Blackbird

by David Crookes

  `Your brother died from drinking too much brandy, and from more heartache and homesickness than one man should ever have to endure.' Ho Lim spoke without looking up. `Despite all the years he lived and breathed in this colony, his heart never left England. He died waiting for someone to come and take him home.'

  Waverley was visibly moved by Ho Lim's words and his young face clearly showed his emotion. He was about to speak when Ho Lim continued:

  `For those reasons I never buried him. I burned his body in a tiny kiln I used for firing bricks. His ashes are secure in a silver vessel sealed beneath the hearth- stones of the fireplace in Mr Luk's drawing room.' Ho Lim raised his head and looked into Waverley's eyes. `I think the time has come for my friend and benefactor to make his journey home. With Mr Luk's permission I will give you the vessel tomorrow. I cannot do so today. Your brother was a true Christian and I will not disturb him on the Sabbath.'

  Ho Lim excused himself and returned to his hut leaving Ben and Waverley alone.

  `If you wish Lieutenant, you and your men are welcome to stay at Jarrah tonight,' Ben said.

  `My men are required to report back to the ship by nightfall Mr Luk, but I will remain at your home overnight if I may. With your permission I will instruct the men to return for me in the morning.' Waverley looked around him and smiled. `This is a charming property. I can well imagine Alistair living here. I will try to convey its pleasant atmosphere to my family in England when I return'

  `And when do you expect that to be?' Ben asked.

  `Very soon. The news of General Gordon's death and the fall of the British garrison at Khartoum, assures us of a speedy voyage home. Although it's possible we may sail first to Suakim, transporting some of the soldiers which the Queensland Colonial Government has already offered to send to the Sudan to assist the Imperial forces.'

  Ben and Waverley's conversation ran all through the afternoon and well on into the evening, over a wholesome roast beef dinner washed down with red wine. After dinner Ben opened a bottle of fine aged port. It was very late when the two men finally turned in for the night.

  Ben slept uninterrupted until well after midnight. But around one o'clock he awoke feeling the effect of the red wine and port. At first he hardly noticed the deep red shadows dancing over his bedroom wall. Then suddenly he sat bolt upright. A second later he leapt from the bed and pushed open the french doors. The night sky was crimson. The entire brickyard was ablaze.

  Ben hurried back inside and pulled on a pair of trousers, then ran through to the drawing room and grabbed his carbine from above the mantelpiece. As he ran from the house, Clive Waverley, clad in nothing but his white naval trousers fell in beside him.

  They ran side by side, full pelt down the paddock. Fire roared everywhere, hungrily devouring every board, plank and shingle in the brickyard with frightening ferocity. The fire had also taken hold of the jetty and engulfed the entire structure from just above the water line. Angry flames raced uncontrollably upwards, consuming all in their path. The heat was so intense that Ben could do nothing but stand back from the flames and watch over a year's work go up in smoke.

  The tell-tale smell of tar, which must have been used to give the fire such a rapid hold, told Ben that the retribution he had feared had come at last. Knowing the river was the likely escape route, Ben turned and ran through the clump of gums to the edge of the water. He was just in time to see a small boat filled with men gliding silently out of the glow of the firelight, and into the murky darkness beyond. He raised his carbine and fired two well aimed shots before the boat vanished into the blackness.

  When he walked back through the gums, Ben heard Clive Waverley's voice somewhere in the trees calling out his name. He found the young officer beneath a tall gum holding his head in his hands. In the shadows beside him, Ben was horrified to see Ho Lim's little body, dangling limp and lifeless, at the end of a hangman's rope, slung over one of the gum's lower limbs.

  *

  It was not yet dawn, but there was movement on the deck of HMS Nelson as she lay to her mooring in the Town Reach of the Brisbane River.

  A ship's boat gently splashed into the still water. Six sailors sat at the oars. A moment later the boat began to move swiftly upstream, the oarsmen's labor eased greatly by the incoming tide. Within minutes the ship's boat skimmed past the Faithful as she lay to her anchor just off the Stonehouse wharf in South Brisbane.

  Captain Isaiah Cockburn stood at the rail in the darkness and watched the small craft silently ghost by beneath him. Cockburn had had no sleep at all during a long night he would just as soon forget. Now he anxiously awaited the turn of the tide which would allow the Faithfulto leave Brisbane before the possibility of any questions being raised about his activities during the night.

  He felt a stab of pain in his shoulder and cursed his misfortune in taking a gunshot wound to the arm during the raid on the brickyard a few hours earlier. But Cockburn knew he could have fared worse. Just a few yards from him a body lay on the deck. It was weighted down with old anchor chain and wrapped in filthy mildewed sail-canvass, awaiting burial at sea.

  The body belonged to Ned Higgins, the Faithful's Queensland Government appointed labor agent. Higgins' pock-marked face now bore an extra blemish—a hole just above the temple, where the second shot fired from the river-bank at the brickyard had entered his head, an instant before it passed through his brain.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Ben buried Ho Lim in a deep grave in the shade of the great fig tree on top of the hill overlooking Jarrah.

  Two days later two police constables came to investigate the fire. They were not hesitant in telling Ben that as there were no eye-witnesses to back up his claim of sabotage, there was little chance of finding the culprits, if in fact there were any.

  They went on to say, that there was no evidence at all to suggest the men Ben had seen on the river, were anything other than legitimate travelers using a public waterway. And Ben was warned of the serious consequences he may face if he ever discharged a firearm at anyone using the river in future.

  The policemen even went so far as to suggest it was possible Ho Lim himself had lit the fire, and then hanged himself to avoid retribution. After all, half crazed opium-smoking coolies had been known to show vindictiveness toward their masters in similar ways in the colony before.

  Ben was quick to contact Jack Stark who brought his barge to Jarrah without delay. The barge arrived laden with fresh building materials, and Stark and his crew quickly set up camp and began rebuilding the fire ravaged brickyard, even before the last of the heat had left the ashes of the old structures.

  In the meantime Ben visited all his customers. He assured them that most current orders would be filled from existing stocks of bricks, undamaged by the fire. He also promised new brick orders would be delivered with little or no delay, on the railway, until the jetty at Jarrah was rebuilt. And he guaranteed there would be no compromise to the high quality bricks they had come to expect from his yard.

  A few customers remained unconvinced, concerned by the possible effect on their own businesses of delays in brick deliveries. When they suggested they may have to order from other suppliers, Ben reassured them by promising to supply their orders free of charge if he failed to meet the due delivery dates.

  Confident of his customer's support, Ben set about seeing to it that none of them would be let down. There was much work to be done in very little time. Ben paid his yard workers well, but demanded a full measure of labor in return. He led by example. Always the first to start in the morning and the last to finish at night, he worked without let-up, week in and week out. Stark's crew also worked from dawn to dusk. Soon a new jetty was completed, and the crew began replacing buildings which had been destroyed in the fire.

  Even Mrs Llewellyn and Kiri worked without rest. Ben asked them to cook and wash for Jack Stark's entire crew, to free an extra man to assist in construction. They toiled selflessly, preparing everyone three hot meals a day, and Kiri was kep
t busy all hours of the day fetching and carrying between the house and the camp.

  Gradually the brickyard began to return to the way it had been before the fire, except for the terrible loss of Ho Lim. Ben tried to fill his shoes, thankful for the time he had spent working alongside the old Chinaman, and for all he had learned from him about brickmaking.

  During the rebuilding period Ben had no time and little patience for anything that was not directly related to getting the yard back into production.

  Kiri couldn't help feeling responsible for the destruction of the yard and everything that had happened. The guilt rose inside her, haunting her, as over the weeks Ben's preoccupation with work intensified, and his interest in her and her baby seemed to have all but disappeared.

  She tried to compensate for his apparent indifference by striving to please in any way she could, from waiting on him hand and foot, to laboring beside the men in the brickyard. When Ben refused to allow her to do things for him, and reprimanded her for laboring with the workmen, her feelings of guilt, and her fear of being sent away from Jarrah only increased. *

  Kiri lay awake in her bed, crying softly, as she had done for so many nights. She listened to the roar of a midnight shower hammer down on the iron roof of the house. She bit her lip, and a new reservoir of tears built up in her eyes when she thought yet again of the prospect of leaving Jarrah. Lying there in the darkness she made up her mind, once and for all, to put an end to the uncertainty which constantly denied her peace of mind.

  She dried her eyes on her pillow and got up from the bed. For a few moments she stood and listened to the soft breathing of her baby in the cot beside the bed, then she slipped out of the room.

  The loud clatter of the rain on the roof stopped abruptly just as Kiri stole into Ben's bedroom. She stood beside his bed looking down at him, half expecting the sudden silence to awaken him. Then she let her nightdress drop to the floor and slipped into the bed beside him. She reached out for him and ran her hands over his body. He stirred slowly, as he woke from a tired deep sleep. She felt the muscles in his hard body tighten as she pressed her body to his.

  `Kiri?'

  `Oh Ben Luk,' she whispered, `I'm so sorry for thetrouble I have caused you, and I want so much for you to be happy. And I want you to want me, so I may stay here with you at Jarrah.'

  Wide awake now, Ben gently held her body away from his.

  `Please do not do this Kiri. It is not necessary.'

  `Don't you want me Ben Luk?'

  `No, not this way Kiri... I...'

  Kiri didn't wait for Ben to finish. Stifling her tears, she scrambled from the bed, and leaving her nightdress where it lay, hurried back to her own room.

  *

  The heavy late summer showers which pounded the house during the night were just a hint of what was to come. The morning saw the strong winds and heavy rains of a tropical storm lash the whole of south-east Queensland.

  Jack Stark awoke to find water trickling into his tent. He had just a few days work remaining. One look outside told him that today would not be one of them.

  An hour later the trickle of water had swollen to a huge muddy stream. The run-off from the paddock and the brickyard now raced through the tents, threatening to wash the entire camp into the river. Stark and his crew were forced to take refuge from the storm in one of the newly erected sheds.

  It was just when Mrs Llewellyn started to prepare breakfast for the men that she realized Kiri was missing.

  She rushed through the house looking for Ben. She found him standing at the drawingroom window staring dolefully out into the rain.

  `She's gone, Mr Luk.' Mrs Llewellyn called out in a shrill frightened voice. `Kiri's gone, and the baby too.'

  Ben turned from the window dumbfounded.

  Before he could speak Mrs Llewellyn said, `I was afraid something like this may happen Mr Luk. Kiri feels responsible for the fire and for the death of Ho Lim. She thinks you no longer want her here at Jarrah. She feels so badly about it all Mr Luk, and she loves you so much. Please try and find her quickly. I fear something terrible is about to happen.'

  Ben pulled on a rain cape and ran from the house toward the yard. Jack Stark frowned when Ben told him Kiri had disappeared.

  `The dinghy Mr Luk. I think she's got a dinghy.'

  `What dinghy?' Ben asked. `When we secured the lines on the barge at first light we noticed one of the boats was missing. I thought the storm must have blown it away.'

  The river was rising rapidly when Ben, Jack Stark and two other volunteers pushed off in blinding rain from the river-bank in the barge's second, and much larger boat. Almost immediately the boat vanished from view, engulfed by the grayness of the river, the rain, and the murky mist hanging over the water.

  More by luck than by good judgment they groped their way a few miles downstream on the twisting turning river without incident. All the while Ben was calling out to Kiri as loud as he could, only to have his words torn from his mouth and hurled downwind.

  Whenever the rain eased enough to see the land beside the river, the search party stopped rowing and all eyes scoured the misty banks for a sign of Kiri or the dinghy. And whenever there was a lull in the wind, they just drifted and listened.

  Some time later, the boat rounded a wide bend in the river and came into the full force of the wind. Losing what little protection they had from the lee of the land, the men were swept helter-skelter over a number of swirling eddies into a small muddy creek. Eventually the boat was sent crashing into thick undergrowth on the bank of the small tributary.

  It finally came to rest in a relative calm beneath a dense umbrella of trees and shrubs overhanging the creek. The men took advantage of the welcome respite from the elements and rested at their oars. After a few minutes there was a lull in the roar of the wind in the trees.

  ﾁSuddenly they were startled to hear a baby crying nearby. Ben jumped from the boat into the shallows. He waded off in the direction of the sound, pushing aside the dense foliage as he went.

  He found Kiri and her baby huddled beneath a heavy wet blanket beneath a clump of willows on the bank of the creek. Her dark eyes stared at him defiantly as he pulled himself out of the muddy water. When he reached her she drew her baby closer, and her lips trembled as she tried to stem a sudden flow of tears. `You see, Ben Luk. We are not... even able to get out of your life... without causing you yet more trouble,' Her words were interrupted by loud choking sobs. `Go away Ben Luk...please don't stand there and see us this way.'

  Ben dropped to his knees beside her and held her face in his hands. `Oh Kiri, please forgive me for allowing you to think you were not wanted at Jarrah.' He pressed her cheek to his, his mouth to her ear. `You can never know how much I want you and how much I have wanted to hold you and touch you. But because of the way men have always treated you before, I have been afraid to, for fear you may think I am no different, and come to despise me for it. And when you came to my bed last night, I thought it was because you came just to show gratitude, in a place where I have only wanted you to bring love,'

  Kiri drew her head back to face his. She was smiling through her tears, her face radiant. Her mouth was almost touching his when she said, `You have said what I have always dreamed of hearing you say Ben Luk. And it makes me so happy.'

  Ben stood up and held out his arms to take the baby.`Come Kiri,' he said softly, `let us take our son home to Jarrah.'

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Charles sat alone on the tiny veranda of his cottage. The winter sun took the chill off a crisp June morning, which in England would have passed for the most glorious of summer days.

  It was the last Sunday in June, and also the last weekend he would spend as a single man. He looked around him. He loved the small house and knew he would be sad to leave it, even though it had only been his home for a little over a year.

  During that time he had witnessed a period of amazing growth in the colony's capital. And he had seen it all happen right before his eyes, from
his eagle's nest position at the top of the hill. From his little veranda he had seen trading vessels from around Australia and the world arrive at the Port of Brisbane, bringing vital cargoes to the thriving colony; and in turn he had watched them leave, their holds crammed with Queensland's rich bounty of coal, sugar, meat and wool.

  Without warning, the tranquility of the morning was shattered by the thunder of a big gun. It was fired from the deck of a steamer as it entered the Town Reach in the river. Charles knew the roar of the gun signaled the arrival of the English mails. By virtue of a special Act of the Queensland Parliament, only vessels carrying mail from the old land were allowed to discharge a cannon within the confines of the Port of Brisbane.

  Charles watched as a puff of gunpowder smoke dispersed above the ship. He hoped there would be mail aboard for him. Over time, letters from friends and what family he had in England had become few and far between.

  Suddenly he felt very alone. With his marriage to Catherine just a week away, it came home to him that there wouldn't be a single old friend or relative of his either at the wedding ceremony, or afterwards at the reception at Castlecraig—which was to become his new home.

  Charles shrugged the feeling off and got up to go inside the house. Just as he did, John Cripps appeared at the garden gate. Charles was delighted to see him. `

  Good morning John. I was just about to make some tea. Won't you please join me?'

  Cripps looked far better than Charles had ever seen him at Stonehouse's. Retirement certainly seemed to agree with him. The old man's soft white hair glistened and there was a healthy color in his cheeks from the hours spent outdoors tending his garden.

  When the tea was made, Charles carried it out onto the veranda where he and Cripps sat down in the sun. As Charles poured two steaming cups he said apologetically, `John, I've been meaning to drop in and see you and Kathleen so many times, but we've just been so busy at the wharf lately.'