by JH Fletcher
‘You’re sure? You saw it yourself?’
‘No,’ the man said. He hadn’t seen it, but he had it on the best authority —
‘Wait.’
Supper forgotten, Rufus hurried up the handsome staircase to the first floor. A corridor faced him, hung with portraits of the lesser members of his mother’s family; those of Lord and Lady Glastonbury, like Governor Hindmarsh himself, were in the main reception room where visitors could admire them.
A light was showing under his father’s door. George was paying one of his periodic visits to the country. He disliked being disturbed after he had retired for the night, but Rufus did not hesitate. He rapped on the door and went in.
George was sitting up in bed, his back supported by pillows. A candle was burning on a side table. George was studying a sheaf of papers; he might be getting old but business was still business.
He looked at his son over his spectacles. ‘What do you want?’
‘Saul has brought news of Pandora.’
‘And?’
A silver coffee pot stood on a spirit stove on the table. Rufus poured himself a cup and sipped it, aware of his father watching him. ‘The strikers attacked her. They set her on fire.’
‘On fire?’ George sat bolt upright. ‘Is she badly damaged?’
‘Saul says she’s sunk. And a man is dead.’
George looked as though he might catch fire too. ‘Did they catch the men responsible?’
‘They’ve several in custody. One of them’s a friend of ours. Our old mate Charlie Armstrong.’
George became still. ‘He is the murderer, of course.’
‘We don’t even know it is murder —’
‘A man killed in an arson attack? Of course it’s murder.’
‘No charges have been laid —’
‘Can there be any doubt, knowing Armstrong as we do? And this is the man, let me remind you, whose child you permitted to have free run of this house, to become friends with my grandson.’
‘Whose life she saved.’
‘We only have their word for that.’ George sat with shoulders hunched, eyes fixed on his thoughts. ‘Witnesses, that’s what we need. Send Saul to me. There’s something I want him to do.’
‘Father —’
‘Saul,’ George said. ‘At once.’
Meanwhile the town of Wentworth was uneasy. Every stranger was eyed with suspicion; even neighbours looked askance at each other when they met. There were soldiers patrolling the streets, with flinty eyes and flushed faces. They’d have run in the kangaroos if they’d known how.
The lockup was heaving with suspects and rumour marched to the rhythm of the patrols’ crunching boots.
‘The prisoners are rushing to dob in their mates.’
‘The prisoners are saying nothing.’
‘A magistrate is riding in under escort.’
‘The prisoners will all be released without charge.’
On one thing the town was agreed: matters had to be sorted out, and fast, or river trade would wither like seedlings in drought. If that meant hanging a few of the troublemakers, so be it.
For a day or two even the publican had a hard time of it. There were harsh words for the man who had allowed revolution to flourish in his back shed. But indignation, like sedition, was thirsty work, and few supported the Reverend Ross’s demands that the pub be burnt as a lesson in sin and retribution.
In these conditions it wasn’t easy to find men who did not wish to be found, but even needles can be located if the haystack is threshed diligently enough.
Saul, obeying George’s orders, had made inquiries. He found the man he was seeking in a wine shanty a mile outside town.
The shanty stood at the end of a weed-lined track. A woman in a sacking apron, alerted by the clop of hooves, wiped her nose on the back of her hand and stared as the stranger rode up.
‘Oscar!’ Her screech splintered the silence. ‘You got a customer.’
Saul made his reins fast to a hitching post and went inside the shanty. He was not a tall man yet had to duck his head to avoid the lintel.
The interior was dark, but Saul could make out the shapes of two men. One, with a filthy shirt and boozer’s face, leant on a counter behind which two wooden barrels stood on the earth floor; the other, his face buried in a pewter tankard, was the man Saul had come to see. This second man’s clothes had also seen better days: the jacket of what had once been a black suit was torn about the cuffs and part of the collar was missing. He held his tankard suspended in front of him. His bloodshot eyes inspected the stranger, who smiled ingratiatingly.
‘G’day, mate. Your name Jenkins?’
The expression on the drinker’s face became cautious. ‘Who wants to know?’
‘My name is Saul. I am an attorney. One of my clients has an interest in the role played by Charles Armstrong, a riverboat owner, in the recent sinking of the Pandora.’
Jenkins’s expression grew more guarded still. ‘Dunno nuthun about it.’
‘But you know Armstrong.’
‘Mebbe. An’ then again, mebbe not.’ The drinker looked significantly into his empty tankard.
Saul gestured impatiently to the shanty owner. ‘Give him whatever he’s drinking.’
Within seconds the refilled tankard was back. Jenkins’s hand embraced it like a lover.
‘You worked as engineer on Armstrong’s boat?’
‘I filled in, temporary-like. He aren’t the sort you’d work for regular.’
‘Why is that?’
‘Because he’s a hard man, mister. A cruel man.’
‘I hear he treated you badly.’
‘Threw me in the river, ’e did.’
‘That’s against the law.’
‘Said I’d pinched his rowboat. True’s I’m sittin’ here! What use have I got for a rowboat?’
‘Shameful,’ Saul said.
‘Assault an’ batterin’s, that’s what it was.’ Jig Jenkins drained his tankard.
Oscar went to refill it but Saul lifted his hand. ‘I’ll be happy to buy you another refill, Mr Jenkins, but I’ve some questions I’d like answered first. If you’re willing.’
Jig’s wary eyes watched Saul. ‘I told you already. I dunno nuthun ’bout Pandora. I weren’t there.’
‘Of course not. But you’re an astute man, Mr Jenkins. No-one expects you to say you were with the rioters if you weren’t, but a keen man like yourself — someone with all his brains about him — might’ve heard something. People talking before the event, let’s say. Armstrong’s role in stirring up trouble.’
‘He was in the pub,’ Jenkins said. ‘I seed ’im there meself.’
‘No doubt planning the riot?’ Saul had taken a gold coin from his pocket and was turning it idly, while Jig Jenkins watched closely.
‘There coulda bin rumours,’ Jig said after a pause. ‘I seem to remember hearin’ somethin’ of the sort.’
‘What my client wants is justice,’ said Saul. ‘This uncertainty is bad for the town. A statement setting out for the court everything you know of Armstrong’s involvement would do everyone a good turn.’
‘Except Armstrong,’ said Jenkins, and laughed.
‘He can hardly expect favours, can he, the way he treated you.’ Saul joined in the laugh. And paused.
Jenkins toyed with his empty tankard. The faces of the men had been swallowed by the gloom, while beyond the open door a kookaburra challenged the growing darkness.
Saul said: ‘My client would not expect you to go to this trouble without some compensation.’
‘That right?’ Jig’s furred tongue flickered. ‘And what would be in this statement you want?’
‘Only the truth. But perhaps I could explain the aspects of the story that need the greatest emphasis. We would want everything to be right, would we not? For, let us say, twenty guineas?’
A sly glance. ‘Or twenty-five.’
‘As you say. Mr Jenkins, let me offer you another drink.’
Because of the number of men in the lockup, Charlie had been allowed to return to Brenda, with a guard to make sure he didn’t slip away in the night.
‘Although where they think we’d go I can’t imagine,’ said Sarah crossly.
Charlie, memories of an earlier escape in mind, said nothing.
Ignoring the stolid constable wasn’t easy. It wasn’t a good situation but Charlie did his best.
Pandora’s captain knew Charlie by sight and was prepared to swear he’d been one of the rioters.
‘What have you got to say to that, Armstrong?’ The police sergeant’s eyes had prowled over him.
‘The captain’s wrong.’
What else could he have said? Deny everything: it was the only way.
‘Riot? Dunno nuthun about it. Witnesses? The captain got it wrong. Where was I? On Brenda, with three witnesses to prove it.’
That was the way to go and hope the justices believed him.
What he regretted was not being able to tell Petal, down in Goolwa, what had happened to Will. He felt so bad about it. Worst of all was not knowing where Will’s body was buried. Somebody must know, but no-one was saying.
‘It’s not right,’ he told Sarah.
But no-one was interested in what was right, either. The burning of the Pandora had scared the authorities into a response that was both violent and senseless. Never mind about guilt. Find someone, anyone, and make them pay.
Charlie was not allowed ashore but Sarah walked through the town, taking Alex with her. She thrust her bold-as-brass smile in the faces of passers-by, daring them to say anything. She shopped for milk and eggs and any information — and came back with more than she’d bargained for.
Charlie saw it in her face, but she would not tell him what she’d overheard in the dairy, the old woman with a clenched-fist face saying:
‘That feller what died … They say it was his own brother done ’im in, because he tried to stop ’em burnin’ the steamer. Hangin’s too good. They should burn them, too, burn the lot of ’em, then we’d have no more problems.’
Sarah had ached to attack the old bitch but had held herself back. They were in enough strife already.
But Alex hadn’t seen it like that.
‘You’re a dirty-mouthed old witch!’ she had said in her clear, youthful voice. ‘In the olden days they’d have burnt you. At the stake.’
Taking their time about it, mother and daughter had left with their noses in the air, pursued by the vindictive screeching of the hag from hell.
‘Listen to ’er! Savages the lot of ’em! We should burn their boat, an’ all!’
That bit Sarah did pass on to Charlie, in case something came of it.
Charlie was more bemused than angry. ‘What have we done to them?’ But he warned his guard about it, just in case.
‘Why doncher come clean with the magistrate?’ the constable said. ‘I’m sure he’d go easy on you.’
Once a blue, always a blue. Charlie didn’t bother to answer. The authorities had confiscated his shotgun. He sat up all night, just the same, but nothing happened.
In the morning the sergeant returned to Brenda with two more men and things got serious.
Proceedings had been delayed because there’d been no-one to back up the captain’s story. Now another witness had come forward who not only knew Charlie well but was also prepared to swear that he had overheard him inciting the strikers to riot.
‘What witness? It’s a pack o’ lies!’
Charlie told himself he had nothing to fear, but Sarah was not so sure. She believed there were times when justice needed a nudge.
Not knowing who the witness was made things difficult, but eventually she tracked down the sister of Steve, leader of the strike committee.
Amelia Barnes was a woman after Sarah’s own heart, a tigress in skirts. ‘I’ll ask around,’ Amelia said. ‘Someone’s sure to know.’
Three days later Sarah got a message, not from Amelia herself, but from a young bloke in a rowing boat who came sculling down the river and threw a line around one of Brenda’s cleats.
The walloper glared over the side at him. ‘Shove off!’
The youth tilted a defiant chin. ‘Come to see my sister.’
He looked about fifteen, half the age of Arthur, who was the only brother Sarah knew about, but who cared? She came running.
‘Dave! How are you?’
Hug, hug, leaning over the side before the walloper could stop her, accepting the folded slip that the boy thrust into her hand.
‘Get back!’ the policeman ordered. ‘No-one allowed on board!’
See Sarah’s injured expression as she turned to him! ‘He’s my brother! What harm can he do?’
‘How’s my niece Annie?’ the boy asked.
‘Annie?’ The walloper’s gaze hardened. ‘I thought her name was Alex.’
‘A pet name,’ Sarah assured him quickly. She turned to Alex, watching from the saloon door. ‘Annie’s fine. Aren’t you, dear?’
‘Fine,’ Annie said. She and the boy grinned at each other, delighted to be poking their fingers in the law’s eye.
‘Alex!’ Elsie, unaware, called her from below.
A girl could get confused.
‘Coming!’
And she vanished before the constable could make anything of it.
Sarah waved affectionately as the boy took off, sculling swiftly and expertly across the stream, while the note burned a hole in her clenched fist.
As soon as she was alone she looked at the two words scrawled across the creased paper.
Got him.
Sarah’s heart jumped. Now they’d sort out the bastard.
CHAPTER 52
Not every male was in the Wentworth lockup. Not every female either.
The night before the hearing, Jig Jenkins, precious for the first time in his life, was in a cottage under guard.
Have pity on the poor blues, young and for the most part not overly bright. It’s not hard to catch the eye of a not overly bright young man, and Amelia’s niece Eva was the one to do it. Honey-blonde, with a fetching smile and even more fetching figure, sixteen-year-old Eva carried too many guns for the constable on guard. During the wee hours he found reason to wander off, not far, but far enough.
By the time he returned, having been promised rather more than he’d been given, Jig Jenkins had received some visitors.
There’d been three of them and Jig Jenkins’s eyes had streamed tears of terror as he looked at them.
‘My God, you’re gunna kill me!’
‘Warnin’ you, no more’n that.’ Dave Morris was a lay preacher, and it was with the rolling cadences of the pulpit that he spoke now. ‘Get outta this town and keep goin’ and you’ll be right. But give lying testimony against our brothers, and the whole of this land won’t be enough to hide you. We’ll find you, no worries, and your death won’t be easy. So be warned.’ He took Jig by his long jaw and twisted it, looking closely at him, and Jig’s eyes were captive and frantic in his terror. ‘You hear me?’
Jig nodded wildly, gargling in his fear. Oh yes, he heard. He would have grovelled before them, had he been free to move.
‘Be sure you don’ forget,’ Dave Morris said. He stood back, wiping his fingers on his pants as though to rid them of filth. ‘Go to court and you’re a dead man.’
Oh no, he would say nothing, he would leave the town, he would go far away, he would fly to the moon if that was their pleasure. Anything, so long as they permitted him to retain the feeble scraps and parings of his life.
So they left him. He was in the house as the darkness swallowed his visitors; there still when the constable returned frustrated from his assignation with scowling face and aching groin; but by the morning, when the escort arrived to take him to the courthouse, he had eeled through a window at the back of the cottage and vanished.
The Crown Prosecutor, imported especially from Sydney, was fit to be tied. He went through the motions, even suggesting — horrors
! — that a key witness might have been intimidated, but there was no evidence to support him. No credibility, either, in the evidence of scabs or the skipper who had transported them. None of the accused admitted to knowing anything about Pandora or how she had come to her fiery end. Independent witnesses came forward to swear that they had seen this man and that in town at the time of the incident, while others confirmed that from the wharf they had watched Charlie Armstrong pacing the deck of his paddle steamer.
The jury of local businessmen would have convicted had they dared, but with no evidence they could do nothing. After the verdict, the magistrate, who did not believe for a moment the prisoners’ protestations of innocence, poured fire and brimstone on their heads and let them go.
‘A week before Christmas!’ Steve Barnes exclaimed.
What timing! There was still no work of course, but at least they weren’t heading for jail.
Sarah, who with the children — Luke had come home for the trial — had watched proceedings from the public seats, saw nothing of the acquittal because of the tears blinding her eyes.
A party was organised to celebrate: grilled meat, grog and laughter around a blazing fire.
Faces formed pale ovals about which the firelight played. Turrets of flame took shape above the pile of burning timber and sparks soared skywards. The wind-whipped fire found its voice while the trees stood in a silent circle about it. The lake of firelight lapped their trunks, their contorted branches. Behind the faces, the gulping, upturned mouths and golden throats, behind the beer and laughter, another darkness watched. The shadowed faces of the past watched those who had usurped their place beside the sombre, silent stream.
Charlie was not in the mood for festivities. The result of the trial had brought him relief but also an overwhelming sense of guilt. He had endangered Sarah, Luke and Alex. Now he was a free man, while Will was dead. All he wanted was to be quiet and still with the family that had become whole again.
Soon he’d had enough.
‘Let’s get outta here,’ he whispered to Sarah.
She found Amelia and Eva and thanked them for all they’d done.