Nanberry (5 page)

W
HITE-GHOST HOSPITAL
,
THE TIME OF FEAR AND
CONFUSION
(18 M
AY
1789)

The white ghosts wrapped Arabanoo in a cloth. They carried him away. They would put him in a hole.

A woman called Mrs Johnson had taken Booroong. It was hard to tell which white ghosts were men and which were women, for their clothes covered the most important parts. Nanberry decided that those who wore long cloth to the ground were women. The long-skirted ones had no beards, though a few old ones had moustaches.

Now there was just him in the hut where someone had died. He forced his mind not to even think the name of the dead man. Once someone had gone, even someone you loved — especially one you loved — you did not say his or her name till the stars had turned over in the sky.

Someone screamed in another building not far away. The scream went on and on. This place smelt bad, of death and pain and blood.

He had to leave! He had to find a place where no ghosts whispered. Under the trees? But people had died there too …

It didn't matter. He just had to get away from here. He pushed off the blanket, which was rough and scratchy, not soft like bungu fur, and put his feet on the ground. The sores had scabbed over; some of the scabs were even peeling off. But he still had to steady himself with his hand on the wall to stand.

‘You, boy! What do you think you're doing?'

It was the man called Surgeon. Nanberry didn't understand the words. To his horror, he felt himself begin to cry. He felt the man's arms about his shoulders. The Surgeon's voice said, ‘A hospital is no place for a child.'

He didn't understand. Nanberry tried to find a word the Surgeon would understand. ‘Dead. Go. Go.'

‘Don't worry. You're coming home with me.' The Surgeon hesitated, then said: ‘I am going to adopt you. You have no family, and nor do I. Your new name is Andrew Douglass Keble White. Can you say that?'

‘Aggrew Dadabblite,' said Nanberry.

The Surgeon laughed. ‘Almost. And you will call me
Father White
. I am your new father now.' He touched his chest and said the name again. ‘Father White.'

Nanberry made the sounds carefully. He knew the man was giving him his name. ‘Father White.'

‘Excellent! Good lad.'

Nanberry felt himself lifted into the man's arms and carried out the door. For a moment all he felt was relief that he was gone from the hut where a man had died. Then amazement took over.

He peered from the man's arms at the harbour. There was one of the murry nowey there again, bobbing on the waves as if it was a giant bark canoe. All around there were huts, and strange things growing, not grass or berry bushes or yams or anything he
had ever seen, but tall slim plants in straight lines. What magic had made plants grow in straight lines?

And so many people, wearing filthy clothes that should have been left to rot under a tree. Most of them were hunched over like old men, even though they looked young. Not one had the muscles and shoulders of a warrior. Did the white ghosts cover their bodies because they were ashamed?

At least Father White stood straight. He had a belly too, which meant that he was skilled enough to hunt good food. And he had taken him away from the death hut …

Nanberry shut his eyes. He was tired. Too tired to think, or even look at all the wonders. This man had saved him once, when the fever took his family, and again today, sparing him from the place of Arabanoo's ghost.

It seemed this man would decide what would happen to him now.

S
YDNEY
C
OVE
, 18 M
AY
1789

Maria stared at the child in the Surgeon's arms.

‘But he's a native, sir!'

‘I am aware of that.' The Master's voice was tired and curt.

‘In my clean house!'

‘It is
my
house. He'll sleep in a crib in my room for now. I've ordered Lon to build on a new room. You can have that. We'll move the boy into the storeroom when he's stronger.'

‘But he has the smallpox!'

The Surgeon sighed. ‘The blisters have scabbed over. He's not infectious now. He just needs care — gentler care than he'll get in that excuse for a hospital. Give him sarsaparilla tea and fish and as much fresh fruit and vegetables as he'll eat.'

The Master and his fresh fruit, she thought. Everyone knew that fresh fruit was bad for you, especially for children.

‘If you say so, sir.'

‘I do say so.' He strode through the kitchen, the boy still in his arms. She watched as he laid the child tenderly on the hay-stuffed mattress and covered him with a blanket. ‘Now, you be a good lad, and Maria will bring you some supper.'

The boy looked up, the whites of his eyes pale in his dark face. ‘Su-pper?'

‘Supper is food.'

‘Food.' The boy nodded. ‘Thank you.'

Maria stared. The little savage had said
thank you
clear as a bell. He looked clean too, despite his scabs. But who knew what trouble he'd get into? A native boy and an o'possum …

The o'possum! She turned. ‘Sir? Do you want me to keep feeding the o'possum?'

But Surgeon White had gone.

F
ATHER
W
HITE'S HUT
,
THE TIME OF FEAR AND
CONFUSION
(18 M
AY
1789)

He was tired. So many new things: the smells, the white ghosts, the angry woman who had stared at him. He hadn't understood the words, but he knew she didn't like him.

Worse was the knowledge that outside this hut was an empty land: only the white ghosts, the trees, the animals. None of his people left. A land of ghosts. White ghosts, and dead ones.

He tried to shut his mind to ghosts.

The bed here smelt better than the one in the hut where the man had died. There were other smells too. Food smells, strange, but good.

The woman came in. Even her footsteps sounded angry. She was small, but her thick clothes made her look bigger. Why wear so many clothes when the wind was warm?

‘Here's your supper.'

Nanberry sat up and took the container from her hand.

‘You stupid heathen! You don't drink stew! You use a spoon. Like this, see?'

He watched carefully to try to understand what she meant. This was a new world. He had to learn its rules.

‘Spoon.' He lifted it the way she had shown him. The food tasted different from a spoon. But it was good.

‘Say thank you.'

‘Thank you,' he said cautiously. He held out the empty container.

For the first time she gave an almost-smile. ‘Liked that, did you? You won't get better than my stew at Government House. I'll get you another helping, and then I'd better feed that wretched o'possum. What does a fine gentleman like the Surgeon want with an o'possum and a native?'

At last Nanberry lay down, his belly full. He listened to the woman clang and clatter behind the wall. He heard the man called Father White come in. He shut his eyes, pretending to be asleep. He was too tired to try to talk. He was afraid that he might cry again too.

A warrior didn't cry.

He watched Father White take off his clothes and put on a
nightshirt
, then lie in the bed. Father White was fat, as he'd thought.

Father White's clan had good food. But there was no laughter, no singing. Outside he knew the sun had sunk behind the mountains. It felt like his own sun had sunk forever too.

He slept. And then he heard the scream.

S
YDNEY
C
OVE
, 18 M
AY
1789

The crash woke her. She sat up on her pallet of dried bracken and unwrapped herself from her blanket. The storeroom was in darkness.

She had no candle to light her way in the dark. Only the Governor had any candles left now. The meat from the wild animals in this wretched place was too lean to provide any fat for more, or even to make slush lamps. But she knew where the door was. She fumbled for the opening, then ducked through the cold outside into the warmth of the kitchen.

At least there was light here, a red glow from the fire. She bent and threw on more wood and prodded the coals with the poker. The flames flared. A blob of sap burst into tiny sparks.

She straightened and looked around.

One of her — the Surgeon's — precious china bowls lay shattered on the floor; the cold potatoes it had held were scattered about the room. She stared at it in dismay. There was
no way to get another bowl till the next ship came — if it ever did. And even then it mightn't bring crockery.

What had happened? Had that native boy tried to steal it? Would the Surgeon blame her?

Perhaps she could glue the pieces together … but there was no glue. Not for half the world away.

A shadow moved in the corner of the room. It leapt from the back of the Surgeon's chair onto the table, then perched on the sack, peering at her with its big black eyes.

She grabbed at it. The o'possum leapt once more, over the hearth this time. She heard a scrabble as it tried to climb the chimney, its scream as it burnt its paws. Black and sooty, it fell back to the hearth — her clean scrubbed hearth. Black eyes stared at her again then made a dash and tried to climb the wall.

Even in the firelight she could see the soot across her floor and up the wall.

She bit back a scream, but not soon enough. She heard the Surgeon stir.

‘Maria?' He stumbled from his room, his long nightshirt and cap white in the firelight, holding his musket, the one he gave his shooter to hunt with. He peered at her. ‘What are you doing, girl? I thought it was thieves.'

The o'possum squeaked and ducked into the sack. The sack gave a wriggle and then was still.

‘The beast! The horrid, horrid beast!'

The Surgeon took in the scene, then made a strange sound. It took her a few seconds to realise he was laughing again.

‘Oh, child, if you could see your face! Now put the china away where it will be safe.'

Where? she wondered. The kitchen had only a few shelves tacked to its rough cabbage-tree walls, as well as the table, the chair, the hearth. There were no cupboards to keep a wild creature out. She'd have to lug it all into the storeroom with her.

‘Sir, will you … take care of him … tomorrow?'

She meant wring the beast's neck. Kill it. Put it in one of those big glass jars, like the snakes and the other creatures he had preserved.

‘When I have time. There are more important things just now than preserving an o'possum. Pick those bits up, girl, before someone cuts their foot on them.' He shut the door behind him.

The moon had climbed high in the doorway by the time Maria had finished taking the china into her room. She cast a look of dislike at the silent sack.

Soon, she thought. Soon the creature would be gone for good.

F
ATHER
W
HITE'S HUT, THE TIME OF STRANGENESS
(18 M
AY
1789)

The scream had startled him. But it was only a bungu.

The other sound had reassured him. He hadn't known that white ghosts could laugh. This new life had good food and kindness. There might be laughter too.

His heart still wept. But now it held hope for his new life as well as grief.

S
YDNEY
C
OVE
, 23 M
AY
1789

Nanberry sat on the bed in the storeroom to pull on his new trousers, then stared at his legs. They looked … odd. But he liked them. His trousers smelt like an early morning, not like the clothes most of the white ghosts wore. He liked his shirt too, and his boots. He grinned at the word. It sounded so funny. ‘Booooooots.'

Boots made big thuds when he walked, so everyone could hear him coming. That was fun, but he missed the feel of the earth under his feet, as well as his old silent footsteps.

It was strange living in a
house
. He missed the smell of morning when you woke up with the dew about you. He missed sitting by the fire as the air changed from day to night, and all the light left was stars and flames. More than anything he missed his family, his people; he missed knowing who he was and what he would become.

And yet …

His people had left him. They had left him to die; worse, they
had died themselves. Nanberry knew that none of it was their fault. Aunties knew the order of things, how things should be done to keep the world straight. Even they had no way of fighting death.

And he had new people now. He was learning to be
English
.

English didn't die of the white sores. English had big boats. True, most English were small and smelly, but others like Father White were big and fat, and not so smelly.

It was good to belong to Father White's clan. Most English did what Father White said, as if he was one of their greatest warriors. Only the man called
Governor Phillip
was greater than Father White, and he and Father White were friends.

Best of all, Father White and the Governor treated him as a man, not a little boy who hadn't been initiated. Father White had taken him fishing in a boat — not the big ship in the harbour, not yet, but in a boat very much larger than any canoe.

Father White smiled at him and said
good lad
when he learnt English words and English ways. Father White answered questions instead of laughing and saying, ‘That is not for little boys to know.'

And the food!

He looked around the storeroom. So much food! Chests of sweet
currants
and a vat of something sticky called
wine
. Other chests were nailed tight; and there were sacks of brown things called
potatoes
, dug up from the ground, and of others called
corncobs
. The corn and potatoes grew near the house, for the English knew how to make much food come from a small space, just as they could make big ships and houses.

The corn was the best thing he had ever eaten. Maria boiled the cobs and covered them in
salt
and
butter
, which was a bit smelly but still tasted good. He had eaten twenty cobs yesterday. Father White had laughed, and said he counted as well as he could eat.

But why did the English need to store so much? Every day brought its own food, according to the seasons. As you walked
you ate: a few berries here, some greens, the sweet nectar of the blossoms. You roasted yams by the fire at night when the cold wind blew; you feasted when a whale came ashore. This fish in one season; eels in another; frogs to eat after a good rain; and figs in late summer — fat fruit bats when they had been feeding on the figs too.

The whole world was food. Why keep it shut up in here? The door was locked every night, so the small dirty Englishmen didn't steal it. Which meant that Nanberry was locked in too.

He didn't mind. The English camp outside still frightened him, especially at night. The shadows of the houses loomed in a way that tree dapples above you never did. Sometimes men yelled and Maria sniffed and said that they were ‘as drunk as lords'.

Nanberry wished there was something he could do for Father White.

He walked carefully in his boots and trousers into the room they called
kitchen
. No, it was
the
kitchen just like
the
table.
The
chair too. He could hear Maria singing softly as she swept the room next door. He wanted to sweep for her, but she had just glared at him when he tried to take the broom.

And then he saw it: a bungu! A fat one, sitting on the table, staring at him with big dark eyes.

Nanberry grinned. He stood, totally still, till the creature relaxed.

And then he sprang.

The bungu shrieked. But Nanberry's hands were about its throat now. One good pull and it would be dead. He could skin it and tan its hide for Father White. They would eat bungu meat, roasted on the fire tonight.

‘Stop it! You heathen savage, stop it at once!'

Nanberry stopped. He'd learnt the word
stop
. The bungu wriggled in his hands, and tried to scratch him. He stilled it against his body.

‘You put that o'possum down.'

He didn't know the words, but the meaning was clear. Slowly he put the bungu on the table again.

The bungu gave an angry snort, then jumped into a basket. It peered out, chattering at them both.

Nanberry put his hands out to ask Maria,
Why?

‘That is the Master's o'possum!'

‘O'possum?' He nodded at the bungu.

‘Yes, it's an o'possum. And a messy troublesome brute it is too. You must have woken it with your noise. But it's the Master's, so don't go touching it.'

‘Master … eat o'possum?' He corrected himself: ‘Master eat
the
o'possum?'

‘Eat it? The very idea! He's going to put it in a bottle and send it to England for wise men to look at.'

None of the words meant anything, but one thing was plain: this bungu was not for eating.

Maria glared at him. ‘Now you behave yourself, Andrew.'

Andrew.
That meant him.

Nanberry sighed. This new world was strange.

One day soon, he thought, I will be strong again. I will catch a badagarang, a great kangaroo, and give all the meat to Father White. He and Father White would feast together, even Maria perhaps, though she was just a woman.

It would be a better feast than a bungu.

And by then he would really be Andrew, an English boy. Nanberry would be gone.