Break your chains, p.14
Break Your Chains, page 14
From talking to Sarah, you know that you might be taken away by a man who will beat you, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Some of the convict women gaze up beseechingly; others stare back at the men with a steady, furious scowl. Most of the women, including you, seem to spend these regular sessions looking mutely at their toes.
‘Mister Lachlan Seamus O’Riordan,’ the overseer announces to the guard, and a man is ushered into the courtyard.
Your ears prick up at the Irish name. It almost seems like you’ve heard it before.
Lachlan … Seamus … O’Ri— Oh! LSO!
You head snaps up, and there he is: lanky body wrapped in an overcoat, ginger hair falling over his brow, and pale-blue eyes as sweet as the summer’s sky.
‘I have your handkerchief!’ you cry out, before you can stop yourself. The women around you titter as you mumble, ‘I mean … they … they took it from me, when I came here.’
You feel as stupid as the time when you were ten that you tripped over carrying a tray of eggs.
‘Silence!’ snarls the prison guard.
But Mr O’Riordan is looking at you very kindly. ‘How could I forget you?’ he asks, and there is tenderness in his voice.
The prison guard looks astonished, and a little disgusted. Mr O’Riordan notices, and immediately changes his tone.
‘She’ll do. Come with me,’ he orders with curt authority.
‘Polly over there is a much stronger worker, and better behaved by a country mile,’ the guard admonishes him.
But Mr O’Riordan is having none of that, and you are out the door, by his side, within minutes.
He leads you to his horse-and-cart, has you sit up beside him rather than on the back, and heads out immediately towards his homestead, which he tells you is at Crayfish Point, where the Derwent River widens and mingles with the sea.
You are so stunned by what’s just happened that you can barely utter a word.
Then Mr O’Riordan shocks you further by taking one of your hands in his. ‘Now, tell me what I’ve wondered since I first met you,’ he says softly. ‘Are you, or are you not, the daughter of Patrick Sean Ryan?’
Your heart is pounding giddily. You take a deep breath and squeeze his hand. ‘Yes! He’s my da. Tell me everything you know!’ You pause, remembering your manners. ‘If you please, Mr O’Riordan, sir.’
‘Call me Lachlan,’ he replies, and the broadest grin you’ve ever seen almost splits his face in two. ‘Well … where do I begin? Your da and I know each other through the Irish independence movement. He fought bravely in the Irish Rebellion, I’m told – I wasn’t born yet back then …’
Lachlan tells you he is nineteen years old, from County Cork, Ireland, and that he and his father came out to Van Diemen’s Land of their own free will three years ago, although his father died last year. He’s making his living as a farmer, but his secret passion is to assist Irish political prisoners to escape from Van Diemen’s Land to freedom. When he found out Da had been transported here, Lachlan tracked him down.
‘He was a labourer for a government gang, building bridges, at that time. I promised that, as soon as I could, I’d work out a way to help him escape.
‘He urged me to hurry, because he didn’t know how much more he could take. He seemed heartily sick of the orders, the work, the oppression by those beastly gaolers and their whips. And he was in such a rush to find you. He’d made a promise to save you, he said. He didn’t want to grind himself to the bone in the convict system while there was a chance you were here and alive.
‘While I was putting a plan in place to try to save him, he took matters into his own hands. He attacked his gaolor and tried to escape. But they caught him. He was sent to Macquarie Harbour, a place so fearsome the devil himself knocks before entering – yet once again your da escaped. He’s nothing if not a rebel.’
‘And then what?’
Lachlan shakes his head. ‘I wish I could tell you that he made it out of the fearsome west coast alive. But there’s been no further sign of him. He may have headed north along the coast, or over the ranges towards Hobart Town. Still, they haven’t caught him. So he may be out there. And there’s no fiercer man to take on that adventure than your da. Don’t give up hope – I haven’t.’
Lachlan’s story continues all the way home, then winds its way inside by the fire, where he sits you down in an armchair and brings you crumpets, as if you were a lady and he your servant. It’s a wonderful little home that he’s built for himself, using timber and clay from the forest all around.
‘Thank you,’ you say, a little embarrassed. ‘I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve such kindness.’
Lachlan sits next to you, and looks into your eyes. ‘You deserve every kindness under the sun,’ he tells you. ‘It’s the masters of this brutal colony who don’t deserve the luxuries they have. I’m sorry I couldn’t get your da away from them sooner.’
‘I’d like to help you in your work to free Ireland,’ you tell him. ‘I’ll do whatever it takes.’
Lachlan gives you another of his grins. ‘I’ll be sure to let you know.’
YOU FALL INTO a homely rhythm of cooking, gardening, and eating meals fit for royalty – roast chicken, and blackberry pie sweetened with honey. It’s the first time that Van Diemen’s Land has not felt like an exile from home: it feels, for all its thick forest and strange bird calls, a place that could become home.
Your first political act, when it comes a few weeks later, is to travel into Hobart Town alone to pick up a priest’s robes from the cleaner’s. The robes will be a disguise for an Irish rebel, who is going to attempt to escape from convict labour in Van Diemen’s Land to America, where he can live as a free man. It doesn’t sound too hard – picking up the robes from the cleaner’s, that is. Escaping to America sounds impossible.
At the cleaner’s, you hand over the paper token Lachlan gave you and the cleaner nods, goes out the back, and returns with a heavy, soft parcel wrapped in string and brown paper.
You didn’t realise a priest’s robes would weigh so much. You can’t fit the parcel into the satchel you brought, so you hug it to your chest as you walk out of the shop, waiting for a voice to shout: Hey, you! Stop!
There is no shout, though; no whistle. You are simply a servant-girl, going about her business.
You are within sight of your horse-and-cart when you stop short. Standing beside the cart, their arms crossed, are Mr Tilsome and a constable in uniform.
Your old master is looking right at you. ‘That’s the one,’ he says to the constable. ‘I thought I recognised her.’
Just then, Sarah runs up beside you, gasping for breath. ‘Run!’ she cries. ‘The master’s here, and – oh God, he’s already seen you!’
She stares at him open-mouthed, realising the trouble she’s going to get in for having been seen warning you.
Should you run, or stay and lie to Mr Tilsome and the soldier about what you’re doing here?
If you run, go to scene 38.
If you stay where you are and lie, go to scene 39.
To read a fact file on Irish political prisoners in Van Diemen’s Land click here, then return to this page to make your choice.
You grab Sarah’s hand, tucking the parcel under one arm. Your heart is pounding. There is no time for thought, only flight.
‘Run!’ you cry, and for once Sarah doesn’t tell you to stop and be sensible, because she can see the angry constable closing in, and she knows she’s in as much trouble as you are.
Your feet pound the cobblestones. You duck and weave through the crowd. It’s hard to run holding hands, so you let go of Sarah.
A whistle is shrieking. You nearly knock down an old lady with a basket as you shove past her. Cries and shouts ripple in the air. A man makes a wild lunge for you, and you swerve. You glance back over your shoulder. Sarah is slowing. The man who missed you is lumbering towards her. She ducks to get out of his way and stumbles towards the edge of the dock, towards the water.
‘Sarah!’ you scream. She’s lost her footing. Like a doll, she tumbles over the edge and into the black water in a wreath of bubbles, her skirt floating and tangling like a jellyfish.
You can’t swim, but you don’t stop to think about that. You drop your parcel, and launch yourself over the edge of the dock to save her.
Though it’s a summer’s day, the water is icy, and it squeezes the breath out of your chest as you sink, fighting your way through a mess of rising cloth and bubbles. You can’t see Sarah below you until you push your own skirts out of the way.
Your clothes are dragging you down. You fight to quell the panic rising in your chest, and kick to the surface to snatch a mouthful of air before the weight of your skirts sucks you under again.
Far below you, you see Sarah, her face blue in the dim underwater light, bubbles rising from her slack mouth. You dive towards her, deep into the inky blackness. Your lungs begin to burn, crying out for more air, but at last your hand clenches around Sarah’s hair.
You begin to pull and kick upwards with every ounce of strength you have. You can see the sky far above you: the distant sun playing on the surface; some coloured patches that might be people leaning over the edge of the docks.
Your eardrums pop, and you realise that although you are yanking at Sarah and kicking with all your strength, you are sinking deeper, dragged down by her weight and the weight of both of your clothes. With your free hand, you try desperately to tear some of the clothes from your body, but it is useless.
A rope! Someone has thrown a rope over the edge of the docks, and it is drifting down through the water towards you. You snatch at it, but in doing so, Sarah’s hair slips from the grasp of your other hand, and she sinks out of sight into the blackness. You choke with a silent scream, and the water forces its way into your nostrils.
Someone jerks the rope upwards, and your weakened hand cannot hold on. The rope pops from your grasp. Your arms and legs windmill and kick uselessly, weakly now, until the last of your breath escapes you, and you can fight no more. Your body goes slack and sinks deeper. Your lungs fill with water. Your mind fills with dying bursts of light as you tumble down to rest on the mud at the bottom of Hobart Town’s harbour.
To return to your last choice and try again, go to scene 37.
You take a few steadying breaths. For once, you’re the calm one, and Sarah the impulsive runaway. The realisation slowly comes over you that you won’t have to tell too many lies to get out of this. You can, more or less, be honest, with only a few details changed, and you’ll be free.
You walk right up to Mr Tilsome and the constable, and curtsey. A few weeks of eating well at Lachlan’s has returned you to a healthy weight, and your bonnet covers your cropped hair.
‘This man claims you ran away from your work with him,’ snarls the constable.
‘I’m afraid I did, sir,’ you say, humbly. ‘It was the wrong thing to do, I know. I was looking for my da, but I was caught and taken to gaol.’
‘I see. Go on,’ says the constable sceptically.
‘I spent some time in the Hobart Town gaol; then a gentleman chose me to work for him. I’m now in the employ of a Mr O’Riordan at Crayfish Point, and today I’m on an errand for him, to pick up some new robes for the parish priest.’
‘She’s lying!’ cries Mr Tilsome, and his hand darts out and rips away the brown paper from the parcel you’re carrying. He stops short when he sees the priest’s robes.
‘Priest’s robes, just as she says,’ states the constable.
‘I can prove I spent my time in prison, too, sir – my hair’s been cut, you see?’ You pull back your bonnet. For once you’re glad of your spiky shorn hair.
‘Indeed it has. Very well. Mr Tilsome, I understand your anger at the girl’s disappearance, but I can’t arrest her. She has done her time behind bars, and is now in the employ of another man. Good day, sir.’
Your elation as you climb up into the cart to drive away is dampened when you see Sarah being led away by Mr Tilsome, who is tight-lipped with anger. Sarah looks back at you, desperately. You know how lonely she must be out in Bothwell. You miss her terribly, too. You want to run and hug her, but there’s nothing you can do right now.
I’ll come back for you, Sarah, you think. One day, we’ll live together as sisters again… if you’ll ever forgive me for abandoning you.
When you arrive back at Crayfish Point, flushed with triumph, Lachlan is standing in the doorway waiting for you. He has twisted one of his hankies into a knot, and he is shifting uneasily from foot to foot.
‘Well done,’ he says when he sees the parcel of robes. ‘That’s marvellous – you’re marvellous. But now… I have news.’
‘Bad news?’
‘No, it’s good! Well, it’s both, really. Come inside. Now, before I tell you, I want you to know something: I care for you … very much. I don’t want anything to happen to you … to us. Please remember that.’
‘Come on, Lachlan, what is it?’
‘I’ve had word from your father. He survived. He’s nearby, and … he’s a bushranger! He has a gang, and they’re camped out near here. I’ve promised to take you to him. Do you want to go?’
‘Do I want to go?’ you squeal. ‘Get into the cart this instant and get me to my da!’
As it turns out, you can’t take the cart along the narrow tracks you’ll need to follow, so you unhitch Lachlan’s horse from the cart, and ride together on its back through the ferny undergrowth at full speed.
Your body flows with the horse’s rhythm. The speed is breathtaking. You crash through streams and lean right over the horse’s neck to urge him up mossy slopes. Clods of earth kick up under his feet, and clouds of horsey breath form in the cool, moist air. You see smoke through the trees.
‘This is it,’ says Lachlan, and in the next instant you see the canvas tents, the little campfire, and a man stepping out from behind a fallen tree, raising a musket.
‘Whoa!’ shouts Lachlan. ‘It’s us. I’ve brought Patrick’s daughter.’
The man lowers his musket, and tugs a black handkerchief down from his face to reveal a wild auburn beard. It’s Da.
He runs to you, and you let him sweep you down off the horse’s back like you weigh no more than a child. He presses you to his chest. He smells of bush smoke, woollen jumpers, and a musky, familiar smell that you haven’t breathed since you were thirteen years old. You don’t want the hug to ever end.
He breaks away and looks at you, cups your face in his hand, his fingers rough. His voice is husky with tears.
‘My darling, it’s a dream come true. Just look at you. You’re not a child but a young woman. Riding a horse better than most men I know – your granny Catherine was the same and would be right proud. Tell me you didn’t suffer too much these last years.’
‘It’s all right now, Da,’ you choke out. ‘The thing I suffered from most was missing you.’
‘And I, too. Nothing those redcoats did to me could break me, nor anything I endured on the run, for I knew I had to find you. And now I have.’
You bury your face in his chest again and let the tears overtake you. Suddenly, the part of you that has been brave for so long – that has endured your mother’s death, Newgate Prison, transportation, the Hobart Town gaol, losing Sarah yet again – can finally let go. You feel safe, enveloped in love, for the first time in years. You let the feeling flood through you, and you finally feel, with Da by your side, that Van Diemen’s Land is home.
Da looks up at Lachlan. ‘Thank you, O’Riordan,’ he says, ‘for bringing my daughter to me. After today, I’ll have to go on the run once more, but I hope I can send you word once or twice a year so we can meet again …’
‘Once or twice a year!’ you blurt. ‘After all this time? Da, I don’t want to spend another minute without you!’
‘Nor do I without you,’ he agrees. ‘But I’m an outlaw – I have to keep moving, you see. It’s the noose for me if they catch me this time.’
‘Then I’ll come on the run with you,’ you announce.
‘Darling, I wouldn’t put you through that. It’s a tough and uncertain life – your bed a sack under a bush; your food a possum, if you can catch one; the land full of cruel men hunting you down. There’s nothing romantic about it. There’s another life waiting for you, a much better one.’
Da looks at Lachlan and smiles. Lachlan flushes a deep red and his voice is trembling when he next speaks.
‘Mr Ryan, with your permission, I’d like to ask your daughter a question.’
Lachlan picks up a gumleaf and rolls it into a circle just the right size for a finger. He gets down on one knee, and his eyes seem to dance with reflections from the campfire. He brushes his hair aside awkwardly, and takes a deep breath.
‘Will you do me the honour of giving me your hand in marriage?’
Your heart begins to pound. Lachlan gazes up at you with a nervous smile. Da gives you a wink. Time itself seems to slow down, as if your whole life has built up to this point … this decision.
You adore Lachlan, and you want to be with him always. But if you say yes to him, you will have to leave Da behind … for now, at least.
If you say no, you’d break Lachlan’s heart – and your own – but you could stay with Da and join his gang.
What should you do?
If you turn down Lachlan and join Da’s gang, go to scene 40.
If you agree to marry Lachlan, go to scene 41.
You feel a slow, horrible ache growing in your chest, like your heart is being split in two.
Your silence hangs in the air. The campfire crackles and pops. You see the hopefulness drain from Lachlan’s face. He is still on one knee, still holding the twirled leaf in his fingertips. Your da shifts uncomfortably.
You can’t bear to say the word ‘no’ aloud, but everyone knows what you are thinking. Lachlan gets to his feet. He can’t meet your eye. He brushes the leaf litter from his knee.
‘If I said yes, could you stay here, with me and Da?’ you ask him weakly, already knowing the answer.
