Albert of Adelaide

by Howard Anderson

  The Ponsby Station Fusiliers were milling around where TJ had parted company with Albert. They were searching the ground and babbling to one another. Albert was sure they were looking for tracks, and if the light hadn’t been failing they would have already found what they were looking for.

  Up close the Fusiliers were not particularly impressive. O’Hanlin had on a hussar’s jacket two sizes too big for him and a shako on his head that kept slipping onto his glasses. He was using an artillery sword to direct the search. The body of the troop consisted of a dozen kangaroos and rock wallabies, all wearing bits and pieces of old uniforms. They were armed with a varied collection of muskets and pistols with which they seemed to have only a passing familiarity.

  One of the rock wallabies found what he thought was a track, which immediately started an argument as to what kind of track it was and who might have made it. The Fusiliers all gathered around the track to offer an opinion. Before a definitive answer was arrived at, the meeting was interrupted by the boom of the Enfield. A rifle ball hummed over the heads of the Fusiliers, and Albert could see powder smoke drifting out of the stand of gum trees.

  After a moment of confusion, the Fusiliers fired a ragged volley at the trees and charged toward TJ’s position, with O’Hanlin in the lead waving his sword. Albert watched for the ten minutes it took them to reach the tree line and then slid back down the termite mound to where Roger and Alvin were lying.

  Roger had opened his eyes, and Alvin was giving him some water from the canteen. Albert looked over at Roger. “How do you feel?”

  Roger raised his head. “I need a drink really bad, Albert.”

  “Not now, Roger.”

  Albert crawled back up on the base of the termite mound. He watched the stand of trees, but he couldn’t see any movement. After a few minutes he looked behind him. Except for some patches of brush, it was a clear run to the creekbed, and Albert felt he wouldn’t have any trouble getting there, even in the dark.

  Albert waited on the mound until the twilight turned to darkness. Roger and Alvin were sitting quietly behind him, and it looked like they could travel when the time came. Albert was starting to crawl down from the mound when he noticed lights coming from the gum trees. The lights flickered from behind the trees, and the smell of campfires drifted across the termite mound.

  Someone had set up camp in the grove of trees, and it was a safe bet that that someone wasn’t TJ. He and Albert hadn’t started a fire since they’d left the water hole. Assuming that TJ was still alive, any rendezvous with him in the grove that night was now impossible. Albert had a choice: he could head back out into the flats, circle around the trees, and pick up the trail along the base of the hills; or he could take Roger and Alvin to the dry creek. Once in the creekbed, he could leave the bandicoots long enough to search for TJ.

  Albert looked out across the flats and thought he saw movement near one of the termite mounds. It was dark, but there was enough starlight to outline the mounds against the sky. Albert kept watching and soon saw another shadow move among the mounds in the direction of the grove of trees. The wind was still coming from the direction of the campfires, and it wouldn’t carry any smell of Albert or the bandicoots to where he could see movement. Albert lay absolutely still and waited.

  The moving outlines finally got between Albert and the gum trees, and the wind carried a new smell in Albert’s direction. It was the smell of dog, mixed with the smell of the wood smoke from the campfires. It was the second time that Albert had smelled dingoes from close up, and this time he had better control of his emotions. The spurs on his hind legs still extended themselves, but the feelings of fear and anger were replaced by a steady calculation.

  Now he had no choice. He would have to take the bandicoots to the creekbed, then try to find TJ. Albert took another long look into the night, then slid back down the mound to Alvin and Roger.

  “Not a word, not a sound,” Albert whispered.

  Alvin and Roger nodded. They were either too tired to complain or they had gotten a smell of the dingoes. In either case, they were as subdued as Albert had ever seen them.

  Albert carefully picked up the jute bags and began walking toward the creek as quietly as he could. Roger and Alvin fell in behind him.

  Albert couldn’t see well in the dark and had to depend on his memory and sense of smell to get them there. The smell of wood smoke had become stronger and had blotted out any other smells on the night wind. Albert worried that he might walk right up on a dingo without knowing it, so he took his time. He stopped every few yards to peer into the darkness ahead of him. The hills beyond the creekbed were silhouetted by the sky and kept him going in the right direction.

  Albert reached the creek and stopped by a patch of brush. He handed Alvin and Roger the jute bags.

  “Lie down under the brush,” he whispered. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “What if you don’t come back?” Alvin whispered back.

  “Do the best you can to get back to the road.” Albert handed his pistol to Alvin and started down the creekbed toward the campfires. He knew the pistol wouldn’t do Alvin any good, but he hoped it would make him feel better.

  Albert moved slowly. The smell of smoke became stronger, and he could hear voices coming from the camp. It was the Fusiliers laughing and talking. Every so often the sound of O’Hanlin’s voice could be heard above the rest. Albert was too far away to make out what they were saying, but he was as close to the Fusiliers as he wanted to get. He turned to start back up the way he’d come when TJ whispered to him:

  “What took you so long?”

  TJ had walked up behind Albert, close enough to touch him.

  “Dingoes.”

  There was a moment of silence, then TJ murmured, “Where?”

  “They were moving across the desert toward the trees.” Albert pointed out into the blackness of the flats of Hell.

  “I didn’t think they’d get here that fast. Where are the rodents?” TJ took the bandana off his head and put it in his pocket.

  “I left them a little way up the creek.”

  “Go get them and take them up to the base of the hills as quickly as you can. Wait there and I’ll find you. Whatever you do, don’t come back this way.” TJ put his hat on and walked through the brush onto the flats.

  Albert got back to where Alvin and Roger were hiding under the brush. He took his pistol back from Alvin and made sure it wasn’t cocked. He had made a mistake by firing his pistol to break up the fight between TJ and the bandicoots. It had pinpointed their location to the Fusiliers, and he didn’t want to make the same mistake a second time.

  He got the bandicoots out of the creek and led them up to the base of the hills, high enough to be able to see the fires of the camp. They were too far away to make out individuals, but they could see movement around the fires. Occasionally, a snatch of laughter or conversation would reach them, carried on the wind.

  Albert looked back down into the creekbed and saw that it had become full of shadows moving toward the fires. Two of the shadows stopped at the clump of brush where he had hidden the bandicoots. The shadows put their noses in the air. After a moment one of the shadows moved on, but the second one began to circle the brush and then started zigzagging across the creekbed toward the hills. It stopped for a moment at the edge of the creek and put its nose in the air again. It hesitated and then turned to head back down up the creek to the camp. That was when Roger coughed.

  The shadow spun around and bounded up the hill. Albert jumped to his feet, keeping himself between the shadow and the bandicoots. The dingo was on him in a matter of seconds. Instinctively, Albert threw his hat into the dingo’s face. The dingo reared up on his hind legs and swung at Albert with a stone club. Albert ducked, and before the dingo could swing again, a rock sailed out of the darkness and hit him in the back. The dingo growled and turned toward the new assailant. Albert threw himself on the dingo’s back and drove his spurs into his flanks.

  Al
bert had been there once before, those many years ago on the banks of the Murray. He remembered his mother’s torn body lying along the bank and the smell of frightened dog. The rage consumed him once again. He drove his spurs into the flanks of the dingo, one after the other like he was climbing a tree. The dingo dropped his club and tried to dislodge the enraged platypus. The dingo was still trying to reach Albert when TJ emerged from the darkness and cut his throat.

  TJ took the bandana out of his pocket and wiped the blade of his pocketknife. He folded the knife, then bent over and picked up Albert’s hat. He walked back into the darkness and reappeared a few moments later carrying the carbine. TJ stood on the hillside looking toward the fires of the Fusiliers.

  Albert lay on the dingo’s body, shaking with rage. Blood was seeping onto the ground all around him. Albert hated the smell of both the blood and the dingo, but he couldn’t force himself to move. For the first time, he could remember everything about his mother’s death and how he had thrown himself on the dog that killed her. They weren’t good memories, but they were real, and no longer the unconnected flashes of horror that had haunted him for all those years in the zoo. The sound of gunshots in the distance brought him back to Old Australia.

  Albert staggered to his feet. TJ didn’t say anything. He just handed Albert his hat and pointed over to the grove of trees where the Fusiliers were camped. Shadows danced in and out of the campsite; there were flashes of pistol shots, and the yelling of the maimed and the dying. The fight didn’t last very long, and soon the sounds of guns and struggle were replaced by screams of pain.

  The screaming went on for what seemed like hours, and the wind carried the smell of burned hair, blood, and fear to where TJ and Albert were standing. After the screaming stopped it was another hour before they saw the shadows begin to slip away down the creekbed and across the desert.

  TJ waited for a while after the last shadow passed, then motioned for Albert and the bandicoots to follow him back down to the creekbed. Alvin and Roger carried their jute bags close to their bodies as they started down the hill. The bandicoots kept glancing nervously at the body of the dingo as they walked by it, as if they were afraid that it might come to life again. As soon as they passed the body, they hurried ahead and tried to stay as close to TJ and Albert as they could.

  They walked slowly toward the camp. The base of the hills came down to the edge of the creekbed and limited their passage to the sandy creek bottom. They could still see the glow and smell the smoke of the smoldering campfires.

  The body of a dingo lay next to the trunk of a gum tree at the edge of the camp. Someone had scattered red ochre around the body.

  “At least they got one,” TJ observed quietly as he walked past the body into the middle of the campsite.

  Bits and pieces of the Fusiliers were scattered about the camp. The dingoes had carried off their guns and equipment, and left only the heads and paws of the Fusiliers they had butchered. The smell of charred flesh still hung above the camp.

  O’Hanlin’s head had been placed on a log. The dingoes had taken his shako, but his spectacles remained on his nose, and the glowing embers of the fires were reflected in the lenses.

  15

  On Brown Snakes and Bandicoots

  Albert stood at the top of the trail that led up from the flats to the entrance of the opening in the cliff. He had taken to coming here each evening to look at the sun setting on the desert below. He would stand there while the shadows lengthened across the flats, then watch them slowly disappear as the sun reached the horizon.

  The play of light fascinated Albert. Every day the sun shifted position in the sky ever so slightly, and the movement of the light on the desert changed with it. The change from one day to the next was too subtle to see, but Albert could feel it. He would stand there until the top of the distant mountain faded into an outline in the dusk surrounded by the first few stars of the coming night.

  Albert had made the mistake of staying too long one evening. The stars had kept him on top of the trail until nightfall. When he looked down from the sky he saw the campfires of the dingoes on the desert floor.

  He didn’t like being reminded of what he had seen that night in the stand of gum trees. There was always the chance that the same thing could happen to him or to his friends. Albert knew that the end of the Fusiliers had resulted from their own folly, but that wasn’t to say that bad luck wouldn’t have worked just as well, and bad luck could happen to anyone.

  It had taken them another day and night to get back to the water hole from the Fusilier encampment. There had been only a few hours of darkness left the night of the massacre, and they had gone to ground before dawn the following morning. They waited on a brush-covered rise in the heat of a long day. Albert or TJ would keep watch while the other rested in what little shade was provided by the brush. The bandicoots were quiet and spent most of their time under a stunted desert oak on the back side of the rise.

  Roger had started taking nips from a pint bottle he had in his bag the minute the sun came up, and if TJ hadn’t taken the bottle away from him, he would have been drunk by noon. Roger gave up the gin without a murmur. After watching what had happened to the dingo that had attacked them the night before, neither Alvin nor Roger were inclined to argue with TJ.

  Albert really didn’t know what to do with the bandicoots. There hadn’t been time to sort things out on the road to Barton Springs. One minute Alvin and Roger had been fighting with TJ and the next minute they had been running for their lives. If he’d had time to think about it, he probably wouldn’t have taken them along. The bandicoots were just looking for someone to drink with. The idea of being bushrangers had probably been appealing in a barroom somewhere, but Albert could have told them that the reality of life on the flats of Hell was not what they had in mind. In any case, it had been too late to send them back.

  Albert and TJ managed to get the bandicoots to the water hole the next night. After they arrived, TJ immediately set off to wash and clean his gear while Albert started a fire. Alvin made a halfhearted attempt to help gather firewood, but Roger just sat by the fire circle and tried to keep his paws from shaking.

  Nothing much was said that night. Everyone was hungry, but it was too dark and they were too tired to try to catch anything for dinner. Alvin and Roger had only brought a little flour and baking powder with them, and nothing to cook it in. Albert passed around the last of the rock candy. After it was eaten, everyone—everyone but Roger—sat quietly around the fire.

  After a while, TJ got tired of watching Roger shake and gave him back the bottle of gin. Roger took a few stiff drinks, then lay on his side by the fire and went to sleep. Albert and TJ drifted away soon afterward and left Alvin sitting next to his snoring companion.

  The first few days after their return were spent trying to refit as best they could. TJ washed all his clothes and, while they were drying, helped Albert catch crayfish in the water hole. Enough firewood was gathered for a week, and a few failed attempts at biscuits were made. Roger and Alvin recovered quickly and were soon bragging about what they would do to the next dingo that came their way.

  Albert spent his mornings swimming in the water hole, and in the early afternoons would walk up the trail near the spring and sit in the rock shelter above the camp. He thought there might be a chance that if he sat there long enough, the stones around him would begin to speak. So far the stones had remained mute, but Albert was happy enough to sit in the silence.

  Within a few minutes of his arrival, the brown snake would crawl into the shelter from a crevice in the shelter floor. The snake seemed to be attracted by the heat of Albert’s body or perhaps by the noise he made on his hike up the trail. Albert was always glad for quiet company and had begun to think of the snake as some kind of totem sent by their common ancestors. The snake would coil up in the corner of the cave and remain there until Albert left.

  After leaving the shelter, Albert would nap in the shade of a saltbush until the sun b
egan to set, and then walk up to the opening in the cliff that looked out across the desert.

  Just before dark, Albert would come back to the camp and eat the crayfish that TJ had cooked on the rocks by the fire. Roger and Alvin were always on time for every meal, and after eating as many crayfish as TJ would allow them, they would pass around the bottle.

  It had now been four days since their return to the water hole, and both crayfish and gin were running low. Regardless of the danger involved, they decided to leave the next evening, cross the flats, and walk the road to Barton Springs. They needed food and supplies, and Barton Springs was the closest place to get both. TJ had briefly considered a raid on the Gates of Hell, but having the bandicoots along made it a dubious proposition and TJ abandoned the idea.

  Robbing travelers on the road had not proven a very successful way of getting resupplied. They needed a better source, and according to the bandicoots there was a large general store in Barton Springs. Any robbery of the store would most likely result in another pursuit, and TJ and Albert wanted to avoid that if they could. Albert suggested that they send the bandicoots into Barton Springs with his gold sovereign to purchase what they needed. Once they had new packs, blankets, and food, they would be in a better position to run or fight, should it come to that.

  Aside from Jack’s company, the thing that Albert had missed most since he left Ponsby Station was hot tea from the billycan every morning. He hoped there would be enough money left, after they got necessities, for the purchase of a proper teakettle, some loose tea, and cups.

  Albert didn’t look forward to another night march across the flats of Hell, but in many ways he was glad to be leaving the little valley. He was bothered that he had created a routine that repeated itself on a daily basis, first the water hole, then to the cave, and from there to the opening in the cliff. He had spent too many days walking the limits of his cage in Adelaide not to recognize a similar pattern. It was getting time for him to move on again, but he needed supplies, and he needed to see the bandicoots safely out of Hell.