The Potato Factory

Chapter Thirty-six

It was four months after his visit to New Norfolk when Ikey, in the course of his nightly peregrinations, sensed he was being followed. He changed direction, cutting down the lane past New Market and quickening his pace, thinking to slip into the Hope amp; Anchor, the tavern at the end of the lane facing onto the safety of Macquarie Street. But then he heard his name called softly in a voice he was never likely to forget.

'You good pella, Ikey!'

'Billygonequeer?' Ikey called back in surprise.

'No, no, William Lanney!' Billygonequeer said urgently as he came out of the darkness not five feet from where Ikey stood.

Ikey listened to the voice from the shadows, amazed that Billygonequeer could have been so close without his hearing him. The two men embraced and as Ikey's hands clasped around Billy's shoulders, he felt the raised scar tissue across his back through the coarse canvas shirt.

'Blimey, I thought you be dead!' Ikey exclaimed, beaming at Billygonequeer's dark face. 'What's happened to you then, my dear?'

Billygonequeer, who now spoke quite passable English, explained to Ikey that under the name William Lanney he had become a whaleman for Captain Kelly on one of the local whaling ships which worked the bays and channels during the winter season.

'Ikey, listen,' Billygonequeer said finally. 'I come about the black kid on the beer bottle.'

Ikey's heart missed a beat. 'What's you know about that, Billygonequeer?'

'William Lanney! You gimme the name y'self!' Billygonequeer cried urgently. 'I still on the lam, man!'

Ikey listened carefully as Billygonequeer told him what he knew. He had been down south at the whaling station at Recherche Bay where they had been boiling down the catch. They had thereafter sailed up the D'Entrecasteaux Channel, but opposite Huon Island had hit a squall and done some damage to the mizzen mast and so had taken shelter in the Huon River. The wind being fair, they had sailed upriver to Port Huon, and put ashore for some minor repairs. Here, Billy had gone for a walk along the riverbank some way from the settlement when, to his surprise, he had met seven Aboriginals, five of them half castes and two of full blood.

The full bloods explained they came from the upper reaches of the Kermandie River to the south-west, which stretched to the high mountain. They talked for some time and then told him that several days previously they had been out hunting rat kangaroo when they saw a wild man who rode a horse, behind which he caused a black boy to run. Curious, they had crept closer. The boy was tied about the neck with a rope which was attached to the saddle. The wild man passed close to where they hid and they could see that the boy was not an Aboriginal, but quite different in appearance to their own people. Billygonequeer concluded by saying that, nearly three weeks later, he had heard some of the whalemen talking about the fifty pounds reward posted on the beer bottles and he'd asked one of them to read it aloud. Hearing Ikey's name, he had decided to tell him what he knew. 'You good pella, Ikey!' he said, laughing at himself, for he now spoke much better English.

'What sort of country be it, these mountains?' Ikey asked at last.

Billygonequeer shook his head. 'You can't go there, boss!' he protested vehemently. 'It black fella place, wild men convict and some timber getter, very bad country.'

'Can you go with troopers?'

Billygonequeer sniffed. 'Troopers can't go this place, wild men kill!'

'Will I see you again?' Ikey asked.

'Hobart Town very dangerous for me,' Billygonequeer said. 'Three day,' he pointed to the ground, 'same time, I see you here.'

At breakfast the following morning Ikey told Mary what had transpired.

'It's Hawk!' Mary cried. 'Oh, Ikey, I know it's him!'

'There were no mention by the blacks of a sighting of Tommo, so it may not be, my dear,' Ikey cautioned. 'Besides it be wild country, only escaped convicts and timber getters, the roughest and most dangerous o' men, all outside the law and with a price on their 'eads. You won't be able to pay any cove sufficient so he be mad enough to go into those mountains!'

Mary looked at Ikey. 'I knows mountains, I been all over Mount Wellington. I knows the way o' the bush, I'll go meself!'

Ikey was too shocked at first to react, but finally regained his voice. 'You're mad, Mary Abacus, this be wild country such as you've never seen. No trooper will venture there for fear o' death. There be no roads, not even paths, it be virgin timber, grown so close and tall it be dark in daylight!'

'And how does you know all this?' Mary said sullenly.

'You forget, my dear, I was in a road gang. I knows the way of timber, only this be much worse – no man what's not bred to the mountains can live there. Even the timber getters be o' the worst sort, Irish and most o' them villains or in concert with the wild men. If a woman should venture there, even if she should not perish soon from the climate and hardship she must endure, she would soon enough be used in such a way that she would die of other causes, if you knows what I mean!'

'I knows what you mean, Ikey Solomon,' Mary said grimly. 'But no wild man's going to treat my boy like an animal!'

In Mary's eyes was the look Ikey had come to know well, and he realised nothing would dissuade her. He inwardly cursed himself for telling her about the sighting. After all, there was no way of knowing if it was Hawk, or even if the natives had told the truth.

'Perhaps we could muster some troopers at South-port? You could talk to Mr Emmett?'

'I got more chance on my own, Ikey. A woman on her own be the best bait to hook a wild man!'

'Shit no! No, Mary, I cannot have you do this!' Ikey cried. He'd presumed, if not troopers, that Mary would take some sort of armed escort on such a perilous journey.

'They've taken my boy and turned him into an animal and tied a rope around his neck! I tell you, I'd sooner die than not go after the bastard what done that to Hawk!'

'You will die, Mary!' Ikey said softly.

'Then I die trying, that's all!' Mary said angrily. 'It be better than living ashamed!'

'I'll come with you!' Ikey said, suddenly making up his mind.

Mary, astonished, looked at Ikey and smiled, then her eyes filled with tears. 'If you were to come we would most surely guarantee to perish,' she said tenderly. 'But I thanks you, Ikey Solomon, from the bottom o' me heart!'

Ikey had to admit to himself that he was secretly delighted with this reply, for he already regretted his decision.

'You will need to make sure your affairs are all in order, my dear,' he said sadly.

The next day Mary's enquiries revealed that, in three days, a small trading ketch, the Isle of Erin, would be leaving on the morning tide for Port Huon, and then on to the tiny new hamlet of Franklin. Mary booked passage, even though it was a cargo boat, and there were no cabins except the one which belonged to the captain. She was advised to bring her own oilskins as she would have to remain on deck throughout the two-day journey, the ship having to lay up at night against the sudden squalls which so often blew up along the D'Entrecasteaux Channel.

Ikey urged her to wait until he had spoken to Billygonequeer again, but there was no other boat for four days and Mary would not delay a moment longer. She knew that if news of her impending journey leaked out she would be forbidden by the authorities to travel into such wild country, so she settled her affairs and Ikey was sworn to secrecy. Mary told Jessamy Hawkins and the men at the Potato Factory at both the Old Mill and at Strickland Falls that she was going to do some trading with the small settlements along the Huon River. She instructed that they send a dray loaded with six dozen cases of Tomahawk and Temperance beer, and four fifty-gallon barrels of her strongest dark ale, to the Old Wharf where the Isle of Erin was docked.

On the third morning, just before sunrise, Mary left Hobart Town not sure that she would ever return. She looked up at the great mountain which had swallowed her two sons and said a quiet farewell, for she was now convinced that her mountain had not murdered Hawk and Tommo. She sat on the deck of the Isle of Erin on a case of Tomahawk beer, her umbrella spread open and her hand clasping the Waterloo medal. 'Bring me luck, and send the green parakeets to find my sons for me,' she begged the mountain. The summit of Mount Wellington was covered in cloud and a light drizzle fell. Though it was late spring, and the almond blossoms already out, there was mist on the river as the barque lofted sail and slipped into the ebb of the outgoing tide.

The voyage proved slow though uneventful. By the time they reached the channel the day had turned to bright sunshine and the small, clumsy and overloaded ketch seemed to make unnecessarily heavy work of a light breeze. At nightfall, they hove onto the leeward side of Huon Island under a near full moon.

Mary slept fitfully, for the night was cold. She had brought two blankets, one for herself and one for Hawk, or one for each of her children, as she hoped she'd find them both. Mary also wore her warm coat, this being the most she thought she could carry on her back when she set out on her journey into the mountains. The blankets and a supply of hard tack biscuit and dried meat, matches, sugar and tea made up the remainder of her burden, except for the small axe she'd carried up the mountain on the night Hawk and Tommo disappeared. It was heavy, but she knew she would need to take it along. The blankets she would roll up and place across the top of a canvas bag she had constructed, which was not unlike a child's school satchel, though somewhat bigger. Mary also carried fifty pounds in notes which were hidden in the brass cylinder of her prisoner's purse and deposited up her cunny. In her handbag she carried sufficient money for any expenses she might incur and as well a pearl-handled, pepperbox pistol.

The pistol had been presented to her by Ikey, who had bought it from Ann Gower. Ikey was most particular that it be light enough for a woman to handle yet carried four chambers, could be ready loaded, and deadly if fired at close range. Not being in the least accustomed to the workings of firearms he had diligently written down the instructions on how it should be loaded and Mary practised until she was certain how it was done. Though she had never before fired a pistol, she was confident that she was capable of using it should the occasion arise.

The Isle of Erin arrived in the tiny settlement of Port Huon by mid-afternoon of the second day. Mary's beer was loaded onto a bullock cart to be transported to the Kermandie River settlement, the driver happy to take a case of beer instead of payment, thinking himself much the better off with such a bargain. Mary sat beside the driver as they made slow progress into the small settlement.

The town seemed to be entirely constructed of bark and mud. The streets, if streets they could be called, were ruts where the unwary traveller might sink his boot half way to the knee in the wet.

The buildings were a testament to colonial ingenuity. A framework of wood was raised, and bark was peeled from green eucalypt in strips six feet long and two feet wide. The strips were flattened on level ground by poles laid across them and allowed to dry. When dry and stiff they made excellent walls, as well as serving, if lightly strutted, as doors and windows. Brown, warm-coated stringy bark provided the roof cladding. All that was then required was a slabbed chimney built above a base of stone, and lined a further four feet with stone topped with turf to protect the walls from fire. The flue, also of bark, was then carried up on a framework of poles to a suitable height above the ridgepole. From the chimney-breast up, the flue was boxed on all sides and experience taught just where to place the chimney to avoid down draughts. Thus everything was made locally and, if care was taken in the construction, a comfortable home could be built in a very short time.

The surrounding countryside rose steeply from the river and clearings for the small holdings around the settlement were a testament to sheer hard work. The natural growth which had to be removed before the soil could be tilled was a staggering five hundred tonnes per hectare. Ring-barked trees two hundred feet high stood like dead sentinels, while from their trunks huge strips of bark whispered and flapped in the wind. On the ground below cows grazed in paddocks sown with English grasses, coxfoot and white york, which provided fodder and hay for the winter. The rich virgin soil was deep-loamed and full of nutrients; at milking time, milch cows came in from the runs with full udders.

But despite this appearance of a tranquil farming community, the rising ground and huge trees made each acre taken from the forest a triumph over the forces of nature. The small community clung to the banks of the Kermandie River, and the wild country stretching towards the Hartz Mountains was not yet penetrated by settlers.

These forbidding parts of the interior were mostly occupied by isolated communities of itinerant timber getters, many of Irish origin, who lived further upriver and were said to be half wild and dangerous and unlikely to welcome strangers in their midst.

All male convicts who arrived in the colony would spend some time at hard labour producing timber and from that time on, any misdemeanour would result in a further stint on a timber gang. So, almost by definition, the worst offenders learned the most about the skill of the sawing pit, splitting logs and getting timber. In addition, the Irish, many of whom lacked the basic skills to work in towns, and being usually among the most intractable of convicts and also Roman Catholics in an overwhelmingly Protestant community, found timber getting was the only lawful skill they possessed upon emancipation. For many, isolation became their only way of avoiding trouble.

They seldom ventured with their families into the nearby towns and their children were wild things. They would score the timber, each with his individual mark and the number of his agent, and float it downriver. Every few weeks one of their kind might venture quietly into the small settlement and collect what was owing to them all. He might stop at the tavern for a few drinks, though he would usually buy what he needed of brandy and rum to take back into the forest, and leave with no more than a grunt to the publican.

It was claimed that should the law be foolish enough to wander into a timber camp, and if the timber getters should first see the law and the law not see them, then the law would be unlikely to see the sunset on the river again. It was a brave set of troopers or special constables who ventured out from the police station at South-port to patrol the small, scattered and isolated communities who lived in the dense, dark forests. And those who did travelled on horseback, so that they could more easily cover the ground or avoid a surprise attack.

Though these backwoodsmen would come out of the forest in winter to work at the Recherche Bay whaling stations during the peak season, they still kept to themselves, but should they drink, they turned into the very devil himself. The money they made during this period was spent in provisioning at the general store which they took back into the forests for the summer months.

As well, in the summer, escaped convicts and wild men roamed the mountain country. Food was relatively easy to get in the form of small animals and the easily captured native hen. In the winter they came nearer to the towns to raid the small farms and take a sheep or even a calf or pig, and if the property were not well guarded, or the owner away, to rape any women or children they would find. These were men outside the law and, like the timber getters, they lived lonely and brutal lives deep in the forests and mountains. They left the timber getters alone unless they should find one on his own, when they would murder him for his boots or axe or some other possession.

The bullock driver took Mary directly to the front of the tavern to avoid the mud. From the moment they entered the outskirts of the little town dozens of urchins, all with black mud caked up to their knees, had followed the cart and rudely yelled questions at Mary. But now they stood around shyly as she alighted and, first jumping a small mud pool, walked onto the verandah of the public house. It was the largest building in town, though it too was built of bark, but featured at one end a wall of stone containing a great high chimney which promised a hearth in the interior of splendid proportions.

Mary bid the driver wait and entered the tavern. At first, the smoke, smell and noise overwhelmed her senses. But when her eyes became accustomed to the dark she saw it to be a large rectangular room with a crowded bar running the full length of one side. The only natural light entering the room was from three small windows set up on the wall opposite the bar, this so that they should not be easily broken if a fight broke out.

The hearth at one end was as grand in size as it promised to be from the outside, but its tall chimney had nevertheless been badly designed. Smoke filled the room so that, with the addition of half a hundred pipes and cigars, it was far past the point of comfort for both the eyes and the nose. The low ceiling was long since blackened by the constant fumes and added to the dingy appearance of the place.

Several card tables occupied the centre of the room and wooden benches were placed against the outside walls, and all were occupied by human forms who, from the noxious smell they emitted, had not washed in a year. Men stood everywhere drinking beer and rum, while the players at the card tables with neat stacks of coins at their side must have found it difficult to communicate the least instruction in such an awful din. Mary observed that there were no women to be seen, not even a barmaid behind the counter.

As she walked in, there was an instant lull in the hubbub as the rough men standing and sitting everywhere appraised her. Eyes red from smoke and drinking followed her as she moved over to the bar, and two men leaning upon it stepped aside to let her in.

'Is there a publican?' Mary asked.

This, for some reason, caused the men within the room to explode with laughter.

'Aye!' said a voice as soon as the laughter had died down. It came from a door set into the centre of the wall behind the bar and, at the same instant, a big, burly man with a completely flat nose and eyes stretched to slits with puffed-up scar tissue made his appearance. As he came closer Mary saw that his ears, too, had the cauliflower appearance of a rough goer. She smiled nervously as he approached her and thought him ideally suited to his surroundings.

'You must forgive the men, not too many o' the fair sex do come in 'ere, miss,' he said, drying his hands on his dirty apron. 'Gin is it?'

'Ginger beer,' Mary said.

The publican looked somewhat embarrassed. 'Don't 'ave much call for ginger beer 'ere, miss.'

'Best rum, half and half and half a tot,' Mary pointed to a clay pitcher, 'if that be water.'

'Aye,' the publican said and took down a bottle of rum from the shelf behind him and poured a half measure into a glass, topping it with water from the jug.

Mary's call for best rum seemed to amuse the men and a second wave of laughter filled the room.

'Now, now, we'll have none o' that!' the publican called sharply, whereupon the laughter died down abruptly.

'Mary Abacus, from the Potato Factory, maybe you've heard o' my beer?' Mary announced to the publican, her voice firm, not betraying the nervousness she felt within.

'By Jesus, yes!' the publican exclaimed, plainly astonished. There was a murmur around the room and quite suddenly the mood changed. Mary sensed a new tone of respect from the drinkers.

'We don't get much o' yer stuff 'ere, Miss Abacus, though it be greatly liked when we does.' The publican stuck out his huge paw. 'Sam,' he said. 'Sam Goodhead.'

Mary fought back a smile at this inappropriate name. She said, 'I have some beer for sale. Would you be interested, Mr Goodhead?'

'Never get enough beer, miss. Always interested. Though o' course it depends on the price, don't it?'

Mary gave Sam Goodhead a description of the beer and told him the quantity and the price, which she'd set fairly low so that the beer would be seen as a bargain.

'I'll take the lot orf yer hands, Miss Abacus, 'appy to do business!'

'I shall need accommodation tonight. Does you have a safe room, Mr Goodhead?'

'Not 'ere I doesn't, but if you'd care to come 'ome to the missus, I daresay we can put some o' the brats together and find you a bed what's safe enough. We'd take it as a pleasure if you'd 'ave tea with us.'

The noise in the room gradually resumed its former level, though several men had left the tavern to inspect the beer on the bullock cart. When Sam Goodhead arrived with Mary the men were taunting the bullock driver, who now stood with his whip held aloft ready to strike at anyone who should attempt to lift a case of beer from the cart.

'Bring it 'round the back, mate,' the publican instructed. 'Two stout lads back there will 'elp you unload.' He turned to Mary. 'Them's well-coopered barrels if I say so meself,' he remarked.

'Keep them with my compliments, Mr Goodhead,' Mary said, then told the publican about the case of Tomahawk the bullock driver had taken as payment and that this should be deducted from the price and, further, that he should take a case of her new Tomahawk beer for his personal enjoyment with her compliments.

'We ain't 'ad this beer before, it be a new one then?' the publican said, shouldering a case of Tomahawk to take home with him. 'I shall look forward to it.'

Mrs Goodhead was an equal match for her husband in size and to Mary's keen eye looked somewhat knocked about in life herself, with one eye permanently closed and some scarring on her face. It was not the custom to enquire into the background of someone recently met, as most people in the colony had a similar and unfortunate story to tell. But after several of Mary's Tomahawk beers both her host and hostess became most loquacious, obviously maintaining a good head for liquor and, except for warming to the prospect of discussion, not otherwise disconcerted by it. Though they spoke briefly of their time as convicts in New South Wales, this was only to establish more quickly Sam's true past vocation, which was, Mary was not surprised to hear, that of a professional fighter. His wife, Esmeralda, had also been a fighter of some renown, originally in Bristol and later in the colony of New South Wales.

Sam had risen and shortly returned carrying an old poster which he handed to Mary. 'Read it aloud, please, Miss Abacus,' he said, laughing.

Mary held the poster up and began to read.

Sam Goodhead hereby challenges to fight any man in the colony for a prize of Five Founds plus travel expenses and two gallons of beer.

My wife Esmeralda shall fight any woman in the country, bar none; and for a prize of Two Founds, travel expenses and a bottle of English Gin.

My dog will fight any dog of 45 lb or less for two shillings, plus a juicy butcher's bone! My cock shall fight any cock in the colony of any weight for a shilling and a lb of good corn!

• • •

Apply, Mr Sam Goodhead, Parramatta Post Office.

Both Sam and Esmeralda Goodhead laughed uproariously as Mary concluded.

'Aye, it does ya good to 'ave it read out loud. Though we knows it orf by 'eart, we can't read neiver of us, so it's good to 'ave it read by someone else once in a while,' Sam declared happily.

This explained why the publican and his wife had not broached the subject of the label on the Tomahawk bottle, for they were by now on their sixth bottle.

Esmeralda finally rose and prepared supper, a meal of roast beef with potatoes and swedes and a most delicious pickled cabbage. She filled four plates for her children and sent them outside to eat, and then brought three more heaped helpings to the table where they had been drinking. It was a meal as good as any Mary had tasted, and much more than she could eat. She excused herself after having finished less than half the contents of the plate.

'Never you mind, love, the little 'uns'll polish that orf soon enough, or Sam 'ere!' Esmeralda laughed.

After tea Sam produced a clay pipe, and when he had it well stoked so that the room was fuggy with smoke, Mary addressed him quietly.

'I has a proposition to put to you, Sam,' she said, for they were now on Christian name terms.

'Put away, lass,' Sam Goodhead said, puffing contentedly on his pipe.

'It be in strictest confidence.'

Sam nodded. 'Aye, everythin' is. I'll not tell unless I can make a profit out of it,' he said with a wink.

'That be the point,' Mary said. 'If you stays stum, you makes a very big profit; if you talks, you owes me for the beer!'

'What's ya mean, lass?' Sam said, now most interested and leaning forward. Esmeralda, who was scouring a pot with her back to them, suddenly stopped scrubbing.

'I needs some advice and help, nothing more, 'cept I don't want any folks to know about it right off!'

'That's not so easy 'round 'ere.' Sam laughed. 'Scratch the 'ead of a pimple on yer arse and it's the talk o' the bleedin' town fer days. Your comin'

'ere today is already the news o' the month!'

'Year!' Esmeralda called.

'What is it then?' Sam Goodhead asked.

Mary told him that she needed someone who wouldn't talk about it to take her as far as it was possible to go up the Kermandie River and thereafter to give her, if possible, some directions which would take her to the high mountains. 'That's all, a boatman what will keep his gob shut and some directions possibly.'

Sam Goodhead whistled. 'And you'll give us what?'

'The whole consignment o' beer I brought,' Mary said.

Sam Goodhead sighed. 'I'm sorely tempted, lass.'

Esmeralda turned from her pots. 'You'll do no such thing, Sam!' she shouted.

Sam Goodhead shrugged. 'If I did that, Mary, it be the same as killin' you. Ya can't take such a journey all alone. Ya can't even take a journey like that with a platoon o' troopers. I'm sorry, lass, it be suicide!'

Mary picked up an empty bottle of Tomahawk and read from the back label. Then she told them about the abduction of Tommo and Hawk and the news that Hawk, at least, had been captured by a wild man and had been seen by some Aboriginals in the region of the Hartz Mountains.

'Them blacks are a lyin', thievin' bunch. Most be now locked away, thank Gawd, but there still be a few 'round 'ere. Ya can't trust 'em though,' Sam said. His pipe had gone dead and he now set about scraping the spent tobacco from the top of the bowl and relighting what was left.

'Sam, I'm going anyway, all you can do is make it easier!' Mary cried.

Eventually she convinced Sam Goodhead that nothing would keep her from looking for Hawk.

'We've a lad works fer me at the pub, he 'as a boat and will keep 'is gob shut if I tells 'im,' the publican said. 'You'd best leave at first light, that way the town won't known yer gorn.' He puffed at his pipe. 'Though it won't take long before the bloody timber getters know!' He sighed. 'Gawd 'elp ya, Mary Abacus, yer a brave woman, and if I didn't know better, I'd say a very foolish one! If ya gets back alive I'll take yer beer as bonus. If ya doesn't, which be more than likely, we'll use the money fer a tombstone, though I'll vouch yer body won't be lyin' beneath it!'

Mary was surprised to see that Esmeralda was quietly weeping in the corner.

A heavy mist lay over the water as Mary stood on the shore waiting for a lad she knew only as Tom. She heard the slow splash of oars through the fog and soon the outline of a small, flat-bottomed boat appeared through the swirling vapour. Behind it was a second boat, a smaller dinghy, attached by a rope to the boat the boy was rowing. The boy shipped the oars and Mary pulled the boat onto the shore and stepped into it. The young lad standing midships took her canvas bag and stowed it in the bow, and held his hand out to steady her as she seated herself in the stern. Then, without saying a word, he pushed the boat back into deeper water, pulled it around with one oar until the boat pointed upstream, and began to row.

The Kermandie was a slow-flowing river, but rowing against the current with another skiff in tow was not an easy matter, and every half hour Tom beached the little boats and, his chest puffing violently, was forced to rest. About nine of the clock the mist lifted and the huge trees, which had appeared simply as shadowy outlines in the misted landscape, now showed clearly on either shore. Mary found herself locked into a narrow ribbon of water walled as surely and steeply by the giant eucalypts as if the trees had been sheer cliffs of solid rock. A flock of yellow-tailed black cockatoos flew over at one point, their tinny screeching the only sound they'd heard since leaving but for the lap of the oars in the water and once the flap of a flock of chestnut teal as they rose in alarm from the water. The sun was now well up and Mary worked herself out of her coat. They passed a black cormorant on a dead branch, its wings spread to the new sun, and soon after a white-faced heron stood on the shore, its long neck and sharp-beaked head moving in slow jerks, made curious by the slap of the oars. Though the trees on either side of the river still looked cold and dark, the glare from the water and the sun overhead made Mary feel uncomfortably hot. Tom's shirt was dark with sweat and his long, lank hair lay flat against his head. Mary saw beads of perspiration cutting thin streaks down his dirty neck.

The further they travelled the more dense the trees became. Giant prehistoric tree ferns, some of them forty feet high, grew at the water's edge, and occasionally they'd hear the splash of an unseen creature plop into the water from the riverbank. At one stage Mary, intimidated by her surroundings, whispered to Tom simply so that she might make some sort of human contact. But he held a finger to his lips. Once, about an hour out from the settlement, they heard the sound of an axe striking. Sharp, regular echoes seemed to bounce off the trees, though from somewhere much deeper into the forest. Mary was not sure whether the sound was frightening or comforting, but Tom shipped oars for a few moments and listened while the boat drifted backwards in the current. Then, Tom taking great care with his strokes, they moved on again.

After four hours with regular rests they came to a waterfall and Tom pulled the boats into shore.

'This be it, missus, we can't go further,' he shouted, his voice almost lost in the crash and tumble of water over rock.

Mary stepped onto the shore and Tom pulled the boat fully into the little pebbled beach, untied the smaller dinghy and dragged it also onto the safety of the river-bank. Then, straining mightily, he pulled the first dinghy into a clump of reeds and fern, piling the branches of dead trees over it until it was impossible to see. He placed three rocks close to each other, two together and one pointing to where the boat was hidden.

'I'll be back for the boat in ten days!' he shouted, pointing to the fern and reeds where it lay concealed.

Mary nodded and handed the lad a pound. He grinned, his work well rewarded. 'Thank 'ee, ma'am, Gawd bless 'ee now!' he shouted, touching the forelock of damp hair. Then he pushed the smaller dinghy back into the water. The tiny boat turned in the churning current at the foot of the falls, then the oars dug in and he steadied it, waved briefly and began to row away.

Mary watched as he disappeared around a bend in the river, rowing lazily in the firm current now driven faster by the falls. Then she rolled up her coat and strapped it with the blankets resting on top of her canvas bag, slipping her arms through its straps so that it sat firmly on her slim back. She stood for a moment and held the Waterloo medal in her hand, half praying that a pair of green rosellas might suddenly fly over as a sign, but nothing disturbed the bright blue cloudless sky overhead.

She had a map which Sam Goodhead had drawn, or perhaps obtained from elsewhere, and it showed a path leading directly from the waterfall in a direction due west. It took Mary some time to find the path, for it was much overgrown with bracken and fern. She soon stopped to take the axe from her pack, and her going was tediously slow. Though it was not past ten in the morning the forest was dark as though already deep into the afternoon, and as she travelled further into the giant trees she began to feel the weight of the journey on her mind.

For the first time Mary realised that she had no idea what she was doing or how she would find Hawk. Above her the trees towered two hundred feet into the air and the wind in the high canopy gave off the sound of endless waves beating against a lonely shore. At noon she stopped beside a small stream, ate a little of her biscuit and drank from the mountain water. The straps of her canvas bag had cut into her shoulders, she was already badly scratched about the hands and face, and her bonnet was saturated with perspiration.

At nightfall Mary was still within the forest and the track had become almost impossible to find, so she halted beside a small stream some twenty yards distance from the path, marking several trees with the blade of the axe so that she might find her way back in the morning. She ate a little more of the hard biscuit and some dried meat, lit a small fire and boiled tea in her billy. The night became bitterly cold but Mary could not take the chance of going to sleep with a fire. She doused the fire, wrapped herself in both blankets and still wearing her coat she fell into a fitful sleep. She was exhausted, and the night sounds did not unduly disturb her for they were no different to those she had heard so often on her own mountain.

Mary woke up with the sun cutting through the misted trees and lay for a moment, all her senses suddenly alert for she could hear a most familiar sound. It was friendly to her ear until a moment later she realised where she was. She'd heard the sawing of Peter De-graves' timber cutters a thousand times on the mountain, a cross-cut saw being worked in a sawing pit. But now she realised it was coming from close by. Had she continued on another five minutes along the path the previous night, she would have stumbled right into a timber getters' camp.

She folded the blankets and packed her bag and, with her heart beating fiercely, she drank from the stream and then regained the path. She crept along until she saw the camp ahead, four bark huts in a forest clearing. She could see several children playing and a pig tied to a stake and once a woman came out of one of the huts and yelled at the brats to come in and eat. And all through this Mary could hear the saw. Though she could not see the pit, she knew exactly what it would be like. The log would be placed longitudinally over the pit on wooden cross pieces, whereupon sawing lines would be drawn along it with chalk or charcoal. One man descended into the pit while the other stood on the log. The man in the pit pulled down to make the cutting stroke, the one above pulled the saw up clear of the wood and guided the cut along the line. It seemed such a normal and friendly occupation, and while she knew it was most strenuous work which built up bulging muscles if the body received sufficient nourishment, Mary had never before associated the sound with danger.

The path led directly to the clearing. Mary, hoping that the sound of the saw would cover her escape through the undergrowth, moved in a wide circle around the camp. She kept the sound of the saw in her ears so that she might find herself back on the path but on the other side of the timber getters' camp. Almost an hour later she regained the path with the sound of the cutting now well behind her.

But soon after Mary left the camp she had a sense of being watched. At first she told herself that her alarmed senses were a delayed reaction from having so nearly stumbled into the camp. But the feeling persisted and she could not be rid of it. Once she looked up to find a large, pitch-black, crow-like bird with burning ruby eyes looking at her. After the initial shock, she laughed quietly to herself. She was becoming frightened of shadows. At noon she stopped and moved off the path some distance and boiled a billy. She used only the driest, smallest twigs and built the fire against the trunk of a huge red gum so that any smoke she created would be sucked upwards against the trunk and dispersed unseen through the forest canopy.

It was then that she was attacked. From a hole in the tree she had disturbed a hive of wasps and they descended upon her in an angry storm. Mary had the presence of mind to grab her canvas bag and pluck the billy from the fire and run. She rushed headlong through the undergrowth, not caring about any sound she should make, the wasps stinging her furiously as she ran. She fell once and cut her arm and then got up and ran again until the wasps seemed no longer to torment her. Finally she stumbled to a halt and began to weep, her flesh covered in hundreds of stings so that she felt she could not possibly bear the pain.

She had stopped beside one of the numerous mossy banked streams that cut through the forest and in desperation threw down her canvas bag and ripped off her clothes. The wasps had penetrated through the material of her dress and her body and arms were covered in stings which hurt well beyond the lashes she had received on the Destiny II. Hysterical with the pain, Mary lay down naked in the stream. The icy water flowing over her body brought some relief, for her flesh soon grew numb. Her poor crippled hands were swollen to twice their normal size and her right hand was burned when she'd plucked the billy from the flames. Though her bonnet had protected her head and she had no stings in her hair, her neck and face were badly stung and her lips were so swollen that she could not open her mouth.

Mary was soon chilled to the bone and was forced to rise from the stream and cover herself with the blankets. As soon as she warmed again the terrible pain returned and she seemed close to losing her senses. Her body had grown quite stiff as though it were paralysed and she could not move, though she was shuddering violently as if in great shock. Then she lost consciousness. Several times she seemed to see the crow with its ruby eyes and long, sharp beak, as though it were seeking to pluck out her eyes. Then a dog-like creature sat and watched her from a short distance, its green eyes sharp as lights in the night, and sometimes she caught flashes of a dark face hovering above her. She tried to scream but no sound came from her lips which seemed, in her delirium, to cover her entire face, enveloping her nose and puffing up her eyes.

How long she remained in this state Mary had not the least idea, but when she awoke it was morning, though whether of the next day or several days after, she could not tell. Her body and face were covered in a sticky balm, as though the wasp stings had themselves suppurated, but miraculously the pain was gone, and the swelling had abated and did not hurt to the touch. Mary washed in the stream until the sticky substance was removed from her body, hands and face and then she dressed, distressed to find that her garments were torn in several places from her flight through the undergrowth.

Mary ate, and boiled the billy for tea, for she found herself very hungry. Then she packed her bag and prepared to leave, but suddenly she realised that she did not know where the path lay. She moved around for more than an hour without finding it and then knew that she had become completely lost. Sam Goodhead had cautioned her against leaving the track by more than a few feet. 'Fer if ya become lost in the forest ya will die as surely as if ya put a gun to yer own 'ead,' he had warned.

It was then Mary heard the screech of the green rosella, a sound she knew as well as the beat of her own heart, the curious 'kussik-kussik' call repeated and then a bell-like contact note; when alarmed, a shrill piping sound. Rosellas do not fly in flocks in the spring but in pairs, and now she heard them both as they chattered somewhere to her left. Mary, ever superstitious and with no better plan to follow, moved towards the sound.

Mary had been three days in the forest, for though she did not know it, she had lain all the next day and the night that followed beside the stream in the delirium caused from the wasp stings. Now, without questioning the curious circumstances that the sound of the two parrots never seemed far from her and that she never seemed to approach nearer or to see them, she responded to their call. Sometimes she would turn to take an easier way through the undergrowth and she would hear the shrill piping of alarm from the two birds. After a while she learned to correct her course to the sound of their calls.

Mary fervently believed that the great mountain had answered her call for help. Even in her most prosaic moments, Mary thought of the mountain as her friend and lover, which was why she did not question the call of the two birds and the fact that they never left her.

Late on the afternoon of the fourth day she suddenly came across the track again and soon after broke out from the trees. She had been climbing steadily all day and now she found herself in a small valley above the tree line, a dent in a mountain which rose steeply upwards. It was as though a sharp line had been drawn where the mountain broke out of the apron of trees and into the coarse tussock grass of the high mountain country. The track now led upwards and seemed quite well worn, there being no forest growth to obscure it.

Mary walked along the track a short distance but then, in the fading light decided to retreat into the forest for the night. It was some minutes after she had returned and moved a safe distance from the track when she realised that the 'kussik-kussik' calls of the two rosellas were no longer with her.

She rose again at dawn, her body stiff and sore, and boiled the billy for tea. She ate sparingly, not knowing how much longer she would be in the wilderness and conscious that if she should find Hawk she would need to share her supplies with him.

However, by now her hope of finding her son was greatly diminished. The forest had left her in despair and even though she had come safely through it, she now saw that a wild man might hide effectively from a thousand troopers and not be found in a lifetime. Her only hope was the notion that the monster who had captured her son rode on horseback, and horses do not find fodder in the forest but need grassland. He would be forced to live or spend time near some sort of pasture, and this meant open ground.

Mary climbed steadily all morning. The mountains, she discovered, were punctured with small, sharp valleys like indented cones, many of them turned to small blue lakes with grassy walls too steep to climb down into. She would often stop for breath and far below her she could see the endless stretch of green forest turned blue in the distance, and the glinting, wide stretch of the Huon River twenty or more miles away. The mountain, despite the sun, grew cold as she rose higher, and a sharp, icy wind whipped her skin.

On her first night she found a small box canyon which was protected from the wind and made her camp. It was perhaps a foolish place to spend the night, for there was no place to retreat, but her hand throbbed painfully where it had been burned by the billy and Mary was too spent of effort to care. Her greatest concern was to escape the cutting wind. Besides, the mountain, but for rock and grass and bracken fern, was bare of any acceptable hiding place.

Mary woke with the crack of a rock striking near her head, her nostrils filled with the musty smell of horse sweat. She turned to look upwards and saw a horse and rider not fifteen paces from where she lay.

Mary now sat up with the blankets still clasped about her neck to form a protective tent about her body, groping for the pistol which she had placed fully loaded under a rock near her side the night before. The folds of the blanket concealed her free hand as she found it, though her swollen hand made it difficult to grip firmly the small pistol.

The man on the horse did not make a sound but simply stared down at her. He was dressed almost entirely in kangaroo and opossum skins but for a trooper's high-topped white cap much battered and entirely blackened. His filthy beard fell almost to his waist and his unkempt hair hung wild and knotted to his shoulders. What remained of his face was dark with dirt and criss-crossed with scars and his nose was squashed flat, like a pig's snout, and from it a stream of yellow snot ran into his matted beard. A red tongue flicked from the dark hair of his face as though he was tasting the air or testing the nature of the wind, savouring her body smell.

It was then that she saw Hawk. Or perhaps it wasn't, except that the skeleton attached to the rope which led from the back of the horse was black in colour. Mary gasped. 'Hawk!' she cried. The skeleton raised both its hands but did not speak and now Mary saw that it was her son. His hands worked slowly and Mary tried to follow. Hawk's hands simply spelled, 'Mama'.

'Hawk! Mama's come!' Mary shouted and then looking up at the monster on horseback she screamed, 'He's my boy, my precious boy, give me him!'

The creature looked backwards and jerked violently at the rope so that Hawk was thrown to his knees. Then he slowly dismounted and, undoing the rope from the saddle, pulled it, bringing Hawk back to his feet. He then dragged him over to a large boulder and tied him to it. Turning, he drove his fist into the child's face. Hawk made no sound as he fell.

At the sight of Hawk knocked to the ground from the vicious blow, Mary began to weep. 'You bastard! You fucking bastard!' she moaned, repeating the words over and over again in her terrible distress.

The man moved slowly to tie the reins of his horse to the point of a sharp rock. He knew he had Mary trapped. The bluff rose behind and on either side of her, and he himself blocked her only chance of escape.

Now he advanced slowly towards Mary, who rose to her feet as he approached. He was no more than four feet from her when she raised the pistol behind the blanket, but the wild man, perhaps sensing danger, suddenly lunged forward and threw her to the ground. The pistol fell from Mary's swollen hand on to her coat, which she had the previous night spread on the ground, so its falling made little noise. Mary landed on her back, the pistol digging painfully into her ribs.

The monster, now on top of her, panting violently, tore open the blankets which still half covered her, then ripped the top of her dress exposing her breasts. He was not a tall man but wide and powerfully strong, and he now spread one thick hand around Mary's throat to pin her down. With his free hand he began to tear the skirt from her body.

He was slobbering at the mouth, his tongue darting in and out. Then his arm rose above his shoulder and he smashed the side of her face with the back of his hand. Releasing his grip on her throat, he got to his knees and quickly pulled down his greasy hide trousers to show a huge, jerking erection. Parting Mary's legs roughly, he tried to force an entry.

Mary, almost unconscious from the blow, did not scream but fought to keep her wits about her and willingly allowed her legs to open. The monster was grunting and puffing as he tried to penetrate, but Mary's prisoner's purse prevented his penis from entering her. She felt his fingers grope at her and then with a grunt he withdrew the brass cylinder and threw it aside. Then he jammed himself between her legs, again trying to force his way into her. Mary felt the sharp pain as he entered and at the same moment she pulled the trigger of the pistol she held against his stomach. She pulled back the hammer and pulled the trigger a second time.

A look of complete and uncomprehending surprise appeared on the wild man's face and then he gripped his stomach with both hands. Mary set the hammer back and pulled a third time, this shot moving upwards and entering his heart, shortly followed by another. The creature jerked once and then his body slumped over her. Instantly he voided from both his natural apertures.

The sound of the four shots echoed and reverberated through the small canyon as Mary lay terrified under the fallen monster, his member still jerking within her.

Screaming, she pushed at the dead man and after a few frantic moments was able to climb out from under him. She was covered in blood and guts, shit and vomit, both her breasts stained crimson with his blood, which also soaked what remained of her dress and petticoat.

Mary did not even think to pause but ran towards Hawk, who had regained his feet and now cowered against the rock. She grabbed him and clasped him to her and howled as though she herself were some primitive creature and then, at last, she wept and wept, holding her son in her arms.