Blood in the Dust Read online

  Annie lifted her face and sniffed the air, delighting in the medicine-like smell of eucalyptus carried on the wind. There were other scents there as well, grasses and something earthy that she imagined was from the great inland deserts, the birthplace of the wind itself. Underneath her feeling of delight, the pang of disappointment grew, for it appeared today would be no different from any other and the Charlotte Elizabeth would not be attempting to cross the notorious bar guarding the bay. Holding the rail with one hand, the other firmly on her bonnet, Annie studied the hazy hills, longing to be among them.

  ‘Do you think we will be able to see kangaroos when we enter the bay?’ Betty asked.

  Annie tore her gaze away from the shoreline and looked down at her sister. Betty had not been successful in keeping her own bonnet on and her hair fluttered behind her in long, auburn streamers. With her freckled face screwed up against the glare, she examined the distant shore.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Annie said. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘I bet we do,’ Betty said with certainty. ‘I bet we see kangaroos and wombats and possums, but not snakes. I don’t want to see any snakes. I think they are horrid creatures.’ Among the ten-year-old’s most treasured possessions was an almanac of Australian creatures that she studied every day with great intensity.

  ‘I imagine there aren’t many snakes in Melbourne itself,’ Annie replied, turning back to the shoreline. ‘Or any of those other animals either.’ Then another thought occurred to her.

  ‘Was Mama dressed when you left our berth, Betty?’

  The little girl nodded. ‘She was. Papa was most insistent that she come on deck and take the air. I think she will this time.’

  ‘I hope so,’ Annie said. ‘She can’t stay in her bunk forever.’

  ‘She still misses Tom,’ Betty said softly. ‘I miss him, too.’

  Annie placed an arm around her sister. ‘We all miss Tom, but it’s been four months nearly. He wouldn’t want us to be so miserable.’ As she spoke, she couldn’t help but let her gaze drift to the port rail, to the place where the captain had spoken his kind words, where the crew had tilted the board, committing her brother’s body to the deep, somewhere off Africa. Their mother had not been on deck since that moment.

  Tears welled in the depths of Betty’s hazel eyes. Their brother’s mysterious illness and sudden passing had been a great shock to them all. Annie decided to change the subject.

  ‘I read somewhere that in Ballarat you can pick gold nuggets from the ground just by kicking a few stones out of your way.’

  ‘I’m going to find the biggest gold nugget ever,’ Betty said, her mood brightening. ‘And then I’m going to buy some land and build an enormous house with huge stables and have lots of horses. I really like horses, Annie.’

  ‘I know,’ Annie responded, pleased with herself for preventing another bout of tears.

  ‘What are you two nattering about?’

  The girls turned to find their parents behind them. Frank Hocking had an arm around his wife’s shoulders and a smile on his freshly shaven face. Their mother wore a black shawl despite the warm wind. Her dark eyes and haunted face still showed a mother’s grief.

  ‘Come look, Mama,’ Annie said, making room at the rail. ‘Beyond those hills is Port Phillip Bay and Victoria.’

  Maree moved beside her daughter and examined the distant shore. ‘Then why are we sailing away from it?’

  ‘The wind is blowing straight out of the entrance,’ Annie said. ‘We have to wait until it changes into the southern half.’ Her months at sea had given her more than a smattering of nautical terms.

  ‘Nearly there,’ Maree said more to herself than anyone else. ‘This horrid voyage will be over soon.’

  ‘Yes, Mama, we’re nearly there.’ Annie took her mother’s hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘Why don’t you and I take a turn around the deck?’ Before her mother could protest, she turned her towards the bow and led her away. Groups of sailors stopped whatever they were doing and watched the women walk past. At forty-one years of age, Maree still possessed an hourglass figure of which most women would be envious. Annie had turned seventeen two months after sailing from Plymouth. With her button nose, raven hair and full-breasted figure, some of the sailors stared a little longer than would be considered polite.

  ‘It’s wonderful to see you up and about, Mama. There’s no good to be served by lying in your bunk.’

  ‘I’ve had little strength for much else, my girl. And I just couldn’t bear to look down at that cold dark water. Tom should have been laid to rest in the cemetery back home in Hastings, but I suppose that just wasn’t possible.’

  ‘No, Mama,’ Annie said, giving her hand a squeeze. ‘But at least he’s at rest and is suffering no more pain. For that we should be grateful.’

  ‘Yes, grateful,’ Maree said softly.

  They paused close to the bow. The haze had cleared and the hills stood out in crisp contrast to the blue sky. Almost close enough to touch, Annie thought. Maree must have seen the direction of her gaze.

  ‘Do you think there will be happiness for us beyond those hills, Annie?’

  Annie considered the question for a moment. She knew it had been no mean feat for her parents to sell up everything they owned and head out to the colonies at the bottom of the world. They had bickered most nights in the weeks leading up to their departure. Back then, Tom had been the mediator. Good old dependable, quietly spoken Tom who had stepped in and made them both see sense when it seemed the situation was becoming impossible. He had wanted to come, to start a new life in a new world, away from the dirt and grime and poverty of England. A place where you never got ahead, no matter how hard you worked.

  ‘I think everything we have ever wanted is waiting for us behind those hills, Mama.’

  ‘I hope you are right, my girl. I hope you are right.’

  Annie looked once more to the hills and felt the warm breeze on her face. She felt the wind drop and above her the sails slackened and fluttered fitfully. From behind them an officer yelled an order and sailors poured into the rigging to make adjustments. The ship lost headway until she wallowed in the troughs, pitching and rolling so that Annie and her mother had to grasp the rail to keep their feet.

  ‘What is happening?’ Maree asked as she stared aghast at the flurry of activity.

  ‘It appears your coming on deck was a good omen for us, Mama. The wind is shifting at last.’

  They returned down the pitching deck to where Frank and Betty watched the sailors at work. They seemed to be getting a grip on the ship. The sails snapped taut and the vessel let out an almost mortal groan as the masts and rigging took the strain. The deck surged beneath their feet as the Charlotte Elizabeth gained headway. Annie was delighted to see the bow swing towards those distant hills.

  The Hocking family stood together at the rail for an hour or more and watched their progress along the shoreline. Soon they were close enough to see waves crashing onto a white beach. Looking ahead, Annie could see a rocky headland, steep-sided with stunted vegetation clinging to the heights.

  ‘That must be Point Nepean,’ she said, remembering the name of the eastern headland that guarded the bay. ‘We are nearly there.’ She felt the excitement building inside her.

  ‘Begging your pardon, sir, ladies.’ A sailor Annie knew as Bosun Miggins addressed them from the port rail. ‘Cap’n says there’s enough light left in the day to attempt the bar. He’d like all passengers below decks until we make the bay.’

  ‘Certainly,’ Frank said. He spread his arms wide and herded his family towards the companionway.

  They found the way to their berth and Annie climbed onto the bunk she shared with her sister. There were no portholes, so she sat in silence and imagined their progress by the motion of the ship. The bow rose and plunged as they beat into a heavy swell. From forward came a steady slap and splash as the ship cut through the waves. Some time later she heard orders shouted on the deck above her and the familiar creak from the rigg
ing as they changed tack. The Charlotte Elizabeth moved with a new motion now, rolling and surging, as if the waves came from all directions at once. Betty let out a shriek of delight as they were lifted high on a crest, then plunged suddenly into a trough. The sound of retching came from the next berth and the stench of bile filled the air. Soon, others were vomiting as well, but Annie and Betty just smiled and hugged each other in the gloom. Nothing would spoil their mood. They were nearly there.

  This crazy ride went on for twenty minutes or more before the motion of the ship settled as she pushed into a moderate sea.

  ‘I think we are through,’ Annie said to no one in particular, and beside her Betty clapped her hands. To confirm this, a sailor came down between the berths announcing that they were free to go on deck. Annie and Betty were the first to the companionway, but Betty beat Annie onto the steps.

  ‘Look how close the land is!’ Betty paused at the top step. ‘You can almost touch it. Come and look, Annie.’

  ‘I will if you get your backside out of my way.’ Annie gave her sister a push on the rump and Betty stepped out of the companionway and onto the deck, allowing her through.

  Patches of windswept vegetation and sand dunes as white as virgin snow drifted past. Off the starboard beam waves crashed onto a rocky headland. The sun sat low on the western horizon and the ship appeared to be sailing on a sea of liquid gold that made both girls gasp with delight.

  ‘Excuse me, miss,’ someone said from behind, and Annie realised she was now blocking the companionway. She apologised and climbed onto the deck.

  The warmth was gone from the wind. It pushed out of the south-east now and carried a chill that made Annie wish she had brought a shawl up with her. She needn’t have worried. Her parents appeared on deck a few minutes later and Maree carried shawls for both girls, insisting that they put them on immediately. Then together they made their way forward and stood near the capstan to watch the setting sun.

  ‘Such a display of colour,’ Maree said, and Annie could sense the delight in her voice, the first in months.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ said Annie. ‘Tomorrow we will stand on Australia.’ She pulled her sister to her and they hugged each other with excitement as they watched a golden sky above a golden sea.

  ‘Everything in this country is gold,’ her father remarked, his family standing around him. ‘We just have to work at getting our share now.’

  The horse’s flanks were a lather of foaming sweat as Toby wheeled the wagonette in a tight circle around the Bunyong Creek Hotel. The sun had set while he’d been on the road and he used the waning light of dusk to find his way. Crossing the track that was also the main street, he headed for the creek where a string of tents marked the camps of travellers who had stopped to rest and slake their thirst before continuing northwards to the diggings at Mount Alexander and Bendigo Creek.

  Two diggers sat beside a campfire outside the first tent in the row. Toby reined the horse to a stop and the men scowled up at him, waving their hands in front of their faces in annoyance at the cloud of dust that settled around them. One digger, his face a mass of ginger whiskers, spat a glob of dust-stained spittle onto the ground. ‘What’s the hurry, young fella?’

  Toby ignored the dirty looks. ‘My neighbour tells me there’s a doctor camped along here somewhere.’

  The other digger climbed to his feet. ‘Someone better be hurt real bad to warrant driving into camp like a madman.’

  ‘My brother,’ Toby said, gesturing into the load space behind him.

  The digger strode over and looked into the wagonette where Paddy lay on a makeshift mattress of saddle blankets. The depression in his skull still bled and had stained the blanket under his head. Only the shallow rise and fall of his chest gave any indication the boy was still alive.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ The digger gasped and crossed himself. ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘Bushrangers,’ Toby snapped. ‘Now tell me, is there a doctor camped along here or not?’

  The digger came up level with the driving seat and pointed down the row of tents. ‘That tall one near the end, that’s the doc’s tent.’

  Toby didn’t bother to thank the man. He whipped the reins and the panting horse started reluctantly forward. Outside the designated tent he reined in, applied the brake and jumped to the ground.

  ‘Hello?’ He rapped his knuckles against the support pole outside the flap. ‘Hello the tent. Is the doctor here?’

  The flap parted and a gaunt, bespectacled face appeared. ‘I’m Doctor Collier.’

  Toby grabbed the doctor’s arm and pulled him towards the wagonette. ‘Please, sir. It’s my brother. He got clouted with a club. He’s in a bad way.’

  The doctor leaned over the sideboard and held his spectacles on his nose with one hand as he gave Paddy a cursory examination. Tut-tutting under his breath, he stepped back and rounded on the gathering crowd of diggers come to see what the commotion was all about.

  ‘You and you.’ The doctor singled out two burly men. ‘Lift the boy out of the wagonette very carefully. Be mindful of his head. Don’t let it twist or be bumped. Take him into my tent and lay him on the bed. Carefully,’ he warned. ‘Any rough handling might kill him.’

  Toby stepped back and let the two diggers lift his brother out of the wagonette, relieved to see them handling him gently. The doctor held the flap of the tent open and they settled the boy onto a camp bed.

  ‘He was hit by a club, you say?’ the doctor asked.

  Toby rattled through the events of that afternoon. A couple of diggers interrupted and tried to ask questions, but the doctor waved them into silence.

  ‘Your parents were shot?’ The doctor had a look of disbelief on his face as he took Toby’s arm and led him outside.

  ‘Both dead.’ Toby tried hard to control his voice. He swallowed down the lump in his throat. ‘I got Paddy into the wagonette and headed for town. I ran into a neighbour, Mrs Smith, on the way. She told me you were camped here. Thank God you were. I thought I was going to have to take him all the way to Bacchus Marsh. He never would have survived that journey.’ Toby’s lips started to tremble and the doctor placed a hand on his arm.

  ‘I shall do what I can for your brother. It’s best if you wait outside.’

  The doctor slipped into the tent and Toby lowered himself onto a packing box beside a smouldering campfire. A digger came over and thrust a pannikin of hot tea into his hands. ‘There you go, young fella.’ Toby looked up and recognised the digger who had directed him to the doctor’s tent. He nodded his thanks and looked down at the tea, but didn’t take a sip.

  The doctor muttered away to himself in the tent as he worked on Paddy. Toby had seen a skull with a depression like that once before when one of his father’s horses had kicked a dog. The animal had lived through one agonising night of miserable whimpering. The next morning his father had taken the dog and the Lovell behind the tack shed and ended its suffering.

  Not my brother. Please God, not my brother. He’s the only person I have left in the world.

  He thought of his parents, their bodies lying where they had fallen. He hadn’t even taken the time to move or cover them. When he’d discovered Paddy was still alive he’d hooked the horse to the wagonette, bundled his brother in as best he could and headed for town. Colleen Smith and her daughter had been returning to their neighbouring property when Toby came across them on the track. She’d told him about the doctor camped in town and said she would go to the homestead and see what she could do, but his neighbour was a frail woman and Susie only nine years old. Toby doubted they would have been able to move the bodies.

  Toby wasn’t sure what time it was when the doctor finally emerged from the tent. The pannikin of tea had gone cold in his hands. He hadn’t touched a drop.

  ‘I’ve done what I can,’ the doctor said, squatting on his haunches beside Toby. Someone had thrown wood onto the fire, though he couldn’t remember when. By the light of the dancing flames he could see blood on the doct
or’s hands. ‘I managed to lift the bone fragments. He’s a strong boy. If he lives through tonight, he’ll be through the worst of it.’

  Toby thrust thoughts of the whimpering dog from his mind. ‘He—he’ll be all right?’

  ‘I’ll know more when he regains consciousness.’ The doctor paused and Toby thought he was going to add, ‘If he regains consciousness.’ Instead, he adjusted his spectacles. ‘But he’s a fit lad. I think he’ll pull through. There’s nothing more you can do here. Have you reported the incident to the police?’

  Toby shook his head. ‘I brought Paddy straight here.’

  ‘Rightly so,’ the doctor said. ‘Maybe you should go and find the local sergeant. He seems to spend a lot of time in the hotel. Don’t worry about your brother. I’ll take good care of him.’

  A lantern burned on the verandah as Toby pushed open the slip rails, allowing Sergeant McTavish and a member of the native police named Barraworn into the house paddock. No moon showed, but the stars gave enough light to see the way. The Southern Cross sat just above the horizon, lopsided at this late hour.

  They reined in below the steps where the Smiths’ sulky stood beside the homestead, the horse still in the traces. The bodies of Toby’s mother, father and the bushranger lay on the ground where they had fallen, but someone had at least covered them with sheets. The horses whickered and shied at the smell of death, bringing Mrs Smith out onto the verandah, the Lovell tucked under one arm.

  ‘Ah, Toby, it’s you.’ She uncocked the musket. ‘How’s Paddy?’

  Toby ran a sweaty palm over his face. The preceding few hours had blurred into a confusion of events. ‘Doc Collier says he’ll live.’ He shuddered as he recalled the depression in the side of his brother’s skull. ‘He’s keeping him at his place for a while.’