Nellie's Quest Read online

  ‘Sorry about the hold-up, ladies and gents,’ he told the passengers. ‘Afraid we’ve got a dud animal ’ere. I’ll ’ave to let ’im go before ’e croaks. No point floggin’ a dead ’orse.’ He laughed at his own wit.

  Nellie and Li stepped down from the coach and watched as the driver’s boy unharnessed the injured animal, a big raw-boned grey. Why, he’s just like our Clancy, thought Nellie. In an instant she saw herself back in Ireland, holding Clancy’s huge head while her little sisters Katie and Grace climbed aboard. She could almost touch the velvety skin of Clancy’s nose, and feel his warm, snorting breath.

  ‘What will happen to him?’ she asked, watching as the horse limped away down the road, head held low. She could see the fresh marks of the whip on his back.

  The driver shrugged. ‘Dingoes’ll probably get ’im. Don’t matter – ’e’s no use to anybody. There’s plenty o’ broken-down ’orses been let loose along this road. Bullocks, too.’ He secured the dangling traces, whistling.

  ‘What are dingas?’ Nellie asked, puzzled.

  ‘Dingoes? Wild dogs, savage beggars they are. They’ll make short work o’ that old nag.’

  Nellie clenched her fists. How cruel the man was! How could he joke about the horse dying?

  ‘I hate him, so I do,’ she said to Li. ‘How would he like to be eaten by dingas?’

  ‘It just life, you know,’ said Li. He shrugged. ‘It how life go, Nellie.’

  Nellie stared out over the grassy plain. She knew Li was right – she’d seen enough of life’s cruelty. But still she wished she could have done something to save the poor old horse.

  Silently she and Li climbed back into the coach, and it lurched off again.

  By this time Mrs Grindley had overcome her distrust of Li enough to talk to him about Bertie. She had put her finger in the cage for the budgerigar to perch on, and was trying to make him say ‘Pretty boy’ and ‘Hello’.

  ‘He not know these words,’ said Li. ‘He speak only Chinese.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Mrs Grindley. ‘This is a civilised country, and he should be speaking a civilised language. You’re a pretty boy, aren’t you, Bertie? Hello! Hello!’

  ‘Nei hou,’ said Bertie. Nellie and Li looked at each other and grinned.

  Baby Martha refused to sleep, and was fretful. Mrs Evans held her so that she could watch Bertie, but the little girl soon began to cry, and then to scream.

  ‘I’ll take her,’ said Nellie. She sat the baby on her knee. ‘Sure, she’s very hot. Is she quite all right?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Mrs Evans. ‘She has a slight cold, that’s all.’

  Nellie sang softly to Martha, an old lullaby her own mama used to sing, long ago. The baby soon fell asleep, but Nellie continued to hold her close. She shut her eyes and pretended that Martha was her own baby brother Patrick, and that Patrick hadn’t died in the Great Hunger after all.

  Later, as they passed through the scattering of buildings that was Black Springs, Nellie heard men shouting. From her window she could see a long line of bullock drays rumbling past, going in the opposite direction.

  ‘They’re taking copper to Port Wakefield to be shipped to England,’ Bob Trelawney told her. ‘They’ll have been on the road since morning. It’ll be ten days before they reach the Port.’

  The line of bullock teams seemed never-ending, and it moved so slowly! The great-horned beasts strained forward as they hauled the heavy drays, and the bullockies shouted and cursed, their long whips curling and slashing. It was at least a minute before the coach left the last team behind.

  The countryside looked different now, with gentle rolling hills. Nellie could see sheep grazing in the distance.

  ‘It not far to Burra from here,’ said Li. ‘Maybe two hours. You know where to find Thompsons?’

  ‘I’m not sure where they are now, but the Burra is just a little small place, isn’t it? I can ask where they might be.’

  Li frowned, then smiled. ‘We sort it out. You not worry.’

  WHEN at last the coach pulled up in Market Square, Nellie discovered that the Burra wasn’t a small place at all. She could see plenty of fine stone buildings, almost as big as those in Adelaide – shops and hotels and banks. And the Burra wasn’t just one town, but several. The main town, which was owned by the South Australian Mining Association, was called Kooringa. Then there was a village called Redruth, and another called Aberdeen.

  ‘That’s all well and good for them with money, but plenty of us live in dug-outs in the Burra Burra Creek,’ Bob Trelawney said.

  ‘In the creek?’ said Nellie.

  ‘Well, in the banks of the creek,’ said Bob. ‘Most of the Kooringa houses belong to the Mining Association, and if we want to live in one of their cottages, we have to pay rent, see? Three shillings a week it costs, and we only make twenty-five shillings a week, so it’s daylight robbery. Why should we pay good money to the bosses when we can live down the creek rent-free? Nothing wrong with living in a hole in the ground, and no one’s your master. There’s a couple of thousand of us down in Creek Street.’ He shouldered his heavy pack. ‘Good luck, lassie. I hope you find what you’re looking for.’

  Nellie watched as Bob walked off into the dusk. Mrs Grindley had already been met by her son in a smart carriage, and the Evanses had set off for their home on foot, Mr Evans pushing a borrowed wooden wheelbarrow piled high with the family’s luggage.

  Soon Nellie would be all alone. Fighting to control a sudden feeling of panic, she snuggled deeper into her shawl. ‘It feels like a frost coming down,’ she said to Li. ‘Shall you be off to your uncle’s market garden now?’

  Li shook his head. ‘It a three-mile walk. Tonight we stay here, tomorrow we look for your friends. All right, Nellie?’

  ‘All right, Li,’ said Nellie. ‘Oh, I’m so glad you aren’t going just yet. What shall I ever do without you?’

  ‘You smart girl, remember,’ said Li. ‘You manage.’

  Nellie couldn’t afford to pay for a room for the night, so when it was quite dark she and Li sneaked into the stables at the back of the Burra Hotel. Li found a cosy spot beneath a manger, and Nellie bedded down in an empty loose-box. The straw, although scratchy, was warm.

  When she woke next morning Nellie felt a little stiff and achy, but she was full of excitement at the thought of seeing the Thompsons again. She wondered if the children had changed very much. Would baby Albert remember who she was? Would Tom be glad to see her?

  Li went to the hotel kitchen and came back with two big slabs of bread and jam. Nellie offered to pay, but Li shook his head. ‘Only cost tuppence,’ he said.

  They sat in the straw and ate until one of the ostlers came in, swore at them, and ordered them out. ‘Blasted tramps,’ he said, spitting on the floor of the stable. ‘Think you can get everything for nothing, don’t you? Take the bread from honest people’s mouths, you would! Clear off before I get the police on to you.’

  Nellie washed her face hurriedly in a horse trough, and then she and Li picked up their belongings, ready to leave.

  ‘We must go to Paxton’s Square,’ Nellie said. ‘That’s where the Thompsons used to live, but Tom said in his letter that they’ve moved. Somebody there will tell us where they are now.’

  Paxton’s Square, a long line of attached cottages, was on the other side of the creek. The whitewashed walls and roofs of split shingles shone bright and clean in the morning sun. From most of the chimneys thin lines of smoke rose straight up into the air.

  Li sat on a fallen log, the birdcage on his lap. ‘I wait for you here,’ he said.

  Nellie walked up to the end cottage and knocked on the door. She couldn’t help hoping that it would open to reveal Mrs Thompson, or perhaps one of the children, who would greet her with cries of joy. But that was daft, of course.

  That first door was opened by a grumpy man still in his nightshirt. The next revealed a woman with a baby in her arms, a toddler at her feet, and two older children behind her. Behind the nex
t was a very young child in a grubby pinafore. She stared at Nellie, open-mouthed, and didn’t say a word. Each door opened on another disappointment. Nobody had heard of the Thompsons.

  By the time she reached the last cottage in the line, Nellie had almost given up hope. She raised her hand to knock at the door – and stopped.

  A cat had slid around the corner of the building like a shadow. A glossy, well-fed black cat. It came up to Nellie and rubbed against her leg.

  Nellie bent down to stroke it. ‘Sooty!’ she breathed. ‘Sooty, it is you, isn’t it?’

  Sooty arched his back and purred.

  ‘Oh, Sooty,’ said Nellie. ‘I knew you were the luckiest of lucky black cats! Are you telling me that the Thompsons still live here? Oh, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, please let it be true!’

  Her heart racing, she knocked on the final door. There was an agonising silence, and then footsteps. The door opened.

  The person who stood there wasn’t Tom, or Mrs Thompson, or Hetty, or William. It was a woman holding a wooden spoon and a porridge pot. Nellie was so disappointed that she felt for a few seconds as if her heart had stopped beating.

  The woman looked at her suspiciously. ‘We’ve no work for you, and no money neither,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to go elsewhere. I’ve had enough of you lot, not to mention blacks asking for tucker.’

  ‘Begging your pardon, ma’am,’ Nellie said, ‘I’m looking for the Thompsons. They used to live here.’

  ‘Oh.’ The woman’s expression changed. ‘I’m sorry if I wronged you, love, but you do look as if you’ve been sleeping rough.’ She pointed at Nellie’s head with the wooden spoon. ‘There’s straw in your hair.’

  ‘I’m no beggar, ma’am. I’m after wanting the Thompsons. Do you know where they are? I’m desperate to find them.’

  ‘Ooh,’ said the woman. ‘They left quite a few months ago.’ She turned and yelled behind her, ‘Reuben! Do you recall where the Thompsons went?’

  A man’s voice mumbled something in reply, and the woman turned back to Nellie. ‘He thinks they might have gone to Thames Street. You know where that is?’

  ‘I’ll find it.’ Nellie stroked the cat, which was still winding itself around her legs. ‘This would be their cat, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘That’s the one. They took him when they left, but he came back here right away. Someone should’ve buttered his paws. Mrs T must’ve had too much on her mind, what with her husband’s accident.’

  ‘Are they all well, apart from Mr Thompson? How are the children, Albert and Hetty and William – and Tom?’

  The woman shrugged. ‘I couldn’t say, love. I recall that Tom went to be a pickey boy. Or was it young Will?’

  ‘What’s a pickey boy?’ Nellie asked eagerly. ‘Is it something to do with the mine?’

  ‘It’s a job for the lads, the ones too young to be miners. They sort the copper ore before it goes to the smelter. My own son’s a pickey boy. He works a ten-hour shift and goes to school in the evening. Six shillings a week, he makes. It all helps.’

  ‘So Tom is a pickey boy now, is he?’

  ‘As far as I know. But we’re talking about a while back.’

  ‘And Thames Street is where the family’s gone? Are you sure?’

  ‘You ask a lot of questions, love! Thames Street, that’s what my man says. But you’d have to ask.’

  ‘Who should I ask, so?’

  The woman started to close the door. ‘Sorry, love, I have to go now – my man needs his breakfast.’

  ‘Oh – of course,’ Nellie said quickly. ‘Thank you for your help, ma’am. And do look after that lovely cat.’

  She hurried back to where Li was waiting for her. Bertie was perched on his finger.

  ‘Say again, Bertie,’ Li was urging him. ‘Nei hou, Nellie. Nei hou, Nellie.’

  Bertie nibbled at the cuff of Li’s jacket.

  ‘Nei hou, Nellie,’ Li repeated.

  ‘The Thompsons have gone, of course,’ Nellie told Li. ‘But their cat was still there, imagine! The woman who lives in their house said they’d moved to Thames Street, so I’ll try there next.’

  ‘So. Maybe Bertie give you better luck this time. Say “Juk nei hou wan”, Bertie.’

  From nowhere came a streak of black. Nellie saw blazing yellow eyes, a sudden flurry of wings. She stared in horror as Bertie darted from Li’s finger and flew up into a gum tree nearby.

  ‘Sooty!’ she cried. ‘Oh no – the spalpeen – he followed me back over the road! Scat!’ She flapped her skirt at him, and Sooty bounded back towards the cottages, his tail in the air.

  ‘Is all right. Bertie not far away. We get him back.’ Li stood up and walked over to the tree. He called to the little bird in a soothing voice, first in Chinese, and then in English. Bertie didn’t move.

  Slowly Li reached out. Bertie flew a little further up the tree.

  Li jumped, and made a grab for him.

  In an instant Bertie shot up into the air and away.

  ‘Oh, Li, I’m sorry,’ Nellie said in a small voice. She felt near to tears. ‘Now you’ve lost your beautiful Bertie, and it’s all my fault.’

  Li shook his head. ‘No no. My fault. I take Bertie from cage – very silly.’ He stared up into the sky. ‘But, you know, maybe lucky for him. Good to be free of cage. He find his family now.’

  ‘Oh, I hope he does,’ Nellie said. ‘Do you really think he will?’

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ Li said. ‘He smart, like you, Nellie. You not be sad.’

  ‘I won’t, I promise. I’ll think of Bertie flying free.’ Nellie took a deep breath and picked up her bundle. ‘And now you must go to find your uncle, and I must keep looking for the Thompsons. Don’t fret about me, Li. Everything will be grand, I know it will.’

  Li’s round face crinkled with worry. ‘You sure?’

  The thought of leaving Li made Nellie feel very empty, but she managed to smile. ‘I’m sure. Goodbye, Li. Thank you for being my friend.’

  NELLIE walked along the whole length of Thames Street, knocking on every door. It took her almost all morning. A few people had been friendly with the Thompsons, but nobody knew where they were now. One woman suggested that they might have moved to Redruth. Another said that Mrs Thompson had spoken of opening a boarding house in Clare, twenty-five miles away.

  Nellie rested by the creek for a while, looking curiously at the quaint dug-out homes all the way down the bank. Then she started her search again. She knocked on more doors, stopped people in the streets.

  When she came to a small church, she hesitated. It wasn’t a Catholic church, and she’d never set foot in a Protestant one. Before she went inside, she made the Sign of the Cross, hoping God would understand that this was an emergency.

  The little church building smelt of newness, and the man who came out to speak to her didn’t even look like a priest. He said he knew the Thompsons, but they hadn’t come to a service in many weeks.

  In the centre of town, Market Square, Nellie sat on a low stone wall. I’ll not give up, she thought. But right now, if I’m not to sleep in the stable again, I need a bed for the night.

  Straightening her shoulders, she walked across the road to the Burra Hotel.

  ‘Are you after wanting any help, sir?’ she asked the bald, shiny-faced cook in the hotel kitchen.

  The man looked at her, sizing her up. ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Fourteen, sir.’

  ‘Any experience?’

  ‘I’ve been a kitchen maid in the finest houses of Adelaide, sir.’

  ‘Well, it’s Saturday, and we always get a crowd in, Saturdays. I wouldn’t normally take on a young girl, but we’re desperate short-staffed tonight. There’s a lot of sickness about. I can offer you work for today and today only. Tomorrow’ – he made a chopping movement with his hand’ – ‘finish.’

  ‘And what will you give me? I need a place to sleep tonight.’

  The cook nodded. ‘I’ll give you a shilling, and there’s a bed out the back w
e keep for itinerants.’

  ‘That’s grand, sir. And I’m a good worker. You might even want to take me on.’

  ‘Don’t count on it,’ the cook said. ‘Put your things here behind the door. You can get started on the washing up.’

  It was cold outside, but the kitchen was hot. All the cooking was done over an open fire. Nellie was run off her feet, peeling vegetables, scraping dirty plates and washing dishes. As night fell, the noise from the front bar of the hotel grew louder and louder. Nellie heard snatches of song, voices arguing, occasionally the sound of glass smashing.

  Late in the evening, when a few Aboriginal people came to the kitchen door asking for tucker, Nellie found some scraps of bread and meat for them. They said nothing, just accepted the food and disappeared silently into the darkness.

  It was after midnight by the time her work was done, and Nellie was so tired that she felt light in the head. She hoped she wasn’t falling ill, like Mary. ‘Sure, you’re getting soft,’ she told herself. ‘All you need is a good sleep.’

  The room the cook had offered her was a tiny, foul-smelling stone cell next to the outdoor privy, but it had a bed, an old mattress and some blankets, and that was all Nellie wanted.

  Tomorrow I’ll go out to the mine, she thought as she wearily took off her boots. That’s where Tom worked as a pickey boy, so somebody there must know where he is. And maybe I can find some copper to sell.

  Listening to the racket from the front of the hotel, her precious shilling clutched tightly in her fist, she fell asleep.

  She woke up late next morning, her head throbbing, to find that her arms and chest were covered with red spots. Fleas! Nellie groaned. As if she didn’t have enough to worry about! She hunted down as many as she could, and squished them between her fingernails.

  As she walked out of town and towards the Monster Mine, Nellie wished she’d saved some of the food scraps she’d given away last night. Her stomach was empty, and her head hurt. Since breakfast yesterday all she’d had was a mug of cold tea snatched during service at the hotel.

  She heard the mine before she saw it: a low, continuous thumping, like the beating of a giant heart. When finally she came to the mining area, set in a half circle of bare, rounded hills, she gasped in amazement. She’d never thought it would be so huge! There was a building with a giant chimney in the centre, and other buildings around it. People were scurrying about like ants on an ant-heap.