by JH Fletcher
One of the men tested the weight of the cable and whistled. ‘I’m game to take it first,’ he said, ‘but we’ll have to take it in turns later.’
The men were ready. With Steve, Charlie and Will in the lead, they set out to march northeast.
It was flat, dry country; the parched grass flowed into the distance like the surface of a dam. Mostly they kept clear of the river but from time to time, at the limit of one of its curves, the river came to them. With the water several feet below the level of the plain, the green line of grass along the bank was the only sign of its presence. In most places the muddy banks were almost sheer, although here and there clumps of low scrub grew down to the water. Of Pandora there was no sign.
‘Reckon we’re ahead of her yet?’ Steve asked.
There was no way of knowing. It was hot, thirsty work trying to race a riverboat through the bush but they couldn’t take any chances.
‘Reckon we’d best keep goin’,’ Charlie said.
Dusk, when it was impossible to go any further, came as a blessing. They lay on the bank, lined by trees at this point, while the sweat ran in streams to match the flow of the river below them.
After half an hour Steve sat up. It was nearly dark. Mosquitoes formed shrilling clouds about them but they had more important things to think about. ‘Best get ready,’ he asked.
‘You sure you want to go ahead with this?’ Charlie said.
Steve stared at him. ‘Gettin’ cold feet?’
‘Not me. I just want everyone to know what they’re gettin’ into.’
Steve turned to the others. ‘You heard what he said. We can go back now, if you want. Or we can stop the bastards stealin’ our jobs. What d’you say?’
‘Wouldn’t be right to ’ave come all this way fer nuthun,’ one man said. ‘I say we stop ’em.’
So did everyone else. Steve looked at Charlie. ‘Satisfied?’
‘Let’s make sure we do it right, then,’ Charlie said. ‘They won’t stop if they can avoid it, so we gotta give ’em no choice.’
‘How do we do that?’
‘That’s where the cable comes in.’ He squinted across the river, about forty feet wide at this point. He looked assessingly at the trees on the other bank, then turned back to the men lying on the grass around him. ‘Which of you blokes can swim?’
One man pointed to a young fellow lying on the ground a few yards from the bank. ‘Dave’s the best,’ he said.
Charlie went to him. ‘Dave, I want you to take the end of the cable and a couple of clamps and swim across the river with them. Fasten the cable round the biggest of those trees. Make sure it’s tight, then come back.’
Dave stripped off and swam across with the cable, the clamps in a bag about his waist. He clambered up the opposite bank, wound the cable twice around the trunk and fastened it with the clamps. By the time he’d got back the other end of the cable had been secured to a tree on this side. Where it crossed the river the cable was barely visible.
‘Will Pandora keep goin’ at night?’ Will asked.
Charlie grinned. ‘If you was the captain, with a hundred blokes after you, what would you do?’
Right.
‘What if he sees the cable?’ Steve asked.
‘Don’t matter. Keep goin’ an’ the cable will take his funnel out. Stop, we got him anyway.’
Assuming Pandora came at all.
By now it was completely dark. The sky was a blaze of stars. With the mosquitoes for company, they made themselves as comfortable as they could and settled down to wait.
Time passed. It grew chilly and Charlie was glad of the jersey Sarah had given him. He wondered how she was doing. She’d be scared; anybody would. But she’d be all right, too, because she was brave. Sarah, he thought. What a lucky bloke I am.
It was close to midnight when they heard the sound of paddlewheels turning slowly in the darkness. There was no moon and Charlie didn’t envy the skipper trying to inch his way along the narrow channel. No doubt he would have a lookout in the bows, shouting instructions up to the wheelhouse, but still it wouldn’t be easy.
A murmur ran through the waiting men. Shadows roused themselves and grouped together.
‘Remember,’ Steve said, ‘no violence unless we have to. We want to stop these blokes gettin’ up the river. We’re not tryin’ to kill ’em.’
But there was a soupy heat about the gathered men, a froth of violence growing despite Steve’s words. Charlie could taste it in the air, see it in the stealthy gathering of the men on the riverbank, under the blazing Outback stars. Along this remote river they were far from rules or constraints. Violence was an almost tangible presence in the eyes that glittered in the starlight, bringing a growl to the men’s throats as, rising out of the bush, they saw first a pallid ribbon of light, the reflection of carbide headlights sliding silently along the banks, then the box-like shape, barely visible in the darkness, of the approaching paddle steamer.
Last of all they heard her voice — chuff-a-chuff, chuff-a-chuff — and the wet slop of the turning wheels.
Charlie could taste the dust, the brassy flavour of mounting tension on his tongue. Would Pandora’s skipper see the cable in time to stop? If he didn’t, would the cable hold? If it snapped under the steamer’s weight, men standing along the bank could die under the flail of broken steel. If it held it would tear the funnel out of the riverboat. Then, too, men might die.
Either way …
Until now the prospect of hanging had seemed ludicrous. Within the next few minutes it could become reality. What was he was doing here? Sarah, Alex and Brenda. That was where his duty lay. He should be with his family, not on the banks of this ditch-like river awaiting a confrontation that might see him spending the next twenty years in jail. And for what? Right and wrong meant nothing in the end. All paths led, eventually, to death.
The arc of cable glittered in the steamer’s headlights.
Chuff-a-chuff. Chuff-a-chuff.
Was the lookout blind? Couldn’t he see what was ahead of him?
Fifty yards. Thirty. Twenty.
Chuff-a-chuff.
A sudden shout from the steamer’s dark bulk. Charlie heard the clang of the bell signalling the engineer to stop the engine, to go into reverse, to —
Too late.
To a chorus of yells, the screech of the riverboat’s whistle and roar of paddlewheels, Pandora struck the cable. It drew tight, first against the carbide lights, which were sent crashing and cartwheeling from their mounts in front of the wheelhouse, then against the wheelhouse itself. Glass shattered, rending timbers cried out. Pandora slewed across the river and collided with the bank. Where, finally, she came to a stop in a crash of broken paddles and howl of jetting steam.
Charlie had an eye-blink in which to assess the damage. The cable had held. The wheelhouse was askew, like a fat man tottering on one foot above the water. The funnel, torn from its mounting, sagged backwards in a tangle of wire while from the firebox roared sparks and the jagged edges of flame.
A confused roar came from both riverbank and grounded steamer as the waiting men flung themselves onto Pandora’s deck. Steve’s warnings against violence were forgotten. Clubs — where had they come from? — rose and fell. There were bellows of pain. Screams. The splash of a body falling heavily into the river, followed by more screams.
Charlie found himself on the steamer’s deck. God knew what he was doing there. Two men swayed past him, hands clenched about each other’s throats. The strikers’ anger had turned savage.
The scabs, their lives threatened, were desperate too. A man came at Charlie out of the darkness. He tried a king-hit. Charlie ducked. He belted him once, full in the face, and felt his nose go. Yet the man, whoever he was, was game. He came back a second time. Charlie lifted him, carried him kicking and swearing to the side, and flung him into the river.
That should cool him off! he thought.
Blood roused, Charlie looked around for anyone else wanting to take him on.
He’d have been more than happy to oblige them, but it seemed that already the fighting was over.
It wasn’t really surprising. The strikers were attacking those who had come not only to steal their jobs but also leave their families to starve. Whereas the scabs sought only escape. It made for a one-sided scrap. In no time the scabs and sailors who could still run were fleeing into the darkness. Others lay unconscious or groaning on the steamer’s decks.
Dazed, Charlie looked about him. Pandora was a wreck. The strikers had raged through her from stemhead to stern, hunting scabs, perhaps, but mostly indulging in an orgy of destruction for its own sake.
That was not the worst of it. He sniffed the night air and smelt burning. A small fire was alight on the foredeck, where the carbide lights had fallen and broken after the collision. Surrounded by a swirling blizzard of moths, it had a white intensity that was painful to the eyes but was not the main source of the trouble. Flames pouring from the base of the ruptured funnel were eating their way through the steamer’s splintered superstructure. Already the waterproofing was ablaze, the fire spreading fast. There was nothing to be done. Pandora was doomed.
‘Get ashore! Make sure nobody’s left on board!’
Even as he shouted, men were leaping over the side. Charlie picked up an unconscious man and followed, scrambling up the muddy bank.
The strikers were standing in a group, staring at the blazing steamer. The flames painted the sky. They put out the stars and reflected gutters of golden light across the river’s black surface.
A voice said, ‘We stopped ’er, sure enough.’
Charlie turned to the speaker. It was Steve, whose grin disappeared as he stared at Charlie’s face. ‘My God, mate, what happened to you?’
‘Nuthun.’
‘You’re covered in blood.’
Charlie looked at his blood-daubed hands. ‘Musta come from that bloke I threw over the side.’
‘Thank God for that.’ Steve looked at the burning wreck. ‘It wasn’t supposed to be like this.’
What else could he have expected? With tempers as they were, something of the sort had been inevitable.
‘Maybe it’ll send a message to Grenville and his mates not to try it again,’ Charlie said.
Steve shook his head. ‘I doubt they’re listenin’.’
Aboard the blazing wreck the funnel collapsed in an explosion of orange sparks. Flames, savage in their victory, soared into the sky. In their light, the eagle emblazoned on the side of the funnel was clearly visible. Eagle on the Hill. Charlie shook his head. Whatever direction his life took, it seemed always to end with the Grenvilles. They were his nemesis.
Not that it mattered for the moment. The urgent need was to get away before the police arrived. As soon as the fleeing men reached safety there’d be a police contingent on the way. Soldiers too, perhaps. They would be in no mood to be merciful. Anyone still here by the time they arrived could expect to see the inside of a cell for many years. Always assuming they didn’t see a hangman’s noose first.
Charlie gestured at the forlorn group of scabs huddled together, their apprehensive eyes watching the strikers who stood guard over them. ‘What about those blokes?’
‘We’ll give ’em the chance to join us,’ Steve said. ‘Or they can rack off, if they’d rather.’
‘Any dead?’ Charlie asked.
‘Not so far as I know,’ Steve told him.
But who could be sure? And if there were …
Charlie was restless. The ambush and burning of Pandora had stirred him up without giving him any sense of satisfaction or relief. It was a terrible thing to burn a boat, even unintentionally, yet it had been necessary and he felt no guilt about it.
‘Get your boys outta here,’ he told Steve. He looked about him. He hadn’t seen his brother since the fighting started. ‘Where’s Will?’
Steve didn’t know. Charlie went looking. No-one had seen him. Anxiety gnawing, he followed the bank, checking each face in turn, finding nothing. A fireball rose from the burning hulk. Sparks flew, scattered by the wind. One landed by his boot; he stamped it out. If they weren’t careful they’d have a bushfire on their hands, on top of everything else. Dazzled by flame, he went on, walking more urgently now.
Where was Will?
He saw a body at the edge of the water. It lay face-down, its head in the stream. He went to it with a feeling of terror in his heart.
He bent and turned it over. Water streamed from the open mouth and staring eyes.
He gathered the body like a baby into his arms. His eyes were blind, his feelings stunned into silence. He dragged himself back along the bank.
Steve came hurrying towards him. He opened his mouth but there was no need to ask the question.
‘My brother,’ Charlie said. ‘He’s dead.’
Someone had hit Will a terrible blow. The whole side of his skull was bashed in.
‘My God, mate …’
Who had done it? It could have been anyone. It made no difference. At the moment, all Charlie could think was that he had to get the body back, let Petal know, arrange a funeral …
He was swaying. His tears were blinding him. Will … young Will …
With the remains of Pandora glowing in the darkness behind them, the men — shattered by all that had happened — set out to walk back to town.
Charlie went with them, yet was apart. He was still carrying Will’s body, walking as though in a trance, staggering under the body’s weight.
‘Leave ’im,’ said Steve. ‘It won’t do no good. You can’t carry ’im all that way.’
Charlie bared his teeth, would not let his brother go when men tried to take the body from him.
‘Mate, it’s impossible!’
He would tear the world down, he would go to Eagle on the Hill, he would take George Grenville by the throat …
Steve was right. Of course it was impossible. Life was impossible. Joy was impossible.
An echo from the past, something he’d heard in a church service he’d attended once.
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden …
Oh, Will.
Charlie could carry him no further. He laid him gently on the ground. He looked down at the blind eyes, the shattered head.
Come back an’ work with me, Charlie had said to him. Be like old times.
He kissed his brother on the forehead. He left him in the first hint of a clear dawn and went on with the rest of the men.
His thoughts tormented him. Owners and scabs deserved everything they got. He wanted to fight someone, anyone, to smash and be smashed, to douse the anger burning like Pandora’s fire in his blood. All this — the hardship, the fighting, the blazing steamer, Will’s death — came from men’s greed. The Grenvilles were no worse than a hundred others but, standing there beside the burning steamer, with Will’s body in his arms, Charlie had seen the flames eat up the crest on the side of the funnel and would never forget.
He had believed the shearers’ strike was not his fight, had joined them only because he had wanted to help men whose experience was similar to his own. In different circumstances, he too could have been driven to violence by those who claimed ownership of the land and all who worked upon it.
Now the sinking of Pandora had turned into something more significant. He had found his enemy, and his children’s enemy. He remembered something else he had heard, perhaps at the same church service. Something to do with vengeance, and the visiting of the fathers’ sins upon the children to the third and fourth generations.
So be it.
He walked on with the rest towards the town.
CHAPTER 49
There was a cluster of trees in a hollow two miles outside town. Here they stopped. Steve looked at the faces of the men around him. Most were uneasy, haunted by what had happened and fear for the future.
‘We’d better slip into town in ones and twos,’ Steve said. ‘That way no-one’ll notice us. We’ll meet up again at the shed. Then we
can talk about what we’re gunna do next. And remember, we all slept in the shed last night. No-one knows nuthun ’bout Pandora, or trouble on the river. That clear?’
There was no argument about that. No-one wanted any more to do with Pandora. ‘They got nuthun on any of us,’ Steve reminded them, ‘so long as we stick together.’
No need to say more. Every man knew what would happen to anyone who dobbed in the rest.
Charlie sat on the ground a little apart from the others. His head was down and his big hands hung between his knees. He had never been one of them. He had helped out and would do so again, if needs be, but he had a boat to run, a family to support. He had to take the news of Will’s death to his widow; he had to see she’d be all right; he was needed elsewhere.
Steve thought so too. Everyone had been saddened by Will’s death but there was nothing to be gained by brooding on the past. ‘Get back to your family,’ he told Charlie. ‘We’ll sort things out here.’
Yet Charlie was uneasy about leaving them, not for their sake but his own. He was afraid of his own thoughts. His brother’s death had not been his fault — Will had drawn him into the business rather than the other way round — but he felt guilty that he had survived and Will had not.
He would go back to Brenda, he would not bother about finding cargo; he would head straight down the river to Goolwa to give the news to Petal. The prospect filled him with despair but had to be faced.
He waited until it was light, then got to his feet. He looked around at the men who had shared the night’s battle with him. For so brief a time they had been mates, yet he knew it was a feeling that would stay with them forever.
‘Remember the Pandora?’
It was a question they would ask each other in later years — if they survived. The memory would swell their chests; they would feel better men because of it. And Will would be forgotten.
We was there.
Indeed they had been, and so had Will. Charlie, at least, would not forget. Not forgetting would be his memorial to his younger brother. Killed because of the Grenvilles’ greed.
‘I’ll see you blokes around, then.’
