They started for the Plateau immediately, just the two of them, the living, in the front, Billy Brew under canvas at the back. It looked as if they might run into rain. The sky above the Plateau was filled with a squall-line that looked like breakers of an inky sea, the thunder of which could be heard in a continuous menacing roll.
They made haste to beat the rain, since a burial in a tropical downpour can be more like a drowning, even in good sandy sloping burial ground like that at the foot of the escarpment. They reached the chosen spot still dry and with time to spare for digging, judging by the set of the wind, even though the red wall was quivering to the rioting of the Old One up beyond. However, as they were about to begin the job, Jeremy said, scratching behind his ear, ‘I don’t know . . . might-be that old Yalmaru’s telling me something . . . but I feel we ought to plant him more in blackfellow fashion.’ He looked around, musing, ‘Can’t do it in a tree, just two of us. How about a cave? That’s what he’d’ve crept into himself to die. Yes . . . let’s find a overhang for him. His last words were, “Find a place for my bone.” Come on. We don’t need any tools.’
It might well have been a sprite that led them to the spot, such a dance was it. The rain caught them before they found it, drove them to shelter, while it poured outside like a cataract. It wasn’t lack of good niches for burial that put them to the trouble, but finding one to meet the special circumstances. As Jeremy said, ‘We got to make dead certain of beating the dingoes. Old Dead Feller had a feud with ’em for years . . . account of his foals. They’re sure to sniff him out and know who he is. Wanjin’s got as good a memory as he has a nose. I reckon they’d’ve got him before he got here, only for his Yalmaru, or Lamala, as he called it in his lingo.’
Perhaps first noting his uncle’s careful avoidance of the dead man’s name, a matter of extreme importance even to Aboriginal people of quite limited respect for the old beliefs, and one rarely conceded to by even the best disposed of the kuttabah, Darcy giggled nervously, ‘All the time more like blackfeller you get, Mullaka.’
‘What’s wrong with that, son? A blackfellow’s religion’s just as good as a whitefellow’s . . . and maybe better. Look at the whiteman’s world today. Hang on to what you can of the old ways, son . . . and watch the kids . . . don’t let ’em become Bloody Nutchings.’
‘I watch all the time, Mullaka. That my new job, I know.’
It was tough going, with Jeremy having to stop so often to get his breath and to ease the strain of his weak arm. The Dead Feller was no light weight, and the terrain the worst possible for such a procession. At last they found the perfect place, in an overhang. They could reach the crypt by both standing on a narrow ledge in the face of the painted wall of rock. Not even the original Old Wanjin himself would be clever enough to get up there. Jeremy was a bit troubled about the fact that the place was painted, but rationalised it, saying, ‘If the old Shades object, I guess his Yalmaru’ll be able to square things with ’em.’
From the ledge they were able to push the stretcher a little into the crypt, then slide old Billy off it, in out of sight. They dropped down. Looking up, Jeremy said, ‘Mummuk, Dead Feller. You lie quiet, now. We never forget you. Mummuk . . . yawarra.”
Darcy echoed him. It was the ancient ceremonial. Just one more bit, which Jeremy forgot, but not Darcy. That was the erasing of their tracks in the dry sand, so that the Shade could not follow them.
It was now close to sundown. The Sun went down in a clear sky just as they reached the utility. It was tough going home, too. The road was so slippery they had to fit skid-chains. It was dark when they came up to the homestead, gleaming through the garden and the mangoes. Jeremy got out at the last gate, leaving Darcy to run on and put the car away, finishing on foot, as if wanting to capture for ever sight of the place as the haven he had kept it so long, and the sound of its heartbeat — Home, a-home, a-home!
III
At Leopold Mission, already they knew of the order for general evacuation, and were preparing for it, at expense of the usual preparations for Christmas. They were still in radio contact, their set being classed as a Service Unit, and its operator, Father Glascock, as a Coast Watcher.
Father Glascock explained things to Fergus. He said he had been informed that the patrol-boat, HMAS Melville, skippered by Warrant-Officer Pickles, would be calling to pick up the evacuees a few days after Christmas. All, except full-blood blacks of the locality and himself, would be going. Although at first the priest demurred at the propriety of handing over some of his charges to Fergus without official sanction, when he heard about the high-handedness of McCusky and Cootes and had partaken of some of the grog Jeremy had sent over, he agreed to what was requested, even to the inclusion of the Barbus. Referring to those who would be coming in the patrol-boat, he said, ‘They’ll probably be glad to be saved some passengers, anyway. They’ll be packed tight as it is . . . and the weather looks like breaking any time.’
Fergus, while waiting for his passengers to pack, saw to it that his stock of fuel kept on the airfield was buried in the scrub. He said to Brother David, ‘No bugger’s getting that . . . so-called friend or foe.’
Rifkah, saying her farewells, was embraced and wept over by those who loved her, and coolly dismissed by the few who didn’t. Mother Mathias gave her a Rosary: ‘Not to intrude on your own Faith, m’dear . . . but just so’s Our Lady’ll come to your help if you’re in throuble. Ahll ye’ve got to do is say a few Hail Marys. God bless ye and kape ye and bring ye back into me ould arms again someday after.’
Sister Dymphna wished her a Happy Christmas.
Rifkah left the priest to last. He came to greet her as she stepped onto his verandah, extending his hand well before they met, as if in haste to be rid of her, grinning at her, saying, ‘Well, this is it, eh . . . after all your efforts. Hardly say Man Proposes and God Disposes . . . rather the Devil in this case . . . Tojo, eh?’
She smiled that smile, making him go red from it. ‘Might be Mister McCusky.’ She took his hand.
Giving a man-to-man shake, he said, ‘Well, I only hope you’ll be back to finish the good work you’ve started.’
Keeping his hand, holding his blue eyes, she said, ‘Ze vork vill not stop . . . because I do not go.’
He gaped. ‘Eh?’
‘I am leaving only to go to Lily Lagoons to see Jeremy. I vill come back overland.’
For a moment his face blazed with obvious excitement. Then he frowned. ‘What’s this nonsense?’ He withdrew his hand roughly.
‘Jeremy is not going avay. He vill go bush. Also, Prindy . . .’
‘But this is madness, girl. The country’s under martial law. Don’t you understand what that means?’
‘No . . . also I do not care. All law is cruel . . . not human. I vill not leave my poor people for soldier and McCusky.’
He groaned, running a hand through his curly mop of hair. Then he said, ‘Jeremy didn’t say anything in his letter about staying . . . or about your staying. He says he wants you and Prindy to go with his people.’
‘He vill not send us avay. He know zis is my country now . . . zis is my life. I vill come back.’ When he groaned again, she reached for his hand, clasped it in both of hers, fixing him with those jewels of eyes. ‘Pliss . . . Stephen!’ He blinked as if struck. No doubt it was the first time she had called him by his first name. She went on: ‘I haf before been driven from my home . . . from my loved vuns. Not again. I vill fight to stay . . . and die if zey try to tek me. But only you vill know I am here. Pliss . . . you vill let me come back to you . . . my loved vun?’
He was flaming, sweating, breathing hard. For a moment they stood staring into each other’s eyes. Then suddenly she smiled, pulled his hand up to her lips, kissed it. He gasped. She released his hand, gave a little laugh at his gaping, said merrily, ‘Mummuk . . . yawarra,’ wheeled about, went running away, to the truck awaiting her outside the convent.
She looked back out of the truck to see him standing watching from
the verandah, gave a last wave. Then in a little storm of farewelling and wailing, she and the others set out for the airfield.
Fergus had Rifkah up front with him. Prindy sat back with his Indian relations, his little bride beside him. Savitra alone of the Barbus was happy about the flight. Eager as they were to leave the Mission, they had to be shoved into the aircraft, and then cringed and whimpered during take-off, and fairly howled their heads off during the farewell beat-up, while the two experienced ones squealed with laughter.
A last whirling glimpse of whitewashed roofs and dark upturned faces, then away across the waters of multi-coloured jade, heading for the blue line of the Plateau. Fergus remarked to Rifkah, ‘I wonder when we’ll be seeing that again.’ Then he gaped as she leaned to him and told him that she would be coming right back.
Fergus was quite deeply concerned about Rifkah’s intention to defy the evacuation order. While he didn’t say so directly, it was evident from his preliminary outburst against it that he’d been cherishing the hope of taking her away with him. When it became plain that nothing would discourage her, he tried persuading her to let him stay along with her. He argued: ‘You don’t know what you’re letting yourself in for. You see these people . . . your people, as you quite erroneously call them, because they’re nobody’s people . . . you see them as simple Arcadians . . . and their Arcady as some lovely thing to be preserved as an example to the brutal world. The fact is they’re no more Arcadian than Nazis, and no saner in their beliefs. Listen . . . I’m an Anthropologist, trained. I don’t go round claiming to know these people like the others. I don’t know them . . . even though I’ve been round amongst them for the last couple of years, and pretty close to all kinds of ’em. But I know savages from intense reading about them. You yourself know from bitter experience how even civilised people can act in the most barbarous way when chanted to about Tradition . . . “The Jews killed Christ” . . . “The Jews are poisoning our sacred blood, tainting our holy culture!” Then what can you expect from people who live entirely by the dictates of Tradition . . . who can find virtue even in eating their own dead? It’s one thing to study them to try to make sense out of the rest of human lunacy . . . and to protect them from half-wits like McCusky in normal times when someone might be interested in their wretched condition and make it easier . . . But it’s a very different business for a girl, whose only equipment is thwarted motherhood or love or something, to go and live with them in their primitive condition, hunted like they’ll be, if McCusky gets after them, or the Japs, if they come. No . . . it’s unthinkable. Jeremy won’t stand for it. You can bet on that. Come with me . . . and I’ll see you’re brought back when there’s a chance . . . or if you won’t listen to sense, for Christ’s sake . . . or Moses’s . . . let me stay and look after you!’
An example in miniature of the complexity of savage culture and the brutality that could go with it, was forthcoming even as Fergus gave up the argument as they neared their destination and gave himself to preparing for the landing. They were still over the Plateau, now descending from the fair height at which they had been flying to avoid the turbulence caused by the heat from the vast rock mass, when Fergus, with the thoughtlessness of the kuttabah, decided to show Rifkah the hide-out he planned for his aircraft, and made a circuit of it. Prindy grasped the significance of the situation at once, yelled to his fellow passengers, ‘Kumali!’ and as they all covered faces with hands, himself bent down so as not to see the forbidden. Thus he caught Savitra taking a peep. He lashed out, striking her face aside. Even though she yelled to beat the engines, the others didn’t uncover till he called, ‘Kala!’ Then they only stared at her streaming tears and bloodied nose. Nor did she do more than whimper after that first yell. When they were down and Rifkah came aft and pounced on the child and, cleaning her up with a handkerchief, asked what had happened, no one volunteered an explanation. In fact it was Fergus, in his knowledge, who gave it, as he opened the door to let them out: ‘Copped a bump, eh, kiddo? Sorry.’
The incident was forgotten in the excitement of the reunions. The whole household was there, and the horses. Barbu was hopping about like a jerboa laughing and weeping. His large females appeared to treat him like such a little animal. Rifkah wept on the breasts of Jeremy and Nan, and gave herself for stroking and nuzzling by everyone. She insisted that they all have a picnic lunch under the mangoes, with the last of the fruit made into a huge fruit salad with the first of the granadilloes.
Fergus was wrong in predicting that Jeremy would not countenance Rifkah’s remaining. In fact, Jeremy appeared to have been prepared for it. All he did was to shake his head and say it added complications to his own plans, which he would not let her intrude on, and that he would have liked her to go to be a help to Nan. He said with a sigh, ‘Our cause is lost, of course. Our Arcady is soon to be raided by a rout of bully-boys. Our Arcadians will be scattered.’
She flung back, ‘Vot is zis Arcady? Zis is your beautiful country . . . zat your loff for made my country too. Zese pipple are human beings hanging on to zere own country. Many are sick pipple. Many are hungry pipple. Zey vill more hungry and sick get, vot effer soldier come . . . Japanee or Australian. Ze same after soldier go.’
Then she told him she had a present for him, something she had made. She would not show it till she had explained: ‘It is like ze Jeripunga . . . Jeremy’s Jeripunga . . . ze symbol of his Dreaming.’ She went on: ‘At ze Mission zey all sewing mad for long while . . . meking clothes. After it is say moost ve evacuate, ze sewing is all zing for soldier. Sister Dymphna haf brother and two cousin soldier. Zey only half see vot I am sewing . . . and zink I am ver’ patriotic!’ She giggled.
She showed it to him in his den, tossing it up to hang from the half-closed door. It was a full-sized flag — would have been the Australian Flag, but for the fact that John Bull’s Waistcoat was missing, its place in the top corner taken by a big star, replica of that beneath, thus giving the smaller stars of the Southern Cross the two Pointers belonging to them in the heavens but denied them on earth — by what? The blame could not be laid entirely on John Bull.
She stared at him staring. When he looked at her, she came to him, saying, ‘I see I haf done ze trick. It is vot long ago you tell me is your dream of flag of your True Commonvealth . . . the Star of Hope at ze top, to balance ze Star of Commonvealth, of bruzzerhood, at ze bottom . . . and ze Cross, complete, as emblem of Terra Australis.’ He reached for her, drew her to him, kissed her shining hair. She added: ‘Ven ze Jap Var start, I am vondering how you are feeling . . . and zink . . . Now moost Jeremy haf his Dreaming as nefer before.’
He squeezed her, saying huskily, ‘Bless you!’ She kissed him on the lips.
That night the flag hung in the dining-room during dinner. It was a cheerful meal, despite the fact that enough had already been said of their plans to declare it tacitly their last dinner here together. As usual, Rifkah and Prindy had a stock of droll tales to tell about the Mission. As usual Nanago appeared to enjoy the stories most — but surely with a betraying shrillness to her mirth. Another betrayal of general unspoken sadness perhaps was the reluctance shown by the company to leave the table. So long did they sit, that Nan told the black maids to go home and leave the last of the washing-up. Go home? Tomorrow was Christmas Eve, and before the day was out, every member of the household, except Jeremy and Fergus, would be gone, most likely for ever.
There followed another long sitting in the lounge. Primarily it was concerned with the complication of Jeremy’s plan to outwit the authorities now that Rifkah and Prindy had become involved. However, secondarily it became evident that the prolongation again was due to reluctance to face the reality of dispossession, mostly on the part of Nanago, who kept going over points of the plan obviously settled, herself showing no sign of weariness, even when the others were blinking sleepily and stifling yawns. These others were Jeremy, Rifkah, Fergus. Prindy and the Barbus hadn’t been included in the elaboration of the plans. The Barbus, wearied
by the excitement of reunion and lured by what to all except Savitra was the wonder of being bedded down like squattocracy, retired early.
The reason for the rushing in to Beatrice tomorrow was that Jeremy had assumed patronage of the Blackfellows’ Christmas, which otherwise definitely would have been off. The traditional patrons were, of course, the people of Beatrice Station. The ladies of that household already had evacuated themselves. The gentlemen were preoccupied with the decreed reallocation of stock before the Wet set in. Jeremy had sent word of his intention to Sergeant Stunke, saying that he wished both to settle his blacks down while they awaited McCusky’s arrangements and to dispose of surplus stores. Stunke had replied that he Very Much Appreciated the Gesture, adding that all the blacks of the district needed settling down, bewildered as they were by the New Order.
Jeremy’s gesture was genuine as he had described it to Stunke. However, his deep purpose was to divert suspicion from his non-compliance, and attention, too. They would set up camp on the river as at Race Time. Then after the Christmas shivoo, but while the excitement was still high, those who were going on down to the Centre would pack up again. They would be travelling in the big truck. It would be given out that he himself and some others would be following in the utility, after he had formalised the commandeering of Lily Lagoons. He would harp on this formalisation to Stunke during the Christmas festivities, although, in fact, as he told the others, the Army could do just what they liked, apparently. No one would know exactly who had gone South, except themselves. Actually it would be only Fergus who went in the utility and it could be suggested that he and those supposedly going with him might turn East from the Telegraph Line instead of going right down to the Centre to leave the Combat Zone.
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