We of the Never Never

J >> Jeanie Mrs. Aeneas Gunn >> We of the Never Never

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It was then two o'clock, and our last drink had been at breakfast--
soon after sun-up; and for another hour we pegged wearily on,
with that seven hours' drouth done horses, the beating sun
of a Territory October overhead, Brown stretched across the Maluka's
knees on the verge of apoplexy, and Sool'em panting wearily on.
With the breaking of her leg little Tiddle'ums had ended her bush
days, but as she lost in bush craft she gained in excellency
as a fence personifier.

By three o'clock we struck water in the Punch Bowl--a deep, volcanic
hole, bottomless, the blacks say, but apparently fed beneath
by the river; but long before then Dan's chuckle had died out,
and soliloquies had ceased to amuse him.

At the first sight of the water we revived, and as Brown
and Sool'em lay down and revelled on its margin, Dan "took a pull
as an introduction," and then, after unpacking the team and getting
the fire going for the billy, he opened out the tucker-bags, having
decided on a "fizz" as a "good quencher."

"Nothing like a fizz when you've got a drouth on," he said,
mixing soda and cream-of-tartar into a cup of water, and drinking
deeply. As he drank, the "fizz" spattered its foam all over his
face and beard, and after putting down the empty cup with a
satisfied sigh, he joined us as we sat on the pebbly incline,
waiting for the billy to boil, and with the tucker-bags dumped down
around and about us. "Real refreshing that!" he said, drawing a red
handkerchief from his belt and mopping his spattered face and beard,
adding, as he passed the damp handkerchief over his ears
and neck with chuckling exaggeration: "Tell you what! A fizz 'ud
be a great thing if you were short of water. You could get a drink
and have a good wash-up with the one cupful."

With the "fizz," Dan's interest in education revived, and after
dinner he took up the role of showman of the Roper scenery once
more, and had us scrambling over boulders and cliffs along the dry
bed of the creek that runs back from the Punch Bowl, until, having
clambered over its left bank into a shady glen, we found ourselves
beneath the gem of the Roper--a wide-spreading banyan tree, with
its propped-up branches turning and twisting in long winding leafy
passages and balconies, over a feathery grove of young palm trees
that had crept into its generous shade.

Here and there the passages and balconies graded one to another's
level, all being held together by innumerable stays and props,
sent down from branch to branch, and from branches to the grassy
turf beneath; and one sweeping limb, coming almost to the ground
in a gentle incline before twisting away and up again, made ascent
so simple that the men-folk sent the missus for a "stroll in midair,"
sure that no white woman's feet had yet trodden those winding ways.
And as she strolled about the tree--not climbed--hindered only
by her holland riding-skirt, Brown followed, anxiously but cautiously.
Then, the spirit of vandalism taking hold of the Maluka, he cut the
name of the missus deep into the yielding bark.

There are some wonderful trees on the Elsey, but not one of them
will compare with the majesty and grandeur of that old banyan.
Away from the world it stands beyond those rocky ways
and boulders, with its soft shade sweeping curves, and feathery
undergrowth, making a beautiful world of its own. For years upon
years it has stood there--may be for centuries--sending down
from its branches those props for its old age, bountiful with its
shade, and indifferent whether its path-ways be trodden by white
feet or black.

After the heat ard "drouth" we could have loitered in that pleasant
shade; but we were due at the Red Lilies "second night out";
and it being one of the unwritten laws of a "nigger-hunt" to keep
appointments--"the other chaps worrying a bit if you don't
turn up"--soon after four o'clock we were out in the blazing
heat again, following the river now along its higher flood-bank
through grassy plains and open forest land.

By five o'clock Dan was prophesying that "it 'ud take us all
we knew to do the trick in daylight," but at six o'clock, when we
were still eight miles from the Red Lilies, the Maluka settled
the question by calling for a camp there and then. "The missus had
had enough," the Maluka decided, and Dan became anxious. "It's
that drouth that's done it," he lamented; and although agreeing
with the Maluka that Jack would survive a few hours' anxiety,
regretted we had "no way of letting him know." (We were not
aware of the efficiency of smoke signalling).

We turned back a short distance for better watering for horses,
settling down for the night at the second "duck-under"--McMinn's
bar--within sound of the rushing of many waters; for here the river
comes back to the surface with a mighty roar and swirling currents.
"Knockup camp," Dan christened it in his pleasant way, and Sambo
became unexpectedly curious. "Missus knock up?" he asked,
and the Maluka nodding, Sambo's question was Iorgotten until
the next mid-day.

By then we had passed the Red Lily lagoons, and ridden across
the salt-bush plain, and through a deep belt of tall, newly sprung
green grass, that hugged the river there just then, ard having been
greeted by smug, smiling old black fellows, were saluting Jack
across two or three hundred feet of water, as we stood among our
horses.

" Slewed!" Jack called in answer, through hollowed hands.
"Didn't worry. Heard--the--missus--had--knocked--up,"
and Dan leaned against his horse, limp with amazement.

"Heard the missus had knocked up?" he gaspod. "Well, I'm blowed!
Talk of surprise parties!" and the old black fellous looked on
enjoying the effect.

"Black fellow plenty savey," they said loftily, and Dan was almost
persuaded to a belief in debbel-debbels, until our return
to the homestead, when Jimmy's Nellie divulged the Court secret;
then Dan ejaculated another "Well, I'm blowed!" with the theory
of second-sight and thought-reading falling about his ears.

After a consultation across the river in long-drawn-out syllables,
Jack decided on a horse muster for the return trip--genuine this
time--and went on his way, aiter appointing to meet us at Knock-up
camp next evening. But our horses refusing to leave the deep green
feed, we settled down just where we were, beside the river, and formed
a curious camping-ground for ourselves, a small space hacked out
and trampled down, out of the dense rank grass that towered above
and around us.

But this was to be a record trip for discomfort. Dan, on opening
out the tucker-bags, announced ruefully that our supply of meat
had "turned on us"; and as our jam-tin had "blown," we feared
we were reduced to damper only, until the Maluka unearthed a bottle
of anchovy paste, falsely labelled "Chicken and Ham." "Lot's wife,"
Dan called it, after "tackling some as a relish."

Birds were everywhere about the lagoons--ducks, shags, great geese,
and pigmy geese, hovering and settling about them in screaming
clouds; and after dinner, deciding we might as well have
a bit of game for supper," we walked across the open salt-bush
plain to the Big Red Lily. But revolvers are hardly the thing for
duck shooting, and the soft-nosed bullets of the Maluka's rifle
reducing an unfortunate duck to a tangled mass of blood and feathers
we were obliged to accept, willy-nilly, the prospect of damper
and "Lot's wife" for supper. But our hopes died hard, and
we sneaked about the gorgeous lagoons, revolvers in hand, for
a good hour, "larning a thing or two about the lagoons" from Dan
as we sneaked.

The Red Lily lagoons lie away from the Roper, on either side of it,
wide-spreading and shallow--great sheets of water with tall
reeds and rushes about them, and glorious in fiowering time
with their Immense cup-shaped crimson blossoms clustering on long
stalks above great floating leaves--leaves nearly approaching three
feet in diameter I think; and everywhere about the leaves hover
birds and along the margins of the lagoons stalk countless waders,
cranes, jabiroos, and oftentimes douce native companions.

Being so shallow and wide-spreading, the lagoons would dry up
early in the "dry" were it not that the blacks are able to refill
them at will from the river; for here the Roper indulges in a third
"duck-under," so curious that with a few logs and sheets of bark
the blacks can block the way of its waters and overflow them into
the lagoons thereby ensuring a plentiful larder to hosts of wild
fowl and, incidentally, to themselves.

As the mystery of this "duck-under " lies under water, it can only
be described from hearsay. Here, so the blacks say, a solid wall
of rock runs out into the river, incomplete, though, and complicated,
rising and terminating before mid-stream into a large island, which,
dividing the stream unequally, sends the main body of water swirling
away along its northern borders, while the lesser current glides
quietly around the southern side, slipping partly over the submerged
wall, and partly through a great side-long cleft on its face--
gliding so quietly that the cleft can be easily blocked and the wall
heightened when the waters are needed for the lagoons. Black-fellow
gossip also reports that the island can be reached by a series
of subterranean caves that open into daylight away at the Cave Creek,
miles away.

Getting nothing better than one miserable shag by our revolvers,
we faced damper and "Lot's wife" about sundown, returning to camp
through a dense Leichardt pine forest, where we found myriads
of bat-like creatures, inches long, perhaps a foot, hanging
head downwards from almost every branch of every tree. "Flying
foxes," Dan called them, and Sambo helped himself to a few,
finding "Lot's wife" unsatisfying; but the white folk
"drew the line at varmints."

"Had bandicoot once for me Christmas dinner," Dan informed us,
making extra tea "on account of 'Lot's wife'" taking a bit of
washing down." Then, supper over, the problem of watering
the horses had to be solved. The margins of the lagoons were too
boggy for safety, and as the horses, fearing alligators apparently,
refused the river, we had a great business persuading them to drink
out of the camp mixing dish.

The sun was down before we began; and long before we were through
with the tussle, peculiar shrilling cries caught our attention,
and, turning to face down stream, we saw a dense cloud approaching--
skimming along and above the river: a shrilling, moving cloud,
keeping all the while to the river, but reaching right across it,
and away beyond the tree tops.

Swiftly it came to us and sped on, never ceasing its peculiar
cry; and as it swept on, and we found it was made up of innumerable
flying creatures, we remembered Dan's " flying foxes."
In unbroken continuity the cloud swept out of the pine forest,
along the river, and past us, resembling an elongated kaleidoscope,
all dark colours in appearance; for as they swept by the shimmering
creatures constantly changed places--gliding downwards as they flew,
before dipping for a drink to rise again with swift, glancing
movement, shrilling that peculiar cry all the while. Like clouds
of drifting fog they swept by, and in such myriads that, even
after the Maluka began to time them, full fifteen minutes passed
before they began to straggle out, and twenty before the last few
stragglers were gone. Then, as we turned up stream to look after
them, we found that there the dense cloud was rising and fanning out
over the tree tops. The evening drink accomplished, it was time
to think of food.

Dan welcomed the spectacle as an "impromptu bit of education.
Learnt something meself, even," he said with lordly superiority.
"Been out-bush forty years and never struck that before "; and later,
as we returned to camp, he declared it "just knocked spots off
De Rougemont."

But it had taken so long to persuade the horses that a drink
could proceed out of a mixing dish, that it was time to turn in
by then; and Dan proceeded to clear a space for a sleeping ground
with a tomahawk. "Seems no end to education once you start,"
he chuckled, hacking at a stubborn tussock. "Reckon no other woman
ever learned to make a bed with a tomahawk." Then Sambo created
a diversion by asking for the loan of a revolver before taking a
message to the blacks' camp.

"Big mob bad fellow black fellow sit down longa island," he
explained; and Dan, whimsical under all circumstances, "noticed
the surprise party wasn't exactly going ofl without a hitch."
"Couldn't have fixed up better for them if they've got a surprise
party of their own up their sleeves," he added ruefully, looking
round at the dense wall of grass about us; and as he and the Maluka
swung the two nets not six feet apart, we were all of one mind
that "getting murdered was an experience we conld do nicely without."
Then Sambo returning and swinging his net in the narrow space
between the two others, set Dan chuckling again. "Doesn't
mean to make a target of himself," he said; but his chuckle died
out when Sambo, preparing to curl up in the safest place in the camp,
explained his presumption tersely by announcing that "Monkey sit
down longa camp." Monkey was a law unto himself, and a very
unpleasant law, being a reputed murderer several times over,
and when he and his followers were about, white men saw to their
rifles; and as we turned in we also agreed "that this wasn't
exactly the kind of nigger hunt we had set out for." "It makes
a difference when the other chap's doing the hunting, Sool'em,
old girl," Dan added, cautioning her to keep her "weather eye open,"
as he saw to his rifle and laid it, muzzle outwards, in his net.
Then, as we settled down for the night with revolvers and rifle
at hand, and Brown at the head of our net, he "hoped" the missus
would not "go getting nightmare, and make things unpleasant
by shooting round promiscuous like," and having by this tucked
himself in to his satisfaction, he lay down, "reckoning this ought
to just about finish off her education, if she doesn't get finished
off herself by niggers before morning.''

A cheerful nightcap; but such was our faith in Sool'em and Brown
as danger signals, that the camp was asleep in a few minutes.
Perhaps also because nigger alarms were by no means the exception:
the bush-folk would get little sleep if they lay awake whenever
they were camped near doubtful company. We sleep wherever we are,
for it is easy to grow accustomed even to nigger alarms, and beside,
the bush-folk know that when a man has clean hands and heart he has
little to fear from even his "bad fellow black fellows." But the Red
Lilies were beyond our boundaries, and Monkey was a notorious
exception, and shrill cries approaching the camp at dawu
brought us all to our elbows, to find only the flying foxes
returning to the pine forest, fanning inwards this time.

After giving the horses another drink, and breakfasting on damper
and " Lot's wife," we moved on again, past the glory of the lagoons,
to further brumby encounters, carrying a water-bag on a pack-horse
by way of precaution against further "drouths." But such was
the influence of "Lot's wife" that long before mid-day the bag
was empty, and Dan was recommending bloater-paste as a "grand thing
for breakfast during the Wet seeing it keeps you dry all day long."

Further damper and "Lot's wife" for dinner, and an afternoon
of thirst, set us all dreading supper, and about sundown three
very thirsty, forlorn white folk were standing by the duck-under
below "Knock-up camp," waiting for the Quiet Stockman, and hoping
against hope that his meat had not "turned on him"; and when he
and his "boys" came jangling down the opposite bank, and splashing
and plunging over the "duckunder" below, driving a great mob
of horses before them we assailed him with questions.

But although Jack's meat was "chucked out days ago" he was merciful
to us and shouted out: "Will a dozen boiled duck do instead?
Got fourteen at one shot this morning, and boiled 'em right
off," he explained as we seized upon his tucker-bags. "Kept
a dozen of 'em in case of accidents." Besides a shot-gun, Jack had
much sense.

A dozen cold boiled duck "did" very nicely after four meals
of damper and bloater-paste; and a goodly show they made set out
in our mixing dish.

Dan, gloating over them, offered to "do the carving." "I'm real
good at the poultry carving trick, when there's a bird apiece,"
he chuckled, spearing bird after bird with a two-pronged fork,
and passing round one apiece as we sat expectantly around the mixing
dish, all among the tucker-bags and camp baggage. And so excellent
a sauce is hunger that we received and enjoyed our "bird apiece"
unabashed and unblushingly--the men-folk returning for further
helpings, and the "boys" managing all that were left.

All agreed that "you couldn't beat cold boiled duck by much";
but in the morning grilled fish was accepted as "just the thing
for breakfast"; then finding ourselves face to face with Lot's wife,
and not too much of that, we beat a hasty retreat to the homestead;
a further opportune "catch" of duck giving us heart for further
brumby encounters and another night's camp out-bush. Then the
following morning as we rode towards the homestead Dan "reckoned"
that from an educational point of view the trip had been a pronounced
success.

CHAPTER XXI

Just before mid-day--five days after we had left the homestead--
we rode through the Southern slip rails to find the Dandy at work
"cleaning out a soakage" on the brink of the billabong, with Cheon
enthusiastically encouraging him. The billabong, we heard,
had threatened to "peter out" in our absence, and riding across
the now dusty wind-swept enclosure we realised that November was
with us, and that the "dry" was preparing for its final fling--
"just showing what it could do when it tried."

With the South-east Trades to back it up it was fighting desperately
against the steadily advancing North-west monsoon, drying up,
as it fought, every drop of moisture left from last Wet.
There was not a blade of green grass within sight of the homestead,
and everywhere dust whirled, and eddied, and danced, hurled all
ways at once in the fight, or gathered itself into towering
centrifugal columns, to speed hither and thither, obedient to the
will of the elements.

Half the heavens seemed part of the Dry, and half part of the Wet:
dusty blue to the south-east, and dark banks of clouds
to the north-west, with a fierce beating sun at the zenith.
Already the air was oppressive with electric disturbances,
and Dan, fearing he would not get finished unless things were kept
humming, went out-bush next morning, and the homestead became
once more the hub of our universe--the south-east being branded
from that centre. Every few days a mob was brought in, and branded,
and disbanded, hours were spent on the stockyard fence; pack-teams
were packed, unpacked, and repacked; and every day grew hotter
and hotter, and every night more and more electric,
and as the days went by we waited for the Fizzer, hungry
for mail-matter, with a six weeks' hunger.

When the Fizzer came in he came with his usual lusty shouting,
but varied his greeting into a triumphant: "Broken the record
this time, missus. Two bags as big as a house and a few et-cet-eras!"
And presently he staggered towards us bent with the weight
of a mighty mail. But a Fizzer without news would not have been
our Fizzer, and as he staggered along we learned that Mac was
coming out to clear the run of brumbies. "Be along in no time now,"
the Fizzer shouted. "Fallen clean out with bullock-punching.
Wouldn't put his worst enemy to it. Going to tackle something
that'll take a bit of jumping round." Then the mail-bags
and et-cet-eras came down in successive thuds, and no one was
better pleased with its detail than our Fizzer: fifty letters,
sixty-nine papers, dozens of books and magazines, and parcels
of garden cuttings.

"Last you for the rest of the year by the look of it," the Fizzer
declared later, finding us at the house walled in with a litter
of mail-matter. Then he explained his interruption. "I'm going
straight on at once," he said "for me horses are none too good
as it is, and the lads say there's a bit of good grass
at the nine-mile ", and, going out, we watched him set off.

"So long!" he shouted, as cheerily as ever, as he gathered his team
together. "Half-past eleven four weeks.''

But already the Fizzer's shoulders were setting square, for the last
trip of the "dry" was before him--the trip that perished the last
mailman--and his horses were none too good.

"Good luck!" we called after him. "Early showers!" and there was
a note in our voices brought there by the thought of that gaunt figure
at the well--rattling its dicebox as it waited for one more round
with our Fizzer: a note that brought a bright look into the Fizzer's
face, as with an answering shout of farewell he rode on into the forest.
And watching the sturdy figure, and knowing the luck of our Fizzer--
that luck that had given him his fearless judgment and steadfast,
courageous spirit--we felt his cheery "Half-past eleven four weeks"
must be prophetic, in spite of those long dry stages,
with their beating heat and parching dust eddies--stages eked out
now at each end with other stages of "bad going."

"Half-past eleven four weeks," the Fiz.er had said; and as we
returned to our mail-matter, knowing what it meant to our Fizzer,
we looked anxiously to the northwest, and "hoped the showers"
would come before the "return trip of the Downs."

In addition to the fifty letters for the house, the Fizzer had left
two others at the homestead to be called for--one being addressed
to Victoria Downs (over two hundred miles to our west), and the
other to--

F. BROWN, Esq.,
IN CHARGE OF STUD BULLS GOING WEST
VIA NORTHERN TERRITORY.

The uninitiated may think that the first was sent out by mistake
and that the second was too vaguely addressed; but both ietters
went into the rack to await delivery, for our faith in the wisdom
of our Postal Department was great; it makes no mistakes, and to it--
in a land where everybody knows everybody else, and all his business,
and where it has taken him--an address could never be too vague.
The bush-folk love to say that when it opened out its swag
in the Territory it found red tape had been forgotten, but having
a surplus supply of common sense on hand, it decided to use that
in its place.

And so it would seem. "Down South" envelopes are laboriously
addressed with the names of stations and vias here and vias there;
and throughout the Territory men move hither and thither by compulsion
or free-will giving never a thought to an address; while the Department,
knowing the ways of its people, delivers its letters in spite of,
not because of, these addresses. It reads only the name of the man
that heads the address of his letters and sends the letters to where
that man happens to be. Provided it has been clearly stated which
Jones is meant the Department will see to the rest, although it is wise
to add Northern Territory for the guidance of Post Offices "Down South."
"Jones travelling with cattle for Wave Will," reads the Department;
and that gossiping friendly wire reporting Jones as "just leaving
the Powell," the letter lies in the Fizzer's loose-bag until he runs
into Jones's mob; or a mail coming in for Jones, Victoria River,
when this Jones is on the point of sailing for a trip south,
his mail is delivered on shipboard; and as the Department goes on
with its work, letters for east go west, and for west go south--
in mail-bags, loose-bags, travellers' pockets or per black boy--
each one direct to the bush-folk as a migrating bird to its destination.

But, painstaking as our Department is with our mailmatter, it excels
itself in its handling of telegrams. Southern red tape has decreed--
no doubt wisely as far as it goes--that telegrams shall travel
by official persons only; but out-bush official persons are few,
and apt to be on duty elsewhere when important telegrams arrive;
and it is then that our Department draws largely on that surplus
supply of common sense.

Always deferential to the South, it obediently pigeon-holes
the telegram, to await some official person, then, knowing that
a delay of weeks will probably convert it into so much waste
paper, it writes a "duplicate," and goes outside to send it
"bush" by the first traveller it can find. If no traveller is
at hand, the "Line" is "called up" and asked if any one is going
in the desired direction from elsewhere; if so, the "duplicate"
is repeated down the line," but if not, a traveller is created
in the person of a black boy by means of a bribing stick
of tobacco. No extra charge, of course. Nothing IS an extra
in the Territory. "Nothing to do with the Department,"
says the chief; "merely the personal courtesy of our officers."
May it be many a long day before the forgotten shipment of red tape
finds its way to the Territory to strangle the courtesy of our officers!

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