by Gloria Bevan
Porridge ... porridge. She discovered a huge bag of rolled oats and began searching for printed directions, but there were none to be seen. Frantically she attempted to work out quantities in her mind. Say one cup of meal to each four men, and there were twelve men. It was no use, her brain simply refused to function efficiently today. She tipped a quantity of oatmeal into boiling water and hoped for the best.
How many chops would the gang eat for breakfast? She settled for three per man. Surely, though, that would mean a second frying pan. Was there a second pan? At last the chops sizzled merrily on the range, the porridge bubbling alongside. Thank heaven for the convenience of cut bread from the deep freeze—she could scarcely go wrong with that! She found butter, jam and honey and was placing cutlery on the table when she became aware of an ominous smell of burning. Oh no! She ran towards the range, but it was too late. No use worrying, the porridge would have to do, for there was no time to start over again.
She was making tea when the gang crowded in at the door. Boiling water splashed down on her hand, but she ignored the sudden smarting pain as a huge Maori man with the smiling relaxed manner of his race paused beside her. “Morning, miss. Breakfast ready yet?”
Angela raised a flushed face. “Ready and waiting!”
They took their places around the table, burly men with skins sunburned almost to the colour of mahogany and powerful muscles rippling beneath their black sweat-shirts.
By some miracle the chops were cooked in time. Indeed they had a lot of singed black edges. But the gang goodnaturedly got down to the business of eating and made no complaints, not even as they consumed the lumpy burned porridge.
Angela was pouring tea into thick china cups when a pleasant voice beside her said, “I’ll pour if you like,” and she looked up to meet soft brown eyes. A bearded young man took the heavy teapot from her grasp. “Better put some burn cream on your hand,” he advised, “it’s up there in the first aid box above your head.”
“Thanks, I will.” Swiftly smearing on the cream, she hurried towards the toaster. It seemed that no matter how many pieces of toast jumped up there was never enough for everyone.
“There’s another toaster in the cupboard!” Her helper whipped the toaster into view and she threw him a grateful smile.
Presently the gang of shearers went out, smiling and cheerful, just as though they had enjoyed an enjoyable sustaining breakfast instead of lumpy porridge and burned chops. Angela could have wept with disappointment, only there was no time for anything but getting on with the job. Detergent frothing in hot water, greasy dishes slipped into the sink.
All at once she remembered the scones that must be ready for ten o’clock smoko. Scones ... hadn’t there been a recipe book in one of the drawers? She got it out and began measuring out quantities of flour into a great basin. Thank heaven the switches she had turned had already heated the oven. Never had she handled such a mass of dough, but at last she rolled it out and put the cut-up pieces on oven trays. As she slid the trays into the oven her arm brushed the hot surface. Another burn, deeper than the earlier one, seared her arm, but she ignored it. The important thing was that she had made the scones. Could it be the large quantity of mixture, she wondered a little later, that made the scones so utterly flat? Heavens, she’d forgotten to add baking powder! Would the gang be too hungry to notice? She knew that any attempt to make a second batch would in her present state of haste and confusion result only in her doing something even more stupid. So she concentrated instead on the preparation of sandwiches, filling bread slices with thick pieces of meat, pink salmon, crisp lettuce.
It was incredible how time could fly by so swiftly, for when she glanced towards the clock she found it was time to prepare food to take to the shed for morning smoko. Swiftly she began to transfer piles of sandwiches and buttered scones to the box, adding tea, sugar, milk, mugs. At length she staggered down the steps and took the path that led past the penned sheep held in readiness for shearing.
As she neared the wide-open doors a man’s head appeared at a window opening and she heard a sudden shout, something that sounded like “DUCKS ON THE POND!” To Angela it made no sense, but she had no time to ponder the matter now.
Dust was blowing in from the roadway as she stepped inside, making her way carefully over the black and white dog sprawled across the entrance. Heat met her in a wave as she entered the scene of ceaseless activity. The air was full of the smell of fleeces as the shearers, stripped to the waist, with perspiration running down their tanned necks, bent low over the sheep from which they were shearing the thick creamy wool. Her swift glance around the big high-raftered room took in a worker who was tossing fleeces into the press, another man was leaping up and down ramming wool into place before putting the press on. The Maori rouseabout who had spoken to her this morning at breakfast was busy with a long broom sweeping up the endless litter of wool pieces on the oil-slippery floor. At that moment there was a cry of “sheepo!” and another sheep was brought in from the outside pen.
Glancing around her in search of the young man with the black beard who had been so helpful this morning, Angela saw that he was engaged in sewing up the filled bales and marking each one with the name Waikare in black stencil. From his neat appearance and the manner of his speech she would have taken him for a city man, yet here he was working to the clock every bit as hard as the rest of the gang.
Impressions chased one another through her mind, the noise of the machines, the oppressive heat, the fleeces piled in towering heaps on the floor. Then suddenly the machines were switched off and in the silence the bearded young man hurried forward and took the heavy box from her. Someone else plugged in the electric jug. Men wiped sweating shoulders with towels hanging on the door, then dropped down to take a seat on the filled bales. With the speed of long practice the tea was made and brewed and the gang thirstily gulped down the hot strong liquid.
Angela was kept busy pouring endless cups of tea, for it seemed that these men had an endless capacity for liquid. No wonder, working at speed in the heat of the shed. She realised the dark young man with the steadfast eyes had paused beside her. “How’s the burn?”
“Burn?” She had forgotten such a trivial matter. “Oh, it’s all right, I guess.”
“It doesn’t look all right.” His gaze was on the red weal running up the soft skin of her arm.
“Oh, that? That’s another one from the stove.”
“Better put a dressing on it.”
“I will when I get time.”
Time ... The men were stubbing out cigarettes and moving back towards the stands and press. The next moment the machines were switched on and a cry of “Sheepo!” went up to the man whose job it was to bring in the sheep from the pen.
Angela picked up the box that was now so much lighter than when she arrived in the shed and threading her way between the workers already busy at their tasks, made her way to the kitchen. It wasn’t until she was back in the kitchen that she realised she hadn’t yet finished washing the breakfast dishes, and lunch time loomed ahead. Lunch that was to consist of salad and cold meat. Cold meat! And she hadn’t yet put it on to roast!
Frantically she gazed at the clock. The oven was already hot, thanks to her scone-making. Swiftly she found a baking dish, placed the massive joint in it and soon a sizzling sound from the oven told her that all was not yet lost after all. Salads ... Long before she had finished cutting up the piles of lettuces and tomatoes her hands were stiff from the effort of holding a knife. Of all the painfully slow tasks, and when every moment was precious. It would help a lot if her fingers weren’t so unsteady.
In the end she only just got the salads prepared in time before the gang arrived. The roast was barely cold, but with lashings of bread and butter at least it was a meal. Luckily the shearers made no criticism. Perhaps they were waiting in the hope that her cooking would improve with practice.
As the last man hurried out of the doorway Angela poured a cup of cold tea for herself
and stared at the remains of the roast congealed in the fat and the mountain of greasy dishes. Somehow she would have to wash them before dinner time but how was she to find time for cooking and washing up? Wearily she pushed the damp hair back from her face. With only one thought in her mind—stew ... more mutton ... she began slicing up the vast quantities of meat, throwing in vegetables. No time to cut anything finely, they could think themselves lucky to get it. At that moment the knife slipped, cutting across a finger. It was only a small cut, but blood spurted out and she paused to wrap a strip of plaster around it.
Now she was progressing even slower. The big pots of stew were on the stove at last and she began washing piles of dishes. It seemed to take an age. Her clothes were sticking to her. She wouldn’t wear jeans again in the shed, but something brief and cool. As the last dish was put away she glanced at the clock. Afternoon smoko was in thirty minutes. It just couldn’t be possible ... where had the time gone? All at once it was all too much. She couldn’t go on. The red weal on her arm was beginning to throb, but it was too late now to treat it, too late for anything. Tears coursed down her hot cheeks and she dashed them away with the back of her hand.
“How are you making out down here?” enquired a hatefully amused voice. She looked up to see Mark Hillyer standing in the doorway, an exquisitely groomed Susan at his side. The oppressive heat of the day didn’t appear to make either of them look a total wreck, but then, Angela thought viciously, they hadn’t been forced to spend hour after hour in this hot kitchen.
“All right.” Horrified, she saw a tear splash down on to the chopping board. Right at that moment she would have given a year of her life for a handkerchief. Instead she could only sniff forlornly and wipe her eyes with her sleeve. “It’s the onions ... I’ve been cutting them for the stew.”
Susan had moved to a wall mirror, a perfectly manicured hand raised to smooth pageboy-styled hair. “You’d think,” she murmured carelessly, “that she’d be used to onions by this time. You know, you’re lucky,” she observed to Angela in her slightly patronising tone, “to have a place like this to work in. You should see some of the kitchens I’ve been in where the shearer’s cook has to work. No ventilation, stoves that burn everything in sight, old wooden sink benches. Not like this.”
They can have it, Angela murmured rebelliously under her breath.
Mark, after a sharp glance in her direction, went to inspect the contents of the big freezer. “Got all you need for dinner tonight?”
“Y-yes,” she gulped.
“Look,” he came to stand beside her, “that’s a nasty burn on your arm. Better do something about it.”
“I meant to.”
He was reaching up to a shelf and taking down the first aid box. “Just a dressing to keep it clean.” The blister had broken, leaving a raw area. He was probably thinking of his shearers and hygiene rather than her, but she let him put the dressing over the burn and had to admit that it felt a lot easier.
They only stayed a few minutes longer. Mark said, “Mustn’t hold up the cook.”
Alone once again Angela put a hand to her flushed forehead. Sandwiches, scones—the words beat an endless refrain in her distraught mind. By some lucky accident of calculation of the flour, sufficient scones remained, but sandwiches were another matter, unfortunately. Furiously spreading butter on to slices of bread, she thought how satisfying it would be to walk out of this stiflingly hot shed and never come back. But she must see it through for today at least. One thing, after the visit of the other two she no longer had any desire to weep, she was just plain angry!
“Hey, miss, you needing a hand around here?” A short tubby man with a shock of spiky white hair, merry blue eyes and weatherbeaten cheeks stood in the open doorway. His slacks might be tied around the waist with a piece of rope and his shirt seen better days, but to Angela at that moment he was the day’s miracle and the Angel Gabriel rolled into one.
“Oh yes, I do!” she breathed.
The stranger gave a deep chuckle.
“Thought you might. Saw you coming in with the boss yesterday. Looks like a new chum to me, I says to myself. That girl’s no shearers’ cook as a rule, no sir! Know what I’m talking about, you see, girl. These days I’m the gardener and do-anything man around the place, but years ago I used to do the round of the stations cooking for shearing gangs on the big stations all over the country. No fancy grub, mind you, just plain good food, but never heard no complaints on that score!”
“They didn’t complain about mine,” Angela said ruefully, “but I bet they thought a lot!”
“Not them! Those blokes are too hungry to be fussy. But it sure does keep you going, having to have everything ready bang-on.” He was at the range, lifting lids of pots and peering into the simmering stew. “Smells pretty good. Tell you what, you get on with the afternoon smoko stuff and I’ll see about the duff.”
The duff! Heavens, she hadn’t even given it a thought.
“But doesn’t a steamed pudding take ages to cook?”
He grinned, looking more cheerful and heartwarming than ever Angela thought. “She’ll be right. Whip it up in no time at all! Where’s the flour bin? This it? Good, away we go!” He had rolled up his shirtsleeves and was taking a large basin from a cupboard. “We’ll give ’em jam roly-poly, that’ll keep them happy. Just leave it to me, girl!”
“Oh, thank you! If you only knew what it means to me today—”
“Go on with you! I’d do more than that for a pretty girl like you.”
“This is enough for me, Mr.—”
“Rusty it is. On account of the colour of my hair used to be. Doesn’t fit so well now.” He chuckled. “Got some baking powder around here?”
Angela thought that she had never been so pleased to see anyone as this Father Christmas-like little man with the beetling white eyebrows and twinkling eyes, who was experienced in the arduous and demanding duties she had so rashly taken on. He provided too a moral support. Now that she no longer had to face the responsibility of it all she felt a lift of her spirits. Her hands ceased to tremble and the sandwiches were made faster because of it. By the time she had packed the box of food, Rusty had his roly-poly bubbling merrily in a big black dixie on the stove.
“Give me that, girl!” He took the box from her and thankfully she watched him hurry away. He might be elderly, but he was spry and alert.
While he was gone she began peeling potatoes ... and potatoes ... and potatoes. She was still at the task when he returned and gently took the peeler from her. “Down tools for a while. Pour yourself a cuppa—do you good.”
Angela sank down on a stool, surprised at the utter weariness that washed over her. “Rusty, will you be here for dinner tonight?”
“Sure I will. Glad to help. Tomorrow too and the next day. Two heads are better than one, they say, and that goes for hands too!”
Presently they did the dishes together. He washed and she dried. “I remember one time when I was cooking at a station down south and the flour ran out...” The friendly voice seemed to penetrate the waves of tiredness.
Miraculously dinner was on the table when the men, freshly showered, filed in at the door and seated themselves. They all seemed to know Rusty and chaffed him unmercifully throughout the meal. He took it all in good part and gave as good as he got. The stew Angela had made couldn’t have been too bad, for it was consumed down to the last slice of onion and Rusty’s roly-poly went down with gusto in spite of the many derogatory remarks made regarding his cooking prowess.
When at last the men left the room the young man with the beard lingered,, There was a note of compassion in his voice as he took in Angela’s wan appearance. “You’re looking very fagged. Miss Twentyman. Why don’t you sit down and take it easy while Rusty and I cope with the dish-washing?”
“No, it’s good of you to offer, but I’m all right.” She remembered the long twelve-hour working day ahead of him too tomorrow and summoned a wavering smile. “If I get really desperate I’
ll call on you for help.”
“That’s a promise!” He threw her a smile as he went out. A smile and something else, the glance of warm interest that every Woman recognises. It was a pity, Angela mused, that tonight she was too tired to care.
During the following days of endless toil and frantic effort to catch up with flying minutes, she lost count of everything but the task of the moment and food, food, food. After the first nightmare day of heat and weariness she discarded jeans for a short cotton shift, sleeveless and cut low at the neck. Even then there were times, especially in the afternoons, when the heat in the kitchen became all but unbearable. Life had narrowed down to mountains of potatoes to be peeled, stacks of mutton-smeared plates and those everlasting sandwiches!
Had it not been for Rusty’s timely help she couldn’t have managed for even one more day. His cheerful comforting presence quietened her nervous apprehension when her gaze flew fearfully to the clock. Somehow without fuss or bother the small elderly man contrived to conjure up colossal “plum duffs” and stews and roasts, leaving Angela to bake the huge batches of scones and fill endless sandwiches. At the end of the day when the shearing gang had retired to their quarters she and Rusty would attack the dishes. After that she was too tired to think of anything but a shower and resting her aching limbs until it became time for the frantic rush to begin all over again.
Vaguely she was aware of the young man the others called John, and his friendly smile. She had a feeling he would have liked to help her, but for him too time was all too short. Nevertheless there were times during the hectic days when glancing up from her task at the sink bench she would find him regarding her, a look of sympathy lighting the dark eyes. Once he whispered to her under cover of the general conversation going on around them, “Tell me, what are your plans? Are you going on somewhere else with the gang too?”