The Woolgrower's Companion

by Joy Rhoades

  ‘I’m sorry. But you’ll go home, as soon as the war is over.’

  She was suddenly bold. With her eyes on the beans, she asked him, ‘Do you have a sweetheart there?’

  ‘Sì. Before. Then I must go in the Army. When I come back? But she marry.’ He shrugged and looked away, and Kate felt an odd shiver of relief.

  ‘I’m glad you’re here. Not in a POW camp, I mean.’

  ‘Some cages have not the bars, Signora.’

  They were silent for a moment.

  ‘You want to go home,’ she said, and felt an odd sadness come over her.

  ‘Sì.’

  ‘But Amiens is not so bad for you? Surely?’

  ‘Amiens?’ He looked into the air, to give the matter thought. ‘Amiens, she is good.’

  Kate smiled, relieved.

  ‘And Signora? She is also good. Much good.’ He grinned at her, teasing now.

  Kate turned quickly away. Dangerous ground – dangerous for both of them.

  Late that afternoon, Kate was in the kitchen finishing the potatoes when Meg appeared on Fiva, just before dusk. Canali was at the gate, on his way back to the single men’s quarters. Kate washed her hands at the sink as Meg stood holding Fiva’s reins, speaking to Canali. Kate frowned. Only when the POW headed off into the half-light did Meg loop Fiva’s reins around the fence.

  ‘You all right?’ Kate said as Meg came in.

  ‘I suppose.’ Meg took a breath. ‘I’m worried about Robbo. And I’m a goose.’

  ‘Why? You want a cup of tea and a chinwag?’

  ‘No thanks, to the tea. I just needed a ride, to stop worrying about Robbo. And you’re my turnaround point.’ Meg sat at the end of the kitchen table. ‘But I am a goose. I was blabbering to Luca about Robbo. I’m worried you see, that, that, that Robbo’s … Well, that he’s dead and that we just don’t know yet. It comes over me … that he’s dead … and then I can’t breathe.’ Meg flashed a sad smile, the gap in her teeth showing.

  Kate hugged her, then went outside with her. Meg pulled herself up onto Fiva, who turned unprompted for home. As horse and rider disappeared down into the gully and the late-afternoon light, Kate heard the mournful braying of a hungry steer. She willed the date of the POW meeting to come quickly, so the captain would have to make good on his promise to buy the cattle.

  CHAPTER 19

  To the detriment of clip uniformity and so to the great displeasure of the woolgrower, it remains within the bounds of actuality that a black-woolled lamb may be born to a white ewe and white ram.

  THE WOOLGROWER’S COMPANION, 1906

  Kate was on wet knees scrubbing a mark off the kitchen floor when she heard the first truck. She looked up at the clock. Twenty past two. The graziers with their POWs were early. Her father had been in his office since lunch. She’d not even told him about the meeting – it was easiest, and he never emerged before dusk now.

  Daisy came in from the verandah with the broom and, for some reason, let the gauze door bang behind her. ‘Tindervale fellas are comin,’ she said. It came out with a sigh.

  Kate looked up from the wet floor. ‘You all right, Dais?’

  She paused before she spoke. ‘Yeah, Missus.’ Kate went back to scrubbing. Daisy was not given to grumbling, but she hadn’t been herself of late. As the truck pulled up, Kate tiptoed across the wet floor and went out. Bill Riley had the Tindervale truck pulled up parallel to the fence, his two POWs sitting in the truck’s tray. Kate hadn’t seen him since she’d bought the grain at Babbin’s. He beamed at her, his hat in his hands, freckles and sunspots peppering his scalp under thinning fair hair. ‘Afternoon, Mrs D. Where do you want us?’

  ‘Mr Riley. The captain wants them down at the woolshed. You know the way?’

  ‘That I do,’ he said. ‘And did you hear the Yanks and the Philippine fellas took Manila?’

  ‘Yes? That’s wonderful.’

  ‘Gettin there, gettin there. All we need now is some rain, eh?’

  They’d had nothing, and in a normal year the month would deliver a couple of inches.

  ‘Ya father about?’

  Kate shook her head, hoping he wouldn’t emerge.

  But behind her, the gauze door banged. Her father’s voice boomed across the dead lawn. ‘Bill, you old coot. How are ya?’

  Kate was relieved to see her father was presentable.

  ‘We’re here for the meeting,’ Riley said. ‘The POW fellas with Captain Rook.’

  Her father looked blank.

  ‘Remember, Dad?’ Kate said, swallowing. ‘The captain asked if they could come here.’

  ‘All of em?’

  ‘Only for half an hour, he said.’ Kate’s voice faded.

  ‘How ya been, Ralph?’ Riley asked.

  ‘Orright. Put your blokes on the lawn here, Bill,’ her father said.

  Kate opened her mouth in alarm.

  Riley saw it. ‘Woolshed’s all right, Ralph. Boys’ll be out of the way up there.’

  ‘No, no. We’ll have em here.’

  Bill Riley smiled an apology at Kate and waved his men down out of the truck.

  Harry appeared, as the two POWs sat on the dead lawn in the shade of the trees. ‘What about the woolshed?’ he asked Kate.

  ‘Dad wants the POWs here. Can you run and tell your uncle?’

  ‘Grimesy’ll blow a gasket. He had the boys clean out the shed this mornin.’ But Harry went off, ill-timing a kick at a black chook by the fence.

  Her father and Bill Riley stood a bit inside the fence, chewing the cud about the war and the drought. Kate thanked her lucky stars it was Mr Riley who’d arrived first.

  An Army staff car pulled up at the fence, Corporal Oil driving Captain Rook, with the little translator in behind.

  ‘Mrs Dowd,’ the captain said, climbing out of the car. He turned to Oil behind him. ‘Corporal Boyle, you wanna start the roll call with those blokes?’

  Oil sauntered across to the POWs on the dirt lawn, with a clipboard in hand.

  The captain looked back at Kate, his ruddy face thoughtful under his slouch hat.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’ll make myself scarce. So you can get on with it, with no ladies about. And thanks, Captain. For buying the cattle.’

  ‘Don’t mention it. To anyone, if you follow me.’

  A second truck with POWs in the back came up out of the gully, and another one behind it. Her father went to the gate as the Amiens truck arrived from the woolshed. Bottinella dropped to the ground from the tray, smoothing his beard then feeling in his shirt pocket for cigarettes. Canali came next, then helped Harry down as Grimes and Ed got out of the cabin.

  ‘Harry,’ Kate called. ‘You better come inside with me now.’

  He took one pace back, his arms tight by his sides, and spun around like a soldier on parade, before he ran off, disappearing between the trucks. Kate shook her head. Damn that boy.

  Inside, she went straight through the kitchen and into the laundry, where she found Daisy. The bucket sat upended, rinsed and draining on the laundry sink, with the mop already outside on the line. Daisy peered round the doorway to look through the kitchen windows at the POWs filling up the dead lawn. ‘Lotta fellas here, Missus.’

  ‘It was a mix-up. They’re meant to be at the woolshed.’

  ‘We gotta feed em?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Lucky, eh? Big mob.’

  Daisy went out the laundry door and, to Kate’s surprise, sat down on the step to wait out the meeting.

  There were dozens of POWs now, sitting, standing and smoking. They seemed barely changed from those men who had climbed off the train two months before, just better fed now, not camp skinny. Harry sat himself at the front of them, but Canali called for him to come back to him and Bottinella.

  Captain Rook came up the verandah stairs and shot a look her way. Kate dived back into the laundry.

  ‘Attention all.’ The captain held a hand up but it had no effect. Canali put out an ear-splitting whistle and t
hat quietened the POWs.

  ‘All right, you blokes. You’ve probably heard it already, but we’re down one POW in this district.’

  He stopped and let the translator proceed. The man stumbled over some words. Then the captain went on slowly. ‘Private Piero Salentino has been taken under escort back to Hay POW Camp, where he is to stand trial for fraternisation.’

  As the translator proceeded, one word – fraternizzazione – jumped out at Kate. There were murmurs in the crowd of POWs, and for the first time their seriousness began to drop away.

  ‘But, Captain,’ a POW called out. ‘She catch me.’ He banged his index fingers together and the men around him laughed. Harry copied the gesture over and over, making Bottinella chuckle; in the laundry Kate frowned.

  ‘I run but she so quick, Captain,’ another called.

  The captain wasn’t having any of it. ‘You will be charged – this is a criminal offence – if you fraternise. If convicted, Private Salentino goes to prison. He would serve out the years of his sentence in a military prison here in Australia. He will not be repatriated to Italy after the war until his sentence is completed.’

  When the man had finished translating the last piece, the crowd was still. Kate was shocked – prison for that? With the lady willing? On the lawn to the right of Bottinella and Canali and Harry, a man got to his feet. It was the Riley POW, the older one. He was angry, his eyes narrow, and he spat his words out. ‘You. You tell us this. Stop us at women. But Italy, she not fight you, not for two years.’

  The POWs sitting on either side of him nodded, and then the man’s voice got louder. He shook a fist at the captain and Oil and the translator on the steps. ‘You keep us prisoners. Pay us shit. We are slaves. Schiavi.’

  Schiavi. Schiavi. The chant went up, a few fists in the air, a few hands with cigarettes as well, like a mob at a fight. Bottinella and even Harry joined in. Kate got a look at Canali. He sat, silent, unmoved by the yelling.

  ‘All right, all right,’ the captain said. Kate’s father went forwards from the sideline and put his hands above his head to stop the noise. She sucked in a breath, hoping he’d not get more involved. But the POWs stilled and her father stepped back as the captain spoke again.

  ‘I know you blokes think you got it hard. Orright? But I’m just telling you the rules. When this war’s over, you’ll all go home. That’s that.’

  The man translated, and there was more chatter in the crowd. Rook put a hand in the air again. ‘Look. That’s it. To your transport now.’

  Kate went onto the verandah and the captain walked through the POWs, a mass of shifting men like sheep in yards. Her father stood at the gate, farewelling each. Kate was relieved. It was one of his good days. She went inside, quickly, before her father got back. She wanted to ring Addison, to arrange to see him, to try to extract any sort of promise that he’d help. An Army cheque for the cattle was coming, not that he knew that. In the meantime, she wanted to keep him on-side. She’d invite him to tea; he’d be out like a shot.

  And he was. The following Saturday, in the middle of the afternoon, with her father safely asleep in his office, Kate sat on the verandah with the bank manager. ‘More tea?’

  Addison passed his cup and saucer to her. ‘Thank you, Mrs Dowd. Or may I call you Kate?’

  She concentrated on pouring the tea. When his cup was full, she set the teapot down on the small table between them and forced her mouth into a smile. ‘Yes. Do. Call me Kate.’ She could hear Daisy moving about in the kitchen, and she was glad Addison could too. He smiled and looked back out across the paddocks. ‘An impressive vista, Kate.’

  Vista?

  ‘And the paths across the paddocks – sheep tracks – are most pronounced from up here. Like lines on one’s palm.’ Addison turned to her, proud of his simile. She didn’t tell him the tracks were only visible in a drought.

  ‘I thought about what you said, Mr Addison, when we met last month. You’re right, it is hard to deal with things, with Jack away and with Dad sometimes not so well,’ Kate ventured. ‘So I’m grateful you suggested we chat, you know, about the place.’

  ‘Anything I can do,’ he said, his eyes on her, adding, ‘Kate.’

  He stood up and walked to the edge of the verandah, his back to her. It struck her that he was chicken-like in build, skinny and scrawny. He’d be a boiler if they had to eat him.

  Vittorio Bottinella appeared on the track up from the crossing. He was pushing an old bicycle, its tyres flat and some spokes missing, one hand on the handlebars, a cigarette balanced between the fingers of the other. She wondered where he’d got the bike and where he planned to ride it. Officially, the POWs were not allowed more than a mile off the place, and then only on Sundays with a grazier escort. But that didn’t worry Vittorio. He waved to them as he walked by, his beard split with a wide smile.

  ‘Odd fellow, that one,’ Addison said.

  ‘Yes.’ Ed called Vittorio PBV, for poor bloody Vittorio, because he was clapped out, happy as Larry one minute, down in the dumps the next, loony from too much war and too much time as a POW. And he was Vittorio now, not Bottinella, a part of things. Even Kate was calling him that.

  ‘So. Mr Addison. Could you help? If I can get some money? I know everything has to be by the book, but what do you think?’

  ‘I think you should be packing up to leave Amiens, Mrs Dowd, that’s what I think.’ He watched Vittorio wheel the bike, disappearing over the rise.

  ‘But if I could somehow make a payment?’

  ‘Where would you get this money?’

  She shrugged. ‘Just suppose. Would you help?’

  He sighed and then smiled as if at a child. ‘I would always try to help any customer, procedures permitting.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Addison. Thank you.’

  ‘But truly, Mrs Dowd, I feel it is my place to tell you. My offer of assistance is academic, given how much you owe. You have to clear the overdraft, you see. Otherwise the bank will enforce eventually.’

  ‘Still, I’m grateful, Mr Addison.’

  He smiled slowly. ‘Please. Call me Alwyn.’

  CHAPTER 20

  Like his more cautious handlers, a sheep will move towards an open area and can rarely be persuaded to enter a place from which there is no apparent escape.

  THE WOOLGROWER’S COMPANION, 1906

  Kate woke with a jolt in the night to a noise in her room. ‘Dad?’ she said.

  She heard his breath, laboured, as if he were upset. A wooden joint creaked in her bedroom chair.

  ‘You have a bad dream, Dad?’ Her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. He was sitting in the chair in his pyjamas, looking at his fists in his lap. She got out of bed and went to him, taking his hand. Above her, a breeze brushed the jacaranda tree against the corrugated iron roof like a broom.

  ‘C’mon, Dad.’ He rose and followed her to his room without any trouble, for which she was grateful. She tucked him in, kissed his stubbly cheek and returned to bed.

  Within ten minutes, he was back, standing in her doorway. She got up again. ‘Are you thirsty?’ Silence.

  She led him back to bed. ‘Stay in bed, Dad,’ she said, tired. ‘Please?’

  ‘Good night, daughter.’

  Back in her own bed, Kate lay awake, listening for her father’s movement in the house. The minutes went by, and she heard only the soft breeze in the eucalypts round the house. As she tried to sleep, Canali crept into her thoughts. Much good, he’d said. ‘Signora? She is much good.’ She laughed as she thought of his grin as he’d said that. And whenever they were working in the garden alone, she found her gaze drawn to him, and his would be on her. It was more than that. If they touched accidentally – as she helped him tie up a stake or shift a vine – that touch sent heat through her body.

  Kate tried to push him out of her mind, and thought of the lecture Captain Rook had given the POWs. Fraternizzazione. She rolled over in bed and thought of Jack. But Jack could not help her family, and he’d been gone much long
er than she’d known him. Her thoughts went back to Canali. Pulling the vine off the roof, digging dirt beds in the hard soil, gently tending a vine, he was always there, talking with her. Watching her. Kate smiled in the dark and felt herself falling asleep.

  ‘Katie?’

  She sat up, groggy. ‘Dad. I’ll take you back to bed.’

  ‘Cuppa tea, Katie?’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘And a bikkie?’

  He seemed almost himself, so she pulled on her dressing gown, and went into the kitchen, him trailing behind her like a child. She filled the kettle, put it on to boil and yawned widely.

  ‘Tired?’ he asked.

  She looked at him and they laughed. ‘You need to sleep, Dad. We muster tomorrow. Remember?’

  He nodded. He’d taken it well when she’d finally told him she had sold the cattle to the Army. ‘You ridin with em?’

  ‘They’re short-handed.’ She didn’t tell him Grimes was against it. Ed had persuaded him, just.

  ‘You watch yourself, eh?’

  ‘Ed’s putting me at the back. The boys’ll go after the breakaways.’

  ‘Good enough.’

  Kate poured boiling water onto fresh tea leaves in the pot. Sugar. He needed sugar. She put the bowl in front of him and offered him a biscuit. ‘Anzac bikkie?’ She held the open tin out.

  ‘I lost somethin.’

  The tin went on the table. ‘Pardon?’

  ‘The sapphire, y’see. I hid it t’keep it safe.’ He stared into his tea.

  Kate stopped, the mug at her lips. ‘What did you say, Dad?’

  ‘It was f’you, the sapphire.’

  ‘From Mr McGintey?’ He was hunched forwards, his hair mussed with sleep, his eyes red with sleeplessness. She willed him to be all right, just long enough to tell her.

  ‘Better than cash in a bank, a sapphire is. For a lean time. Ya can hold this in ya hand.’ He looked down at his palms.

  ‘Did you hide it?’

  He nodded. ‘Keep it safe.’