Tommo & Hawk (47 page)

'Don't suppose a wash be out the question, seeing you're near naked but for your woollen blouse?' Mr Sparrow says. 'Bit of a scrub up do yer the world o' good, plenty o' hot water and a clean towel, what do you say?'

I hesitate. Truth is, I fancies a bath. Hawk's put me in the habit o' cleanliness and I hasn't had a wash for longer than I cares to remember. But what's I gunna do? There in that basin is my own piss! It must stink something awful. 'Much obliged, Mr Sparrow,' I says, and turn to the lad holding the jug. 'Leave it here.' I set the new blouse aside and, rising from the bed, takes me time getting me old blouse off. Then I pick up the jug and walk over to the washstand. I pour the water into it and bend over as if to wash me face. Then I pause and sniff. I pull me head back in alarm.

'What the hell...' I exclaim. 'It stinks!' I point into the basin, then I looks 'round angry at the two lads. 'What's you brats playin' at?'

'What's wrong, Tommo?' Mr Sparrow asks.

I point to the empty jug. 'Some dirty little bugger's pissed in me jug of hot water!'

Mr Sparrow throws a conniption on the spot. He sends for another basin and jug of hot water, and soundly boxes the ears of the two boys, what jumps up and down, whining their innocence. Then, when me clean water arrives, he tells all the lads to scarper, so that we's on our own. He laughs quiet at me. 'I like a nimble mind. Piss in the basin, did yer?'

I grin in reply. He's a man after my own heart, I reckons. I bathe and dress and Mr Sparrow tells me about his plans for tonight. It seems that, amongst other things, he runs a regular game o' cards. It's mostly for rich toffs what wants to taste the entertainments of Sydney. 'Not just cards - women, grog, a prize fight if we can arrange it. Delights of the Night, I calls it,' he says. He explains that Fat Fred is the manager of several prize fighters. 'Nothing like a prize fight to bring out the nabobs and open their purses, Tommo.' But while the gambling on the fights be a good earner when there's a big purse on, poker's the mainstay. Seems everybody's up for a game o' flats - merchants, squatters, barristers and judges, graziers, men rich from the goldfields, even the celestials what has learned to play poker out in the diggings.

'The Chinese from the goldfields?'

'Aye, they be very keen gamblers.'

'And they comes to yer poker games with the landed gentry?'

'No, once a month we play down in Chinatown and the landed gentry come to them. Very exotic it is, too. There be other attractions in Chinatown as well as a good game of poker. Matter o' fact, that be where we're going tonight,' Mr Sparrow smiles.

'We? I ain't said I'm coming!' I'm sitting on the edge of the bed lacing up Mr Sparrow's spare boots. They fit a treat and I has to admit I likes the feel of boots with hose again.

'Stand up and let's look at you, Tommo. Breeches fit, I can see that. Shoes?' I nod. 'Put the jacket on.' I does as he asks. 'Not bad, not too bad at all, a little bit o' fattening up and the fit'll be perfect.'

Suddenly Mr Sparrow takes a step forward and grabs me by the lapels of me jacket. He pulls me close. 'Look, Tommo, don't be a fool!' His voice is hard and he looks most weasel-like. 'If you're as good as I thinks, and if you're trained by Ikey Solomon, you'll clear a fiver tonight. You'll win a lot more, but the rest is mine until you're tested, then we'll split a bit more even. That's me best offer! Take it or leave it! Now make up yer mind, son!'

'A fiver, you say?'

'I'll guarantee it.'

'You're on.'

'You'll not regret it, my dear Ace O' Spades,' says Mr Sparrow, very pleased with himself. He points to the bed. 'Sit down. There's more to tell.'

In me new togs I feel my confidence return, and I like the sound of this adventure more and more. I sit back and Mr Sparrow starts to fill me in on the detail. 'Now, you don't know me from a bar o' soap, yer hear? That's the first thing you has to get into your noggin - we're strangers. You've just arrived from Tasmania and is looking for a game o' cards. You've got a quid or two -family has a sheep run and a good stand o' timber - but you're a bit of a cornstalk. This way, no one will get suspicious if yer can't answer their questions, seeing as you're from Tasmania an' all.'

'Well thanks very much,' says I. 'Wait 'til you meet Hawk. He's from Tasmania too.'

Mr Sparrow looks at me hard, not liking me little bit o' fun. 'Now listen, lad, we play straight unless we're losing bad. If I light me cigar and blow a single smoke ring, you may consider relocating your cards, but not a moment before, you understand?' I nod and he continues. 'The Chinese don't usually take to the flats, they's got their own ways o' gambling, but this lot's learnt in the goldfields. Don't make the mistake o' thinking them new chums to the game, though. If they think you're relocating, they'll have a knife in your belly soon as look at yer. I mean it, Tommo, no cheatin' unless I say. And yer name is Ace O' Spades. Incognito be well accepted around here. The chief justice himself be known as Tom Jones, and the attorney general as William Pitt.' He leans back and cups his hands about his raised knee.  'By the way, we've got a partner in this endeavour, Mr Tang Wing Hung. He arranges the game and the entertainment after and takes his cut.'

'From me fiver or from what I earns for you?'

'It don't work that way. What we earns in cash, we keeps. The celestials are back from the goldfields and they've got a lot o' gold dust. They'll play with coins or notes at first, but if they loses what they've got, and it's your job to see they do, most won't quit, they'll just think to change their luck by bringing out their gold.

'It's Mr Tang Wing Hung's pleasure to cash their gold nuggets or dust for currency at special rates, no doubt most onerous, it's not my concern. That's his profit and not to be questioned or shared with us.'

'I'll have to tell Hawk where I is,' I says. 'He'll be fretting that something's happened to me.'

'No, Tommo. This Chinese game be most private organised. There'll be some big wigs there what can't be seen in Chinatown. I can't take no chances of you tellin' anyone. There's reputations at risk. If the nabobs are seen to gamble with the celestials, heads will roll! You stay stum, not a dicky-bird to no one, you swear?' I nod and he says, 'Can you write?'

'A little. Me hand is very poor, though.'

'That don't matter, long as yer brother knows it well.'

'Well enough. He taught me.'

'Good! Then write yer beloved brother a note in yer own hand, telling him you're safe and you'll see 'im in the morning. One o' the lads will deliver it, I promise yer.'

After a moment I agree and he sends one of the ever-present lads standing outside the door to fetch pen, blacking and paper.

'Just one thing more, Mr Sparrow, to settle me mind. Why'd ya do that relocation this morning? That full house be a trick what a man of your skill with the flats would never reveal to someone he don't know. If you was thinking me a whaleman just paid out, ya would've scared me away with your tricks!'

'You insult me, my dear. I don't play with such bowyangs. Not my style, not my style at all.'

'So, why did ya waste yer talent on me? Easy to see I ain't no true merino!'

'I admit, when you walked in wearing those old togs, you had me fooled. But when I come over and took up the glass o' bad brandy Doreen gives yer, I take a gander at your right hand, and I see the calloused edge to yer thumb and forefinger. That comes from only one thing, my dear, playing with the flats, practising yer skill. It takes thousands and thousands of hours to build up that ridge o' skin and don't I know it! I saw at once you were no whaleman but a broadsman. I had to brave the next step, get you to show me yer form, see if you'd back off or not.'

'But what if I couldn't match your very superior piece o' relocation?'

'Matter o' fact, I was pretty certain you couldn't. But as the great Ikey Solomon would say, "Never take nothing for granted, my dears. The day you lose is the day you think you can't be beat. Sooner or later there's someone comes along what's younger and better than you. If you're ready for him, then you can delay the fall, make a deal, a partnership. But if you're not ready, then he will gobble you up." '

'And you supposed it could be me? That I could be the one what's younger and better?' I ask, amazed.

Mr Sparrow holds up his right hand, and with the forefinger of his left traces the calloused ridge on his thumb and forefinger. 'See that? It took me near thirty years to build and I'm getting older and slower, lad. It's rare to see a ridge what even comes close. I had to find out if you'd the nerve, the speed and the mind to match. If you were worth the training. I didn't think you'd best me. No, I thought when you saw what I could do, you'd want to learn from me.'

'And now?'

Mr Sparrow laughs. 'I can still teach you a trick or two, Mr Ace O' Spades! There's other things you'll need to know if you don't want to be found floating in Sydney Harbour with yer throat cut. We begin tonight with the celestials. I hope to make Ikey Solomon, may he rest in peace, most proud of the both of us. Proud of me fer listening down the years and you fer agreeing we be partners.'

'Ikey would've liked that,' I say. I thinks of him, stranded amongst the Maori ancestors, nothing to eat but roast pork three times a day. Old Ikey must be wondering what he done wrong to me and Hawk for us to put him into such a terrible predicament. 'I don't think Ikey's playing much cribbage where he is,' I confides to Mr Sparrow.

But wherever he is, I thinks, to meself, I hope Ikey's proud o' me for beating the Splendour of the Sparrer!

Hawk

Sydney

September 1860

Sydney is thriving. The houses of the wealthy merchants are most elegant, with not a lick of paint spared, and every brass doorknob highly polished. Many of them sit in pleasant gardens filled with native and English plants of all description, some even sporting fountains in this city short of water. The government and commercial buildings and the churches which, for the most part, are made of the local sandstone, are handsome and well maintained.

The streets are paved and have footpaths. Those running up from Semicircular Quay and across the length of the city are wide, though many a cross street is no more than a narrow lane. Hyde Park, a long strip of dust quite unlike its London namesake, is a popular area for promenading and recreation, a few minutes' brisk walk or a twopenny omnibus ride from the centre of town.

Only the Rocks, below the Argyle Cut, remind the curious of what the earlier convict settlement must have been like. It is a chaotic arrangement of mean huts, wooden skillings, slaughter yards, knackeries, cow pens, leather tanners, open sewers, broken fences, rutted streets, one-shilling hells and taverns, all crawling with rats and mangy cats. A hundred yards up from this sprawl, in George Street, the places where people go to drink are known as public houses or pubs, but here in the Rocks, such places are often called taverns, after the age-old tradition of the sea. Sailors drink at taverns when they come ashore and shall do so evermore. In the Rocks, these notorious bloodhouses carry names such as the Black Dog, which is also the name of Leuwin's schooner, though if there is a connection none I asked knew of it. Here one may also find the Brown Bear, the Whalers' Arms, the Hit or Miss, the Lord Nelson, the Mermaid, the Erin Go Bragh, the Cat and Fiddle, the Jolly Sailor, the Rose of Australia, the Hero of Waterloo, the Sheer Hulk, the Labour in Vain, the Sailors' Return and the Help Me Through the World. Tommo, alas, has become a steady visitor to The World Turned Upside Down in Bridge Street.

If the advantageous effects of the gold strikes may be seen in the upper reaches of George, Pitt and Macquarie Streets, and in the handsome houses of the well-to-do, here at the Rocks the discovery of gold has had quite the opposite effect. A great many working men have left good jobs to seek their fortunes at the diggings at Lambing Flat and Braidwood, amongst others. Most of these hard-luck fossickers find nothing but hard luck, and their women and children are left here without any livelihoods, so that misery, desperation and destitution are everywhere to be seen.

Many a respectable mother has been forced to resort to the 'purse between her legs' to feed her starving children. Some have forsaken their young and for a silver shilling are available in the Argyle Cut for a quick knee-trembler. The streets near the Semicircular Quay are over-run by tiny, barefoot urchins in tatters, begging for halfpennies. Others, boys and girls not much beyond the age of seven or eight, become child prostitutes and catamites to the sailors and many a so-called upstanding citizen. Most of these wild children die young. But if a boy should survive long enough to become one of the 'Sydney lads', he will be as tough a young specimen as you may find pound-for-pound anywhere in the world.

Here in the Rocks, the roads and the footpaths are so filthy and in such bad repair that no respectable person would venture down them. This matters little enough to the people who dwell here. They know themselves to be the flotsam of the human race, driven by poverty and despair to this dirty corner of the city. Some say that they are a tribe of their own but I don't think this is true: drink and poverty do nothing to unite a community. For those already in the clutches of the demon drink, the Rocks is the end of their journey and for those unfortunate enough to be born here, it is the beginning of a hard life.

There is also a Chinatown bordering the Rocks where large numbers of orientals reside, many of them on their way to and from the goldfields. These 'celestials' are treated with a contempt only surpassed by the treatment meted out to the 'niggers' or blacks as the Aborigines are called. I have noted that the Aborigines are also referred to in the Sydney Morning Herald as 'Sable Australians'. But this I believe merely reflects polite society's need to disguise the contempt it feels for the native Australian.

Those who live in the Rocks, even the poor whites whose existences are meagre, do not bother to hide their feelings towards the niggers of this squalid place. These poor blacks, who almost without exception dress in discarded rags, are mostly drunk from morning 'til night. Their women, known in the local parlance as 'gins', fight each other when intoxicated, with a screaming and caterwauling that would wake the dead. The men sit bleary-eyed in the dirt, their mangy kangaroo dogs panting beside them and their black bottles and clay pipes close to hand, taking no notice of the women's battles. Naked, snot-nosed children, with bloated bellies and flies clustering around their dark eyes, scream and dance in agitation as their mothers roll and claw at each other in the dust.