The Animal Stars Collection

by Jackie French

  Privately Wills asked Brahe to stay for four months, not three. Brahe agreed. It made me uncomfortable to hear Wills question Burke’s decision. But I too was happier to know Brahe would wait for us a bit longer.

  We’d scouted out the land to find the best route as best we could. The time wasn’t ideal, I had to admit. There were clear signs that this land received rain in winter but shrivelled in the heat. And we were still waiting for Wright to bring the supplies up from Menindie. But if we didn’t make a dash north now, Mr Stuart might beat us to it.

  Stuart was an experienced bushman—none of us said it aloud, but we all knew it. We were amateurs compared to him. We had taken months just to reach our starting point.

  There was no way of knowing what sort of country lay ahead.

  Mr Burke was sure there’d be an inland sea, out of which the northern rivers flowed. Sometimes I saw it in my dreams. Lake King, perhaps. Or we’d name it after Her Majesty, Victoria’s Sea…

  Tomorrow, Burke, Wills, Grey and I would show the world once more what the men of the Empire are made of. I remembered being back at school in Dublin, looking at the faces in our classroom and thinking, Which of you will leave your bones in some foreign land? Who will be the hero, who the coward? Is the fate of the man printed on a child’s face?

  I wondered which of those children had died already, of illness in a foreign field, or by a native’s spear. I thought, Tomorrow Burke and Wills and Grey and I march to our destiny.

  CHAPTER 38

  The Camel’s Story

  Cooper’s Creek, 16 December 1860

  The hot air shivered above the ground even now in the early morning.

  Landa rubbed himself against the tree where we sat, waiting for the cool of evening, when we could look for food. Flies had burrowed into his skin to lay their eggs. Sometimes he snuffled with the pain.

  Gotch itched too, though not as badly. The itch comes when you do not have good food. The smaller camels were starting to get really hungry. The stronger you are, the further you can roam at night, even with your hobbles on. And the further you can go, the more food you find.

  Rajah and I were still strong now, even though we weren’t as fat as we had been when the caravan set out. Our humps had shrivelled on the last part of the journey here. But at least we had water, and shade to lie under, and there were still bushes to eat, if you were strong enough to roam far enough to find them.

  Suddenly I saw Dost Mahomet walk towards us through the trees, a lead rope in his hands. Dost Mahomet looked thinner these days too.

  Ah, I thought, we are going to move at last.

  I watched as he loaded Landa up with as much as he had ever carried before, and Boocha and Golah Sing too.

  Then Dost Mahomet placed a blanket on me. I sighed as he began to load me up. Didn’t he know I needed more fat on me to bear a load comfortably! I muttered at the first bundle, then grimaced at the next one, and the next one too. I was just preparing for a thorough moaning when Mr Burke stomped up.

  ‘What are you doing with that brute?’ he barked.

  Dost Mahomet stared at him, for Mr Burke often spoke too quickly and too angrily for him to understand.

  ‘What is it?’ That was nice Mr Wills. He gave me a piece of bread sometimes. A man of manners, who knew how to respect a camel. A higher compliment I cannot pay.

  Mr Burke gestured to Dost Mahomet. ‘This fool is loading up Bell Sing. I won’t have that animal along.’

  Mr Wills stared at him. ‘But, sir, Bell Sing’s the strongest camel of them all!’

  Mr Burke shook his head. ‘He’s savage and unreliable.’

  ‘Not if he’s treated right, sir.’

  ‘Are you saying I don’t know how to handle a camel?’

  ‘No, sir. Of course not. But, sir, this dash to the coast may be hard going. We need to take the strongest camels of all. And he’s a pack camel. He’ll be more sure-footed with a load on his back than a riding camel.’

  ‘Who is the leader here?’ Mr Burke’s voice was rising in volume.

  ‘You, sir.’

  ‘Thank you. Unload that camel. We’ll take Rajah instead.’

  I watched as Dost Mahomet loaded Rajah. This did not feel right to me. Why was Mr Burke taking riding camels, not pack camels who could carry a heavy load? Why was he walking into the heat, where I could smell that there was worse heat to come?

  I gazed at Mr Burke. He was a silly man. But suddenly I saw something else about him too.

  It was the look that Bilhari had had the night he faced a wolf who would have taken the young lambs. It was the look of my mother when she was determined to save our camp from the avalanche.

  It was the look of someone who will face danger or even death to do what must be done.

  I had never thought of Mr Burke in that way before. I wondered what he was expecting to find, to have that look upon his face. For wherever he was going, whatever he knew he had to face, he was taking my best friend in the world along with him.

  If I had never spat at Mr Burke, perhaps he would have taken me too.

  I watched as they all left—six of them, with Rajah in the lead.

  I didn’t say goodbye to Rajah, for that is not the camel way. He was a good camel.

  He could have snorted at me in triumph, because he was leading his tiny caravan, while I stayed behind.

  But he didn’t.

  I stood there underneath the trees and watched them walk away. I watched as the heat ripples took them and turned them into shimmers. I watched till they merged into the far horizon and were gone.

  I wanted to go too. I wanted to be walking, into that wriggle where the desert met the sky. It should have been me there, alongside Rajah.

  The shadows grew shorter about me, but still I watched, even though there was nothing left to see.

  CHAPTER 39

  Dost Mohamet’s Story

  Cooper’s Creek, 16 December 1860

  I watched them go, past the black shadows of the trees, up the bare sandhills, into the hot bright air. Four men who did not know the land, or camels; six riding camels, laden with big packs, and Mr Burke’s horse.

  And all I could think was, I should be there.

  We waited.

  The days grew hotter and hotter still. The waterhole shrank into the mud. There was hardly enough even for the camels to drink, much less all the horses.

  The men finished the stockade. Then they did nothing, except sit and sweat. For the first time I was glad the camel work all fell to me. Men need work and challenge. They did not even fish or hunt, though food grew short.

  And Mr Wright still did not come.

  CHAPTER 40

  The Camel’s Story

  Cooper’s Creek, December 1860 to February 1861

  We ate. We drank. We waited. There were only six of us camels now, and four men. All of us were thin and we grew thinner still.

  The men’s droppings grew all sour and loose, and they had to make them many times a day. The camp smelt of sickness. We camels lost the last fat in our humps, no matter how far afield we scavenged for our food. The flies sucked at the skinny ribs of the horses. The poor beasts’ eyes grew watery and red, for horses do not have a second eyelid that they can shut, nor can they shut their nostrils as we camels do, to keep out the dust. At time I even felt sorry for them. But then I reminded myself what worthless animals horses were, and worried myself no longer.

  Why didn’t our caravan set off again, as other caravans did, and go where there was fresh grass and water? Did these men know nothing about how to live?

  Why didn’t they ask their camels—me especially—where was the best place to travel to next? I could lead them to lots of grass and water! I could smell it far off on the night air. It tantalised me when the breeze came up at sundown. My stomach rumbled for that grass at night.

  Were we waiting for Rajah and the others to return? Then why not follow their tracks across the sand?

  It was as though life offered nothing
for these men except sitting in the shade or running off a little way to do their business, holding their stomachs with the pain.

  The rats found us again. I’d known they would. The men hung all their stores from the branches of the trees, to keep them from being eaten.

  The dark-skinned people came again, offering fish. But the men of our caravan would not touch this food, despite their hunger. Strange indeed are the ways of men. But the ways of the ones in our caravan were stranger still.

  CHAPTER 41

  John King’s Story

  Cooper’s Creek to the Gulf of Carpentaria, December 1860 to April 1861

  The journey started well. Privately I’d worried how we’d get across the stony desert Sturt had discovered—a vast plain of tiny, shiny, weathervarnished stones. The glare was so fierce it could have cooked us. The camels limped, their big feet bleeding.

  Burke was sure there was a vast lake to the north of us. But what if this stony desert reached almost to the sea instead?

  But Burke was right. We soon passed the stones. And at first we found water to camp by almost every night.

  The heat was bad, the light so strong it almost blinded us. But I was used to heat. I gloried that my body was strong again, that I could stride across a land like this.

  Christmas was a delight. Grey was the first to see trees in the distance on Christmas Eve, shimmering in the heat as the air rose from the dust.

  Trees meant water. Burke laughed. ‘I’ll name the creek after you,’ he promised Grey.

  White-winged birds flapped away as we drew near, then settled again to peck at tiny seeds in the tussocks among the dirt. Grey’s Creek was nearly a river, clean water, with fish in the deep pools. And for once no flies or mosquitoes or even ants—almost another Christmas miracle.

  My dreams that night were sweet. A few weeks like this, I thought, and we’ll be at the coast.

  Burke hoped Grey’s Creek would lead us to the lake. We followed the creek till it turned east. We turned north instead.

  Burke called the next river after himself. We wound our way through ranges, carpeted with grass, the trees tall and fine. It was as beautiful a country as I have ever seen.

  And then the way grew steeper, and steeper still. Those gentle mountains became our prison. The camels’ feet bled into the rocky ridges. The poor beasts sweated under their loads. At each rise we had to pull them, groaning, force them to keep climbing.

  We tried going around each high spur, to spare the camels the climb. But each time our way was blocked by cliffs or gullies. Finally Burke said, ‘Enough of this. We go in a straight line. Up and over.’

  I think I grew to love the camels in those days. I led the big one, Rajah. He groaned with terror up on the high ridges. But he kept on going. All of us, men and camels and Burke’s horse Billy. We kept on going.

  The camels were staggering when we found a creek at last. We let the camels step into the water. We scooped up water to wash off their blood and sweat.

  But Burke had got us through the ranges. We half slid, half walked down a scrubby hill. There was another creek that Burke called after his aunt, Lady Elizabeth Cloncurry.

  Was the worst behind us now?

  The lake should have been here, beyond the mountains, feeding the streams that led to the sea. It wasn’t. But as we plodded onwards none of us spoke the words. It would have been disloyal to our leader to say ‘Well, you were wrong.’

  Soon we were in more mountains once again. I thought I saw a way between the spurs. I was right. Burke called it ‘King’s Gap’.

  Strange, I thought. (Maybe my mind was wandering even then.) I had dreamt so long of the King River, Lake King, Mount King. And now my name was on something that was not. A gap, a nothing…

  My gap led us down to a creek. It led us north, and so we followed it.

  The country changed. Clouds boiled across the deep blue sky.

  We slept to the hum of mosquitoes, in a bath of sweat. The soil was black now. There was greenery for the camels but in return they sank to their knees in mud, a foul stench and sticky.

  More clouds coiled above us. Rain would have been a blessing a few months ago. Now it was a curse, a grey flood that attacked us from the sky. No lake, but swamps instead. We waded through water to our waists. Leeches fastening on us, not realising we had little blood to share. We’d already been far longer than we expected. We were on half rations now, trying to make our poor food last. Birds rose in clouds of grey and pink, screaming at us, not in fear but anger, as we intruded in their world.

  Each day Wills announced the date. It kept us sane. It tethered us to the real world, the world of men and orders we had left behind. We had camped on a small rise (a flood of waterlilies flat and green before us) on the twenty-first of January when he said, ‘You know we are back in known land now.’

  I glanced up at him from my hunk of Johnny cake. It was sour, and crumbled with the wet. But it was enough to make my belly stop aching for a while. He saw I didn’t understand.

  ‘I recognise the surveys,’ he said quietly. ‘Gregory and the other explorers have been here before us.’

  ‘So,’ said Burke, trying to smile. ‘We are nearly there. Almost at the sea.’

  Wills nodded.

  I thought: There is nothing more for us to discover then. We’ve found no lake. No lush grasslands for rich farms. We’ve found sand and rock and leeches…

  But of course I didn’t say the words aloud.

  We packed our tents then, onto the camels. We kept on going. We had set out to walk from coast to coast. And so we would.

  On the ship, travelling to Australia, I had daydreamt of that moment. I had dreamt I’d see white-topped waves crashing on a beach. We’d toast each other, there upon the beach, a band of brothers who had done what no white man had before.

  The reality wasn’t like that at all. We never even saw the sea. Instead we came to a tidal channel and mangrove swamps, with mud that stank and tried to suck us down, while mosquitoes sucked our blood. No, I would never have daydreamt that.

  The first white men to cross Australia from south to north. We had that at least, if we had nothing more.

  But the journey north had taken two months—much longer than we’d planned. We still had to retrace the whole journey and find our way back to the camp at Cooper’s Creek.

  But our courage didn’t fail us. We had got this far. We would make it back. Brahe would wait the four months Wills had asked him for. Two months to get here. Two to make it back. But we had brought only enough food for three months, at the most. But none of us had come for a doddle in the park. We could do it…

  And then it began to rain. Mud sucked at our feet. The swamp tried to swallow us. Mosquitoes feasted on us more than ever. At times the air around us was almost black with them.

  We forced our way through swamps that had been dry land before. Some days we made a mile or two. On others we were too weak to walk at all. At last we made it back to the mountains. But even there floods blocked our way. We would wake in the night to the sound of rushing water and know we had to move the camels to higher ground.

  The poor beasts were skin and bone. Their feet looked gigantic above their skinny legs, their eyes shuttered by exhaustion.

  Grey’s face looked like a skeleton’s. ‘I’m ill,’ he muttered, as Burke yelled at him to get a move on. Burke cast him a filthy look. ‘Stop shamming it, we’re all in the same case. We keep going or we die.’

  But the rain was nothing compared with the hunger. The desperate longing every time we ate to just keep eating, to fill our bellies just once more even if we never ate again.

  Grey killed a snake—eight feet long, it was as long as me and half again, weighing eleven and a half pounds. We baked it on the fire and stuffed ourselves that night. The meat tasted good. But all the next day found Burke shivering and sweating in his tent, his face green.

  ‘That b——snake,’ he swore, then staggered from the tent. I heard him being sick against a
tree. He was still ill the next day. But we had no days to spare. Our cheeks were sunk with hardship and starvation. The old leech bites still itched. Some swelled with infection and oozed pus.

  Then back to Burke’s River—that was where Mr Wills found Grey behind a tree, slurping up a gruel he’d made of flour and water. Wills checked our stores. Other things were gone as well. Mr Grey must have been helping himself the whole time we were plodding back.

  Wills called Burke. He and I had both been trying to load up Rajah. The other camels were too weak to carry much. But Rajah seemed unstoppable.

  ‘What is it?’ demanded Burke.

  Wills pointed to the billy of gruel in Grey’s hands. ‘I’ve checked the stores,’ said Wills quietly. ’There’s other stuff missing too.’

  ‘I had to steal it,’ whispered Grey. ‘It’s eat or die. I’ve had the runs since we left the Gulf.’

  Burke clenched his hands. But he said nothing.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Grey desperately. ‘I’m sorry, sorry…’

  Burke’s fist smashed into his face. Grey screamed.

  Smash, smash…both fists now, pounding left and right.

  Grey cowered to the ground, trying to protect his face. Burke seized him by the collar, and forced him up. His fist crashed into Grey’s stomach. Grey began to retch.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, stop it, man!’ I yelled. I tried to pull Burke away.

  Burke lashed out. One fist caught me below the eye.

  Grey lay moaning on the ground. Burke stood there panting, then lifted up his leg to kick him. Wills grabbed one of Burke’s arms and I held onto the other.

  ‘Let me go, Goddamn you!’ Burke struggled like a madman between us.

  We held him till he grew calmer. Grey groaned, and tried to rise. It took him two attempts. Bloody froth oozed from his mouth. Finally he limped over to the creek, and washed some of the blood away.

  I looked at his face as we staggered on next day. The bruises shone green and purple. The shadows under his eyes were black. I believed he had the dysentery. But we did too. You do not steal food from your friends.