Poor Fellow My Country

by Xavier Herbert

  At length she said, ‘That great ship out there didn’t simply sail into Our ’Arbour . . . it was towed in for me by Golden Bunyips. I so badly needed a terrifically dramatic scene in which the group . . .’

  ‘What group?’

  ‘The Last Australians. You’ll find that Charles forms this group . . . to defy the Britishism that’s putting the last stranglehold on us by getting us into this war. Charles and his group refuse to consider themselves belligerents, because they’ve been denied a say in the declaration of war . . . have been tricked into thinking Australia’s a true Nation, instead of still a British Dominion because those bastards haven’t ratified the Treaty of Westminster . . .’ She choked over her food with anger.

  Recovered, she set knife and fork aside, to go on excitedly: ‘They’re declared traitors, naturally, by the Britishists . . . and like our ancestors who first had the guts to rebel against British tyranny, have to take to the bush . . . bushrangers . . . but with the difference that they don’t have to rob Judge McEvoy and other bastards. They’ve got the sympathy and help of at least half their fellow-countrymen. They’ve got an aeroplane, fast cars, radio, spies everywhere. But they’ve got to make some terrifically bold move to prove themselves . . . and with a minimum of violence and no actual hurt to their own countrymen or country. Well, think of a better way than to sink the biggest ship in the world, which the Britishists’ve had the bloody effrontery to bring right into the heart of the land itself, you might say, to take away the cream of our manhood. I’d thought of scores of ways . . . blowing up Army camps, sinking warships flying the white ensign . . . but it meant killing Australians, hurting Australia. Then there she is, towed almost to my front door by the Bunyips . . . Her Britannic Majesty, Queen Mary! I saw her arrive through that window. I was amazed. I thought I was dreaming. It was the postman told me what she’d come for. He’s a bit of a rebel . . . and we often yarn. He said, “Pity we couldn’t put a sticky-bomb under her.”

  ‘It didn’t strike me that I could put a bomb under her, that a story-teller is God and can do anything in imagination . . . till I woke up next morning. I get up about 1 a.m., you know . . . go to bed with the kookaburras. There she was out there, in the late moonlight . . . just a black bulk with only a light or two . . . and there was the marvellous idea, too!’ She was quivering with excitement. Mrs Marsh, coming in with dessert, scolded her.

  But Alfie couldn’t be shut up. She went on: ‘What the group do, when they’ve got the mines fixed and ready to detonate by remote control, is radio the ship and tell the crew it has ten minutes to get off, that an electrical device will intervene if they try to get at the mines and will set them off at once. Imagine it . . . BOOM! . . . and down it goes, the symbol of Britishism, down into the depths of Sydney Harbour, never to be recovered!’ The black eyes were shining. She belched with the indigestion she was giving herself.

  She met Jeremy’s stare, asked, ‘Shocked?’

  ‘No . . . scared, rather.’

  ‘What of?’

  ‘Same thing as Frank . . . what might happen to you.’

  She became shrill: ‘Everybody’s scared. That’s how the bastards get away with it.’

  ‘Would Frank know about this piece?’

  ‘Yes . . . I was just starting on it when he left.’

  ‘What’d he have to say about it?’

  ‘You know Frank . . . the little ironies. He only said, “Well don’t sink her before I get aboard and well out to sea.”’

  ‘Poor Frank!’

  She flared. ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘He’s very worried about you.’

  ‘I know. That’s why I didn’t want him round. Looks like I’ll have to get rid of you, too.’ She became shrill again: ‘I can look after myself!’

  ‘That’s just what you’re not doing.’

  ‘Do you expect me to give up writing this thing that takes the very lid off the rottenness of our country, just because I might get jailed under the National Security Bloody Britishist Regulations? You told me yourself, long ago, and told hundreds of others here last year, that if we enter another war not of our deliberate choosing, we’re sunk. And yet you expect . . .’

  ‘I expect nothing but that you do it discreetly . . . or rather, I hope . . . no. I don’t expect or hope anything. I’m just going to see to it that no evidence of your indiscretion’s left lying about.’

  ‘Is that all you can call my lovely book . . . an indiscretion?’

  ‘No . . . I call it your lovely book, too. It’s your behaviour over it . . . telling everybody . . . the postman, the helping-woman . . . worse, that lunatic the Bloke, who’ll sell you up the river to make capital out of it for himself. He’s mad enough to act on what you’ve written.’

  ‘And why not? That’s what it’s for. To inspire people . . . to revolution, if necessary. We’re the only people on God’s earth who’ve never had a revolution. Our great patriots never get past starting a riot . . . and then go into Parliament on the strength of it, and swear allegiance to the sworn enemy . . . or go off and hide in the bush.’

  ‘I can see I’ll have to take you and hide you in the bush, too. You don’t understand there’s a war on . . . and that these people can do anything to you, anything. War’s something you’ve never experienced.’

  ‘I’m experiencing now. Frank wanted me to hide, too. If I had I’d’ve missed everything . . . this biggest ship in the world come to take the flower of our country, and those running the country bragging about it as if it were an honour. Christ . . . what’s going on’s incredible!’

  ‘It’s what went on before.’

  ‘And what’d any of you do about it? Did anyone write a great book about the filthy thing as a filthy thing? The best you did was to form the RSL, originally to protect the men who’d been sooled off to war and came home to be chucked on the scrap-heap . . . and then grabbed by the Britishists to make the stinking thing it is today, sooling men off to another Britisher war. And Anzac Day . . . inaugurated to make the Nation aware of the frightful thing that happened that day, but glorified by every fat politician, general, parsonical sod, into . . . into . . . the abomination it is . . .’ She choked with emotion now. ‘And you . . . even you . . . with all your hatred of it all and your strength and courage to stop it . . . what’d you do? Go off into the bush to become the Scrub Bull . . . oh!’

  She dropped burning face to hands. But in a moment up it came, with eyes flashing all the brighter for having been washed with tears. ‘I’m not going away anywhere. I’m going to see it through. Everything that happens now goes into the book. Tomorrow there’s the first big march through the city. I’m going to see it, drink it in to the last drop . . . to bring it out in words that’ll be bayonets to stab the Britishist bastards to the heart!’

  Jeremy could only stare, overwhelmed by the passion of the artist. She went on: ‘The first part of the contingent will be going aboard that thing out there tomorrow . . . their crack regiment . . . all recruited in Sydney. They’ll detrain at Central . . . then march through the city, to be saluted by the military brass, the Lord Mayor, the clergy, at the Town Hall. The city will be en fête . . . to see the young manhood of the country herded like cattle into the world’s biggest cattle-boat. They march to the Domain . . . from where they’ll go down to the wharves to be taken out to the Queen of Cattle-boats. After that, to add insult to injury, there’ll be a grand recruiting rally in the Domain . . . to call for more cattle. That Jasper Jemeson, the singer, will be there to sing Goodbye to the boys who’re going . . . and to stir up those who haven’t. He’s just come home from England, where he’s lived ever since he became famous. He’s been singing on the radio, ad nauseam, so-called patriotic songs . . . and at recruiting rallies . . . and talking, too, the bastard! . . . saying it makes him feel ashamed to be Australian to see all the young men walking about in civvies. He’s one of the heads of the Recruiting Committee. And who d’you think’s in it too . . . and the loudest mouthed of all
the soolers . . . your old mate, the Colt.’

  ‘The Colt?’ murmured Jeremy.

  ‘The creature you chucked in the sea that Sunday. You ought to hear him . . . the Old Digger. He’s another who declares himself sickened with shame over what he calls the Slackers, Shirkers, Skulkers. Haven’t you heard either of them on the radio?’

  ‘I don’t listen to that kind of thing.’

  ‘Well, you ought to! Come with me tomorrow . . . and get as sick as me about it . . . and then you might do something!’

  ‘You will get sick in that condition.’

  ‘Rubbish! I never felt stronger physically in my life. Besides, it’s an asset to be like this in a crowd.’

  ‘How?’

  She laughed: ‘It gets me up the front. Tomorrow I’ll tell’em my baby’s daddy’s in the march.’

  He shook his head. She shrilled: ‘Does that mean you won’t come?’

  He sighed: ‘I’ll come all right . . . if only to keep you out of trouble.’

  ‘Bless you, darling Jeremy!’ She rose clumsily to reach and embrace him, sent her half-eaten dessert flying in the spoon so that it spattered him. ‘Oh, I’m sorry!’ she cried, grabbing a napkin to clean him. ‘I get carried away after I’ve been working. It’s all so exciting . . . the power it gives you . . . to make or break things.’ She kissed his brow, his lips, met his alarmed resistance with a loud protest: ‘But you’re the father of my babies . . . my lovely twins!’

  He groaned, with rolling eyes on the kitchen door.

  She laughed merrily: ‘My Charles Belamy . . . scared of women . . . but what a man!’

  Dinner was over. She went to sit with him on the settee, leaning against him, yawning like a sleepy little girl, saying how tired she was, but keeping on babbling about her story. Before long, Mrs Marsh came from the kitchen saying, ‘Now how ’bout beddo, dearie?’ Looking at Jeremy the woman said, ‘Wears herself out.’

  Jeremy handed her into the strong arms stretched out to her. He offered his cheek for the kiss. Alfie said, ‘Don’t go yet, Jeremy, darling. Stay and keep on reading me. Stay all night. We’ll have coffee when I get up.’ Yawning, she let Mrs Marsh lead her away.

  Jeremy read till Mrs Marsh, having put everything to rights, came to say she was going home. Then he put the script down, saying that he was tired himself from much travelling and would like to go. The woman took the script from him as if she owned it, stowed it back in the sideboard, which she didn’t even lock. When Jeremy asked her wouldn’t she also put away the small stack by the typewriter, she answered, ‘Can’t touch nothink she’s workin’ on.’

  They left the house together. He offered to take her in the taxi he intended to call from a phone booth. She declined, saying she still had work to do in the neighbourhood. While waiting for the taxi he stared across the water at the dark bulk of the mighty troopship, her lack of lights, if the condition was regulated by some rule of war, contrasting idiotically with the blaze of the Naval Depot. He had the taxi take him back to the hotel. Soon he was in bed.

  The early part of next morning, Jeremy spent at Central Station, bribing his way to getting a berth to Brisbane on an express train leaving that night by the old inland route. Evidently he had learnt much about train-travelling these days. Afterwards he gave himself to securing the services of a taximan who would see him through the afternoon’s commitments. He found an amiable fellow who assured him he could make a simple matter of it. Then he telephoned Alfie, to be answered by Mrs Marsh, who said the Little Lady was Hard at It. He left a message with her to say he would arrive at two. Time of the March was three.

  Alfie was ready when he arrived, excited, and looking very lovely — at least the top half of her. She was bursting with what she had just now been writing: about the Britishist Government’s collapse in the face of the furore caused by the sinking of the Queen Mary, with resultant taking over office by the Labor Party under the leadership of a famous anti-Britishist who had suffered persecution during the Last Turn-out for fighting against conscription, but even this hero operating only under the tacit patronage of the invincible and still elusive Charles Belamy. Her chattering of events that had to her become realer than reality sounded strange, with the great ship lying out there, smoke pouring from one of her funnels, no doubt signalling preparation for the thousands of men who soon would be disappearing into her mighty maw. The taximan became interested, asked questions, looked disappointed upon learning that it was only in a book. He growled, ‘Wisht some’un could get rid of this damn Government . . . and be strong enough to keep Labor from makin’ the mess o’ things they al’ays does. I don’ like them Dictators . . . still, we sure need a Strong Man in this country.’

  ‘You anti-British?’ Alfie asked recklessly.

  ‘Lady, I’m anti-everthink’s not Aussie . . . and Aussie’s got no business in this flamin’ war.’

  Alfie clapped him on the shoulder, crying, ‘Good on you, mate!’

  Very cleverly, the taximan took them by back ways that avoided the mile-long railed-off route of the march, to drop them right beside the Town Hall, with the need only to climb a low grassy bank to get a grandstand view. He left them with arrangement to pick him up again at a point up Park Street, which, simply ducking under the barricades, they could reach within a few minutes after the parade had passed. The Saluting Stand, right before the Town Hall entrance, was only twenty yards or so away.

  There were few people here on the lawn, compared with the crush below on the street. Even without having to tell that fib about her pudding’s daddy, Alfie was let through to the front, and was even able to get a spot to sit down while waiting. Music of the moment was coming through amplifiers hung on lamp-posts: what sounded like Soldiers of the King, and then Colonel Bogie — no certainty about it, owing to some accoustical freak.

  The music stopped suddenly. Then the flags screening the short corridor leading to the stand from the Town Hall portico began to bulge with invisible passengers. First onto the stand was a small nosy man wearing the uniform of the Municipality, who darted round amongst the potted palms and microphones, like a terrier in search of intruding cats. Then he leapt back to the entrance, to stand at attention as the first of the party appeared: none other than His Worship the Lord Mayor, in full regalia, fur-trimmed, robe-chain of office, weird fore-and-aft flat-sided hat. Behind His Worshipful Lordship came the aldermen, as hard-faced a gang as one would have seen in chains in the old days, despite their frock coats and striped trousers, and their ladies, richly-gowned as successful brothel madames.

  Alfie murmured to Jeremy, ‘Why must the mayors of Australian capital cities be called Lord Mayors? Is there something diocesan about municipal administration, so that His Nibs is like the Bishop, while the others are mere parish parsons?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know, my dear. Isn’t knowing such things more in your line?’

  ‘Isn’t it knowing the Nation? I’ve never found out. But I suppose, like everything else, it’s just slavish copy of English things.’ She added with a giggle, ‘I wonder did the first Lord Major of Sydney wear a ball-and-chain as well as his chain of office?’

  Jeremy squinted to see if anyone had overheard. If anyone had, the interest immediately was lost as the amplifiers began to crackle with different versions of the Lord Mayor’s speech: ‘Leddies, gemmen, gemmen . . . gethered ’ere . . . t’die . . . t’die . . .’istoric koishion . . . stirric poison . . . Sy’ney lads . . . dads . . . ow-er boyees . . . boyees . . . bower boidees . . .’

  Alfie had her notebook ready. She shut it, saying, ‘Damn . . . I’d’ve liked to hear what the fool said.’

  Jeremy grinned. ‘Can’t you guess it? Anyway . . . his accent should do for the record, shouldn’t it?’

  It was the authentic Sydney-sider accent, vestigial of Cockney-convict origins. Old Perce as he was being named in cat-calls might well have had a symbolic ball-and-chain hidden beneath his fantastic Cockney clobber.

  Presumably it was a kind of civic bless
ing of this city’s noblest sons. It lasted about five minutes, to end in cheers from the common herd, along with a few rude remarks about the city’s finances. Old Perce withdrew with dignity, giving his place to one of the Military Brass who were mingled with aldermen, clergy, madames. The last movement caused Jeremy to exclaim like a blackfellow, ‘Eh, look out!’

  ‘What is it?’ asked Alfie.

  Jeremy’s answer was drowned in the burst of clapping that greeted the leading military gentleman’s saluting the crowd. It was General Tubs from GHQ.

  It was all nicely timed. Into the silence that fell on the clapping came the strains of a distant band: Poom-pom-pom-boom . . . boom-pom-boom. Faint cheering came with it. General Tubs, on the very edge of the red-carpeted stand, drew himself to stiff attention.

  The band was approaching rapidly, as proper, when it led the Pride of the Nation, quick-marching in its eagerness for death and glory — pompom-a-pompom, pomboom-a-pompom, boompom-a-boompom-a-pompom-a-mee . . .

  ‘Good Christ!’ muttered Jeremy.

  ‘What is it now?’ demanded Alfie.

  Because of the approaching storm of sound, he had to bend to her. ‘What the band’s playing.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Listen.’

  She cupped an ear.

  Pompom-a-pompom, pompom-a-pompom, pomboom-a-pomboom-a-pompom-mee . . .

  She looked at him with black eyes wide. ‘Waltzing Matilda?’

  He nodded. The crowd back along the street were singing above the band and cheering: Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda, who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me . . .

  ‘Made into a march!’ cried Alfie, shining with pleasure. ‘Who’d’ve believed it!’

  Others about them were commenting, too. Yes — who’d believe the favourite old bush ballad would become Our Boys’ Marching Song?

  Jeremy soon checked Alfie’s pleasure, bawling in her ear, ‘It was originally a marching song.’

  Staring at him, she said, ‘No . . . a camp-fire song from Queesnland!’

  ‘A marching song from England.’ He drew away.