The Complete Stories of Alan Marshall

by Alan Marshall

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said the cook. ‘You should have seen the first two lots of water. I been changing it.’

  Another cook once produced a roley-poley with the words, ‘Drummer-Boy Self Raising Flour’ printed along its length. The bag he had used as a cloth had originally contained this flour.

  Nowadays the cooks are men who are conscious that they have to be good to last. Their kitchens are clean and their meals are varied.

  Some of them even wear the hat of a chef upon their head.

  As ‘Dervener’ finished his Minestrone he leant back and said, ‘I must ask the boss here to give me the recipe for that soup. I think the boys would like it.’

  ‘Are you square dinkum?’ I asked in astonishment, wondering whether I had heard aright.

  ‘I am that,’ said ‘Dervener’ sadly. ‘The days of the ram-stag chops have gone forever. Let’s have a drink.’

  How’s Andy Going?

  Joe was not particularly fond of running. On those rare occasions when he felt impelled to move at top speed, you could bet your life that McPherson’s pet ram or a cursing swaggie was pounding along a few yards behind him.

  Joe baa-ed at rams and cast reflections on the drinking habits of swagmen. With his head poking out from behind a convenient tree, he would chant at a passing sundowner:

  Whiskers, Whiskers, fill your gizzard

  ‘I’ll you’re flat-out like a lizard.

  When pursued by swagmen or rams Joe ran with great resolution, his half-mast pants flapping just below the knees, the chewed tie of his sailor-jacket pressed flat against his chest.

  Normally, Joe favoured sitting down more than running. He liked to sit on a log with his elbows on his knees, watching our dogs sniffing through the bush for rabbits.

  Maybe I trained him that way. An attack of polio had forced me to walk on crutches, and Joe was the sort of mate who naturally adjusted himself to the limitations of those he liked. He made our walks through the bush a series of journeys from one resting-place to another, a mode of progress he came to accept as his own choosing.

  ‘You can’t beat sitting down and just looking,’ he sometimes said when he felt I needed a rest.

  Joe looked at everything. An ant was just as interesting to Joe as an elephant to less imaginative schoolmates.

  ‘If an ant was as big as an elephant, it’d belt hell out of him,’ he pronounced in one of his more thoughtful moments.

  Each year Turalla, the small township three miles from the district in which we lived, held a sports meeting in a ten-acre paddock behind the local pub.

  On that day the area around the circular track was full of buggies and gigs, their shafts resting on the ground. The fences were lined with tethered horses drooping beneath their harness, and men moved among them talking about the prospect of rain—‘We could do with it badly.’

  At lunch-time the people sat on the grass beside their buggies and ate sandwiches and drank tea they poured from billies. It was a day when men and women gossiped and children ran shouting between the tents and stalls.

  Everyone attended the sports meeting. Not to attend would have established you as an oddity or as one who had a grudge against members of the committee.

  When the first poster appeared on the post-office wall the school children gathered round it in an excited group. From then on till sports-day their activities were coloured by the events it described; the manner of those who could run or ride bicycles became more condescending, the inferior position of those who couldn’t, more marked.

  Those boys who had bicycles began talking in terms of racing and rode furiously to school, occasionally yelling to mates, ‘Take your lap,’ or, ‘Open up there, I’m coming through.’

  The runners of the school stood on marks with their finger-tips touching the ground, springing away at the shout of ‘Bang!’ and running on their toes in a style they never adopted at other times. They slowed down gradually, their arms outspread and looked to see if the girls were watching them.

  Joe and I ignored the change in our mates and adopted an attitude we thought would establish us as persons with long sporting experience. We listened with bored expressions to the claims of school runners and bike-riders, but after a day of strain, Joe cracked and began ‘toeing the mark’, and running in swift dashes past unprepared mates doing a ‘light canter’ round the schoolyard.

  Joe attributed his sudden interest in sport to the influence of his grandfather, a noted runner of his day, but now dead and buried in the Turalla cemetery.

  ‘It’s comin’ out in me,’ Joe explained. ‘I never been fond of runnin’, but it’s in me blood all right.’

  Whatever the reason for Joe’s transformation, it certainly kept him busy. In the evenings he took off his boots, and jumped logs and ran in wide circles with his head tucked down like a gig horse, his arms pumping.

  He shouted instructions to himself, acclaimed himself and denounced or swore at imaginary runners attempting to prevent him winning.

  I sat on the grass and watched him, sometimes yelling advice or shouting encouragement.

  ‘Take your time: there’s no one near you,’ I’d cry when Joe went past me.

  Joe never went far away; he wanted an audience.

  ‘I’ll run anyone in the world,’ he shouted, looking at the tops of the gums and dancing on his toes before me.

  Someone must have accepted the challenge, for Joe suddenly cried, ‘Toe the mark,’ and went into a crouch. But the other runners must have been crowding him, for he began yelling, ‘Stand back there! Gimme room!’

  This outburst couldn’t have had any effect, for he immediately stood upright and growled, ‘I’ll take you on, you cow,’ and thereat he danced back like a boxer, then came in swinging wildly.

  ‘Into him!’ I yelled. ‘Let him have it!’

  This inspired Joe, who fought aggressively, his tongue thrust out, both eyes closed. He was set to give his opponent the father of a hiding; but Andy appeared.

  Andy was Joe’s young brother, a boy with an alert, watchful expression, the result of a life spent anticipating violence from either Joe or me. He had not yet started school and it was Joe’s job to look after him. Joe was not fond of looking after Andy, though Andy was always eager to be placed in his charge.

  ‘What do you want?’ Joe asked him, his hands still raised in pugilistic fashion.

  ‘Mum said you’ve got to look after me,’ said Andy, who was watching us both warily, waiting to see our reaction to his announcement.

  ‘All right,’ said Joe after hesitating a moment. ‘You stop here with us and don’t go away.’

  Andy relaxed. ‘Who’re y’ fightin’, Joe?’ he asked.

  Joe ignored the question.

  ‘I’ll race anyone in the world for a hundred pounds,’ he cried.

  ‘I’ll crawl anyone in the world for a hundred pounds,’ I sang out in answer, determined to be in it. ‘I’ll crawl you or anyone. I’m the champion crawler of the world.’

  I began crawling in swift dashes on the grass.

  Joe became interested. He dropped to his hands and knees and crawled after me, shouting, ‘Here I come, the greatest crawler who ever lived.’

  Joe could crawl faster than me, but his knees were soft and sometimes he was tempted to raise himself on to his toes.

  ‘Keep your knees on the ground,’ I ordered.

  I was tough in the knees, having crawled a lot in steep places where my crutches were useless.

  ‘Listen,’ I suggested when we were resting. ‘How about us holding the crawling-championship of the world, eh?’

  Joe considered this proposal with an air of dubiety.

  ‘They never have crawling-championships,’ he said at last. ‘It would be good to have the running-championship of the world but not the crawling.’

  ‘That’s no good to me,’ I protested. ‘Where would I get, running?’

  ‘All right.’ Joe quickly changed his attitude. ‘We’re champions, see, and now we’re go
ing to race for the championship of the world.’

  Andy, who had been listening with respect to what Joe had been saying, ventured the opinion that ‘crawling was better than anything’.

  ‘You’re too little to know anything about crawling, Andy,’ Joe told him.

  ‘He’s not tough enough,’ I added.

  Joe and I had suddenly become crawling-authorities with years of experience behind us and it was pleasant to be able to patronize Andy.

  We decided to hold the crawling-championship of the world on the sports-ground the next evening. In the centre of the ground a circular grassed track, a quarter of a mile round, was used for cycling and running events and we decided to crawl round this, quite certain that no one else in the world had crawled this far, a conviction that made the race much more desirable.

  We set off for home after arranging to meet early next evening, but before we parted Joe drew me aside and whispered, ‘I’ll sneak away from Andy tomorrow. Be ready to get going quick.’

  Andy watched us whispering together, his expression revealing his awareness of our planning.

  ‘I’ll tell Mum if you sneak away from me tomorrow,’ he warned us.

  Joe expressed amazement at such unwarranted suspicion.

  ‘We wouldn’t sneak away from you, Andy, would we, Bill?’

  ‘No,’ I agreed with Joe. ‘We’d take you anywhere.’

  ‘Why, we were just talking about taking you hunting one day, weren’t we, Bill?’

  I felt Joe was going too far.

  ‘We don’t want to take him hunting, Joe,’ I complained.

  Joe thrust his mouth near my ear and hissed impatiently, ‘I’m only telling him that; we gotta kid to him.’

  But Joe’s plan didn’t work out. When he joined me the next evening Andy was with him.

  ‘You can’t toss Andy when there’s anything on,’ Joe explained morosely. The burden of Andy was heavy on Joe.

  Joe and I were both wearing corduroy trousers that reached below our knees and long, cotton stockings that repeated washings had bleached to a faded blue. Our knees were thus protected, but Andy wore short socks and his trousers did not reach his knees.

  When we reached the sports-ground we explained to him that even if he were a much bigger boy the fact that his knees were bare would prevent him crawling a quarter of a mile for the championship of the world, but his expression remained stubborn.

  ‘I wanna crawl with you,’ he persisted.

  ‘You’ll never shift Andy, once he’s set on a thing.’ Joe spoke from long experience of Andy.

  While I surveyed the track Joe paraded in circles crying, ‘Roll up, tumble up for the crawling-championship of the world!’

  In the course of Joe’s life he had gathered quite a number of cries proclaiming something or other, most of them inappropriate to a crawling-championship of the world, but he proceeded to use them all on the assumption, no doubt, that they set the stage.

  ‘Hurry, hurry, hurry!’ he cried. ‘Room for three more! Back to the canvas, please! The crawling-championship of the world! Women and children half-price!’

  Andy followed Joe around with great interest. Andy admired Joe when Joe was addressing crowds.

  I sat on the grass and took off my boots. I crawled a little way, delighting in the springy feel of the grass beneath my knees.

  ‘It’s good, Joe,’ I cried. ‘Come an’ feel the grass on your knees. They’ll never get sore on this.’

  ‘The great race is about to begin,’ announced Joe. He sat down and pulled off his boots, then asked, ‘What about Andy?’

  ‘Hey, Andy!’ I called. ‘You walk beside us and tell us who’s leading. You can yell out, “Into it!” and that sort of thing.’

  ‘I want to crawl in the race with you and Joe.’

  ‘There you are!’ growled Joe. ‘What did I tell you! He’s set on crawling and he won’t go ten yards before he’ll be howling for us to wait for him.’

  ‘If you crawl with us, Andy, we won’t wait for you,’ I warned him.

  ‘I want to crawl with you,’ Andy persisted.

  ‘Blow him!’ exclaimed Joe wrathfully.

  ‘All right,’ I said to Andy, ‘you can come.’ Then to Joe, ‘As soon as he knocks up he’ll get up and walk. We won’t count him in the championship. He can run in ahead of us if he likes. It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘All right,’ Joe accepted the position. ‘Now let’s all get on the mark.’

  Joe and I knelt side by side on the track and Andy knelt down just behind us.

  ‘All set!’ called Joe. ‘Bang!’

  And the crawling-championship of the world had begun.

  It was a race with plenty of time for conversation. We crawled rather quickly for a few yards until I remembered the distance we had to go.

  ‘Take your time!’ I ordered Joe. ‘Ease up. We haven’t got to go fast till the finish.’

  ‘Slow the field down,’ called Joe in a voice of authority, then added in his natural tone, ‘How’s Andy goin’?’

  ‘How y’ goin’, Andy?’ I asked.

  ‘Good,’ said Andy, who was crawling at our heels.

  ‘The grass is good to crawl on, isn’t it?’ I said to Joe, ‘but I reckon it’ll wear holes in the knees of our socks.’

  ‘Take your lap,’ yelled Joe, crawling ahead.

  ‘Not too far!’ I ordered him anxiously.

  ‘My knees are beginning to feel it,’ complained Joe, dropping back. ‘How are yours?’

  ‘Not bad,’ I said doubtfully. ‘I’m going well.’

  ‘A quarter of a mile is a long way,’ pronounced Joe thoughtfully, then changed his tone to question Andy, ‘How y’ goin’, Andy?’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘There’s no doubt about Andy,’ Joe went on. ‘He’s game, y’ know. We should’ve made him stay at home, I reckon. This crawling will knock hell out of him. He’s too little for the crawling-championship of the world.’

  Joe’s mention of the title inspired fresh vigour in us.

  ‘Keep it goin’!’ yelled Joe. ‘Open up in front!’

  ‘Take your lap!’ I yelled and crawled to the lead.

  ‘By hell, Andy must be sufferin’ now!’ said Joe impatiently after a period of silence.

  ‘How are y’, Andy?’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Ar, he’d say that if he was dying.’ There were times when Joe felt a great contempt for Andy. ‘You can’t believe anything he says.’

  ‘I’m beginning to sweat,’ I complained.

  ‘I’m sweatin’ bad myself,’ said Joe, ‘How’re your knees?’

  ‘Crook.’

  ‘Mine are hellishun crook. I wonder how Andy’s knees are. How’re y’r knees, Andy?’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘He’s got me beat,’ muttered Joe. ‘How far’ve we gone?’

  ‘More than half-way, I reckon.’

  ‘Hell!’

  ‘Andy must be about done now,’ I decided after we had crawled some distance in silence.

  ‘Yes, poor little beggar!’ Joe felt sorry for Andy. ‘The grass is not as thick here as when we started.’

  ‘It’s not bad,’ I said.

  ‘My knees are about done,’ Joe confessed. ‘Andy will be sufferin’ bad now. How’re y’, Andy?’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘That kid can’t last much longer,’ Joe decided. ‘Anyway, he can’t blame us. We told him to keep out.’

  ‘I haven’t got too much strength left in me,’ I admitted at last, ‘but I’ll go the distance.’

  ‘I’m suffering hell in the knees,’ complained Joe.

  ‘We’re nearly there,’ I said. ‘Now we got to get into it properly.’

  ‘The whips are out!’ yelled Joe.

  ‘Come on, Turalla!’ I shouted. ‘Into it!’

  We were urging our aching bodies to crawl still faster when, on my left, a little figure came bobbing along with a nodding head and quick-moving knees!

  ‘Hell!’ I gasped. �
��There goes Andy!’

  ‘Strike me!’ exclaimed Joe. ‘What’s happened? Andy . . .’

  Andy passed us with an eager and excited face, looking straight ahead to where my crutches were lying on the grass. He drew farther and farther away from us until he reached the winning post, where he jumped to his feet and called out triumphantly, ‘I am the champion crawler of the world!’

  ‘Blast him!’ said Joe, staggering to his feet. ‘An’ he is, too.’

  He hurled some dry cow-dung at Andy and shouted, ‘Get home now or I’ll tan you when I get you.’

  Andy retreated to a safe distance.

  Joe lay down beside me moaning, ‘Oh, my knees!’, then added with sudden strength, ‘I’ll murder Andy when I get home, barging into our race and winning like that.’

  ‘My cripes, he must be tough!’ I said, with a new interest in Andy. ‘I reckon he’s the toughest kid in Australia.’

  ‘That’s right!’ exclaimed Joe, sitting up to look at Andy. ‘He is; there’s no doubt about it. Just look at him, there. There’s nothing to him and the little beggar goes and wins the crawling-championship of the world.’

  We suddenly became enthusiastic over Andy. We praised him to each other. We recalled feats of endurance we had observed in him.

  ‘In all my life,’ said Joe fervently, ‘I’ve never saw such a crawler as Andy.’

  ‘He’s better than you or me,’ I said. ‘Better than anyone in the world.’

  We rose to our feet and went over to Andy where he sat alone on the grass. We felt enormously proud of him. Joe put his arm round Andy’s shoulders as we walked home together. We boasted about Andy for weeks.

  ‘He’s a bloody marvel,’ said Joe. ‘An’ I’m not talkin’.’

  Street Scene at Midday

  The carrier put the money in his pocket, and said to the teller: ‘I can’t come at this too often.’

  ‘No,’ said the teller. He was busy flicking coins from beneath his fingers and didn’t look up. ‘No, that’s right.’

  The carrier left him and opened one of the swing doors that faced the main street. The noise of a tram clattering past filled the bank for a moment. He stepped through the doorway then stopped suddenly and stood without movement on the top of the four stone steps leading to the pavement.