Amateur Rebel

By John Ivor

Maggie, an interpreter, believes justice can’t be achieved without just rulers, so she fights corrupt despots of an 1830s British Colony. And tries not to fall in love with Jeremy, her hot-headed foolish ally. Magistrates commit murder, the natives mistake a missionary as an incarnation of the Rainbow Serpent come to evict white settlers, and Maggie could lose her head - literally!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Darling Newspaper Press
• Release date: Jun 28, 2008
• ISBN: 9781452309514

Book preview

Amateur Rebel

by Jon Ivor

Maggie, a young interpreter, believes perfect justice can’t be achieved without perfect rulers, so she fights the corrupt despots of an 1830s British colony in The Great Southland. And tries not to fall in love with Jeremy, her hot-headed foolish ally.

Magistrates commit murder, the natives mistake a missionary as an incarnation of the sacred Rainbow Serpent come to end white settlement. A wealthy rival makes romantic advances on Jeremy, and Maggie could easily lose her head – literally.

© Darling Newspaper Press. First publishged as BOOK TWO of The Dream Chasers, hardback 2001.

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Dedicated to those people who

have yet to experience democracy.

Perfect justice requires perfect people to apply it. − MAGGIE.

A revolution is an opinion backed by bayonets.− NAPOLEON.

I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.− ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

WE were young folk then, and chasing our dreams in a new land, me and Jeremy .On his cramped twenty acres beside the river, Jeremy's ambition was grandiose for a colonial cocky.

He wanted to grow potatoes and wheat for the army in India, an ocean away. Full of lofty ideas was Jeremy, some of them foolish, most of them impossible under the rule of the Swan River Masters.

Those first settlers, an established clique, made sure the best holdings went to their favourites, and this ruled out a capable country lad not of the gentry. It also ruled out the indigenous tribes who had lived here since the Dreamtime of old. Forty thousand years in fact.

Now we were well into 1836, two years after the Noongars were massacred at Pinjarra in the south-western wilderness, and the dream for me remained the winning of justice. True justice, justice for all, highborn or low, master or servant, whiteskin or black. Apart from the blacks, this had been the compelling ideal of our founder James Stirling. It inspired him to create Swan River Colony at this far end of the world. Instead, we got tyranny.

And apathy.

A crowd of nine, Jeremy groaned. And two of them are newchums who never planted a bean in their lives. Another two are Noongars come for a stickybeak.

I felt a stab of sympathy for this sturdy farmers' champion. His public rally outside the tall gates of Government House had been almost his one line of conversation between us for more than a month. Jeremy's thinking, to my frequent annoyance, rode along a single track. Straight and blinkered.

Even the sentry's lost interest, he observed.

The gate guard slouched against one towering limestone pillar, his musket also leaning on the stonework. He was lazily flopping a hand at the bushflies exploring his sweaty red face.

At least we've got five real farmers, I muttered as we regarded the turnout. Your own kind. They'll back you, they've all suffered, they'll understand.

Jeremy needed my words. Ever the pessimist he was, unless fired by his fiercely aired principles.

And please, would you voice a special welcome to the two Noongars, I requested. Aborigines don't own farms but they've even more to complain about than we have. The Swan River Masters seized their country.

Don't start that silly talk again.

It was our constant debate. I was infamous among the whites for siding with the dispossessed Noongars. Not that Jeremy totally disagreed; he respected their ancient ways and regarded them as equals. But he also insisted they had lost possession of the Swan River forever, to a more advanced civilisation.

The theme march of history, he called it. Just as the Romans conquered the Brits and taught valuable skills. And isn't England a better place after seizure by Saxons and Normans?

Och Jeremy, you know I'm a Scot. And Scotland's a better place for repelling those invasions.

He made a face. Vikings and Irish pirates. That's who improved Scotland, Meg, and maybe it also left some kind of tribal bond in your own blood.

No, Jeremy was wrong there. Mine wasn't an affinity of clan or tribe, but simply a conviction in right over wrong. I myself had suffered in the past from uncaring scoundrels.

Aged five when I went to work in a Tayside mill, I quickly learned that life is plagued by such predators, even here in Governor Stirling's well-intentioned community, Britain's first free settlement in the Great Southland. This was why I empathised with the Noongars and why I supported Jeremy's campaign against the Masters.

Get on with you Jer. Time to take your soapbox. Fair deal for cockies. Down with the despots. With both palms, I jostled him towards the raised platform we had erected, a crude improvisation of four wide planks of jarrah resting on hay bales. I regarded his scuffed farmboots, his sweat-stained shirt and said a wee prayer, because the occasion meant so much to him and even five allies would be a start.

He nodded to the small gathering, then individually to each of the two Noongars. Welcome to you all and especially our black brothers.

He raised his loose-sleeved arms and instantly seemed to glow, a Prince Valiant in dungaree armour, his golden hair shimmering in the afternoon glare. My heart was skipping, but impatiently I told myself this was just anxiety over how the group of listeners would react.

These were dour countryfolk slow to rise against their rulers, a failing that Jeremy had never exhibited. During the three years I'd known him he had battled to extract every grain of goodness from his smallholding, yet still found time to hector the rascals in control. Now he needed wide backing. People were beginning to stir, too slowly, against the government graft. They lacked a leader.

In wishing Jeremy success I followed one particular reason of my own: Noongars were being murdered by our police and our soldiers. Their right to exist was not accepted by the Swan River Masters who dictated our nascent new-world. We were ten thousand miles away from the civic restraints of London. Something had to be done.

Mates, I am Jeremy Hanwell. I think you all know me. I've got something to tell you.

The words came exactly as he had rehearsed to my ears that morning beneath a spreading marri tree near the bakery. His face announced the inner man: a wide mouth, generous eyes, the flags of artless honesty. His sentences were clear, unemotional and brief, the voice of reason. Quietly persuasive, he launched his ideals at the cluster of sweating faces but these were turned enviously to the shaded avenues of greenery surrounding Government House beyond the sentry. The day was really too hot for verbal prodding.

Mates, fellow cockies, I am one of the few here who actually owns some soil. Twenty miserly acres. Others of you came to this colony with money enough, but can't buy a single clod. The Masters won't let you.

He paused as we had practised, to allow a hopeful growl or two of assent, but only silence met his words. The cockies stared vacantly, one spat in the dust and scratched. The two Noongars were exchanging baffled looks.

Gentlemen, the Governor promised better times for all. You farmers brought your families. You anticipated fruitful acres, yet all the good land has been handed to the Governor's personal friends and to his relatives.

The accusation was extreme but the words gentle. We had agreed to give them principle and bare sense. It was the democratic way. Jeremy kept his calm, and the stolid men of the land stood indifferent as bulls at pasture. A soiled hat wiped at a brow, a weary head drooped.

Many of you are denied the right to buy property, Jeremy reminded them and got not so much as a blink. You survive, that's all.

I could detect Jeremy's impatience now, for his fingers were curling into big fists. You survive, mates, that's all you do. To get by, you labour for the Swan River Masters. At rates that bloody insult you.

The Masters. That elite coterie who surrounded Sir James Stirling. They held massive grants under the Swan River Settlement Scheme yet lacked farming skills to create the estates to which they aspired. In this wilderness, no matter how generous a grant of land from the Governor, a man had to toil against nature to make crops flourish.

Those few grants handed out by James Stirling were going to the wrong people, as were the administrative posts in this infant community four months away from London's authority. Lacking knowledge or capital, too many of the first arrivals had persuaded Sir James to put them on the payroll in government jobs, which they soon turned to private profit.

Jeremy had decided to challenge their throttling grasp when his first potatoes for India rotted in a Fremantle shed. The Harbour Master had denied him a freighting facility unless he paid extortionate port fees into that rogue's own purse.

Dammit, the Swan River Masters must be smashed!

Jeremy was yelling now. He waved his arms, stamped a foot, the script abandoned. All that rehearsed logic had evaporated in the heat of his frustration. Still no response from his audience, apart from a wide grin by the soldier sucking a stalk of grass.

Jeremy glowered, anger unhidden on his candid face. He shook his fists to an unclouded uncaring heaven.

Listen, you blokes, here's what I propose. We cockies must unite. Band together, mates. Fight the Governor's dictatorship. Fight it, mates, fight.

I moaned. Jeremy never was the diplomat. It was easier to be a fanatic and now he sounded like one before these placid soil-tillers. I tried to catch his eye. In vain. He was well into his pet sermon now. He was pointing, striding, gesticulating. He brandished his flop-brimmed hat like a battle pennant and slapped it against his thigh. My Prince Valiant had become Rumpelstiltskin. Jeremy, you fool. You great fool, oh Jeremy. They’re coming to arrest you.

The silent listeners, I noticed, were turning their attention beyond Jeremy to the tree-lined driveway of Government House. The severe orange-brick turrets inspired by the Tower of London were softened only by its shaded gardens, from which a fat man in a clerk's drab garb was now approaching.

You all know it, Jeremy yelled. Oliver Cromwell gave Englishmen the power to rule themselves. Mates, it's our heritage, our right. His elbows cycled level with his ears. Elected government, mates. Elected! Bloody elected by yourselves. Take charge of your destiny, mates. We need our own people in government, that’s what. Fight to get them there. Smash the Masters.

The fat man reached the gate, stretching a fleshy forefinger through the metalwork to poke the sentry's scarlet jacket.

We are Englishmen, mates, proud of our deeds. Jeremy's invective was now so harsh that it rebounded from the Governor's residence and up Saint George's Terrace towards the military barracks.

Magna Carta and Parliament give us liberty. We will not tolerate crooked authority. Mates, I say again, smash the Masters. Smash them.

The guard was listening slack-faced to the clerk's message, stooping then to retrieve his musket.

Mates, we are exploited. We are victimised. The rulers of Swan River are greedy, unjust, unqualified and self-appointed. The answer is in your hands. The English way. Preserve your ancient rights. Mates, what I'm proposing is . . .

The guard fired his musket into the sky. Buggerorf, all o' yers.

THE cockies speedily moved along the gravel of the broad thoroughfare, but Jeremy leaped from his platform and strode angrily towards the soldier, who now stood alert and levelling his empty musket, its bayonet gleaming nastily.

Back off, Jeremy, I cried, chasing after him. Don't break the law.

That guard just bloody did.

And he'll bloody shoot you, too. Please! Will you never learn.

I threw my back against the bayonet as a barrier to his foolishness.

He hasn't had time to reload, Jeremy snarled. I'll show the bastard what happens when he shoots at an Englishman.

Jeremy, there are proper ways to protest.

He punched knuckles into his palm. But only one way for me. Get out of my way, Maggie!

I pointed to the anxious fat man. Look, the sentry was only obeying orders. Probably from the Governor himself.

Jeremy stood there growling, the fat clerk smiled at us from behind the grill, the soldier jerked impassively to attention as if on parade, and I prayed.

I prayed Jeremy wouldn't do something silly. At times he could be ridiculously headstrong. Aware of his past follies, I held desperately to one large pulsating bicep.

Come on, we'll think of something else. Let's go. Get off the boil. For my sake. Please, Jer, there's nothing to be gained by fighting the guard.

I led him away from the gates of power, down towards the river jetty where anglers and sail ferries created a quieter scene. Behind us I saw the fat man watching for signs of further trouble, before he waddled importantly back to his clerical duties.

In the shade of a peppermint tree Jeremy flung down his hat and then himself. I joined him in the dirt, wiping my eyes free of tears and perspiration.

All that work for nothing, he groaned.

It was a start. Look on the bright side. That sentry made your point clear to the farmers. Better than any words. Did you see them scuttle for dear life along the Terrace?

Named for Saint George but home of the dragons.

We'll slay those dragons, Jer, never fear. But not by violence, not by attacking a sentry. Public opinion is everything. People won't support you as a ruffian.

Months of work, he grunted. Hours and hours wording the leaflets, getting them printed, getting them out to everybody. Around the farms, through the town. All a big flop and I still owe the printer.

It's we, I insisted. I'm sharing the cost.

All for nothing.

What we need is funds.

So you keep telling me.

Jeremy had a staunch heart and fierce beliefs, but no idea how to go about political lobbying. His heart would always overrule his head.

I clenched his hand and realised that mine was almost as calloused. Work at the bakery, work with the horses, work work work from infancy. I had been child labour in a Scottish weaving mill, hard desperate years yet instructive. Apart from developing an unpatriotic hatred for tartan and a genetic craving for knowledge, those early troubles taught me the cunning of a mouse.

Jer, I don't know how, but we'll do it. We have to. For the people, for the families who've made this place their home, and for the Noongars who get treated like dogs.

Meg, we need a revolution.

Wrong. We need funds to win a peaceful change. The lawful way, Jer. Strong public opinion will always change a government. That tip comes from Aristotle, three hundred years before Christ. You should read him, get some ideas.

He was not listening. His gaze was fixed upon the riverside bridle path, where a lone rider was visible on a large roan.

Och, not her, I grunted

THE rider had left the path and was guiding her horse towards our wide leafy shelter. Jeremy stood up and waved. It's Lizzy.

Come to gloat, I said.

No, Lizzy's on our side.

Lizzy you call her. You know Mrs Shelford-Holmes that well? Where did you meet her?

His eyes were still regarding the approaching figure.

In her mid-twenties and childless, Lizzy had kept her good looks, enhanced by expensive clothes. Having survived three wealthy husbands, she was the colony's richest woman. That a struggling farmer would make her acquaintance seemed unlikely. That he called her Lizzy was personally alarming.

She visited me at the farm, said Jeremy.

At Kelmscott? Ten miles up the Canning river?

He failed to catch my sarcasm. Yes, she bought some of my vegetables.

Her servants do the shopping, Jeremy. What was she really after? Lizzy had caused me a world of woes in the past, and now my scalp was prickling.

She dismounted and began walking the mare, still beyond hearing as Jeremy remarked. Her father's an influential magistrate.

"I know that. And her ma's a princess. That doesn't