The Night They Stormed Eureka (22 page)

Surely the rebel army could fight off any attack tonight! Even if they were taken by surprise, surely this force could beat back the soldiers and troopers?

She shook her head. Had she somehow changed the past just by being here? Maybe serving stew had encouraged more men to join the rebel army. Maybe the whole future would be different now.

She was just so tired. It was too much to comprehend. Too much for one girl to figure out.

But she knew one thing for sure. Somehow she had to make sure the Puddlehams were away from the stockade tonight when the attack came. Even if the rebels won — and it looked so certain they would be victorious now — it might be a long and dangerous battle. The Puddlehams would still be in danger. And the Professor …

How could she have forgotten the Professor and his treasure? Too much drama for one afternoon, she thought vaguely. Gold and rebellion.

Then suddenly it came to her. The Professor had accidentally given her the perfect way to get the Puddlehams away from the stockade. She grabbed Mrs Puddleham’s arm.

‘The Professor needs help! I’m sorry, all the horses came and swept it out of my mind —’

‘What! He hasn’t gone and got himself buried in that mine? Or broke his leg?’

‘No. He just can’t get out of his mine. He’s been sitting there too long. And I’m scared it may collapse around him too. He’s …’ she lowered her voice. ‘He’s found gold!’

She had expected the Puddlehams to yell with excitement. But they just exchanged a glance.

‘He never,’ said Mrs Puddleham. ‘There’s naught but a few grains in that old mine, just enough to pay his grog bill. Silly old duffer. Fool’s gold more like.’

‘No, really. I’ve seen it! It’s —’ she tried to find a way to explain ‘— like great handfuls of sunlight under the earth. It sort of glows, even in the dark.’

Mrs Puddleham grew still. ‘Mebbe he has then,’ she said softly. ‘Mebbe the old bastard has struck it lucky.’

‘Language, Mrs Puddleham.’ But Mr Puddleham looked stunned, too.

‘I said I’d bring you to help him. He said we could get guards from the Commissioners.’

‘And on an evening like this,’ muttered Mr Puddleham, then shook his head. ‘Well, maybe best on an evening like this, when everyone is thinking of rebellion, not of gold. Yes, yes, I’ll go at once,’ as Sam tugged on his sleeve. ‘The Commissioners will open any hour, for gold.’

‘The Professor’s weak after so long underground. We’ll have to carry him out. Can we take him back to our camp?’

‘O’ course,’ said Mrs Puddleham. ‘But it’ll be Mr Puddleham what goes down that mine this time, lovey. Don’t you worry. We’ll look after him right and proper.’

And she doesn’t even know he’s going to share his gold with us, thought Sam. She turned to Mr Puddleham. ‘Please — will you sleep at the camp with us, just for tonight? To help us look after the Professor? The stockade has lots of men to guard it now. Please?’

Mr Puddleham exchanged a glance with his wife. He patted Sam’s arm distractedly. ‘Just for tonight,’ he said. He bowed slightly, and began to march up the street to the Commissioners.

‘The Professor’s going to share the gold with us,’ said Sam.

‘Is he now?’ It was almost as though Mrs Puddleham had expected it. Sam wondered if she’d planned to keep feeding the Professor if he turned up down in Melbourne. Friends stood by each other. Mrs Puddleham hauled herself up, and stared at her pots. She grinned at Sam. ‘No point luggin’ these lot back to the gully. Let the Demons take ‘em if they want!’

She picked up her giant frying pan. ‘This is all I needs to keep us an’ the Professor fed till we gets to Melbourne.’

Suddenly Sam was enveloped in the smell of bad teeth and old clothes again, as Mrs Puddleham hugged her. The now familiar warmth spread through her.

‘Now come on, deary,’ Mrs Puddleham brandished her frying pan. ‘An’ if any Demon tries to get to the gold afore the guards come, I’ll give him a right going-over with this.’

Sam lay in her blanket in the lean-to and pulled Mr Puddleham’s coat over her too. It was cold tonight — the coldest night she’d known on the diggings, despite the approaching summer. Inside the tent she could hear Mrs Puddleham’s excited mutter, and Mr Puddleham murmuring back.

They’ll be planning their hotel, she thought.

The gold was safely with the Commissioners. The guards had helped dig it out — it had turned out to be one enormous nugget and seven small ones — and helped carry the Professor back to the camp too. Mr Puddleham had fetched the Professor’s lean-to.

Now the Professor snored under its shelter only a couple of metres away, after a dinner of pancakes and a lavish spread of jam, so exhausted that he hadn’t even asked what had been happening on the diggings since he’d been underground. The only man on the diggings, she thought, who didn’t know about the stockade.

And in a few hours it might be destroyed.

She couldn’t sleep. She mustn’t sleep, not till it was over. Tomorrow morning they’d all go up to the stockade again, Mr Puddleham and the Professor to fight, and she and Mrs Puddleham to cook if the Demons had left the pots — if Mrs Puddleham had forgotten her threat to send Sam to the farm.

But Sam wasn’t going anywhere till she’d checked that the fighting was over. She’d have kept her family safe …

Her eyes drooped. She’d had little sleep the night before, and not much the night before that. But she couldn’t let her eyes shut now, not even for a few minutes …

The owl hooted. She wondered where it slept during the day, in this world of mud and diggers and few and lonely trees. Had it flown in from the farm? George would be there, and his parents. How was his mother? What would George say when the Professor told him his plan? What would his father say?

He’d hear about the gold tomorrow, and what had happened at the stockade too. What had the Professor said?
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.
She’d heard those words before, at school maybe. They were a quote from something.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and …

She didn’t know what woke her. A rat perhaps, trying to chew into the flour bag behind her, or the owl, swooping on the rat. But all at once she was awake.

How long had she slept? She stared out of the lean-to, panicked and then relaxed. The night stars still shone cold and distant, the darkness still wrapped the camp like Mrs Puddleham’s blanket around her.

It was all right then. The Puddlehams must still be asleep in the silent tent next to her.

Sam lurched upright. Where were the snores and the snuffles? The deep snorting bellow from Mrs Puddleham, her husband’s lighter grunt?

She crawled around to the front of the tent and pulled the flap open.

The tent was empty. She glanced over at the Professor’s lean-to. He still slept quietly and deeply. But the Puddlehams had gone.

Sam shook her head. How could she have been so dumb? They had always meant to do this — to go back to the stockade as soon as she was safely asleep. Both of them. As Mrs Puddleham said, they had never been apart since they had found each other again.

The Puddlehams knew the battle was coming. The soldiers had to attack soon, before even more reinforcements arrived from other diggings. The Puddlehams would stand together now.

What was the time? If only she had a watch! The attack had come at dawn, hadn’t it? Surely there was still time to …

… to do what? She tried to think. The Puddlehams wouldn’t come back to the gully with her, no matter what she told them. She might be caught in the crossfire if she tried to get into the stockade now. She could be killed, just another boy rebel —

No, she thought suddenly. There
was
one way to be safe. Almost safe. A way to look like anything but a rebel. And she would be with the Puddlehams, at least. The Puddlehams were right. Sometimes you had to stand together!

Sam wrenched the tin chest open, then struggled out of her shirt and jeans, untied the lace band around her breasts under the silky camisole, then dived into the froth of the pink silk dress. She reached back to zip it up —

Hooks! Not a zipper, not even buttons. She managed to get the first few hooked together behind her back, and then gave up. She could never manage them by herself.

The lace collar! That would hang down over the open hooks. She grabbed the bonnet too. No time to tie the ribbons under her chin yet — she’d do it as she ran. No girl’s slippers, either, but her boots would be hidden under her skirt. And if anyone glimpsed boots, well, some women wore men’s boots on the diggings to keep out the mud.

And then she ran.

The track was white in the starlight. She had thought it would be hard to follow, but it almost seemed to glow. Or was the darkness lifting? She peered to the east. But there was still no dawning silver on the horizon.

The wide skirts tangled around her legs no matter how hard she tried to hold them up. The sheer bulk of the material unbalanced her. She tried to tie the bonnet on, but it kept shifting too, covering one eye and then the other, so she had to drop her skirts to put it right.

The camp was silent around her, or at least as silent as it ever got with the muttering of sleeping men and the flap of the fresh-air sails next to the mines.

Surely there should be the sound of horses, if an attack were coming? Or did they come along another road?

Had she got it wrong? Maybe the attack wasn’t this morning! Maybe the soldiers had heard about the reinforcements at the stockade. Maybe they weren’t going to attack at all.

Or maybe, she thought, I can still stop it. The thought was so powerful that cold sweat broke out under the pink dress. All I have to do is start yelling, scream, ‘The redcoats are coming! The redcoats are coming!’ The whole camp will wake up and run to the stockade. The soldiers will be surrounded before they can fire a shot …

And I will have changed history.

Should she do it? It was so hard to run and think at the same time. What would the Professor tell her to do?

And suddenly she knew. Humans are only capable of seeing small bits in the pattern of history. That’s what he’d said. All you can ask yourself is whether this bit is good or bad.

The stockade was good. The cause was good. Suddenlyit all seemed so clear. All you could do was trust that one good act would lead to another.

This act was good.

She felt extraordinary, like she’d drunk ten cans of cola, like someone had put wings on her ankles. She opened her mouth to yell …

A shot rang out. She stopped, trying to work out where it had come from. A single shot couldn’t be the attack. A digger must be making sure his powder was dry, or shooting at a rat —

Suddenly more shots, a volley of shots and then, above it all, the far-off cry of a bugle.

‘No!’ Her feet pounded along the track, her hands heaving the froth of material up around her knees. There was the main road. She raced along it, dragging her skirts now, clutching at her bonnet as it slipped over her face, nearly blinding her. She tore it off. Her heart was screaming but she couldn’t waste breath to cry. Her heart was pounding, ‘No, no, no, no …’

Something was coming. Hoofbeats! For a moment she thought it was the soldiers, and then she recognised the horse. A big brown horse, with one white foot, its sides already lathered with sweat, its eyes rolling, and a young man clinging to its back. Nick, she thought, before her mind said no, he is there, and you are here …

The horse galloped past her.

‘Whoa up, Bessie!’ She heard the horse stop behind her, the sound of hoofbeats again as it turned and cantered up to her.

‘You! Girl, boy, whoever you are!’

She stopped, her breath heaving, and stared up at him, the bonnet dangling in her hand. ‘What’s happening? Have the soldiers attacked?’

As soon as she spoke she knew the answer. Blood dripped from a slash on his arm — a cut gaping right through the blue material of his jacket. But it didn’t seem to stop him holding the reins. ‘Attack?’ His mouth twisted. ‘They slaughtered us. One minute and it were over.’

‘But that’s impossible.’ She shook her head, trying to clear it. ‘There were so many men there last night. The rebels had to win!’

‘Tricked us, didn’t they?’ The voice was hard as iron, bitter as the boiled bark Mrs Puddleham sometimes served instead of tea. ‘Time after time men came running to say the soldiers were on us. An’ each time a party went out to stop ‘em — and didn’t come back. By the time the real attack came there was only a passel o’ us.’ He was still staring at her, understanding growing in his eyes.

‘The Puddlehams,’ she said urgently. ‘Are they all right?’

‘You
is
the Puddleham boy. Except ye ain’t.’

Sam looked at the bonnet. She shoved it back onto her head. ‘I’ve got to go.’ She turned.

‘Stop!’ He reached down and grabbed her by the shoulder. ‘It’s a fool’s errand, heading back there. Them soldiers is killing everyone they can get their hands on. Burning tents too, no matter if the owners was at the stockade or not. I escaped ‘cause I had Bessie here, tethered nearby. Learned that long ago. Keep yer horse nearby.’

She shrugged her shoulder from his grasp. ‘I’ve got to find them!’

‘No!’ He spoke more urgently now. ‘You’ve got guts. Don’t waste ‘em under a trooper’s bayonet! Come with me. Now, on Bessie! I’ve got gold stashed away enough fer two. We’ll ride far enough they’ll never find us. Get us a pub mebbe, up Queensland way.’

How many on the diggings dreamed about buying hotels, she thought vaguely, even as she shook her head. She hauled her skirts up and ran, as he yelled after her again. ‘Yer a fool, girl! A fool!’

The sky had turned dark grey. She could see the flagpole now. An empty flagpole. Smoke drifted through the air, darker than the dawn. She could smell it now, a different smell from burning wood. Burned tents, burned dreams …

Her feet thudded down the roadway as screams echoed through the tents. Here and there now people moved — men running, soldiers carrying burning branches that they held against the canvas and bark. A child stumbled past her, carrying a shred of blanket, screaming. More and more figures struggled out of the dimness, running, yelling, shrieking — a man struggling on a bloody leg while a woman tried to prop him up so they could both run.