Poor Fellow My Country

by Xavier Herbert

  Dinny’s sisters had been sent for, as usual to help with their Darlint’s recovery. But they were coming for something more than that as well, like all who were Irish and proud of it who could make the journey to the Beatrice. For, belave it or not, there was to be held there, as perhaps through all the centres of what might truly be called the Civilised World if there were Irish living in them, an Irish Hogmanay.

  Of course, Hogmanay properly is what the Scots call New Year’s Eve, and is the one day in the year on which most of them will permit enjoyment of life. As long as Princess Beatrice River had been a township, Hogmanay had been celebrated with Angus McDodds as chieftain to any true Scots or such lesser ones of the blood, but not of the birth, who remained proud of it, as happened to be in the district; even to the drinking of a bottle of whusky without removing it from the lips and the smashing of it empty on the stroke of the passing of the year; which ceremony had originally taken place at the famous bottle-heap beside the hall, but later been transferred to Finnucane’s front doorstep as a kind of challenge that old Shame-on-us had been too wise in the ways of the wurruld even to take up; and anyway, being tidy people, the Scots always sent their blacks next day to pick up the glass.

  Now the astonishing thing was that Finnucane, who hadn’t exchanged a civil word with McDodds for years, had approached him as one Gael to another, offering to make an Inter-Gaelic affair of it, at least for this occasion — by raisin of the tremendous occasion it was going to be to the Irish, the expinse to be Finnucane’s, and Divil take it, seeing what the great occasion was: no less than the declaration of the Republic of Eire at the striking of the hour of midnight, 1937! It was all rather sudden. There had been talk of the Republic since the middle of the year by those interested (they being interested in little else) but nothing definite until after Christmas, as if those concerned with it had been a little out of touch during the festivities. It left little time for arrangements, especially since when it was Tuesday in Old Ireland it was Wednesday over here. The telephone lines North and South were humming with Finnucane’s blarney as he spread the glad tidings just in time for those interested in them to catch the mail train. He did say later that he would have chartered a special train if necessary; but, as they said, Old Shame-on-us had always been a grand liar. Anyway, a train of some sort was necessary, since while the great rain had passed for the time, the roads were left impassable.

  McDodds had not accepted the international coalition suggested by Shamus, despite the prospect of free whusky, but had been nice enough to agree to forego the usual Scottish celebration, except as a private little function in his own home. To his cronies he had said, ‘Let ’em hae their New Year shenanigans. The Republic of Eire will be bankroopt by next New Year and crawlin’ to the Bank of England for the wherewithal to hoold off anither famine, forbye. A Nation Wanst Agin, the ol’ foo’s shoutin’. It never was a nation. It was noothin’ but a pack o’ savages till the English took it over and colonised it with Scots.’

  Such was the appraisal of what had been happening at the Beatrice lately that Jeremy Delacy got from Tom Toohey, when he arrived to meet that Irish-filled train, making his first visit to the township in a fortnight, and this time having had to make the trip in on horseback. He had left his horse, the stallion Elektron, over at the Racecourse and had walked across the railway bridge. It was the first he’d heard of Prindy’s escapade. He was deeply shocked by the news, exclaiming, ‘The bloody bastards . . . they hounded the poor little kid to his death! By God I’ll have something to say about it to these roystering bloody Irish. McCusky’s sure to be along. He’s primarily to blame. As for Cahoon . . . But he can’t have more than the mind of a child himself, to behave as you say he has been.’ Asked by Tom if he would attend what he called Maginty’s Gathering, Jeremy answered shortly, ‘Of course not. Apart from this awful business, I wouldn’t be able to help myself telling the clod-hopping bastards that it’s their preoccupation with their lousy Emerald Isle and its troubles that’s got us where we are today. Their hatred of the English on account of the Irish has only made the hatred all of us should have felt against Imperial tyranny a sort of Fenian thing. Bugger old Shame-on-us and his Irish Hogmanay . . .’ He broke off as Toohey, looking alarmed, touched his arm. Jeremy glanced. There was Man Himself heading towards them, the blarney hanging in green wreaths about his broad red face.

  ‘Ah . . . Jeremy, me boy!’ cried Old Shame-on-us. ‘Just the wan I’m lookin’ for, now, and shame-on-us if I’m tellin’ a loy. Didn’t I tell you to tell him I wanted to see him if he came in, Tom?’

  Toohey smirked, blinked. Jeremy was slow in taking the red hand thrust at him and held so challengingly to be taken, but did not answer the smile. Shamus went on: ‘To be sure Tom’s told you the wonderful news, and how we’re going to celebrate it with the biggest New Year’s party t’is country ever sayn.’

  Jeremy answered shortly, ‘I’m afraid I’ve been more concerned about the news of that little boy’s death.’

  The broad red face immediately assumed an expression of deep sorrow, the head falling a little to the side. ‘Ah, yes . . . the poor little feller, now . . . and you were much attached to him, I know.’

  Jeremy snapped, ‘I was his grandfather!’

  Shamus was too shrewd to get involved in a sticky thing like that. He murmured, ‘Hmm! Ah, yes . . . a sad t’ing. But I’m hopin’ to see you at our party, Jeremy. I’m thinkin’ of your ould Da, and what it’d’ve meant to him, to see t’e Ould Country truly A Nation Wanst Agin . . .’ He broke off, evidently not liking what he saw in the grey eyes staring hard at him, and seeing an opportunity to get away in the shape of the approaching police truck, with Stunke at the wheel and between him and his wife the gaunt face of Dinny Cahoon, and in the back the Stunke Children in the care of Jinbul and Constable Kinelly of the Caroline. He waved to them and went hurrying to meet them. Just then the cry went up: ‘Here she comes!’ No sound yet, but white smoke rising above the Racecourse trees. Then the sound of her: Boo-hoot! Then she was rumbling on the bridge. She burst into view; to show her smokebox door painted in rings, green, yellow, and white, and green ribbons flying out like a dugong’s whiskers from her cowcatcher; and her whistle sounding as if it were trying to play The Wearin’ o’ the Green!

  ‘Jack Tinball’s drivin’,’ Tom Toohey told Jeremy.

  ‘What a pity it wasn’t Hannaford’s trip . . . he’d’ve painted it over with red.’

  There were the Cahoon Sisters, waving to their Darlint, McCusky waving to Finnucane, and about a hundred more. For a moment Old Shame-on-us’s wreaths of blarney vanished, to be replaced with a look like counting heads and reckoning up the cost of his Irish recklessness; and there were those to come from the Head of the Road as well! But in a moment the green wreaths were back in place; and as the train pulled up and the mob fell off, shouting that he was the Greatest Irishman of ’em All, he rushed to embrace them, himself shouting, ‘A Nation Wanst Agin!’ They all took it up. Then there was Jack Tinball coming along to them from the engine with his cornet decked with green ribbons, and playing it; and they all began to sing it: A Nation Once Again!

  As the visiting crowd went off up to the pub, with the Greatest Irishman of ’em All reared above most of the rest and roaring like an old boss bull in his pride in the midst of his herd, Jeremy and Tom Toohey went with the locals to collect the mail from Col Collings and Oz Burrows. Then the two together set out up through the railway yards towards Toohey’s place, each carrying one of Jerry’s saddle-bags. They hadn’t gone far, when Toohey said, ‘Reminds me . . . That poor kid had a letter with him that might’ve been meant for you.’

  ‘Me?’ asked Jeremy in surprise.

  Tom related how he had seen Treacle tear the shirt off Prindy’s back in the struggle that morning outside the tarpaulin shed, and how when the others had run down to the river after the boy, he himself had gone and picked up the shirt and found the sodden letter in the pocket. There was no address on the envelope
. He had intended giving it to the police, but when they didn’t come back, thought better of it, took it home and dried it out, and tried to read it. It had been written in so-called Indelible Pencil, the old bushman’s favourite writing medium, which being brushed over with a damp cloth or even licked, gave the appearance of having been written in purple ink. The trouble was that further wetting blurred it utterly. Tom had been able to read only a word here and there, amongst these a couple that were started with a capital J and ended with Y, to be made out only because of the special flourish the writer had given to what went above or below the lines of the ruled paper. All that could be made of the signature was that it had two capital B’s. Jeremy at once thought of Barbu, and left Tom, to go and speak to the old man, saying he would follow Tom home.

  Jeremy found Barbu in a state only to weep and wail and beat his breast, blaming himself for the tragedy for not having gone straight to the police that night of Prindy’s sudden coming and going. It appeared that he had gone to the Police Station after hearing of the return of the party, but had been hunted by the officers he found there, Stunke, Cahoon, Gobally and Kinelly, who were all drinking and didn’t grasp what he was trying to tell them. However, he intended to tell McCusky when he could get him alone. On hearing the little Barbu had been told by Prindy, which mentioned the name of Billy Brew, Jeremy very forthrightly told the old man to keep his mouth shut, in order not to involve other people. Then Jeremy went hurrying back to the Railway Station, and caught Collings and Oz just as they were about to close up for the night and join the mob at the pub. He asked if they knew anything of Billy Brew’s whereabouts. Oz reported on having dealings with him at Charlotte Springs last train, and hearing that he’d been heavily on the booze over Christmas. Jeremy asked Collings if he would oblige him by phoning the Charlotte to learn if the old fellow were still there. Col did so at once, to be informed that although Billy was still in the locality, seeing that his donkeys were there, nothing had been seen of him for several days, and it was presumed he was suffering a recovery. Jesemy asked if a message could be got to him to say that he would like to get in touch with him, would ring the Charlotte tomorrow morning. Hanging up the phone, Col Collings asked with a chuckle, ‘What you cookin’ up with old Billy?’

  ‘Just donkey business,’ said Jeremy.

  ‘Not monkey business . . . connected with Finnucane’s turn-out, eh? Awaaaaaah!’

  Oz lent his big mouth to the guffaw. Jeremy made a grimace as if he found it amusing, but turned and left them.

  Over at Toohey’s Jeremy studied the letter with a magnifying glass. No doubt about it, the indents under the blurring proved it to be a letter to him from Billy and one referred to several times as ‘the boy’. Jeremy’s assessment of the situation in the hours of that night he spent discussing it with the Tooheys was that Prindy must have escaped from the home at the Centre after McCusky had delivered them there, and somehow fallen in with Billy, who had somehow smuggled him to Beatrice for his keeping. He said, ‘Perhaps he was coming out to me when this thing happened.’

  Tom asked, ‘Would you’ve kept him?’

  ‘If he’d come of his own free will, of course. That’s what I’ve always said . . . when he wants me. But was he really coming? What was he doing up in the Limestone? Besides . . . Barbu says he wanted to stay with him.’

  ‘We’ll never know now.’

  ‘Billy might be able to tell me something. If I can get him tomorrow, I’ll ask him to come up on the train. Can’t talk about it over the phone.’

  ‘What good’ll it do now?’

  ‘If I have proof that the boy wanted to come to me, then I’m going to jam it down McCusky’s throat till it chokes him. I’ll dedicate the rest of my life to breaking the power he and the rest of the bastards like him have over other human beings, just because they’ve been designated Protectors of Aborigines and the Bastard Country refuses to regard anyone that he and his like brands Aboriginal as human. It’s a frightful situation, Tom. Nobody knows it better than you. But it’s time a man did something real about it. This poor kid’s death might be the turning point. You can bet McCusky’s shitting himself. Notice how he avoided seeing me when he arrived? But I’ll get him . . . by God, I’ll get the rat!’

  Later that night, after looking through his mail, Jeremy said, ‘Here seems to be the very thing to get McCusky and Co. with, too.’ It was a magazine entitled Australia Free, with a bright blue cover emblazoned with the stars of the Southern Cross, which as he took it from its wrapper, opened itself at a middle page in which was a sheet of written paper, the heading of the article revealed being: BLACK AUSTRALIANS TO DECLARE A DAY OF MOURNING ON JAN. 26, 1938, THE DAY WE WHITE AUSTRALIANS CELEBRATE OUR 150TH BIRTHDAY AS A NATION. ADVANCE AUSTRALIA FAIR OVER THE MISERIES OF THE DARK INNOCENTS WE STOLE THE COUNTRY FROM. Both article and letter were written by one signing herself, in the first place Aelfrieda Candlemas, and in the second just Alfie. Jeremy glanced over the two pages of the article first. It told of how the remnants of the Aboriginal peoples of the South, living in squalor on the outskirts of the settlements built on their tribal lands without any more compensation than a system of rationing hardly fit to maintain dogs, were, with the aid of what was called the Free Australia Movement, determined to take part in the elaborate festivities planned for next Australia Day, dressed in their rags and wailing for their brethren murdered and their country plundered over the century and a half of white settlement. The article went on to describe what an Aborigine was: that is a person who had what some official without any qualifications at all except of being on some State or Federal Government payroll decided was of Aboriginal ancestry, unto the third and fourth or fifth or any generation, and hence must be ‘Protected’; which meant denied the rights of ordinary citizens, except with the permission, which might be withdrawn at will, of the said official. ‘Just the stuff to shove down McCusky’s neck . . . and the necks of all the rest of the bastards . . . while they’re celebrating the liberation of Old Ireland,’ Jeremy growled, handing the thing to Toohey. Then he went on to read Alfie’s letter.

  It was an excited little girl’s letter. Not only had she finished her book, but had seen it in print, (the proofs), and would see it as the finished thing before this year was out, so that it might be entered for an award in the Sesquicentenary Literary Competition. It was being published by the Free Australia Movement, of which she was a member now, and Jeremy himself, as he would see by the receipt for his subscription, a New Year’s gift from her, enclosed. All her dreams were coming true, thanks to the Free Australia Movement, which was made up of the most wonderful people, Anglophobes to a man and woman. The old Imperial order was about to pass, the British Garrison to be ousted. Australia Felix was not a stillborn bastard after all, but a lusty little fellow about to spring into manhood — True Australian Manhood. So Jeremy’s dreams also were coming true. Dear Jeremy! She had told the Movement all about him; and they wanted to meet him, wanted him as one of their leaders. The Chief himself sent his personal compliments. He was a Truly Great Man, the Chief, the Greatest Australian yet — except Jeremy. They must join forces. The Chief, who was in with the Right People, and these were Really Right — she ran off some names, including the Prime Minister’s — was sure her book would win a high award and make a terrific impact on the Nation. She was keeping her fingers crossed. The day of the judging would be Australia Day. If she won they would have a terrific party. Would he come to it? The Movement would charter Fergus to fly him down — and bring the boy! To present the boy then to the Nation would be to win for him not only his individual liberty, but that of everyone of his breed in the country. Dear Jeremy! Would he please come? It ended with: Love, love, love, Alfie.

  Jeremy set it down with a sigh.

  Tom Toohey, glancing up from thumbing through the magazine, commented, ‘Pretty lively stuff in it . . . certainly gets after the Poms . . . the British Garrison, as it calls ’em . . . and the Australian Crawlers. But it strikes me as being
a bit what they call Fascist . . . sticks up for Hitler and Mussolini. Here . . . have a look at this hoist they give to Uncle Adolf . . . say he’s the greatest man of the Century.’ Tom laughed. ‘Have to leave that round for Pat Hannaford to find . . . and watch his face . . . Haaaaho!’

  Billy Brew was waiting at the Charlotte when Jeremy phoned next morning, and told him he had received his letter and would he put one of his best young jack donkeys on today’s train and come up with it to Beatrice. Billy agreed very readily, becoming quite animated from having started the conversation warily. Jeremy had to cut him short. There he was on the afternoon train, riding with the donkey in an open waggon, to the great amusement of the boozy mob waiting to greet the boozy mob aboard. But one amongst the mob who didn’t laugh was Eddy McCusky, who as the train stopped, shoved his hat over an eye and assuming that official strut of his, headed for the waggon, while the others crowded to take the hands of their fellow Irish. Another who wasn’t amused was Jeremy, standing back a little with Tom Toohey. When Eddy moved off he went after him.