KING GEORGE SOUND 1826 They were not the only people living in the Sound. From his favourite granite perch on the western end of Breaksea, Billhook saw the small fires that began burning daily in the hills and hollows around the Sound with the onset of spring. During their forays to the mainland, Jimmy the Nail would take a party of men to target the burnt-out swamps for kangaroos coming in to feed from the fresh new shoots. It was then that a black man would deliberately step out into clear view in their path. Sometimes painted with ochre and oil, or dusty and covered in ash from firing his country, the man would gently lay his spear on the ground when he saw the sealer’s guns. There were always other men waiting, unseen. He would stand quietly. Sometimes he had a boy with him. The two parties would stare at each other in the quiet, still glades, until Bailey or Jimmy the Nail lifted his rifle. The black man would shove his wide-eyed, protesting boy sideways into the scrub, not far behind himself, and leave his spears lying on the track.
