Prison Ship (26 page)

When Tirrike replaced the nest with another one two days later, my leg looked much better. My wound was beginning to heal and my fear of amputation receded.

I told Thomas we were thinking about going back to Sydney and seeing if we could get aboard a foreign ship. He listened carefully, nodding his head. ‘You may be lucky. I don't know what else you can do. I'd never survive out here without Tirrike. But get yourselves well and back on your feet before you decide.'

I was desperately grateful for his generosity. In the days that followed Tirrike was amiable and I was amazed how much we could communicate without speaking a word of each other's language. Thomas was gruff but keen to talk. He told me he had read the papers every day in Edinburgh. He was desperate for news of his old city. Did the stage coach still take two weeks to get to London? Was there still a daily coach to Glasgow? I had no idea and the more I told him this, the more impatient he grew. Were the Lowland clearances still happening? I had never heard of them. Had James Watt found any other uses for his extraordinary steam engine than pumping water from mines? Was Robbie Burns still writing his poems? I looked blank.

I tried to change the subject and asked him what had
brought him to these shores. ‘My trade is the building of houses and there's plenty of that going on in Edinburgh. I kept the books for the master builder James Raeburn. He built half of the New Town. It bought him a mansion house in George Street and I was still living in a hovel in the old town. Ten years of my life I gave him. He never paid a penny more from one year to the next so I thought I'd help myself to a little of what was coming his way. I should have known better. I was due to hang on 23rd July 1790. But they sent me here instead. I think they thought I'd know something about building. Make myself useful. But I couldn't put a garden fence up, never mind build a terrace of town houses. Balancing books, that's what I used to do.'

My strength returned but Richard grew weaker. Rather than building him up, everything Thomas and Tirrike gave him to eat seemed to go straight through him. Soon he grew so frail I had to help him walk to the midden we had dug away from the cave, and hold on to him as he squatted painfully over it.

I feared for his life, as every day he grew thinner and paler. Thomas told me this was common with starving men. The body had grown too weak to retain nourishment. If we could not cure him, he would die. ‘Tirrike will know what to do,' he said with pride. They talked and Thomas called me over. ‘She's looking for termites
and ants. Go with her to help.'

We set off immediately, she carefully scouring the forest floor. By noon she had found what she needed.

Back at the cave, she emptied two small pouches she had taken with her on to a large leaf. Inside one was part of a termite mound. Once exposed, the creatures inside scurried out and she broke the muddy structure down to a powder. In her other pouch were a collection of honey ants, their insides swollen with nectar. These she carefully removed and crushed into the powder.

We gave it to Richard as soon as it was ready. He complained weakly, but we spooned it down him. Then he drank some water to take away the taste.

We went looking for ants again the next morning. Tirrike stopped from time to time, pointing out berries and other fruits that were safe to eat. Some were hidden by other shrubs or close to the ground where I hadn't thought to look carefully before. It was a useful lesson.

We found our ants and returned to make more medicine. Richard slept for most of the day and night, and then we started to feed him small amounts of fish and green plums. Within a week he was better.

But by then, I started to feel we were outstaying our welcome, especially as Thomas was often gruff and short-tempered with us. As soon as Richard could walk we went fishing. There by the river we discussed our next move.

‘She likes having us around. He's worried about that,' said Richard.

‘He's worried about having four mouths to feed rather than two,' I said.

‘She really likes you,' he teased. ‘I can tell by the way she keeps looking at you.'

‘Be sensible, Richard.' I was blushing again.

‘I think we should go in another couple of days,' I said. ‘What's more, I think we should tell him we're going to go. He'll be a lot happier if he knows we're going for certain.'

Richard agreed. ‘What do you want to do? Sydney or north?'

‘Let's talk to Thomas,' I said. ‘Then decide.' I didn't want to think about it. Both carried terrible risks.

We returned to the cave late in the afternoon with three fish. At that moment, more than anything else in the world, I wanted to stay there with Thomas and Tirrike. Everything else seemed too dangerous, too frightening, too hopeless.

I had expected them to be there but the cave was deserted. ‘Out foraging, I expect,' said Richard. We lit the fire and cooked our fish, carefully keeping half for our cavemates. But then night fell, and Thomas and Tirrike did not return.

The cave was sparse. Aside from the kangaroo hides that they used to sleep on, and a few clay vessels for storing food, there was nothing in the way of possessions aside from a book made of kangaroo hide that I supposed Thomas had made. It had intrigued me ever since I first noticed it, and now, with them both away, I
could contain my curiosity no longer.

It was a journal of sorts and there marking the first blank page was a feather he used as a quill. The writing was cramped and almost illegible, and by the look of their faded and caked appearance, the words were written in blood. Maybe his own, maybe any one of the creatures they killed to eat?

In the flickering firelight I looked through the book, Richard behind my shoulder, hoping to find some clue about us and whether or not they meant us to go. But there was no mention of our arrival in their lives. Instead, Thomas had recorded his hopes, fears and memories.

We began to worry that Thomas would return and find us reading his diary. ‘I'll stand outside,' said Richard. ‘If they come, I'll give a loud shout to welcome them. I don't think he'd like us looking at this.'

It was an absorbing read, and spoke volumes about Thomas's need to hold on to the life he had left behind. He listed the streets of Edinburgh he had known as a boy…

Candlemaker Row

Grassmarket

Cannongate

Leith Wynd

Cowgate

Buccleuch Street

And the plants and flowers in the hills outside the city:

Saxifage

Cloudberry

Heather

Broom

Mountain thyme

Harebell

Although I had never been there I could get a sense of the place and the life he had left behind. The awful loneliness and isolation he felt here was so real I could almost taste it. Leafing through his writings I began to feel guilty, as if I were taking an illicit peep into his soul. On one page he kept a record of his dreams, and especially a recurring dream he had about his capture by the natives.

The savages cavort arond me, shaking their speers in my belly and my fayce. Then they poke with their fingers, looking at me as if I'm some strange anamal. Then their wild music begins and they dance around me in a shreeking frenzy. One takes my nife and cuts my belly and they pull out my guts in a long slithery white rope. Althow I feel nothing I screem and screem and wake up screeming. Tirrike holds me until I stop shaking. I have this dreem several times a month
.

On another page, he recorded his feelings for Tirrike and how he had long coveted her before they ran away together. But what disturbed me most was how he frequently felt he was going mad here, alone with this young woman. She had no interest in anything other than their own immediate needs and he wanted to talk about the world. He desperately needed the company of other people, but he fretted about losing her to a younger man.

I felt awkward reading his journal. But it helped me make up my mind about what we should do next. When Richard returned to the fire I said, ‘I think we'd get very bored if we stayed out here in the bush.'

‘Bored?' Richard laughed. ‘We'd end up howling at the moon, stark raving lunatics!'

‘We both went to sea because we wanted adventure in our lives,' I said. ‘What was it Thomas said? Hunt, fish, eat, sleep. That's pretty much it. I want to get back to England and learn to navigate a 74.'

‘You better brace yourself for a hundred lashes then, Sam,' said Richard grimly. ‘And seven years on an iron gang clearing roads and sleeping in a wheeled hut. I don't fancy that at all. But you're right. I don't want to stay out here either.'

I shook my head. ‘Truth is, I don't know what to do any more than you do. If we carry on north, anything could happen. I'm sure Thomas is right when he says
there's nothing there. That friendly colony of white men is a pipe dream. We could be murdered by natives, we could be bitten by snakes or spiders, we could starve to death.'

Richard let out a long sigh. ‘We've got to go back to Sydney,' he said. ‘See if we can hook up with one of the American whalers that stop by from time to time. We're both sailors and I'm one of their countrymen, so I reckon we've got a good chance of them taking us on. We just have to make sure no one sees us trying to get to the ship.'

It was something to hope for, but I had my misgivings. I wondered what a ship's captain would say to two ragged, stinking scarecrows, clothes in tatters, wispy beards around their boyish faces, coming up to their ship in a stolen boat. I doubted it would be, ‘Welcome aboard!'

We slept fitfully. The only thing that was certain about our future was that we should delay our departure no longer.

Thomas and Tirrike returned soon after dawn, both weighed down with all manner of vegetation. Thomas carried three dead lizards at his belt. Their manner was cold and rather distant, even Tirrike, who was usually so warm to us. They had ventured too far to return before evening, Thomas explained. I wondered if they had
stayed out simply to get away from us for a while. We were right to be going.

We offered them the fish left over from the previous night and as they ate we told them our plans.

‘We've decided to return to Sydney and see if we can pick up a ship,' said Richard.

Thomas nodded. ‘Good. We can't feed you forever,' he told us brusquely. ‘It's enough to keep the two of us alive out here. You're right to go back.'

‘Can you tell us how to get there from here? Maybe draw us a map?' I said.

‘I can take you most of the way,' he said at once. I was surprised by how quickly he offered. Perhaps he wanted to make sure we really were going to go, and not come drifting back, begging for food. Or maybe this was a final kindness. We were both pathetically grateful.

We set off that morning. ‘Will Tirrike be all right on her own?' I asked.

Thomas shot me a hostile glance. ‘She needs to stay to prepare the food we brought in. It needs soaking and boiling and all sorts over several days before it's fit to eat.'

Before we left, I took one of our blankets and gave it to them – I wanted to thank them for saving our lives. Tirrike gave me a broad smile. Thomas seemed indifferent. When we left she was restrained in her farewell to us but gave Thomas a tender embrace. I wondered what he
had said to her about us when they were away from the cave? I turned round before we disappeared from view and was surprised to see she was still standing there watching us go. ‘I don't envy your future any more than I envy mine,' I thought. Her and Thomas, they were both fugitives living on borrowed time, and something was going to happen sooner or later that would have terrible consequences for one or both of them.

We headed into the bush with a confident stride. I couldn't believe our luck. As we walked Thomas told us we would be heading for a river the other side of the valley which would take us south. Then we would walk a day or so, and pick up another river which would take us to Parramatta. I knew that settlement was a day west of Sydney, and it was simply a matter of following the river east to get back there.

‘Once I get you on the river to Parramatta, you're on your own,' said Thomas. ‘I'm not ready to go back yet. Not sure I ever will be.'

We stopped that night and made a fire by a cave, as we had done with Barrie and Bell. All day I walked with a greater sense of purpose. It was a wonderful feeling, being with someone who knew where they were going.

The next morning, we came to a wide river and Thomas set about cutting two bark canoes from trees close to the bank. We watched, fascinated, as he skilfully
prised a large piece of bark away from the tree trunk with his knife, then carefully sewed either end with a bone needle and twine.

He took one boat, Richard and I the other. Out on the river we felt very conspicuous. Here there was no place to hide. A thin winter wind blew along the water. It was especially cold once the sun went over the top of the high valley and cast a dark shadow over the river below.