Dust of the Land

by J. H. Fletcher

  ‘So tell me the worst.’

  ‘I’ll be sending you my formal report later,’ the consultant said. ‘When I get back to the office.’

  ‘Give me the gist now.’

  The plane yawed and lurched in an air pocket before steadying. The miles unwound below them. The empty land, smeared in dust, stretched away, vast and inscrutable.

  ‘I’m not sure what to tell you,’ Saul said.

  Garth’s nerves, already wound tight, quivered. He said: ‘After three weeks you still don’t know? What the hell am I paying you for?’

  For a moment Rich did not speak. Instead he snapped open the lid of the mahogany box he was cradling in his lap. He took out a large test tube containing what looked like crumbly yellow cake.

  ‘That’s what I found. I took samples at one-hundred-foot intervals all over the area and everywhere came up with this.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s what they call marra mamba.’

  ‘Not iron at all?’

  ‘Oh yes, it’s iron.’

  Garth threw a quick squint at the contents of the tube.

  ‘Looks like you could crumble that stuff between your fingers.’

  ‘You could, indeed. Marra mamba is very soft.’

  ‘Can you produce steel from it?’

  Saul Rich whistled softly beneath his breath and again stared out of the window. ‘That is the hundred-dollar question,’ he said.

  ‘Stop playing games,’ Garth snapped. ‘Is it any good or isn’t it?’

  His impatience communicated itself to the controls. The plane swayed and dipped before he brought it back to an even keel once more.

  ‘Most people will tell you that marra mamba is useless. The fool’s gold of the iron ore world, if you will.’

  ‘Most people,’ Garth repeated.

  ‘Personally, I have my doubts. That was why I said I was not sure.’

  ‘How do we find out?’

  ‘I shall take these samples to a laboratory. I know the people there. They will carry out a spectrograph analysis –’

  ‘Never mind all that,’ Garth interrupted. ‘Will it tell us whether it’s any good or not?’

  ‘It’ll tell us the mineral content of each sample, and the level of impurities such as sulphur. By analysing these samples, taken right across the field, we shall get a fair idea what we’ve got here.’

  ‘And what we haven’t,’ Garth said grimly.

  ‘Exactly. Say,’ Saul said, his eyes once again fixed on the land below them, the veils of glinting dust, the dried watercourses like sinews against the brown, ‘isn’t that just the most wonderful view you ever saw?’

  * * *

  It took a week for the lab report to come back. Saul Rich phoned with the news.

  ‘I got the figures.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘The analysis of the marra mamba cake samples shows results that are consistent right across the field, with no significant variation –’

  Garth could have strangled him.

  ‘What does it say?’

  ‘Sixty-two per cent iron,’ Saul said. His voice showed no excitement and Garth’s heart sank.

  ‘Sixty-two per cent?’

  ‘That is correct. With far less sulphur than in normal hematite. And the field extends a long way. We would need an additional survey to find out how far.’

  ‘Sixty-two per cent,’ Garth repeated. ‘Is that good news or bad?’

  ‘If the government can be persuaded to change its policy,’ Saul said, ‘I would say you’ve enough iron ore there to supply the steel requirements of the entire world for a hundred years.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  From the age when she had been old enough to comprehend such things, Peace had worshipped her father. He was strong, handsome, altogether wonderful. She had known at the age of four that she would marry him when she grew up. If she could not be him, she could think of nothing better than that. When she learnt that marrying her father was not a proposition, she sulked for a week. In general, she had no time for girls, herself and Bella included. Girls were soft and soggy. Even Charlene Ludwig would have had no chance, one on one, against a boy with more brains than Willy Brown. By contrast boys were hard and tough, qualities that Peace admired above all others.

  It was therefore ironical that, when Peace started at high school at the age of twelve, she attended an academy in Cottesloe that was focused on turning out young ladies with the attributes needed to become good wives and mothers, with social and domestic skills deemed more important than a more liberal education. As for science… Forget it.

  Peace, who already knew precisely what she wanted from life, fitted into that environment like a vixen in a hen house. She bitched about it continuously: first to Richard and then to Mother. Richard was not in a position to do anything about her complaints but at least was a patient listener, as eleven-year-old boys went, and moaning to him made her feel better. Talking to Mother was a waste of time, of course, not because she couldn’t do anything but because she wouldn’t.

  ‘You could be worse off,’ Bella said. ‘I had a governess and never went to school at all.’

  Which didn’t help Peace in the least.

  ‘Maybe I should try that,’ she said. ‘Skip school altogether and go back home. Do a correspondence course, maybe.’

  Home was neither Desire nor Perth but the vastness of the Pilbara, riding muster with Dad. But she spoke without hope, because she knew there was no chance of it. Nor was it really what she wanted: she wanted to be a geologist, which meant university. She would never make university by mustering cattle or even by correspondence.

  ‘How did you make out?’ she asked her mother. ‘I mean, you’re not exactly illiterate, are you?’

  ‘I think they call it the university of life,’ Bella said. ‘Plus I’ve read a bit, of course.’

  Which was the understatement of the year, because Bella was never without a book of some sort in her hip pocket, ranging from Robert Frost’s poems to a Layman’s Guide to the Theory of Relativity.

  ‘I like to read, when I can find a peaceful moment,’ she often said.

  Peaceful moments were hard to find. Desire had already been years in the building but the project was so vast that it was still more construction site than house. Everywhere jackhammers clattered, drills snarled, dust rose in choking clouds. Fortunately they didn’t have to put up with the racket for long. The day after Peace walked through the door, Richard went to stay with a school friend and mother and daughter went camping in the country south of Margaret River. It was nice, of course it was – there were trees there older than time – but it was a pity Garth was up north chasing cows: as far as Peace was concerned that was the better part of the family done and dusted.

  There was nothing to be done; a week was not long enough to get up to the Pilbara and back.

  ‘I am sorry he isn’t here,’ Peace said.

  ‘He’s sorry, too,’ Bella said, ‘but he said he couldn’t get away; without cattle we’ll have no income and without income we shall all be in the soup. He said he’d try to get down for the long holidays. Or maybe you could go up there.’

  Even without him it was a great opportunity for mother and daughter – what was the phrase her class teacher Miss Aucutt had used only the other day? – to bond together, but somehow it only came off on the last day. Until then they had both been awkward with each other – yes, school was okay, once you got over the pointlessness of it; yes, she was playing hockey with the juniors and thought she had a good chance of being picked for the team when they went back; yes, the half-term tests so far had been easy, she’d come top in everything but art and history; and no, she’d made no particular friends.

  ‘I swear to you, Mother, I’m in with a bunch of morons.’

  Then, on the last day, Mother decided to start talking about her plans for the Carlisle Mine. ‘What I’m telling you now is confidential,’ Bella said. ‘But I know I can trust you to keep it to your
self.’

  Mother was not one for compliments and for her to say this made Peace feel good. For the first time she thought that when she was older and knew more they might even become a team.

  Family was not a concept that had figured large in Peace’s life until now – she was a loner, even on the hockey field inclined to do her own thing – but she thought this business of the mine might give her a whole new perspective about things.

  ‘Will it make money?’ she asked.

  ‘If things work out, it should make a lot of money,’ Bella said.

  ‘That’ll be nice.’

  Although it was not the money that interested her so much as the mine itself.

  ‘Will there be a job for me? When I leave school?’

  ‘School and university,’ Bella said. ‘Yes, there will. I’m counting on you.’

  That was a new concept, too; she had never thought of Mother relying on anyone in the world bar herself.

  It made the idea of going back to school that much more meaningful. Even… exciting?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Eleven-year-old Richard glared at his friend Luke. ‘You chicken, or what?’

  Luke glared back. ‘Course I’m not!

  ‘Let’s do it, then.’

  The two boys lay in the long grass and stared through the fence at the paddock of watermelons. The farmer was an Italian, with a reputation. He owned two dogs; they also had a reputation. All three were said to be savage brutes that would show no mercy to melon-stealing boys.

  But the melons were ripe, large and shiny, and at this hour of the morning, with the sun not yet over the horizon, there was no sign of either the Italian or his dogs.

  Lying in the grass, Richard swallowed thirstily, already tasting the sweet flesh.

  All they had to do was zip under the wire, grab a melon or two and zip back again. They couldn’t take many, the melons were too big, but two each should be possible. One or maybe two to share and sell the others: there was always a market for juicy, ripe watermelons.

  But the bottom strand of the fence was barbed.

  ‘Get hooked on that,’ Luke pointed out, ‘those dogs will eat your guts. They’ll tear you open and –’

  ‘We won’t get hooked.’

  ‘Sez you.’

  ‘Yeah!’ said Richard.

  ‘Yeah yourself!’

  Richard lifted the wire as high as it would go. Which wasn’t very high.

  ‘I’ll go first,’ he said.

  Luke had no problem with that. He held the wire and Richard squeezed under. So far so good.

  Luke released the wire. It twanged loudly; Richard thought the farmer would certainly have heard it. His previous glare was nothing to this one. ‘What you doing?’

  ‘Sorry!’

  Flat on his stomach, eyes everywhere, Richard inched over to the nearest row of melons. Close up, they looked huge. Getting them back would be a problem. One at a time would be the only way. He took out his knife and cut through the tough stem. If the farmer caught him now, he was dead.

  He trundled his trophy back to the wire. Now there was another problem; the melon was too big to go under the wire.

  ‘You’ll have to chuck it over,’ said Luke.

  All right for him; he was safe on the other side of the fence, but Richard would have to stand up before he could throw the melon over, which meant putting himself into clear view of the farmer’s house, a short distance up the hill. No choice; it was either that or lose the melon, and after all his efforts he wasn’t going to do that.

  He stood, held the melon in his hands and threw it up and over.

  ‘Catch it!’

  Too late; the melon fell with a thud, but at least they had it.

  ‘You going back for the rest?’ Luke asked.

  But Richard had had enough for one day.

  ‘I don’t reckon the others are quite ripe.’

  They both heard it at once: the savage baying of the dogs.

  ‘Quick!’

  Luke was hauling on the wire, lifting it as high as he could. Richard lay full length and began to squeeze himself under, but doing it when you had plenty of time was one thing; doing it in a rush, with the fear of death squeezing your heart, was another matter entirely.

  ‘They’re coming!’ Luke squeaked. ‘Coming fast!’

  Richard’s shirt snagged on the wire. Frantically he tore himself free. He left a bit of shirt behind, a bit of skin, too, but he was through, he was safe. Luke let the wire go in the faces of the two dogs that came racing up, all howl and sharp teeth. Not far behind them was the farmer, shouting and waving his stick.

  ‘If he sees who we are he’ll set the wallopers on us,’ said Luke, who had heard the expression from his older brother.

  The last thing Richard needed was the police coming round the house, asking about stolen watermelons.

  ‘Let’s get out of here!’

  They were round the corner and out of sight when they realised they had left the melon behind. Richard made the best of it.

  ‘We couldn’t have run fast enough carrying it. He’d have seen us for sure.’

  All the same…

  ‘Maybe another day,’ he said.

  Yeah, right.

  Richard had not given up his plans for making money. When the time came he reckoned the Melbourne Cup was the way to do it. He ran the idea past Dad, who said it was a mug’s game.

  ‘All right for the bookies. They make quids. But no one else.’

  Richard decided in that case he’d be a bookie. He ran his own book, encouraging his classmates to put their sixpences and the occasional shilling on the horses of their choice.

  ‘Ten to one on Baystone! A shilling will get you ten!’

  With odds like that, the chances of Baystone winning had got to be… well, ten to one against. Right? Good odds, if you were a bookie.

  The money flowed in. Everything was doing just great. And then…

  Baystone won. The ten to one chance came in first. Its backers would have cleaned up, had Richard had the money to pay them. As it was he paid out every penny and was still left with dissatisfied customers. Might have had a couple of black eyes, too, if the previous year Dad hadn’t sent him to learn a few tricks from a fairground pug with whom he’d had a scrap or two himself, in his young days.

  So Richard escaped the worst of his Melbourne Cup venture. Not that it ended there. When Garth heard: ‘What you going to do about it?’

  ‘What can I do?’

  ‘How much do you owe?’

  Richard could always put a figure on things. ‘Seven shillings and eightpence.’

  ‘How you going to settle up?’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Don’t give me that,’ Dad said. ‘Tuckers pay their debts, okay?’

  ‘But how –?’

  ‘I’ll lend you the money.’

  ‘Then I’ll owe you instead.’

  ‘Too right you will. Wash my car, and your mother’s car, every week for four weeks, we’ll be square. Right?’

  ‘But that means I’ll have washed eight cars for less than a shilling a time.’

  Which was what Garth normally paid him. Another thing about Richard: he could do mental arithmetic quicker than anyone in his class.

  ‘You’ll be dudding me,’ Richard protested.

  Garth grinned at him: teeth.

  ‘Call it my discount,’ he said.

  Who’d be a bookie?

  It was Richard’s first year at high school. There was a movie he wanted to see; Bella gave him the money. When he came back…

  ‘What was it like?’ Bella asked.

  ‘It was great.’

  ‘What was it about?’

  ‘A missionary.’

  That was a new one. Bella stared at him.

  ‘And you found it interesting?’

  ‘Yes.’

  More than interesting; he had found it inspirational. Richard’s instinct was already to keep his most important thoughts to
himself but his mother was not easily fobbed off.

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  He suspected she was asking only to show how interested she was in him – she’d seen her play the same trick on Peace, asking questions about her hockey, for heaven’s sake: a subject in which he was certain Mother had no interest whatsoever. But he was happy to humour her, if it made her feel better.

  ‘It’s about this woman who was a missionary in China. She helped the poor people and especially the children and when the Japanese soldiers invaded she managed to get the children to safety.’

  Mother obviously thought it was a strange story to have excited his imagination. ‘It was good, was it?’

  ‘Ingrid Bergman was in it.’

  No need to say more; Ingrid Bergman was fabulous and Richard, like every other teenage boy, was in love with her. But it was not Ingrid Bergman who caused the movie to remain in his mind. It was China. Despite his teenage fantasies about the Swedish film actress it was that vast, mysterious, impoverished country that was the real star of the film.

  He found himself going to the library and looking up books on China’s history, China’s art, China’s culture and civilisation. He understood exactly why Gladys Aylwood, the real-life missionary on whom the film had been based, had gone to China in the first place. In her shoes he believed he would have done the same.

  He had discovered a mine of pure gold.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  ‘Thank you,’ Bella said. ‘Thank you very much.’

  Exultation eeled through her as she put down the phone. She walked to the French windows and stepped on to the terrace. Tiny clouds floated high up in an otherwise clear sky. A light breeze was blowing and the roses were in full flower.

  ‘What a glorious day!’ Bella said.

  Glorious indeed. Still stunned by the telephone call, she walked to the edge of the terrace, placed both hands on the stone balustrade and breathed the scented air deeply into her lungs.

  For seven years she had done everything she could to get the law against prospecting repealed. Seven years of bargaining, negotiating, bringing into play every ounce of charm she possessed. To snobs she had been the earl’s daughter, to battlers the Akubra-hatted woman who mustered cattle in the far north. She had wooed the press, supported causes, donated to charities. She had wined and dined those who had, or might have, influence. She had made more promises than a dozen prime ministers.