Ezra pulled Polly Doodle to a halt and pointed to a large tent at the northern end.
‘That’ll be the head man’s place. He’ll be able to tell you where your brother’s claim is. They live a kind of village life, you see. There’s always someone in charge.’
Pearl put out her hand, and after a small hesitation, he took it carefully in his grubby paw.
‘Thank you, Ezra. I hope you find a mountain of gold.’
‘Wouldn’t know what to do with it if I did.’ He grinned. ‘The fun’s in the search, you see? Good luck, gal.’ He gave the mule a light tap on the nose and moved off southwards, his gaze already turning to the horizon, seeking a likely spot to stake his claim and start work.
The tong, when queried, directed Elly to an area a hundred yards down the gully where a party of Chinese worked around a long wooden pipe about six inches square with a wheel attached at the upper end. As she drew nearer, she saw it was like a paddle wheel, its canvas band fitted with pieces of board which drew up water and discharged it down the pipe and out the other end. It was, in effect, an elaborate baler, keeping a pit dry enough for men to work.
Pearl approached a man clearing an obstruction at the pipe mouth. ‘Do you know Li Po?’
He straightened up, a slender, brown-skinned figure whose thinning hair hung in a rat-tail braid. His long blue blouse, faded and patched, was smeared with the ubiquitous clay, his knee-high boots the same. His gaze bored into her, sharp, almost hostile.
‘What do you want with Li Po?’
‘He’s my brother.’
‘I am Li Po, and I have no brother.’
‘Look closely. Have you never had a sister, Li Po?’
Her excitement edged with a sensation of let-down, Pearl studied the stranger as he studied her. She didn’t remember him. With no conscious picture of him in her mind, she had somehow fallen into the trap of imagining a benign, brotherly figure opening his arms in welcome, but the reality could not have been more different. Li Po had the stringy, exhausted aspect of so many diggers, with lines of bitterness around his mouth.
‘You could be Younger Sister. How do I know you speak the truth?’
‘Do you remember playing with me in the fields, lifting me over the ditches? I cried when I was sold away as a servant and you comforted me. You told me that one day I would attract a rich man and have servants of my own. I would wear fine silk clothes and never be hungry again.’
He waited impassively for Pearl to continue.
‘When I cried our father beat me and you took the stick and broke it. Do you remember?’
Some of the tension went out of Li Po, although there was still no welcome in his tone. ‘You are Younger Sister. How did you come here? Why did you seek me out?’
‘Because you are all the family I have left. Because I thought you would welcome me.’
‘You thought I had found much gold.’
The emphatic statement sent Pearl’s chin in the air. ‘I’m not interested in gold. I’ve travelled from the Yangtse Valley to find you. I’ve been enslaved; shipwrecked; raped and abused; I’ve used all my ingenuity and all my strength in my search for a brother I thought I could love. Now you accuse me of wanting your gold.’ Her anger sustained her, but she was appalled at this outcome to her long journey. It had never entered her mind that Li Po would repudiate her.
At a shout from above, she raised her head and saw two men waving. Li Po lifted an arm in reply, saying, ‘I am needed. I must go back to work. Wait at the tong’s tent and I will speak with you after the evening gun.’ He sped away up the gully without a backward glance.
Pearl settled her pack and turned away. Numb with reaction, she felt hurt and hollow in the middle, as if from a physical blow. For it to end like this, with suspicion and negativity, instead of the glad reunion she’d carefully constructed in her imagination for so many months. Her numbness gave way to deeper misery. She climbed the gully away from the tong’s tent, finding her way through a salty blur, unable to make any plans beyond escaping to hide alone with her unhappiness.
She didn’t see the loose stone until her boot slipped and she fell heavily. Throwing out her arms to save her battered ribs another break, she landed awkwardly on one knee. Pain shot up her leg. She sat in the wet clay hugging her knee, and for the first time in her life considered giving up.
Li Po must have been watching, after all. He arrived within minutes to stand over her.
‘Why did you leave?’
Pearl shook her head. If he couldn’t see how his reception had affected her, she couldn’t be bothered to explain.
He put a tentative hand on her shoulder. ‘Are you hurt? Show me.’
When she didn’t move, he squatted down and pulled the leg of her trousers above the knee, which had already begun to swell. Clicking his tongue against his teeth, he swept her up with a deceptive wiry strength and carried her up the steep slope to one of the packing case huts she had seen on the ridge.
Inside, he placed her on a mattress on a shelf of mud bricks then lit a candle, revealing a compact space that was surprisingly comfortable if one stood no higher than five feet. Pearl regarded the woven mat on the earth floor, the slab table and bench, the tin chest hanging from a rafter to keep food away from animals. Li Po had taken the trouble to construct a home in the wilderness. While she watched in silence, he built a small fire in the dry stone hearth to boil water for tea, then brought it to her in a tin mug.
Finally he sat down cross-legged on the mat, saying, ‘Will you stay here and rest? I have much to say to you, but not until the day’s work is finished.’
Utterly weary, in pain from her throbbing knee, Pearl hadn’t the energy or the will to set off again just yet. Here she was protected from the weather, while Li Po’s softened attitude demonstrated some sort of interest in her. Despite her disappointment, she still wanted to know him better. They were still the same blood. However, pride must be preserved. She appeared to give his request thought, then said coolly, ‘I will stay until you return.’
Pearl stayed a lot longer. By the time she had helped Li Po cook the evening meal and sat over their tea well into the night, exchanging life stories, Pearl felt she had been accepted. Her brother was a lonely, withdrawn man whose manner repelled any close relationship. However, she had seen beneath to his real need and was glad she had come.
Settled in one spot for the first time since leaving Sydney, she allowed herself time to acclimatise before tackling the future, content to keep the camp tidy and learn her way about the vast Ballarat diggings. In many ways it resembled all the others she had visited in her search, yet there were differences, particularly in the weather, which had turned bad enough to disrupt the Cobb & Co. coach service. This was discontinued until there was some hope of the horses getting through.
At night temperatures dropped below freezing, and by morning a light dusting of snow frequently frosted the ugly surroundings with a deceptive beauty. However, it only added to the misery of the miners, forcing them to work in icy slush, often up to their waists, weakened by the lack of proper nutrition, since they existed mainly on damper, mutton and black tea. Milk could not be had at any price, unless a family cow had been dragged up from Melbourne to be cherished and guarded by its owners; while vegetables were an occasional luxury, with cabbages selling at half a crown each and potatoes at a shilling and sixpence a pound. The cost of cartage usually trebled the city prices. Even flour for dampers sold at up to two hundred pounds per ton. All this resulted in a variety of deficiency and skin diseases, usually dismissed with contempt by the miners but actually quite seriously draining their physical strength.
Because the creeks were polluted, fresh water brought in by a few entrepreneurs willing to travel to distant streams sold at a shilling a bucket – too much for the many miners who thus fell prey to dysentery, even in winter. Infections spread rapidly in the crowded, primitive conditions, while rheumatism, fevers, cramps and colds were endemic. The situation cried out for medical men, of which t
here were a few, mostly quacks. After Pearl visited one so-called doctor’s tent and watched him handing out patent pills, calomel and sulphur for every kind of ill, she came away thoughtful.
Meanwhile, despite their difficulties, or perhaps to spite them, the diggers created their own entertainment. This ranged from campfire songs accompanied by harmonica, or squeezebox accordion, even bagpipes, to Saturday nights in the illegal grog-tents where the favours of harlots could be arranged, and wild partying was accompanied by fights and gunshots until dawn. For the more sophisticated, dances were held in a hall built in Ballarat for the purpose, or a concert by visiting players.
Pearl found the township to have a settled, prosperous air, its thronged main street lined with shops, lodging houses, banks and hotels. Delivery drays vied with water carriers and shoppers, many of these women and children who accompanied their menfolk to the goldfields in increasing numbers.
One day she witnessed a digger wedding, the bride in full satin and lace, the groom and his friends in silk hats contrasting with their workday clothes, racing from church to hotel to begin a week-long fiesta. She also witnessed the outcome at the end of the week, a drunken brawl in which the bride received a black eye and knocked her husband out with a bottle of gin before departing for fresher fields.
Pearl reported this with some amusement to her brother, who retorted, ‘These western “marriages” are an excuse for licence. The bride will have offered herself at a price and when she tires of the situation will return to the town to seek another partner. Some women will enjoy six wedding feasts in the same hotel in as many months.’
Before long Pearl recognised the same rumbling precursors to rebellion as she’d seen in other mining camps. The ostensible problem, the miners’ resentment of a licensing tax which fell most heavily on the poor and unsuccessful, only masked the true problem, their real hatred of the fee collectors, the Gold Commissioner’s police. These sprang from the ranks of ex-convicts and bullies who delighted in exercising their power against those without redress. With bribery and stand-over tactics the norm, in retaliation many diggers refused to pay for their licences, instead posting look-outs for the ‘traps’ then disappearing into hiding at the first warning.
There were constant confrontations, while the local gaol became so crowded that men who could not pay the immediate fine, or had to wait for a magistrate to arrive on his circuit, were left chained to trees like dogs in all weather to be mocked by their gaolers.
Pearl stepped uneasily around the indignation meetings and the raids by mounted troopers. Her people were resented for their lack of interest in the miners’ rights as well as for their strange and no doubt devious ways. She shopped for their needs with Li Po’s gold dust, discovering a market where the destitute sold their clothes and valuables for food or a passage back to civilization. She also found a school being conducted in a tent by a digger returning to his previous profession, but attended by all too few of the hundreds of children who swarmed through the camps. Most of them were unpaid labourers for their fathers and would never be educated.
While dressing a blister on Li Po’s foot, Pearl’s restlessness stirred. This was her job. She should be getting on with it.
However, she struck opposition at once.
Li Po drew himself up to his two inches taller. ‘Our people are healthier than the yi. They eat more wisely and know how to use a variety of remedies. However, there are always accidents, and you are free to attend to those.’ He added graciously, ‘Your skill is not in doubt, yet we have little use for western medicine, which appears to consist of Holloway’s cure-everything pills and the letting of blood. Content yourself with seeing to our camp and to our people when needed.’
Pearl had prepared for the confrontation.
‘I understand how you feel. However, I have lived among the yi. My adoptive parents were the first people to care about me and give me a chance to better myself. Ada Carter was my true mother who loved me. It was a western woman who befriended me on the ship, and another who took me in, gave me work and respect.’
Li Po said harshly, ‘And what of the men who attacked you and left you maimed, who would have killed you?’
‘There are beasts at all levels of nature. Not all western men are evil. In Sydney Town I met with many I liked and respected.’ J.G.’s freckled, irreverent, lived-in face came to mind, making her smile. ‘I have had time to think while I recovered and listened to the wisdom of Lao Tsu. Regrets are vain, brother. They stifle the present.’
‘You forgive those yi dogs? You can forget that once you had beauty?’ He was incredulous.
‘It doesn’t matter anymore. I don’t need a beautiful face to pursue my calling. When I set up my clinic for the sick and injured, they will be interested only in my skill to heal and my ability to quieten pain.’
Li Po’s face twitched. ‘You will not do this. It is unseemly for a woman of the Celestial Kingdom to put herself forward in such a way. I have already settled your future. A dowry has been arranged. I am a wealthy man, Younger Sister, and you are to marry Chan Yu-lan at the full moon.
‘No. I’m sorry, brother, but I will order my own life.’
He slapped her face. The blood rushed to her cheek where the scar still stood out like a badly mended crack in a porcelain vase. Her eyes flashed, then watered with pain, but she conquered her initial response, saying mildly, ‘Li Po, you must realise that I am not a chattel. I am a person in my own right. Here in this country I have a freedom I could never have in our land.’
‘A woman should be meek and hold herself small before a man.’
‘Not so. The Christian Holy Book says ‘blessed are the meek’, meaning all people, men and women, without one being greater than another. Lao Tsu says “How does the sea become the queen of all rivers and streams? By lying lower than they do. One who humbles himself, therefore, can serve all people.” Until you are willing to be humble yourself, brother, to be equal with me, we cannot live side by side. So I must go.’ She picked up her ready-packed bag.
Li-Po said bitterly, ‘You are not my Younger Sister. You are no true woman.’
‘I was given a name, Pearl. It is the only name I have. Good-bye, Li Po.’
CHAPTER THIRTY
Pearl didn’t stop until she reached the tent of Doctor Hsien Lo, where she found him supervising the packing of his goods. He explained that he intended returning to the land of his ancestors and fate had obviously meant Pearl to arrive in time to take over his practice.
‘I’m not a qualified doctor.’ Pearl objected as a matter of form. They both knew anyone at all could hang out a shingle on the goldfields and be assured of plenty of custom.
‘You are more qualified than most of the impostors who demand a sovereign in exchange for a mix of chalk, opium and brandy to cure dysentery, but instead induce prolonged, agonising constipation. You will dissipate much misery and save lives. One may always perceive the workings of the Way.’
With a touch of irony, Pearl said, ‘Will the Way provide me with a roof and food to keep me alive until I have paying patients?’
‘I will do so.’ His indifference to his own generosity was so superb that Pearl could only bow her acceptance. ‘Have you parted from your brother?’
‘Unfortunately, he does not subscribe to the Way and wants me to turn myself into a chattel. I can’t stay with him.’ Pearl concealed her hurt and began to question the Doctor on further herbal lore.
He left at the end of the week, having established her as the new consultant for the area, in possession of a neat tent divided by a curtain into surgery and living quarters. With packing-case furniture, a folding bed and a properly constructed fire-place, plus a chest to hold her nostrums and herbs, she was ready for business.
Despite the prejudice against Orientals, Pearl found herself inundated with patients, and since her fees were small, or non-existent in the case of hardship, she soon ran the risk of collapse through exhaustion. She concealed her sex at the beginning so
that by the time it was known too many miners had been treated for intimate complaints for them to be concerned.
Gunshot wounds were plentiful, plus broken bones from drunken falls into the pits, as well as the usual run of fevers, dysentery, rheumatism and piles, all resulting from working conditions. Pearl also attended women in childbirth and others used as punching bags by their men after visits to the sly-grog tents. These proliferated and were a constant source of trouble, since there were no licensed hotels beyond town.
The political unrest continued, with agitation for the abolition of licence fees as well as the disciplining of the corrupt police who collected it. There was talk of armed rebellion.
Pearl kept too busy to become involved, until one night when a miner was brought to her tent close to death from exposure. His angry friends explained that due to his inability to pay the five pounds fine for not having his licence on him, he had been chained in stocks outside the Commissioner’s station for the past forty-eight hours, unprotected from last night’s violent storm. Pearl tried all she knew to save him, but he had been rescued too late.
The men left, taking the body with them, planning a whip-around for the cost of a better burial than the usual bark shroud. Their ominous mood could be understood. The brutal officiousness in dragging men up from the bottom of a hundred foot shaft to display their licences, twice weekly, was bad enough. But when it reached the point of men being left to die, Pearl’s own fury rose.
This scandalous state had to change. She had seen relentless pressure lead to social upheaval in her own country, with the revolt of the Tai Ping against their Manchu oppressors. The same could as easily happen here in this new land among a group of men unused to such treatment.
Nor was it just the upper and middle-class English who would rise, but many of the other nationalities represented in the goldfields melting-pot: the freedom-loving Americans; the dispossessed Irish and Scots; the orderly Germans; the volatile Italian and French patriots fresh from their own countries’ revolutions.
A HAZARD OF HEARTS Page 29