Poor Fellow My Country

by Xavier Herbert

  Maceachrin roared, ‘Hoots mon! Sceered o’ Irish? A Scot sceered o’ bloody bogtrotters? Come on, lads . . . we’ll go and deal wi’ ’em!’

  There was a momentary scurrying round while the women tried to restrain them and McDodds tried to give warning that they might be Being Played for Foo’s; but apparently the booze was at the stage of belligerence, and there was no stopping them, even McDodds when he got caught in the spirit of the thing and snatched up a bottle and joined the rush to do battle with the ancient enemy.

  The lights were on again in Finnucane’s, but voices high and angry. Jeremy and Billy dashed off to watch from across in the railway yards with waiting Tom. It started off ferociously with bottles hurtling through Finnucane’s front windows, and the company within coming charging out like disturbed soldier ants and taking to the attackers on sight. But it was soon over, thanks to the shrieking of the women, and the shrewdness of the two chieftains, who after exchanging a couple of wild blows realised that they’d been had, and the passing quality of alcoholic belligerence as soon as activity begins to burn it up. The rival clans then joined forces to look for the real culprits. But these were in flight.

  Billy panted, ‘I won’t be showing me nose in Finnucane’s for a while, I can tell you.’

  Jerry said, ‘If he refuses to serve you, you can have the law on him. That’d be a real joke.’

  ‘I’ve had enough jokes to do me for a long while, Jerry.’

  ‘It really wasn’t meant as a joke, any of it. They’re down on it themselves if anyone else does it . . . the Greeks, the Pongs, the Japs . . . even the English, as far as the Irish’re concerned, anyway. No. Billy . . . I never felt less like playing jokes in my life. But ridicule’s necessary. It’s the only criticism to get at fools with . . . make ’em look the fools they are.’

  VI

  At dawn on New Year’s Day, a dawn so bright that the birds seemed to be waking with especial joy to it, while all those humans who had been expressing so much felicitation about the future snored on ignoring it, Jeremy left Beatrice township as he had come into it, by the railway bridge. Approaching the Racecourse, he whistled on his fingers, to get an immediate answer, and soon to have his great black horse coming trotting to meet him. He fed the beast a large chunk of Mrs Toohey’s Christmas cake, and talking to him about cleaning his teeth afterwards and taking Bicarbonate of Soda, went with the horse butting at him with its great head in sheer love of him, to the shed used in Race Time for the weighing. Here his riding gear was stowed. Saddled up, he mounted, set off at a gallop, because that’s the way the horse wanted it; out along the gravel road to opposite the station homestead, then onto the heavier home-track, where the damp flew in clods to the horse’s earth striding, the heaviness soon pulling him up, leaving him tossing his head for breath. ‘Not so good as you used to be, are you boy,’ commented his master. As if knowing that he was being teased, Elektron swung back his head as if to bite one of the feet protruding from the stirrups. Soon they were being plagued by large brown and green marsh flies, for assistance in dealing with which, the horse took his rider to a bushy little beefwood. Jeremy pulled off a branch to use as a whisk. So they went on. Whenever the flies got too numerous, the horse broke into a gallop of his own accord and lost them.

  Some ten miles out they came to the end of their tracks of the other day, since when it hadn’t rained. Flood debris on the road showed that the river had been right over it and much beyond past that point. But knowing the road from years of experience, the horse chose to follow it now. There were still low patches into which the river swirled, some of which the horse avoided, others he went splashing through. Always there was the roar of the river. At length there was an extra note of vibrance in the roar, that steadily grew to distant booming. They came level with it on their right. Jeremy, cocking an eye at the Sun, said, ‘Ought to be a great rainbow on the old pool today. How about we try and get in and have a look at it, eh?’ As he always did when his master spoke the horse whickered, and again as if understanding what had been said, on coming to the turn-off to the Rainbow Pool, where the road had been well under water by the look of debris, turned right to go in. They were soon in slush, slipping and sliding, the horse relying on the skill of his rider to hold him up. But they got through.

  A very different pool it was today; rather like that great tongue of water further North, except that it was lolling out, spewing its swallowings instead of sucking them in, the mouth hidden by a rainbow-tinted bank of mist and bellowing so that the air shook. Right from its hidden maw down the river-bed the mighty yellow-white tongue hung, not a fang of rock to be seen, level with the further bank, the vegetation of which bent shivering to the might of it. On this side it was banked with high-piled debris laced with froth.

  Horse and rider stood staring for a while, as if trying to penetrate to the mystery behind that tinted mist. Then the marsh flies found them. The horse, impatient to be off, lashed with tail, scattered the debris with stamping. His rider sighed, pulled him round to the right to head away — when the horse shied violently, snorting, almost unseating the rider, who protested, ‘Eh, look out!’

  Then the rider saw what the horse had seen and stared. The horse snorted again, quivered. Some moving thing in the debris. Some crawling thing. A moment of staring; then Jeremy gasped, ‘Jesus Christ!’ and leapt from the saddle, went lunging through the oozy mass.

  A small human thing, a skeleton almost, scarcely distinguishable from the rubbish in which, prone, it struggled feebly in striving towards the approaching man, skinny reaching arms, a death’s head with gaping blackened mouth, but life in the deep eye sockets, life blazing as the sockets raised themselves to meet eyes of the same intense grey. The black lips strove for speech. Then the head fell in the dirt. Sobbing, Jeremy fell to his knees beside the form, raised it. The grey eyes were revealed for a moment, then shut. Jeremy ran a hand down the bony breast, down the belly that seemed to touch the backbone, down the right thigh, out of the boniness of which protruded an awful pussy mass. Pus oozed from a score of lacerations, and from cracked lips and nostrils. Even the marsh flies left the thing alone, settled on Jeremy, who seemed not to notice them. Turning the frail form over, taking care with that leg, he put his ear to the bony breast. The eyes opened. Getting control of his voice, Jeremy muttered, ‘You all right now sonny.’ He looked around. No sign of any other creature, alive or dead. Looking back at the boy, he said, ‘Have to be careful of that leg of yours. Better splint it before I lift you. Just a minute . . . no, wait!’ He held up a hand as the skeleton would have come after him again.

  Jeremy went back to the horse, took shirts and singlets from a saddle-bag, tore a singlet into strips. Then back to the boy, to put splints on his leg from hip to ankle. The grey eyes kept closing, to start open again to stare, the effort too much to keep awake for more than a few seconds. Jeremy made a sling with a silk shirt, and by means of it lifted the frail form, carried it to the horse, which sniffing, drew away from the stench of it.

  ‘Stand steady,’ Jeremy said to Elektron as he mounted with the bundle dangling from his left hand. The horse watched the move. As Jeremy raised it to lie across his knees the grey eyes looked up into his with a glint of a smile. Jeremy smiled back tremulously, muttering, ‘You’ll soon be home and right again. Come on horse . . . let’s go! A fast amble. Can’t go too slow. Looks like more rain coming up.’

  In little more than an hour the custodians of the keep of hurt and hunted things announced their coming. With the gammy things, small black figures came running to open the white gates, all to stare at the odd-looking cripple being added to their ranks.

  Jeremy rode to the front door, through the trellis porch, almost into the lounge, where he handed the bundle down to waiting Nanago. Looking at the skeleton face she breathed, ‘Eh, look out!’ The eyes opened to stare at her.

  Jeremy took him from her. ‘Make up a bed with cushions on the settee.’ While she was doing it with flying hands, he added: ‘Th
en make him egg-flip . . . with honey . . . warm it a bit. He’s starving. He’s got a bad compound fracture . . . but we’ll have to feed him up before we can do anything much to it.’

  She whispered indrawn, ‘Where you find him?’

  ‘Rainbow Pool.’

  Her eyes grew wide. Then she rushed away to the kitchen.

  Jeremy mixed brandy with the egg-flip when it came, and fed it to the cracked lips with a spoon, a slow business. He handed it over to Nan, saying, ‘Keep it up to him, as much as he can take and as often. Got to build him up as much as possible. I’m going to load him with Sulphonamide, too. Have to set the leg by tomorrow, or he might lose it. Have to do it myself. The ground’s too wet for Fox to land here . . . more rain coming, too. Still, I’d better radio ’em.’

  Jeremy went over to his quarters, started up the rarely used radio transmitter. He raised Port Palmeston Radio Station, where the operator tried telephoning Drs Fox and McQuegg, but without success, as to be expected on New Year’s Day and, the operator added, in the midst of a storm. Jeremy left word of what he intended to do, but without naming the patient.

  That night Prindy, evidently much recovered, what with the feeding and the drugging, slept over in the annexe on a stretcher beside his grandfather, his leg strapped to a board. Soon after dawn, Jeremy had him into the dispensary and strapped to the table there, with Nan and Darcy and Water Lily assisting. There was to be no drugging him against pain for fear of weakening him, Jeremy said, and the use of a general anaesthetic too likely to frighten him. They must rely on his courage — and their own. He explained to Prindy what he wanted to do; and the boy seemed to understand. Perhaps things were helped by the flash and rumble of the storm that had arisen. As Jeremy said, ‘That Old One, Tchamala, he lookin’ out for his boy, I reckon.’ Prindy smiled as if he believed that was exactly how it was.

  During the retraction of the limb the boy fainted, making it easier for the sweat-streaming Jeremy to handle things. He came out of the faint staring as if he had been a long way off. Jeremy, splinting the leg so that it could be got at for draining and medication, chatted about how he would soon be hopping about, soon be training Golden Bobby. Prindy only stared, and was like that for some hours afterwards, while someone or other sat with him, watching anxiously, feeding him whenever he could be got to take the spoon.

  Next morning the storm was gone. Jeremy got in on the Flying Doctor Network and spoke to Dr Fox, reporting what he had done and saying that the patient appeared to be in good condition. Still he did not name him. Fox told him to carry on with his mode of treatment, saying that there was no hope of his seeing the patient himself for a long while.

  VII

  By next train-day Prindy was so far on the way to recovery that, sitting with outstretched leg in a wheel-chair, he was occupying himself with making a bamboo flute and studying Webster and listening to high-class music from around the world. That morning Jeremy set out for the siding again on horseback, arriving there just before noon, and went straight to the Railway Station and put through a telephone call to Dr McQuegg. McQuegg had always been friendly enough with Jeremy, in a guarded way. Now he greeted him in very friendly fashion, wishing him a Happy New Year, perhaps secretly tickled over what he must have heard about the shenanigans at Beatrice. He had also heard of the compound-fracture job, and congratulated Jeremy on hearing that the patient appeared to be on the way to a good recovery, but in the manner of his profession, supposing that Jeremy was seeking further advice from him, said that it was really a matter for Dr Fox. To that Jeremy said, ‘It isn’t the medical side of the case I want to discuss with you. The patient’s Aboriginal, you know . . . and you’re Acting Protector.’

  ‘What difference does that make?’

  ‘Rather a lot. I think I can reasonably say I’ve saved the boy’s life . . . but he could easily be crippled for life by being buggered about with. I don’t want anyone unqualified coming here interfering.’

  ‘That’s hardly likely to happen, is it? You’ve got Fox’s permission to carry on with your treatment.’

  ‘I want yours.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘I want your permission as Protector, to hold the patient till he’s fully recovered. He happens to be the boy known as Prendegast Alroy.’

  The doctor was silent for a moment, then said, ‘I see.’

  Further silence, while a hundred or more ears must have been straining along the line, as two pairs were here in the Station Master’s office while their owners pretended to be getting on with their jobs.

  Jeremy broke the silence: ‘Well, Mack?’

  McQuegg was cagey: ‘Cobbity’ll be back in about six weeks.’

  ‘I’m only asking permission from you while you have the authority to give it.’

  Another little ear-aching silence. Then McQuegg answered, ‘Okay, Jerry.’

  Jerry let out a pent breath: ‘Thanks a lot, Mack. Will you pass the word along to your . . . er . . . colleagues.’

  ‘Will do. But you’d better report to the local John.’

  ‘I’ll do that right now. Thanks, man . . . Goodbye.’

  The Local John had apparently been listening-in by the look on his face when Jeremy dropped in at the Police Station. He listened tight-lipped to what Jeremy had to tell him of the finding of Prindy, then put through a call to his Superintendent, ordering Jeremy to sit down and wait. Jeremy simply walked out.

  Jeremy went next to Finnucane’s, to breast the bar and smilingly ask for brandy, while old Shame-on-us glared under those bushy brows in a manner fit to strike him dead. Finnucane had to serve him, and did so, but baulked when Jeremy asked him if he would join him, when he roared, ‘I’ll be damned if I will!’

  Chuckling, Jeremy raised his glass and toasted, ‘Up the Republic!’ Then, having drunk, still chuckling, he went out.

  Next call was on Barbu, to suffer his tears and embraces. Next was to Billy Brew, still at Toohey’s. Billy insisted on getting drunk. He went roaring to meet the train, to embrace Pat Hannaford and Porky Jones. He would have gone roaring up to Finnucane’s too, had not Jeremy dragged him away with promise of a party at Toohey’s that night. They had their party, just the conspirators, including Barbu, who after four beers fell down and went to sleep. There wasn’t much to it, only bibulous expression of relief in not having caused the disaster after all that the defiance of authority of at least three of them seemed to have precipitated, together with that self-same spirit of defiance. Jeremy, the only one who stayed sober, kept things from getting too complex with his occasional shouts of: Up the Republic! They were all asleep by midnight.

  Next morning Jeremy more or less poured old Billy aboard the train for the Head of the Road, onto the engine of which Pat and Porky had fairly to drag themselves. It was a hoarse-sounding Boo-hoot! she gave as she steamed away.

  Then he headed for home.

  12

  I

  The education of children by Aborigines, in the Aboriginal way, is based on the principle that one who is not mature is not responsible; maturity as they see it, beginning with puberty. Whatever the immature learn to prepare them for adult life is as they choose to learn it; which means that childhood is largely a game. There is no compulsion to do anything, even to give up sucking one’s mother, no rebuking except as warning against harm, and no punishment of any kind. Perhaps all children would like it that way, and might be the better for having it so, but for the impractability of it amongst civilised communities, with their overcrowding and complexities of breeds and creeds and greeds. The school of Lily Lagoons was run essentially according to the Aboriginal principle, despite the fact that the curriculum was concerned with teaching the children what might seem to have little purpose in the old way of life, namely, what is known as the Three R’s. Actually the purpose was to give the children a fuller life, while not disturbing them in their wholehearted acceptance of the old. Knowing that there was such a thing as what they themselves called Read’n’write,
pronouncing it rapidly as one word, the children would have been at a loss without some knowledge of it, just as any one of them who could not ride a horse or was scared of a train or motor vehicle was considered a mungus or a myall. They liked attending the school — when it suited them. Their elders liked the schooling of the children, too — so long as they were not involved.

  The school had grown out of the elementary schooling of Darcy by his mother on their establishment in the household, Nanago herself having been similarly taught in a Protestant Mission school. Black kids who had become Darcy’s playmates attached themselves for the fun of it. It was Darcy, a natural teacher and a very intelligent young man, really, for all his simpering silliness in public, who had made a true school of it. Influenced by his uncle Jeremy, he had departed from the simple Mission school system, to develop an institution of which the primary purpose was to enrich Aboriginal life as such. The purpose of the Mission system was primarily to Win Souls to Christ, as they say, secondly the more charitable one of equipping their charges in a way considered to render them less helpless in dealings with their mostly Christian conquerors; while that of such Government schools as were already operating for crossbreeds and mooted for full-bloods, was to train them to be what officials would call Useful Members of the General Community. The Lily Lagoons school’s purpose, as its critics viewed it, was worse than useless, since it only encouraged the people to stick to their ancient ways. Jeremy’s answer to that, of course, was that at least they had dignity as true blackfellows, and that so long as the whiteman could not offer them anything equally satisfying, they would continue to stick to it, even if in some debased form where, having had it destroyed on them, they made believe with it through the medium of grog and opium.

  Teaching at Lily Lagoons was now not even in English, but in a native lingo that was actually a combination of the languages of an extensive region, now much depopulated, the tribes of which had had enough in common to cause them to think of themselves as one people, more or less. The combination of the languages was something fostered by Darcy and his uncle in the hope of overcoming the ancient diversities and antagonisms that proved the Aborigines’ chief weakness in dealing with the white invaders, and establishing some sort of unity. The children were taught that. Probably it was the best thing they were taught. However, as the critics saw it, it was the worst, a means to causing trouble eventually — that is to the conquerors.