We called it the Castle Morton Jerry, though I never knew why. Ever since a child I remembered that band of cold thick fog suspended above the river opposite our cove, sometimes all morning until the sun burned it off. When the jerry rolled in like that, you couldn’t see anything. Walking home, you’d reach out your hand and you’d feel a hard object and you’d have to decode what it was, whether it was a gum tree or a fence post or the leathery, nearly round face of Old Stan who jerked awake as he did on that day.
‘Hey!’
‘Sorry, mate,’ when I saw that I’d blundered onto his deck. And when he’d seen who it was and relaxed, at least enough to stop hollering at me for poking him out of his sleep, I said: ‘This jerry—I really do loathe it, you know.’
Old Stan must still have been half asleep because he stared at me almost like he was seeing himself at my age, fourteen, and then he said in a careful voice, ‘You shouldn’t hate it, boy. That’s the same thing as hating what you come out of.’
‘Come out of this horrid fog? Sorry, Stan, I don’t follow you.’
He looked at me in a thoughtful way. ‘Granny Gordon never told you about the jerry?’
‘Reckon the only thing Granny Gordon told me was not to pick my nose.’
‘She didn’t hum you this song?’ and his cracked voice warbled through the mist, thinning it a little: ‘So I hauled her into bed and I covered up her head, just to keep her from the foggy, foggy dew.’
‘Granny Gordon wasn’t the humming type,’ I said. ‘And I don’t recall her telling me no stories.’
‘Well, maybe she had enough on her hands bringing you up without wanting to go spading about in the past. But if it wasn’t for the jerry you wouldn’t have a nose to pick, none of us would,’ and that’s when Old Stan told me about the Castle Morton and the story his grandfather Ralph told him, who ran the ferry service at Two Mile Creek.
‘You grew up knowing Huonville, but before it became “Hoonville” it was Victoria and before that it had no name that I’m aware of. You’ve got to remember how remote Tasmania was then, before it was woodchip heaven. Believe you me, boy, this place was re-mote. It wasn’t even called Tasmania, it was Van Diemen’s Land. And this valley was one of the re-moter valleys in Van Diemen’s Land. Why, there wouldn’t have been more than three bluestone houses and eleven men in a hundred square miles of thick bush. Mr Gordon—your great-granddad—and his four convict workers; Mr Hacking and his four workers, and my granddad Ralph. All single men of notorious and immoral character, as the Governor in Hobart liked to put it. And in the whole district just one solitary female—Granny Lawrence, a noisy, irritable woman who was lame in one leg and had a fleshy mole on the side of her chin, and a scar on the tip of her crooked nose and over her right eyebrow, and whose rare grin opened on a row of missing teeth. Oh, and sheep. You sure your own Gran never told you anything about this?’
‘I already said.’
‘Personally speaking, I never believed the stories about Mr Gordon’s riding boots and Granny Lawrence’s soreness at finding traces of a ewe’s back leg in one of them. All I do know, the situation was pretty desperate for a lusty and profligate man. And don’t imagine matters were easier in Hobart. It was common knowledge how Mr Gordon once rode on his horse for three days through the bush in order to dance at a ball—at the Bellevue, I believe—where he was much disappointed to discover that the settlers and officers all had to waltz with each other. You must realise that even in Hobart there were thirty men to every woman. Who knows what desperation would have done to Mr Gordon and the ten other fellas down here if it hadn’t been for the Castle Morton Jerry.
‘Well, like I tell you, things being so desperate on the island at that time, the Governor got in touch with Mrs Elizabeth Fry in London and a committee was formed to send a transport ship to Hobart filled with “desirable, free and single women”. This was the Castle Morton, built in Nova Scotia, 472 tons of copper-sheathed white oak and black birch. On board were two hundred young women, some of them the most beautiful and elegant ever to come to Van Diemen’s Land. Plus a Chaplain, a naval Surgeon and a Matron to keep those women clean and orderly on the four-month voyage to “Hobart Town on the Derwent”—where they were to enjoy free board and a roof over their head and a lot else beside. Only trouble is, after four months at sea, the Castle Morton got disoriented in a southerly coming up the channel. Instead of sailing into the Derwent, where she was first sighted, she sailed without realising it into the mouth of the Huon nearby. You listening now?’
‘Yeah, I’m listening.’
‘You’ll be listening real good, I reckon, when you hear what my granddad told me about that altogether memorable day. Ralph watched it all happen. He was settled on the sandspit here when mid-afternoon came through the cold front from hell. A storm blew up and he observed a ship in distress. He didn’t know there were two hundred eligible women on board, including some convicts from the London Female Penitentiary. All he saw was this sailing vessel off Bruny Island dragging her anchors and in danger of being wrecked. The southerly carried the ship past the entrance. Ralph could see she was in great danger. The rapidity of the tide made him fear that she might be forced on the west side of the sandspit and he hoisted a bed-sheet on a pole, but couldn’t keep it up in the violent wind. So he ran to Mr Gordon’s farm and requested two of his men to go with him and make a fire on Bluff Point and another on Norman Cove to guide the ship in.
‘The smoke of one fire was seen on board. A stay sail was hoisted and the ship bore westward, clearing the sandspit with the help of the steering fires.
‘Ralph alerted the crew to the dangers of another sandbar and directed them to sheltered water. He shouted “Starboard!” and they hove round. “Port!” and they did so. He told them: “Let go your anchor!” They did so. And then the gale died down as suddenly as it blew up.
‘It was coming on dark when Ralph launched his whaleboat and rowed out with the help of Mr Gordon’s two men.
‘The Master who pulled Ralph on board was Mr Henniker. He was sufficiently wary to keep his passengers down below and out of sight until he had ascertained where he had anchored, plus the identity of his young saviour. Beside Mr Henniker stood the Chaplain who had fallen down a hatchway in the gale and dislocated his shoulder. Beside the Chaplain stood the Surgeon and Matron. All four officials stood in a row and stared by the light of Mr Henniker’s lantern at Ralph and the two disreputable-looking figures who had clambered with him on deck, systematic thieves and liars both of them, and both with faces blackened from the smoke of the bonfires they had lit and dressed in trousers and jackets stitched from the skankiest-smelling kangaroo skin.
‘Ralph overcame his natural shyness to take control. He told the Master that if he kept on the east shore on the mud flat he would be sheltered from any further gale.
‘The Master thanked him. Then he said: “I have 198 women on board bound for Hobart who have suffered much seasickness.” And explained that he was most anxious to disembark them after so many months at sea and constant drenching by storms and heat. He looked again uneasily at Ralph’s two companions and then at Ralph. “This is Hobart, right?”
‘“Yes, yes,” said Ralph, a quick-witted fella. “This is Hobart all right.”
‘“I was expecting,” the Master said, “I was expecting something bigger.” He had seen through his telescope two clearings and a bark hut. None of his crew had been before to Van Diemen’s Land. He had imagined a bend on the river surrounded by cleared banks covered in buildings.
‘“No, you have arrived in Hobart,” said Ralph, “most certainly. This is what we like to call the…the outskirts.”
‘“The outskirts,” the Matron said glumly.
‘“We were expecting a Landing Committee,” threw in the Chaplain, wincing.
‘“I will go this moment and fetch them,” promised Ralph, and said that he would be back with the Landing Committee at first light.
‘Well, as soon as Ralph rowed ashore he ran helter skelter all the way to Mr Gordon’s house. As it happened, Mr Gordon knew about this Girl Boat and its cargo of Reformers. It was because of the Castle Morton that Ralph found Mr Gordon saddling up, preparing for another long ride through the scrub to Hobart. Even so, his spirits were considerably reduced at the idea of having to compete with 3,000 single men at the wharf. And not only 3,000 men. Also waiting in Hobart were the Ladies’ Committee composed of all the respectable matrons of the colony and excited to inform the passengers of the Castle Morton that their Committee had enabled each and every one of the 198 to be engaged in service and provided for respectfully. There were in addition at the dockside a small squad of police waiting to march the women under guard up Macquarie Street to the government hotel, “The Bellevue”, which had been appointed to house the newcomers. I tell you, lad, the arrival of this ship was a large and significant event, and it caused quite a stir. Once word got out that the Castle Morton had been spotted at the mouth of the Derwent more crowds turned out than for the execution of Matthew Brady. Mr Gordon didn’t stand a chance. Nor did Mr Hacking, nor did young Ralph, nor any of the other eight assigned men in the valley. And that’s when the jerry comes down the river to assist.
‘In the night the southerly eased off into a light offshore wind. Early next morning a current of cold air tracked down from the mountains through the gullies and marshes and fed into the river. It hit the warmer water in a tube of dense rolling mist, a big cloud of it that spilled out into the channel and locked the ship in a chill moist fog.
‘On the Castle Morton they woke up to a virtual whiteout. Couldn’t see a thing. They knew it was a beautiful day, bright and sunny outside. But inside the jerry, the Master couldn’t see the Matron shivering across the quarter-deck, leave aside the sourness of her expression. He certainly couldn’t see that they weren’t in Hobart on the Derwent.
‘At eight o’clock that morning Ralph rowed out Mr Gordon and Mr Hacking, both dressed in their neat Sunday best, to the ship. Noise travels over still water. They could hear the coughs below deck as the women put on the new set of clothes that the Matron had issued, the demure uniform to include, of all things, a veil.
‘Mr Gordon introduced himself to the Master. He had been at Harrow public school before he became a forger and spoke well, at least well enough to put the Master at his ease.
‘“I regret that this mist has kept away the Ladies’ Committee. They have sent me as their representative. You may tell me with complete confidence anything you would have told them.”
‘“Then I will tell you, Mr Gordon, that never have women been more commodiously accommodated as on this passage. You may be assured that much attention was paid to guard them against evil. From the moment they boarded in Woolwich, I urged upon them the most decorous and orderly conduct and a strict obedience to the regulations which the Chaplain and Matron thought needful to adopt. And this morning I impressed on them, I dare say for the thousandth time, how the Governor will take a truly paternal care of them on their arrival in Hobart Town.”
‘“As you say, they will now be in excellent hands,” said Mr Gordon in his Harrow voice.
‘The other officials were keen to follow the Master’s lead and trumpet their own contributions. The Surgeon-superintendent was a long-nosed martinet called Guthrie. He said: “I was asked by Lord Goderich to land them as uncontaminated as they were sent on board. This I have done. No spirituous liquors were allowed, no visitors.”
‘The Matron, who had mustered the women every morning to check their personal health and cleanliness, said: “I think they all have high hopes of marriage to wealthy settlers. Most have already been assigned as general servants. One or two are very bad, but a considerable portion of them are respectable and deserving characters.”
‘Then it was the turn of the Chaplain: “I have told them the measure they have adopted in leaving their native land to go into a foreign country is a matter of vital consequence and under the Divine Blessing it may prove of the greatest benefit, but otherwise the very reverse. By their good conduct or the contrary they will form their own characters.”
‘“Well, let’s get on with it,” said Mr Gordon, enthusiastic to speed along the process of disembarkation. He urged the Master in the strongest and most persuasive terms to remain with his crew on board, and promised to make it his topmost priority to arrange with the port authorities to have the Castle Morton fully provisioned with fresh water, mutton and oysters as soon as the mist dissolved.
‘Relieved to be shot of his charges, the Master ordered the women to be led up on deck and watched them step into Ralph’s whale-boat in groups of ten at a time. They sat with their faces obscured in their veils, their hands resting on their bags, and Mr Gordon and Mr Hacking were most careful to say nothing as Ralph ferried the first party ashore, where a cart and three men waited to escort the women to Hobart, that is to say “Nettlepot”, as Mr Gordon, who came from Cumbria, had baptised his three-roomed establishment.
‘Once on shore, Mr Gordon and Mr Hacking were replaced in the whale-boat by two willing rowers who laboured under the strictest instructions to remain in a state of cemetery silence until they had landed safely every single female. Only on the last journey did it prove impossible for the rowers to contain themselves. Ralph told me how the jerry had barely swallowed the Castle Morton behind them when his two crewmen began touching up the women and trafficking to obtain their services at the lowest penny. If the women couldn’t see them, they knew where their hands were!
‘The jerry lasted until late morning before the sun broke it down and it disappeared, and Master Henniker looked around and saw through his telescope that he was anchored in the middle of nowhere.
‘I won’t go into the disgraceful scenes that were enacted under Mr Gordon’s roof. Let us simply say that the women who came ashore that morning swiftly became acquainted with our habits. But they turned out well, some of them particularly so. They’d have been wasted on respectable landowners, your great-grandmother most of all.
‘Her name was Harriet Fay. She was the daughter of a Baptist minister from Richmond, a respectable servant and useful, delicate woman whose mistress regretted parting with her and who had been engaged by a gentleman as a governess to his brother’s children in Hobart.
‘As I say, I don’t know what happened over the next days and weeks at “Nettlepot” or at Miles Cottage, which was Mr Hacking’s place, or here at Two Mile Creek where Ralph had taken Mary Malvern, a pert and artful young pencil-maker with a round face who’d been transported on suspicion of stealing fur and fourteen yards of bombazine. I do know that surprisingly many women chose to remain in the valley after the mistake was discovered, and these included Harriet Fay and Mary Malvern. Harriet’s conduct especially was said to disappoint all expectation formed of her in London. When it was known that she was living with some men in the country in an improper way, a delegation was sent by boat, a sort of rescue mission to sail her back to Hobart, but she declined the advice of the Committee, saying: “I’d rather be hanged than leave here.” And after living myself in this same cove for eighty-two years I reckon I know how she felt.
‘So don’t go knocking the jerry, lad. Without it, you’d be piss in the wind. And now help me up. And when you’ve done that you can look behind you. All the time I’ve been talking, it’s been turning into a fine day.’