by T M Creedy
Here goes.
“January 21st, 1903.
This morning Matron tell me take some clean sheets up to the doctors surgery. I knock on the door and he sez to come in. He don’t see me cos I am black. He don’t see me cos I am not a little kid. He only like the little ones. I might as well be invisable. When I go in Babygirl is there. She is asleep on the little bed the doctor call his table. Nobody know Babygirls real name. She was found on the side of a road, next to her mumma who was dead, like a joey is found when his mumma is killed. We think she is around three years old. She don’t say much. The other girls fuss her a lot and baby her cos she needs looking after. The doctor has her lying down on his table. She has no clothes on and is sleepy, like she juss woke up but the sleepiness is from what the doctor give her, not from being tired. The doctor say nuthin to me so I put the sheets on the chair by the bed. Babygirl rubs her eyes and screw up her face, wanting to cry but whatever he give her is too strong and she go back to sleep right away. I want to cuddle her close to me and take her from this room but the doctor already looking her over. Poking and prodding at her nakedness. It’s a shameful thing, what he does to the girls in his room. He think they don’t remember when they wake up but they do. They tell me what he does and then they cry from shame. I cry with them and tell them the shame is his, not theirs, but that don’t stop them from feeling they are the dirty ones.
January 23rd, 1903
Today we had to hold Brian down while he took a fit. It not the first time I seen him in his fit but it still scary every time. His eyes roll back in his head and he bite on his tung till his mouth all bloody and raw. Not much we can do cept hold him tight and make sure he don’t hurt hisself even more. Nurse McKay say that Brian, he never had a fit before he come here. He a Mongol but he don’t have fits. Nurse McKay say Brian only have fits now cos of what the doctor do to him – his x‘speriments. Brian still have the bruising round his eyes and face from where the doctor stuck something in his eye into his brain, to try and cure Brian of his being a Mongol, but it didn’t work and now Brian worse than ever. Nurse McKay go all quiet when she see what the doctor do to the kids sometimes. All quiet and pale. Later when I sposed to be finished for the day Matron tell me to take a tray up to the doctors private rooms. I had to carry up the bottles of hard grog and it was heavy for me to carry up the stairs. I hear the laughing and other men talking when I get to the doctors door and in the room is the priest from up the church, and the new policeman from the town. They both puffing away on fat cigars and drinking the doctors whiskey like they his mates. When I leave I hear the doctor say ‘Aah, here’s our little Malinda! Peggy will be along presently.’ And I know those girls got another night of pain and shame ahead of them. Only thing I can do to help them is be there in the morning with my mummas healing cream for the bruises and some warm water to clean them up. My heart is heavy and I will cry with them again tomorrow.
February 5th, 1903
A bad day. Alices baby born dead today and Alice herself is not expect to last the day. Her little body is too frail and she far too young to be carrying a baby. I tend to her as best I know how but her skin has gone grey and her breathin is none too reglar. The doctor come in when I am there trying to make Alice cumftable and he stare down at her like she a bug under glass. The babys body is wrapped in an old piece of sheet and Nurse tell me it will be ‘disposed of’ after the doctor has finished doing what he need to do to it. What they will do when Alice breathe her last is same as they always do. We have prayers for her soul and she go into the garden with the roses, no marker or nuthin to say her name.
February 7th, 1903
We bury Alice yesterday and say nice things over her grave. Malinda is the most upset by it. She just found out she gonna have a baby too and she think she die as well. I tell her she be made of stronger stuff than poor Alice, and she older too, being nearly twelve and she of the people so she got her ancestors all looking after her. But she scared, Malinda, and beg me to help her run away but where would she go? The doctor got all the important people in the town on his side and ‘sides, he buy Malinda from her uncle years ago so he own her fair and square. She belonga him and we all get into bad trouble if she run away. Malinda don’t talk to me after that and turn her face away when anyone try and speak to her. Nurse McKay sez that one day the doctor get whats coming to him. She written to someone she know in parlyment for him to stop what the doctor does here. I hope her friend come to help soon.
February 20th, 1903
There no word from Nurse McKays friend in parlyment yet, but we hold on to hope. Today we had all the children outside helping in the garden and Gregory got stung by a wasp and took bad for a little while. Not his fault he can’t see no more to watch where he stepping. The doctor caught Gregory peeking through the keyhole one night when he suppose to be in bed and the doctor got mighty angry and poured something in Gregorys eyes to make him blind. It were awful painful for Gregory for a long time and when we take the bandages off his eyes have no colour no more. They just white. Gregory still a happy boy even tho he can’t see. He very ‘fectionate with us all and Nurse McKay say Mongols are like that. They happy and smile even when theres nuthin to smile ‘bout.
I can’t go on. The nausea in my stomach rises up until I taste bitter bile in the back of my throat. This can’t be true! Dolly must be making these things up. Paedophilic doctors and priests, torturing children in the name of science, getting underage girls pregnant and burying the dead babies in the rose garden out back. The thought is too much for me to bear and I just make it to the edge of the verandah before spewing Essie’s lunch back up into the garden. Big, fat tears roll down my face as I kneel on the hard boards, picturing each of the children Dolly writes about. Poor Alice, dead from being forced to carry a baby too soon, Brian, suffering fits because the doctor performed experiments on him to try and ‘cure’ him of Downs syndrome and Gregory; my poor little boy! Now I know why his eyes shine white in the photo – deliberately blinded for looking through a keyhole! I don’t know if I can carry on reading Dolly’s journal. It makes me sick to my stomach that I’m living in the same building where such horrific atrocities took place. Why didn’t somebody DO something? The nurses, the matron, the maids – they all knew what was going on. Why didn’t they get help?
The book lies innocently on the table, with no hint of the unspeakable horrors contained within it. I flick through the rest of the pages. Dolly’s writing becomes even more of a scrawl and the entries are sporadic, with long gaps between the dates, before stopping completely halfway through the slim volume.
March 01st, 1903
Nurse McKay come out from the doctors surgery all upset yesterday. She has to go in there to help the doctor when he does his x’speriments and sometimes she come out all tight lipped and spittin mad but yesterday she more upset than I ever seen. She hurry to speak to the other nurses. She don’t complain to Matron as we all know Matron in love with the doctor and won’t hear a word against him. ‘He’s castrating the boys!’ I hear her say from my secret place on the stairs where the voices carry from the nurses sitting room behind the door. I don’t know what castrating means and when I ask dada later he tell me taking the balls off male animals so’s they can’t father any babies no more. I think he musta got it wrong, else Nurse McKay misunderstand. Not even an evil man like the doctor would take the balls off the boys at the house. Most a them only little, it’s not like they gonna father no babies on no one soon. When I get to the home today the boys is all still in bed, groaning and crying in pain, so I know its true. Nurse McKay tell me later that the doctor has concluded his x’speriments for curing Mongols didn’t work, so the only way to stop babies being born with the disease is to stop all Mongols from breeding, so they die out without infecting the next generation.
‘What about the girls?’ I ask but Nurse just tells me I don’t wanna know what he want to do with the girls.
March 22nd, 1903
There something wrong wit
h the doctor. Some fellas from the city come to see him and they all shut themselves away in the doctors rooms all day. I hear a lot of shouting and I hear the doctor say he’s got the backing of the church and the medical council whatever that mean. Things go quiet in there for a while and Matron catch me listening on the stairs and tell me to get all the children ready to go out. This is not what we usually do in the day but the Matron say we taking all the kids for a special trip out to the swim hole. She say it because the bedrooms need to be cleaned for bugs but I think she and the doctor want to hide the children from the fellas from the city. The kids don’t mind tho cos they get to run around and play in the water and it a nice day for them. When we get back to the house the city fellas are gone and the matron and the doctor are shut in his office together for a long time.
April 10th, 1903
The Matron give everybody their notice today. Sez we no longer needed no more. I am to work for the next month but then I got no job. Nurse McKay has been ask to stay on longer but the other nurses are leaving right away. Nurse McKay sez now that I can write I got a better chance of gettin a good job, sez I don’t need to be no maid no more, and she’ll give me a carrocter so people know how good I can work. The children cry when the nurses leave and ask whos gonna look after them now. They cry even more when I say I gone in May. Malindas baby due sometime in May so she cry the most when she find out there be no one left to help her with the birthing, only the Matron.
April 22nd, 1903
I don’t even know how I can bear to write this down. It so bad even the words I need to use are too evil to write down. I shouldn’a been at the house last night but Kirra has a bad cold and wanted me singing the old songs to help her sleep. I snuck in the back way by the kitshun and no one know I was in the house, ‘cept for the kids. I heared the doctor and the matron go into the boys room next door and take the boys one by one into the bathroom. Now this is not right in itself. It usually me and the other maids who bath the children, not the doctor. Me and the girls hear the boys yelling and hear them dragged down the hall to the bath. Hear them kicken out in the bath, it make a loud clang when the boys hit the side of the tub. Then we hear nuthin. Only quiet. Then the Matron and the doctor go and get another boy and the clangs come again. I dunno whats happening in that bathroom but I so scared and the girls so scared we sit and look at each other and can’t find the words to speak. Ivy, one of the lanky girls sez she gonna sneak up to the bathroom an see whats going on and before I can stop her she’s wriggle out the door and walk in the dark places to the open bathroom door. She back in a flash but so scared she can’t get any words out right away. She breathe real funny and she wet herself too I think. When she catch her breath she tells us we need to run away NOW! She sez she seen the doctor hold Gregory up by the legs and dunk his head in the tub full of water. Gregory in the bath and the doctor hold his legs up so Gregorys face in under the water and he can’t breathe. Doctor holds his legs up so long, till Gregory stop struggling and then he pick Gregory up by his legs and swing him to Matron. Matron taking the boys downstairs. Outside to the garden Ivy thinks. Me and the girls stare at Ivy, dumb quiet. I think Ivy got it wrong but what she sez sound like the Matron and the doctor killing the boys in the bath tub, drowning them dead! Then we hear the doctor walkin up the hall to the girls room. The girls start to scream and Ivy runs to the window and tries to open it to jump out but the windows all nailed shut like they always was. God forgive me but I hid. The doctor don’t know I here tonight so I slide under the bed nearest the door and pull the sheet down so no one see me under there. I hear the doctor breathin hard and he grab one of the girls, Rosie I think, and take her away. He lock the door again when he leave so none of the girls can ‘scape. The girls all screamin and shouting now and all I do is hide. Kirra jump outta her bed and try an hide with me but God forgive me again I push her away, not wantin to get found. I can only see a tiny bit where there is a hole in the sheet but I see she is next to be carry away by the doctor and she cling with all her might to the door frame. She cling so hard she scratch the paint in lines but the doctor hit her hard on the head and she kinda slump in his arms. I hide and hide and pray and pray until one by one the girls is all took and I am alone in the room. When all is quiet for a long long time I sneak outta my hidey place. The door is not locked now, no need, there’s no girls left to lock in. There is a light in the bathroom but no sound and when I creep to the door the tub is full of water and is pink, like blood got in there. The room stinks of piss n shit and fear. Mostly of fear. It stink so bad I think I’ma gonna throw up. Then I hear ‘nother noise. The doctor and the Matron is both out in the garden and I can see them through the window on the stair. They don’t see me tho, cos I’m black, and it dark here. The doctor, he diggin hard. He dig up all the rose trees and he take his shirt off he diggin so much. Matron diggin too but she not so strong and her diggin is not so deep as the doctors. I seen my boys and girls. I seen them lying in a big pile, all a top of each other and higgy piggy. They’s in their night clothes but they are still, so still. Five little boys and seven little girls. All drownded dead and waiting to be put in the garden next to Alice and her baby. I can watch no more and I run outta that house for the last ever time. Not never goin to go there again. Nurse McKay, she see me go but she sitting still as a stone, on the front porch. She sit and not move, ‘part from her mouth which is open in a endless silent scream.
April 24th, 1903
I hears that Nurse McKay shoot herself in her head the next day. I not surprise. Matron disappear that night and I hear folks tell she went over Melbourne way. The doctor they found swinging from a rope in the tree. He done hisself in. Mumma and Papa tell me never to speak of what I seen in the house that night. They say it white fellas bizness and no good will come of me shooting my mouth off. They say, keep it quiet, else maybe they think I a part of it too. I never tell anyone of the bodies in the garden. I never say nuthin to no one. But when they not lookin I sometime sneak into the garden and say some prayers to the roses. I tell my kids that I remember them, I know they there. And I tell them I sorry.
That’s the last entry. That last long scrawl runs to five pages and I read them with mounting horror and disbelief. If what Dolly writes is true, there are many, many bodies buried underneath the roses in Margie’s prize garden. I’m frozen to the bone, despite the heat from the sun. I need Drew. Need his solid presence for my own comfort and to talk to him about the roses. Or should I tell Pindari? Show him his great-great auntie’s diary and let him take over, let his police training deal with the murder victims buried under the prickly stalks. Whatever I decide to do now, I know one thing for sure. I need to tell the world about what really happened here at Crowlands House a hundred and fifteen years ago. I need to let the world know those poor children’s names and to honour their memory. I need to give them back their names.
I’m stirred by the sudden impulse to run upstairs to the second floor and see if any of the toys I left have been moved. I’m no longer scared of the fleeting shadows which catch the corner of my eye, only to disappear when I turn my head. Drew was right all along, they’re just children. Taking the stairs two at a time I reach the plastic sheet and pick my way through. It’s a lot darker up here than it was yesterday and it’s then that I notice that most of the doors to the rooms are now firmly shut, even though Drew and I opened them all, and left them open. Only one door is open now. The door to the bathroom. Where, I now know, twelve children were murdered in order to cover up the crimes of the very people who were entrusted with their care. I avoid looking into the void that is that white-tiled place of death. I hadn’t noticed that the doors all have keys when we’ve been up here before, but now the girl’s room is locked and a brass key is poking out from the lock in the door. It offers no resistance when I turn it and the door swings open. The teddies are still there. The dolls and the books have not been touched. I’m disappointed until I look at the blackboard on its wooden easel.