found the oâpossum.â
âBut that be an hourâs walk away!â
âThen youâd best start at first light, hadnât you?â
She slipped inside into the warmth again. The oâpossum had nearly finished the cob of corn.
Iâm just doing my duty, she told herself. If the oâpossum were a chicken the Master planned to eat for dinner, sheâd have kept it alive till he was ready to wring its neck just the same. It would be dead soon enough, its eyes staring sightlessly at the world from its glass jar.
And she couldnât help a strange ache in her heart as she watched the tiny animal finish its corn.
Chapter 19
SURGEON WHITE
S YDNEY C OVE , 1 J UNE 1789
Surgeon White trudged home, the late-afternoon southerly gusting at his heels buffeting the bark huts around him like it planned to flatten them. At least the wind washed away the scents of men and sewage. Stench and death and every sin known to man â that is what they had brought to this land.
It was the colonyâs second winter. And where were they now? Starving, in bark huts, with death all around them. No word from England in all that time. Had the colony been forgotten? Had each one of them been left to die here at the end of the world?
But one miracle had been granted to them. Somehow only one colonist had been struck down by the plague. And he was an American native, a sailor. No English man, woman or child had caught the disease.
Impossible. Yet it was true.
Surgeon White shook his head. What was this curse, that natives died, and convicts and soldiers were immune?
It was impossible .
Surgeon White sighed. So much was impossible here. Animals that hopped and carried their young in pouches; swans that were black instead of white; wood that didnât float, that twisted as it dried.
Where had the disease come from? There had been no outbreak since the Cape, eighteen months before. True, he had brought some bottles of cowpox pus and scabs, to inoculate the settlers in the event of another outbreak. But he knew better than anyone that the seals on his bottles were still intact â and it was unlikely, so many years after leaving England, that theyâd be able to infect anyone, even if someone had stolen them.
The French? But they were long gone.
Had Dampier or some other explorer brought it here? Was it a disease the natives had suffered from before? Then why hadnât Arabanoo asked for some native medicine, as he had when heâd had dysentery?
Too many questions and no answers. He needed to sit by his own fire. A hot rum and water, and a good dinner ⦠He opened the door.
A creature stared at him from the table, sitting on its hind legs and holding a crust of cornbread in its paws. It twitched its nose at him, then bent its head to nibble the bread.
âWhat in the ââ
âItâs your oâpossum, sir.â Maria looked up from turning the cornbread on the hearth. His heart warmed at the sight of her, so neat, so clean, unlike the other convict wretches.
âIâd forgotten it.â Surgeon White stared at the animal. It was almost twice as big as it had been just a few weeks before.
âItâs quite tame, sir.â
âNonsense. Iâve tried to tame American oâpossums back in England. It canât be done.â
âHe eats from my fingers, sir â¦â
He was too tired to bother with an oâpossum. It wasnât as though the animal was interesting, like a kangaroo. Heâd sketch it tonight, then wring its neck and put it in a preserving jar.
He reached towards the animal.
Gah! squealed the oâpossum. It jumped onto the floor, then ran on four legs, out the open door.
Maria ran to the door and stood staring after it. âYou frightened it, sir,â she said, a little sadly.
âWere you hoping to make a pet of it, child?â
She shrugged. âI have no need of pets.â She turned back to his cornbread.
He
âBut that be an hourâs walk away!â
âThen youâd best start at first light, hadnât you?â
She slipped inside into the warmth again. The oâpossum had nearly finished the cob of corn.
Iâm just doing my duty, she told herself. If the oâpossum were a chicken the Master planned to eat for dinner, sheâd have kept it alive till he was ready to wring its neck just the same. It would be dead soon enough, its eyes staring sightlessly at the world from its glass jar.
And she couldnât help a strange ache in her heart as she watched the tiny animal finish its corn.
Chapter 19
SURGEON WHITE
S YDNEY C OVE , 1 J UNE 1789
Surgeon White trudged home, the late-afternoon southerly gusting at his heels buffeting the bark huts around him like it planned to flatten them. At least the wind washed away the scents of men and sewage. Stench and death and every sin known to man â that is what they had brought to this land.
It was the colonyâs second winter. And where were they now? Starving, in bark huts, with death all around them. No word from England in all that time. Had the colony been forgotten? Had each one of them been left to die here at the end of the world?
But one miracle had been granted to them. Somehow only one colonist had been struck down by the plague. And he was an American native, a sailor. No English man, woman or child had caught the disease.
Impossible. Yet it was true.
Surgeon White shook his head. What was this curse, that natives died, and convicts and soldiers were immune?
It was impossible .
Surgeon White sighed. So much was impossible here. Animals that hopped and carried their young in pouches; swans that were black instead of white; wood that didnât float, that twisted as it dried.
Where had the disease come from? There had been no outbreak since the Cape, eighteen months before. True, he had brought some bottles of cowpox pus and scabs, to inoculate the settlers in the event of another outbreak. But he knew better than anyone that the seals on his bottles were still intact â and it was unlikely, so many years after leaving England, that theyâd be able to infect anyone, even if someone had stolen them.
The French? But they were long gone.
Had Dampier or some other explorer brought it here? Was it a disease the natives had suffered from before? Then why hadnât Arabanoo asked for some native medicine, as he had when heâd had dysentery?
Too many questions and no answers. He needed to sit by his own fire. A hot rum and water, and a good dinner ⦠He opened the door.
A creature stared at him from the table, sitting on its hind legs and holding a crust of cornbread in its paws. It twitched its nose at him, then bent its head to nibble the bread.
âWhat in the ââ
âItâs your oâpossum, sir.â Maria looked up from turning the cornbread on the hearth. His heart warmed at the sight of her, so neat, so clean, unlike the other convict wretches.
âIâd forgotten it.â Surgeon White stared at the animal. It was almost twice as big as it had been just a few weeks before.
âItâs quite tame, sir.â
âNonsense. Iâve tried to tame American oâpossums back in England. It canât be done.â
âHe eats from my fingers, sir â¦â
He was too tired to bother with an oâpossum. It wasnât as though the animal was interesting, like a kangaroo. Heâd sketch it tonight, then wring its neck and put it in a preserving jar.
He reached towards the animal.
Gah! squealed the oâpossum. It jumped onto the floor, then ran on four legs, out the open door.
Maria ran to the door and stood staring after it. âYou frightened it, sir,â she said, a little sadly.
âWere you hoping to make a pet of it, child?â
She shrugged. âI have no need of pets.â She turned back to his cornbread.
He
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