Once a Pommie Swagman

by Thomas, Nick Arden

  Japs, dagos, chinks, wogs and squareheads — all were abused and insulted with equal vigour by Mr Archer. As for Poms, well, the evidence of their dithering military incompetence and treachery was damning. The sudden arrival of thousands of the lily-white whinging bastards shortly after the war merely compounded it. Quite apart from being weak-chinned and pathetic, Poms didn’t like the heat, didn’t like the flies, didn’t like hard work and didn’t like washing. They came out for a tenner, thought the world owed them a living and then half of them went crawling back after a year because they couldn’t cope! In short, according to Mr Archer, the English were self-opinionated, arrogant, class conscious, dirty, lazy, gutless snobs. And as for Winston Churchill! “Don’t get me bloody well started on that bastard!”

  My sister had passed through his class several years before, but because she was a female and he, at heart, was a gentleman, she was spared the full weight of his opinions. Those he saved for me, knowing I was progressing inexorably up through the school and would eventually end up under his control. “Ah!” he bellowed the first day I walked into his class, having been in Australia by then for eight years, most of them at his school. “The little Pom! Right, you sit here in front of me, where I can keep an eye on you. Don’t trust you lot, never have!”

  Fortunately for me, Mr Archer had an interest to which he was fanatically addicted. In the centre of the playground was a hard, rough, extremely dangerous concrete cricket pitch, and on his instructions every boy in the school had to meet him there after school, on or near the day of their ninth birthday. Standing at one end, a box of old cricket balls at his feet, Mr Archer would direct the boy to stand at the other end, no bat, no pads, nothing. The boy was also left under no illusion as to what would happen if he dared back away or put so much as a toe outside the crease.

  We stood there, alone, rooted to the spot, desperately trying not to wet ourselves. “Do you like cricket, boy!” He’d glare down the pitch once you were in position. When you whispered timidly that you loved the game, he would snort contemptuously, snarl: “Well let’s see if you’re any good at it!” and proceed to hurl ball after ball at you, most of them aimed directly at your head. “Don’t duck, boy! Don’t duck! Catch the confounded thing. Catch it!” By some miraculous fluke I passed this initiation with flying colours, catching the first three balls he threw at me, one of them one-handed. That was it; I was in the junior eleven. As far as Mr Archer was concerned, if a boy could catch a cricket ball he could do no wrong, even a Pommie boy, although he was at pains to point out that the only things Poms usually caught with any regularity were colds and buses.

  Despite his oft-stated dislike of foreigners, and by association all things foreign, he didn’t seem to think it ironic that his pride and joy was his black 1937 Citroen 11B, one of those two-door coupé things with a long bonnet and spare wheel housed in a mould in the lid of the dickie seat. Not a large vehicle, but somehow, every sports day, he managed to get the entire cricket team and our gear into it and drive us to the match. We used to sit squashed together, three or four in the front bucket seat, the rest of the team crammed into the back and the dickie seat, legs round our ears.

  In my last year at the school we won our last match, won it easily as it happened, and by so doing won the league for the second year running. As we packed up after the game, excited and full of ourselves, Mr Archer didn’t say a word; he just wedged us into the car as usual and set off back to school. Going up Epping High Street, he suddenly veered off the road and into the paddock behind the Epping Hotel. “Get out and stretch your legs for a minute,” he instructed us, and disappeared into the bar. We didn’t really think anything of it and were standing about congratulating ourselves when he suddenly reappeared carrying a tray with twelve schooners of beer on it. Without a word, he solemnly handed each boy a glass and, taking his own, glared at us. “If one parent gets to hear about this you’re all bloody dead! Congratulations, you were men out there today!” and as he downed his beer so we downed ours, and giggled all the way back to school.

  Mr Archer was a kind and conscientious man hiding behind a loud bark and ingrained prejudices. He introduced me to Aussie sporting competitiveness, racism, beer and how many a 1950s ‘true blue’ viewed the world. I remember him with some affection. He had the conflicting characteristics common to many post-war Australians: intolerance, bitterness, insecurity and anger tempered by decency, honesty, courage and humour. I just wonder sometimes how I might have felt if I hadn’t so fortuitously caught those cricket balls.

  As the hours passed and the promised help failed to materialise, it was obvious the financial cost of the breakdown was weighing heavily on Alf. Yet, when his supposed arrival time in Brisbane came and went, he said no more than a murmured, “There goes me bonus”. If anything he was more concerned about us and by midday when Glen and I were beginning to get a bit fidgety he suggested we try to get another lift. “You’re welcome to stay, but I think I’m going to be here awhile. If you’re on the road somewhere up ahead I’ll pick you up again.”

  Then he disappeared behind the cab for a few moments, rummaged in the large toolbox bolted to the chassis and emerged with two pieces of canvas rolled up and tied with a piece of rope so we could sling the roll over our shoulders. “If you’re going to be sleeping rough you’ll need these … catch your death otherwise.” He also gave us two spoons and two mugs, and finally he pressed a couple of bob into each of our hands. “Buy yourselves a decent feed tonight, and don’t go putting anymore cans on the fire without opening them first!”

  We almost changed our minds; it would have been great to stay with him longer, and although we parted with warm handshakes and wishes of good luck, it was with some sadness. We couldn’t begin to imagine how much money he was losing because of the breakdown, but whatever it was, we knew for sure ‘Uncle’ Alf didn’t deserve his bad luck. We never saw him again.

  The truck had come to rest on a bend. It was not the ideal place to wait for a lift so we wandered up the road a hundred yards or so. There hadn’t been much traffic all morning, and it was some time before a battered 1947 Dodge pick-up came hurtling around the corner, virtually on two wheels. If that wasn’t alarming enough, then the sight of the young driver literally standing on the brakes and screeching to a halt a few yards beyond us, tyres smoking, should have warned us off. He did turn the radio down a fraction so he could hear us, but didn’t seem too bothered where we were going. The seat next to him was full of clothes and other stuff, so he jerked his thumb at the back. “Jump in.”

  Dented and rusty with an old coat hanger serving as an aerial, to say the ute had seen better days was a compliment. Whole sections of the floor in the back had simply rusted away and the drive shaft, axle and, even more disconcerting, the road, were clearly visible, seemingly only inches below us. Finding somewhere to sit so our legs didn’t fall through was a challenge and we ended up cramped, one on either side, hard up against the back of the cab. There was no glass in the little rear window which made conversation easier, or would have done if we could have heard each other. The second we were settled he shot off with Bobby Darren at full volume: “Goodbye cruel world, I’m off to join the circus, gonna be a broken-hearted clown …”

  Objectionable as it may be to everybody else, it is necessary for the young that they don’t have fully-developed moral and social consciences, simply because common sense and responsibility are incompatible with being rash and having a good time. Nothing more effectively stifles childish recklessness than sensible behaviour.

  Despite this handicap, even Glen and I could tell instantly that the driver was a complete dickhead. Not that we were any smarter; we had the chance to escape when he stopped briefly in Grafton for fuel, but in our defence I think we were so traumatised we dared not let go of our grip. That there wasn’t much traffic about was truly fortunate; had there been more, I am sure we would not have lived to tell the tale. He overtook every vehicle in front of us as soon as he came up behind i
t regardless of its size or the road situation; and the drivers of the vehicles coming towards us must have been amazed as we flashed past. I will never know how we didn’t clip them or smash head on into a few of them as we careened around corners. The tarmac flashing by so close beneath was truly mesmerising, and stones and gravel constantly flicked up and shot around the back of the ute like ricocheting bullets. We clung on for dear life, certain that at each bend and bump we would fall through.

  Rarely did he drop below fifty miles an hour; wind, stones, screaming tyres, unbelievably loud music; all that was missing was thunder and lightning. When he finally dropped us off in Ballina we felt like we’d been in Luna Park for a fortnight with unlimited funds. Stirling Dickhead, however, was completely unruffled as though he did that sort of thing every day, which he probably did. He just gave us a cheery wave and screamed off like a drag racer, Ray Charles entertaining the neighbourhood. “Hit the road, Jack, and don’t you come back no more, no more, no more, no more. Hit the road, Jack, and don’t you come back no more. WHAT YOU SAY!”

  We treated ourselves to a dinner Alf would have approved of, before walking out to the surf club where we had to wash under a tap as the shower was broken. We slept the night on the beach, the roar of the surf a perfect soundtrack to our dreams of mad bastards in fast cars.

  TWO

  Sugar babies

  First thing in the morning we presented ourselves at the police station. Alf had told us that in country towns, if you wanted work you went to the police, because they knew everybody in their area and what jobs, if any, were going.

  The police were also the dispensers of ‘the susso’, more officially known as sustenance payments, introduced in the 1930s to help feed the hundreds of thousands of unemployed who took to the roads in search of work. When I was only five or six there was a boy in my class who used to sing a little song about it. At the time I didn’t understand what it meant, but it was one of those silly little ditties that stay with you forever:

  “Oh we’re on the susso now,

  We can’t afford a cow.

  We live in a tent,

  We pay no rent

  Oh we’re on the susso now.”

  The payments were in the form of food vouchers, and to qualify for one you had to satisfy the police you were a certain distance away from your home and a genuine unemployed ‘bona-fide’ traveller. Officially the allocation was one voucher per person per fortnight from any one town, but it was a very haphazard process and in many towns the police would only give out one a month. Only basic items such as bread, potatoes, eggs, tinned food and a prescribed quantity of biscuits, flour, tea and sugar — all of which were still sold by weight in country stores could be obtained with the vouchers, no alcohol or cigarettes. It was only enough food to last a man three or four days, five if he eked it out, but it very neatly solved two problems. Firstly, that nobody starved to death; and secondly, that bums, vagrants and the unemployed were moved on, saving the police an onerous task.

  Keep travelling from town to town and itinerants could eat quite well; stop for more than a week and they either had to find work or go hungry. It was quite clever really.

  Sergeant Pearce wasn’t particularly enamoured to see us. Looking after the domestic problems of vagrants was not why he’d become a policeman. After grilling us as to why I wasn’t at kindergarten and did our parents know where we were, he eventually parted with a voucher for each of us as if the cost of it was coming straight out of his wages. When we asked about employment he sighed impatiently and called out to somebody in the back room. “Hey, Norm, anybody you know employing nappy soilers at the moment?” The head of a young constable, presumably Norm’s, appeared round a doorway. “Reg Butt has been burning off all week. He might have started hiring.”

  Sergeant Pearce’s tolerance finally cracked when, after he’d shown us how to get to Butt’s farm, which was about ten miles out of town, we asked if there was any chance of a lift. “Jesus Christ!” he exploded. “Next you’ll be wanting me to do the bloody work for you!” Then his face softened slightly and he looked at his watch, gave a resigned shrug and grabbed his hat. “Come on, then. Going out for a bit, Norm. Be back in half an hour,” he called over his shoulder. Ah, the benefits of a cherubic face.

  Butt’s farm house wasn’t really a house as such, more a patchwork of rusty corrugated iron sheets held together by rough wooden posts. It looked just like the house in “There was a crooked man” — complete with a crooked dog that roused itself lazily from its similarly constructed kennel to come and sniff our feet.

  Then the door opened and we were confronted by a creature from another fable — the ogre in Billy Goat Gruff . His face had obviously been re-organised in a boxing ring and he had massive arms, hairy shoulders, huge boots, thick grey trousers held up with braces and a blue singlet he hadn’t taken off since the depression.

  “Hello, Mr Butt,” I greeted him with cocky assurance. “Nick, Glen. The police said you were looking for …”

  “Ever cut cane before?”

  “Well … not exactly, but we’ve seen …”

  “Right! Go down the shed and see Charlie. Team pay, four quid a ton, meals in,” and he slammed the door in our faces.

  The shed in question was about half a mile away across the plantation, one mile via the dirt track. Halfway there a man in a tractor swept past us with no intention of offering us a lift, and covering us with dust. He stopped outside the shed and left the engine running as he went inside to await our arrival. It chugged away, sounding impatient. The shed was a long, rough, weatherboard building with a corrugated iron roof. There was no ceiling, and a maze of pinpricks of sunlight shone through. The walls were unlined and the floor was nothing but hard packed mud. Thick grass grew under the double metal bunks, two dozen or more of which lined either side, with straw mattresses, stained pillows and thin blankets piled on them. Off one end of the shed was a small office and store room, and off the other end was a water tank, beside which were several tables with wash bowls on them. Thirty yards away was an equally rundown and flyblown dunny.

  Charlie was, in stature, almost the exact opposite to Mr Butt and his singlet, in which he’d obviously been born, more or less held him together. The few teeth he had were stained dark brown from years of smoking the ridiculously thin cigarettes he rolled himself, so thin the paper stuck to his lips and the thing went out almost as soon as he’d lit it so he was constantly re-lighting. “Grab yerselves a bunk,” he muttered, cursing his battered flint lighter which only seemed to work every tenth go. “Machetes and boots are in the store. Be down at field nine at five thirty in the mornin’. Dinna’s at six thirty in the mess hut behind the house.”

  “Where’s field nine?” we asked as he climbed back onto the tractor.

  “Yer’ve got the rest of the day to find it, ain’t ya!” and, struggling once more with his lighter, he roared off.

  Hand harvested cane farms were made up of relatively small, two or three hundred yard, roughly square, individual fields, separated by tractor access roads that also acted as fire breaks. On large plantations there could be up to fifty of these fields, and a few days before each one was due to be harvested it was set alight, which meant a pall of thick, black, sweet-smelling smoke hung over the area every day during harvest time. The burn off was done principally to get rid of the mountains of dead leaves that accumulated over the time it took the cane to grow to maturity, and which made cutting virtually impossible if they remained. It was also done to flush out the nightmare-inducing numbers of snakes and cane toads, huge, revolting creatures the size of rugby balls. The cane stalks themselves didn’t burn; they did, however, become covered with a clinging black soot that got everywhere. You only had to walk past a sugar field at harvest time to look like a coal miner.

  There were eight in our team, the leader being a squat, leathery little man whom we discovered was a Hungarian refugee. He barely spoke any English, which didn’t seem to matter as many of the other
men were migrants and couldn’t speak English either. Or if they did, they only seemed to know about five words, none of them very flattering. Each team was allocated a field that only they cut down, stacked in bundles and loaded onto trailers, which were marked with the team number and towed away at intervals by Charlie to be weighed. Occasionally the ogre himself would appear to check progress, but most of the time he left us to it.

  We were paid as a team, with bonuses for each ton above our quota, a figure Glen and I were never told. The head cutter got the most, the rest, supposedly, being paid equal amounts, swapping jobs around as the day went on. That first morning there were no introductions, no welcomes, we were just handed half a dozen battered enamel mugs. “You look, you learn,” said the Hungarian. He’d split the team into four pairs: two cutting, one stacking and one making tea, copious quantities of which, black and sweet, was drunk all day long. Each team had its own drum of water on a brazier beside its field, and for the first three hours we were constantly running back and forth tending it and distributing tea. The following three hours we stacked the lengths of cane onto trailers as we’d seen the others doing. Finally our turn came to cut, and we gripped our machetes with boyish glee and set off as fast as we could down our row, following the Hungarian who was the only one of the team to cut all day.

  There was an art to cutting cane, a sort of figure of eight rhythm you got into. Stooping down to grasp the stalk at its base, you’d slash through it with the razor-sharp machete; known as a billhook; preferably in one cut. Then, standing up, you’d swivel the stalk round and lop off the top, tossing the five-foot length of cane to the side where it was gathered by your stacker. Ideally it was all done in one continuous, smooth movement.