He was dragged away from the damsel to take part in a parade through the town, a parade which the local authorities, with their customary obtuseness, had refused to permit. It was a beautiful parade, with trucks and loud-speakers, and damsels in gaudy spangles, and wild-looking men weaving snakes about their torsos, handbills galore and a band. The busker, in the borrowed trappings of a Red Indian brave, roared through a megaphone while a gentleman in purple tights beside him beat a large gong. The police had received a mysterious message that a big fight was about to take place in a paddock some convenient distance out of town, and had naturally driven out to stop it. Strangely enough, the time the fight was supposed to start was the same that the procession wound its way unmolested down the main street, creating a delightful and disorderly row.
‘This is the life,’ the busker breathed to himself. He found no reason to alter that view during the following few days, which were bubbled to the brim with good luck and fun. In the first place, the policeman who had warned him off in the main street doubted that John Sampson, the Strong Man, did really drive a six-inch nail through a three-inch board with his hand, and vowed he could do it himself. Challenged to make good his words, the policeman had smitten the nail, which, instead of going through the board, had gone through his hand.
Then there had been a really glorious fight between the members of the boxing troupe and a gang of half a dozen ‘illy-wackers’ who had been unwise enough to play poker with the heavyweight. An illy-wacker is someone who is putting a confidence trick over, selling imitation diamond tie-pins, new-style patent razors or infallible ‘tonics,’ altering cheques obtained by fraud from, say, £10 to £100, ‘living on the cockies’ by such devices, and following the shows because money always flows freest at show time. A man who ‘wacks the illy’ can be almost anything, but two of these particular illy-wackers were equipped with a dart game. The board had a steel back, so that the dart would drop off, unless it struck on one of three or four holes, which had been liberally provided to allow a fair chance for anyone desirous of collecting the gift box of chocolates, which was the prize of the successful dart-thrower. The others were ‘high-up’ men, billiard-players who had put up at the hotel in style and were busily reducing the bank balance of the local billiard-players.
On the second night, a gang of assorted showmen broke into the temporary bar which had been erected at the show-ground and the camp indulged in a general ‘beer-up.’ You could not lift the flap of any given tent without disturbing a little nest of bottles stowed away for future consumption. The police went round making enquiries, but they could not pin the crime on anyone, partly because the field of choice was so wide. Practically the only individual to escape suspicion was Fosdick’s stuffed orang-outang. Even the skipping dog had kept guard.
Then there was the unlooked-for excitement, when the gong fell off the bull’s-eye in Greenhorn Mick’s Shooting-Gallery, and one sportsman’s shot went clean through the hat of a farmer in a nearby tent and another killed a parrot on a tree just outside the show-ground fence. For a while Mick just stood and swore, and the customers swore, too, because they were sure they were shooting bull’s eyes, and no gong rang to record the shot. They complained that the show was crooked. Finally, Greenhorn Mick, in imminent danger of his life, crawled along the back of the canvas and replaced the gong while the customers were firing. He dared not let them know the gong had fallen off. There would have been a riot.
The sharp-shooter attached to the Jasprey show challenged a fellow-showman to a duel. They were both half-drunk, and when they had shot apples off each other’s head and cigarettes out of each other’s mouth, they decided to blaze away, shot for shot, at ten paces, to prove that shooting a man through the body would not really kill him. They were restrained by force from carrying out what seemed to them a reasonable experiment.
Emboldened by the success of the showmen’s raid on the bar, a gang of bagmen broke into the rear of the grandstand which housed the ladies’ fancy-work exhibits. They were not as lucky nor as careful as the more experienced showmen. One of them, when captured, was still wearing the fancy knitted sweater he had abstracted, a beautiful exhibit in green and crimson wool, which was visible for a quarter of a mile. The police arrested everyone in sight, provided he looked sufficiently like a bagman or could give no clear account of his movements. The busker thanked his lucky stars that he could prove he was a bona-fide member of Jasprey’s troupe. He had two pairs of hand-knitted socks and four sets of ladies’ underwear stowed away in a safe place.
It had been the busker’s intention to present the underwear to Jessie, the daughter of the milk-bar proprietor. But after witnessing the round-up of his associates, he thought better of it. He could always dispose of the underwear at a profit when the hue and cry died down. At the moment Jessie seemed quite in a melting mood, even without any presents. To be sure, her father took no favourable view of the busker’s suit, and had ordered him out of the milk-bar thrice, the last time with considerable acrimony. He was deaf to the charms of the busker’s yodelling, although Jessie could listen to it for hours, and even the busker’s new suit, on which he had spent all the advance of his salary, had no effect. He requested his daughter to have nothing to do with that ‘lazy, skulking little tom-cat.’ His ill-advised command that Duke should ‘get out of the milk-bar and stay out’ only meant that Jessie was now obliged to slip away at odd moments to see her suitor, instead of flirting with him while she served drinks.
The night before the show was to leave Walfra, the busker, after some pleading — for she was fearful of her father — persuaded Jessie to come for a walk with him after he had finished his turn in the tent. Leaving the tight-rope walker to walk a rope that was anything but tight, the bucking mule to enter the ring without the iron burrs under his saddle that made his turn such a success, and the magician without any assistant to hold his fire while he swallowed it, the busker made off into the scrub with the lady of his choice.
If there was one thing the busker could congratulate himself on, it was his knowledge of the terrain. Even in a flat, dusty place like Walfra, where there was nothing to see but a muddy river or the stockyards by moonlight, the busker could find some comfortable little parking-place that was neither coated in cow-manure, full of bindi-eyes and other assorted prickles, nor the home of ants. He could keep a girl out until half-past one in the morning in a dusty paddock full of sheep and almost convince her that she had just been looking at the view. It was a pity his salary had not extended to a wrist-watch, for by the time they wandered back to the show-ground, even the poker-players had gone to sleep. The camps were plunged in darkness. Jessie snivelled nervously about what her father would say.
‘I can’t go home at this hour. He’d just about kill me.’
The busker scratched his head in doubt and hesitated. ‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘I guess there’s nothing for it but for you to share the tent with the rest of us. Then in the morning we can go and square your old man.’
‘You don’t know my old man. He’s a regular terror.’
The busker reflected irritably that it was a bit late to think of that now, but he only responded: ‘Well, there’s no sense getting frozen. Look out where you put your feet, or you’ll tread on some of the mob, and if they wake, they’ll give us blue murder.’
Luckily his place of repose was at the far end of the tent, a little removed from the chorus of snores that greeted them as they lifted the flap, letting in a weak ray of moonshine on the row of bodies. The two late-comers tip-toed cautiously down to the far end of the rows and the busker made an equable division of the blankets. He was tired, and in no mood for further philandering. After all, he had had a hard day, and would be up at dawn helping to dismantle the tent. He fell asleep with the ease that comes of a soft heart and a hardened conscience, and was awakened by what he thought must be very bright moonlight shining on his face. It happened to be the torch of his old enemy, the very large, very unpleasant policeman who h
ad met him on his first entry into Walfra. Beside the policeman stood the proprietor of the milk-bar, and he was holding a shotgun in a way the busker did not like.
‘So,’ said the policeman, surveying the row of sleeping forms with interest, ‘this is what they call a Ten-in-One Show!’
14
Miss Phipps, at the Hotel Stainford, was becoming more and more familiar with the manners and customs of the Australian aristocracy. It was an opportunity she welcomed, for she had always felt that among any aristocracy she would move as to the manor born. Were not the English Chester-Phippses expending thousands in a long and involved legal dog-fight over the Chester-Phipps millions that were locked up in Chancery? Miss Phipps always regarded herself as the heiress to those millions, even though her despicable father had roared with laughter when she suggested the possibility, and refused to put in even a claim to them, saying that he would not waste the twopence on the stamp. She hated her father as much for this cheating her out of her millions as she did for his laziness, drunkenness and general refusal to provide for his family. The last time Miss Phipps had left home she had signified her dislike by hurling a kettle of hot water over her father, and she felt that should she return, her welcome would be anything but genial. Besides throwing the hot water, she had deliberately hurled rocks through every window of the house. That would teach him to put in a claim for the Chester-Phipps millions!
It was with some curiosity, therefore, that while polishing the floors and removing dirty linen, Miss Phipps observed the behaviour of moneyed people: people whose photographs appeared in the papers; young women whose clothes caused her a gasp of envy; young men who owned aeroplanes, race-horses, and expensive motor-cars. The hotel was crowded with the elite who had come into town for the week of the picnic races. Stories of the gay parties ‘thrown’ by the station-owners who had rented the more presentable houses in the town at an exorbitant figure, were daily gossip in the kitchen. But it was around the hotels, and particularly the Hotel Stainford, which catered for the most exclusive and expensive trade, that the noisiest and fastest set of the revellers centred their activities.
They were light-hearted, they were young, the wool-cheque would be large, and what was money for but to spend? The hotel staff shared the fun; they had been lavishly tipped. The hotel-keeper, Saxe, and his wife — a woman who put the fear of the Lord into Miss Phipps — went about smiling. They knew that last year Tolly Sampson’s bill for breakages had been a hundred and eight pounds, and this year they expected him to eclipse his previous record. To have the son of one of the richest men in New South Wales staying at the Stainford was alone a promise of plenty. Tolly brought with him his friends, those light-hearted fellows who saw in him the golden calf to be sacrificed to an enormous thirst, for Tolly Sampson was drinking himself to death, and they were there to help him do it.
It was their habit to begin the day with some jest, such as stripping one of their number naked and locking him in the linen-closet for ransom, or waiting until the maid had cleaned out the rooms and then raiding them, turning the wardrobes upside down, throwing the mattresses out of the window, tying the sheets into knots and generally making merry. A mild protest might have had the effect of driving their custom elsewhere, so it was seldom made. The waiters and the maids were just instructed to clean up the mess and look pleasant. They would not lose by it. ‘Boys will be boys,’ as the cook said benevolently, when Cissie, one of the waitresses in the first-class dining-room, complained that for the second time that evening one of the diners, in a sportive mood, had up-ended a loaded tray she was carrying. Cissie refused to be drawn into the general jollity. There were bits of broken crockery and turkey and soup and assorted vegetables all over her clean dining-room floor. ‘I’d like to rub their noses in it,’ she glowered. She did not mind young men ruining each other’s dinner-suits, squirting soda-water, or anointing their friends’ hair and clothing with tomato-sauce, but it broke her heart to see her dining-room, usually so immaculate, turned into a pig-sty.
Miss Phipps said nothing, even when she cut her hand cleaning a mess of broken glass out of the lounge fireplace, which was swimming in champagne that had been thrown there with the glasses. Her first feelings of curiosity and interest had given way to disgust. She felt frightened and bewildered. Behind her now, all the time, was a fear of being turned out on the road again penniless. Better endure without protest the riotous behaviour of the guests, the sharpness of Mrs Saxe, the swearing of the cook, than to lose this her security, meals three times a day, a roof over her head and a bed in the small, stuffy attic she shared with Cissie. Her hands were soft and pulpy from the eternal washing-up, and stained from peeling potatoes, her feet swelled from the constant standing on a cement floor in the scullery, and her back ached from the carrying of big, heavy iron pots. But she worked harder than she had ever worked, because she was afraid. She scrubbed and polished, she cleaned and scoured. She was very slow and unhandy, and nearly drove the cook mad, but, for a wonder, she hardly opened her mouth or asserted an opinion. She was gracious and pleasant to everyone, even her habitual bad temper for once under control. She wanted to stay where she was safe, where there were no wild people who might murder her or threaten her in lurid language. Not that either the cook’s language or that of the rest of the staff was much above the level of the travellers’. They swore with almost every breath they uttered. Sid, the barman — a small man with a fat, greasy face and a facetious manner — was worse than anyone.
The first sign that Miss Phipps was reverting to form was when one morning Sid came gaily into the kitchen and smacked the tempting target Miss Phipps presented as she stooped over the oven. Miss Phipps rose and smote him open-handed across the face. Sid was furious that she should so misinterpret his friendly gesture. He was just being pleasant and matey, he explained, no offence given and none taken. The look of Miss Phipps was enough to turn the milk sour, and he was just cheering her up. After her behaviour he refused to fling her even a good-day. The sour-faced bitch did not appreciate fun, he declared; she spoilt the cheerfulness of the kitchen.
Sid always brought down the spicy bits of news, and Miss Phipps would remove herself ostentatiously as far from him as she could, so that she missed most of them.
‘The boss is as mad as a hornet,’ Sid confided to the cook, stuffing his mouth with jam, the morning after the misunderstanding with Miss Phipps. ‘Young Tolly Sampson gives me two quid, see, and says to keep the mob away from him, ’cause he wants to get a bit of sleep. He’s been up all night on a jag. Anyway, I word everyone to tell his pals that he’s gone out, and so on. And he locks his door. I goes down to the bar, and next thing the boss or I know is that his pals have come to take him to a party and found the door locked and broken it in.’
‘Lor,’ one of the maids giggled. ‘You don’t mean they’ve broken the door down.’
‘Busted it clean off its hinges. You can go and see for yourself. They just collared young Tolly and carried him out to the car, two at his head and two at his feet, like a bleedin’ corpse. He’ll come back tight as an egg.’ Sid deftly abstracted another slice of turnover. ‘Last night they was all playing chasings up and down the main street in their cars. Not a copper in sight, you bet your boots. Wouldn’t they look funny locking up Tolly Sampson or his cobbers? Now, if it was me or you playing chasings at one o’clock in the morning, smashing up people’s cars …’
‘Ah, well, the bosses can afford it.’ The cook, ever a stickler for privilege, beamed tolerantly. ‘After all, if you don’t have a good time yourself, it’s nice to think someone else is; that’s how I look at it.’
From the rest of the staff came a murmur of hearty agreement.
‘That’s all very well,’ Sid replied argumentatively. ‘But that young Tolly’ll catch it when his old man gets here. That’s why the kid wanted to get some sleep. His Dad must have got wind of the way Tolly’s carrying on, and he’s coming up from Sydney tonight. He’ll fix young Tolly — bung him back on
the station likely as not. Serve the damn fool right. He’s got no more head than a hook-worm.’
‘If you ask me anything,’ Cissie agreed, ‘it’s those friends of his. Getting all they can out of him. It’s just too bad. That Ivor Jamieson and Jimmy Holstead. They’re all the time getting him drunk and winning his money.’
‘The women are the worst,’ Sid claimed — ‘the bunch in Number Nineteen and the Blue Suite: Sheila Brendall and those two fast pieces she invited up with her, the Cliprell sisters. They may be film stars, but by God, they’re stars at another game I could mention. As for Sheila, if I had a quid for every time I’ve seen a man …’ The cook dropped a spoon and Miss Phipps missed a word … ‘I’d be a millionaire meself. I take up the drinks, and they always calls ‘Come in’ — sweet as you like.’
The cook for once was shocked. She shook her head amazedly. ‘But you don’t mean they carry on like that while you’re there? Surely they’d stop …’
‘Stop! Hell! Why should they worry? I’m only the waiter.’ He winked at the cook.
Miss Phipps curled her lips in contempt; but she could not dismiss Sid’s words from her mind. It was beautiful spring weather, fitful and mild, with the scent of new grass and eucalyptus and briar rose loosening its petals by the roadside. The few lilacs in the town gardens came into flower, and a shower of rain filled them with wet drops. The privet trees in the hotel backyard looked as though a snowstorm had fallen overnight, and were a-quiver with beetles, their yellow backs striped with black, humming and burrowing and tumbling in pollen. There were roses in the gardens of the big houses, roses everywhere flowering, and the fruit-tree flowers giving place to young green leaves.
The Battlers Page 20