by Jock Serong
And thus was interred Connor Mailon. Boils on his neck, but it mattered none.
The Francis and the Eliza reached Preservation Island on 10 June 1797. The majority of the survivors and the bulk of the cargo were loaded onto the two vessels, leaving behind a small complement of volunteers to guard whatever could not be carried.
On their return voyage, the vessels were separated in a storm. The Francis, carrying Captain Guy Hamilton, continued on to Sydney. There he began the long process of negotiating salvage rights and sale of the cargo. In all, three voyages were required, over nearly a year, to remove the remaining humans and cargo from the island. The rum was purchased by the New South Wales government at a generous price.
The wreck of the Sydney Cove lay slowly disintegrating on a shallow sandbank for one hundred and eighty years, before its eventual rediscovery on New Year’s Day 1977.
No trace of the Eliza has ever been found.
Acknowledgments
Preservation was written as part of a PhD in Creative Writing at La Trobe University, Melbourne. I’m indebted to La Trobe’s School of Humanities and Social Sciences for their financial support, and especially to my supervisors, Alison Ravenscroft and Juliane Roemhild, for their ideas, their patience and their faith in this story from the very beginning.
A circle of trusted sceptics including Damien Newton Brown, Lilly Serong, Jo Canham, Robert Gott, Matt Ryan, Dom Serong, Chris McDonald, Ed Prendergast and Nick Batzias read the manuscript at various stages and gave me valuable feedback.
My thanks also to Simon Barnard for the bobbin and the maps, Jarrod Ritchie for the ride to Preservation, Emma Viskic for Geminiani, Kate Grenville, Rebe Taylor and Mark McKenna for their wisdom, and Ben Wilkie for the Scots. For their gracious advice about Aboriginal culture, I’m grateful to the Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Corporation, Graham Moore of the Bega Local Aboriginal Land Council and Monaro-Ngarigo woman Lynette Solomon-Dent, all of whom offered friendship and support, not just information.
Books…there are so many books. On the wreck of the Sydney Cove, I was greatly assisted by Mark McKenna’s From the Edge: Australia’s Lost Histories, and Sydney Cove, by Michael Nash. On historical fiction writing, Tom Griffiths’ The Art of Time Travel. On lascars, Aaron Jaffer’s Lascars and Indian Ocean Seafaring. On Governor Hunter, I read A Steady Hand by Linda Groom, and on Pemulwuy, Eric Willmott’s neglected but wonderful novel, Pemulwuy.
Two books that are essential reading for anyone interested in pre-contact Aboriginal life and agriculture are Bruce Pascoe’s Dark Emu and Bill Gammage’s The Biggest Estate. And soaring over all the reading I did, Grace Karskens’ excellent history of early Sydney, The Colony.
I wish to thank Michael Heyward and the smart and dedicated team at Text; Chong Weng Ho for his cover and in particular Mandy Brett who, like all great editors, brings both the highwire and the net.
And lastly, my love and gratitude to my family, and especially my wife Lilly, for all the sacrifices—large and small—they have made during the writing of this book.
ALSO BY JOCK SERONG
Quota
The Rules of Backyard Cricket
On the Java Ridge
Jock Serong’s first novel, Quota, won the 2015 Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction. The Rules of Backyard Cricket was shortlisted for the 2017 Victorian Premier’s Award for Fiction, and was a finalist in the 2017 Mystery Writers of America Edgar Awards and in the 2017 Indie Book Awards. On the Java Ridge won the Colin Roderick Award in 2018 and was shortlisted for the 2018 Indies. Jock lives with his family on Victoria’s surf coast.
@jockserong
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Copyright © 2018 by Jock Serong
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First published in 2018 by The Text Publishing Company
Cover design by W. H. Chong
Page design by Imogen Stubbs
Maps and symbols by Simon Barnard
Typeset in Adobe Caslon 12.5/17.5 by J & M Typesetting
ISBN: 9781925773125 (paperback)
ISBN: 9781925774030 (ebook)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia