ONE

Hot sunlight lay yellow upon the moored ships and the waters of the cove; the wharf thronged with bustling, shouting men. Lorna McLachlan stood on the deck of the three-masted barque Mary, one hundred and twenty-three days out of London, and watched as sweating longshoremen secured the hawsers connecting the ship to the shore at the end of its eleven thousand mile journey.

The waiting passengers surged forward. Lorna took her husband’s arm, her full black skirt swaying about her legs as she did so. The skirt and matching black jacket, fitting snugly to her hips, and the high-necked white blouse in plain cotton were uncomfortable in a climate far hotter than that for which they had been designed. Her blonde hair, pulled back off her forehead in a tight bun, was partially concealed beneath a black bonnet with a deep crown and rounded brim set four-square on her head. Andrew McLachlan, a stiff, hard Presbyterian whose life had been ordered from birth by the Bible, or his own interpretation of it, was not one for frivolities and took it for granted that his wife would follow his lead in this as in all things.

Andrew turned at her touch. At thirty-one he was ten years older than she. They were of a height although she was not particularly tall. She did not need to raise her head for her blue eyes to look into his hazel ones but in every other way she looked up at him, with respect and some fear, for Andrew McLachlan was an intolerant man although not a violent one.

He smiled austerely. ‘Landfall at last,’ he said in his broad Scots accent. ‘Praise the Lord. Now mebbe we can make a start.’

‘Aye,’ Lorna said, ‘Mebbe we can.’

She looked past his shoulder. Moored ships raised a forest of spars against the blue sky. Buildings—brown wood, yellow stone—huddled along the water’s edge or straggled up to the crest of the low hill that rose behind them. On the other side of the cove a large warehouse faced the water. Its cargo bays stood open, its interior hidden in shadow. Scurrying figures carried bales and barrels into the recesses of the building. The merchant’s name was painted in large white letters on the iron roof. THORNTONS. The name meant nothing to her.

Lorna turned. Beyond the waters of the harbour the blue-grey land stretched away, enigmatic and silent. New South Wales, she thought without pleasure. She feared the prospect of life in this unknown place but took care not to let her husband see her fear. Nothing displeased Andrew McLachlan more than a lack of faith.

The waiting passengers inched forward again. The odour of impatience, of sweat, mingled with the smells of the waterfront brought to them on the light breeze—dust and dung, mud, weed and salt water. A seagull perched momentarily on the ship’s rail and screeched once before rising and circling away across the sun-shot harbour.

Eventually, after much shuffling and grumbling, the McLachlans’ turn came. Lorna took a deep breath as she stepped for the first time onto Australian soil, as though feeling it beneath her feet made irrevocable the move to which they had been committed since that time, almost a year ago, when Andrew had come into their granite-built house on the east coast of Scotland and told her he had decided to sell the business to Angus Ross and move to the other side of the world.

It was only now, stepping onto the uneven cobbles of the roadway, seeing the buildings, the strangeness of the hot and avid sky, the unknown emptiness of the land beyond the township, that she accepted the reality of this new place where it was her destiny to spend the remainder of her life.

I shall no’ look back, she thought. I shall no’ think about what might have been. Scotland is gone. The old life, the friends and family, all gone now. Here is where I am, in this new place. My life begins now.

There was a freedom in having no ties, just the two of them alone in the new land. Yet they were not free yet. There were officials on the wharf who escorted them to an ugly building where men with white faces and ungiving eyes were waiting to question them.

Health.

Possessions.

Plans.

‘Sign here,’ the official said. ‘If you can sign.’

Andrew did not deign to answer that. He read the form. ‘Farm labourer?’ he said, eyebrows questioning.

‘You wanner work, don’t you?’

‘Of course.’

‘That’s how you get it. Meanwhile you’ll stay in the immigration barracks until the coach leaves,’ the man told them.

‘And when would that be?’

A shrug. ‘A week, maybe. Could be two. Whenever there’s a load.’

‘Where are these barracks?’

The official gestured at a group of men, also uniformed, waiting by the door. ‘They’ll show you.’ A smile, derisory rather than welcoming. ‘Don’t worry. They won’t let you slip away.’

‘Where shall we be going? Afterwards, I mean?’

‘Where they take you.’ And he transferred his attention to the next couple waiting in the queue that stretched out through the hot and shadowed shed to the brightness of the sun-drenched road outside.

Andrew frowned. It was not in his nature to like being so completely at the mercy of other men’s decisions. He shook his head, picked up his bag and turned to Lorna.

‘Nae doot they’ll let us know in guid time.’

The barracks were better than they might have expected, better than the cramped promiscuity of the immigrant hold they had just left. At least they could get out and see what the town had to offer.

Sydney was rowdy with the noise of passers-by. Bullocks drew two-wheeled drays creaking through the rutted streets. Red-coated soldiers marched in columns, cross-belts and muskets gleaming, or brawled their way from tavern to tavern. Peddlers bawled their wares, street shows on each corner drew people to watch jugglers and acrobats performing for pennies. Women with painted faces and ragged, gaudy dresses leant suggestively against the walls of buildings. Hanging over everything were the columns of masts webbed with rigging rising into the sky, the harsh cry and stammer of gulls, the smell of sewage and the sea.

Andrew passed like a spectre through the crowds. His dark clothing and set, white face were unspoken comment upon the worldliness of the town.

‘Nae doot we’ll be on our way shortly,’ he said. Disapproval filled his nostrils like brimstone.

After that first expedition, he refused to leave the barracks. He had seen the devil in the streets, the great whore, and would not venture out again.

After ten days they were put on a coach for the one hundred and thirty mile journey southwest to Goulburn.

Lorna stared out of the window as the coach picked up speed. As far as her eye could see, gum trees held up branches like grey bones to the sky. There were thousands of them. They stood like battalions of ghosts on either side of the track, their trunks stiff and unmoving in the light breeze, their olive-toned leaves drooping towards the sand-coloured soil. The coach road wound and dipped, unravelling the miles, but the view never changed.

In the middle of the afternoon they came to the banks of a sluggish creek that wended its way silently through the trees. With a loud hallooing from the coachman, the horses slowed and the vehicle shuddered to a halt.

‘Everybody out,’ the coachman bawled, mouth wide to show teeth like blackened tombstones in a red and bearded face. ‘Let’s git yore feet on the deck.’ He took a long swig at a bottle that he retrieved from beside his seat, staggered slightly and swore. It was obviously not the first drink he had taken that day.

Limbs stiff and complaining, the passengers disembarked.

‘How does he expect us to cross?’ A twitter from a lady with pink-rimmed, nervous eyes. She was dressed in silk, too smartly, and clutched a parasol like a lifeline to an earlier and more civilised existence.

The coachman overheard and grinned, giving her the full benefit of the teeth. ‘Don’ you worry ’bout that. We’ll git you ’cross, right enough. Though I don’ say you won’ git yore fancy dress wet, ’fore you’re through.’

Her companion, well dressed and with an impressive chin, dusted the sleeve of his dove-grey coat and stared coldly at the coachman. ‘Explain yourself.’

The man spat. ‘She gunna wade, tha’s why. Same as what you are.’

‘Wade?’ Horror. ‘How deep is the water?’

‘Four feet in the middle.’ The coachman grinned again, derisively, and swallowed another mouthful from the bottle. ‘Don’ worry. Ain’t much current. ’S safe enough.’

‘You’re drunk,’ the passenger said.

The grin vanished. ‘Who the ’ell you callin’ drunk? Tell you summin, mate, you sit up there all day, drivin’ them ’osses, and you’d be lookin’ to ’ave a drink, too, now an’ then. To cut the dust, see? But that don’ make me drunk.’ His indignation waxed louder. ‘You want trouble, mate, you’re ’eading the right way about it. Drunk? I’m no more drunk than what them ’osses are.’

The passenger’s face was white with anger. ‘And I tell you my wife is not wading through that stream. She will travel in the coach.’

‘She’ll do what I damn well says,’ the coachman said. ‘No room in the coach. Not for ’er or no one. We got to float ’er over on barrels, see?’ And with that he stamped back to the coach where his assistant was already lashing empty hogsheads to the wheels.

Lorna walked with Andrew to the edge of the stream. The coachman was right, the current was barely perceptible. The crossing might be wet but it would be safe.

‘We can be thankful there’s been nae rain,’ Andrew said. ‘I doot we’d be able to cross if the stream were much higher. As it is, we’ll be there tomorrow safe and sound.’ It would take more than a river crossing to dent his confidence in God and himself.

‘That lady is troubled about her dress,’ Lorna said. ‘A pity if it gets wet. And it so smart.’

Andrew had no patience with vanity. ‘She should have thought before she wore it,’ he said. With the toe of a sensible boot, he stirred the damp sand at the water’s edge. ‘We’re in a different country wi’ different ways. We have to be ready to adapt, all of us. I doot yon lass will find it easy.’

He spread his handkerchief on the dusty ground, sat upon it and drew his Testament from his pocket.

Lorna walked a little apart and stared back the way they had come. The trees consumed everything—sight, sound, perspective. Walk ten yards off the track and you would be lost. Every inch of the country was identical to every other inch. She looked down at her boots, powdered now by the dust that puffed up with every step. Andrew was right. Things were different here. She wondered how well she would adapt. How could you know the right thing to do in a land where everything was unfamiliar, where even the seasons were back to front and the stars unrecognisable in the sky? She was twenty-one years old and had never felt so alone in her life.

God make me strong, she prayed, having little faith that He would, working with such poor material.

In the end the lady in the silk dress, like the rest of them, did not get wet at all.

The coachman climbed onto the driving seat, took a long pull of brandy to settle his nerves, and cracked his long whip. Inch by inch, the coach creaked its way down the bank until the horses were in midstream and the coach was afloat, supported by the empty hogsheads. It looked like an ungainly ship as it ploughed its way across the river. The coachman cracked his whip again, cursing at the top of his voice, and the horses scrambled slipping and snorting up the bank, the water running in streams from their bodies. Slowly they drew the coach clear of the river. When it was secure the coachman came back to the water’s edge. Lorna saw that he had trailed a long, stout rope behind him during the crossing. His assistant had lashed three hogsheads together and secured on top of them a number of wooden planks to form a raft. He tied the rope to the raft and pushed it into the water. Grinning at the passengers, he said, ‘Ladies aboard, if you please.’

They clambered on, the lady in silk tottering uncertainly with shrill, mouselike cries as the raft was drawn clear of the bank and hauled across to the other side. Lorna looked down into the water, trying unsuccessfully to see if there were any fish.

‘Things are so different.’ The silky lady spoke apparently to the air. ‘I cannot imagine how we shall all manage.’

On the far side of the river the makeshift raft drew with a faint hiss onto the sand. Lorna stepped across the few inches of water to the bank. The silky lady followed but unfortunately stumbled and immersed her foot in the river. Loud lamentations followed but to no avail—the dainty boot and the foot it contained remained wet, for all her cries.

‘’Ere,’ the coachman said, proffering the bottle, ‘’ave a pull o’ this.’

She declined with a teeny shudder, turning her head from the blast of his breath.

‘Please yoreself.’ He swallowed again, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and turned back to the raft. He waved at his assistant watching from the other side of the stream.

‘Haul away,’ he bellowed. ‘Min’ you don’ tip ’er over.’

The raft was hauled back to the other bank and the men climbed aboard. They, too, were drawn swiftly and safely across the river. One more trip to pick up the luggage and the coachman’s assistant before they all climbed aboard and were on their way again, swaying and lurching, with no wet clothes and only one wet foot among the lot of them.

Under the trees darkness came early and it was no later than six when the coach drew to a halt. Once again the passengers dismounted.

‘’Ere you go, gents,’ the coachman said. ‘An’ ladies, too, o’ course. This is as far’s we’re goin’ tonight.’

To a wet foot was added consternation. ‘Surely you are not proposing to stop here? In this … wilderness? Is there no inn?’

‘An inn? Lady, between ’ere and Goulburn there ain’t nuthin’. Fumes of alcohol swept over them as he laughed. ‘You’re in the bush ’ere. In the colony. You stay ’ere, you gotter get used to a new way o’ lookin’ at things.’ He slugged again at the bottle of liquor which Lorna thought must be almost empty by now. If it were the same bottle, of course.

‘But where do we sleep?’ asked the woman, close to tears.

‘Women in the coach, men on the ground. If it rains in the night, they kin shelter under the coach.’

‘Is it safe?’ persisted the woman in the silk dress.

‘Safe?’ The coachman glared at her and she quailed, morale destroyed by the traumas of the day. ‘Course it’s safe.’ The wicked tombstones of teeth mocked her as he sneered, ‘Can’ be nuffin else, can it, when you got yore ’usband lookin’ after you?’

Little by little, the invisible sun sank lower. The leaves of the gum trees floated in a golden haze that turned imperceptibly to grey as night came sifting down. Overhead, the harsh blue of the sky paled to silver and then to pearl. Birds gabbled harshly and fell silent. A solitary star gleamed.

Inside the coach it was very hot. The window was closed tight against the poisonous night air. Lorna, used to the cold clear winds of the north, had suggested lowering the window an inch but the vociferous protests of her companions prevented her.

It would be worse for the men, she supposed. Or would it? At least they had fresh air and could walk about if they felt like it. She huddled in her corner, listening to the sighs and muttered complaints of the other women, and waiting for the night to pass. It took a long time.

She must have dozed eventually for when she opened her eyes the grey first light was beginning to filter through the blackness of the forest. It was still dark inside the coach but she could make out the form of the lady in the silk dress facing her in the other seat. Her head was back, her breath whistled in steady repetition through her half-open mouth.

The coach was oppressive and suddenly unbearable. Moving carefully to avoid disturbing her companions, Lorna inched open the door and climbed down.

Outside the air was fresh. Thankful, she took a deep breath and looked about her. The humped forms of men lay here and there. A ruby glint shone from the fire, almost out now. Hobbled horses stood still as statues on the other side of the track. Lorna walked slowly away from the circle of sleeping men, taking care to keep on the track. The trees closed about her and she was alone in the bush.

She walked a dozen paces off the track, counting each step with care. There were no low bushes, no concealing undergrowth. She hesitated and looked about her again. The forest brooded at her back. It might contain a thousand watching eyes, or none. No help for it. She crouched, hearing the fallen bark and leaves crunch beneath her weight, and relieved herself.

When she was finished, she stood, adjusting her dress. Once again counting her steps, she made her way back to the track, breathing easier when she found it.

There was a gum tree, one among millions. Bark hung in peeling strips from its pale trunk. Overhead, far out of her reach, branches massed their grey spears of leaves against the lightening sky. Lorna laid her palm on the trunk. It was cool to her touch, slightly damp. This is the first living thing I have touched in Australia, she thought, yet it gave back no feeling of life. It might have been made of marble.

It would take time to feel at home here. Too much time, perhaps. Her instinct warned her that this was an old land, indescribably old. It measured time not in minutes, not even in months or years, but in thousands of years. Again she remembered what Andrew had said, the previous day.

We have to be ready to adapt, all of us.

It might be impossible. There might not be enough time in her life to come to terms with the alien trees.

The harsh shrieks of birds greeted her as she re-entered the clearing. A sudden puff of wind set the leaves hissing overhead. Some of the men were wandering about with the weary lack of purpose of those who have spent a wretched night. Andrew was awake, standing a little apart from the rest, his dark and decent jacket tight-buttoned. His pale face with its fringe of black beard shone in the gentle light. He was holding his Testament in his hand.

He looked at her, unsmiling. ‘Did ye sleep?’

‘A little. And you?’

‘From time to time. It made for a long night.’

‘We shall get there today,’ she offered.

‘God willing.’ His hazel eyes watched her. ‘You went for a walk?’

She might have guessed he would have noticed. ‘A little way.’

‘Sometimes I fear the whole country is covered wi’ these trees,’ he said. ‘One o’ the men was saying they’re verra hard. Turn the blade of an axe, he said.’ Andrew turned on his heel, contemplating the immensity of the forest about them. ‘Clearing the ground will be quite a job, if all the country’s like this.’

They had tea, climbed aboard the coach and continued the journey. It was a repetition of the day before: mile after mile of lurching, sickening motion, mile after mile of the unvarying landscape. The only difference was that they were all more tired and irritable because of it.

That afternoon, at the bottom of a long, winding descent, they came out into what to the weary passengers seemed a miracle—open country. They had descended the southern flank of a range of low hills. To the northwest more hills were covered in dense bush. As the coach bumped and racketed along Lorna saw how the land ahead, brown under the westering sun, opened into wooded plains that stretched uninterruptedly to the horizon.

Flocks of sheep were grazing between the trees. Here and there a blink of sunlight reflected from the surface of a river and in the distance she could make out the buildings of a little town, the first sign of habitation since leaving the hubbub of Sydney. This plain, then, was the place towards which they had been travelling all these weeks—flat, without feature, seemingly endless, a distant swell of insignificant hills to the north and an empty wilderness behind them.

Lorna had told herself she would not look back, yet now, breathing the malodorous air of the crowded coach, watching through the smeared window as they approached their destination, she could not help herself. At that moment the small Scottish town set by the forbidding waters of the North Sea seemed infinitely desirable. She could smell the cold tang of the sea air, feel the wind seize her hair beneath her cloth bonnet, see the granite house-fronts glitter like ice in the rare sunshine. The familiar accents of the townspeople, her people, filled her memory. Infinitely desirable yet lost like a dream of longing and fulfilment that evaporates with the morning.

Dear God, she thought, tears that would be forever unshed burning behind her eyes. Why did we have to come here? Why?

The sun was well down the sky by the time the coach clattered into the little town.

Hovels constructed of rough-hewn timber and roofed with what looked like bark lined either side of a roadway that was no more than an extension of the muddy track along which they had travelled so long. The town was very small.

They passed a group of men in yellow uniforms supervised by red-coated soldiers and Lorna saw the glitter of chains.

‘Convicts,’ breathed the lady of the silk dress in Lorna’s ear. ‘I hear there is a convict station here.’

‘Is that so?’ Lorna hated what she was seeing, hated it.

The pink-lidded eyes regarded her. ‘There is no need to fear them. I was told they are well guarded. As you can see for yourself.’

‘I canna help feel how wretched their lives must be. Oh, I know it’s necessary but it doesna stop me wishing it were not so. Do ye no’ understand what I mean?’

The woman’s nostrils flared a little. ‘You would not wish to see them walking the streets, free to continue their criminal careers? You do not mean that?’

‘I’m not sure what I mean,’ Lorna said. ‘It’s only that one can still feel for them, can one not, in spite of knowing they’ve done wrong?’

‘It is no doubt the Christian way,’ the woman conceded grudgingly. ‘But one must be practical, too. Of course,’ sniffing, ‘some people know more than others about the feelings of that class of person.’

Lorna gave her a sharp glance. ‘Aye, ma’am, I dare say they do. You speak with great authority on the subject yourself.’

The lady’s lips turned white. ‘And what is that supposed to mean?’

‘Why ma’am,’ innocently, ‘I was agreeing with you, just. Nae more than that.’

The coach drew to a stop amid a chorus of yells from the coachman and his mate. The creaking and rocking at last were still. One by one, muscles and bones protesting after such a long journey, the passengers alighted into what was to be their future.