‘NOT A STONE TELL WHERE  I LYE’

                                               

 Happy the man, whose wish and care

A few paternal acres bound

content to breathe his native air

In his own ground.

Thus unlamented let me dye:

Steal from the world, and not a stone

Tell where I lye.

            Captain Collet Barker completed copying the sonnet into his journal and closed the book. A few paternal acres? In honesty he knew that was not what he yearned for, except in moments when his sense of isolation overwhelmed him.

            He had walked miles across the ranges from St Vincents Gulf and , with his party, he rested on the crest of an unnamed hill and looked down  at  the vast expanse of water in the distance. The River Murray and the lakes shone like crimson mirrors under the early morning sun. ‘The Murray Mouth’, Sturt had named it.

            Reaching the sandy verge of that river mouth took most of the day  and now those lines of verse returned to his mind.

            A few acres? He stared across at the smooth sandhill which reared against the harsh blueness of the sky.

            ‘If only we had a boat.’ muttered Kent.

            This land was seemingly limitless. Limitless, although he acknowledged that it belonged to others. He thought of Captain Bannister’s announcement that he intended applying for a grant of land  at Princess Royal Harbour, far to the west..

            That was the tribal land of his friend, Mokare. Could he do something to thwart Bannister’s plan?

            The sandhill completely blocked the view of the lakes, of everything except the strip of racing water before them.

            ‘I have to see what is beyond,’ he said.

            ‘We’ll have to go back to the boat and sail here.’

            The boat was miles away on the other side of the Fleurieu Peninsula across the ranges.

.           For some reason he felt a rising impatience, as if he were running out of time.

            All those years which had slid so softly away. Did his family still remember him? Were any of them surviving? Did they sometimes wonder...?

            .He shook his head. ‘I don’t wish to waste time going back. I’ll swim across myself.’

            ‘But Sir, who’s to accompany you? I can’t swim.’

            ‘I have no need of company.’  Was he telling himself the truth?

            ‘But you don’t know what’s over there, Sir. Savages, very likely...’

            ‘Savages, Mr Kent? Have you forgotten the people of Princess Royal so soon?’

            ‘It might be different here.’

            ‘Help me secure the compass on top of my head. One sandhill may look very like another and I would prefer to return.’

            Stripping off his clothes, he waded into the flowing water. The cold and swiftness of the current took him unawares, and for a minute he was in the control of the water as it rushed towards the open sea. Distant breakers, crashing onto unseen sand, thundered in his ears as he exerted his strength and began to swim towards the further bank.

            'No white man had done this!', he thought, and then wondered if it  was true. The water tugged at him, pulling him towards the sea, but it could not have him. Not yet. The further shore was a little closer. He gulped salt water as he strove to keep his head above the surface. No man of any race would do this without a reason

            He had no energy for smiling. Was curiosity sufficient reason?

             If his sister, Elizabeth, could see him at this moment... Now he managed to smile for an instant as he tried to recall his sister’s likeness.

            Her face was a blur. He couldn’t remember. Her eyes - they were blue, cornflower blue, people said, as she would smile demurely.

            He knew little of women, but he remembered how English girls behaved.

             The water splashed about his head and the compass felt ridiculous perched up there. He concentrated, trying to recall her face, a small  triangular face with light brown hair.

            He coughed away the salt water. This crossing was far wider than it appeared to be. His arms were growing heavier. Taking a deep breath he lengthened his stroke as he concentrated on his sister’s face. Now the image, long forgotten, came welling up from some recess of his memory.

            But the face was round, the eyes darker than the skin, and filled with tears. His feet touched shaly sand. The racing waters released him and he struggled up the sand, as the girl in his mind raised her hands, not to brush away the tears, but in self defence.

He had never endangered any... Her mouth was open, and he could hear her silent scream. And she was gone.

            He stood up, and turning, waved to the men on the opposite bank. Untying the compass, he dropped it at his feet. Thank God he was alone that his men could not see his expression.

            He had heard of officers who went mad from isolation. But not him.  Slowly he looked around. Pristine, the colour of palest sandstone, the dunes rose steep and lofty. Already weary from his swim he began to climb. His feet sank deep into the dry sand, rivulets and cascades streamed from every step as he laboured on. Struggling forward, his hands sank into the warm moving surface, as he steadied himself and continued wading upwards through a sandy torrent of his own making.

            As he reached the top of the dune he turned slowly . Behind him the coast arced away and was lost in the salt haze.

            His party on the other bank were tiny manikins standing rigid. He could sense them concentrating on him. Ahead was another dune higher than the one he had just climbed. From this point, he could see nothing of the lakes or the further reaches of the river.

            He turned again and gestured his intentions to his party. Perhaps from the next dune he might obtain a broader view. He stumbled and fell his way down the steep incline. That girl’s face. He had never met her. He knew that. Some said ‘They all look alike to me.’ He knew better. At Raffles Bay, at King George Sound, he had known everyone by name and personality. That girl in his mind was a stranger.

            ‘A prophetic stranger.’ He said aloud and stopped still.  Why had he said that? Was his life of solitude finally affecting his mind? He began the slow demanding ascent of the dune before him. As he began to climb he knew, instinctively, that he was not alone. There was no sound. His own steps were silenced by the deep soft sand. Nothing moved.

            Awareness speeded him as he waded upwards. Ahead and to his left, there was nothing but more dunes, but to his right he saw a depression between the hills of sand, and at the end of it he saw the sea.

            Suddenly it was imperative that he reach to sea. He could walk along the coast then, back to the river mouth .But that was not his purpose.

             Yet he paused only momentarily. Gulls flew overhead lamenting. Protruding from the sand were bones, huge bones, the ribcage of a giant. A whale?

            He had heard of whalers on that island Flinders named Kangaroo Island, but here? Why would they come so far around the coast when there were whales aplenty, nearer the island.

            The face of the weeping girl filled his mind, and now she was not alone. He could not see the others, but he heard them wailing. This was no ritual song, not even a lament. This was the voicing of helpless terror.

            As he reached the base of the dune the sound was louder. Ahead he saw something jutting from the sand. Silence, but not solitude, surrounded him. Was that an oar? The girls no longer wailed. They were screaming and he knew why the whalers came here.

            He stood very still and raised his head. He could see no one as he waited in the noisy silence.

            The tribesman slipped  into existence as if from nowhere. Common sense told him the man had edged around the dune. Now there were several. In appearance they were not unlike his friends at Princess Royal. The silent wailing was even louder, and so desperate he wondered if the tribesmen could hear it sounding in his head.

            Their expressions told him that this was different from Princess Royal or Raffles. He stretched out his hand in greeting, as if he were meeting Mokare.

            Fleetingly, he wondered if they could explain to him the girl he had imagined, and then, as one of them flexed his spear, he realised that they already knew far too much about that desperate girl.

            Again he tried a greeting and in that instant the spear struck him high in the chest.

            There was no pain until he somehow managed to drag the barb from his flesh. Then the agony almost blinded him as blood poured down his chest and his own scream very nearly  drowned out the sound of  the dead girls.

            He stumbled towards the sea. He could hear the tribesmen shouting. They sounded not so much triumphant as satisfied.  The dead girls were crooning now.

            As he reached the first breaker, another spear struck his spine. He did not see it burst through his chest as the sea engulfed him.

*   *   *   *

                        Vivienne A Causby

The poem quoted is a part of Alexander Pope’s (1688-1744) ‘Ode To Solitude’.

A copy of the Ode appears to be the final entry in Captain Collett Barker’s journal, which John Mulvaney and Neville Green have transcribed and edited under the title “Commandant of Solitude’.

Published in SAND WRITERS Winter 2000

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