Nanberry (15 page)

P
ORT
J
ACKSON AND THE
B
ACKFIELDS
(
NOW
H
AYMARKET AREA
), A
UGUST
1791

He hung around Government House and the soldiers' parade ground now. He used his trip to Norfolk Island as an excuse to chat to the soldiers on guard. He slept at Father White's house. He ate at his father's table. No one knew that now he listened. Now he watched.

That was how he heard that Governor Phillip knew that Balloonderry's warriors were camped a mile beyond the brickworks and had sent orders to find them — and shoot them if they attacked with spears.

This time he stripped off his clothes in daylight as soon as he was away from the parade ground. Nanberry the native, not Nanberry White. He ran, the bushes pricking at his skin, grateful for the muscles won as a sailor.

There was no campfire smoke spiralling into the sky to tell him where they were, but he could smell where smoke had been.
He turned and scrambled up the gully. The lilly-pillies were blooming, white flowers that smelt of honey, and the grass orchids with their sweet tubers underground …

He thought he had forgotten. He hadn't. His bare feet were so silent on the ground that the warriors looked up, startled, as he burst into the campsite.

They looked to be the same men and youths who had gathered before. They lay against trees or sat by the ashes of the fire, picking the last meat from a roasted badagarang. They didn't wear white paint today, but their spears were long, barbed war spears, not fishing ones. At first he couldn't see Balloonderry, then noticed him among the others.

‘The soldiers are coming! They plan to shoot as soon as they see you this time!'

Balloonderry stood up without haste. ‘Then we will make sure they don't see us. Thank you, my brother.'

The other warriors picked up their spears and ngalangala, their war clubs, and began to stride into the trees.

‘Where will you go? Back down to Parramatta?'

Balloonderry hesitated, then nodded his acceptance of Nanberry's loyalty. ‘Across the harbour. The English won't bother walking there, and we can see their boats if they try to hunt us.' He paused. ‘Do you think the Governor will stay angry?'

‘You want to come back to the colony?'

‘I don't want to be hunted like a badagarang. I want to fish the harbour again.' He met Nanberry's eyes. ‘The Governor said I might go to England. I want to see new lands, to ride in the giant boats, like you. Do you think he will forget?'

‘No,' said Nanberry honestly. ‘The English think it is serious to kill a man. A white man,' he added.

‘There is no punishment he will accept, except my death?'

Nanberry had lived as an English for over two years now, but there was so much he didn't know. He shook his head — an
English gesture. ‘I will ask my father. Perhaps he might know.' Someone yelled an order in the distance. ‘You should go!'

‘Yes. If the Governor says I can come back, will you send me a sign?'

‘What?'

‘An oar,' said Balloonderry. ‘Thank you, brother.'

‘Balloonderry Nanberry,' said Nanberry.

‘Nanberry Balloonderry,' said Balloonderry. ‘You will be a warrior,' he added quietly. ‘One day you will.' He turned his back and vanished after the others into the bush.

Nanberry was almost back at the settlement when he saw the soldiers. He hid in a bush as they tramped by with their muskets, followed by the Governor and some officers with swords and pistols, their red coats stained now, no longer as bright as when they had arrived.

He laughed. Those brave red coats, those big black boots. How could any warriors fight when their red coats made them such easy targets? When black boots made so much noise? How could the English be so clever sometimes, but so stupid too?

‘You! What are you laughing at?' It was a convict, one of the officers' servants. Nanberry came out of his bush. He wondered if the man recognised him, naked, his hair down. He didn't care either way.

‘The warriors have gone,' he said. ‘The soldiers won't find them now.'

‘How do you know?' The man was suspicious.

Nanberry laughed again. Let the convict report him — the man hadn't seen him do any wrong. He began to run — not to escape, but for the sheer joy of it, feeling the earth under his bare feet, the air on his skin. No trousers to chafe him, no shirt to make him sweat.

‘Hey, you! Come back!'

But there was no way the servant, small and ragged, could catch him. Had the man ever even run along a beach?

He was free! He was Nanberry! He was Nanberry … White.

He stopped running, found the bush where he had stripped off and reached for his clothes, then returned to his father's house.

S
YDNEY
C
OVE
; C
OCKLE
B
AY
H
OSPITAL
, D
ECEMBER
1791

The
Supply
sailed again. Nanberry didn't sail with it. He told Captain Waterhouse that he would like to sail on the next voyage though, if Captain Waterhouse would let him. Captain Waterhouse agreed, probably because of his friendship with Father White.

Summer descended on the colony. Smoke from the bushfires in the mountains mingled with the smoke of cooking fires outside the huts, or from the colony's few proper chimneys. Flies feasted in the horse and cattle dung. The smell of human excrement filled the air. The Tank Stream grew thick with green weed that turned to brown. It stank as well.

Days passed. He slept, he ate, he wandered around the town. He ate dinner again at Government House with Father White. This time there was no black servant to sneer.

He listened as Mr Collins urged the Governor to pardon ‘the native lad with so much promise'. He found an oar, and kept it
hidden, so he could send a message to his brother if the Governor said he'd give a pardon. But Balloonderry had disappeared.

The knocking came at breakfast. The Surgeon sighed. More people in the colony meant more illness, more urgent summonses to the hospital. But this knocking didn't sound like Big Lon or the hospital porters. Rachel opened the door and stared. ‘Sir …' she called to the Surgeon.

It was Bennelong. He wore his shirt and trousers, but no boots or hat. He looked unsure of himself. Bennelong had never looked like that before.

‘Come,' he said to Father White. It sounded like a plea.

‘What is it, man?' demanded the Surgeon.

‘Balloonderry ill. Most ill.'

Nanberry froze. Would his father tend a person who might be hanged if the Governor caught him? Would his father call for soldiers to capture him? But the Surgeon simply stood up and took his coat and hat from the peg. He nodded at Nanberry. ‘Ask him where the lad is.'

It wasn't far. His brother lay on the ground by the blackened remnants of a campfire. His skin was hot. Sweat beaded his face. He stared at the sky with eyes that didn't see.

The Surgeon halted, then turned to Nanberry. ‘I've seen this lad before,' he said slowly. ‘You brought him to have his hand stitched.'

‘Yes,' said Nanberry.

‘You know him?'

‘Yes,' said Nanberry. He hesitated. ‘He is the fisherman who
speared the convict.' He knelt beside Balloonderry. ‘Babana?' Brother?

Balloonderry didn't reply.

Nanberry searched his brother's skin, but there were no white blisters. Just the heat, the mindlessness of fever.

‘Father? What's wrong with him?'

The Surgeon felt Balloonderry's pulse, then laid a hand on his forehead, and checked the whites of his eyes. He shrugged. ‘A fever. Not the smallpox, I think. Measles, perhaps — there's been an outbreak of that among the children. Influenza, or even just a cold. It could be one of a dozen things. The natives get so sick with many of our illnesses.'

‘Can you make him well?'

‘We can look after him and hope his fever breaks. Go and tell the porters to bring a stretcher. We need to carry him to the hospital.'

‘You won't let the Governor hang him?'

The Surgeon sat back. ‘Lad, I don't know what the Governor will do. But while he is at my hospital I promise he will be safe.'

Balloonderry was put in the same hut that Nanberry had once lain in. Nanberry sat with him as Father White checked his pulse and temperature again. Balloonderry muttered something, then grew still again, panting slightly like a dog.

‘Is he worse?'

‘Yes. His pulse is more rapid.'

‘But isn't that good?'

‘No. It means his body is struggling with the fever. But his breathing is clear, at least.'

‘What can I do?'

‘Wipe his face and chest with a wet rag, to try to cool the fever. I'll send some lavender oil over: add a few drops to the water. It might soothe him, help to cool him too. I'll send meadowsweet tea. Try holding a little to his lips with a spoon, but don't tip it down his throat unless he tries to swallow, or he might choke.'

‘Are you going to tell the Governor?'

‘He already knows,' said the Surgeon gently. ‘I sent one of the porters to tell him. Is this young man a friend of yours? A relative?'

‘He is my brother.' He knew the Surgeon might think they were blood brothers, not name brothers. But the English didn't seem to understand
name brothers
.

He felt the Surgeon's hand, reassuring on his shoulder. ‘We'll do our best for him. I'll be in my office. Call a porter to get me if he becomes restless. I can give him laudanum, but I don't want to if I don't have to — it can make the breathing weaker. I'll send a message to Rachel to organise some food.'

The hut door creaked open on its rope hinges. Bennelong came back in. He carried a wattle branch and a coolamon of water. As Father White and Nanberry watched he dipped the branch into the water and stroked it over Balloonderry's body, over and over, to cool it down.

Better than a wet rag, thought Nanberry. ‘Father, the lavender oil —'

‘I'll send it down.' The Surgeon hesitated. ‘Lad, in truth, it won't make much difference. With a fever like this there is nothing we can do.'

For two days Balloonderry lay and sweated, staring at the bark roof. Once he began to scream, a nightmare in his fever. But as soon as Bennelong touched him the screaming stopped.

Bennelong didn't leave his side, except for brief moments outside. Nor did Nanberry.

The Governor called in several times, standing still and simply watching. He seemed sad. Nanberry thought there was more to his grief than the illness of one young man. There was no talk of chains or hanging Balloonderry now.

On the third day Willemeeerin arrived. Bennelong ushered him into the hut. ‘He knows how to drive out the spirits that make men sick.' The man who'd speared the Governor put his mouth to Balloonderry's body. He closed his eyes and let the illness take him. He shuddered and moaned, feeling Balloonderry's pain.

At last Willemeeerin lay, exhausted, on the dirt floor of the hut.

Balloonderry's face was blank, his eyes were staring, unchanged. His breath was so slight it might vanish any second like a puff of smoke.

Bennelong looked at Nanberry. He spoke in their own language. There was none of the arrogance of the warrior to a boy now. ‘We need to take him away. Across the water, where his ghost won't hurt us.'

‘No! He may still get better.'

‘No,' said Bennelong. His voice was kind. He touched Nanberry gently, a leaf touch on the arm. ‘He is dying. Do this for your brother. Help me carry him down to the cove.'

Bennelong carried Balloonderry's head; Nanberry his legs. But as soon as they left the hut others joined them, the warriors and young men who had been part of the war party, here to escort Balloonderry's body. They must have been waiting, thought Nanberry, watching for us to come outside.

This time he didn't follow them. His brother had what he needed, in these last hours of his life. He had the harbour, the blue sky. He had the people he loved, the ones who had stood by him when he was hunted down. Their hands would carry him now.

Nanberry watched them go, down to a canoe that waited on the shore. He watched as the canoe was paddled out into the water. And soon he heard the women's cries and knew that his brother had died.

The warriors and young men brought the body back. They placed it in a hut, down by the water, given by the Governor for the purpose. ‘A fine lad,' said the Governor to Father White. He sighed. ‘A tragedy, that it should end like this.'

Father White glanced at Nanberry, then back to the Governor. ‘Yes, sir,' was all he said.

Women and girls wailed outside the death house while convicts dug a grave at Government House. Bennelong brought Balloonderry's canoe, a new one, freshly made, not the one wrecked by the convict men.

The warriors laid the body in the canoe, with a spear, a throwing stick and Balloonderry's fishing spear and lines. Young men waved bunches of grass.

Nanberry followed, with Father White, the officers, the Governor. Nanberry wore English clothes now. He had no place in the official part of Balloonderry's burial. That was for his brother's true native companions.

Drummers lined the road leading to Government House. Bennelong had ordered them, and the Governor had agreed. They beat the drums slowly,
thud
,
thud
,
thud
, their drumsticks muffled.

The warriors bearing the canoe reached the grave, and began to lower their burden in.

Someone gave a startled laugh. The grave was far too short. The warriors trimmed off the ends of the canoe, then rolled Balloonderry's body into the hole, with his head positioned so that his ghost might see the sun as it passed overhead.

White and black began to fill the grave. At last the earth was mounded up. One of the young warriors placed branches around the dirt, and then a log, which he covered with grass. He sat there, staring at the sky.