Prison Ship (24 page)

Barrie stopped again, and covered his eyes. ‘My head, my poor aching head.' Then he clutched at his stomach, and bent double in agony. The pain passed and he leaned back against a tree.

We waited. I had seen men bad to the bone become meek and pious when death approached. Convicts on the road to the gallows in Sydney, two or three of them sitting in the cart along with their cheap wooden coffins, often sang hymns with great gusto, trying to prove to themselves that they were good Christians after all.

Barrie's breathing became laboured. Every now and then he would twitch in pain or an arm or leg would
start to tremble and shake. I feared he would die and leave us both trussed up. I twisted my arms and wrists inside their bonds. There was some slight give in the vines. I could feel them stretch a little. I moved my ankles too, trying to work loose the belt. But it was less forgiving than the vines and the flesh around the belt was soon cut and bleeding.

The wind blew fiercely through the trees. It seemed to rouse Barrie from his stupor. He sat up unsteadily, like a man nursing a brutal hangover. ‘I've just been talking with Old Nick himself,' he slurred. ‘He just came to see me. Whiffing of fire and brimstone he was. He said, “You do one more job for me Mr Barrie, before you go …” ' He was struggling with his words. ‘ “You do one more job for me now, and you can come and work for me, down there in the fiery furnace.” ' He cackled and roused himself. ‘“Just do in these two conniving little bastards,” he said, “and I'll take you all down to hell with me.” Won't that be nice?' He staggered to his feet, picked up his axe and lurched over to me.

‘I'll start with you,' he said, and brought the axe down on me with all his ebbing strength.

I jerked my body over and rolled to miss the blow. He grabbed me by the shoulder. I was surprised by the strength he still had in his hand. ‘Hold still, you little bugger.'

In that final moment before the blow fell, I found the
strength to break the vine shoots around my wrists. I grabbed his hand on my shoulder and bit it with all the ferocity I could muster. Barrie yelled and dropped his axe. My legs were still tied and I could not stand up. As he groped around on the forest floor to pick up his axe I rolled over to snatch a fallen branch and brought it round to land on his head with every ounce of strength in my body.

It made a sickening thud. He dropped face down and stayed down.

‘Quick Sam, before he gets up again,' pleaded Richard.

I picked up the axe and severed the vines around Richard's wrists in seconds, and he quickly undid the belt around his ankles.

We stood up and looked at Barrie's sprawled body.

‘What shall we do?' I asked.

‘If he's still alive we should kill him while we can,' said Richard.

‘That snake bite will do for him soon enough. Let's leave him,' I said.

We searched the surrounding bush for our knives, which Barrie had carelessly tossed aside, and took his weapons.

As we left the clearing Richard said, ‘I knew he was up to something. He's been toadying with me for a few days now. When he suggested you and him go off to
look for food, I thought I'd better follow.'

I wanted to tell Richard I was worried he'd turned against me. But I knew he'd be angry so I said nothing.

We hadn't walked more than five minutes when I was gripped with a terrible doubt. ‘What if the poison doesn't kill him after all? What if he comes after us?'

Richard snapped. ‘What do you want to do then? Go back and kill him? I couldn't stick a knife into a dying man, could you?'

‘No, but we could at least keep him company until he dies.'

‘Very pious, Sam,' he snapped.

‘But if we're there when he dies, we'll be certain he's dead. Otherwise we'll spend the next week thinking he's going to leap out at us at any second.'

‘You're right, Sam.' Richard looked wretched. ‘I'm just so hungry, and waiting for Barrie to go wastes time when we could be looking for food.'

‘You go and fish, I'll keep an eye on him,' I said.

He nodded. ‘I'll meet you back at the cave. Will you remember where it is?'

I headed back. As I approached I began to feel afraid. Was I right to go alone? I reached the clearing and a feeling of horror swept through me. I thought I was going to faint, and began to breathe deeply to steady my thumping heart. His body had gone. ‘RICHARD,
COME BACK,' I screamed. The words echoed around the forest, but he made no reply.

Was this even the right spot? I was so exhausted I couldn't think straight. Then I heard the tinkle of water from the nearby stream and felt sure it was here that Barrie had tried to kill me.

I looked around for a cave or crop of rocks, somewhere he might have hidden. The bush around the clearing was so thick he could have crawled into that and be lying only a few feet away. Then I thought of the water again. I was desperate to drink. I went to the stream and knelt down, my knees wet in the soggy moss that grew beside it. The water twinkled in the afternoon light. I could wait no longer and thrust my face into the cool, clear stream. I gulped and gulped, feeling the strength flow back into my limbs and aching head. All I could hear was the sound of my own frantic drinking and the water running down the stream.

There was a sharp crack behind me, the sound of footfall on dry branches. I turned around at once, dreading the thought of another fight. It was Barrie – who else could it be? He was some twenty yards away from me, but I knew at once he would be no threat. His face looked dreadfully haggard, as if he had seen the very fires of hell. Although his eyes looked straight at me, I was sure he couldn't see me.

He staggered then lurched into a thick patch of
vegetation and fell forward. His body twisted on the ground. Then he lay still, face up to the sky.

I watched fearfully from a distance. His legs trembled occasionally, then he made no movement at all. I crept carefully forward and stood awhile watching him for any sign of life. When a fly landed on his unblinking eyelid I knew for sure he must be dead.

Leaning closer to take a final look, I saw a familiar silk cord around his neck. Fearfully, I knelt down and pulled on it, expecting him to flicker back to life at any second. Out popped the ring I had given him to trade with Charlie Palmer for our freedom. He had always kept his shirt buttoned to the top – now I knew why. The sly goat! He had traded something of his own and kept what I had given him. I felt a strong urge to give him a good kick in the guts. Pulling out my knife, I cut the cord and took back my treasure. I left his body to the insects and carrion birds, and walked away.

When I told Richard what had just happened he shrugged. I knew how he felt. It was all I could do to gather a few dry sticks for a fire. ‘We've got to get something to eat soon, before we die,' said Richard. We both looked like a couple of starving beggars. I kept thinking I should go and bathe and wash my clothes down by the river, but I didn't have the strength to do so. That evening, as we stared into the flickering flames, Richard said, ‘I'm so hungry. If Barrie wasn't full of snake poison, I'd eat him.'

Next day we gathered up anything of Bell and Barrie's
we thought we could use, like their blankets and weapons and the sparking kit to make a fire. Then we moved on, staggering through the morning, drinking whenever we could. We had obviously misjudged how long it would take us to reach the coast, but heading there still seemed the best thing to do. The bush stretched out before us, an endless green horizon. Richard and I bickered constantly, but we both knew it was our exhaustion that made us so quarrelsome.

That afternoon we found a bush with black and white fruit which reminded me of raspberries. Richard crushed one in his hand and smelled the juice. ‘It's sweet,' he said and tasted it with the tip of his tongue. ‘Tastes good.'

We ate what we could find. When he found a particularly big one, he gave it to me. ‘That's for being an old grouch,' he said. Even these small berries changed our mood and made us feel better.

We slept out in the open. We both had an extra blanket now, which helped keep out the cold. There was nothing else to do but press on. And now I had something else to worry about – the wound on my ankle from the belt Barrie had used to tie me up was beginning to fester.

That evening I landed a couple of fish. When we cooked them, they tasted a bit like salmon. We ate one then and there, and kept the other for breakfast. We
made our camp under a jutting rock and woke the next day feeling hopeful. After breakfast we headed on with something approaching a spring in our step.

Although the sky stayed blue the wind blew cold. There was no more food for that day or the next, and although we always had enough to drink we were growing desperately weak.

In the evening we found a shallow sandstone cave near to a small stream and made our camp. In the morning, hollow eyed and restless, neither of us spoke for a while. When Richard tried to stand up, he fell down again. I got up and felt my legs giving way beneath me, but I steadied myself and went over to him.

‘I don't think we'll be going very far today,' he said, his voice barely more than a hoarse croak. ‘Let's stay here and look for food and when we feel strong let's press on. It's not as if anyone is following us.'

The idea made sense. ‘You rest and I'll go looking,' I said. But soon after setting off, my ankle began to ache badly. It was beginning to resemble the injury that had so fatally hindered William Bell. The skin around the weeping wound was turning yellowy green. Without medical help it would continue to fester and I feared some dreadful infection could set in. I knew this was a painful way to die and the only remedy was amputation. But who was going to do that out here? Richard? With one of our knives or the axe? Besides, how would I even
begin
to survive out here with only one foot?

Soon after noon I stopped by the river to bathe my injured leg, and the cold water brought temporary relief from the constant ache. I hoped Richard might have got up and been more successful in his search for food, but when I returned to our camp he was still fast sleep.

That night neither of us had the strength to gather firewood. We shivered through till dawn. Only when the warm morning sun shone down did we fall into a deeper slumber. I woke again, mid-morning, almost too weak to move. Richard was still asleep, so I lay in my blankets and dozed. Was this how we were going to die? Slowly fading away in our fusty blankets. I wondered how long it would take.

When I saw two figures staring down at us I thought I must be dreaming. They had the sun behind them and a halo of light around their lean bodies.

One of them was very tall and carried a long spear. The other was much smaller and at first I thought it must be a child. But as my vision cleared I could see it was a young woman. I noticed with a jolt that both of them were quite naked. His skin was a dark brown and he had a long, white beard that reached half way down his chest. Her skin was as black as coal.

I stared at them, they stared at me. None of us moved. Then I whispered to Richard, ‘Wake up.'

He sat up slowly. The staring continued. I lifted my
hand and waved in a friendly way. The two figures stayed motionless.

‘Good day,' I said hoarsely, barely able to speak. ‘Please can you help us? We have not eaten for many days and we are very weak.'

They looked at each other and nodded. Then the tall one spoke in a slow, halting manner. His words stunned me into silence, not least because he had a Scottish accent.

‘My – name – is – Thomas – Ferring. What – are – you – going – here?'

Now I had heard him speak, I could make more sense of his appearance. Beneath the beard and the deep brown skin his features were European. By the look of him, he was forty-five or fifty years of age.

They came closer. He spoke to the girl, who picked up my mess tin and went to the stream to fetch us water. After we drank, the man gave us a few seeds to chew. As soon as we felt strong enough to talk our story poured out. He took in our tale unblinking and expressionless, but kept saying, ‘Slow round'. Perhaps this was some Scottish expression.

Then he spoke again. ‘You are not marine or Navy?'

I knew at once what he was getting at. ‘No, we've escaped. Are you a convict too?'

He nodded. ‘I tell in good time. First, eat more.'

His strange manner of speech puzzled me. I suppose he hadn't spoken English for a long time, and had forgotten many words.

His companion maintained her silence, but Thomas introduced her to us as Tirrike. She smiled warily, her white teeth gleaming against her black skin.

Thomas said, ‘You stay, we come back.'

They were gone so long I began to think our encounter had been a figment of my imagination. But eventually they returned with two large watermelons. Thomas sliced them into quarters with a knife and we ate greedily. The sweet flesh soothed our parched throats and gave us the strength to get up on our feet. But what we really craved was meat.