Gripped By Drought

by Arthur W. Upfield

  Mayne’s eyes seemed to be flecked with blood-spots. Across his dry lips moved the tip of his tongue. At last he said:

  “Don’t speak, Feng. Oh, God! Atlas! My Atlas gone!”

  He stumbled once, crossing the office to the door. Feng, moved to the depths, watched him go, saw him pass the front window, and, when he looked out from the door, saw him crossing the bridge over the creek. He knew where Mayne was going, blindly, brokenly. To the Seat of Atlas where, before him, Old Man Mayne often had found peace, consolation, and inspiration. Feng Ching-wei followed.

  As he had known he would do, he found Mayne seated on the squared block of wood, looking out blankly over the inheritance the drought now seriously threatened to steal from him, if already it had not done so. If Mayne was aware of Feng’s arrival and his subsequent sitting beside him on the wood staging, he gave no sign. Neither spoke. Both recognized the hopeless situation of Atlas in debt to the extent of nearly fifty thousand pounds at a time when no man was likely to pay a price even as low as fifty thousand for a property that two years back had been worth two hundred thousand.

  He recognized, too–and herein lay the hurt–that Messrs. Boynton and Reynolds held them and Atlas in a cleft stick. The fate of Atlas lay in their grasping hands.

  For a long time those two sat together in silence, their eyes blind to the drunken dust-columns swaying across the vast desiccated landscape before them, their ears deaf to the cries of the river birds, and the occasional sounds from the quiet homestead.

  The sun went down, as now it went down always, an orb of dazzling fire in the cloudless sky. The shadow crept away from them to the far clear-cut horizon, dulling the twin colours of the earth into one great unrolled carpet of black plush, its further edge supporting the flame of the sunset. The light wind dropped to an unruffled calm. In stupendous silence–unbelievable silence to a city-dweller–unbroken by the twitter of a bird or the swish of a falling leaf, night came, took over command of the world from departing day, when lo! the silence was no more, banished by the hoot of an owl, the mournful distant cry of a mo-poke, the far-away scream of a curlew.

  It was only then that Mayne moved. His left hand fell on the shoulder of the lower-sitting Feng, the fingers pressing as though seeking consolation from the faithful friend who had followed him into his Gethsemane. Reaching up, Feng placed a hand over the hand on his shoulder. When Mayne spoke his voice was steady.

  “Do you think they will give us a chance before the rain comes?”

  “Why not?” returned Feng with assumed cheerfulness. “In spite of the fall in wool, the value of the property–real value, I mean–is threefold greater than the debt. We can but wait till Smythe comes. He must capitalize the debt, and we must pay the interest on it. In all decency they can’t take Atlas before finding out how far we can go to meet them.”

  “They might not wish to meet us. They might demand their pound of flesh. My private fortune is now less than six thousand, and I have Ethel and the boy to think of. Then there is Westmacott’s place–the instalment to pay to the widow.”

  Feng had to restrain an outburst against the woman who never for a single instant had considered her husband–who even now might be meeting her lover at the Rest House. He had been on the verge of offering his own fortune to form a dyke to keep back the flood-water of ruin, but mention of Ethel Mayne kept him silent on that point. She should not waste his money as she had wasted that of his friend.

  5

  Throughout the following morning Feng was busied making up accounts and drawing cheques. Mayne telephoned the men at White Well to hold themselves in readiness to come in on the truck he was sending for them, and to MacDougall to bring in the two men stationed at Forest Hill, after having instructed his wife to pack in readiness to leave in three days.

  “It is the end, Mac,” he told the dour Scotsman.

  “Not it! Atlas will come again,” MacDougall retorted.

  At the pay-counter Mayne sat with the accounts and the made-out cheques before him. It was two o’clock, and all but those men then being brought in by MacDougall were outside waiting to be called. The spring sun poured its warmth on the iron roof of the building, heating the interior, but Mayne felt as cold as stone. He had refused to delegate the final act to Feng, who had offered to perform it, well knowing that Mayne felt as though he was to stab to death old friends, rather than payoff the supposed enemies of his class–the workers.

  Dealing with the first five men, he spoke words of regret to them, checking the pay-cheque with the account, signing the cheque, and taking for it the signed receipt. To Gus Jackson, the machinery expert, a clever man who could repair a motor-engine, build a house, and drive the shearing machinery, he said:

  “Well, Gus, the drought has busted Atlas. It comes very hard to me to have to pay you off after eleven years’ service. I hope you will find another place quickly.”

  “I hope the drought ends soon, Mr. Mayne, and you can offer me a job again,” answered Jackson, tall, lean, efficient. “No one can carry on if it never rains, anyway.”

  To Fred Lowe:

  “I am more than sorry to part with you, Fred. I hope you will come back when the good seasons return.”

  “You’ll find me camped in the shearing shed waiting for a job one week after the drouth ends,” Fred drawled cheerfully. “We all

  ’as our ups and downs. I ain’t grousing, ’cos I’m due for a down. Hooroo, Mr. Mayne! Hope I see you soon for a job.”

  The two jackeroos, Mr. Andrews and Mr. Noyes, both fourth-year men, he paid next, smiling with forced optimism whilst wishing them good luck. Then came Todd Gray, his eyes gleaming.

  “You want to see me, Mr. Mayne?” he said, a trace of belligerency in his voice. “Yes, Todd. After all these years we have come to the parting of the roads.”

  “Who says so?” Todd demanded.

  “The Drought,” replied Mayne simply.

  “Oh, does it? I worked for Old Man Mayne through good years and bad years. I’m not taking the sack because of no bloody drouth. I don’t walk off Atlas unless I walks off behind you, Mr. Mayne, and you, Mr. Feng.”

  “There will be no more money, Todd,” Mayne said, not daring to look from the documents before him, on the top of which were Todd’s account and the cheque.

  “I ain’t exactly thinking of money, Mr. Mayne.”

  “Nor will there be any men to cook for, Todd.”

  “I ain’t thinking of cooking. I’m tired of cooking, anyway. I’m thinking of all the bits of paper what will litter Atlas up, the garden that’ll want watering, the ration sheep that’ll have to be killed,” Todd stated with emphasis. “You can stop me from camping in a hut, but you can’t stop me camping on the river bank. I got a Miner’s Right, and I’ll peg out a claim outside this office before you’ll push me off Atlas.”

  Mayne turned to Feng. His eyes were unable to meet those of his friend.

  “Are you keeping Mary?”

  “Yes, Frank, I am.”

  “Very well, Todd. You may stay on, and to hell with the brokers!”

  “Of course I’ll be staying on,” said a relieved Todd. At the door he paused, suddenly chuckling, and added: “And if the brokers come, just you leave ’em to me and Mary. Gawd ’elp ’em!”

  He vanished, and Mayne called Ten Pot Dick. Through the open window Ten Pot Dick expectorated with wonderful velocity.

  “Don’t you worry about me, boss,” he said with hoarse laughter. “I’ve carried me swag that much that I’ve got corns on me shoulders as big as plates. I ’ope you ’as luck, Mr. Mayne. I’ll be ’anging about when the drouth breaks.”

  Though his heart ached Mayne was obliged to smile. His men were leaving with courage to face a harder future even than the future he feared. They were leaving as his friends, and not because no more money could be made from their labour.

  Three days later the MacDougalls arrived, their gear and one lad stowed on the truck they owned. It was the hardest parting of all. There we
re tears in Mrs. MacDougall’s eyes when, the Atlas cheque in MacDougall’s pocket, Feng entertained them and Mayne at tea in his bungalow.

  “I don’t know what we’ll do or where we’ll go,” she said when about to leave.

  “Write sometimes, Mrs. Mac, and when conditions improve I will let you know, and you might like to come back,” Mayne said. So long, Mac, and the best of luck!”

  “So long!” was all MacDougall said before releasing the engine-clutch.

  Atlas seemed deserted from then on. Tom Mace received permission to gather the wool from dead carcasses, thus being provided with a living for months to come. Todd became Mayne’s companion on the incessant tours round the windmills that raised water for the sheep, most of which charged the car with loud baaings, now hungrily demanding the maize that never appeared.

  Mr. Rowland Smythe came to Atlas. He went through the books, checking Feng’s balance-sheet, which revealed a total indebtedness to all creditors of fifty-two thousand pounds.

  “Well, Frank, it is easy to be wise after the event,” he said before he left. “You know now how you failed. You believed the drought was ended several times when it was only just starting. That’s not your fault. Where you deserve censure is in not starting to fight the drought a year earlier than you did. Still, you’ll come again, Frank. So will Atlas. Carry on, lad! I’ll try to capitalize the debt, and you’ll pay the interest. Between us we’ll keep Boynton and Reynolds at bay.”

  CHAPTER XXI

  CONFIDENCES

  I

  DAILY the sun swung higher from the north. Cool weather periods alternated with hot, but with the advance of summer the cool periods almost vanished.

  Central Australia was like a dust-heap stretching east from Mount Sturt to Roma in Queensland, and south almost to the coast. Over the western half of New South Wales, the north-west of Victoria, and the northern half of South Australia conditions had not been so bad since the drought of 1900-02. Hundreds of miles bore not a blade of grass or wisp of herbage on the rippled sand and cracked, iron-hard flats. The trees that had lived for a century were dying with dreadful slowness.

  The equinoctial gales strengthening from the north, in veering westward swept to the east violent dust-storms which blacked out the sun on two occasions, creating pitch-darkness at noonday.

  Frank Mayne had now become a working manager for Messrs. Boynton and Reynolds, assisted by one man only, the indomitable Todd Gray. The interest Mayne took in the remnant of the Atlas sheep was much more than was actually required of him. The wool brokers had said: “Let the sheep take their chance”; but Mayne was too good a sheepman, deep in the heart of him, not to do all he could to prolong the lives of the survivors.

  Tin Tin also was now feeling the effects of the many rainless months; but Leeson, the manager, was a careful man, backed by a shrewd woman, and, unlike Atlas, Tin Tin had not been drained of its lifeblood–money reserve..

  On her return journey from Menindee one night, Ann Shelley’s car, which had been running perfectly, suddenly lost power and finally stopped in a way a car does when the petrol supply gives out. That was peculiar, because the twelve-gallon tank had been filled at Menindee. From a door-pocket she took a torch, and a cursory examination of the carburettor decided the matter. The engine was not getting petrol.

  Quite efficiently this independent woman ran over the whole feed system back to the tank, and there she found that a portion of a branch or stick, sun-baked to the hardness of metal, had been driven up by the wheels against the tank, puncturing it. There was nothing else to do but walk on to Atlas, about two miles, and from Ethel Mayne seek shelter for the night. And, somehow, the prospect of receiving hospitality from Ethel was not alluring.

  Switching off the car-lights, and carrying with her the torch in case of need, Ann Shelley set off on the unwanted walk, now and then pressing the torch-button to light her way over deep water-gutters and river billabongs. It was half-past eight when she left the car, and a quarter-past nine when she crossed the bridge between the men’s quarters and the homestead.

  There were no lights in the men’s quarter. From them came no sound of men’s laughter, of their accordions or mouth-organs. Of course she knew the plight of Atlas, knew that Mayne had been forced to payoff his hands. The faint, ghostly outlines of the deserted buildings saddened her. That day, on her way from Menindee, she had passed the deserted homesteads of two once prosperous settlers. The light in Feng’s sitting-room was the first she saw to welcome her, and she obeyed the impulse to visit him before turning in at the homestead gate.

  Two dogs chained to their kennels in a corner of the fence enclosing the bungalow barked as though they realized it was not late enough to bark with vigour. Feng’s front door was wide open, as well as the french windows, which were uncurtained. Thinking to give Feng a surprise, Ann Shelley trod the veranda softly, reached the windows, and stepped in. And then she held her breath.

  Feng Ching-wei was seated with his back to her. She could see the dark crown of his head above the top of the low easy chair. He was facing the opposite wall, where two curtains hanging from a portière had been pulled aside, and there was revealed in the brilliant light a portrait of herself, Ann Shelley.

  There was the portrait Feng so often had said he had destroyed, a portrait that so much attracted her that unconsciously she crept nearer to it. Why had he lied about this picture? Why had he spent time in making another of her, so as to keep this one? The one he had given her, the one she valued so much, was an excellent piece of work; yet, in comparison with that she now examined, it was as the work of a pavement artist to that of a Royal Academician. The face was flushed, the lips just a little parted, revealing a fraction of the pearl-white teeth. But it was the eyes that held Ann Shelley. They were wide and sea-grey and misty, and yet the unshed tears, instead of masking the soul beyond, revealed it plainly for all to see. The soul behind those painted eyes, amazed, ecstatic, ablaze with love: the eyes so misty, so full of longing love, full unmistakably of the love-light. And, since Feng never had seen that light in the eyes of the sitter, he had painted it there with the genius of his imagination.

  Quite suddenly she knew–knew Feng’s secret love for her–and found herself wanting to turn and run from the room, yet also to creep closer to him who loved so hopelessly and console him for the friend always he had been. Her body moved without conscious volition. He heard the rustle of her dress, and was at once on his feet facing her. For perhaps one full second she looked into the man’s unmasked face, before the black eyes blinked, became mere slits, and the mask again was in place.

  “You gave me quite a start, Ann,” he said, smiling. “I crept in for that purpose,” she told him a little breathlessly.

  “You should not look into the forbidden chamber when Bluebeard is at home,” he chided her gently, neither anger nor embarrassment in his voice. “I hope you like my new picture of you.

  I was admiring my own work when you surprised me.”

  The man’s control was beyond belief. Calm and suave and courteous, none then could have guessed the strength of his emotion. Ann walked close, stood gazing at the picture, trying to control herself as he was controlled, trying to convince herself of his outrageous impertinence in painting that message into her eyes. And standing thus, against her will there came many mental pictures of herself and Feng and Frank holding parties at Atlas and at Tin Tin, riding together, hunting together, bound each to the others in comradeship: Mayne impulsively proposing daring escapades, Feng acting as a brake, always so solicitous for her safety and comfort. Feng, the boy who was and always had been Jonathan to Mayne’s David; Feng, the man, shy, reserved, a little mysterious, invariably polished. And he loved her enough to paint and keep that picture–she knew it was the one he said he had destroyed–so that he could look at it in the quiet of lonely evenings and delude himself that the lovelight was for him.

  Swiftly she turned, holding out her hands to him, tears springing to her eyes. “Oh, Feng!
Dear old boy! I’m so sorry!” she cried softly.

  “There is really no need to be, Ann,” he told her levelly.

  “I am sorry that you have found me out. I should have been warned by the dogs. But now––”Switching off the portière lights, he drew the curtains across the picture. When again he faced her he was smiling quizzically, whilst he moved the chair he had occupied so that it faced the standard electric lamp, and drew close to it a crimson lacquered occasional table bearing cigarettes and matches.

  “Be seated, Ann. Let us smoke, and you tell me then the answer to the fiction hero’s question–To what am I indebted for the honour of this visit?”

  “You mustn’t hope, Feng,” she said wistfully. “I shall never love anyone after he went away to England.”

  He was still smiling when he pointedly offered her the cigarette-box and held a lighted match in her service. He was smiling even when he said:

  “I know, Ann, I know. But even were that not so, even if your heart were free, neither of us could ignore the difference in race which would be an unclimbable barrier between us. I love you, but you must not allow my love to hurt you. I would have given everything I possess, even life, to prevent your learning my little secret. Please, Ann, do not let us talk about it ever again.” “But, Feng––”

  “It will, I think, keep fine to-night,” he said, still smiling, but in tones both metallic and final. He rang the bell for Mary.

  2

  When Mary had departed, after setting before them a light supper, he said:

  “We will not talk about cabbages and kings, but about Frank and his wife. They are subjects that interest us both, and you and I will meet on the old and familiar neutral ground. I am in a quandary, and I hardly know how to proceed. Frank’s marriage is a failure.” “Oh!”

  “Frank’s own description of his marriage is–the oil and water which cannot mix. That, unfortunately, is an apt description, Ann. I have long known the coldness of his wife towards him. Recently I came to know her unfaithfulness to him.”