Gripped By Drought

by Arthur W. Upfield

  “Unfaithful, Feng!”

  Feng nodded. He told her what he had glimpsed in the cane-grass house in the Atlas garden, described Ethel Mayne’s frantic desire to get away from Atlas shortly afterwards, and the reason he suspected actuated her insistence on the successive house-parties.

  “She fell in love with Cameron the first evening they met in the drawing-room over the way,” he went on. “I saw it in her eyes during the dinner which followed. For months she fought against Cameron’s influence, whilst he has been cleverly waiting, using every opportunity to attract her further. She is meeting him now in that little clearing in the centre of the Poison Belt–you know, where we three used to make believe it was a hunter’s camp attacked by Red Indians. Cameron, at last, has won, and she, knowing it, is surrendering. The question is, ought I to inform Frank of all this?”

  For quite a little time Ann pondered the question. Then, shaking her head, she said:

  “No. Frank must find out for himself, which he will do eventually. No. He would not appreciate your telling him. He is not very hard-worked now, is he?”

  “Not particularly so. All the sheep are in the White Well paddocks and towards the river. But Frank has been almost living out there. He and Todd Gray are cutting scrub for the sheep, doing all they can to help them through the drought. I rather fancy he is happier there than at home.”

  “The situation, Feng, is most delicate. If you do anything, poor Frank will probably never forgive you. You must let him find out for himself.”

  To this Feng made objection.

  “Let us look at it from this angle,” he said. “Here we have two married people suffering acutely from a loveless life. The effect of this suffering on Frank is, I can assure you, greater than the effect on him of the drought and the bad position of Atlas. The position of Atlas would not have become so bad as it is had Frank’s normal judgment not been clouded by domestic unhappiness, and I believe that the position of Atlas will become worse–even if it rains two inches to-morrow–should Frank’s unhappiness be prolonged. And it will be prolonged up to the point that Atlas is rid of Ethel Mayne. Ann, tell me this, I beseech you. Do you still love him?”

  He saw the faint flush rise in her face. Self was forgotten. He had a feeling of elation. He said:

  “Good! Assuming that Frank discovers grounds for and obtains a divorce, would you marry him?”

  His directness distressed her.

  “Oh, Feng! You must not ask me such questions.”

  “But would you?”

  “I–I might.”

  “Ann, don’t, please, leave me in doubt. Frank’s future, your future, my own, depends on conditions made clear between us now.

  Were he free, would you marry him?”

  The power of his now blazing eyes made her tremble.

  She could not disobey what amounted to a command.

  “Yes,” she said, and hid her face behind her hands.

  She did not see Feng cross to a bookstand and bring back a beautifully carved ivory box. Setting it on the table, he took from it a photographic print and laid it on the table before her.

  “Look!” he told her softly.

  She took up the print, looked on it, and sighed. It was a picture of a man and a woman in such positions of abandon that only their lifelong friendship excused him for offering it to her. There was no mistaking Alldyce Cameron and Ethel Mayne, locked in each other’s arms.

  “Now this one,” came the soft but inexorable voice.

  She gazed on a picture, less flagrantly passionate, of Cameron clasping Eva and kissing her. And at this Ann Shelley cried out.

  “Without these photographs it would be impossible of belief, would it not?” asked Feng, replacing the pictures in the box.

  Stooping, he brought his face level with and very close to hers, saying: “If I thought that Frank had the slightest chance of winning back his wife, I would shoot Cameron dead and gladly suffer the rope. But I know Frank has none. He was right when he said: ‘Oil and water will not mix.’”

  “It’s dreadful–horrible! Why not show Ethel that print of Cameron and the nursemaid?” Ann suggested.

  “Surely that would sicken her of the man?”

  But Feng was emphatic.

  “No. I will not consent to make the slightest effort to bring Frank and his wife together. The gulf is too wide. Far more than the drought she has been directly responsible for the ruin of Atlas. It was the Atlas money she loved, not Frank. When first she fell in love with Cameron he was comparatively a poor man, and she fought against her illicit love for him. Now that Cameron has come into money, and Frank is almost bankrupt, she is surrendering herself to Cameron. I cannot understand what is keeping her back on Atlas, unless it is the child. Whilst she remains Frank’s wife, Atlas will never rise. She has been the curse laid on it. She hates it: she hates everyone of us, we uncouth Colonials. Let her go! She must go. Not until Frank is rid of her, not until you have made him forget her, Ann, will he again be the old happy, courageous, far-sighted man he once was.”

  “Please, Feng, stop saying such things,” she implored, pained at the accuracy with which he was expressing her little secret hopes.

  “Cameron sends word to her when to meet him. I have found the place where they hide their letters, which I have taken the liberty to read. I don’t know who delivers his letters to the crack in the fallen tree in the Poison Belt clearing. Are the blacks on Tin Tin?”

  “Yes. The whole tribe are camped half a mile from the homestead. Aunty Joe lives in Government House. She helps the laundress.”

  “Then it can hardly be one of the blacks?”

  Ann Shelley, reaching forward, gripped his hands.

  “Let the matter drop,” she urged. “Things will all come right in the end. Believe me, they will. You can do no good by interfering.”

  “Perhaps not,” he agreed a little doubtfully. For a space they were silent. Then he said: “Come! I’ll escort you over the way. It is ten o’clock. Remember-you have only just arrived at Atlas. In the morning, I’ll run up and fix your car.”

  His eyes were masked. He was smiling in his old suave, almost mocking manner.

  3

  Ann’s manager was approaching threescore years and ten, which is under the span allotted to Australian bushmen. He was tall, straight, supple, and, because he shaved, hairless. Known to the men as Old Baldy, Leeson was well up in the first dozen of Australia’s shrewdest sheepmen. The only woman he loved was his wife, and the only woman he admired was Ann Shelley. The Saturday morning following her visit to Menindee, and later her one night’s stay at Atlas, she was engaged, as was her custom on Saturday morning, with her manager.

  The chief point of discussion this morning was if they should from then on maize-feed five thousand extra sheep–the best of the wethers–in addition to the breeding ewes. Leeson counselled it, knowing that when the drought broke the price of mutton would be high, and fat killers would fetch a good price; Ann demurred on account of the extra expense.

  They argued for an hour, and finally compromised by putting two flocks of ewes into paddocks where they could find a little feed, and reducing the ration of maize from one to half an ounce, with the proviso that should the ewes fall rapidly off condition the full ration should be restored them and the wethers must take their chance.

  Now, when Ann Shelley left the Tin Tin office at one o’clock, determined to relax till the following Monday morning, she left behind her in the office the worries of the drought.

  One of those mentally well-balanced young women, she was alive to the fact that nothing destroys good looks more quickly than worry. Her mental poise was reflected in her physical poise. Her body was in the perfection of health, and her mind was free from the neurotic trouble caused chiefly by idleness.

  The afternoon was spent talking with her companion on the cool veranda about the fashion journals that had arrived by the last mail, and of those other matters dear to women–a delightful form of relaxation to
one who throughout the week had talked and thought of little else than sheep and wool and wool prices. At four she indulged in a cool shower, and then drank afternoon tea on the veranda with her companion and her housekeeper. Had not a telephonic communication been made a little before sunset, she would have spent the evening reading a novel. The week-ends found her very feminine: the week days, cool, efficient, slightly masculine in her mental outlook.

  The house telephone-bell rang when the sun was dipping below the rim of the western scrub. When she picked up the instrument the book-keeper spoke:

  “Mr. Feng Ching-wei wishes to speak to you, Miss Shelley. Shall I put him through?” “Please.”

  “Hallo, Ann!” Feng’s familiar voice said to her. “I am glad I got you so easily. There is great trouble here. Little Frankie has been lost in the Poison Belt. Can you come at once and bring some of the blacks to track him?”

  “Of course,” she returned, consternation sharpening her tone. “Where’s Frank?”

  “He’s out in one of the White Well paddocks. I can’t get him before he returns to the White Well hut. You’ll hurry?”

  “I will. Good-bye!” She rang off, then rang again. The bookkeeper answered her. “Please run down to the men’s hut at once and ask Charlie Morris to come immediately to me here.”

  She was dressing when the companion came in to say Morris was on the veranda. Flinging on a wrap, she hurried out to him.

  “Charlie, get out the single-seater, and drive as fast as you know how up to the blacks’ camp and fetch Abie and Ned. Little Frankie Mayne is bushed in the Poison Belt. If Abie is not in camp, bring Larry.”

  Fifteen minutes later the single-seater returned with Abie, Ned, and Larry. Five minutes were spent in filling the petrol tank and attending to the lubrication. Ann took the wheel. Beside her sat Aunty Joe. In the dicky were Abie and Larry. On the left running-board crouched Ned. Ten miles from Tin Tin the radiator sprang a leak.

  CHAPTER XXII

  THE GATE - CRASHER

  I

  FRANK MAYNE and Todd Gray employed themselves every day walking from two to three miles into one of the paddocks adjacent to White Well, and there cutting scrub across the line sheep would take to walk to and from water. Only at the far ends of the vast paddocks was there left a little scanty straw-dry grass and herbage, and to get at this the sheep had to walk six to nine miles from water. As Smythe had told Feng Ching-wei, the greatest cause of constitutional poverty in sheep was incessant walking between water and feed. Todd’s and Frank Mayne’s efforts were directed to lessening the distance between feed and water for seven flocks.

  It had been a hot day in mid-November. When the sun rose, so had risen a stiff north-west wind which, aided by the heat, lifted up the sand and carried it over the land in dense cloud masses. That morning Mayne and Todd Gray had walked into different paddocks to cut scrub, each taking with him a roughly cut lunch, a billy-can and canvas water-bag, and this evening Todd Gray was the first to reach the White Well Hut. The ringing of the telephone-bell only met his ears when he entered the hut, for the wind still boomed and thrashed the branches of the solitary pepper tree.

  He had drunk all his water and was thirsty. The three dogs who had been with him all day shepherding a flock of sheep on the scrub he lopped, were then lying in the water-troughs cooling their heated bodies and lapping. Gray with an oath quenched his thirst before going to the instrument, the bell of which rang imperatively.

  “Hallo!” he called.

  The person at the other end of the line continued to ring with the perversity of a child, and the sound thundered at Todd’s ear-drums. “Blast!” he grumbled, holding the earpiece from his head. Then when the ringing stopped, he shouted before it could begin again.

  “Hey! Hi! Hallo!”

  He heard a woman sob, struggling to cease her sobbing so that she might speak.

  “Frank! Frank! Is that you, Frank?”

  “No, it’s me. Who’s speaking?”

  “Me. Who are you?”

  “Todd Gray. Is that Mrs. Mayne? Wot’s up?”

  “Is Mr. Mayne there? Is he?”

  “No. He’s not home yet.”

  “Where is he? Oh, God, get him quickly!” Ethel Mayne wailed.

  “I’ve been ringing and ringing for hours. Little Frankie is lost. He and Eva went out for a walk, and she’s lost him. And it’s getting dark, it’s getting dark. Oh, Frank! Get Frank at once.”

  Todd Gray did a wise thing. He actually shouted:

  “Hey! Wot the hell’s the matter with you? Take a tumble. Calm yourself. Wot’s that about Little Frankie? Where’s he bushed?”

  “In the Poison Belt. Tell my husband. Tell––”

  “That’s enough, Mrs. Mayne,” Todd roared into the speaker.

  “Where’s Mr. Feng? Where’s my missus?”

  “He and Mary are down in the Poison Belt looking for my boy.

  But they won’t find him. It’s getting dark.”

  “Ain’t there any nigs about? But no. Of course not. You ’unted them all away. Put me through to Menindee. Do you understand the gadget? Hurry!”

  To ring up Tin Tin the connection had to be made at the Menindee exchange. The postmaster’s daughter, the exchange operator, was at tea, the postmaster temporarily in charge.

  “Mr. Ching-wei got through to Tin Tin half an hour ago. Haven’t they found the youngster yet?”

  “No. Hey! Put me through to Thuringah. The Turk must send men.”

  “Mr. Ching-wei spoke to Thuringah after he broke off Tin Tin.”

  “Oh! All right. Thanks!”

  So Feng had rung up Ann Shelley for the blacks. By that time Cameron would be in the Poison Belt with some of his men. Todd passed outside. The wind blew dust in his face, but it was cooler and less strong. Heat and wind! The wind would have prevented the searchers from hearing the child’s frantic cries and him their shouts. The lad would run and run. The heat, even of the night, would dry him up. Likely enough, he would live through the night, but if his rescue were delayed much beyond sunrise it would be too late.

  “Women!” he almost shouted to the dogs still wallowing in the troughs. “One woman mooning along thinking of young Tom Mace and no thought in ’er head for that bonny boy; and another woman, high and mighty, looking down ’er long nose at the nigs and ’unting ’em away. They would have tracked the kid down by now. Gawd!”

  Taking another long drink of water, he filled a billy-can and hurried out to meet Mayne in the gathering gloom. They did meet half a mile from the hut.

  “Have a drink,” Todd said, offering the billy, and forcing all expression from his face. “Thanks! I’m darned dry, Todd. Water ran out about four o’clock.”

  Not until Mayne had quenched his thirst did Todd tell him of the catastrophe at Atlas, and watch him turn into a man of stone. Then Mayne burst out:

  “He’s got to be found. To-night! Come on, Todd!”

  He ran. Todd laboured behind him. They raced to the hut, Mayne straight to the car; Todd, sensibly, for the water-bucket, from which to fill the radiator. Before Todd was actually in the car, it was off as an arrow from a bow.

  There were seven gates between them and the homestead. The first was made of light wood. The car bumpers smashed it to splinters, for Mayne would not stop to open it. The second gate was built of stouter material. The bumpers smashed it, to be sure, ripped and tore it from its hinges, but a flying length of wood smashed the headlights. Fortunately, the engine was magneto-driven, but every light was put out. Leaning now over his side to view the track round the end of the windscreen, Mayne drove as might a madman, but with the cunning of a madman.

  Every yard of the twisting track he knew, every bend, every water-gutter. In the darkness he could hardly distinguish it. The scrub trees flashed past them as though they were sticks wielded by an invisible giant flailing the air in the effort to strike them.

  The third gate was of stout tubular iron.

  “Pull up here, or you’ll sm
ash us,” Todd yelled in Mayne’s ear.

  The car rocked round the bends, to the passenger invisible. Familiar horizons gave to Todd their position. The car leapt water-gutters as a thing insane for speed. Todd so far forgot himself, when they passed a solitary giant pine tree, as to yell: “Pull up, you fool! Do you want us to walk fifteen miles?”

  Mayne jammed on the screaming brakes. The wheels skidded in the deep sand. The car lurched sideways, stopped sideways in front of the iron gate. Then Todd was on the ground, jumping to the gate. Swinging it open, he leapt for the car when it shot through the gateway, and before he had gained his seat it was travelling at thirty miles an hour.

  The fourth gate shared the fate of the first two. Between it and the next the car, meeting heavy drift sand, almost turned over, so severe was the sudden skid. Mayne was braking to stop before the fifth gate, but crashed through its heavy timbers. A part of it lay over the wrecked bonnet and across the smashed windscreen whilst they hurtled on. Todd struggled to remove it, and was flung back into his seat with terrific violence when for the second time the car skidded in sand, seemed for a moment to dance on a wire, and stopped with the engine facing the way they had come. A third skid sliced off the off-side running-board, and the tree that did that damage wrecked the hood, which collapsed.

  “Go easy over this blasted creek!” roared Todd, knowing that immediately in front lay a steep-banked creek where the road took a hairpin turn in negotiating it. “Go easy, damn you! They want searchers on the Poison Belt, not corpses six miles from the river.”

  The last gate wrecked the radiator. They then had one mile to travel to reach the homestead. They had covered half the distance when the engine seized. Useless, the machine was as nothing seen outside a car-wrecker’s shop. The two men ran the last half-mile. Within the Atlas office was a light. Mayne shouted before he reached the door. A woman came running out.

  “Frank! Frank! They can’t find Little Frankie,” she sobbed.

  2

  With Todd Gray at his heels, Frank Mayne reached the Rest House in the Poison Belt, neither aware that behind them ran Ethel Mayne. A hurricane-lamp was raised to the level of Mayne’s face. The flame flickered violently in the raging wind. Red dust swirled and reddened the light.