Poor Fellow My Country

by Xavier Herbert

  ‘If they wanted what I have I’d give it to them. But they don’t. So I try to share it with them.’

  ‘I must say I haven’t been much impressed with what I’ve seen of the Aborigines . . . on the contrary, some I saw in a camp at the station made me feel quite ill.’

  ‘Those you saw were old and sick. The others were at the Races.’

  ‘Can’t say I was impressed with what I saw there, either.’

  ‘Were you impressed by what you saw of the majority of the whites?’

  ‘Well . . . hardly.’

  ‘There are some very handsome Aborigines, male and female. Truly beautiful people of any race are rarities. The mother of that boy behind is a handsome creature . . .’

  ‘But she’d be halfcaste, wouldn’t she?’

  ‘If you mean it’s her white blood that made her so . . . then I must tell you the awful truth that Piggy Trotters is her father.’

  ‘Oh, lord!’

  ‘So you see. As a matter of fact most crossbreeds are good-looking. It seems to me that the perfect symmetry of the Aboriginal face makes up for the lack of it in the average white face. In my opinion a beautiful breed of people could have been created if only our forefathers’d had the courage to breed with the Aborigines like men, instead of like dirty little boys . . . and one that would have loved the land because they truly belonged to it . . .’ Jeremy launched into his subject of what Australia might have been as a Creole nation.

  She listened with close attention, even while interrupting him occasionally to ask about some of the things she saw as they went winding their way up the river: the parrots of so many varieties, cockatoos, great water-birds sweeping up from the stream to watch from lofty perches in the tall timber growing in the lower dampness, a huge spotted prindy that galloped along ahead of them, head over shoulder, forked tongue flickering, then sprang to a tree beside the track, to peep from behind the trunk and set her laughing with the quaintness of it. Perhaps owing to the many interruptions, he finished rather lamely: ‘Well, how’s it strike you?’

  She thought a moment: ‘After all, it’s only a dream . . . and, if I may say so, a rather bad one.’

  He swallowed: ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Well . . . for a start I think it’s only born of your bitterness . . . the bitterness you feel because your fellow-countrymen are such a poor lot generally.’

  He asked sharply, ‘Are yours any better . . . generally?’

  ‘I expect not. But they’re not a bastard people . . . and that’s what you advocate as the best kind for this country . . .’

  ‘Because they’d belong . . .’

  ‘Let me finish. You spoke of the South Americans. You’ve been there?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I had a feeling you hadn’t. You’d be shocked if you did so and saw the poverty and ignorance and superstition . . . the grinding rackets of those of your so-called Creoles smart enough to get a shirt on their backs . . . and behind it all the Spanish or Portuguese aristocratic pretenders.’

  ‘Why pretenders in their case?

  ‘Because the Spanish and Portuguese have been bastard breeds ever since the Moors overran them. If they were true patricians the frightful conditions would never have resulted . . .’

  ‘But poverty, tyranny, are the direct results of aristocracy . . . the Russian Romanovs . . . the French aristocracy . . .’

  ‘According to socialist literature . . . besides, they were in a degenerate state. Only a true aristocrat can rule. The people want their rule.’

  He glanced at her, met the cool blue eyes. Turning back to the road he asked, ‘Do you consider yourself a true aristocrat?’

  ‘Naturally . . . my family came over with The Conqueror.’

  ‘And that gives you a special right to rule?’

  ‘If we can . . . and we do, don’t y’know . . . we rule most of the world.’

  He nodded to the road.

  She went on: ‘Only aristocracy can break the rule of aristocracy.’

  ‘What about the Russians?’

  ‘It’s temporary.’

  ‘What about the North Americans?’

  ‘They love us, reahlly . . . we’re gradually infusing their rulers with our blood.’

  After a little silence she added: ‘The only people out heah who ever looked like breaking our rule were aristocrats.’

  ‘Yes? And who were they?’

  ‘The Macarthur-Onslows. Do you know them?’

  ‘Only as the Kings of the Squatters. I’ve never been one to think others better than myself . . . I mean socially.’

  ‘That’s because you’re an aristocrat yourself.’

  He went red, glanced at her, turned away, laughing: ‘God save us . . . I the son of an Irish policeman!’

  ‘The fair Irish are of Norman stock.’

  ‘I told you I’m Welsh on my mother’s side.’

  ‘The Normans went quickly into Wales. Wales is still in fact a fiefdom of English aristocrats. I’d say you’re definitely of Norman stock. It shows no better than in that little boy, for all his Aboriginal blood.’

  ‘Which makes us aristocrats and natural rulers of this land held in fief by Lord Vaisey?’

  ‘If you chose to be.’

  He glanced again, and away. She was looking very serious. She added: ‘If you’d drop your silly pretence of socialism . . .’

  ‘Who says I’m a socialist?’

  ‘Everything I’ve heard about you, and everything you’ve said about yourself, points to it. You’ve founded a community based on liberty, equality, fraternity . . . with your dream of the Creole Nation at the back of it.’

  ‘All right . . . where’s the pretence, then?’

  ‘Because it’s obvious to me that what you’ve reahlly done is set yourself up as a sort of Robber Baron in the middle of your fief-lord’s domain.’

  He reddened again, took a deep breath, and exhaling said, ‘Lady, you talk like the Domesday Book.’

  ‘My ancestors’ names are in the Domesday Book . . . as the rulers of England.’

  ‘For a seemingly very intelligent lady, you’re dragging back a bit in the past aren’t you?’

  ‘We still rule England.’

  ‘Despite the boasted British system of Government by Parliament?’

  ‘We still rule England . . . and we’ll prove it soon by doing away with Parliamentary humbug.’

  He looked at her quickly, searchingly. Now her normal pallor was gone, her eyes shining. He looked back to the road. After a moment she said, ‘I’m a British Fascist.’

  He seemed to ponder it for a moment, then said, ‘I thought Fascists were Italian.’

  ‘Properly, yes . . . but the name’s caught on for any right-wing movement. We’re reahlly called British Unionists.’

  ‘Sounds like a labour movement.’

  ‘It’s anything but . . . I assure you!’

  ‘That’s the Oswald Mosley thing, is it?’

  ‘It’s hardly a thing, my deah man . . . in fact it’s the greatest thing that’s happened to Britain since Cromwell.’

  ‘Yes? I thought it was just a cheap imitation of the Hitler and Mussolini stuff . . . black shirts and Roman salutes and all that.’

  ‘There’s nothing cheap about it, I do assure you. Most of the aristocracy of England now belong to it.’

  He said dryly, ‘Although I might be an aristocrat myself, according to the family-tree you’ve wished on me, I can’t say that impresses me much.’

  ‘I’ve told you the aristocracy rules England.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘So when the time’s ripe for taking over the Government of England . . . of the Empire . . . Greater Britain, as we shall call it . . . it’ll be done like that!’ She snapped thin white fingers.

  ‘And this time . . . this ripe time . . . when’ll that be?’

  ‘When Adolf Hitler has crushed the Russian Bolsheviks and the world is liberated from the myth of the dictatorship of the proletariat.’
<
br />   He was silent. After a while she remarked coldly, ‘You don’t seem much impressed.’

  He glanced: ‘Sorry . . . but I can’t say I’m interested in anything that happens in Europe. Europocentricity is one of Australia’s sicknesses. I don’t suffer from it myself. I left mad Europe behind me when I climbed out of the trenches of Normandy in 1918 . . . your ancestral land of Normandy, where, by the way, I saw more moron types than anywhere else I’ve been . . .’

  ‘The fight of Fascism against Bolshevism will be worldwide.’

  He grinned through the windscreen: ‘Well . . . if it comes here, I’ll be doing what the bushies say they’ll do when there’s talk of trouble . . . I’ll be lookin’ fo’ a ’oller log.’

  ‘You . . . a soldier and an aristocrat?’

  ‘I was so little of a soldier, lady, that they removed my name from the Reserve of Officers soon after I was demobbed . . . and it’s only you’ve given me the accolade of aristocracy.’ He glanced at her again, smiling, and looking back to the road, added: ‘Don’t want to offend you . . . but I’m not interested in politics . . . and I’m rather surprised to find you are. I brought you out to show you the country. Just up here’s a lovely place called the Rainbow Pool. I thought we’d go in there and have breakfast . . . suit you?’

  She smiled rather stiffly, but replied easily, ‘Jolly good show . . . and no politics with meals, eh what?’

  He chuckled, reached and touched the white hand resting on a black knee. At once she brought her other hand over and clasped his so tightly that he looked at her in surprise. Her face had another expression now, a brightness that made her look even beautiful. He snatched his hand away to prevent the car from running off the road. ‘Sorry,’ he murmured.

  They came to a turn-off to the right, where a track that was just a pair of wheel ruts in the grass, ran towards the river, hereabout some distance off and located now in rocky country. Swinging onto the track, Jeremy stopped and alighted and spoke to Prindy standing with hands on the cabin, yellow with dust: ‘Might-be more better you stop here, young feller.’

  The grey eyes stared inquiringly.

  Jeremy went on: ‘I want to show Missus one place in there.’ He jerked his jaw towards the river. ‘Wurruk that place.’ I give you some tucker, you sit down here wait, eh?’

  Without moving, Prindy asked, ‘Wha’ nam’ wurruk, Mullaka?’

  ‘Belong ’o tchineke business.’ Jeremy was watching the grey eyes cloosely.

  Just one blink, and Prindy answered, ‘I no-more fright tchineke Bijnitch Mullaka.’

  ‘What for like-o’-dat?’

  ‘Dat old-man . . . Wirridirridi . . . he tchineke man . . . he mate long o’ me.’

  ‘Might be your mumma growl spone I take you in there.’

  Prindy made the sound of contempt with his lips: ‘All day mumma growl sumpin. Dat old-man been promised learn him me good t’ing. He been come dis country, ain’t it?’

  ‘Yes . . . he’s over this way.’

  ‘I wan’ ’o talk long o’ him.’

  ‘All right . . . but be it on your own head.’

  Jeremy got back into the car. When Lady Lydia asked him he explained the situation at length. Her comment was: ‘Good for him . . . brave little boy!’

  ‘I don’t think you’ve grasped the significance of witchcraft to these people.

  She said shortly, ‘The boy isn’t a black savage. I told you what he is . . . an aristocrat.’

  Jeremy sighed: ‘I hope you’re around to convince his mother if and when she finds out.’

  A couple of hundred yards of bumpy going through thick brush brought them suddenly onto a grassy verge and into a view of water, rock, and vegetation so pleasant that Lydia cried out about its loveliness. As the roar of the engine ceased in rushed the quiet roar of water.

  Prindy leapt down at once, with grey gaze intent on the scene, seeming to search every inch of the further shore of the wide pool before them. The pool would be on average some fifteen yards across. The other shore was rocky, but only three or four feet above the water that lay along there emerald with reflexion of ferny and mossy growth. Beyond was thick brush. It was perhaps fifty feet in length, beginning at a higher and less overgrown wall down which water ran in several silver streams, and ending at rapids to which it suddenly converged to race away. It was the rapids that made the watery roar. The near shore was sandy, although with grass growing almost into the water. A curious thing was the seeming glassy stillness of the pool, while being fed by a lively little waterfall and spilled out in rapids. Only near fall and rapids was there apparent movement.

  Prindy quickly moved to the water’s edge, touched it with a toe, bent and tasted, drank with sucking lips. When he looked up at the others now behind him, Jeremy said, ‘All-same water long o’ Catfish.’ When Prindy nodded, Jeremy added, ‘Taste different over there.’ He projected his lips towards the further shore.

  Rising, Prindy began to peel off his dusty clothes, khaki shirt and shorts, saying, ‘I bogey.’

  Jeremy said, ‘I told you this wurruk place.’

  Prindy shrugged, dumped his clothes, and dived, or rather simply vanished, so smooth was his entry and long his submergence. Staring at the still water, Lydia murmured, ‘What’s wurruk?’

  ‘Bad . . . sinister.’

  She exhaled a pent breath as the yellow head popped up and yellow-brown hands dashed water from grey eyes and white teeth and red gums flashed in a broad gasping grin. She asked, ‘What’s it like in?’

  He answered gaspingly, ‘Properly!’ then promptly showed his caramel-cream behind in another dive.

  Lydia bent to the water, touched it, rose saying, ‘It’s warm.’

  ‘The water’s always warm in these parts . . . except in flood time.’

  ‘D’y’know, I think I’ll take a dip too.’

  ‘It’s a dangerous place.’

  ‘Wurruk!’ she said contemptuously, and dropped down to the grass and began to take off her boots.

  ‘No . . . I mean it’s physically dangerous, too. A number of whites have been drowned here . . . during the tin mining. It probably got its bad reputation with the blacks, from drowning some of them too, away back.’

  She was pulling her jodhpurs down over her bottom as she sat. She said, ‘Well, it isn’t drowning that small boy.’ Prindy had appeared again over under the other wall and was heading swiftly towards the waterfall.

  Jeremy called to him, ‘Careful, sonny . . . no good place up there . . . might pull you down.’

  Sitting in scanty drawers, struggling with the tight pants, Lydia said: ‘These things were made for skinny Indians . . . or fat ones with wallahs to pull ’em off.’

  With gaze averted, Jeremy said; ‘There’s a strange inflow down below there. This is the actual head of the Beatrice, which’s quite a big river just down a bit. All that water couldn’t come over those little falls. For certain there’s an underground stream that drains all the country back to the limestone. The Beatrice’s limey, you’ll have noticed. But here on this side of the pool it’s a sandstone taste. That’s from the falls there. That’s the end of the creek that flows through my place . . . sandstone country. This is mixed-up country round here . . . a couple of great rock faults that give you sandstone, limestone, shale, all within a few yards . . . careful sonny!’ Prindy, near the falls and apparently having felt the pull of something, waved acknowledgement and came swimming back.

  ‘What a beautiful swimmer he is,’ said Lydia, struggling now to get the pants over her feet, showing long thin white legs. Then looking up at Jeremy, she asked, ‘Be my wallah, will you, old boy?’

  Red-faced he bent and pulled the jodhpurs clear.

  She rose, pulled off the blouse, to reveal nothing but a brassière encasing tiny breasts. Observing his embarrassment she chuckled. He gave her a twisted smile, saying, ‘I’m not used to the ways of aristocracy.’

  ‘You must learn, deah boy . . . seeing you’re one of us.’ So saying, she unh
ooked the brassière and let it fall, then slid hands down slim hips to remove the drawers, bending thin legs as she slipped out of them. Looking up at the astonished Jeremy she laughed merrily. Prindy, now down near the rapids and standing in water only calf-deep, was also staring. She turned to him, saying to Jeremy, ‘What a lovely boy he is . . . like a little golden Adonis.’ At that she stepped into the water.

  ‘Wait a minute!’ exclaimed Jeremy.

  She flopped into the pool, thrashed about a bit, then evidently with her stern on the bottom, since she raised a white knee as she looked back at him, she asked, ‘You were saying?’

  ‘It’s too late now . . . but there’s a superstition that anyone who swims in the Rainbow Pool must come back to this country to die.’

  ‘Superstition!’ she jeered. ‘Wurruk! You’ve lived too long with the blacks, my deah.’ Thereupon she stood up, to reveal herself in all her schoolgirlish gangling entirety, from bony shoulders to knees, undeveloped tits in a ribby chest, flat belly, a whisp of pubic hair yellow as her head. She added: ‘I don’t care where I die . . . so long as I have fun living in the meantime.’ She turned her back, to show a rather pretty bum, then slipped down again into the water, and breaststroke, began to swim to Prindy. Soon they were swimming together, splashing and laughing.

  Jeremy turned away to the utility, got out the insulated tucker-box, began to prepare a picnic spot on the grass on the side remote from where the clothes lay. After a while he called to them that breakfast was ready and tossed tea-towels onto their clothes with which to dry themselves, then went back and sat down. Giggling together like a couple of kids they dressed, came to join him sparkling. Lydia asked, ‘You’re not shocked by my bathing in the nuddy, are you, old thing?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Was it really superstition about the place that stopped you from coming in with us?’

  ‘I’ve swum in it many a time.’

  ‘Then why not just now?’

  ‘An old fellow like me swim naked with a couple of lovely youngsters?’

  She smiled: ‘That’s sweet of you. I’m just a bony old bag.’

  ‘You can’t be a day over twenty-two . . . and you’ve got . . . er . . . your good points.’

  ‘Spoken like the gentleman you are! I’m twenty-five, actually. And you’re not a day over fifty . . . and you’re as fine a figure of a man as I’ve ever seen. Where’d your grandson get his beauty from, if not from you?’