Nanberry Black Brother White by Jackie French

Author:Jackie French [French, Jackie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2011-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 38

NANBERRY

SYDNEY COVE, JULY 1791

It was good to be home, to tell Father White about the towering waves and hear his stories of ships he had sailed in too. Why had he never known how many ships Father White had sailed on when he was younger?

Rachel fussed and made him wash his hair before he came inside, to get rid of the ship’s lice. She boiled his clothes too, holding them on a stick and shoving them into the big pot while he changed into his spare trousers.

He loved it all.

Rachel and Father White shared a room now. He didn’t give the matter much thought. That was what men and women did.

Even after a week at home, it was good to sleep as late as he wanted to, his body recovering from the effort of the voyage. It was even good to feed the o’possum young gum leaves, to watch the silly creature hold them in its paws and nibble them, staring back with its big black eyes.

Best of all was to sit at supper as the early night wrapped its coldness around the colony, the fire flaring in the hearth, Father White on one side of him and Rachel on the other, the table piled with weevil-less fresh bread, butter that didn’t stink, roast lamb with potatoes and greens, a giant pudding filled with apples from the storeroom and dried grapes.

‘More lamb, sir?’ Rachel filled the Surgeon’s plate again. Nanberry held out his plate too.

The Surgeon took a bite of lamb. ‘I forgot to tell you — you know that young native fisherman who’s been supplying the garrison down at Parramatta?’

Rachel nodded. ‘I traded some hearth cakes for his fish when he came to the quay last week.’

‘Well, you may not get the chance to buy any again. Some rogues wrecked the lad’s canoe a few nights ago down at Parramatta. The boy was quite cut up about it. Appeared at the Governor’s house at Parramatta covered in red mud, danced about and yelled.’

‘What did the Governor do?’

The Surgeon shrugged. ‘They found the men who did it. Convicts, jealous of the boy’s trade. They got a good flogging. Phillip gave the lad a few trinkets and told him one had been hanged. A lie of course, but it seemed to calm the boy down.’ He took another bite of lamb.

Nanberry sat still. His friend’s canoe — that wonderful canoe, like no other ever made, the canoe that had taken a whole season to perfect, destroyed. His friend, lied to. Given ‘a few trinkets’ to replace a canoe.

Rage filled him; he didn’t let it show. He was good at not showing what he felt now. Sailor or warrior, you ‘took it on the chin’ as Captain Waterhouse would say. You never let it show that the blows hurt you.

There would be no journey down to Parramatta now. He doubted Balloonderry would even stay there, betrayed and bitter as he must feel.

The meat tasted like dirt now. Nanberry pushed away his second helping.

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