by Rodney Hall
Bill had laughed at the jibe because he recognized it. What’s more he knew how to handle himself so why shouldn’t he laugh? He felt unique. Not clever, not talented, simply the possessor of a knot nobody could unravel, least of all his father. Laughed also because a madcap scheme had come to mind: what could be more infuriating to an already enraged parent than a public rort? Most of the boys were migrating to the city, this would be the last chance to do something together. The idea left him mute with delight and surprise. Yes, they’d go prospecting, a real trip, taking the Bedford truck. This was six weeks ago. He recollected the details.
– You going to use the Bedford this weekend Dad?
– It’s broke down as you bloody well know.
– Okay, Billy offered sweetly. Suppose me and Tony go down the Yalgoona road and patch her up and get her going, can I keep her?
– Not on your life.
– For the weekend then?
So it was arranged. Mr Swan rankled with never going back on a decision. That’s how the prospecting trip came about, a jaunt for the Golden Fleece, as Billy explained the idea to the others: Tony plus the ones about to leave town for good, Lance and Maggot, the twins Pete and Dave. Naturally they’d all be in it. They’d hitch a ride down the Yalgoona road with the cheese delivery. Yes, they’d take picks and sleepingbags, Tony’d patch up the Bedford, they’d load her with food and grog and head back this way, then off along the overgrown gold trail, up the north face of the mountain, round behind the reservoir, across the saddle to the disused diggings and eventually home to Whitey’s Fall on the eastern face. One last weekend together before making the break to escape stagnation. With most of the gang gone, the future could not be imagined.
So it had been decided, a fossicking trip. Billy remembered how he promised himself more than the mere scourings and scavengings the others talked about. Why not the Golden Fleece, or at least a clue to where it was. In retrospect he mocked the naive way he had hoped for what he now most feared.
– I can’t lose, he boasted. Because once I get my hands on that truck nobody’s going to get it back off me.
Six weeks ago he was a kid.
Going down ahead with Tony on the motorcycle had saved waiting about, he explained to Vivien. Once the Bedford was going again, despite a nasty rattle in the motor, they stowed the bike in the back along with watercans, rucksacks, lamps, boxes of tucker and prospecting tools that the boys brought with them when they arrived in the cheese truck according to plan. They were off, driving into the deepening darkness. Tony as mechanic occupied the seat of honour up front beside Bill, not that this was much of a luxury with the rear wall of the cab cut away to open directly on to the load. The advantages were psychological, plus a sprung seat.
– I’m just thinking back, Bill explained to Vivien and drifted among his memories of the other youths huddled, rugged up on the open tray, ready for anything, seeming to have a better time because of their closeness, their shared lack of privileges, which is how it always is. The humour of the private soldier. A great deal of adolescent laughter vanished out into the night as they lumbered along the bitumen, headed for the logging track at Dry River and the mountain of gold beyond.
– We’ve got to get this thing off the road by tonight, Bill yelled to Tony barely making himself heard above the engine. If the cops catch us they’ll have us cold: no rego, one headlamp, baldy tyres, me without a truck licence. He laughed delightedly at the thought of his offences. Kick the mudguard she’d fall off, wipers won’t work, you name it we’ve got it, blue smoke, offensive noise, steers like a crane.
Tony bounced beside him happily, gazing at his friend’s profile, then out to the road where that one headlight poked its shuddering beam at an eccentric angle illuminating only the trees. He looked back over his shoulder to the others crowded in a steamy group.
– You guys okay? he asked kindly in his soft voice.
– Up your arse, they remarked.
– Give us the third class any day.
– Yeah, pity the bosses.
– Shift your hoofs Pete I can’t stretch out me leg.
– Got a smoke Maggot?
– What anothery? You eating the bastards?
– Hang on a tick I’ve got something better anyhow.
Light mist washed past the vehicle, creaming like seawater. They blew a joint together, the dream and the companionship. They conversed in their peculiar mountain accent, an old language tired and cracked at the joints from too much exposure to rain and sun.
– Skiting is it? Maggot shouted suddenly. I’d fuck better than you big useless bastards I bet. Me and Stump there. That’s skiting if you want to hear me skite. We’d beat the lot of yous, him and me. You know the saying: big man big cock, little man all cock. Wait till you’re married, he threatened gleefully. Your wives’ll come sneaking round to my place for a decent screw.
– Up yours you midget, Lance boomed, his huge arm strangling Maggot. I’ll have a woman so big you won’t come up to her knee let alone kiss her fanny.
The twins chuckled mirthlessly to fulfil their obligations.
– I’ll tell you a tale, Lance declaimed in his grammar-school voice, reminding them that he was the only boy ever to go away as a boarder. Of the six heroes of the mountain. A tale of olden times, fabulous monsters …
– Yuk, bullshit, Jesus, get stood on, siddown, pull yer head in yer mug.
– And beautiful maidens …
– Yahoo!
–… valorous deeds.
– Who’s she?
Another joint passed around and they sucked at it greedily. Maggot amused himself surreptitiously unbuckling rucksack pockets and feeling for what was packed there. His kleptomaniac fingers assessing apples, boots, underpants, a sheath-knife.
– Good on you Lance mate, tell us, Billy called as the truck jolted and clanged over a pothole, jostling the passengers so they catcalled. Roaring its geriatric note the Bedford sounded like a mobile zoo, terrifying frogs, waking birds, bringing startled wallabies to a halt at the roadside. Billy drove sublimely, grinning with pleasure and bowling her along. Maggot eased the knife out of its sheath so he could test the blade. Whose was it? The sheath felt new.
To everyone’s surprise one of the twins took up the story-telling; usually they were secretive, avoiding too much talk.
– Well there was these blokes in the backblocks. Now they was square-eyes like everybody else and green-eyes too. Like everybody. So one day Stumpy, son of Stumpy, out of Stumpy’s Mum, tore himself away from episode ten of The Bushranger’s Revenge and reckoned he could cheat his old man out of a truck and got his mates to help by promising them a heap of gold. Well these mugs let themselves be talked around. They packed up camping gear and that garbage and risked their necks being thrown about in the back of this bloody useless wreck of a truck.
– Right on! yelled the others enthusiastically.
– Remind me to break your jaw when we stop off, Billy laughed, his words partly lost in the racket and wind.
– You and who else?
– Come on Maggot, Lance said in a condescending voice covering his feeling of being slighted. Your turn mate.
– If you insist, Maggot consented graciously, his hand still in someone’s rucksack. It began with this broke-down bomb …
No sooner were the words out than the truck sighed with comic appropriateness and slowed to a halt. The motor died. A hemisphere of silence trapped them. The headlight went off and there was no moon yet. The knowledge of calamity sank in as they began to hear a hissing in the engine like a leaking balloon. Maggot edged the blade back in its sheath which he slipped out of the rucksack where it belonged and into his own pocket.
– What the hell was that then? came Bill Swan’s voice.
– Let’s have a look. Tony already had his door open.
– Torch!
A torch was passed down instantly, giving them a vaguely excited awareness that despite the horseplay and the mild muzziness
from smoking grass they were well prepared and capable of anything.
They crowded round Tony offering advice and peering in under the bonnet with the wincing expressions of experts, while above them whirled a conference of bats disturbed from their feeding, tatters of black skin caught in a whirlpool. Tony pondered the problem, then without haste removed the distributor cap. A few minutes later he spoke in a flat hopeless voice: Okay Bill give her a kick. Billy climbed in and pulled the starter, the Bedford spluttered. Again Bill. This time the motor wheezed into life. They raised a cheer (which was heard a long way across the paddocks at a forgotten homestead by a forgotten farmer’s wife in her eighty-seventh year, so that she was more pleased with the evidence of her good hearing than alarmed by what she heard). The young men boarded the truck as it lurched forward, its one crooked eye scanning the treetrunks again. In the back the passengers settled down to enjoy being jolted about in comfort. Spontaneously, as if taking up an unwillingly suspended dialogue, Peter and Dave the twins began singing.
When first I left old Ireland’s shore, the yarns that we were told
Of how the folks in far Australia could pick up lumps of gold!
How gold-dust lay in all the streets and miner’s right was free.
‘Hurrah,’ I told my family, ‘that’s the very place for me.’
The voices moved effortlessly into simple harmony for the chorus.
With my swag all on my shoulder, black billy in my hand,
I’ll travel the bushes of Australia like a trueborn Irishman.
– Bushes? squawked someone in disbelief.
Other voices now joined in, humming, trembling and hiccupping as the Bedford trundled along.
For many years I wandered round to each new field about
And made and spent full many a pound till alluvial petered out.
And then for any job of work I was prepared to try,
But now I’ve found the tucker-track, I’ll stop here till I die.
With my swag all on my shoulder, black billy in my hand,
I’ll travel the bushes of Australia like a trueborn Irishman.
– Come on Tony mate, sing! Bill urged full of the joy of freedom and success, bouncing the truck purposely into a gutter to make the bastards jump. But Tony only smiled regretfully and mumbled something about not yet, or not drunk enough, or didn’t know the words.
– You’re a bloody piker sport, that’s what you are, Billy responded with unction. She’s a beauty this old truck, he added consolingly. I’ll get her for myself. You’d better stick around so you can keep her going for me. Billy glanced across the silence to see in the dim light a private satisfaction print itself on his friend’s face.
– Hope the police don’t grab us, Tony offered at last.
– They wouldn’t dare.
– What’s that? demanded Maggot, poking his head between the seat backs, one hand on the stolen knife in his pocket. The cops won’t stop us, no way. Not on your life. Plus they’d be too bloody amazed. They’d drive plumb off the road, hypnotized by that one headlight. God’s truth that is. He reaped his harvest of laughs and ribbing.
– What about the rum? bawled Lance, still a schoolboy.
Maggot it was, as expected, who produced the bottle and leered puckishly at them with his freckled face and mischievous eyes. Unscrewed the cap, took a stiff gulp and then passed it round. This was a scene from some hearty German operetta, the up-ended bottle, the thigh slapping, the good humoured neighing, the chorus lurching from side to side in unison with never a thought for tomorrow.
– Eureka! yelled Billy, his voice from the cab hollow and metallic. Look up ahead.
It was the turning, the logging track. A hundred yards and they’d be safely out of reach of the law.
– Go Billy.
Had he said nothing and quietly turned off the road when the time came, this leg of the journey might have been entered without further mishap. But the spirit was in him. To give them a thrill in the back, Billy swung over suddenly. Too late. The bonnet slumped and pitched up, the rear wheels went down with a thud that threw the passengers sprawling along the open tray. The Bedford whined as it began to cant and came to a standstill, engine running, tail deep in a drainage ditch.
– Jesus Billo, someone swore, tears of frustration lurking in the voice.
– A man oughta bloody thump you, another offered. This turned out to be the Maggot. Tony grabbed his arm and volunteered to floor him. The victim wriggled away delighted, having coaxed this affectionate relationship into the open, as always just escaping a gentle swipe from one of those huge hands.
Billy insisted they take a cheerful view. Weren’t they within an ace of escaping the main road and beginning the real trip? How were they to cope with the difficulties higher up if they didn’t get some practice down here? The derision this provoked died in an instant: far down the black tunnel of night a flash lit the road then swivelled straight at them. Headlights approaching. A car, rescue, hope. Yes and the car pulled over, good man. A voice from the dark asked if they needed a hand.
The stranger helped wedge rocks and branches under the wheels, showing them a technique for lifting the vehicle on the jack and building the rocks up stage by stage under the wheels. In fact he assumed command of the operation. Only once did he offer unwanted advice, suggesting they should have the headlight adjusted so they could see where they were going. No one rose to the bait. He’d been so obliging they decided to let him off this time.
The job was done. The Bedford heaved itself heroically free of the mud and sat purring on the track, nose towards the mountain. The stranger, dusting his hands, invited them to call on him if they had further trouble … at the police station in Yalgoona. Constable Pope. Yes, and he hazarded a guess they’d be the Whitey’s Fall crowd. Thought I recognized you. A last fling for some of you? Getting a taste of leaving home? Enjoy the sins of Sydney! When he drove off, perverse as it might seem, the boys felt downcast. What if there were no risks, nothing to be really up against, nothing to test a man, always somebody to rescue you? And was that a jibe about leaving home? Did he mean the final break would be no more than this? That cutting bloodties could be so casual? The truck jolted up the first incline, slewed across ruts, jumped and clanged, the driver slamming it through the gears.
– Bloody hell, Maggot challenged them. Who says give in? Pass the rum. Go for your life Bill. What about the gold! We’re madmen to trust ourselves to this old heap, they’ll be looking for our skeletons twenty years from now.
Quite suddenly the episode with the policeman was funny, obviously funny. Laughter broke from the rosy well-being of rum. The night flowed together behind them. Trees edging past, some sly some guilty, made them laugh more. They laughed at nothing, laughing because laughter was in them and loneliness too. Stars dipped a lowering flag, an owl swooped blankly down. Snorts of laughter broke from them, the twins taunted each other with it, Maggot punched the Bedford with it, Billy and Tony spilled trickles of it, chuckles and mumblings of the laughter, the universe began to sway and rotate, trees tipped, jumped, a prismatic aureole hung round the headlamp beam. Dizzy moths whirled in. Every damned thing they thought of was funny. They could smell the warmth of company, even the bottle was warm with passing from hand to hand.
When they stopped to make camp they built a fire and planned to sit watching the embers till dawn. Still their strident voices trumpeted self-assertions into the night, the forest rang with whoops and screams, boasts went shouting down along the creek to the witness of an amazed tribe of frogs, hurricane lanterns were hung in the branches creating an ancient wall of forest, below which the invaders crouched discussing plans of campaign, courage, loot. Their fire crackled and danced spiritedly, illuminating the Bedford where it waited some distance away, an armoured weapon. The twins were wrestling playfully so that the others began laying bets on who would win; and what had started as a game became a serious matter of money. It was always worth a gamble, they were evenly matched a
nd fought so skilfully that even Tony or Lance who were taller and heavier would hesitate to take them on. A space formed near the fire for them, their breath came in spurts, their faces excited and laughing, their eyes glittered with flame, sighs and grunts escaped them, red hand-marks on their chests and shoulders, sweat coming, the veins standing out along arms and necks. Finally with a sharp gasp Pete lay helpless, surprised, body twisted so that you could hear the joints creak, the suck of damp skin. The onlookers cheered or booed according to their fortunes.
– Who’s next? demanded the loser when he’d given in and dusted himself, grinning in an evasive way which could be put down to pride.
It was decided Billy and Maggot must have it out and they set to with a fine show of vigour, Billy quiet and quick, the Maggot cheeky, boastful and game. More bets were laid but the cash had scarcely been thrown into the circle when Maggot was pinned. Now the wagers began in earnest, there being no escape for the heavyweights. Reluctant as they were, Lance and Tony pulled off their jackets and shirts, locked arms and hands. There they swayed, ridiculously clumsy, straining and heaving, feet planted wide apart, hissing and snorting, a single eight-limbed thirty-three-stone creature. The effort of remaining immobile budding as sweat. Clumps of muscle rising and shifting across their backs as the strain altered. Then without warning Lance ducked to one side tricking his opponent with a judo hold he’d learnt at his gentlemen’s school. Tony’s legs buckled. He rolled in dirt, with a two-hundred-and-twenty-pound fanatic dropping on top of him: Lance, only seventeen, the youngest of them all, who now crowed in an ecstasy of narcissism. That long training for the school eights had had its reward. As he got up he placed his foot on the goodnatured Tony’s neck, an elephant shooter with his bag. The only gambler to collect money on this victory was the Maggot.
