The Peppercorn Tree

The boy’s heart sank when he saw the ship. For as long as he could remember he had held the dream of his first ship. She would be long and sleek, riding low in the water, white, with touches of blue along her prow. The funnel would stand high and proud, with the scarlet insignia of the line. The Iron Maiden, docked at Newcastle for hull repairs, was long. All 80,000 tonnes of her. But she was dirty, a floating rust bucket of a container ship, bound for Whyalla to take on iron ore. No funnel. Across the Bight, up the west coast to Port Hedland, nor-east for Japan. The boy and the ship would be away eight weeks. The bosun’s mate came towards him as he stood hesitantly on deck. ‘You Freddie Roberts, the new deckhand? I’m Jock Anderson. Mr Anderson. Welcome aboard. Bring your gear.’ The boy picked up a canvas duffle bag, slung it over his shoulder, and followed. His eyes travelled the length of the ship. He could barely see the stern, but he could hear the staccato burst of pneumatic drills far below deck, and on the port side, where welders worked, he caught the blue-white flash of oxy flame. He had been on ships before. Every chance he got, when his family came down for the Royal Easter, he had haunted the Quay, Cockatoo in the old days, Pyrmont, Darling Harbour. Wherever the ships were, he found them. The bosun’s mate led him down steep, sharp steps. Through narrow alleyways, turning left, right, left again, down, down, opening and closing so many doors the boy felt he was in a maze. ‘This is your cabin. Keep it shipshape. I see you travel schooner light’, with a nod of approval at the small canvas bag. ‘Good. Be back in half an hour. Take you up to meet the lads.’ The cabin wasn’t much smaller than his room on the farm. Sheets and a blanket folded on the bunk, corner wardrobe, drawers, mirror, chair, reading lamp. A port&shy;hole. His porthole. There was a folded towel on the chair, white, with the name of the line in a bright blue splash down the centre. Blue on white. His heart lifted. He sat on the edge of the bunk, and the tree was there. That damned peppercorn tree! It had been outside his bedroom window all his life, but except for shinning down to escape a belting from his father, the sulks from his mother, he had never given it much thought. On the train coming down, leaning back on the patched railway vinyl, it was there in the carriage with him. He could smell it. Every detail of the rough, ridged trunk, feathery green fronds against window glass, tiny green peppercorns that turned sunset pink, deepened into red, then dropped on the hard dry ground, were now in his cabin. He unpacked the bag, made up the bunk, pinned a centrefold to the wall. He looked at it critically. Didn’t like it much, but he had been in other cabins, Port Kembla, here in Newcastle, and knew that’s what seamen did. Mr Anderson came back. ‘Lads are in the rec room now. I’ll show you your duties later.’ Again he followed the bosun’s mate through the maze. Upwards this time. Half a dozen men were there, grouped around the bar or television set. Two played darts. He shook hands, took a stool by a salt tan storeman, face like a cast-off shoe. ‘Where you from son?’ ‘Out Nyngan way.’ ‘That so? Come from Cobar meself. Haven’t been back in donkey’s years. Funny thing though. Used to be an old stringy bark down in the south paddock. ‘Been at sea thirty years, and all I can remember about Cobar is that bloody tree.’

Lindy Lukey

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