Poor Fellow My Country

by Xavier Herbert

  Jeremy’s tone was dry, for all its thickness: ‘Didn’t get much chance, did I?’

  ‘Aw . . . that Bookkeeper. Newchum. Doesn’t know the ropes.’

  ‘What ropes?’

  ‘Well . . . you know . . . took you for a bagman . . .’

  ‘Didn’t you?’

  Smithers chuckled, but avoiding the slits, looked afar. ‘Tell you the truth, I did see something familiar . . . but, with the bunged up dial and the . . . and the cigarette swag.’ He looked back with a chuckle. ‘The cook reckons he knew who you were all the time . . . but you know what bloody liars cooks are. Anyway, I’m dead sorry, old man.’ The pale blue eyes blinked as if hurt.

  Jeremy husked, ‘No need to be, Mr Smithers. I was a bagman to all intents and purposes.’

  ‘Aw, go on! Anyway, come on over the house.’

  ‘I’m waiting for an aircraft.’

  ‘Wait at the house. You need something on that face. Missus’ll see to it for you. You could probably do a drink, too, eh?’

  ‘Thanks . . . but I’m quite comfortable here.’

  ‘Don’t take offence, old man. Genuine mistake.’

  ‘I’m not offended. I looked like a bagman. I know the custom of the land . . . especially on Vaisey stations. It was my fault for going to the Big House. It was only I thought there might be a special sked I could get the telegram through on.’

  Smithers heaved away from the post. ‘I know how you feel about Vaiseys . . . about me, too, I suppose. But for my missus’ sake. She’ll be offended.’

  ‘Give her my compliments. Tell her I still regard myself as a bagman till I get aboard that plane. I’ll wave to her out the window.’

  The man went deeply red. A snap came into his voice. ‘Don’t be bloody silly!’

  It was difficult to see a colour change in Jeremy’s multi-hued face. However, he rose at once, saying with what sounded like anger, ‘No, I won’t be silly any longer.’ He went into the room, grabbed up rolled swag and hat, and emerging, asked, ‘You won’t mind if I camp on your air-strip?’

  ‘Eh?’ Smithers blustered, ‘That a way to treat a man offering you hospitality?’

  Jeremy stepped off the verandah. ‘I’ve been taking your hospitality . . . or Lord Vaisey’s . . . long enough. I’d prefer to have no more than’s absolutely necessary . . . thanks all the same. Goodday to you.’

  Smithers let him go some twenty yards, before bawling after him, ‘You are an intolerant bastard . . . like they say. Get stuffed!’

  Jeremy kept on, waved to the obviously peeping kitchen-staff, who must have heard that last remark. The billowing wind-sock in the distance showed the way to the air-strip with its little fuel-shed floating in mirage. As Jeremy trudged towards it, limping somewhat from yesterday’s blisters, he kept repeating under his breath something of what had just been said: ‘Intolerant bastard . . . intolerant bastard,’ and adding to it, ‘What exactly does Intolerant mean? From the Latin, Tolerare, to Endure, to Permit, to Bear. How much does one have to refuse to permit or bear what one considers obnoxious in others to be justly deemed intolerant? That poor stupid bastard was only trying to save his face. Why didn’t I let him? Because I wanted to save mine? But I hate the things, the principles, the prejudices, he stands for. So I am an intolerant bastard. Christ, I could’ve done with that drink!’

  Fergus arrived just before noon, doing a turn over the homestead before landing, but without bringing anyone out of the Big House. His first question, as his eyes popped at sight of the battered face and unkempt dress, was unspoken. Then he asked, ‘Boss not home, eh?’

  Jeremy grimaced as best he could. ‘Not home to us.’ He explained briefly, concluding: ‘I even turned down a much-needed drink in the process . . . which is taking principles a bit too far, I’m afraid.’

  Fergus chuckled, then said, ‘If you could do a drink, I’ve got some?’

  Jeremy licked swollen lips. ‘My oath I could!’

  Fergus ducked back into his plane, to reappear with a bottle of whisky, a pannikin, a water-canteen. He said, as Jeremy mixed himself a stiff one, ‘Matter of fact, I’m doing a perish myself. Got terribly full last night. All I could do to drag myself out to the aerodrome. If it hadn’t been you, I’d’ve turned the trip down.’

  ‘That was good of you. How d’you find it flying with a hangover?’

  ‘Actually it’s good for it. You’ve got to pull yourself together to handle the crate. Then, up top, it doesn’t seem so bad . . . rarefied air, or something.’ Looking across at the homestead, Fergus remarked, ‘Looks like we’re not going to get any help with refuelling. Have to do it ourselves. But better fuel ourselves up first, eh? Have another.’

  They drank half the bottle between them, while Jeremy talked of what had happened to him recently. Fergus knew, as he explained, that he had come here straight from the Leopolds, because he had himself come from there only the day before yesterday. He said, ‘Pity I hadn’t caught you there. We could’ve flown out together and gone on a proper scoot.’ He paused, looking into the peeping bloodshot eyes. ‘I presume your trouble was the same as mine — Rifkah?’ Again it was impossible to see how it affected Jeremy, except that the bunged eyes looked swiftly away to the fuel-shed.

  They were silent as they rolled out the drums of fuel and set up the pumping equipment. Fergus mounted the ladder with the hose, while Jeremy pumped. The fuel had just started to gush into the tank when Fergus said with a rush, ‘I went to the Mission to marry Rifkah.’ He looked down at Jeremy, who held his gaze, steadily pumping. Fergus turned back to his task, went on: ‘Didn’t know they’d worked citizenship for her. Thought I could work the double, like.’

  Silence again for a little while, save for creak of pump and gush of gasolene. Jeremy broke it this time: ‘Tell me, son . . . did you have a hand in putting the Commonwealth Police on her?’

  Fergus reddened, bit his bunny lip.

  Jeremy added: ‘I’m not criticising you. I knew you wanted to marry her. Matter of fact, I talked to her about marrying you . . .’ Fergus looked at him quickly. Jeremy, pumping, looked away, sighed: ‘Anyway . . . she’s all right now.’

  Addressing the gushing stream, Fergus said, ‘Actually, it was General Whiskers and Co. started it. You know they were flat out to break your interest in her. I overheard Whiskers and Malters discussing it a couple of times. They’d already started something when they looked into the Jewish Settlement business . . . with Security. I admit I tipped off Alfle Candlemas. But I didn’t expect anything so mad as what happened. I knew she wanted you for Free Australia . . . as we all do . . . it’s your job . . . only you can do it. But you couldn’t do it the way things were. I didn’t know Alfie was in love with you. I didn’t have any idea she’d rouse the Canberra mob up like an ant-heap. I thought there’d be a ton of time. Matter of fact, it was my intention to come down to the Lagoons as soon as I could make a landing there, with a Special Licence, to make my proposal in front of you . . . with the stipulation that it could wait as long as she liked for consummation . . . so long as she got the citizenship, and your blessing. I reckoned on your collaboration, because . . . well, I knew you weren’t keen on her marrying your son, or she either, for that matter . . . and although you might have liked her for yourself . . . who wouldn’t? . . . you’re first of all a man of dignity, in my opinion. I didn’t think you’d ever have her for more than a daughter . . . whatever the bastards said. I reckoned on everything, as a matter of fact, except the first friggin’ thing a pilot ought to reckon on . . . the weather.’ Fergus looked again at staring Jeremy, and sighed: ‘Yes, the bloody weather. That’s what beat me. If it hadn’t been for that bloody rain-depression, I’m sure I could’ve worked it . . . even with those bogies after her, I could’ve whipped her away under their very noses . . . but for that bloody rain!’ Fergus sighed again. After a while he signalled for the pumping to stop.

  As he came down to Jeremy and began to unscrew the gear, he gave the split-lip grin, saying, ‘Well . .
. we lost our little darling . . . where do we go from here?’

  Jeremy was silent. As they were putting the gear away, Fergus said, ‘What you were telling me about your experience in Hartog would make a wonderful piece for Australia Free.’

  ‘Anti-Communist stuff, you mean?’

  ‘Not exactly . . . Australian bastardry. There’re pockets like this down South, where the Comms are allowed to be boss because it suits the proper bosses, who’re all outsiders . . . coal-mines, shipping, steel-works.’

  ‘Matter of fact, while I was sitting here waiting for you to come, I made up my mind to go back to Hartog, get myself a good suit of clothes and a revolver, and go round to the Police Station and ask the Sergeant to give me a licence to carry the gun, because I was being attacked by thugs.’

  ‘Phew! That would have bowled him over.’

  ‘Maybe . . . even seeing me there. But where’d it get me in the long run, seeing the Government, Vaiseys, and all the rest’s behind it? It was only the dry horrors that made me savage about it. Now I’ve had a drink I can see the futility of it. Best to put it into print, as you say, so’s Australians can see how their country’s run. These other bastards’d only hush it up . . . and even might connive at the Commos’ bumping me off.’

  ‘Will you write it?’

  ‘No . . . I leave it to you, son. You write a good piece.’

  ‘So do you . . . and you’ve got more than I have . . . the capacity for leadership.’

  ‘You know I don’t like that rag’s mad Anti-Semitism and Hitlerism.’

  ‘I told you they’re the things we want cut out . . . and you’re the man to do it. This Free Australia Movement’s the only chance we’ve got. Who’s running the place? Here’s the Commos, telling the police what to do, under Lord Vaisey’s orders . . . or Lord Someonelse’s somewhere else. There’s bloody Catholic Action can get Rifkah citizenship with a flick of the finger. And old Whiskers, with his Pax Britannica, organising us for a war with people who could be our best friends. I ask you . . . what chance have dinky-di Aussies got . . . except through this Free Australia thing . . .’

  ‘Run by Adolf Hitler!’

  ‘That’s where we came in. We’ve got to stop that. We’ve got to get rid of the Fascist element that’s ruining it . . .’

  ‘Is there any other element in it?’

  ‘I told you before . . . some of the best brains in the country’ve been looking to it as a means to establishing true liberalism and honest intelligent government.’

  ‘Why don’t they take it off that stupid bastard who’s aping Hitler, then?’

  ‘You don’t know Southerners . . . and intellectuals, Jeremy. They haven’t got the forthrightness of northern bush people . . .’

  ‘I haven’t seen anything so forthright about my fellow northern Bushies, crawling up Lord Vaisey’s arse . . .’

  ‘There is a great difference . . . take it from me . . . I mean with people like you . . . old Billy Brew. There’s plenty like you. But you’re the man with the intelligence and strength and dignity. It needs a man who can stand up and ignore that Bloke’s specious arguments on political philosophy. He’s Oxford, you know. He intimidates the intellectuals. They’ll say he’s mad . . . but they’ll concede he’s a scholar and a genius, and leave it at that. That Oxford bullshit wouldn’t go down with you. You’d stand up and talk like an Australian bushman, which is what Australians understand, bush bred or not. You’d shoot the Bloke’s arguments down in flames simply by saying something like, . . . like, “The bloody country’s like a beast that’s bogged down, with a mob of alien crows onto it, trying to pick out its eyes”.’

  ‘Sounds like you don’t need me, boy!’

  Fergus said huskily, ‘I do. It’s from you I’ve learnt to talk like that. I need a drink, too. Let’s have a swig.’

  Having drunk and handed the stuff to Jeremy, Fergus resumed: ‘Where are we governed from? Not Canberra . . . but from Westminster, Moscow, Rome . . .’

  Jeremy paused before he downed his drink. ‘Berlin!’

  ‘Right . . . Berlin if you like, too. And any day we’ll be mixed up in a war with any or all of the bastards.’ Fergus’s speech was somewhat slurry. He blinked at Jeremy. ‘Where you want me take you from here?’

  Jeremy hesitated, licking his lips over the last of the whisky. ‘Well . . . I suppose home.’

  ‘Wha’ you going to do there?’

  Again Jeremy hesitated. ‘Well . . . I got to put my face right, need some new clothes.’

  Fergus said eagerly, ‘Listen . . . I got to get back South in a week or so to pick up old Whiskers. I only sneaked back up here to fix things for Rifkah . . .’ The name caused him to boggle, to blink. He swallowed, and went on: ‘What about you coming back with me . . . seeing for yourself this Free Australia thing . . .’

  ‘Take me home first, son. I need a bottle of brandy . . . and a big deep think.’

  ‘Right . . . away we go.’

  20

  I

  Under his own medical treatment, even though X-ray revealed some small bone damage and the likelihood that at last he would lose the teeth he had so long and so well preserved, and even with a goodly consumption of brandy during the treatment, Jeremy recovered so quickly from the immediate effects of that lesson he learnt in the Brotherhood of Man from those expert exponents of it at Port Hartog, that he was able to go in to meet the first mail train to come down since his return home. By his declaration his going in was not nearly so much to get the mail or meet his kind in something like mass, as to confront Pat Hannaford, due to be driving again, with his steamed-up opinion of Communism. However, as likely as not it was simply for the flight with Fergus, who was still around, helping him to drink the brandy and make his mind up about the trip down South.

  It was evident that Jeremy was not keen on the trip South, but that, affected by the emptiness so resonant here now in its new silence, he was tending to cling to the young man. Anyway, the futility of bawling out Pat Hannaford had already been well and truly expressed by the pair in their long talks on Communism, a persuasion made up only of rogues, fools, and madmen, surely, since it aspired to establish the Millennium on a basic tenet of End Justifies Means, the philosophy of a common criminal.

  No doubt about it, young Fergus worked overtime to keep his host’s inflamed hostility burning with intent to induce him to commit himself to what was, for better or worse, the only logical answer to Communism in this country, Free Australia. At the same time, it was evident that his zeal for the cause was not without ulterior motive. Brandy is a good drink in that it doesn’t impair the wits like most other alcoholic beverages, but just like the rest will loosen one’s tongue, and if one is secretly distressed, drop some of the secret, no matter how wary one may be. Fergus dropped bits that anyone as astute as Jeremy must instantly have seized on, had he not himself been afflicted similarly. If only he might have had Rifkah’s love he would be in no such jam as now, he said, and in no such other spots as his rashness would lead him for sure.

  Fergus long ago had confessed, in his jesting way, that he’d got considerable concession for use of the Junkers by impressing on everybody possible and flying-types in particular the invincibility of the German Air Force, while advertising Der Führer, as the Aryan Messiah. However, anyone listening carefully now must suspect that the involvement was considerably deeper and could include this purest seeming of causes, Free Australia. Tantalite, which meant Krupp’s, was mixed up in it. Fergus had often talked Tantalite to Jeremy, but mostly in jest, in view of Jeremy’s pronounced view of the matter since the clash with the Kruppsers last Race Time, still with enough serious intent occasionally to suggest that the working of the mine to capacity might well benefit the Cause: ‘The good earth itself giving us the means to make it free from the exploiters . . . and who’s it matter who we sell it to, so long as we get the dough?’ So Free Australia virtually could be financed by Der Führer? Jeremy obviously missed the implication. Probably he was jus
t not interested, his interest being centred then, pretty well to the exclusion of all else, in her Fergus had called Our Little Darling. Still Fergus tried it: ‘If only I could kid those Hun-Dun bastards there was a chance to get the Tantalite, I’d get ’em off my back.’ Still Jeremy ignored it.

  At length it came out that Fergus hadn’t made this last trip up from the South solely with intent to marry Rifkah and get her citizenship, but that he was also in flight from his German creditors. In fact, since coming to Lily Lagoons this time he had made arrangements by radio with an aviation-engineer friend of his at Palmeston Airport to send him immediate warning should the Hun-Duns drop in there inquiring his whereabouts. In that event he would fly the Junkers to a hiding place where even the mighty Goering directing his invincible Luftwaffe wouldn’t find it in years.

  According to Fergus, the Junkers people now were so convinced of the imminence of war in which Australia would be ranged against Germany that they wanted all outstanding contracts met with despatch. In the event of war, or course, if the aircraft were still here and registered in the name of its rightful owners, it would be seized as enemy property. However, it seemed that Fergus had a deed of sale with him, which required only dating and witnessing. That didn’t mean the Germans had been silly enough to put such a document in his hands, but only that he had been smart enough to take signatures from less important transactions he’d had with Junkers and transfer them to it. Forgery? Who’s going to bother to check the transactions of enemy aliens who have flown the land? All’s fair in war. The clever thing to do was to keep a jump ahead of the Duns till the war broke out, seeing to it that when they took flight it was in some other aircraft than this one.

  Far from striking a moral attitude to the patent dishonesty, Jeremy was even tickled by the idea of it, and when Fergus followed it up with the confession that his prospective hiding place was the ancient Ring Place just over the escarpment on the Sandstone Plateau and asked if he would lend him the utility and tools to go and clean the spot of the few bushes and antbeds and things, not only agreed readily, but said he’d lend him a hand. Fergus did not want even the blacks to know of it.