The Lieutenant Part 10

The novelty of spending the night in an unfamiliar place was something he recognised. Perhaps that was universal among children. Even he had begged to spend the night under a canvas awning in the slip of garden behind the house in Church Street.

Until recently Daniel Rooke had felt all of a piece with the child he remembered himself to be. Now that little boy seemed an entirely different person from the man waving goodbye to a group of laughing naked women and their plump brown babies with no more sense of the strangeness of the scene than if they were his neighbours in Portsmouth.

He shared his food with the girls, although he thought they ate more for the novelty of it than any pleasure. Indeed, there was not much pleasure to be got out of stale bread and a little broiled salt pork. But he made sweet-tea-they exclaimed at the fact that he put the leathery leaves in the kettle and steeped them -and he understood them to say that they used the leaves too, and gave him the name of the plant, or perhaps the leaves, or perhaps the infusion: warraburra. They thought that to drink it out of teacups was the most amusing and extraordinary thing.

He sipped his own cup of warraburra. He had grown more fond of it than real tea, enjoying the way its faintly aniseed, faintly astringent, faintly sweet taste left him refreshed, his spirits somehow clearer.

It was the oddest pleasure to have these two staying with him. Had he ever played host before? He could not think of an occasion. He had expected many things of New South Wales, but not that he would learn to keep house and entertain guests.

Where in the hut did they wish to sleep? In front of the fireplace, of course. Worogan lay down on the mat he had there and curled herself towards the warmth, but Tagaran pointed to the blanket on the bed, unmistakably a command, so he spread it out for them on the floor. Worogan was not sure, but Tagaran made her get up so they could lie on it together. She was such a bossy child! He hoped he would never find it necessary to refuse her anything.

They curled up side by side, and he sat at his table and opened his notebook, turning to W and recording warraburra, sweet-tea.

But Tagaran sat up.

'b.o.o.banga,' she said. 'b.o.o.banga kamara!'

He saw from her actions, that this was a request: Cover me with a blanket, my friend!

He did not think she would like the feel of the rough wool against her skin, so unused to any covering, but he was not going to try to explain. Tagaran would have to find out for herself about blankets, just as he had discovered for himself, that night under the canvas awning, that it was cosier in the house. His father might have had the same contradictory feelings as he did now: a longing to protect, and an imperative to stand aside.

He took his second blanket and laid it over the two girls. He had not been comfortable under the canvas in the garden at Church Street, but comfort was not the point. The point was that Tagaran wanted to feel the very texture of the white man's world.

The girls lay quietly and he went back to the notebook. How would he record the joke that he and this child had shared earlier in the afternoon?

Tyerabarrbowaryaou, he wrote, meaning, I shall not become white.

That might be correct, but it did not begin to capture what had happened.

This was said by Tagaran, he added, after I told her if she washed herself she would become white, at the same time throwing down the towel as in despair.

This was an improvement over the bare translation, but left out all that was important about the moment. What had pa.s.sed between Tagaran and himself had gone far beyond vocabulary or grammatical forms. It was the heart of talking; not just the words and not just the meaning, but the way in which two people had found common ground and begun to discover the true names of things.

But how did you write down truth in a notebook, when the truth was far more than the words or the actions? When, even in English, he would not know how to express the thing that had pa.s.sed between them?

To somehow convey that drama on a page, he supposed he would have to do as Silk would. He would have to be willing to go beyond the literal, to take words into some place where they were no longer simply descriptive, but had a life of their own.

Well, he was not Silk. These words could carry none of the life of the exchange. The only reason for recording them was that they would allow him to remember. For the rest of his life he could read these words and be transported back to this here, this now. This happiness.

He got his greatcoat down from its peg, stretched himself under it on the bed, and took up Montaigne. Of Thumbs. He had read his few books so often he almost knew them by heart, but he always enjoyed Of Thumbs.

At night the hut always felt as if lost on the edge of s.p.a.ce. Surrept.i.tious scratchings and rustlings from outside had the effect of deepening the silence and intensifying his solitude. There were nights out here when he lay in the dark feeling as if he were the only human on the face of the earth.

With the girls alongside him, the s.p.a.ce within the walls was transformed. The embers of the fire cast a steady radiance. Tonight, as never before, the hut was a cosy vessel coasting along on the currents of night.

He had chosen the place with solitude in mind but he was pleased, for once, not to be alone. Perhaps he was not, after all, such a solitary soul. That was something about himself that he had not known before. Had it always been there, but never brought to life by the right circ.u.mstance? Or was something in the air of New South Wales changing him?

He had only read a page about thumbs when he saw Tagaran raise herself up on an elbow and call softly to him, kamara, her face creased with sleepiness.

'Minyin bial nangadyimi?' he said carefully. Why don't you sleep?

'Nyimang blanket, kamara,' she answered.

Did she say, Put out the blanket? It was as he had thought. He got up and began to pull the blanket away. Worogan slept on, but Tagaran grabbed it and glared at him in surprise and indignation. He watched her face register a cascade of thoughts.

'Kandulin!' she said and pointed. Candle!

It was the light that was keeping her awake.

It was so unlike her to make a mistake in speaking that he made a joke of it, bending down towards the blanket and puffing as if to blow it out. She smiled, acknowledging the game.

'Tariadyaou,' she whispered.

He recognised the form of the past tense, and some part of a word he thought meant something like mistake. Was she saying, I made a mistake in speaking?

'Yes,' he whispered back, looking down at her face, very childlike with the blanket around it. 'But you know, to err is human.'

His father had said such things to him, in just the tender tone he heard in his own voice now. She could not understand those last words, he thought, but she closed her eyes for sleep.

He arranged himself under his coat again and blew out the candle, smiling at the idea of putting out the blanket. It was unlike Tagaran to make a mistake, but it was equally unlike himself to think to turn a mistake into a joke.

Well, it might be unlike Lieutenant Daniel Rooke, but for the person she called kamara it seemed to come as naturally as breathing. Kamara must have existed all this time, he thought, but without the remarkable chance of the arrival of Tagaran, he would still be voiceless.

He lay on his side listening to the soft sounds of the embers creaking and collapsing, and the girls' innocent unaware breathing. He could see the curve of their joined silhouette swelling and subsiding. One of Tagaran's arms was flung out from beneath the blanket, the hand palm-up, the fingers loosely curled around air.

He felt-what was it?-a warmth was it, in his chest? He could not locate it or name it, but knew it was to do with Tagaran being under his roof, that trusting hand turned up towards him.

The light from the embers had faded to nothing. The hut was as dark as blindness. In a short time he knew that a full moon would rise. As he had done on so many other nights, he got up and wrapped himself in the greatcoat. Tonight he would not watch the moon as an astronomer, but as any other man might who could not sleep. He felt his way over to his table and the shelf above it, got the brandy bottle, poured a gla.s.s mostly by sound, and took it outside.

The world was darkness upon blackness. Only the harbour was a different, s.h.i.+fting blackness. No one but an astronomer who knew where to look would have seen the modest glow on the horizon. He waited, used to sitting in the dark until a light appeared in the sky where he knew it must. The brandy warmed him: poor brandy, he tasted the harshness of it, but it was a pleasure he did not often allow himself.

The merest sliver of moon was a line of light along the horizon. As he watched, it rose until all but the last fraction of its circ.u.mference was free. It spread out along the horizon and seemed to flatten itself, clinging to the earth as if reluctant to rise.

It was simply an effect of the atmosphere, but how odd and interesting that the human mind should be so constructed as to find it a thing of beauty. Knowledge of why it happened only made the sight more lovely. He was willing to sit transfixed, the mosquitoes whining around his ears, until the instant where the stretched liquid parted and let the moon sail alone through indigo s.p.a.ce.

Tagaran had praised him again that day: kamara budyeri karaga, she had said, kamara speaks well. He liked the way she called him kamara.

There was a particular sly mocking glance that she shot sideways at him when he was being slow. Other than his sister, Tagaran was the only human in the world who trusted him to be able to laugh at himself.

Perhaps this was what it was like to have children of one's own, and move with them in an atmosphere of easy playfulness. He supposed that one day, like most men, he would marry. If he did, and had those unimaginable children of his own, he would remember this. He tried to picture himself telling them the story. Then one night the two native children slept in my hut.

He thought there might not be any words for what was happening between himself and Tagaran. Like the language of the Cadigal that he was learning, word by half-understood word, the language of his feelings for her was beyond his reach. He could only step forward blindly, in trust.

Perhaps it was the brandy, but in the eerie wash of moonlight he sat content to the point of euphoria.

From Rose Hill, Silk sent Rooke messages to the effect that the breadbasket of the colony was even quieter and stupider than he had feared, and that all he had to show for those weeks was an understanding of clod moulding, information he would just as soon have gone to his grave without. If the governor did not soon send for him, he wrote, he would be forced to come down with some painless but disabling ailment in order to rejoin the human race in Sydney Cove.

In Silk's hands, even the complete absence of material in itself became material. Rooke read his notes and wondered if Silk had made a copy for his narrative. Or would he expect Rooke to keep his correspondence?

He had just dismissed the messenger when another arrived to summon him to the parade ground. A prisoner had been caught digging up potatoes in the government garden and secreting them under his coat. He was to be flogged.

Rooke knew that the settlement could not tolerate the theft of food. No one could argue with that. But hunger was beginning to dominate everyone's days. The prisoner women had scoured the sh.o.r.eline around the bays, picking off every limpet and winkle, but were still pale and scrawny, their eyes dull. The only person in the settlement that Rooke had seen still looking robust was the gamekeeper, Brugden. Out in the woods, who was watching if the hunter ate what he shot rather than bring it back for the communal pot?

As for this poor devil who had taken the potatoes, well, man was an organism that demanded food. To take food when it was available was-purely in scientific terms-a correct response to hunger.

The hard-faced judgment that called the action theft and demanded punishment was another matter.

As a servant of His Majesty it was justice Rooke was obliged to obey, but he wished the prisoner had not stolen the potatoes. Had not tried to hide them under his coat. Above all, that he had not been caught.

The man was very fair, his curly hair s.h.i.+ning like wire in the sun, the skin of his back so white as to be almost luminous. And gleaming: the poor wretch was sweating. His body knew what was coming.

All the marines were obliged to be present, and most of the prisoners. What was the point of punishment if no one saw it? Warungin was there too, standing beside the governor and glancing about. Rooke supposed this must be part of his education. There was British civilisation, in the form of china plates and toasts to the king, and there was British justice.

Warungin was unconcerned, only interested. Unlike everyone else present, he did not know what he was about to see.

A thought occurred to Rooke. He slid his eyes around while keeping his head at the regulation angle. With the intensity of prayer he hoped that he would not see Tagaran watching from behind the trees, wondering at this unusual gathering of the Berewalgal.

And if she were? If he caught sight of her, peeping out from behind a tree with that look she had, avid for knowledge? Would he break ranks, go over to her-somehow make her understand that she must leave, cover her eyes, block her ears-while the ranks of other redcoats looked on?

He stood at attention with his musket at the slope. He was already sweating in his jacket, his heart was thudding, and the thing had not yet started.

He was close enough to hear the governor explaining to Warungin, pointing towards the thief lashed to the triangle in the bright empty s.p.a.ce where the ground beat back the light.

'A bad man. Stole food.'

Warungin watched the words form on the governor's lips.

'This man took food that did not belong to him.'

Warungin nodded, whether with real understanding Rooke could not say.

'So we punish.' The governor was determined to be clear. 'Every man is the same. If he steals, he is punished.'

It was interesting to hear that magnificent idea-the product of hundreds of years of British civilisation-spelled out so plain.

Then the flogger came out onto the patch of sandy ground. He shook out the cat, separating the tails, thwacked the b.u.t.t into his palm once or twice.

Even the birds seemed to have fallen silent.

Rooke set himself to thinking of the muscles in his back. How ingenious was the mechanism of the spine, that could hold the body upright no matter what was going on in its head. He thought of his feet. Such small balancing points, and yet they knew how to stop him toppling. He imagined a carved replica of himself, complete with musket, jacket and wooden face, standing on a base as narrow as his feet. Would it fall over? He thought of the way the ground was pressing up against the soles of his shoes. Or rather the way his feet were pressing down into the ground. That was gravity. It was the tremendous hand that kept the cosmos in its place. Kepler had got close to understanding, Newton had snared it in words. Every particle of matter in the universe attracts every other particle.

Rooke was performing a species of magic, or trying to. He was removing himself from the place and time he occupied, while leaving his body there staring into the middle distance, musket at the correct angle.

At the first sickening crack of the knots against the skin, the prisoner cried out, but so did someone else. Rooke saw Warungin trying to rush forward, shouting at the flogger, his face distorted. He strained against the governor holding him back and looked wildly around at the marines in their ranks. He met Rooke's eyes and shouted to him, some word over and over. Across the s.p.a.ce between them it was one man begging another.

Lieutenant Rooke looked away. He stiffened his neck further back into his collar, gripped the b.u.t.t of his musket more tightly. He could feel the sweat slimy on the wood. His collar was choking him, his cap was squeezing his head, his jacket seemed made of iron. Stop, stop, stop, was the only word his brain could produce. Stop, to Warungin, to make him not go on calling to him. Stop, to the flogger, to drop the whip, walk away. Stop, to the governor, to take pity on all of them.

He clenched his hand around the gun, squeezed up his toes in his shoes. He was a stone, a piece of wood, a replica of a man.

Wyatt and Weymark on either side had got hold of Warungin's arms. Between the inhuman noises the prisoner made at each stroke, Rooke could hear the governor continuing to work away at explanation.

'Bad,' Rooke heard. 'Bad man. Thief.'

The governor's face pinched up, trying to make Warungin understand.

'Took food. Stole food that was not his food.'

Warungin had stopped struggling but his face was turned away from where a man's back was methodically being reduced to red pulp. Rooke could see the powerful tendons in his neck straining. At each stroke and each cry from the prisoner, Warungin flinched.

This was justice: impartial, blind, n.o.ble. The horror of the punishment was the proof of its impartiality. If it did not hurt, it was not justice. That was what the governor was trying to convey, but the n.o.ble concepts evaporated in the light.

Rooke heard the shocking wet slap of the cat landing on split flesh, twenty times, thirty times, fifty times. At each stroke, the man's body convulsed against the ropes that held him to the triangle. The flogger had to stop and comb his fingers through the tails of the whip after each lash to clear the flesh that clogged them.

The prisoner endured seventy-four lashes before his body sagged from the ropes. It was Surgeon Weymark's job to judge whether the wretch had taken all he could on this occasion. He barely touched the man's wrist in a gesture of taking his pulse before nodding that, yes, he had had enough, cut him down.

A hundred and twenty-six lashes left for next time. Rooke thought that the idea of that waiting for you might be worse than the present pain.

Even when the man was cut down and dragged off, Warungin's mouth was still a peculiar strained shape. There was a grey overlay, like a dusting of ash, to the brown skin of his face. He was staring down. Rooke thought he might be about to vomit.

The governor touched his arm.

'It is over, my friend,' Rooke heard him begin.

But at his touch Warungin flung up his arm as if the governor's hand were red-hot.

'Let us return to my house, I will give you something to eat,' the governor said.

Warungin did not reply, did not look at the governor or any of the other a.s.sembled Berewalgal. He did not even glance at Rooke. As soon as Wyatt released him he turned his back and walked away. Rooke watched him go, this man with whom he had sat cross-legged on the ground.

Warungin was not thinking punishment, justice, impartial. All he could see was that the Berewalgal had gathered in their best clothes to inflict pain beyond imagining on one of their own. Seen through his eyes, this ceremony was not an unfortunate but necessary part of the grand machine of civilisation. It looked like a choice. When those fine abstractions fell away, all that remained was cruelty.

And Rooke had been part of it. He had not cried out with horror or rushed forward to put an end to it. He had looked away when Warungin called to him.

Chosen to look away. No one had held him there. He had made that choice, because he was a lieutenant in His Majesty's Marine Force.

There it was, in the very words. Force was his job. If he was a soldier, he was as much a part of that cruelty as the man who had wielded the whip.

Silk was at last recalled from Rose Hill at the beginning of summer. He was full of the dreariness of the place.

'Listen to this, Rooke, you had better sit down, otherwise you are likely to fall over from excitement. Listen: Dod says he expects this year's crop of wheat and barley to yield full 400 bushels. Have you ever heard anything so scintillating?'

'But you will make something of it. Turn, you know, a sow's ear...'

'Oh, no talk of sows, if you please! I have to admit, though, that the place had its charms in spite of its dullness. They have cleared a great deal of ground, and from the top of the hill I was struck by how grand and capacious the prospect seemed, after not seeing an opening in the woods of that extent for such a long time.'

He felt in his pocket for his pencil.

'I must remember that, it was a striking and novel sensation.'