The Light Horseman's Daughter

by David Crookes

  Over time, more and more Bowes-Scott stores placed orders with Sydney Styles which increased the strain on production and working capital. It was now almost two years since the business had moved from Iris and Joan’s cottage into larger premises. It had been Molly who suggested Emma look at the old shoe factory where her husband had worked and which had been boarded up since it failed years earlier.

  The premises were much larger than Emma had really needed at the time, but its purpose-built layout and Redfern location were well suited to the needs of Sydney Styles. When the estate agent had offered six months’ free rental if a three year-lease was signed, Emma had jumped at it. After the move, the business grew rapidly. In two years the workforce rose to over fifty people. And Emma made sure that everyone—seamstresses, cutters, maintenance people, night watchman and all and sundry came from the ranks of Redfern’s unemployed.

  Even her indispensable grey-haired bookkeeper, Neale Lawrence, dubbed Neale the Nib, because of his insistence on meticulous accounting procedures and the penning of all ledgers in black Indian ink, had come from the ranks of the unemployed. Once the chief accountant of a large Sydney food wholesaler, Neale the Nib had been sacked for giving away spoiled groceries to Father O’Brien at the Central Mission instead of sending them to the Redfern tip.

  In spite of ever-increasing business, Sydney Styles always suffered from a chronic shortage of working capital. Many employees helped out by waiting for their wages until the money came in to pay them. Emma knew if her business was to survive it must be properly financed. But during the height of the Depression, even the government-owned Commonwealth Bank threatened to dishonor government checks if politicians programs were deemed inappropriate by the board. The possibility of small businesses being granted loans were slim; and if the owner of a small business happened to be a woman they were nil.

  Neale the Nib saw a way to overcome the cash flow problem. He proposed that Emma agree to supply Sydney Styles products exclusively to Bowes-Scott department stores chain in return for cash-on-delivery of goods supplied, and for cash advances to be made available during manufacture if the value of work in process exceeded a certain figure. The arrangement worked well and Sydney Styles continued to grow. But in late 1934, with demand still rising steadily for every item in the entire range, it became obvious that Sydney Styles needed to be retooled with the latest in modern equipment.

  In mid-1935, Emma committed the bulk of the firm’s retained earnings as a down-payment on a huge purchase of new equipment with the balance left owing, payable in monthly installments. When the new machinery was up and running, production rose dramatically and operating costs plummeted. According to Neale the Nib’s carefully penned ledgers, the upswing in profits was such that Emma began to think her dream of lasting financial independence might really come true.

  *

  When Joseph Lyons became Prime Minister in early 1932, he moved swiftly to avert what he saw as the prime causes of social unrest in the country and the possibility of a communist-led revolution. No sooner had the congenial ‘Honest Joe’ taken office than he introduced harsh repressive measures aimed at breaking the back of ‘the communist menace’. He also made generous concessions to business and kept high tariffs in place to ensure that whatever money was spent by consumers remained in Australia.

  One of Lyons first acts did was to rid New South Wales of what he considered its worst threat. Since Premier Lang’s continued default on interest payments to London, forced the Commonwealth to pay them, Lyons used federal powers to take over the revenues of New South Wales. Lang fought back, but unwittingly played into Lyons’ hands, by ordering his civil servants not to pay any money to the Commonwealth. The governor of New South Wales saw Lang’s action as illegal and, under pressure from Lyons sacked him. The dismissal took place barely a month after Lang’s embarrassment at the hands of the New Guard at the opening of the Sydney Harbor Bridge.

  The besieged state governments quickly fell into line with Lyons’ policies. They banned all street gatherings, demonstrations, and public meetings, and supported him later when the importation of seditious materials and publications was forbidden. Postage of local leftist publications was forbidden, pressure was exerted on building owners not to allow communist assemblies in meeting halls and employers were urged to sack employees with communist leanings. There were many prosecutions backing up Lyons’ anti-communist policies, but most convictions appealed to the High Court were quashed.

  The New Guard hailed the sacking of Lang and the bold anti-subversive policies of the Lyons government as the welcome dawn of a new era for Australia, and his anti-communist measures were applauded by many politicians of all persuasions. But no one threw support behind them more enthusiastically, or more vocally, than Patrick Coltrane, the powerful and opinionated senator from Queensland.

  Another passionate cause of Senator Coltrane’s was a uniform federal Aboriginal policy, similar to Queensland’s 1934 Amendments Act, in order to halt the further deterioration of the white race. The Queensland Act took away the half-castes right to vote and their previously held-exemptions from the 1897 Aboriginal Protection Act, which subjected all full-blooded Aborigines to absolute governmental control. In addition, the new Act gave the state government total control over individuals in mixed-race marriages, stripping them of voting and other long-held social rights regardless of their color.

  The 1934 act came under fire in Queensland, with many claiming that white men married to black women could lose all control over their lives. It was argued by Brisbane’s Courier Mail that, under the Act, white men could be taken from their homes at any time, and be carted off to Aboriginal settlements at the whim of the bureaucracy.

  Coltrane stubbornly argued that the Act should be adopted nationwide. He told the Senate that as a white Australian, he backed the view of William Gall, Queensland’s Undersecretary to the Home Office, that the degradation of the white race caused by inter-racial sexual activity must be stopped at all costs. If necessary, to use the Undersecretary’s own words, ‘Government’s sooner or later, will seriously have to consider the question of sterilization, because inferior races will have to go.’

  *

  Bill Travis’ small flicker of hope when Joe Lyons became prime minister was soon extinguished. As a known agitator and protester, he became a natural target for authorities bent on adhering zealously to the federal government’s hard line on communists.

  Bill was frequently harassed and arrested for organizing anti-eviction committee meetings, addressing meetings of the Unemployed Workers Union, and leading marches seeking increased food and clothing allowances for unemployed families. As a long-time adversary of the New Guard, he was subjected to surveillance by its members; but as time went by, Bill was heartened to see that support for the movement began to wane.

  In spite of middle and extreme right-wing support, the Lyons government was unable to prevent a growing community concern at what was seen as a trend toward fascism in Australia. In 1933, an organization calling itself the Australian Anti-Fascist League was formed. It was a communist initiative but had strong support from left wing politicians and many civic and religious groups.

  The organization gained momentum in 1934 when Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini announced the fascist states of Germany and Italy had formed an alliance. It was then that Bill was asked to play an active part in the league, by helping to organize the movement’s inaugural Peace Congress, which several prominent international anti-fascists had been invited to address.

  When the government moved to thwart the Peace Congress by denying entry into Australia of high profile anti-fascist delegates, Bill and the movement challenged the government in the courts. The government responded by falling back on a section in the 1901 Immigration Act, passed under the White Australia Policy, which provided for entry to be denied to any person failing a language test in any European language.

  By carefully choosing the languages in the test, the Immigration Dep
artment were certain of success. An American delegate was given a language test in German, a Czech was tested in Gaelic and an Englishman in Italian. All three failed the test, were imprisoned and later deported.

  Bill’s new involvement as an active anti-fascist was duly noted by the police in his already substantial file. And he knew it was just a matter of time before he became the target of the ever growing local fascisti, whose organized acts of anti-communist thuggery were largely condoned by the government.

  The only constant thing in Bill’s life was his love for Emma and Christopher. He visited the house in Waterloo frequently. The time spent there brought the only sunshine into the bleak grayness of a life he had dedicated to helping others. He enjoyed an almost father-and-son relationship with Christopher, but his feelings for Emma remained one-sided. But he refused to give up hope. After all, on the day Molly’s assault charge was thrown out of court, he had told Emma that he would wait for her as long as it took. And he would.

  *

  Stephen scaled down his activity in the New Guard after his arrest on the Sydney Harbor Bridge. One reason was his father’s concern that Inspector Proudfoot would doggedly keep pursuing him if he didn’t. Another reason was Eleanor’s insistence that the whole affair, which resulted in a well-publicized court appearance and a small fine, had embarrassed her beyond words. To appease them both, Stephen resigned from his New Guard special operation team and limited his activities to Sunday morning patrols over Sydney Harbor.

  As it happened, although Captain De Groot’s daring act drew international attention to the New Guard when it was shown on Movietone cinema newsreels around the world, the event marked the zenith of the movement, and its subsequent decline was accelerated by the government’s nation-wide crackdown on communists and subversives.

  Eleanor was glad when Stephen seemed to take more interest in practicing law. But the real reason he spent longer hours in chambers was because the house in Kirribilli had become his prison, with Eleanor and his childless, loveless marriage, his jailers. Constant thoughts of Emma and the child he had seen in her arms on the Harbor Bridge, drove him to Armidale, only to find the Mary Wells Home abandoned and Emma long since departed from Mrs Nadin’s boarding house.

  Because of his concern for Emma and the child, which he knew could well be his own, Stephen exhausted all avenues searching for her whereabouts, even unsuccessfully engaging an investigation agent normally used by his law firm to locate fugitives from justice.

  The only person Stephen confided in was his Uncle Leonard. And although Stephen suspected his father might have told him the real reason for his marriage to Eleanor, his uncle never admitted it. Leonard just listened to everything Stephen had to say and told him not to worry, because from what he and Mrs Bennett had told him of Emma, she certainly seemed like the kind of young woman well able to look after herself in any situation.

  *

  Elliot wanted Victoria Silver from the first moment he saw her, even enough to marry her if he had to. They met at her father’s country residence in Roma when Patrick Coltrane fulfilled his promise to introduce Royston Silver to Frank Peebles to discuss his interest in land speculation.

  Victoria was pretty enough in her own way, but hardly the beauty Patrick Coltrane had described, and was the complete opposite of her father, the quiet, unassuming powerbroker. During dinner she talked incessantly in strong opinionated terms on just about every subject that came up. But it was not her conversational skills or her intelligence that attracted Elliot. What drew Elliot to her like a magnet was the fullness of her breasts, the roundness of her firm young body, and the hungry look in her eyes whenever she looked at him.

  After the meal was over, Victoria’s mother had suggested the young couple take tea outside on the veranda in the moonlight, leaving Patrick and Royston and Frank Peables to discuss their business over port and cigars. Victoria used the opportunity to flirt unashamedly with Elliot. He responded eagerly and she let him kiss and caress her, but only allowed his hands to roam just enough to make sure the visit wouldn’t be his last. Elliot did come back, and each time he did, Victoria encouraged him more and more, but always stopped short of yielding to him completely.

  No one was more pleased than Patrick Coltrane and Royston Silver when the marriage of Elliot and Victoria, during winter of 1933, bonded together two of rural Queensland’s most prominent families. Coltrane saw the union as the key to even greater political and social heights for the Coltrane family. Silver saw it as the cementing of a lucrative business association with Coltrane and VMP in land speculation which had already yielded him enormous profits which he happily reinvested with the company.

  When Elliot carried Victoria over the threshold of their Brisbane hotel bridal suite he took her straight to the bedroom, anxious not to be denied the pleasures of her body a second longer. With his marital dues paid, there was no need for soft words or gentle persuasion. Without a word passing between them, Elliot quickly stripped her, then took off his own clothing and entered her urgently, taking her again and again until he could take her no more.

  That he showed her no trace of love or tenderness in their coupling, just rough, selfish self-gratification was of no consequence to Victoria because she didn’t love him either. After all, theirs was an equitable arrangement. He had paid the price to get what he wanted. And so had she. She was now married to the heir of one of the wealthiest men in the state and was also mistress of a much-admired property.

  As soon as Victoria Coltrane took up residence at Yallambee, she engaged two young white girls from a Catholic orphanage in Toowoomba as domestics. And with Elliot in mind she choose two of the most homely unfortunates in the entire institution to minimize the risk of any dalliance at the remote property.

  The moment she settled in, Victoria began a massive refurbishment of the old homestead. Determined to make Yallambee the envy of all her friends, Victoria spared no expense in completely redecorating the house and purchasing an entire household of new furniture, curtains, floor coverings and bathroom accessories from the catalogues of the finest suppliers in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

  When everything was finally completed exactly to her liking, Victoria discovered to her dismay, that she was to share her gracious home with a unexpected stranger. In the autumn of 1935 she reluctantly gave birth to Royston Elliot Coltrane.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  The Australian Anti-Fascist League was outraged when on October 3, 1935, without any formal declaration of war, Italy invaded Abyssinia. But it was not surprised, as the act was seen as only the first of many imminent assaults on sovereign states by the newly aligned axis powers of Italy and Germany.

  The national conference of the league was to be held in Sydney three months later and once again Bill was given responsibility for overseas delegates. Because of the heavy-handed actions of the Immigration Department at previous conferences, Bill had arranged for some delegates to be cleared for entry prior to their arrival in Australia. But because of Italy’s aggression in North Africa, the Commonwealth government perceived the forthcoming conference as a dangerous platform for leftist diehards to extol the virtues of communism and cancelled most clearances already given to international delegates.

  The Anti-Fascist League saw the cancellations as yet another infringement of free speech in Australia, at a time when the country should have been uniting against the threat of fascism in Europe. Some overseas delegates announced they would still journey to Australia and again contest their denial of entry in the High Court. Bill prepared for the inevitability of the delegates being subjected to the language test again.

  The invasion of Abyssinia and the angry public statements of the anti-fascist delegates criticizing freedom of speech in Australia received wide newspaper coverage in Sydney and Melbourne. The league was delighted with so much unexpected free publicity for its cause. It kept the fires of controversy burning by sending an avalanche of 'letters to the editor' to all the metropolitan newspapers an
d having soap-box orators condemn the menace of fascism in the free-speech sanctuary of Sydney’s Hyde Park.

  As the conference drew near, the battle lines were drawn. Many League supporters were intimidated and some were bashed by the local fascisti, while the police were accused of turning a blind eye. Even soap-box speakers in Hyde Park were heckled and threatened with bashings if they refused to move on. There were calls for the authorities to ban the forthcoming conference, but this only caused more furor in the newspapers.

  Bill only hoped it wouldn’t all end in violence.

  *

  Soon after the British India Steam Navigation Company’s freighter Dilwara tied up at a Pyrmont wharf in Sydney Harbor, the vessel’s second engineer slipped ashore. Before he passed through the gate at the wharf security shed he asked the guard where the closest public telephone was. The guard pointed to a telephone kiosk at the end of the street; the engineer hurried down to it and made several calls. The last was to the Shamrock Taxi Company. After waiting on the street corner for five or ten minutes a green and white cab pulled up and the engineer asked the driver to take him to Kings Cross.

  *

  Bill laid the telephone receiver back in its cradle. He had been beside the phone at the Anti-Fascist League’s headquarters, a small house in Surrey Hills, since the Dilwara had been spotted entering Sydney Harbor earlier in the day. He had been apprehensive about the arrival of the vessel since the league had been notified that Jo Wojek, a delegate to the Sydney anti-fascist conference, had been denied entry to Australia.

  Since the fascist incursion into Abyssinia, which he saw as only a preliminary foray before the full-scale invasion of his native Poland, Wojek had became more determined than ever to alert people in all western democracies of the threat of all-out war in Europe. He felt so strongly on the issue that he was prepared to enter Australia illegally and face deportation, even imprisonment, if he had to.