The Waterboys

by Peter Docker

  Feel for the spirit. Link to the liquidity. To melt into the water. Dissolve in it. Consciously choose it. To flow down the drain, rush through the pipes and amble into the luxury of the tank. Spread out even more. Drawn to the uppermost boundary where the sun glints on the surface.

  They haven’t enclosed the tank. It’ll evaporate like a reverse flash flood this time of year, I think. Not really think, but watch the thought drift by. I ease up into the surface and flatten out. Spreading myself thinly. Then I feel that old sun begin to heat the tiny particles at my extremities. It builds like a frenzy. Tiny bits of me race round and round until finally bursting free from my surface tension. It goes on and on until I am gathering in a little cloud above myself. Waiting for the rest of me to break free as a gas. There is no accounting system here logging the arrival of each tiny particle of spirit-flesh – I just feel I am whole. I cannot look. It is not the world of earthly faculties. It is the world of clouds. I feel myself start to drift away. To gain altitude. Up where there is already a mass of moisture building. The particles of my being spread out until I lose all notion of a solid form and become a mist. A cloud. The cloud me. My consciousness is spread wide too, like a blanket where the weaves no longer exist. The material is still all there, but loose and wide and not joined. Each tiny moist droplet in the cloud me is a complete me but cohesion can occur when we react as a group. It is the nature of things.

  The cloud me is already being sucked up by the vast open sky as the sun heads for the horizon. I am dragged straight up, then given a shove by the hot air over the land at my back, sending me racing toward the sea, leaving the red earth far behind.

  I’m being drawn out over a mighty ocean. And travelling at terrific speed. Days or years or millennia pass – or a fleeting instant, a millisecond. If there is any time here, it is in me. It is me. I am turned over and over upon myself and find myself gathering with a momentous mass of swirling moist air. We are all moving at great speed and suddenly start losing altitude. Ahead is a landmass, rising out of the blue plain of rippling ocean. Below me the sea is bubbling and boiling onto the endless sandy Nyoongar beaches. The clouds around me drop down, pulling me with them and I feel myself begin to gather together. It happens so fast I feel I might perish if I fall whole from the sky. But the instant my particles are gathered together enough to be droplets, gravity tugs me down, one drop at a time. I rain down, coming out of the afternoon sky at an angle, exhilarated by my own falling.

  Below me there is a wooden boat. A cutter and gig. There are fourteen men in the cutter. Djenga all. All wearing side arms. The bayonets on the muskets are like a small forest of steel cacti. Yet they move across the ocean with the movement of the boat. Burnham wood. Burnham steel. Burn em clean. The oars dip and pull. The marines look afraid. There are two men at the stern. One is from the ship’s company. The other blurry shape is a lieutenant in the Royal Marines. Onto this shape I fall. Into this shape I fall. Slapping into the flesh, into myself, as I become human.

  Captain Fremantle sits in the bow. I know it is him. I have the knowledge of this Royal Marine lieutenant body that I’ve fallen into. I have his history. Does he have mine?

  I blink against the rain. I look forward at Fremantle’s back. The man next to me speaks.

  ‘Bloody storm came from nowhere, sir!’

  I look up. Not only has the storm come from nowhere but it seems to be local to us. We have our own little dark cloud.

  Them old Countrymen are already beginning their Welcome to Country for us. Beginning their mystery.

  On the shore we can see a big mob of Countrymen, each having about six spears, which they carry in one hand, holding them vertical, with the woomera in the throwing hand. The mob are all painted in distinctive line designs, with white, red, and yellow ochre. As we watch, they drop all but one spear, and shake out into a formation. Other Countrymen are tapping sticks. They all start to sing now, and do this swaying dance. Then they are fitting their spears and stamping down the beach. They raise their spears and fit them to their woomeras like they will throw them straight at us in the culmination of the dance. They lean back into it in the dance like it’s going to be a big throw, and then at the very last moment they drop their spears down, hooting and laughing, and then a final stamp-out dance.

  Captain Fremantle gives me another look. Did you see that?

  Yeah, I say, just with my eyes.

  Fremantle is dressed in his finest. Dressed for a ceremony. He’s gonna get that all right. We’re already well into it.

  ‘Trim that sail! Into the river, helmsman!’ Captain Fremantle slings back over his shoulder. ‘We’ll land down the river!’ His eyes do not leave the large mob on the beach. There are many senior Countrymen there.

  The nose of the boat swings away from the beach and into the mouth of the Darbal Yaragan. The group of Countrymen follow our progress by walking along the beach. They move at a leisurely pace. No one is in a hurry.

  The wind from our own little storm fills out the sail and pushes us along hard. The boat is beginning to go in beyond the land when we slam into the limestone reef guarding the entrance. The marines at the front of the cutter are hurled into the drink, and the oarsmen and the rest of us are thrown onto the deck. There is a moment of panic from the hands in the water before they realise that they can stand. On the seaward side of the reef it is chest-deep. I go to get to my feet when a big wave crashes over us. The boat is upended and this time we all end up in the water. Under I go, feeling the texture of the salt water all around me, sliding over my just-solid flesh. I come out of the water to the extraordinary sight of dozens of Countrymen all around us in the water, grabbing blokes and getting them to their feet and securing the boat. And that’s how we come ashore for the first time: in disarray, and helped by Countrymen.

  Captain Fremantle is telling the men to grab their now useless weapons, and that he wants his trading chest recovered. He looks over to me, as though expecting me to be involved in this. I’m not confident yet, here and yet not here. I wade to the shore with the other marines.

  We come out of the water slowly. There are now over a hundred armed Countrymen on the beach. They wander down to us.

  Captain Fremantle must’ve swallowed some water. He’s still spluttering as he makes his way out of the water. The marines and sailors are shaken by the ordeal. No one is quite themselves. The light around us seems different. The marines and sailors are soaked and so are their weapons and spare gunpowder.

  Fremantle recovers his lungs and turns to me. ‘Form the men up, Mister Conway.’

  The use of my name baptises me and hurtles me fully into the dream. Wakes me up – spewed up by history at this exact moment. I know I’m really here. History can be whatever it wants to be; can travel any path, old or new.

  ‘Company, fall in!’ comes my Royal Marine’s voice from nowhere.

  The marines fall in and stand to attention, with the sailors behind. A couple of marines are missing boots, and most are missing their hats. Captain Fremantle casts an eye over his troops, and then looks to me.

  ‘I can only hope they won’t be too terrified of our power,’ he remarks drily.

  I look back at him. I feel like laughing.

  The Royal Marine part of me wants to question the wisdom of proceeding. It is too late in the day and we are far too few in number to be able to account for ourselves if there is trouble. We are within cannon range but I doubt it will be any consolation to us if we are attacked. The Royal Marine thoughts in my mind are like having a running commentary going on underneath in another language. I am him and yet still me. It’s good to hear them, though; it means I’m going deeper here.

  We both turn back to face the Countrymen. This young fulla with bright eyes comes to the fore. He speaks to us in rapid-fire language.

  This young man, his paint-up – with his nose-bone, the layered scarring on his muscular torso and arms – transfixes Captain Fremantle.

  ‘Do you suppose he is a king or a chie
f, Mister Conway?’

  I shake my head, indicate with my lips the older men standing up the back. Fremantle follows my gesture and sees the old Countrymen standing there. Then his head snaps back to me. Now he’s wondering who I am, where I got that gesture language from. He must be open to this. The past is the future. Is now. All woven together.

  Fremantle turns back and repeats my gesture to the bright-eyed young fulla who spoke. The younger Countrymen part slowly to reveal the old fullas. Fremantle gives me another little look: the gesture worked.

  The senior Countrymen get their first good look at us Djenga. They only look for a moment before they all burst out laughing.

  We are struck catatonic by this wave of mirth.

  Captain Fremantle is the first one to join in. Then I go up.

  The whole group of painted Countrymen with spears are laughing too.

  This wave of laughter washes away any remaining formality in us.

  Look at this funny little army of invaders with hats that won’t stay on and weapons that don’t work. Captain Fremantle starts taking off his soaking wet dress uniform. I follow. We get our jackets and shirts off.

  Now a collective ‘Oooh’ comes from the Countrymen.

  Our paleness is a shock to them. I can say for myself that their blackness and scarring are a shock to me, the Royal Marine me. They all look fit and strong and would surely make formidable adversaries. The scars are in various patterns, groupings on the chest and arms, each scar at least half an inch thick, in lots of sixes slanting diagonally across chest muscles, and others on the upper arms running down the limbs. Each man has a bone threaded through his nose. It is an impressive sight.

  Fremantle turns to me. There is a crazy look in his eye. He smiles his unexpected smile at me.

  These old Countrymen indicate for us to go with them.

  Fremantle grips his still-sheathed sword and follows them. I do the same.

  ‘Come on you lot, stick together,’ I throw over my shoulder.

  The marines grab up their useless wet weapons and follow us, not marching or anything, just ambling behind us as though the attitude of the young Countrymen on the beach is already getting to them: that unlikely mixture of discipline and freedom. We are pressed-ganged into the former with little hope for the latter. They seem to have easy and open access to both.

  The marines walk in a group. They are nervous. Most of them look certain that soon we will all be dead. Especially with Captain Fremantle and me acting so strangely.

  The Countrymen stare at us intently. As we move through them, quite a few of them reach out and touch us.

  We come up to these three old Countrymen. Their beards are huge; their bodies are rivers of shining scar tissue. The Countryman in the centre is older. He is slightly shorter than the other two and his beard covers most of his chest. He has a prominent bump on his forehead. He looks at Fremantle. At him. Around him. Through him. Like he’s measuring the way his atmosphere accepts the Djenga aura.

  When he speaks, his language is so foreign to us that it is a few moments before we realise his mouth is making speech.

  ‘Ngullak nyinniny kooralong koora ngullak noitj nidja Nyoongar Boodjar.’

  Then I almost stagger backwards as something pierces the veil of my mind, and his voice is right inside my head. And inside my head, I understand him perfectly well.

  (‘From the beginning of time to the end, this is Nyoongar Country.’)

  I look to Fremantle. I see from his wild eyes that he is hearing this too.

  ‘Ngalla djoorapiny maambart boodjar ngallak bala maambart quop ngalla koort djoorapiny nidja ngalla mia mia nyinniny Nyoongar Boodjar.’

  (‘We respect the earth our mother, and understand that we belong to her – she does not belong to us. In all her beauty, we find comfort, wellbeing and life that creates a home for everyone that has become a keeper of Nyoongar Country.’)

  Fremantle and I are held in the spell of this man. It is the same feeling of having strong firm hands on our shoulders.

  ‘Djinaginy katatjin djoorapiny nidja weern Nyoongar Boodjar ngalla mia mia boorda.’

  (‘Look, listen, understand and embrace all the elements of Nyoongar Country that is forever our home.’)

  Fremantle is momentarily struck dumb. Lost for words.

  I want to help him. Our great hero. A visionary. A prophet for our people. But I do not know how to respond to this welcome from the old man with the prominent bump on his head, with his obvious mantle of power. Fremantle should be responding with official words, as the representative of His Majesty’s great authority. He doesn’t speak. Already he is making different decisions.

  The old Countryman turns his attention solely on me. As his aura touches mine he flinches. He looks up at me and smiles. He steps in closer to me and I look down. He reaches out with his left forefinger, not pointed at me, but curled curiously back towards himself, and touches my chest with the rounded knuckle joint. His curled knuckle goes into my flesh as if it were water. When he withdraws it, it is wet. He sniffs the water and nods his head. He gives me his tiny smile like a throwaway gift and turns to talk to the other Countrymen.

  They look at me and nod. Then they turn and walk. The Countrymen behind indicate for us all to follow them. We were going to anyway.

  We travel through low sandhills and scrub by the river until we come to an open flat area only ten metres or so from the river’s edge. It has been flattened by thousands of bare feet over thousands of years. The old Countrymen get to lighting a fire and the younger ones settle in to the earth all around us.

  ‘What’s happening, Mister Conway?’

  I turn to Fremantle. He already looks different. Many said he shouldn’t have taken on this assignment. That he was a changed man since the Portugal campaign. But he had to. He left London in disgrace. And now here he is, sitting with the Darbal Yaragan mob on the other side of the world to the Empire he once believed in. And I recognise that look in his eye. Even here where part of me has a history that is not mine I can still see it. Reminds me of someone.

  Already all around us there is a stirring in the spirit world. These old Countrymen are building up a big mystery now.

  Fremantle is sitting by the fire. The old Countrymen are singing. The next outer circle of Countrymen are on their feet and dancing. Singing and moving. And they are pressed close to us and to the old Countrymen. They travel around us, stamping out that sacred circle.

  The old Countrymen sing a different song back to them. An older song. A secret song. They tap sticks to keep their rhythm. Beyond the circle of stamping Countrymen, there are other circles dancing and moving around them. Moving, stamping, singing.

  The old Countrymen suddenly look up and straight at me. The old Countryman with the big wide beard and prominent forehead bump reaches out to me. They keep singing. Around us dance the Countrymen and the Spirits of the Country. His hand grows as it reaches around my face, then my whole body is scooped up and held in the palm of his hand. As soon as I feel the cool smooth dryness of his flesh, I stiffen, and all moisture is instantaneously drawn from my body. I start to crumble. Those fingers close in and crush me. Crush me until I crumple in on myself and crumble into a pile of dust. A pile of deep golden-red dust. But not dust. Tiny crystal shards, like soft glass. Balga sap.

  Fremantle doesn’t even notice. I’m a pile of grass tree sap dried and crushed and being held in an old Countryman’s hand, and he doesn’t notice.

  The hand suddenly flicks itself and I’m flung through the air – spreading and arranging myself, biggest granules back to the tiniest of fragments, dusty fingerlings reaching out for the flames. I hang in the evening air, suspended in time, defying the pull of the earth, spread-eagled and glittering red-gold – then I slam into the heat of the fire. I explode outwards into a shower of sparks and up and out as sweet, thick, grey-blue smoke.

  As smoke, I play over the bodies and spirits of the old Countrymen and Fremantle – and then I’m gone, floating in a wh
ite haze above their heads, looking down on the mystery. The old Countrymen grin up at the smoke-me as the song swirls and dances all around them.

  Twelve: Dispersing the Natives

  I’m swimming in morning sunshine. It comes through the protective dome above me with an orange tinge. It’s like those glorious mornings just after the DOz has moved away, and we have the promise of three months of freedom light ahead of us.

  I’m sitting in the back of a vehicle. I cast around to see three other desert cruisers. I’m handcuffed to the vehicle. There is a large wad bound to the side of my head with bandages. I can’t move my hands to touch it. It feels like I’ve got a football gaffer-taped onto the side of my head. The wound beneath the wadding desperately wants to be scratched. Must be starting to heal. How long have I been under?

  I’m looking at Jack’s back.

  ‘Jack! Jack? That you?’

  Jack spins to look at me. ‘G’day mate.’

  ‘I’m not ya fucken mate!’ I say – but he predicts it and joins in to say it with me – and then laughs.

  ‘Yes you are,’ he confirms after his laugh.

  ‘Is this a planned conversation?’

  ‘I said, “You are my fucken mate.”’

  ‘It is planned.’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  ‘Do you rehearse out loud?’

  ‘Where are we, Conman?’

  ‘Desert.’

  Jack turns back around to face away from me. I see that we are looking at a small hill ridged with a line of twisted trees. I know those trees. Just through the trees we can see a wisp of smoke from a fire in the valley we can’t see. Jack hears my intake of breath. He will’ve been listening for it. My sharp intake which is me saying, ‘Noooo!’

  ‘Yeeees, mate. You told us how to get here.’

  He turns back to face the front and says something into his headset.

  The cruiser lurches forward and picks up speed quickly. We race toward the small opening in the twisted trees at the southern lip of the hill.