THE horse-drawn coach to the Burra rattled and rumbled, occasionally lurching into a pot-hole. It had left Adelaide in the middle of the afternoon, and was now on the north-easterly road to Gawler Town.

Nellie and Li shared a seat, Bertie in his covered cage between them. Nellie had taken out her spelling book, intending to study it during the long trip. She would hate Tom to think that she had given up trying to read and write properly.

Five passengers were aboard, apart from Nellie and Li. A middle-aged Cornish miner, Bob Trelawney, was returning to work on the Burra’s biggest mine, the Monster Mine. Then there was Mrs Grindley, an elderly widow dressed in an enormous black silk crinoline, and Mr and Mrs Evans, a young Welsh couple, with their baby daughter, Martha.

Nellie could see that with his round cap and his pigtail, Li stood out like a pheasant in a barnyard. Bob Trelawney and the Evanses seemed to accept that he was neither frightening nor dangerous, but Mrs Grindley, who was sitting on the seat opposite, made no attempt to hide her feelings.

‘How is it that a young girl like you is travelling with the Oriental?’ she asked Nellie in a loud voice.

Nellie felt a rush of anger. ‘If it was any of your business, ma’am, I’d tell you,’ she replied. ‘But as it isn’t, I won’t.’

The woman sat back. ‘Well, of all the impertinence!’ she exclaimed.

There was an awkward silence, and then Li said, mildly, ‘She my sister, madam.’

The other passengers laughed, and from then on they seemed like old friends. Bob invited everyone to share his Cornish pasty, and Mrs Evans offered baby Martha to Nellie ‘for a hold’.

Soon Bob Trelawney brushed the crumbs from his beard, dug into his pack and brought out a small concertina. After making a few wheezing sounds he began to play a cheerful sea shanty. Nellie didn’t know what it was called, but it was familiar to her: she’d heard the sailors singing it on board the Elgin.

While she listened, she gazed out at the country through which they were passing. In the brownish-green of the scrub she could see bursts of vivid yellow.

‘What might that be?’ she asked Mrs Grindley, pointing. She and Mrs Grindley had become quite friendly now, although the old woman still wanted nothing to do with Li. Nellie had discovered that she was on her way to stay with her son, who worked for the South Australian Mining Association.

‘It’s wattle blossom,’ Mrs Grindley told her. ‘You see it everywhere at this time of the year.’ She pursed her lips. ‘The colour is far too bright, though. I do miss the English trees and flowers. Everything about this country is so crude, isn’t it?’

Nellie thought about that, but decided that she liked the wattle. Yellow was such a happy colour – the colour of daffodils and sunshine.

‘Yellow very special in China,’ Li said, ignoring Mrs Grindley’s disapproving expression. ‘Colour of Chinese emperors. Very good colour, bring good luck.’

As darkness fell, the coach pulled up at the Old Spot, the Gawler Town hotel where they were to spend the night, and the passengers climbed down, yawning and stretching. They would continue their journey in the morning.

For a few drowsy moments Nellie thought she was still on board the Elgin. Then she woke up a little more and remembered that she was in a hotel, sharing a bedroom with old Mrs Grindley.

Mrs Grindley lay on her bed fully dressed apart from her crinoline underskirt, which was standing in the corner of the room like a small tent made of whalebone and rope. Listening to her loud snoring, Nellie was reminded of the big old spotted pig her dada had once brought home from the market.

She crawled out of bed, shivering in her thin cotton shift. Eager to see what this place was like in daylight, she dressed quickly and tiptoed from the room. Down the corridor, past the taproom, and she was outside. The sun was just up, but the air was bitterly cold. Workers at the hotel were already stirring. The smell of frying meat drifted from the kitchen.

She walked down the dirt road a little way. How huge this country was, and how empty! The grass and scrub went on for ever and ever. The Irish countryside was never like this – there was always a cottage or two, or a farmer taking his cow to market, or a family at work in the fields. The sky was different, too. In Ireland it wasn’t so high.

Nellie took a very deep breath, held it for a moment, and then puffed it out, making a cloud of steam in the freezing air.

Walking back to the Old Spot, she passed a wattle tree and smelled the sweet perfume of its blossom. In the early morning sunshine the little fluffy balls of wattle were the brightest, happiest yellow. Nellie picked a sprig and tucked it into her shawl, for luck. ‘For you, too, Mary angel,’ she said aloud, wishing she could show it to her beloved friend.

The coach left Gawler Town straight after breakfast. There were still seventy miles to go, the driver told Nellie, and the journey would take another eight hours.

Eight hours! To Nellie it was an eternity. She couldn’t wait to see the Thompsons again.

They changed horses at Forresters, a tiny hostelry in the middle of nowhere. Nellie soon realised that one of the new animals was lame. She could hear the driver cursing as he tried to urge it on, whipping it harder and harder. Every time she heard the lash fall she winced, as if the pain the horse must be feeling was hers too. Finally the coach came to a halt and the driver jumped down and poked his head in the window.

‘Sorry about the hold-up, ladies and gents,’ he told the passengers. ‘Afraid we’ve got a dud animal ’ere. I’ll ’ave to let ’im go before ’e croaks. No point floggin’ a dead ’orse.’ He laughed at his own wit.

Nellie and Li stepped down from the coach and watched as the driver’s boy unharnessed the injured animal, a big raw-boned grey. Why, he’s just like our Clancy, thought Nellie. In an instant she saw herself back in Ireland, holding Clancy’s huge head while her little sisters Katie and Grace climbed aboard. She could almost touch the velvety skin of Clancy’s nose, and feel his warm, snorting breath.

‘What will happen to him?’ she asked, watching as the horse limped away down the road, head held low. She could see the fresh marks of the whip on his back.

The driver shrugged. ‘Dingoes’ll probably get ’im. Don’t matter – ’e’s no use to anybody. There’s plenty o’ broken-down ’orses been let loose along this road. Bullocks, too.’ He secured the dangling traces, whistling.

‘What are dingas?’ Nellie asked, puzzled.

‘Dingoes? Wild dogs, savage beggars they are. They’ll make short work o’ that old nag.’

Nellie clenched her fists. How cruel the man was! How could he joke about the horse dying?

‘I hate him, so I do,’ she said to Li. ‘How would he like to be eaten by dingas?’

‘It just life, you know,’ said Li. He shrugged. ‘It how life go, Nellie.’

Nellie stared out over the grassy plain. She knew Li was right – she’d seen enough of life’s cruelty. But still she wished she could have done something to save the poor old horse.

Silently she and Li climbed back into the coach, and it lurched off again.

By this time Mrs Grindley had overcome her distrust of Li enough to talk to him about Bertie. She had put her finger in the cage for the budgerigar to perch on, and was trying to make him say ‘Pretty boy’ and ‘Hello’.

‘He not know these words,’ said Li. ‘He speak only Chinese.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Mrs Grindley. ‘This is a civilised country, and he should be speaking a civilised language. You’re a pretty boy, aren’t you, Bertie? Hello! Hello!’

‘Nei hou,’ said Bertie. Nellie and Li looked at each other and grinned.

Baby Martha refused to sleep, and was fretful. Mrs Evans held her so that she could watch Bertie, but the little girl soon began to cry, and then to scream.

‘I’ll take her,’ said Nellie. She sat the baby on her knee. ‘Sure, she’s very hot. Is she quite all right?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Mrs Evans. ‘She has a slight cold, that’s all.’

Nellie sang softly to Martha, an old lullaby her own mama used to sing, long ago. The baby soon fell asleep, but Nellie continued to hold her close. She shut her eyes and pretended that Martha was her own baby brother Patrick, and that Patrick hadn’t died in the Great Hunger after all.

Later, as they passed through the scattering of buildings that was Black Springs, Nellie heard men shouting. From her window she could see a long line of bullock drays rumbling past, going in the opposite direction.

‘They’re taking copper to Port Wakefield to be shipped to England,’ Bob Trelawney told her. ‘They’ll have been on the road since morning. It’ll be ten days before they reach the Port.’

The line of bullock teams seemed never-ending, and it moved so slowly! The great-horned beasts strained forward as they hauled the heavy drays, and the bullockies shouted and cursed, their long whips curling and slashing. It was at least a minute before the coach left the last team behind.

The countryside looked different now, with gentle rolling hills. Nellie could see sheep grazing in the distance.

‘It not far to Burra from here,’ said Li. ‘Maybe two hours. You know where to find Thompsons?’

‘I’m not sure where they are now, but the Burra is just a little small place, isn’t it? I can ask where they might be.’

Li frowned, then smiled. ‘We sort it out. You not worry.’