Poor Fellow My Country

by Xavier Herbert

  ‘Zat vill be nice.’

  Fergus said, ‘Thought you were looking for stock. None up this way, man.’

  Still pointedly addressing Rifkah only, Clancy said, ‘I want to have a look round the limestone and the billabongs. Besides, I want to have a word with my father about a sick horse. Thought I’d see him yesterday, too.’

  ‘Didn’t think you got along with your old man,’ remarked Fergus.

  Clancy blazed at him. ‘How about minding your own business?’

  Rifkah cut in hastily: ‘Come, ve go home . . . nice and quietly.’ She broke the silence that followed by asking Fergus why he and the General had come back.

  He answered, ‘Tell you tonight while we’re out on our walk, honey.’

  ‘Zere is no trouble?’

  ‘What trouble would there be between us?’ His smirk evidently assured her that the matter was of small moment, the way she smiled again, the way she soon became her gay self. She rode between the two men, giving each her attention in turn. Prindy rode behind.

  Thus they went, at an easy pace, trotting, cantering, walking, for the best part of the distance. Then suddenly bored Prindy kicked Sugarbag into a gallop, and passing the others, yelled, ‘Race!’ Rifkah put her mount straight into it. The others, after casting a dirty look across the suddenly vacated place, followed. It was no sort of race really, with Prindy holding in Sugarbag to let old Snowball keep up, and the others determined to keep close to the old fellow’s lovely rider. However, it was enough to put the guardians of the homestead into a flap and bring out most of those they guarded. Anyway, it was a sight for knowing eyes to see Mister Clancy come galloping through the gateway. Eyes fairly popped.

  Jeremy and General Esk were standing outside the annexe. The race ended before them in a scatter of gravel and drift of dust. Old Snowball, almost black with sweat, stood spread-legged, heaving for breath, gulping for it, head hanging and lolling about. Jeremy came striding up, ignoring Rifkah’s smile, saying shortly, ‘Get off. This horse’s badly distressed.’ He slipped the bit, and as she alighted, slipped off the reeking saddle.

  ‘Vot is matter?’

  ‘You’ve all but killed him. His racing days are long past.’ Jeremy looked at the other riders, his face grim. ‘You two ought’ve known better than to let her push an old horse like that.’ To Prindy, he said, ‘Come and give me a hand bed him down.’ With that he turned away, leading the horse towards the annexe, the old horse now shivering, staggering, yawning for air. When Rifkah ran to accompany him, he said, ‘Stay with them. Smoke-o’s been rung.’

  Rifkah looked as if about to cry. The General came up to her, took her arm, spoke to her soothingly, telling her she was not to know: ‘A horse is a remarkable animal, don’t y’know. You can be too considerate with him and be made to look a bally fool by him, or too demanding and kill him in his willingness to serve you. We’ll go to tea, eh what?’

  Nan was in the lounge to greet the party, nodding and smiling at Clancy as if his appearance there were everyday. Clancy on the other hand, looked very awkward, seizing on his formal meeting with Kurt as relief, babbling to him about the refugee settlement, declaring himself most interested. Esk kept possession of Rifkah, and over tea told her why he was there. At the Catholic Mission in the Leopold Islands Group, they had an influenza epidemic on their hands and very inadequate staff to deal with it. He himself had thought she might like to lend them a hand, while at the same time getting to know something of real bush natives: ‘The mission there’s quite newly established, set up as a civilising influence on tribes as yet pretty well untouched by civilisation. The natives drift in and out of the place as they wish. Very primitive. You need to know what you’re up against in this new dedication of yours. Thought it’d be a unique opportunity, don’t y’know.’

  ‘But a Christian Mission . . . and I am Jew!’

  ‘Matter of fact, m’dear, they’re even very interested in you as Jewish . . . isn’t that so, Fergus? Fact, they’re awfully interested in the whole Jewish Refugee project . . .’

  Fergus cut in: ‘They’ve laid in a stock of Holy Water for wholesale . . .’ But he stopped and grinned when Esk shot him a warning glance.

  Rifkah didn’t seem to notice the interruption, evidently deeply preoccupied with the General’s proposal. He tried pressing her for an answer, but without success. She said she must think about it. He chuckled. ‘Jewish caution.’

  When the opportunity presented itself, with tea over and the men occupied with Kurt’s maps, Rifkah slipped out with Nan to the kitchen, then across to the annexe. Old Snowball was in one of the animal hospital stalls, folded up in the way of his kind, asleep on a bed of straw. He was doped, Jeremy explained, to bring down his blood pressure, which had been dangerously high.

  Rifkah and Jeremy went to the den together, while Prindy went over to the house to eat. With her sitting on the arm of his easy chair, Jeremy asked about Clancy, evidently already apprised somewhat by Prindy. He pooh-poohed the idea that Clancy had come looking for cattle or to talk about a horse: ‘See a man about a dog!’ he grunted, then had to explain to her that the expression implied a false excuse for doing something. He added: ‘Took him eighteen years to think that one up.’

  ‘I help him to come by saying it vood be nice.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Is it not better you are friend . . . fader and son?’

  He dismissed the subject with an impatient sigh, then asked, ‘Did the General tell you why he’s here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Will you go?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not? Might be good experience, as he says.’

  ‘First, I zink he only vont to get me avay from you.’

  ‘Yes . . . I thought of that, too. He was a bit too eager about your getting to know about the blacks . . . after what he said before about not seeing you as a Daisy Bates.’

  ‘Zen I don’t vont to be mix up wit’ Jesus Business. Blacks vill zink I am missionary, too.’

  ‘Yes . . . that could spoil everything. They’re spoiling everything as it is with that bloody mission. They’d’ve brought even the ’flu there . . . the gift of civilisation, of Christ the Saviour. What’d you say?’

  ‘Moost I zink about it. I am still zinking about it tomorrow, ven he go avay again. I vill tell him moost I be here ven Settlement pipple come.’

  ‘Good idea. Now, about this bugger Clancy. He’s evidently in no hurry to get on his way . . . which means he’ll want to stay the night.’

  ‘Vy not . . . it is custom of ze country, yes?’

  ‘With strangers. He happens to be my son, turned up after shunning the place for eighteen years . . . and only because there happens to be a pretty girl here now.’ Jeremy finished flushed and breathless.

  She bent and put her own cool cheek to his hot one, murmuring, ‘You are not jealous?’

  ‘No . . . affronted!’

  ‘You mean he cannot stay ze night?’

  ‘No . . . we can’t refuse him . . . but he’ll get no invitation from me to stay. Nan can do it. Tell her, will you? Tell her to treat him just like a stranger . . . to ask him just before dinner is he going on, and offer him a bed if he likes.’

  ‘But you vill not treat him like stranger . . . please!’

  He met her pleading eyes. ‘What’s this? I thought you didn’t like him.’

  ‘Not ze vay he treat Prindy. Now moost he treat Prindy as his nephew.’

  ‘Did you bring him here only for that?’

  ‘No. He is your son. Ven I see him and hear him, I zink of you . . .’

  ‘Sounds like you do like him . . . but it isn’t much of a compliment to me . . . to have that supercilious, conventional, priggish . . .’

  ‘Now, please . . . you vill be kind to him . . . for me, Jeremy?’

  He reassured her with a nod and a sigh of resignation.

  When he came over before dinner to join the group in the lounge, Jeremy was hardly kind in his dealings with Clancy
to begin with, dismissing his son’s leaping at him to babble his reasons for being there with a short: ‘I’ve already been informed,’ and leaving him standing while he went to get himself a drink. Clancy was obviously embarrassed. Later, however, Jeremy made things easier by deliberately including the young man in his conversation occasionally and pouring him a drink or two. Clancy’s gratitude for the gesture was as evident as his embarrassment had been. Thus it went throughout the drinking session, dinner, and the rest of the evening the company spent together in the lounge. Tonight no ritual walk, probably on account of Clancy.

  As they were breaking up, somewhat early, in response to Jeremy’s perhaps pointed remark that they would all want to be getting away early tomorrow, Rifkah, getting Jeremy aside, told him she would like to have a walk round the garden with Clancy. It made him blink. Still, he nodded, and gave his cheek to be kissed when she reached for it.

  Out in the moonlight, Rifkah took Clancy’s arm, tucked up close to him, fell into that stride of hers which made men’s walking with her so easy, and promptly asked him how he liked coming back to his old home. Taken by surprise, Clancy answered vaguely, dishonestly, that was certain, the way he worked up finally to saying that it was wonderful really.

  She said bluntly, ‘I zink you feel joost like stranger here.’

  He answered hesitantly, ‘Well . . . my father didn’t exactly make me feel at home.’

  ‘Vot do you expect . . . ven you tek eighteen year to come visit your fader?’

  Still hesitant, he came to telling her that in fact he had often wanted to come, but had been afraid of all that would be involved. Although he very much admired and respected his father, there always was that uncompromising attitude of his. Every contact with him amounted to a challenge. He said miserably, ‘I don’t think he ever wanted to have anything to do with me, really . . . and I’ve had to think of my mother.’

  ‘You moost zink of yourself. Vomen are very possessive, alvays. Your mozzer is ver’ proud voman. Her pride is hurt from losing your fader. She moost keep you from him to get even.’

  Somewhat bitterly be talked of his father’s rejection of his family, over something that really didn’t matter, as he saw it, at any rate not compared with keeping a family together: ‘He’d come home from the war. He was a hero to me. I wanted him to tell me about the war. But he only hated the thought of it.’

  ‘Vos zat so wrong?’

  ‘War’s a bad thing, I know. But he was my father, a returned soldier, someone to be proud of.’

  ‘It is you, I zink, who von’t compromise. You vont him to be your kind of fader . . . like your mozzer vont him to be her kind of husband.’

  ‘And what about him? He’d want me to see everything the way he does.’

  ‘I do not zink he vood, but only zat you be honest vit’ him.’

  ‘How’ve I been dishonest? Just by sticking with my mother?’ When she didn’t answer, he sighed heavily. ‘I wouldn’t stick with her if I had a proper life of my own to live . . . if I . . . if I had someone . . . someone . . . like . . .’

  She swung him round suddenly. ‘I zink ve go in now. Ve haf plenty of time to talk more anozzer time, yes?’ He muttered affirmation, allowing himself to be led back to the house.

  Under the leafy trellis before the front door she halted, released his arm, then suddenly kissed his cheek, whispered, ‘Goodnight dear Clancy,’ then was gone.

  He hung there staring into the dim-lit and apparently deserted lounge for a while, then, sighing, turned about, headed back into the moonlight. As he emerged from the trellis a figure stepped up to him from beside it. It was Fergus, a different man from the usual comic, now spluttering with suppressed feeling, ‘Didn’t I tell you she’s my girl?’

  Taken aback, Clancy gasped, ‘What . . . what you doing snooping around?’

  ‘I’m keeping my eye on my property . . . and just you lay off it, boy!’

  ‘Who says it’s your property?’

  ‘I do. D’you want me to call her down and prove it?’

  Clancy hesitated, swallowed, muttered, ‘No.’

  ‘Right, then . . . pull your head in!’

  ‘That doesn’t mean I believe you own her . . . Only that I don’t want to embarrass a lady . . .’

  ‘Aw, for chrissake . . . you’ve got the mind of a schoolboy! Well, just keep out of grown-up people’s way, will you . . .’

  ‘No I won’t!’ Clancy made a grab at Fergus, who by some sleight of hand flung him off, sent him staggering, to fall on his behind.

  Fergus snarled, ‘Want to make something of it?’

  Clancy got up, panting, brushing himself: ‘I’m not a common brawler. I know how to behave myself in someone else’s house. But any other time, yes!’

  ‘Right!’ snapped Fergus. ‘Till that other time, then . . . but in the meantime lay off!’ He wheeled and went into the house.

  There was a flicker of movement by a screen. Fergus went to it. It was the General, smiling. Fergus grunted at him, turned away. Esk followed him. ‘How about a last drink, dear boy?’ Fergus went with him to the sideboard, accepted the whisky and soda poured him. ‘Cheers!’ said Esk, and having swigged, added: ‘I didn’t realise you felt about the girl like that. Thought it was just fun and games.’

  But Fergus wasn’t talking. Finishing the glass, he headed for the stairs. Esk finished his, and murmuring to himself, ‘Very interestin’, very interestin’ indeed, by jove!’ followed.

  There was no indication of anything untoward next morning. Fergus and Clancy went largely unnoticed, since that had been much how it had been all along. So early breakfast was got through. The trip to the race track and the aeroplane was saved from the likelihood of unpleasantness by Clancy’s riding his bay behind the utility, on his way off like the rest of the guests. He came right to the aircraft to take leave of the General. Then he had to go, because his horse would surely be frightened by the starting of the motors. He shook hands with his father as well as Esk, and would have shaken hands with Rifkah, too, only she caught him by the shoulders and kissed him on the lips, to the interest of everybody, even the horse. Then he mounted with a flourish, set spurs, was off at a gallop, stopping just once to turn and take off his hat and wave it.

  Fergus and the General got their kisses, too, fairly on the lips and in such a style as to cause both of them to flush deeply and look rather at a loss as they climbed aboard the Junkers and disappeared. Fergus did some more kissing by remote control out of the cockpit, and again, as airborne, he came hurtling back for a last one.

  Then it was Jeremy and Prindy she kissed. That was the end of it. Briskly she said, ‘Now, I moost get ready for fish-fry.’

  16

  I

  There was no waning of the interest of the people of Beatrice River (and hence of all those in contact with them) in that very interesting business going on out at Lily Lagoons, generally suggested to be a virtual take-over of the place by Jews. Nor was there likely to be any waning while the chief topic of world gossip was what was being called the Jewish Problem, caused by the inexorable hostility to the race by the ever-rising colossus, Hitler, and reaching proportions of global hysteria. For local consumption there was Jeremy Delacy’s contribution to the hysterics in the form of his article published in the November Issue of Australia Free, now in wide circulation throughout the land, in which he likened Anti-Semitism to the century-and-a-half of relentless persecution of the Australian Aborigines simply because they wouldn’t accept the whiteman’s gods.

  As Fergus Ferris had predicted, this piece had been published in entirety, even with a eulogy on the author as a great Australian and champion of the Aboriginal cause. But what Fergus hadn’t foreseen, as maybe he should have when he knew the owner of the paper to be drolly perverse enough to publish it, was the manner in which it was countered. Included with it was printed a copy of the so-called Protocols of the Elders of Zion, as if the thing were gospel instead of the fraud it had been completely exposed as years be
fore. By means of these Protocols, the leaders of International Jewry were alleged to have worked out, sometime in the middle of the Nineteenth Century, a scheme for Jewish domination of the world. The document was first published by the Czarist Government of Russia towards the end of the Century, apparently as an excuse for savage pogroms against Jews at that time. The matter was specially investigated by The Times, of London, which proved beyond doubt that the thing was a fake, that in fact the material for the Czarist publication was culled from a satirical pamphlet circulating in France in the Eighteen Sixties, which was actually an attack on the re-established Bonaparte Regime and had as its theme a fanciful conference between Napoleon the First and his descendants and friends in Hades.

  Thus Jeremy, as that other wise fellow, Kurt, predicted, had only made matters worse for Jews by mentioning them, slight as the mention deliberately was; for whereas The Protocols of the Elders of Zion remained a favourite weapon of confirmed Anti-Judaists everywhere, most people wouldn’t have heard of it till now, and certainly few if any in these parts, including Jeremy himself who had to be put right in the matter by Kurt. Then it was Jeremy’s job to put it right elsewhere, which done with his usual reckless forthrightness, probably made matters worse still, so that even Tom Toohey took to shaking his bald head over it and remarking to his wife, Nolly, ‘They certainly got old Jerry by the balls, them Jews.’

  Jeremy wasn’t the only one they were talking about like that. Clancy Delacy was also showing himself as something of a Proselyte of the Gate, at first in speaking out in support of his father in the matter of the Protocols, then in his eager association with Kurt and Rifkah whenever thay came to the siding over the weeks, and the very true anger he showed over the news of the terrible pogrom that took place in Germany late that November in retaliation for the assassination of a German Official by a Jew. The assassination didn’t occur in Germany or at the hand of a German Jew. A crazy Polish Jewish youth had shot an embassy official in Paris as a protest to the world against the persecution of Jews now taking place throughout all the countries under the Hitlerian heel. As reprisal, ostensibly, Der Führer ordered the complete anathematisation of all things Jewish within his realm, a task that his Herrenvolk fell to with such zeal that within a few days nothing remained to remind the New German Nation of the Shame its leader claimed had plagued it for half a millennium. No Jewish institution of any kind was left standing. Every book, picture, piece of sculpture or sheet of music or anything else that was the work of a Jew’s hands or mind, no matter whether considered a masterpiece by the world at large even over centuries, was destroyed. Even the simple gravestones of the poorest Jews were reduced to shards. Nothing remained except that which was hardest to dispose of, for all the Hunnish efficiency in trying, namely, the unhappy perpetrators of the Shame itself, now being herded, branded, shipped as animals by special stock trains — where?