She'll Be Right, Mate

By Greta Harvey

Set in northern Tasmania and the Bega area of New South Wales, Greta Harvey's latest novel takes us from convict days to recent times. The hardships of a convict ship are nothing compared to the struggles of a widowed cattle farmer during drought, and the clandestine domestic violence of a highly regarded professional against his long suffering

• Language: English
• Publisher: Margaret Harris
• Release date: Mar 6, 2024
• ISBN: 9780648530190

Greta Harvey

Greta Harvey is a proud Aussie who lives in a peaceful seaside area of Southern Tasmania where it's conducive to writing. Each of herbooks is set in different states of Australia with true-blue Aussie characters, quaint lingo and quirky humour. Her flair for detaileddescription brings you right into the stories so that you're living in the pages too.

Book preview

Part One

MORAG

Chapter One

Stumbling and rushing to keep up with her livid father, fuelled with rage and gripping her belongings tied in an old shawl given her by the kindly cook, Morag tried her utmost to make him believe her. Her eyebrows, heavy as her father’s, knotted in anguish, as she sobbed.

‘But Da, you ken I don’t tell untruths. It wasn’t my fault at all,’ she beseeched him.

Donal was gutted, didn’t even want to give her the benefit of the doubt. What would his dear Katherine say? It‘d just break her heart, too. Then there’s the priest and the villagers.

She was frightened. She’d never known his anger before. Theirs was a loving relationship and a humble God-fearing and decent home. He didn’t even turn around or notice that she’d tripped as they made their way along the craggy hillside, to an uncertain reception back at their croft.

Her formidable mother was waiting grim-faced at the open door with arms folded, ready to do battle, her sharp eyes sweeping bitterly over her daughter’s midriff. Donal swiftly glanced at her and stalked off to the barn to catch up on his chores that were way behind now, thanks to his errant daughter. He wouldn’t like to be in Morag’s shoes. Her mother strove to do her very best in instilling decency and morals in her only girl.

Taking in the teary state of her favourite offspring, she just pointed to the kitchen chair. A few frozen minutes ticked by, interrupted only by the rooster out in the backyard.

‘Right, lass. Explain yourself.’

Morag looked up gingerly at her mother’s severe face and took in a shuddering breath as she began to relate her woeful tale, glancing at her mother only twice, her stony expression unaltered.

At fourteen, Morag had a placement as housemaid in Athol Brae Hall. Her father had found it for her, even though he’d recently heard of the wild gallivanting of Iain, the second son. Athol, the father, was well respected and a benevolent master, with long and illustrious bloodlines. His first born and heir, Athol, was abroad, which left Iain idle at home with his doting mother. The missus hadn’t taken to Morag right from the start, especially when she had noticed the attention Athol and Iain paid the pretty maid. With her sky-blue eyes and fiery auburn hair, she was a striking beauty indeed. She’d been aware that Athol spent more time looking at her than he should.

Athol senior was a fair and decent man with a highly astute business mind, though he bowed down to his pampered wife. He found it easier to turn a blind eye to his sons’ antics. His wife said that’s just boys being boys, although his eldest had seemed to settle down. In his opinion, their mother spoilt the boys and kept an overly-possessive rein on them. He had no say in their upbringing. He didn’t want to be at the end of her caustic tongue, so kept to himself just to keep the peace. Life was easier that way. Anyway, he had his own interests to keep him busy outside the home—running the estate, business and with a certain delectable lady in town.

As Morag finished with her distressing account, Katherine left the table and filled the teapot from the continually simmering kettle on the wood fire hob. She stirred the stovie that was bubbling away for tea, sighed and slumped back down in the chair again.

‘Well, the way I see it, with a bairn showing soon …’ She was interrupted by the sounds of the boys chatting as they removed their boots before entering the kitchen. The door swung open and Connell and Fionne’s expression changed from weariness to joy when they saw their beloved sister there. Turning to Morag, Katherine said, ‘You go up. We’ll discuss this later, after your Da and I’ve discussed this matter.’

Morag slowly dragged her aching legs up the narrow steps to her tiny attic room. She lay on her bed, awaiting her fate, and drifted off until baby Callum started his squawking. She knew there wouldn’t be much chance of a great deal of sleep tonight. She watched the shadows changing on the wall as she imagined the haunting prospect of being sent in shame to the dreaded workhouse.

Apart from the boys’ usual prattle, it wasn’t the normal easy chatter around the kitchen table that night. The brothers were unaware of the sombre atmosphere. When the children were packed off to bed, Morag was conscious of the steady hum of her parents’ voices. She lay awake feeling totally alone for the first time in her life, tormented by uncomfortable and frightening scenes. She had really enjoyed working at Athol Brae, all except for the sniping missus forever finding fault with her work and that awful Iain’s unwanted attentions. Cook had been a great comfort to her and the rest of the staff were pleasant too. Cook always slipped her a basket of assorted bridies, a quarter of a ham hock for making soup, some day-old cake or whatever was left over for her to take home to the croft. Katherine and the boys always made a party out of it as it was a change from their usual meagre fare. The boys also contributed to the table from down at the shore, bringing back oysters and mussels. Donal occasionally went out in his punt and brought back haddock or whatever was biting. The family enjoyed Katherine’s cullen skint and Morag’s favourite was the way her mother made her kedgeree. Well, that’s all stopped now, as well as the comforting friendship and cozy chats with Cook in that big homely kitchen.

The work hadn’t been too time-consuming and when the family went away to their town house, she had spent a lot of time with the seamstress who was glad of the cheerful girl’s company and happily taught her what she knew. Morag proved to be keen and adept, quick to learn with the needle. She also enjoyed these quiet and peaceful days as she fancy-worked around the edges of a handkerchief for her mother. She was left alone. She’d already finished monogramming some for her father and brothers.

Cook was the only one there who was on her side and the missus ordered her out of the house when her waist had started to thicken. There were accusations of her flaunting herself, and good riddance was the missus’s red-faced retort as she spat her rage and spite at her. She’d even threatened Cook herself with the sack if she’d said another word in Morag’s defence before being ordered back to the kitchen where she belonged. Sent home in utter disgrace. Bean maich leibh were the last words Cook had said to her with regret in her eyes. Oh yes, she’d need more than good luck.

Morag knew how mortified and embarrassed her Da was, and that he’d procured the position there, due to a favour once for the master when he’d come across his carriage wedged in a ditch. The cartwheels were well and truly stuck in the deep ravine. The driver was bent over the reins in pain and, gaunt and pale, was clutching at his chest. By all accounts, he’d had some type of turn and Athol was leaning over him with much concern, trying to comfort the man. Donal had, by chance, been returning from the market in Capel Celyn not far from where they lived in the Tryweryn Valley when he’d come across them. He helped the sick man and Athol onto his cart, then harnessed the two fine horses behind and took them past Weavers Row and the cottages where industrious housewives made the well-liked paisley shawls, back home to Athol Brae. As he spoke to the two men, he looked over the magnificent vista of the misty Cambrians where they lived. That good deed had been paid with Morag’s employment but now that’s been thrown in his face.

* * *

Will this hellish black nightmare on this putrid vessel ever end? Six months below deck on rough seas. The cries, moans, sour stench of vomit and excrement from all the other ragged, verminous urchins aboard the Duchess of Northumberland convict ship was terrible. Women of all ages and walks of life were a worn out, undernourished lot. One pockmarked crone with remaining green lucent teeth from the mercury that she was administered to treat syphilis was a nasty sly piece of work. She had arrived years ago on the Anson and the others tried to keep away from her. Not that it was easy in such cramped spaces. Bullies, seasickness, abuse, thievery and illness didn’t make the miserable journey any nicer. Everyone, young and old had to always be on the lookout. Not a day went by that Peggy hadn’t regretted her fickle impulsiveness in setting fire to those haystacks. She had heard that she could get free transportation to a new colony and way of life in the Antipodes, but this certainly wasn’t what she had expected.

When sober, her mother had always warned her against doing the wrong thing but she had been desperate. Her mother had died of the plague, along with her little brother and younger sister. Now she was all alone and in dire straits with nothing to look forward to. Her father had been killed in a blood-thirsty riot against the English some years back. Rogue landlords and the potato famine had destroyed any sense of hope. Her mother had tried her best to put food on the table by bringing strange men home and Siobhan and she would comb the mean streets for things to nick for a price but their mother tended mainly to pour it down her neck when they gave it to her. Peggy couldn’t see Siobhan. The last that she’d set eyes on her was when, along with all the other prisoners, she had been herded away somewhere below deck on this stinking tub.

Now 4.30 in the predawn, the convicts were shivering, lined up on the icy dock in Brickfields hiring fair at Sullivan’s Cove on the River Derwent, barefoot and silent. Glancing over the line up through pus-infested eyes, Peggy still couldn’t spot her sister, through what seemed like hundreds of other ragged women and children, who at the age of seven were considered adults. She shouldn’t be too hard to spot as she had the same blazing ginger hair as she had. Even though they all felt wretched and cold, trying to get their land legs, they were glad to be off that stinking creaking vessel at last.

The surgeon and a matron smelling distinctly of rum were responsible for deciding whether they were model prisoners, probationers or just prostitutes, the general scum of society. They were ordered to march quietly to the Female Factory under the gigantic mountain in the freezing foggy dawn.

Staggering through the grim sandstone enclosures, they were stripped, rags burnt and their verminous greasy hair roughly shaved off. The tresses were sold, to be mixed with horsehair for bricks and mortar, as government income. Then they were scrubbed in icy water with carbolic soap that stung their eyes and open festering cuts. Yelled at by the guards, they were given a mop cap, a worsted grey cotton dress, apron and stockings, one layer of clothing only and two shoes which had no left or right fitting, and had been tooled by the male convicts at Port Arthur.

Terrified, Peggy and the others were herded into the assembly yard where they were soundly ridiculed, scorned and instructed on what their lives would now entail. She was selected to work in the spinning and carding room. By now, Van Diemen’s Land produced merino sheep, and the wool provided a lucrative income for the government. The daily toil was long and tedious. For the sake of the fleeces though, it was the cleanest workroom. Everywhere else was wet, muddy and icy cold. There were no comforting fires or warm water at all for the likes of them.

When Peggy had difficulty with that job because her eyes became worse, she was placed into the nursery. There were a few undernourished mothers and the feeble silent babies lay, two or three in a flea-ridden wooden crib with rank straw. There was no crooning allowed to the babies and everyone was silent, except for the guards, and the babies were just too weak to cry. After two weeks of their mothers’ milk, they were fed the same watery gruel and grey bread as the prisoners. After the age of two years, the babies were given new names and were placed into the orphanage in New Town. A motionless and pathetic baby’s body was the daily norm in the nursery.

Nevertheless, at 4:45 each day, the women were out at the tubs. There was a stinking tannery and rum distillery up the hill on Mt. Wellington. Refuse was emptied into a gushing stream containing impurities and cholera. This was what they drank and washed in. The dismal day was long with no conversation or eye contact. They used ice water and carbolic soap to wash horse blankets, coats and clothes for free settlers who paid the jail for this service.

Thin numb limbs with weeping, ulcerous, peeling raw flesh, cracked and inflamed skin from the scrubbing were common, along with chilblains. Tinea, herpes, dysentery, flies, malnutrition and influenza all took their toll on the miserable wretches. Throughout the prison, starvation was the norm with their concave bellies growling, and coughing was continually heard with the damp slime evident everywhere inside the bleak walls. The old lags who’d been there for years remembered the time that the tedium was broken and they got a bit of respite. Once, some benevolent soldiers had tossed some crusts and cheese over the walls, but the food was confiscated after the women were noticed scurrying after it, causing a short-lived riot.

On Sundays at the chapel, they were segregated into partitioned cubicles, only able to see the minister and not each other. Afterwards, everybody was mustered for punishment, being told what they’d done wrong during the previous week.

One dismal morning a few months after Peggy’s incarceration, a new inmate came in from the solitary cells. She looked about 50 but there again, they all probably did. She glanced at her while the guard was busy. She saw a skeletal, mean-faced female, squinting as she hobbled painfully. She was to sleep in the same cramped quarters, sharing the hammocks in the chilly and poky cell. There was something about this defiant woman that wasn’t apparent in the other brow-beaten inmates. Was it the bitterness that showed in her eyes? No, maybe her jutting chin, her head held high with determined spirit. Her hands were calloused and blistered, and she seemed disorientated as she humped against the brick wall after being viciously shoved into the cell. The door slammed shut. Peggy bent down to help her up, feeling compassion for her beaten cellmate, whispering comfort to her. Sheelagh was suspicious at first but welcomed such an act of kindness. Peggy warned her quietly about the strict rules and over time, the pair struck up a dependent form of friendship.

Sheelagh had grown up trying her best to survive on the streets of London. They had come from Ireland originally in the hope of a better life. She and her older brother roamed the alleyways, trying to keep out of the way of their drunken lout of a father who brutalised them at the drop of a hat. Their cowed and careworn mother had died at the birthing of a stillborn baby. There was no money to pay for the midwife, as she went without to feed the children. Too weak to take in washing as many of her neighbours did to make up the shortfall that her husband freely gave to the pub, it was a depressing way of life for her. Sometimes, a kindly widow woman up the lane dropped a basin of scouse to their mother.

Mostly, the two children wandered the streets simply for safety and survival. Dealing with bedbugs, fleas and lice constantly, a stale heel of bread and rancid fat were their fare. Illiterate, they both lived by their wits. Street cunning, Sheelagh’s brother had taught her how to dodge the vegetable and fruit barrowman and they would proudly take whatever confiscated foodstuff they could home to their thankful mother before she’d died.

Their father was dragged away by the police after a drunken brawl one evening and the children were thrown out on the street. Dread and a deep-seated fear of the poorhouse where poor old Granny had ended up, kept the children even more vigilant. They slept in doorways and lived to exist and escape the law.

One day, Peggy’s luck ran out and she was scruffed by the neck by a bobby who had been following her after complaints from the irate marketers. Unfortunately for her that morning, she’d pinched a fob watch that a drunken man had left on the bench when he’d removed his coat and gone to relieve himself behind the nearby trees. She hastily scurried off but the bobby’s longer legs were quicker than hers. One hand on each of the waifs, he marched them away to the lockup. Of her brother’s whereabouts from that day, she had no idea.

‘I’m keeping my eye on you, girl,’ snarled the matron who knew that she was a troublemaker that wouldn’t be broken, if ever she’d seen one. She was too pretty for her own good, that one. Well, she had been when she first arrived. This was why she’d decided to select her for the lineup in which titled gentlemen or farmers on occasion would come to view and choose one for a maid or cook. Hopefully, she’d see the end of her.

Model convicts could be chosen as servants to do whatever the settlers wanted, some even with the view of procuring a wife. They could serve out their terms in this way. They were highly sought after as there was such a scarcity of women. The sick, slovenly and troublemakers were left behind. The chosen would march single file to be viewed. Prospective masters carefully eyed the ragged women with handkerchiefs held up against their noses, the smell of poverty apparent in the stale odour emitted from the malnourished motley group. Some had wives with them but not too many as there was one woman to ten men in the colony. A good woman was hard to find.

The convicts tried their utmost to make themselves as comely as they could. Some even tried to smile but the effect was more of a grimace showing rotten, blackened or knocked out teeth. They dearly hoped they’d be picked and escape this hellhole; nothing could be worse than where they were. They were willing to take the risk of being raped and therefore returned. Some may even be lucky and score a kind master. At least they had a chance.

Matron never picked Sheelagh as she was usually in punishment for insolence and insubordination. One day she’d had enough. She had an inkling that the pair of troublemakers, Peggy and Sheelagh, were as thick as thieves, which of course they were. So they were both put in the lineup. She’d get rid of her one way or the other. Sheelagh was chosen much to Matron’s delight, even though she knew she wasn’t suitable. She was unceremoniously dumped back after five months, as she had gotten herself in trouble. Lying whore, fancy blaming a high-standing gentleman whose word obviously she’d trust.

For pregnant females, sluts and prostitutes, their punishment was solitary working confinement, so thirty days in a dark, muddy and cold cell. Matron really made it her mission to punish Sheelagh and hoped the ordeal of the spiked collar around her neck that sent many of them crazy, hence making it impracticable to lie down, may reform and break her. Her job in the dark was to undo lengths of hemp rope for the fibres to be then used for stuffing in caulking for boats.

There were two buckets, one for water and the other for body waste. Bread and water was passed through to her daily. Barnacles and seaweed cut into her sore and stinging fingers, her body stiff from sitting so uncomfortably. Incarceration couldn’t rob her of her mind; determination and take one day at a time, she vowed.

Sheelagh was silent for the next three months, until it came time for her to give birth. Her baby was taken away by the surgeon, who said it was stillborn but she was sure through all the agony that she’d heard a squawk. She just knew.

Sheelagh’s seven years was nearly completed. The defiant glint in her eye and proud challenge of her stance grabbed the attention of one portly gentleman. She boldly stared back at him as he sized her up. She’d miss the friendship of Peggy but there was nothing she could do about it.

Peggy’s job now was in the washhouse. Her weak and wheezing chest caught the notice of the bombastic surgeon on one of his visits so he instructed that she be placed somewhere less damp. She was assigned to the cookhouse which pleased her immensely. The tantalising smells drove her mad as the steaming nutritious meals were prepared for the staff. There was rarely any opportunity to pilfer anything though as the beady eye of the sherry-swilling, pockmarked cook seemed always on her. Peggy swore she had eyes in the back of her wizened and miserable old head.

Whenever cook bent down to get a pot or was in the larder though, Peggy grabbed her chance and scooped a handful of whatever she could then. She didn’t show any observable physical benefit for it but did feel a tad more energetic. She worked the cookhouse for another eighteen months, not that she had any idea of how long until her time was up and she’d be hopefully handed her ticket of leave and a regulatory stern warning. Seven years had felt like four lifetimes. She’d kept out of trouble and kept her own counsel and was amenable to orders, no matter how many blows she copped or the extra loads of work heaped on her.

Her life changed for the better or worse, she didn’t yet know which, when a toff accompanied by his distinguished wife chose her from the hiring lineup to come and work as a skivvy at their station. Regretful but excited, she bade a hasty farewell to Sheelagh to nervously face what her uncertain future would be. There was little doubt that they’d ever see each other again.

* * *

A few miles further south, lived Wesley Crisp. Despite a few failed business ventures, he finally struck it right with the breeding of merino sheep. That was turning out to be an extremely lucrative business for him. He had the old lags and ex-cons working for him, and sometimes free settlers as well. There was only one rule and that was no grog permitted, due to a chap in the early days sneaking in a few bottles of sly grog, which had caused a fight to break out.

They were all well fed and housed. It wasn’t beneath Wesley, or Mr. Crisp as they called him, to be seen with sleeves rolled up and toiling amongst them at any given time, no matter what the chore. Come Sunday mornings at nine sharp, they gathered out on the verandah where he’d read a passage from the bible. They could suit themselves on what they did for the rest of the day, which was usually the washing of their clothes, sleeping or wandering around the property at their leisure. A few played cards while one of them whittled on a twig or other creative projects they were working on, or went to town to visit the alehouse.

Wesley heard via correspondence with his brother that his old chum, Harry, was so impressed by Wesley’s success that he emigrated to New South Wales with his new wife. From what he could gather by the tactful hints, it was assumed that Harry had got the girl in trouble. Not that it was his business; he was just delighted that he made the move. Wesley, much to his family’s chagrin and disapproval always got on famously well with Harry the smithy.

‘So Harry’s setting up a blacksmith shop over there. One of these days I’ll make the trip over to see him,’ he told his righthand man Sid, who nodded. ‘We always got on like a house on fire. Always up to some mischief and he’s always good for a laugh, but I’ll wait till he’s more settled though.’

Lately, Wesley had been entertaining the idea of going into the apple industry. He had the land and there was regular rainfall. The soil was fertilised and well enriched by the sheep. His family back home had accepted and pardoned him by now because of his diligence and success. Too late, he’d made a good life living here; he had no desire to go back to that pretentious and stifling way of life.

Wesley was a fine affable fellow, for a toff. Maybe it had something to do with him being a free-thinking remittance man sent out from the old country. He was a bit of a rebel and non-conformist and took a man at face value. Turned out to be a good cobber and an iron clad dependable friendship had ensued between him and Sid. Sid himself was a lag but now a free man. As a young bloke, he’d been nabbed and put in chains, then transported. He had a fair master in Mr. Crisp, or Wesley as he’d long ago been invited to call him. Sid had served his term on Wesley’s isolated property over the misty mountains. Mutual respect for each other had grown over the years. In fact, nowadays, more often than not, especially in the chilly evenings, they’d share the night’s meal and an intense and enjoyable game of chess afterwards. Wesley had even painstakingly taught him his letters. Sid was content to remain there and was gifted the little hut that he spent his spare time on extending to hopefully induce a prospective wife one day there to share it with. All the wood that he needed was on the land. He had a wage and a nice little nest egg now.

Wesley’s neighbours respected him as a man of his word, even though there’d been a few raised eyebrows at his rather unorthodox ways, particularly regarding his lax treatment of the convicts, as if they were on the same social footing, No floggings or punishment happened on his station. As a result, he got the best out of his workers and nobody absconded or even wanted to, hence making his property thrive as one of the richest around the area.

Wesley was doing business in town today and Sid had, after dropping him off, parked the cart outside the Cascades Female Factory. The two men had discussed Sid getting himself a companion with perhaps a notion to looking to marry. If she was suitable, she could work in the main house as a cook/housekeeper. Someone with experience in the kitchen was a must.

This morning at the lineup of gaunt, tattered human wretches before him, Sid took his time in the perusal of who he might find suitable for himself and Wesley. While he felt heartsick, sensing their despair, he knew how they felt. His attention was taken by the one with the devil in her eyes. There was something wrong with her eyes but her gaze was sharp and challenging. He kept going back to her for some reason while discarding the other urchins. He turned and strolled off to the matron to inquire about her history and came back and gave her the nod. Now he needed another strong capable girl. As he waited for the negotiations to take place, he decided to go to one of the nearby taverns with her. It’d be a chance to get to know her too.

She impressed him as a spritely wench and after some initial shyness with him, began explaining about her friend Sheelagh and her previous life. She said that it was a pity that her other friend Honora wasn’t coming too. She’d never forget how she kept the bullies away from her on the voyage. She hadn’t put forward any further recommendations.

Sid scratched his bushy beard, realising that the station was well over half a day’s ride away. Aware of the time, he didn’t want to let Wesley down, so they headed back to the prison. Sheelagh was standing beside him, bold as punch as he spoke to the matron again about Honora but sadly, she was too ill to be considered. It would just have to wait for the next time they came to town. He now had to go into Davey Street to pick Wesley up. He’d dallied enough and it was getting late.

Chapter Two

Morag’s parents