Once a Pommie Swagman

by Thomas, Nick Arden

  As we left the store I tried to be as casual as possible, but when we were out of sight a few hundred yards down the road I began to run, calling back. “Come on! Quick! I’ve pinched some stuff, and as soon as she sees it’s missing she’ll call the cops!”

  “Ah! For Christ’s sake!” Glen yelled with exasperation, but he didn’t really have much choice other than to follow me. For ten minutes we ran, looking back all the time to see if we were being followed, Glen abusing me all the way. Eventually we got out onto the highway heading north, and darted up the first track we came to. Three hundred yards down the track we spotted an old lean-to, fifty to sixty yards away under some gum trees. Jumping the fence, we ran across to it.

  “Jesus!” exclaimed Glen, as he saw the things emerge from my kit bag. Even I was amazed. There were five tins of bully beef, two of baked beans and two of spaghetti and meatballs; one Irish stew and one mixed vegetables. There was a bottle of tomato sauce, a tin of golden syrup, a packet of aeroplane jelly, two tins of sardines, a bottle of orange squash and roll of toilet paper.

  “You’re mad!” said Glen.

  “Yeah, but I’m also hungry,” and I began gathering firewood. “You don’t have to eat any of it!”

  “Oh, I’ll eat it alright, but that doesn’t mean you’re not mad!”

  The only disappointing things were the tins I’d grabbed blindly at the end. All of them were broad beans, and if there was one thing I hated it was broad beans. The other problem was the orange squash; it was concentrated juice, impossible to drink without water, and as we only had two bottles we couldn’t afford to use any of it for that so I stuffed the juice right down in the bottom of my kit bag and we began to make lunch.

  On the morning after we had broken down with ‘Uncle’ Alf, apart from warning us of the perils of putting a tin of beans on the fire without opening it first, he’d shown us how to make dampers, wrapping the dough round a stick and holding it over the fire. “Staple diet in the bush during the Depression,” he told us.

  The ingredients may have been simple flour and water, but with a bit of imagination a damper could be the basis of a reasonably tasty meal, or at least keep hunger at bay for a while. Our first effort was a bit of a disaster, and nothing like the one ‘Uncle’ Alf had made. It was all gooey and blobs fell off the stick and into the fire, which was way too hot, burning most of what was left. But we did manage to make a reasonable one eventually, and it was quite nice with golden syrup spread on it. Tins of corned beef were another one of Alf ’s tips as the meat always came covered in a layer of fat, dispensing with the need to cart cooking oil about. “Nothing better than a fried corned beef damper sandwich, maybe with a dollop of tomato sauce,” he’d winked. He was right. Even the broad beans tasted okay when fried with the meat.

  After stuffing ourselves, we sorted the food out and split it between us. There was enough for three days, probably four if we rationed things; more than enough to get us to Rockhampton. We decided it might be best to lie low and stay in the lean-to for the rest of that day and night, as we thought the police were less likely to be out on the highway first thing in the morning. Our prospects suddenly looking much rosier, we settled back with a cigarette, surveying our little home and at peace with the world — and each other — once more. The influence our stomachs have over our emotions is truly remarkable.

  Next morning at first light we set off, keeping well into the light scrub and trees at the side of the highway. At the end of the first long, straight stretch we sat behind a large gum tree, from where we could see what was coming a mile off. A couple of vehicles came our way but they were obviously locals, and waved apologetically when they saw our Magnetic Island sign, indicating they were turning off soon. Then in the distance we saw a car coming but stayed hidden; it had a strange livery and something on the roof, not that it really looked like a police car, but the guilty always see trouble where none exists. Only when the car was a hundred yards from us were we certain it wasn’t the police, and we stepped out and held up our sign.

  EIGHT

  Auntie Marge and Constable Waring

  "Sorry, mate.” I poked my head in the window when he stopped. “Didn’t realise.”

  “That’s okay,” the man grinned. “I’m not for hire, but I am going where you want to go. Hop in.”

  Yes!

  His name was Mal Dixon and the taxi was a brand new EK Holden, still giving off that lovely leathery aroma only brand new cars have. He was the owner driver, he explained; taking his new taxi back to Townsville, where he’d lived and worked for over thirty years. “I could have waited for her to be sent up on a transporter,” he told us, patting the dashboard affectionately, “but I wouldn’t have got her for another month, and me old taxi’s buggered so I went down to Melbourne on the train and picked this up myself from the factory. Kids might have left home, but I still need to pay the bills,” he smiled. “l’ll be back at work again in two days. Anyway, enough about me, what are you two doing?”

  Excitement dampened somewhat by the knowledge that we wouldn’t be able to go all the way with him because we had to stop in Rockhampton and sort our finances out, we were still glad to be on our way again and mightily relieved to have escaped from Gympie unscathed. Consequently, as we had with Mr Willard, we babbled away for the next twenty minutes about our adventures and problems, although leaving out the stealing bit. He was obviously very proud of his new car and drove it with great care, never going more than forty miles an hour because he was running it in; but Mal Dixon was no Mr Wallis, and he listened to our story with interest, good humour and no little astonishment, grinning and shaking his head in wonder.

  “Quite an adventure,” he smiled. “What are you going to do on Magnetic Island?”

  “Pick coconuts.”

  “You’re joking!” He looked at us. “You’re not joking.” He shook his head.

  “We heard you could sell them to the tourists.”

  Again he looked at us, this time a little sympathetically. “Sounds like a fine idea, but I don’t know you’ll make too much money at it; there are a lot of coconuts on Magnetic Island, they’re not difficult to come by.”

  “Is there any work there?”

  “Well,” Mal began, obviously not wanting to disappoint us further. “I haven’t been over for a while, but I know there are a few small farms and businesses. I have to be honest, though,” and he paused, grimacing slightly. “If I was looking to make good money, I’d head for Mount Isa, not Magnetic Island.”

  Subdued might best describe our mood for the next few miles.

  We soon cheered up in Miriam Vale, though, when Mal bought us a couple of pies, a lamington and a drink while he ate his sandwiches and had a coffee from his flask. We didn’t stop long, and an hour or so later, having left Gladstone behind, we dug out Francesca’s map and realised we were doing the very thing she said we shouldn’t, drive straight past everything. Not that there was a lot to stop for. We were at least forty miles inland now, and the countryside was very brown and parched. Mal told us it hadn’t rained in these parts for months. Mile after mile went by without us encountering another vehicle, and apart from the odd kangaroo there was very little to see except bush and scrub; we were getting an inkling of just how big, remote and uninhabited Australia was, and still is.

  Out here the radio was the long distance driver’s best friend, and although Mal preferred Perry Como to Eddie Cochran we all joined in with Jimmy Dean.

  “Ev’ry mornin’ at the mine you could see him arrive,

  He stood six foot six and weighed two forty-five.

  Kinda broad at the shoulder and narrow at the hip,

  And everybody knew you didn’t give no lip to Big John, Big John, Big Bad John …”

  We arrived in Rockhampton at about six o’clock. Mal had told us he was going to stay with some friends about ten miles out of town. “Can’t offer you a bed,” he said apologetically. “I can offer you a feed, though, how about that?”

 
We stopped at a roadhouse on the southern outskirts of the city and ordered mixed grills with the works. Over the meal Mal showed us on a map of the city where we needed to go to register for unemployment benefits the next day. Then he got up and went to the toilet, and when he came back he had a piece of paper in his hand.

  “Might be your lucky day. I found this pinned on the notice board.” And he handed the piece of paper to us.

  “Workers wanted,” it stated simply. “Help clear yard. Four or five days; twelve bob a day. Mrs. Hayes, Lammermoor,” and there was a phone number.

  “Where’s Lammermoor?”

  “Out near Yeppoon,” Mal pointed. “Only about thirty miles away. I can drop you out there if you like. Twelve shillings a day is pretty good money. You’ll only get about five bob a day on unemployment benefits and you’ll probably have to wait a week for it to come through. I know her. Everybody does up this way. Want me to give her a call?”

  It was as simple as that. A brief phone call, and Mal had got us a job and arranged for us to meet Mrs Hayes by the War Memorial in Yeppoon at 9 o’clock the next morning. At eight o’clock that night, having shown us where the memorial was, he dropped us on the promenade by the beach in Yeppoon, where we planned to sleep. Only then did it strike us that this was the first time we’d seen the sea since leaving Southport, which seemed ages ago.

  “Gee!” said Glen, “no surf!”

  “You’re on the barrier reef now, boys,” Mal grinned. “Good luck. Look me up when you get to Townsville. I’ll be on the main cab rank,” and with a handshake he took his leave as we jumped down onto the sand to make our bed.

  The next thing I knew my shoulder was being firmly prodded with the end of a pick handle and a torch shone in my face. “Oi, you two, wake up!” a terse voice commanded, and blearily we got to our elbows. There was a figure standing on the wall above, shining a torch down on us. “What are you doing here?”

  “Trying to sleep.”

  “Don’t give me any lip, son. Just answer the question.”

  “What for, who are you?”

  “The police,” said the voice firmly. “Now get up here,” and once more I was prodded with the pick handle.

  Shit! The shop in Gympie!

  We clambered up the wall and stood nervously in front of him while he shone his torch, first over us and then down on our kit bags on the sand.

  “You,” he poked his stick at me. “Go down and bring your gear up here.”

  Anxiously I tossed our kit bags up as gently as I could, hoping the squash bottle wouldn’t make a noise, and as I scrambled back I tried to give Glen a warning look through the darkness.

  “Where are you from?”

  “What?”

  “From! Where are you from? Where do you live!”

  “Melbourne,” Glen said suddenly, completely flooring me with the sincerity of his lie, and instantly my mind was in turmoil as I desperately tried to think of an address in Melbourne. For a moment the policeman was silent, shining his torch from one to the other of us. “Where have you come from today?”

  “Townsville,” I blurted, hoping I sounded as convincing as Glen and determined to put us as far away from the shop as possible.

  “How old are you?” he asked Glen.

  “Eighteen,” said Glen, again with such utter conviction that for a second even I believed him, and again I was thrown into a panic; if I said the same, the policeman would probably laugh.

  Fortunately he didn’t ask me. Instead he stepped back a pace and pointed to the police car parked nearby. “ Get in,” he ordered, surprising us both.

  “What! What for?”

  “Get in the car!”

  We got in.

  The police station was also the policeman’s house, a small, unlined, fibro bungalow made even smaller by the fact that one of the two front rooms was being used as the office. We stood in front of the desk as he took down our names and false addresses in Carlton, the only football team I could think of. Glancing up briefly, he raised his eyebrows when we said our parents were not on the phone. “I take it none of your aunts, relatives or neighbours are on the phone, either?” he asked cuttingly.

  “Yeah, but how are we supposed to remember their numbers!” We were not endearing ourselves to him.

  “What were you doing in Townsville?” he suddenly asked, giving us a penetrating look.

  “Not a lot,” we shrugged. “Just hitching about, then we saw the job advertised at Mrs Hayes and thought we’d come and apply.”

  Our kit bags were in the corner where we’d put them and I was sure I could see out of the corner of my eye the orange squash bottle flashing brightly. But as time went by and his questions concentrated on our movements in Townsville, we grew increasingly certain that he wasn’t interested in the contents of our bags. Getting ever more cocky, we elaborated on the story about coming from Townsville, each of us abetting the other with little lies about how we’d hitched a lift down the day before. So sure of our ground were we becoming, that when he suddenly came around our side of the desk and handcuffed the two of us together we were completely taken aback. In fact it happened so fast we didn’t even have time to object, and just stared down in amazement at the handcuffs.

  “Go out of the door and turn down the hall,” the policeman ordered.

  “What for? What have we done?”

  He prodded us down the hall, out the back door and a few yards along a path to a brick shed at the end of the little garden. It had two solid-looking iron doors side by side, and he opened one and pushed us in, removing the handcuffs. There were two canvas camp cots with a pillow and blanket folded on each, a toilet bucket and an enamel wash bowl and jug of water in the corner, and precious little else.

  “You can stay in here until the morning, while I make some enquiries,” he told us, and he slammed the door shut, bolting it firmly.

  “But we haven’t done anything!” we cried after him. There was a tiny window next to the door, no glass, just bars and fly-screen mesh, and we stood staring at the policeman disappearing back into the house, both of us too stunned to say anything more.

  Half an hour later we heard the door being unbolted and the policeman stood outside. Behind him was a lady carrying a tray, and he stepped aside and allowed her into the cell. Her motherly presence immediately reassured us, and when she put the tray down and smiled our relief was palpable.

  On the tray was a jug of ginger beer and two glasses, along with some bananas and a dozen arrowroot biscuits. “Just a little something,” she smiled again, “I know how hungry you boys can get,” and she fussed about, fluffing up the pillows, laying the blankets out and chatting away as if we were her nephews. “Now, if you have a problem in the night, just call out through the window. Our bedroom’s just at the back there, so we’ll hear you.”

  All the while her husband fidgeted at the door. “Come on, Marge,” he sighed eventually, unable to keep the impatience out of his voice, and reluctantly Marge left, repeating again that we should call out through the window if we wanted anything. As he bolted the door, we heard him say to her, “For God’s sake, Marge, they’re bloody criminals!”

  “Oh don’t be so silly, Arthur!” she chided. “They’re so young! They couldn’t possibly have done it!” Done what? We asked ourselves anxiously, as we downed the ginger beer. It was three o’clock in the morning; we were obviously involved in a bizarre dream.

  A few hours later we discovered it was anything but. Marge bought us a huge breakfast at about eight o’clock, but this time she was on her own and we seized the chance. “Why are we in here? We haven’t done anything!” we pleaded with her.

  “I can’t talk to you about that, boys,” she shrugged sympathetically. “Constable Waring will be over shortly to speak to you.”

  “But we haven’t done anything!” For a moment she looked at us, smiling gently. “No, I don’t believe you have. You just tell Constable Waring everything and it will be alright,” and then she paused, as if unsure
how much she should say. “He might look a bit severe,” she smiled reassuringly again, “but he’s a good man, and he’ll see you get a fair hearing.”

  An hour later we were sitting side by side on one cot, with Constable Waring sitting opposite on a chair he’d brought with him. Three times he made us go over our movements after leaving Townsville, each time exposing one of our little lies.

  “I thought you said you left at ten o’clock?”

  “Well, it was about then.”

  “Last night you said you got a lift in a blue Zephyr, this morning it’s a Consul?”

  “Well, it was a Ford! For Christ’s sake! Does it matter?”

  Ten minutes later he folded his notes and stood up, his face, if anything, even more firm and official. “I’m afraid, boys, I’m going to have to charge you. This means that from now on you don’t have to say anything, but if you do …”

  “Charge us! What do you mean? What with?”

  I was vaguely aware that we had certain rights in these circumstances, not that I knew what they were, and I wasn’t really listening — preparing instead to demand those rights — when the constable began reading out the charges and suddenly we were riveted to the cot with gut-lurching attention. Breaking and entering, burglary, arson, assault, grievous bodily harm, the list seemed to go on and on as we stared stupidly up at him. “Three days ago, two boys closely matching your descriptions were seen running from a caravan park in Townsville. Four caravans were set alight, a number of items were stolen and an elderly man was burnt, quite badly I …”