Barney and the Secret of the French Spies (The Secret History Series, #4)

By Jackie French

The new title in the critically acclaimed series that explores Australia's early Colonial secret history

In1798 orphaned Barney Bean now has a flourishing farm in the New SouthWales colony and everything he ever dreamed of ... except his childhood friendElsie.

Butwhen Elsie falls ill and Barney rushes to be by her side, he finally learns thedeadly secret she has been hiding.

Who is this strange and beautiful girl who will not speak? And could Franceever attack the isolated colony?

Written byaward-winning author Jackie French and superbly illustrated by Mark Wilson,this fourth book in The Secret Histories series explores extraordinary anduntold stories from Australia's past, including the female French botanistwho could only work disguised as a man, French and Englishspies, and wars between two empires that threatened even a far-off colony.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Feb 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781460705957

Jackie French

Jackie French AM is an award-winning writer, wombat negotiator, the 2014–2015 Australian Children's Laureate and the 2015 Senior Australian of the Year. In 2016 Jackie became a Member of the Order of Australia for her contribution to children's literature and her advocacy for youth literacy. She is regarded as one of Australia's most popular children's authors and writes across all genres — from picture books, history, fantasy, ecology and sci-fi to her much loved historical fiction for a variety of age groups. ‘A book can change a child's life. A book can change the world' was the primary philosophy behind Jackie's two-year term as Laureate. jackiefrench.com facebook.com/authorjackiefrench

Book preview

DEDICATION

To Brother James Cronly, in mutual memory

and gratitude for the compassion and work of

the Reverend Richard Johnson — with more thanks,

and for much more, than I can say

CONTENTS

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1: Terror!

Chapter 2: Elsie!

Chapter 3: Mrs Macarthur Knows

Chapter 4: Waiting and Hoping

Chapter 5: Mystery

Chapter 6: Elsie Answers

Chapter 7: Spies Across the Ocean

Chapter 8: A Wedding

Chapter 9: Spies!

Chapter 10: A Spy Again

Chapter 11: The Invasion That Never Happened

Author’s Notes

About the Author

Also by Jackie French

Copyright

PROLOGUE

Some secrets are hidden till someone tells the truth.

But there is another kind of secret: one people make themselves forget.

This book has two secrets. The first secret is about the girl I love most in all the world. The second secret is one every person needs to yell out loud, at least once in your lifetime.

Maybe, when you’ve read this book, you will.

CHAPTER 1

Terror!

Barney’s Farm, Colony of New South Wales, June 1798

‘Help!’ I screamed. But no one heard me: there wasn’t anyone to hear my cry echo through the trees and tussocks and along the river. No one except the o’possums and the sheep. Was I really going to die here, alone? Only nineteen, with so much still to live for?

‘Help me! Please!’ I choked again. I tried to prise away the rope that strangled me. The rope twisted tighter and tighter around my neck, but I forced my fingers between it and my flesh.

‘Help,’ I whispered. I had no breath for more. No one answered. No one would answer.

Harry-One-Eye and Stinky, my two convict shepherds, were miles away, keeping an eye on my main mob of sheep. Bill, my convict foreman, had taken the rest of the convict crew to the new block I’d been granted, clearing the trees along the creek flats so we could plough them.

But I wouldn’t be doing any ploughing if I was dead. Strangled by a sheep.

‘Baaa,’ said the ram, pulling harder on the rope, trying to get away. I yanked at the strand around my neck, but it didn’t budge. And it was my own fault.

I’d tethered the new ram instead of making a pen for him, then, when I’d bent down to move his tether so he could munch on a new lot of grass, he’d run a circle round and round me — and put a loop of rope around my neck, which was now getting tighter and tighter the more he tried to run away.

Me, Barney Bean, strangled by a sheep! Of all the stupid ways to die . . .

I’d faced the London slums as a boy and survived, hiding from kidnappers who’d steal a likely child to train him as a pickpocket.

I’d survived prison with Ma, when she was convicted for stealing just to keep me and her alive. Most children died in prison. I starved and caught prison fever, just like them. But unlike them, I lived.

I’d crossed the world to the new colony in New South Wales, waves breaking right over the ship, rocks with wicked teeth that could wreck an armada, scurvy that rotted the teeth from your mouth and then killed you. (These days so many convicts and ships’ crews died on the voyage from England, but thanks to Captain Phillip, back on the First Fleet we’d nearly all lived.)

I’d had to hide from older convicts who wanted to steal my rations before Elsie and I were rescued by Mr Johnson, the colony’s clergyman, and his wife.

I’d been nearly bitten by a snake, almost eaten by a shark and in danger of being shot by a bushranger too.

I’d survived all of that — and now I was going to be killed by a sheep.

I’d have laughed if I hadn’t been terrified. Or if I’d had enough breath.

No! No sheep was going to get the best of Barney Bean.

The first thing to do was stop that ram from trying to run away — he was running because I was struggling and trying to yell.

So I sat still. The ram stared at me, still tugging. At last he seemed to calm down. He took a mouthful of grass and munched it, keeping an eye on me.

Now to untangle myself without alarming him again. I moved, slowly as I could, red fog creeping in around the edges of my vision, unwinding myself from the rope rather than trying to unwind the rope from my neck, with the ram at the other end. I moved slowly around, keeping hold of the rope hard in case the ram bolted again.

One more turn around . . . and a dip of the head . . . and . . .

I was free!

‘Baa?’ said the ram.

‘Baa to you too,’ I said, moving out of range and collapsing onto the tussocks. That ram could just stay there till Bill and the others came back and built a pen for him.

But he was a fine ram, I remembered as the air got back into my lungs and the shakes eased off. All my sheep were good ones. Mr Johnson and Mr Marsden, the clergyman sent out to help him, were grand judges of sheep. Mr Johnson had bought me my first sheep, and Mr Marsden had chosen the ram for me.

I headed back to my house. My house. They were two such grand words. My house! Ten years earlier I’d been a convict brat with only the rags on my back. I never dreamed I’d have a grand farm and a proper house.

It was a good house too. Just a small cottage so far, as we’d also had to build huts on the range for the new shepherds last year, and a cottage for Bill now he was my official ‘overseer’, as well as a bunkhouse for my convict workmen.

But the previous year’s wool sale had made me enough money to pay a stonemason to build me stone walls and a proper wide fireplace and chimney, with good wooden shutters at the windows, connected to the wattle-and-daub hut I’d started with. The cottage only had two rooms, with the original hut now the kitchen, but it was sturdy enough to keep out snakes and o’possums, as well as any convicts who might want to steal or hurt what was mine.

It needed to be too, because New South Wales was a gaol without walls — you were only put in chains if you committed another crime after you were sent here. And the soldiers were mostly as bad, and as dangerous, as the convicts. Lots of the New South Wales Corps soldiers had been given the choice between prison for crimes they’d committed in the army or going to New South Wales. So there were plenty of ruffians about. And rum too. The New South Wales Corps soldiers had made it the colony’s ready money, rum instead of coins. Even wages were often paid in rum now.

Drunk men didn’t work. Men addicted to rum steal or kill to get more alcohol.

But there was no rum on my farm. After seeing what grog did to the