The Burning Land Read online

  About The Burning Land

  That land out there has been burning me as long as I can remember. All these years I’ve been getting ready for this moment. I’m going out there to take hold of it…

  Raised by struggling Scottish immigrants in the sparsely inhabited mountains of the Port Phillip District, Matthew Curtis dreams of the vast unexplored spaces of inland Australia.

  Defying his stern foster-father, he leaves home — and the warm grey eyes of Catriona Simmons — at sixteen. His journey takes him first to the brawling life of the goldfields with the beautiful Janice Honeyman, then north into the burning wilderness of the unexplored outback.

  An engrossing historical saga in the tradition of Evan Green and Wilbur Smith, The Burning Land bursts with life and the passion and daring of Australia’s pioneers.

  With love to Caroline, Paul and Rebecca.

  CONTENTS

  About The Burning Land

  Dedication

  Maps

  Book One: The New Land

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Book Two: The Run

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Book Three: Gold

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Book Four: Westward

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Book Five: Homecomings

  Thirty-Nine

  Author’s Notes

  Acknowledgements

  About John Fletcher

  Also by the Author

  Copyright

  Australia was created by the questing spirit of man, forever pushing out into the wilderness. We who live within the cities and ordered society of this land have within us the tribal memory of those forerunners who led us inexorably onwards. Few of us would be capable of doing what they did; fewer still actually go out there and try to follow in their footsteps. But in our spirit we follow them. They are, inescapably, as much a part of us as we, remembering their dream, are a part of them.

  Male: above velvety black, basal two-thirds of both wings brilliant metallic blue.

  Description of Papilio ulysses joesa Butler, known commonly as the Ulysses butterfly.

  Book One

  The New Land

  It is not to be doubted, that a Tract of Land such as New Holland would furnish Matter of advantageous Return.

  Sir Joseph Banks, 1779

  ONE

  Hot sunlight lay yellow upon the moored ships and the waters of the cove; the wharf thronged with bustling, shouting men. Lorna McLachlan stood on the deck of the three-masted barque Mary, one hundred and twenty-three days out of London, and watched as sweating longshoremen secured the hawsers connecting the ship to the shore at the end of its eleven thousand mile journey.

  The waiting passengers surged forward. Lorna took her husband’s arm, her full black skirt swaying about her legs as she did so. The skirt and matching black jacket, fitting snugly to her hips, and the high-necked white blouse in plain cotton were uncomfortable in a climate far hotter than that for which they had been designed. Her blonde hair, pulled back off her forehead in a tight bun, was partially concealed beneath a black bonnet with a deep crown and rounded brim set four-square on her head. Andrew McLachlan, a stiff, hard Presbyterian whose life had been ordered from birth by the Bible, or his own interpretation of it, was not one for frivolities and took it for granted that his wife would follow his lead in this as in all things.

  Andrew turned at her touch. At thirty-one he was ten years older than she. They were of a height although she was not particularly tall. She did not need to raise her head for her blue eyes to look into his hazel ones but in every other way she looked up at him, with respect and some fear, for Andrew McLachlan was an intolerant man although not a violent one.

  He smiled austerely. ‘Landfall at last,’ he said in his broad Scots accent. ‘Praise the Lord. Now mebbe we can make a start.’

  ‘Aye,’ Lorna said, ‘Mebbe we can.’

  She looked past his shoulder. Moored ships raised a forest of spars against the blue sky. Buildings—brown wood, yellow stone—huddled along the water’s edge or straggled up to the crest of the low hill that rose behind them. On the other side of the cove a large warehouse faced the water. Its cargo bays stood open, its interior hidden in shadow. Scurrying figures carried bales and barrels into the recesses of the building. The merchant’s name was painted in large white letters on the iron roof. THORNTONS. The name meant nothing to her.

  Lorna turned. Beyond the waters of the harbour the blue-grey land stretched away, enigmatic and silent. New South Wales, she thought without pleasure. She feared the prospect of life in this unknown place but took care not to let her husband see her fear. Nothing displeased Andrew McLachlan more than a lack of faith.

  The waiting passengers inched forward again. The odour of impatience, of sweat, mingled with the smells of the waterfront brought to them on the light breeze—dust and dung, mud, weed and salt water. A seagull perched momentarily on the ship’s rail and screeched once before rising and circling away across the sun-shot harbour.

  Eventually, after much shuffling and grumbling, the McLachlans’ turn came. Lorna took a deep breath as she stepped for the first time onto Australian soil, as though feeling it beneath her feet made irrevocable the move to which they had been committed since that time, almost a year ago, when Andrew had come into their granite-built house on the east coast of Scotland and told her he had decided to sell the business to Angus Ross and move to the other side of the world.

  It was only now, stepping onto the uneven cobbles of the roadway, seeing the buildings, the strangeness of the hot and avid sky, the unknown emptiness of the land beyond the township, that she accepted the reality of this new place where it was her destiny to spend the remainder of her life.

  I shall no’ look back, she thought. I shall no’ think about what might have been. Scotland is gone. The old life, the friends and family, all gone now. Here is where I am, in this new place. My life begins now.

  There was a freedom in having no ties, just the two of them alone in the new land. Yet they were not free yet. There were officials on the wharf who escorted them to an ugly building where men with white faces and ungiving eyes were waiting to question them.

  Health.

  Possessions.

  Plans.

  ‘Sign here,’ the official said. ‘If you can sign.’

  Andrew did not deign to answer that. He read the form. ‘Farm labourer?’ he said, eyebrows questioning.

  ‘You wanner work, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘That’s how you get it. Meanwhile you’ll stay in the immigration barracks until the coach leaves,’ the man told them.

  ‘And when would that be?’

  A shrug. ‘A week, maybe. Could be two. Whenever there’s a load.’

  ‘Where are these barracks?’

  The official gestured at a group of men, also uniformed, waiting by the door. ‘They’ll show you.’ A smile, der
isory rather than welcoming. ‘Don’t worry. They won’t let you slip away.’

  ‘Where shall we be going? Afterwards, I mean?’

  ‘Where they take you.’ And he transferred his attention to the next couple waiting in the queue that stretched out through the hot and shadowed shed to the brightness of the sun-drenched road outside.

  Andrew frowned. It was not in his nature to like being so completely at the mercy of other men’s decisions. He shook his head, picked up his bag and turned to Lorna.

  ‘Nae doot they’ll let us know in guid time.’

  The barracks were better than they might have expected, better than the cramped promiscuity of the immigrant hold they had just left. At least they could get out and see what the town had to offer.

  Sydney was rowdy with the noise of passers-by. Bullocks drew two-wheeled drays creaking through the rutted streets. Red-coated soldiers marched in columns, cross-belts and muskets gleaming, or brawled their way from tavern to tavern. Peddlers bawled their wares, street shows on each corner drew people to watch jugglers and acrobats performing for pennies. Women with painted faces and ragged, gaudy dresses leant suggestively against the walls of buildings. Hanging over everything were the columns of masts webbed with rigging rising into the sky, the harsh cry and stammer of gulls, the smell of sewage and the sea.

  Andrew passed like a spectre through the crowds. His dark clothing and set, white face were unspoken comment upon the worldliness of the town.

  ‘Nae doot we’ll be on our way shortly,’ he said. Disapproval filled his nostrils like brimstone.

  After that first expedition, he refused to leave the barracks. He had seen the devil in the streets, the great whore, and would not venture out again.

  After ten days they were put on a coach for the one hundred and thirty mile journey southwest to Goulburn.

  Lorna stared out of the window as the coach picked up speed. As far as her eye could see, gum trees held up branches like grey bones to the sky. There were thousands of them. They stood like battalions of ghosts on either side of the track, their trunks stiff and unmoving in the light breeze, their olive-toned leaves drooping towards the sand-coloured soil. The coach road wound and dipped, unravelling the miles, but the view never changed.

  In the middle of the afternoon they came to the banks of a sluggish creek that wended its way silently through the trees. With a loud hallooing from the coachman, the horses slowed and the vehicle shuddered to a halt.

  ‘Everybody out,’ the coachman bawled, mouth wide to show teeth like blackened tombstones in a red and bearded face. ‘Let’s git yore feet on the deck.’ He took a long swig at a bottle that he retrieved from beside his seat, staggered slightly and swore. It was obviously not the first drink he had taken that day.

  Limbs stiff and complaining, the passengers disembarked.

  ‘How does he expect us to cross?’ A twitter from a lady with pink-rimmed, nervous eyes. She was dressed in silk, too smartly, and clutched a parasol like a lifeline to an earlier and more civilised existence.

  The coachman overheard and grinned, giving her the full benefit of the teeth. ‘Don’ you worry ’bout that. We’ll git you ’cross, right enough. Though I don’ say you won’ git yore fancy dress wet, ’fore you’re through.’

  Her companion, well dressed and with an impressive chin, dusted the sleeve of his dove-grey coat and stared coldly at the coachman. ‘Explain yourself.’

  The man spat. ‘She gunna wade, tha’s why. Same as what you are.’

  ‘Wade?’ Horror. ‘How deep is the water?’

  ‘Four feet in the middle.’ The coachman grinned again, derisively, and swallowed another mouthful from the bottle. ‘Don’ worry. Ain’t much current. ’S safe enough.’

  ‘You’re drunk,’ the passenger said.

  The grin vanished. ‘Who the ’ell you callin’ drunk? Tell you summin, mate, you sit up there all day, drivin’ them ’osses, and you’d be lookin’ to ’ave a drink, too, now an’ then. To cut the dust, see? But that don’ make me drunk.’ His indignation waxed louder. ‘You want trouble, mate, you’re ’eading the right way about it. Drunk? I’m no more drunk than what them ’osses are.’

  The passenger’s face was white with anger. ‘And I tell you my wife is not wading through that stream. She will travel in the coach.’

  ‘She’ll do what I damn well says,’ the coachman said. ‘No room in the coach. Not for ’er or no one. We got to float ’er over on barrels, see?’ And with that he stamped back to the coach where his assistant was already lashing empty hogsheads to the wheels.

  Lorna walked with Andrew to the edge of the stream. The coachman was right, the current was barely perceptible. The crossing might be wet but it would be safe.

  ‘We can be thankful there’s been nae rain,’ Andrew said. ‘I doot we’d be able to cross if the stream were much higher. As it is, we’ll be there tomorrow safe and sound.’ It would take more than a river crossing to dent his confidence in God and himself.

  ‘That lady is troubled about her dress,’ Lorna said. ‘A pity if it gets wet. And it so smart.’

  Andrew had no patience with vanity. ‘She should have thought before she wore it,’ he said. With the toe of a sensible boot, he stirred the damp sand at the water’s edge. ‘We’re in a different country wi’ different ways. We have to be ready to adapt, all of us. I doot yon lass will find it easy.’

  He spread his handkerchief on the dusty ground, sat upon it and drew his Testament from his pocket.

  Lorna walked a little apart and stared back the way they had come. The trees consumed everything—sight, sound, perspective. Walk ten yards off the track and you would be lost. Every inch of the country was identical to every other inch. She looked down at her boots, powdered now by the dust that puffed up with every step. Andrew was right. Things were different here. She wondered how well she would adapt. How could you know the right thing to do in a land where everything was unfamiliar, where even the seasons were back to front and the stars unrecognisable in the sky? She was twenty-one years old and had never felt so alone in her life.

  God make me strong, she prayed, having little faith that He would, working with such poor material.

  In the end the lady in the silk dress, like the rest of them, did not get wet at all.

  The coachman climbed onto the driving seat, took a long pull of brandy to settle his nerves, and cracked his long whip. Inch by inch, the coach creaked its way down the bank until the horses were in midstream and the coach was afloat, supported by the empty hogsheads. It looked like an ungainly ship as it ploughed its way across the river. The coachman cracked his whip again, cursing at the top of his voice, and the horses scrambled slipping and snorting up the bank, the water running in streams from their bodies. Slowly they drew the coach clear of the river. When it was secure the coachman came back to the water’s edge. Lorna saw that he had trailed a long, stout rope behind him during the crossing. His assistant had lashed three hogsheads together and secured on top of them a number of wooden planks to form a raft. He tied the rope to the raft and pushed it into the water. Grinning at the passengers, he said, ‘Ladies aboard, if you please.’

  They clambered on, the lady in silk tottering uncertainly with shrill, mouselike cries as the raft was drawn clear of the bank and hauled across to the other side. Lorna looked down into the water, trying unsuccessfully to see if there were any fish.

  ‘Things are so different.’ The silky lady spoke apparently to the air. ‘I cannot imagine how we shall all manage.’

  On the far side of the river the makeshift raft drew with a faint hiss onto the sand. Lorna stepped across the few inches of water to the bank. The silky lady followed but unfortunately stumbled and immersed her foot in the river. Loud lamentations followed but to no avail—the dainty boot and the foot it contained remained wet, for all her cries.

  ‘’Ere,’ the coachman said, proffering the bottle, ‘’ave a pull o’ this.’

  She declined with a teeny shudder,
turning her head from the blast of his breath.

  ‘Please yoreself.’ He swallowed again, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and turned back to the raft. He waved at his assistant watching from the other side of the stream.

  ‘Haul away,’ he bellowed. ‘Min’ you don’ tip ’er over.’

  The raft was hauled back to the other bank and the men climbed aboard. They, too, were drawn swiftly and safely across the river. One more trip to pick up the luggage and the coachman’s assistant before they all climbed aboard and were on their way again, swaying and lurching, with no wet clothes and only one wet foot among the lot of them.

  Under the trees darkness came early and it was no later than six when the coach drew to a halt. Once again the passengers dismounted.

  ‘’Ere you go, gents,’ the coachman said. ‘An’ ladies, too, o’ course. This is as far’s we’re goin’ tonight.’

  To a wet foot was added consternation. ‘Surely you are not proposing to stop here? In this … wilderness? Is there no inn?’

  ‘An inn? Lady, between ’ere and Goulburn there ain’t nuthin’. Fumes of alcohol swept over them as he laughed. ‘You’re in the bush ’ere. In the colony. You stay ’ere, you gotter get used to a new way o’ lookin’ at things.’ He slugged again at the bottle of liquor which Lorna thought must be almost empty by now. If it were the same bottle, of course.

  ‘But where do we sleep?’ asked the woman, close to tears.

  ‘Women in the coach, men on the ground. If it rains in the night, they kin shelter under the coach.’

  ‘Is it safe?’ persisted the woman in the silk dress.

  ‘Safe?’ The coachman glared at her and she quailed, morale destroyed by the traumas of the day. ‘Course it’s safe.’ The wicked tombstones of teeth mocked her as he sneered, ‘Can’ be nuffin else, can it, when you got yore ’usband lookin’ after you?’