‘We got ’o tchwim shore,’ yelled George. ‘Grab hold someping.’ The flour-sacks were floating, but sweeping out of reach. Prindy went shooting after them, got hold of two. His mother came up and got one. George had the oars. Queeny was floating on her crutch and peg. Mungus came paddling in the rear. Still Queeny talked to Jesus, about sharks and crocodiles now: ‘I never been do it wrong t’ing, Jesus . . . you look-out me now I go mission-church ev’ Sunday . . . sweet Jesus, you look-out me now!’
They needed to swim only to keep together. The tide was sweeping them ashore along with all the rubbish of the mangroves it had previously swept out. It looked at first as if the succour awaiting them ashore (if they were not prevented from reaching it by one of the invisible things making the mullet leap like bubbles of silver out of the slimy brown) was to be no better than that of the egrets they could see here and there perched in the mangroves watching them. Then George saw a creek, and called on them to head for it. They were soon in it, just a filthy channel running through the mangroves. Here the tide was racing. They turned several bends, then came suddenly into a region of rising banks of mud. George said they’d keep on and come to hard ground. But scarcely had he said it, when Prindy cried, ‘Look-it!’
Not fifty yards ahead of them there was a momentary swirl of water that revealed a scaly back and tail and head, fifteen feet and more in length — just a glimpse — then there were only four small protuberances in quadrigeminal pattern — nostrils and eyes.
George yelled, ‘Crocodile!’, let go his oar and with arms and legs boiling the water into coffee froth, headed for the bank. The others did likewise, Queeny at the tail, yelling to Jesus, Mungus going round in rings at a loss to understand it all — till he saw the pattern come cutting the water towards the group, saw the westerning Sun reflected by the yellow eyes — then he swung towards the thing, barking at the top of his shrill voice, one ear up and one ear down: ‘Kai, kai, kai, kai, kai . . .!’
The rush stopped. The golden eyes blinked. Still Mungus kept on: ‘Kai, kai, kai, kai!’
Nostrils and eyes vanished.
Mungus looked round to see his people struggling up the slimy bank. Yelping in fear of being left behind, he set out splashing after them. Prindy pulled the dog out of the water while his mother tried to pull him back. But his mother took the muddy little mongrel to her bosom and like all the others and particularly Queeny, wept over him: ‘My lil dog . . . my lil doggie . . . wha Jesus been gi’ me to save my life . . . oh, my darlin’ lil Mungus-dog!’
It was no great distance through the belt of mangroves. As soon as the top of the bank was reached the glaring brightness of the salt-pan backing it could be seen. Yet it took almost till sundown to get through to it, owing to the disability of Queeny, who had to do it on hands and knees and with peg removed because it entangled with the tricky roots. Her Christian joy in deliverance was soon discarded for fierce complaint about her lot in being involved with black bastards, not entirely due to the discomfort of the moment; for George had countered her calling Mungus an agent of Jesus by telling Prindy that they had been in no real danger from the crocodile, since the creatures never attached Snake Men — this despite the tremendous haste of his own retreat. The fact that a crocodile is an inveterate coward and will only pursue what won’t stand up to him, something at least George and Queeny would know, was out of the question in the circumstances.
At last they gained dry ground, a strip of glistening salt-pan untouched by tides since the greater ones early in the year. Beyond lay a fringe of maritime jungle, backed by rising forest country. Prindy broke off a couple of stout mangrove sticks to enable Queeny, with her peg strapped back on, to hobble across. In the process of putting on the peg, Queeny drew from the elastic-gripping leg of her drawers a sodden package, at which she took a swift and somewhat secret look: bank-notes.
The Sun was already down in the trees. Peg-leg was now complaining of thirst. George informed Prindy that there was no hope of getting fresh water in such a place, and evidently being either in no such need of it as the complaining one or pleased to suffer to make her suffer more, did nothing about seeking a place more likely. He said they would camp there. They settled down in the red evening, with Igulgul laughing at them through the trees and the mosquitoes and sandflies from the mangroves to add to the joke, and Queeny moaning about the gross of tins of wax vestas that had gone down with the ship, since a certain black bastard hadn’t the blackfeller savvy to make a fire otherwise. Maybe she wanted the fire as much to dry her bank-notes, which she lay out again with a show of secrecy, on the baked warm salty ground.
They were fortunate in being largely protected from the insects through being coated with mud. Prindy promised them fire as soon as he could lay hands on a bit of dry ironwood. He did so repeatedly throughout a night that for people less naturally endowed to suffer such a state of things might well have been described as hideous. Queeny must make it worse by dreaming again of the big black flying fox. ‘Somebody goin’ ’o die,’ she moaned. ‘Somebody goin’ ’o die all right . . . might be me . . . oh, poor-feller me!’
George had them on the move at first light, sticking to the maritime strip westward — easy going for Queeny — compensating for its much winding in following the contour of the mangrove swamp. She was soon able to swing along in something like her usual lope when a sapling was found that she could use as a crutch. Prindy also found his ironwood in the form of a piece that had been washed up by the tide, and soon with a piece of quartz found in a dry creek bed, began to fashion the drill-part of an ingornu outfit as they went. They crossed several of these dry creeks, up a couple of which they looked for water, but only to find that they were mere Wet Season washouts. Queeny, settled down to what after all was something that came natural to her, ceased to complain, easing her thirst by sucking a pebble, and otherwise occupying herself by questioning Nell about the Beatrice River country, her interest such as to suggest that she was thinking of going along to look the place over as one to suit her for the future.
There was plenty of game about: wallabies, goannas, ground birds like quail and squatter pigeons; but water was their concern of the moment. Anyway, hunting wouldn’t have been so easy, with Mungus racing yapping after everything. He was driven to the rear with dire threats a hundred times.
Thus till nearly noon, when they found themselves confronted with a salt-arm that turned them suddenly southward and soon had them in rising rocky country following what evidently was the mouth of a fair-sized creek. No easy track here. The banks of both sides ended abruptly in the top branches of a fringe of mangroves clinging to sheer walls of mud. The tide was out, the stream not much more than a sluggish brown gutter beside which the armies of small crabs manoeuvred. A half-sized crocodile, basking in the mud, slid into the water at sound of their noisy progress over the rocks, George’s puffing and Queeny’s clattering. Mungus would have gone after him and found to his cost that while a crocodile may be a coward he isn’t a fool and knows just the right moment to snap or grab, according to the size of the unwary one; but Prindy, beginning to get control of him, halted him with a snap of the fingers, even if he couldn’t stop him from making the rocks ring with his kai-kai-kai-ing.
Then just when Queeny was starting again to talk about black bastards and her ruin by them, they came to a bar of rock rearing high above the mud as a whiteman’s dam, the smooth red top of it surely due to the cascading of fresh water during the rains, and water trickling over it now in places, although it was muddy. For certain there would be fresh water behind it. Almost as they saw it, Prindy clicked his tongue in signal to George ahead of him, and when he stopped told him he could hear tilbyuk — duck. George signalled for silence. Ahead of them was a low ridge, of which the bar was part. They topped it to see ahead of them on their side, the left, a grassy expanse, lying between the creek, which here was lined with tallish paperbarks and other fresh-water trees, and a true billabong, overflow from what must be a considerable strea
m in wet weather. Everybody could hear the ducks now, and see them, in glimpses, as they swam amongst the lilies. Prindy had almost to throttle Mungus to impress on him the need for silence. Poor Mungus accepted the situation, but at such cost of emotion as to stand shaking as if about to take a fit.
Prindy and George, as true blackfellows, were already armed after a fashion, with likely bits of wood for effective throwing. George conferred quickly with Prindy, then sent him ahead, and signalled the women to stop where they were with Mungus. Prindy went up the ridge a little under cover of the rocks, then came down in tall grass. George went directly, from cover to cover of small bushes growing on the flat. The billabong itself was conveniently screened, with small bushes and pandanus. Its inner-shore was the rock of the hillside.
There were two groups of birds swimming and feeding, a dozen or so whistler ducks in pairs, one pair of green pigmy geese. The geese were up at the near end, the ducks all over the place. Prindy came in close to the little geese, signalled to George that he had something at hand. George went on, now on his belly, came in by the water halfway along its length. The hunters had each other in view most of the while. Soon the strategy was disclosed. George signalled. Prindy rose quickly, hurled his stick at the geese, skimming it so, that it struck both. The ducks nearby quacked the alarm, turned into the wind, took off with whistling wings, bunching together, half a dozen or more. George, downwind from them, rose and sent his stick whirling into their midst. Four came down. He pounced on them. Prindy was already in the water finishing off the disabled geese — and Mungus was coming kai-kai-kai-kaiing to join Prindy, who gave him a thump with the dead birds as he came out of the water, sending him off to hide in the grass, squeaking with humiliation.
The women, neither of them likely to be concerned about the proprieties of the life they were now leading, came hurrying down to drink without awaiting the signal permitting them to do so. George took his revenge by walking off with Prindy, when the pair, having drunk, flung themselves down to enjoy the luxury of a bellyful of water after a long parch, lying in shade on couch grass with bruised feet in cool sweet water. He led Prindy across the flat and up the creek a little, crossed the creek, stopping to taste and feel the faintly muddy water. He looked up the creek, saying, ‘Whitefeller up dere, I reckon, minin.’ When Prindy asked how far, he answered, ‘Little-bit long way. Might-be half-day foot-walk.’
They chose a bit of flat under a big flood-bent paperbark, to make camp. George dropped down to rest, puffing, against the snaggy silky trunk of the tree, to watch Prindy set to work with his ingornu, already about right to operate. It comprised the hardwood drill, a piece of softwood with a hole scooped with a bit of quartz to take the former, and a slip of teased stringybark. In the approved cross-legged squatting posture, Prindy twirled the drill between his palms. George smiled at the facility of it. In no time the smoke was rising in a tiny whisp. The drill twirled back and forth so fast as to appear only as a blur in the increasing little haze of smoke. Then Prindy stopped, blew into the smoking sawdust, quickly touched it with the teased bark. A burst of smoke — a tongue of flame. George cried: ‘Yakkarai!’ Prindy grinned at him, reached for a handful of leaves, looked up to see the two women watching from the water. Queeny smiled broadly at him. But not his mother. Nor did she show any gratification when George said to Prindy, ‘Gi’m pi’my gootch you Mumma, boy.’
Soon the ducks and geese were sizzling and popping on a heap of coals. Nothing had been done to pluck or gut them. Anyway, the feathers were burnt off, and the guts blew out — and by the way they were eaten, to the scraps that were tossed to Mungus, nothing of their natural sweetness had been lost by so crude a mode of cookery. George pointed out some little fan palms the hearts of which made good eating, he said, adding that they would later look about for a sharp rock to chop them with. When Prindy asked what about making spears, George answered that they’d better wait till they went to the whiteman’s mine and could borrow a tommy’awk to do the job easily. Mention of the mine caused Nell alarm. Even when she heard George tell Prindy that only he himself would go, she declared, ‘We wan’ o’ go long o’ railway line.’
‘Yeah,’ cried Queeny. ‘We go find him railway line. We wan’ ’o go Beatrice.’
George said to Prindy, ‘Come on, Kokanjinni . . . we go look him dat sharp rock. Bring him dog. We learn him.’
That was the way a man must deal with a sister and a nephew. Prindy went without a word to the women. Queeny’s comment was: ‘Arrrh . . . bloody blackfeller!’
George cracked a piece of the red granite of the locality to make a sharp axe-head, then showed Prindy how to chop out the tender heart stuff of a palm, the base of the sprouting frond. Pam, as it was called in Murringlitch, consisted of a cylindrical rod of what looked like ivory, three to four inches long by about an inch in diameter, the tip of it the embryonic frond. The taste was sweetly nutty. They ate two themselves, then chopped a couple of palms down and took them back to the camp for the women to open up themselves. As George said, ‘Dat-one job belong ’o woman.’ George also showed him how the sheaths at the base of the mature leaves could be used for smoking by stuffing them with tobacco, which caused him to bemoan the fact that he had nothing to smoke. ‘Long o’ my properly country,’ he said, ‘got him dat-one Pituri . . . you can smoke him . . . goot-feller, all-same hopium.’ He sighed. ‘Dis country nutching.’
They left the women, to go back to the billabong, to get tortoises or tuttles, for supper, so George said, but really to have that luxurious camp denied the women. While they camped, George told Prindy bits of legends about the locality, including that of how, in the Dream Time, old Goorawundanji, the Salt-water Crocodile, came to take the form and habits such creatures have today. ‘Dat Goorawundanji, he got three-feller wife and big mob piccaninny. He look-out dat-lot properly. He good huntin’ man. Proper fat dat-lot belong ’o him from goot tucker. But by’n’by one big-feller python he been try gitchim, dat-one bite him. He get sick now. Can’t go huntin’. All-day sit down long o’ camp, wait for dat-lot mob belong him tucker him. Dey get plenty lil-feller tucker . . . yam, lily, bandicoot, possum, sugar-bag. But dey eat him long o’ bush, come back camp say nutching tucker. He stop fat dat-lot. But dat old-man get pretty poor. By’n’by he proper bone-bugger, too weak. Dat mob belong him leave him now. He goin’ ’o die finish. He crawl down long o’ mangrove. Can’t walk no more. Tide come, take him ’way . . . lo-ong way he go, right down dere long Old Tchamala. Dat Old-one now, he say: “Wha’s matter you?” Goorawundanji tell him ’bout. Old Tchamala say: “Well, da’s wha’ for you been huntin’ my mate Python. You le’m ’lone. Spone you le’m ’lone altogether Tchineke, Tchineke Man, I tucker you plenty fish.” All right, he been do it like o’ dat. Goorawundanji been change shape, like dat crocodile now, and he stop long o’ salt water, eat him fish. But he got ’o get square long o’ dat wife and piccaninny, dat no-goot woman and kid belong’o him. He come up from salt-water, wait long o’ creek crossin’, long o’ drinkin’ place. One day he gitchim all-lot drinkin’. He been grab him tuckered him. He been lie down sleep. But dat lot kick round in him guts. He barcoo him. He rock now, dat mob. Him dere now, long o’ Finish River Crossing. I show him you time I tek you long o’ Mooragetaghee.’
Turtle hunting was really woman’s business, George said; nevertheless, he and Prindy and Mungus caught five between them. They also dug some lily roots. But, George declared, those women would have to do their stuff in food gathering when they themselves had the weapons they needed for big game, otherwise they, the women, could go without. They returned to the camp across the creek as the Sun got down in the trees.
While the tortoises were sizzling savourily in their shells on the coals and the lily roots baking with steamy fragrance in hot ashes, pied butcher birds, come to spend the night nearby so as to be the first to pick up the scraps next day, gave throat in melodious chorus to farewell the passing day. Prindy mimicked the birds: Gool-gool gee gool-gool . . . George
took advantage of the situation to tell Prindy the yarn about how Gurrawirrilyuma, the Butcher Bird, came to adopt the practice of hiding the results of his hunting, the frogs and lizards and nestling birds and things, spiked in thorny bushes. Like Old Gorrawundanji, the Crocodile, Old Gurrawirrilyuma had numerous wives and lots of kids, and was a great provider; but his trouble wasn’t that he got sick and was neglected to the point of death; instead his women were too lazy to go out with the children to get the small foodstuffs to supplement the big meats, and hung about camp all day sleeping and talking, telling him the same lie as had Goorawundanji’s mob. When he woke up to the truth he turned the tables on them by tuckering himself out in the bush and hiding what was left over, returning to say that there was no game about. Queeny caught the inference and replied to it with a grunt, ‘Urrh . . . we-feller ain’t you bloody wife and kid.’
Poor Fellow My Country Page 67