Master of My Fate

by Sienna Brown

  Calla stopped talking for a while, poured more tea, took a few sips trying to calm herself.

  ‘The slave dem that survived, like me, backra started to train as to how to work all day, all night. Teach us how to bow down and obey. I lucky,’ Calla tell me. ‘Lucky, because me ugly and no man look pon me. Lucky, because me know the healing ways. Learn it from the spirits, from the Ancestors. Me heal the slave dem, as well as backra. It help me to keep me dignity. Keep meself safe. Stop me from ending me life, like some did, throwing themself in the river, praying to get eaten by a crocodile.’

  I felt a big sorrow for Calla rise up inside, and I reached out, held her hand. Now that she had finally revealed her past, I think the storytelling was at an end, but then she started on a second story and it was that story that reached deep into me heart that night.

  ‘The power of the earth is in the blood,’ she said, picking up some dirt, crumbling it in her fingers. ‘The blood you born into. Before that, you is a free spirit. Tied to nothing. But when the spirit enter the body, it come to live inside the earth. Inside the blood. And this blood, it come from a long way off.’

  ‘What you mean, Calla? Where this blood come from?’

  ‘All the way from the first man and the first woman. This line of blood don’t belong to one person, but to a group of people. A gathering of families. And the stories that belong to them families get stored in the blood. So, when the spirit enter the body, it take up the blood stories and is bound to play them out.’

  ‘Dem is a lot of stories for the spirit to follow.’

  ‘Yes, is true. Plenty stories. Except, every time the spirit enter a new body, it travel along new bloodlines. Take up new stories, and new learning from dem stories, until spirit come to understand it is bigger, much bigger than all dem stories and bloodlines put together.’

  Calla told me this story was what saved her life. Gave her the strength to endure. A story told to her by her mother who was told by her mother, all the way back to that first man and that first woman. Helped her to understand that the memory sickness come from the stories still sitting in the bloodline. Stuck, can’t move. Become like embers in the ash that rise up into flames when fanned by a new cruelty. Stories that kept her blood filled up with rage. A rage she had to fight against, bottle it up, push it down. Because she knew if she ever let them memories take over, she going lash out, do plenty killing.

  When Calla finished speaking, she was all worn out, but not like before, when she was filled up with anger or fear. Her face turned peaceful. She told me the truth of her story and, in the telling of it, I hoped she got rid of some of them memories and they were no longer stuck.

  After a little while, I helped Calla up. Held her arm as we went inside her hut. Helped her into bed. Stayed with her. Soothed her brow. Held her hand till I saw her eyes close and she fell into a deep and peaceful sleep. That night, I sat a long time beside old Calla, watching over her, like she always done for me. Come to finally understand that even though she was made a slave, she was stronger, much stronger than Massa ever could be.

  Now, whenever I am up on deck scrubbing, looking out cross the water at that Africa coastline, it make me think bout Calla, what a journey she made. See how behind her stand-up-straight back, head held high strength, was always a sore heart. A heart longing for the people, the place, the home she was dragged away from. Now me fated to be taking the same journey, only in the other direction, and like her, leaving everything, everyone I love, behind. A journey I never could imagine, when me that little slave child herding the cows up to pasture.

  James Smith notice how quiet I get whenever I come back from being on deck. Think is still the water dread, but I tell him no.

  ‘Once the world I lived in was slow-moving. Nuttin’ much changed. Now everything move fast, change like the wind. Sometimes it make me mind turn feeble in the face of it. Whatever lie in wait, I don’t know. But I can never go back to who I was before. Is like me eyes open too wide, and I can never look away.’

  I think Smith don’t understand what me talking bout, but him wink at me and say, ‘Best not to think too deep. Can drive a man crazy.’

  ‘Too many mosquitoes,’ I say, nodding.

  ‘Mosquitoes? What? Dem biting you?’

  ‘No,’ I say, laughing. Explain what Calla told me that day out in the cow pasture, back when I was a pickney.

  ‘Yes. Too many mosquitoes,’ Smith say. ‘Must give them a good swat.’

  Days flow one into the other and it start to feel like the further we sail, the more time seem to be standing still. Is a blessed relief when we hear the good news that we will soon arrive at the Cape of Good Hope. We all looking forward to stopping, for the ship to take on fresh supplies, but Captain Bolton say no, want to get to Port Jackson as fast as him can. Surgeon McKay and him have big arguments, loud and long enough that we all hear them and the crew turn sourly indeed. It take another four weeks to travel cross the Indian Ocean and if we didn’t have a good wind behind us, I think the crew would mutiny.

  Early one morning, the cry come echoing down, ‘Land ho!’ and me heart start to lift, hoping to finally get a glimpse of the land I going plant me feet on. It supposed to be clear sailing after that, but fate not done with us yet.

  All the arrival excitement drain away as the seas start to turn choppy and rough. We passing through what sailors call the North Heads when a great storm rise up. Southerly, the sailors call it. Is like a nightmare. Thunder rolling. Lightning striking the dark skies. The boat rocking and heaving, rising and dropping. The wind howling till it tear the main sail full apart. Rip her in two like she made of paper. The ship slowly drifting, heading towards the rocks. Could be the end of us.

  When the wind die down a little, a lieutenant and bout a dozen sailors manage to row over from the man-of-war ship stationed in the harbour. Bring with them spare anchors and cables to help hold the ship steady till the storm pass. A few of us convicts too busy helping out on deck to be scared, but I tell you what, I pray harder than I ever done before. Pray to see another day, to feel dry land under me feet. Pray the storm is no omen of things to come. That me not going end up like Powell and Reid, me bones rocking on the ocean floor, picked over by fish.

  Finally that wretched storm pass and the Moffatt sail into the safety of a place backra call Port Jackson. When the anchor finally drop, it take a long time before McDuff let us off the boat. The paying passengers depart first. The convicts like luggage, we get left for last. Must wait till the barracks men row out, come on board to look us over. Check our names off them list. See how many of us lost at sea. Wait, wait and more waiting till documents get signed, papers get exchanged. Overhear that Surgeon McKay going have him way, want Captain Bolton to get charged for neglect. With all the bother and fuss, they keep us convicts waiting a long time before we can finally leave the ship.

  While I wait in line, in the far distance, I can see some small, shabby houses lined up along the shoreline. What a sad place I end up in. Me heart start to sink, but there is no time for feeling sorry for meself because McDuff shout out, ‘Buchanan, William, prisoner number one seven nine three. Step forward. Make your mark here.’

  And me fate, once again, is sealed.

  The Barracks

  Is early morning. I been standing. Standing in a dusty pebble courtyard. Waiting. Me heart sore with longing to return even to them plantation days, if it mean I can stand on the land me birthed into. I hear the guards shout ‘March!’ and me and a line of raggedy men start to move, some in chains, clanking as we make our way out iron gates, down a street backra call Macquarie, in a town them call Sydney. And everywhere I look is another world, where even the rock, the animals, the people, the plants look strange. And this strange world on the far side of the world is a land barren to me eyes, in every way. Is a soulless place where the Mother Country send her unwanted sons and daughters. Backra call it the colony of New South Wales.

  Every morning, before we march, the guards make me
and all the other convicts stand in line outside the superintendent office. To get mustered, line up to say ‘yes, sir’ when him open up him big black book, when him call out you name. A name that have a number that sit beside it. He call this number you indent and every little thing you do, wrong or right, get recorded beside that number.

  Is more important than your name.

  This number business is the way everything work in this barren world. A world ruled by the chime of the big round clock that sit right at the top of a square-faced stone building. A clock with power, because when it strike a number, it always telling you is time to do something. Time to wake, to eat, to work, to sleep. It even strike at night, hour after every hour when a man trying to catch a little rest. A time of troubled sleep, a time to forget. And in this world of work and numbers is not what you done, but how long you going have to pay for it. You get called a seven-year man, a fourteen-year man or a lifer. Most of us here for life. Penned in like animals, treated like them too.

  Three floors in the big stone building where I sleep, with many windows facing out. They let in the sun when it shine, but mostly the window them let in the cold. Shake and rattle when the wind whistle through the cracks, make me shiver and cower under the thin blanket we get given. The walls, they is over two feet thick. Most times, a dirty brown. Wooden floors that many, many feet march cross. And in every room on every floor, all I see is nothing but filthy, rotting hammocks. We so crowded together it feel like backra don’t even want to leave space for us to breathe. The same way it was on the Moffatt. If this isn’t misery enough, there is the lice, the rats. Just like on the hulks. Big ones. Live under the floorboards and all through the night them gnaw and squeal and steal and run cross you feet. Even slaves not forced to sleep locked up inside a building.

  Outside in the pebble courtyard not a leaf of green to be seen. When the wind come up it blow that pebble, sand and grit into you eyes, you nose, down you throat until it suck you dry. All round the yard is a high stone wall with guards standing at the only way out, a wide iron gate, so wherever you look is a barrier, a barrier to a man freedom.

  Backra call this number world Hyde Park Barracks. And this number world is meant to make you feel small. Feel empty. Make the life force drain right out of you.

  The only good thing bout this barracks place is the stone it built from. Sandstone. I come to learn convicts build it. Brick by brick, all handmade, too, and it seem like them build it good.

  Stone! Is the only thing to give me comfort. See how it change colour when the sun move cross it, sometimes like cornmeal, sometimes like cocoa. How it glow pink in the fading evening light. And I listen good when the bricks whisper that them is stronger than the hands that made them, because the building going to be standing a long time after the last man, woman and child living now is dead. Sometimes, when me feeling weak, I lean on that stone, use the strength of stone to keep me going. In the end, is stone that shape me fate. It keep me working as a government man, since me indent say stone is me trade. And me good at it.

  Sometimes I wake early, like I did on the plantation, in the twilight before the dawn. Stare out the locked window on this strange new world. Notice how me breath leave a mist. Make a mark, watch it fade.

  What kind of place I come to?

  Is wet, damp, and me feeling cold. Feeling low. Back home it going be full summer. Flowers blooming, the fruit getting juicy. The fierce heat and cloudless skies settling in, except when a thunderstorm on the horizon.

  Here in this upside-down world, a place you have to look down low to find it on a map, now is August what backra call winter. No snow like in the Mother Country, just nothing but dark skies, grey clouds, the heavy rain lashing down. And this rain, it not like the bursts back on the island that start quick, end quick, with the sun strong enough to hold him place, to keep shining though the raining wet. This rain, once it start, it never stop coming till the pebble courtyard full up with a whole heap of cold, muddy puddles, and you learn quick is best to walk barefoot, not try use the tight, squeeze-you-toes shoes Busha give you to wear.

  And just like everywhere I been, this barracks place is all routine, routine, routine.

  In the morning after we wash, we get porridge, made from Indian corn mixed with sugar. Bread from the convict bakery. A rest and meal at noon, not much to speak of. Supper is no better. Soup made from salted meat that arrive in big barrels, all the way from the Mother Country. The brown flesh of beef or pork, floating in slimy brine. Taste no different, whatever animal it used to be. And if there was any little taste left, it get boiled away in hessian bags, dumped in a big iron tub of boiling water that is supposed to be a soup. A thin broth the cook serve up on a little tin plate. We must stand in line, waiting to make our claim on.

  Most convicts, as soon as them arrive, get assigned to private masters. Spend only two or three days at the barracks before getting loaded into the back of a cart, sent off to homesteads in the bush. I keep hoping I going get assigned to leave this wretched place, but I always get assigned to the government gang.

  Trudge through Sydney town, shackled, walking two by two in a long line down King Street. Most people pay convicts no mind, just keep going bout them business, don’t seem to bother them seeing chained men prodded along the busy street. Many times the overseer shout at us to stop, to make way for a horse-drawn carriage or a cart loaded down with supplies. It take me back to the Mother Country because Sydney streets just as dirty and uncared for, houses tight and dark, some broken down, left to spoil. Instead of starting fresh, is like backra try to turn this town right back into the place they come from. Only difference is the dogs running in packs through the street, peeing on every street corner, marking them territory. If hungry enough, them dogs been known to take down a horse, steal a child left too long on him own. As to the goats, they move bout from yard to yard, jumping over fences, eating everything in sight.

  ‘Hurry it up, you lazy buggers,’ the overseer shout when him see us convicts standing still. ‘Haven’t got all blooming day to wait for you! Be lively now. No lagging behind.’ Then him lean down, shout in me face. ‘What d’you think you been sent out here to do, Buchanan? Enjoy a Sunday bloody picnic?’

  The first job I get assigned to is digging wells for wealthy citizens who can afford them own. That work is better than most, better then when me and three other convicts get hitched up like horses, forced to pull a cart up from the wharf, loaded with supplies.

  Convicts work every day except Sunday. Wake to the sound of numbers, the clock striking and the guard them ringing a bell, banging on the wooden door before they unbolt it.

  I learn fast is best to make you way quick to the wash house. Use the water when it is most fresh. Change the slop clothes them give us, clothes that get washed once a week, then get lined up and marched across the open plaza to a pretty little church called Saint James.

  The first time I enter, I start to look round, see if this church different to the ones me used to. The guard point him wooden baton at me.

  ‘What the devil are you looking at, Buchanan? Those pews are not for the likes of you.’

  I quickly drop me gaze, follow the convict in front of me as him clank him way up to the back. Sit down on the wooden bench, surprised when the guard draw a white sheet cross the front of us. Guess the congregation don’t like to look pon convict faces.

  At first I try follow along, but the service not the loud singing, clapping and praising of the Lord. Is all bout hell and sin and laziness and damnation. So I come to do like the other convicts do, catch a little sleep, while keeping me eyes open. Rest me weary bones knowing that Monday morning going come soon enough and the work going start up all over again.

  Is good to rest, but it bring an ache to me heart. A deep longing to be back listening to Sam Sharpe. And the memory of them days, when the hope of freedom was upon me, whirl round and round inside me head, inside me heart, till silent tears crawl down me face.

  Soon as the church servi
ce over, the guard them march us back cross the road to the barracks. Since is Sunday, we get to do whatever little thing that need doing. Mend a tear in a shirt, fix a buckle on a belt, fashion a pipe out of clay. Some of the convicts make straw hats they sell to get a few coins.

  Eighteen of us blacks imprisoned on this colony land. All from different islands. Some of us get transported at the same time, some in different ships. Many a time, specially in the evening, we huddle together in the pebble courtyard to talk bout how much we miss the islands. Miss the food we used to cook up over the fire. How we used to sit outside, under the stars, feel the warm night breeze on our skin as we drank a cup of bush tea. Say it loud enough, so any convicts nearby can listen in, watch as them mouths start to water.

  ‘Plantain,’ I say, and the game begin, each man speaking up whenever him please.

  ‘Yes, plantain.’

  ‘Soft, sweet, roast it in the skin.’

  ‘Sometimes mash it up.’

  ‘Eat it with a little bit of saltfish.’

  ‘Okra, bitter greens we grow in the provision grounds.’

  ‘Yes. Yes. Yam, corn, sweet potato.’

  ‘Boil dem, roast dem. If you lucky have a little chicken stew.’

  ‘Now that is what me call food!’ John McBean say, licking him lips.

  I discover McBean was a fighter in the rebellion, slaving for a man by the name of Alexander Dingwall on a small plantation up near the coast. He came over on the boat, the one backra call the Strathfieldsaye. A ship that dock in June, a few months ahead of the Moffatt.

  ‘Lucky to be alive,’ him tell me on the quiet one night, soon after I arrive. ‘Catch the pox when me was a pickney. Nobody think me going live, but somehow me claw me way back to life. Death leave him stamp though,’ him say, and him finger him pock-pitted cheeks. ‘Get marked for life.’