by Jack Davis
SERGEANT: Afternoon.
CONSTABLE: Sorry, had to walk, got a crook leg playin’ footy.
SERGEANT: When was that?
CONSTABLE: Sat’dy… You were there.
SERGEANT: It’s all right, I just wasn’t sure whether you were on the field.
MISS DUNN arrives at the office.
JIMMY: Missus! Hey, Missus!
MISS DUNN: Good morning.
JIMMY: Missus, I wanna see Mr Neville.
MISS DUNN: I’m not sure if he’s in yet.
JIMMY: He’s in there, all right. I seen ’im, an asked ’im for a train fare.
MISS DUNN: And what did he say?
JIMMY: Sometin’ about catchin’ flies.
MISS DUNN: All right, I’ll mention it to him. There’s a bench on the back verandah, if you’d like to wait there.
MISS DUNN enters the office.
SERGEANT: [to the CONSTABLE] Oh yeah, you rated a mention in the ’Tiser.
CONSTABLE: I know.
MISS DUNN: [seating herself] Good morning, Mr Neville.
NEVILLE: Morning, Miss Dunn.
MISS DUNN: There’s a native outside, wants to see you about a train fare.
NEVILLE: [abruptly] I know. He can wait.
NEVILLE continues to read as JIMMY ambles around the back of the office and sits on the waiting bench. MISS DUNN opens the rest of the mail.
SERGEANT: [reading] ‘Towards the end of the first quarter, Kerr marked in front of goal… but kicked out of bounds. Towns eight: twenty-two; seventy points to Federals ten: twelve; seventy-two points.’
CONSTABLE: I know the score.
SERGEANT CARROL continues reading and chuckles to himself. NEVILLE lays an open letter on the desk in front of him.
NEVILLE: Miss Dunn, would you mind getting Sergeant Carrol in Northam on the line?
MISS DUNN picks up the phone and dials.
SERGEANT: [to the CONSTABLE] And you got another mention.
MISS DUNN: [into the receiver] Hello, operator; Northam nine please…Thankyou.
SERGEANT: [reading] ‘In front of goal, Gillet put Kerr in possession who… kicked out of bounds…’ Sea breeze in, was it?
JIMMY ventures into MISS DUNN’s part of the office.
JIMMY: S’cuse me, Missus.
CONSTABLE: [to the SERGEANT] I kicked a couple of goals.
JIMMY: [to MISS DUNN] I wanna see him.
MISS DUNN: All right, what’s your name?
JIMMY: Jimmy Munday. I wanna train fare; mixed goods leaves at eleven o’clock.
MISS DUNN: All right, I’ll ask him…
She goes to NEVILLE’s desk.
That native, Jimmy Munday, is waiting to see you. He wants a train fare.
NEVILLE: Well, he’ll just have to wait.
MISS DUNN: [returning to her desk] I’m afraid he’s very busy at the moment.
The phone rings in Northam.
He’ll see you later on.
The CONSTABLE answers the phone.
CONSTABLE: [together] Hello, Northam Police… Yes.
JIMMY: [together] [to MISS DUNN] Look, Missus. I just got outa goal an’ I wanna train fare back home.
The phone rings in the Chief Protector’s Office.
CONSTABLE: [to the SERGEANT] Niggers’ Department.
The SERGEANT takes the phone.
MISS DUNN: [to NEVILLE] He says he’s just been released from gaol.
[Into the receiver] Hello, Aborigines Department.
NEVILLE: Then he should have the price of a train fare.
MISS DUNN: [into the receiver] Yes, hold the line please. [To NEVILLE] Northam.
SERGEANT: Hello.
NEVILLE: [to MISS DUNN] Oh, he can have a travel voucher if he comes back after two.
He picks up the phone. MISS DUNN hangs up and relays NEVILLE’s message to JIMMY.
SERGEANT: Hello.
NEVILLE: Sergeant Carrol… Neville. Sergeant, we seem to be running into problems again. I’ve received correspondence from the Town Clerk to the effect that they are opposing the gazetting of the Guilford Road site as a native reserve. They consider it unsuitable.
SERGEANT: It’s got a water supply and a couple acres of grazing land.
MILLY and GRAN approach the police station.
NEVILLE: Apparently the Council has plans to develop it.
SERGEANT: What as?
NEVILLE: [reading] As a ‘recreation park, for boy scouts and picnic parties’.
SERGEANT: Pretty recent plans.
GRAN: [shouting] Chergeant! Chergeant!
SERGEANT: [to the CONSTABLE] For Christ’s sake, see who that is.
NEVILLE: Sorry, Sergeant.
SERGEANT: Between you and me and the gatepost, the Council’d prefer it if you sent ’em to Moore River or somewhere.
GRAN: Chergeant!
The CONSTABLE goes to the door.
NEVILLE: Most councils would prefer that, Sergeant, but the place is bursting at the seams.
GRAN: [to the CONSTABLE] I wanna see him.
CONSTABLE: He’s on the phone.
NEVILLE: You can only do your best, but I’m afraid you’ll have to come up with another alternative.
CONSTABLE: [to GRAN] You’ll have to come back later on.
GRAN: You ain’t the boss… Chergeant!
NEVILLE: I’ll be in touch soon.
SERGEANT: ’Bye, Mr Neville.
CONSTABLE: [to GRAN] I don’t want any lip from you.
NEVILLE: Better leave you to it.
NEVILLE and the SERGEANT hang up.
GRAN: [to the CONSTABLE] And I don’t want any from you. [To the SERGEANT, shouting] Hey, Chergeant, your man gettin’ cheeky out ’ere.
SERGEANT: [to the CONSTABLE] For God’s sake, let ’em in.
MILLY: Choo, choo. Mum, don’t shout.
SERGEANT: They can be heard all the way down the bloody street…
They enter. JIMMY barges into the Chief Protector’s Office.
JIMMY: Mr Neville.
NEVILLE: I thought you were told to wait outside.
JIMMY: I only want a train fare.
NEVILLE: I distinctly heard Miss Dunn tell you to come back after two.
JIMMY: Too late, mixed goods leaves at eleven.
NEVILLE: You can catch the Kalgoorlie train at five.
JIMMY: I don’t want to go to Kalgoorlie.
SERGEANT: [to GRAN and MILLY, taking out the ration book] Why weren’t youse here yesterday?
NEVILLE: [to JIMMY, exploding] Wait outside, then.
GRAN: [to the SERGEANT] Had to go t’ospital.
NEVILLE: A travel voucher please, Miss Dunn.
MILLY: [to the SERGEANT] My gel’s sick in ’ospital.
JIMMY ambles out and stretches out on the bench.
SERGEANT: [taking out packets of rations] Sugar, tea.
MILLY: We need blankets.
SERGEANT: [to the CONSTABLE] See if you can find some bi-carb.
There. Here’s your stick of nigger twist, Gran.
MILLY: What about blankets?
SERGEANT: [taking out a packet] Flour… What?
MILLY: Blankets. My girl’s in ’ospital with ’monia and pleurisy.
GRAN: An’ we want blankets.
SERGEANT: Sorry, blankets not here yet, Milly.
GRAN: Her name Mrs Millimurra. Proper church married, New Norcia, white dress an’ all.
MILLY: Got paper to prove it, and birth ’tificate.
GRAN: [at the approaching CONSTABLE] Not like some people, I bet.
CONSTABLE: Here’s your bi-carb.
GRAN: What about them wanbru?
CONSTABLE: What?
MILLY: Blankets!
SERGEANT: Look, there’s nothin’ I can do about it except put in a reminder to the Department in Perth. Why don’t youse go around to St John’s and ask the vicar?
MILLY: For blankets? He’ll give us nothin’, he’s like that.
GRAN: [adopting a praying attitude] Yeah, when he come to Gubment Wel
l he goes like that with his eyes closed and he says the Lord will help you, and now he prays with his eyes open, ’cause time ’fore last Wow Wow bit him on the leg… musta wanted a bit a’ holy meat.
MILLY: You forgot our meat order.
SERGEANT: No meat this week.
MILLY: What?
SERGEANT: Finished; in future no meat is included in rations.
GRAN: Why?
CONSTABLE: There’s a bloody depression on.
MILLY: What are we gunna do for meat?
CONSTABLE: There’s plenty of roos and rabbits.
GRAN: What about tjirrung?
CONSTABLE: What about what?
MILLY: Fat!
SERGEANT: Fat is classified as meat. I’ll see what I can do about the blankets for youse.
MILLY: I want ’em ’fore Cissie gits outa hospital.
SERGEANT: I can’t promise anything, but I’ll check with the Department.
GRAN: An’ you’re supposed to be native ’tector.
GRAN and MILLY take their rations and exit.
SERGEANT: Looks like I’m the one needs protectin’.
CONSTABLE: Should put a pinch of strychnine in the flour.
SERGEANT: Too late to adopt the Tasmanian solution.
NEVILLE: [yelling] Munday!
JIMMY stands and enters the office.
The eleven o’clock mixed goods, make sure you’re on it.
He hands JIMMY the voucher.
And try to keep out of trouble for a while.
JIMMY shuffles off at a snail’s pace.
You’d better get a move on if you’re going to catch that train.
JIMMY: Don’t think I’ll worry about the mixed goods, catch the five o’clock Kalgoorlie train instead. Haven’t been down in the big smoke for a few weeks, might have a bit of a look around.
NEVILLE: You get on that train—
JIMMY: [interrupting] You know one thing about Fremantle Gaol? Even some of them screws are polite—not like this place. [Walking off] Native Protector, couldn’t protect my dog from fleas.
NEVILLE: [returning to his office] Cheeky, too bloody cheeky.
SCENE EIGHT
Government Well, day. JIMMY is mending a pair of shoes. GRAN and MILLY sew bags together. SAM enters with buckets of water and sits down, exhausted. JOE enters with a sugar bag slung over his back.
JIMMY: There y’are, Joe, good as new.
JOE: Woolah! Moorditj!
JIMMY: Learnt me trade well, in Freeo.
MILLY: [to JOE] What did you get?
JOE: Fat, taters, onions.
SAM: You get meat?
MILLY: No boondah for meat.
JIMMY: Wish I’d known the meat ration was cut out when I saw Mr bloody Neville the other day.
GRAN: He take no notice of you.
JOE: Cissie ready to come home from hospital.
MILLY: How do you know?
JOE: Sergeant told me. Saw him at the Post Office.
SAM: When, today?
JOE: She’s waiting there now.
MILLY: Why didn’t you ask him to give youse a lift ’ome?
JOE: Him? Hah!
JIMMY: Only time blackfellas git a ride off him is when he’s takin’ you to gaol.
MILLY: Well, she ain’t walkin’ home, anyways. Sam, you better get a lend of Herbie’s cart.
JOE: It’s got the wheel broke, Mum.
MILLY: Then you’ll have to get a lend of old Skinny Martin’s.
SAM: Another hundred posts, I bet.
MILLY: Ne’mine the posts, long as we git her home.
JIMMY: Yeah, go and ask him, gnoolya, and I’ll solve the meat problem at the same time.
MILLY: What you talkin’ about?
JOE: Yeah, kongi, I know where his wethers runnin’.
JIMMY: Him, I know that bastard’s farm like the back a me hand.
JOE: Old Skinny might be bony but his sheep are cruel fat.
GRAN: You wanna watch out. Chergeant catch you, he give you six months just like that.
JIMMY: Oh, bugger old baldy.
JOE takes a knife and starts to sharpen it.
JOE: Woolah, sheep guts and lo-o-o-vely hot damper.
GRAN: Don’t git tjeuripiny, you ain’t got the horse and cart yet.
SAM: Don’t worry ’bout that, Mother-In-Law, as long as he reckons he’s gettin’ somethin’ for nothin’ he’ll be in it, kwonna tjuellara.
JOE: Come on, let’s get goin’, I’m hungry.
JIMMY: Well, he ain’t gitten it for nothin’ this time.
SAM: Better bring Wow Wow, help round the sheeps up.
GRAN: Put them shoes on, Joe.
JOE: Don’t need no dawg. Don’t need no shoes either, Granny, I can run better barefoot and faster than Wow Wow.
JIMMY: Come on, Gnoolya, we’ll git one of the skinny old bastard’s sheep and bring it home on his own cart.
MILLY: Me and Mum, we’ll wait for youse in the park, all right?
GRAN: Youse be careful now, you hear me?
MILLY: Come on, Gran.
JIMMY: [miming slitting the sheep’s throat] Mirri-up, mirri-up. Allewah koorkantjerri gnuny nooniny dininy, woort dininy.
SCENE NINE
The Chief Protector of Aborigines’ Office, Perth, day. MISS DUNN types while MR NEVILLE dictates from a list of warrants. SERGEANT CARROL approaches.
NEVILLE: Munday, Herbert Williams and wife Wooleen. Munday, James Emanuel. Munday, May Alice. Millimurra, Samuel… wife Millicent and three children: Joseph, Cecilia and David.
There is a knock on the door. MISS DUNN rises to answer it.
SERGEANT: Sergeant Carrol, Northam. I’m meant to be seeing—
NEVILLE: Sergeant, I wasn’t expecting you until later. Train on time?
SERGEANT: [entering] Not exactly, sir, I caught the seven-twenty mixed goods.
NEVILLE: When are you returning? Come through, sit down.
They sit at NEVILLE’s desk.
SERGEANT: On the five-fifteen Kalgoorlie train.
NEVILLE: Right, I don’t want to delay you, so we’ll deal with the matter in hand. Miss Dunn, would you bring the Northam file, please, and the warrants?
MISS DUNN locates the file, collects the warrants and brings them to NEVILLE.
Sergeant, as I mentioned on the phone, Doctor Aberdeen examined the natives camped at Government Well.
He goes through the file and finds the doctor’s report.
And found them to be… ‘rotten with scabies’, and as a result of—ah, well, various submissions, it’s been decided to transfer the entire native population to the Moore River Settlement.
SERGEANT: Yes sir. We can give up looking for a site for a new reserve, then.
NEVILLE: The transfer is a temporary measure, Sergeant. Well, I’ve got all the warrants, following your own census, Sergeant; a total of eighty-nine natives.
He hands over the warrants.
If that list changes at all, let me know and I’ll obtain any additional warrants. It’s essential that the town and shire are quite devoid of natives after the seventeenth.
SERGEANT: Yes, sir.
NEVILLE: I’ve arranged with the railway authorities for an AR coach and brake van to be at your disposal on the seven-twenty a.m. train on the seventeenth. It will arrive, I am assured, at ten-twenty-nine a.m. at Midland and I’ve arranged for the Midland Railway Company to attach both to a train to leave immediately for Mogumber. Should arrive at three p.m. You’ll be met and proceed on foot to a quarantine camp at Long Pool, just east of the settlement. [Handing him an order form] I’ve authorised expenditure of one and sixpence per native for food en route to be purchased in Northam, and for buckets of tea to be available at Chidlows and Muchea. Following your recommendation, Sergeant, no native will need to leave the train at any stage of the journey. I’ll leave it to your discretion what personal luggage is to accompany your charges, preferably as little as possible.
SERGEANT: What about conveyances? There’s a couple of sulki
es and a spring cart.
NEVILLE: I’m afraid if they don’t fit in the brake van they don’t go.
SERGEANT: What about horses and dogs?
NEVILLE: They certainly can’t go. You’ll have to make arrangements to store the property and look after the livestock left behind.
SERGEANT: How long is that likely to be?
NEVILLE: Well, your guess is as good as mine. Until the scabies are cleared up and a new reserve is gazetted.
SERGEANT: Or until after the election.
NEVILLE: I wouldn’t know about that.
SERGEANT: They won’t leave their dogs behind.
NEVILLE: No, but the superintendent won’t have any dogs coming with them to the settlement.
SERGEANT: What about a small road party to go with the conveyances and horses?
NEVILLE: Personally, I’d prefer to see them go in one operation.
SERGEANT: One officer could handle it, and it would avoid a lot of problems at my end, sir.
NEVILLE: All right, you’re in the front line. But I want as many as possible on the train, and definitely no dogs.
SERGEANT: No, I’ll attend to the dogs when I clean up the camp.
NEVILLE: [standing] Good, I don’t need to impress upon you the absolute confidentiality of the matter.
SERGEANT: Yes, sir.
NEVILLE: Well, I won’t keep you. You’ve got a couple of hours before your train.
SERGEANT: Yes, I’m going down to Boan’s to pick a few presents for the Mrs and the kids.
NEVILLE: Good, thank you for your co-operation. And don’t forget, no dogs.
SERGEANT: [standing] Thank you, Mr Neville. All the best for Christmas.
NEVILLE: And to you and yours.
The SERGEANT moves past MISS DUNN’s desk.
MISS DUNN: Goodbye, Sergeant. Have a happy Christmas.
SERGEANT: Same to you, madam.
The SERGEANT exits.
SCENE TEN
Government Well, Northam, day. CISSIE with the aid of a knife is looking for lice in DAVID’s hair. MILLY and GRAN sew. A car approaches.
CISSIE: Keep still!
DAVID: Well stop diggin’ a hole in me head.
CISSIE: Hold still, I got a big one.
GRAN: [looking up at the car] Gneean nitja koorling?
MILLY: Allewah, manatj!
CISSIE: They got Dad and Joe and Uncle Jimmy.
MILLY: Gawd, hope they haven’t been caught stealin’ a sheep.
Everyone is silent. The three men are escorted to the camp by the SERGEANT and CONSTABLE.
