Tiburon

CHAPTER I.

I.

IN Tiburon all the shady concrete streets, the well-built bungalows, the plate-glass shop fronts, the garages and banks are clustered together in the middle of the town and ringed round by mean, dusty streets and weatherboard cottages set farther apart as the outskirts are reached.

Three miles from the prosperous shopping centre the main road takes a bend to cross the river below Warning Hill. Here, by Dwyer’s farm, is the travellers’ camp on a stretch of grazing-land rightly belonging to the Pastures Protection Board and reserved for hungry travelling stock. One of the board’s problems has always been to keep the even hungrier nomad human beings from occupying the land reserved for the use of the animals.

The bagmen had been gradually ousted from the railway bridge and the showground, and Dwyer’s Bend remained their last stronghold. Here the turnouts drew in from the road—sulkies loaded high with tents, household gear, children and bedding—with perhaps a spare horse, and certainly a dog or so, trotting behind. Battered old motortrucks, bottle-oh carts and cars belonging to pedlars of soap, brushes and tinware paused here for the night. Dusty men pushed their bicycles up the rise, while others came tramping with their nap on their backs and the remains of last week’s dole slung over their shoulders in sugar-bags.

At dusk the place was lively with the shouting of children and the barking of dogs. Hobbles clinked as the horses moved among the patches of weed and piles of rusty tins. As darkness deepened, little flickers of campfires pricked the dark bulk of Warning Hill; and there were often sounds of singing and fighting.

The shelter-shed on the travellers’ reserve, unlike most of the structures erected by charitable town councils, actually did shelter. This was due to rich Mrs. Malloy, who had made herself the council’s curse for many years by her generosity to that undesirable element, the travelling unemployed. It was she who had built the shelter-shed, and, although no one ever used it in dry weather, during the long rainy spells it had saved many a bagman from lying stiff with rheumatism under a bridge.

There were also the shanties occupied by the town’s hard cases, the Willoughbys, the Mulvers, Gran Staines, Mad Peter, an old-age pensioner who had been there as long as anyone could remember, and the Whites.

Dave White had moved out to Warning Hill soon after the police had begun their persecution. Old Sergeant Moore not only had him fined for driving a horse with a gaping sore on its back, but had followed that up by bringing him to court again and telling the magistrate all the private details of Dave’s one-room dwelling, in which Dave, his wife and five children shared the only bed.

Deeply hurt by this inquisitiveness and by some remarks of the magistrate, Dave Whité decided to move away from Tiburon; but by the time he had gone four miles he could not be bothered moving farther. His eldest boy, twelve-year-old Jim, could trap rabbits as cleverly as a man; and between rabbits and child endowment they managed well enough. Dave admitted that their bark shelter needed repairs. He was always going to fix it, but he never had the time. When Jim was fourteen he was old enough to get work, and the other children were quite useful about the place and, as Dave often said, a real comfort to their old father. By the time Jim was seventeen he found he could make more money cutting wood and selling it in the town. Dave retired and spent his days in the bar of O’Brien’s Hotel, where he often picked up an order for Jim to bring in a load of wood.

As Larry, Paul and Bill grew up they were absorbed into the wood-carting business, and Jim found time to build a peasey hut, that is, a mud hut, two rooms roofed with galvanised iron, one for the girls and one a living-room. The peasey hut was considered to be something of a masterpiece by the residents of Warning Hill.

The girls were well worth their keep. They not only did the cooking, but as the boys dragged in the timber they sawed it into logs. Dave would never allow them to take a job in the town or on a farm; and when Mary ran away and found a place at Wilson’s dairy old Dave drove twelve miles after her and made such a fuss that the Wilsons had to let her go, even though she begged and cried to be allowed to stay.

I’ve always fought to keep my family together, my girl, Dave told her as he drove back. An’ I always will. You just remember that. I ain’t goin’ to have my family broken up by nobody.

Dave’s wife died of a chill complicated by the arrival of her thirteenth child. She had formed the habit of driving into town with Dave and sitting all day in the sulky in the hotel yard watching the people and the motor-cars go by. It was a nice change, she said, from Dwyer’s Bend. Long after closing time she could be seen, sitting like a graven image in the dark, waiting patiently for the rattle of the side door opening, the laughter and voices and the uncertain footsteps which announced Dave’s coming. As soon as she heard these sounds she would climb down, light the lamps, cluck to the horse and move over to make room, while a couple of friends heaved Dave into his seat. Then Blasted, the horse, would go clopping slowly down the road, the sulky creaking and protesting under the weight and the lamps blinking uncertainly until they vanished round the corner by the Chinamen’s gardens.

Mrs. White was a woman contented with very little, otherwise she would never have stood Dave, although when she married him he was a good-looking enough chap. She did not mind the perpetual clutter of children, because she hardly noticed them. They had to look after themselves while she stumbled round in her slow way, pottering with a bit of cooking or just sitting in the sun. She couldn’t be bothered cleaning anything, because it only got dirty again. She couldn’t even be bothered talking to the women in the near-by camps, although when she did start she could be quite bloodcurdling in an obstetric style. Winter or summer, she wore the same black hat of straw lace with faded red roses under the brim. In summer a torn, very tight black silk dress, with short sleeves that showed her big red arms, kept the roses company, and in winter the black silk dress was covered by a brown woollen coat. If there is a ghost haunting the pepper-trees outside O’Brien’s Hotel, it haunts after closing-time and wears a black lace hat with faded red roses.

When Mrs. White caught a chill waiting for Dave one wet night, the town was divided between the opinion that she ought to have had more sense and surprise that anything could kill a White.

Pity it wasn’t Dave, was Father Flaherty’s terse comment after the funeral. Father Flaherty had never forgiven Dave for his remark that if there was a pair of angel’s wings doled out to every decent priest, the whole damn’ lot’d be footsore. The Father was a big, red, quick-tempered man with a very human weakness for horse-racing and a heart of gold.

Dave fortified himself against his loss until he had to ask strangers if it were really a black cat on the fence or not. His horror of any alteration in his life, his dread of change, the feeling that something was opposing his will and breaking up his family to spite him, made the warmth of O’Brien’s bar more attractive than ever.

It wasn’t the kid, he mourned, wiping his grey moustache. She was good for another twenty kids. She always ’ated the wet. Said it got into ’er bones.

Cheer up, Dave. Will Souter patted him on the back. Cheer up, boy. Never say die. This struck him as a little tactless. He had not meant to dwell on the uncomfortable subject. He lapsed into silence.

You got the kids, Orry Smith reminded him. You’ve always got the kids.

Dave grunted. I got to bring Ella in with me now in the sulky. What’s she do all day? Wants ice-cream. When she don’t want ice-cream she wants lemonade. Spend, spend, spend. That’s ’er.

There was a sympathetic silence. Sam Jordan winked at Souter. They both knew that Ella made a profit on the trip to town not only in the matter of ice-cream.

No one would think, Dave said, pushing his hat fiercely on the back of his head; no one would think, after all I done for them kids, that . . . He got a bit tangled and relapsed into his beer. Wanted t’ go home the other night, he resumed. Went out. There’s the sulky an’ the ’orse. No Ella. No sign of ’er. Where d’ y’ think she was?

Four grey heads shook slowly to and fro.

Well, where was she? Orry said.

I don’t know, Dave said. I jus’ don’t know.

The others could have hazarded a guess. But they didn’t. The club’s business was with scandals only of absent friends. Dave’s unusual gloom and domesticity were casting a shade on the gathering.

It was always the same group. On winter afternoons they met on the kerb outside the Manchester Unity Hall, where they lounged in the sun arguing, perhaps, about the sum Councillor MacLeary hadn’t yet paid for his new tractor, or the best way of getting rid of nut grass. On summer afternoons they sat on the opposite corner in the shade of O’Brien’s Hotel criticising the new stationmaster’s Labor sympathies or the chances of rain at the week-end. Most evenings they were to be found in the little room behind the bar, playing cards and discussing everything from the shire engineer’s crazy habit of planting trees to the state of Dwyer’s feelings when he found seven sheepskins hanging on his fence.

I hear Mrs. Claufield’s going to leave the town, Souter remarked, rolling a cigarette. Just as Dave had never been seen without his hat, so Souter had never been seen without a cigarette. He was the local blacksmith—not a very good blacksmith, rather apt to forget jobs that were needed in a hurry, and always complaining that work was slack and things were generally dull. She’s going to live with her other daughter now Olga’s marrying Dr. Westly.

Y’ don’t mean to say she’ll give up the chance of bossing Henry Westly, drawled Hinton. Well, well. Thought she pretty near proposed for him an’ got the match all fixed up before either of them had said s’much as ‘How d’ y’ do?’

She did. Trust Ma Claufield. Always the lady. Always polite and refined. Never a harsh word. Can’t y’ see ’er just puttin’ it all over ’im? Poor ’Enery.

What’ll Olga do without her mother? Never known her open her mouth until Ma had told her what to say.

I remember when old Claufield first come ’ere—— Dave began, when there was a knocking at the window. The group caught up their coats with the one idea of police.

Are y’ there, dad? a girl’s voice called. I want to go home.

Dave went over to the window and parleyed with her. You go away for an hour or so, Ella. It’s early yet.

I want t’ go ’ome.

Well, I’m not goin’ ’ome.

Well, I am.

You do as your father tells you an’ don’t make so much noise.

I tell you I’m goin’.

Dave closed the window down.

I’ll bring Mary next time, he said, and puffed out his cheeks with a sigh. One night she isn’t there an’ the next she wants t’ go ’ome.

There was a creaking of sulky wheels in the yard. Souter strolled to the window.

Looks as though she’s gone, he remarked. Got someone with her, too.

Dave was thunderstruck.

I’ll give y’ a lift, Hinton promised. Here, sit down. Sam, it’s your shout. Come on.

Dave slowly hitched up his sagging grey pants. I’ll give it to ’er, he muttered. I’ll give it to ’er with a strap, comin’ them games on me.

Ella’s getting a big girl now, Hinton commented. Pretty, too. Sixteen, ain’t she? You’ll soon be able to marry ’er off.

Dave shook his head.

Why not? You’d still have Lizzie and Emma and Mary to look after things.

Oh, let me be. Dave drank deep. Nothin’ but worry about this an’ that.

As they sat round the table ringed with the memories of innumerable beer-mugs, the yellow electric light poured over them like some sticky fluid, preserving them, immovable, unchanging, as flies in amber. They were soaked in beer and electric light, incapable of effort, floating jetsam in a tidal backwater. The seams and wrinkles on Hinton’s face criss-crossed like the channels worn out by water in a patch of clay country. His white moustache had the appearance of a landmark in the general desolation which his eyes, a watery light blue, did nothing to relieve. He was a small farmer, badly in debt, whose son just managed to make enough to keep the place going and was glad to have the old man out of the way. Next to him the lean form of Souter, the blacksmith, lolled indolently, his heavy thumbs with the grained, seamy knuckles rolling, rolling, even though they had no cigarette-paper between them. Between Dave and Hinton, Orry Smith, the insurance agent, sat shuffling a pack of cards. A small man whose suit always showed the stains of his last meal and the meals before that to the day he first wore it. His little brown eyes twinkled and his face screwed up like a monkey’s. He liked, as he put it, a convivial evening with boon companions, which meant that he liked to spend an evening with the only company that would endure him. At present he was trying to keep his mirth under control at the thought of Dave being left behind while Ella went rampaging somewhere as bold as you please with Jeffery Harper’s boy. Dave’s particular friend, Sam Jordan, sat on the other side of Dave. Sam had been a horse-dealer and was still up to a trick or two.

As crooked as a dog’s hind leg, Orry always declared. That’s old Sam. That’s him. He’s a cunning old hound, blast him! Aren’t you, Sam?

And Sam would silently droop one eyelid and smile in a way that he considered sly, but which merely showed his broken teeth. As a matter of fact, Sam had given up horse-dealing for the simple reason that he could never make a profitable deal. He was easy to fool, but not so foolish that he failed to see the advantage of his reputation. That reputation he had been clever enough to keep, simply by doing nothing.

It was Orry Smith who returned to the subject of Mrs. Claufield. It’s your deal, Souter. What was it you were saying about old Ma Claufield leaving? She’s been going to leave Tiburon ever since I can remember.

"There’s no need to say anything, replied the blacksmith. You can see it plain enough for yourself. Henry’s just had some sort of a bust-up with his new ma-in-law and she’s got licked. I bloody well wish I was there when it happened. Old bitch’s been running this town far too long."

Wonder ’ow she’ll like leavin’ everything? Hinton pondered.

It’s jus’ like eatin’ soap, I s’pose. You get used to anything in time.

II.

Of course, if it had not been for Olga, I should never have remained here after James . . . went, Mrs. Claufield was saying. He never really intended that I should stay here permanently, that is——

Her hearers nodded.

A spade, Mrs. Darch snapped. She always said things with a snap as though she were a frog darting at a fly. Her mouth gave an impression of square determination due to the bad set of her false teeth. She settled her Chinese jacket across her shoulders and took up an amber cigarette-holder. Yes, there’s no doubt you will be missed, Emily.

Two diamonds. I agree, Jane. I don’t know what we’ll do without her in the C.W.A. Mrs. Ilford, the bank manager’s wife, gave the hostess a caressing little pat on the arm. You’ve been a tower of strength, dear. Really a tower of strength. It’s your bid, Violet.

What did you go? Mrs. Blakely, the doctor’s wife, asked dreamily. She was a small, timid woman with greying, untidy hair and an absent-minded manner. It was this absent-mindedness that made her hate playing cards.

Two diamonds, repeated Eileen Ilford somewhat impatiently.

Oh, yes. Pass, Mrs. Blakely said apologetically. What did you go, partner?

One spade, Mrs. Darch snapped. Where are the men?

Playing billiards, I think, dear, responded Mrs. Ilford.

On second thoughts, Mrs. Blakely said nervously, I think I’ll make it two spades. We may just do it, Jane.

Three diamonds. Mrs. Claufield’s beautiful thin face was sad. To think that this will be the last of our pleasant little parties.

You’ll be back, dear, Mrs. Ilford twittered. You mustn’t be so—how shall I put it?—fatal. After all you have done for this town in the years you’ve been here—and the way we’ve all come to depend on you—and when you think of the Red Cross with only Mrs. Trevor as president—not that I have anything to say against her, of course—but it’s enough to make one cry. A tower of strength, my dear; you’ve been a positive tower of strength.

Don’t be a fool, Emily, Jane Darch snapped. You’ll come back for the Hospital Ball.

Mrs. Claufield smiled quietly and shook her head. The lace about her throat always gave her the look of an aristocrat faced with something unfortunate and smelly. It looked so soft against her white face and tender blue eyes that any moderately kind-hearted person immediately felt the urge to protect her against the harsher facts of life.

A tower of strength, Mrs. Blakely repeated dutifully. Yes, indeed. She was not really thinking about Mrs. Claufield at all.

I sometimes feel, Mrs. Claufield said meditatively, as she gathered in a little slam, that the people of this town—though, of course, I do not mean you, my dears—are very unappreciative, and sometimes—don’t think I am being critical—but I feel a little tiny, tiny bit hurt by the selfishness, one might almost say the sordidness, of Tiburon. I have felt they have never understood me, any of us, they just——

Grab, said Mrs. Darch.

Yes, that’s it. I think you dealt last time, Violet.

Oh, did I? murmured Mrs. Blakely. How foolish of me!

There is nothing, Mrs. Claufield resumed, of the feeling of action and purpose that one finds in cities—no constructive effort, no organisation for the—the betterment of the cultural aspects. Mrs. Claufield always trailed her periods slowly like a long velvet train. Everyone is rather selfish—practical, as it were—in their outlook. A heart. Be careful, Jane; your cigarette is rolling off the ashtray.

One no trump. Jane Darch retrieved the endangered object. They’re a pretty dull lot here, I must say. Stuffy little town. I’d be glad to get out of it.

Dull! Mrs. Blakely woke up suddenly. Her eyes almost shone. Stuffy! It is not. Tiburon is exciting. Why, when I see Mrs. Smith going into the Western Farmers’ Store I say to myself . . . She lapsed back into her private limbo.

It will be very dull when dear Emily goes, said Eileen Ilford, almost reprovingly.

When I first came here, Mrs. Blakely emerged again, I liked the name. I liked it. Tiburon. It’s a strong-sounding sort of name. I’ve liked it ever since. Tiburon, she said softly, Tiburon.

Playing bridge with Mrs. Blakely was always rather like playing with a ghost, though she was not usually as bad as this. The others forgave her quite a lot. The Tiburon Advertiser had once published a poem on Anzac Memories by Violet Blakely; and her letter on Should the Modern Girl Wear Wool? had won a competition in a Sydney woman’s paper.

It’s your bid, Violet. Mrs. Ilford decided to turn the conversation. Oh, I’ve been meaning to tell you! Did you hear the latest about the girl Paul White was going to marry?

No, Jane barked. Didn’t even know he was going to marry. Which one is it? I always seem to miss everything.

"The Morgan girl. The family that live across the river. Of course, the Morgans have always been pretty nearly as scandalous as the Whites, and you know what the Whites are. She’s fifteen, rather pretty, they tell me, and it appears she was—— Mrs. Ilford whispered with a little giggle. And, for a wonder, Paul consented to the marriage. Oh, my dear—too—too funny!" She spluttered with laughter.

"I always thought they’d have to tie him to the altar with a rope when some girl did get him," Jane broke in.

There have been eight marriages in the town this month, Mrs. Blakely offered timidly.

Yes, Jane snorted, and five of them shot-gun marriages. Disgraceful. Ought to be locked up. Go on, Eileen.

"Well, it appears, she, she . . . Oh well, anyway, there was no need for them to get married after all, so Paul backed out again. There was a gurgle of discreet laughter. And now the guests are furious—that is to say, all the people who gave presents, and they are talking of asking for them back. So wrong of her to go having kitchen teas if she wasn’t sure."

That’s just it, Mrs. Claufield said plaintively. So materialistic. No beauty, no spirituality. These Whites, for example. I have always thought the very fact that they are allowed to live here proves just how impossible the town is. I’d like to see such people abolished, if you know what I mean.

Eugenics, said Jane firmly. I think that’s what it’s called. Weeds them out. No nonsense. Hitler.

Bad stock, agreed Mrs. Ilford. They’re just animals without morals. In America they call them poor whites. I think that was my trick.

Ella White is rather a beautiful girl, ventured Mrs. Blakely.

My dear, Jane snapped, you’re a poet. That’s the trouble. These Whites——

Please! Mrs. Claufield raised her hand in an authoritative little gesture that forbade argument. I think we should drop the subject.

CHAPTER II.

BLUE and Big Dutch dropped off the goods train as it neared the bridge outside Tiburon and the engine driver and fireman waved them a sarcastic good-bye.

The afternoon, greying to dusk, was cold with the steady drip of rain. The two bagmen ploughed through a lucerne field, moving beside the creek, muddy and yellow under the willows. A few cows gazed after them and the sheep in the lucerne lifted their heads, keeping the strangers under observation until they climbed the barbed-wire fence and stood in the road.

To one side lay the town, though all that could be seen of it was the wall of a garage painted yellow and black, the backyards of a row of shops which failed to maintain the style of their plate-glass fronts and a vista of broken-down woodsheds and untidy fowl-runs. Down the twisted steel tracks the siding, with its goods trucks, the engine steaming under the water tank and the insignificant railway station, was no different from the hundreds of other sidings and stations in the mid-west. Above the station towered the wheat silo, concrete, roofed with corrugated iron, the only building of any grandeur. It was grey against the deeper grey of the sky and behind it the black front of the flourmill showed ugly and disproportionate. Below the wheat silo the walls and roofs of Tiburon stretched in a patchwork of irregular greys to the skirting green fields in which the two men stood.

Dutch, after a disgusted survey of fowlyards and siding, wood- and cowsheds, spat bitterly and turned on Blue.

"Well, this is a hell of a place you’ve landed us."

I dunno, Blue reflected as he lit a cigarette, there’s always somethin’ doin’ ’ere. He shook himself cheerfully like a cattle-pup and grinned at his surly mate. I’ve always hit it lucky. Last time I was ’ere it was a flood, an’ the time before that a diftherium epidemic. He hitched his sugar-bag pack more firmly on his shoulders. They’ve ’ad a grasshopper plague, a rat plague, bushfires galore, an’ once it was a beer strike.

Dutch sucked his teeth. He was feeling quarrelsome, but it was difficult to quarrel with Blue.

Glad I wasn’t ’ere then, he remarked.

There was a lot o’ them scabbed on us. Blue applied another match to the damp cigarette. Come on.

Where to?

Warnin’ Hill.

To the other side of them the Hill raised its green-brown bulk with the road winding towards it beside the twists of the yellow creek. They tramped through the mud, stepping to one side for a car to pass.

Y’ see, Blue continued, I like a little one-dog place like this. Most o’ the cockies are as mean as dirt, but they ain’t all cockies. There, I told y’ I got luck.

The big blue car which had just splashed by was showing signs of slowing down. In it sat a chauffeur in uniform, a young woman and an old one. The old one was apparently giving directions, her method consisting of prodding the chauffeur heavily between the shoulder-blades. She was a stout old lady, built like a battleship and dressed in mulberry-colored marocain with a mulberry hat to match. This stylish costume was somewhat spoilt by a coquettish white satin bow tied under her bulldog chin. Her iron-grey hair escaped from under the mulberry toque in untidy wisps.

I won’t, the young woman was declaring angrily as the car stopped. The idea!

The chauffeur backed the car expertly, and the old lady bent towards the window.

How far y’ going? she called. Give y’ a lift out to the shelter-shed?

Thank you, lady, but we won’t bother you, thank you all the same, Blue began, as he saw the look on the young woman’s face.

Hop in, the old lady ordered in a cracked, harsh voice, and not so much talk about it. Now, Bella—to her daughter—move over.

They noticed that the old lady had taken off her patent-leather shoes and was nursing them in her lap. They drove off uncomfortably.

I’m Mrs. Malloy, she said, as though that explained everything. I s’pose—she looked severely through her steel-rimmed glasses—you’ve both got children to support.

They agreed nervously that they had.

Six of them, Blue said, but I had to leave them in Sydney with the mother-in-law when me wife died.

Not six, the old woman reproved, shaking her head. You won’t get anythin’ out of ’em with six. They’ll be saying ‘Wicked, depraved wretch havin’ all them kids an’ not able to support ’em. Ought to be shot.’ Three’s quite enough.

Mother!

Three’s too many, she amended. I got three. Blue and Dutch were feeling more and more uneasy. What’re you doin’ out this way? Naphthaline-faking?

We was thinkin’ of havin’ a go, Blue responded with a grin, but we left our stock lyin’ about an’ the moths ate it.

Any battler who has been on the beer until his money gives out knows that the easiest way to set up in business again is to beg a handful of naphthaline from a woolbuyer. He then melts it into cubes and hawks it from door to door. Three-pen’th guaranteed to preserve your clothes from moths, silverfish an’ all other insects, lady. That is naphthaline-faking.

This place has been faked out, the old woman remarked. An’ there ain’t no work till harvestin’.

I was here once when Methusalem was a boy, Blue said, an’ the cockies was that glad t’ get chaps t’ work for ’em that they’d go miles to find someone. If y’ went to sleep y’ had to pin a notice on y’self: ‘Don’t wake me under a pound a day.’

Not now. The old woman swung round on Dutch. I know y’ face. Let’s see. It was in Trangie. You was blind-drunk an’ sleepin’ on the onion stack. Remember that big stack of onions out the back of Carry’s pub?

The chauffeur had stopped the car.

Well, there’s the shed, Mrs. Malloy said regretfully. ‘The Flea Bag,’ the boys call it. Sorry I can’t ask you home.

That’s all right with us, lady, Blue responded with a glance at the furious face of the old woman’s daughter. Thank you for the lift. I don’t s’pose you know of anyone who ’as arf a day’s gardenin’——

No, snapped the young woman, slamming the door.

That’s all right, lady. They’s always tellin’ us to put by for a rainy day.

Here. The old lady leaned out of the window as the car moved off. To buy naphthaline, she called. A ten-shilling note lay in Blue’s hand.

That’s Mrs. Malloy for you, he explained reverently as he put it into his pocket and turned towards the shelter on the rise.

The river was separated from the road by a stretch of grassy flat, mounded by blackberry thickets, choked with nettles and pitted with old rabbit-burrows. The innumerable blackened patches showed that here the bagmen usually camped. This evening there were only a few turnouts settled on the flat. Across the road where the grassy slope rose to the shelter-shed there were a few more. Further round the base of Warning Hill was the lagoon, which had once been the old river-bed, but was now a reedy swamp in winter and a cracked, baking stretch of black mud in summer. The shelter-shed looked waterproof and cheerful against the background of dripping trees where the track wound past the White and Mulver humpies to the thickly wooded shoulders of the Hill.

Don’t know how the old dame came to know about me bein’ drunk in Trangie, Dutch mused as they tramped towards the shelter. That must’ve been fifteen years ago.

Mrs. Malloy knows the road, Blue answered as they made their way up the slope. Her old man was a battler, an’ she used t’ travel with ’im until ’e struck it lucky. The daughters spend their time stoppin’ the old lady from throwin’ dad’s money about. They got a guard on ’er all the time for fear someone bites ’er. Dogs round the place, an’ all the maids warned to keep bagmen out. He eyed the shed unappreciatively. I bet they’re three deep in ’ere.

Any room, mate? Dutch inquired of a tall man in a black-and-white football jersey who was lounging at the door. He stood aside to let them pass. As they pushed in the other occupants broke off their conversation. There were about nine men grouped round the fire and leaning against the walls. Dutch and Blue advanced to the fire and began to dry the rain and mud out of their soaked trouser-legs. There was silence for a time.

Where are you from? an old grey-bearded battler asked at length. He had a little white woolly dog lying at his feet, and from time to time he bent forward to give it some of the sardines he was eating.

Out Mudger’s Flat way. Been doin’ a bit o’ clearin’.

Did you come by the church just past the turn-off?

Yeah. The creek-water wasn’t too good. Dead ’orse.

Don’t suppose you met the big Yank. He was headin’ through that way.

We jumped a goods jus’ outside Mudger’s Flat.

Then you’d have missed him.

The others seemed satisfied by the bearing of the newcomers, and settled back into the discussion. The little man who had the conversation in his grip must once have been a boxer. Nothing else could account for the flattened nose, the shaven head, the missing teeth and the scar which had drawn his upper lip away from his gums. His voice was the hoarse monotone of the man whose main pleasure and business is talking. His hearers seemed to have accepted him with the fatalism of people who have a rainy evening to fill in and nothing to fill it with. The exceptions were two old men in the corner lying stupefied over a mixture of white lady—boiled methylated spirit with a dash of boot-polish and iodine, which they had spent the afternoon concocting. No one took any notice of them, except a watery-eyed, red-faced man with a scrubby fringe of beard, who had been shifting closer and closer in search of tobacco. The traveller in the football jersey remained in the doorway, keeping up a ceaseless tap-tapping on the corrugated iron with his finger-nail, a tapping that blended with the weary drip of water from the roof. The rest listened, prepared food and ate it, and threw in a word now and then. The blue smoke rose from the fire and their cigarettes until the air was almost solid. There was a mingled smell of tobacco, ill-fed humanity and damp clothing. The squat shadow of the pugilist danced menacingly on the floor in front of him as though to mock his vehemence and the apathy of his hearers.

Now take this relief, he gabbled hoarsely; it’s only an ’arf-loaf. No one can keep a family on what the Guv’ment allows. They spend more on the mongs in the dogs’ home.

The mongs can’t bite anyone there, some wit remarked, an’ we always can.

An’ would y’ go bitin’ people for coppers if y’ weren’t forced to it? What you want’s a decent price for y’ labor. What do the cockies roun’ here offer for a harvest-hand? Answer that.

About five bob a day if y’ lucky, said a man with a fierce moustache which he had been twisting with all the delicacy of a cat. An’ work, work from dawn to dark to get it.

And when the sun’s set, the chap in the football jersey agreed, they get behind it with a pitchfork and poke it back into the sky.

The orator ignored these interruptions.

Say you don’t take the starvation wages the cockies offer. S’pose you say ‘Why, I was doin’ better on the relief.’ An’ you go to the p’lice station an’ want the relief. What happens? Down comes the cocky an’ tells the Johns he offered you a job an’ y’ turned it down. What happens? No one was interested enough to reply. You’re cut off the relief. Then what y’ goin’ to do?

Blue nudged Dutch. I know that bloke, he said under his breath.

You won’t get no gold medal for that, Dutch responded.

I don’t hold with none of this Red talk, a big man in a dyed army coat objected, rubbing his bristly chin. What we want’s another war, an’ then there’d be plenty of work. An’ it’s comin’, too, what with Japan an’ Hitler. When I was over the other side——

Now then, jest a minute, the orator interrupted. I was over the other side, too. An’ I don’t want another war. Jus’ because you and I was such mugs that even the bullets gave us the go-by, there ain’t no reason why we should go a second time an’ play ‘Here I am, come an’ chase me.’ He turned on the army enthusiast. You don’t want that beautiful face turned into a slab of green meat with the maggots playin’ in it, do you?

Who the hell do you think you are, anyway? the big man snarled. "Comin’ round here lookin’ for a row. For two sprats I’d knock your ugly dial off y’ neck backwards."

The pug leered at him nastily. I haven’t been chucker-out in a pub in Bourke for nothin’, he observed.

Now then, now then. The old grey chap who had spoken first to Blue soothed them as though they were the small woolly dog at his feet. We don’t want any trouble, boys. Sit down again. Sit down, now. They subsided.

What did he want to go talkin’ about my face for? the big man mumbled. His own dial won’t never get no girl to leave home.

Now, there I agree with you, the pug grinned. Not that we’re ever likely to agree about anything else. I got a temper that bad y’ could light a match at it.

A few of his hearers showed signs of restlessness, and he hastened to get the conversation back in his stranglehold.

As I was saying, this dole don’t remind me so much as what happened to an old bloke I know. Old-age pensioner he was. He was shufflin’ along the road very slow with his feet all done up in two sardine-tins. You know them big ones. Well, ’e’s thirsty, see? So he goes up to a house an’ a woman comes to the door an’ gives him a drink. She looks down an’ sees his feet. ‘My poor man,’ she says, ‘is that the best you can do in the way of boots?’ ‘Yes, lady,’ he says. ‘Wait here,’ she says, ‘I think we should be able to do a bit better for you than that.’ ‘Bless you, lady, bless you,’ he says, all dilly with joy, see, thinkin’ he’s on a good thing. Out she comes again, jest like this here Guv’ment, with a couple of Capstan tobacco-tins. ‘Here, my poor man,’ she says, ‘take these. You’ll be able to nail them on to the tins you’ve got an’ make yourself some heels.’ It’s a fact! That was old Paddy the Naphthaline King.

Him! The old bloke what used to get the stuff all mixed up with ’is food an’ eat it? There was a stir of interest in the group.

The same. But, as I was sayin’, this system is jest like the old woman. We don’t want charity. Everyone’s got an equal right to food an’ clothes an’ shelter an’ comfits.

Ah, the old greybeard nodded. That’s so, my boy. Now, I’ve been a great reader in my day. I remember reading a book by Ruskin on that same thought.

When we get into this next war, the big ex-army enthusiast broke in, we’ll show you yeller Commoonists a thing or two. Then y’ won’t be able to go whining an’ crawling an’ stirring up trouble. Knock y’ all on the head, that’s what we’ll do.

That’s ri’, agreed an old traveller who had been dozing by the fire. I’m as good a blurry Commoonist as any of yuh. Cut their throats an’ drink their blurry blood. Tha’sh what I’ll do. Three cheers f’ th’ Rev’looshun!

The little pug turned on him. You’re a disgrace to your class, he stormed. It’s men like you that goes makin’ things hard for men like me, when I’m tryin’ to explain to these workers what’s wrong with them.

I’m a better blurry Commoonist than you are, the traveller insisted truculently. I’ll show y’ who’s the best blurry Commoonist in this shed. He seized the log of wood beside him. I’ll cut y’r throat an’ drink y’r blood, that’s what I’ll do, he howled.

Ar, shut up, from several of the peaceably disposed.

Chuck ’em out, someone suggested.

Everybody’s voice was lifted in the uproar, either swearing at the noise or wanting to fight someone. Only the two metho-drinkers in the corner lay like corpses.

At this juncture a knock came on the corrugated iron beside the entrance. A face was thrust in apologetically—a weak face with a growth of beard.

Is there any room, mates? it asked.

How many of you are there?

There’s me an’ the missus an’ the kid.

Strike! Don’t stand there in the rain. Bring ’em in.

The man and woman came apprehensively just inside the door.

Come right up to the fire, lady, Old Grey invited courteously. He offered her an up-ended kerosene-tin to sit on.

Thank you, the woman said fearfully, as she sat down and pushed back the hair that hung damply