Poor Fellow My Country

by Xavier Herbert

  At Wednesday’s Inquest Mr Doscas sat as Coroner, looking like a British Buddha up there under the Holy British Sign. His own huge chair had had to be put up there for him; and he was too wide to use the hole in the Royal Belly for entrance and exit and had to come all the way round and be helped up to his place of dignity. It was a pleasant change in scene and proceedings, because he was a Smiling Buddha; even smiling, it would seem, at the amusement his odd appearance made. It was this amiableness and oddity doubtless that loosened the tongue of the Chief Witness, standing again on books so as to be seen above the railing of the Stand. Already there had been some discussion of the witness Prendegast Alroy’s unwillingness or inability to give the vital evidence. No one was able to decide what was the reason for the boy’s continued silence. Sergeant Cahoon had to confess that he hadn’t got a word out of him, but claimed he might have, had he not been denied access to him by the Aborigines Department. Mr McCusky had to make a similar admission, with the reservation that but for being rushed in the matter he could have got him talking, because they were becoming very friendly. Mr Doscas tried holding up a couple of the Exhibits for the boy to see, some bits of rag and what was undoubtedly a part of a wooden leg of the peg variety, but without getting any more than a nod to his question regarding the last-named: ‘Do you know what this is?’ Being pressed to say what it was only caused the grey eyes to seek the distance. Dr McQuegg testified to the effect that a very shocking experience could bring on a condition of amnesia in one so young, and stated that he now believed it was something like this that was responsible for the boy’s non co-operation in a case earlier in the year, on account of which he had been declared non compos mentis. Dr Cobbity was not in it. It was fairly well known in official circles that he had refused to be in it, saying that he had enough on his back without That Crazy Kid. So Mr Doscas tried leading the boy ever so gently into it.

  Mr Doscas said, ‘Now, young feller, what we want you tell us is properly Number-one bijnitch. We got to find out about this kind of think for put him in a book. Spone we can’t put him in a book, well, we’re . . . er . . . buggered, as you might say . . .’ No shouts of Silence or hammering in this court when there was laughter.

  ‘Yes . . . you’re the only one can help us. We give you prejent for that. What’d you like? You like make music, they reckon . . . you play the Indian flute all day, I hear. How’d you like a real flute, eh? No? Or a trumpet . . . yes, a real trumpet . . . we’ll buy you one!’ Eddy McCusky was heard to groan.

  Attempted bribery didn’t work. So Mr Doscas tried another line: ‘Now, what about me-two-feller go walkabout like you did that time . . . gammon walkabout, I mean . . . like I’m ’nother little boy from Compound, like your mate, eh?’ Dicky Doscas chuckled fatly, causing Prindy to chuckle too. ‘That’s the way! Right, we gammon walkabout. Me-two-feller run away from Compound. We got him Mumma there. Three-feller now. We go, go, go. We meet up two-feller . . . we can’t talk dat name now, ’cause dat two-feller dead . . . but one him old man, been fisherman, ’nother one woman, got wooden leg . . . ain’t it? Right, we go, go, go . . .’ Mr Doscas went over the ground that Sergeant Cahoon had covered in his evidence, all the way from Hang Gong Creek to the Frog Rocks; while Prindy watched him as if living it through again. ‘Right,’ he wound up. ‘We there now . . . Frog Rock. Something happen there . . . what name that Something?’

  So intense was the expectation at that moment that the boy, who’d so far scarcely seemed to notice the others in Court, turned on them wide-eyed, as if caught by it as something magnetic. Mr Doscas, sweating hard himself, had to recall his attention: ‘Well, Prendegast?’

  Prindy looked back at him. Doscas asked, ‘Come on . . . what happened?’

  Prindy said simply what he had said so often, ‘I don’ know . . . been lose him head.’

  Mr Doscas gave up with a sigh. Mopping his huge face he said to Prindy, ‘All right, sonny . . . you can go.’

  Both Cahoon and McCusky leapt to grab the boy; but Eddy got him, simply by saying, ‘Ah, no, Dinny . . . Boss’s orders!’

  Still mopping, Mr Doscas addressed the court: ‘A difficult case . . . a very difficult case . . . and I’m afraid one that can only be left in abeyance until the amnesia or whatever it is has passed and we can get substantial evidence. A few bits of rag and bone scattered far and wide by birds and animals, a few bits of wood eaten by white ants, might at a stretch be taken as circumstantial to the fact that certain persons are now non est. But even proof of their nonexistence is of no great importance, since nothing practical is involved, like insurance, inheritance. These persons were not even counted as citizens of the land. Their names appeared on official records, but only through involvement in official business. They had no birth certificates. They were not entered on any electoral roll. No mention of them is made in any census. Therefore, like all their race, for all practical purposes they never existed officially, and their non-existence can have no official import. But if their ceasing to exist was due to what is considered criminal according to the Law of the Land, it is another matter. Aborigines often die in the wilds . . . and no one knows anything about it but those close to them. Even here in this town the death of one of them means nothing but an unofficial interment. But if foul play is concerned we are bound by the rules of our society to investigate the circumstances to the limit. I therefore propose to adjourn this Inquest sine die. I thank you all for your co-operation.’

  Eddy McCusky, bound not to let his Prendegast Alroy out of his keeping, took him straight from the Court into the offices of the Department of Aboriginal Protection. They had barely got in there, when Jeremy Delacy arrived and announced to Eddy that he wished to make formal application for adopting the boy. Eddy said it was not a matter for himself, but for the Boss, whom he would go and consult. The consultation took a good fifteen minutes, by which time Jeremy was looking pretty grim. Then Eddy appeared to say that the Boss had said it was Impossible. Jeremy rose, saying, ‘I’ll see him myself.’ Eddy replied that he didn’t think that would do any good. Jeremy snapped, ‘Have another think!’ and pushed past him, opened Dr Cobbity’s door, and went into his sanctum. Cobbity’s usually ruddy face paled. Jeremy said without ceremony, ‘I wish to adopt that quarter-caste child known as Prendegast Alroy.’

  Cobbity swallowed, said with difficulty, ‘I’m afraid you can’t.’

  ‘What do you mean afraid?’

  Cobbity straightened up, bold again in his official power: ‘Well . . . simply that you can’t!’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t have to answer that.’

  ‘Oh, yes you do!’

  Cobbity grinned in that way of his, but with a slight tremor to his thin lips. ‘You might bully the bush-whackers of Beatrice River, Mr Delacy . . . but you don’t bully me.’

  ‘If you don’t give me a reason I’ll take it further.’

  ‘You can take it to Old Nick as far as I’m concerned . . . it’ll only be referred back to me.’

  ‘What a wonderful system it is!’

  ‘I’m glad you think so. With all its faults it’s the best that’s yet operated in this country. Even you must admit that.’

  ‘What preceded yours was pretty frightful. It couldn’t last . . . any more than slavery in America could, Lincoln and Harriet Beecher Stowe and the rest of those given credit for stopping it notwithstanding . . . just as your bit of tyranny can’t last.’ Cobbity went very red, but still grinned. ‘But I wasn’t referring to your system particularly,’ Jeremy went on, ‘but to the bureaucratic racket in general. I’m going to establish that boy for what he is eventually . . . my grandson . . . despite the arrogance of you all . . .’

  ‘If you were his grandmother it wouldn’t make any difference. The law makes such people Wards of the State exclusively . . . and made them so for their protection. You know what abuse was made of the Aborigines in the name of relationship with them . . . virtual slavery.’

  ‘I know . . . but when people like you
make a law in the name of Humanity, then that law becomes inhuman, too. All you’ve done is declare that there shall be no other gods but you.’

  The doctor, a bit redder, but in so much control of himself that he as able to lie back in his swivel chair and press his fingers together and grin broader. ‘That makes it though on Olympian Dwellers like yourself, eh? You’ve never got over having your divine wisdom in the matter of dealing with the Aborigines passed over when you proffered it at our first meeting, have you?’

  ‘What I’ve never got over is the stupidity of the Government in appointing a man with nothing but medical knowledge to deal with such a delicate matter.’

  ‘Anthropology hadn’t then reached the stature as a racket it has today, my dear fellow. Don’t you know that the Anthrops are going to push me out? How will you deal with them? D’you think that showing them your collection of skulls and paleolithic artifacts and your painted caves and reestablished tribal grounds is going to have any more effect on their basic job of civilising savages than it did on me?’ Jeremy was at a loss. Realising his victory, the doctor dropped forward again, with ginger-haired hands planking down to spread on the polished glass of his table: ‘And speaking of civilising savages . . . how come Jeremy Delacy, whose theory is leave ’em alone and they’ll adapt themselves, those who want to . . . how come he suddenly to want to adopt his semi-savage grandson?’

  Jeremy snapped, ‘To save him from being buggered about by you and that up-jumped Melbourne guttersnipe you’ve set up to think himself an expert with people he had no more dealings with to begin than you.’

  Cobbity looked through the open door into the outer office, grinning still wider, saying, ‘That’s hard on poor old Eddy . . . he comes from Sydney.’ Then placing his hands behind his head he swung back again. ‘As a matter of fact, I was brought up in a country town where there were a lot of blacks . . . and I saw a lot of ’em, because my old man was a doctor there . . . and what I saw convinced me that it was a medical problem first. And speaking of that little town . . . there was an old fellow lived just outside it . . . The Hatter, we called him . . . who used to buy wild things the kids caught, birds, and wallabies, and bandicoots and things . . . so as to let ’em go again . . . and the kids’d catch ’em again and sell ’em to him again, and so well, if not ad infinitum, ad mortem senis, I trust you remember your Latin?’ The green eyes twinkled in meeting the grey.

  Jeremy swallowed, said, ‘You haven’t yet come to selling the wild things you’re catching?’

  ‘Not yet . . . Good morning!’

  Jeremy swung away. In the outer office he paused to shake hands with Prindy, saying, ‘See you by’n’by, young feller. I’ll be lookin’ out for your two-feller little horse all right. By’n’by we race him . . . win him Cup. Mummuk yawarra, Mora.’

  The other grey eyes regarded him gravely: ‘Mummuk yawarra, Mullaka.’

  As Jeremy disappeared McCusky asked Prindy, ‘What mean Mora?’

  The boy answered promptly, ‘Dat-one gran’daddy call-yem young feller belong o’ him.’

  ‘But you don’t call him him Gran’daddy, eh?’

  Eddy didn’t get the chance to hear the answer then, because Dr Cobbity called him.

  Cobbity motioned him to shut the door, and when he had, said shortly, ‘Get that kid out of the way as soon as possible. I don’t want any more trouble with him.’

  ‘I’ll send him down the Centre next train . . .’

  ‘You won’t. You’ll take him down there yourself by car . . . and tomorrow. And no coppers. You’ll stop at no police station. You’ll put up at hotels or camp out . . . and keep that big trap of yours shut about the whole business.’

  ‘What if he does a bunk on me?’

  ‘Go after him . . . and unless you catch him, don’t come back.’

  Eddy answered weakly, ‘Yessir.’

  ‘What’re you doing about the Barbu child?’

  ‘I was thinking of sending her along to join her mother and sisters at the Leopold Mission.’

  ‘Good idea. We can’t let her go back to that bloody old lunatic, or he’ll be getting to her himself on the orders of some Indian God or other.’

  ‘They say he’s been doing that already.’

  ‘Eh? Jesus . . . if I’d known that I’d’ve examined the kid and seen that the dirty old bastard was put away for it!’ The doctor’s face was flaming.

  ‘Aw,’ said Eddy. ‘Might be only just talk.’

  Cobbity snapped, ‘I don’t like that kind of talk. Incest is a serious crime. Anyway, I don’t want to start anything now . . . not with this fool thing in the papers started by that crazy old orchid-poker, Bundy. Fix up about the girl’s going on the next Mission boat . . . give her to the Convent right away. And get going with the other kid at daylight tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Yessir.’

  II

  Eddy McCusky showed even a degree of subtlety in his handling of Prindy’s disposal; at least to a point. He began by telling him that now the Gov’men’ bijnitch was over he was taking him home, without specifying where home was; as indeed would have been difficult in Prindy’s case. In accordance with the Boss’s orders they set out so early on Thursday morning that Mrs McCusky refused to get up and make breakfast. That didn’t trouble them. They called in at the Sweet Creek Settlement and had it with old friends, the Jumbo Delacys. Eddy’s usual brash style could have put them in difficulties there, since in an aside to Jumbo and Possum, while Prindy was taking a look at the wonders of the new place, Eddy told where they were going, the result of which was to cause Jumbo to ask Prindy over breakfast to give him Golden Bobby now that he would be having no need for him. Eddy kicked Jumbo’s shin hard enough to make it look for a moment that he was going to get one in return, and that one in the eye.

  Perhaps it was what nearly happened at Sweet Creek that woke Eddy up to the dangers of his big mouth and kept him keeping it shut throughout most of the day; at least as concerned people other than his little companion, to whom he talked almost incessantly, but never about their destination. Thus did they speed past road-workers’ camps, fettlers’ camps, road-workers and fettlers at work, and even a couple of pubs with only a wave, when his natural style would have been to stop everywhere and have a pitch particularly if he saw anyone of Aboriginal breed about; and there were plenty. They went as far as Caroline River with stops only to pee or to drink from the water-bag, and then only in lonely places. They had to stop at the Caroline for fuel. There they also had refreshments at the pub, sandwiches and beer for Eddy, sandwiches and lolly-water for Prindy who sat out on the verandah within sight and sound of Eddy standing at the bar. Duggan the publican, who would have seen Truth brought down by yesterday’s train, tried hard with innuendoes to learn something of the facts of the gossip he must also have been hearing over the phone, but completely without success. At last Eddy said, ‘Well, Mick, we must be gettin’ along.’

  ‘Where to?’ asked Duggan.

  ‘Just down the road a bit . . . find a nice place to camp.’

  They found what was one of the nicest spots in the country, despite the fact that the surroundings had been torn to pieces for gold nearly half a century before and there was a fair amount of fouling up done by modern travellers: Bamboo Creek, a place of clean quartz gravel and crystal water, a huge banyan and thickets of bamboo of the giant variety. Floods and the type of vegetation were most likely responsible for the rehabilitation; and floods would likewise soon clear up modern mess. Prindy was particularly delighted with the bamboo, a novelty to him, this being about as far South as it grew naturally. Although growing in profusion along the coasts, it was probably not truly native. Early voyagers from the Indies most likely introduced the coastal stuff, and Chinese this about the old goldfields.

  Prindy showed McCusky how to make a flute, using the pocket-knife he always carried now, and taught him to play Doh Re Mi. Eddy was very much impressed, whereas formerly, perhaps influenced by his wife’s hostility to the boy, he had
seemed to regard Prindy’s bent for music only as nuisance noise-making. He got him playing, adding to his repertoire a couple of his own favourites, The Road to Gundagai and The Old Sundowner, stuff so facile — facile as the Australian Mind — that the boy was able to play it after practically one hearing. Prindy didn’t say of the new pieces, ‘rubbitch’, but looked as if he might. Not that Eddy noticed. Leaning back on his unrolled swag, with knees crossed, one leg in the air, in true bush fashion, he said, ‘You know . . . you’re a real smart feller. You might go a long way. What you want to be when you grow up?’ That took a bit of translating to convey its meaning to Prindy, who then replied that he wanted to play music and ride horses. ‘Don’t sound very ambitious to me,’ commented Eddy. But suddenly he had second thoughts: ‘But I don’t know. If you could make up music like The Road to Gundagai and make a name for yourself as a jockey . . . By Christ, yes . . . Prendegast Alroy, the Musical Jockey . . . makin’ up hit-tunes and ridin’ Melbourne Cup winners . . . no, Aboriginal Musical Jockey! Jesus, boy . . . you might be famous yet! Play me the old Road to Gundagai again . . .’

  All this was fairly early in the evening, with young Igulgul winking through the bamboos and stirring up just enough wind to make them scrape and squeak as background music. When Igulgul disappeared they unrolled their swags, and Eddy built up the fire till Prindy drew his bedding away for fear of its catching. Maybe Eddy was afraid of the darkness. But nobody could be more afraid than a blackfellow, who makes the smallest fire possible, at once so as not to make his camp conspicuous, and to be able to see if anyone approaches. However, it might have been that what he feared was that prospect of his charge’s Doing a Bunk, with the terrible consequences such an eventuality threatened for himself; for he slept only in snatches, to start up and take a look at the small bundle on the other side of the fire, a couple of times even to rise and sneak across as if to see if there were really a boy in it and not just stuffing. Prindy himself slept quite soundly. Eddy’s relief in finding him still there in daylight was surely shown by his promptly going off soundly himself. He had to be cooked out by the Sun.