Buckley's Chance Page 15

  Be careful what you wish for.

  19

  THE DECISIVE MOMENT

  Beyond the south-west coast of Victoria lies a treacherous stretch of water, a seething oceanic mass that sweeps in from the coldest depths of the Antarctic to pummel the fragile coast. The first man to successfully circumnavigate Australia, Matthew Flinders, will say he has ‘seldom seen a more fearful section of coastline’. In 1802 John Murray ventures into the area in the Lady Nelson before going back to explore Port Phillip. Caught in a storm, he records in his journal: ‘I shall only observe that I never experienced such a length of bad weather at any time of the year, or in any country since I sailed the seas.’

  Below this constantly turbulent surface lie scores of shipwrecks and the bones of countless sailors, testament to the sea’s abrupt mood swings and deceptive waters. Its fury and force – driven by the world’s largest current carrying 130 million cubic metres of water per second along a 20,000-kilometre path – is best seen from the cliffs near the Port Campbell National Park. There, just offshore, stand a series of jagged limestone stacks known as the Apostles. Only eight remain but more will be created in the next few centuries as the constant waves and swell continue to eat away at the steep, crumbling cliffs.

  A little further north-east the coast turns inland and becomes slightly more protected. But only just. Days without wind or a strong salty breeze are a rarity. It was here almost three decades ago that you spent those first months and years forlornly scanning the waters where the Southern Ocean meets Bass Strait, looking for a ship that might pluck you from a land that each day seemed to contain another hidden horror.

  But that was then. As the years passed you became more confident in this new realm and less sure about white outsiders. ‘I never supposed I should be comfortable among my own countrymen again,’ you will tell the Reverend Langhorne. But in recent years there has been an increasing number of those countrymen moving into Aboriginal land. Small groups of ex-convicts have been forging a living stripping wattle trees of their bark and sending them back to England to be used in the leather tanneries. A fledgling whaling industry is also gaining momentum in the waters around Portland at the southern tip of western Victoria. Whalers, sealers and ex-convicts – often one and the same – are hard men. Some of them have been eking out a living on the islands of Bass Strait for years. ‘They are complete savages, living in bark huts like the natives, not cultivating anything but living entirely on kangaroos, emus and small porcupines,’ reports the Sydney Gazette in 1817, before adding: ‘… they smell like foxes’.

  They trade sealskins for tobacco and alcohol and are well known for kidnapping native women, often treating them brutally.

  We know you have been reluctant to make contact with white people for a long time. The woman who will claim to be your wife, Purranmurnin Tallarwurnin, says ships – possibly whaling vessels – are sometimes seen visiting the coast to obtain water and wood and that ‘Buckley never sought to make himself known to any of them’. But it’s a different story when word spreads that a ship has been wrecked on the coast ‘and all hands perished … Buckley and his tribe secured a large quantity of blankets, axes and other articles which he taught them how to use.’

  Just like the Southern Ocean’s relentless battering of the Victorian coastline, you can sense the coming cultural collision; a foaming, unstoppable white wave rushing to meet an ancient world. You are now in your early 50s, an age when most men begin to prefer the comforts of the familiar rather than the challenges of the unknown. For a long time your constant companions have been an old man, his wife and their children. You travel together as a small group, sometimes falling in with a larger clan, but most times keeping to yourselves, moving with the seasons. But among the Wadawurrung, fresh stories about new ghosts in their giant canoes are increasing.

  A koorong, or ship, has been seen anchored in the bay just off the land of the Bengalat balug people that will be later known as Indented Head. Its sailors, watched unseen from the shore, lower a smaller boat into the water and begin rowing it up a nearby river. Once it is out of view, three men of the clan swim across and clamber aboard the main boat, quickly taking sails, rope and glass bottles before returning to the bush. The returning crew, discovering the theft, fire guns at the shore and move their ship further into the bay.

  You hear about this incident and are implored by the Aboriginal men to return with them to act as a decoy in the hope of stealing more items. You discourage them, warning them of the consequences. ‘I did all possible to divert their attention, telling them that if they went to where the ship was they would again be fired upon and all killed.’

  But you are fascinated. Memories are stirring. You visit the area on your own and, becoming ‘almost nervously wild with desire to make myself known to those on board’ make a large fire on the beach, hoping to attract their attention. You can see the crew on deck. You want to shout but no longer remember what words to use. Frustrated, you wave your spear and arms and continue doing this through the night and into the next day.

  The only response you receive is laughter. It is easy to picture this scene. From across the water an immensely large and hairy figure clad in kangaroo and possum skin stands next to a fire, gesticulating wildly, his shouts unintelligible. The men on the boat smirk and shake their heads at this primitive. Is he trying to attract their attention or lure them to their deaths? Or is it merely another of the strange rituals these black men practise? The boat remains anchored for a few more days before sailing away and you never learn the purpose of the ship or the intentions of its crew. But the Bengalat bulag have other tales of these white men coming on to their land. They have not forgotten a scene from a long time before; two white men taken ashore by a larger group of men, tied to trees and then shot, their limp bodies left to rot.

  Suddenly there are more signs of outsiders visiting the bay. In your travels you find a whaling boat partly buried in sand on the beach and a makeshift sail made out of three blankets. You cut up the blankets and divide them equally among some of your people. They tell you that a few days earlier two white men, cold and bruised, had made their way inland. Befriended and fed with fish and kangaroo until they regained their strength, ‘the natives then tried to make them understand there was a white man … amongst them and that they would go in search of me; but the poor fellows could not be made to comprehend their meaning and went away by themselves.’

  You later hear that the pair, probably castaways from a larger vessel, are murdered while crossing the Yarra River.

  But this white wave … it is coming, growing stronger and more certain.

  Months later. A large cask is lying partly buried on a beach. You dig away in the sand, hoping to extract the iron hoops encasing the barrel, the metal a valuable item for trade. Smashing open the cask you taste the liquid inside. After 30 years of drinking nothing but water, the flavour ‘appeared to be horribly offensive and the smell equally so’. It is not strong enough to be a spirit like whiskey or brandy and is probably wine or beer. You let the contents drain into the sand – just in case ‘the natives take a fancy to it’ – and then hand out the iron hoops to people who have shown you kindness. ‘These presents added greatly to the influence I had already acquired over them … I began to fancy they were gradually becoming more docile and civilised.’

  You are out one day gathering roots with the old man, your closest friend and constant companion, when two young men approach, waving spears adorned with coloured handkerchiefs. The pair say they have just met a group of white black men at a camp on the shore of Bengalat balug land. It seems they have been left behind by a ship and have built themselves two white huts. They have plenty of provisions including tomahawks and blankets and have already made offerings of knives and scissors to the local clan.

  A plan is afoot. The two men are looking for help; they need more numbers in order to return and kill the white men for their possessions. It is at this moment that you begin to feel a sen
sation that will gnaw at you for years to come; the frustration of a man trapped between two cultures. Your first instinct is to warn these white men about an impending attack and save them. But issuing such a warning … will that not also be an act of treachery toward your own people?

  So you decide you must see these newcomers for yourself. You walk for a day and much of the next until, suddenly, you see a Union Jack hoisted on a long pole. It is cold and windy; heavy skies overhead have turned the water of Port Phillip just off Indented Head a dirty grey.

  How do you feel? Your emotions must be raging. You had stood not far from this place more than three decades before, a young man racked by hunger pains, self-doubt and fear. But even then pride had won out. You had not turned back like your companions, but turned your own back on a life of captivity.

  Now you have another choice to make. You can stay hidden from these white men and continue living a life of freedom, to choose where you want to go and what to do. Or you can finally stop being a stubborn bastard, approach them and take a chance they will not return you to a life in irons deep in the bowels of a creaking ship.

  What’s it going to be? These white men are sitting with several Aboriginal companions around their tents. One of them, fetching a pail of water, looks up and sees you. He points you out to the others.

  Now there is no choice. You pick up your spears and your club – your waddy – and start walking toward them on this winter’s day, 6 July 1835.

  20

  COMING IN

  William Todd has been growing frustrated over the past few days and, if truth be told, a little nervous. He can’t quite put his finger on it but in this place heavy with the scent of wood smoke and eucalyptus, he can sense something else in the cold air, a vaguely menacing threat.

  For the past two weeks the number of Aboriginals coming to the camp on the edge of Port Phillip Bay has been growing and no amount of pleading – let alone bribing with food and trinkets – has managed to get them to leave. Just two days earlier he had cooked up a large batch of damper bread – 60 pounds of valuable flour he’d used – and they consumed it all. And that had followed a batch of 100 pounds a week earlier. There seems to be no end to their appetite, nor any inclination to leave.

  Todd and the rest of the crew have done everything they can to encourage them to go. Two mornings ago everyone went without breakfast to try and show them they had run out of food. But if men like Joe the Marine, Pigeon, Bullet – some of the Sydney Aboriginals hired by Todd’s master – cannot persuade them to go, then what chance has he?

  The locals seem to be having a fine old time, singing each night, staging corroborees, encouraging their children to stay with the white men. They have laughed and smiled and all the while set about stealing everything of value. Axes have gone missing and food supplies are running dangerously low; the 90 square yards of freshly turned earth Todd and others have just sown will not be producing any onions, turnips and carrots for months. They have caught fish and the odd kangaroo. But if this keeps up – if this small encampment of eight men continues to be expected to feed a village – then Todd is starting to wonder what will happen when the food runs out.

  Each night he takes out his brown calf leather journal and dutifully records the day’s events, a diary the man he serves, John Batman, has asked him to keep. The past month has been extraordinary, even for those accustomed to life with Batman. The voyage from Van Diemen’s Land had been hard enough; strong winds and heavy seas pushing them back for a fortnight each time they tried to cross Bass Strait. And then, after making their way into Port Phillip Bay, came that historic day when Batman signed his treaty with representatives of several tribes, leasing more than 600,000 acres of the best grazing land anyone had seen. And the price? An annual rental of 40 blankets, 30 axes, 100 knives and some handkerchiefs and flour! Had anyone ever struck a deal like it?

  Batman, intoxicated by this triumph, has returned to Launceston to replenish supplies and inform his partners and backers about the deal. His own journal flows with praise for this new country. Everywhere he has looked Batman has seen endless pastures and grass-filled plains. On the Keilor Plains he spies ‘the most beautiful sheep pasturage I ever saw in my life. I am sure I can see 50,000 acres of land in one direction and not 50 trees.’

  A few days after this, on Saturday 6 June, Batman and his crew had fallen in with a family of local Aboriginals and, after shaking hands, ‘and my giving them tomahawks, knives &c – they took us with them about a mile back where we found huts, women and children. After some time and full explanation, I found eight Chiefs amongst them who possessed the whole of the country near Port Phillip – three brothers, all of the same name, are the principal chiefs, and two of them men of six feet high and very good looking; the other not so tall but stouter. The other five chiefs were fine men – and after a full explanation of what my object was, I purchased two large tracts of Land from them about 600,000 Acres more or less and delivered over to them, Blankets Knives, looking Glasses, Tomahawks, Beads Scissors, flour &c &c.’

  Batman has met with elders of the Wurundjeri and Boonwurrung people, including the towering Billibellary, a ngurungaeta of the Wurundjeri-willam clan. Controversy will swirl around this ‘treaty’ for centuries. It will be the only formal document ever offered by Europeans to Aboriginal people and many will doubt if the eight Aboriginal men who leave their mark on it fully understand they are signing away ancient tribal lands, believing instead that it forms part of a tanderrum – a ceremony allowing safe passage to visitors travelling through their territory.

  No-one will even be sure of the exact location where the signing takes place. But Batman notes that nearby there is a river that strikes him as being ‘the place for a village’. And then, mission accomplished, he leaves to spread the good news back in Van Diemen’s Land, leaving his Sydney Aboriginals and servants – Todd, Alec Thompson and Jim Gumm – to form a supply depot at Indented Head, just a few miles north of the entrance to the bay.

  As usual Batman has left explicit instructions, too. The men are to go straight to work erecting a hut, making a garden, establishing a rapport with the local tribes and ‘to put off any person or persons that may trespass on this land I have purchased from the natives’.

  Well, giving orders like that might be one thing. But with more than 60 Aboriginals gathering around the camp, what sort of persuasion might one employ to get them to leave?

  You can sense the growing alarm and exasperation in Todd’s journal. An educated Irishman, his handwriting is neat and even, sloping gently to the right. Monday 29 June begins well: ‘Three hands gone kangarooing; as usual returned with a large forester [a big grey kangaroo]. Natives still with us. Find it very difficult to get them to leave us, they having taken such a particular liking to the bread. We are obliged to use none ourselves, on account of their distressing us, they being of such a greedy disposition that they would take it all from us. Stopped all night. Watching as usual.’

  The next day brings no change. ‘Tried all we could to get them to leave us, but find it impossible. Three hands obliged to go again kangarooing … returned home with two kangaroos. Remained all night quiet and well satisfied, but seem to have no idea of leaving us, which makes us exceedingly uncomfortable, not being able to get a meal of victuals in comfort, and always obliged for our own safety to keep watch.’

  On 4 July everyone is woken at four in the morning after hearing cries and whistles. ‘At daylight … sent two men to see who it was but they returned home without seeing them, which we imagined was no more than to frighten us. We told them we would not be afraid of 100 of them …’

  Two days later, nothing has changed. Early in the morning Pigeon goes hunting with the natives and with two shots kills two kangaroos ‘which surprised the natives much. They returned home well satisfied.’

  And then, early in the afternoon on this cold day, the Union Jack fluttering overhead from a makeshift flagpole, a dead man walks into camp, out of the bush and
in from the past, and takes a seat next to their fire.

  Twenty years living among white people as William Buckley and you always struggled to find the right words. Thirty years living as Murrangurk and now you have none at all.

  You open your mouth to say something and … nothing comes out. Sitting there with your spears and waddy between your legs, a crowd gathering, staring in disbelief, and not a single word comes to mind. Ridiculous, isn’t it? For one of the first times in your life you have so much to say but no way to say it.

  You point to the tattoo on your arm – those faded initials, ‘W.B’. Perhaps that might help. But they keep staring and you can tell what they are thinking; this man with his long matted hair and thick beard and animal skin cloak, this mute who keeps moving his lips without uttering a sound, is clearly … one of us. Tanned and wild and more than a little intimidating, but he is one of us. One of them reaches for that fast disappearing damper and hands you a piece. You take it, turning it over in your hands and a word slowly forms from the fog in that head of yours.

  ‘Bread?’

  It’s as if a spell is broken. Over the next few hours more words will come back to you. But it’s your size, your overwhelming presence, they find most compelling. Jim Gumm, a pardoned convict, will measure your height at close to six feet and seven inches and that night Todd has much to write in his journal.

  ‘He seemed highly pleased to see us. We brought him a piece of bread which he eat very heartily and told us immediately what it was. He also informed us that he has been above 20 years in the country, during which time he has been with the natives … He then told us that his name was William Buckley, having the following marks on his arm – W.B and marks like a crab, half-moon, and small man. Being a long time with the natives he has nearly forgot the English language, but the native language he can speak fluently. We then brought him to our tent, clothed him with the best we had and made him share the same as we.’