January 1886

George has not come into my bedroom for days. He is waiting for me to die. I can hear it in his footsteps that tread the wide wooden stairs. I want to call out but my mouth is too dry. From my bed, which lies in the corner of the room, I see the violet twilight framed in the small squares of the window.

I remember when you married Matthew at the magistrate’s Strawberry Hill Farm. How pretty you looked in the light linen gown he had bought you. The sun was high in the sky and the bush was loud with the sound of insects.

Middle Island 1835, James Manning

A man left the hut and walked towards them. Manning and Jem were on the edge of the clearing, their backs against the paperbark thicket, with a view of the others. The man sat on a tree stump close by. His features were indistinguishable in the twilight but Manning decided that he looked as though he was in his twenties. He had dark hair and eyes set close together. Jem told Manning that his name was Matthew and that he was his sister’s husband.

Anderson moved like a shadow out of the house and around the back.

‘Who is he?’ asked Matthew.

‘Black Jack Anderson,’ replied Manning. ‘You ain’t heard of him?’

Matthew and Jem shook their heads.

‘Came from Kangaroo Island. Deserter they reckon from a Yankee whaler.’

Manning paused and looked at one then the other.

‘No one knows anything about him. It’s how he wants it. They reckon he’s been around these parts before. There was a fellow who worked for him once …’ Manning’s feet were getting cramp and he stretched them out in front of him.

‘What happened?’ asked Jem.

‘He cut him ear to ear. They say he’s under a waterfall at Doubtful Island Bay near the Sound. The water washing over him keeps him from going rotten.’ Manning narrowed his eyes for effect.

Matthew stared thoughtfully ahead, picking at the skin on his lip.

‘There was another fellow called Anderson who was a sealer, last year in the pub at the Sound. He was from Kangaroo Island. But he was white.’

Manning raised his eyebrows but he was no longer interested in what was being said for the food was coming out. Dinah and Mooney brought out the pot and placed it on the table under the porch. Manning watched but he didn’t get up. Experience had taught him to wait. Men pushed themselves up off the dirt and milled around. The sound of the spoon clattering on tin plates interrupted their words. By the time it was Manning’s turn there was just a layer left at the bottom. There was only Jem who hadn’t eaten. He spooned most of it onto his plate and took a piece of bread, returning to his position in the shadows. Jem followed, stepping over the fellow Manning had noticed earlier, the one who looked like a rat.

‘Do you know him?’ asked Manning.

Jem shrugged. ‘I think his name is Owens.’

Manning sat down. He shook his head slightly in disbelief. But he had known all along that what he suspected was true. He turned to Jem, barely able to speak.

‘What’s he doing on the Mountaineer ?’ he stuttered.

‘Don’t know.’

Jem looked at him strangely.

Manning rubbed his sparse beard with his forefinger. He swallowed the meat that suddenly seemed foul in his mouth.

‘Who are the others?’ he asked more clearly.

Jem had finished the small amount on his plate and looked over at Manning’s plate and the others who were still eating.

‘Don’t know,’ he shrugged. ‘Him over there … I know him. He’s the swell they call William Church.’

Firelight flickered over a man in a dark suit and a hat, a plate balanced on his knees. Manning picked up the bone which was buried in sticky gravy and placed it between his teeth, sucking the marrow and watching Jem from the corner of his eyes. He knew that Jem was trying not to look at the food on his plate. Matthew left to relieve himself in the bush.

‘You can have it for the baccy.’

‘What?’

‘Me plate.’ Manning had eaten about half the contents of it.

‘That ain’t no deal.’

Manning brought his knife up to his mouth.

‘I’m not givin’ it away. If Jansen knew,’ said Jem, looking over his shoulder.

Manning shrugged and then said quietly. ‘Please yourself but I can look after you.’

‘How?’

‘You know what I mean.’

He nodded at the men who surrounded them. One of them was cleaning his knife. Manning carefully poked his teeth with a twig. He spat in the dirt. Jem put his hand in his pocket and handed Manning the rest of the tobacco.

Manning saw Jem’s brother-in-law return from the bush and into the firelight, buttoning his trousers and carefully stepping between the huddles of men. But in the half-light he stood on a plate that belonged to one of Anderson’s men. Manning knew what was coming and he was glad it wasn’t him. Johno leapt up as though on a spring and pushed Matthew so that he stumbled. Matthew recovered his balance and swung around into the glinting blade of a knife.

‘Hey Johno. Twas an accident.’

Mead, another of Anderson’s men, stood up between them. His cheeks glowed in the light as he turned towards Matthew.

‘He’s real touchy. Anderson found him on a rock. He’d been living on penguins for a year. Could’ve been longer. He can’t remember. Some sealer was supposed to come back for him. Never did, did they Johno?’

Matthew glanced sideways at Johno who still held his knife out in front of him. Johno’s arm dropped and he bent down and picked up his plate and returned to his place in the dirt.

‘Francis Mead,’ said the man, facing Matthew.

‘Matthew Gill.’

They nodded at each other.

Manning looked over at Johno who silently shovelled sandy food with his knife. His cold furious eyes darted about like a gull’s. Manning moved along the log so that Matthew could sit down. He could see that he was shaken.

‘Fellows are always like that,’ said Manning. ‘Except for Mead. He’s alright as long as you don’t give him a reason.’

The fire had dwindled to a few coals. Men snored and talked softly. Manning spat the remains of his tobacco. He squatted, looking into the fading light, and then straightened and headed into the bush. Small animals rustled the undergrowth. He turned and buttoned himself up. A twig snapped. He stood still and felt for his knife. A pulse boomed in his ear and his breath came hard and fast.

A voice to the side hissed: ‘So ’tis James Manning.’

Manning turned slowly towards it.

‘Owens.’

Even though the man’s face was in shadow, Manning recognised the sharp-nosed profile.

‘So you know me.’

‘Couldn’t forget.’

Owens chuckled without humour. Manning wondered how he came to be in the West. They had both been on the Defiance. When it was wrecked off New South Wales, Owens had gone in the longboat back to Sydney. Briefly Manning wondered what had happened to the others, but he didn’t care so he didn’t ask. He turned to leave.

‘Where are you going?’

Manning stopped and looked back. He couldn’t see Owens’s little eyes but he knew they were on him.

‘I was enjoying our little get-together.’

Moonlight caught a glint of his tooth. The rest of his face was partly obscured by the spidery shadows of branches. Manning tried to control the shudder that gripped his shoulders. He trod heavily on the path back to the clearing.

He stared without focusing at the embers, wrestling with a green stick until it snapped in half. The crack brought him back and he threw the two pieces into the fire. He looked up as Jem reappeared from the darkness. Manning unrolled his bedding and gave Jem one of his kangaroo skins since the night was warm enough without it.

Grey, early morning light. Treetops, dark shapes against an insipid sky. Manning rolled over onto his stomach and lifted his head, resting his chin on his palm. Bodies covered in furs were like giant caterpillars stretched out under the verandah and across the clearing. Standing over one of them was Isaac. Slowly Manning lowered his head so that his chin was resting on the ground. He didn’t like the fact that Isaac had a knife in his hand.

Isaac kicked the body beneath him. He kicked again, bringing his foot up higher. A head lifted slowly. Manning realised it was Jansen. He seemed unable to speak. The captain of the Mountaineer hauled himself up, one side of his face pockmarked with the imprint of sticks and seeds. He was shaking. Manning wondered if Isaac would cut him.

‘We want your whaleboat.’

Jansen nodded like a cork bobbing in the swell. Manning could see that Isaac was grinning. Although he wasn’t tall like Anderson, he looked big because there was so much hair on his head and face. Manning thought that Isaac looked like the keeper of Davy Jones’s Locker.

‘You be needing men. To take oars,’ spluttered Jansen.

Manning could see that Jansen thought he was dead. That Isaac was going to kill him for his whaleboat.

But Isaac just nodded and said with a savage grin: ‘Aye, we’ll be needing you and your men.’

He waved the blade across the bundles of men. Manning could see they weren’t asleep either. Just lying low like he was. Then he noticed Anderson leaning against a timber post that held up the verandah. He had been watching.

‘That’s enough. Get these men up.’

He turned his back and disappeared into the hut. Isaac continued to stand over Jansen with the knife pointed at his neck but he looked around.

‘Get down to the beach … all of you. If you want to eat that is. You too.’

He pressed the tip of the knife against Jansen’s skin, chuckling.

‘That’ll teach you. Thinking you could haul up here and eat your way through our supplies. We work for our food.’

Then he withdrew and followed Anderson into the hut. Manning heard Jem let out his breath. He hadn’t noticed he was awake. They got up with everyone else and stowed their bedding under the shelter. The black women passed through the clearing on their way to the beach. They were naked except for amulets of shells and bone around their necks.

The beach looked bleak in the cold light. Pale cloud arched overhead. There was a strip of yellow and brown cloud over the mainland where there had been a fire. The breeze, although light, seemed to have moved into the northwest. Their footsteps squeaked on the sand and before them an oily sea rippled, colourless except for the occasional white flash of foam marking the place where the swell broke over a rock. A black and white gull circled. Its mate appeared and they both glided and flapped overhead, calling to one another: Caw, caw.

Manning noticed William Church walking beside him. He was tying his stock in the way that people who wear stocks do. He reached into the top pocket of his coat for a piece of cloth and wiped his face. When he put it back, it fell out. He bent down to pick it up but a fellow who Manning recognised as one of the crew from the Mountaineer thrust his pelvis into his arse and knocked him off balance. He fell on his hands and knees. Manning laughed. Serve the toffy bugger right. Church stood up and wiped the sand from his hands. Jem looked at Manning and grinned. The crewman began to circle Church with one hand on the top of his knife. Manning turned away. Then the fellow saw Anderson watching him and he stopped, but not before he had hissed something under his breath to Church.

The Mountaineer’s whaleboat had been lifted to the water’s edge. Men surrounded it, looking up at Anderson who stood on the sloping rock. He told them what he wanted and then looked over at Church and asked if he had pulled an oar before. Church shook his head, clasping his pale hands in front of his frockcoat which hung loosely from his thin frame. He told him to get firewood.

Manning and Jem followed Anderson over the headland and heard the men from the Mountaineer cursing Anderson. But not loud enough for him to hear. Manning thought they could curse all they like. There wouldn’t be anyone who would challenge Anderson. Not when he wore a brace of pistols on his belt. And Manning knew that it wasn’t the first time that Anderson had forced men at gunpoint to kill seals for him.

The boy Jimmy skipped ahead, jumping from one boulder to the next. Red-brown skinny legs darted in and out of Manning’s vision. He reached the whaleboat before them and stood at the bow, holding onto it and jumping up and down on the spot. They used wooden rollers to take it to the sea. The boat sat lightly in the shallows and they jumped in. But as the boy hooked his leg over, Anderson told him to get off and find some muttonbirds.

Manning took his place at a thwart. Jem had the next oar. They waited for a break in the waves and then moved out into the channel. He watched the boy stare after the boat, little waves lapping around his ankles. He looked over his shoulder at Dinah who sat straight at the bow. Her tightly cropped head held proud and her sad, scarred breasts facing the open sea like a ship’s figurehead. Anderson stood over them, guiding them with the steering oar through the shallow channel. They raised the sail and cut diagonally across towards Isaac and the others who had just rounded the point in the Mountaineer’s whaleboat. They worked the lee oars to keep the boat close to the wind.

Manning was conscious of his feet resting on thin wooden board. It was all that lay between him and the dark depths of the sea. He hoped the wind wasn’t going to get any stronger. Jem’s eyes were fixed on the back of the man in front of him. Lean forward, pull back, he looked down the line of the oar as it neatly cut the surface. Waves from the bow fanning out into bruise-coloured water. Sometimes the sun pierced the liquid glass and lit the silver fish and the black shapes that moved between the weed. But today the sea was not throwing up any of its secrets. Manning glanced uneasily up at Anderson. Behind him the glow on the horizon grew stronger as the sun presented itself through a veil of cloud.

They rounded Flinders Peak. The troughs between the waves deepened. Thick banks of water rose and wavered, the little boat rising with them, climbing on an angle and sliding down the other side. They moved in a westerly direction towards an island about a mile ahead. Spray salted their faces and burnt their eyes. Water slapped at the side and ran over into the bottom of the boat where it swirled around their ankles. Soon the rocky island reared up out of the water. Surf surged over its eastern edge and then receded, revealing a black, moss-like weed more treacherous than ice, and dirty white barnacles. Boulders sat at odd angles on the rock just above the waterline, almost indistinguishable from the seals that lay amongst them.

Manning felt his stomach surge with the swell. They reached the calm water in the lee of the island where they lowered the sail and took in the oars. Two gulls had followed. The boat moved gently up and down. The birds circled. The familiar smell of the seal colony reached them, sharp and sickly. And every now and then the wind carried their sounds. Anderson ordered Manning to change positions with the man in front of him. He let go a stone anchor over the side and then waited for a lull in the swell. Dinah was standing, poised at the bow, holding the side with one hand, a club in the other. Mead and Manning were behind her. The sea flattened.

Anderson gave the order to pull while he let out slack on the anchor line. The boat thrust forwards. Jem looked around at Manning. Anderson told him to stay with the oar. Manning knew it was a matter of timing. His heart beat hard against his chest as they surfed in on the swell. Together they must leap from the boat onto the foam-covered ledge. They must reach down for a crack in the rock so that when the sea sucked back they could brace themselves against it and hold tight. If he lost his footing he would roll into the sea like a skinned seal. There was a dull thud at the keel and he followed Dinah over the side. He bent double and scrambled for a foothold. He found it and gripped tight, watching as Anderson held firm the stern anchor line so the boat wouldn’t splinter on the rock. Jem and the other oarsman pulled hard on the stern oars but Jem was not quick enough and the surf pushed them sideways. Just as he thought they were going to go over, they straightened and sliced the top of the next wave before reaching calmer water.

Like the others Manning had worn his sealskin shoes to protect his feet from the sharp-edged barnacles. But he had nothing to protect his hands. Bent over they edged slowly and carefully across the slippery surface. Manning fought the urge to hurry, to get off the wet rock before the big wave hit. Finally they made it above the wet black line. They could look around now. Even though they could hear the seals they couldn’t see them for the rock was layered and they were on the lower edge. Boulders rose above them like misshapen building blocks. They would have to climb them to get to the seals. Or as Mead had said they could go back into the water and wade around the edge. Manning shook his head. The less he was in the water the better. And then he remembered his dream.

It was always the same dream: he would twist and turn and when he opened his mouth to scream, bubbles would push out, floating upwards. An arm would cross his face, white and shimmering. Then he would realise it was his own and as he thrashed about the light would change to emerald and in the distance the tail of a seal would ripple through ribbons of weed. It would guide him to land, where on silver sand a dark shape would breathe beside him. He’d reach out for it and discover that it was only skin. And if he looked up there would be Mooney or sometimes it’d be Dinah or Sal gazing down on him.

He envied the way seals moved through the water. Sometimes it seemed they were teasing. Look at me they would say as they twirled and bent over backwards. There were some in the water out past the Mountaineer’s whaleboat. It was hovering behind the break, waiting for a lull.

He and Mead leant against the rock. Dinah squatted beside them. Dark clouds were forming in the northwest, and rising up to meet them was the brown line of smoke that stretched along the mainland.

Manning noticed the orange nippers of a crab in a crack in the rock. He bent closer and it scuttled sideways and alerted the rest of the clan. They sunk out of sight. The wind brought the roar of the surf crashing on the other side of the island. Finally Johno cleared the boat, followed by Mooney and Sal. Hindered by the strong pull of the surf, they struggled to stay upright while the boat retreated beyond the waves.

Usually there were only two or three of them who clubbed. But with the extra men on the oars they would get a good catch today. Having another boat meant that Anderson would double his money. Mead told Dinah and Sal to swim around the edge so that they would come up under the seals. The rest of them would surprise them from the top and herd them towards some rocks which formed a natural corral. Manning followed Mead up over the rocks until they reached a ledge. Manning loosened his grip on the club, stretching his fingers. He looked down.

Silver gulls gathered, circling. Just above the waterline were the cows or klapmatches that had recently given birth and the territorial bulls that were gold and brown like the granite. A bronze-bellied mother lay on her back suckling a pup that sprawled across her flipper like a large black leach. A bull rested with his nose pointed towards her, lying between her and the sea, preventing her escape. They were hair seals. Manning knew their skins weren’t as valuable as the fur seals but it made good leather, and the blubber they would boil down for lamp oil.

He watched the two women move carefully like cats over the uneven surface. When each one lifted her leg he saw the dusky pink soles of her feet and realised he had once expected them to be black. What he didn’t see were the others, shades of their people who moved between them.

They entered the sea close to where they left the boat, slipping slowly into the water. Their sleek heads bobbing along the surface. A seal surfed with them onto the rock. They pushed their chests off the weed and dragged their bodies behind them, following the seal which walked with an exaggerated gait.

The seals stirred. Some lifted their heads. They pointed their noses to the sky and leant back, sniffing the wind. They were suspicious but their eyesight was poor and the salt water had masked the women’s scent. Gradually they stopped fidgeting and settled, resting their chins on the rock, almond eyes open and blinking and then closed. When a seal nearby lifted a flipper to scratch its broad quivering hide, Dinah lifted her arm and scratched her side. If it rolled over onto its back, she rolled onto her back.

Manning was sweating. The sky had darkened and the wind had dropped. The sand patches under the sea glowed strangely green. Bright white water skirted the island. Every now and then a wave came from nowhere. It thickened and swept the rock and was sucked back into the sea. On higher ground were the older pups. Some with mothers, some without. They lay sleeping in twos and threes. A seal opened her eyes and stared directly at him. For a brief moment she looked into him and the waves stilled, but then she raised her head and began to move away.

Below, the women stood up. They hit out in frenzy, shrieking with bloodlust or perhaps it was anger or grief. Seals fell over each other. They met the men on the other side and were driven into the rocky corner. It always surprised Manning how quickly the seals moved. And from a distance they looked like sheep, following one another, galloping and bleating. Trapped. They turned, necks wobbling, teeth bared, spitting and red mouthed and roaring. One hit was often not enough. And he had to be quick. Three came at him at once. He swung wildly, barely able to recover from the last before he brought it down again, and again, and again, conscious only that it had to be hard. Those that escaped lolloped away, rolls of fat moving like jelly as their weight shifted from front flippers to back. Around him lay seals that been felled, grey bodies like stumpy tree trunks, sap leaking from their heads.

Seals that reached the safety of the sea bobbed up, straining back towards the island. Their pups, stranded, many motherless, called desperately. Johno reached into a crevice and pulled one out by its back flippers and threw it high in the air. Manning watched it arch over his head and as it did so its flippers moved and its body twisted and then it hit the rock, bouncing a little.

The men moved between the mounds, skinning them quickly. Some were still alive, blowing bubbles through bloody nostrils. Manning was always faintly uneasy with the pink body that remained. Especially the eyes, which appeared larger and blinked. He didn’t look around. The women followed, hacking off flippers and slabs of meat that would be wrapped in canvas and hauled across the water to the boat. Mead picked up the thick coil of rope that at one end was secured to the bow of Anderson’s whaleboat. When Mead raised his arm, the men pulled the bundles of skin and blubber through the surf. They had to be quick for soon there would be sharks.

When the foam took on a pinkish hue and the boats were loaded, the sharks began to circle. Anderson steered the boat in. Luckily the swell had dropped off and there was no wind. But the storm was close. And as they moved out into the open sea, using only the oars, thunder rumbled in the distance and spears of light flickered above the mainland.