McCusky’s plans, or rather Dr Cobbity’s, although Eddy made them sound very much like his own, first concerned settling the full-blood Aborigines in conditions that, even without considering the people themselves, would not make oneself look more like the keeper of a tumbledown piggery than a social and medical scientist supposed to be dealing with the Nation’s most pressing problems in these departments of science.
For the time, the Compound halfcastes, that is the females and boys under eight, were to be given into the care of Mr Tasker and his people, who would hold them at one of their island missions until the Government institution planned and budgeted for establishment on Echo Island was ready. The Compound kitchen still functioned to feed them, with Nelly Ah Loy in charge. The makeshift kitchen operating at the new place pending the proper building was being run by Possum Delacy, already appointed as permanent cook for the place.
McCusky himself, determined to rehabilitate Jumbo, perhaps to give the lie to the nationally disseminated impression that those who were supposed to be protecting him were actually persecuting him, had had Jumbo’s house removed, by courtesy of the Shell Oil Co. who pulled it down, to Sweet Creek, where it was actually the first building to be erected, and repaired and painted to look like new. As it was intended to run a small herd of cattle to make the Settlement independent for its beef supply as well as for training young full-bloods in the handling of stock, Jumbo had been appointed Head Stockman. Both he and his wife would be paid. Jumbo seemed to like the idea, perhaps because at last he had become some sort of boss. McCusky had offered Nell the job as baker for the settlement after the Halfcaste Homes were disbanded; but she had said she wanted to return to Beatrice River. He had told her of his intention to send Prindy to the Centre, only to have her forthrightly tell him of her own plans regarding the boy, which was that she would take him to Lily Lagoons and let his uncle Darcy teach him. Perhaps because he realised that it was no use arguing with her, or was too much preoccupied with other things, McCusky said no more to her about it.
It was Alfie Candlemas who brought Nell and McCusky to sharp awareness of the difference of their intentions. She did it quite inadvertently in the course of her duties as a reporter for the Progressive coupled with interest in old friends and places. The Aborigines Department showed no such coyness about its functioning now as in the past. When Alfie went to the Compound to take a peep at what was going on there, and found McCusky hustling Turkney, she was taken on a tour of inspection to see the piles of smoking remnants of what had been its former glory as a National Institution, awaiting transportation to the rubbish dump where much of it had come from. Dropping in for a word with the girls in the kitchen, she learnt from Nell that she would be returning to the Beatrice with Prindy as soon as the place was closed down altogether, and parted with her saying that she would be seeing her there when she and her husband attended the Races in September, as they surely would be doing, because Frank would then be down country doing that health survey and she along with him. Afterwards Alfie had been permitted by Mrs Turkney, half-friendly, to spend a little time with the kids, who were still making her necklace, the boring of a couple of hundred hard jirquities with a single needle and the making of the fine string from hybiscus bark being slow work. She was to pick up the prejent from them when she would be seeing them off to the missions in a week or two. A few days later, on a Monday, Alfie was out taking a look at how things were going at Sweet Creek and taking tea with Possum in the bright transplanted Delacy quarters there and listening to Possum’s sniffling complaint about the impending loss of most of her children, when she met up with the ubiquitous McCusky again. He joined them at tea. She said to him, ‘Seeing this sending the kids away is only a temporary measure, why not let Possum’s go along to that school of old Jeremy Delacy’s with the other Delacy boy?’
‘What other Delacy boy?’ asked McCusky.
‘Well, whatever he is, Nelly Ah Loy’s boy.’
‘Who says he’s going to Lily Lagoons?’
‘She does.’
‘Does she, then! As a matter of fact he’ll be off with the couple of others I’m sending to the Centre on Wednesday’s train. I’ll have to put that right . . . or we’ll have a bloody riot on our hands on Wednesday morning.’ When Alfie offered to take mother and son along in her car for parting at the train, he said definitely No, that would really be starting a riot: ‘You don’t know that Nelly when she gets worked up. The boys’re going down with a couple of coppers as escort. She’ll think they’re being taken to jail or something. I’ll go and explain to her on the way back to town.’ McCusky then discussed the Lily Lagoons school with Alfie, saying that it was worse than useless in the scheme of things he and Cobbity were putting into practice, which was, essentially, that ‘. . . Every Aboriginal person shall understand the value of money and the nature of work and of contracting to work, so as eventually to be able to take part in the general economy of the Nation.’ Cobbity, whom McCusky honoured greatly for what he called his concise thinking, must have had that written down somewhere.
McCusky had something of a riot on his hands as it was. Knowing Nell, he would have done best simply to have stolen Prindy away. Instead, as he had said he would, he dropped in at the old Compound on the way home. Nell was preparing tea for the yeller folk at the Homes. He ate a piece of her excellent brownie while explaining the facts, adding that she really was a first-class baker and he would pay her well if she’d come work for him out at Sweet Creek. He was obviously startled when she leapt at him, screeching, ‘You bloody bastard . . . you can’t tek my boy ’way . . . I get Tarjen Coon-Coon fix you.’
Turkney came running to his master’s aid, seeing him leap from the uproarious kitchen. At a safe distance, McCusky cocked his hat over an eye and said, ‘Now listen, Nelly . . . that boy’s going away on Wednesday’s train . . . and if you give any trouble, you’ll be going back to jail. You’ll get your boy back soon. Soon he’ll be a man, with a good job, looking out for you when you get old. Now shut up!’ He turned away with Turkney.
‘You bloody puggin bastard!’ Nell yelled after him, then fell into the arms of her helpers, weeping wildly: ‘Dey tek my lil boy ’way . . . my lil boy . . . oh, ah . . . my lil boy . . . oh, oh, ah!’
Then suddenly she ceased to weep, and declared, ‘I beat dat bloody bastard. I steal him my boy. I tek him Lily Lagoon meself.’
There was a general exclamation: Eh, look out!
‘Yas,’ she went on. ‘I can do it. I go tell him ’bout now . . .’
‘You can’t do it like o’ dat!’ cried Venus. ‘Old Turk’ey stop you.’
The children were still in the playground. Staring away in that direction, Nell said, ‘I go tell him get out, go down gully, before lock up. I meet him dere.’ She swung on the others, Dolly, Maggie Barbu: ‘Get me tucker ready . . . brea’n’beef . . .’
Dolly squealed, ‘You jitty! Can’t do it like o’ dat. Policeman gitchim you right-away . . .’
‘P’liceman can’t gitchim my boy. He too goot long o’ bush. He been beat him all-lot before . . . dat-lot Coon-Coon, Jinbul . . . I go!’
She flung off her apron, went hurrying towards the gate. Turkney came puffing from his office: ‘Where you think you’re going?’
‘I wan’ ’o see my boy.’
‘You been see him this afternoon.’
‘Boss been say he goin’ ’o tek him ’way.’
‘He’s not going till day after tomorrow.’
From staring defiantly, Nell suddenly drooped her head, began to whimper, ‘I on’y wan’ talk him lil bits more, Boss . . . please you let me.’
He sighed heavily: ‘All right, then . . . but no causing trouble . . . no upsetting that boy. If I hear you kickin’ up a row I’ll call p’liceman.’
‘No more trouble, Boss.’
‘Okay, then. Hurry up. It’ll soon be tea-time.’
Prindy, in the middle of a last-minute game, was disinclined to come to the fence. She had to get Wilhel
mina Whitehead to bring him by explaining that he was to get out of the place at once. Then all of the kids crowded round to hear, and were greatly excited. Nell seemed as if inclined to wait till she saw Prindy out. But Turkney was standing out before his office watching. She turned away, heading back to the Compound, while the children began the lively game they always played when someone was going out or coming in by way of their bandicoot hole. Turkney went back into his office.
The girls in the kitchen had a calico flour-sack of food ready. Nell simply snatched it, and without even answering the whispered mummuk yawarra, shot out of the back door, and with the kitchen covering any sight of her from beyond it, went running down to the scrub, avoiding the track, and through it down to the beach. The tide was coming in, a spring tide, with Igulgul very young again, just turning silver in the gilding sky. She ran towards Point Lookout, with the tidal wavelets, licking the sand like curling frothy tongues, conveniently wiping out her tracks almost as she made them. She found Prindy waiting knee-deep in the little creek that ran in and out of the gully, trying to corner a largish fish in a tiny bay. He came splashing to meet her, then dashed ahead, wading the way to the rocks.
He was onto the rocks and climbing towards a sort of platform, with the alacrity of a rock wallaby, while she toiled behind with the food sack, although less encumbered by the physical burden than by fear, and more fear of what might lie ahead than be in pursuit, it was evident from her wild-eyed watchfulness in that direction. The tumult of the swiftly rising waters was unnerving enough in itself, without the reputation of the place, the gurgling, the suck and slap, the moan of trapped air seeking escape from deep cavities. He had to lean down and take the sack from her to help her make the almost sheer last of it. Above the platform was an overhang, the crack between them at the back a depthless black haunt for any monstrosity. Seeing her fearfulness, Prindy said, ‘No-more fright. Dat-one Ol’Goomun dibble can’t hurt you’n’me . . . on’y Kudijingera man.’
She breathed, ‘You been mix up dat bijnitch.’
‘No matter. My huncle, dat-one King George, been tell him ’bout. Dis place he been tell him me wait. He come long o’ canoe. I swim out.’ He helped himself to the beef sandwiches. ‘Where King George now?’ he mumbled. She said she didn’t know. It soon became evident that he had mistaken her intention in getting him out of bondage as helping him to make his rendezvous with George. When at length he grasped that they were having nothing at all to do with George, but heading for Beatrice River down the railway line, most likely with the police after them, he just sat and stared.
The West was red now, young Igulgul laughing at his long reflexion in the swift running blood of the sea.
Then together they spotted the dim figures on the beach, away back where the picnics used to be held — one in white. Prindy said they were calling, but couldn’t make out the voices with all that watery noise. The figures — there appeared to be three — went the other way, towards the rocks of Blackfellow Point, the other extremity of the Compound beach. Only the one in white was soon to be seen. The sea was purpling, the West darkening to rust, Igulgul down amongst the western trees.
It might have been a trick of Igulgul’s before he vanished, cutting a shape out of the shadows of the rocks — but there they saw a figure flitting from rock to rock just below them, crouched and skinny like an old old woman, but with glinting golden hair — and were those her fiery eyes? Was that babbling her voice? They clung to each other, still staring after, as in a flash, whatever it was was gone. Igulgul went with it.
Then Prindy swung to look along the beach again, saying ‘Dey come dis-a-way now. Dey singin’ out.’
It was quite dark now back from the luminosity of the water, which was just about at top level. Those who were singin’ out, as Prindy said, would be walking the strip of maritime couch between the top lip of the beach and the scrub. Soon he said, ‘Dey singin’ out us. Mist’ Mick Cusky, Mist’ Turk’ey . . . ’nother-one I tink Barney Bynoe.’
‘Wha’-nam singin’ out?’
‘Come on you two . . . come on out o’ dat. You can’t get away. Spone you don’ come back tonight, we get him tracker . . . Like o’ dat.’
Then Nell herself could hear, Barney Bynoe calling: ‘Ku!’ and McCusky, in a torn voice, telling her not to be a Mad Bugger, warning her that he would put her back in jail.
Prindy said, ‘Dey stop nother side creek. Dey can’t get crost now . . . too deep.’ Then the voices grew fainter. ‘Dey go up gully,’ Prindy said.
His mother asked, ‘Wha’ you reckon . . . he come back dis side?’
‘I don’ know. Might-be he go gitchim p’liceman.’
She said quickly, ‘Better we go.’
‘Where we goin’ ’o go?’
‘Like I been talk . . . we go long o’ railway. You can find him all right?’
‘Yu. We go back long o’ beach . . . long o’ water. We go over Blackfeller Point . . . long o’ Coconut.’
‘Jumbo no more dere. Dey pull down dat house . . . tek long o’ Sweet Creek.’
‘I know. Railway ’nother side dat hill behin’ Coconut.’
‘All right . . . we go.’
They were in for another shock as they dropped from the rocks to the shallow water and saw it blaze with fire about their feet. ‘Eh, look out!’ they both gasped, and leapt back to safety, to stare at what had been out of sight higher up; a veritable watery hell, as creatures, large and small, darted about, most likely in pursuit and flight, through labyrinths of phosphorescence. Too much for ones steeped in the magic of existence to take risks with it. Even while keeping ears cocked for pursuit from this side of the gully, they waited for the tide to fall. How swiftly does tide flow except when waited on! Lights in the big houses over on the other point diminished one by one.
At last they got down onto the oozing rippled sand, to find still a hint of the fearful fire in the myriad tiny movements about their own sparkling feet. Thus across the bay of the Compound. Now up the other rocks. No monsters here to be scared of, except those whose names are Protection and Justice and the civilised like, living up the road there in those dark bulks against the stars. Over the road warily, and into the scrub, and down again to the flats of the Coconuts. No crossing the flats directly as formerly. Silhouetted against the northern stars were not only the heads of the few coconuts left standing, but a crane-jib and scaffolding. There was a whitish huddle of new asbestos buildings, workers’ quarters, a couple of which were lit, their occupants Greek by the tinkling gramophone music. They skirted the place, reached the road they wanted by also skirting the cluster of whitemen’s and yellowmen’s cemeteries with their crowds of marble ghosts — nothing to be afraid of there, since you aren’t one of these breeds and like haunts only like. So up the hill again, past Gran’ma Lady Eaton’s, referred to in a whisper as they went as Delacy Place — no one at home, apparently, except Hanno the factotum, judging by a single lighted window in a cottage at the rear. What price refuge in there, even if Granny were at home? The refugees would not know, just as in their ignorance they did not know that she was away on the other side of the world they knew nothing of, having gone by flying boat to visit Lord Vaisey and be truly a Ladyship in his castle.
They turned into that narrow road running through the scrub into the district of Chinese, setting all the chained dogs roaring of their going and rousing one or two suspicious Chinamen to relight their lamps. They hurried, came out on a main road, to be caught by the headlights of a motor vehicle swinging in from another side track. They were back in the scrub in a flash. But they had been seen. The vehicle, the night-cart obviously by the stink of it, halted before turning into the track they’d just come out from, while a couple of flashlights probed for them, and voices gabbled in the patois: ‘Yeah . . . I been see all right . . . two-feller . . . blackfeller, I reckon.’ Then the truck moved on its way in to rouse the dogs again. The pair came out of hiding, got onto the hard gravel, in a moment were on the railway crossing. T
here were no houses near, only the two dully-gleaming rails and the ghostly arms of the warning signs. Still Nell whispered, asking which way they were to go. Prindy pulled her to the left, to follow the railway track.
It was safe enough going here, through a low long cutting topped with scrub. What houses there were along the way were well back beyond the paralleling road. So for about a mile, when against the southern stars there began to loom the somewhat massive structures, at least for these parts, of the Loco Depot: the tall tanks, the engine sheds, a signal; and the simple steel-bound track they followed became intricate with diverging alleyways and obstructions to be watched for cloosely in the gloom so as to save more of the toe-stubbing with which the new conditions began. Not a light anywhere, nor any sound, except the drip of water, which Prindy heard. ‘Wadder . . . me t’ursty.’ He led the way to it: a leaky tank outside the shed where engines were to be seen, three of them on as many tracks, against the starry open further end, like sleeping monsters, one of them softly hissing in its sleep. Having drunk from a tap, Prindy took a peep. Then he complained that he was hungry. Having eaten he complained that he was sleepy. His mother herself sighed wearily, and sank to the night-black ashy ground, with back to the dingy whitewashed wall of the shed, and drew him onto her lap. He was quickly asleep. Soon she was nodding over him.
Poor Fellow My Country Page 64