closest to Uncle, that the medicine might work good for you people, but it was no good for a Noongar. And my cousins said they would sit with him.
Cross decided to return to the sick man, and Menak and some of the others went with him, moving quickly along a well-worn path. They had not yet reached their destination when a cry—very lonely it sounded—halted them. Menak called out straightaway, and when that was answered everyone but Cross and Keene broke into a run. Stumbling after them, Cross saw a man at the head of an approaching group throw himself to the gr
ound, and the others stop beside him until Menak’s party reached them. By the time Cross and Keene arrived, people were crying and wailing, and already bleeding about the head from hitting and scratching themselves.
Fat Doctor cried out, For the love of God we have no time for this, take us now to the man, we do him no good to dally!
But Cross knelt quietly beside the man lying on the ground and sobbing into the earth and said his name. Menak. And those two men clasped hands. And our Bobby Wabalanginy stood with a hand on each man’s shoulder. Menak’s woman, Manit, noticed, and though she was upset and known for her temper, she gently pulled Bobby away and left the two men to share their sorrow.
Isolated, Dr Keene cursed and walked like an angry duck all the way back to his hut.
Sniffling and sobbing, Bobby scratched his cheeks and struck his forehead so that blood and tears flowed together on his cheeks same as they did on Manit’s. The old woman, a moment ago so self-possessed and assured, fell to the ground with the force of her sobbing. And look at Dr Cross, crying too.
Menak made a space for Dr Cross beside the dead man’s feet. Tears streamed down Cross’s face. Bobby was made to stay with the children and women, a little away from the men, but he could hear them, and some wanted to spear the fat man Keene, or one of the other white men. The fat man was to blame for this death, and since he wasn’t here … A man got up and grabbed his spear, but Menak pointed to Cross, crying among them.
The men carried the body to bury, arguing about who to spear, who to blame for this death. Bobby heard Menak again protecting Dr Cross and his friend. They tried to help, he said.
And then Bobby touched the dead man, and the dead man sat up. He came alive and got to his feet, saying how very tired he was, and went to his woman. Her hair was wet with blood and her face smeared with tears and he took her hands in his.
Menak cried out because where the dead man had been there was a little boy, Bobby Wabalanginy. And now he seemed like the one who was dead. But as Menak and Dr Cross touched him he sat up like a sleepwalker, and the two men lifted the boy as they rose to their feet together, and Bobby Wabalanginy climbed until he was standing on their shoulders with a hand in each of theirs. All the people at the camp moved into two lines and joined their voices together and raised their eyes to Bobby as he went between them.
He was very spirity, Bobby Wabalanginy, even in these years before he reached adolescence.
Spears and Guns
Mr Killam—already he was calling himself Mr, looking to the day when he was out of uniform—lowered his head over the records, making sure everything was in order. He was careful to secrete away only a little of the stores at a time. Some rum had been put aside, of course; his fellow soldiers could never get enough of that. Salted beef, too. Ship’s biscuits, sugar and rice; the blacks like this stuff and he’d seen the good Doctor ingratiate himself with them by such means. It was more than a month now since he’d reported a theft, although of course no culprit had been found. He thought if he arranged it so that a couple of the prisoners escaped he could make it seem like they’d raided the storehouse before they’d scarpered.
Trouble was, the new storehouse, built by that fellow Skelly, was not as easy to get into as the last one. Killam didn’t want to ‘overlook’ locking it and then have his own competence questioned.
Tolja!
He looked up from his books. It was the chief of the blacks, but dressed up like he thought he was one of us.
Bikket.
They’re taking us for granted, Killam thought. As if we are only here to keep them fed with ship’s biscuit, rice and sugar. He shook his head, No, and walking out of the storeroom closed the door behind him. The two men stood very close, face to face. Killam was glad of his height. He smiled, wanting to appear relaxed. The black was smiling right back at him.
Killam looked to the ground; it helped somehow to see those bare feet. He turned around and, chaining the storehouse, stepped away. Friendly like, he motioned to the door. If you can open the door, you can have some biscuit. Some bikket.
It amused him to watch the savage pull the door and have the chain stop it. Next, predictably enough, he tried to reach through the small gap, but to no avail. Mr Killam had his measure. Menak—that was the blackfellow’s name, one of the Doctor’s favourites—stepped back and, after studying the door for a few moments, gripped each side and lifted it clear of its hinges.
Damn. Killam should have realised. He went to pull Menak away, but one or two steps from the door which now rested in the frame, the man placed a hand firmly on Killam’s chest. Well, his orders were to avoid conflict wherever possible … Killam stood back. Let him do what he will.
Since the door was still chained, Menak opened it from the hinge side and the chain itself became a sort of primitive (well, of course it had to be in such hands) hinge. Yes, it was just as well they didn’t all carry weapons because otherwise Killam might’ve shot this rogue in the chest right there and then and blasted him to kingdom come or wherever it was they went. But no, Killam kept his head and since he knew everything was packed away in chests—save for some biscuits that were too weevil-ridden to inflict upon even the prisoners—he offered some of these to Menak. As (still smiling) he opened the box, that boy everyone had once thought dead ran into the settlement with some women, all of them angry and yelling and obviously agitated. In a moment they were gone, and Menak with them.
Killam turned from the vexatious problem of his door and saw the Doctor following the natives’ path.
Curiosity, eh? Well, everyone knows where that leads.
*
Young and still weak, Bobby drifted along behind the others. It sometimes felt as if he moved in water. His heavy limbs, see? Blurred vision and the pulse pounding in his ears, and yet—like coming to the surface, like having come through the membrane between one world and another—there were these startling moments of clarity.
Spears were proper flying. Most of the men had a woman beside them picking up fallen spears, and they had to be just as alert. Bobby loved this sort of thing: the dancing and dodging more than the throwing, and the throwing of insults more than spears. And the women were best at this. He was excited at old Manit’s voice, at what she shrieked from among the kangaroo-skin cloaks her young men had cast off so they could move more freely.
It was that topside mob again, coming south to the coast. Another one of them musta died, and they reckoned it was our fault. Why they gotta come here making trouble? Menak had claimed he knew most of them, and they were almost as bad off as his own family with so many dying from the coughing and scratching that soon there might not be enough left to collect as well as throw the spears.
Spears whispered through the air, cutting to and fro, and voices called their exultation. Another miss; oh the excitement of it all. Wooral seemed almost motionless in the flurry of spears and arms, he swayed slightly to avoid a spear yet scarcely seemed to notice it, and then launched one of his own, and his spear-thrower seemed an organic extension of his arm.
Someone went down with Menak’s spear in their thigh and it was like a storm settling, the wind and sea dying down. Menak’s touch yet again, his power, see? Blame was not to be found here. The wounded man lay while his family snapped the spear off, casting resentful glances at Menak and the people around him. They dawdled away muttering, not quite enemies, the lame one half-carried, half-leaning on his brothers.
They would be back, and if not them then one of the other families surrounding them here, this womb of their home. And Menak wondered again if it was wise to allow these other strangers to remain so long, these pale horizon people. True, they chose to camp where Menak or anyone else would not—beside the water in the coldest winds and yet where the sun does not reach until late morning. The water is deepest there, too, but a poor place for spearing fish. They had been there a long time, with the air in their huts growing stale, their food old, and shit spilling from the ground around them. These men, from the ocean
horizon or wherever it is they come, they do not leave even when the rains come and that wind blows across the water right into their camp. Yet they would have our women, Menak knows that. Perhaps when the whales and cold again return, perhaps they will leave. Or offer a little more.
He had retrieved most of his spears. Their guns would be good. A fine skill, shooting. And only the quickest can dodge powder and ball. These pale horizon people will help us. Thinking aloud, he said as much to little Bobby.
Yes.
A name and memory
People talked about Bobby Wabalanginy, and not only his own people. Even Skelly knew of him, if not yet by name, and in truth Bobby did not yet have the name he would come to be known by. And Skelly, who knew his time was almost up and was nearly a ticket-of-leave man, had heard that a new colony had begun this side of the continent, somewhere further up the west coast at a place they were calling Cygnet River. He reckoned he’d go there if this place was abandoned. Not back to Sydney. Not back over the sea. Something must be built here. A village, and I at its centre. He occupied himself with such thoughts most evenings, wearing a mental path toward his dreams.
Skelly was at The Farm some days later, minding sheep. Killam was there as well, and that was alright to Skelly’s mind since Killam was the best of the soldiers, but sheep—and particularly shepherding—was not work he enjoyed or, in his own opinion, where he was most useful. Still, it was time alone. Killam said he’d best keep an eye out for the natives; he’d fired at some a few days previous because it was the only way to keep them clear of the stock and the garden. Fired over their heads like, and shouted to wave them away, as he was within his rights to do so, whatever the Doctor might say.
The sheep had more idea than Skelly where they wanted to graze—he just followed, his main aim to ensure he was back by day’s end. Just before the plain began to slope there was a wide expanse covered with holes. Must be them digging for roots, Skelly realised, and so close to our own vegetables, too. It was alright for Killam saying how he’d taken a shot and all, but what was Skelly to do? He didn’t have a gun. He’d not be going far, you could count on that.