Like You'd Understand, Anyway

by Jim Shepard

  Hill, who has been working wonders with poor Cuppage's suffering, is really like a young hero from literature: fair-minded, virile, and eager to get on. He articled as a surgeon, which he found not very agreeable. His real passion is for astronomy, and his sense of direction so intuitive he negotiated alone some of the jungles on the northern coast. And few men have less of envy in their disposition.

  All of Adelaide, it seemed, approved my choice of Hill for this expedition. And nearly as many lamented my choice of Browne. This man with the instincts and fearlessness of a native in the bush, and of a judgment beyond his station, is in Adelaide a drunkard of the lowest reputation. Hill initially and privately conveyed surprise that I would suffer such a man to be in my party, and my father too expressed violent doubts. But here in the wild there is not a more careful and valuable follower to be found. I believe him to be personally attached to me and nurse the fervent belief that this chance at achievement will have a decisive effect on the rest of his life.

  May 28th

  Our progress renewed. Today's resolution is “Seek experience joined to common sense, which to mortals is a providence.” The ascents are backbreaking and the revelations at the summits unrewarding.

  Still little seasonal cooling. The air so rarefied we can hardly breathe. The sun dries everything with such speed that one can almost watch the few pools we do find sink. There is no way of knowing how soon we might be cut off by the loss of water holes behind us. The complete absence of animal life is stark evidence of the dire poverty of what lies all around us and ahead. We are now alone in the wilderness. The wind is blowing from the NE in our faces with the heat of a blacksmith's forge. Despite our exertions, none of us exhibit any moisture on the skin. This is perhaps related to our being now much distressed by violent headaches.

  May 29th

  Continued all day without knowing whether we were extricating or ensnaring ourselves. We are to all intents and purposes at sea. A carrion kite hovered over us early this morning in befuddlement at our presence.

  June 2nd

  Recovering in our tents. Supper of a little dried beef. Browne reminded us that we are in a precarious situation, and that the least mistake will be lethal. This is a region in which we have not the leisure to pause. He further pointed out that it wasn't the advance but the retreat that was to be most dreaded.

  June 3rd

  No travel. Old Fitz now dead lame. The men employed examining the bacon. Today's resolution: “Of comfort, no man speak.” Surface heat so great we can't hold stones we pick up with our hand.

  June 4th

  No travel.

  June 5th

  Another halt. The men complain of giddiness when they stoop. The bullocks done in. The heat of the sand is so intense that the poor animals paw away the top layers to get to the cooler beneath.

  The upper leathers of Hill's shoes are burnt away. Gould's back terribly blistered. The dogs are losing the pads of their feet. The natives could not possibly walk this desert at midsummer. The bullocks' yokes even now are so heated the men cannot handle them. We ride with our feet out of the stirrups because the irons are too hot. Mander-Jones's chronometer has stopped. It is no longer possible to use the quills, the ink dries so rapidly. 139 degrees in the sun.

  The monotony of such plodding, hour after hour, and always with the prospect of waking the next morning to more of the same—! We are almost entirely silent during this apathy of motion. This coma of riding. Even a small object becomes an achievement when attained, something on which to focus the mind in so vast a space.

  June 9th

  I could not more regret the paucity of casks to hold water. I would strongly recommend casks as indispensable on all future expeditions in this country. There is a yellow hue on the horizon each morning which we now understand to be a sure indication of the afternoon's unsupportable heat.

  June 12th

  We have come upon what can only be called the Stony Desert, the first sight of which caused us to lose our breath. It is more demoralizing than what has gone before. Not a speck of plant life across the horizon. Masses of rock mixed with white quartz split into innumerable fragments. Ruin and desolation, stretching out in an endless plain as far as we can see. Purdie, the cook, whimpered audibly from his seat on one of the drays at the prospect. Some of the men laughed.

  The surfaces are diamond-hard and ring under our horses' shoes. The stone is so thick upon the ground that the carts leave no track. Distance traveled fourteen miles.

  June 14th

  It is as if the earth itself were steel-shod. The horses' hooves are being cut to the quick. We're shaken by detonations to our right and left: great rock masses splitting off in the extremes of temperature. Seven sheep dead from the heat. Distance traveled eleven miles.

  Today a new stretch of rock hued with iron oxide, so the plains ahead now have a dark purple cast. The country continues to raise terrible havoc with the horses' shoes, which are wearing away like wax. Gould and Mack report that their headaches have worsened. The men complain of rheumatism, and most of us have violent pains in our hip joints. Hill reports a large ring round the moon last night, most likely indicative of wind. The whaleboat suffered today its first accident: the stern sheets were torn off on a rock. It was not the driver's fault, but mine, for not warning him of its proximity. Each day brings fresh sheaves of anxiety to our already overstuffed bundle.

  June 15th

  We are all on foot to spare the horses. The stone, in no way rounded, is brutal to the feet. Gould complains incessantly of an excruciating pain in his forehead. Poor Cuppage has not been heard from for days, except to cry out whenever a drop or a crash shakes the whaleboat. Browne's horse has an inflammation of the mucus membrane. The casks are empty. At the first waterless halt, the horses would not eat and instead collected round me, my poor Captain so much afflicted that he tugged my hat with his teeth to claim attention. Called a halt and asked Moorhouse to reconnoiter the extent of the ridges to our NW from the vantage point of the ridge to our W. His climb provided him, regrettably, with no cover. He returned to pronounce it the most difficult task he had ever performed.

  June 20th

  Only three miles down a ravine to our E, a kind of natural oasis with a pool thirty to forty feet wide and nearly ten feet deep, situated beneath the shade of large stands of casuarina and mulga trees. Ample feed for the animals. Providence has guided us to the only place where our wants might be supplied for any extended amount of time, but has also here stayed our progress in a region soon to become forbidden ground.

  Today completes the sixth month of our absence from Adelaide. How much longer we shall be out it is impossible to say. We still wait for winter rains. I am heartbroken at the delay. I remain of the full conviction that we're fifty miles or less from the Inland Sea. My only consolation is that the present situation is unavoidable.

  June 27th

  I have been neglecting my resolutions. Today's is “The happy man finds in some part of his soul a drop of patience.” I have been trying to chart our position and finding it impossible to put pencil to paper in this superheated tent. Have set the men to digging a chamber deep in the ground from which we might make our calculations.

  June 30th

  Beale has a pulmonary condition. Was bled yesterday and is better today. Mabberly has had an attack of inflammation of the lungs. Almost everyone is complaining of bleeding at the nose. We are all beset by symptoms of scurvy. My gums are so sore that I cannot take even porridge and have a vile taste of copper in my mouth, intensified by savage headaches. We all trust the symptoms will not increase, because soon we must move despite all risks and under any circumstances. Our diet is unwholesome. We must collect something in the way of a vegetable.

  Cuppage is now insensible. We have discussed whether to send him back, but Hill has ventured that he would never survive the journey. Neither would whoever accompanied him, Browne added grimly. He has recently returned, his horse lathered and nearly broken, to r
eport that the water-holes to our rear, at which we not six days ago found ample water, now have no moisture left in their beds. Our retreat is now cut off. We are bound here as fast as though we were on an ice floe in the great Arctic ocean.

  July 1st

  The barometer remains unyielding. Until it falls we have no hope of rain. I have reduced the allowance of tea and sugar. The men have become as improvident as aborigines. The inactivity is causing between us much vexation and anxiety. About thirty sheep remaining. Have set the men to repacking and inspecting the bacon and biscuit. The bran in which the bacon was packed is now entirely saturated and heavier than the meat. Our wax candles have melted. Our hair has stopped growing.

  July 6th

  I was born here in Australia, though this is not commonly known. The year of my tenth birthday, my brothers and I were sent to England with my mother's elder sister. We would not see our parents again for more than a decade. We lived with various relatives, always in close proximity to lives of enormous privilege. I began my education at a succession of schools, each of which I detested. Where were my friends? Where was that person for whom my happiness was an outcome to be desired? I led my brothers on a midnight ramble in search of home. They were eight and seven, and complained about neither the distance nor the cold. The younger, Humphrey, was shoeless. I was so moved by their fortitude that I became teary-eyed through the march. We begged milk from a farmer and were rounded up by a constable the following afternoon.

  Browne too hated school. He remembered with fierce indignation a headmaster's remark that God had created boys' buttocks in order to facilitate the learning of Latin.

  July 12th

  I am much concerned about Browne. His behavior has alarmed both Mander-Jones and Hill. He has been refusing water and crouching for stretches out of the shade, hatless. I have tried to provide for him duties that will keep his faculties engaged. A flight of swifts passed over high to the S at twilight. They were beating against the wind.

  July 24th

  The same sun, morning to night. We might save ourselves the trouble of taking measurements. The ants at sundown swarm under our coverings. The flies intensify at dawn. All manner of crawling and flying insects fill our clothes. There never was a country such as this for stabbing, biting, or stinging things.

  Our scurvy is worse. It must be dreadful in its advanced stages for even as it is we are nearly undone. “I have today's resolution,” Browne said to me this morning, lying on the floor of our dug-out room. He hadn't spoken for a day. His head rested on Hill's feet. “Always remember that love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise,” he said.

  “What on earth are we on about now?” Mander-Jones cried out from beside me. I hushed him. “I am traveling with lunatics,” he said, with great feeling, before lapsing once more into silence.

  The men have tipped the whaleboat over to make a shaded lean-to. Today I was the only one willing to leave either shelter to take a reading. The barometer has fallen to a point that would normally suggest rain, but it is impossible to guess what to anticipate here. The water in our oasis is evaporating visibly. It stands now at a depth of only four feet.

  August 20th

  The eighth month. Midwinter. 112 in the shade, 129 in the sun. The heat has split the unprotected edges of our horses' hooves into fine laminae. Our fingernails are now as brittle as rice paper. The lead falls out of our pencils. Mack and Gould engaged in a fist-fight that was quelled only after Gould threatened to stave in his head. In our dug-out last night, Browne again could not be moved to speak. Hill's voice was a brave croak. Mander-Jones was sullen and uncommunicative, afflicted as he is with sore eyes from the flies getting into them. I told them that it could only have been that our expedition coincided with the most unfortunate season of drought. Even here it could not be that there were only two recorded days of rain in eight months.

  Gould reported that grass was now so deficient about the camp that we could no longer tether the horses.

  The success or failure of any undertaking is determined by its leader, I reminded them. Browne roused himself in response. He seemed enraged in ways he wasn't fully able to articulate. He most certainly does not look good. He theorized that my choice of bringing extra paint for the boat, rather than adequate casks for water, or lemon or lime juice for scurvy, spoke volumes about the nature of our undertaking. And what was the nature of our undertaking, sir? I asked him. Idiotic, sir, he answered. Criminal, sir. Laughable.

  August 22nd

  Out of sorts from upset and unable to function. Hill, after a discreet hesitation of a few hours, took over the direction of the men in terms of their responsibilities. At sundown the entire horizon to the west was indigo with clouds and heavy rain. Each of us spent the evening absorbed in the spectacle, unwilling to speak.

  I dreamed of my father as I saw him on the pier in Adelaide upon my return. When I awoke Browne was kicking the leg of my cot with his heavy boot. He had today's resolution, he announced. He said, “There was an old man in a Marsh, Whose manners were futile and harsh.”

  “That's not a resolution,” I called after him, once I'd found my voice, which was after he'd left.

  With what energy we've been able to muster we have been busy all day preparing an excursion to the WNW to try to meet and retrieve some of that rain. This will decide the fate of our expedition. We will take six weeks' provisions, one of the casks, and four or five bullock hides to carry the water back. Browne and I will lead, and Beale, Gould, and Mack will accompany us, along with seven of the horses and one of the drays.

  September 12th

  Three weeks out. Set out on August 23rd at 4 a.m. The cask is nearly empty. Today we gave our horses as much water as reason would justify before making camp. Their docility under such suffering is heart-rending. They cannot rest and spend the night troublesomely persevering, plodding round the cart and trying to poke their noses into the bung hole. We close our eyes and pretend not to see.

  September 16th

  A water-hole. A triumph for Browne. The water cloudy and off but purer than any we have for some time seen. Filled the cask and made some tea. The horizon shot through with lightning.

  September 21st

  Returned to the strictest rationing now that our strength seems somewhat restored. Walking as much as possible to spare the horses. My heels and back lanced with pain. When lying down I feel as though I'm being rolled across a threshing machine. Summer starting to come on. The thermometer between 120 and 133 during the day. Matches held in the hand flare into flame. We must be a sight, I remarked to Browne: burnt by the sun, our clothes in rags, our hats long since shapeless with sweat, covered in insects, each absorbed in his private cell of misery, whether a chafing shoe or an open sore. And almost no quarrels. On this never-ending ribbon of interminable heat. Browne, as if to prove my point, did not answer.

  September 30th

  This morning we gave Captain, my mount, double breakfast, in hopes it would strengthen him, but it did not. The poor brute staggered rather than walked along. At midnight he fell. We got him up again and, abandoning his saddle, proceeded. At a mile, though, he fell again and could not go on. I sat by him in the night as he expired, after which I felt so desolate I took myself off into the darkness for a while. I had fully intended to purchase him at the sale of the remnants of the expedition, perhaps as a gift for Browne.

  October 10th

  We have found only a runnel with mud so thick I could not swallow it. Browne managed to drink some of it made into tea. It fell over the lip of his cup like clotted cream, and smeared the horses' noses like clay. They refused it. Browne was then ill all the next day.

  October 12th

  Some kind of cyclopean boulders now before us. Even the horses regard them with dismay. I dismounted and ascended the first for a bearing. It was no trifling task in our condition and these temperatures. Beale accompanied me with the instruments. “This is more than a Government day's work, sir,” he said on the wa
y back down.

  I could not respond. Our view had been over as terrible a region as Man ever saw. Its aspect was so mortifying that it left us with not a tinge of hope. We have to return, with every promise of a better country within reach annihilated. We all stood dumbly in the heat at this understanding, as if concussed by a blow, before eventually retiring to our midday shelter under the dray. Mack and Gould wept. Browne kept up an intermittent continuous hum, like a bush insect. Was it possible to give up, having achieved nothing? I asked myself aloud. One of the horses toppled to its knees as if by way of answer. No one spoke again until sundown, when we turned about and headed back the way we came. We have been defeated, I reminded our little group, by obstacles not to be overcome by human perseverance.

  Our bearings record that the farthest point to which we penetrated was to Longitude 138.5.00 and Latitude 24.30.00, and I will in truth affirm that no men ever wandered in a more despairing and hopeless desert. I have no other observations to add on the nature of this country.

  November 17th