Snowball knew better than to shove in for his share too soon.
By the easy way the youngsters were received, it was evident that no concern had been felt for their protracted absence. In fact, Jeremy spoke as if he’d expected Prindy to accomplish something concerning the horses. No mention was made of contact with the blacks till after breakfast, when Savitra came out with it in a few sharp words. Jeremy had just said he would put up that smoke to get the blacks to locate themselves, so that he and Prindy might ride out to them and save the inevitable weary wait till they made up their minds to come. Tossing her dark head, Savitra snapped, ‘We been see dat lot. Dey been hunt him we . . . wit’ dog.’
When Jeremy looked at Prindy, the grey eyes met his with a blink, then swung away to look down towards the horses busily munching oil-cake. Jeremy looked at Rifkah, who was wearing that troubled old bubbeh look. Prindy rose, saying, ‘I get tools for shoeing, eh?’
For a moment Jeremy sat silent, then also rising, said, ‘I’ll have to show you where they are. Must get some more oil-cake, too . . . they’ve just about cleaned up that lot. Got to feed ’em up.’
It was not till a couple of hours later, while Jeremy and Prindy were working on the horses’ hoofs, that, breaking a silence following Prindy’s giving further lively details of how he and the others were taken at the Mission, Jeremy asked, ‘Are you going to stay now all the time at the Mission, and be a missionary?’
Prindy answered promptly, ‘No-more . . . I go bush with Rifkah.’
Jeremy, seemingly concentrated on the trimming of one of Snowball’s jagged hoofs, asked, ‘What about Savitra?’
Prindy, filing a shoe to fit old Betsy, stole a look at him. Jeremy looked and caught him. The other grey eyes flicked away. Giving attention to the hoof again, Jeremy persisted, ‘Don’t you reckon the trouble you had with the blacks yesterday was because of her . . . Wrong Side business?’
Prindy filed vigorously. But Jeremy kept on: ‘I don’t want to boss you . . . you know that. I don’t want to boss anyone. I want to live quietly here. I want to see you and Rifkah sometimes. I want to see you happy working with these blacks. I want to see the blacks happy. Only I don’t want to see trouble.’ A little silence, only for the scraping and filing and gusty breathing of the horses. Jeremy added: ‘More than anything, I want to see you to . . . to go a straight road . . . that doesn’t mean I’m worried about Wrong Side or anything . . . only, there’s your song about your Rown Road. Don’t matter what road you go . . . only it’s got to be straight. See what I mean?’
Prindy spoke to the horseshoe; ‘Yas, grandfather.’
After a moment Jeremy said, ‘If you’d like the girl to go down to her people, I’ll help you to get her away . . . or if you’d like to take her, and come back on your own . . . whatever you like.’
No answer. Jeremy added: ‘But you can’t keep her and be right with the blacks, too. They hunted you like strangers . . . the way they do halfcastes or low-class whites who come hanging round camps . . .’ His voice trailed off, perhaps because the rasp had begun to sound impatient. But he finished: ‘Any way I can help you . . . you just ask, eh?’
Still working, Prindy answered calmly, ‘That old-man make it all straight, Grandfather.’
Jeremy stopped to stare. ‘What old man?’
The other grey eyes met his frankly. ‘Pookarakka.’
Jeremy blinked before the gaze. Prindy, turning back to his work, added: ‘He come by’n’by.’
For a moment Jeremy continued to stare, then resuming his own work, he mused, ‘Hmm!’ He repeated it a couple of times, as if conceding the point that there was no arguing anything with one who had a magician as patron.
The talk turned to horses. Jeremy said he was troubled to find old Betsy in foal after all the years of infertility. He foresaw a bad foaling. ‘I’ll be needing your help then,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to work out about when it’ll be. Luckily I’ve got a fair quantity of Vitamin E. That might help her.’
When much later in the day Jeremy was able to have a private word with Rifkah, he heard from her the details of the youngsters’ encounter with the blacks, as she’d been told by Savitra. He told her of his own talk with Prindy. Rifkah wanted to know how Bobwirridirridi could solve the problem. Jeremy answered, ‘I can’t see any way, except by somehow frightening the two kids apart.’
Rifkah said, ‘I’ll haf her on my hand zen. She might be hafing baby zat time. I don’t understand vy not she is pregnant, yet.’
‘The human female is slow to come to bearing-maturity, despite coming to sexual activity comparatively soon. Most species gestate from the first oestrus. Yet, while the average girl reaches puberty between twelve and thirteen, she won’t bear before fifteen. Notice how those black kids married off after first menstruation don’t have babies for several years? You’d think it’s intellectual development that Nature’s concerned with first in the case of human reproduction, wouldn’t you. The better the intellectual quality is likely to be, the longer fecundation is delayed. Still, you never know. The Ol’Goomun seems to make rules only to break ’em at will . . . unless it’s Old Tchamala that does the breaking. Look at our Betsy . . . never in season for the past five years . . . and now she foals in circumstances ripe to kill an old mare so gently reared.’
‘It vill be all right to tek her horse-hunting?’
‘She’d only be upset if left behind. Besides, gently handled, exercise should do her good.’
Jeremy and Prindy set out on the horse-hunt three days later. It was mid-morning, with the sou’easter just starting to sweep down over the lip of the escarpment, like a cool wave breaking. They had gone no more than a mile, when Prindy, in the lead on Betsy, drew rein, raised his hand to stop, and cocked his head towards the red wall. After a moment of listening, he called back to waiting Jeremy, ‘Aeroplane!’
Jeremy looked back towards the camp, perhaps to see if the flag were conspicuous. He had left instructions for it to be pulled down if any aircraft came close. Not that those at the camp could have heard, when he himself looked incredulous when Prindy, swinging back to him, added the information: ‘Sound like Fergus aeroplane.’ By the looking, as he sat his horse with ear cocked, Jeremy still hadn’t heard, when Prindy reached him and said, ‘Junkers all right.’
Then there it was, the pijak hum so well known of old.
Jeremy stared for a moment at the violet skyline, then said, ‘Better take cover. Can’t be Fergus, surely. Someone must’ve found the plane.’ He dismounted, led the conspicuous Snowball under a tree.
In a moment there was the Junkers, almost in line with them, shooting aloft from what must have been near tree-top level, now to avoid the downwash of the wind, with a roar that seemed likely to bring the red rocks down as it was sending the white birds up. Just short of them, she banked steeply to port, to turn to fly westward parallel with the escarpment. They saw only the glint of the Sun in cabin windows. She flew on, dropping to the level of the banyans, went only a short distance past the camp site, then turned to starboard, came heading back. Obviously her captain had known the location of the camp. ‘Must be Fergus,’ said Jeremy.
Then just short of them again, the aircraft banked to starboard, so that the pilot could be seen. Prindy cried, ‘That Fergus all right!’
No faces at the cabin windows.
Fergus made a 180-degree turn, to run back to the camp. Jeremy said quickly, grabbing at the matches-pouch on his belt, ‘Better make a smoke.’ Prindy leapt out and tore up a tussock of dry grass, then as Jeremy lit it, got more and dry leaves. As Fergus was coming towards them yet again, Jeremy tore a branch from a small eucalypt. The leaves blackened in the flame. The oil-cells burst, to send up a spiral of blue-grey smoke. Prindy had another branch. Fergus saw it just as he was on the point of turning again. He swung back to heading, came over them, banking to grin and wave, then climbed, to make a stall-turn and come sweeping back to them, now giving them a view of the starboard side, a glimpse into the coc
kpit as he turned to head now northward. Prindy yelled in the din. Jeremy shoved his head closer to him as the uproar receded. Prindy repeated it: ‘Mitjis Elvy!’
Jeremy looked astonished. He looked away after the plane. It had climbed somewhat and was turning again. Just about there was the clay-pan Fergus had used in landing here last time. He was making a circuit now to land. Then the sound of his motors waned. He vanished behind the trees.
The two pairs of grey eyes met, the boy’s inquiring, the man’s puzzling. Jeremy said, ‘I’ll go over and meet him. Nip back to the camp and tell Rifkah, will you, son? She probably kept planted. Then you can come and join me.’
Jeremy mounted, set Snowball ambling off in the direction his ears were pointed, murmuring to himself, ‘Alfie, eh? Now what the hell!’
Soon there through the scrub was to be seen the Junkers on the ground, looking like some huge hump-backed animal. He drew rein, to approach more warily. Only Fergus and Alfie Candlemas were to be seen, which surely meant they were the entire complement. There was no luggage to be seen, only some of those small cans of gasolene with which Fergus had loaded the Junkers. He called: Ku!
Only Fergus waved when he appeared, and then not as cheerily as might be expected. Indeed there was something strange in the way the pair watched his approach. Certainly their appearance was such. They looked like a pair of bushies, stockmen just flown in from a mustering camp. Jeremy’s laconic greeting made it seem as if he regarded them as such: ‘Goodday!’
‘How’s it, Jerry?’ Fergus answered, and came to take his hand, wearing the split-lip grin, but nothing of the former cheeky self-assurance of expression. It was only the lips that grinned. His face was set, eyes drawn. Alfie, wearing a similar expression, did not move except to fold her arms. She nodded like a man, and looked like one, in grey working pants and shirt.
‘Well,’ said Jeremy. ‘This’s unexpected.’
Fergus shrugged. ‘What isn’t these days?’ A pause. Then he said, ‘We’re headed for Portuguese Timor. Thought we’d look you up.’
Jeremy stared his astonishment, turned it on Alfie. Her lips turned down in a scowl, and black eyes snapped like her voice: ‘They were going to intern me . . . the bastards . . . in my own country!’
Jeremy breathed, ‘Intern?’
Fergus said, ‘They’ve interned the Free Australia Party.’
Still scarcely audible, Jeremy commented, ‘So that was it. Heard something on radio about internments.’
Alfie sneered: ‘Did you think it was the Communist Party?’ When he blinked at her she added savagely, ‘The Comms aren’t interested in the war against Japan . . . because Russia isn’t in it. In fact they’ve howled against our men coming home. All they want’s a second front in Europe, to help the Russians.’ She stopped breathless, to go on: ‘They were declared a subversive organisation by the Conservatives . . . for being pro-German while the Germans were allies of the Russians. Then Labor, the Great Australian Party, the moment they came to power, lifted the ban, gave them their blessing to be Russia First. But when it comes to us, the True Australians, not only do they declare us subversive, but class us with enemy aliens and put us behind barbed wire. That’s enough for me. The Commonwealth of Australia stinks as far as I’m concerned. The Yanks have got it now. Let ’em keep it. I’m getting out!’
Still looking at a loss and sounding it as he spoke, addressing them both, Jeremy asked, ‘Did you escape or something?’
Alfie, panting from her last effort, answered, ‘The dogs didn’t get the chance to lay hands on me. I was tipped off . . . by an uninterned German, no less!’
Jeremy concentrated on Fergus, who said, ‘They were going to draft me.’
‘Into the Air Force?’
The grin split the moustache. ‘Into the Chocko Commandos.’ Seeing Jeremy’s puzzlement, Fergus added: ‘Civil Construction Corps. Sort of slaves to the Yanks. Road-building, et cetera. That’s how I got back up here . . . with a lot of bluff . . . in your ute. Alfie came to me on the lam. So here we are.’
‘But . . . Timor!’
‘Should be easy enough. I’ve done the trip several times, know people there. With the sou’easter, couple of hours night flight.’
‘But you can’t just fly out of the country in wartime!’
‘I’ve checked on things. There’re Yanks at Beatrice now, building a big air-base. Got talking to some flying-types, about local conditions, easily got out of them the set-up round here. Apparently they haven’t got sufficiently well organised yet to make more than a scratchy patrol of the coast . . . and no navy at all yet.’
‘They seem to have a regular aerial patrol from Palmeston and back along the coast.’
‘How regular?’
‘As clockwork, it seemed to me. Struck me as mad as the German patrols of the English Channel . . . when the Pomms always rendezvoused with ’em and shot ’em down. If there’re Japs about and they don’t know their movements by now they’re pretty slow.’
‘Half these Yanks are of Hun descent, by their names, and the look of ’em . . . the other half Dago. It’s no wonder it took the Japs to get ’em into the war.’
Alfie cut in bitterly: ‘So that if they beat the Japs and hang on to the country, we’ll have been beaten by the Germans and Italians after all . . . without having had cause to make war on them, or anyone else. This country’s a lunatic asylum!’
Jeremy said dryly, ‘You can hardly call a man with the name of Douglas MacArthur a Dago or a Hun.’
Fergus said, ‘The way he talks, the Huns’ll have nothing on him when he comes to dealing with the Japs properly. Have you heard him broadcasting his boasts and threats to the Philippines, after doing a bunk for his life from there . . . I will return!’ Fergus assumed a brassy Yankee accent.
‘Yes . . . I’ve heard him.’
‘Don’t tell me you’re for him now?’
‘I’m not for any leader I know of . . . or I wouldn’t be here.’
Alfie cut in again, shrilly: ‘All you’re here for is the Jews, isn’t it, Jeremy . . . or at least the one you’re shacked-up-with in your cave?’
Jeremy went very red, swallowed hard, with difficulty asked her, ‘I beg your pardon?’
Alfie opened her mouth wide. However, Fergus got in first: ‘We spotted Rifkah at your camp.’
Jeremy now had control of himself, demanded sharply, ‘Well?’
Now Fergus was flushed and cutting of tone: ‘I understood she was to operate from the Mission and keep clear of you.’
Alfie uttered a trill of nasty laughter. Disregarding her, Jeremy briefly explained the circumstances to Fergus, concluding, ‘As a matter of fact, Prindy and I were just off horse-hunting to get them back to the Mission as soon as possible. Perhaps you’d be good enough to spot ’em for us from the air.’
Nodding agreement, Fergus asked, ‘There’s no naval or military establishment at the Mission, then?’
‘I couldn’t say that for sure. But I listen to Glascock giving his skeds, and sometimes speaking to ships and planes. I haven’t heard any other voice . . . and the Morse is always his slow stuff.’
‘Wouldn’t the blacks know?’
‘Only those who’ve been there recently. Rifkah and the others hope to contact them . . . otherwise they’ll go tchinekin in a canoe to see for themselves.’
‘If possible I’d like to take off from there. I left a fair plant of fuel.’
‘What about Glascock? Won’t he be bound to report what you’re doing?’
‘I hadn’t intended to tell him exactly. He hasn’t dobbed you in. I’d make out I was here only to join you, and wanted my gas.’
‘Why not make that a fact . . . instead of making this hair-brained trip?’
Alfie intruded, ‘And hide in a cave!’
‘I’m standing by to fight the war my own way, if need be . . .’
She cried, ‘If MacArthur lets you! We’ll he’s not stopping us.’
‘Unless you’re very lucky, any fool
with his finger on a trigger on either side will stop you.’
‘Then we’ll go down fighting whoever it is . . . because we’re armed!’
Jeremy looked at Fergus, who blinked. Then Fergus said, ‘There’s always been a gun aboard the old crate. Huns had it in a secret compartment. Operates under the floor of the cockpit, through a false venturi.’
Jeremy breathed, ‘God, you’re looking for trouble!’
Alfie cried. ‘We’re not running away from it!’
‘The Portuguese will intern you . . .’
‘Let them! So long as I’m not interned in my own country as an alien, simply for defying the tyranny of the USA and exposing the spinelessness of Australia . . .’ Alfie choked over the last words. Tears flooded the black eyes, but to be blinked back with harsh effort. She went on with rising passion: ‘I intend to broadcast to Australia . . . the truth . . . about our bravos who’ve become lickspittles to the Yank with his Almighty Dollar . . . about our women whoring with the Yanks like the women of a conquered country. Listen, Jeremy . . . if I weren’t here, I’d be behind barbed wire, with people called the enemy. If I’m caught here, I’d be dragged away to the barbed wire . . . only they’d never take me alive. What about you? If they get you . . . and they will in time . . . will you let them take you?’
‘Of course not. What I’m objecting to is your leaving your country in time of war . . .’
‘The only place I can fight for my country at present is outside it . . . pouring scorn on it for what it is, a rotten mongrel colonial community. What happened to my last effort . . . my book . . . and to me? No . . . this is my chance, and Fergus’s, to show true courage. If we can’t make it, it’s too bad. We’d be better off than if we stayed, because we would have died with honour, as Australians refusing to fight a war forced on us from outside, who would rather go outside and die free than stay and rot as eternally damned colonials!’ The passion of her delivery left Alfie panting and quivering.
Poor Fellow My Country Page 239
