The busker’s yell had evidently meant he wanted food, but when Dancy hurried up there was no sign of him. He had gone off for wood, and so she betook herself, with Phippsy’s dilatory aid, to frying the bacon.
Dick Tyrell had advised the busker that the bridge was being repaired and that the workmen sometimes threw down timber, so it was in the direction of the road-bridge that the busker went. There were small branches everywhere, but he wanted a sizeable log that would burn all night. Dancy, he thought, might have come with him to give a hand, instead of yarning with that big woman and letting him do all the work. It was not like her. But the Tyrell men had helped to put up the tent, taken the horse to feed with theirs, and then moved on to confer with the Apostle.
A decent lot of chaps, the busker decided, as he searched about below the bridge in the long grass. Even Adelaide had come down to warn him of two shearers camped on the river who, Adelaide was sure, were detectives.
The busker had just found a piece of timber, and was hoisting it to his shoulder, when he noticed a laden figure coming down the path from the road.
‘Christ!’ the busker exclaimed to himself. He had never seen such a small girl with such a big load.
In one hand she had a kerosene tin full of water, and over her shoulder was a log of wood fully as big as the one he had been considering. She wore a faded red dress, and her dark head was bent as she staggered along. But on her bowed head a brilliant rosella, like some strange, vivid feather head-dress, clung by its claws, chattering to itself.
‘Hey, kiddie,’ the busker called. ‘You let me carry that.’
The girl either did not hear or did not heed. She laboured forward, panting a little; but as the busker overtook her, she stopped and put down the kerosene tin, regarding him timidly. She was older than he had thought from her size.
‘What you say?’ Her voice, the busker noted with approval, was not drawling or nasal. It had the ring of good coin.
‘You let me carry that, sister.’ The busker swung her log to his other shoulder, and nearly fell prone under the added weight. But his pride would not allow him to show what a strain it was. This girl was obviously not accustomed to anyone carrying her burdens. She regarded him doubtfully, as the little rosella hopped on to her shoulder and leant round to chitter its beak against her lips.
‘Look out, Bitsey,’ she said, and lifting her kerosene tin, followed the busker in silence along the bank.
They had not gone far before the busker was forced to drop his load and rest his aching arms and shoulder.
‘Why don’t you get water from the river?’ he asked, indicating the heavy kerosene tin.
‘Dad won’t drink it. He made me go up to the church. They don’t put a padlock on the water-tank.’
Some churches, the busker knew by bitter experience, did.
‘Well, I don’t see why the hell he couldn’t get it himself.’
The busker’s virtuous indignation was all the greater in that he was carrying a log her sire could have carried and should have carried.
The girl made no answer. Her eyes widened with surprise at such an unheard-of suggestion. Sharkey Wilks was not in the habit of doing any work. What did he have daughters for?
‘What’s your name?’ Duke asked.
‘Betty Wilks,’ she said softly. ‘And this is Bitsey. I trained her. She’s mine.’
There was something very charming, the busker considered, about this little dark girl in the dull red dress with the vivid scrap of blue, green and scarlet feathers nestling against her hair. Something childlike and appealing. She was so silent and gentle and afraid. That was it. She was afraid of him.
But it was not the busker of whom she was afraid, as he discovered from her next remark.
‘Dad will be mad,’ she said, ‘at me being gone so long.’
The busker took the hint and shouldered the wood again. Sure enough, Mr Wilks, a figure of parental wrath, was standing on the edge of the firelight, peering into the dusk as though he would set it on fire with the smoke from his nostrils.
‘Where the hell you been?’ he shouted, sighting the girl. ‘I’ll take the hide off you, loafing when I want my tea.’
‘Now lay off, sport.’ The busker came up and dropped Betty’s log in dangerous proximity to her parent’s feet. ‘Don’t go snaky on the kid.’
Mr Wilks swore.
‘I just brought this bit of wood,’ the busker explained. ‘Too heavy for a kid like that.’
‘She ain’t no kid,’ her father glowered. ‘Sixteen she is. I’ll teach her to stay out in the dark yarning to everyone she meets.’
‘You lay off her.’ The busker was angry. ‘I spoke to her, see?’
Mr Wilks became conciliatory. ‘Well, I gotta look after the girl, ain’t I? Gotta keep her in order? No offence, mate. No offence.’
‘Just so long as you know how it was.’
‘Well, no offence. Betty’ — he turned to his daughter with a glare that spoke meaningly of what she would get when the busker was gone — ‘you go help your mother.’
‘G’night.’ The busker tramped off with his log.
He had not gone far when a scream from the camp made him turn, half-resolved to go back. But after all, as Mr Wilks had pointed out, the unfortunate Betty was his daughter. She would only be worse used if he interfered. But he resolved that on the very first occasion he would pick a quarrel with Sharkey Wilks and beat the stuffing out of him. Even with this comforting thought he could nevertheless feel such a glow of indignation as surprised him. It was not the busker’s habit to champion the oppressed. He was a ‘wise guy,’ who knew that in this life there was enough trouble coming to you without going out to look for it.
8
I
It was with some uneasiness that Mrs Postlewaite heard her husband say after tea, in a would-be casual manner: ‘I think I’ll just stroll down and have a word with Burning Angus, my dear.’
‘Oh, Harry,’ she exclaimed, ‘I do wish you wouldn’t get mixed up with politics.’
Mrs Postlewaite’s idea of politics included in a broad scope the Apostle’s habit of interviewing police-sergeants on the subject of men struck off the dole, preaching on the street corners against social evils as he saw them, and espousing the cause of every lame duck he came across. The Apostle had got himself the name of an ‘agitator’ in several towns by his fervent utterances and had been in more than one nasty fix as a result.
Mrs Postlewaite would have been content enough had the Apostle merely attempted to ‘uplift’ the dole-chasers. But the Apostle regarded them, not in the light of benighted, ignorant savages, but with a tolerant approval. To Thirty-Bob’s exposition of the best way to steal a pig he listened with a gentle smile. The swearing and filthy language of his associates stirred him not a hair. It was just a habit, he explained, and meant no harm. He had no time for drink, but a great patience with drunkards. Unkindness to horses or dogs would rouse him to real reproach, and many a time his reputation for lunacy had saved him from being knocked unconscious when he interfered between man and horse. He rather played on this reputation.
‘In uncivilised society,’ he was wont to say, ‘the lunatic is always sacred.’
There was no end to the Apostle’s mad ideas. He would be found in the most unexpected places, chipping little pieces of rock with a geological hammer or collecting roots for the awful brews with which he would dose anyone too sick to stop him. He would lie all day under a tree talking about old native ways with the black people, and they paid him a great deference. But chiefly he loved an argument, and above all he loved to argue with Burning Angus.
As he passed Sharkey Wilks’ camp, the Apostle remarked severely to no one in particular: ‘A man who ill-treats his daughters has no luck in this world or the next, and his mare will founder.’ That prophetic voice from the darkness gave Sharkey a real fright. Before he could start up or even swear, the Apostle had passed quietly on towards the bagmen’s camp under the railway bridge.
>
‘Mad!’ Mr Wilks muttered, sinking back in his seat. ‘Old looney.’ He had always disliked the Apostle, particularly in his prophetic moments.
How Burning Angus had got his name was a mystery. He was a small, sandy man with a bulging brow above thick spectacles, a Clydeside accent, and a mate, a quiet old fellow who went under the name of Uncle and quoted Shakespeare. He was always Uncle, just as Burning Angus was Burning Angus, for no known reason.
It was not really necessary to go down to the railway bridge to hear Burning Angus. He had a penetrating voice which, in no undecided manner, was now denouncing the police. He could not be seen, although he could be heard, for just as the Scotsman’s outpourings overflowed with more than one man’s share of noise, so the little fire billowed forth more than its share of smoke, rolling away as though it had decided to rival the carrying power of Angus’s voice.
‘Police, police, police, nothing but police. Moving you on. Ordering you off. And as for work, well, if it’s decent pay, I’ve nothing against work, not at union rates. Ten shillings a day is little enough for a man working from dawn till dark, but how many cocky farmers will give ye even that? And if a man refuses work, it’s up to the police-station the cocky goes. Does the sergeant care what the pay is? Not he! “Oh, ye can’t get the men to work for ye, Mr Smith? We’ll soon fix that.” And the next time ye go for your dole, it’s: “Smith’s got a job for you. Go out and take it. No dole if you don’t work.” ’
At this point the Apostle called: ‘Good evening, Angus. Good evening, Uncle.’ He greeted the Dogger, a big, stern-faced man who adhered to the Communist platform, and his mate Snake, a fair, excitable lad who adhered to the Dogger.
For the minute Angus lost the thread of his argument in welcoming the Apostle, with whom he had one of those long-standing feuds based on mutual liking and political differences. Angus reverenced the Independent Labour Party. His voice took on a new tone when he spoke of James Maxton and John McGovern, just as the Dogger’s did when he quoted Stalin or Dimitrov.
It was quite a meeting, the Apostle remarked, and when he said as much to Angus, the Scotsman declared that it was a meeting — a protest meeting.
‘Did ye see this?’ He waved beneath the Apostle’s nose one of those newspaper references to labour camps which had many weeks before interested the busker, an article discussing the undesirability of so many unemployed travelling about the country and suggesting that they be rounded into labour camps and ‘made to work.’
‘It’s time, high time,’ the Dogger put in, ‘that the men on the roads were organised.’ He said it as though their not being organised were some regrettable oversight for which he was responsible.
‘I’m glad you’ve come,’ Angus said gravely. ‘You’ve got the education. You’re just the man we need to help.’
‘Besides the influence he has over the lumpenproletariat and the women,’ the Dogger assented, with grave patronage. ‘But we’ve got to have accredited organisers shipshape and full-time on the job, as well as just sympathisers. Not meaning any offence, Harry.’
‘What do you want to do?’ the Apostle asked, somewhat perplexed.
‘Do?’ They looked at each other, amazed at his ignorance. ‘We’re going to form a union, that’s what we’re going to do, to protect the rights of the bagmen.’
‘All these chaps here tonight,’ the Dogger came in again, ‘are ready to join. We’re fed up, and we’ve been fed up for a long time with the police handing out dole as a personal favour, and hunting the unemployed.’
‘Wouldn’t it be better,’ the Apostle suggested, ‘to wait until you get to the cherry-picking, where there are hundreds of men, or the canneries?’
‘No, it wouldn’t; and why? Because to start with a few solid chaps and work in small groups gives you a better chance. The trouble with the whole labour movement is that it only organises the men on the job, and when they leave the job, they can drift to hell and fend for themselves.’ Burning Angus argued patiently, quietly; but his eyes behind their thick glasses gleamed with excitement.
‘I have preached the brotherhood of man,’ the Apostle said slowly, ‘as long as I can remember. Whatever I can do, I will do.’
‘That’s good enough.’ Angus and the Dogger turned from him as though that problem was settled. ‘We knew you’d be with us, anyway. We’ve got a bunch of chaps in Sydney ready to help.’ The Dogger addressed the gathering at large. ‘If the shearers tramping the track just like our chaps could build the A.W.U., there’s no reason why the seasonal workers, the bagmen, shouldn’t build a union just as strong.’
‘Only that the bagmen are a mob of dingoes,’ one of the audience struck in.
There was a shout of dissent. ‘What, there’s chaps on the track held their A.W.U. ticket for twenty years.’
‘They won’t stick together,’ the opposition argued. ‘Scared a John ’ud go hostile on them.’
Another man took courage from the opposition. ‘Ar, what’s the use?’ he growled. ‘If we did get it going, the police ’ud bust it up. I’ve heard talk of a seasonal workers’ union for ten years on the track and there ain’t no trace of it yet.’
‘There’s going to be,’ the Scotsman said tensely, ‘from tonight.’
His mate Uncle woke from a dream in which he had been regarding the fire. ‘It’s as Shakespeare says,’ he murmured. ‘“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.” ’
‘Well, let’s get down to tin-tacks.’ The Dogger knew that if he once let Uncle start on Shakespeare or Carlyle, he would quote great slabs of the stuff all night, and no one could stop him. ‘None of you’s said yet that the union wouldn’t be a good move. And it isn’t that the men are yellow. And I’m not saying that it won’t be hard to organise, when all the members are moving about all the time.’
‘There’s some too independent to stay in towns and some too spineless,’ Angus agreed. ‘Some are knocking about looking for work, and others dodging it. But we’ve just got to recognise the difficulties.’
The audience were bored. They would much rather have been yarning about the ways of individual sergeants, the ‘bites’ they had got in different towns. But they listened to Burning Angus and the Dogger because, after all, there might be something in it.
‘Come on,’ one of them challenged. ‘How do we go about getting this union started?’
‘Well, first’ — the Dogger sucked his teeth reflectively — ‘I’d depend on the single men. The coves in vans are no good, with women and kids dragging after them. Strike-breakers, the lot of them.’
The Apostle was roused. ‘Why, Deafy Tyrell’s as solid as a rock.’
‘How about coves like Wilks?’
This silenced the Apostle, and the Dogger went on: ‘The chaps that jump trains or ride bikes, now, they’ve got mobility.’
‘That’s a fact,’ Snake said admiringly. ‘Good word that, mobility!’ He was not called Snake for any defect in his nature, but because he was long and thin and could slip through narrow spaces.
‘All the young, single men,’ Angus capped the Dogger’s words. ‘Aye, it’s the single men with no ties who are real interested in better conditions.’
‘I don’t agree,’ the Apostle declared hotly. ‘It’s the married men with women and children. A single man can usually land a job and get off the track. They’re not there permanently. But the man with a wife and children can’t take the same pay and live on it as a single man.’
‘It don’t follow.’ Angus had started up with the light of battle in his eye. Here was the Apostle on one of their old battle-grounds. ‘And I’ll tell you for why.’
But before he could tell them for why, a singular sound split the air. It was a bubbling, unearthly wail much like that of a seal rising and roaring in its death agony.
‘Cripes!’ the Snake exclaimed. Even the Dogger threw up his head startled.
Then the sound resolved itself into something recognisable as the prod
uct of human vocal cords, and the listeners relaxed. The busker was yodelling. There was a thrumming noise from the guitar, and presently Miss Phipps and the busker were singing together.
The effect on the meeting was immense. As though moved by one single thought, the inarticulate portion of the circle melted away, moving towards the music, Snake in the lead, his allegiance for the moment forgotten.
From the Tyrell camp, from the Jones’, from the Wilks’ camp, figures converged, as though by accident, upon the busker’s fire. They would soon be all sitting in a ring having a sing-song.
‘You were saying that the single men were the ones you could depend on,’ the Apostle reminded his friend unmercifully. But for the moment even Burning Angus and the Dogger were roused out of their usual preoccupation with politics.
‘The workers,’ Angus said, as he followed his union, ‘wouldn’t wake up if a pine tree fell on them.’
But even he liked to sing, especially ‘Annie Laurie,’ and there was little music more than a concertina to be met in the camps.
II
Harley Duke would have been hard put to it to explain why he was singing. It had been drizzling wet off and on all day; Snow was in hospital; and the show Duke had meant to join had moved on. Perhaps he would have said that it was good to feel you were in a snug camp and could settle down for a while, and that he had just bought new strings for his guitar. But the real reason would have had some connection with the girl in a dull red dress, who carried on her shoulder a little red, green and blue rosella. Perhaps if he played, she might come out to listen. Anyway, it would show he was a person of consequence, a man with a future. Had you taxed him with wanting to make an impression, the busker would have replied with cold scorn that he was no ‘cradle-snatcher’ and that he liked a girl with a bit of life. But the motive was there, all the same.
Miss Phipps was in a good humour for once, and she sang. When Miss Phipps sang, people forgot what an irritating woman she could be, for she maintained her own line of harmony with the same persistence she showed in following her own line of conduct, but with better results. A mellow contralto voice is sometimes the privilege of plain, stout women; and she and the busker had by now a repertoire of songs they sang together with all kinds of grace notes and variations. It would have been a pleasure to listen to them anywhere.
The Battlers Page 12
