The Complete Stories of Alan Marshall

by Alan Marshall

  With the leg tightly clasped in her hand she entered the hut. She walked with resolution. As if bestowing a blessing on the hut and its inmate she kept repeating, ‘Uh, uh, uh,’ in a tone calculated to convey her peaceful intentions.

  An old Irishman occupied the hut. He was employed to milk the cows and tend the garden. For three weeks he had been ‘on the booze’. Every six months he broke out. Nothing would be seen of him for some weeks then he would emerge with haggard face and bleary eyes to go about his work in silent remorse. He would gradually regain his cheerfulness and commence saving for another bout. When the time of his drinking approached he would become restless and the station-hands would say, ‘Old Dan will break out any day now.’ Then would come a decision, a harnessing of the old horse to the jinker and a trip to the township. Later he would return laden with bottles and disappear into his hut. There he would remain till the last bottle was emptied.

  He had fought in Palestine during the war. He had no friends. No one ever visited him in his hut during these bouts. The boss said, ‘Leave him alone. He will come round.’ So they left him alone. All except Mary.

  She stepped from behind the door waving the sheep’s leg. Old Dan did not look up. He was seated at the end of the table gazing at the bottle-littered floor. Successive tremors sped through his body. The nerves of his face twitched. Through his half-open mouth his tongue could be seen fluttering like a bird in a cage. He made purposeless movements with his hands. He lifted them to his face, dropped them to his knees. He started as if at the sound of an angry voice. He glanced quickly round the hut and half rose from his chair.

  Mary confronted him. She held up the sheep’s leg and said, ‘Uh.’ Old Dan was looking towards the far end of the hut and muttering to himself. He suddenly stood up. ‘I crossed the Jordan,’ he said loudly. He waited, listening, as if for a denial. ‘I crossed the Jordan,’ he repeated. He lowered his head. He began mumbling. ‘Yes. Yes. I crossed it.’ He jerked himself erect and shouted. ‘I crossed the Jordan, I say.’

  Mary placed the sheep’s leg at his feet. She began a tour of the hut. Old Dan suddenly rose and brushed past her. Mary lost her balance. She sat down heavily. Her face slowly moulded itself into an expression of pain. Her mouth opened. Old Dan was drinking from his last bottle. The sound he made drew her attention. She forgot to cry. Her smile returned. She reached forward and drew one of the bottles on the floor towards her. She stood it up between her legs and thrust a finger into its mouth. She then tried to spit into the bottle. Some saliva fell on to the floor. She became interested. She pushed the bottle impulsively to one side and, spreading her legs wide apart, she leant forward and began spitting into the space she had made. She then rubbed her finger in the spittle and regarded the mess with satisfaction. She grew tired of the game. She wiped her smeared hand on her napkin and stood up.

  Old Dan had placed the empty rum bottle on the table and resumed his seat. He was still twitching but more violently. His tortured face moved slowly from side to side directing his gaze high on the hut’s walls. ‘Pat,’ he moaned. ‘Where are ye, Pat?’

  Mary placed her hand on his knee. ‘Oh,’ she said, and pointed to the rum bottle. He took no notice of her. She tried to reach it herself but her hand could only grasp the edge of the table. She made futile movements with her fingers. She withdrew her hand and crawled underneath the table with the idea of making an attempt from the other side. But a form was in the way. She returned. She picked up a bottle and began to bang it on the floor.

  A cry came from the mouth of Old Dan. He leapt to his feet and whipped into the crouch of a wrestler facing an antagonist. His eyes were full of fear. He stepped back, glancing from side to side as if seeking escape. He sprang towards a shelf in the corner and seized a butcher’s knife. The blade was keen as a razor. He backed to the wall holding it in a defensive position in front of him.

  Mary took a step towards him. He screamed in terror. She stopped. He watched her, scarcely breathing. The nerves of his cheeks again began to twitch. ‘Oi crossed the Jordan wi’ ye, Pat,’ he whispered as if it were an entreaty.

  The little girl gurgled with delight. She placed her legs apart and crouched with her hands on her knees like a wicket keeper. She waved her arms. Her napkin dropped on one side. A fold came below her knee. With her arms retained above her head she looked down at it with a disturbed expression.

  Old Dan sprang to a position in front of the fireplace. Mary took a step towards him, pointing to her napkin and saying, ‘Uh.’

  ‘He’ll get ye again, Pat,’ he yelled. He hurled the knife at her with all the force of which he was capable. It spun in glittering circles, passed a hair’s breadth above her black head and clattered against the wall beside her.

  Mary turned and looked at it. With a pleased exclamation she hurried to pick it up. She did not bend forward from the hips to grasp it but squatted in the manner of an Indian fakir. She stayed in this position and turned the knife over and over in her hands looking at its glittering blade and dull handle with great interest.

  She stood erect, swayed a little unsteadily, then, clasping the knife to her breast, took a few hurried steps towards the door. She expected pursuit. But there were no cries of anger or command behind her so she stopped and, with pleased surprise, looked back at the trembling man cowering against the wall. She turned and walked back to him holding the knife aloft and making unintelligible sounds of friendliness. With a slavering, contorted face he watched her approach. He yabbered with fear. She raised the knife to his withdrawn, spread-fingered hands. He cried out in terror and leaped violently sideways. He collided with the table. He fell. He turned and clawed at the edge. He scrambled across the top and stood on the form against the wall, crouching in the corner and looking at her with horror-stricken eyes.

  Mary was delighted. She waved the knife. The keen edge flashed past her animated face. ‘Uh, uh, uh,’ she cried.

  He reached an imploring hand towards her. ‘Pat,’ he entreated. ‘Ye would not kill me wi’ the knoife. It’s meself that saw the Arab stab ye. Oi killed him, sure and Oi did. On the sand an’ him lookin’ at the skoi. God be wi’ ye, Pat. It’s ye frind Dan that Oi am. Dan . . .’

  Mary watched him in silence. A different expression came over his face. A hopeless despair took the place of strained terror. He suddenly stepped from the form and slumped into his chair. He bent his head above the two hands he rested on the table.

  Mary dropped the knife. She picked up the sheep’s leg and held it towards him. He took it from her not quite understanding what he was doing. His hands returned to the table. His knuckles shone white. Tufts of wool projected from between his fingers. He lowered his head to his clenched hands. The cloven hoof rested against his forehead.

  Mary made another attempt to get the rum bottle on the table then left him. She descended the steps backwards, her hands sharing with her feet the weight of her body.

  She set out to find the stranger. He was sitting on the veranda of the homestead. She stood before him. She pointed towards the hut and said, ‘Uh.’

  ‘Oh! so you are speaking now, are you?’ smiled the man.

  Mary regarded him steadily, her raised arm still directing his attention towards Old Dan’s home.

  ‘All right,’ said the man. ‘I’ll come. What do you want?’

  She led him to the doorway. He stood with a slight smile and watched her mount the steps. He followed her in. She pointed to the rum bottle on the table and said, ‘Uh.’

  ‘Well . . .!’ exclaimed the man. The bottle was empty. He handed it to her.

  She raised it to her nose and drew a deep breath. A happy smile spread over her face. She held it up to the man inviting him to share her pleasure.

  He did not notice her. He was looking at something on the floor. His face was white. He lifted Mary quickly in his arms and carried her from the hut. He closed the door behind him and placed her on the ground. He ran towards the homestead. Mary scrambled up the steps and banged at
the closed door with her fists. ‘Uh. Uh,’ she cried.

  But Old Dan didn’t live there any longer.

  The Singing of the Sun

  ‘That’s a duck, isn’t it?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘It just landed on the water. Wait a minute. Now you can see it. Look, near that clump of rushes.’

  The man lying on the ground raised himself on his elbow. His dressing-gown was open. Beads of water glittered on his naked chest. His hair was wet. An A.I.F. uniform lay folded beside him.

  The youth was standing erect a few yards away from the man. He was wearing a pair of bathing trunks. His body was brown from the sun.

  The swamp water threaded the thin grass almost to their feet. Broken stems of rushes were dark against the glitter. Farther out, between the clumps of lignum, the water became deeper. Behind these, stooped red gums, caught by the flood, trailed their leaves in the water.

  ‘Is there one or two?’ asked the man searching the swamp.

  ‘Two, I think. There are always two, aren’t there?’

  ‘Usually. I can’t see them. Where did you say?’

  Straight across there.’ The youth pointed. ‘Now can you see?’

  ‘Yes, so it is.’

  ‘Is it a duck?’

  ‘It’s a duck all right.’

  ‘Doesn’t it look small?’

  ‘They always do when they’re swimming. Part of its body is submerged, you see. I can’t see the other one.’

  ‘There must be only one. I thought there were two. Will we go back and get the gun?’

  The youth was excited. There was an appeal in the question.

  ‘Well—er—yes. We could do that,’ said the man slowly.

  He watched the duck with increasing eagerness.

  ‘Doesn’t it seem interested in things? See how it turns its head. It looks at everything. It does seem a little duck,’ he added with wonder.

  ‘Will we get the gun?’ The youth was becoming impatient. ‘When we get back to town I want to tell them that I shot a duck.’

  ‘Let’s watch it a minute,’ pleaded the man. ‘I can’t get over how happy it seems. It’s like a man arriving home on leave. Did you see it land?’

  ‘Yes. It flew there. I saw it skid along the water. Will we go now?’

  ‘Strange, it being alone,’ murmured the man. ‘I can’t understand it being so happy when it is alone like that.’

  ‘It’d make no difference to a duck, being alone.’

  ‘Look, it’s coming towards us! Gosh, that’s funny! Isn’t it tame.’

  ‘Hurry up. Let’s go back and get the gun.’

  ‘All right,’ said the man resignedly. ‘You go and get it. ‘I’ll watch the duck.’

  The youth slipped on a pair of sandshoes.

  ‘Don’t frighten it, will you?’ he said anxiously.

  He moved quietly away, treading gently between the dry twigs that littered the ground beneath the river gums. The station homestead was on the crest of a hill overlooking the swamp. He began to run.

  The duck flicked its tail and sailed among the swamp grass. It moved into the clear water between the lignum searching with quick movements of the head. It suddenly ruffled its feathers and trod water while it flapped its wings. It sank back contentedly and continued its eager voyaging.

  The man had risen to his feet. His expression was rapt, yet some distant sadness had come to him and his lips were trembling. He watched the little duck with an intensity born of some vital need.

  He wanted to hold it closely in his hands; to feel the warm beat of its heart; to sense the flow of life, the power that lifted it higher than a cloud. . . .

  He had an urgency to cling to that which it held like a treasure—the something that was being torn from him.

  It had the unknowing life, the untainted life, the life of smooth, windless pools encircled by lignum where there was no sound save that from peaceful things; where the pure sky had never screamed with terror, nor the sun glinted from steel.

  It could see and hear and it was not afraid of what it saw and heard. It could lift itself into the singing of the sun. . . . Above steaming jungles. . . .

  He clenched his hands.

  Jim was beside him that night when the Japs came to New Britain . . . the chattering over the dark water. . . the green flare . . .the landing.

  ‘Let ’em have it.’

  The screams. . . the shouting . . .

  ‘Sock it into ’em.’

  Raluana beach and their machines guns sweeping the wire like rain . . . and Jim muttering, hell, hell, hell. . . . The dawn . . . the blood . . . the killing. . . . The red-browed waves tired with the weight of dead. . . . The rising and falling bodies—lifted gently, tossed contemptuously. . . . Barge after barge on rollers of flesh. . . .

  The Japs were tangled in the wire. They raked them: they mowed them like wheat. And still they came—the living clambering over the dead; the dead piling into barricades behind which the vomiting barges ploughed into the sand.

  The salt was in his mouth . . . the dry pounding of his heart. . . . Then the grunt and the doubling up. . . .

  And Jim: ‘Where’d it get you? Hang on. Jesus!’

  ‘Ifs not bad. Fm all right.’

  The staggering, crumpling Japs bridging the wire with their dead. They climbed on them: they trod them down. They came on like locusts in a plague.

  Then the final burst. . . and the jungle . . . and the long struggle home. . . .

  Oh! the killing! the killing! the killing!

  He turned and saw the youth running towards him with the gun. He looked again at the duck.

  It glided through the open water shattering the silver into sparkles of light.

  He lifted a stick from the ground and hurled it so that it fell with a splash beside the bird.

  The duck rose, trailing two furrows with its feet as it skimmed the water. It flew high and circled, banking against the wind so that for a moment he saw the full stretch of its wings each side of its brown body.

  Far out over the water it landed again.

  ‘Well, that’s done it,’ panted the youth disgustedly. ‘We’ll never get it now.’

  The man reached for his uniform.

  ‘No, we’ll never get it now,’ he said.

  You’re a Character

  This cove has a car. He isn’t a cobber of mine but he goes round with a bloke I know.

  It is Cup Day and I am standing in Sydney Road with a piece when they pass making towards town. I yells out and they pull up. I leaves this piece—she isn’t much—and gets in with ’em. They are on the pirate.

  We goes round St Kilda and tries a few but we want three together. We drives along the beach and, near Hampton, sees four beauts.

  Sam—that’s this bloke’s name—pulls up and I beckon ’em over. We want three but four’d do. Three of these have class. One is a dead pan.

  ‘Hop in an’ we’ll take you for a ride,’ Sam says.

  ‘On the level?’ the biggest girl says.

  ‘Sure,’ says Sam, indignant. ‘We’re just driving down to Frankston. We want to crack a couple of bottles and have a bit of fun.’

  One of the girls looks at me and says, ‘Is that oke, sport?’

  Everything’s jake,’ I says.

  So they climbs in.

  Sam is an engineer and has a shop of his own. He uses the car to cart things round. There are hack-saws and drills and bits of iron on the floor at the back. Ted climbs over with me. Sam grabs the prettiest—she is the big girl—and the other three get in with us. We sit the girl with the flat face between us and nurse the other two.

  ‘What’s this—a foundry?’ says Ted’s girl, kicking things with her foot.

  Ted picks up a hack-saw and says: ‘We use this when we cut up rough.’

  We all laugh and the girl I am nursing says to me, ‘I’ll bet he’s a character.’

  ‘He’s a cobber of mine,’ I says.

  ‘And what about the other chap
?’ she says.

  ‘He’s all right,’ I says.

  ‘I don’t like the look of him,’ she says.

  Sam drives fast. He tears round corners and we all slide together and the girls squeal and we get fresh.

  ‘Hey! Quit that!’ says the girl on Ted’s knee.

  ‘That’s nothing,’ says Ted.

  ‘Well, quit it just the same,’ says the girl.

  ‘He’s a character all right,’ says my girl.

  ‘She’s jake,’ I says. ‘Just a bit of fun.’

  The girl sitting between us says: ‘Where’s he going? I’ve got to be back early.’ She hasn’t got a bloke. She is a grape on the business.

  ‘We’ll run round by Frankston,’ says Sam.

  He drives one hand. He has an arm around the girl beside him. She is a big girl about eighteen and leans back in the seat looking round. But she keeps a grip on Sam’s hand beneath her armpit.

  We pass people picnicking and the girls wave to them and yell, ‘Oo-oo,’ and when the people look we laugh like hell. When we laugh it makes us sort of closer and we hug ’em while we’re laughing.

  We are going well.

  Way past Frankston Sam turns up a side road and runs into the scrub.

  ‘What’s the big idea?’ says Flat Face.

  The other girls get quiet like, and look at each other.

  ‘We’ll go for a walk through the bush,’ says Sam.

  ‘Like hell we will!’ says the girl in front. ‘We stick to the car.’

  ‘What’s wrong with a walk?’ Sam says.