by Nevil Shute
“He fell off the bridge into the water?”
“He did that. They found him half a mile down-stream come the morning, him and the dog together. There was never a priest there to say a mass for him, and they buried him and the dog in the one grave, which the priest would never have allowed.” He paused. “Aye, it was a sad thing; he was a fine, noble boy. It made a great wonder in the countryside, for he was well known on account of coming in and out of Banbury and people riding with him. And they put a poem in the paper about him, ah, a lovely, lovely poem. Did ye never hear it?”
The Czech shook his head.
The old man declaimed,
“Charlie Zlinter and his heeler hound
Fell into the Howqua and unhappily drowned.
Be warned, fellow sinners, and never forget
If he hadn’t been drunk he’d have been living yet.”
“Ah,” he said, “it was a lovely, lovely poem.”
“This Charlie Zlinter was almost certainly some relation of my own,” said the Czech, “because he came from my own town. Did you ever hear anything about him—who his relations were, or who he wrote to? Did he leave any papers to say that?”
“Sure, an’ I wouldn’t know a think like that at all,” the old man said. “I was a policeman in those days, and on other duties; I only knew about him from the gossip of the time. I wouldn’t know what happened to his gear. It was soon after that the mine closed down and Howqua came to an end; within the year there were only a few people living in the place. I wouldn’t say that anyone took on the bullock team after he passed away. I wouldn’t know. The Howqua was going down, and there wasn’t the work there had been in the beginning.”
Carl Zlinter asked, “You do not know what happened to his papers?”
“Ah, I wouldn’t know at all. There’s only one person left might know about a thing like that.”
“Who is that?”
“Sure, Mary Nolan herself.”
“Mary Nolan! Is she still alive?”
“Ah, she’s alive. She was a wicked girl, and Father Geoghegan, he was the priest here then, he would have nothing to do with her until she came to the confession, and that she would not do, and Holy Mother of God, it’s not to be wondered at. And so when the mine closed down and everybody left the Howqua what must she do but go for a barmaid at Woods Point in the hotel there, and very strict she came to be, so that there was no loose talk or dirty jokes in Mary Nolan’s bar. I did hear that she made her peace with Father O’Brian from Warburton who went to Woods Point in those days, and like enough he didn’t know the whole of it. And then she married a man called Williams who lived on an allotment out by Jamieson, and they lived there until he died at the beginning of the second war. And then she sold the place, and went to live at Woods Point with her brother-in-law’s family; I’d say she’d be living there yet. I haven’t heard she died.”
“She must be old now,” said the Czech.
“Seventy-five, maybe,” the old man said indignantly. “She’d not be a day older than seventy-five. That’s not so old at all. Sure, there’s many a man fit and hearty at the age of seventy-five.”
“Do you think that Mary Nolan might have kept Charlie Zlinter’s papers, or know what happened to them when he was drowned?”
“Ah, I wouldn’t be saying that at all. She’s the only person living in the district now that might know something, though it’s a long while ago. I’ll say this now, she knew Charlie Zlinter better than anyone else, and better than she had any right to as a single woman.”
Carl Zlinter left him presently, and walked back into the town and got there in time for dinner. He went to a different café for his meal where they were kinder to the New Australian and got a lift out halfway to Merrijig in a truck driven by George Pearson on his way to Buttercup. He walked for two miles then, for it was Saturday afternoon and there were few people on the road, and finally got picked up by the storekeeper from Lamirra driving out of town in his utility. He got down at the gate of Leonora and walked across the paddocks to the homestead.
He was just in time for tea, and they made him welcome. He said to Jack Dorman, “It is quite correct, what you have told me about Mr. Pat Halloran and Charlie Zlinter. I have learned a great deal of my relative this morning.”
“What did you find out?” asked Jennifer.
He cocked an eye at her. “I found out that he was a very bad man. I do not think that I can say all that he did with ladies in the room.”
Jane and Jennifer laughed. “You can keep the juicy bits to tell Jack afterwards,” Jane said. “Tell us the rest.”
Jennifer asked, “What did he do for a living?”
“He was a bullock team driver,” said the Czech. “He drove a wagon and a team from the railway at Banbury to the town at the Howqua River.”
“Is that what he did!” Jack Dorman exclaimed. The pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fall together now; a bullocky driver would have been well known in Banbury and his death would be remembered longer than if he were a transient miner. The verse that Pat Halloran had declaimed would not have been composed except for a man of some local reputation, good or bad. “Did you find out anything else about him?”
Zlinter told them the story as they sat at tea. “Mrs. Williams,” Jane said thoughtfully. “Old Mrs. Joshua Williams, would that be? Used to live at Sharon, out past Jamieson?”
“I do not know,” he said. “I did not hear the name of the station. Only that she married a man called Williams.”
“I think that must be the one.” She turned to Jack. “You remember old Mrs. Williams, the one who used to breed geese when we came here first. You remember—we got six goslings from her, and they all died but one, the first year we were here. Didn’t her husband die, and she went to Woods Point?”
“I remember those bloody goslings,” Jack Dorman said emphatically. “They were no good when we bought them, and she knew it. I’d have made a row and got my money back, but we were new here then and I didn’t want to start off with a row.”
“She went to live at Woods Point, didn’t she?”
“I don’t remember. Easily find out.”
“I’m sure she was the one.”
They finished tea and washed the dishes, and went out on the veranda and sat down. Jack Dorman gave his guest a cigarette. “Inquest’s on Monday morning,” he said. “You’ll be there, I suppose?”
Carl Zlinter smiled, a little wryly. “I shall be going with Mr. Forrest,” he said. “I think he will come back without me, because I shall be in prison.”
“That’s not going to happen. The doctor’s on your side, and it’s what he says that counts.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I would not care a great deal if I went to prison,” he said, “so long as it should stop at that. But in my state, if I should do a crime in this two years, I think they can send me back to Germany, into a camp. That would be very bad.”
Jennifer said, “They’d never do that, Carl. It’s not going to be like that at all.”
He shrugged his shoulders gloomily. “It could happen.”
She laughed. “They’d have to send me too, because I helped.”
He turned to her. “Will you be at the inquest?”
“I’ll be there. The police rang up this morning and said they wanted me.”
“It would be different for you, if this went badly,” he said. “The worst that they could do for you would be to send you back to England, and that is your home. This place is now the home for me, and this is where I want to stay.”
“Nothing like that’s going to happen,” Jack Dorman said shortly. “They’ve got more sense.”
“I hope that that is true …”
It seemed to Jennifer that he was taking this very badly, but in his position that might be inevitable. She did not like to think of him brooding all the week-end over possible deportation back into the displaced persons’ camps of Europe. “You promised that you’d take me to see Charlie Zlinter’s grave s
ome time,” she said. “I want to see the Howqua. What about tomorrow?”
He glanced at her, smiling; it seemed too good to be true. “I would like to take you there, ver’ much,” he said. “But I think it is too far for you to walk.”
“Jack said he’d lend us the utility—the Chev. Could we go tomorrow, Mr. Dorman?”
“Sure,” he said. “Sunday’s the best day to take the Chev.” He turned to Zlinter. “Say, can you drive a car?”
The Czech smiled. “I can drive. Before the war I had a little car, an Opel, in my own country, and in the war I drove many cars and trucks. I have not driven in Australia, and I have not got a licence.”
“Ah, look—it don’t matter about the licence, not up here. You can take the Chev tomorrow, if you want it.”
The dark man beamed, “It is very, very kind. I will be ver’ careful of it, Mr. Dorman.”
“You won’t be able to be careful of it, not up on that Howqua track. But it’ll take you there all right, up on to the top, that is, by Jock McDougall’s paddock, I wouldn’t take it down the other side, not down into the Howqua valley—I was telling Jenny. But that cuts it down to a two-mile walk instead of ten.”
He said again, “It is very, very kind …”
Presently he said, “There is one other thing, Mrs. Dorman. This morning, I visited a New Australian who can paint pictures, a man called Stan Shulkin. Do you know about him?”
“No?”
“I know about him,” said her husband. “Chap who works on the railway.”
“That is the man. Have you seen his pictures?”
Jack Dorman shook his head. “I remember someone saying in the pub one day there was a New Australian who can paint.”
Carl Zlinter turned to Jane. “I think it might be interesting to you to go down to his small house and see what he can paint,” he said. “I went there this morning. I think perhaps that he could make the sort of picture that you want.”
She laid her sewing down. “I want a really good picture, Carl, done by a proper artist. I don’t want anything done by an amateur. I want a good picture.”
“I do not know very much about pictures,” he replied. “I saw some very fine oil paintings this morning that this man had done. I think that he could make a picture that you would enjoy.”
She wrinkled her forehead. “Has he ever studied anywhere? I mean, it might be difficult if I went there and his pictures were too bad for what I want. You do see what I mean?”
“I understand,” he said. “He has studied in Paris and in Rome; before the war he was Professor of Art Studies in the University of Kaunas. I think he is a very good artist.”
“But what’s he doing here?”
“He works as a labourer upon the railway.”
She stared at him. “Is that the only thing that he can find to do?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I do not know. He came to Australia three years ago, as a displaced person, and he was sent for his two years to work upon the railway, here in Banbury. He has stayed here since, and what else can he do? Here he has a house and easy work and a quiet life after the camps in Germany. He has tried to sell paintings a little, but not many people buy an oil painting in Banbury. I think he could paint a picture that is what you like.”
“Are his pictures pretty? Are the colours nice?”
“I saw a very beautiful picture of the Delatite River in the spring, all blue and golden, with the wattles. It looked like the river, and the colours were ver’ beautiful.”
“That sounds the sort of thing,” she said. “I’d better go and see him.” She laughed. “It would be funny if I found the sort of picture that I want in Banbury, after searching all over Melbourne for it.”
Jennifer walked down to the road with Carl Zlinter when he went away. Jane watched them disappear across the paddocks. “Are you going with them tomorrow?” she asked.
He grinned. “Give ’em a break.”
“I don’t know that it’s a good thing,” she said. “I don’t know that her father and mother would be very pleased.”
“They shouldn’t have let her come twelve thousand miles away from home by herself, then,” he said. “Far as I remember, your father and mother weren’t too pleased, either.”
“I rather like him,” she said, “once you get used to the foreign way.”
“He’s right,” he said.
As they were walking across the paddocks, Jennifer was saying, “I don’t think there’s anything to be afraid of in this inquest, Carl. Honestly, I don’t.”
“I do not think there is a need to be afraid,” he said, “but I shall be happy when it is over.”
“They can’t possibly make any trouble.”
He looked around him. The moon was coming up, and the bowl of the Delatite Valley was touched with a silvery light; it was very quiet. “There is only one trouble that I would be afraid of,” he said quietly. “That is to be sent away from this country and back to Europe.”
“Are you so fond of it as that, Carl?”
He was silent for a minute. “Here is a beautiful, empty country,” he said, “with freedom, and opportunity, and more than that, a King to whom every man may appeal if there is injustice. It is a great thing to have a King, a Leader, to prevent the politicians and the bureaucrats from growing stupid. The Germans had the same idea in seeking for a Führer, only they had the wrong man. The English have managed so much better. The Americans also have discovered great men for their Presidents, in some way that is difficult to understand.” He paused. “I should be very unhappy if it happened that I had to leave this country,” he said.
“I think I should, too,” said Jennifer. “I’m English of course, but this is very lovely. In many ways it’s like what England must have been a hundred years ago.”
“From what part of England do you come?” he asked.
“From Leicester,” she said. “That’s where my home is. I worked just outside London for a time, before I came out here.”
“Leicester,” he said. “I have heard the name, but I do not know where it is.”
“It’s in the Midlands,” she told him. “Right in the middle of England, a hundred miles or so from London.”
“What is it like there?” he asked. “Is it beautiful?”
She shook her head. “It’s a manufacturing town,” she told him. “One always likes the town that one was born in, I suppose, and I like Leicester well enough. But—no, I couldn’t say it’s beautiful. I think it’s rather ugly.”
“And when you worked in London, what was that like? I have never been to London.”
“I worked outside, in one of the suburbs,” she said. “I was in an office there. It wasn’t very different from Leicester, really.”
“Why did you come to Australia?” he asked. “Have you come here to live?”
“I’m not sure about that, Carl,” she said. “I had a grandmother, who died and left me a little money. She didn’t want me to save it; she wanted me to spend it in coming out here on a visit. I think she thought that if I came out here I’d want to stay, and that I’d have a happier life than if I lived in England. England’s very different now from what it was when Granny was a girl, and she’d seen things decaying all her life. I think she had an idea that if I came out here I might be getting back into the England that she knew seventy years ago, when everything was prosperous and secure.”
“So …” he said. “And how do you find it?”
“I’ve been here such a little time, it’s hard to say. I really haven’t seen anything—only a couple of days in Melbourne and this little bit of country here.”
“From what you have seen, what do you say?”
“It’s a lovely country,” the girl said. “Prosperous—yes, it’s very prosperous. Secure—I suppose it is. Nobody seems to be afraid an atom bomb is going to land next door tomorrow, like we are in England.”
“No,” he said. “All that seems very far away from here. Here we are very far from enemies
, and a great distance between you and your enemy is still the best defence.” He turned to her. “I cannot tell you how I love this country, for that reason perhaps best of all. Since I was a young man there has been this threat of war, or war itself, and death, and marching, and defeat, and camps of homeless people, and the threat of war again, and of more marching, of more death, of more parting from one’s home—unending. Here in this place all that is put behind; here is a country where a man can build a home without the feeling that all will be useless and destroyed next year. Here is a country where a man can live a sane and proper life, even if it is only one little log hut in the middle of the woods for a home. I love this country for those things, because here one can gather a few toys around oneself, a fishing rod or two, some books, a little hut, a place to call one’s own—and all is safe. If then a war must come in Europe, it may be my duty to go to fight again upon the side that Australia will be on, and that I do not mind, because after the war is over, if I live, I can come back to my little place here in Australia, my hut, my fishing rods, and my books, and all will be quite safe, and I can be at peace again.”
He turned to her. “I am so sorry. I have spoken too much.”
“I’m glad you did,” she said. “I wondered what made you so fond of this country. Now I think I understand a bit.”
“I think it is how all we homeless people feel,” he said. “People who have lost their own country want more than anything to find a place where they can build a new home round themselves without the fear that they will ever lose it again.”
