Are you sitting comfortably? Well, make sure you’ve got the Saxa handy.
I’ve waited a while to digest what we were told on Sunday during our historical cruise around Sydney Harbour.
The waters were choppy, the sky was blue and the facts were, it appeared, cold.
Recent historical events, like the WW2 Japanese mini-submarine attack on the harbour were related with clarity and precision.
Buildings were pointed out, along with impressive statistics about their cost and who was entitled to use them.
Credibility was built up to such an extent that by the time we reached Cockatoo Island we were oblivious to the fogs of legend swirling around the boat as our genial host told us a tale that blended horror, romance, adventure and tragedy.
I’ve looked into it and it’s codswallop. Nevertheless, it’s enjoyable enough codswallop to repeat, just so long as you know…
We had passed the shipyards on the western end of the island and were heading back toward the seaward part of the harbour when our guide pointed out some sandstone buildings on which barred windows could be seen.
Cockatoo Island, we were told, was Sydney’s Alcatraz in the late 19th century. Below the buildings, in the rock of the island itself there was a huge bricked up disc shape.
This was the mouth of a tunnel which the unfortunate inhabitants of the sandstone buildings had been forced to dig, all the time in manacles.
Spending much of their time exposed to the harshness of the elements, these wretches were supplied with little food and water.
Fortunately for them, they were befriended by aborigines who supplied extra rations.
Toot! Toot! (That’s my retrospective foghorn sounding. Ignore it. The story’s more fun this way).
One of the natives, a girl, gave one of the prisoners much more than mere tucker. They became lovers.
One night, she tethered a horse to the southern mainland shore facing the island, crossed the waters to her lover and helped him slip his manacles.
The island is in the Parramatta River, home to always-peckish nurse sharks, but the prisoner swam ashore, mounted the horse and rode off into the Northern Territories.
Unimpressed by this feat, the only successful escape from Cockatoo Island, the authorities sent riflemen after this man, whom the press dubbed Captain Moonlight.
The search party was guided by aboriginal trackers, so their quarry stood no chance.
When they caught up with him, Captain Moonlight was summarily shot in the head and buried where he dropped.
That’s the story, pretty well as narrated to us.
This morning I googled the good Captain and discovered that, while he led a gang of horse-thieving bushrangers, he didn’t have anything to do with Cockatoo Island. What’s more, he didn’t have a girlfriend; he had a boyfriend.
His friend, called Nesbitt, was shot as they were being captured and died with Captain Moonlight raining tears upon his breast.
Captain Moonlight went to the gallows in Sydney wearing a ring made from Nesbitt’s hair and pleading to buried beside him.
This request was of course ignored… until 1995 when Moonlight’s body was exhumed and reinterred beside Nesbitt’s grave.
Remember that I got the latter bit of “history” from the Internet and – fallible fool that I am – have been typing away from memory.
Thank goodness that I no longer have to pretend to deal in facts.
Ripping yarns are more entertaining when facts are spiced with imagination.
Until next time…
harbiedayze 