by Sienna Brown
When we alone, him tell me stories bout what it was like for him fighting in the rebellion. A short time, deep with memory. A time when no one was telling us what to do and we was in control of our life.
Him add a few more sticks to the fire burning in one of the drums outside in the pebble yard. ‘One night we just finish burn down the trash house. Burn it down to the ground. That trash was good and dry. It go up quick. And the accountant, Mister Richards. Him begging us to stop. To hold back. To have some r’straint.’
‘R’straint!’ I laugh. ‘How come backra don’t show no “r’straint” when him giving a slave the lash?’
McBean nod. ‘Dis Richards man. Him is all right. Not have much to do with us slaves. Not like the overseer who keep us in line good. Richards, him dress in a bright red jacket, silver buttons down the front. Is a jacket me favour, like the look of it and, when me see him standing there, me suddenly want that jacket, want it bad. Is like a big thirst come over me.’
‘Did you take it?’
‘Yes, me took it, put it on. And it fit like it meant to belong to me. Leave Richards tied up, sitting in the dust, shaking with rage. Wear that jacket all the time me fighting. Only give it up when backra cart me off to the gaolhouse. By then it mash up, covered in dirt. And the red turn a different shade because it get all covered up in blood.’
One time, him show me one of the silver button them. How him manage to keep it hidden I don’t know.
‘Bring you good luck?’ I ask, after one final look.
‘Yes,’ McBean say. ‘Me still alive.’ Him chuckle long and low.
Because we both not sure how much luck it give, when the number clock hammer eight times, bringing us back to the dust of the pebble courtyard. How not even as a slave, nobody tell us when to sleep, or force us to sleep in a place where backra bolt the door, lock us up together inside.
Sometimes when we play the food game, some of the other convicts join in. Talk bout big, fat, round potatoes, bread, butter, fresh milk they squeeze from the cow. But they always happy to hear bout the food we have on the island, fill up the time, make boredom seem to take flight. One night, the game start to run out when a voice in the shadows speak out.
‘And where is the heat? The onions, the peppers you cut up. Add dem to make the food taste hot. Taste spicy. Taste sweet!’
I look round to see who talking, surprised to see Holt. Richard Holt. A tall man, with a hollow face. Find out him a slave from Jamaica, charged with murder during the rebellion, but no one seem to know who him kill or why him do it, because him never talk bout it. Keep himself to himself. Work in silence, don’t make friends, even though him journey with McBean on the same ship. All us convicts, black, white, give him a wide berth. One look at the scar that run down the side of him dark face is enough. The bright purple scar that run round him wrists where the handcuffs did bite into flesh, having stayed locked too long, signal him is trouble. A fighter. A man not to be messed with.
I try to pull him back into the game, but him don’t say another word. Just stand there, back against the stone wall, looking at us like we is children and we don’t know nothing.
Is James Smith who step forward to try lighten the mood.
During that long ocean voyage, we become fast friends. James too good, too trusting, need someone to look out for him. Which me happy to do. Happy for him to become like a brother. Nothing going replace me James, I can still see him smiling with him gentle ways. But in this faraway place, is a big comfort to know someone is there to watch you back. Specially at night when fights break out, a lesser evil compared to all kinds of going-on behind the locked and bolted doors of Hyde Park Barracks.
‘Me don’t know bout this food business,’ James say. ‘But me wish me had some rum. Plenty rum. Strong rum, before backra weaken it with water.’
All the convicts that been listening agree, start to shout out, ‘Rum! Give us rum!’
And they pick up any little stick laying round, start to beat the edge of the fire drums. Beating in time to the words they shout out.
Rum is the power,
Rum is the key,
Rum is the thing that will set us free!
Rum is the power,
Rum is the key,
Rum is the thing that will set us free!
Over and over again until the guards come round start to break us up, knock our heads together, send us off to the hammocks.
Mapping the Bore
Early one morning, when the guards unbolt the doors, James not get up as quick as him usually do. Lay there in him hammock, covered in sweat, him body all shivering.
We been working down at the harbour breaking rocks. The governor want to build a semicircular quay, a long wall that going reach from The Rocks all the way to Sydney Cove. One day while we worked, the wind changed, bring with it cold air, one of the southerly them. Not just cold air, but plenty rain that came down sudden, made it hard to pack up tools, forced us to find shelter. A few hours later, the rain still coming, thankfully no more work that day. But the overseer made us clank our way back to the barracks, the raggedy clothes we wearing soaked through, wet to the skin. And every time after that, when we got sent out to work, the wind came up and the rain started in again. James began to look very poorly, but him said nothing, just kept on working.
When James don’t move out him hammock, the overseer come over, prod him in the foot with him baton.
‘What’s the matter with you, man? Feigning sickness today, is it?’
‘Sick, bad,’ James say, before him start to cough, shiver and shake again.
The overseer keep shouting at him to get up, but James can’t, just beg for water. The overseer come to see him really sick, order me to take him next door to the hospital.
I get very troubled when I see how weak James is. It take a long time to help him down the three floors into the courtyard, specially with all the other convicts rushing down the stairs, shoving us aside. When we get outside I let him slip off me shoulder into a little patch of sunlight on the step while I go in search of a wheelbarrow. Must be a funny sight, me pushing the barrow down the road with James curled up all sweating, shaking inside. It take me mind back to little Pell, him funny smiling face, all battered and bruised as I pushed him in that wheelbarrow up the hill to Calla hut. Him must be long time dead by now.
When we reach the hospital, the doctor put James in a sick bed, lock me up in a cell, in case I catch whatever sickness James carrying. The next day, nothing wrong with me, so I get sent back to the barracks.
A week go by, still no sight of James. I start to worry. Ask the overseer if him know anything. All him do is shout at me to get back to work.
Night after night, laying in me hammock, waiting to see if James going live or die, the shadow fear rise up, make him presence known, sit deep in me bowels. Make me toss and turn, fill up me insides with a worry that gnaw at the jagged edges. Every time that number clock strike, the fear get bigger, tighten its grip, and I can’t shake it.
At first I think is a fear that me one and only friend going die, but when I surrender, look at the fear, little by little, I come to see is a different kind of fear. A different shadow to the one I used to carry. Is a fear not based on the whim of Massa, but is a fear that I going end up being a convict slave forever, working till I drop down dead. And that after all that slaving, all them wasted years, when is time to finally pass over to the Ancestors, who going help me to find the way, to speak the words of the dead?
And where will me bones lay? Not up on a little hill, close to family. No, me bones going be thrown into a burial pit with plenty other convict bones. Buried like I have no name, only a number, with no one to hold the memory of me or mourn over the little bit of life that I lived. It make me weak, this fear. It make me chafe at the chains that bind me to this place. But it also force me to accept that no matter how much I wish it, I probably never going return to the island, the family I still hold dear. I must try to pick up the threads of fate
, weave them together, find a way that going help me to escape. Or die trying.
I just bout give up that James going get better when, one evening after I return from building the wall down at the harbour, I see James walking cross the courtyard. Him turn thin as a reed, the clothes hanging off him body, but him smiling and winking, happy. Looks like fate decide not to open the door of death. James return become like a sign. Somehow we going find a way to leave this barren place, and I bow down, give silent thanks to the Ancestors and the Lord, just in case.
Is then I decide to draw a line cross me heart.
Any goodness and kindness that happen in me life, I place in front of that line. Use the colour-filled memories to light up the darkness of me life.
Anything else, like when fate strike hard, them memories get pushed behind the line. Left to slumber, to wilt in the harshness of sun after clanking day. But no matter how I chain them down, sometimes, in the dead of night, after that number clock strike twelve times, me mind get pulled into them memories, the ones filled up with shades of death, shadows, made of sorrow.
Been in the colony for a few months. Is warming up, the rain easing off. Days go by when the sun show himself riding high cross a sky that sometimes still turn from blue to grey and back to blue again. And it start not to feel so strange, once I learn to know and name things. Cross the way from the barracks, the trees in the park begin to send out new green shoots. Some with clumps of feathery yellow flowers backra call wattle, and another spiky-leafed shrub covered in red flowers that look like pods with seeds, is called banksia. Tall trees, with bark that shed, turn from red to silver. The slim leaves shimmer in the clear, bright light. Is a funny name them trees, take a while to learn how to say eucalyptus. And all that beauty make me start to think bout what freedom would be like if me and James Smith living outside them high stone walls.
I tell him, ‘From now on we must behave better than good. Make sure the superintendent look elsewhere when him looking for convict troublemakers. Keep our heads down low.’
I think I know all bout the kind of punishments them give out in the colony till a sterling-born convict by the name of Connolly show up. Connolly been labouring in one of the iron gangs out in the bush on the Great North Road. Him so mash up when him got sent back to the barracks, he have to spend a good bit of time in the hospital. But if that bush is anything like the bush we have back on the island, it could be a good place for a man to get lost in. One evening, Connolly end up sitting at the table where me and James is sitting, and when I hear him talk bout this Great North Road, I prick up me ears, listen in good.
‘All round us, everywhere you look is bush and bramble and rock,’ Connolly say. ‘We work from sunrise to sundown, covered in flies, bitten by mosquitoes, breaking rock, building bridges, laying down the road. Armed soldiers looking on. Guards who like to give out punishment.’
‘Where do you sleep, out in the open?’ him mate ask him.
‘I wouldn’t mind that,’ Connolly say. ‘No, we’re chained together inside a travelling hut, a wooden box we have to always pull.’
‘No chance of bolting then?’ him mate ask in a hushed voice.
‘Not a chance in hell. You are always watched, even when you go to relieve yourself.’
‘Think it’s better than three weeks in solitary, with the company of rats, given only bread and water?’ him mate ask.
Connolly just shake him head.
So much for that, I think, and put me mind to finding another way to bolt. A route I would never come up with, if fate not show me the way.
One day after muster, me name is called out and I must stand aside, wait for Timothy Lane the deputy superintendent to assign me a new job after the other convicts get marched out for them daily work. Lane stand in front of me, look me up and down.
‘Well, Buchanan. It has been brought to my attention that you are a capable stonemason.’
‘Yes, sir. Yes, sir, Mister Lane,’ nodding, casting eyes down a little bit like me supposed to.
‘Is this correct, overseer?’
‘Yes, sir. He’s a good mason, sir. Been doing good work down on the quay.’
‘Good man. Then I am reassigning you, Buchanan.’
The overseer look at me with a smirk, chuckle under him breath. I seen that look before. This not going to be a good offer.
‘As of today, you will be working on Busby’s Bore,’ he say. ‘I have been told that some of the uprights are in need of further support. And some of the stone blocks need to be replaced.’
Now I understand what the overseer sniggering bout. One of the fourteen-year convicts told me that backra started building the bore nine years before. It take that long because is not only hard work digging underground through all that sandstone, but none of the convicts like working down there. Some of them rebel against it, even under the threat of a flogging. I don’t have a lot of time to think bout how I don’t like dark, cramped spaces, because the overseer shout out, ‘Get ready to march.’ And we head off, marching, marching, out the gate, cross the road, into the park till we get bout halfway, and then the overseer call, ‘Halt!’
‘Okay, Buchanan,’ the overseer say, as him undo the chain attached to the ring round me ankle. ‘Get down there. Have a look around, then make your way to the next shaft and I will meet you there.’
I look down the shaft entrance. I don’t like the look of it. Don’t make a move.
‘Hurry it up, Buchanan, haven’t got all day,’ him say, prodding me in the back.
I take the lantern, start down the ladder. At the bottom, hold up the lantern, look into the blackness stretching before me. The tunnel is small, a tight fit, and I have to half bow, half crouch in some places to get through. On either side is sandstone, big blocks of it, and every few paces there is a wooden frame supporting the roof. I keep going and going for what seem like a long time with no end in sight, until finally, up ahead, I see light pouring down a shaft from the outside. Suddenly I move faster and faster towards that opening, like a dog running to him food bowl. When I get there, I stand up straight gasping, looking up into the sunlight. A few minutes later, the big head and hat of the overseer come over, filling up the empty space, blocking out the light.
‘Well?’ the overseer say.
I don’t answer. Instead, I scramble up the ladder out into the fresh air.
‘Well, Buchanan?’ him say again.
I was moving so quick, I didn’t really take the time to look, but I think fast and say, ‘Look sturdy, sir. Strong. But, I notice …’
‘Yes?’
‘Some of the timber supports, is true they turn rotten in places. Look weak. Need a good bit of fixing. Some of the stone, cracked and crumbling.’
Now what I expect to hear is him going climb down into the shaft to take a look for himself, but him don’t.
Instead him say, ‘Buchanan, here is a map. We are here,’ pointing at it. ‘You go back down there and start marking the places where we need to add more support.’
‘Yes, sir,’ I say, taking the map. Maybe him afraid of tight, dark spaces too.
With that, him watch as I climb back down into the darkness.
Every day after that, James Smith and a group of convicts is kept back, marched over to the park, put to work on the bore with me in charge of how the repairs should go. It take a while, but I finally get used to working in dark, tight spaces. And although I still can’t read too many words, the one thing I can read is a map.
Sam Sharpe teach me, late one night when him asked me to stay back. He unrolled a map and started to explain how each one of the little marks and symbols is a message. A message that if you know how to, you can read, and the secrets in the message going be revealed. The squiggly line in blue is water. The brown circle is the rise of a hill. The green lines trees. If very thick, mean is a forest of trees. The line with upturned V is a cave. The area shaded in brown is barren land.
I keep this in mind when I look at the map of the bore and start to r
ecognise the features. Match them up to what me seeing. A circle mean the entrance to a shaft. A square is where the water come out to be collected. A circle with the X on it is a dead end, a good place to hide things.
I discover the bore is bout two and a half miles long when, one day, I manage to leave the other convicts behind, make it all the way to end. When I get there, I can’t believe me eyes. The water coming from a huge open swamp, no guards stationed anywhere, and everywhere I look is bush, bush and more bush. Lachlan Swamps, backra call it. Is a good place to get lost in.
After we been working on the bore for a few weeks, one of the men fall sick. Him no longer able to work down there so the overseer need to assign a new man. It turn out to be Richard Holt. At first having him round make me edgy with him surly ways, but he turn out to be a good worker. Strong, tough, don’t seem to mind tight spaces. In the barracks he carve out a place of silence so nobody bother him. Is something I understand and come to respect. So it surprise me when he pull me aside when we down in the bore, while the other convicts working up ahead.
‘What you up to, Buchanan?’ Holt ask.
‘What you mean?’
‘Don’t act the fool. I’ve seen what you’re up to.’
I try to walk away, but him grab onto me arm. I feel the strength behind his grasp.
‘See the guards up top. You. Me. We not going anywhere.’
Holt look at me hard like the way Calla used to, and I see danger behind him eyes.
‘Tell me bout the map.’
I say nothing. Try to hide the fact that me surprised.
‘The map you copy and hide.’
I still say nothing. Me mind working fast. What if him or another convict saw me roll it up, hide it in one of the dead-end corners.
‘The one you been putting marks on,’ and him move in close, tower over me. ‘The one you and Smith going use to escape.’
I shove him out of the way. Stand me ground. Say something I know he not going like. ‘So, you been spying on us. Spying for backra.’