Poor Fellow My Country

by Xavier Herbert

  The dawn was a silver mist, beyond which, invisible, the Old One bellowed like all the bullocks that had ever been lifted out of that great paddock in their season to die, with the note of resigned despair of that last bellow and of the bell of the Coacher who led them to the slaughter. Prindy went to look, found the Old One laughing, licking, down the road. Alga agula, Numeriji ga! he sang as he went on his way through ghost forest, where from round every unsubstantial trunk some sort of Moomboo peeped. But what should he fear, who could sing: No-more Snake Man you, all right you look out!

  The mist lifted slowly with the Sun, till it was hanging only in rags in the distance by noon. He was back on the road by then, or rather walking beside it, just about where those kuttabah and their horses had tried to ride him down the last time he was round these parts on foot. To the Old One’s thunderous accompaniment, as if recalling that event, he sang:

  I find him by’n’by

  Kill dat whiteman, kill him die

  Dat my Road, my Rown Road!

  He came to the Racecourse in watery sunshine, reconnoitred. No one was about, except half a dozen horses that from having a race of their own, probably in relief from having spent so long kicking and biting under rotten bush shelters, came to stare at him, odd little man coming out of nowhere when men were all tucked away! He went up into the grandstand, which offered the best viewpoint of the locality, chose the President’s Box, surely only because it was the best of the best to suit his needs, not through any feeling of identifying himself with the dignified figure he was used to seeing sitting there surrounded by whisky bottles and field-glasses and other dignitaries with red faces and white suits — his sire according to the lore, if not the law exactly, of the kuttabah, since he was still humming to himself My Rown Road. No cane lounge chairs here today. He lay on the floor, propping his head up on folded oilskins. Mostly, while his eyes were open, he gazed away northwestward, perhaps seeing in imagination the mail train pounding, squealing, screaming through the verdant watery wilderness, with one beloved head already hanging out in impatient anticipation of first glimpse of his, with its burnished copper flying in the wind. Yet even when, in his weariness, he dozed off, he kept his head cocked slightly to the left, listening to that sound which had become the background of his existence: the Voice of the Old One, more clamorous than ever here, raging against the arrogance of the kuttabah who had presumed to intrude upon the Dream Time with a contraption he could roll into a bundle if he wished and bury to rust away back to the ochre the fool had got it from in the first place — the railway bridge.

  The Sun was halfway down the sky when he woke startled out of dozing by a sound that ears only sharp as his own could have detected, and looked directly towards the straight dark line of the railway to be glimpsed through the straddle of trees beyond the Racecourse fence, to see the fettlers’ trolley flickering on its way towards the bridge. He rose then, gathered up oilskins, went down and out, heading for the railway. Fortunately the horses came after him, to obliterate his tracks. Only going through the belt of weeds beside the railway embankment had he to be wary. For these were very thick, the first crop having been burnt off by the fettlers during the dry spell, only to produce a second more prolific and stinking in their alienness when the rain set in again. Sometimes the fettlers poisoned them, but without lasting success. It was only the native things, vegetable, animal, human, that succumbed to the kuttabah’s bane.

  He climbed the embankment, stood looking up the empty track for a while, then turned and headed for the bridge, his small feet feeling through steel rails and sleepers, the way he stood a couple of times and eyed them, the quiver of the bridge in fearful anticipation of the someday inevitable. From here there was a magnificent view of the Old One raging round the bend from the vicinity of Beatrice Homestead, his raised hackles flashing golden in the sunlight. It was still better to look down from the concrete buttresses and see the great tongues licking the red piers, trying a lick for the rails, to see the whole thing shaking with dread — and better better still to hear the Voice, and sing with it: Look out, him proper koolah . . . no-more Snake Man you . . .

  He also kept looking for the train. There at last she was — a grey feather above the green. He went back well clear of the comparative growthlessness in the vicinity of the buttresses, to where the weeds were thickest, again on the Racecourse side, which was that from which passengers always looked to catch their first glimpse of the white roofs of the township, and planted himself.

  The train came rumbling, wheezing, wary in approaching the bridge, since not in the hands today of any brash young bravo, but in those of that old iron-warhorse, Jack Tinball, who boasted having saved his trains from many a broken bridge in peace and in war. Jack was hanging well out to get a good look at everything. In fact everybody was hanging out. There were black heads, white heads, grey heads, fair heads, even a ginger head or two — but not one of burnished copper. There were plenty of familiar faces — Uncle Clancy’s, Gran’pa Ah Loy’s — even one to which one would perhaps have liked to show one’s own — Billy Brew’s — and old Coon-Coon’s and his mate Jinbul’s. Both these latter were out on the platforms on their coaches — different platforms of necessity, in accordance with the rules, but adjoining. Coon-Coon’s narrow blue eyes were ranging far, perhaps making an estimate of the conditions he’d have to reckon with on his man-hunt. The hidden black eyes of his fellow man-hunter, as to be expected of one whose part was to look for those tell-tale little things close at hand which his clever master would blunder over, perhaps caught by a glint of wet oilskin in the weeds, looked right into the grey eyes.

  Jinbul hurled back the black crowd pressed about him, jerked open the little safety-gate, and yelling to his master, leapt. As the tan elastic sides hit the soft gravel of the embankment, Prindy was up and off. Jinbul lost his hat and one boot. He was unconcerned. He kicked off the other boot, and leapt into his long-legged stride in pursuit of the quarry, scooting like a brush-tail, heading for the only avenue of escape, the raging river. The train rocked to the sudden excitement of the chase.

  Oh, Master Snake . . . a Snake Man calls you in extremity . . . Deliver me from mine enemies . . . Nugunga, nugunga, I come . . . Your coils my refuge, Numeriji!

  The yellow legs sent frothy spillage of the shallows flying in yellow spray. The small figure reached the deep, slid into it, vanished.

  Jinbul tore off his policeman’s shirt as he splashed through the shallows, was black to the waist when he dived.

  Prindy came up to see the red girders above him and the score of faces peering through, was spun underneath and out, battled for control, looked back, saw the black face above the leaping golden water not ten yards behind. He dived. He came up again just about where the causeway was, close to the left bank because of the swing of the current there. He looked behind. The black face was gone. He swung round, striking out to get back to the wild race of midstream, to see the face pop up within a yard splitting with a grin at sight of him. Again he dived. But now it was into the clutches of what under water looked like a grey spider. He was yanked to the surface by the hair. Now the grin in the black face was so wide you could see the gaps in the white teeth made by the kuttabah’s diet. He struggled, ready to leave his golden scalp behind. But the black claw holding it forced down his head, while the other clamped his hands behind and the spider’s legs wrapped round him. The golden yellow of the water must have blazed to crimson before he fell limp in the spider’s grip.

  Jinbul jerked the fair head to the surface, took a look at glazed grey eyes and gaping bubbling mouth, then keeping only the grip on the hair, lashed out for the shore. They were just below the station. A laving tongue flung them against the pipe running up to the pump-house. Jinbul grabbed it, got his feet down, and with the pipe to help them, dragged his limp captive up and out of the water.

  The train was rolling into the yards, with everybody hanging out this side now. Jinbul paid it no attention, but releasing the hair, le
t the head drop, to catch the legs behind the knees and lift the inert body so that the head hung, gave the whole a jerk, then clamped the midriff with his skinny khaki-clinging knees, released, clamped again, released, clamped. A gasp. A cough. Yellow water jetted from the hanging gaping mouth. He flung the body on the ground then, face down, jerked the head sideways, then straddling, pumped mightily on the skinny little ribs. A groan. A feeble attempt to scramble away. Jinbul let go the ribs to grab the hair again, to jerk the head up and look into the eyes again, wide and rolling now. He grinned again. ‘Close-up dat Old One been gitchim you.’ When the grey eyes blinked, he added: ‘You Shade been come out from top you head. I been grab him, pushed him back . . . aaaaaaaah!’

  Prindy struggled feebly in the grip of the hand on his hair, raised his own hands. Another hand grabbed them, twisted them behind, forcing him round to look towards the Station. Now the train was stopped, and a crowd coming leaping over the intervening rails, well out in front of them a tall figure in khaki. ‘Look-see,’ said Jinbul. ‘Dere you old Daddy-o come. He got him prejent for you . . . aaaaaheeee!

  Sergeant Cahoon was swinging a length of neck-chain.

  Jinbul’s wide grin faded as Coon-Coon drew near enough for the signs of his mood to be read — and who in all the world could have read those signs better than he whose marvellous faculty for sign-reading had made him this man’s slave? Cahoon had his tight eyes fixed on Prindy, but as he knelt before the boy, to lock the padded steel collar about the slender neck, spoke to Jinbul, with a sound of terrible menace in the harsh so-masculine voice: ‘Spone you been bugger-up this boy, you black bastard, I’ll shoot you!’

  Jinbul, releasing his grip on the fair hair, muttered, ‘Him all right, Boss.’

  ‘He’d bloody-well better be!’

  Jinbul withdrew slightly as the long hands moved upward from the collar, as if expecting to be struck. However, the hands, one holding the clinking chain, only came up to touch the yellow cheeks. Looking into the wide grey eyes, Cahoon asked in a voice strangely gentle now for all the harshness of tone, ‘You all right, Sonny Boy?’

  The grey eyes only blinked. Cahoon touched the still-streaming brow with the back of a hand, remarking, as if generally to those pressing around, ‘Injury of the brain can be caused be bein’ half-drowned. Good job that doctor’s round.’ With that he reached for a back pocket, withdrew handcuffs of the ratchet type, one cuff of which he fastened to his own left wrist, the other to the chain. Then, stretching out his long arms with their stripes of rank, he took the boy in them, sopping as he was, rose with him, turned and pressed through the crowd, snapping in a policeman’s voice, ‘Make way!’

  All fell back quickly except one, tubby and white-bearded, Billy Brew, who evidently rather drunk, defied him: ‘What you doin’t that kid on chain?’

  Dinny shouldered him out of the way, growling, ‘Put you on, you not careful.’

  Billy made a grab at the striped sleeve. ‘Le’ him go! You know you got no right . . .’

  Constable Stunke laid hands on Billy, shot him into the gaping crowd, who held him up from falling and restrained him when he would have returned to the fray. He yelled, ‘Ain’t none you bastards goin’ do nothin’ ’bout it?

  ‘Go easy, Billy,’ someone said.

  Someone else said, ‘They’ll only yard yo’.’

  Billy bawled after the retreating policemen, ‘Yard me, you khaki bastards . . . yard me . . . an’ I’ll tell yo’ all night wha’ stinkin’ rotten bloody dirty bullyin’ puggin bastards y’are! Where’s Jeremy Delacy? Jerry, Jerry . . . look’t what they doin’ our golden boy!’

  Meanwhile the police reached their utility. Cahoon got in front, hugging his burden, all but crooning over him now, saying how cold he was, but soon would be warm as toast, how skinny he was, but soon would be fed by his Daddy-o till fair bustin’: ‘You goin’ ’o be my lil boy from now on, y’know . . .’

  As they drove to the Police Station, Stunke asked, his tone dry-sounding, ‘What about the Jew-girl, Dinny?’

  Cahoon answered, not even half interested, it was evident, as if already he’d been pressed about the matter, ‘Go and see if she’s over there if you want ’o . . . but I’ll bet she’s not. Anyway, you can get the horses yarded. I want to get away as soon as possible, get Foxy take a look at this boy. He’s cold as charity. You got brandy?’

  In fact Prindy was shaking now.

  Mrs Stunke, by her tight mouth and hooded eyes, didn’t like the idea of having what privily she described to her husband as a Boong Brat towelled with one of her best bath-towels, rigged out in some of her son’s best clothes, fed on bread and milk and egg-nog she had to prepare and for which there could be no hope of reimbursement since nothing of the like was listed as Aboriginal Rations; all while having to listen to the yap of this madman who was her husband’s superior officer about how he’d got permission from the new Director of Aboriginal Affairs, Professor St Clair, to adopt the brat. She sniggered a little, hearing of all the wonderful things Sonny Boy and his Daddy-o were going to do when Daddy-o got his leave next month and they took a trip down South together. Perhaps the snicker was due to the incongruity of such paternalism while father and son remained attached by a police-chain and the latter hadn’t a single word to say. She also had to suffer them at her dining table, as yet never debased by having any but a white face sitting at it, and again in her lounge-room, where, of necessity, the pair sat in her biggest and best lounge chair, listening to the radio. Finally, there was the humiliation of having to make up the double-bed in the guest room for the Siamese Twins, as rather bitterly she called them in a last word to her husband.

  Next morning, soon after early breakfast, Mrs Stunke got what was almost a genuine laugh out of it, on seeing her Siamese Twins go to the dunny together.

  There were to be only three in the party riding out to Lily Lagoons. Constable Stunke took them only so far as the Railway Station to board Tom Toohey’s trolley for the run across the bridge. Poor timid Tom! He was at such pains to avoid the grey eyes that were surely begging some question of him. Even as they parted, when he put them down at just about the point where yesterday’s chase had begun, he would not meet the eyes, when squinting along a rail as if looking for faults in its alignment; he said, ‘Everything’ll turn out all right, sonny . . . you’ll see.’

  With the horses ready, it took no time to get on the way. Again a misty morning. Still shackled together, but with a yard or so of extra chain to facilitate horsemanship, Prindy and his Daddy-o rode in front, while Jinbul, as if in perpetual disgrace for having done the only thing possible in his way of duty and actually with great skill, brought up so well in the rear with the pack-horse as most of the time to be invisible. For several hours you could feel the Sun if not see it. The rain was finished. ‘But listen to that old river!’ as Coon-Coon said. ‘Must’a’ been a lot o’ rain up where you and them southern coppers were. Bet they was glad of the excuse of that feller Buggery’s hurtin’ himself to chuck it up. They’re all right chasin’ burglars and molls, them blokes . . . but put ’em in the bush, they’re rooted. Silly bastards to think they could get anywhere near a brumby-colt like you . . . aheeeeyay!’

  Prindy responded readily enough to the merriment — as any blackfellow will, when he finds the boss in a merry mood.

  As they rode along, speaking of policemen, Coon-Coon remarked that he would be getting his Inspectorship when he came back from leave, the Boss having as good as promised it, if he brought this job off and taught them Federal Flatfoots a lesson for shovin’ their beaks into other people’s business. He went on to explain rank as it concerned policemen, an important thing for Sonny Boy to know, since he would be a policeman himself one day — could easily become the best officer the country had ever seen, what with his inheritance and experience and the fact that his tutor would be the best so far: ‘Y’know, you got ’o ’a’ be a bit of a law-breaker yourself to understand the law-breaker and deal with him effectively. When I was
growin’ up I was a bit of a larrikin. Used to drive me poor old sisters nearly jitty with the things I used to get up to . . . with mobs, o’ course . . . the young law-breaker always belongs to mobs, unless he’s partic’ly dangerous, and then he’s not just a law-breaker but an outlaw, a very different thing.’ Coon-Coon looked at his Sonny Boy. ‘I could’a’ been an outlaw . . . in the old days . . . like Ned Kelly, and Starlight. Given a chance, that type can lead. You’re like that. But not them rats o’ Tooheys. They’re just law-breakers.’ He went on: ‘My sisters were scared stiff me gettin’ into Reformatory. I nearly did once. But policemen know their types. They put the others away, but showed me which side the law it pays to be on. Ned Kelly could’a’ been the the greatest trooper in the country . . . like I am, Dinny Cahoon. You know about Ned Kelly? Well, I’ll have to tell you . . .’

  Prindy was very interested. Even if he mostly answered with gestures and monosyllables, his grey eyes showed his interest. It seemed as if he were seeing his Daddy-o Coon-Coon differently. It couldn’t have been simply that Daddy-o was being especially pleasant, because he had often tried to be like that before. Whereas formerly Prindy had been always wary, he seemed even inquisitive.

  Cahoon had been talking about Jews last night with the Stunkes, while listening to the radio. Sheeny Bastards Cahoon had called them. Stunke had said they deserved all they were getting from Hitler now for what they had done to Germany after the Great War. Now Coon-Coon brought up the Jews again: ‘No-good bastards, them Jews, Sonny Boy. I must say I got a big surprise when I heard you’d run away with that Jew-girl. All right with your mother, o’ course . . . God rest her soul! That was natural. But this Jew-piece was only using you . . . like they use everybody. They’re tryin’ to take over our country . . . for the Commos.’ He paused, to look seriously at the boy. ‘O’ course you know they killed our Blessed Saviour. Yeah . . . they murdered our Lord Jesus Christ.’ The staring grey eyes then popped to see Daddy-o whack himself in the chest with a manacled fist. Noting the wonder, Daddy-o explained: ‘You’ve always got to strike yourself when you speak of the Blessed Lord. You’ll learn all about it. You’ll be goin’ to a great Catholic college someday, for the sons of the Catholic gentry. But, o’ course, we got ’o gitchim that Jew-girl first. Now, how ’bout a song . . . Danny Boy, eh?