Lying in darkness in a dank, underground storage room of Berrima Gaol, Jake felt as though he was in the bowels of the earth as he hacked at the final inches he needed to dislodge the sandstone block – Will Martens’s escape route.
His eyes watered with sandstone dust as he pushed the stone free. He heard it land with a soft thud on the grass outside. The blast of fresh air was sweeter than wine. He anxiously re-examined the hole.
Easy for Will, he’s built like a slip of a girl. The hole bloody better be big enough to squeeze my carcass out.
Inch by inch he forced his body through the oblong hole. When he eventually landed on the other side he swore in triumph under his breath.
The night sky was peppered with stars and a crescent moon emerged from behind the clouds. Jake gave his eyes time to grow accustomed to the darkness outside, which was marginally lighter than the storeroom. It was then he saw a pair of boots. The flare of a pipe in the darkness. And a voice.
‘I thought you might try to use Jabber Jabber’s escape route.’
Jake looked at the chaplain, defiant. ‘I warned you I’d kill to get my woman out of here and I meant it. I’ll have to silence you, Rev, if you’re silly enough to try and stop me.’
‘Go ahead and try, Jakob. You’re not leaving this place while I’m alive.’ He added with emphasis, ‘Not tonight you won’t.’
Jake’s acute disappointment turned to sarcasm. ‘Is tomorrow all right with you, Rev?’
‘You’re no fool when you stop to use your brains, son, so hear me out. You owe it to your woman and your children to stay alive. What chance do you have if you bolt now? If you’re dead lucky you’d get to see Keziah once before you’re recaptured. Then you’d be packed off to Norfolk Island and as a second offender you’d die there in chains.’
‘You heard the jury, Rev. Guilty. I gave her my word she wouldn’t give birth in gaol.’
‘You got your wish, son.’ The chaplain passed on all the details of the birth that Leslie Ross had asked him to convey to Jake.
‘Jesus wept. A son! Why didn’t you bloody tell me?’
For once the chaplain lost his temper. ‘Because you bolted, you daft fool! I’ve been searching for you inside to tell you to hold your fire! I told you there was a strong rumour you’re likely to be released, but no, Jakob Andersen has to play the bloody hero and dig his way out! Do you want the troopers to shoot holes in your damned fool head?’
‘Watch your language, Rev. Your bishop will rip off your dog-collar!’
Jake could not wipe the grin off his face as the news sank in. ‘A son, eh?’
‘Now the trick is to get you back to your cell, past a guard who’s none too partial to Currency Lads who are matey with bushrangers.’
‘I could go back the same way I came through the hole,’ Jake offered.
‘Do it my way. If a guard challenges you, I’ll say we’re on our way to confession. Heaven knows with your record that would take a month of Sundays.’
‘Right,’ said Jake. ‘But first I’ve got to push the stone back for the next poor bastard to escape.’
• • •
‘Don’t push your luck with me, son!’
The sky was a cloudless stretch of icy blue, so high it seemed to stretch to a universe beyond the heavens. Jake winced in the face of the bright sunlight as he was frogmarched across the courtyard.
His shaven scalp itched and he would have welcomed a delousing almost as much as a cold Albion Ale. He had just spent a week in the blackness of solitary confinement in ‘the hole’ as punishment for his involuntary ‘blasphemous utterance’ when a guard prodded his groin with a truncheon.
Only one hour ago, the prison superintendent had ordered Jake to be pulled out of ‘the hole’ and announced he was free. It seemed the reason was due to fresh evidence given by Daniel and Iago’s widow at Keziah’s trial, which had overturned Iago’s previous testimony.
Jake couldn’t fathom it. But who am I to argue with a full pardon? I’d best clear out before they change their bloody minds.
He stood with the closed prison gates at his back, uncertain of how to make his first move.
Keziah and his baby son had already been transferred to Parramatta. Her three-year sentence in the Parramatta Female Factory was considered light, influenced by her condition as a nursing mother and the great provocation she had suffered at the hands of the Devil Himself. But three years was no consolation to Jake knowing how the loss of freedom would crush Keziah’s spirit.
He was about to set off on foot for the Surveyor-General’s Inn when he was met by the Doc’s buggy in company with a second saddled horse – Horatio.
He masked his surprise and gratitude with a casual greeting. ‘What kept you, Doc?’
‘I indulged in a bit of carousing to celebrate your release, lad.’
At the Surveyor-General’s Inn, Leslie ordered a bottle of Scotch whisky. Both silently acknowledged Jake’s tension. Prison did that to a man, no matter how heavy his bravado.
‘Get that into you to celebrate your firstborn son! Keziah’s just fine!’
‘Thank Christ for that.’ Jake felt nervous about the odds against his son. Few babes survived a premature birth. His mother had lost two. ‘Think he’ll make it, Doc?’
‘Make it? He’s the toughest little bairn I’ve ever delivered!’
Jake sank the first whisky with satisfaction. Leslie refilled his glass and eyed him carefully as he recounted Keziah’s and Daniel’s testimonies.
‘I dinna doubt your feelings, lad. Gem and Will Martens being friends of yours. It took guts for Daniel to expose Iago at great risk to himself.’
Jake seethed with frustration that he had not been the one to avenge Gem. ‘Pity the bloody law hasn’t found a way for blokes like Iago to be executed twice.’
‘Aye, it did. In previous centuries he’d have been hanged, drawn and quartered.’
On their third whisky they reflected on the monster that Iago had become. Was he born crazy, evil or had he been brutalised in childhood or by the system?
‘I’ve seen sadists like him the world over,’ said Leslie. ‘But I discovered Iago was born of the Quality. He was cast out by a family known to Jonstone. His name was changed and he was banished to the ends of the earth to cover some heinous crime. A man so twisted he inflicted sadistic punishment on his convicts to conceal the instincts he was unable to face in himself.’
Jake scowled. ‘I don’t give a bugger why he did it. He didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as the rest of the human race.’
‘A priest would claim every man has one redeeming feature.’
‘Yeah?’ Jake thought for a minute. ‘The best you can say about Iago is that he’ll be pinned down by a tombstone for eternity.’
Later, when they were travelling down the road to Ironbark, Leslie told him how Daniel had wanted to bring Jake a special welcome-home gift.
‘A new Belgian percussion pocket pistol with a spring bayonet. I persuaded the fool if you were caught carrying arms today the traps would kill you.’
‘A bayonet, eh? That will come in handy to spring Kez out of the Factory!’
Leslie wore his wise owl look. ‘Bran killed the fatted calf to celebrate your freedom.’
Jake shook his head. ‘Nice thought but what good is freedom when Kez can’t share it with me? I’m off to Ironbark Farm to collect my kids from Polly Doyle. Poor little buggers must feel like orphans.’
‘I took care of that. The bairns and your vardo are waiting for ye at Bran’s forge.’
They separated at the crossroads and Leslie drove west to perform an operation. The second bottle of whisky he had placed in Jake’s saddlebag ensured that Jake was mellow by sundown when he spotted Bran’s forge. Pearl and Gabriel sat like two little birds on the sliprail fence, squawking their welcome to him.
The living quarters of the forge house were decorated with streamers. The Doc hadn’t been joking about the fatted calf. Bran was turning it on a spit over an open fire. Daniel was unable to speak but he gave a silent grin of welcome as he placed a pannikin of wine in Jake’s hand.
Jake downed the contents then pointed the empty mug at the spit. ‘Well there’s my dinner. What are you lot having?’
The children were all over him, laughing and asking questions, and for their sake he tried to appear relaxed and confident, ironing out their anxious questions about Mama and life in gaol. Many bottles of Albion Ale and wine were needed to wash down the fatted calf. After the meal raucous singing broke out accompanied by Gabriel. His new violin was a gift from one of Scotty the Shepherd’s mates, a fiddler who had done time at Gideon Park and was grateful for Iago’s death.
Jake tried to suppress the bleak feelings the grog had aggravated.
‘Maybe Scotty’s mob can raise an army to spring Kez out of the Factory.’
He was only half joking. Daniel looked serious. ‘There’s more than one way to skin a cat, Jake.’
Jake could see Gabriel and Pearl were struggling to keep their eyes open, so he shepherded them off to bed. They looked like babes in the wood in Bran’s big iron bed. On his return Daniel presented him with the Belgian pistol and Jake tested the spring bayonet. He made a genuine show of gratitude, balancing the weapon in his hand to get the feel of it.
‘Best firearm I’ve ever had. Can’t wait to use it.’
Daniel and Bran were both watching him. It was obvious something was afoot. Both were aware of his plan to fight like hell for Keziah’s release while giving his kids some semblance of family life until her return.
‘All right, you two. Spit it out. What’s up?’
‘Bran and I have a bold plan we want to put to you. It sounds crazy but hear me out before you piss yourself laughing.’
‘All right, I’m listening,’ said Jake, wary he was about to be hit with some half-baked scheme.
‘The best we can hope for is Keziah’s early release from the Factory, right? So the trick is to keep up a respectable marital front in the eyes of the authorities. We help build a cottage for you and the kids on your derelict property, then we build a forge and living quarters in the far corner where it fronts the Sydney Road. Next Bran quits Gilbert Evans’s forge here and serves the community there. Naturally he’ll do all your smithing work. You’ll realise your dream to breed thoroughbred horses. Me? I’ll work in a studio in the forge house but I’ll be your spare hand whenever you need me.’
Jake gave a hoot. ‘That’s a nice pipedream, mate. How do I build this bloody village? Print my own money?’
‘No need, I’ll finance it.’
Jake was stunned. ‘Right. When do you intend to bail up a bank?’
Daniel leaned forward. ‘Listen, it’s all above board. After my testimony in court and Mary Iago’s revelations about the abominations practised by Iago, I expected my career as an artist would be over, that the gentry would shun me. I hadn’t counted on Jonstone’s support. Maybe he feels responsible for leaving so much power in Iago’s hands – an overseer he appointed. Whatever the reason, Jonstone’s publicly sticking by me. He’s announced plans to hold an exhibition of my work next year and Lady Gipps has agreed to open it. Jonstone’s rallied the gentry and already two more of his friends have commissioned portraits of their wives. And Terence Ogden is celebrating his success in packing his wife off to England for good by commissioning me to paint a pair of life-size equine paintings of his champions.’
Daniel caught his breath. ‘You see? In death the Devil Himself has actually boosted my career.’
Jake knew Daniel’s mocking laugh covered his acute embarrassment.
‘I’ll have a good income,’ Daniel continued, ‘so will Bran. With us behind you, what have you got to lose?’
They both looked so keen about the idea that Jake made the only response he could think of – he refilled their glasses.
‘Sounds like you’ve gone into this partnership business pretty damned thorough.’
‘We have. I’ll be your silent partner. Further down the track when you begin selling horses and winning races, you can pay something off the loan if you want. Come on, what do you think?’
Bran’s silence was eloquent as he pushed his blueprint across the table.
Jake studied it. ‘And? What’s the bloody catch?’
‘None. Your whole farm remains in your name, your legal property, but in the eyes of the community you and I are partners. I pressure the authorities to have Keziah assigned to me, her legal husband – who’s to know the truth? In reality Mrs Browne and her kids live under Jake Andersen’s roof at the other end of the property.’
Jake was quick to ask, ‘Which bed does she sleep in?’
‘Yours, you idiot.’ Daniel was flushed with grog. ‘Legally and publicly Keziah must be seen to be my wife. In private she’s your wife.’
Bran nodded emphatically. Daniel attempted to look like a master magician who had pulled off his best trick, but Jake saw he was cracking his knuckles from nerves. All their lives hung in the balance, waiting on Jake’s decision.
He felt stymied. ‘The whole thing is totally outlandish. There’s got to be a hole in this plan somewhere. What happens when Keziah wants more kids? She’s dead keen on that.’
Daniel threw his arms wide in a self-mocking gesture. ‘Ironbark gossips will think I’m as randy as a bull. I’ll register them as mine, same as the new little tyke. At the end of Keziah’s sentence we can get a quiet judicial separation.’
Jake looked morose. ‘There’s no quiet legal way to ditch a spouse. If there was I’d have cut loose from mine. As long as Jenny’s alive my kids will be bastards.’
Daniel’s fifth drink made him master of the world. ‘No! They’ll be legitimate Brownes. First we get Keziah out of the rotten Factory so you can live together as a family.’
Jake felt uneasy about asking the question, but he knew he could not dodge it. ‘What happens if you want to take up with a woman?’
Daniel looked serious. ‘Whatever I may choose to do will be conducted elsewhere. I won’t invite gossip. For all our sakes.’
Jake looked at Bran and Daniel in turn. ‘Frankly, I reckon the whole idea’s bloody crazy. Let’s do it!’
All three sprang to their feet for Jake to propose his triumphant toast.
‘Here’s to the Sarishan ménage. And the great trick we’re going to play on the Superintendent of Convicts and the whole bloody system!’