CHAPTER 14

The flood receded, and we were off to Benalla in a flurry, and my heart felt as damp and crumpled and mildewed as all our costumes. My spirits fell still further as I saw Ned riding towards our convoy, shirt-tail hanging out, rolling in the saddle. From the coach window, I watched George run to him as he dismounted and reach up to embrace him, calling him his brave boyo, and Ned bend to pat him as if he were a puppy. Mr Bleeker climbed down from his coach, nodded curtly, demanded to know why Ned was not in Sydney distributing playbills, and Ned embarked on a long, slurred explanation. Shocking floods. Big river ahead. Bridge down. Put up in a miserable hole called Baddaginnie, and he’d already drunk them dry.

He was no longer clutching his animal hide. Had he sent it to the doctor, or bartered it for liquor? He had a lumpy canvas bag strapped across his back: perhaps it held more marvels for the collector.

George danced around, shouting of their adventures marooned on an island, but Mr Bleeker cut him short, asked Ned how they were to proceed. Ned took off his bowler, rubbed his brow and said they could wait for the river to calm itself down.

George jumped up and down. ‘Won’t do, won’t do! Mr B wants to make money sharpish!’ and Mr Bleeker frowned and said they should have been in Sydney a week ago.

‘They do say there’s an old crossing,’ said Ned. ‘A ford. But dangerous.’

‘Take me to someone who knows the ford,’ said Mr Bleeker. ‘And straighten yourself up, man.’

At the riverbank, we all got out to inspect an evil river of rushing yellow, topped with patches of dirty foam. Not quite as wide as the Yarra Yarra or the Goulburn, and much more wooded round about, but fiercer. At the edges, the water was halfway up the tree trunks.

Belly fluttered and stirred. It felt exactly like my own fear: sickness, tremors, dry mouth, a constriction in my throat, a thumping heart. But I knew it came from Belly. Was there a point when the little creature developed its own feelings? This fear had not existed when I plunged into the Yarra Yarra, or was kidnapped by ruffians. Perhaps Belly had sensed danger creeping like a miasma from the photograph that Franz had shown me. I shifted miserably on the bank. I could not reason with Belly, who sensed peril round every corner, behind every curtain, under every tide. I could do nothing but hold fast and endure the fear as if it were my own.

A bloated calf bobbed by, and then, tilted at a crazy angle, a handsome mahogany writing desk. I looked round for Franz. I had resolved to stay as far from him as possible, yet still I burned to see him. He stood well back from the group, away from the water. The other men, including the guide and the two drivers we had hired in Baddaginnie, stood in a row along the river’s edge.

‘A hop, a skip and a jump,’ said Ned, suddenly sober.

‘Australia is one infernal river after another,’ said Charlie. ‘Nothing but Jordans and Rubicons.’

‘The Styx is the infernal river,’ said George. ‘And anyway, you’ve forgotten the desert.’

‘So you are now an expert on Antipodean geography, Commodore? As the sailor of the party, would you care to tell us how to cross this piffling little trickle?’

‘Oh ho,’ said George. ‘Getting the wind up?’

‘Charlie,’ said Lavinia, on a warning note.

Mr Bleeker took a couple of swift strides so that he stood between the two little men. I could understand his caution. He had had to drag them apart in the middle of the church service at the Royal Hotel in Seymour. They had flown at each other after Charlie had placed a grain of gold, one of his Ballarat acquisitions, on the collection plate, and when it was passed to George, he had taken it back.

‘We will cross, never fear,’ said Mr Bleeker.

‘Of course we will,’ said Lavinia. ‘I for one want to try the excitement of fording a dangerous river.’ She stood close to the flood, clutching tightly to her sister’s arm; since Seymour, the two had become inseparable.

The guide from Baddaginnie, a lean fellow with creases fanning from his eyes, dismounted from his horse and kneeled by the flood, peering downstream. ‘She’s very deep. Rains’ve swollen her to perdition. Another twelve hours’ storm and a frigate wouldn’t touch bottom.’

Mr Bleeker followed his gaze. ‘Can we cross?’

‘Dunno. Top markers are still above water. I’ll give her a go. Wait here.’

He remounted, rode downstream and disappeared behind an overhanging rock, then re-emerged in the water, crossing at an angle, his horse going deeper at every step. Up to his waist in the stream, he turned his horse’s head, guided it onto the submerged bar, and walked it on steadily to the other side. On dry land, he waved his hat to us as gaily as a man at a picnic.

‘Are you afraid?’ Mr Bleeker asked the ladies.

I wanted to say, Belly is afraid. It was something I had to hold in, like my urge to urinate.

‘We Warrens are never afraid,’ said Lavinia.

The guide came back without mishap, and the men harnessed two of the strongest horses to the first baggage carriage. Rodnia climbed to the coachman’s seat, glared at the waters. ‘Good luck, Roddie,’ cried George. The horses went downstream and entered the water at the overhanging rock, and Rodnia sat like a small bear on a sinking island. About two-thirds of the way across, the carriage came to a sudden halt. Rodnia scrambled onto the roof to investigate. ‘We are fast against a rock,’ he shouted back to the bank.

Mr Bleeker looked at the guide. ‘What kind of bar is it?’

‘Hard sand, very narrow, full of boulders.’ The guide pointed to the baggage carriage. ‘He did not keep the line. Lucky for him he stuck. Few feet further, he’d be rolling in the drink.’

‘Good God, man, it’s like crossing on a tightrope.’

The guide shrugged. ‘I told you …’

‘Yes, yes. Can you get him free?’

‘Only God can help him now.’

Rodnia, still on the carriage roof, had found a long branch and was pushing with all his strength at something under the water. The horses stood still, the water almost to their necks, as if the river might not notice them if they did not give themselves away. Mr Bleeker strode back and forth, shouting: ‘Courage, Rodnia! Push! Push harder! Not too hard!’

Everyone shouted and shrieked; George jumped up and down.

The loudest voice, to my amazement, came from my own mouth. Every muscle in me was clenched tight, only Belly was shivering and shaking, but I would not pay any heed. ‘Be brave! Be brave!’ I yelled, to Belly as much as to Rodnia. He turned briefly, waved his long branch towards me, a stocky knight saluting his lady at a tournament with his lance, and I felt a fierce rush of pride — until I remembered how I had shouted at him at Seymour. He was not waving his branch at me after all.

Rodnia climbed back to the coachman’s seat, shook the reins, shouted at the horses. They strained, and suddenly the baggage carriage lumbered forward, edged with agonising slowness towards the further bank, rose out of the water, the horses’ flanks streaming. As he pulled the team up, Rodnia stood on his seat, turned and gave us a bow.

How we cheered. George danced a squelchy jig, Mrs Bleeker threw her arms around me — I was still yelling, without words — and squeezed me to her bony corset. ‘It’s Roddie’s finest hour,’ shouted George.

Over Mrs Bleeker’s shoulder, I saw Franz under a tree, his head bowed, biting his gloved thumb.

The second baggage carriage crossed safely with one of the hired drivers; Mr Bleeker would not let our guide take it — he wanted to hear his advice from the bank. Before the two passenger coaches followed, Mr Bleeker arranged the seating, with equal numbers in each coach: two performers in one, two in the other. Surely all were thinking what it would mean if one coach containing three, or even four, little people were swept away. Charlie protested that he must be with his wife, but Mr Bleeker insisted they be separated for the crossing. Still, he would not climb aboard until he had seen Lavinia’s coach cross. So Lavinia and Minnie, still clinging to each other, made their way to the front coach, and Mrs Bleeker and I joined them. At the last moment, Franz volunteered to be our escort.

The carriage lurched forward along the riverbank, keeping close inshore. Under the overhanging rock was a growth of scrub, and at the roots of the plants, almost underwater, a small white cross stood in mud. The guide tapped on the window. ‘Head so as to pass one yard above where the baggage coach stopped, and no further,’ he shouted to the driver. ‘Make it quick and short.’ The incline was steep and, almost at once, water flooded into the carriage from wheel level. I pulled my feet onto the seat, drew my knees up to my chin, and Mrs Bleeker and Franz did the same; Lavinia and Minnie stood upright on the seats; and all of us watched the scummy bath fill.

‘Courage, everyone,’ said Lavinia. Minnie whimpered. Franz sat opposite me, his gloved hands tight around his raised knees. His face was very pale under his pulled-down hat, his eyes were fixed on mine, but I sat rigid, lips pressed together, and I would not return his look.

The carriage tottered, righted itself, and Lavinia risked a look back through the window. ‘My husband is urging us on. He is running up and down the riverbank and waving his hat in the air.’ The water level in the coach was dropping, and out the window I saw a white cross in the dirt. Were we back where we started? No, a different bush, no overhanging stone. Minnie’s whimper turned to a shriek of joy. As we climbed out, Rodnia tried to take my arm, but Franz was helping Lavinia and somehow elbowed him out of the way.

We stood looking back over the river, to where the remaining travellers — Mr Bleeker, Ned, Charlie, George and their hired driver — were entering the river in the last coach. Halfway across, at a point not far from where Rodnia’s carriage had stalled, the coach stopped.

‘Oh my Lord,’ cried Lavinia. ‘They are stuck.’

‘No, the driver has pulled up,’ said Mrs Bleeker. Faint above the roaring of the river came the shout of the guide from the other bank. ‘Don’t stop. Don’t stop, or you are lost.’

‘His mettle is gone,’ said Minnie. Lavinia put her hands to her mouth.

A sparse-haired head on a long neck emerged from the right window of the coach and shouted something to the driver, who sat frozen on his perch.

‘They must drive on,’ said Mrs Bleeker. ‘It is the deepest part of the bar. If they stay, the flood will overwhelm them.’

The guide on the far side was screaming, but the wind snatched his words away. One of the horses whinnied back. Then the scream came again. ‘Urge them. Urge them on.’

I looked at my fellow watchers, who had all leaped and shouted for Rodnia, but were now silent as the coach shook in the flood’s jaws. Lavinia, her face drained of blood, clutched Mrs Bleeker’s arm, pointed. Something had burst out the left window of the coach; a puppet hung from the sill by its boots, arms flailing, head dangling inches above the foam.

‘Charlie?’ said Lavinia.

Charlie’s body twitched, tried a jackknife, hung down again.

‘Charlie!’ Lavinia rushed to the edge of the river, began to wade in. Mrs Bleeker and Franz grabbed her shoulders, hauled her back.

Charlie’s body had gone as limp as a rabbit hung in kitchen rafters. Hands grasped his ankles, thin hands with white-lined wrists, but still he slipped a few inches down towards the flood.

Lavinia made a choking noise, struggled against her saviours.

Belly was still and I was numb. A dull certainty filled me: he will fall, I will plunge in again to rescue him, his electricity will draw me, it is fated, we will drown.

Then a pair of arms reached out the coach window, and knobbly hands, much larger than the hands at his ankles, grasped Charlie round the waist, slipped off, grasped again, pulled. Back went Charlie into the coach, a jack-in-the-box in reverse. The vehicle shuddered, the driver jerked into life: his whip cracked and cracked. The carriage rose and sank: the water reached up to the horses’ necks.

‘They will all drown,’ cried Minnie. But the carriage was rising again, and slowly the horses hauled their dripping cargo up the bank. The coach lurched to one side, one door opened and out tumbled a mass of arms and legs, as if the bodies in their soggy coats had fused together.

As the bodies separated, a stringy figure with hands clamped tight over his ears climbed slowly from the coach. Mrs Bleeker ran to her husband, shook his arm, shouted into his face. He gave her a blank red-eyed stare. Lavinia also ran to her husband, but when she saw his face, purple with thunder, she stopped dead.

Charlie looked around until he saw George getting slowly to his feet. He began to dance on the spot, his fists raised, shouting. ‘Swine. Villain. Confess.’

‘Confess to what?’ said George, brushing mud off his hat.

‘You know what. You pushed me out the window.’

‘Utter rot. You got into a funk, General. You pushed yourself out.’

‘So. First you try to upstage me, then to murder me, and now you accuse me of cowardice. Poisonous worm. Jumped-up farmer’s turd.’

George looked up from his hat, his jolly face pouting. ‘You’ve had your time. It’s my turn now, you fat old has-been.’

‘Can’t wait to get rid of me, can you? It was you pushed me off the bridge at Melbourne, wasn’t it?’

‘Bunkum. I don’t need to get rid of you. Who do they shout for? Who do they love?’

Charlie drew himself up, inflated his chest, bellowed: ‘I am the littlest.’

‘Little right enough,’ snorted George. ‘A sight too little’ — he stared at a point just below Charlie’s waist — ‘in some departments.’

‘What are you insinuating, sir?’

‘Lots of huff and puff. But no delivery. No results.’ George crouched like a man playing tennis, expecting a return shot. Charlie, breathing furiously, glanced at his dejected and puzzled-looking wife. His gaze slid on and came to rest on me, and his eyebrows suddenly lifted as he strode to my side, took my elbow and steered me until I stood facing George like a great shield.

‘No delivery, eh? No results? Here is all the evidence you need! It is you who are the has-been. Here is the future. Here am I, about to father the greatest little man in the world!’

Suddenly I felt as if everyone could see beneath my shawl, my dress, my underthings, right through to the dark bobbing ball in my womb.

‘Please, General, don’t,’ I muttered.

‘Don’t you worry,’ he whispered back, tightening his grip on my elbow. ‘I know what I’m doing.’ He put his little hand on my navel and shouted again: ‘Behold the Coming Man!’

Belly shrank, convulsed.

I looked round for escape or support, but everyone seemed frozen. Even Mr Bleeker stood unmoving, eyes shut, holding his head in both hands.

‘And now,’ shouted Charlie, letting go my elbow, ‘you will pay for your loathsome innuendos. Put up, swine!’ He rushed past me and jabbed his fist at George’s nose. George dodged just in time, slowly raised his own fists. They circled each other. Even above the rush of the river, I could hear the suck and blow of their breath. Charlie led with his right, and suddenly there was another person between them.

‘No!’

Rodnia stood sideways, one hand out towards Charlie, the other towards his brother, and even though he was the biggest of the three, he seemed to push mountains apart.

‘Stay out of this, Roddie,’ muttered George, but Rodnia shook his head, red-faced, furious-browed, his glare fixed on me, as if it were all my fault. I stepped back just as Mr Bleeker’s eyes flew open.

‘Stop this, all of you,’ he shouted, hands still over his ears. ‘Stop this disgraceful show. Is this all you can do when we’ve been plucked from the jaws of death?’ The combatants stood staring at the ground. ‘General, Commodore. Meet me in private the first chance we get when we reach Sydney. In the meantime, shake hands like gentlemen. No more nonsense.’

The little men glared at each other. Mr Bleeker stood between them, placed a dripping hand on each shoulder, and Charlie looked up in wonder. ‘Mr B, you’re shivering.’

‘Come. Shake hands.’

Charlie stood still, gathering dignity. ‘I will do it for you, Mr B. You have led us through the flood and plucked me from danger and the ladies are safe and dry.’ He held out his hand. George grunted, folded his arms. Mr Bleeker drew his spine up and his brows down, the river roared behind them and slowly George extended his own hand. The handshake was brief, each looked over the other’s shoulder. Lavinia let go of her sister and moved to Charlie’s side, clung to his arm as Minnie had clung to hers.

Mr Bleeker turned to me and I stared at his lowered brows. But then he put a hand over his eyes and turned away. Clearly he had nothing to say to a woman who was the evidence, the future.

The circle of spectators broke up. Rodnia and the hired men busied themselves with the horses and carriages; Franz watched them; Ned stared at Charlie and George, now with their backs to each other; Lavinia and Minnie were whispering together; and Mrs Bleeker was reaching up to pull an overcoat around her husband’s stooped shoulders. I was invisible, and I was glad of it.

Why had Rodnia glared at me so intently as he stood between the warring little men? Belly shivered. For once, Belly was moving faster than my brain.

I was so weary of all of them. Especially Belly.

But then I was relieved. I lay in a warm meadow, and Belly was close by, wrapped safely in the black stripes of my silk dress that no longer fitted me, floating on a pond like a child’s ball. The long grass overhead parted, and I looked up expecting to see Franz, but it was Mrs Bleeker. ‘Leave her be,’ came her voice. ‘She is not sick. She just needs a holiday.’

I had never had a holiday. I stretched and sighed in the soft green grass. Then the grass melted, and I was lying on a lumpy bed, blankets heaped over me. My head hurt, my legs prickled and a dull pain throbbed in my groin. Under the blankets I put my fingers down to Belly, taut and hard, as if I had turned half-egg, and I yearned to go back to the meadow with Belly bobbing on the pond.

A smell of beef tea announced Mrs Bleeker with a tray. She spooned the broth into my mouth. ‘You have had a nice holiday. You slept all day in the carriage and you slept still when we reached Sydney — my husband carried you to bed. Try some bread and butter. No, I don’t need you yet. Nor do Mrs Stratton or Miss Minnie. They have both been to see you, have asked after you constantly. Take some more beef tea, it is strengthening. The General has asked after you. So have Mr Richardson and Mr Nutt.’

‘The Commodore?’

‘No, his brother.’ She pulled a pink cloth from her sleeve and wiped up the beef tea where a little had spilled. I nodded slowly, sat up in bed looking at the cloth.

‘There is something I have been trying to remember.’

‘Hush, don’t tax yourself.’

‘No, I have it now, but I am not sure I understand it. That day we were walking back to Ballarat and you told me about the adoption plan, I remember your umbrella and those beautiful gloves you gave me, and how happy I was.’

Mrs Bleeker smiled. ‘Quite silly with happiness, you were.’

I frowned. ‘There was something else you said. Of course, there is a condition. The child must be suitable.’

Mrs Bleeker put a spoon into the beef tea and began to stir it vigorously. ‘You must be sure to drink the dregs too.’

‘What exactly did you mean by that, Mrs B?’

Mrs Bleeker took out the spoon, sniffed it. ‘Well,’ she said slowly, ‘it is a matter of what the General meant.’

‘Should I ask him then?’

‘That will not be necessary. And may I remind you that you agreed that all questions concerning the adoption should be directed to me. All he meant was that the infant should be healthy and perfectly formed. That is why you have had a holiday. He was most particular that you should not be disturbed.’

‘And that is all he meant? Nothing else?’

‘Isn’t that all a child should be?’

‘And the adoption is for life?’

‘Naturally.’

‘I cannot tell you how much easier in my mind I am now.’ I breathed a deep sigh. When Charlie had pulled me forward on the riverbank and shouted about the evidence and the future and the Coming Man, I had almost thought him cruel, but perhaps that was just Belly’s fear. ‘It is wonderful to know I have so generous a benefactor. Do you know, I —’ I broke off suddenly, gasped, then laughed at Mrs Bleeker’s face. ‘Here, feel.’

I took the spoon from her, placed her hand over the spot, and we waited. The kick came again, a lusty one, quite different from the usual ripples and trembles: Belly had grown fighting fit.

Mrs Bleeker rubbed her sleeve across her eyes and blew her nose. ‘Lord, Sydney is such a town for brick dust,’ she said.