The Folks from Fowlers Bay

By Ib Svane

History is not always the exact truth but a narrative flavoured by the writer’s passion and background and the time when she or he lived. It is particularly true for southern Australia's history because it was put on paper by the colonialists. It is as if the history of Australia started then, and nothing happened before. Many past stories representing the history of aboriginal Australia are lost because its people died rapidly of infectious diseases, malnutrition and wars. Even these stories may not be the exact truth because they were told and re-told many times. But somewhere within the tales and the stories, there is a truth, and I have tried to find it. Behind the glamorous reports of Matthew Flinders and Nicolas Baudin’s maritime exploits, one can find their humanity, aspirations and failures. The history of the people that lived along the South Australian coast from the Murray River, the Encounter Bay (Ramong to the Ramindjeri people), Kangaroo Island to Port Lincoln (Kallinyalla, the Place of Sweet Water, to the Barngarla people), and along the entire west coast of the Eyre Peninsula, is at best scanty. But there are stories—interesting stories—of whalers, escaped convicts and their lives among the aboriginal people. Here, I meld these stories together in a tale of love, adventure and imagination.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Sep 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781398442504

Ib Svane

Ib Svane was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. He has an academic education from University of Copenhagen and Göteborg, Sweden, graduating with PhDs in zoology and marine biology. In 1998, he migrated to Australia to work at Flinders University and SARDI Aquatic Sciences in Port Lincoln. During his scientific career, he has published extensively in international scientific journals, popular magazines and elsewhere. As a yachtsman, he has sailed in many parts of the world.

Book preview

About the Author

Ib Svane was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. He has an academic education from University of Copenhagen and Göteborg, Sweden, graduating with PhDs in zoology and marine biology. In 1998, he migrated to Australia to work at Flinders University and SARDI Aquatic Sciences in Port Lincoln. During his scientific career, he has published extensively in international scientific journals, popular magazines and elsewhere. As a yachtsman, he has sailed in many parts of the world.

Dedication

I would like to dedicate this book to the many people who helped me along, sailed me along and had faith in my aspirations. Significantly, the captain, Niel Chigwidden (Chiko) and crew of RV Ngerin, and my friend and diving buddy, Brian Davis, who all taught me a lot about the South Australian coast and its many islands. I am indebted to my friend Ross Haldane and his family. They escorted me through the magic of Port Lincoln, its fisheries and their beautiful tuna clipper, the Tacoma. My writing efforts improved by the tireless help of Heather Curtis, Port Lincoln, and my old friend and diving mate, Dr Hans Erik Nielsen of Copenhagen, Denmark. Dr Scoresby Shepherd of Adelaide always gave me a helping hand. My wife, Yadranka, was at my side with love and affection.

Copyright Information ©

Ib Svane 2022

The right of Ib Svane to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398442498 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398442504 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2022

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgement

I will like to thank Austin Macauley Publishers and the editors for having faith in the story and the tireless efforts of the production team of Austin Macauley Publishers. Without them, there would not have been any book. Dr Hans Erik Nielsen, Copenhagen, made a significant editorial contribution to the early manuscript.

Last but not the least, I would like to thank the cover artist of this book, John Ford F.A.S.M.A. for the original watercolour paintings.

Now and then we had the hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates. – Mark Twain

Prologue

When a story is told the first time, it is likely to be true. Subsequent tellers may faintly change their story subconsciously or deliberately to suit their narrative and the audience, and the story becomes a tale. As the tale passes through many mouths and ears, it becomes a myth. Humans have always appreciated myths, and there are many of them, in particular religious ones that linger generation by generation. Over time, the myth still changes in character, but seems to be unaffected by historical and archaeological evidence. The myth has developed its own life free from reality and truth. But some time and somewhere, the myth changes to a tale, and the tale to a story regaining the truth. We just don’t know where and when.

The historian, Anthony Brown, studied the life of the Beckwith’s from conviction in 1801 to their transportation to Port Jackson (Brown, A., 1998. The Captain and the Convict Maid: A Chapter in the life of Nicolas Baudin. South Australian Geographical Journal, Vol. 97, 20–32). He followed Mary Beckwith the elder and Mary Beckwith the younger as she at a tender age of 17 joined Nicolas Baudin, the captain of Le Géographe, sailing via Kangaroo Island to King George’s Sound, to Koepang in Timor and finally to Mauritius where Nicolas died of tuberculosis. There are no records of her in Mauritius and the only clue to her fate may be that she met Nicolas’ brother Augustin Baudin, who was a captain on a Danish merchant vessel and happened to be in Mauritius at the same time. Here Anthony Brown’s search ended. The only explicable conclusion is that Mary sailed with Augustin to the Danish colony Tranquebar on the Coromandel Coast of India. So far, no further information is available. Someday another historian may throw new light on her story, but until then I believe that my story of her fate is as good as the truth. Other characters in this story are fictional, not necessarily by name but by their actions.

The reports of Mary’s character by the ship’s officers and a witness in Koepang are not pleasant, and even Nicolas Baudin’s journal does not serve her reputation well. I will dismiss the claims in these reports. In Port Jackson, Nicolas gave £50 to an orphanage which was the same amount levied on visiting captains for breaches of colonial regulations, e.g., taking convicts on board without permission. Why would he pay such a substantial amount if she were, as he describes her in his journal: She is seventeen and is interesting more on account of her behaviour than for prettiness! This description is likely to be untrue and only made to please Baudin’s superior, who would not be impressed by his actions.

Similarly, Baudin’s officers provide less flattering comments about her. But in circumstances where women were scarce as in Port Jackson, and indeed onboard ships, officers and others whose approaches had been rejected will often turn to slander rather than accepting their dismissal. Defamation is customary in love stories such as the Scandinavian nineteen-century one about the circus artist Elvira Madigan and the Swedish officer and nobleman, Sixten Sparre, who fell in love. The couple fled to Tåsinge on the island of Fyn in Denmark where reality caught up with them, and they committed suicide. Their grave is to this very day visited by many newlywed couples laying flowers in memory. Elvira was a victim of character assassination while the actions of her lover, the Officer Sixten Sparre, who left behind a wife and a child, was largely unscathed. But true love stories will always prevail.

History has been written by kings or for kings at the pleasure of the conqueror leaving no recognition of the defeated. The same is undoubtedly true for the history of Australia, where its first people, the aboriginals, have been confined to a place in the history of ridicule and neglect. Fortunately, historians and archaeologists are slowly changing the myths of the past to tales and then to stories as accurate as possible. The framework of the present story is as honest to history as I could make it, but allowing room for imagination, adventure, and accomplishment, which are essential elements in every storytelling. I remember when I in my youth visited Marrakesh in Morocco. Outside the walls with the gate leading to the Casbah, people had gathered listening to the Griot’s who performed and told tales. They captivated their audience in a way I had never experienced before. I can only hope that the story here will do the same.

Part 1

The fire burned slowly in the fireplace of a small cottage in Fowlers Bay. The flames flirtatiously played on the logs, like ballet dancers on a theatre floor. The wind howled in the chimney with a sound like thousand gentle violins, sometimes silenced by the woodwinds, and the large brass horns. The symphony in the chimney was relentless. Storm and rain have lashed the rugged coast for days and kept people inside. In a sea of red, the setting sun was glowing under the low hanging, grey clouds. The day slowly disappeared towards the west.

People lived there because Fowlers Bay, or Yalata, is the only protected harbour for many miles. It is not a harbour, but rather a beach with a jetty protected by a sandbar, stretching out from a high bluff, Point Fowler. Fishers could drag their boats far up on the beach and secure them with anchors in the dunes. From the top of the bluff, on a clear day, you can see far and wide. Towards the west is Point Adieu, and the mighty seas of the Great Australian Bight, relentlessly battering the cliffs of the Nullarbor Plain. Wise ships stay far offshore. To the east, one can see the dunes at Point Sinclair. Further to the south, below the horizon, is Flinders Island and the mysterious Top Gallant that looks like a large sailing vessel.

During the Antarctic winter, the Southern Right Whale will escape the coldness and migrate to the Great Australian Bight where they give birth to their calves. It is the time for whaling, but to catch one is a rare and dangerous event. Years of brutal whaling by Australian and foreign whaling vessels have decimated the herds, and now there are only few around. The whaling station had been closed for years. Now, when the whalers catch an occasional whale, they have to get it quickly onto the beach, because lurking in the waters is the Great White Shark, sensing blood miles away. Safely on the beach, whale oil is extracted by cooking the fat. The oil is used for lamps or sold in Ceduna some 80 miles away.

The few families living in Fowlers Bay are fishers and workers at the Yalata Station; a large sheep station, stretching from Streaky Bay and further west along the coast of the Great Australian Bight, and the Nullarbor Plain. There are thousands of sheep to take care of and to shear. Now, only a few men live here because this is the time just after the great war that took the lives of many, too many, young men.

Before the white settlers arrived, Fowlers Bay was aboriginal land. The Wirangu and Mirning people walked the beaches, fished, and collected seafood. They hunted kangaroo and hairy nose wombats among the Spinifex further inland. The sheep station and the white settlers were not welcome. The white settlers did not share food, as was customary for the aboriginal people. Thousands of years of survival in the harsh Australian desert environment depends on the sharing of burdens, and indeed the sharing of food and water. Unknown diseases, brought in by the white settlers, and brutal British rule forced the aboriginal people into fear, and now they stay away from Fowlers Bay. When aboriginals stole food from the white settlers, they were killed or wounded, and if they fought back, it had severe consequences. The Wirangu and Mirning people do not forget the year of 1861, when more than hundred people, including children, were forced by armed police officers to Fowlers Bay to watch when two men, Nilgerie and Tilcherie, were brought to the gallows and hung. The white settlers said their crime was murder, and the judge believed them. For the Wirangu and Mirning people, there was no crime, but a fight with a tragical ending. It was a bad year, and everybody was starving. Other hangings took place elsewhere, but during the following years, the brutal practise faded away. The ruling settlers in Adelaide found public hanging troublesome.

The small cottage was warm. Along one wall was a wooden bed with a straw mattress, and here, under a wool blanket, the twins, Bruce, and Mathilda were sleeping – they were ten years old. Their mother, Mary Stephens, sat in a rocking chair in front of the fire, spinning wool into a thread. On a simple wooden chair next to her sat Aron, her 14-year-old son. Only the fire and an oil lamp lit up the room. The husband and father had not returned from the great war. He had sailed with many others to Gallipoli.

Aron worked at the sheep station but was paid less than the grown men. He loved the sea; he loved fishing and took good care of his father’s sloop. The sloop had a proper deck with one hatch midships and one after for the helmsman. In rough weather, well sowed hooded jackets, made of oiled canvas, could be tied around the frame of both hatches. The helmsman and forward crew member would stay dry even if waves broke over the vessel, and water would not enter the hull. The sloop had one mast, which supported a boom-less gaff mainsail and a jib. The long keel kept the sloop steady and reasonable fast. Aron always won races when challenged.

His father had built the boat using Tasmanian pine, or Huon pine, and called it Mary after Aron’s mother. It was not just any pine. He accidentally found planks of it when digging a draining canal, leading to a boggy waterhole at Port Lincoln. The wood had been in the bog for many years, preserved in the oxygen-poor mud. A local farmer told him the legend. The wood was brought to Port Lincoln by Captain Claus Tasman, who anchored at Port Lincoln many times, and used the wood for ship repairs. At Port Lincoln, there was no wood of such quality.

The Tasmanian pine is considered to be the best wood for sailing vessels. The trees are slow-growing along the sheltered banks of the rainy, deep fjords, caressed by the strong winds of the Roaring Forties. Many sailors believed that the wood has mysterious properties, allowing a ship to dance gently over the waves. The wood was sought after by Venetian merchants, trading it on behalf of the famous instrument makers of Verona and Florence. When you rest on the bunks below, you may hear the whales sing like a soft stroke on a Stradivarius violin.

Earlier that day, Aron’s mother had received a large black, leather-covered chest. It was sent to her from her brother’s employer in Port Lincoln. Her brother had fallen on the fields of Flanders; the chest contained all his belongings. She knew it well. It had belonged to her father, who was a captain on a tall ship in the grain trade. For unknown reasons, he jumped ship in Port Lincoln and married her mother; Aron’s, Bruce’s and Mathilda’s grandmother. Aron’s mother was in sorrow for the loss of her husband and cried a lot, and when her tears dried out, she became stone-faced and quiet. The youngest children felt her grief and the loss of their father. Aron felt sorrow for some time and walked and walked through the dunes. As time passed, he felt the responsibility for his family and left his sadness behind, but his mother did not. When the chest arrived, Aron’s mother could not find the strength to look through the content and left it to Aron while she worked with the wool.

Aron took out all the clothes from the chest and placed the stacks neatly on his bed. Further down, he located several brown paper packages tied with string, and placed them next to the piles of clothes, because he discovered something interesting on the bottom of the chest. Rolled up in thick oiled canvas, he found a long brass telescope in a cylindrical leather container. It was in perfect condition. He carefully dried the oil off with a dry cloth. His mother asked him to be careful with the glass lenses, gave him a fresh soft cloth he could use, and silently said,

‘This belonged to my father.’

Next to the telescope, he found in a wooden box containing a nautical instrument with glass filters, and a small telescope attached to a quarter circular scale. Again, his mother told him to be careful, and said silently,

‘That also belonged to my father. It is a sextant, used to measure the height of the sun above the horizon. It’s how you determine your latitude while at sea.’

Aron carefully listened to his mother. He did not know she had such knowledge. With his mother’s approval and strict instructions, he was allowed to use the telescope. With his brother and sister, they looked through the window and over the sea. The weather was too bad to be outside. Later he placed the instruments on his bed when he had to help his mother