Bobby sniffles and lets out a little moan. He unwraps the hanky from his knee to more closely inspect the damage. You’d forgotten he was even there for a moment.
All of a sudden, you see that the handkerchief is embroidered with three initials: LSO. Could the ‘very impressive man’ that gentleman claimed you so resemble possibly, just possibly, be Da?
You feel like you are right on the brink of finding some answers, but that you just don’t have enough information yet. Now the sun is sinking lower, and you and Sarah must take Bobby to meet Mr Tilsome and begin the long journey home – right away, in fact, or you’ll be late. But you know that, once you’ve returned, you’ll be stuck in Bothwell for many months before another trip to Hobart Town takes place.
You are itching to leave Sarah to return home with Bobby, while you run away to follow one of these new leads – either chasing up Mike’s friend in Wapping, or searching for the mysterious gentleman you met at the rocks.
But if you run away, you’d be committing a crime. If you were caught, you’d be imprisoned again, for who knows how long. What’s more, you would lose your chance of a ticket of leave. It would mean another indefinitely long absence from Sarah, and an uncertain future.
You feel torn in three different directions.
To go to Wapping and search for Mike’s friend, go to scene 30.
To follow the mysterious gentleman, Mr LSO, go to scene 31.
To return to the master and look for your da again next time you’re in town, go to scene 32.
‘Sarah,’ you say urgently, leaning close and looking into her brown eyes, ‘who did you meet in Wapping who knows my da?’
She shrugs, looking confused. ‘His name was Connor Murphy. He’s a friend of Mike’s – well, Mike knows him, at least – and—’
You break away from her and start to jump over the rocks. You want to say goodbye, but Sarah is so sensible that she’d stop you from going.
‘What the blazes are you doing?’ she shouts, ‘You’ll make us all late for the master!’
‘Don’t wait for me!’ you call back. ‘Tell him I got lost … or kidnapped. Yes, that’s better!’
‘No man would be fool enough to kidnap some mad bloody Irish girl with about as much discipline as a wild monkey!’ she hollers back. ‘You’ll lose the lot – no ticket of leave, no job. For God’s sake, stop!’
You throw a glance over your shoulder. Bobby’s little jaw is about hanging down to his knees with all the yelling and cussing flying back and forth between the two of you. Sarah is tugging him over the rocks as fast as he can go, but he’s still teary from his cut knee, and she can’t keep up with you – nor will she ever desert Bobby.
She’s too good, you think. So dutiful she won’t even take a chance when she gets one.
You know that’s not a fair thing to think, but you are trying to block all doubts from your mind. Sarah is shouting out everything she can think of: ‘For the sake of your poor mother! For the sake of our friendship! Damn it, stop and think it through!’ She keeps yelling until you clamber up onto the docks and disappear into the crowd.
You make your way around the docks in a big crescent to your right, until you reach Wapping. The place is a maze of shanty-houses and muddy tracks built around the Hobart Rivulet, which is not much more than an open sewer at this point in its journey to the sea. The place is thick with workers from the wharves: you pass a tavern, and a man pushing a stinking cart piled high with dead seals.
You’re nervous, and it must show on your face, because the people on the streets look you up and down with hungry curiosity. Some give black-toothed chuckles and point.
A drunken voice shouts, ‘Connor, you’re a bloody mug!’ and you turn to see a man throwing a punch at another man, who ducks and spills his beer on himself then launches himself at the first man. Next thing, they have both thrown themselves against the nearest wall in a heap, laughing and swearing.
‘Ah, but I’m the best bloody mug in the business, and you know it!’
You step up to them, nervously. ‘Is your name Connor?’
He snorts. ‘You can hear all right then, as Marshall’s been shouting it all over Wapping!’
‘Connor Murphy?’
His eyes narrow. ‘What’s it to you?’
‘You know my da, Patrick Ryan. I want to find him.’
Connor snorts again. ‘Sarah’s been talking to you, I suppose. I don’t know anything more than what I told her: your da’s somewhere in the bush east of Macquarie Harbour, either alive or a pile of bones, the devil knows which. You’ll find him when he wants to be found, as has always been the way with Ryan. Now bugger off.’
The other bloke, Marshall, interrupts. ‘Now don’t be rude, Connor. I’m sure there are many more tales you could tell about this little lady’s da if we get some rum into you …’
YOU AGREE TO join Connor and Marshall in a pub down a dark alleyway, where they buy each other moonshine rum.
‘I saw your da wrestle a thylacine to the ground once,’ Connor claims. ‘He wears its teeth in a necklace …
‘Even the redcoats fear him. He can throw a cannonball fifty yards …
‘I saw him take three men out with one punch …’
The evening grows deeper and the stories wilder. You aren’t sure you believe anything Connor says, but you can’t bring yourself to interrupt him, or stop yourself from listening, either.
You try a sip of the rum yourself and the liquor strips your throat with flame.
‘He picked the lock on his cell door using a nail from his boot …’ Connor
