Just Relations

by Rodney Hall

  Sebastian signalled to Billy and the two of them crept away, conspirators, down one side of the gully, instantly vanishing to a quiver of leaves. Hard as you might listen there was only the clan memory of four oceans in your ears. They were gone into a long absence. Below, those empty road-machines froze to the ground; monstrous scoops and graders, and even more monstrous rollers and crushers. Uncle, absorbed into the panorama beyond, sat brooding on Hughie Milliner’s patronizing way with the big questions when you knew he’d spent his life on the respective virtues of two brands of chemical beer, his impatience with old age and country slowness. He spoke to me, Uncle remembered, like I speak to little Merv or Fred. Also Senator Bigwig insulted you with benefits you were too stupid to see for yourself. This wasn’t a game, the life of Whitey’s Fall hung in the scales, but a straight-forward last-ditch case of us or them. They weren’t giving us any rights at all, not even the right to an opinion. They were moving in under cover of smooth talk, destroying the place past recognition.

  Uncle’s uncle, Robbie McTaggart, loading his weapon, was having trouble finding the breech, half-blind as he was. He kept missing the hole and dropping the cartridge, then he’d have to put down the gun and run his face over the suspect area like an insensitive Geiger-counter till he located the damned thing and the fumbling process could begin again. His stiff fingers trembled, clacking together. He’s only ten years older than me, Uncle thought irritably. Then at last the cartridge went home, the gun was ready and God help anybody who got in his way, though he immediately lost track of what he was doing or why he was here and gazed about abstractedly much as he might at home in bed where he ought to be.

  Sunshine streamed warmly over them, it was a lovely balmy day full of birds and lively insects. The men down on the highway site could be heard joking while they munched breakfast. Somebody threw a tin plate on the ground by the sound of things, rewarded with shouts of appreciative laughter. You had to remind yourself they were the enemy, that Milliner had already rejected the peace offer. You couldn’t trifle with a fellow like him. You only had to remember the workmen calling Mum Collins Grandma and asking to buy a drink of milk from her cow, the senator spreading his useless white hands appealing for reason. No, he was appealing for surrender. There was nothing original about the meek and mild technique of conquest. Who were these workmen anyhow? You couldn’t imagine them settling down and belonging in one place, they were mercenaries. There was that restless look in their faces to tell you any place was much of a muchness to them; the sort of fellows to find trees a nuisance, the mountain itself a nuisance. Hark at them now. Didn’t they notice that dark streak along the foot of the rockwall they’d been shaving away, or guess what it meant? Were they bundling off the black gold with the rest of their rubbish? While they laughed over breakfast had they noticed the wind shifted a couple of degrees to the north? You couldn’t afford to be sentimental with this class of person, on a Sunday they’d turn into tourists, no trouble. Just because they spoke the same language meant nothing. Look at the Irish on television, Protestant against Catholic, not even schoolchildren were safe.

  Meanwhile Bernie Collins had taken over the job of wheeling the arsenal pram, checking that everybody was fitted out. This distribution of ammunition developed into a complicated hushed dialogue about bore sizes and bullet design, about smokeless bullets and the ordinary smoky kind, about flanges and rims; but eventually each man was equipped more or less to his satisfaction. Uncle stood up to take charge of the pram again. Then he set about directing the emplacement of his gerontocratic troops. Meanwhile Vivien found herself a position under a treefern to establish her little first-aid station and canteen, for who could tell what opposition they might provoke and how long they might have to hold their line. She was already feeling capable and useful as a result of rescuing Jack Collins in good enough condition for him to rejoin them at least to act as reloader when needed. Yet she was thinking it’s a pity she wasn’t a trained nurse like Aunt Annie. Aunt Annie who knew about emptiness, nursing injured soldiers in a bombed-out village where neither allies nor enemy belonged. What if none of us has the right? she thought. She wondered if there had ever been a tribe of local Aborigines.

  Wally Buddall using the binoculars picked out his wife Mary remotely but vigorously flapping a sheet from the hotel balcony which was the agreed signal that the ladies were ready for anything, thus establishing workable lines of communication. He reported this to Uncle who slapped his pink toothless gums together with grim satisfaction, having had to ask for the information to be repeated on account of his deafness on that side.

  The enemy were in sight.

  Eleven workmen came wandering along the culvert below, still talking and picking their teeth, amiably unsuspecting, oblivious of the trap they were walking into. A twelfth, unseen by the Whitey’s Fallers, strolled close in against the cliff choosing a private enough spot to piss, being a rather shy youth.

  Uncle began to grow agitated, Billy and Sebastian weren’t back yet, there was no reason why they should take so long. Without them nothing could happen, the whole campaign hinged on them and their explosives. By jesus we could a done with Tony McTaggart today, he muttered, we miss the big fellow. Where the hell were they? They’d had all the time in the world since dawn, after all. Their blast was to block the road and close off the eastern end nearest to town. God help them if something had gone wrong. What if Sebbie couldn’t manage the climb, what if he’d fallen? The rest of Uncle’s troops took off their reading glasses, put on long-sight glasses, plugged in their earphones, popped their loose false teeth in safe pockets, settled their walkingsticks and crutches firmly, then they slipped off the safety-catches of those weapons modern enough for such equipment. Way below, the enemy appeared in excellent spirits as well as appallingly young and strong. But you were up here and that was an unbeatable advantage. All it needed was Sebbie and the boy to come back, their mission successful, for the order to be given. Instead of which the rustling of bushes (yes, at last at last) turned out to be a strangely garbed scarecrow arriving, a stick-insect of a fellow, the sort of old man who wouldn’t be advised to sit too close to a naked flame for fear of going up in smoke (no, who the hell), he was wearing a green jerkin pinned together with echidna spines, a broad hat from beneath the brim of which his eyes darted about furtively, shyly, a keeper of secrets. The scarecrow, bent double under the weight of a wooden box, now placed this with reverent care before Uncle, whispering an invitation for him to inspect its contents.

  – Who are you? demanded the General in an undertone, furious about his grandson.

  – Eggie.

  – Come on Uncle young feller, what the hell are we waiting for? grumbled one centenarian burping and farting freely to relieve the pain of a disturbed digestion.

  – Eggie Schramm! but I never knew… the General croaked in astonishment, now really worried about his grandson, while Gottfried Egmont Schramm, prospector, brother of Jasper and thought dead on the mountain long before this, presented his face for recognition, a face deeply pitted and with grime seamed in, then stopped to scratch in his wooden box like a scrawny rooster.

  – That’s my mortar, he explained once he’d taken out its parts and settled himself to the gratifying task of assembling the mechanism. If it worked, which seemed increasingly unlikely the more you saw of it, this would mean the precious addition of artillery.

  The eleven workmen below began dispersing, ready to climb into machines heavy as tanks. This was a disaster, the strategic moment to strike already slipping away. There were only seconds left. You could have had the lot in a group, unprotected, even though Hugh Milliner didn’t seem to be among them as hoped.

  – Where the hell … Uncle let the words grate out of him. This was the one failure he’d never even considered, the cavities of his body filling fast with dust.

  – I call it the Gottfried bomb-lob and you’ll see Uncle, Eggie began getting his words out more fluently now.

  – They should
be back, they should …

  – Here is the bomb.

  – That one? Uncle found himself surprised into paying attention for the bomb was unmistakably a jam tin. He now looked closer at the mortar itself, set up on a hunk of wood, the barrel a length of wide lead pipe of the old pattern. Ridiculous. Unforgivable.

  – Uncle … Uncle … Uncle? came the whispers from all round as cramps and arthritis developed among his puzzled troops, eyes began watering with strain, prostates protesting, frayed threads of their clothing reaching for earth where they could take root. He must come to a military decision. The assault pioneers had let him down. No room for worry on their behalf. They knew they had to look after themselves. The battle must begin; the moment to strike had already been missed.

  – How do you find its range? Uncle demanded speaking right into the inventor’s ear.

  – You’ve got to feel it mate. I’ve got the feel.

  – Fire when you’re ready then Eggie. Try to knock out a bulldozer or two. Fire!

  Uncle gave the general command, even though most of the enemy had already passed by unharmed and were now somewhat protected in the cabs of their vehicles. A couple of 22s went off immediately, plus a large-bore shotgun. Hundreds of birds, flying in interlocking straight lines, whizzed this way and that across the cutting in danger of intercepting the bullets, and then hid palpitating among the trees. There was an immediate casualty in the person of the veteran who fired the shotgun and now found himself flat on his back with a dislocated shoulder; Vivien Lang already crawling to his aid bearing bandages for a sling, an aspirin and a cup of water. The shots had a dramatic effect on the enemy. Two bullets were apparently still on their way to North America, but the other hit the facing rockwall not twenty feet from a gravel truck. There were shouts of amazement, anger, alarm. Faces peered up out of the vehicle windows. Bang, blang, a couple more let fly with a puff of rust. Egmont Schramm was employed deftly stuffing a paper twist of gunpowder into the barrel of his mortar, poking it down with a stick, sliding the jam tin bomb on top, pushing the fuse into a hole he’d made for it. He sucked his skin lips with appetite, striking a match and lighting her up. Way down there from the direction of breakfast, Hughie Milliner came sprinting along the unfinished highway, shielding his eyes as he scanned the clifftop his men were pointing to. Pong! went the mortar and its silver bomb shot out, sailed high over the road, lobbing far into the forest the other side, where it simply disappeared among the leaves, dead and lost, falling too small to be heard. They waited, hoping for a delayed reaction. But nothing happened.

  – Powder’s too good, the inventor swore.

  At this point half a dozen museum pieces consented to fire, they clunked and pokked and slammed. Truth dawned on the enemy.

  – Jesus Christ, came a voice rising clearly from down there as a couple of bullets bounced on the road. The huge machines roared into life and the first of them began moving just as Billy Swan scrambled into view sweating, bleeding and dusty.

  – Where the hell… Uncle roared, no longer able to restrain his voice.

  – I was ready fucking ages ago, Billy shouted back pushing aside thick scarlet clouds and digging his feet in flesh. I don’t know what happened to Mr Brinsmead. He was supposed to give me a signal.

  They stared wildly at one another, the implications becoming a live charge leaping from one to the other, black suns floating between them.

  – This yellow chap’s the smoke bomb if I’m not mistaken, Egmont drawled fingering another canister lovingly, not willing to part with it.

  – Aim anywhere, Uncle told him in despair, at the same time watching Mr Robbie McTaggart juggling with his .303. Hopeless. Billy give him a hand, Uncle ordered.

  But old Robbie would have none of that, half-blind as he was, one-hundred-and-one and on his first visit to the mountain for seventeen years, Queen Elizabeth’s congratulatory telegram in his breast pocket, he was still full of the pride of having once been a marksman entitled to wear the crossed rifles badge, he’d yield to no whippersnapper advice, not him, considering. The rifle in place, he fired. And a shocked crow watching him from the safety of the branches burst to a shell of feathers without even a squawk, while the marksman peered attentively into his myopic haze for evidence of any mortal wound he might have inflicted. Uncle himself now fired the rifle barrel of his elephant gun and the bullet rang against the scoop of a digging machine, ricochetting back towards the cliff to their left and burying itself, to the accompaniment of a yelp of pain, in the thigh of the twelfth man, the unseen workman who, having had his piss interrupted by gunfire, decided to climb up out of harm’s way or else, on more honourable reflection, to surprise the attackers. Hughie Milliner had scrambled in beside the driver of a grader and this machine now swung its long body in a neat semicircle, leading the way back up the saddle to safety. Four more tanklike giants lumbered after it with a stupendous rumble of motors. Pong! went the home-made mortar and its yellow bomb flew out lopsidedly, spinning with a sound like one of the Roman gods practising trilled r’s up that way. Out it spun in a curve while a couple more shots came close enough to the mark to actually hit the mountainside.

  – They’re bloody mad, a man howled down there in the trap.

  Away beyond the convoy of earth-moving equipment spun the yellow bomb, lobbing right in their path where it exploded with a magnificent ball of smoke, smoke spread dense and black, bringing the vehicles to a halt. Black to grey to blue to a sumptuous clayey yellow the smoke billowed filling that end of the cutting. The vehicles backed, slewed round and charged off, panic-stricken, in the opposite direction, running the gauntlet of gunfire, down towards the unfinished part of the project. The colossal machinery no longer threatening, now plainly tail between legs, Uncle let out a ferocious cry of joy. The battle was really on. He scented the air calling on ancient lusts. Though curiously enough, if you were to believe your nose, the smoke needn’t exist, the breeze still smelt fragrant and fresh with wildflowers.

  One of the senior Collinses, the one with both good eyes, was on lookout with the fieldglasses, watching for developments in Whitey’s Fall. And sure enough the ladies were stirred up like a wasp nest over something; he didn’t have to wait long to see what. Three cars swung round the bend into view, one of them white and one red, plus a blue Ford; trailing their plumes of dust they swept up to the barrier. Doors opened simultaneously giving the scene a Charlie Chaplin effect and out poured a gang of uniformed men. The ladies set about waving their arms. Their newest hats, which they’d thought to wear as a mark of respect for this special occasion, waggled expressively. One of the uniforms shook the barricade of chairs but had the misfortune to choose Miss Bertha McAloon’s section, so that already she was pumping something at him, her elbow a piston, and his arm went up to shield his eyes from her insecticide spray. The chief uniform by all appearances, slower than the rest, confronted Mum Collins and by the developing sag of his shoulders, the deflation of his whole bearing, found he was hearing more than he bargained for. From the blue car came the unmistakable figure of Senator Frank Halloran with his black dog cavorting round him recognizing a joyful occasion; Senator Halloran, friend of the people and patron of Aesthetics, now approaching hurriedly in odd bouncing steps. The ladies were busy, gathering around something on the ground, stooping down, they were up again, now their arms drawn back, yes they were hurling things, traditional eggs and vegetables, yes at the officials. This produced an effect. The uniforms, cowering, were driven back, routed, no question about that; they were in retreat.

  One hand on the pram-arsenal, one clutching his walkingstick, Uncle, knowing nothing of this yet, was nevertheless jubilant at how his own campaign had developed. He nodded to his troops while they squinted and peered through their spectacles.

  – Keep at them! he ordered. Of course he was out for blood, it was the meanings of his life he fought for, and there’s no more desperate cause, as shown by the history of the world and its religious wars. Keep on to them!
<
br />   At this, Grandpa Buddall’s shotgun jammed and the bad-tempered old coot threw it to one side where, unfortunately, it hit Uncle’s walkingstick, which was knocked right out from under him so that not only did he lose his balance but he lost hold of his arsenal. The pram crept out of reach, rolling slowly at first and then faster till it bucketted down the slope. On rolled the pram, dipping, a ship at sea bearing its cargo of dynamite and ammunition. Billy yelled a warning to Sebastian Brinsmead who at this moment appeared, struggling up over the stony ground, mastering the stiffness of his joints, an expression of triumph in his eyes. He was helpless to dodge the loaded pram, so he clung where he was, facing it; the baby-carriage charging at him, jolting along at a spanking pace, Fido’s store of dynamite aimed with deadly accuracy.

  – Sebbie! they cried to the man who had discovered anger. They held their breath as the arsenal rushed past within inches of his shoulder, out over the cutting. At the precise moment the pram was seen to launch into space, a tremendous crash came from below, followed by the roar of shifting rock. The road machines behaved frantically, whining, caught up in the complicated avoidance of collisions with each other, scrambling among themselves to escape the sheet of rock which swung out from the cliff, folded, and crumbled, cascading down in their path. The earth itself shuddered. As if to confirm the closure of the roadway, another multiple explosion marked the final restingplace of the pram, with numerous small crackles and bangs following. Uncle was on his feet again, nursing his bruises and literally hopping up and down with energy.

  – Get the bastards, he ordered as Milliner’s government drove out through the clearing smoke towards safety along the hundred miles of highway they’d already made. Then it occurred to him that he had witnessed the treachery of his kin, that there were men around him who hunted and shot their own dinners every day of the year, whose weapons glowed with a faint sheen of oil and loving care. So how was it nobody down there had been hit? They were shooting wide, the bastards, too stupid to see the facts, the enemy as enemy, too gentle to recognize death in more ways than the obvious.