The Breaking Wave

by Nevil Shute

  There was nothing of any particular interest in the diary until she disembarked at Sydney. At Suva a young married couple called Anderson came on board for the passage to Sydney; they were English born but resident in Australia for many years. From them she learned a good deal about the country that was useful to her.

  August 2nd. We docked today and I got a taxi and went to the Metropole. The Andersons say that anyone can get a job of any sort in this country and it certainly looks like it from the situations vacant columns in the paper. They say that lots of English girls come out and work here, usually in pairs, flitting about from job to job and seeing the country. I believe that’s the best line. Travelling by bus.

  Sydney is rather like Seattle, a bustling sort of place with bits of sea all round. Tomorrow I shall have to find out about buses, and probably leave here on Monday. I asked the Andersons where the Western District of Victoria was, and they said west of a place called Ballarat. I got a map today and found Ballarat. It looks as if it would be best to get to it through Melbourne.

  She had a talk with the chambermaid in the Metropole Hotel and learned of the acute staff shortage experienced by all hotels in Australia, and of the considerable wages that were paid. She left Sydney by bus early in the morning a few days later and reached Albury on the borders of New South Wales about the middle of the afternoon. She found Albury to be a prosperous country town, an attractive place with a number of hotels, good shops full of fine fabrics and Swiss watches, and a general feeling of well-being about it. She parked her suitcases in the office of the bus company and strolled out down the street to look for a job. Within half an hour she was a waitress in Sweeney’s Hume Hotel at a wage of twelve pounds a week, sharing a room with a Dutch girl who had been in the country for about three months. An hour and a half later she was serving dinner.

  August 5th. When Mrs. Sweeney asked me what my name was I said, Jessie Proctor. It went down all right, and it matches the initials on my case. I want to find out about Bill’s people but if everything’s all right I don’t want to be bothered, and Alan probably told them about me so that they’ll know the name. Everything’s a bit more under control this way.

  She stayed in Albury for a fortnight before giving up the job and going on. It was a good experience for her, for it enabled her to find her feet in the new country and to learn a little of its ways. The hours were not long but the work was strenuous; with Anna she was responsible for thirty-two bedrooms as well as serving all the meals and doing a good bit in the kitchen.

  She went on by bus to Ballarat, staying one night on the way in Melbourne but not working there. At Ballarat she repeated her experience in Albury; arriving about midday, by three o’clock in the afternoon she was a waitress in the Court House Hotel.

  August 25th. It’s bitterly cold and wet here. I always thought Australia was a hot country. They’ve got a Shell map of Victoria in the office and it shows Coombargana as a little spot on a sort of dotted line, near a place called Forfar. It doesn’t look as if Coombargana is a very big place and Forfar isn’t much to write home about. I looked up Forfar in a tourist guide and it’s got one garage and two hotels, the Post Office Hotel and Ryan’s Commercial. The Post Office Hotel is the best; it’s got eight bedrooms but Ryan’s Commercial doesn’t seem to have any bedrooms at all.

  I’ve been keeping my ears open to see if anyone said anything about Coombargana, but I haven’t heard anything. I think I’ll go on at the end of the week.

  She left two of her three suitcases in the station luggage room at Ballarat and went out in the bus to Forfar.

  August 30th. Well, here I am, and I’ve come all this way for nothing. Coombargana isn’t a village, it’s an estate. Apparently it’s a terrific place, one of these enormous Western District stations. Fourteen thousand acres, a big house, and God knows how many sheep. The Duncans are one of the big families of the neighbourhood. They’ve got about twenty men working for them all in houses on the property. Mrs. Collins always speaks of old Mr. Duncan as The Colonel. I suppose that’s Bill’s father.

  Well, there it is, and now I don’t know what to do. That’s what Bill meant when he said they had a sheep farm. I wonder if he was afraid of shooting a line?

  I’ve got a job here, so I’ll have to stay for a week anyway. I got off the bus and went into the Post Office Hotel and booked a bedroom and had lunch, and after lunch I asked Mrs. Collins if she’d got a job for a week or two. I said I was working my way round Australia and going on to Adelaide, and I showed her the letters I’d got from Albury and Ballarat, saying I was a good worker. She said it was the off season so she couldn’t pay much, but she’d give me six pounds and my keep if I didn’t mind helping out in the bar. I told her I’d never been a barmaid but I was quite willing, only I didn’t know the work. So I went down to the bar and Mr. Collins showed me how to draw the beer and told me how much it was, and I helped him when the evening rush started. Two men came in on horses about five o’clock, tough looking types. They were from Coombargana, boundary riders, whatever they may be. They tied their horses up outside like in the movies and came in and had about six beers each, and then rode off up the lane opposite the hotel. I asked who they were, and Mr. Collins told me. I asked what Coombargana was, and he told me all about it.

  I’ve been such a fool. I ought to have known that there was nothing I could do for them.

  NINE

  THE diary goes on:

  September 1st. I saw Bill’s father today. I was sweeping out the bar directly after breakfast and he drove up in a big car and got out and came in and asked where Mr. Collins was. I said I’d fetch him; he was down the yard feeding his pigs. So I did, and when I got back to the bar Mr. Collins introduced me and told the Colonel that I was English and working my way round Australia. He asked where my home was, and I said London. He said he wished more English people would do that.

  He’s chairman of the Shire Council, I think, and he was talking to Mr. Collins about local matters, something about getting electricity to Forfar and financial guarantees. He’s about seventy, I should say, and he doesn’t look a bit well, very white. He’s got a great look of Alan about him, much more than Bill. He drank one small whisky and water, but refused another.

  Alan and Helen are both in England, and have been for some years. Mr. Collins told me that, after the Colonel went away. He said that Alan was in Oxford, or had been, but he thought he was in London now. And then he said that Alan had had a crash, flying, towards the end of the war, and had lost both his feet. He came back here after the war and was at home here for a year or two, but they said the accident had changed him a great deal. He didn’t make friends or get about much and he was drinking a good bit, and after a time he went back to England. That was several years ago.

  The daughter, Helen, went to England soon after the war and married somebody there, and hasn’t been back since. Mr. Collins said that there had been a younger son, Bill, but he was killed in the war. Coombargana is six miles from here.

  Mrs. Duncan has arthritis and they don’t often see her in the village now. The family would be sort of local squires or something in England, but it’s not like that here. When Mr. Collins came into the bar to meet the Colonel he said, “Morning, Dick,” as if he and the Colonel were old friends. The family seem to be very much respected in the district, though. Mrs. Duncan used to run a Sunday School in Forfar up till about two years ago when she had to give it up because she couldn’t get about so well.

  I can’t get used to the idea of Alan hobbling about on artificial feet and hitting it up. He was such a terrific person in the war, obviously so good at his job and yet so quiet about it all.

  September 2nd. There were a couple of foreigners in for dinner, Lithuanians or something. After dinner they sat in the bar, the man drinking gin and water and the woman drinking beer. He was a weedy, poor looking specimen and the woman the fat, broad faced, Russian sort of type. When the bus for Ballarat stopped they went away on that, and Mrs. Collins
was in the bar and she said, “Well, that’s a good riddance.” I asked who they were, and she said they were the married couple from Coombargana. The Colonel sacked them because they were always on the grog. She said they can’t keep any help in the house because it’s such an isolated place. It’s six miles from here, but the nearest picture theatre is at Skipton and that’s about twenty miles. They’ve got an old cook who’s been with them all her life but it’s a big house and they need more than that, especially now they’re getting old. The girls from the village used to work there before the war, but now they all want to be somewhere near the movies and they can get such good wages in the city. Nobody seems to stay at Coombargana longer than a month or two. It’s not only Coombargana, all the other big properties are in the same boat. All the money in the world with wool up at its present price, but they’ve got to do their own housework just like everybody else.

  September 3rd. Mr. Fox, the postman, was in the bar this evening. He came out from England as a boy about forty years ago, from Beverley, in Yorkshire. We got talking when he heard that I was English, and I told him I was working my way round seeing the country. He said I ought to come out with him on his round; he starts off with the mail at about ten o’clock each morning in an old car and goes to all the outlying properties, getting back here about three or four in the afternoon. He takes the newspapers, too. He suggested I should go with him tomorrow if it was a nice fine day. It seemed too good a chance to miss, so I went and asked Mrs. Collins if I could go if I got up early and did out the bar and the dining-room before breakfast. She said I could, so I’ve set my alarm clock for five-thirty.

  September 4th. I’ve taken a job at Coombargana, as a parlourmaid. I did it on the spur of the moment without really thinking. I rather wish I hadn’t now, but it’s done and I go there next Friday. It’s only for a week or two till they can get another married couple.

  I went out with Mr. Fox and we called at every house on the way, of course. It’s a lovely countryside, rather like Salisbury Plain but on a much larger scale and with fewer houses and villages. All the houses wooden and rather new looking, except the very big properties which are quite different.

  We got to Coombargana about half-past eleven. It’s just like a big English country house with a long drive, stone pillars and iron gates permanently open on the road and an avenue of flowering trees and pines about half a mile long through the paddocks. The house stands by a river in a very beautiful place, though the house itself is as ugly as sin. It’s a big rambling two storied house built of brick I think, rather like a Scotch castle gone wrong. The grounds all round it are lovely and very well kept, acres of daffodils in bloom, and japonica, and camellias in the sheltered places, enormous great bushes of them beside the clipped yew hedges.

  We went to the back door and the old cook came out to meet us and took the post. Her name is Annie. She asked us into the kitchen for a cup of tea; apparently this is the usual routine. Mr. Fox introduced me and said I came from London, and Annie asked at once if I had met Mr. Alan there. The locals all seem very interested in Alan.

  While we were sitting at the kitchen table over tea Mr. Fox said something about the married couple and asked if they had anyone else. Annie said the mistress was trying the registry offices again but it was very difficult; they could only get the riff-raff to come out into the country these days. She said that for her part she didn’t want any more foreigners; she’d rather carry on and do the housework herself with what help they could get from the wives on the place though it was too much for one person. She said the mistress was trying for a Dutch girl, and that might be better.

  I liked Annie, and I said I wouldn’t mind coming for a week or two myself if it would help them, till they got someone permanent. I can’t imagine what made me say that; it just sort of slipped out. Annie was on it like a knife, though. She said that if I meant that she’d go and tell the mistress and she’d want to see me. I started hedging then; I said I could only stay for a week or two because I was going on to Adelaide and I didn’t want to let down Mrs. Collins at the Post Office Hotel and I’d never done parlourmaid work, but if Mrs. Duncan could make it right with Mrs. Collins I’d come for a short time.

  She said she thought the mistress was in her room still because she stayed in bed till lunch time this cold, wet weather when she couldn’t get out, but she would go and see. She came back and said the mistress was getting up and she would see me in half an hour. Mr. Fox had to get on, of course, so we fixed it that I’d stay and have lunch in the kitchen with Annie and he’d call back for me at about three o’clock on the way back to Forfar at the end of his round. He said it would only be two or three miles out of his way to do that.

  Annie said I’d better take a walk round the house with her to get an idea of the work before I saw the mistress. She took me first into the dining-room, a big room with a long polished table that I think she said was blackwood, all exactly like a big English country house, very good furniture. Then the hall which is the whole height of the building with a gallery all round it on the bedroom floor, and the drawing room, all beautifully furnished and with lovely flowers in the bowls. Mr. and Mrs. Duncan sleep on the ground floor in what used to be the billiard room because Mrs. Duncan can’t manage the stairs, because of her arthritis. There’s a study on the ground floor but the Colonel was in it so we didn’t go in there. We took a quick look at the top floor but it’s only guest rooms and Alan’s room if and when he comes home. Annie sleeps up there over the kitchen, and she showed me the room that would be mine, quite nice and with the most lovely view out across the lawn to the river and the pastures and the hills in the distance. There’s a great deal in the house to keep polished and dusted, but so few people it shouldn’t be too bad. They’ve got an electric floor polisher and a Hoover.

  Mrs. Duncan saw me in the hall, sitting in front of the fire. She’s terribly like Bill. She walks with a stick, very lame. She asked me about myself and I told her as little as possible; I said I was working my way round seeing the world and when I’d seen Australia I was going on to South Africa. She asked if I’d ever worked as a parlourmaid before and I said I hadn’t but I’d worked in hotels. She asked why I wanted to come to such an out of the way place, and I said that I wanted to see all of Australia and I hadn’t been able to see a big station property yet. I said I wouldn’t be able to stay longer than a week or two till they got someone permanent. She said she’d ring up Mrs. Collins and see what she thought about it, and let me know after dinner. She asked if I had any dark dresses because I was in my French blue jumper and grey skirt, and I said I’d got my dark blue costume. She said she wouldn’t want me to wear light clothes in the dining-room but she didn’t want me to ruin my best costume by working in it; she thought she had something that would fit me with a bit of alteration. It looks as though the servants dress in the old style at Coombargana, like in England thirty years ago. I’ll probably have to wear a starched white apron or something, over a black dress.

  She sent me back to have lunch with Annie in the kitchen and I got Annie to show me how to lay the table in the dining-room. They’ve got beautiful silver, and it looks so nice upon the polished table. It’s all got to be cleaned every week. They had cutlets for lunch, and new potatoes and green peas, and English Stilton cheese afterwards. There was only the Colonel and Mrs. Duncan. I asked Annie if they’d like me to serve them with the stuff in the entrée dishes and she said drily that they hadn’t had a parlourmaid who did that for years but they’d like it well enough. So I did it like that for them; they looked a bit surprised but I think they were pleased.

  After dinner Mrs. Duncan came to the kitchen and asked me to come out into the hall. She said she’d spoken to Mrs. Collins and it was quite all right, and I could leave on Friday. I said I’d have to go to Ballarat and get my suitcases and come back to them, and she said they’d pick me up in Forfar when the bus came in. They’re giving me eight pounds a week and my keep. The Colonel was there and they b
oth said that they hoped I’d be very happy with them. He said that in the afternoons, in my time off, I could go anywhere on the property and he’d tell the men to show me anything I liked.

  Mr. Fox came, and I went back to the hotel with him in time for the evening rush at the bar.

  She’s so terribly, terribly like Bill, it’s almost unbearable sometimes.

  September 8th. I think I must be crazy to have come here, but here I am. Colonel Duncan sent the foreman, Harry Drew, in to Forfar in a Land Rover to meet me at the bus and I drove out with him. His father came out from Gloucester forty years ago, but Harry was born here. He invited me to tea at his house on Sunday to meet his wife. I said I didn’t know what my times off would be, but I’d come if I could and I’d let him know tomorrow.

  I took my suitcases up to the room Annie had shown me. I always thought the servants in a big country house must have the whale of a good time and now I know it. The view from my bedroom is just perfect, the room is very clean and comfortable, and there’s a lovely bathroom just for Annie and me, with a shower. There was a dark grey dress laid out on the bed which fitted more or less. I put it on because it looked as if it had been left there as a sort of hint, rather a broad one, and then I went downstairs to start work. They have afternoon tea on a wheeled tea trolley and Annie showed me how to get that ready, and I wheeled it into the hall and through into the drawing-room. Mrs. Duncan was there in a chair before the fire and she showed me how she likes the tea arranged and made me turn round to show her how the dress fitted. It wants taking in a bit at the waist and it’s a bit long; I told her I’d have a go at it tomorrow afternoon. I wonder who had it before me.

  I laid the dining-room table then and washed up the tea things, and then I came up here to unpack. I’ve been sitting at the table looking out over the river and the paddocks in the evening light. A man went by just then on the other side of the river riding a horse, at the walk. It’s so very, very quiet and peaceful here.