Solomon's Song Read online

  ‘Conscience?’ Tommo smiles ruefully. ‘That is the difference between you and me, you would carry the murder on your conscience forever and I have but scarcely thought about it. Mr Sparrow was a mongrel and when I chopped him there was that much less evil in the world.’ Tommo looks up at Hawk. ‘But it takes bad blood to murder a man, any man, even a mongrel. If they should string me up for it, it would be a fair bargain.’

  Hawk sighs and then looks at Tommo somewhat apprehensively. ‘Tommo, will you tell about that night?’

  It is Tommo’s turn to sigh, ‘Aye, if you wish, but it weren’t a pretty thing to tell of.’

  ‘Tommo, I grieve for Maggie every day, every hour of my life, it would make it more, yer know ah . . . complete . . .’ Hawk shrugs, not knowing how to continue.

  Tommo sees his confusion and starts right in. ‘It takes me five or six minutes to run to Kellet’s Wharf from the World Turned Upside Down, the pub where Mr Sparrow stayed. It’s fourteen minutes to nine o’clock with the tide turning at some time shortly after nine when the Kanaka ship, Morning Star, will sail. I have little time left to swim the two hundred yards out to where she’s moored.

  ‘I’m sweating and panting from the run and I remove me clothes and shoes and using me belt I wraps them around the axe holster and returns it to my back. Then I wades in and starts to swim. I’m still breathing ’ard from the run and me ’ead’s hurting terrible. It’s a calm night and dark with cloud cover, so the moon is lost. The harbour water’s cool and welcoming and I strokes me way to the dark shape o’ the Morning Star, a trading schooner about eighty feet stem to stern. I can see she has her head to the wind, facing the land breeze coming down the harbour and is preparing to sail.

  ‘As I reach the port side I can hear the Kanakas starting to sing as they lean into the capstan bars to take up the slack and begin to raise the anchor. I can hear the click of the pawls and if I’m any judge it’s a task that will take anything up to fifteen minutes. It means I can’t climb up the anchor rope as I had supposed. But, ah, there is a God in heaven, as me eyes clear I see they’ve already raised the dinghy but the ship’s ladder has not yet been pulled up. Glory be, it’s a doddle to climb on board up the rope ladder and soon enough I sticks me ’ead up to take a look over the deck. I’m panting hard but there appears to be no one about. They’ve already set the mainsail which is luffing in the light breeze and will cover any sound I might make coming aboard. From where I am at the waist of the schooner the Kanaka standing at the ship’s wheel and the captain on the quarterdeck can’t see me and I can hear the first mate on the quarterdeck urging the men on with the raising of the anchor.

  ‘I look around, there are a dozen or so barrels lashed to the starboard side and the dark shape of the deckhouse with the dinghy atop is to me left. Then I hear a snuffling sound and I go rigid, somebody’s coming. But it don’t take long to realise, like all Kanaka ships, they’ve taken pigs on board. Island folk, as you well know, don’t like to go to sea without a pig or two. Then I see it, the pig pen, close to the fo’c’sle, Kanakas, the only folk happy to put the pig pen near where they kips down. There’s another shape next to it and o’ course it’s the chicken coop, chickens the second thing them silly buggers like to have on board. All the bleedin’ ’ome comforts. The rest o’ the deck is the usual mess what come about before sailing. It will be to my advantage, nobody moving quickly, plenty of time to see ’em coming and if I has to, use me axe.’

  Hawk looks aghast. ‘Tommo, you’d not kill an innocent?’

  Tommo grins. ‘Nah, just tap him light with the blunt, put him down for a bit. Anyway, it don’t happen. It ain’t necessary. There’s nobody on the main deck and I slips aboard and find good concealment behind the barrels on the starboard side. I’m tucked away so when they tidy the deck there is little chance I’ll be discovered.

  ‘I can see the deckhouse leading down to the saloon where I figure I’ll find Mr Sparrow. It looks to be a typical trading schooner with the one cabin below decks for a passenger or two and the captain and the first mate in their own quarters aft where it be the most comfortable to sail. From what Johnny Terrible’s told me, Mr Sparrow is on his own and does not wish to be recognised, not even by the captain or the crew, let alone a fellow passenger, so it will be him and me alone, if I can get down to him.

  ‘I undoes me swag and removes me axe from the shoulder holster so it’s at me side. I’m still bollocky and I starts to shiver again, now me panting’s stopped. As best I can, I wring out me wet clobber and get back into it, me clothes clinging to me skin, feeling ’orrible and me feet squelching in soaked boots. Now it’s waiting time and me ’ead’s hurting real bad.

  ‘The anchor’s up at last and the ship turns with the outgoing tide with Sydney now, same as me, on the starboard side. I can see a few lights and I thinks of you and Mama and of Johnny Terrible breaking the news o’ Maggie’s death to you and giving you the magpie feathers and I silently hopes that me going after the mongrel what done it will some day be of true comfort to you.’

  Hawk’s eyes fill with sudden tears. ‘I thought that I’d lost you too, that of the three people I loved with all my heart, that I had lost two of them on the one night. If it were not for the strength of Mary, our mama, I don’t reckon I’d have wanted to go on living another hour.’ Hawk grins through his tears. ‘She saw how I was and she come right out and says, “Hawk Solomon,” like she’d say when we were little ’uns, stern o’ face, the scar on her cheek pulled down to the corner of her mouth, “I didn’t rescue you from the wild man in the wilderness just so you could snuff it by yer own miserable ’ands! I’ve lost me beloved Tommo and you, your lovely Maggie, but you ain’t gunna do the dirty on me now, so get that inta yer thick nigger ’ead!” She points a crooked finger at me. “Dying is easy, son. It’s living what takes the character. Orright? Now, let’s get on with it.”’

  ‘Yeah, that be our I shall never surrender, Mary, that’s our mama,’ Tommo laughs. ‘She’s right, yer know, livin’s what’s the bastard.’

  Hawk, hoping to change the sudden feeling of melancholy, changes tack. ‘You’re on deck, but, with the ship moving down the harbour soon to be out of the Heads, how ever did you think you’d get back to shore?’

  Tommo gives a rueful smile. ‘Mate, with me ’ead gone an’ all, I reckoned there weren’t much point to hangin’ around any longer. Just so long as I can get a crack at the miserable mongrel. Tell yer the truth, I didn’t think much about the next part o’ it.’

  ‘Tommo, you were willing to give your life for me and you tell me you’ve got bad blood. It just isn’t true!’ Hawk protests fiercely.

  ‘Wait on, it ain’t pretty what comes next.’

  Hawk can see Tommo is tiring. ‘You sure you want to go on?’ he asks, concerned.

  Tommo nods his head and takes up where he left off. ‘It’s getting bloody cold with spring not yet come and me sittin’ shivering in me wet clobber. A couple of Kanakas pass by and I reckon if I coughs I’m a goner, me teeth are chatterin’ that loud I think they must surely hear me loud as a chisel chippin’ stone.

  ‘But they goes about their work getting the sails up and trimmed and several others come to join them. We’ve passed the Sow and Pigs, them cluster o’ rocks that stand inside the harbour, and we’re just about through the Heads, they’ve got the flying jib going as well as the topsail with the main and staysail up and under way. I reckon the breeze from the land is now moving us about four or five knots, a perfect night for sail, they’ll all be in the fo’c’sle abed not long after we’ve cleared the Heads. You know how it is, yiz pretty knackered after getting under way.

  ‘Well, it were just like I just said. Bloody ship would sail itself on a night like this. We clears the Heads and turns to port and hugs to the coast to take advantage o’ the shore breeze and the crew turn in prompt as I had supposed.

  ‘Now it’s only the creaking o’ the ship, the bow waves and the sails luffing that breaks the silence. I reckon t
he only man left on deck is the helmsman and he’s got the light from the ship’s compass in his eyes, so there’s no way he can see the main deck from the quarter. It’s dark as hell anyway, best you can see clearly is about ten feet. Besides, the deckhouse is cutting off his line o’ sight, so I reckon I am clear to make me move.

  ‘Then I see him, Mr Sparrow, he’s coming up from below. I watch as he turns, walking towards me. Gawd in heaven, he’s walking straight into a trap I didn’t even know I’d set. But o’ course he sees the barrels and turns to the right, coming up to the starboard rails not six feet from where I’m hiding. Me heart starts to pump. Jesus H. Christ, I can take him right here and now with the axe, throw it and put the blade into the side o’ his skull and he’d be dead ’fore he hit the deck or could even grunt.

  ‘He’s wearing a long coat just like the one Ikey used to wear, his ’at is pulled down to his eyes and he’s got a woollen scarf wrapped around his phiz so only his eyes are to be seen between his ’at and the scarf. He’s looking out to sea and all you can hear is the wash as the bow cuts through the waves. I’ve got F. Artie Sparrow standing still as a scarecrow, the perfect target, and him no doubt lamenting the good life he’s left behind in Sydney and not knowing the next port o’ call will be the flames o’ hell itself.’

  ‘So that was it then?’ Hawk says, sighing, glad the telling is over.

  ‘Nah, too easy, I want the bastard t’know it was me come after him and that he’s gunna die. No point him being alive one moment and dead the next without him knowing why. I want to see the fear in his miserable mongrel eyes. I want to see it for Maggie, for you, for meself. It’s like he’s all the mongrels that ever were and I want to see how their kind take to dying.’

  Hawk can scarcely believe Tommo’s courage. ‘But he could have shouted and alerted the crew as he saw you coming, anything!’

  ‘Not before I’d a nailed him he couldn’t have.’ Tommo pauses. ‘After that I couldn’t give a shit.’

  ‘So, what did you do?’

  ‘I creep up and lift his ’at and give him a light tap on the skull with the blunt and catch him as he sinks to his knees. He’s about the same size as me, but I know I’m the younger and stronger, so I slips me axe into the holster across me back and lifts him over me shoulder and crosses to the companionway. It’s a bit of a struggle getting him down below and into the saloon. I’m already knackered but I dumps Mr Sparrow on the floor and locks the cabin door and sits down to recover and to await his return to this shitty world. But first I take the precaution of wrapping the woollen scarf tight about his mouth so that he won’t wake with a scream and can still breathe through his nostrils.

  ‘Then I takes a look about me. It don’t take too long to find his stash what’s in a leather saddlebag. There’s more in it than even I supposed, gold coin o’ course, but mostly it’s stuff what’s light but can be quickly converted into cash. Diamonds, several gold rings with large ruby and emerald stones and a box o’ the finest South Sea pearls you can imagine, maybe two hundred o’ the little beauties. There’s a stack o’ them new five pound banknotes which I can’t get both me ’ands around. A fortune carefully put together to be transportable and, I’m telling yer straight, it ain’t been gathered in a few days. I am forced to conclude that F. Artie Sparrow has long contemplated there might some day come the need to scarper and was ever ready to escape at a moment’s notice. But then I find true paradise, a ball o’ opium big as yer fist wrapped in cheesecloth. Mr Sparrow has brought along with him six months supply from Tang Wing Hung.’

  Tommo laughs. ‘Here I be with a fortune of ill-gained and half a year’s supply o’ the poppy and I can’t do nothing about it. I’m sitting there thinking how bloody typical, Tommo’s usual luck, eh? I think I’ll find Sparrow’s pipe and kill the pain in me ’ead for a while. Then I realise that if he come to while the Angel’s Kiss be upon me, I’m history. The craving for opium and the pain in me noggin be so bad I almost think to chop him right there and prepare a pipe and smoke it at me leisure. Then the idea come to me all of a sudden, out o’ the blue like. With me craving the poppy I can’t think how there be room for such a plan to come into me terrible aching ’ead, but it comes quite sudden and complete and is worthy o’ the cunning o’ Ikey Solomon himself.

  ‘I begin to remove Mr Sparrow’s clothes, first his Ikey coat, which I can see will fit a treat, then his jacket, weskit and blouse, then the fine leather boots and next his trousers and then his long johns and hose. He’s bollocky and there’s even less of him than me and I wonder how so much evil can be contained in such a little bag o’ skin, bones and misery.

  ‘His clobber fits me like a glove and I’m warm and snug and feeling much better for the change from me own wet garments. Mr Sparrow is beginning to stir and so I pulls him up until he’s sitting with his back against the cabin wall and his head lolling, chin on chest.

  ‘His eyes open, bleary at first then with sudden light, he can’t talk o’ course but the surprise they show is speech enough. He looks down and sees he’s naked and jerks backwards against the cabin wall and quickly brings his ’ands to cover his little blue worm.

  ‘ “Good evening, Mr Sparrow,” I says. I can hear him whimper behind the scarf. So I lifts my axe and puts me finger to me lips so he’ll know to stay stum and removes the scarf, though he could have done as well himself his hands not being bound.

  ‘ “Tommo!” he says, all surprised. “Where am I?” he asks, still lookin’ dazed like.

  ‘ “Shush! Where you was before, but now you’ve got company,” says I.

  ‘He looks about the cabin and I can see he’s thinking what to say next. Then he turns to me, “How much?”

  ‘I laugh and point to the saddlebag, “Too late for that, mate. I’ve got the lot and what’s stashed in this coat, but you might oblige me by takin’ them rings from your fingers.”

  ‘ “Don’t know that they’ll come free,” he says, still a bit cheeky like. I got to ’and it to him, little bugger’s got spunk orright.

  ‘I shrugs and wave the axe. “Easy, always cut ’em loose, makes no bloody difference to me, do it?”

  ‘He gets the rings off without too much trouble and I takes them and drops them in me coat pocket.

  ‘ “Righto then, up you gets.” I point to me wet clothes, “Put ’em on.”

  ‘ “But they’re wet?” he protests.

  ‘ “Never mind, where you’re goin’ they’ll soon enough be dry.” I grins, but I don’t think he gets the joke. It takes him a while to get the wet clobber on but what fits me fits him fine. I point to a wicker chair what’s in the cabin. “Sit.”

  ‘He sits in the chair with his hands folded in his lap shiverin’ like a captured mouse. I know how he feels in the wet clobber, so I takes a blanket from the bunk and throws it at him and he wraps it around himself, his ’ead an’ all. He looks like a scrawny old crone begging for alms.

  ‘I don’t reckon he’ll make a sudden jump for me, I don’t see it in his eyes. I can tell he still thinks he’ll use his noggin, talk hisself out of trouble. But he’s forgot I were brought up by Ikey Solomon, what could talk hisself out o’ the condemned cell with the hangman’s noose already ’round his neck. F. Artie Sparrow ain’t in the same class o’ spruiker. Besides, with the blanket wrapped around him it will be harder if he tries to ’ave a go at me.

  ‘ “What you going to do to me, Tommo?” he asks at last.

  ‘ “Well now, let’s see. I reckon about the same as you done to Miss Maggie Pye. What say you, Mr Sparrow?”

  ‘ “She were a whore, Fat Fred fucked her to death, that ain’t got nothing ter do with me.”

  ‘ “Fat Fred couldn’t get it up at a whore’s Christmas party, yer bastard. What you did was murder Maggie and you thought it were funny, a bit o’ fun for the Sydney lads and you, at the same time, gettin’ your revenge on me brother Hawk!”

  ‘ “No, no,” he pleads, “It were no such thing. I swear on me life!”

&nbs
p; ‘ “Your life? Right now it ain’t worth a pinch o’ shit. I’ve ’ad a chat to Johnny Terrible, he’s told me everything, you bastard!”

  ‘ “Please,” he says, “spare me and you’ll not regret it, Tommo!”

  ‘ “Spare you? Jesus! Whaffor?”

  ‘ “We could go into business, son. I’ll cut you in for ’arf o’ everything, we’d make a bleedin’ fortune you and me.” He cocks his ’ead to the side, “You with the flats and me managing the game. There’d be none better in all the colonies.” He tries to smile, to crawl right up me arse. “Mr Ace o’ Spades, you’re the best, the very best there is with the cards, never seen better, a bloody miracle them ’ands. Miracle o’ motion and deception. You’ve got talent nigh to genius, no, correction, you is genius.”

  ‘ “And both of us needin’ the poppy regular, eh? A fine threesome, you, me and the opium pipe. Bullshit!” His nose is running and he’s commenced to snivellin’ and shiverin’ and I can see that the courage ’as suddenly leaked out o’ him, there’s wet tears runnin’ down his cheeks.’

  ‘ “What say you, then?” he whimpers, his teeth achatter. I don’t know whether the shaking is from the cold or his fear, both perhaps. Mr Sparrow spreads his hands and shrugs and appeals to me with the wet eyes, “Please, Tommo, spare me,” he cries.

  ‘ “Mr Sparrow, I didn’t come to bargain, as I see it right now, I ain’t got too much time meself. I come to do what I’ve promised I’d do since I were seven year old and four of you mongrels, you dog fuckers, stretched me over a Huon log in the Wilderness. Pulled down me torn britches and threw me over that fallen log. I remember its lemon-yellow bark were stripped, just like me, me and the pine, both bollock naked, me with me face kissin’ the damp forest earth and it fallen to the same by the cruel axes o’ the wood fetchers. Then them buggering me, laughing, snotting over me back and me arse bleeding so the blood’s running down the inside o’ me legs. Them leavin’, footsteps crackling through the fern and myrtle bush, laughing, whooping, doin’ up their buckles and buttoning their britches. You fuck little boys too, don’tcha, Mr Sparrow?”