‘Clara! Come and look.’ My sister, Susan, stood at the top of the steps and shouted down from the deck of the steamer to our tiny cabin below.
I turned over in my narrow bunk and pulled the rough wool blanket over my head. I knew the sun was shining outside the porthole, but I didn’t want to go up on deck to look at more bare cliffs and deserted beaches. Since we rounded Cape Leeuwin at the end of March we had been travelling north up the coast of Western Australia.
Sometimes we saw sandhills and windblown scrub to our right. At other times there was nothing but endless Indian Ocean.
‘Get up, Clara!’ Susan was shaking me now, pulling at the blanket while I held it tight. ‘We’re nearly there!’
I leapt up, threw off the blanket and ran up on deck, wrapping my shawl around me to cover my nightdress. Suddenly there was a terrible clanking sound from the engine below. Our battered steamer gave a great shudder and tipped to one side.
‘We’re sinking!’ Susan screamed, and grabbed the rail with both hands. I was thrown forward and crashed into Mother, who was already there. One of our crewmen leapt off the ship. A moment of panic. Other voices shouting. I was ready to jump when the steamer righted itself and I saw our crewman on the jetty looping a rope around the nearest bollard. He hauled on the rope. Our stern glided slowly towards the Long Jetty and came to rest against a padded pylon. We had finally arrived in the Port of Fremantle.
The jetty was crowded with people coming and going, collecting their luggage, greeting family and friends. There was no-one to meet us. It was much too far for our older sisters, Mary and Emily, to come from Southern Cross, a small gold-mining town 300 miles inland where Mary’s husband, Tom Farren, is the licensee of the Club Hotel. It will be eight years in May since Mary married Tom and they left Queensland to try their luck on the new diggings in the west. Emily went with them. I missed her terribly because she used to play games with me, even though I was only six and she was fourteen, the same age as I was now.
Mary was expecting another baby and she needed Mother’s help. Not many girls would come and work so far out in the bush. Susan and I were going to help out in the hotel while Mary was laid up after the birth. She and her husband already had four little girls, who we hadn’t met yet.
The gangplank slid down and clattered onto the wooden planks of the jetty. We went below to change and get our luggage from the cabin we had been sharing for seven long weeks while the steamer plodded around the coast from our home in Queensland to Western Australia. Mother and I took the handles on either end of our sea trunk and carried it up the steps between us. Susan came behind with our holdalls, one in each hand. As we struggled up to the deck I thought of Pa and our two brothers. I wished they were here to help with the heavy trunk, but I missed them, too. They’ve stayed behind in Queensland, for now. They all have good jobs at Cooper’s Gold Mine, in Charters Towers, and can’t afford to lose them.
At the top of the steps, Mother and I rested the trunk on the deck. The steamer’s single funnel, its white stripe now coated in grime, had stopped puffing out smoke. After the constant thump, thump of the engine, the ship seemed eerily silent, until the captain started barking orders from the wheelhouse and the crew bustled about on deck.
Mother and I lifted the trunk again and carried it down the constantly moving gangplank. Our leather-soled boots slipped and slid on the wet cleats. By the time we stepped onto the jetty I was sweating in my long dress and petticoats.
‘Well girls, here we are on dry land at last,’ Mother said. Her voice was almost drowned out by the neighing of horses, the shouts of dock workers and the thumps of boxes and bags being loaded into carts and coaches. ‘We’ll walk to the hotel,’ Mother said. ‘I believe it’s not far, and it will be good to get our land legs back.’
‘What about all our things?’ Susan bleated, looking at the heavy trunk and holdalls at our feet.
‘Just bring your handbag, Susan. I’ll arrange for the rest to be delivered,’ Mother reassured her.
Mother found a man with a horse and cart who agreed to take our luggage to the hotel where we would be staying for two days until the next train left for York, the end of the line on the way to Southern Cross.
We were making our way along the busy High Street when suddenly a ragged-looking man came dodging through the crowd. He ran across in front of us, looked back over his shoulder, and knocked a woman off her feet. She fell right in front of Susan, who tripped and grabbed hold of me. I dropped my bag and some of my things spilled out onto the pavement. We heard shouting and the sound of more running feet. A policeman in uniform called out ‘Stop him!’ People stood and stared, or moved out of the way, but no-one tried to catch the running man, who disappeared into a laneway. The policeman, who was very red in the face, stood on the road with his hands on his hips. He shouted again, but he had obviously given up the chase.
‘What’s happening?’ Mother asked the woman as she helped her to her feet and I began to collect my belongings.
‘Oh, one of the prisoners has escaped again,’ the woman replied.
‘Dear me,’ Mother exclaimed. ‘Is he dangerous?’
The woman laughed. ‘No, not at all,’ she said. ‘They’ll catch up with him and lock him up again, but it will do no good. It’s almost a game to them.’
‘But what has he done?’ I asked the woman.
‘All sorts of petty crimes,’ she said with a shrug. ‘Mostly stealing grog, I believe.’
By then the policeman had recovered his breath and people were going about their business again. Mother handed the woman her bag. She hung it on her arm and wished us a pleasant stay.
We had started to move on when a voice called out behind us. ‘Hey miss! You dropped this.’ I turned around. A boy about Susan’s age was holding up a book. It was an ordinary exercise book, but I could see that it was mine.