‘You’re very late, Henry,’ Father said as Henry came through the door of the hut, Eliza trailing behind him. ‘You’d better have a good reason.’ He hitched himself up in his chair, wincing with the pain of his shoulder. ‘Well?’

‘Papa, you’ll never guess! We –’ began Eliza.

‘There’s plenty happening on the diggings,’ Henry said quickly, shooting a warning look at Eliza. ‘There was another meeting at Bakery Hill today. A lot of the miners burned their licences.’

‘So I heard,’ Father said. ‘The fools. This is just the start, and there’ll be more rioting and bloodshed before it’s over.’

‘Well . . . yes,’ said Henry. Then he dared to add, ‘But you can’t blame the miners, can you? There are some things that aren’t fair –’

‘Never mind that,’ Father said irritably. ‘Tell me how your day went. Did you find anything?’

‘No,’ Henry said, treading hard on Eliza’s foot. ‘Nothing. But something did happen.’

‘Oh, aye?’ Father leaned back in his chair. ‘Tell me.’

‘Some men jumped our claim,’ Henry said. ‘When the traps came digger hunting, we ran away, you know, the way you always tell us to.’ He hoped this would make Father more sympathetic, maybe even save him from a thrashing. ‘Then, when we got back to the claim – Eliza and me, that is – there were three men there, and they said they’d taken it over. They said they could do that because we were mining illegally.’

He expected an explosion of anger, but it didn’t happen. Instead, Father reached for his tobacco pouch and began to fill his pipe. ‘We could go to the troopers and explain why I’m unable to work the claim,’ Father said, after a while. ‘They may be prepared to listen. Do you know who these claim-jumpers are?’

‘That’s the problem,’ Henry told him. ‘One of the men who jumped the claim is Sergeant Nockles. The other two are mates of his. That fellow with the eye-patch is one of them.’

‘Him again? By God, if I’d been there with my pistol . . .’

‘It wouldn’t have made any difference, Father. Nockles is armed, too. He has a rifle.’

‘Of course,’ Father said. ‘The police will always have the upper hand, and when they use force . . . It’s wrong. I won’t deny that.’

‘I’ll try to make up for losing the claim,’ Henry said. ‘I’ll go into town every day and get whatever jobs I can.’ He thought of the gold he’d found, and squeezed his eyes shut to try to block it from his mind.

Father lit his pipe. ‘I’m not happy you lost the claim, Henry, but I can see it’s not your fault. It’s not so long since the same thing nearly happened to me, is it? That ruffian must have had his eye on our claim ever since.’ He laughed bitterly. ‘His one eye.’

Mostly with relief, Henry laughed too.

‘Frank said they’d be down our mine like rats down a drainpipe,’ Eliza said. ‘And they are like rats, aren’t they?’

‘Frank?’ Father frowned. ‘Frank Shanahan? How is he mixed up in this?’

Henry gave Eliza a furious look. How could she be so stupid!

‘Well?’

‘He was . . . helping us,’ Henry said. ‘I asked him to.’

‘You asked him to?’ Father’s face had gone very red. ‘I told you to have nothing more to do with that boy.’

Henry tried to speak firmly, but his voice shook. ‘I’m sorry, Father. I didn’t think I could work the claim on my own. Eliza’s too small.’

‘I am not!’

‘Hush, Eliza,’ said Father. He raised his voice. ‘I am bitterly disappointed in you, Henry. You know my feelings about this. Your so-called friend is clearly on the rebel side, and that’s a side I’ll have no part of. I thought I could trust you to be sensible, but I see that I’ve been mistaken. You have disobeyed me, and you have lied to me. Your mother would have been ashamed of you.’ He turned away. ‘Get out of my sight.’

Henry felt as if his brain had exploded. ‘It’s better to be a rebel than a coward,’ he yelled. ‘You don’t believe in anything any more. You don’t believe in me. You don’t even believe in yourself. I’ll take Jack and Frank over you any time, because we’re covies, and they care. You don’t care about anything since Mam died. You . . . you . . .’ He tried to think what would hurt his father most. ‘You’re the worst father in the world!’

He closed his eyes and waited for the thrashing he was sure would come, but there was only silence, broken by the sound of Eliza crying. Then Father pushed past him, opened the door, and walked out into the night.

Much later Father came back, smelling of alcohol. He must have been to one of those sly-grog tents he hated so much, Henry thought sourly. He waited for Father to say something, but Father ignored him. ‘I’m off to bed,’ he said to Eliza, as if Henry wasn’t there.

The worst thing, the thing Henry couldn’t get over, was Father saying he was disappointed in him. No matter how hard he tried to be the sort of son Father wanted, Father was always disappointed in him. And it wasn’t fair to drag Mam into it. If Mam was still alive, she wouldn’t have been ashamed of him. He could have talked to her, and she’d have understood. Mam always understood.

If only he could tell Father that he’d discovered gold on the claim! But to tell him now would just make everything worse. It would be much better if he never knew.

Henry couldn’t believe how unfair everything was. Father didn’t care about him – never had, probably. Well, Henry thought, I don’t care about him, either.

That night he couldn’t sleep. He lay on his mattress listening to Father’s snoring and Eliza’s soft breathing, and he looked at the moonlight streaming through the chinks in the shutters.

Before dawn broke, he got up, dressed, and went to the wooden chest that served as a cupboard for their few clothes. Slowly he opened the lid, praying that it wouldn’t creak.

He scrabbled through shirts and stockings and vests until his fingers touched Father’s pistol. He picked it up, feeling the surprising coldness of its metal barrel. For a moment he hesitated – Father would never forgive him for this. Then he put the pistol in his coat pocket.

‘Liberty!’ he said to himself. The word just popped into his head. He hadn’t thought of it since he’d held that flash cove’s horse all those weeks ago.

He pulled on his hat, tiptoed to the front room, opened the door, and left.