Poor Fellow My Country

by Xavier Herbert

  Yet despite the gypsy quality of their going, there they were on the outskirts of Charlotte Springs the night before train-day; and not by chance, as Billy revealed in a private talk with Prindy. He said he hadn’t told him before what he had in mind concerning him, for fear of spoiling these last lovely couple of weeks of their relationship by setting a limit to it in Prindy’s mind. But the reality was that they must part, for good, alas, since if what he had in mind came off, the boy wouldn’t have any use for an old donkey skinner like himself. What he intended to do was to ship Prindy to his Grandfather. It was the only thing that could be done to beat McCusky.

  He explained. Instead of shipping those ore-samples to the Mines Department in Town as he usually did (which was to place them just as they were in a railway waggon) he was going to empty out that big lock-up tucker-box of his and put some in, then Prindy on top of them with sacks for comfort. There were screened air-vents in the sides of the box. The box would be locked with its padlock, the key to which would be mailed to the Mines Department; but the nuts of the bolts that held the staple would be loosened so that Prindy might easily remove them and so get out when he got to Beatrice. But unless it was utterly impossible, he must replace the bolts and lock the box again so as to avoid creating suspicion that could bring in the police too soon. Billy would give him the other key. For sure the police would be in it before long; but it would be to Billy himself they’d come; and he would have much pleasure in misleading them. Time was what counted. If he were any judge of the weather, the Big Wet would be starting any day. The rain wouldn’t matter so much round here; but it would around the Beatrice. Finally, the police would take the hunt out to Lily Lagoons, but probably not until after the Wet by which time surely Grandfather Jeremy could have something working to beat them. Well, there it was. It was up to Prindy now to decide whether he was prepared to go through with what lay ahead of him: six or more hours in a box, because although the trip to Beatrice would take only three hours or so he would have to wait till dark to make his escape with safety . . . Or would he prefer to go to the Police Station at Charlotte and give in to the bastards for good? Prindy wasted no time in deciding: the Box!

  They sat talking till midnight; or rather, Billy talked and Prindy listened; the burden of it the facts of life as they concerned Prindy, having to deal with procreation from a scientific point of view and hence Prindy’s rights as a Delacy, things that Billy had been hinting about for some time, but only now came out with it as knowledge essential to the boy’s well-being. Billy talked of race, of how inferior people made themselves feel superior by lording it over others, of how he himself would be humiliated, have his lovely life utterly spoilt, if he allowed himself to be taken in by it. He told of his own halfcaste children. There was that son of his, Brumby, as they called him; Inumbergo his proper name, from his Dreaming, the Red Kangaroo in his mother’s lingo. Poor Brumby sneaked to the whites so as to be accepted by them, but only at last to kill in a fight a whiteman who had humiliated him, and go on the run South, where eventually another halfcaste killed him. His other son, Jerry, from his Aboriginal nickname Theralal, meaning sharp-eyed, because he could spot things like a kite hawk, hadn’t had a chance to grow up as anything. He was seventeen when he went to the War. Before he was eighteen he was killed. Both boys had been properly initiated as blackfellows. His daughter, Skin Name Numija, called herself Millie, at fifteen ran off with a young whiteman working for a water-borer for whom Billy was hauling machinery at the time. What happened to her, Billy never learnt. She left the country. If she’d have come to anything but bad, surely he would have heard from her. They had loved each other. He had even been responsible for her getting mixed up with that young fellow, because she obviously loved the bastard and he, Billy, wanted her to marry like that. ‘I taught ’em to be proud they belonged to the Old People. But that’s not enough. I should’ve let ’em grow up with the Old People and learnt to be proud ’emselves. Your old Mora, Jeremy . . . he’s got the right idea. He reckons it’s better to be a blackfeller in this country than anything else. They the only truly ’appy people in it. You’re a lucky boy you grew up like you did. Remember that. You’re pretty well white . . . but that won’t get you nowhere . . . only into trouble if you take it too serious. You belong to a new people, really, but people who ain’t yet got a place. Old Jeremy’ll teach you to be proud of yourself, Nghagung . . . like I’d have liked to do meself . . . proud of yourself as an Aboriginal. Never look down on your Old People. Keep going back to ’em. And if things go really wrong, put on a cock-rag and go right back and stop with ’em. Sleepy now, eh? All right . . . get into your nap. You got a big day tomorrow, little man. Here, gi’ me your hand. We’ll say mummuk now. Don’t want to put on any show front of Barney and his missus tomorrow. Less they know about what we’re doin’, the best for them. Mummuk yawarra, Ngahgung.’

  ‘Mummuk yawarra, Kumija.’ Old Billy bent and kissed the golden brow, blinked back tears, turned hastily to stir up the fire.

  Billy had said that it was a wonderful world but for the bastards in it. The trouble was that a lot of people who seemed to be bastards in making things hard for others were only doing what they considered the right and proper things, as Eddy McCusky surely thought he was in respect of what Billy saw as hounding a little boy; and as another official, Oz Burrows, usually Railway Porter at Beatrice River but always acting Station Master at Charlotte Springs when the train was there, actually said he was doing when the hitch occurred next morning with the shipping of Prindy according to plan. Oz Burrows always came up to the head of the road on Thursday’s train out of Beatrice to handle official business there, and went back with it. Billy went to his office on the tiny station when the train came in, driven by Pat Hannaford, at 11 a.m. and told him he had samples of ore for shipping to Town of total weight of three hundred and fifty pounds approximately. There was no question of weighing the consignment, nor any means of doing so, for that matter. One’s word was taken for such transactions. If a thing was overweight they would soon check up in Town. Oz made out the consignment note, in the name of the senders, a mining syndicate; and Billy paid with a cheque, then posted the letter containing the advice about the ore and also the key of the box to the Mining Warden — again through Oz, who acted also as Post Master. Billy already had his waggon backed up to the loading ramp. When Pat Hannaford had turned the engine and the passenger coaches and brake-van round on the reversing triangle in preparation for the return journey, he shunted a small open waggon up to the ramp for the loading. He and Billy exchanged curt nods only. They had fallen out long ago over Pat’s having, deliberately, according to Billy, run down a couple of Billy’s donkeys, which had had the habit of blocking the railway as they still often did the road. Matters had been made worse by Billy’s dragging Pat’s politics into the ensuing row.

  Billy had been making these shipments of ore ever since taking to carting for the miners of Pisgah Ridge; thus it was rather a routine matter to deal with them whenever the train came in to find his waggon at the ramp. However, formerly the samples had been forwarded simply in their individual bags, not in a crate. He hadn’t mentioned that to Oz Burrows. Nor did it appear to matter; at least to the train crew. Chas Chase, the guard, who came up with the engine and railway waggon, at once lent Billy a hand with the loading. Billy had all sorts of gear for handling his loads, and was running the box from his own waggon across the ramp on a rolling device, but was having trouble because the gravel surface was uneven, scoured by recent rain. They had just got it aboard when Oz arrived. Whatever brought him, an urge to help so as to facilitate the train’s departure, or curiosity, his coming cruelled the whole thing. He promptly said, ‘Hey . . . you can’t consign that in an open waggon!’

  ‘Why?’ asked Billy.

  ‘’Cause it’s locked.’

  ‘What’s the difference?’

  ‘Anything’t’s locked or sealed’s special freight, and has to go into the brake-van or a locked waggon.�
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  Rather testily Billy demanded, ‘What difference’t make if the bloody thing’s locked already?’

  ‘Somebody might temper with it.’

  ‘If anybody was that keen on gettin’ at it, wouldn’t they tamper with it in the flamin’ van?’

  ‘Guard’s there to watch it in transit . . . and it’ll be locked in the van for the night at Beatrice.’

  Billy evidently was having trouble with his breathing; but it could be taken for annoyance. At length he said, ‘Gi’ me that letter back . . . and I’ll take the key out and take the lock off.’

  ‘Can’t do that. The letter is posted.’

  ‘Christ, you can take it out o’ the bag, can’t you . . . and I’ll put it in a noo envelope?’

  ‘Once a letter’s posted it’s the property of the PMG.’

  Billy was red and sweating. ‘Aw, balls!’

  ‘Not balls at all . . . it’s Rules and Regs . . . and I’m stickin’ to ’em.’

  ‘Well, I’ll get a ’acksaw and saw the bloody lock off.’

  ‘No you won’t. It’s not consigned in your name.’

  ‘I signed the consignment, didn’t I?’

  ‘For someone else . . . you got some syndicate’s name on it. And I guess they wouldn’t’a’ locked it, if it wasn’t considered valuable. Now, come on . . . get it into the van. You’re holdin’ up the train. Chas . . . get ’em to run up alongside the van and shove the thing in . . . save time.’

  Chas nodded, signalled to Pat, who with Porky Jones was hanging out listening. Pat turned to his regulator. Chas and Oz heaved up the waggon door, jumped into it. Billy cried, ‘Wait . . . wait . . . I won’t send it.’

  Oz snapped, ‘You’ve already consigned it . . . it’s now the property of the Railways Manager.’ The engine puffed. The waggon moved. Billy stood gaping, wiping a hand across his streaming brow. As the engine, running in reverse, passed him, Pat leered, evidently pleased with the consternation he saw in bearded face.

  By the look of him, Billy was seeing nothing but what was in the box. Watching the engine and waggon make the swift short journey back to the van, he muttered, ‘Christ Almighty . . . what’ve I done!’

  As the engine stopped, he started out of his seeming trance, said to himself, ‘Have to go on the train. Have to get him out o’ that somehow.’ He turned and ran into his backed-up waggon, tore open a tool-box, got out a hack-saw, then seized a suitcase, opened it and flung the tool into it. He came out to see the engine coming back. Then apparently a new idea seized him; and he ran to the edge of the ramp and held out the suitcase as a sign to stop. Pat looked as if he would knock it out of his hand, but suddenly applied his brakes, and rolling up, roared, ‘What the bloody ’ell’s wrong’t you? ’Ere, wha’ you doin’ . . . you’re not ridin’ with me!’ Chas Chase had stayed back in the van.

  But Billy was already on the foot-plate, babbling, ‘Listen, Pat . . . I know you’re a good bloke at heart . . . listen . . .’ He poured out the story as the engine rolled slowly to the points, from which it would come back to couple with the train. Porky was dropping down to switch the points; but Pat stayed him with a gesture. The engine stopped. Billy asked breathlessly, ‘Could you get him out of the van at Beatrice?’

  Pat answered dryly, ‘He could get out himself. He only has to pull the bolts on the inside of the slidin’ doors . . . or for that matter, open the door with the lock on it . . . it’s only a Yale lock. He’s got enough savvy to do that, ain’t he?’

  ‘He’s got plenty savvy all right . . . but would you . . . would you keep an eye on things . . . see if he doesn’t get out too quick, or anything?’

  Pat cocked an eye at the northern sky, which was black almost to the zenith as if filled with rolling tarry smoke. He remarked, ‘Looks like it’ll be rainin’ like hell in Beatrice. They won’t notice him. But I’ll look out for him. When we stop for water next I’ll go back and give him a hint. I’ve got me oilskins hangin’ in the van. I ought ’o be able to get a word to him. They got the box shoved up in a corner . . . Right Porky.’

  Pat swung the wheel of the reversing gear. Billy muttered, ‘Aw, Pat!’ He shot out his hand, reaching for the grimy one as it left the wheel.

  But Pat reached for the regulator, saying, ‘You put in a complaint about me runnin’ down your flamin’ donks.’

  ‘I ’pologise, Pat.’

  ‘Don’ bother. I’ll run the bastards down agin, if they get on the track.’

  ‘They won’t.’

  ‘And you reckoned Stalin was a train robber . . . and Adolf Hitler a great man.’

  ‘Well, a man says these things . . .’

  ‘Don’t go ’pologisin’ . . . it don’t become you. You better get off now. We’ll be goin’ in a couple o’ minutes.’ The engine was already back at the head of the train, Porky coupling up.

  Moving to get out, Billy said weakly, ‘Well, a Merry Christmas.’

  ‘Merry-Kiss-Me-Arse! I’m a atheist.’

  Climbing down, Billy persisted, ‘Then ’Appy Noo Year!’

  ‘Wonderful Noo Year your mate Hitler’s goin’ ’o make of it!’

  Pat was looking back at the train. Oz had his green flag up. Pat reached for the whistle: Boo-hoot! The engine puffed. The train was rolling.

  Billy stood by the track. There were a number of passengers aboard, hanging boozily out of windows, more than usual from the Head of the Road, because this was the Christmas train as well as the mail train, amongst them the Police Officer, Constable Gobally. They yelled at him as they passed, ‘Merry Chrishmash, Billy . . . y’ol’ donkey-wallopin’ bas’ard . . . ’Ap Noo Year!’ He responded automatically, eyes on the van as it sped past him, eyes on it all the way down the dead straight swathe through the stunted trees until it vanished into the sooty wall. Then, with a sigh, he turned and headed back to where his donkeys, still harnessed to the waggon but turned in a wide arc watching him, were complaining mournfully of his neglect.

  IV

  Prindy’s deliverance was not nearly so simple as Pat Hannaford had even contemptuously predicted. Nor was it only circumstance that posed the difficulty, but Pat himself, with his own style of liberty-restriction in the name of liberty. True to his prediction, it was raining like hell when the train reached Beatrice, and no one there much concerned about anything but keeping dry. Left to himself, Prindy, with his by now quite highly developed faculty for doing the disappearing trick, might have got away with it easily. But Pat had had that quiet word with him, both in transit and again on arrival, and told him to wait till he came to his aid. Now, as always happened in such circumstances, passengers and crew were slow in leaving the train. But there was another predictable factor that had been overlooked. Because it was near Christmas the township was crowded with blacks, who because of their inability to provide shelter for themselves and their exclusion from private property to which they had no right of entry as employees, were always allowed temporary use of such railway buildings as were more or less open, like the station verandah, the engine shed, the trolley-shed. The back part of the train, left standing as usual where it had stopped, was in full view of these places, all crowded with people with sharp eyes. Surely it would have been better to leave it to a blackfellow to deal with his own kind. But Hannaford, for all he had done to buck the system denying Aborigines ordinary human rights, probably more than anyone else in that country, had little if any respect for them, as he often declared in anger to the people themselves, condemning examples of their stupidness. Even though what he did to get Prindy away was essentially a device, the anger expressed in it would be quite genuine, and certainly taken as what might be expected of him. Looking like a lanky debildebil in his oilskins, alternately there and not there, as the lightning flashed, and vying with the thunder in his roaring, flinging squares of tarpaulin at them that he had hacked from big waggon covers, he told them to get to hell out of it and assert their rights as human beings by forcing themselves into the comfort denied them — at the Police Sta
tion, at the Hotel, at the Store, at the Cattle Station: ‘But get to hell out o’ it . . . and don’t come back to sit like bloody half-drowned bandicoots shiverin’ in a holler log . . . git, git, git!’ They got. Pat then let Prindy out of the brake-van and took him, as he had promised to do, across to his own quarters behind the engine shed, and sat him down to a great meal. Porky Jones was up at the pub. But it would not have mattered had Porky been present, because he was in everything with his hero Pat. He came back later to report that no one of those whom Pat had driven forth into the rain to assert their rights had done so at the pub. ‘Stupid bastards!’ cried Pat. ‘You can’t do nothin’ for ’em. This bloke’s the same. He won’t ’ave it on what we want ’o do for ’im . . . wants to stay in the bush, he reckons.’ He dropped his head into his hands to show his despair. Prindy was the bloke referred to.

  Porky took it up: ‘But this’s the chance of your lifetime, sonny. We sneak you up to Town. We hide you there till a West Coast steamer goes. The crew are all Party men. They smuggle you South. The Party takes you, schools you, does everything for you . . . even send you overseas, maybe . . . and you come back a big man and fight for your people . . .’

  Pat groaned, ‘It’s no good, Porky. I been over and over it with him. I asked him does he want ’o live like a blackfeller all his life . . . and he just ups and says Yes.’