Corroboree (27 page)

At last, Sturt turned back to Mr Chatto, and said, ‘You must be mistaken, I'm afraid.'

‘I don't think so, sir,' Mr Chatto insisted. ‘And the worst of it is that these two genetemen here, sir, Mr Willis and Mr Walker, are both guilty of having harboured the said Arthur Mortlock, giving him shelter and succour; and of assisting him to elude custody. You can see for yourself, captain. They're about to ride off with him right at this very moment. The felony is being committed in broad daylight, in front of a hundred witnesses.'

Eyre said, as boldly as he could, ‘I'd like to see what evidence you have that this man is anything other than what he claims to be; and what
I
claim him to be. He is my cousin, not long ago arrived from England, Mr Martin Ransome.'

‘This is nonsense,' replied Mr Chatto, coldly. ‘I will have to detain you.'

‘On whose authority?' snapped Captain Sturt.

‘On the written personal authority of the Governor and Commissioner, Colonel George Gawler, if you'll forgive me, captain. Do you wish to examine it? We have been
given a free hand to recapture all absconders, and to detain all those who have assisted them.'

Captain Sturt stared at Mr Chatto furiously, and then stamped his foot. ‘Is this true?' he demanded. He spun around, and confronted Colonel Gawler. ‘Is this true, George?'

Colonel Gawler blushed, like a young girl who has just confessed to a secret and intimate misdeed. ‘Of course,' he said. These men came to me with letters of authority from Major Sir George Gipps himself, Charles I could hardly deny them. And, of course, one had no idea that—'

‘If these men are detained, the entire expedition will have to be abandoned!' shouted Sturt. ‘And that, George, is out of the question. That—is—quite—
out of the question!
'

‘My dear Charles—' Colonel Gawler began.

‘“My dear Charles!” What do you mean, “my dear Charles!” These whelpish hirelings are attempting to ruin the most important geographical expedition in the history of Australia! With the exception of
mine
, of course. But nonetheless!'

Mr Chatto remained where he was, unmoved by all of this blustering. ‘I have the authority, captain,' he repeated, in a thin voice. ‘And I must insist on exercising it.'

Eyre suddenly took off his hat, and held it against his chest. ‘If I might make a remark, Captain Sturt, it seems that our detention depends entirely on this gentleman's assertion that my cousin Mr Martin Ransome is in fact an absconded ticket-of-leave man. Perhaps a few questions will satisfy him that he is mistaken.'

Colonel Gawler, anxiously tugging at the braid on his ceremonial jacket, said, ‘Yes; well that might be a good idea. After all, if this isn't the man you seek—'

‘I have no doubt that it is, sir,' said Mr Chatto.

‘All the same,' put in Sturt, ‘it seems to me fair that Mr Ransome here should not be branded as an offender until Mr Chatto has established his identity. It is hardly a cordial welcome for someone so recently arrived here.'

Mr Chatto paused for a moment, and systematically
clicked his knuckles. Then he said, ‘Very well, if it's proof that you want,' and walked around Eyre's horse until he was standing close to Arthur. Arthur peered down at him through his tiny pebble glasses, and all he could see was a small curved figure with a looming head and a curled-up body, like a sinister sprouting bean. His horse shifted from one foot to the other, sensing Arthur's agitation.

Mr Chatto reached up and held the horse's throatlatch; and crooned a few words to it which settled it down. ‘Shoosha, shoosha.' Then he looked up at Arthur, and said, ‘You and I have no need of this pretence, do we, Mr Mortlock?'

Arthur said nothing, but noisily cleared his throat, as if it were full of dried peas.

‘You
are
Mr Arthur Mortlock, late of Macquarie Harbour?' asked Mr Chatto.

‘No, mate, I'm not,' Arthur managed to croak.

‘Then forgive me, who are you? Surely you can't really be this gentleman's cousin. This gentleman, if you will pardon me for being so blunt, is a
gentleman
. He speaks like a gentleman, and bears himself like a gentleman; wheras you sir have the sound of the East End about you; a vulgar voice; and a ruffian's demeanour. If you'll forgive me, of course.'

Eyre said, ‘Captain Sturt, I must protest about this.'

Sturt glanced up at him sharply, and said, ‘I don't think you have any real justification for protesting, do you, Mr Walker? It was
your
idea that Mr Ransome should be questioned, after all; and I for one am interested to see how he answers.'

Eyre replaced his hat, and sat silent and uncomfortable on his fidgeting horse, sweating with the morning heat and with the fear that all of them were now at risk of arrest and imprisonment. Their prospects had not been helped at all by the way in which Captain Sturt had embarrassed Colonel Gawler in front of a large crowd of eminent Adelaide citizens.

Mr Chatto said to Arthur, ‘Which ship did you come out on?'

‘The
Beaumonde
, three weeks since.'

‘The
Beaumonde
sailed from Portsmouth, did she not?'

‘No, friend, she didn't. She sailed from Tilbury on the four o'clock tide on 2 March; which was a Monday.'

‘Her master?'

‘Captain Hoskins.'

Mr Chatto hesitated, and then he asked, ‘Where did you live, in London?'

‘Sixty-one Sumner's Rents.'

‘And explain to us how you could be a relative of Mr Walker's.'

For the first time, Arthur looked across at Eyre, although his face was white and set, like an unpainted plaster death-mask, and his eyes were swollen from wearing Mrs McConnell's spare spectacles for too long. He said, without looking down at Mr Chatto, ‘It's simple enough, friend. Mr Walker's father had an adopted brother, who ran away from home when he was ten, and made his way in London as a link-boy, and then as a brewer's man.'

‘And
your
trade, Mr Ransome?'

‘A little of several. Stevedore, porter, wherryman. Anything to do with the water, or the docks.'

Mr Chatto didn't seem to be able to think of any more questions; at least not questions that would catch Arthur out. He turned around, and cracked the knuckles of both hands; and then he walked back towards his colleague, Mr Rose. Eyre suddenly began to think that they had got away with it after all, and that last night's slow and painful coaching, hours of facts about the
Beaumonde
, and about childhood days in Derbyshire, and about Eyre's appeal to ‘Martin' to come out and join him in Australia, might all have been worthwhile.

Captain Sturt said, in a brittle tone, ‘That all seems to be satisfactory, Colonel. Do you think we might now get on?'

Colonel Gawler looked at Sturt dubiously, and then at
Mr Chatto. But Mr Chatto had been whispering in the ear of Mr Rose, and Mr Rose had been whispering in the ear of Mr Chatto; and after a minute or two Mr Chatto stood up straight and tugged at his cuffs and said to Arthur in a clear voice, ‘Would you have any objections to showing us your bare back. Mr Ransome? Just to make sure that you're not wearing the red shirt?'

Eyre wheeled his horse around. ‘This is quite outrageous!' he shouted. ‘Mr Ransome is my cousin! Captain Sturt! I won't allow him to be subjected to these indignities! He may not speak as correctly as you and I, but he is a British subject, and a loyal servant of Her Majesty, and a Christian, and he has never committed any act of any kind that could possibly justify this manner of treatment!'

But Captain Sturt knew why Mr Chatto had asked to see Arthur's back. Arthur had been at Macquarie Harbour, and there was scarcely a single convict who had been imprisoned there who would have escaped the marks of the lash. Even the most docile of prisoners would have suffered floggings for talking, or shirking work, or singing, or sodomy.

‘I'm afraid I have to say that Mr Chatto is within his rights, Mr Walker,' he said. To examine a man's back is quite an accepted and acceptable way of establishing what you might call his legal credentials. Mr Ransome, do you think you would be so kind?'

There was nothing that Eyre could say; because in approving the inspection of Arthur's back, Captain Sturt had actually declared his belief that Eyre was telling the truth, and that Arthur really
was
his rough-cut cousin from Clerkenwell. The trouble was, when Arthur's scars were revealed for everyone to see, Sturt would be fifty times more embarrassed and wrathful than Colonel Gawler had been and Eyre and his companions could expect very little in the way of leniency. To have broken the law was one thing; to have made a public mockery of Australia's greatest explorer was quite another. Eyre backed his horse
towards Christopher, and said, out of the side of his mouth, ‘Do you think we might make a run for it?'

Christopher was pallid, and there was a coronet of sweat on his forehead. ‘With all these packs on our horses? And all those peppery young dragoons around? They'd catch us up and cut us down before you could say “penitentiary”.' He paused, and wiped away the sweat from his face with his scarf. ‘Damn it, Eyre,' he said, ‘I told you this business with Mortlock would get us into trouble. I damn well told you.'

Arthur slowly climbed down from his horse, and removed his hat. An expectant, gossipy hush fell over the crowd of sightseers, and many of them shuffled nearer to get a better view. Captain Sturt folded his arms and looked handsome and stern; Colonel Gawler kept making impatient faces and planting his hands on his hips and blowing out his cheeks.

Arthur hung his kangaroo-skin hat on to his saddle-pommel. To Eyre's surprise, his scalp was no longer prickly but completely bald. But with an expression of complete resignation, Arthur took off his leather satchel, and his water flask, and unbuttoned his bush-jacket and took that off, too.

Mr Chatto approached him with the gliding self-satisfaction of a white-bellied shark that can smell blood in the water. ‘That's an interesting style of haircut you have, Mr Ransome. Now, where would a man get himself a haircut like that?'

Arthur stared at him with pebbly little eyes. ‘Ringworm Hall, mate, that's where.' He said it so quietly that few people in the crowd could hear him, but those that did let out a chuckle, and somebody said, ‘Let the gentleman be!' and ‘here's for the expedition, lads!'

Arthur now turned his back on Mr Chatto, and reached around behind him to tug the tail of his shirt out of his belt. Mr Chatto cracked his knuckles in anticipation, and smiled across at Mr Rose. For his part, Mr Rose had now
released the bridle of Eyre's horse, and had walked around to cover Arthur's only way of escape, should he try to run.

Without any hesitation, however, Arthur hiked up the back of his shirt as far as he could, and revealed a brown, slightly blotchy back; but certainly not a back that bore any scars from flogging.

‘Is that enough for you, friend?' he said roughly. ‘Are you satisfied now? Or do you want to inspect me teeth, to see if there's any junk caught between them?'

That was a provocative, almost dangerous challenge. Few Englishmen who had never served time in a penal settlement would have known that the principal item of diet there was salted beef, either seething with maggots, or cured to the consistency of old saddle-leather, and that the common name for this delicacy was ‘junk'.

But now Captain Sturt stepped forward, and took Mr Chatto almost rudely by the arm.

‘I think this gentleman has made his point, sir, and clearly established his innocence. Now I require you to leave him be; and let this expedition be on its way.'

Mr Chatto stared at Sturt with undisguised horror. ‘
Captain!
' he protested, in a high voice.

‘I have seen and heard enough, thank you,' insisted Sturt. ‘George, will you be kind enough to tell these fellows to be on their way?'

Colonel Gawler humphed, and wuffled, and flapped his hand at Mr Chatto to clear off. There was a burst of applause in the crowd as Arthur tucked in his shirt, and buttoned up his bush-jacket; and at last gave everyone a sweeping bow.

‘I know this man to be Arthur Mortlock!' Mr Chatto kept on. ‘I can produce witnesses who will identify him quite positively!'

‘Be off, for goodness' sake,' said the disgruntled Colonel Gawler.

‘You cannot let him go!' shrilled Mr Chatto.

There was more laughter, and cheering, and the brass quintet began to play
King William's March
in double-time,
and Mr Chatto and Mr Rose both had to retreat from the dust and the jostling spectators and the rearing pack horses. Arthur climbed back into his saddle, and lifted his hat as if he were King William himself. More firecrackers went off; more hats flew into the air; and then Captain Sturt cried out to Eyre, ‘God speed, Mr Walker! God speed!' and there was a general cheer, and shouts of ‘God be with you!'

With a sudden rush, the expedition was off, and trotting down the wide, rutted street. Everybody followed: dragoons, children, carriages, and dogs. Eyre and Joolonga rode side by side at the front, Christopher and Arthur a few steps behind, with Midgegooroo and Weeip keeping the horses and the mule in order. The noise and the dust were tremendous; and for a moment Eyre felt as if he were lost in a blinding golden fog, with the drumming of mysterious war-parties all around him. It was that strange sense of destiny again: that uniquely Australian feeling that he was living in two different ages simultaneously, both prehistoric and modern. A gig rattled up beside him, its young driver lifting his hat and calling ‘The very best to you, sir!' and then there were more cheers, and more laughter, and the dogs yipped and barked and ran between the horses' trotting hooves.

They had crossed the river, and almost reached the northern outskirts of Adelaide, and most of their enthusiastic followers had already dropped back, when Eyre saw somebody waving with a handkerchief from a sugar-gum grove off to the left of the track. A girl, dressed in saffron-yellow chiffon, with a yellow-and-white bonnet.