Poor Fellow My Country

by Xavier Herbert

  ‘I’m fifty-three . . . and where’d you get this grandson business?’

  ‘I asked him if you were his father . . . and he said you’re his white granny.’

  ‘The term hasn’t the same meaning to him as it has to us. He’s got blacks he calls granny, too . . . haven’t you sonny?’

  ‘Wha’ nam’, Mullaka?’

  ‘You got him blackfeller granny, too . . . ain’t it?’

  ‘Yu-ai.’

  ‘Why do you talk to him in that outlandish way?’

  ‘Because it’s what he understands best.’

  ‘Why don’t you teach him to speak properly?’

  ‘What d’you mean properly?’

  ‘Decent English, of course.’

  ‘I won’t ask you what you mean by decent . . . but he gets by for the time on the English he has. They actually prefer speaking that patois of theirs. My wife, who had some education in a mission to start with and has become quite well educated by her own efforts . . . runs a school now . . . prefers it. It expresses their own idiom best, I think. Anyway, the boy speaks a native language . . . which is more useful to him at present than English.’

  ‘But surely you’re going to have him educated?’

  ‘He’s being educated now in the best way I think possible for him . . . in the knowledge of his country and his people . . .’

  ‘But he isn’t black!’

  ‘I told you the other day the depth of his colour doesn’t make much difference to his status in the eyes of the law. Besides, those of them brought up with the Old People, as they call them, don’t get into the state of conflict others do by being ashamed of them. If he needs my protection he’ll seek it. I’m forcing nothing on him.’

  Lydia looked at Prindy, who all the while was wolfing sandwiches of which there were a large quantity and swigging tea poured from one of a couple of big vacuum flasks, and staring at the other side of the pool as if expecting to see something. She asked, ‘Can’t he understand us?’

  ‘I don’t think he’s even concerned with us. He’s got something else on his mind much more important to him.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know . . . nor would he tell me, probably. They’re secretive people . . . except with those they’re bound to be frank with.’

  Lydia had been eating heartily too. Suddenly she said, ‘By jove . . . these sandwiches are reahlly mahvellous, don’t y’know . . . what are they?’

  ‘The meat’s roast bustard.’

  ‘Thought you didn’t kill native things!’

  ‘I don’t . . . nor do I permit the killing of them anywhere near my homestead. But it’s native game . . . and I have natives . . . or rather they have me. They like their own food . . . feel deep need for it at times. I like it too. I encourage them to hunt . . . in the old way . . . no firearms. Game’s abundant where there’s some degree of conservation. It can even become overabundant and upset the balance of things. The blacks have lived with that balance for longer than anyone will probably ever know. If there’s superabundance, I buy it from them. What they get for me they kill to suit my special taste . . . it must be bled and salted. Now, what say we get on the move again?’

  Still Prindy refused to get in front. Jeremy made him wrap in a strip of canvas and wear his own hat so as to keep the dust off. As they drove away, Jeremy remarked to Lydia at the boy’s disinclination to sit with them as proof of the true attitude of Aborigines to whites: ‘They distrust us all, even me they call mullaka, which means more than boss . . . rather patron. You can force ’em into association with you that they’ll accept so cheerfully you’ll think you’ve bridged the gulf. But the plain truth is they don’t want us for anything but what they can get out of us. It’s been like that from the beginning. I think it always will be . . . and with the relationship worsening as they become more aware of our limitations and we of their complexity. It’s to the children you have to look for the truth. The adults, knowing their need of us, become cunning. I don’t think it’s conscious cunning always. They just know they’re in the grip of something beyond coping with and have to put on an act to adjust themselves. You see that plainly on the missions. The children are unaware of the situation, and hence, like all children, act naturally. To Aboriginal children we are bogeymen. The first reaction of a black baby to sight of a whiteman or woman is to shrink into its mother’s arms.’

  ‘Why did that one come with us, then, if he distrusts us?’

  ‘I’ve wondered about that. For a start, we got him alone with us only because his mother was drunk last night and couldn’t come. I’ve often wanted to get him out here alone . . . but she wouldn’t let me. As a matter of fact, this’s the first time he’s ever been with me without someone of his own kind. But I heard the other night that he was mixed up with an old witch-doctor who’s out this way now . . . and that he’d been behaving strangely. He’s a strange little boy in many ways, makes up songs and goes walking in the bush alone, which isn’t the Aboriginal way of doing things. Actually that’s why we went to the Rainbow Pool. I wanted to see what he’d do.’

  ‘How d’you mean . . . you said we were going there for breakfast?’

  ‘I’ve never taken an Aboriginal person near it before. I know how they feel about it. You only have to tell ’em a place strange to them is wahji or wurruk, and they’ll stay behind and wait for you. Remember what he said when I told him it was like that? He asked, what name? . . . meaning what kind of taboo business was it . . . and when he heard it was Snake Business, said that kind was all right long o’ him. I knew then he was looking for the koornung. It seems they’ve got some sort of secret arrangement. His parents . . . well, his mother and the halfcaste who stands in relationship to him as father, don’t like it . . . any more than any ordinary Aboriginal person would. We’ll have to keep the fact that he was at the pool with us a secret . . . for his sake. They’ll be avoiding him as a koornung if they find out, or at any rate as one bedevilled.’

  ‘But will he keep it secret?’

  ‘I’m pretty sure he will.’

  ‘And here have I been wondering how to stop him from telling everybody that I went bathing naked!’

  They laughed. She asked, ‘Tell me about this old man . . . this . . . koornung chappie.’

  ‘I’ll have to tell you about the Rainbow Snake Business first . . . about Old Tchamala, the Rainbow Serpent, the Great Upheavalist. Do you know the local map at all?’

  ‘Oh, yes . . . I flew in front with our pilot most of the way. I’ve done a bit of flying training, don’t y’know. He showed me his charts.’

  ‘Well, you’ll have some idea of the great Queen Victoria River system, which this’s part of. Tchamala made it all in his raging, starting at the Rainbow Pool. Although he lives now mostly up behind the Milky Way, down under the pool there is one of his favourite haunts on earth. If there’s a rainbow on it, as there often is in Wet Season when there’s a lot of water running over the falls, you can bet he’s in residence. The rainbow is one of his numerous Shades, or spiritual selves.’ Jeremy went on to tell about Tchamala and Bobwirridirridi.

  She remarked at length: ‘You really believe in this business, don’t you!’

  ‘I explained to you that unless you accept the beliefs as part of the land, you can’t live happily in it. Can’t you see that? You have your King Arthur and Merlin the Druid and such things . . . the Germans their Siegfried . . . everybody’s got something mythical, semi-historical even, like your William the Conqueror, that makes them one with their environment . . . except us poor damned colonials, who’re supposed to get through on what’s handed down to us from our forebears, when our environment is utterly different.’

  ‘Yes, I see that. What I mean’s you actually believe in the magical properties of that pool, say. I could tell by the way you spoke when you told me I’d be certain to die in this country because I swam in it.’

  ‘I guess I do, to some degree. You see, I’ve never known anyone who ever bathed th
ere to die elsewhere . . . and there was one particular case of someone who didn’t bathe there who did die elsewhere . . .’

  ‘How would you know all the people who’ve bathed there or haven’t?’

  ‘Haven’t I lived most of my life hereabouts? I’d know pretty well everybody who’d bathed there in say the past thirty-five years . . . allowing for the time I was away at the war. They’re not many. Bush people are superstitious. The bush makes them so. And the place had a bad name from those drownings during the tin mining . . . the Knowles Creek Tin Rush, as it was called.’

  She was watching him cloosely. He went on: ‘The particular case I mentioned was that of my brother Jack . . . Flash Jack, as they called him, because of his horsemanship. He rode a horse not simply to get around, but to show the bond there could be between two intelligent and handsome creatures of different species. As you know, it takes first of all courage to handle a horse . . . a real horse. In fact he was a man of great courage. Yet nothing would induce him to swim in that pool. He died on Gallipoli.’

  ‘Thousands of men did.’

  ‘Spoken like a true Daughter of the Regiment! I’ll bet you belong to a military family.’

  ‘Well . . . as a matter of fact my father was Sandhurst . . .’

  ‘That’ll do me . . . we won’t pursue the subject any further.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to sound callous about the thousands of men. I know it was an awful mess. I only meant that your brother’s dying there didn’t prove anything about the pool.’

  Jeremy was silent.

  She said after a while, ‘I heard you were bitter about the war.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I be? It decimated our manhood and bankrupted us.’

  ‘It did the same to us.’

  ‘You were not a developing community . . . besides, it was your bloody war, not ours!’

  ‘Then why did you yourself come into it? You had no conscription, I understand. And you held the rank of Major, no less.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘I don’t blame you. It came to be a stinking thing. The stink’s still around . . . and will be until we’ve cleaned things up.’

  He looked at her: ‘We? . . . Oh, your British Fascists.’

  ‘And other Fascists . . . Australian, too, I guess.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose someone’ll start something like that here . . . Australians have to copy . . . and, of course, follow Old England.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, your Australian Fascist Party’s already in formation . . . and as for following Old England, it just does not do that. It’s called the Free Australia Movement . . . and what seems to be its chief aim is to get rid of what they call the British Garrison in Australia.’

  He looked at her. She went on to say that she’d come to Australia with greetings to the Movement from Sir Oswald Mosley, with whom there’d been correspondence, and had been received at their headquarters, in Sydney. She hadn’t been much impressed. Those she’d met seemed to be crackpots. Anglophobia seemed to be the chief incentive. They had baited her for a Pommy, a term she’d later learnt was applied only to English of lower class.

  Jeremy sighed: ‘So much even for home-spun Fascism in Australia. The only -ism that could even flourish here is toadyism. You’re right about the Pommy business. For all our vaunted Jack’s-as-good-as-his-master, we are sneaks to the boss.’

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid I’ve found the toadyism rather nauseating. That’s why I asked Alfred to keep my title and our engagement secret. It was bad enough watching them fawn on him.’

  ‘You should be glad of it . . . it’s what established him here.’

  ‘Why should I be glad of it?’

  ‘You’re going to marry him and share the billions.’

  ‘I told you I’d broken the engagement . . . anyway, it wasn’t official.’

  ‘I’m going to be popular with him . . . refusing to shake hands with him, losing him his girl . . . taking his girl away swimming in the nude!’

  ‘Oh, he won’t greatly care. I think he was a bit chary of it. He’s getting pretty old, don’t y’know . . . and I’m afraid I’m a bit harem-scarem.’

  ‘He’s been married half a dozen times, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Four times, actually. But this time was different. He was really after blood this time.’

  He looked: ‘Blood?’

  ‘My blood.’

  ‘Oh . . . I see . . . the blue blood.’

  ‘Of course. It was my blood for the Vaisey billions.’

  ‘Sorry I’ve done your dough for you.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Local idiom . . . lost you your money.’

  ‘You’re laughing at me!’

  ‘Of course . . . it’s all too ridiculous.’ He chuckled deeply.

  She shrugged: ‘That’s how it’s done, old dear.’

  He looked, to meet her blue eyes. Turning back to the road he asked, ‘But how’s that sort of thing fit in with your Fascism? I understand Fascism to be a kind of socialism . . . National Socialism . . . isn’t that what the Germans call theirs?’

  ‘Oh, that’s just a sop to get the petite bourgeoisie in.’

  ‘Then Fascism’s really only a patrician swindle?’

  ‘All’s fair in love and war. I told you . . . we Patricians are at war with the Proletariat. We have to win now . . . or go down for good.’

  He shrugged: ‘I’ve told you I don’t like war.’

  ‘Love?’ she asked.

  He shrugged again. He was slowing down. He said, ‘We’re coming close to the homestead. You’ll see it through the trees. I have to slow down to give the cripples a chance to get to the gate. The signal’s gone up by now that someone’s coming. You have to be pretty smart to take Lily Lagoons by surprise. But this time of year it’s different. Pretty well the whole household’s away for a full week . . . and I fancy those left behind get the notion they’ve been abandoned. Hence the rush to greet the first who come home. They’re a jealous lot. You have to be careful you don’t run someone down in the mêlée.’

  Rather sharply she asked, ‘What cripples?’

  ‘You’ll see . . . and there’s the homestead now.’

  Unlike the northern approach, with its open paddocks, this from southward gave a view of the place somewhat obscured by trees, mainly big trees, stringybark, ironbark, bloodwood, thinned-out forest. A number of birds flew in from various quarters to northward, to wheel about the car, some to land in trees peeking, others to go flapping or skimming along ahead: butcher birds and parrots in number, a hawk, a couple of pee-wees. ‘The scouts,’ remarked Jeremy.

  ‘The Robber Baron’s fastness,’ she said.

  ‘More of a keep, a refuge. It’s my own refuge from a society that mostly sickens me . . . and I feel bound to share it with others wanting to escape from the predatory world.’

  She eyed him searchingly.

  Soon they were at the big white double iron gate in the high netting fence. An odd assortment of beasts and birds were crowding about the entrance, most of them kept back from the gate by an iron grid. There were three emus, one so tall that he could look over the fence with stretching neck, even with but one leg to stand on. There were several brolgas, a jabiru, numerous magpie geese, pee-wees, plovers, doves; it was impossible to pick them all out by breed or number, such was the jostling, the awkward flapping and lurching of maimed things, and the din of it, the screaming, honking, croaking. The beasts were several kangaroos and wallabies and bandicoots, a huge goanna without a tail, a frilled lizard with only half his frill and one front claw to wave as he stood on tail as if signalling greeting.

  Lady Lydia exclaimed, ‘Good heavens!’

  Prindy was staring over the cabin open-mouthed.

  Jeremy alighted to unlatch the gate, did merely that, then returned to the truck and moved it slowly to push the gate open, stopping again when the vehicle was just clear, and alighted to close it, while some of the animals crowded up to nuzzle him. For al
l the eagerness of the greeting, most were wary. ‘My cripples,’ said Jeremy as he got back to the wheel and set the car slowly moving. ‘Now they can go back to their holes and corners and relax for another year.’ He looked at Lydia, whose face was pinched with an expression of displeasure. He asked, ‘What’s the matter . . . don’t you like it?’

  She shrugged: ‘Can’t say I do. What makes a man like you collect maimed animals like an old maid?’

  He laughed a little: ‘I hardly collect them. They have a way of turning up here themselves. The place’s got a reputation in the animal world as a refuge, I suppose, as it has with the blacks . . .’ When she looked at him doubtfully, he added: ‘Animals have a lot more savvy than most people give them credit for. I suppose you know I’m a Veterinary Surgeon . . . of sorts?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well . . . when we started off as graziers, the veterinary part of the job was mine. I needed practice. I’d attend to any sick or injured animal. There are always plenty about . . . what with dingoes, crocodiles, pythons, predatory birds . . . and our own murderous species. My mother and sister . . . particularly my sister, who was an old maid . . . were gentle souls. They did the collecting. Then the creatures just took to coming of their own accord. There’re ways for them to get in. Dingoes . . . the worst of the maimers . . . are too wary to follow . . . but, of course, I’ve got to have a dingo-proof fence to keep ’em from sneaking in at night . . . and also to keep the other things from going out before they’re ready. Those that can’t get in are usually located in time by those scouts of ours, and brought in. Actually I regard it as a bit of a nuisance . . . but then, as I’ve said, how dare I have a refuge unless I share it . . . and it’s satisfying to be trusted and good for you to honour the trust.’

  They were halted before the porch-like entrance through the trellis at the front of the Big House. As they alighted he looked at her, saw her frowning at the creatures still lurching and hopping about, and said, ‘It’s upset you?’