We of the Never Never
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Jeanie Mrs. Aeneas Gunn >> We of the Never Never
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The Fizzer is unlike every type of man excepting a bush mail-man.
Hard, sinewy, dauntless, and enduring, he travels day after day
and month after month, practically alone--"on me Pat Malone,"
he calls it--with or without a black boy, according to circumstances,
and five trips out of his yearly eight throwing dice with death
along his dry stages, and yet at all tmes as merry as a grig,
and as chirrupy as a young grasshopper.
With a light-hearted, "So long, chaps," he sets out from the Katherine
on his thousand-mile ride, and with a cheery " What ho, chaps!
Here we are again!" rides in again within five weeks with that journey
behind him.
A thousand miles on horseback, "on me Pat Malone," into the
Australian interior and out again, travelling twice over three long
dry stages and several shorter ones, and keeping strictly within the
Government time-limit, would be a life-experience to the men who
set that limit if it wasn't a death-experience. "Like to see one
of 'em doing it 'emselves," says the Fizzer. Yet never a day late,
and rarely an hour, he does it eight times a year, with a "So long,
chaps," and a "Here we are again."
The Fizzer was due at sundown, and at sundown a puff of dust
rose on the track, and as a cry of "Mail oh !" went up all round
the homestead, the Fizzer rode out of the dust.
"Hullo! What ho! boys," he shouted in welcome, and the next
moment we were in the midst of his clattering team of pack-horses.
For five minutes everything was in confusion; horse bells and hobbles
jingling and clanging, harness rattling, as horses shook themselves
free, and pack-bags, swags, and saddles came to the ground with
loud, creaking flops. Every one was lending a hand, and the Fizzer,
moving in and out among the horses, shouted a medley of news
and instructions and welcome.
"News? Stacks of it" he shouted. The Fizzer always shouted.
"The gay time we had at the Katherine! Here, steady with that
pack-bag. It's breakables! How's the raisin market? Eh, lads!"
with many chuckles. "Sore back here, fetch along the balsam.
What ho, Cheon!" as Cheon appeared and greeted him as an old friend.
"Heard you were here. You're the boy for my money. You BALLY ass!
Keep 'em back from the water there." This last was for the black boy.
It took discrimination to fit the Fizzer's remarks on to the right
person. Then, as a pack-bag dropped at the Maluka's feet, he added:
"That's the station lot, boss. Full bags, missus! Two on 'em.
You'll be doing the disappearing trick in half a mo'."
In "half a mo'" the seals were broken, and the mail-matter shaken
out on the ground. A cascade of papers, magazines, and books,
with a fat, firm little packet of letters among them: forty
letters in all--thirty of them falling to my lot--thirty fat,
bursting envelopes, and in another "half mo'" we had all
slipped away in different directions--each with our precious
mail matter--doing the "disappearing trick" even to the Fizzer's
satisfaction.
The Fizzer smiled amiably after the retreating figures, and then
went to be entertained by Cheon. He expected nothing else. He
provided feasts all along his route, and was prepared to stand
aside while the bush-folk feasted. Perhaps in the silence that
fell over the bush homes, after his mail-bags were opened,
his own heart slipped away to dear ones, who were waiting somewhere
for news of our Fizzer.
Eight mails ONLY in a year is not all disadvantage. Townsfolk
who have eight hundred tiny doses of mail-matter doled out to
them, like men on sick diet can form little idea of the pleasure
of that feast of "full bags and two on 'em," for like thirsty camels
we drank it all in--every drop of it--in long, deep, satisfying
draughts. It may have been a disadvantage, perhaps, to have been
so thirsty; but then only the thirsty soul knows the sweetness of
slaking that thirst.
After a full hour's silence the last written sheet was laid down,
and I found the Maluka watching and smiling.
"Enjoyed your trip south, little 'un?" he said, and I came back
to the bush with a start, to find the supper dead cold. But then
supper came every night and the Fizzer once in forty-two.
At the first sound of voices, Cheon bustled in. "New-fellow tea,
I think," he said, and bustled out again with the teapot (Cheon had
had many years' experience of bush mail-days), and in a few
minutes the unpalatable supper was taken away, and cold roast
beef and tomatoes stood in its place.
After supper, as we went for our evening stroll, we stayed for
a little while where the men were lounging, and after a general
interchange of news the Fizzer's turn came.
News! He had said he had stacks of it, and he now bubbled over
with it. The horse teams were "just behind," and the Macs almost
at the front gate. The Sanguine Scot? Of course he was all right:
always was, but reckoned bullock-punching wasn't all it was
cracked up to be; thought his troubles were over when he got
out of the sandy country, but hadn't reckoned on the black soil
flats. "Wouldn't be surprised if he took to punching something
else besides bullocks before he's through with it," the Fizzer
shouted, roaring with delight at the recollection of the Sanguine
Scot in a tight place. On and on he went with his news, and for
two hours afterwards, as we sat chewing the cud of our mail-matter,
we could hear him laughing and shouting and "chiacking."
At daybreak he was at it again, shouting among his horses, as he
culled his team of "done-ups," and soon after breakfast was at the head
of the south track with all aboard.
"So long, chaps," he called. "See you again half-past eleven four
weeks"; and by "half-past eleven four weeks" he would have
carried his precious freight of letters to the yearning, waiting men
and women hidden away in the heart of Australia, and be out again,
laden with "inside" letters for the outside world.
At all seasons of the year he calls the first two hundred miles
of his trip a "kid's game." "Water somewhere nearly every day,
and a decent camp most nights." And although he speaks of the next
hundred and fifty as being a "bit off during the Dry," he faces
its seventy-five-mile dry stage, sitting loosely in the saddle,
with the same cheery "So long, chaps."
Five miles to "get a pace up"--a drink, and then that seventy-five
miles of dry, with any "temperature they can spare from other parts,"
and not one drop of water in all its length for the horses. Straight
on top of that, with the same horses and the same temperature,
a run of twenty miles, mails dropped at Newcastle Waters, and another
run of fifty into Powell's Creek, dry or otherwise according to
circumstances.
"Takes a bit of fizzing to get into the Powell before the fourth
sundown," the Fizzer says--for, forgetting that there can be no
change of horses, and leaving no time for a "spell" after the
"seventy-five-mile dry "--the time limit for that one hundred and
fifty miles, in a country where four miles an hour is good travelling
on good roads has been fixed at three and a half days. "Four, they
call it," says the Fizzer, "forgetting I can't leave the water till
midday. Takes a bit of fizzing all right"; and yet at Powell's
Creek no one has yet discovered whether the Fizzer comes at
sundown, or the sun goes down when the Fizzer comes.
"A bit off," he calls that stage, with a school-boy shrug of his
shoulders; but at Renner's Springs, twenty miles farther on,
the shoulders set square, and the man comes to the surface.
The dice-throwing begins there, and the stakes are high--a man's life
against a man's judgment.
Some people speak of the Fizzer's luck, and say he'll pull through,
if any one can. It is luck, perhaps--but not in the sense they
mean--to have the keen judgment to know to an ounce what a horse
has left in him, judgment to know when to stop and when to go on--
for that is left to the Fizzer's discretion; and with that judgment
the dauntless courage to go on with, and win through, every task
attempted.
The Fizzer changes horses at Renner's Springs for the "Downs'
trip"; and as his keen eyes run over the mob, his voice raps out
their verdict like an auctioneer's hammer. "He's fit. So is he.
Cut that one out. That colt's A1. The chestnut's done. So is
the brown. I'll risk that mare. That black's too fat."
No hesitation: horse after horse rejected or approved, until
the team is complete; and then driving them before him he faces
the Open Downs--the Open Downs, where the last mail-man perished;
and only the men who know the Downs in the Dry know what he faces.
For five trips out of the eight, one hundred and thirty miles
of sun-baked, crab-holed, practically trackless plains, no sign
of human habitation anywhere, cracks that would swallow a man--
"hardly enough wood to boil a quart pot," the Fizzer says,
and a sun-temperature hovering about 160 degrees (there is no
shade-temperature on the Downs); shadeless, trackless, sun-baked,
crab-holed plains, and the Fizzer's team a moving speck in the centre
of an immensity that, never diminishing and never changing,
moves onward with the team; an immensity of quivering heat and glare,
with that one tiny living speck in its centre, and in all that
hundred and thirty miles one drink for the horses at the end
of the first eighty. That is the Open Downs.
"Fizz!" shouts the Fizzer. "That's where the real fizzing gets done,
and nobody that hasn't tried it knows what it's like."
He travels its first twenty miles late in the afternoon, then,
unpacking his team, "lets 'em go for a roll and a pick, while he
boils a quart pot" (the Fizzer carries a canteen for himself);
"spells" a bare two hours, packs up again and travels all night,
keeping to the vague track with a bushman's instinct, "doing"
another twenty miles before daylight; unpacks for another spell,
pities the poor brutes "nosing round too parched to feed," may
"doze a bit with one ear cocked," and then packing up again,
"punches 'em along all day," with or without a spell. Time is
precious now. There is a limit to the number of hours a horse
can go without water, and the thirst of the team fixes the time
limit on the Downs. "Punches 'em along all day, and into water
close up sundown," at the deserted Eva Downs station.
"Give 'em a drink at the well there," the Fizzer says as unconcernedly
as though he turned on a tap. But the well is old and out
of repair, ninety feet deep, with a rickety old wooden windlass;
fencing wire for a rope; a bucket that the Fizzer has "seen fit
to plug with rag on account of it leaking a bit," and a trough,
stuffed with mud at one end by the resourceful Fizzer. Truly
the Government is careful for the safety of its servants. Added
to all this, there are eight or ten horses sa eager for a drink
that the poor brutes have to be tied up, and watered one at a time;
and so parched with thirst that it takes three hours' drawing before
they are satisfied--three hours' steady drawing, on top of twenty-three
hours out of twenty-seven spent in the saddle, and half that time
"punching" jaded beasts along; and yet they speak of the "Fizzer's luck."
"Real fine old water too," the Fizzer shouts in delight, as he
tells his tale. "Kept in the cellar for our special use. Don't
indulge in it much myself. Might spoil my palate for newer stuff,
so I carry enough for the whole trip from Renner's."
If the Downs have left deep lines on the Fizzer's face, they have
left none in his heart. Yet at that well the dice-throwing goes
on just the same.
Maybe the Fizzer feels "a bit knocked out with the sun," and the water
for his perishing horses ninety feet below the surface; or "things
go wrong "with the old windlass, and everything depends on the Fizzer's
ingenuity. The odds are very uneven when this happens--a man's
ingenuity against a man's life, and death playing with loaded dice.
And every letter the Fizzer carries past that well costs the public
just twopence.
A drink at the well, an all-night's spell, another drink, and then
away at midday, to face the tightest pinch of all--the pinch where
death won with the other mail-man. Fifty miles of rough, hard,
blistering, scorching "going," with worn and jaded horses.
The old programme all over again. Twenty miles more, another
spell for the horses (the Fizzer never seems to need a spell for
himself), and then the last lap of thirty, the run into Anthony's
Lagoon, "punching the poor beggars along somehow." "Keep 'em
going all night," the Fizzer says; " and if you should happen to
be at Anthony's on the day I'm due there you can set your watch
for eleven in the morning when you see me coming along." I have
heard somewhere of the Pride of Harness.
Sixteen days is the time-limit for those five-hundred miles,
and yet the Fizzer is expected because the Fizzer is due; and to
a man who loves his harness no praise could be sweeter than that.
Perhaps one of the brightest thoughts for the Fizzer as he "punches"
along those desolate Downs is the knowledge that a little before
eleven o'clock in the morning Anthony's will come out, and, standing
with shaded eyes, will look through the quivering heat, away
into the Downs for that tiny moving speck. When the Fizzer is
late there, death will have won at the dice-throwing.
I suppose he got a salary. No one ever troubled to ask. He was
expected, and he came, and in our selfishness we did not concern
ourselves beyond that.
It is men like the Fizzer who, "keeping the roads open," lay
the foundation-stones of great cities; and yet when cities
creep into the Never-Never along the Fizzer's mail route, in all
probability they will be called after Members of Parliament
and the Prime Ministers of that day, grandsons, perhaps,
of the men who forgot to keep the old well in repair, while our Fizzer
and the mail-man who perished will be forgotten; for townsfolk
are apt to forget the beginnings of things.
Three days' spell at Anthony's, to wait for the Queensland
mail-man from the "other-side" (another Fizzer no doubt, for the bush
mail-service soon culls out the unfitted), an exchange of mail-bags,
and then the Downs must be faced again with the same team of horses.
Even the Fizzer owns that "tackling the Downs for the return trip's
a bit sickening; haven't had time to forget what it feels like,
you know," he explains.
Inside to Anthony's, three days' spell, over the Downs again,
stopping for another drink at that well, along the stage "that's
a bit off," and back to the "kid's game," dropping mail-bags
in twos and threes as he goes in, and collecting others as he
comes out, to say nothing of the weary packing and unpacking
of his team. That is what the Fizzer had to do by half-past
eleven four weeks.
"And will go hopelessly on the spree at the end of the trip,"
say uncharitable folk; but they do not know our Fizzer. "Once
upon a time I was a bad little boy," our Fizzer says now, "but
since I learnt sense a billy of tea's good enough for me."
And our Fizzer is not the only man out-bush who has "learnt sense."
Man after man I have met who found tea "good enough," and many more
who "know how to behave themselves." Sadly enough, there are others
in plenty who find their temptations too strong for them--temptations
that the world hardly guesses at.
But I love the bush-folk for the good that is in them, hidden,
so often, carefully away deep down in their brave, strong hearts--
hearts and men that ring true, whether they have "learnt sense,"
or "know how to behave," or are only of the others. But every
man's life runs parallel with other lives, and uhile the Fizzer
was "punching along" his dry stages events were moving rapidly
with us; while perhaps, aways in the hearts of towns, men and
women were "winning through the dry stages" of their lives
there.
CHAPTER XIII
Soon after the Fizzer left us the horse-teams came in, and went on,
top-heavy with stores for "inside"; but the "Macs" were now thinking
of the dry stages ahead, and were travelling at the exasperating
rate of about four miles a day, as they "nursed the bullocks"
through the good grass country.
Dan had lost interest in waggons, and was anxious to get among
the cattle again; but with the trunks so near, the house growing
rapidly, the days of sewing waiting, I refused point-blank to leave
the homestead just then.
Dan tried to taunt me into action, and reviewed the "kennel"
with critical eyes. "Never saw a dog makin', its own chain
before," he said to the Maluka as I sat among billows of calico
and mosquito netting. But the homemaking instinct is strong
in a woman, and the musterers went out west without the missus.
The Dandy being back at the Bitter Springs superintending the carting
of new posts for the stockyard there, the missus was left
in the care of Johnny and Cheon.
"Now we shan't be long," said Johnny, and Cheon, believing him,
expressed great admiration for Johnny, and superintended the scrubbing
of the walls, while I sat and sewed, yard after yard of oversewing,
as never woman sewed before.
The walls were erected on what is known as the drop-slab-panel
system--upright panels formed of three-foot slabs cut from the
outside slice of tree trunks, and dropped horizontally, one above
the other, between grooved posts--a simple arrangement, quickly
run up and artistic in appearance--outside, a horizontally fluted
surface, formed by the natural curves of the timber, and inside,
flat, smooth walls. As in every third panel there was a door
or a window, and as the horizontal slabs stopped within two feet
of the ceiling, the building was exceedingly airy, and open
on all sides.
Cheon, convinced that the system was all Johnny's was delighted
with his ingenuity. But as he insisted on the walls being scrubbed
as soon as they were up, and before the doors and windows were in,
Johnny had one or two good duckings, and narrowly escaped many
more; for lubras' methods of scrubbing are as full of surprises
as all their methods.
First soap is rubbed on the dry boards, then vigorously
scrubbed into a lather with wet brushes, and after that the lather
is sluiced off with artificial waterspouts whizzed up the walls
from full buckets. It was while the sluicing was in progress that
Johnny had to be careful; for many buckets missed their mark,
and the waterspouts shot out through the doorways and window
frames.
Wearing a mackintosh, I did what I could to prevent surprises,
but without much success. Johnny fortunately took it all as a
matter of course. "It's all in the good cause," he chuckled,
shaking himself like a water-spaniel after a particularly bad
misadventure; and described the "performance" with great zest
to the Maluka when he returned. The sight of the clean walls
filled the Maluka also with zeal for the cause, and in the week
that followed walls sprouted with corner shelves and brackets--
three wooden kerosene cases became a handy series of pigeonholes
for magazines and papers. One panel in the diningroom was
completely filled with bookshelves, one above the other for our coming
books. Great sheets of bark, stripped by the blacks from the Ti Tree
forest, were packed a foot deep above the rafters to break the heat
reflected from the iron roof, while beneath it the calico ceiling was
tacked up. And all the time Johnny hammered and whistled and planed,
finishing the bathroom and "getting on" with the office.
The Quiet Stockman coming in, was pressed into the service,
and grew quite enthusiastic, suggesting substitutes for necessities,
until I suggested cutting off the tail of every horse on the run,
to get enough horsehair for a mattress.
"Believe the boss'ud do it himself if she asked him," he said in
the Quarters; and in his consternation suggested bangtailing the
cattle during the musters.
"Just the thing," Dan decided; and we soon saw, with his assistance,
a vision of our future mattress walkin' about the run on the ends
of cows' tails.
"Looks like it's going to be a dead-heat," Johnny said, still
hammering, when the Dandy brought in word that the Macs were
within twelve miles of the bomestead. And when I announced
next day that the dining-net was finished and ready for hanging,
he also became wildly enthusiastic.
"Told you from the beginning we shouldn't be long," he said,
flourishing a hammer and brimming over with suggestions for the
hanging of the net. "Rope'll never hold it," he declared; "fencing
wire's the thing," so fencing wire was used, and after a hard
morning's work pulling and straining the wire and securing it to
uprights, the net was in its place, the calico roof smooth and flat
against the ceiling, and its curtains hanging to the floor, with
strong, straight saplings run tbrough the folded hem to weigh it
down. Cheon was brimming over with admiration for it
"My word, boss! Missus plenty savey," he said. (Cheon invariably
discussed the missus in her presence.) "Chinaman woman no more
savey likee that," and bustling away, dinner was soon served
inside the net.
Myriads of flies, balked in their desire, settled down on the
outside, and while we enjoyed our dinner in peace and comfort,
Cheon hovered about, like a huge bloated buzz fly himself,
chuckling around the outside among the swarms of balked flies,
or coming inside to see if "any fly sit down inside."
"My word, boss! Hear him sing-out sing-out. Missus plenty
savey," he reiterated, and then calling a Chinese friend
from the kitchen, stood over him, until he also declared that
"missus BLENTY savey," with good emphasis on the BLENTY.
The net was up by midday, and at ten o'clock at night the slow,
dull clang of a bullock-bell crept out of the forest. Cheon was
the first to hear it. "Bullocky come on," he called, waddling
to the house and waking us from our first sleep; and as the
deep-throated bell boomed out again the Malaluka said drowsily:
"The homestead's only won by a head. Mac's at the Warlochs."
At "fowl-sing-out" we were up, and found Bertie's Nellie behind
the black boys' humpy shyly peeping round a corner. With childlike
impetuosity she had scampered along the four miles from the Warlochs,
only to be overcome with unaccountable shyness.
"Allo, missus!" was all she could find to say, and the remainder
of the interview she filled in with wriggling and giggles.
Immediately after breakfast Mac splashed through the creek at a
hand-gallop and, dashing up to the house, flung himself from his
horse, the same impetuous, warmhearted "Brither Scot."
"Patience rewarded at last," he called in welcome; and when
invited to "come ben the hoose to the diningroom," was, as usual,
full of congratulations. "My! We are some!" he said, examining
every detail. But as he also said that "the Dandy could get
the trunks right off if we liked to send him across with the dray,"
we naturally "liked," and Johnny and the Dandy harnessing up,
went with him, and before long the verandah and rooms were piled
with trunks.
Fortunately Dan was "bush " again among thhe cattle, or his heart
would have broken at this new array of links for the chain.
Once the trunks were all in, Mac, the Dandy, and Johnny retired
to the Quarters after a few more congratulations, Johnny continuing
his flourishes all the way across. Cheon however, with his
charming disregard for conventionality being interested, settled
himself on one of the trunks to watch the opening up of the others.
To have ordered him away would have clouded his beaming happiness;
so he remained, and told us exactly what he thought of our
possessions, adding much to the pleasure of the opening of the trunks.
If any woman would experience real pleasure, let her pack all her
belongings into trunks--all but a couple of changes of everything--
and go away out-bush, leaving them to follow "after the Wet"
per bullock waggon, and when the reunion takes place the pleasure
will be forthcoming. If she can find a Cheon to be present
at the reunion, so much the better.
Some of our belongings Cheon thoroughly approved of; others
were passed over as unworthy of notice. and others were held up
to chuckling ridicule. A silver teapot was pounced upon with a cry
of delight (tinware being considered far beneath the dignity of a
missus, and seeing Sam had broken the china pot soon after its
arival, tinware had graced our board for some time), pictures were
looked at askance, particularly an engraving of Psyche at the Pool;
while the case for a set of carvers received boundless
admiration, although the carvers in no way interested him.
The photographs of friends and relatives were looked carefully over,
the womenfolk being judged by what they might bring in a Chinese
matrimonial market.
"My word! That one good-looking. Him close up sixty pound
longa China," was rather disconcerting praise of a very particular
lady friend.
A brass lamp was looked upon as a monument of solid wealth, "Him gold,"
he decided, insisting it was in the face of all denials. "Him gold.
Me savey gold all right. Me live longa California long time,"
he said, bringmg forward a most convincing argument; and, dismissing
the subject with one of his Podsnapian waves, he decided that
a silver-coloured composition flower-bowl in the form of a swan
was solid silver; "Him sing out all a same silver," he said,
making it ring with a flick of his finger and thumb, when I differed
from him, and knowing Cheon by now, we left it at that
for the time being.
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