Once a Pommie Swagman

by Thomas, Nick Arden

  “Are you still shitty about her?”

  “No. I was just pissed off that you fucked off like that!” Then he was silent for a moment and didn’t look at me, as if what he was going to say was difficult. “One other thing, too, while we’re at it.”

  “What?”

  “I can just about cope with sneaking into hotels for a shower, but no more thieving!” Now he did look at me, the depth of feeling obvious in his eyes. I suppose I was a bit taken aback, and for a second I didn’t say anything.

  “I mean it,” he said firmly. “Any more stealing and I’m going home! If we can’t buy, borrow or beg it, we don’t have it. I don’t like doing it, and we’ll only end up in trouble again.” Curious how sometimes it is not until we are bluntly confronted with the consequences of our actions that we realise how sharply those actions can impact on others.

  “No more thieving, promise,” I said, looking him in the eye. “Let’s go to Mt Isa!” and we stood up and spontaneously hugged each other.

  The great thing about teenage angst and pessimism is that while it might descend like a violent storm when things don’t go right, it can be blown away on the slightest breeze of optimism; thirty bob a day was an optimistic gale, never mind a breeze. By the time we fell asleep we’d not only earned two hundred pounds each, but spent quite a bit of it. Glen had gone home and rented a flat, telling his father he could stick his money, and his fists, up his arse; while I was the king of Theo’s Milk Bar and Denise Phillips was pleading with me to take her dress off. Gee, cocks can be annoying things, especially when they’re young. It’s like they suffer from some sort of insecurity or inferiority complex and constantly have to let you know they’re there.

  We slept most of that day, and early the following morning held a ritual and satisfyingly violent demolition of our camp, although we kept the tarps and ropes to give to Harry. It would have been nice to take them with us, but they were far too heavy to take on the road. But we wouldn’t have to rough it for long; we’d be in Mt Isa in a few days. “Goals and dreams are what get us out of bed in the mornings.” We packed up and walked over to Harry’s in time to catch the morning bus.

  “Okey dokey Doris!” Harry climbed aboard. “Let’s hit the road!” and Bing was beside himself with excitement, running back and forth up the aisle. We only picked up three other passengers on the trip but that made no difference to Harry, and as we came down into Picnic Bay we were all in full voice:

  “… here’s what she said to me:

  Que sera sera …”

  THIRTEEN

  The Flinders Highway

  Back in Townsville, the plan was to buy some clothes, stock up with enough food and cigarettes for four or five days, sleep the night up on Castle Hill, grab a shower in the hotel first thing in the morning, and then set off. First, we stopped at the taxi rank to see Mal, having told him we would look him up before we left the area, but he was on a job so we left a message and set off down Flinders Street to find a clothes shop. We needed new shirts, and our socks were like fishing nets and smelt almost as bad; and the soles of our shoes were beginning to wear out. In my case they were getting very tight too; funny how you don’t really notice yourself growing. But new shoes were so expensive we decided ours would have to last until we got to Mt Isa. We hadn’t spent much on the island — since the night at Kangaroo Point we had been much more careful with money — and Glen was still in charge, but now we each had an emergency ten shillings we kept stashed away. Not counting this, after buying the clothes and allotting one pound ten shillings for food and cigarettes, we still had about seven pounds left.

  We emerged from the shop wearing our new shirts and set off back to find Mal, only for him to find us, pulling over quickly when he spotted us. We piled in and he drove off, turning into a side street to park and switching the engine off as he turned to us. “When did you get back?”

  “This morning. We’re going to Mt Isa.”

  If he was surprised by this he gave no indication, but there did seem to be something troubling him and he frowned slightly and picked up the copy of the Townsville Bulletin on the seat beside him. “Funny you should come today. I was just thinking about you. I’m afraid there’s some sad news,” and he handed us the paper. At the bottom of the front page was a photograph of Mrs Hayes, and underneath a sub-headline: ‘Much Loved North Coast Identity Dies’. For a moment we were both speechless, and just stared down at her photograph.

  The effect the news of Mrs Hayes’ death had on us took us both by surprise, I think. We may have only known her for a few days, but they had been far more intense and stimulating days than we’d realised, especially for Glen. She was the first adult, other than his mother, that he’d really been able to relate to and, more than that, she was the first person he’d been close to who had died. For ten minutes we just sat in the taxi reading the article about her over and over again, tears never far away.

  “I wonder what will happen to the Jessies?” Glen asked absently.

  “Oh, they will be looked after,” Mal assured us. “She had many friends who loved dogs as much as she did. They’ll be fine.” He smiled.

  I am sure that had Mal known how upset it would make us, he wouldn’t have shown us the paper so abruptly. “I’m sorry,” he said. “She was a great lady. Look, why don’t you come back to our place for awhile, have a feed and a comfortable night’s sleep. You don’t want to sleep up the hill tonight, do you!”

  We ended up staying three days with Mal and Gillian Dixon, the great food, soft pillows and comfortable mattresses making it an easy decision. But they were also fantastic people and made us feel so welcome and at ease. Gillian Dixon was very calm and considerate. She even reminded us a bit of Mrs Hayes in that she wasn’t the slightest bit judgemental, and both she and Mal were great listeners, showing a genuine interested in our plans. Any misgivings they may have had about them they managed to convey without sounding the least bit critical. Gillian helped us sort our gear out, getting rid of the last of the sand and ants, and we washed all our clothes.

  Although neither of them made any attempt to dissuade us from going to Mt Isa, Mal was a little cautious. “I don’t want to put you off, but it is quite tough out there, especially with the hot weather coming up in a month or so.”

  “Don’t you think we should go, then?”

  “Let me make some enquiries, see what the score is,” he suggested. “I know someone who works in the mine office here.” Th at night when he came back from work he had good news and bad news. The bad news was that from the Townsville office they would only employ people eighteen years and older. “It’s just company policy; they can’t be seen to be employing juveniles. The government doesn’t like it. Besides, there is a much bigger pool of labour here so they can afford to be choosy.”

  “So what’s the good news?”

  “Well, speaking to a couple of other friends who have been out there recently, it seems that if you apply for work actually in Isa then they don’t ask too many questions. The whole town is owned and run by the mine company,” Mal explained. “Not just the mines, but the ancillary industries, even the shops are run by the company, and from what I hear they are so short staffed that even the most junior workers are getting twenty-five bob a day. I don’t think you’ll have any trouble getting a job,” he smiled, and although he was obviously still a bit doubtful he didn’t say any more. Even if he had, we probably wouldn’t have listened; a minimum of twenty-five bob a day made more noise than any warning of how tough it might be. Early the next morning he drove us a few miles out of town and dropped us on the Flinders Highway. Mt Isa was five hundred miles away, due west.

  * * *

  One of my greatest idols is Mathew Flinders; he has to be the most amazing of all of Australia’s many amazing explorers. Clever, inventive, a brilliant sailor and navigator, he was as imaginative as he was courageous. I love the story, very early on in his days in Australia, of him coming ashore on the south coast of New South Wales
in his little boat Tom Thumb, only to be confronted by a group of agitated Aboriginals who must have been truly terrified seeing half a dozen white men emerge from the sea. To Flinders and his party, twenty to thirty Aboriginals waving spears and glaring at them from the tree line fifty yards away can’t have been much fun either, but quick as a flash he realised he had to calm the situation down. Standing quietly by his boat at the water’s edge, he told his men to lower their weapons and then slowly took out a pair of scissors from his bag and deliberately cut off some locks of his long, blond hair, letting them blow away in the wind. The effect was electrifying, and within minutes they were all sitting together on the beach, Flinders cutting the Aboriginals’ hair as they marvelled at these strange, fair-skinned men and their even stranger tools.

  I’m not one to hold a grudge, but the French are to be despised; not so much for the callous way they treated him, the months of solitary confinement and terrible diet from which he never recovered, but because he had such a brilliant mind and they knew it. At the time they captured him he was one of the most highly regarded navigators in the world, young as he was. Who knows what other discoveries and inventions the great man might have given the world had he lived. One thing’s certain, he had already contributed far, far more to mankind than that jumped-up little toad of a general the French idolise. You just have to look at the number of mountains, rivers, streets and buildings named after him right around Australia to see that.

  * * *

  We got to Hughenden, well over a third of the way, in two days; not bad, considering. Our first lift, to Charters Towers, was with an older man and his wife, who as they approached us were having a heated discussion, obviously about whether to pick us up or not. When he stopped against her wishes she was furious, and as we settled down on the back seat you could literally taste the tension between them. For the first few miles he did try to make light conversation but it was hard going, his wife’s heavy silence sinking his words almost as soon as they came out, and in the end he gave up and we were all silent. It’s only about ninety miles from Townsville to Charters Towers, yet it seemed to take forever and the 1956 Hillman Minx is not a large car. By the time we got there it felt like we were in a Dinky toy, so oppressive was the atmosphere. We couldn’t get out fast enough, we did turn to thank them and the man at least wished us good luck, but she refused even to look at us. Suit yourself!

  Fortunately the scenery was fantastic. The Great Dividing Range certainly is something to behold; strange how you perceive things when you’re young. I’d always imagined the Range as one long, thin ridge, at most only a few miles across, and that the mountains came back down on the western side as steeply and quickly as they went up on the eastern side. For well over a thousand miles since leaving Sydney we’d travelled parallel to this huge geographical feature, but you only really get a grasp of its size when you cross over it. I’d had no idea it was so wide — wider than many countries, in fact. Gee, Australia’s a big place!

  As with geographical features, architecture is not something for which teenage appreciation is highly tuned, but we couldn’t help but be impressed with Charters Towers. I’m not sure what we’d expected it to be like; probably lots of shacks like the one Harry Mellings lived in, but whatever we’d imagined it wasn’t the fabulous colonial and Victorian architecture of this once booming mining town. We had intended getting another lift that afternoon and maybe getting to Hughenden by nightfall, but we were so entranced we ended up walking right around the town, marvelling at the fantastic buildings. I think it was the fact that they were so sort of unexpected that made them stand out.

  We found a park to sleep in, but we hadn’t been prepared for how much colder it was compared to Magnetic Island. We lit a fire, and immediately the manager of the nearby truck stop diner came out and told us the police would jump on us for lighting a fire there. He was okay, and let us stay in the diner and then sleep on the floor after it closed at midnight. Which was just as well, because it was one of the coldest nights we’d experienced so far. Next morning we were having breakfast when two fairly rough-looking locals in their early twenties came in, obviously still suffering from the night before and shouting greetings to all and sundry. Their vehicle looked as wild as they did; a very battered 1957 long wheel base Land Rover, it had a massive bull bar on the front and four huge spotlights on the cab roof. The back had been cut away roughly and the seats taken out, turning the vehicle into a sort of home-made ute. They told us they were going to a large cattle station south of Hughenden to shoot ‘roos, for which they were paid two shillings for every set of ears. They offered us a lift, but said we’d have to sit in the back. So what? We’d done that before.

  Not like this we hadn’t! Jesus, it was a terrible ride. It was like the Land Rover had square wheels. The road was supposed to be bitumen all the way to Mt Isa, but it was in terrible condition and very narrow; when a three trailer cattle road train came the other way we had to pull over and got covered in dust and grit. Then they stopped in Torrens Creek and said they were going to have a few beers and just left us sitting there. Why is it that some adults don’t think it necessary to be polite and considerate towards teenagers! Little wonder we get bolshie! We hung around outside for a bit, but when a farmer came out and offered us a lift to Hughenden in the front of his Holden ute we accepted like a shot.

  Hughenden was not the most inspiring of places. We’d come down off the Range by now, and the land was beginning to flatten out, the trees getting smaller, the vegetation sparser. It was late afternoon and we were getting a bit tired and hungry; it had been a short night and a long day. There didn’t seem to be anywhere comfortable or private to sleep, so we walked out of town down the highway for a mile or so. At least we could have a fire out here. We cleared a place to sleep about fifty yards from the road under some small trees, lit a fire and were about to have a mug of tea when a police car, coming from Hughenden, stopped a hundred yards up the road from us.

  For a moment nothing happened. Then a policeman got out of the driver’s seat and went around to the passenger’s side and opened the back door. Leaning in, he dragged an Aboriginal man out by the shirt and flung him against the side of the car. It was obvious the man was drunk as he could hardly stand up, and the policeman had to hold him up by his shirt. We couldn’t quite hear what he was saying, but whatever it was it didn’t sound, or look, too friendly. Then suddenly he stepped back a pace, and holding the Aborigine by the collar he hit him twice in the stomach, thumping blows that doubled him up. Then the policeman grabbed the Aborigine by the back of his belt and more or less chucked him into the scrub beside the road. “And fucking stay out!” This we did hear as he shouted it so loudly and angrily, and then after a quick look up and down the road, he kicked the prone man viciously in the groin.

  “Jesus!” exclaimed Glen, instinctively rising, and just as instinctively I pulled him down.

  “Don’t let him see us!”

  The policeman got back into the car and drove off, heading in our direction. We both lay as flat as we could, hoping he didn’t see the wisps of smoke from our fire. He didn’t, and as the car went past we stood up and looked back down the road to the Aboriginal, who was still lying where he’d fallen. We were about to set off to see if he was alright when suddenly the police car returned. We hadn’t noticed that it had only gone a hundred yards or so up the road to turn around. As it came past us, gathering speed, there was no time to duck and the policeman spotted us.

  Shit!

  Immediately he slammed on the brakes and the car came to a screeching halt, then did a violent and unnecessarily spectacular u-turn in the middle of the road and came roaring back, coming to a halt in a cloud of dust. The sergeant got out, putting on his hat as he strode across to us.

  “What are you two doing here!” he demanded.

  All sorts of answers flashed through my mind, like “minding our own business,” and “what does it look like, shithead!” but I settled for: “Having a cup of t
ea,” although I couldn’t help adding, “What’s it look like?”

  “Don’t get smart, son. What’s your name?”

  “Nick.”

  “Nick fucking who!”

  “Yeah! Alright, sergeant!” Why was it that these sorts of conversations always ended up like this?

  “His name is Nick Thomas and I’m Glen Olsen,” said Glen, stepping in before I screwed things up completely.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Just having a cup of tea, like he said,” Glen shrugged. “Why?”

  “I’ll ask the questions. Where have you come from?”

  “Charters Towers this morning. We’re going to Mt Isa.”

  For a moment the policeman stared hard at us, as if making up his mind about something. Then he stabbed his finger at us. “Right! You listen to me. This is my patch,” and he waved his arm up and down the road. “From Hughenden right through to Cloncurry; my patch, you understand me?”

  Not really, but we didn’t say so.

  “That means,” he continued, “that anything that goes on along this stretch is my business! You get me?”

  We still didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, but Glen said, “Yes sergeant,” anyway.

  “Good,” he said, dropping his finger. “So if I happen to go to Richmond or Julia Creek tomorrow or the next day and hear somebody’s been tellin’ stories, I’ll know who it was tellin’ ’em, won’t I? Won’t I!” he barked, making us blink.

  “Yes, sergeant.”

  “Right. Now remember I can do you for vagrancy, loitering and for resisting arrest any time I want.”

  “Resisting arrest!” I exploded. “We haven’t done anything!”

  To my surprise the policeman just smiled and continued with studied reasonableness. “I just told you, son. Vagrancy and loitering are against the law. You two are breaking the law right now; break the law, you get arrested. Getting arrested sometimes makes people unhappy. Resisting arrest is one of the most common charges in the book, son. You can go to gaol for it. You with me?”