At peep of day, the household was wakened by the roar of aero engines starting. It was too early for sleepy black heads to come out to see; and other heads knew it would not be proper. Soon there was the roar of take-off. Now the household turned out. Fergus came over the roof in the usual salute and banked to show his split-lipped grin and upthrust thumb. However, there was no sign of his passenger.
When Jeremy came across for breakfast, he found Kurt and Rifkah in the lounge, standing as if waiting for him as for one expected to deliver a momentous verdict. Kurt was stiff and grave-faced, Red Rifkah drooping, her face puffed and streaked with the rawness of scratches and the white of medicament. Jeremy came in as usual by way of the kitchen, where usually Rifkah was to be found cooking one of the several breakfast dishes she had introduced to him. He said gruffly, ‘What’s wrong . . . no eggs and onions?’
But Rifkah only looked miserable. He came up to her, looked at her wounds, turned to Kurt. ‘I don’t think she’ll be that ugly in future, do you, Doctor?’
Kurt smiled slightly. But Rifkah uttered a sob, dropped face to hands. Jeremy asked, ‘Why the tears?’
Still she shed them. When Jeremy looked again at Kurt, the little man cleared his throat: ‘Ze . . . er . . . lady, she gif you certain information . . .’
Jeremy chuckled: ‘You can hardly call her a lady in the circumstances.’ But as Kurt still looked serious, he added: ‘Yes . . . she gave me what purports to be a copy of an official statement. I have it if you want to see it. But I’d rather have breakfast, first. I’m not concerned about it myself.’ Kurt held out his hand. Jeremy put his arm about Rifkah while Kurt read. She only half leaned on him.
When Kurt was done with the paper, she reached for it. But Jeremy grabbed it, saying shortly, ‘No!’
She gasped, ‘But it is about me . . . I know.’
‘What’s it matter? I want you to know that I don’t care what’s said here. Why should I? You told me most of it yourself, practically the first day we met. Whatever your reason for coming here in the first place, I’m sure it’s true love of the place that’s kept you. It’s your home . . . so long as you want it to be. That applies to both of you.’ Now she snuggled against him.
Kurt, staring intently at Jeremy, said, ‘I beg your pardon for ze deceit. I vood haf like to confide in you.’
‘I’ve guessed, Kurt. You made it pretty plain from the start where your sympathy lay.’
‘You are very generous, Jeremy. A man who does not like Communism . . . vich is not itself generous.’
‘That lack of basic humanness should convert you, an essentially humane man.’
Kurt sighed: ‘Zere can be no conversion until ze goal is vun.’
‘It’ll be too late then. Things like generosity, the essential human things, will have been destroyed.’
‘You can never destroy humanness . . . but you moost check it to fight vot is bad in humanity. Communism is ze cold hard fight against ze inhuman, so zat true humanness vill at last prevail.’
‘Sorry, old man . . . but I can’t believe it.’
‘I am sorry too . . . because I can’t mek you belief in vot is inevitable. Only troo control of human passion can the hell man has alvays made on earth be destroyed. It vos fashion of old religion to pretend hell vos ozer side of life, and to torture ze veak on zis side. It is fashion of new religion of Fascism to set up Satanic Elite and mek no pretence about ze hell on earth. Communism haf many fault . . . for it is human. But it is built on ideal of brudderhood. Alvays zat . . . brudderhood.’ Kurt sighed again: ‘Of course, ve vill haf to go at vonce.’
‘Why?’
‘Ze security police. It is true ve are illegal immigrant. Ve cannot involve you, goot friendt.’
‘Be careful with your generosity, Kurt! But where will you go?’
‘It vill be arrange. I haf only to send code telegram or letter.’
‘Well, there’s nothing much to worry about at the moment. The rain’ll set in again within a week. I’ll bet on that. You’ll be safe here for a month at least. They’re hardly likely to come looking for you in rain the way it falls here.’
‘If you pliss, ve vill leave as soon as possible.’
Jeremy raised Rifkah’s chin. ‘You want to go?’
The answer was plain enough in the swimming hazel eyes. When Jeremy looked at Kurt, the man shrugged and turned away. Jeremy turned back to Rifkah, and shrugging her off his arm, said, ‘Well, seeing you’re stopping . . . what about getting on with the job?’
She looked at him with agonised puzzlement. He said gruffly,’ My bloomin’ breakfast, girl . . . I’m starving . . . eh, eh!’ She flung herself on him, clung for a moment, then detached herself and went flying to the kitchen.
Kurt had turned on the radio. A mincing English voice was saying that one Dr Emil Hacha, newly appointed President of Czechoslovakia, summoned to Berlin by Herr Hitler, had signed a declaration placing his country under German protection, and German troops were already marching in as protectors — a flagrant breach of the Munich Agreement, according to Mr Chamberlain, British Prime Minister, and one that Germany in the end would bitterly regret, so he said.
Kurt commented, ‘Ze Skoda Munition Vorks, ze biggest manufactory of lethal veapons in ze vorld, now passes into ze hand of ze biggest gangsters in history.’
Jeremy asked dryly, ‘Wasn’t it already owned by gangsters . . . Schneiders of France?’
Kurt shrugged. Jeremy went on: ‘It all stinks rather badly, doesn’t it? Where there’s power there’s corruption . . . in the true sense of that word. Why don’t you stay with us . . . and put your idealism and intelligence to something that won’t be exploited by rogues. You and I and Rifkah, giving ourselves completely to this Aboriginal thing?’
‘I haf not ze legal right to stay.’
‘I’ll sponsor you for legal entry. Immigration difficulties have been overcome like that . . . even in the case of Asiatics. Good lawyers . . .’
‘I vood be in jail and declared non persona grata. Zat has been done, too . . . in spite of best lawyers.’
‘There’s the law of habeas corpus, supposed to be the basic principle of British Justice.’
‘British Justice is not for alien. Besides, I am Communist. Zey vood deport me before any court action could be taken. Zey haf done zat already many time.’
‘Leave the Party, then. That’ll make a hero of you to them. You’re too intelligent not to know that it’s as rogue-ridden as any other movement concerned with having power over people.’
‘It is ze only movement zat does not have power over people as its end. No, my dear friendt, I must go . . . not simply to escape, but to fight ze goot fight. Ze bugles are sounding in Europe for Armageddon. I am soldier in ze fight. I moost go.’
V
Kurt’s departure from Beatrice was organised very simply, but so nicely for its purpose that no one knew of it except the engine crew. He and Rifkah and Prindy had attracted little attention through being on the foot-plate with Pat Hannaford during the shunting. Obviously no one noticed that when the Lily Lagoons truck set out for home it was lacking one of those who had come in with it.
18
I
There are many ways of predicting rain: from noting the behaviour of ants to invoking one’s corns; but all unreliable to some degree, surely, from the very fact of their multiplicity. However, one sign generally regarded as infallible in these parts was the nesting of the nuttagul geese, which evidently was impossible without a prolonged spell of rain. In normal times it did not begin until Wet Season was well advanced. If it did not begin at all, it was safe to say there would be no Wet to speak of. It was also a sign that could hardly be missed where geese were to be found, which as yet was just about everywhere there was still water, even on the outskirts of townships, because of the row they always made over it. Always noisy birds, at mating time they were positively uproarious. At Lily Lagoons, the hullabaloo could be heard at the homestead if the wind was right. At Beat
rice River, those on the billabongs beyond the Racecourse could even be a nuisance to light-sleeping residents of the township of nights — and this despite the depredations made on them throughout the years, good eating that they were, and especially the toll taken of late by the road-workers. Still, they were a species that bred prolifically.
The din of the nuttaguls’ breeding was not caused so much by the contentiousness usual in most species in their season, but rather by a sort of frenzy in looking for mates — not fighting for them. At least this was how native legend explained it. According to this, the First Geese, Nuttaguljul, the male, and Nuttagul-nul, his wife, were tragically parted soon after mating — actually while they were building the seasonal nest in the manner they established for their kind, which is by dancing together on a clump of weeds out in a billabong or swamp, to form an island. The tragedy was due to that meanest of creatures, Dagoolya, the Crocodile, who sneaked up under water while the pair were dancing and pulled Nuttagul-jul down by a leg without his mate’s being aware of it, the trick also used ever since by black humankind. Nattagul-nul learnt what had happened only when Nuttagul-jul’s Shade came to her in a dream and told her to carry on regardless, to lay her eggs and hatch and rear the young — but never to mate again until he returned reincarnated and claimed her. The injunction stood for all nuttaguls who came after. They could have but one mate for ever. Hence for ever there must be this frantic search for lost mates, because of the great wastage to which so delicately fleshed a species was doomed.
Now the geese were shouting everywhere, day and night, and knowledgeable people saying, ‘We’ll have rain in a week . . . a real Old Man Wet, be the sound o’ them bloody geese.’ They might also have referred to the look of the sky, which to northeastward had come to look like a sooty tunnel. But perhaps they had as little faith in sky-signs as formerly it seemed the geese had. Anyway, to bear everybody out, there one day the radio was telling of an intense cyclone, 890 millibars at the centre, sweeping the Gulf, from where it was expected to advance inland as a deep rain-depression.
That week’s mail train brought to Beatrice a crowd of road-workers who had been able to continue their operations under the abnormal conditions preceding, but now convinced of a spell of enforced idleness, wished to spend it within staggering distance of a pub.
Pat Hannaford was the driver again, hanging out of his cab as usual as his train came rolling in, but without that leery look he mostly had for the waiting crowd. In fact, he looked even anxious. No doubt about whom he was looking for, with eyes seeking out the Lily Lagoons people, and not finding her with them, leaping elsewhere in search. Only Darcy and his family and a couple of blackboys were there today. Clancy, also, was in the group, but seemingly unnoticed by Pat, for all his scowling back at him. Instead of the Lagoons utility, they had the big truck today, no doubt for an easier run home if caught by rain.
Pat ran on past the Station, applied his brakes rather hard, causing a clanging of couplings and a muffled roar of protest from those who would have been thrown off balance while preparing to alight. Apparently quite unconcerned, he dropped from the cab, to come hurrying back along the train, shoving through the crowd. Col Collings sniggered at him, ‘Looks like you ought to be back on the shovel, stoppin’ like that.’
Pat hissed out of the corner of his tight mouth, ‘Get tore!’
He also passed Clancy, and this time swapped scowl for scowl. He paused for a moment to look at a couple of passengers off the train, strangers like so many of the others, but outstanding in build and dress. They were big men, wearing the clothes of Southerners, but without coats, and evidently were feeling the heat, since one was fanning himself with a pork-pie hat and the other was mopping his fleshy red face. They were talking to Constable Stunke. Tracker Tipperary was also in the group, along with another of his kind, but handling suitcases. Pat slipped round the end of the station, screened by a stack of empty fuel drums, and made his way to where Darcy and his people, knowing their place better than to join the white crowd in its heading for the Station office and distribution of the mail, still stood. Without coming right up to them, Pat attracted the group’s attention, then quietly asked of Darcy, ‘Miss Rifkah not ’ere, eh?’
Darcy giggled, ‘No, Boss. Stop home . . . cos big rain close-up.’
‘When’re you going back?’
‘After I pick up mail.’
Pat took a peep at Stunke and his bulky friends, who were now headed for the police utility, preceded by the trackers lugging the baggage. He drew Darcy back behind the drums. ‘Look, I’m goin’ out with you.’ Darcy’s eyes widened. ‘It’s very important . . . for Rifkah. Wait for me at Ali Barba’s. Don’t tell nobody . . . not even that I talked to you. Savvy?’
Darcy, still gaping, nodded. ‘Right,’ said Pat, and turned and slipped back into the crowd, through it, heading back to the engine. Nearly there, he halted, to pop in between waggons to uncouple them. Then he went on.
Porky Jones was leaning out of the cab. As Pat climbed up to him, he said, ‘No, Porky, she’s not there. Didn’t come in. I’m goin’ out to get her.’
Porky’s little eyes were popping. Pat went on: ‘Our luck to get her away might be right in. They can fix it out at the Lagoons to make it look’s if she’s gone bush, when the bogies go out for her. When I bring her in tonight, I’ll leave her at Toohey’s. She can hide there till we get back from the head of the road tomorro’. In the night we’ll whip her up to Granite Springs on a tryke . . . and pick her up on our way on Frid’y.’
Porky breathed. ‘Jesus!’
‘Mustn’t miss a chance like this. Better’n anything else we could do to beat the bastards. Come on. Let’s kick them couple o’ waggons off. You take ’er. I’ll ’andle the points. I want to keep an eye on ’em. I’m pretty sure they won’t go out there tonight, when they got all day tomorro’. Still you never know.’
Glancing at the sooty sky, Porky said, ‘Rain might make ’em go out while they can.’ Then he asked, ‘What about if you get caught in the rain and can’t get back?’
‘I’ll get back, boy. It’ll take a lot o’ rain to close the road after that long dry spell. But if they go out tomorro’ and go huntin’ round for her, they could be stuck out there for a week. Give us a good chance to get her right away out o’ the country.’
Riding the brake-lever of a waggon while they shunted, Pat watched the Police Station. The trackers had retired. Through the wide-open louvres of the front verandah of the residence the company could be seen, Stunke and his wife and the two big strangers, the latter sitting, while the former were dealing with bottles and glasses on a table. He growled, ‘Copper bastards . . . Gestapo shit!’
Pat fumed somewhat while waiting for Darcy to get the mail: ‘Stupid yeller bastard, waitin’ for everybody else to go through . . . and that bloody Führer Collings maggin’ to everybody. Trouble the bloody boongs, that docility of theirs. Christ, Darcy . . . hurry up and get that friggin’ mail and let’s get goin’!’
There at last was Darcy driving up to stop at Barbu’s. Pat had the engine placed so as to make a quick move across under cover of stacked rails and sleepers. As he left he said to Porky, ‘Now, remember, anyone asks for me, I’m in the barracks readin’ . . . got a shitty on the world. People’re sure to be askin’ at the pub about them bogies. Not a word, mind, to anyone.’
The creamy Delacys were astonished to see Pat climb stealthily into the back of their truck and cover himself with a tarpaulin. Thus did they run down to the river crossing, over through the light spill of water, up the other side. As they passed the Racecourse, Pat appeared, streaming with perspiration. He looked at the sky, his watch. The time was four-forty. The Sun flickered like a ghostly face through the grey rags in which the black menace rolling from northeastward ended away to westward. The trees were billowing to hot gusty wind. Pat got up in front. Soon he was yelling at Darcy to get a move on. Fifteen miles per hour seemed to be what Darcy considered a reasonable speed to get them h
ome. Threatening to take the wheel off him, Pat forced it up to twenty, which was all that could be done with safety with the big vehicle on the winding narrow road, much of which was still scoured out by the earlier heavy rain, leaving deep holes now filled with fine dust and the roots of big trees exposed, negotiation of which at much speed caused havoc amongst the passengers.
They had covered about seven miles, when there was hammering on the hood from behind and squeals from the kids, ‘Motor car come behind!’
They were just then rounding a bend and thus had a rear view clear of their own dust. There was another dust-cloud amongst the trees, looking rather like some furry beast foraging: a puffball of bright yellow for head, the body the rising cloud behind. Darcy slowed down to look back with the others. Asked by Pat who was likely to be coming out this way, Darcy replied, ‘Might-be Mist’ Clancy. He say he come out sometime . . . tell Miss Rifkah.’
Pat grunted, ‘Well, we don’t want the bastard out there now. Go on . . . get a move on! Give him your dust to slow him up. I want ’o talk Rifkah before anybody else can.’ He yelled back at the kids. ‘Watch . . . see who it is.’
They went on, roaring, lurching, bouncing.
Then hammering again on the hood, and those behind shrilling, ‘P’lice truck . . . p’liceman!’
‘Aw, Jesus!’ cried Pat. Then as Darcy slowed down, he yelled, ‘Keep goin’ . . . keep goin’ . . . we got ’o beat the bastards!’
Darcy shot him a scared glance, but obeyed.
Poor Fellow My Country Page 154
