One of Us Buried by Johanna Craven (year 2 reading books TXT) 📕

I stood in the middle of the alley, clenching my teeth at her stubbornness. I debated whether to argue.

Think of your son, I wanted to say. But I held my words. In spite of, or perhaps because of all life had thrown at her, Lottie had a pride about her. A pride, I saw then, that would not let her accept charity from a sasanaigh. No matter how well meaning.

“And you’ll not change your mind?”

“No, Nell,” she said, hand on her hip. “I’ll not change my mind.”

Dejected as I was, a part of me understood. Being a cause for Blackwell’s charity had stung. I’d not stopped to think I might be cutting Lottie as deeply. And what could I do but give a nod of understanding and head back towards the tavern?

*

Sydney Town was refreshing. In Parramatta, I’d seen the same stale faces walk the streets each day, added to only once or twice, when a new shipment of convicts had come crawling up the river.

But Sydney reminded me there was more to this world than the sand and stone of New South Wales. The Whaler’s Arms was full of merchants, of sailors, of settlers with big dreams. They spoke of their new homes and their old, raged against the governor, the Rum Corps, the English, the Irish. I listened in on as many conversations as I could as I wiped tables and refilled glasses.

Did you hear young Bobby’s been pardoned?

Can’t get a thing to grow in this soil.

Bligh’s behaving like God himself…

Soldiers and farmers, and emancipists celebrating with one too many ales. Sailors with hands that felt like tree bark when they pressed their coins into my palm.

I knew what the sailors were after, of course. Their eyes would gleam as they leaned across the bar to order their drinks, hands lingering against mine when I passed them their change. I was always quick to let them know I was no good for anything but putting a drink in their hands. But sometimes, when the tavern was quiet, I would listen to them speak. Hear them tell tale after tale of their travels. I needed to hear of that faraway world. Needed that reminder that we weren’t all alone out here.

“London,” I said to one. “Have you been to London?”

The sailor was older, with grey streaks dashed through his dark hair. Had a round, rough voice that spoke of coasts and cliffs and wrecks. He said:

“Aye. Of course. Was in London not a year ago.”

“Tell me of it,” I said wistfully, as though the place were paradise and not the hell I’d sailed out of with blood on my boots. I rested my chin in my palm and listened as he told me of strikes against the wars in Europe. Of the gas lights that had lit up Pall Mall as though it were morning.

“And this place?” I dared to ask. “What do they think of us back home?”

The sailor chuckled. “Every hot-blooded man has a mind to visit. They say them factory lasses are a good thing.”

As I had learned in Parramatta, we lived in a deeply divided colony. The Whaler’s Arms saw its fair share of croppies, who huddled in the back corners and murmured beneath clouds of pipe smoke. Though I never saw Owen or Brady among them, I was constantly on edge at the prospect of another uprising. I’d sidle past tables in hope of catching fragments of English. The murmured Gaelic made it all too easy to imagine them plotting their next rebellion. I felt a pang of shame as I thought back to the two croppies in Parramatta. Tied to the triangle for speaking their own tongue.

But while the croppies kept to themselves, the tension among the Englishmen was no less stark. Most evenings, the Whaler’s rang with terse voices as the farmers and enlisted men argued the way forward.

“Would you listen to them?” Charlie snorted, passing a glass of rum to the older gentleman sitting at the bar. “Harping on like fishwives.”

I peered over at the throng of men. Tonight there was plenty of them; half in their lobster coats, the others in the faded shirts and breeches of the men who worked the land. “What are they arguing about?”

“Love for Governor Bligh,” said Charlie. “Or lack of it. Redcoats are losing their mind cos he’s taking away their liquor stills.” He looked over at the gentleman he had just served. “What do you make of all this, Flynn?”

The older man chuckled. “Heaven forbid we stop trading in liquor like savages and use the grain for bread instead.”

I’d grown to like Arthur Flynn, with his neat frock coats and polished boots, a far cry from the mud-caked lags who usually tramped through this place. In the three weeks since I’d begun working at the Whaler’s, he’d appeared on several occasions, always with a kind word for me.

Charlie nodded at the glass in Flynn’s hand. “Didn’t see you coming in here and ordering a loaf of bread.”

Flynn chuckled. “Quite right. But all things in moderation.”

“Get rid of the rum stills like Bligh wants and this place’ll fall apart,” said Charlie. “We’re in a colony of drunkards.”

Flynn lifted his glass. “Exactly. And if we’re to flourish, then that must change. Bligh’s done damn fine work here, if you ask me. Half of us holding land would have lost everything we had if it weren’t for him. The Rum Corps would have bought all our land for pennies and ended up with this entire place to their name.”

 “My business is flourishing just nicely, thank you very much,” said Charlie. “It’s all those fine drunkards that are keeping me in business.”

I smiled.

Flynn turned, catching me listening. He gave me a warm smile.