Tommo and Hawk

by Bryce Courtenay

  I know well what to do. Thanks to me wilderness years, nobody can play the idjit better. With my hat close-pulled over my eyes, I look like the original patsy-mark what makes a wharf gambler rub his hands with glee. It’s a thorough disguise and in the dim light of a hell or tavern, I’ll be nigh impossible to pick out as Tommo X Solomon. I am well through my nineteenth year and has grown a tolerable beard. Me face still makes me look young, all the better to gull some greedy bastard bent on fleecing me.

  I’d be all set up for an adventure if it weren’t for the craving in my belly, the pain in my head and the struggle not to remember anything. Instead, I knows I’m only gunna play long enough to secure a black bottle and then another and another ‘til I can no longer remember my own name.

  I will need a coin or two to match the stakes. Even a shilling’d do to enter a small game in an alley or tavern, and I think to sell me tinder box which, frankly, ain’t worth much more. Two shillings will buy me a bottle o’ Cape and I’ll be damned if I can’t turn one shilling into two in any game o’ flats!

  I’m less than an hour on the road when I realise my feet be in trouble. Since living with the Maori I ain’t used to wearing boots. Now Farmer Moo-cow’s boots be rubbing my heels most severe and I feel sure there be blisters forming the size o’ me thumbnail. I stop and remove the boots and put me sandals back on, tying the boots together by their laces and slinging them ‘round me neck—the way folks do in the wilderness when they’s travelling some distance on foot to a wedding or funeral.

  The next day I’m offered a lift on a settler’s dray. At first I think to say no but realise this be more dangerous than agreeing. No white man’d willingly walk twenty mile when he can sit on his arse and spit on the heads o’ any passing Maori.

  If me new-found benefactor notices me Maori sandals he don’t say nothing. In fact he proves somewhat a clod, a slow talking cove by the name o’ Timmy Dankmarsh. He’s a farmer and fisherman with six sprats—four boys, two girls—and his wife be with child again. I ask him to drop me off on the outskirts of Auckland, saying I must visit a friend on a farm nearby. When he asks the name o’ me friend, I says Jones quick enough—Tom Jones being the name of a most randy book Hawk taught me to read on board ship.

  Mr Timmy Dankmarsh thinks about my friend’s name for five minutes. ‘Must be a new allotment. I doesn’t know no Jones.’ He thinks a few minutes more and shakes his head real slow. ‘No, no Jones, I doesn’t know him, that’s certain.’ Then he pauses again, so I swears I can hear him thinking. ‘Not this side o’ town anyways. No Jones this side o’ town. Other side maybe, but not this side.’

  ‘A trooper what’s come with his family from New South Wales to settle,’ I tries.

  ‘Oh,’ says Dankmarsh. ‘Trooper, is it?’ He thinks awhile then adds, ‘Don’t know no trooper fella lives that side.’ But he don’t say no more on the matter.

  I walk the last two miles into Auckland and arrives as the one o’clock steam whistle sounds from the saw mill near the wharf. What a place! I had set me mind upon something different, perhaps like Hobart Town. I were expecting a proper town, with straight, well-paved, tree-lined streets, houses and cottages of a neat appearance of stone and brick, and shops with a good display of tempting merchandise.

  This place ain’t nothing of the sort! And it’s the main port in New Zealand, the centre o’ commercial life for the North Island! I can scarce believe my eyes. I comes across a main wharf what seems to be the centre o’ the town. But the streets leading to it are mud tracks without a paving stone in sight and most with a trench dug to one side. I thought this were to channel the rainwater away, but later I hear it is to lay pipes for gas. I ain’t never heard of a place what’s got gaslights before paving stones.

  The shops are mostly o’ wood and brick, though dingy looking. Only one building o’ grand design is to be seen. This be the Union Bank what’s made of white stone, rising higher by three times than any other building. It has large columns from top to toe so it looks like one o’ them Greek temples Hawk’s told me about. I’ve never had no money in a bank, but I remember Ikey used to say that to own a bank and earn ten per cent on other folks’ money is a most advantageous thing. On the other hand to deposit your own money and earn only two per cent is a terrible waste!

  The town runs back from the water and up a steep hill, where the toffs live and where the troopers’ barracks are. It’s raining again, having stopped mid-morning, and the streets are muddy puddles, sprouting sudden wings o’ wide brown water as the carts and sulkies go by. I has took to rolling up me breeches, and me feet are covered in red clay.

  Now I see why that miserable sod, Nottingham, wanted us brought to trial here, for there ain’t a shred o’ kindness in any o’ the faces around me. Still and all, every town has its bawdy houses and pubs and places what may usually be found with a little questioning. Muddied up to the calves, I walks along the waterfront hoping to find a suitable one-shilling hell. I see that other men has removed their boots, so I be no different to them. I enter a tavern, wipes me feet upon the mat at the door and puts on me boots. I don’t even have the price of a glass of ale so must ask the publican straight out where a friendly card game may be had.

  ‘Out!’ yells the publican, pointing to the door. ‘We don’t have no truck with yer kind ‘ere!’

  Then I sees a grog shop in an alley, some ways up from the wharf, what’s called the Scrimshaw Tavern. Two Maori whores stop me outside and make the usual offer. I tell ’em no, but politely and in their own language. Both laugh, showing me nice white teeth, and one says I can have it free if I want a knee-trembler behind the pub. The whores outside is good news. I got an instinct for places like the Scrimshaw, and I know at once things are beginning to go right.

  I’ve seen two whaling ships moored in the bay and know there’s a good chance o’ finding some whalemen here. I’ll strike up a conversation with them about finding a game instead of asking the owner. I hope there’s none here what might recognise me ugly gob, but it’s been well over three years since we was on the Nankin Maiden. Still I’ve no doubt that the tale of O’Hara’s missing paw is by now a legend of the seven seas.

  Inside, the Scrimshaw is crowded with whalemen, and I feel right at home. The tavern is a dark, smoke-filled cave what reeks o’ rum and brandy, pipes and cigars, with a filthy floor, the daily sawdust barely covering the vomit. Here’s a bloodhouse if ever I seen one and I be most delighted to have found it at last. I knows these men’s lingo and it ain’t long before I’m talking to an Irishman what works the try-pots on the Cloudy Bay, another whaling ship out o’ New England.

  ‘Tasmania, eh? Hobart Town? Bin there, know it well enough now, don’t I?’ he shouts when I tell him my home port. ‘Got one o’ your lot on board ship, a good man to be sure now. First class whaleman but always in trouble with the master. Likes a drink. Should be hereabouts soon enough, I would think.’

  The Irishman offers to stand me an ale but I decline. Me lips are primed only for the taste o’ spirits, for the sweet salvation of a bottle o’ Cape brandy. A mug of beer ain’t gunna do naught for what ails old Tommo. Besides, I has no way to pay him back.

  ‘Suit yourself,’ he says with a shrug, ‘but I’ll not buy you spirits, they be the ruination o’ many a good man.’

  ‘I ain’t so sure I am a good man,’ I says, then asks him if he knows of a poker game going. ‘Later,’ he says, ‘around ten o’clock. Big game, five shillings to show, perhaps two pounds in the pot, you’ll not be playing for a penny less, lad.’

  ‘Oh,’ says I. ‘So you’re not against the sport o’ cards then, just ardent spirits?’

  ‘Not at all, not at all,’ the Irishman repeats. Bringing his frothy whiskers up from the mug he holds, he looks at me sternly. ‘But they can’t be mixed, now can they?’

  ‘Cards and brandy? In my book they’s part ‘n’ parcel o’ the game o’ poker,’ I says, cheekily.

  ‘Many’s the ruination of the one by the other,’
the Paddy says again, shaking his fat finger at me. ‘Stay off the brandy, me lad!’

  ‘This cove from Tasmania, decent bloke is he?’ I asks, wanting to change the subject. I’ve grown tired of his ‘many’s the ruinations’.

  ‘Aye, not too bad,’ he says, then turns and walks away. But he spins around again and stabs a finger at me as if I might have forgotten so soon. ‘I’ll not buy you a drop, me boy, many’s the ruination!’

  I push my way through the crowd, feeling as out of place as a fart in church. I’m lookin’ here and there, as though I be seeking my long lost cousin Jack. Without a drink in your hand it ain’t easy to look like you belong. I’ve been away too long from the company o’ white folk, I decide. When I first come in, it brought pleasant memories enough. But now I feels somewhat uneasy in all the noise and the smoke. I ain’t the old Tommo no more, the bright lad fixing his mark with a smile, full o’ malarky and bluff. Instead, I feel meself a stranger. My head hurts and me tongue’s hangin’ out, rusty for want o’ small talk, even whaleman’s talk what I thought would come easy to my lips. I can barely speak the queen’s English no more, if ever I could! Suddenly I hear the Irishman’s voice boom from across the room, ‘Over ‘ere, Tasmania, your nigger brother’s come!’

  I nearly drops dead from fright. Hawk has come for me! He’s found me already and I ain’t even had a drink! I look up towards the door expecting to see Hawk standing two feet above most o’ the whalemen in the room. But I don’t see nothing of the sort. Then me name is bein’ yelled out for all to hear. ‘Tommo!’ I nearly shits me breeches. A thin black arm comes pushing through the throng followed by the grinning gob o’ Billy Lanney.

  ‘Where you bin, eh?’ Lanney asks, clapping me on the shoulder. He’s drunk, but not hopelessly so. I’m facing the man what brought a flagon o’ good Cape brandy on board the Nankin Maiden from Hobart Town, and then took his flogging without ever once crying out. I’m glad to see him but don’t know what’ll happen next, not with his shoutin’ me name out and all. But Billy is all smiles, patting me coat up and down as though he’s trying to make certain that it’s me. ‘Plurry good, Tommo,’ he announces finally. ‘Plurry first class, eh?’

  ‘Billy,’ I hiss, ‘I’m not Tommo, ya hear?’

  ‘You, Tommo!’ he says, patting me again. ‘Johnny,’ I hiss. ‘My name’s Johnny!’ ‘Nah, it ain’t!’ he shouts back. ‘It’s Tommo!’ What’s a man to do? Should I scarper, get the hell out o’ the place? I look ‘round to see who’s looking at us. But the Irishman is way across the room, and them what’s close by ain’t the least interested. No doubt we can’t be heard above the chatter and din o’ the pub.

  I take Billy Lanney’s hand. ‘How’s ya bin then, Billy?’ ‘You wan’ a drink?’ Billy asks. ‘Brandy?’ I nearly faint at the thought. ‘I’m skint,’ I says, pulling out the lining of me trouser pockets. ‘I can’t buy you one back.’

  ‘Ha, Tommo, me got plurry plenty, what’cha wan’ eh?’ He pulls out his purse and shows me half a dozen gold sovs and as many Yankee silver dollars.

  ‘Cripes!’ says I, and place my hand over his purse while I look about me. ‘Not here, Billy, too many villains in a hole like this.’

  Billy ignores me. ‘What’cha wan’ eh? You take, Tommo.’ He offers me his purse again. I close it and put it back into his jacket. Billy looks at me all solemn-like and puts his hand on me shoulder. ‘Ya wan’ a black bottle, eh, Tommo?’

  It were always said he were a queer one, and when Crawlin Nestbyte went overboard, they all reckoned it were ‘cause of Billy’s prophecy. Now he’s read me clear as a marked deck. He’s seen right into my head, and spotted me cravin’ for the black bottle. I’m tempted to answer yes, but I knows I’m gunna need three bottles, maybe more, and I ain’t gunna steal from Billy. Billy follows the Aborigine way—if he’s your mate, what’s his is yours. He were most kind to me and Hawk when we come on board the Nankin Maiden. Some thought he were ten bob in the quid, but it ain’t true. Billy’s a proper gentleman and I ain’t gunna sink to stealing from him, not now, not never. I ain’t that kind o’ drunk yet.

  ‘Cards, Billy. I want t’ play poker. Can you stake me?’

  ‘Sure, sure.’ Billy fumbles in his jacket and brings out his purse once again. He hands it to me. ‘You take, Tommo.’

  I take two gold sovs and an American silver dollar what be worth about five shillings. Then I put Billy’s purse back in his whaleman’s jacket. It’s enough to get me into the big game and even to lose a couple of hands if I needs to set up some greedy bastard who thinks to take me.

  I ask Billy what he’s been up to, and he tells me his story, what be simple enough. After Hawk and me were took ashore under arrest, the Nankin Maiden sailed down from Kororareka to Auckland, where Captain O’Hara’s stump were properly stitched up and took care of by the surgeon in the troopers’ barracks. Then she sailed directly back to Nantucket, her hold being near filled. Billy gets paid his share when the boat reaches home port, and signs aboard the Cloudy Bay, what is bound for southern whaling grounds. But shortly after reaching Antarctic waters, the boat is damaged by an ice crush and must limp into Auckland harbour for repairs.

  ‘This shit place, Tommo! No plurry good Aucklan’, eh?’ Billy shakes his head. ‘Ya wan’ a brandy, rum?’

  I squeeze my eyes tight, but manage to shake my head. ‘Billy, you’re not to tell who I am.’ I put a finger to my lips. ‘I ain’t supposed to be here, me name’s not Tommo, ya hear?’

  ‘Wha’s ya name then, eh?’ Billy asks, surprised.

  I sigh. He sounds like he’s three sheets to the wind but then again he always talks like this so I can’t tell how drunk he truly is. I only hope he gets a handle on what I’m trying to tell him.

  ‘Johnny Abacus. You calls me Johnny, right?’

  Billy nods. ‘Johnny, plurry good.’ Then to me surprise he repeats perfect, ‘Johnny Abacus.’

  I laughs to meself. Billy, with his plurry this and plurry that, is easily mistook for being a bit slow, but he ain’t nothin’ of the sort. Billy’s as good a man as you can have at your side and plenty smart with it.

  It’s nigh on ten o’clock when we is taken to an iron shed at the back o’ the grog shop. Inside there’s a table covered in green baize with three hurricane lamps hanging above to light it. Six chairs are set ‘round the table and against the wall are two wooden benches. The room is warmed by a small pot-belly stove.

  I takes a seat and when the owner asks what me poison is, I order milk.

  ‘Milk!’ he snorts. ‘We don’t sell no milk here, lad.’

  The three other players what has come to sit at the table looks at each other, trying to hide their mirth.

  ‘But I always drinks milk when we plays cards at ‘ome,’ I says, looking most disappointed. I pause. ‘What be wrong with milk?’

  The landlord sighs and looks to the ceiling ‘Nothing wrong with it, lad, but we ain’t got none here.’

  ‘Oh,’ I says all innocent. ‘Then I’ll drink water. Does ya ‘ave water, sir?’

  He turns away in disgust. The other players all order Jamaican rum which, in a joint like this, is likely to have more than a drop o’ water added, with a dash of tobacco juice to give it a kick.

  Billy sits on the bench behind me with a mug o’ brandy and seems happy enough. I has me hat pulled down low, and with me long hair and beard, there ain’t too much of me gob to be seen. It’s clear enough to the other players that they has a bumpkin on their hands. When they sees I got two sovs and a silver dollar in my possession, they’ll know me for the best possible patsy-mark.

  I wait long enough for them to give up staring, then starts up like Timmy Dankmarsh, the country clod what gave me a ride into town. ‘Me pappy uh…er…he says, strong drink be the ruination o’…’ I appear to be tryin’ to remember what me pappy said, then gives up and shakes me head. I begins to giggle. ‘He says it be the ruination o’ something or other!’ Then I take my hand out of my pocket and slaps down the two s
ovs and the silver dollar upon the green cloth. ‘What’s we gunna play then?’ I ask, smiling cloddish-like again, not forgetting to leave me bottom lip hung open.

  Suddenly I hears the scraping of the two remaining chairs. I look up from under the rim of me hat, and nearly falls off me chair. I feel the blood leave me face. If it ain’t Maple and Syrup, them two bastards from the gaol-house at Kororareka what done Hawk and me in! It’s the card-game all over again, and there’s no way now I can make my escape. As if meeting Billy Lanney weren’t coincidence enough for one night. Yours truly, I decide, is sailing very close to the wind!

  The owner comes around and claims five shillings from all for the rent o’ the premises and provision of the lookout. Gambling ain’t allowed in Auckland. Billy ups from his bench, and pays it for me. ‘Nigger yer banker then?’ Syrup asks and the rest o’ the table bursts into laughter.

  ‘Aye!’ I says slowly and grins. ‘He can count better than me…and he don’t use his fingers none.’ I only wish my head didn’t hurt so much—I’ll need all me wits tonight.

  The owner brings a new set o’ cards and hands them all around for examination. I hold ’em up to the light. ‘Why, they’s all wrapped up!’ I says. ‘New, is they?’ I lean back and hand the cards to Billy, ‘Lookee there, Billy! Them’s new cards an’ all!’

  Billy takes the cards and turns them around, shaking his head in wonderment. He hands them back to me. ‘Plurry good, Johnny, eh?’ he says.

  Well, the game begins and I lose the first two hands by being purposeful stupid, but not so stupid that I look completely out o’ me depth. Then I wins and acts most excited. The next hand I lose again—all this with my tongue at the corner of my mouth.