I wake early the next morning feeling glum and nervous. It does not look good for me, especially with the tall policeman saying that Magistrate Roe knows just how to handle brats like me. How? I wonder. What did he actually mean?
Maybe it is the prison walls or my time at school, but I am beginning to feel like a little kid again, like the brat I really am. While I was at sea, the crew all treated me like an equal, like a grown man, especially after I had tried to save poor Mr Cord from drowning during the storm, and nearly drowned myself in the attempt. Now, I am going to face the court, and probably going to be jailed for a long time, and all I can really think is, I want my mum. I want my mum so badly. I want to curl up in a ball and have her hold me tight and keep me safe from the world. There is no one to help me, and I really need help. I shake slightly, and it is not from the cold this time.
Eventually, Constable Kelly arrives with a tray holding my breakfast porridge. ‘I will be back for you precisely at ten o’clock,’ he says. ‘In the meantime, eat your breakfast and get cleaned up. Put on your tie and look as smart as you can. The lav and washroom are at the end of the corridor. Green door.’ I try not to look puzzled. They are all green doors.
I stand in the dock feeling as sick as a rabid dog. The courtroom is a grand place, with the walls lined with polished dark timber, long windows letting in shafts of light and an enormously high ceiling. The benches and chairs are padded in deep red leather, as is the magistrate’s bench high against the back wall, beneath a carved and embossed coat of arms. The magistrate is dressed in a red robe with a white sash across his shoulder, and he wears a white wig, making him look like a mean, malevolent Santa Claus with a permanent frown and dead eyes.
‘Red James Read, of the Smuggler’s Curse Hotel in Broome, and student at Christian Brothers College. Is that correct?’ asks a court official who sits just below the high bench.
I nod. It is pretty unmistakable as I still wear my school uniform with the school badge on the blazer pocket.
‘Answer, boy!’ commands the magistrate, irritably.
I bow slightly just as Constable Kelly had told me to. ‘Yes, your honour.’
‘Master Read,’ the magistrate continues, his voice authoritative and filling the room, ‘as you are underage, this will be an informal court session.’ He pauses and looks over his glasses, his pale blue eyes reminding me of the milky water in the shallows of Roebuck Bay. ‘I have been studying this report on you, and I must say it is a most disagreeable document. It is not good reading at all.’ There is not a hint of sympathy on his face.
I look up at Magistrate Roe. His skinny face would put a greyhound to shame.
‘The first thing I notice is you were brought up in the Smuggler’s Curse Hotel in Broome. Even as far away as we are in Perth, that hotel is a well-known house of ill …’ He stops and frowns even more. ‘Well, an establishment not held in high regard. I notice, too, that your legal guardian is the somewhat notorious Captain Black Bowen. His reputation as a smuggler, womaniser, tax evader and drinker precludes him from mixing in decent society. He is lucky he has never actually faced me in court. I am at a complete loss to understand how he has guardianship of a minor. In fact, I am disgusted. Words fail me.’
He pauses and stares at me intently as if trying to scare me. I try not to let it show, but it is working. I am terrified out of my wits. I can feel my left knee shake.
‘Then, on top of this unfortunate background,’ he continues, ‘you go and disgrace yourself in school with the most appalling act of brutality. You have been given the best chance to overcome your surroundings and unfortunate circumstances, with a good education, but no boy, you revert to the manners and behaviour of a common guttersnipe. You, young sir, are an ungrateful wretch. Many children of the lower classes would gladly make the most of such an opportunity for a decent education, but not you. It seems you are little better than a godless pirate.’
‘Excuse me, your honour,’ interrupts a second court official, ‘I have Master Read’s school record and his bank statement, as you requested. It may influence your decision here, sir.’ The official hands the statement up to the magistrate.
He looks at the top paper and coughs in surprise. ‘How much?’ he cries angrily. ‘This boy has a bank account like that?’ He composes himself. ‘This is even worse. A boy of such privileged and ample means, beyond ample means, I might say, ends up fighting like a common hooligan, but even worse, attacks a man of God! You, ungrateful young sir, should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself.’
I am not in the least ashamed of myself. Not one little bit. In fact, Brother Christian is lucky it was me who assaulted him and not Captain Bowen. All I would have had to do on his next visit was mention his behaviour to the Captain and Brother Christian would be lying in the morgue with a dagger in his throat. He got off lightly as far as I can see.
Magistrate Roe glares down from his bench at me, his face full of hatred, or maybe it is just jealousy at my hefty bank balance, his pale eyes almost skewering me. ‘Well, are you?’
‘I was just defending …’ I protest, but he cuts me short.
‘Enough! There can be no excuses. None! Brother Christian, the man you so cowardly attacked, is a member of the church. The church is the last bastion against our decaying society. Enough of this. I am disgusted with you.’ He clears his throat and then leaves a long silence before declaring, ‘Master Red Read, I officially proclaim you to be a Juvenile Delinquent, and you will be punished accordingly. Because of your age, I am not permitted to sentence you to a long jail term with hard labour in Fremantle Prison, as you justly deserve. However, I can give you a lesson to make you mend your heathen, brutal ways. A good birching is what you need, and I am here to see that is precisely what you will get. Typically, for assault by a minor, you would receive six lashes with a birch, but as Brother Christian is a member of a holy religious order, unselfishly serving his fellow man, I think twenty lashes is more appropriate.’
I gulp, hardly believing what he says.
He continues. ‘Twenty lashes with a birch, in public, as a warning to any other young hooligans of this parish who believe they can carry on like wild animals in a zoo, and you can remain in the Perth Lock-up until your so-called guardian sees fit to collect you. Until then, you can reflect on your well-deserved punishment.’
‘Phew!’ I hear Constable Kelly whisper beside me.
Magistrate Roe pauses for a moment to gather his evil, monstrous thoughts. ‘In the meantime, I am going to write to your mother and inform her that she was ill-advised in appointing the crook Bowen as your legal guardian, damn his criminal hide. In my next official visit to Broome later this year I shall expect to see changes, or else. Mark my words!’
As his words wash over me, I think all I really hear is twenty lashes with a birch. I have heard about birches. They are just like the old British Navy floggings that Mr Smith told me about, except, rather than a cat-o’-nine-tails, a birch is half-a-dozen green saplings about the thickness of fingers tied together like a witch’s broom. They are used to beat the bare bums of delinquent boys, of which I am apparently the new king. Then I remember Constable Kelly telling me that no matter what the magistrate says I have to reply, ‘Thank you, your honour.’
‘Thank you, your honour,’ I mumble, the words nearly choking me. I wipe my sweating palms on my pants and feel drips of sweat running down my face even though it is not a hot day.
‘Constable Kelly,’ he barks, ‘take this appalling wretch out of my sight! Before I order fifty lashes.’ He slams down his gavel, the sound just like a rifle shot. Oh, how I wish it were a rifle shot, to his head.
Oh, and how I wish Captain Bowen were with me now. If he had been, the magistrate would be laughing on the other side of his face. The point of the slim dagger in the Captain’s boot would have been at Roe’s throat and remained there until he changed his mean, maggoty, magistratey mind about beating me. Nothing could be more certain. I would be out of his sight alright, and no doubt my face would be the last thing he ever saw.
Constable Kelly looks after me at the lock-up.
‘Do you know my boy, Ned?’ he asks me the next morning when he arrives with my breakfast tray. ‘He goes to Christian Brothers too. About your age. We christened him Jack after me, but everyone calls him Ned.’
‘I do know Ned,’ I reply, happy that Constable Kelly at least seems kind, ‘but he’s in a year below me, and a day boy, so I don’t get to talk to him too much.’
‘That Brother Christian. Ned reckons he’s a nasty piece of work and you gave him what he had coming.’
I look at his face in surprise. Is that the tiniest trace of a smile he tries to suppress? He almost winks as he turns and leaves.
Alone again, I wonder what lies ahead. The next few years had been pretty well planned for me. There was to be school, and, of course, exams and sport, and, hopefully, an occasional visit from my ma and from Captain Bowen whenever they had to visit Perth on business, and the Christmas holidays back in Broome. But now? I’m terrified of the thought of the upcoming birching. My heart starts to race again just thinking about it. I try not to cry, but I feel a tear escape from my eye and run down my cheek. I wipe it away with my sleeve and sniff, feeling very sorry for myself.
Over the next few days, Constable Kelly brings me my meals on a tray each morning and afternoon, and he also includes apples and pears from his fruit trees at home. He must have seen how bored I was with nothing to do all day except worry and wait for the beating, because on the third day he brings several books that belong to Ned for me to read. He also hands me a small pile of paper, envelopes and a pencil so I can write home to my mother. I hope she is on a ship heading south to come and collect me.
I am much relieved at Constable Kelly’s thoughtfulness as the boredom has been mind-numbing. The books are really good. One is on medieval warfare full of incredible weapons, another is a biography of General Gordon and the siege of Khartoum in Sudan, and the third is a brand-new novel called Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling. It is about a boy who is taken away to sea, just like I was, except he was on a Portuguese fishing boat and not on a smuggler’s schooner being shot at and half drowned or hanged, like me.
‘The cells are at the far end of the building, but I’ll make sure that none of the remand prisoners can get near you,’ he announces, then pauses. ‘Not that I think you can’t look after yourself. Oh, and I bought you this,’ he continues, holding up a kerosene lantern. ‘It’ll be enough to read by.’
‘Thank you very much, Constable Kelly,’ I say, genuinely pleased.
I sit on my bed reading until eventually the wick on my lantern burns down, flickers and the light begins to fade slightly. I really identify with the hero, Harvey Cheyne, who is a bit older than me and a fair bit more courageous than I am. Though, the way I feel lately, I think just about everyone in the whole world is braver than I am.
In daylight, the once whitewashed walls of my room are grubby and stained with all sorts of grime ingrained into the plaster. On the wall opposite the end of my bed, someone in the past has drawn a lifelike picture of a man with long hair, holding a book. Next to him is another picture of an old-fashioned sailing ship with a high stern. I hadn’t noticed until now, but in the flickering lantern light, beneath the pictures, I can see faint letters, maybe scratched with charcoal, but not clear enough to be read. I move the lantern to the foot of the wall to see if a different angle will make it more distinct. It does. At head height are three crosses like you see in a church, the middle one taller than the others. The words wilyum dampeer bulyon are right below them. Below that, someone has drawn a ragged circle, like a frying pan with a stubby handle on the top. On either side of the circle are darker smudges. Beneath that is written kokonut ilind N tip Hom and 100 100 100. The marks could be anything. I don’t speak any other languages except a smattering of Japanese I learnt from the pearl divers in Broome and a bit of Malay from Teuku. It doesn’t sound like either of those two.
I bring my face closer to the wall. I find several new words even fainter, duk duches priz guam, 1710 and then, het kerkhof der europeanen. The final ones are scratched even deeper, kersd be wornd. Finally, the lantern goes completely out and I’m plunged into darkness.
I awake next morning as Constable Kelly bangs on the door and swings it open. ‘It’s Saturday,’ he announces cheerily as if it is my birthday. ‘My Ned said he’d come and visit you today if you’d like that?’
‘Yes, please,’ I reply eagerly. Someone to talk to. At last.
‘Anything you’d like him to bring?’
I glance at the wall, remembering last night. ‘An atlas would be good. Could I borrow one of those?’ There is something about the words and the map on the wall that interests me. Of course they interest me. I’ve read Treasure Island, lots of times. It is my favourite book ever, so I know all about maps and treasure. Could this be a treasure map? I suspect so. I sure hope so.
‘We have a Webster’s Encyclopedia at home with a lot of maps in the back. Will that do?’ asks Constable Kelly.
Around lunchtime, Ned arrives carrying the fat, brown encyclopedia, a packet of sandwiches and some biscuits his mum made. He stays for about an hour, telling me about school. ‘Red, you are the hero of the whole school for sorting out Brother Christian. It is all anyone has talked about, all week. How you nearly killed him.’
I look at him, surprised. I suppose the news got around the school pretty quickly.
‘Red, can you tell me?’ he asks. ‘They say you were really going to kill him. That you picked up a chair and smashed it over his head. They say that you were so angry that if you had had a knife, you would have gutted him from head to toe. They say you have a Colt pistol in your locker but couldn’t get to it in time, or you would have shot him six times!’ he says, getting more and more animated.
‘Yes, and I would have stopped, reloaded and shot him six more times,’ I reply, not at all seriously. ‘If you had seen what he did to poor little Albert Thomas, you would have done the same. Your Uncle Ned, the bushranger, would have been proud of you if you had.’
‘Er, Ned was not really my uncle,’ he says, sheepishly. ‘I just tell everyone he was. My uncle is Syd.’
‘Does he wear a bucket on his head, like the real Ned?’ I laugh.
‘Well, yes, he did once,’ he replies, starting to giggle. ‘He’s a dunny cart man, and last year he tripped off his cart and landed headfirst in a poo pan. And it was full.’
We both laugh uproariously at the thought of it until Constable Kelly comes to the door. ‘What’s this, Ned, are you telling Red about your Uncle Syd? Nothing else in the whole world could be that funny. Poor blighter.’
But then Constable Kelly starts laughing as well. It sure must have been a sight to see.