Toby ignored the dirty looks. ‘My neighbour tells me there’s a doctor camped along here somewhere.’

The other digger climbed to his feet. ‘Someone better be hurt real bad to warrant driving into camp like a madman.’

‘My brother,’ Toby said, gesturing into the load space behind him.

The digger strode over and looked into the wagonette where Paddy lay on a makeshift mattress of saddle blankets. The depression in his skull still bled and had stained the blanket under his head. Only the shallow rise and fall of his chest gave any indication the boy was still alive.

‘Bloody hell!’ The digger gasped and crossed himself. ‘What happened to him?’

‘Bushrangers,’ Toby snapped. ‘Now tell me, is there a doctor camped along here or not?’

The digger came up level with the driving seat and pointed down the row of tents. ‘That tall one near the end, that’s the doc’s tent.’

Toby didn’t bother to thank the man. He whipped the reins and the panting horse started reluctantly forward. Outside the designated tent he reined in, applied the brake and jumped to the ground.

‘Hello?’ He rapped his knuckles against the support pole outside the flap. ‘Hello the tent. Is the doctor here?’

The flap parted and a gaunt, bespectacled face appeared. ‘I’m Doctor Collier.’

Toby grabbed the doctor’s arm and pulled him towards the wagonette. ‘Please, sir. It’s my brother. He got clouted with a club. He’s in a bad way.’

The doctor leaned over the sideboard and held his spectacles on his nose with one hand as he gave Paddy a cursory examination. Tut-tutting under his breath, he stepped back and rounded on the gathering crowd of diggers come to see what the commotion was all about.

‘You and you.’ The doctor singled out two burly men. ‘Lift the boy out of the wagonette very carefully. Be mindful of his head. Don’t let it twist or be bumped. Take him into my tent and lay him on the bed. Carefully,’ he warned. ‘Any rough handling might kill him.’

Toby stepped back and let the two diggers lift his brother out of the wagonette, relieved to see them handling him gently. The doctor held the flap of the tent open and they settled the boy onto a camp bed.

‘He was hit by a club, you say?’ the doctor asked.

Toby rattled through the events of that afternoon. A couple of diggers interrupted and tried to ask questions, but the doctor waved them into silence.

‘Your parents were shot?’ The doctor had a look of disbelief on his face as he took Toby’s arm and led him outside.

‘Both dead.’ Toby tried hard to control his voice. He swallowed down the lump in his throat. ‘I got Paddy into the wagonette and headed for town. I ran into a neighbour, Mrs Smith, on the way. She told me you were camped here. Thank God you were. I thought I was going to have to take him all the way to Bacchus Marsh. He never would have survived that journey.’ Toby’s lips started to tremble and the doctor placed a hand on his arm.