Broken Threads

by Tessa Barclay

  After Parramatta with its orchards, tilled fields and extending railway line, they had passed through undulating country and the flat meadowlands of the Central Tableland. Cowra was to the south on the upper Lachlan, but the camp towards which they were heading was northward, beyond Forbes.

  Forbes was a surprise to Jenny. She had expected some little settlement, but instead she found a town ‒ a town of canvas and bark humpies, but a town nonetheless. Thick scrub came up to the very flaps of the tents, with paths walked through it as if for a ‘main street’ and side roads. There were pubs, cook-shops, gambling saloons, money-lenders, provision stores, a tailor, a laundry, a barber, a horse-coper and farrier, a fortune-teller ‒ all in makeshift premises and all doing a roaring trade.

  Dr Vance thought it unwise to stay overnight in the town in view of the theft and pick-pocketing that always went on in the mining settlements. They therefore camped outside the town on the banks of the Lachlan. In the morning Vance made inquiries about the fire. Yes, said the inhabitants of Forbes, they’d heard there’d been a fire, could smell burning on the west wind a couple of weeks ago ‒ some stupid galah had set fire to the bush, no doubt. They showed little concern. They had too many troubles of their own, mostly about how to find gold or how to latch on to a man who had already found it.

  But the main direction of the search for gold was to the northwest, up along the river towards Willangra Billabong. That was where the furthest camp was sited and that, they admitted, was where the smoke seemed to come from.

  ‘How far to the camp?’ asked Vance.

  A shrug. Eighty miles? A hundred? ‘It’s in the North Riverina country …’ And then with anxious inquiry, ‘Why you so keen? You got inside information about the gold there?’ But when they learned that the travellers were solely concerned with the safety of the miners, the inhabitants of Forbes decided they weren’t worth wasting time on.

  Inquiries about possible river transport were treated with scorn. ‘Only get an Abo canoe along that damn stream,’ said the people of Forbes. ‘It’s never much use but with the lack of rain you can wade down it faster than you can row.’ So any faint hopes of transferring to water transport were dashed, and they repacked their gear on Gunder’s cart.

  From now on it was hard travelling with no occasional encounters with ox-wagons to reassure them they were taking the best route. The river ran down a gentle but definite incline towards the plains but now there were no distant sheep stations and no sheep. ‘Nobody’s squatted on this area so far,’ Dr Vance explained. ‘Somebody’ll take it on if the railroad ever gets to Forbes ‒ easy transport for supplies then, and less of a haul getting the wool to market.’

  Jenny stared from the cart at the countryside. The grasses were tan-yellow from lack of rain, and the dark pine scrub spread all around like a sea under a wintry sky. Their wheels made a track through the bush, winding hither and thither as Gunder sought for an easy patch. But always they were headed along the bank of the Lachlan, heading northwest.

  Two days later, as they were watering the horses in the early afternoon, Gunder raised his head. ‘You smell anything?’ he asked.

  They breathed in. There was the smell of dry soil, of eucalypt, of saltbush and mulga. There was the smell of the river water, a mixture of weed and mineral. But then, faintly, Jenny caught the whiff of something else ‒ acrid and piercing, but gone in a moment.

  ‘What is it?’ Chalmers asked. ‘I can discern nothing.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Dr Vance. ‘Burnt wood? Scorched grass?’

  ‘The camp!’ gasped Jenny.

  She clambered aboard the cart, and the men mounted up. Soon they found a distinct track, worn not long ago by hooves and wheeled vehicles. They pushed on as fast as they dared. The smell grew stronger ‒ unmistakable, the smell of burnt wood doused with water, burnt cloth and ‒ perhaps ‒ burnt flesh.

  Round a knoll, they came upon a patch of twisted blackened wood, like a witches’ forest. The short trees were dark skeletons, the bushes had been razed to the ground, here and there pieces of iron and steel implied man-made tools.

  It was an area about two hundred yards square. Beyond it was another area, where the scrub was battered down. Then a clearing, with fourteen roughly-made wooden crosses, some bearing pieces of bark with names scratched on them, some unnamed.

  This was all that was left of the Lachlan River camp.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  They sat staring at the scene.

  ‘But the survivors?’ Jenny faltered.

  ‘They had to move camp, hadn’t they?’ Gunder replied. He leapt down from the driving seat and splashed into the river, which came up to his knees. ‘Gone upstream, o’course ‒ wouldn’t go downstream.’

  He waded against the current. After a moment’s consideration Dr Vance urged his mount after him. Chalmers sat in his saddle, gazing around. ‘Funny business.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t a bush fire in the way it’s normally meant. It’s such a small area ‒’

  A call from Gunder stopped him. ‘He’s found them,’ Chalmers said.

  Jenny and Mrs Gray got down from the cart. Chalmers barred her way. ‘No, wait till we hear what he’s got to say.’

  They were looking towards the water, but it was by land that Gunder returned, from behind some unharmed bushes and bringing with him a stranger in a dirty torn shirt and dungarees.

  ‘Goodday,’ said the stranger. ‘Damn glad to see somebody.’

  ‘The new camp’s about seventy yards upstream,’ explained Gunder. ‘A ruddy mess ‒’

  ‘Listen, mister, considering how much was lost in the fire, that camp’s pretty fair.’ He looked at the women with embarrassment, running his finger round the inside of a shirtband that was clearly too small for him. ‘The name’s Skinner, Albert Skinner.’

  Jenny offered her hand. He looked at his own, which was filthy dirty, and smiled instead of shaking. His face was pale under the grime, and lined with weariness. ‘Any more folk coming?’ he asked. ‘We could do with help.’

  ‘How many of you are there?’ asked Mrs Gray, beginning to unfasten packages on the cart.

  ‘There’s nineteen of us fit, and twenty-two with bad burns ‒ the doc’s stopped to see what he can do for them. There’s four or five gone off to try to find the horses ‒ fat chance! They’ve probably joined up with a bunch of brumbies by now.’

  ‘What exactly occurred?’ Chalmers said.

  ‘Listen, mate, you don’t happen to have any baccy with you? I’m fair dying for a smoke.’

  ‘I … ah … have some cigars.’ Chalmers produced them. Skinner took one and drew in smoke with avidity when Chalmers lit it for him.

  ‘Well, see, it was one of those unfortunate coincidences,’ Skinner began. ‘A feller called Kinnear and his mate Lefty had struck it lucky about sixty miles north of here, and came back to boast about it. At the same time a couple of Clever Joes arrived from Forbes with a load of stuff to sell us, and most of it was booze ‒ begging your pardon, ladies, I mean strong drink. Naturally Kinnear and Lefty stood their shout and then again and again, until they were more than a bit tipsy. In fact, we all were ‒ drunk as lords. God knows what was in them bottles ‒ some kind of gin, I s’pose, but it didn’t half have a kick.’ He paused, shaking his head over the recollection.

  ‘Go on,’ prompted Jenny.

  ‘Dunno as it’s fit for you to hear, missus. These bushwhackers tried to trick Kinnear out of his poke, and a fight started, and knives came out and then somebody used a pistol, and there were men all over the place fighting and mauling. It was dark by then, you understand, so we couldn’t rightly make out who was who or what was going on.’

  ‘So those graves aren’t for burn victims?’

  ‘Oh, yair, burns and God knows what. It was this way, see ‒ men stumbled over their fires and sent sparks flying and the bush caught, and before we knew it we were surrounded by flames, but the wind was blowing towards the r
iver so if we’d had our senses we could have escaped into the water easy enough ‒ it’s a natural firebreak. But we were all roaring drunk and didn’t know what we were up to, and the long and short of it is, eight men died in the fire and the rest in the next few days of bad burns.’

  Mrs Gray shook her head a little and made a sound of disapproval, which died away as Chalmers frowned at her. This was no time for moralising.

  ‘Some of the crosses have no names on them,’ Jenny said quietly.

  ‘Yair, we ain’t particular about names in the first place and some of these fellers was in such a mess … Well, I won’t go on about it, missus, you wouldn’t care to hear it, but we couldn’t recognise some of ’em enough to be sure. I’m trying to get a list of names of the men still here, but some of them are pretty crook, out of their heads, so they don’t answer up when you speak to ’em.’

  ‘Is there a man called Armstrong here?’

  ‘Armstrong?’ He considered, then shook his head. ‘Can’t say I know the name.’

  ‘Ronald Armstrong ‒ Ron ‒ a tall thin man with fairish hair.’

  ‘Means nothing to me, missus. But people were coming and going all the time. And a lot of the time fellers answer to nicknames. Somebody else might know.’

  ‘I’d like to come and speak to some of your mates ‒’

  ‘Well, lady, it’s a fair mess, as you can imagine. We mostly lost all our possessions and none of us have been too good ‒ I got sick on account of inhaling a lot of hot smoke and others are the same. And we ain’t got no soap or clean clothes or anything.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Mrs Gray. ‘We didn’t come here expecting a picnic.’ She had unpacked towels and soap and coarse sheets from one of the hampers. She gave an armful to Skinner, who pinched out his cigar for future enjoyment and led the way.

  Despite her stout words, Mrs Gray faltered for a moment as they came to the new camp. There were no tents and only one piece of canvas seemed to have survived. It was strung between two stakes, as a roof over a row of brushwood beds. Four men lay on them, still partly clad but with rough bandages on limbs or round chests or heads. These men were motionless. Others were tossing under lean-to shelters of bark and woven twigs. As Jenny and her companion moved from place to place they could see the injuries were extremely serious. Dr Vance was on his knees, at work on a man wrapped in parts of an old linen dust-coat. He looked up at their footsteps.

  ‘Go back to the cart and get my medical bag,’ he commanded. ‘And you’ll see a small square tin box ‒ bring that too, it’s the opium. I’ve got to give some relief from pain or they’ll exhaust themselves.’

  Jenny went back on the errand. Chalmers was already unloading some of the boxes of supplies. When they returned to the camp they found Mrs Gray trying to remove the filthy garments that clung to the burns. With scissors Jenny helped cut away the cloth and gently cover the wounds with bandages.

  Although Jenny devoted herself to the work, she couldn’t help looking about as she moved from one patient to the other. And none of them was her husband. She saw in her mind’s eye the crosses on the scarred ground down-river. Was he lying under a cross with no name on it? She clenched her teeth against the need to weep at the thought, for her attention was wanted here, with men who were still living.

  So they laboured on until darkness fell, Chalmers fetching and carrying from the wagon, Gunder building more extensive shelters against the strong breeze, Dr Vance giving pain-killing drinks where the patient could swallow. They spoke little. The only sound was the moaning of the injured and sick men and the rustle of dry twigs and small trees in the wind.

  By lantern light it was difficult to be of help to Dr Vance ‒ bandaging a man in pain was too hazardous. Instead they moved from pallet to pallet, trying to soothe those who couldn’t be given any sedation and those whose heaving chests troubled them due to smoke inhalation.

  It was clear that many of the men were in fever. ‘The burns are infected,’ Vance said, when he paused for a can of hot tea and a bite of bread. ‘I suppose the clothes they were wearing were stiff with dirt in the first place ‒ miners don’t bother too much about washing their gear.’

  ‘Have you medicines to counteract the infection?’ Jenny asked.

  He shook his head. ‘There’s no medicine I know of for that. You must have seen it yourself ‒ some people recover quickly from an injury, others develop poisoning of the blood and die or lose a limb.’ He sighed. ‘That’s going to happen to some of these men.’

  ‘Don’t say that!’

  ‘It’s true, Mrs Armstrong. But at least our arrival has reduced that number ‒ and if the follow-up team arrives soon we can carry back to Forbes those able to be moved, where they can be in greater comfort. There’s surgery to be done, and I’d rather it were done in Forbes.’

  Jenny repressed a shudder. Forbes was better than the wilderness, but only a little so.

  ‘I think we should send Gunder back in the morning,’ the doctor went on. ‘He can guide the follow-up team ‒ and bring back more food supplies. For, as I see it, we’re going to be here two or three weeks before the bad cases can leave.’

  They took turns on watch each night. Jenny sat under the canvas ceiling where the worst of the injured lay, trying to keep them quiet, soothing them with words when the supply of drugs ran out. She would move quietly through the camp, speaking to those who were unable to sleep. Out on the plain she could hear the call of the mopoke in the night, a monotonous sound that seemed to travel over long distances on the wind.

  She soon ceased to ask for news of Ronald. Partly it was because she feared to hear a definite sentence of death: ‘Yes, he’s under the fourth cross from the left.’ But one day in the camp was enough to show her that the men had almost no recollection of who had lived and who had died. There had been no organisation, no attempt to manage the original camp as a community. Every man for himself had been the rule.

  Moreover there had been an endless coming and going. Newcomers would arrive, eager, avid, asking questions about gold finds which no one would answer. If a man had had luck he took it in two ways ‒ either he was uproariously proud and happy, or he hugged his secret to himself in the hope of going back, uncovering yet more gold. Such a man might drift silently out of the camp in the night, his place empty at ‘brekker’, his humpy neglected until some new hopeful took it over.

  Those who were well enough to talk of the wild night that ended in the fire could remember little. The drink had been strong, plentiful, raw on the throat ‒ alcohol distilled in some shack in Forbes, perhaps with some impurity that had driven them wild. Shame, too, hampered their recollections. Only a few had appreciated what was happening or tried to save their camp-mates.

  Then there was the problem of names. ‘Monickers’, they called them. They referred to each other as Slim, Baldy, Mulehead. Jenny couldn’t quite understand why they were so keen to lose their real identities under nicknames, unless there was something in it of shame, a feeling that in their real lives they wouldn’t have been so rapacious, lawless, dirty, coarse …

  Yet there was kindness in them, gratitude too. They appreciated everything that the two women could do, though Jenny felt in herself that it was very little except to sit with them.

  After she came off watch she would drink some of the meat tea they made for the patients, and then lie down. Sleep sometimes eluded her, but sometimes it was like falling into an abyss of weariness. When daylight came there were duties to be performed ‒ cooking for both the sick and the fit, makeshift laundering to ensure a supply of clean wrappings, and eternally trying to keep things free of the dust that drove before the never-ending wind.

  ‘I thought it was supposed to rain here in winter?’ she asked Gunder when he came back, grey with fatigue and dust, from Forbes.

  ‘Thank your stars it don’t,’ he grunted. ‘This camp’d be a mudbath in no time. And the roads’d vanish ‒ bad enough when it’s dry but rain bogs down everything.’
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br />   She was sitting up with a very sick patient one night when she heard the sound of horses carefully picking their way towards the camp. She came out of the shelter. In the flickering light of the campfire Dr Vance was crossing the clearing to see who was coming. ‘It must be the other team from Sydney,’ he called to her over his shoulder.

  The fit men came running. Mrs Gray crawled out of her nest of dried ferns half awake.

  One of the miners shouted, ‘It’s Dick Traherne!’

  A shabby, weary horse plodded into the clearing. Hung on his back rather than riding, a scarecrow of a man could be seen. ‘Dick!’ his mates called. He roused himself, looked about, and slithered off the horse.

  But there were other hoofbeats. One of the miners walked into the thicket and called back, ‘Here’s some of our horses, by God ‒ that’s Skinner’s bay with the white sock. You’ve brought back our horses, Dick!’

  Dick was shaking his head and murmuring faintly that he hadn’t done it. Then the last of the party appeared, using the ends of his reins to drive a quartet of exhausted beasts ahead of him.

  ‘Good on you, mate!’ cried Skinner, running up to put a twitch of plaited grass round his horse for a bridle. ‘We’ve been waiting for days to get some transport back ‒ where’d you find ’em?’

  ‘What the devil’s been happening here?’ demanded the newcomer. ‘The old camp’s a shambles ‒’

  ‘That’s Sandy, isn’t it? Sandy, is that you? Where’d you find the nags?’

  ‘In a gully up by the Willandra. You could see they’d been running ‒ what happened?’

  Jenny had hurried to join the group of laughing, shouting men. She tried to elbow her way through.