Cal Flyn - Thicker Than Water - History, Secrets and Guilt - A Memoir

Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Map Prologue 1. Blood Relatives 2. But for the Sea 3. The Fever Ship 4. The Cattle Station 5. First In, Best Dressed 6. Black War 7. The White Woman 8. Slaughterhouse Gully 9. In Search of Elders 10. Reconciliation 11. Iguana Creek Epilogue Author’s Note Sources Acknowledgements About the Author About the Publisher

William Collins

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First published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2016

Copyright © Cal Flyn 2016

Cal Flyn asserts the moral right to be

identified as the author of this work

This book has been written with the assistance of Creative Scotland and Arts Trust Scotland

A catalogue record for this book is

available from the British Library

Cover image by permission of State Library Victoria

Map by John Gilkes

The author and publishers are committed to respecting the intellectual property rights of others and have made all reasonable efforts to trace the copyright owners of the images reproduced, and to provide appropriate acknowledgement within this book. In the event that any untraceable copyright owners come forward after the publication of this book, the author and publishers will use all reasonable endeavours to rectify the position accordingly.

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Source ISBN: 9780008126629

Ebook Edition © June 2016 ISBN: 9780008126612

Version: 2017-01-25

To my parents,

who make everything possible

Cover

Title Page Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Map Prologue 1. Blood Relatives 2. But for the Sea 3. The Fever Ship 4. The Cattle Station 5. First In, Best Dressed 6. Black War 7. The White Woman 8. Slaughterhouse Gully 9. In Search of Elders 10. Reconciliation 11. Iguana Creek Epilogue Author’s Note Sources Acknowledgements About the Author About the Publisher

Copyright

Dedication

Map

Prologue

1. Blood Relatives

2. But for the Sea

3. The Fever Ship

4. The Cattle Station

5. First In, Best Dressed

6. Black War

7. The White Woman

8. Slaughterhouse Gully

9. In Search of Elders

10. Reconciliation

11. Iguana Creek

Epilogue

Author’s Note

Sources

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

Gippsland, Victoria. July 1843

Ronald Macalister was dead. The blacks had killed him.

Angus McMillan’s stablehand found the body at the side of the track a half-mile from Alberton, a mess of blood and gore. They had dragged the lad from his horse. Dragged him flailing and yowling to the dust, dispatched him with their wooden clubs, and later, once he was dead, they had cut him.

Though Angus knew Ronald well – had known him for years, in fact, since he’d worked for the dead man’s uncle – he had barely recognised him. The corpse had been stripped naked, the face disfigured, the insides left spewing out upon the ground. There were slashes in the gut where the Gunai attackers had cut the fat from around his kidneys.

All the settlers were in uproar; this time the blacks had gone too far. Not a sheep, nor a bullock, not even a shepherd or a stockman; this time they had killed the nephew of the big man Lachlan Macalister himself, and a crime of this magnitude could not go unpunished. There must be reprisals. Angus felt the heavy weight of responsibility settling down upon his shoulders.

For who else could lead the men of Gippsland? He was the founding father, the man who had led the way from the withered plains of the colony over the Great Dividing Range. He was the one who had hacked through the snarls of stringybark and tea tree and finally guided them down into these green and fertile pastures. He had gathered his countrymen around him in the new land and shown them the way they must now live. There was no one else.

In the end, retribution was not so difficult to organise. The men were fired up, just waiting for the touchpaper to be lit. It didn’t take much persuasion to amass a hunting party; by the next morning every Scotsman in the district with a gun and a sound horse was assembled, ready for the off, baying like the hounds. Baying for blood. They called themselves the Highland Brigade.

A cry went up and the mob were off. The horses skittered under them, sensing but not understanding the tension in their riders, whose reins were short and faces set as they cursed in their native Gaelic, guttural and emphatic, and struggled for control. And all the time their eyes flitted along the skyline, searching for sign of the Gunai.

Overnight every one of the Aboriginal workers had melted away into the bush, abandoning their posts on the homesteads and the cattle stations. They were as spooked as the horses by the strange charge in the air, the rumbling among their workmates and masters. The murder of Ronald Macalister had set something in motion that they couldn’t yet predict, but they didn’t want to be around to find out what it was.

Word spread amongst the Highlanders that the blacks had been gathering down by the coast, where the sea pummelled its soft fists into the silver sweep of Ninety Mile Beach. Someone had heard that natives had been seen wearing the clothes of poor dead Ronald, clothes they must have stripped from the lifeless body before the blades were drawn. Clothes that would be spattered with the dead man’s blood.

Another said that when the attackers were disturbed they were squatting down beside the body, with the clear intention of eating the man’s flesh. They were inhuman, said someone, and they all agreed. They were dangerous, murderous vermin that needed exterminating.

Later it would never be clear who had said exactly what to whom; at that moment they were of one body and one mind. They looked around and saw only brothers and equals united in pursuit of a common enemy. This was more than revenge: it was about securing the safety of their homes, the virtue of their women and a future for their children. It was white against black, good versus evil, the triumph of civilisation over barbarism.