Author: Chris Burchett

“Whither journeys goest with or without end, shall maketh thee, lad” was considered advice given to my great, great, great uncle, John Jarvis, by his father, at the Plymouth docks, as the eleven-year-old shouldered his canvas duffel, and bordered his ship’s lighter. He recorded those words as the opening phrase in his diary. The year, 1768.

There was a cold breeze riffling across the harbour on that late summer morn, as he boarded the HMB Endeavour, instructed to “…string hammock, and stow duffel ‘tween decks, under the for’castle.” His ‘master’ was yet to come aboard, so, at a loose end, he went a’lookin. Gantry were lifting barrels and boxes, crew sweating, swearing, and stowing supplies needed for the Atlantic crossing.

Mister Banks and retinue arrived at last light, noisily, a little intoxicated and his duties began. Meals to source and serve, unpacking, clearing away, to bed, awake, morning duties, mid-afternoon sailing down the channel.

Stomach, sea legs and routines had settled well before they reached the Canary Islands. A brief stopover, restocking water, meat, citrus and vegetables for the haul across to Brazil. The toffs went ashore, Uncle worked aboard. Demands at morning and evening mealtimes left him largely free during the daytime. He and two other young lads delighted in watching the dolphin performances, at the bow.

The Doldrums, colder weather, again restocking supplies in Rio before down, into and around the Cape. Mountainous seas, sails shredded, shrieking winds, working the pumps, gut-wrenching fear, partly assuaged by the captain’s demeanour.

They wallowed into the Pacific. Moods lightened as warmth, then humidity returned. Tropical isles, barely-clad beauties, fresh food, clear skies, rostered shore-leave, the temporary loss of his shipboard stagger!

While crew unloaded scientific paraphernalia to record Venus’s transit across the sun, he accompanied Mr Banks and Mr Solander on regular expeditions into the interior of the islands. He was instructed on using layers of tissue paper to press collected specimens. For my uncle, he recorded his sadness at eventually farewelling new found friends, feasting, fishing and effervescent frolicking in the lagoon.

As the barque weighed anchor, the captain assembled all-hands, to share the Admiralty’s secret orders for the journey ahead. They were instructed to find, and claim Tasman’s Zealand islands, thenceforth to search, and claim the assumed Terra Australis, somewhere further to the west!

He records the excitement of sighting land, months spent charting coastlines, landing and meeting heavily tattooed warriors, spending three weeks ashore as the barque was beached and careened.

He also recorded a growing angst at the close, shipboard quarters, and of his delight at being out with ‘the gentlemen’, collecting plants. Petty jealousies had become an issue, thieving, vicious brawls, even knife-work. A thirteen-year-old, salt-hardened, but nonetheless, a vulnerable lad.

Sir Joseph recorded his death, by misadventure occurring on Sunday 29^th April, 1770. A curmudgeonable old tar was convicted, and court marshalled. They were both buried in the dunes of Stingray Harbour, New Holland. Sir Joseph ensured that his diary eventually came back to the family.

Am I going mad? A vast, blinding flare in my face, lighting canary-yellow sunflowers behind, and yet I cannot determine whether it is sunset or sunrise! Sometimes my head wants to explode!

My shadow splays out in front of me, but is it to the east or to the west? As the minutes march, is it getting lighter or darker? I must keep painting, drawing, using knife and brush to translate the constant movement, to capture the play of light on the trees, the swirling afternoon winds sweeping in from the west.

As his patient, Doctor Gachet allows me to borrow his bicycle. I find it leaning against the Asylum wall. I load my gear and head towards and through Arles, into the yellowing farmlands of late summer. Crows caw as they lazily drift, the bumbling bees hum among the flowerheads. I unpack and challenge my demons. They are not going to spoil my day!

I have my easel, and a new canvas set up to capture the moment, but uncertainties are at every turn. I paint these sunflowers often and am timing this outing specifically to catch the early light. But darkness might approach, ensnare and, and  – no, it is definitely morning, I see the grassy moisture.

I sit for a few moments and consider my position. I have the security of the hospital’s support, guiding me through the dark times, encouraging me forward. No matter the missing ear! My dear, dear brother, so far away but still my constant companion. And the village folk, at the Tabac, at the Boulangerie, in the fields, ever ready with their “Salut, Vincent” as I pass. I recognise they probably see me as odd, … harmless, but odd!

So, it is morning, not more than an hour after sunrise. Theo has sent me more materials, including several palette knives and a rich assortment of the new yellow pigments gaining popularity in the north. His accompanying letter advises of the birth of their son, that they are naming after me! Is that wise? Mmm, what might I offer this young, unmet Vincent, to guide him safely through the future?

I play deliciously with the combination of cadmium and lemon, my brush swirling playfully in concert with the nodding flower heads. Chrome yellow reflects the distant wheat fields, and snaking blue-black inserts the poplars, defining the laneways. I revel in the unquestioning freedom given me from the landscape, its uncomplicated acceptance. The sun is high overhead, hot and baking as I attach my signature, at the bottom, left.

What am I to do? I peddle furiously back through the Village to my monastic, medical sanctuary. Another self-portrait suggests itself.  Visions of a young nephew, Theo, Doctor Gachet, my spurned lover swirl, briefly, before my brush begets my tormented face, a mostly shaved head, eyes staring, unseeing, but inwards towards a tortured soul.

The old pistol, found on a distant hillside, months ago, now lies on the floor beside my bed.

Ooh, Theeooo …

Tuilaepa looked down at the planet. As always, the swirling mass of weather systems held her at the window – this view, the ultimate prize for her six-year, double degree in Meteorology and Planetary Sciences, her application and successful recruitment into Australia’s arm of the International Climate Institute, further years of post-graduate study and research, and finally the pay-off, selected to serve a twelve-month stint aboard the Aristotle international met station.

She had flown from Woomera, with a week spent adjusting to weightlessness at the International Space Station, then the tricky wire transfer across to the Aristotle, involving a mathematically precise alignment of the two orbits, followed by astronautical gee wizardry.

Her tasks involved monitoring, recording and reporting Earth’s increasingly unstable weather patterns. Her three companions shared a common background, all Climatologists, all rostered to compile the three-hourly observational log, the information transferred down simultaneously to the twenty, planetary-based met stations, used to direct and coordinate PESA, the Planetary Emergency Services Agency, in their never-ending confrontations with climate-induced catastrophe.

Tuilaepa reflected often upon the stories she had heard from her grandmother, about the Pacific nation of her forebears.  That time before the Water-Terrors, that time when tidal surges moved across her country, drowning the villages, whole families, the gardens; that heralded forced migration, a resettlement into Far North Queensland, and labelled taunts of ‘reffos’. Other low-lying populations had fled to New Zealand, some to China, others to the US.

It was a resettlement carrying significant social disquiet, met in many quarters with antagonism, violence, and disputation, as their new ‘homelands’ meant displacement for others. History’s pages were littered with similar upheavals.

The world stage had been turned on its head. Almost all of the large, coastal cities suffered inundations, catastrophic dislocations of infrastructure, and major social upheavals. It was continuing to impact hundreds of millions of people. Coastal farmlands had been lost to saltwater intrusion. The pressure on elevated land for new residential and commercial development had become intense. Food security was one of several new battlegrounds.

The water wars of last century have transmogrified into bitterly contested Elevated Territorial disputes. The concept of national governments had largely dissolved into racially-identified, vigilante cohorts, heavily armed terrorist groups, organised and with the unofficial backing from industrial oligarchs.

The polar caps, the Greenland ice sheet and most of the planet’s glacial topography had gone a generation ago, a geopolitical map of the 2200 planet, now looked like large mice had been chewing the continental coastlands of yore. There were expanded estuaries along the major river systems, most of the Amazon Basin had gone, Sydney’s Vaucluse was now on an island, and a new Gulf of Mexico coastline offered sea views along Baton Rouge’s esplanades.

The Planetary Government, formed after the collapse, last century of the United Nations, was taking a belatedly keen, some would say desperate rear-guard action to salvage humanity’s wherewithal. Their sponsorship of the work that Tuilaepa did, just one of a number of initiatives being adopted to try and generate planetary-warming’s reversal.

Two men, (I am sure one was the local constable) and a woman had me pinned to the ground. The woman had a pair of shears. She roughly turned my head and cut off my queue, holding it aloft, a growl of triumph as she brandished my hair for the mob. I struggled, a leg free, finding a groin, hearing a grunt, and I was up on my feet.

The Ararat mob was fiery, drunk, and baying for blood, as they came for us at the mine. Chants of “slanty chinks”, “murderous chinamen” “poxed coolie chinks” could be heard as the mob came up the hill, picks and shovels shouldered to do battle. There were fifty or sixty, men and women in the chanting mass – we were six, all family, and I was just taking my place at the mine face, to relieve my cousin Zhang Wei.

As I rushed to the mine entrance, I saw my younger brother, Junjie Xi  fall to the ground, blood pouring from his head with two men, picks held high, about to strike. Bo Wei, my elder brother was surrounded by a group wielding shovels, and I saw him take a cut to the side of his head! Hell was upon us.

A snarling, bearded man saw me, yelling to alert the mob as I ran. I ran, and I ran, up and over the hill, down the other side, into a gully. I found a hollow log. My pursuers, initially rampaging, fell behind as I ran. I remained in that log until daybreak.

I tentatively inched out, I could smell smoke but all was quiet, save for a kookaburra laughing, somewhere in the distance! I couldn’t see the humour, and cursed the silly bird!

I buried five souls that morning! There was no burning joss paper or incense to assist their journey into the ‘afterlife’, just my humiliation, anger, tears and frustrations.

Our encampment had been ransacked, tents burnt, our few possessions strewn or missing, and the vegetable garden trampled. So much for the lucky future promised last year, as we boarded the tramp steamer at Shanghai.  I sat, unsure of my next move. Would the mob return?

My mind ranged back over the year, the voyage, my outstanding indenture, the eventual landing in Robe, the map, with instructions for the long overland trek to “X”, the cross promising riches, and great fortune, at Ballarat.

I recalled that propitious overnight camp, just behind the settlement of Ararat. Bo had been to the toilet and came back excitedly waving a small lump of rock. He pointed, we gathered and saw the yellow flecks. Was it gold? Zhang assured us that it was, and the decision was made excitedly to abandon our Ballarat quest, for the moment.

Eventually, I made my way to Ballarat. I found my countrymen, a little work, even a little gold, but I knew I was homeward bound, humiliated, debt-ridden, and without the anticipated golden future.

I was never to return.

Reg and Deirdre pushed six-year-old Johnny across the park. It was a glorious spring day – sunshine, a light breeze, the ducks on the lake. Johnny squealed, and dribbled with delight, the weekly outing, away from the home, just him, his Mum, Dad and the birds.

Seven years earlier, Reggie piloted the aircraft that deployed the only British atomic weapon dropped from a plane.

Reg had always assumed it was his charm that got him selected for the Australian tour. A routine application, his schmoozed interview, confirming his endorsement to fly the new Vickers Valliant bomber, and he was onto the 36-hour flight, London to Adelaide.

”Just pack a light suitcase, you’ll be home by Christmas” the flight sergeant had advised, news that brought some comfort to his young bride. “Think of the extra money, love. We’ll have enough for that house deposit.”

It was a short hop from Adelaide up into the remote desert, a secret British military base codenamed Maralinga. Reggie teamed up with the other 1500 service personnel. While the village was being finished, his job was pretty cushy – mostly ferrying VIPs between Adelaide and the testing site, bringing in supplies and conducting aerial familiarizations of the surrounding desert.

Christmas came – the crush at the Officer’s Mess was only challenged by the rigours of negotiating the trip across the crowded room towards the catering station. He’d sourced and flown in the large Christmas tree, gift-wrapped cases of beer, a festive distraction that kept him and the rest of the officers in high spirits.

He’d spoken to Deirdre, and his parents – able to let them know that he was in the Australian desert “somewhere”, and that the daytime temperatures were over 110 degrees, every day!

Festive excitement mellowed. Crews were now far more focused, there was a sense of drama sweeping the base and despite efforts to keep the operational teams separate, and incommunicado, confidential chit chat established that the ‘pointy-end’ was approaching.

Reggie’s Vickers’ bomber flights were tightly monitored, a routine, practiced over and over – dropping a 44-gallon drum of water through the bomb bay onto a ground target. Code named Kite, his brief included dropping the weapon, and then, with special collectors attached, to circle around and fly through the mushroom cloud.

Reg was the toast of the Mess that evening – much congratulatory back-slapping, maybe a few too many beers, slurring, a stagger and an early night. His roommate called the medic at 2 am as Reg noisily rose from his cot, yelled something incomprehensible and fainted, flat-out onto the floor.

He was in an isolated room off the end of the sickbay for a week before being evacuated back to the RAF military hospital at Uxbridge. He was again in an isolation unit, for two months, before Deirdre and his parents were even advised of his return to the UK.

He was eventually discharged, with a small military pension and the deposit on a small cottage. Johnny arrived. The Doctors advised it might be spina bifida!