Gurrewa: Soul of Australia, #1

By Kev Richardson

A true tale of the shame of a nation's founding when mostly inept personnel were chosen to accompany petty-crime-convicts to an unknown destination, to found a settlement.

This story of Australia's white settlement empties the vacuum-cleaners with which modern Australians are at last cleaning under the carpet where, for generations, the dust of truth was swept.

From his first days at Sydney Cove, Adam lives the shame of a nation's founding. The Aborigine too, faced with the dreaded realisation that his heritage is crumbling, finds his securities shattered.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wings ePress, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 2, 2023
• ISBN: 9781613093399

Book preview

One

Is life a shit, the unwanted waste of human endeavour?

Is the world the poop-pail in which mankind wallows in the swill that life has become?

I am lost in a wilderness between boyhood and manhood, innocence and evil, understanding and uncaring, between two worlds...that of my nurture and that of my gaoler. And I fear the void.

Never have I needed to question values nor doubt standards. Me and my world have ever been one, two parts of a whole, yet in unison. Never have I considered me and my environment separate entities; never was there conflict between what it expected of me nor me of it. Every standard I hold to...of life, mankind, love, honour...all are creations of the world I’ve known. The difference between right and wrong has ever been simple to distinguish; acceptance ever been instinctive. Never did I question that social behaviour rules the world.

Yet now I find myself at a crossroads.

The people of the world I am now trapped in insist my values are false, my standards based on false ideals.

Can I have been naive in believing that to live in harmony with each other is to need each for the other?

I have ever followed a course true to such belief, yet if they were right, that the environment my early world created is wrong, are then the values nurtured by it wrong? Or have I simply failed to fairly assess them?

A frightening doubt.

Seven years they give me to accept their right, deny my wrong and they will chain me, flog me, degrade and abuse me until I do.

What superior sense of value is this?

I cannot understand their world, yet captive in its environment is surely, then, opportunity to gauge their values, weigh them against mine.

I will test it fair, listen with open mind, observe with open eyes.

Seven years will test it, the opportunity theirs, the challenge mine.

Two

A year earlier, 1784, London’s Newgate Prison

The portcullis crashed shut, a sound of such finality, a portent of doom.

The trio clung together, craving support, fearful of the future even more than the moment while, as if to stun them, the echo reverberated in their eardrums.

Three more, Rufus.

The wagoner who brought them from the watch-house handed over papers, no doubt statements of witnesses, before hurriedly departing, the stench of his body leaving with him. And with him also departed their last contact with the free world.

The turnkey reached out as if through a mist, to unlock their shackles which clattered ominously as he tossed them into a corner. There was scant ceremony to being put in gaol, they found, no information sought but a name and, because of their youth, ages. It seemed the only question otherwise asked was if the prisoner had means of support, yet their appearance spoke for itself.

From along a dingy passageway, their nostrils were assailed by the stench of damp, mingled with the odour of unwashed bodies.

Adam became slowly aware of a consciousness returning, realisation that the jolting wagon ride through the rain, the trauma of yesterday’s arrest, the fear they had shared during the night in the lock-up, had all actually happened. The fog of shock was beginning to abate.

Realisation that all he knew of life was, of a dreadful sudden, something of the past, became a stark reality.

Now there exists only a dread future.

The small chamber they arrived in was lit solely by a grilled window the height of two men from the floor. Along the passageway at the source of the stench was a door with a massive iron lock, no doubt opening into the gaol proper.

Blankets were piled in a corner of that tiny chamber and the turnkey sullenly handed one to each. He then, with a practised movement, lifted a ring of keys from a hook and gestured them to follow. Adam gave his blanket a cursory inspection, finding it threadbare and unclean

Yet it is now my only worldly possession.

The lock grated in compliance as the key turned. Beyond the door a milling crowd of laggards stood about, those whose stench had been their introduction. Most were men and boys with but a sprinkling of women. Some turned at the sound to watch Rufus pull the door ajar.

With almost too obvious a nod, he invited the three into their new home and it took but a minute to arrive at a measure of the place.

All too few shafts of daylight beamed from dormers high in the wall through barred grills, and here and there, straggling rays of light reached the floor to cast a shadowy pattern. The chamber was otherwise gloomy and airless. Stone pillars rose from the floor and wooden benches lined the walls. Alcoves branched off at intervals into other chambers. Amidst the legs and feet lay straw mattresses and blankets, the floor strewn with hay as if for creatures in a stable. Dust swirled in the shafts of light. The rank dampness was suffocating.

He could find no welcome from anything in sight.

Their arrival drew scant interest; a few lags turned to cast a glance, yet once Rufus retired and the key again grated, they returned to their pastimes.

The whole took but a moment to assess, and Fickless moved silently off, easing his way through the press, Adam and Wil following, nostrils twitching.

It was too crowded to walk but in single file, and it was quickly obvious there was no spare bench space other than by the reeking latrine. In a far corner, palliasses lay about, and with a nod from each, they agreed on a site with space enough to lie together yet far enough from the stench. They fetched mattresses from a pile to lay on the straw.

They were drenched from their hour chained in the wagon through London streets, and there was no fire for drying out. Wil now tugged at his wet blouse before flopping down. There certainly seemed no purpose in doing else.

Adam followed suit. It made sense to squat, he reckoned, stake their claim.

Many of like age stood about, some even younger, although men of twenty or more comprised most, a motley lot, many with a shaver ring to them. The few women kept to themselves; nowhere could Adam see them mingling with male prisoners who stood in groups of two or three, or here and there a handful. Other lags sat where there was space, some alone, one or two with a book. A few slept or were ill. Generally the sound was a buzz of quiet conversation except in the distance where someone gave noisy emphasis to a viewpoint. From farther off still, he could hear the high pitch of women dominating bawdy argument...whores defending virtues against the baiting of jaunty lads.

The boys maintained a quiet because the whole smacked of idleness, a waiting.

Even for new arrivals, evident was the lack of either urgency or anticipation and like the rest, they were content to be idle. Adam tried to overhear the trend of this or that conversation, what topics waiting felons chose to pass time, what interests worth exchanging opinion on that they might have in common. Yet he could hear none clearly. Here and there was a chuckle, even a laugh. He reckoned there’d be those who’d weathered the shock he still suffered, who’d regained some sense of presence. Or they defensively asserted bravado.

Rubbing his hair with the blanket dried it somewhat, yet it was difficult to ignore the stench.

Given opportunity and time to familiarise with the temper of the place, I might just exchange this for one less offensive.

To lie back, even to simply enjoy freedom from the fetters, was balm to jangled nerves, so it was hands under head to study the ceiling, roof of the world that now bound him. The ceiling was of no interest of course, yet his mind was at least free in knowing the next minute or hour would not present change.

So I’ll need use every minute in thinking, or go mad.

Somewhere he’d heard it took weeks for charges to reach the courts, and coming days would expose the routine to be faced, so there was time yet to think on such things. The present was simply opportunity to relax, recover from the trauma of the last twenty-four hours.

I’ll worry later about learning procedures at a trial. Be plenty of shavers here who’ve been through it, will know the traps. And lurks.

Wil lay alongside. Beyond him, Fickless talked with a neighbour. Only things this side of Adam were legs, legs of lags standing, talking. It was common area as yet unspoken for by people needing bedspace. And he wasn’t going to concern himself with trying to overhear what Fickless was saying...he’d be told it later.

A touch on the elbow drew his interest. Wil lay in similar pose, hands under head, inching his elbow until it touched. He smiled the intimate smile Adam knew so well, the togetherness they ever shared. Adam flashed a wink and answered the pressure. There was no loneliness when they were together. Neither had said a word since bundled into the cart at sunup, and still found no need.

Adam gazed at the roof.

The mind never stops, of course, always thinking something, yet right now, mine has a laziness to it. Fatigue from the recent events? Uncertainty of the future?

Wil’s touch, however, was balm to the languor, a conscious communication, a case of and he knows I know it.

Fickless spoke to Wil, interrupting his abstraction, so Adam now lent an ear.

Having missed out on the morning meal, first of the two to be served each day, there’d now be nowt until supper. Food is reasonable, the fellow reckoned, porridge meal or gruel each morning, bread with something from a stew-pot for supper. Water pail and ladle are by the door. This chamber is transfer point for lags awaiting trial or on call for the hulks. Long-term confinement convicts are luckier, he reckoned...they have work, jobs for public benefit like working the laundry...

I wish I could send my blanket to them.

There seemed not much trouble among the lags; most bickerings were over petty jealousies, squabbles over bed-mates. There were rapes in which some took avid interest, as many as there were those who carefully avoided doing so. Wil made no comment when Fickless finished; he always reckoned, same as Adam, that what he didn’t know would unfold later, that then would be soon enough to think on it.

Adam’s belly was sorry they missed breakfast, yet the pressure from Wil’s elbow was comfort. Friendship with Wil was the nicest thing to happen to Adam when little, real little...and the niceness had remained. His life had been happy since Wil joined the troop.

He let his mind drift to when it comprised but himself, Ringer, Tom and Fickless...

When Ringer had bought Adam from a home to join the troop, Tom was a big boy for twelve. Fickless was eight. Adam reckoned he must then have been about six. Ringer was forever telling the boys they were brothers, that the four made a family. Fickless had had real parents. He remembered them from before a plague took them. He knew his age because he had a locket with a curl of baby hair, and the date was scratched on it.

Ringer had said he’d care for it until Fickless growed, but Adam reckoned Ringer sold it to a fence straight off.

Ringer’s not the sort to believe anyone else has a right to anything worth a bob.

Then Ringer brought Wil home, got him from somewhere. Wil and Adam were of an age, and Adam had to teach Wil the ropes as they called their work.

Tom’s job was breaking into houses where people were mindless enough to leave a window unlatched, to nick good stuff....things Ringer could sell. Fickless was a dab at lifting. Anything a pocket could hold was fair game for him. Adam and Wil were the ‘vittles’ vagrants.

We feed the troop, nickin’ pastries, pork pies, apples, saddles of hogget, anything we can snitch with a clear chance of scarpin’ it afore a serious chase can mount. When we have a good day, all the family eats well. But we gotta stay in our patch. Any shaver foolish enough to trespass on another troop’s patch is in for it.

Always nick at ‘ome, Ringer kept telling them, because it was he who got into strife from other ringers if his boys strayed. Then Scratcher arrived, he who Adam never liked. Even Adam, whose surname Ringer twisted from Ashby to Ashes because he was always so grimy, considered Scratcher not simply dirty but putrid.

Ringer calls him Scratcher because when bucketing an old lady he leaves a scratch so deep that her pain stops her yellin’ ‘Stop thief’ until he’s into ‘is bolt. I reckon it’s because he’s always pickin’ at all ‘is sores. All over ‘is face and arms they are. And when ‘is breeches are down to crap in the poop-pail, they’re on ‘is backside too.

Always threatening to run off to sea was Scratcher, and it was one of Adam’s happiest moments when one morning they woke to find he’d scarped it during the night, nicking off with Tom’s haul while Ringer slept off a drunken stupor.

Yet it was Wil who gave Adam the only friendship he ever knew. Tom was a dandy bragger, ever boasting about being both oldest and Ringer’s favourite. The boys slept in the attic of the derelict warehouse they called home, where Adam and Wil cuddled to keep warm. First time in his life Adam had ever been properly cuddled was when Wil came and Ringer made them sleep together.

Them wot sleep tergether work best tergether, was one of his many mottos.

Only really nice thing Ringer ever did for us.

Over the years, the two became brothers in essence, not only reading the other’s thoughts by instinct but learning to depend on each other in making decisions...and for succour and support they never got from anyone else. They became one. Adam even came to believe they were twins in every essence, two halves of a whole.

If ever I had a real brother, I know I’d want him to be Wil.

Then one day they came home with their hauls to find Ringer had bolted, no doubt paid a roustabout to help him load his trunk of ‘good stuff,’ to hightail it to anywhere. Didn’t even leave the boys a farthing to see them on their way.

Can’t trust anyone, can yer, Wil? Adam remembered expounding.

Then Tom was nabbed and sent to the hulks, reducing the troop to only Adam, Wil and Fickless. As shavers they always believed it would happen to them too, either today or tomorrow or on some distant day, simply because it was common sense that they couldn’t stay lucky all their lives. And old Newitt’s house should have been a cinch.

Just rotten luck it was, that he and his mountain of a wife arrived home early to catch us sussin’ through drawers and cupboards. Now here we are in Newgate, soon to join Tom on the hulks. Little chance now to ever achieve the goal of dreams, discover the magic of a world that man hasn’t spoiled with greed and graft, where people can be trusted to do a good turn rather than bad, who believe in the power of fellowship, a place where people have dignity instead of shame, honour and honesty instead of stealth.

If ever there could be such a place, what a marvellous thing to dream of, imagine oneself part of. But now with the hulks looming, there can only be even greater degradation and shame, the disgrace of chains, torture, and the lash.

A tear rolled down his cheek.

Three

In Newgate’s stinking latrine was Adam’s first chance to converse with an older lag. They stood alongside, pissing into a trough, the end of which disappeared through a hole in the wall.

What they get yer for? the lag asked.

Nickin’.

Shavin’ long?

Long’s I can remember.

What’s yer name?

Adam Ashby.

I’m Joe, Joey Tuso. Caught boltin’, was yer?

Adam told him how they were caught in the act.

‘Ow old is yer?

Adam reckoned he and Wil were fourteen, Fickless sixteen. Joe knew the procedure; his trial was over, and he was waiting transfer to the hulks. He reckoned at fourteen and sixteen they should get no more than seven years.

If you was older, yer’d cop fourteen if the magistrate is ‘avin’ a bad day.

They were eventually charged....

...burglariously and feloniously breaking and entering the dwelling house of John Newitt, about the hour of five in the afternoon, on the 26th of March 1784, no person being therein, and burglariously stealing therein, one marcella petticoat, value 8s, one child’s dimity cloak, value 3s, one linen gown, value 1s6d, one pair of cotton stockings, value 6d, the property of the said John Newitt...[Actual court record]

The trial would come up late April.

They discussed the importance of not troubling their minds during the wait. It would be a guilty verdict without doubt, and should they get fourteen years, they would suffer the pain of knowing it then. No point worrying about what wasn’t clear. Yet Adam’s big problem wasn’t the length of sentence, it was what he’d worried about ever since he and Wil became friends.

On his next occasion in the latrine he stood between two other lads.

You nabbed with a brother?

Nah, said he on the left, introducing himself as Johnny Owen.

I was wiff a mate, said the lad on his right. Wot of it?

Adam asked if he and his mate were given the same sentence and would they serve it together? The lad assured him that usual practice was that those caught together were sentenced together, to serve time together. Which satisfied Adam. Waiting for the trial would be easier knowing he and Wil wouldn’t be separated.

Many boys in troop life aligned themselves emotionally to troop brothers. Some even sexually. The life of hard knocks was sad when you had no one to share the loneliness, fears and insecurities, and it was a simple step for growing lads to as well share the awakenings their bodies experienced. Adam knew it happened, knew some who talked about it as well as some who carefully didn’t. But he was thankful Wil never showed inclination. It was a strength of their honesty that they could talk about it, laugh about those who found excitement in it.

Funny, Wil, Adam once said, we wouldn’t be such good mates if trying that.

Wil had replied, Wouldn’t be no fun jackin’ off with others watchin’, even you.

THEY WERE CHAINED AGAIN on the day for crossing the square to the courthouse, and whilst this time the chains instilled less fear, they were no less uncomfortable. Apart from physical hurt, nipping and pinching with every movement to abrade the skin, drawing blood even with careful movement, chains robbed one of any semblance of bolstered confidence, albeit false, for going into court.

And any confidence one might have is quickly dashed on arrival, despite trying bravado.

Then waiting in the daunting Old Bailey, trepidation was the main emotion.

When their turn came, they were led clanking into the Justice Hall where following events were overawing. A courtroom was an intimidating place at any time, yet for accused it seemed to compress from all sides, making one want to cringe. Adam had never seen such grand surroundings nor heard language like the toffs talked. The witnesses were easier to understand, especially the gross Newitt shrew who had screamed and ranted when he was captured, and again now in her evidence, pointing accusing fingers. But when eventually the man in the black cloak said Guilty, they knew it was near over, that they’d soon know their fate. They reckoned they knew it anyway. He used a lot of words, more than Adam and Wil ever used, and they recognised seven years and something about transported that was no surprise either.

A man who had come to prison to tell them about the charge was in court, in fact did much of the talking they didn’t understand. Afterwards, he explained that ‘transported’ meant sending to a country over the sea. Adam reckoned he meant France because France was the only country over the sea that he knew of, but they were told it had been a place called America until a war stopped England sending convicts there. Felons were now kept on ships in the river. It made scant sense to Adam and Wil, yet Fickless reckoned he understood. He would explain later.

They’d rather Fickless explain it anyway because they could understand him. And when they were alone together, he did.

We go back to prison and wait.

Back in Newgate, it was chains off and into the same chamber.

It was all such a waste of time, especially knowing what would happen.

So again they were in the situation of waiting until told what happens next.

Some lags knew conditions on the hulks were bad, many chained all the time.

Must be wrong, Wil. No chains here, so why there?

Yet having accepted they were there anyway, little else worried him. What had been the big concern was one no longer...he and Wil would stay together. He could now accept whatever they suffered.

What I miss most is us havin’ time ter be just together. Every day in the troop we was out and about together, makin’ our own decisions. But here, one can’t avoid crowds...there can no real togetherness. Maybe things will be better on the hulk?

Yet they could still sneak private moments at night, a touch of fingers so each would know sympathy was at hand.

Four

Each Newgate day became more difficult to suffer. Even after six weeks they found the continual damp no easier to bear.

Thank God we won’t be here in winter. Surely no man could suffer it.

The persistent stench of the latrine assailed their nostrils more as time went on...a sickening presence they couldn’t avoid. Yet the most difficult hardship, greater even than the unpalatable food, was boredom. The only excitement apart from the entertainment of arguments was when someone