Sound by Sarah Drummond

Author:Sarah Drummond
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fremantle Press
Published: 2016-08-23T04:00:00+00:00

25. KING GEORGE SOUND 1826

They watched comings and goings from the French ship for two days. Small whaleboats beetled across the Sound to Oyster Harbour, or into Princess Royal Harbour from the channel, returning in the evenings. One tender ferried back and forth from the ship to the nearby watering point inside the channel heads.

On the evening of the third day, Jimmy, Bailey, Hobson, Smidmore, Black Simon, Hamilton, Billhook and Neddy prepared one of their boats and sailed across the Sound. They intended to arrive under the cover of darkness but the rain cleared and the moon picked up their white sails above a glittering sea. At nine o’clock they arrived in the port shadow of the ship and the sailors were waiting for them.

“Permission to board!” shouted Jimmy, and Black Simon repeated him in French.

Captain d’Urville of the Astrolabe must have donned his regalia to receive the visitors. His brocaded high-necked collar was brass-buttoned around his white shirt, so tightly about his throat that it resembled an armour. His florid face, resolutely pressed lips, waving red hair and snakey eyes indicated that he would give no quarter to the men whom he had doubtless already assessed as brigands. There was nothing for it but to appeal to his sympathy and his need for the brace of freshly killed muttonbirds in Billhook’s hands.

“We have been shamefully treated by Captain Davidson of the Governor Brisbane,” said Jimmy the Nail, and went on to say how Boss had left two men at Israelite Bay and then their present group at the Archipelago and Fairy Island. They were living from their fishing and birding, having run out of gunpowder. They had no flour, rope or rum left either. The sealers were, in effect, destitute. Jimmy didn’t need to embroider the truth. He told d’Urville of the meeting with the Yankee captain and the news they’d gleaned from the Hobart Town Gazette.

When Jimmy finished his sorry tale, d’Urville looked at the circle of eight men intently and launched into his own.

“We have had a … a … very bad cross from Tenerife,” he said in poor English. “One hundred and eight days, half of them in terrible weather and big seas. I lost a man. Today I have discovered that, from three hundred tins of braised chicken, one hundred and forty tins are spoiled, completely putrid, and we have thrown them overboard. There are all sorts of damage to be repaired and all rigging must now be inspected. The timekeepers need regulating so that we can navigate. My men need resting. They are very tired and sore.”

D’Urville sighed. His speech seemed to have annoyed and exhausted him further. To Jimmy he said, “I do wish to husband my supplies cautiously until we reach Port Jackson. In the meantime we will be anchored here for several weeks until we are refreshed and replenished, Mr Everett.”

“Would you accept these birds, in return for your hospitality tonight?” Jimmy took the muttonbirds from Billhook and held the brown bundle of feathers out to d’Urville.

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