Poor Fellow My Country

by Xavier Herbert

Dinny came strolling in, with the grin and the greenish eyes shooting all over the place, and particularly at the scared young dusky faces, till they lit on one paler than most and with staring grey eyes, when the grin altered somewhat and a hand was raised in greeting. But the Sergeant was there on official business. He continued on his way towards the teacher, standing by her blackboard. He saluted, saying, ‘Mornin’ Mrs Candlemas . . . see you a moment privately?’

  She looked surprised: ‘Yes . . . of course, Sergeant.’ Then she told the children to run along and play.

  ‘How’s young Prindy doing?’ Dinny asked, watching them go.

  ‘Quite well,’ said Alfie. ‘But he really needs special schooling . . .’

  ‘They say it’s his ears.’

  ‘No . . . I meant, he’s too big a boy for this place, and advanced. Evidently his mother gave him his ABC and things . . .’

  ‘My sisters taught her.’

  ‘So I understand. What I mean is he’s a particularly bright boy . . . in my opinion. He’s withdrawn . . . but what intelligent child with his background wouldn’t be?’

  ‘I’d like my sisters to take him, like they did her mother, but . . . but they’re gettin’ a bit old now. I’d adopt him myself, only for that.’ When she met the green eyes with surprise they blinked, and turned away. The truth as Alfie wouldn’t know through being too busy to know much of what was other people’s business, was that Dinny’s sisters had unequivocally denied him the indulgence of de facto recognition of his alleged bastard. He changed the subject quickly, saying, ‘I’ve a small official matter for you to attend to.’ From his breast pocket he took papers and a small black book that had made it bulge hugely. He set the things down on the table. Alfie showed obvious surprise on seeing that the little book was entitled in gold: Holy Bible. Dinny handed her one of the papers, which was in an envelope bearing the printed letters OHMS. She opened it. Most certainly was the matter On His Majesty’s Service. She read:

  It has been noted that you have not yet taken the Oath of Allegiance prerequisite in appointment to Public Service. You are hereby requested to undergo the formality without delay.

  Signed: E.P.N. Twigg

  Government Secretary.

  She looked up at Dinny in surprise: ‘What’s this in aid of?’

  He grinned: ‘Just a formality. Here’s the Oath.’ He unfolded a paper and gave it to her.

  Her eyes rolled as they went over the heavy print that with a lot of jargon in legalistic style would bind her in Loyalty and Obedience to Our Sovereign Lord the King and his Ministers of Government appointed by him, so help her God. She looked up to meet the green eyes again, face rosy now and black eyes flashing, saying, ‘But this is ridiculous!’

  He grinned: ‘It’s the rule.’

  She put the paper back on the table, demanding, ‘Is this something being done to . . . harass me?’

  ‘Lord, no! Everybody’s got to swear it who’s a servant of the Crown. I did.’

  ‘But you’re a policeman. I’m only a teacher.’

  ‘What’s the difference . . . we’re both servants of the Crown.’

  ‘No . . . I don’t like this. This’s something being done to me. I remember that that man the Federal Attorney-General, brought it in . . . to get at Communists.’

  ‘You’re not a Commo, though?’

  ‘No . . . I’m not. But I object to being treated with suspicion.’

  ‘But I’ve told you . . . it’s only a formality.’

  ‘I don’t mean to be rude . . . to you, Sergeant . . . but I don’t believe it . . . and I won’t do it.’

  He stared at her, with her head high and cheeks rosy and dark eyes wide and angry, looking very lovely. Then he shook his head. ‘It might cause trouble for you if you don’t.’

  ‘I don’t care!’

  ‘I’ll have to report back, of course, that you refused.’

  ‘Of course.’

  He was silent a moment. Then: ‘Leave it till you’ve spoken to your husband, eh?’

  She snapped, ‘As far as I’m concerned, the matter’s closed.’ She took up papers and Bible and handed them to him.

  As he took them he shook his head again. ‘I’ll still wait till you’ve spoken to your husband, lady. Goodday to you.’ He saluted and withdrew.

  The children came rushing back, divining that something was amiss, but too polite to ask. She couldn’t go on with school. She said they’d go and get a picnic lunch from Nell in the kitchen and go down the beach and have it and play. As she passed the Superintendent’s office she slipped in and asked Tubby did he have to swear an Oath of Allegiance on appointment. He said, ‘Lord no!’ Nor had he ever sworn or signed anything. ‘Something new, eh?’ he suggested, and looked cagey.

  Venus, Nell’s cell-mate in jail, freed with her under the Royal Amnesty, was now also working in the kitchen. She came down to the beach with them. Others also released were Green-ant and Splinter, and the rest concerned in the Catfish Creek Affair. Prindy left Alfie and the others to go talk to them in King George’s hut, asking them about Bobwirridirridi. George looked troubled. It seemed that he was being credited again in some quarters with being the one who had brought the releases about. Certainly the Catfish men believed he’d been responsible, and had given him their brand-new discharged-prisoner outfits, of khaki shirts and trousers, in payment for the favour, according to inviolate Aboriginal custom, and in place of them bought from him on promise of payment later, well-worn stuff he traded in. What was worrying George was not his conscience, because it was evident he more than half believed that he had done the trick again, but that Bobwirridirridi was getting impatient about his own expected release, sending almost daily messages through Barney Bynoe. It was from Barney, who was getting a lot of fun out of it, that Prindy heard of the business between the two old fellows. Barney told it to Prindy as a joke, but without getting him to see it. Prindy only asked when the old man would be free, perhaps in the hope of returning with him to Catfish, whither the others were going by next train. Mr Turkney was also in the joke, so that when George went and asked him could he hurry up old Bob’s release, he said he’d see what he could do, then phoned the Aborigines Department Office and put them into fits with it.

  Another piece of information the very knowledgeable Barney Bynoe had to relate, and this not in jest, was that Jumbo Delacy, in jail since Coronation Day, being held on a charge of being Drunk and Disorderly, was to be certified insane by Drs Cobbity and McQuegg and sent to an asylum in the South. He told Alfie about it. When Alfie cried out in protest he said, ‘More better, I reckon. Poor old Jumbo, too much he mek trouble for everybody.’

  Alfie, on reaching home, was immediately asked by Frank, ‘What’s happened?’ When he heard he nodded as if he’d expected it.

  She asked, ‘Did you have to swear the Oath?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When I was appointed.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I didn’t think it worth it. Seems to be routine now . . . like the medical examination, when they ask you have you had VD and you just say no, and that’s that.’

  ‘But you regard the King of England the same as I do . . . as something alien to people like Australians . . . all right for the English, if they want to cling to old trappings of authority. But we’re citizens of a properly constituted Commonwealth. How can you have that with a King and his nobles and all the old-fashioned rest of it? It’s just historical to us. Having to swear an oath of allegiance to it seems to me like swearing against all our principles . . . against Australia even.’

  ‘Probably most Australians feel that way about it . . . but don’t think it matters. It’s only been in a couple of years . . . anti-Communist business.’

  ‘Yes, I thought of that . . . red-baiting.’

  ‘Silly . . . because the Comms swear it just the same . . . end justifies the means, you know.’

  ‘Do we have to be dishonest because the Communists
are?’

  ‘We do have an end in view, you know.’

  ‘Which we’ll never get so long as we give in to them. I feel sure this is something vindictive. We didn’t go to the Levee, nor on the cruise. I remember those hard faces looking at us from the San Toy. It seems like they’re looking at me now. They haven’t forgotten what I said in Court that day. You said I’d bucked authority. Authority’s out to get me. If I bow down to Our Sovereign Lord the bloody King of England, I bow down to His Bloody Honour the Administrator . . . then to Cobbity, then to McCusky, then to Turkney . . .’

  He slipped an arm about her. ‘Then to me?’

  She pulled away: ‘I won’t do it, Frank . . . I won’t, I won’t!’

  He smiled that smile of his: ‘Okay, darling. Let’s have a drink. Maybe they’ll forget about it.’

  But the men of power never forget when the principles of their power are threatened. There was Sergeant Cahoon at the Compound School again first thing next morning. Alfie saved him from coming in by going to meet him saying, ‘No, Sergeant . . . definitely no!’

  He looked at her seriously. ‘I’ll have to report it, of course.’

  ‘Do so . . . with my best disrespects to everyone concerned!’ She swung round and went back to her class, head high, eyes flashing, face aglow. She said to the staring kids, ‘I’ll tell you about the Eureka Stockade . . . the only time the people who call themselves Australians ever showed any courage . . . and they mightn’t have been Australian-born, either. My great-grandfather fought in it, as a rebel . . . and he was English.’

  Two hours later there was the police car again. Alfie cried out, ‘Oh, no!’ But it wasn’t Cahoon; instead, young Constable Gobally, looking rather red and awkward, as he handed her another OHMS envelope. He simply saluted and departed.

  It was another communication from the Government Secretary, just a couple of lines, reading: You are hereby requested to present yourself at the Office of His Honour the Administrator immediately.

  Alfie said to the kids, ‘Let’s go down the beach again.’

  They got to the beach in time to see King George, with a couple of black helpers, running out his net to take a haul from the tide just beginning to ebb. The children rushed to be in it. Alfie squatted in the sand to watch, soon to be joined by Queeny, who proceeded to pump her concerning official matters, evidently leading to that of the New Settlement, about her own place in it which she, with all her vested interests here, must be especially concerned about. Alfie’s declaiming knowledge, and even saying that she did not think she herself would be having anything to do with the new place, didn’t put Queeny off, used as she was, no doubt, to being put off by officialdom.

  The fish were almost landed, making a last boiling fight for liberty and life, with half a hundred kids, black and yellow and creamy, making it hard for them on the side where the net lay, with their splashing and yelling, and Peg-leg still doing her stuff, with Alfie sitting drooping, staring blankly, playing with the sand — when a sudden change came over things. The children fell silent. Some black ones dropped down into the water to render themselves less conspicuous. George and his adult helpers turned — and Queeny, too, to breathe, ‘Eh, look out!’ and heave herself up on peg and crutch and go loping for the scrub. Alfie was the last to turn. A tall figure clad in gleaming whites and wearing a topee had just come onto the grassy stretch from the track from above — Dr Cobbity. Alfie didn’t move, just sat staring.

  Cobbity came up to her, took off the topee, grinned a greeting, ‘What a life you and your pupils have!’

  Still sitting, she met his smiling blue eyes, said stiffly, ‘Better than keeping them cooped up in that place up there . . .’

  ‘Prison, Fay McFee called it, didn’t she . . . virtual prison, wasn’t it? May I sit down?’

  She was rosy, wide-eyed, heaving a bit for breath. She answered, ‘Why ask? It’s your property.’

  ‘Now, now!’ he said, stretching out long legs as he settled down. ‘That isn’t very nice.’ He got out his pipe.

  ‘It’s what it says on the notice board in front.’

  ‘Hardly that. But what’s got into you, Alfie? I thought we were friends.’

  She resumed her playing with the sand, watching those of the children, her own, who, unlike the blacks, had not taken advantage of their Protector’s momentary preoccupation with sitting down, to vanish. The others were watching under lowered brows, except the one with the fair hair and grey eyes, who was busy basketing the fish with King George.

  When she didn’t answer, Cobbity went on: ‘I’ve told you I want you in the new place. I believed in your enthusiasm . . . when others were inclined to say you were only a little girl having a game. Have you got sick of the game?’

  She glanced at him: ‘It’s not a game to me. It means everything to me.’ She lifted her fingers from the sand to wave towards the children.

  He caught the slim brown hand as she drew it in, pressed it down on the sand beside him with his own, ruddy and ginger-haired. She let him hold it. He puffed on his pipe then asked, ‘Then why not be reasonable?’

  ‘What have I done now that’s considered unreasonable?’

  ‘For chrissake . . . you stood the Old Man up!’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘Don’t you understand he’s the Big Boss . . . that the whole of the Public Service here’s under his control?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then why did you disobey the order sent you to present yourself to him?’

  ‘To save his time and my own.’

  ‘What d’you mean by that?’

  She pulled her hand from under his, but left it lying by her thigh. She said, ‘He only wanted to bully me into swearing that silly oath.’

  He got the hand again, smoothed it now: ‘There’s no need for you to go to him now.’

  She looked at him quickly. Through smoke he went on: ‘I fixed it with him. I explained that you’re young, inexperienced in Public Service . . . and that I want you for the new place.’

  ‘The Oath doesn’t matter now?’

  ‘I told him I’d fix that.’

  ‘What’s that mean?’

  ‘You needn’t swear anything, if you don’t want to . . . just sign that paper . . .’

  She withdrew her hand again: ‘Which says I have sworn the Oath.’

  He went red: ‘For godsake, girl . . . why do you go on about that bloody Oath?’

  ‘Because swearing it’s against my conscience.’

  ‘You can’t have any conscience in a matter like this without declaring yourself a rebel . . . I mean a real rebel. You’re a subject of the King, and therefore automatically owe allegiance to him. To refuse to acknowledge it constitutes a crime . . . do you realise that?’ He puffed vigorously.

  She stared at him for a moment, then asked, ‘Is that part of the price you have to pay for an OBE . . . to preach the gospel of the out-of-date Imperialism that gave it to you?’

  His face went redder, his voice sharp: ‘I told you I’m trying to keep you with me. You told me you want to stay. The Old Man’s ramping. No one but myself could have made such a bargain with him . . .’

  ‘What bargain?’

  ‘That I’d handle the matter of the Oath if he’d let bullying you drop.’

  Their eyes clung for a moment. His mouth slipped into a grin again; and again he took her hand: ‘Alfie, dear . . .’

  She interrupted: ‘I’ll make a bargain with you, then.’

  The grin vanished: ‘Well?’

  ‘First . . . is it true that you’re going to certify Jumbo Delacy insane?’

  He went redder than ever, swallowed, let her hand go, asked stiffly, ‘Where’d you get that?’

  ‘I find this’s a great place for things getting about. Well?’

  He hid in smoke, muttered, ‘Such matters are strictly confidential.’

  The smoke cleared to show her eyes still on him. But now no change to a grin on his part. She broke the little silence: ‘
That’s as good as yes to me. The bargain is . . . you call off that dreadful thing, and I’ll swear your silly Oath.

  ‘What dreadful thing?’

  ‘Declaring an unfortunate man insane to get rid of him because he’s an embarrassment to the people who made him what he is.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘How long have you considered Jumbo insane?’

  Puffing, he took a moment to answer, ‘Pretty well as long as I’ve known him.’

  ‘Then why after all the years decide now to have him put away?’

  ‘I told you this is a confidential matter . . . a medical matter.’

  ‘And my opinion is that because of what Jumbo did on the night the Delacys got their knighthoods and OBE’s and things, plus the Shell Oil Company thing, you’ve been asked by someone in a high place to get rid of him . . .’

  He blazed: ‘Madam!’

  She was panting now: ‘Is that the bargain you made with your boss, your master, your Old Man . . . bosom friend of the Delacys, servant of the Vaiseys . . . and Captain Shane and Shell Oil?’

  He heaved himself to his feet, to blaze down at her: ‘How dare you!’

  She stayed where she was, to pant up, ‘How dare I question the motives of another tin god?’

  He barked at her, ‘Oh . . . you’re . . . you’re impossible!’ He swung away.

  She cried after him, ‘I thought you were going to say I was insane.’

  He turned back to bark, ‘The way you behave, you might be!’

  She leapt up: ‘Why don’t you certify me? Why don’t you, and that fat little drunken colleague of yours, use your God-given powers to do the same to me as . . . as . . . oh . . . oh!’ He was striding away . . . and she was struggling with those all-too-ready tears of hers. The tears beat her. She dropped face to hands, sank to the sand again. Cobbity, turning into the track again, glanced back to her, for a moment hesitated, then went on, disappeared. As he vanished, the children from the home, all but the one busy with the fish, came running to comfort her.

  They had dinner on the beach: fish grilled on the coals, a gift from King George and Prindy, with bread and butter. Then a blackfellow’s sleep-it-off in the shade of the casuarinas. Prindy spent the sleepy time in King George’s hut, till hauled out of there by his mother, come down after finishing her work in the kitchen. Nell called George a Black Bastard. He appeared to take no notice, evidently well used to being so-called by Queeny. Prindy’s other black mates, the Catfish men, were gone, heading for home on today’s mail train. There could be no holding them in the Compound for what was known as the adaptation period, which usually followed a spell in jail and was useful in keeping a pool of five-bob-a-week house-boy labour for the town, because these were Vaisey slaves, and the Season was about to begin. George was one of those held for adaptation, and had been so since release from jail some ten years back for involvement in the affair that had got Bobwirridirridi life imprisonment and Queeny her peg-leg and crutch. He had been telling Prindy how the Pookarakka had wanted him to come back to the bush with him when he, George, had got him out of jail last year, and how he had intended to go tchinekin off after him eventually. ‘Spone I get him out dis time,’ he told Prindy. ‘Me-two-feller go long o’ him, eh?’ Prindy had agreed readily.