Eight

I knew Thomas Smith, but only slightly.

He was one of the assigned men, and had been with us for as long as I could remember. Even so, I doubt that we ever exchanged a word. He was short, with light brown hair and a ruddy complexion. There was a raised mole on his left cheek. Though I cannot tell you how old he was, I learned after his death that he had come from Worcestershire, and that he was serving a life sentence for horse-stealing.

He was a troublemaker, too. I was vaguely aware of this, for my mother did not like him, and complained about him regularly. She called him lazy and insolent. Only six months before his murder he had been charged with neglect of duty, and sentenced to fifty lashes. (He had been dispatched to collect mail at Bong Bong, and had returned three hours late.) I had heard him speaking to my mother once or twice. I had seen him slouching against a wall, arms folded, as he addressed her. ‘Do not take that tone with me, Thomas Smith!’ she had exclaimed, her voice suddenly rising. ‘Or you will find yourself up before the Bench!’

What else can I say about Thomas Smith? Not very much, unfortunately. I do know that he smoked, and that there was a scar on his left thumb. I also know that, on the fourth of March, 1836, his head was smashed to pieces, and he was concealed under a fallen log, on top of a small pile of tinder.

It was as if someone had tried to set his body alight, before realising that the smoke of a fire might be seen.

If, like Mrs Louise S.A. Cosh, you have read my letter to the Evening News, you will remember the fallen log. You will also remember my tale of one Ned Smith, who was given a ticket-of-leave for his outstanding service as a groom in our stables. I said that Ned Smith was murdered by John Lynch. I also said that his emancipation was regarded with suspicion by the other convicts— who believed him an informant—and that he was murdered as a result. I said that John Lynch had escaped from Cockatoo Island after he was charged with the murder.

All lies, I fear.

There was a groom called Ned Smith at Oldbury, but he was never murdered. In fact I am quite sure that he had left us by 1836. As for the escape from Cockatoo Island—well, what would you have had me say? That my stepfather’s drunkenness aborted a trial? That with George Barton’s help, Lynch was set free to kill and kill again?

I should never have mentioned John Lynch in the first place. I had a suspicion, you see, that my letter might not be published without mention of a notorious crime—that it might be ignored, like the products of so many other aged gentlewomen. So I succumbed to temptation, and raised once again the spectre of John Lynch. How was I to know that there were others still living who had some inkling of the truth? I had thought it buried in the crumbling back issues of the Sydney Gazette. There are few now who even remember John Lynch, let alone his first murder. Had he still been as notorious as he once was, no mistake would have been made in numbering his victims. For you may be sure that I never accused him of killing twenty-three people. That figure somehow came to replace the correct tally in my letter. Perhaps it was a mistake. Unless the Editor felt that eleven corpses would not be enough to arouse public interest, and doubled the total.

I would not put it past him. He certainly eviscerated my letter. When I read it in the Evening News, I was furious to discover how much had been left out. All the material about the ploughing matches that my father organised, his experiments with turnips, his 1829 pamphlet, On the Expediency and Necessity of Encouraging Distilling and Brewing in New South Wales—all of this (and more) had been removed. With the result that my prose had the disjointed, confusing flavour of something produced by a victim of advanced senility.

You may be sure that I shall not be writing to the Evening News again!

But why dwell on my own concerns? It is George Barton who interests you, I am sure. You must be wondering what he did. How he became involved. You must be asking yourself: why was Thomas Smith murdered, and what did George Barton do to set the murderer free?

I should tell you, first of all, that Smith’s corpse was not found immediately. He simply disappeared, and his absence was remarked upon. I distinctly recall mention of it at breakfast; there was still conversation at the table, in those early days, and Mr Barton observed to my mother (as he shovelled gammon into his mouth) that Thomas Smith had ‘skipped’.

‘Oh dear,’ said my mother. ‘You mean he has run away?’

‘He did not return last night,’ Mr Barton replied. ‘And will wear a red shirt for it when he is caught.’

‘A red shirt?’ James looked up, his interest aroused. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, my lad, that he will have the hide torn off his back, stripe by stripe, until it is all gone,’ said Mr Barton, with a certain lingering relish. Then he caught my eye. ‘What are you staring at, Miss?’

‘Nothing.’ I dropped my gaze, anxious not to offend. I had been thinking about the stripes torn from Mr Barton’s own back, and wondering why he showed himself so keen to condemn others to the same savage punishment.

‘Should we notify the police?’ my mother asked him, whereupon he nodded.

‘I shall send someone to Bong Bong,’ he said. ‘Someone reliable. Leave it to me.’

‘I should not be sorry to lose Thomas Smith,’ my mother observed, dabbing marmalade onto her bread. ‘He has always been troublesome, and inclined to shirk.’

‘He is a damnable out-and-outer,’ said Mr Barton, pushing aside his plate, ‘and will come to a bad end.’

By that time, of course, Thomas Smith had already come to a bad end, though we were unaware of it. I cannot tell you exactly when news of his demise reached Oldbury. The corpse itself was discovered on the fifth of March. It was brought back to Oldbury on a dray, and subsequently buried in the graveyard at Sutton Forest. No doubt there was a lot of talk at church that week, but I was not present to hear it, for my mother was reluctant to face the congregation—what with her recent marriage, and the murder of her assigned man. Therefore I was unable to wring the facts from my cousin John, who undoubtedly would have been thoroughly acquainted with the matter.

As it was, I had to piece together details gleaned from my mother, Mr Barton, and the Oldbury staff. This was more difficult than you might expect. No doubt my mother would have preferred to keep the news from me entirely; when the shrouded remains were delivered to our doorstep, she provided me with the briefest of explanations.

‘It is Thomas Smith,’ she declared, as I stood gaping at the solemn procession that creaked past our house. ‘He died out in the bush, yesterday.’

Then she wrapped her shawl around her and went back inside. I tried to press her further that evening, without success. She told me simply that we should pray for Smith’s soul, and not dwell on such unhappy topics, especially in front of Louisa. ‘Mr Barton has the matter in hand,’ she said. ‘There is nothing else to be done.’

Mr Barton may have had the matter in hand, but he was unwilling to discuss it with me. (‘Get along with you, now,’ was all that he said.) For more information I was obliged to question the servants. Bridget was very cagey. ‘’Twas an ill turn befell him,’ she muttered, ‘or so I heard.’ Robert was more forthcoming. ‘Aye,’ he acknowledged, ‘the poor lad was set upon, and his head laid open. There’s folk will swing for it.’ But the whole affair seemed wrapped in a kind of uneasy silence—at least on the Oldbury estate.

This I found odd, even at the time. For you have to understand that there was no lack of violent incident in the Argyle region back then, and when it occurred it formed the meat of any gossip from Campbelltown to the Five Islands. A year later, for example, Private Thomas O’Brien was cudgelled to death near the Kentish Arms, on my uncle’s estate. One of our convicts, John McCaffrey, was subsequently accused of the murder, along with John Jones (my uncle’s man) and a settler named John Moore. Jones hanged for his crime, and you may believe me when I tell you that there was no lack of discussion among the Oldbury servants on that occasion. Neither were they close-mouthed when the Reverend Vincent’s family were attacked by bushrangers in their own home—a month after Thomas Smith’s murder—or when William Brown, a runaway convict, was arrested for robbing a traveller on the road between Bong Bong and Sutton Forest, just a few weeks after that. I did not need to question my cousin about these events, because they were so exhaustively discussed in our kitchen, stables, and stockyard.

But the death of Thomas Smith elicited a different sort of response. I overheard no free speculation on the subject; instead there was an almost complete lack of comment. No one seemed eager to answer my questions. Eliza became even vaguer than usual. Jane dropped a handful of cutlery, and begged to be excused. Bridget tried to turn the conversation. (‘Would ye be fancyin’ a taste o’ me batter, Miss Charlotte?’)

I was puzzled, though not much concerned. Convicts killed each other all the time. Besides, I had not been intimately acquainted with Thomas Smith. So I turned my thoughts to more important concerns, at least until the police arrived.

There were three of them, and they interviewed Mr Barton at length. They also questioned some of our assigned men, formally, one by one. When I saw the line of mute convicts on our veranda, each with his hat crushed in his hands and his bleak gaze fixed on his boots, I went straight to Eliza for an explanation.

‘Why are our men standing idle, out there?’ I demanded.

‘On account of them traps, Miss.’ By ‘traps’, Eliza meant the mounted police. ‘They bin rounding ’em up.’

‘For what reason?’

Eliza shrugged.

‘Is it something to do with Thomas Smith?’ I pressed, and her expression became blank, as if a curtain had been pulled across it.

‘So I heard,’ she said cautiously.

‘But I thought he was killed by a bushranger!’ This had been a natural assumption to make. ‘Surely they cannot blame any of our men?’

‘That I couldn’t say, Miss,’ Eliza replied. She was clearing the breakfast table, and hid any confusion that she may have felt in a vigorous flapping of linen. Frowning, I turned away. It was suddenly clear to me why the murder had occasioned such little remark. For if the murderer was among us, no one would want to talk freely lest he suffer the same fate as Thomas Smith.

I ran directly to my mother, who was checking the contents of the store cupboards.

‘Mama,’ I said, ‘the police are questioning some of our men!’

‘Yes, dear, I know.’

‘They’re none of them murderers, are they?’

‘Shh.’ My mother put a finger to her lips. She glanced towards Louisa, who was perched on the kitchen table, eating apple peel out of Bridget’s hand. ‘Not too loud, if you please.’

‘But—’

‘The police are making inquiries. You must not fret, Charlotte. This is a matter of convict discipline. It does not concern any of us.’

She was wrong, as it happened. Because it was Mr Barton’s statement that condemned John Lynch. I found out later that George Barton claimed to have seen Lynch in the vicinity of the corpse, around the time that the murder took place. No sooner was this fact presented to the Chief Constable than he immediately sent for Lynch, who—surprisingly enough—had not already absconded. Had I been in his shoes, I should certainly have taken to my heels at the first opportunity. Or perhaps he was about to do so? At any rate, though I did not see him brought in, I was to witness his departure.

And here we arrive at the infamous John Lynch, of evil memory. No doubt you will recall what I have said on another occasion: that I knew most of our assigned men by sight, though not always by name. This was the case with John Lynch. I believe that he spent a good deal of time on our stations, away from the house. Certainly he was not a man often applied to in the domestic sphere. Nevertheless, he was vaguely familiar. When I saw him that day, waiting in the sun, I recognised his crooked nose, and the hairy mole on his jaw.

He was standing near the back veranda with a constable beside him. I would hardly have spared him a second glance, had he not been chained. Though I had seen such chains before (one could hardly avoid them, during that far-off era), they were rarely worn at Oldbury. You might have seen chained men on the roads sometimes, for there were gangs based at Berrima and Bong Bong. But on private estates, chains were less freely employed. Certainly they were not used on our estate.

That is why I was so surprised when I caught sight of the iron shackles, and the heavy links dangling from Lynch’s roughened hands. I stopped short, staring. Whereupon he caught my eye, and winked.

You may want to know what he looked like, this fiend in human form. The fact is, he was not in any way remarkable. Like most of the assigned men, he was quite short. He had freckled skin and mousy hair; I cannot recall what colour his eyes were. I do remember that he was very neatly got up for a labourer, with none of the frayed hems and missing buttons that you so often saw about the place. He was also quite neatly put together, well proportioned for his height, and neither too fat nor too thin.

Looking at him, you would have thought: domestic staff. You would have marked his jaunty, well-groomed, unthreatening appearance, and you would have imagined him cleaning shoes. This is what I find so very puzzling. Because I have seen my share of desperate characters. They were in the chain gangs, hewing rock. They were on the drays that rumbled down the old South Road. They were in the streets of Sydney, loitering near the wharves and the grog-shops. We even had one or two among our assigned men, on occasion, though not for very long; invariably they would abscond, or assault a fellow convict, or commit some other crime. They struck me as being men who had lost at least a portion of their manhood—brute beasts without regard for the trappings of civilisation. They were always noticeable. A kind of fury hung about them like a cloud of gnats. They demonstrated their disdain for authority in all kinds of ways: refusing to shave their beards, speaking only to utter a curse, flaunting their scarred backs. There was nothing to be done with men like this. They each had one foot planted firmly in the Fiery Pit, and were refusing all aid with the most obdurate vehemence. So embittered were they that life had lost its savour for them.

The sinfulness of convicts is something that I have discussed at length with various religious men over the years. While some maintain that convicts were born to sin, others claim that ill treatment can warp any conscience, no matter how tenderly reared. I am not well placed to pass judgement on this matter. As a child, I was carefully shielded from any direct observation of convict punishment. Yet I could not entirely escape its consequences. Though our assigned men were always flogged at the stockade, and were often attached to the local iron gang for long periods thereafter, it was impossible to ignore the change wrought in them when they returned.

Physically, they were often much affected. I have seen many scarified backs, some bearing only a net of thin white lines, others horribly ridged, with the skin all gouged and deformed as if by a massive burn. Such injuries can be disabling for life, especially if they are not given a proper chance to heal. But the physical effects are no more damaging than the spiritual. I do not doubt that flogging will often result in a great deal of unseen harm. Surely it cannot be a coincidence that I saw the worst scarification on the backs of men whose faces had lost all semblance of humanity? Clergymen like the Reverend Vincent might argue that the heaviest penalties are naturally inflicted upon the most degraded objects— that a severe flogging is the inevitable consequence of moral degeneracy, and not its cause. I wonder if this can be true. Sometimes I think it likely. At other times I recall certain incidents that took place at Oldbury when I was a child, and begin to question their meaning. I remember one man who hid behind the woodpile, screaming and sobbing, when Mr Throsby paid a visit; this man had apparently been sentenced to fifty lashes by the local Bench, over which Mr Throsby had presided. Then there was the man who went to his punishment with a cocky grin on his face, only to return hollow-eyed and shuffling like someone thirty years older. I heard much later that he tried to hang himself while in Captain Nicholson’s employ. Memories like this do nothing to persuade me that corporal punishment has a wholly salutary effect on those who receive it. And they suggest that men who are treated like vicious dogs might become like vicious dogs.

John Lynch was certainly vicious. Whether his character was irreparably deformed by the flogging that he had received while employed by my mother is impossible to judge. Was it some cruel notion of revenge that propelled him to commit his loathsome crimes, or was he born evil? Only God can be sure. One thing I can say, however, is that Lynch was not among the ranks of those who no longer pretended that they were anything but beasts. There was nothing wild about John Lynch—or so it seemed to me. In later years I read that he had been transported for robbery. This is not quite true. My father, into whose care Lynch was assigned straight from his ship, once told my mother that John Lynch had been convicted of false pretences. In other words, he had been caught impersonating someone else.

Perhaps that was his special skill. Perhaps he was able, with utter conviction, to impersonate a tidy, cheerful, ordinary little man. That is what I saw when I looked at him.

‘Who is that?’ I asked my mother.

‘Go inside,’ was her response.

‘But he is one of our men.’

‘Obey me, Charlotte!’

As ever, she wanted her children well shielded from the more troubling spectacles that afflict a penal colony. I can understand this now, though I did not at the time. Forced inside the house, I went straight back to Eliza, who was standing at the window of the breakfast room, looking out.

‘Who have they put in chains?’ I asked her.

‘John Lynch,’ she replied.

‘Did he kill Thomas Smith?’ It seemed doubtful. ‘Is that what they think?’

There was no immediate response. Instead Eliza watched for a moment, before observing: ‘They have John Williamson, too.’

They did have John Williamson. And several others. Peering through the little panes of glass, I saw George Barton stride across the beaten earth towards Constable Cheater, waving his arms. He seemed to be protesting about something. They began to argue. Though unable to hear a word, I quickly understood why Mr Barton was enraged.

The police had herded most of our farm workers into a tight little group. There were so many that there were not chains enough to go around: twelve men altogether, including John Lynch.

I counted them.

‘What are they doing?’ I could not keep the astonishment out of my voice. ‘Why are they taking our men?’

But Eliza was at a loss. She simply stood there, gaping. I daresay that the Chief Constable was being careful. He was probably hoping to find witnesses among our assigned men, and did not want to risk leaving anyone behind who might run away before being questioned. So he had decided to march the whole crew off to Bong Bong lock-up, where he could interview them at his leisure.

My stepfather did not take kindly to this decision.

‘. . . whole field of maize to harvest!’ he was saying, his words becoming audible to me as he raised his voice. ‘. . . fetch the mail . . . load of pumpkins . . .’ When Cheater placed a reassuring hand on his arm, he flung it off. ‘This is a damnable liberty!’ he roared. ‘I shall write to the Colonial Secretary, and demand compensation!’

My mother hovered beside him, trying to calm his ruffled temper. She, too, was not pleased; I could sense this from the stiffness of her back, and the set of her shoulders. She tried to reason with Cheater, but to no avail. The Chief Constable stood firm, defying my stepfather in the most public way imaginable. He simply took most of our assigned men and forced them off the estate, leaving no assurances as to when (or if ) they would be returned.

After they had gone, Mr Barton vanished for a while. He must have retired to a quiet spot with a few drams of rum, because when he finally reappeared, in the late afternoon, he was well primed and staggering. He went straight to the piggery, and drove our swine into the pumpkin patch with a bullwhip. ‘No bloody use to anyone now!’ he yelled. ‘Just pig-feed now!’

With Robert’s help, my mother managed to save about half the crop. She received one stripe in the process, however; Barton accidentally caught her across the ear. I overheard him begging her pardon later that evening, when they were in her room. He was loud and maudlin, his voice breaking on a sob. I had to wrap my pillow around my head to block out the sound.

Later, I learned to shut my eyes as well. But it never worked—not any of it.

There was really nowhere to hide.