His wife sat at the open porthole, looking as lost as if they had forgotten something important in Scotland.

‘Look, John!’

It would be better if he didn't look.

Two feet below floated cigarette butts, sodden Newspapers, and old rags, all of which threatened to spill into the cabin when the ship tilted slightly on Board. In addition, the seashell-covered pier piles swayed in front of his eyes. There was no sky or sun.

‘Close it,’ Kat said softly.

He closed the porthole, pulled back the curtains, and lit a kerosene lamp.

‘Never mind, dear, we've only been sailing this way for a month. Lie down to rest…’

There was only one bunk. His wife refused to sleep in the hammock. She made her bed and fell asleep instantly. Nor did he hear the steamer leave the harbor and head for Sydney.

He was awakened by his wife screaming. She was thrown out of bed, and the next wave threw her stomach onto the table. The ship rocked so violently that he grabbed the hook and barely managed to get out of the hammock. The lamp went out. They sat for hours on the floor, hugging each other and fighting off the flying baskets and trunks in the darkness.

When the storm subsided, John went to the Laundry, it wasn't far. His wife sat on the bed, staring at nothing. She could neither eat nor talk – and sat or lay flat for days until the ship passed the gates of Gibraltar.

Then it got very hot, just unbearably hot. The cabin was as hot as a tin can on a fire. John was wiping his wife with wet sheets that dried instantly. Another week passed. Kat was terrifying to look at; she had lost a lot of weight and was breathing hard. As the ship approached Port Said, he carried her – weightless as a child – on deck.

The sun was rising over the canal. She felt better in the fresh air.

‘How strange it is! Why? What is it?’ she whispered. ‘Everywhere only sand, and suddenly water, and not a single person is visible…’

Then, in the Indian Ocean, they were again waiting for the storm. But the ultimate goal was getting closer and closer.

Sydney seemed to them a poor village, a huge construction site, where temporary huts were standing mixed in with military tents and tents of nomads.

The University had been in operation in Aberdeen for a long time, the stately castles were surrounded by gardens, on Sundays there was a fountain in the Central Square, and they went to see it after the sermon. And here, as can be here at all to live?

She waited in silence on the pier for John to bring the hired van and load up. She crawled under the tarp. Neither of them knew where to go next. They stayed in a shack where they were given a room for a month for a gold sovereign. The prices were ridiculous.

While Kat was recovering, John was not idle. He bought twenty acres of land and laid the Foundation for his own house. Before the beginning of the rainy season they managed to make a roof at the house. A stone house with a fireplace – what else does a young family need? Ah, children. There were problems with that. The doctor said:

‘You have to accept. That storm in the Atlantic is to blame.’

The years went by. John's hands, his ability to handle stone or wood, horses or cars equally well, made a lot of money. And the natural the Scot's thrift brought them out of poverty very quickly. They even took a maid from the local aborigines. She worked from morning till late at night in the kitchen garden and cattle, freeing her wife from the hardest work.

Kat hadn't made a fuss when she'd caught her husband in hip contact with the staff. On the contrary, she began to teach her to read and write, gave her a name – Martha. It is clear that the mother of the child born on March 17, 1882, was considered to be Kat Louise. She asked her husband only one question:

‘Is it okay that he was born on St. Patrick's Day?’

‘It's nothing! The Irish, too, in life inherited. They're with us!’ John said, clearly implying that all of humanity had long been divided into English and everyone else, and Celtic celebration could be celebrated in Dublin, Glasgow and Sydney. Everywhere but London!

Little Kerr was baptized in a small local Church. Kat put on a white dress. Father put on his kilt and a plaid shirt. Son, as and dreamed parents, gave triple name of-Archibald Clark John. It was believed that the more names a person had, the more lives were waiting for him on earth. Actually, it happened. The first life of the future diplomat began.

By then Sydney had become one of the largest cities in the British Empire and even the world! Here, too, a University had opened, fountains had sprung up in the squares, high – rise buildings and Victorian palaces had been built-all of which reminded the Kerr of their native Aberdeen. And when they saw a huge elephant, camels, kangaroos, monkeys and colorful parrots in the zoo, Kat told her husband that she would never leave warm Australia now. Her dream had come true.

The boy was born fair-haired, big like his father, only his nose flattened, like a boxer's. And the fight he accounted for often. He broke his noses when people laughed at his kilt. And he got a lot from his father. The elder John believed in the old-fashioned way that strong parental slaps grow healthy guys. Kat tried to shield the child from the discipline of the stick, but her husband was adamant. And Martha was not allowed to see the baby at all.

To read and write Archibald learned sooner, than secured for themselves not only parental pride, but and physical inviolability. At school, however, fists came in handy. The first person to ask why he wasn't red – headed, like all Scots, got hit in the nose.

The next boy asked what the newcomer had under his kilt and regretted his curiosity. Anyone who deliberately mispronounced the word “Scot” risked their nose.

There were many Britons, Celts, Welsh, and even Indians in the class. The Scots immediately recognized Archie as the leader. And when one of his new friends told him in a whisper that Kerr was nicknamed “Australopithecus” by the seniors, Kerr was delighted:

‘So they think I'm a local old-timer!’

Archibald's mother died before he was eighteen. For some reason, he wasn't too worried about it. But he was very indignant when Martha moved with things in his father's room.

‘Do you want to live with a servant as a wife? Are you crazy, father?’

"Hey, you can only hear bad children in the house!’ his father answered, looking at him strangely. ‘While you're in my house, don't you dare shout and tell me what to do! I wish I'd broken a few sticks on you when you were little!’

For the first time in their lives they had a fight. Archibald was yelling at his father:

‘The sooner I get out of here, the better! I don't want to live like you! I don't want to be like you, either outwardly or inwardly!’

John senior could barely contain his anger:

‘Well, son, you have your way, follow it. But do not forget the old truth: walking on the bones of your loved ones, you will reach your own bones…’

He didn't want to go home after school. The city had recently started trams, and he rode around the city until late at night. He had seen many wonderful things.

He drove to the huge tea warehouse on the riverbank, walked across the bridge to the southern part of the city, sat for a long time on the parapet, waiting for a passenger train to crawl over the next bridge. A small locomotive with a long chimney usually pulled six or seven cars. The windows of the first two glowed with lights, it was first class. Kerosene lamps glinted in the windows of the next cars. And at the end of the train were the prisoners. The barred windows of their cars were dark, and armed soldiers stood on the platforms.

Archie would take the tram again and go all the way to the turnpike, skirting the city on the other side. There were endless wharves and warehouses, ships and docks. It was a different life where the tram brought him. There were no tall houses or clear streets. Here were the tents of the newcomers in search of happiness, and across the road, in a deep ravine hundreds of convicts were washing gold.

They stood in a solid wall, shoulder to shoulder, on either side of this ravine, at the bottom of which flowed a small river. They scooped clay earth into the trays and passed it down the chain to those who stood knee-deep in water and washed the trays, and then passed them to the other side, above. There they were received by the same slaves, and already they poured into bags what was left in the trays, and loaded the bags onto carts. Horses, camels, oxen were waiting for their draught fate…

It was a ghastly sight, hundreds of people in the wild crowding and utter silence swarming like ants in the muddy ground. And from above, armed British soldiers in red uniforms looked down on them and grinned merrily.

‘Hey, boy, what are you so interested in here?’ one shouted. ‘You want a uniform and a rifle, too? So you go ahead and sign up, we need volunteers!’

The soldier began to whistle what sounded like a “Moonlight Sonata”. Archie walked away in silence. He got on the tram and went home. Every soldier is a Beethoven, he thought, secretly envious of the red coats.

The return journey took more than two hours. His father didn't look for him – didn't even ask where he was. And Martha had never had the right to ask.

The next time he also saw the amazing: a whole herd of strange birds rushed past him with wild speed. They weren't exactly ostriches – he had seen ostriches in the zoo. But they did not look like swans either – for their short black necks protruded from their powerful bodies, which were covered with yellow-straw feathers. These creepy monsters grunted louder than adult pigs. They went like a train, leaving a cloud of dust behind them.

And the next day two red kangaroos fought beside Archie. About ten of them were grazing peacefully behind the outermost huts, when suddenly another animal flew over the fences jumping, found the main one in the peaceful family-and began to beat him at once with both front paws. And then, leaning on its thick tail, it raised its hind legs and swung them so that it almost ripped open its opponent's stomach.

‘He'll kill him!’ Archie cried, grabbing a thick stick from the ground, rushed to separate them.

‘Stop!’ somebody's rough hand grabbed him by the collar.

Archie twisted, but didn't drop the stick. Before him stood a bearded man in a turban, looking like a camel driver.

‘Hey, drop the stick!’ the bearded man said. ‘Don't you know they can cripple a man?’

‘He's going to kill him!’

‘You're not local, are you?’

‘Local! They even call me Australopithecus at school!’

‘This is a different conversation!’ laughed the camel driver. ‘But I'll tell you it's more of a game than a fight.’ They both realize that the freedom to swing a fist at someone else's nose ends where that nose begins. See, the old kangaroo won't fight back? And young only pretends to be at war. He tests the old one: will he give up the slack, will he give up the main place in the herd. If the old heroically survive the attacks of the newcomer-the test will end with the victory of the old…’

‘And if he retreats, he loses?’

The bearded man laughed again.

‘Kangaroos don't know how to back up, that's something our army should learn from them. And let's get down to business-do you want to help me?’

For three hours Archie helped the bearded man load the sacks. As the camel-train started, the bearded man said:

‘Come here tomorrow – make more money.’

It was the first shilling earned in the life of Archibald Clark Kerr. He would no longer steal change from his father. He grew up.

Then he had to work part time on ships in the harbor and with gold miners. He graduated from school among the best. His father tried to talk to him about further studies, but the conversation again failed. Archie just drove across the river in silence and came home in the dark. That night he had his first taste of whiskey with the longshoremen.

Days, weeks, months passed. He wanted a change – and the change was not long in coming.

…Of course, and so you can start a novel about an interesting man, Archibald Kerr, a British diplomat. But all that has been said above is invented. In fact, his life and adventures do not need speculation. All that will be said below is true. If not, the author will have to apologize. Everything described below is based on real events, and discrepancies in names, dates, facts and phenomena are most likely accidental.