Oh lif a scar la banna high, aneet a fol ee lin ee die
For day a ol land syne.
The others woke, muttered. His mother whispered. There was a little giggling.
Then it began again, stronger, while the listeners sat up, straining to hear, eyes now goggling and glistening in the little light:
I follow him, I follow him, my Rown Road
Follow, follow, follow, follow Rown Road
Boss Tchamala by’n’by
Learn me kill him whiteman die
Dat my Road, my Road, my proper Road
My Rown Road.
A concert of startled indrawn whispering. ‘Eh, look out!’
Then as the sweet small voice fell silent with a sigh, Nell began to whimper softly, ‘Dat old koornung been do it . . . been mek him tulli-tulli . . . oh, my lil boy!’
A clicking of tongues in sympathy, then whispered demands for more information. Someone lit a hurricane lamp. The gloom was too scary. Then someone else got out canned food and biscuits. Prindy slept on.
5
I
As only to be expected, no one who was part of that institution called the Compound was out and about early that New Year’s Day, even those whose share in the jollification attendant upon the heralding of it had been limited to being kept awake thereby. Nevertheless, there was to its tardy starting of the business of the day a quality that was a revelation of what sort of place it really was, what sort of thing the system was that it was part of, despite that word Protection, perhaps even what sort of Nation it was in which such a system, such a place, such a circumstance, could function in the name of authority. The immediate authority was Superintendent Turkney, who held the keys to the locks that restrained those of the inmates whose liberty was restricted as a considered part of their protection. The first Sun of the year was halfway to the zenith before Mr Turkney made a move. The girls in the Adult Halfcaste Women’s Home, so-called, had been ramping for a couple of hours: ‘Wha’s matter, Tur’key, you bloody puggin rotten drunk bastard . . . come on . . . get out o’ bed, Tur’key . . . come ’n’ le’s out o’ here . . . Tur’key . . . Tur’key!’ but not loud enough to carry across the way. There were rules. Bad behaviour could be punished by more restriction of liberty. What finally roused him could not have been that carefully subdued ramping, else surely he would have had something to say about it, surly as he was, nor could it have been much concern for them personally, since not only did he not apologise, but answered their good morning, Mr Tur’key, with a grunt. Probably what got him out was the pressure in his bladder. But what was more significant than the petty despotism revealed was the docile acceptance of it. Plainly the resentment was no stronger than that of well-trained dogs kept overlong on the chain by a master whose authority was completely accepted, even if there were no love for him. Indeed, it was with something like the frolicsomeness of released puppies that they came leaping out of their opened cages as he turned his fat back on them. The same sort of thing had happened across the road at the place next to the Superintendent’s residence where the youngsters of their breed were housed. Some thirty children of all sizes from about six to twelve, mostly girls, and clad in pale blue, were racing round the bare yard there, to be called to order by the loud clapping of hands and a loud authoritative female voice calling, ‘Quiet, children . . . quiet!’ A whitewoman, clad in white and with mop of yellow hair, was to be seen emerging into the bare yard from the greenery that surrounded the residence.
Not that there was anything into which to direct that joy of release, here in the Adults’ Home, any more than over the way there where the fun to be got out of childish romping and squealing had been so quickly stifled. Here the yard was likewise bare, except for a few outbuildings of exactly similar design, a dining-room that was just a peak-roofed shed on a concrete floor with built-in table and seats running down the middle, a tin wash-house, a couple of tin privies. Those who had the best of the cursed-for liberty were the ones whose turn it was to do the chores, like emptying the commode pots, or going to fetch breakfast from the common kitchen where a triangle was dinning as the result of Mr Turkney’s having kicked the cooks into activity.
Those with the chores went about them swinging, laughing. The others did a turn or two about the yard, staring through the high netting fence as if bored to death with what they saw, then retired from the blasting sunlight to the dining-room, to flop down on the benches fixed to the table, to lean on elbows, a couple even to drop faces to downflung arms. Not all them. The Barbus, with a couple of others, were showing the Ah Loys the sights. Then when the bored ones saw there were newcomers amongst them they sat up, leapt up, came crowding. An excited chorus of: ‘Hullo!’ Staring and smiling. A couple made Skin signs, but as if from sheer habit and not caring how they would be received. In fact, that was all the introducing there was. For the moment the interest lay entirely in showing things. They all gabbled the information. That was home for halfcaste kid. School there, too. They kept you there till they saw you going to have baby. Then you come here. That playground belong to kid. They got hole for tchinekin out under fence and going down in gully gitchim cocky-apple and plum and mango. Sometime gitchim goat and milk ’im. Big girl sometime meet halfcaste boy down there, play-about in long grass. You got to look out down there, but. Bandicoot tick. You get tick-bite Matron Turk’ey know where you been. The kid all careful looking for tick on somebody been down in grass. Over there across the gully was the Kerosene — the Soldier Place — the iron roofs just peeping above the trees. Dat-lot soldier mad for halfcaste girl. But Boss soldier make trouble because pox. Now soldier get put Kerosene Jail for play-about colour girl. Two bloody white moll down town doing it for soldier. But we lot go tchinekin. Picture Night — dat’s best time. Down there through tree, that’s Compound Beach. All-lot go picnic today afternoon. Dat Missionary mob come, Bible-basher. But good tucker and plenty fun. Might be can go tchinekin long o’ grass for play-about wit’ halfcaste boy. But look out that lot black bastard! They gitchim you, they puggim you — all-lot, bloody black bastard! Across the way, beside Mr Turk’ey’s office, was Laundry. Some girl work there, washin’ for Government people, and Kerosene. Next to that Sewing Room, where girl make uniforms for Compound and Jail. You can earn money Washin’ and Sewin’ — but nothin’ so good’s play-about wit’ soldier. Money you get workin’ here they keep in trust, give only when they like, won’t let you buy what they call foolish thing. Money you get from soldier that’s all yours. You can buy nice thing from Catalogue.
Then the girls arrived with breakfast, lugging between them battered army dixies, containing porridge, sliced bread, tea, skim-milk made from powder, as well as a couple of cans of treacle. As they all sat down to it, someone said, ‘Bloody rubbitch!’ It was taken up as a chorus. Nor was the complaint so far from truth. The porridge, cooked the day before, already was sour and roped from the mould in it, and when dowsed with the thin milk, gave up the corpses of weevils by the score. The bread was even worse, stringy grey wrapped about congealed glue, the whole cased in charcoal. The tea had most of the leaves floating on top. One of the girls, called Dolly, a big handsome creature, in the family way, as at least half of them seemed to be, declared, ‘Dem bloody bastard Islander!’ Then everybody proceeded to tell the newcomers that the kitchen was run by what sounded like a gang of crooks, blackmen from the adjacent Coburg Islands, who didn’t have their own women with them, because these were forbidden by the mission controlling them to come to the Mainland, and who thinking themselves better than mainlanders, from whom they did in fact differ in many respects, presumed to think they had a right to dealings with yeller girls rather than black, and because the former rebuffed them, took revenge by serving them always the worst of their bad cooking. Apparently they had great rows about it at times, in which Mr Turk’ey had to intervene. But the girls didn’t care today. They still had some biscuits and tinned stuff got from the Kerosene. Besides, there was the picnic this afternoon. A few had
a nibble of bread and treacle to stay their hunger, and all drank the tea, spitting out the leaves. Prindy and his mother merely sniffed at the poor stuff and rejected it. Dolly said they would throw it in their rubbish-hole, since if they sent it back to the kitchen, the black bastards from the Coburgs would only sell it to the other blacks.
Then they began to talk about the lovely new place Mr McCusky said was soon going to be built for them, and kept at it, despite Dolly’s sneers that she’d been hearing about that lovely place since she came in here as a kid. She added: ‘Dey mek dat place for blackfeller. On’y halfcaste go dere’s dat-lot dey want work laundry and sewin’. All rest got ’o go long o’ Mission. Da’s too puggin right. I been hear him dat missionary Mist’ Tasker, talk. He been growl-growl ’cause we lot no-more go silly Sunday School long o’ kid dere. “All right,” he say, “we gitchim all-lot you sinner next year when Old Compound finish and you got to come live long o’ Mission.” Da’s I tell him you straight. I ain’t goin’ no mission. I run away long a Japanee lugger.’
There was diversion round about noon, when cars began to arrive at the Superintendent’s residence, delivering men in white and women in bright colours, all of whom were greeted with great enthusiasm by Mist’ Turk’ey. The knowledgeable girls named those they knew, claiming to have worked for this and that one as housemaid, and told what they knew about them, none to their former employers’ credit. These people were all of the Junior Officer type, not eligible for the Eaton-Delacy party over at Rainbow Beach. Among them were Mr McCusky and his wife — the Mick Cuskys, as they were called. Dolly commented: ‘Dat bloody skinny bitch Mitchis Mick Cusky! I got o’ work her one whole year. Jes ’bout break every china she got so’s I can get away. But, bloody bastard, she know what for I do it and keep me nark me . . . get him new china from Govmin’ cause reckon train me housework. White bastard!’ Still, for all the vigour of the denunciation, there seemed to be no real resentment behind it. It sounded more like description of even pleasurable feuding.
There arrived also Dr Cobbity, a biggish man, but with a little round head and very red face that looked like a tomato on a long stalk. So striking were his blue eyes in the red face that when he looked straight across at the girls, they cringed visibly. He did not wave, as Mick Cusky had, just gave them that long hard stare, and went inside. He was alone. It was interesting that the hilarity that had been working up in the place since the visitors had begun arriving fell noticeably with his entry, then rose again when, after about half an hour, he left. Of course he was Turkney’s and McCusky’s boss, and a Senior Officer amongst juniors. Still, there must have been more to it than that, something about the man himself. Even the children romping in their playground visibly were pulled up as his pale blue sports car went flying past them heading back to town. Again no wave. Dolly said, ‘Bloody bastard, Dr Cobbity!’ But still no resentment.
Soon after Dr Cobbity’s departure, the kitchen triangle rang for dinner, a good hour behind time. But there was no response from either of the halfcastes’ homes. It would only be Rubbitch as usual, the knowing ones told the newcomers, beef stew, with not a lot of beef in it, and that bread — always beef stew, sometimes with a bit of rice with weevils — and in no time the Missionaries would be along with the cakes and the lollies and the lolly-water. ‘Sun like o’ dat!’ said Big Dolly, projecting her lips to a point in the blue and blazing silver above where the Sun should be at about two.
It was likewise with the children across the way. Dutifully they had come to their dining-room from the playground at the ringing of the gong; but no bevvy of them came skipping and hopping and giggling to get the food as in response to that announcing breakfast. Matron Turkney appeared, apparently expecting the indifference to the Rubbitch today, since she stood for only a moment or two talking to them, then turned and went back to her now raucous guests. The children went the other way, with a rush, through the underneath part that served as their schoolroom, to go crowding up the inner stairway to their sleeping quarters, housing for some thirty of them, in exactly the same space as occupied by Mr and Mrs Turkney. The reason for the rush was soon apparent. There was no rush down again. In their best clothes, the girls in flowered prints, the half-dozen little boys in grey instead of khaki, they came decorously, some to sit at the school desks, others to go to line the fence that made caged birds of them. No running, no yelling. All their energy concentrated in the rumbling anticipation of stomachs starved for change of diet and in eyes longing for sights different from those eternal ones within range of the cage.
The Sun was exactly where Dolly had said it would be when the first of the cars appeared round the bend of the road from town, a big old-fashioned thing, bright red, high on its wheels and with a wide high canvas hood. The know-alls exclaimed: ‘Mist’ Tasker.’
The Reverend Mr Tasker was the head of the local Protestant Mission Society. He had with him a couple of other clergymen of similar persuasion, as seen when, with much donkey-like braying on his old-fashioned Klaxon horn, he drew up outside the residence, but on the Compound side of the road from it, and alighted with two other males wearing clerical collars and a whole bevy of females who had the look of having their minds on higher things than most women. Directly outside the residence were the cars of those noisy guests of the Turkneys’. Not that there was any noise from them now. The hilarity had not simply subsided as with the entry of Dr Cobbity, but fallen into dead silence at sound of the Klaxon. Mr Tasker, a stout squarish figure in tusser and brown topee, and his friends, made no move even to approach the residence, but gave their immediate attention to those craning in their cages in wait for them, waving and smiling. Nor was there need of their approaching it, because in a moment there were Messrs McCusky and Turkney coming out to greet them, while Mrs Turkney appeared in the yard of the children’s home, waving her greetings, heading for the gate to let the children out onto the road.
In view of the well-known enmity between missioners and the Department of Aboriginal Protection, arising from their eternal rivalry over the objects of their interest, it was surprising to see the warmth of greetings, the hearty handshaking, the crying of Happy New Year! But then, Messrs McCusky and Turkney must have been somewhat drunk, and the others would be acting out of Christian Charity. As the greetings were being exchanged more Mission vehicles arrived to draw up near Mr Tasker’s, except one, a big truck, which pulled in so as to be ready to go through the gate of the Compound when it was opened. The smaller vehicles contained mostly white people of prim and proper appearance, with a few coloured folk of mixed blood. The truck was driven by a coloured man of unusual type, yellow-skinned, slant-eyed, thickset and handsome, most likely a cross between Japanese and Aboriginal, and manned by other coloureds who by their woolly heads were Melanesian and Polynesian, the usual type of pannikin boss connected with missions. The truck also carried a stack of folded canvas chairs, and harmonium, and a huge barrel almost entirely covered with wet sacks.
Mrs Turkney, coming with the ordered line of children, did her part in the handshaking, then headed back for home, leaving her charges in the care of certain ladies who greeted them with Happy New Year, children, and got a singsong response. Mr Turkney opened the gate, and together with Mr McCusky and the three clergymen, entered the Compound. The others followed, those with the children at the rear. Turkney signalled to the big girls to come. Their gate was not locked. They came. McCusky called to them, ‘Happy New Year, girls!’ The cry was taken up by the rest of the white party. The girls responded as they came to join the procession, some getting caught up by the white ladies and the few respectable coloureds, the rest falling in with the children, except Nell and Prindy, who being caught sight of by McCusky as they trailed behind those out of the adult home, were called by him: ‘Nelly Ah Loy . . . come here . . . and the boy!’ The procession halted while the pair approached slowly. McCusky turned to those about him, saying, ‘They’re the ones the trouble was about . . . murder . . . down Catfish Creek.’
A soft chorus of Oh! and the turning of eyes.
As mother and son, hand in hand, came up, watching with eyes looking from lowered brows, McCusky cried, ‘Hello, you two! Everything all right?’
Nell whispered, ‘Yas, Boss.’
McCusky rumpled Prindy’s hair: ‘You all right, sonny boy?’
Prindy’s grey eyes flicked up for a second at the name, met the bleary blue ones. McCusky grinned at him. Prindy’s nose wrinkled, probably at the reek of beer puffed into his face. McCusky said, ‘Going to have a picnic this afternoon with these nice people, eh? Don’t go eating too much cake and things and makin’ yourself barcoo, now . . . aaaah!’ Prindy stood with head hanging. McCusky gave the head another tousle, then said, ‘Okay . . . you can go along with the others. I’ll be up to see you tomorrow.’
As the pair turned to go, Mrs Tasker, a dumpy little woman with a crop of downy whiskers sprouting from her plump red cheeks, said, ‘Come with us, dears.’ She reached for Prindy. But, staring at her, he shrunk away. ‘Don’t you want to?’ asked Mrs Tasker. For answer Nell cast her a scary glance and drew away. Then she and Prindy went hurrying rearward.
Mrs Tasker said, ‘Poor thing!’
The procession was on the move again. McCusky said, ‘As a matter of fact she’s a bit of a dam-er-darn nuisance. Led her poor old man a dance. From what I hear she was really the cause of all the trouble.’
Mrs Tasker said with emphasis, ‘Poor thing!’
Mr Tasker cleared his throat: ‘Ahem!’
McCusky said, ‘Yeah.’ He gave Turkney beside him a swift wink. Then he said, ‘Get your lolly bags out . . . here they come!’
Blacks were coming running from the collection of whitewashed iron hovels, to line the route the procession would be taking. Some of the ladies, from baskets they carried, began to take little bags of sweets and hand them to others. In a moment black hands were snatching for them.
Poor Fellow My Country Page 40
