Nanberry by Jackie French Read Free Book Online Page A

past few hours Arabanoo had been beyond seeing anything. His skin was crusted with pustules and his breath bubbled in his chest.
    The Surgeon bit his lip. He had tried every potion he knew: willow bark to bring the fever down, the sap from a red gum tree to open his bowels, even the fern root that Arabanoo had showed him how to use for dysentery. He could cut off a wounded leg and cauterise it with pitch; he could sew up a split head. But against the smallpox he was powerless. If only he hadlaudanum left, to ease the old man’s suffering. And Arabanoo had borne it all with the serenity with which he’d faced his captivity, the gentleness with which he treated all he met, from the most ragged convict child to the Governor. Phillip’s plan to use the old man as an ambassador was dying too.
    There had still been no smallpox cases among the convicts or marines. But surely they couldn’t escape a disease as deadly as this for long.
    Further inside the hut the boy, Nanberry, seemed to sleep. Mrs Johnson, the clergyman’s wife, had taken the girl, Booroong, to her home to nurse. She would adopt the girl, she said, and try to train her to be a decent servant.
    Booroong would be safe with the Johnsons.
    â€˜Bado! Bado!’ Arabanoo’s voice was so weak the Surgeon had to bend to hear his words. At least the old man was conscious again. Bado meant water, he knew that much. He held a mug to the man’s cracked lips, and watched him sip.
    Arabanoo turned his head so he could see Nanberry. He pulled at the Surgeon’s hand. His eyes pleaded.
    The Surgeon realised what Arabanoo was asking.
    â€˜I’ll look after the lad. I promise.’ He meant it. They had taken so much from this man already: his freedom, his people, and now his life. The least he could do was to make sure the child was safe.
    Arabanoo muttered in his fever. The Surgeon gripped his hand again, and the old man grew quiet.
    No man should die like this, away from his people.
    Surgeon White looked out again at the blue harbour.
    He was as lonely as Arabanoo. One could be lonely even with his countrymen around him. Desperately, deeply, and with no end in sight. Who could he share his fears with, here at the end of the world? Only the Governor was in any way a gentleman, and he too was burdened with more than he could stand.
    All of the other officers had provided themselves with a woman — or even more than one — poor convict wretches who had no choice but to smile and try to please their masters.
    He smiled at the thought of Maria. The girl was safe with him. He at least wouldn’t lay hands upon a child.
    Back in England you might meet a man to befriend or a woman to be a wife at the next ball or dinner. But here it was the same faces every day.
    Suddenly he realised what it might be like to have the boy in his house. A child with a bright, enquiring mind could bring laughter into grim days. Perhaps he knew places where White might discover birds he’d never seen. He could take the lad fishing …
    A lad such as this might be the ambassador the Governor had wanted, one who could learn English properly then translate for the native tribes. It was ironic that the plague should bring him this lad and at the same time destroy any need for an ambassador.
    Assistant Surgeon Balmain walked by. White hailed him. ‘You, fetch the Governor, if you please.’
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜Arabanoo is dying.’
    Balmain shrugged. ‘You think the Governor will come to a sick native?’
    White shut his eyes. ‘Yes. He will come.’ If he knows in time, he thought. If this fool bothers to go and find him.
    At last the old man’s hand grew limp. Arabanoo had died without a sound. The Surgeon loosened his grip, then gently closed the ambassador’s eyes.
    â€˜Bo-ee?’ The boy — Nanberry — sat up.
    â€˜Yes,’ said the Surgeon quietly. ‘He’s dead.’
    The boy frowned.