Remember Me - Lesley Pearse [70]
Mary continued to cultivate this little group of natives, day after day. They appeared healthy and well fed, and although she knew much of their diet was fish, which they caught from their canoes, she guessed they supplemented this with other things. She wanted to know what, for they didn’t grow or rear anything. She thought such knowledge would help in her escape.
To her shock, the women showed her grubs and insects which they dug out of rotting tree stumps. Although Mary’s empty stomach heaved at the very thought of it, she bravely tried some and found they weren’t as bad as she expected.
Heavy rain prevented her from going to talk to the natives for almost a week, and when she did eventually venture back into the next cove, she couldn’t see anyone. This disturbed her, for although she knew that these people didn’t stay in permanent camps, wandering about as the mood took them, she was aware that this was a favourite fishing spot.
She walked farther than she normally did, until a buzzing of insects and a wheeling of birds overhead halted her. Ahead, she could see something lying up by the bushes above the beach, and to her horror she realized it was a dead native, covered in a swarm of ants. Snatching Charlotte up in her arms, she ran as fast as she could back to the camp.
She was still running when she saw Tench. He must have come back from Rose Hill the previous night. He smiled at her warmly. ‘You’re in quite a hurry,’ he said. ‘Something wrong?’
‘There’s a body around in the next cove,’ she blurted out.
‘Anyone you know?’ he joked.
Mary couldn’t laugh, for she was afraid the body belonged to one of the group she had befriended. ‘I think it’s one of the natives,’ she said. ‘I didn’t go close enough to be sure. Surely they don’t leave their dead lying around unburied?’
‘I wouldn’t think so,’ he said, looking concerned. ‘I hope it is a natural death, not an attack by one of our people, we’ve got enough trouble without that. But I’ll go and check it out now.’
After advising Mary not to stray so far from the camp again, he walked off.
It was several days before Mary had a chance to speak to Tench again. She’d seen him sailing off down the harbour with a group of Marines the day after she told him about the body, but he could have been going to the lookout on the Heads at the end of the bay.
She was just coming out of the stores with the rations for herself and Charlotte, when she saw Tench coming down the hill from Captain Phillip’s house. She thought he looked very worried and upset.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked as he drew near to her. ‘Didn’t you have a present for him?’
This was a long-standing joke between them. In the early days Tench usually brought a gift of food when he dropped in to see her and Will. It was never anything much, maybe an egg for Charlotte, or some vegetables, but when times got harder and he didn’t bring anything he always apologized and looked embarrassed. Mary would tease him then and say he couldn’t expect a welcome without a present.
This time Tench gave her only a ghost of a smile. ‘The captain’s not happy with my news,’ he said. ‘There’s dozens of dead and dying natives around the bay. Just like the one you saw.’
Mary instinctively clutched Charlotte tighter.
Tench saw her fear and put one hand on her shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, Surgeon White hasn’t got any similar cases here. It must be something that only affects them. But keep away, just to be safe. Captain Phillip is sending someone down there to see what he can do or find out.’
Telling Mary not to worry was like asking the sun not to shine. She was terrified that this disease would spread to the camp and kill Charlotte, so her whole being urged her to flee now, any way she could.
Just a few days earlier, the Supply, the smallest ship of the original fleet, had returned from Norfolk Island with news that twenty-six of the twenty-nine convicts there had devised a plan to lure the crew away from the ship and sail off in