The Girl From Eureka Read online

  Flipping open the tent flap, he was relieved to see two wooden cots with canvas strung for the mattress. He sat down on one of them and it drooped so badly his backside almost hit the floor. Stretching out, he closed his eyes and exhaled the day’s exhaustion. The bed was rudimentary but functional.

  ‘I’d heard they were supposed to have barracks erected by now,’ Timmons said, frowning at the dirty and bedraggled state of the calico tent before him.

  ‘Been saying that nigh on six months,’ the corporal said with a grunt. ‘Wouldn’t hold your breath.’

  Timmons stepped into the tent and just as quickly stepped back out again as the smell of rot and mildew greeted him. ‘We may have to.’

  ‘It will be fine, Timmons,’ Will called from his flat out position, his eyes still closed. ‘Stop your bellyaching.’

  ‘At least you got here at the end of winter,’ the corporal said. ‘It was miserable. Never bloody stopped raining.’

  ‘Well, that explains the mould,’ Timmons said. Holding his hand over his nose and mouth, he reluctantly followed Will inside. Taking a seat on his cot, he let out a surprised squeak as it sagged dramatically with his weight, leaving his knees in the air and his backside touching the floor. Will didn’t bother to stifle his laugh.

  Timmons struggled for a moment to stand from his odd position and finally gave up with a frustrated hurrumph.

  ‘And what of that?’ Timmons asked, pointing at the jagged slice in the canvas above their heads where the breeze floated in.

  Will finally opened his eyes and gazed up through the hole in the tent. ‘Think of the unobstructed view we’ll have of the beautiful southern stars,’ he said, marvelling at the red and orange clouds moving slowly across the violet dusk sky. The day was coming to an end.

  Relieved of their duties for the time being, and feeling the pangs of hunger once again, Will and Timmons decided to stretch their legs by walking into town to take a proper survey of what would be their home for the next however many months. Only a few fingers of sunlight still reached across the sky, reflected in the clouds, but there was more than enough light to see by.

  ‘Hey, there’s a refreshment tent,’ Timmons pointed out, brightening from his bad mood. ‘Shall we pop in for a nobbler of whiskey?’

  ‘It’s illegal to buy grog from unlicensed vendors, is it not?’ Will asked, mocking Timmons with a stern look. He enjoyed tormenting his friend. But, truth be told, he was dying for a whiskey himself after their long trip.

  ‘What’s your point?’ Timmons asked with a scowl, but then grinned. ‘Look!’

  Will followed Timmons’s excited gaze down the street and spotted the Eureka Hotel. It was hard to miss the double-storey weatherboard building with its long frontage, as there were only a few permanent structures amongst the canvas and calico city.

  ‘Hotels have licences to sell grog, am I right?’ Timmons asked.

  ‘You are,’ Will said with a slow grin.

  ‘Then, my old cocker, let’s get us a drink,’ Timmons said, rubbing his hands together with glee.

  Will had to move quickly to keep up with the suddenly revived Timmons, and soon they were stepping up onto the wooden porch of the hotel that was quickly filling with miners coming in from the fields, ready for a drink at the end of a hard day’s digging.

  As they reached the door, Will was distracted by a loud cheer. ‘What’s that?’

  He moved to the edge of the wooden porch. The cheers seemed to be coming from behind the hotel.

  Timmons rolled his eyes. ‘I don’t bloody care. I’m bloody thirsty, Will!’

  Ignoring Timmons, he left the porch and began to walk around the side of the hotel following the ongoing cheers. He knew Timmons would follow him. He’d never leave a fellow soldier to investigate alone.

  ‘Fine, but it’s your buy when we finally get in there,’ Timmons told him as he caught up.

  Passing by another building to the side of the hotel, Will looked in the open door. A few fellows were tossing heavy wooden balls down the lane and he heard the clatter as the wooden pins were scattered. A bowling alley in the middle of the goldfields? Strange place this Ballarat.

  As they rounded the rear of the hotel, another cheer went up and intermingled with some grumbles and groans. From what Will could see over the tops of the heads of men squatting, hovering in a circle, it looked to be some sort of game of dice.

  One of the men spied Will and Timmons and, taking in their red coats, his eyes widened in panic. He stood up from his squat and yelled, ‘Blimey, it’s the traps!’ before running in the opposite direction.

  Following their friend’s lead, men jumped up and began to scarper away.

  ‘What’s a trap?’ Will asked Timmons as they stood by innocuously watching men scatter like ants on a disturbed hill.

  ‘Haven’t the foggiest.’

  A young man tried to rush past them and Will reached out and grabbed the boy by the collar. The fellow struggled and kicked and managed to get Will directly in the shin.

  ‘Ouch, you little rotter!’ Will complained angrily. He took the boy and pushed him up against the back wall of the hotel. His shin stung like the blazes, but he bit down on the pain. ‘That bloody hurt. Where are you running to, boy?’

  A moment later, two uniformed policemen rushed around the corner.

  ‘Traps!’ came the call again.

  ‘Ah,’ Timmons let out a sound of understanding. ‘I assume anyone in uniform gets this moniker of a “trap”.’

  ‘And what do they call you?’ Will asked the boy he held against the wall. The hat obscured his face so Will tried to remove it, but the fellow held tight.

  ‘I asked your name, lad,’ Will demanded. He managed to tug away the man’s hat and blinked, shocked when miles of long blonde hair tumbled out in loose curls all the way to his waist—her waist. He was most definitely a her.

  ‘You’re a woman?’

  ‘Well, aren’t you the smart one,’ she answered bitingly, the Irish in her voice unmistakable.

  She continued to struggle against his restraining hands, and as the shock of discovering her a woman wore off, he belatedly released his grip.

  ‘I beg your pardon for seizing you, madam. I did not realise you were a lady,’ Will apologised, stepping back.

  ‘She ain’t no lady.’

  ‘Shut up, Jackson, you pig-faced moron,’ the girl spat back at the trooper.

  Will’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. ‘Not a lady, indeed.’

  It was obvious the girl was well known to the local constabulary. A troublemaker perhaps.

  ‘Can I go now?’ the girl asked, her chin jutting out in defiance.

  ‘Well, I don’t know,’ he said, gracing her with a severe frown despite the fact he was enjoying himself immensely. What a firecracker this girl was—not to mention how remarkably pretty she was beneath the wicked temper and masculine clothing. ‘You were playing an illegal game of dice, were you not? I really should let these police officers arrest you. What is your name, Miss?’

  Smiling coyly now, the girl stepped towards him and Will’s war-honed instincts heightened. Gone was the sturdy Irish temper, and in its place was a demure, helpless woman. It was an act, he was sure, but her suddenly female vulnerability was so effective he almost fell for it.

  ‘Indigo Wallace, sir’ she said demurely, running her index finger down his uniform before tugging lightly on one of his tunic buttons.

  He took her by the shoulder and, more gently this time, pushed her back a step.

  ‘Why do you pretend to be a boy?’

  ‘Oh, I weren’t doing no harm, sir,’ Indigo pouted, putting on an accent of the uneducated.

  It seemed the girl was a chameleon. Entertained as he was, he wasn’t buying it. Crossing his arms and exhaling an impatient breath, he simply stared her down.

  ‘I’m not pretending to be anything,’ she said, the short moment of helplessness gone and her diction once again more articulate.

  ‘Then w
hy do you wear boy’s clothing?’

  ‘Have you ever worn a dress, Captain?’

  ‘It’s Lieutenant actually,’ he corrected her. ‘And no. Of course I have not ever worn a dress.’

  ‘And a corset? Have you ever worn a corset?’

  He cleared his throat. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  She smiled slowly, devilishly, ‘Does it embarrass you, Lieutenant? Talking about a lady’s underwear?’

  ‘There are some who would say it is improper to discuss a lady’s undergarments in public.’

  ‘Well, a corset is a torture device created to strangle the life and vitality out of a woman. They pinch and they ache and they throttle the breath right out of you. All so a woman can look how fashion, and a man, deem she should look. And I for one, sir, will not be strangled for any man.’

  And with that, the girl grabbed her boyish hat out of Will’s hand and stormed away.

  ‘Should we arrest her?’ One of the policemen who had stood by during the exchange began to follow her.

  ‘What for?’ Will asked with an amused shrug as he watched the girl disappear around the side of the hotel. ‘I didn’t see her doing anything wrong. Did you, Timmons?’

  ‘No, Lieutenant,’ Timmons answered, biting back his smile as the policemen left to join their colleagues.

  Will glanced down at the gold buttons of his tunic that the woman had played with. She’d had such long, delicate fingers. But he hadn’t missed the dirt beneath the nails. What would possess such a pretty, young girl to join the local rabble, playing illegal games of dice in the dirt behind the pub?

  ‘A fascinating creature,’ Timmons said, reading Will’s mind. Perhaps they had spent too much time together these last few weeks.

  ‘Yes, fascinating,’ he agreed. He dusted himself off, straightened his red uniform jacket and followed Timmons through the rear door of the hotel.

  ‘I imagine men would be lining up to strangle the fascinating Miss Wallace, with and without a corset.’

  Timmons laughed heartily.

  ‘I believe I owe you a drink,’ Will said, pushing the interaction with the girl aside.

  ‘I believe you do,’ Timmons responded, and raised his hand to get the bartender’s attention.

  Chapter 2

  More bloody soldiers. Just what they bloody needed.

  Indy dragged her feet as she headed back to camp. It wasn’t bad enough they had to contend with the new Victoria Police, its ranks now swelled with any vagabond and ex-convict who needed a job. No, now they were bringing in replacements, fresh soldiers to settle in for the duration. The soldiers who had been in Ballarat throughout the winter had nigh on self-destructed by the end of their campaign. They’d seen war, yes, but a Ballarat winter could test the mettle of the strongest of men.

  She knew why further regiments had been called in, though. Since the Gold Commissioner had increased the taxes on mining, the diggers were more resentful than ever. And they had a right to be, Indy thought indignantly. Thirty shillings for a miner’s licence? It was double what they used to pay. And it covered no more than it had before: the right to stake a claim, water usage and wood to shore up a mineshaft. Those who could afford it paid the exorbitant taxes, but had very few basic rights. The miners had no voice in the legislature and were not permitted to own land. They were angry, and becoming much less frightened to speak their minds on the matter. To make matters worse, the Assistant Gold Commissioner Johnston was calling for more regular licence hunts to track down those who refused, or couldn’t afford to pay, the licence fee. Johnston had quickly become the most hated man in Ballarat.

  Indy was irritated too but she kept her head down and paid the blasted fees. Calling undue attention to herself would only cause her more grief. As one of only a hundred or so women who worked a mine on the goldfields, she was unpopular enough. Most women stayed in the camps, taking care of children and feeding their men when they came home from the mines. Indy had no intention of sitting on the sidelines while all the gold was ripped up and carted away by men.

  Now that the sun had set, the cold was beginning to seep in. She increased her pace but it wasn’t only the cold that had her quickening her steps. When she’d first arrived at the goldfields it had been relatively safe for a woman to wander around the township and camps unaccompanied. But in the last year, with the continuing influx of new inhabitants and the rise in drinking—thanks to newly licensed hotels—it had become dangerous for a woman to be out alone after dark. Alcohol had become one of the biggest social problems on the Victorian goldfields. Not that she minded a tipple or two herself. She was Irish after all. But there were dangers for a woman in a man’s world. Especially when that man was three sheets to the wind.

  Other miners were heading back in to camp as well, filthy and exhausted from digging dawn to dusk. Some were drunk already, others just tired and anxious to get home to family. Indy had given up the digging early to join her usual game of dice behind Bentley’s Eureka Hotel. She’d been doing well too until those soldiers in their red coats and shiny brass buttons had walked in and broken it up.

  She chuckled as she recalled the uneasiness of the tall blond one as she’d flirted with him. Men were so easy to disarm. They went weak as newborn puppies in the presence of a pretty lady. Some remained gentlemen, others lost their heads and felt it was within their rights to touch and take whatever they wanted.

  ‘Well, I for one, am not for the taking, soldier boy,’ she said out loud, kicking a stone down the road.

  But this soldier had proved himself to be a gentleman, and a good-looking one at that. He’d been considerably taller than her. His blond hair pulled back and tied in the usual way of the military at the nape of his neck. Strong hands had held her fast when he’d thought her a boy, but then turned soft as a caress when he’d discovered her a woman. Eyes the colour of treacle had changed from commanding to apologetic as she had done her best to unsettle him. Yes, his eyes were most expressive, and he’d been confused by her masculine garb.

  When gambling, she chose to hide her gender and outfit herself as a man. She owned dresses, practical dresses mostly, but she preferred trousers that allowed ease of working in the mine. All the regular dice players knew who she was. It was the ring-ins who didn’t like a woman being there. They said she was bad luck. And she was. But only because she was better at the dice and card games than most of the men, and often left with their share of the shillings.

  Bad luck for them indeed!

  She smiled as she pulled those shillings from her pocket and stepped into one of the tent stores.

  ‘Good evening, Mrs Murphy,’ Indy said to the buxom woman behind the table.

  ‘Indy love, how are you?’

  ‘I’m well, thank you. I was hoping you may have one of your lovely pies left.’

  Mrs Murphy had recently purchased a Yankee cooking stove and her apple pies and cranberry tarts had become somewhat legendary about the goldfields. She was just one of the hundreds of women who had travelled to the fields with their husbands. The smart ones found occupation in setting up stores to support their families, while their menfolk gambled their day away in dirty, wet mines in search of the promised return of gold.

  The selection of little tent stores sold everything from eggs and cheese to bonnets and baby clothes. Many were known to sell sly grog from their back rooms. The stores were as much a booming industry as the goldfields themselves, and often more profitable. It was a strange thing to see the women making a living for the family while the men brought home nothing. Some husbands took it in their stride. Others felt emasculated and drank to deaden the shame.

  ‘Well, normally I wouldn’t have any left come this time of night—you know how popular my cakes and pies are. But, you’re in luck. I was just trying a new recipe,’ Mrs Murphy said excitedly, wiping flour from her pudgy hands. ‘Young Allen Fisher found some fig trees not far off the road from Geelong. He’s been selling them to all the stores, for an inflated price naturally.’ />
  Indy laughed at the storekeeper’s suddenly grim expression. ‘Mrs Murphy, everything in Ballarat is at an inflated price. Are you telling me you have fig tarts?’

  ‘Fig and apple. I had to try and make those expensive figs go further.’

  Indy eyed the tarts cooling on the rack behind Mrs Murphy and her mouth watered. ‘I’ll take two please.’

  ‘Two?’ Mrs Murphy asked with a surprised and delighted chuckle. ‘Did you strike gold today, Indigo Wallace?’

  ‘Of a fashion,’ Indy said, smiling at her good fortune at dice.

  She handed over the required shillings and stuffed the rest into her boot for safekeeping. Then taking the still warm pies, she moved out of the tent and continued for home.

  As she made her way through the Eureka campsite it seemed to pulse around her like a living organism. Tents of all shapes and sizes swept up the slow rise, interspersed with fires now burning strongly again in readiness for the evening meal. The sea of white canvas glowed orange, beating like a heart by the light of lamps and candles. The beating heart of the Ballarat goldfields.

  The rich smell of burning wood and cooking food permeated the air and Indy breathed deeply. It didn’t always smell so good here. Over the winter just passed, the incessant rain had reduced the campground to a muddy, festering sty. The putrid stench of dysentery had wafted regularly amongst the tents as disease spread thanks to filthy sewage pits that overflowed and mixed with drinking water. But now that winter was almost done with them for another year, soon the ground would dry up and once again life would be infinitely better. At least until the stinking hot summer arrived.

  Passing through the Chinese section of the camp, she bowed to the men. They ignored her as usual and she chuckled quietly to herself. She’d break them one day. Until then she would continue to smile and bow until they acknowledged her. She wondered how they fared living in a faraway land, so different to their own. It was common knowledge that their wives never travelled with them as the Europeans or Americans did. They did not mix with other cultures either as many of the other immigrants did. They cooked for themselves and laundered their own clothes, and did a mighty fine job as far as Indy could see. She sniffed at the unusual aroma of spices as they fried their food, all mixed together in the wide black cooking pans they’d brought with them from the Chinese Empire. And after dark, by the light of their fires and paper lanterns they played their funny game of tiles—mahjong she’d heard it was called. Or they’d partake in their version of checkers, played with little round balls instead of flat pieces.