The Secret of the Youngest Rebel by Jackie French

Author:Jackie French
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-12-23T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

Liberty . . . and Death . . .

When I was six years old maybe, I found a treasure: a whole loaf of bread in a saddlebag outside a tavern, and a hunk of cheese. I grabbed them both and ran. But other urchins saw me. Seconds later they were after me, six of them or more. I ducked around the tavern . . .

And climbed a tree. Climbed like an o’possum, till I found a branch high up among the leaves. I clung there like a native bear, till the children ran past, peering under benches and around chimneys, never looking up as I ate my bread and cheese.

I climbed a tree that day too.

The world swirled about me: men, soldiers, horses, pleas for mercy. Swords slashing into flesh. Rough ground underfoot, a pond nestled beside the base of the hill, trees tall and straight — only one with a branch low enough for me to scramble onto. Someone must have seen me climb, my shoulder leaking blood. But the battle moved too fast. Any soldiers who saw me must have ridden past, maybe never thought of me again.

Up, my hands trembling. My left arm was nearly useless, but I forced myself to cling from branch to branch, using my bare feet to force me upwards. Blood dripped down the tree trunk, so much I was afraid someone would see it. Finally I was almost at the top. I perched between a broad branch and the tree trunk. I pressed my hand into my wound to try to stop it bleeding. I wanted to scream with pain, but a scream would get me killed. I looked down.

Bodies lay upon the tussocks. Bodies with no heads, no arms. Men who still struggled, pleaded, wept. But I saw no army.

The rebel army was no more.

But men still fought. Scattered rebels, pikes against swords. Men struggled to load their muskets before bayonets thrust them dying to the ground.

I tried to see Mr Cunningham. Perhaps, even wounded, he had escaped. But the place where he had been stabbed was out of my sight now. I could not see him as men ran from tree to tree, hiding, shooting, fighting hand to hand, though I looked for hours.

The day passed. I clung to my branch. The bleeding was not as bad now. The soldiers swept once more across the battlefield, tying the wrists of prisoners, shoving them back along the road towards the Hawkesbury.

I could still hear musket fire like distant thunder. The rebels had scattered far, but some still fought.

The sun hovered blood-red on the horizon. A cart arrived, pulled by two great bullocks. Convicts loaded up the dead. I looked for Mr Cunningham among the bodies.

He wasn’t there.

Were these convicts rebels too? They didn’t have croppy haircuts, but the soldiers who guarded them held muskets, so perhaps they were. Or more likely every convict was a suspect rebel now. As I would be, if I was found here, if anyone saw the wound I’d got that day and my own hacked-off hair.

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