Authors: Bryce Courtenay
'He be a good man,' Tommo says softly beside me. 'I hope we meets again.'
*
We are permitted to go ashore that afternoon. The whole crew has been granted shore leave, with the exception of the three remaining Maori, who are placed on watch by Captain O'Hara, under the supervision of Seb Rawlings. The skipper has refused them leave to go with Hammerhead Jack, though it is plain they wish to follow him. He says they must see out the voyage and guards them closely. O'Hara and the two other mates are also to go ashore, and a whaleboat will be beached for any who wish to return on board fifteen minutes before the midnight hour.
From the first of the morning light, Tommo has been anxious to go ashore. My heart is filled with trepidation that he will not be able to resist the first grog shop we come upon. There is nothing to do in this whaling town but drink and fornicate, and we have been told by the Maori that the pox is rampant among the wahine who frequent the grog dens, gin shops and brothels. 'You must not take these women!' Hammerhead Jack warns us. I am much afeared that Tommo will not be able to resist the temptation of hard liquor and so I conceal from him that I have money, hoping meanwhile that he has spent what coin he has won on medicine for our backs.
But, of course, I am deluding myself. The lack of money never vexes Tommo. He is a prime example of the value of Ikey's 'little essentials'. With a deck of cards and a space at the table Tommo can have cash in his hands in a matter of moments. Even if no card game is to be found, he will win the drink he needs by demonstrating his sleight of hand to the wonderment of all who watch. He can pluck a card from behind a whaleman's ear. He can make him shake the sleeve of his coat to watch the ace of spades he has nominated just a moment before fall from beyond the cuffs. He can even pluck one from the bosom of a doxy.
But Tommo surprises me when we come ashore. We visit many a grog shop and all five hotels and even a brothel, where we pass the time until the madam sees we are not customers and throws us out. Tommo asks me to buy two packs of cards, as he says his old ones are too well worn to be used on board and the others think he cheats by knowing every crease upon them. He picks two packs, one red and the other blue, both made by DeLarue & Sons, and asks me to hold them for him until we return to ship. And then it is onwards again. We enjoy the music and, at one hotel, the singing of six wahines who render love songs in a harmony to break any sailor's heart.
Tommo will not tarry long at any place but wants to see every hell-hole, grog den, gin palace, rum shop and hotel in this poxy whaling settlement. Card games are everywhere to be found. Men are going furiously at them in the one-shilling hells where they beckon him over and invite him to play. But Tommo shakes his head and grins. 'Too easy to take yer coin, lads!' It is as grand an exhibition of abstinence as ever I've seen and I am truly proud of Tommo.
In the course of the evening we meet every whaleman who has come ashore from the Nankin Maiden. At a hotel which is more salubrious, though only by comparison with the others, Captain O'Hara is to be seen seated in a private room leading from the main saloon. He is interviewing seamen to find a replacement for the late and unlamented Crawlin Nestbyte.
Several men sit on chairs outside this room with their knees held tightly together and their caps on their laps, in the manner of men anxious to make a good impression. They are a seedy looking lot, with raw faces and complexions which suggest that the rum bottle is a frequent gargle against the debilitating effects of inclement weather. O'Hara will be hard put to find a Christian gentleman among this scurvy assortment!
Tommo moves ever onwards from one hell-hole to another, but never a glass of spirits touches his lips nor a deck of cards his hands. His blue eyes dart everywhere and it is as though he is drinking in the sights and sounds he has missed for so long, that they are grog enough for him.
I am so proud of him, for he has been true to his word. I am already envisaging our happy return to Hobart Town and to our dear Mary, whose forgiveness I have begged for in a long letter telling of our adventures. This I posted as soon as we came ashore.
I am hard put to keep up with Tommo, for I am like a lumbering carthorse and he like a yearling with spirit. My back is not yet completely healed and hurts where my blouse sticks to it in the evening heat. After nine hours ashore I am anxious to return to the ship. I have not told Tommo that we have the means to pay for a doss house and a morning meal, eking out small coins for the ginger beer and sarsaparilla we are drinking. I fear he will have us up the whole night, visiting every nefarious establishment in town, though I believe we must nearly have done so already.
At last Tommo agrees to return to the ship. Before the midnight hour, we are back in the fo'c'sle, sober as two judges, with only the cockroaches and the snoring drunks who have made it back aboard to keep us company. Tommo has bought a bag of boiled sweets for the three Maori who have been forced to take the watch. He goes to give them their sweets. I can scarcely summon the energy I need to climb in to my bunk and am asleep on my stomach before the first cockroach climbs up my leg.
The following morning Tommo and I are summoned to Seb Rawlings' quarters and asked if we know the whereabouts of the three Maori. The watch, he says, has reported us as coming on board just before midnight, and being unusually sober as well.
He points to Tommo. 'You were observed talking to the three kanakas not much later.'
Tommo does not deny this, explaining about the bag of sweets, and I am quick to support him in this matter.
'I were back in the fo'c'sle not ten minutes past the hour, Mr Rawlings,' Tommo says.
'That is right,' I volunteer, though I have no way of knowing whether it is true.
'Besides your brother, who else saw you?' Rawlings asks Tommo.
Tommo shrugs. 'All who was aboard and not on watch were drunk and snoring in the fo'c'sle, Mr Rawlings. Only the night watch what saw us return in the whaleboat and the three kanakas would know we was aboard.' He shrugs again, 'As you already knows, Mr Rawlings, sir.'
Rawlings scratches his forehead with the tips of his fingers as though to smooth out the frown etched upon it. On a whaling ship there is not much that the crew do not know about the mates. It is known that the skipper remained ashore overnight and will spend tonight ashore as well. So too will Stubbs and Hollowtree. They have done Rawlings' duty watches while he was consumed with the fever and now, in return, he will remain on board and take their duties as well.
Rawlings is silent for some time. Then he says musingly, 'We have searched the ship, there is no whaleboat missing. They could only have escaped by monkeying down the anchor chain and swimming ashore!' He points to the town bathed in the early morning sun. 'It is a good two cables to the shore and this bay is well known for its sharks.'
It is not clear whether he says this in admiration or whether he thinks the Maori have likely been drowned or eaten for their trouble. At any rate, the three Maori lads have seemingly escaped the ship, and Seb Rawlings isn't happy. He has lost what remains of his whaleboat crew with only me, the new chum, remaining. Worst of all, he must explain this to O'Hara when he returns on board tomorrow morning.
'You two will be on watch today, and tonight you will be manacled to your bunks!' he barks.
'But why?' I ask. 'We have done naught!'
'You returned to the ship sober last night!' he retorts.
'Aye?' I say, my voice questioning.
'Six months at sea and you go ashore and return on board sober? I know you not to be religious. Do you take me for a fool, boy?'
'We are Temperance Union, Mr Rawlings, sir,' I attempt.
'Ha! You lie!' He points to Tommo but he is still looking at me. 'Your brother is a gambler and I have heard tell of how, when we were in Hobart Town, you were seen dragging him aboard from out of a notorious grog shop!'
'We were seen on shore last night by most of the crew, sir. They will vouch for us,' Tommo says.
'Christ Jesus!' Rawlings exclaims. 'No whaleman who ever lived returns from shore leave with a dry throat after six months at sea! They come back with sore heads and empty pockets, to a man!' He paces the tiny cabin and then turns abruptly. 'I shall know what you two have been up to, or I shall ask Captain O'Hara to strap you to the mizzen stays!'
Tommo meanwhile has his head bowed, but now he looks up slowly to meet the mate's angry eyes. 'We thought you was your own man, Mr Rawlings, but now we see that you is no different from the others.'
'Shut your gob, boy!' Rawlings shouts. 'You two were friends of the kanakas. I'll vouch you are all in this together!'
But Tommo, to my surprise, will not be quiet and now baits Rawlings still further. 'Oh, I see, guilty again is we? What will the Lord Jesus decide our punishment be this time, Mr Rawlings, sir?'
Seb Rawlings' face is close to apoplectic and he struggles to speak. 'Right! You will both be manacled and locked up below decks without rations until Captain O'Hara returns tomorrow morning!'
We have been alone in the dark with the rats and the cockroaches since yesterday morning. We have lost track of the time. Tommo, whose instincts are better than mine in such things, thinks it must be near to morning again.
We are in a dark hole amidships, a place where the harpoons and lances are kept under lock and key. No sound reaches us from outside and the only noises we hear other than our own voices are the creaking of ship's timbers, the squeaking and scurrying of rats, and the tic-tic-tic of cockroaches. We spend much time flicking off these last vermin as they clamber about our arms, legs and necks. This is a most difficult task with shackles and manacles on, and there is a rattle of chains each time we make the attempt.
The worst of it is the heat and our thirst, for we have had nothing past our lips but longlick, and that taken just before Seb Rawlings called us to see him yesterday morning. There is not sufficient room to lie down and we are forced to sit with our backs to the wall and our knees pulled up. My back is soon wet with blood and pus as I must lean against the wall, and my new-knit skin and the scabs covering my lashes break open again under the pressure. In all, it is a most uncomfortable situation, though we pass the hours at talk and I learn more of Tommo's lost time in the wilderness.
My twin has seen much in his seven years away. He never speaks as though he is sorry for himself, but is matter-of-fact and often humorous.
When I complain about our dark, cramped conditions, Tommo laughs and says, 'Ain't nothing compared to the cramped quarters known by Sam Slit when the timber getters turns on him.'
'Oh,' I say. 'So he finally got his come-uppance?'
Tommo has told me how Sam Slit would often give a drunken timber getter a pint of whisky from his still for the use of the man's half-caste Aboriginal woman or his little daughter. It was not so bad for the women, he said, who would get drunk anyway and not care what he did to them. But oh, how the little girls no more than ten or eleven years old would weep all the while and plead for mercy, to no avail. Sam Slit would have his way with them, then beat them unconscious, and rape them again and again. In the morning he would send them home to their huts in the forest, bruised and bleeding, with a flagon to soothe their daddies' hangovers.
'This time it were different,' Tommo recalls. 'This time he kidnapped a six-year-old half-caste called Gracie. Half-castes, particular if they be dark-skinned, be thought fair game at any age in the bloody wilderness. Ain't nobody what's going to make much of a fuss. But this time Slit picked the wrong sprat, for her daddy were a big fellow among the timber getters and not from a near settlement. He were most fond of his little black girlie. Slit took her without permission or in exchange, for he were drunk and liked the look o' this little urchin, and thinks he will square it with her papa later.
'But Slit, what's been drinking raw spirit, beats her and fucks her and kills her in the process.'
'Sam Slit was your master! Didn't you run to tell someone?' I ask, horrified by the story my twin is telling me. I cannot imagine he would stand by and let such a thing happen.
'Run to where? Tell who? This is the wilderness, ain't nobody to run to!' I can feel the bitterness in his voice. 'By-wilderness laws what he done were normal enough. Besides, I weren't there, I were out setting possum traps and come back to find four timber getters at Slit's still.
'They has him slung on a long pole like an animal, tied wrists and ankles, and they are moving him out. He is moaning and groaning, but they've tied his mouth and his face is raw meat where they've beaten him. The little girl is slung over her daddy's shoulder like the two dead possums is slung over mine. I can see the dried blood around her mouth and nose where she's bled from inside.'
'Oh no, Tommo!' I exclaim. 'You need not say any more.'
Tommo is silent for a while then sniffs in the dark and I wonder if he is crying. He sniffs a second time and now I am sure he is. But a moment later he speaks. 'No, I'll tell you. After all, it's a story about cramped quarters.' He tries to laugh, but it comes out sad. Then he says, 'Besides, that little half-caste dying gave me the courage to come back to you and mama.'
Tommo draws a breath, then continues. 'I follows the men carrying Sam Slit most of the day, and that night they makes camp. I dunno how the little half-caste girl has come to be near Sam Slit's still, for these seem to be timber getters what are after Huon pine, for we has moved high up the Spring River, into the mountains where the big trees grow. I can only think they was on their way somewhere and made camp near Slit's, which in itself is deep enough into the wilderness for the law not to venture. But now these cutters takes Slit much further in than I've gone before.
'We more or less follows the course o' the river all the next day and that night, I camps sufficient far away and downwind so I can make a small fire and cook me two possums. One I eat and the other I put into my tucker bag with some berries I gather during the day.