Disapproval filled his nostrils like brimstone.

After that first expedition, he refused to leave the barracks. He had seen the devil in the streets, the great whore, and would not venture out again.

After ten days they were put on a coach for the one hundred and thirty mile journey southwest to Goulburn.

Lorna stared out of the window as the coach picked up speed. As far as her eye could see, gum trees held up branches like grey bones to the sky. There were thousands of them. They stood like battalions of ghosts on either side of the track, their trunks stiff and unmoving in the light breeze, their olive-toned leaves drooping towards the sand-coloured soil. The coach road wound and dipped, unravelling the miles, but the view never changed.

In the middle of the afternoon they came to the banks of a sluggish creek that wended its way silently through the trees. With a loud hallooing from the coachman, the horses slowed and the vehicle shuddered to a halt.

‘Everybody out,’ the coachman bawled, mouth wide to show teeth like blackened tombstones in a red and bearded face. ‘Let’s git yore feet on the deck.’ He took a long swig at a bottle that he retrieved from beside his seat, staggered slightly and swore. It was obviously not the first drink he had taken that day.

Limbs stiff and complaining, the passengers disembarked.

‘How does he expect us to cross?’ A twitter from a lady with pink-rimmed, nervous eyes. She was dressed in silk, too smartly, and clutched a parasol like a lifeline to an earlier and more civilised existence.

The coachman overheard and grinned, giving her the full benefit of the teeth. ‘Don’ you worry ’bout that. We’ll git you ’cross, right enough. Though I don’ say you won’ git yore fancy dress wet, ’fore you’re through.’

Her companion, well dressed and with an impressive chin, dusted the sleeve of his dove-grey coat and stared coldly at the coachman. ‘Explain yourself.’

The man spat. ‘She gunna wade, tha’s why. Same as what you are.’

‘Wade?’ Horror. ‘How deep is the water?’

‘Four feet in the middle.’ The coachman grinned again, derisively, and swallowed another mouthful from the bottle. ‘Don’ worry. Ain’t much current. ’S safe enough.’

‘You’re drunk,’ the passenger said.

The grin vanished. ‘Who the ’ell you callin’ drunk? Tell you summin, mate, you sit up there all day, drivin’ them ’osses, and you’d be lookin’ to ’ave a drink, too, now an’ then. To cut the dust, see? But that don’ make me drunk.’ His indignation waxed louder. ‘You want trouble, mate, you’re ’eading the right way about it. Drunk? I’m no more drunk than what them ’osses are.’

The passenger’s face was white with anger. ‘And I tell you my wife is not wading through that stream. She will travel in the coach.’

‘She’ll do what I damn well says,’ the coachman said. ‘No room in the coach. Not for ’er or no one. We got to float ’er over on barrels, see?’ And with that he stamped back to the coach where his assistant was already lashing empty hogsheads to the wheels.

Lorna walked with Andrew to the edge of the stream. The coachman was right, the current was barely perceptible.