Castle Hill Rebellion

by Chrissie Michaels

  ‘You rascal!’ She lunged at me.

  I darted out of her reach. ‘’Tis true, Kitt! Rain is on the way. Underground insects always send a warning.’

  Kitt kept up a chase. She was a tonic. I forgot my troubles for a time. Aye, even set to thinking the croppies might change their minds about toppling Governor King. We ended up laughing fit to burst and collapsed on the ground amongst clumps of wild grass to catch our breath. Summer bees were dithering in and out of the reedy stalks. I half-closed my eyes, finding their hum soothing.

  ‘You’re in much better spirits than after the Mass.’

  ‘Aye.’ I was now.

  ‘I meant to tell you,’ she said, picking the burrs from her skirt. ‘You know how we saw those redcoats. Turns out they were chasing a couple of lads who took off from Castle Hill. The constables failed to find them, so Captain Abbott, who is in charge of the redcoats at Parramatta, called out the garrison. The runaways are still around somewhere.’

  ‘Someone’s always making a bid for freedom. Sooner or later they’ll be caught.’ My eyes flew open at the truth of it.

  ‘Mayhap they’ve chanced the mountains,’ said Kitt.

  I found myself gazing to the west. The mountain range was wrapped in a blue haze and floated at the edge of somewhere unknown.

  ‘Turned China Walkers, do you mean?’ I said. Local folk say the Walkers were once runaways who tried to cross the blue mountains, believing China lay on the other side.

  Kitt turned a shade paler than white. ‘Their bones bleached and their souls gone astray.’

  ‘Father Dixon said ’tis is a bad bit of blether, and we shouldn’t go believing everything we hear. But I’m minding those mountains are creeping with giant hungry beasts waiting to spring.’

  ‘Merciful angels, I hope we’re not willing those Walkers upon ourselves.’ She clutched at a clump of grass. The stalks shook and seeds flew from the tips into the air. Clouds began to darken the sky. I stayed her arm and put a finger to my mouth. I could hear something. Aye, the tread of boots cracking towards us.

  Kitt made our Catholic sign of the cross, and then gave a huge sigh. ‘Ah, now, here is a China Walker I don’t mind coming my way.’

  I realised almost at once. ‘Josh’ I began. But I let his name fade away. Joshua explained her new ribbon. He was her occasion. Of course she was meeting up with him. Aye. Joshua! Joshua! Joshua! He had turned up and Kitt would be giving him all her attention.

  A half-hour later

  The rain had not yet hit and the air was stuffy. So I headed back down to the creek for a wet, and was surprised to find Joshua and Kitt still there. They were huddled close on a fallen tree trunk that straddled the creek bed. Their boots were off, their feet cooling in the low brackish water. By all accounts they looked like a pair of sweethearts.

  Kitt moved up a place, patting for me to sit down. The brisk nod of Joshua’s head in greeting told me he was not so happy to see me. I took off my boots like they had done – the year’s ill-fit ones kept pinching my toes, so I was pleased for the relief – but sat by myself a little way off.

  ‘Let’s see if Joe agrees with the slurs on our good name,’ Kitt said.

  Joshua threw her an irritated glare. ‘As you please.’

  Huddled close, or no, I sensed trouble brewing between the pair.

  ‘So, Joe, tell us, are we Irish overrunning the English colony?’ Kitt asked. ‘A band of wild savages, bringing only unrest and superstition?’

  Aye, I thought to myself, considering what I knew about the croppies’ plot to rise up.

  ‘I did not say I accept those observations,’ Joshua snapped back, while I was making the reflection. ‘Although I agree we could try to fit in more with the Governor’s English ways. Why make things harder than they are already?’

  Kitt’s eyes flashed. ‘You seem to forget most folk are held here against their will. Tell him, Joe.’

  I shuffled, uneasy. ‘Aye, well mebbe Governor King is only fearful because there are so many of us Irish being transport—’

  Kitt cut me off sharply, ‘Easier to fit in mebbe for those who are gentleman farmers, or for those who gain special privileges because of their social rank.’

  Joshua sniffed. ‘Oh, now you are being outright unjust! Father cannot help being born into his family. He is doing his utmost to build a better life. Anyone can see that. Set her right, Joe.’

  I opened my mouth, ‘Twouldn’t go down well to be slighting General Holt. Aye, we shouldn’t be forgetting he is a hero of Ireland’s 1798 rebellion and an able manager for Paymaster Cox.’

  Joshua nodded, but I was wasting my breath on Kitt. She was set to fly off the handle.

  ‘So you mean for us to toss aside our way of life and age-old beliefs, forget the place we call home, settle for being treated as outcasts?’

  ‘Utter nonsense!’ Joshua exclaimed. ‘Besides, Kitt, I don’t know how you dare call Ireland your homeland! You have never even set foot there!’

  Joshua did have a point. Kitt had been born on the waves while her mammy was being transported.

  ‘Listen at yourself! You are talking out the back of your head! Who do you think shall be crammed into those huge new barracks at the prison farm?’ Kitt asked. ‘More Irish, outlawed from their homeland, that’s who!’

  ‘Governor King has sent a request to the Crown to stop sending croppies. He wishes to stem the tide.’

  Kitt scoffed. ‘Governor King is whistling in the wind if he thinks his English king will listen. George III can’t wait to rush out more. Less trouble for him with an ocean in between him and the United Irish.’

  I tried again. ‘About those barracks, Pat is having to work double hard carting ston—’

  Joshua turned snappishly towards me. ‘No need to drag Pat into this!’

  Kitt’s voice grew shrill. ‘Why not? With or without his freedom, Pat has a life of suffering ahead!’

  ‘Most people act fine towards the boy. You yourself help him fit in. In fact, you seem to be making him your life’s purpose.’

  Kitt gave Joshua a glittering, fierce look. ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning all those waifs and urchins you tuck under your wing! Can you not find yourself some female company?’

  My cheek twitched. I was one of those waifs and urchins. Aye, and invisible, or so it appeared.

  Kitt’s back stiffened. ‘We look after our own! Someone has to save Pat from being the bull’s eye and taking all the arrows! I, for one, refuse to uphold any law that says we have no rights because we are different!’

  Joshua gave her a bleak look. ‘I am due to meet with my father.’ He drew himself upright and gave a brisk bow. Then he slung his boot straps over his shoulder and shook his bare feet dry.

  As he turned on his heel, Kitt scowled after him. ‘Suit yourself!’

  After Joshua disappeared into the trees the silence was raw. Kitt kept glowering.

  ‘Well, now we know what Joshua Holt believes in,’ she said eventually. ‘Some are born to rule, while we others, pitiful and ragged though we are, must accept being ruled, no matter the insult or injustice.’

  ‘He does work for Paymaster Cox, who is in the English army,’ I pointed out reasonably. ‘He cannot speak openly against George III or Governor King. General Holt, and mebbe Joshua too, would have to pay a price.’

  Kitt shook her head at me and kept up with her glowering. ‘Are you taking his side?’

  I lifted one shoulder, grimaced. A drop of rain hit my face. ‘I’d best be getting back to the flock.’

  Kitt made that throaty ‘Humph!’ sound and wrenched off her new ribbon, twisting it furiously through her fingers.

  Let her cool off, I thought. I never knew liking someone could be so heart sore, or so quarrelsome.

  Wednesday, February 1st in the year of 1804

  I woke up at first light. The flock were bleating for me to open the pen and the kookaburras were chuckling through a dawn chorus. Nothing for me to chuckle about these days,
I thought dismally.

  My nostrils were filled with a dream smell of smouldering peat. Aye, another dream had blighted my sleep. I had been but a boy of four, standing outside a burning dwelling, clutching onto a hand. Then I was tramping along a road towards Dublin, my skinny bare legs numb with the cold. The next instant I was alone. Lost, I kept turning corners, always arriving at a dead end.

  I have had this same dream countless times. Mebbe sleep brings with it some grains of truth.

  My early life is a mystery. A lamb is helpless at birth, but in most instances can stand within a half-hour. You could say that is what I had to do from the first. Mebbe my mammy did lose sight of me. I never did discover. Nor ever knew my own true name and no one in the crowded lanes of Dublin could set me right.

  When at my trial – after Old Mullins had left me to face justice alone – they shouted for my name. I gave them ‘Jonothan Joseph Daley’. This was a name I had come across somewhere in my short life and a passable name to go by since I had no other.

  Jonothan Joseph Daley. Pick-purse.

  Joe. Joe Daley. United Irish rebel. Croppy boy.

  Is this who I am now?

  Thursday, February 2nd in the year of 1804

  Whoomp! Whoosh! The sudden sounds shook me groggily from an afternoon kip. The air was woody, sweet. A tang of burning, is it. Too close for comfort.

  I sprinted towards the work shed to discover Croppy John in the same cast of mind. He beckoned with a hasty switch of his fingers to a patch of sky grey with smoke over at Castle Hill. ‘Wheat stack’s on fire! They’ll be needing a hand.’

  We hurried to help. At the prison farm everyone was ducking and rushing. We saw flames dancing on top of the stack, the sparks a danger to the run of the season’s crops.

  ‘Joe, over here!’ The call came from Mr Johnston.

  Hastily, I moved in to fill the gap in the line of hands passing pails of water. Mr Johnston gave me a swift nod in greeting. His ruffled shirt was damp and dirty. I could smell his sweat. I shouted across, ‘How did it start?’

  ‘One of the constables nipped away to have a quiet kip in the wheat stack. Fool dropped his pipe. Woke up all right once his pants were on fire! Last we saw he was leapfrogging through the tree stumps and heading towards your creek.’

  A pail was thrust in my hand. Water splashed the front of my work shirt.

  ‘Governor King cannot go blaming us for this!’ Croppy John was doing the complaining. He had slipped in alongside me.

  ‘No, he cannot,’ agreed Mr Johnston.

  We kept passing pails until the wheat stack dissolved into a black, steaming inkblot. The air was sharp and bitter from wet smoke. Yet, apart from the constable in question suffering the loss of one eyebrow and blisters on his thigh, no one was badly burned and we managed to stop the spread of fire.

  Croppy John drew in closer to me. ‘Saint Peter?’ He spoke in a chafing whisper.

  My brows furrowed and my eyes gave a twitch. Was he testing me?

  ‘Fly in your eye?’ he said gruffly, miming my blinking. ‘So ... what is it you answer back?’

  ‘Saint Peter.’ I turned my face away, annoyed and ashamed at the same time. He was testing me.

  ‘Good lad. I’ve just heard what we’ll be needing you to do.’ He handed me a square of dark cloth and gave me some speedy instructions: details of who I had to rob, the when and the where.

  Later

  Croppy John’s order has made me more quivery, more jittery. ’Tis the thought of the danger. Mebbe the stuff I am made of is feather, not iron. Aye, that is the rub. Sometimes the knowing is too close to the truth and hard to bear.

  I only wish a simple life. Aye, tend my flock, keep friends with Pat and Kitt. But I do wish to be brave and worthy too; to hold my head high, instead of being such a weakling. There is a shame in staying your shoulders from slumping, and steadying your unruly eyelids because they persist in fluttering.

  Why did I not summon the will to refuse Croppy John? Why have I allowed myself to be pushed into rebelling with the croppy boys?

  ‘Tis a dire task they have given me to do. Aye, in a few days’ time I am to steal a musket from a constable over at the prison farm. I know we should look after our own, but I mind how this will end, with a sentencing from that Flogging Parson and Duggan’s lash on my back, or worse, a neck wrench on the gallows.

  I remember when the sea captain had a croppy flogged on the Rolla. As they applied the lash, Mr Johnston sheltered my eyes. But I kept hearing the crack-crack of the rope to the left, to the right. And after they brought the croppy back to the hold, I heard his moans as Mr Johnston and the others spread a stinging, healing crust of salt across the ridges disfiguring his back.

  Father Dixon says writing things down helps bring peace to the soul and I’ll be thanking him for his words of wisdom. ’Tis a prayer to the Almighty, he told me, or like when you speak softly to yourself, or make whispering wishes. So let me make a prayerful wish or two. I wish the croppies would let what has happened in the past be over and done with forever. I wish they would free me of their oath. I wish they would leave me alone and let me live my life in peace.

  Monday, February 6th in the year of 1804

  Today I have been in much the same wretched state of mind as I was yesterday and the day before. The grim thoughts keep circling around and around. I want them to stop, but they won’t. So when that native boy came into view, lurking on the other side of the creek, I got to thinking about how fearless he had seemed shinning down that tree, and I thought I could mebbe ask him, mebbe learn a thing or two.

  ‘Hoy!’ I shouted.

  Without hesitation, he crossed through the shallows and sat down on a dry patch of ground facing me, waiting. Anyone could see he was bold. I felt a pang of envy.

  ‘Folk call me Joe.’

  He said nothing in reply. His silence drove me to keep talking. Before long, I found myself covering all my troubles. Truth was, a wave of feeling hit me. Once I opened up, I couldn’t hold back.

  ‘Did you ever agree to something that you knew could be the death of you? Even if you didn’t know at first what they had in mind? And when you did find out, you were even more afeared?’

  I knew I was spilling out all my worries. I was taking it for granted that this native boy had little, if any, understanding of my words, which made it easy to say the things I needed to say. He had only ever spoken one word to me – warragal – and that had been in his own language. I guess all I needed was for someone to listen.

  ‘If they catch me, they’ll serve me a flogging.’ I stretched out my arms as if I were on the triangle. ‘Left and right cat, is it. They might hang me! But my main fear … my real fear ... is that if it comes down to a fight I might not be able to stand my ground. You know, do nothing.’

  I let out a deep sigh. Like the way, to my everlasting shame, I had stood powerless, leaving Kitt to rescue Pat when London had been tormenting him.

  Suddenly it dawned on me that the boy’s eyes were lively with interest. Knowing, is he? Pitying me. ‘You’re after understanding my every word, aren’t you?’ I blurted.

  The native boy pointed towards the bush. In the leafy light, I made out the shape of the wild dog. She was resting, holding her gaze on us, while a pack of solid well-grown pups lay across her, biting and snapping at one another’s tails.

  ‘Them warragal pack are stickin’ close. They taken a liking to you.’ He spoke as clear as the sky was blue and gave me a good-humoured nod of the head. ‘You fellas call me Charley and your secret’s safe with me.’

  Later

  I keep thinking about how when I poured out all my fears to Charley, I believed I could say anything to him. Somehow I feel better for telling him. For the way he listened. Aye, I feel I can trust him.

  Tuesday, February 7th in the year of 1804

  Here is one fact I cannot escape from – on the morrow I have to do the thieving for Croppy John.

  Wednesday, February 8th in the year of
1804

  I was out in the dead of night. A belt of stars burned above the prison farm and moonlight outlined the jumble of buildings as if they had been scrawled in charcoal. I tried to picture the sleeping figures inside. How many were awake, knowing I was here? Hidden under my boot was a whistling whine of insects. Far off, a dog whimpered. A night bird gave an odd piercing screech.

  The constable was leaning against the guard post where Croppy John said I’d find him. He was new to the watch and having trouble staying awake. His eyelids drooped and his neck kept slumping then jerking back up. I would have to wait him out. Young, aye, but he looked strong, not measly-framed. If it came to a fight, I was bound to lose.

  I bolted into the skeleton of a timber hut, a storeroom in the making. Old Mullins had taught me not to draw attention to myself, but I was out of practice. A knock from my arm sent a quiver through one of the loose, sawn boughs. I sank to my knees and gave a silent curse.

  The constable didn’t stir. I crouched in the shelter of the darkness. Gird up, Joe! I told myself, trying to steady my nerve. I had some convincing to do.

  I set focus on my hiding place. Soon the room would be loaded with barrels, aye, one of salted pork and two of dried fish, three and four of onions and cabbages pickled in vinegar. Spices, is it, up to ten, along with pepper and salt, finishing at twelve. Trouble was, I felt like I was the hankering rat peering out from one corner.

  Time kept slipping by. I stifled a yawn. Fighting sleep was tiring. I figured a reckoning of the stars might help keep me awake. I was moving through my usual rounds of fingers, upwards of thirty, when I beheld something. A gleaming star, was it, shooting to the west. A portent if ever I saw. And a disturbing one. West is where the souls of the tortured fly home. West is the haunt of the China Walkers.

  I was trying to set my mind at rest when a hand pressed down on my shoulder. The blood drained from my face. I near jolted out of my skin. My eyes shut tight. I braced for whatever was looming.

  Nothing happened. My eyes flew open. A giveaway mouth was grinning at me.

  ‘Pat!’ I forced my voice to a low whisper. ‘What are you doing creeping around at this untimely hour?’