‘Get the hose from L4 and fix it to the hydrant,’ he ordered. ‘You, Jim, take a gang round the back and see if you can keep it from spreading to the dormitory. Four of you help Ellis (that was the caretaker) to get as much of the stuff as you can from the refrigerating plant.’
But in the face of a volcano, what are the desperate cries of one helpless manager? The great green and crimson flower rose straight in the air, and the spreading, rolling smoke-clouds enveloped everything in a haze that blotted the sunlight and reminded the Stray of the dark hurricane that had beaten her down to her knees. The crowd murmured for the fire-engine, and moved back nervously, as a great section of the wall bent and curled outward gracefully like a petal, and another section of roof leaned slowly inward. A telegraph pole, around which little adders of white smoke had been writhing, burst suddenly into flames, and there was a white flash and an explosion as the wires whipped apart.
‘Get back there! Get back!’ the police shouted, pushing at the crowd.
From every direction men and women were still hurrying, tiny figures whose very voices were drowned by the dreadful sounds the fire made in its upward rush. It was all so unnatural. There at mid-day, with Sunday dinners cooking peacefully in the kitchen stove; husbands dozing with the newspaper over their faces; birds chirping in the trees; the sun shining down on the baked, ordinary railway station; the ordinary streets and front gardens and little shops; instead of the comfortable, dull, red roofs of the cannery basking like a cat, this nightmare had broken loose.
It was worse than a nightmare. There was the prosperity of hundreds of people, the very heart and soul of Boswell, built so proudly from the savings of farmers and townsmen, turned before their eyes into an inferno, a roaring, outrageous, belching horror, that nothing could defy or halt; certainly not the tiny fire-engine that now came jolting slowly from the other end of the town, the firemen struggling with their braces, with their brass helmets, some of them half-dressed, and all soundly cursing the fire chief who had refused to come until he had put on his uniform.
A roar of frantic anxiety went up from the crowd. ‘Don’t hurry!’ they shouted, maddened by the leisurely pace of the fire-engine. But the engine crawled on deliberately, and halted while the fire chief conferred with the cannery’s manager, who was almost out of his wits with anxiety.
‘The safe!’ he kept saying. ‘The books in the office.’
The mechanic from the electricity plant was much cleverer and quicker than the firemen. He had rushed up in his truck, flung out a long ladder, and was running up it to the light and telephone wires. With one swift flick of his cutters, he had severed them, and was running down again.
‘What’s up? What’s up?’ the crowd murmured. ‘Why don’t they put it out?’
But the heat was too great for anyone to approach the water hydrant. The Co-operative’s hose was alight in any number of places, and the men had to retreat dragging it after them. The fire hose was much too short. The seemingly endless conferences went on, and the great fountain of fire raged and sang overhead, filling the heavens with its fury. There were tears flowing down the cheeks of the most hated of the foremen, tears that he said were due to the smoke. He was a man about whom rough jokes had been made by the cannery hands, a hard, steely-eyed, overbearing fellow who, they said, would be softened ‘when a stone or an old galah was cooked tender.’ But before his eyes, in no gentle syrup, was his whole life burning, blackening.
There was a muffled explosion.
‘That’ll be the petrol depot at the back,’ someone said.
‘They got out all they could,’ another man told him.
Now the crowd had been pushed back so far that it could see only the great stalk of fire over the roof, the blank walls of fire where a wall of brick had fallen in. The onlookers began to circle round to join others behind the cannery and along the railway line, eager to assess what damage had been done there. The fire-engine set the example by driving across the railway line and round, but here it could not approach close enough to the cannery, until a section of the crowd tore down the fence and allowed the engine to get within reasonable distance of the water supply. Now, at last, the hose could be used, but the feeble jet of water looked less against that flaring fortress than a trickle from a garden hose.
The deliberate movements of the firemen began to quicken. There was just a chance of saving the cafeteria, and the can-making shop, which stood a little removed. They set to with a will. Part of the crowd which had begun to realise that its mid-day dinner was getting cold at home drifted away, to be replaced by new arrivals who added their questions and arguments to the hum that rose from the watching crowd.
Thirty-Bob was glancing about him. ‘Don’t see the Bower-bird anywhere,’ he remarked.
‘Who the hell cares?’ Dancy clenched her fists. ‘What’s the Bower-bird got to do with it?’
‘I’d like to know, that’s all.’
Something in his tone arrested her attention. ‘You don’t fink he had anything to do wiv it?’
‘It didn’t start itself, did it?’
Dancy turned back to watch the fire. There was something hypnotic about that core of flame shooting up out of the husk of the cannery. She suddenly felt very tired. What was the use of working hard, of trying to go straight, of striving and planning? She had just one pound note pinned with that scrap of paper to the front of her dress. She might just as well have not worked. She could have sat about and drawn dole and been no worse off. She understood now what the farmers meant by their constant attitude of pessimism, their view that, if the rain didn’t ruin you, you would be burnt out by a bush-fire. You could work and work and be no better off after years of struggle than if you had sat in the shade.
The next day news came that the Co-operative Store at Brienna, fifteen miles away, had gone up in flames; and the same afternoon a fire broke out at the Dried Fruit and Raisin sheds at Mapella. There was now little doubt that a maniac was at work.
‘It’s the Bower-bird,’ Thirty-Bob declared that night, as they talked in undertones around the fire. ‘It’s him all right.’
‘But why? Why?’
Thirty-Bob thought. ‘He’s just crazy,’ he said slowly. ‘He’s been on the track too long.’
The others nodded. They had all met these madmen who had wandered alone, outcasts from human living, until they developed a vindictive hatred of all men and women. They would murder their own mates, fall upon innocent housewives, and cut them to ribbons, all without any reason but the madness bred by isolation and bitterness.
There was a pained silence. The travellers had all suffered from the loss of the cannery; suffered as much in their own way as the manager finding his fireproof safe still intact with its contents a heap of ashes. But they could not overcome their prejudice against police. The Bower-bird, however crazy, was one of them, and anyone who voiced his suspicions of the Bower-bird to the authorities would be known as a ‘dead-copper,’ more to be avoided than any maniac.
It was not for the travellers to interfere. They had looked year after year to the cannery as the one sure employment they could hope for. They had turned towards Boswell as a Mecca; they had always made rendezvous there. ‘Meet you at the cannery’ was as sure an appointment as at the next street corner. Now the cannery was gone, a holiday bonfire for a lunatic. It was no use being angry with the Bower-bird. He had ‘been on the track too long.’
28
When they had all gone, the Stray stayed on. Alone in the deserted camp with Jimmy, she waited for Snow, impatient and restless to be gone. She had had quite enough of Boswell. Not for her were the beauties of its green orchards, its drooping willows, its flower-patterned gardens. A little bitterly she reflected that all this paradise had meant was long, endless hours of work in a stewing hell, a grudging camp on the dustiest outskirt of the town. It would always be like that, always the worst end of a settlement that the traveller saw. Now she had been left here alone with Jimmy. Even Miss Phipps was s
haking the dust of the Stray’s camp from off her feet in a fine old rage.
Miss Phipps had remonstrated with Dancy about her determination to remain and wait for Snow.
‘Surely, deah,’ she drawled, ‘when even I can see that it is better to keep in with a band of people, however uncouth, rather than trust to the uncertainties of … of meeting with others even less refined …’
‘Scared someone ’ull rape you, huh?’ Dancy had asked, and then reflectively: ‘Do you a lot of good, Phippsy.’
Miss Phipps had drawn herself up and given Dancy an awful glare. Without another word, she departed from that place rigid and unforgiving. How dare anyone, least of all that little guttersnipe Dancy, utter such a word as ‘rape’ in the presence of a Chester-Phipps! She would have liked to ask for her skipping-rope which was being used as a halter, but even if she must sacrifice her skipping-rope (‘Such a good reducing exercise! Skipping improves the figah!’), she would not spoil her lips by addressing that low Dancy.
Miss Phipps was the last. There had been councils and discussions night after night to decide where they would go. Thirty-Bob was heading down the Murray and ‘snatching a few currants.’ Mrs Tyrell wanted to go north to Orange, where a Chinese market-gardener always gave the family work picking tomatoes. The busker and Betty were almost agreed that the great city of Sydney, or alternatively Melbourne, should have another chance to employ the busker’s talent and brains.
While they were making up their minds, a messenger had arrived seeking the Dogger — an excited little man covered in dust and perspiration, who, from his air of mysterious importance, could only be a member of the Bagmen’s Union. He was brimming with news, and after awful hints that his message was for the Dogger alone, he spilled it in the middle of the camp.
‘Out pickin’, are they?’
‘Yeah. Them and the ’Postle. Lot of these farmers are going to dry their apricots, so they say.’
The little man fidgeted. He wanted them to ask about his news, and no one asked.
‘Well, seein’ we’re all friends here,’ he burst out — ‘members of the Union, eh, mates? — I might as well pass the word.’
They regarded him politely but distantly. The word, whatever it was, seemed to arouse no quiver of curiosity.
‘It’s like this,’ he whispered, glancing round. ‘Ever been through Coiling’s Flat?’
‘Yeah,’ Thirty-Bob drawled. ‘Dirty little rat-hole.’
‘But listen.’ The bringer of news fairly quivered with excitement. ‘There’s a big boom on there. It’s going ahead like a house on fire. It’s the mine …’
‘What mine?’
‘They’re reopening the works for treating the ore. Mills for crushing the stuff and stamping it. Zinc, wolfram, concentrates. Plants for treating it and melting down the chunks of rock …’ His technical knowledge was not extensive, and he faltered. ‘They’re going to put up plants worth a million, and they’ll be wantin’ chaps at the works. It’ll be another Port Kembla …’
‘If it’s anything like Port Kembla,’ Mrs Tyrell declared stoutly, ‘I’d sooner stay away. Men waiting round the steel works, so that when a chap is killed they could get his job. Paying thirty-five bob to sleep in shifts in a lousy bed. Not if I know it.’
‘Well, there’s goin’ to be a big boom at Coiling’s Flat,’ the messenger insisted. ‘Hundreds of men they’ll need. It’ll be one of these war supplies, see? I come up right away to tell the Dogger. He’s wanted there. Orders from Headquarters.’ He was a little ashamed at having let out this important fact, but he had been bursting with the urgency of his message. ‘I’d better get out to this orchard right away.’ But he accepted another cup of tea, and sat for a long time boasting of the prosperity of Coiling’s Flat. ‘Money pouring into it,’ he cried. ‘And they’re going to take on hundreds of men. There’ll be big money. And we want our own men, union chaps. That’s why I’m after the Dogger.’
‘Big money?’ Thirty-Bob’s tone was derisive. ‘There’s always big money somewhere where you ain’t.’
‘Well’ — the visitor rose — ‘I must be gettin’ along.’
After he had gone they sat silent, but they were thinking. It was Duke who spoke first.
‘We could do with some money, couldn’t we, Bet?’
‘I don’t want you to get hurt in no metal-works.’
‘Oh! I wouldn’t get hurt,’ the busker said carelessly. ‘Be damned to that.’ He began to see the possibilities. ‘Why, if what this cove says is right, we’ll make tracks for this Coiling’s Flat tomorrow.’
‘Ker-ist!’ Thirty-Bob sneered. ‘Hold out a carrot to a neddy! What the hell’s the use of rushing and sweating to get work? Damned if you ain’t better on the track rations.’
‘Well, I’m going to see if there’s anything in it,’ the busker said defiantly. ‘I take it you’re not coming?’
‘Me?’ Thirty-Bob was surprised. ‘Why, I’ll give it a go. Might as well be there as anywhere else.’
Mrs Tyrell obdurately shook her head, as they looked at her.
‘No,’ she said, her lips thin. ‘No, Deafy ain’t going to get no hot metal poured over him.’
They laughed at her. Deafy, when the remark was roared in his ear, was indignant.
‘I can work with the best,’ he asserted piteously. ‘I s’pose you want to go on selling pot-holders and aprons? We’re getting old, woman. No, don’t you start nagging.’ He checked the rising torrent of Mrs Tyrell’s words with an upraised hand. ‘You battle hard enough most times. Gimme a chance.’
‘You’re a fool, Tom. They won’t take you on.’
Deafy disputed this. ‘Anyway, we’re going,’ he announced, ‘and that’s all about it.’
To the Stray, her mind still bitter, still turned towards the blackened ruins of the cannery, where scavengers were even now prowling in the heaped ashes, the sudden revival of hope in her companions seemed nothing short of a miracle. They had been just the same all the way to Boswell, planning how they would spend their money at the end of the fruit season. Now it was ore-smelting or mining … Anything, as long as it gave them hope, as long as it gave them somewhere to go, made them feel that they were not merely moving slowly around the walls of a great gaol, dragged on a chain from one dole-station to the next. Their faces had brightened; they sat straighter; they talked eagerly; arguing which route would get them quickest to Coiling’s Flat; where they would get their dole; where they would camp.
They went off to spread the news to friends and neighbours, and the excitement increased as the story of immense riches at Coiling’s Flat, jobs for all, bigger and bigger wages, spread and enlarged itself. Even Mrs Tyrell, obsessed as she was by the vision of Deafy writhing under a torrent of white-hot metal, began to see the brighter side.
‘It’s a road that ain’t been faked out,’ she confided to the Stray. ‘We can sell as we go. That is, if some of this mob don’t get ahead of us.’
For the camps at Boswell were full of people who ‘faked’ or ‘dropped’ small articles: artificial flowers, belts made of kangaroo skin, brooches made of feathers, patent polishing powder — anything and everything to bring in ready money.
‘We ought to make an early start,’ Mrs Tyrell continued, brightening still more at the prospect. ‘I’ll get some of our stuff packed tonight so that we can get away before it’s too hot. If we start about four, we can travel till ten, and then rest through the heat.’ Already her mind was busy about the practical details of the move.
When the Apostle returned to the camp later that evening, they overwhelmed him with enthusiastic descriptions of the riches to be won in Coiling’s Flat. He had, with Thirty-Bob’s shrewd assistance, sold the motor-truck, and was come to insist that Thirty-Bob take some form of commission.
‘Now’s your chance, Harry,’ Thirty-Bob encouraged. ‘You’ll be able to get yourself a gold-mounted soap-box in Coiling’s Flat. The place is booming like a gold-mine.’
‘Yes, I heard abo
ut it,’ the Apostle said, smiling. ‘So it’s got you too?’
‘Well, a man wants to make beer-money, don’t he? Ain’t you going?’
‘Oh, I suppose so.’ The Apostle had bought a bicycle at the suggestion of Angus and the Dogger, who both had bicycles. Why couldn’t he, they asked, throw his lot in with theirs?
The idea had appealed to the Apostle. There was always room for one more in the constant cross-fire of argument that went on around the camp of the Bagmen’s Executive.
‘Might as well take the bloody Apostle,’ the Dogger himself had declared. ‘Poor old bastard’s breaking up fast. Don’t like to see him left. He isn’t any worse to live with than you, Angus.’
‘We could keep an eye on him, too,’ Angus argued. ‘See he didn’t put over too much of that Tolstoy stuff. Keep him on the right line.’
‘Yes, I’m going to Coiling’s Flat,’ the Apostle told the Tyrells. ‘But I haven’t, I’m afraid, your expectation of making high wages. I just want to be with the Bagmen’s Union, and that’s where they’ll all be going … all the people on the track.’
‘There’ll be plenty left,’ Mrs Tyrell told him. ‘There’s always plenty left over. Maybe you’re right, Harry, about there being no money in it. But it’s something, ain’t it, it’s something to think about? Tom might get a job navvying or that.’
‘True,’ the Apostle nodded. Men, he thought sadly, were all fevered to clutch at security, to feel that they had some settled place in life, however poor, that they were not outcasts from their kind. All were deluded into the belief that security in this world was possible. He could preach to them of the cosmic plan, give them some comfort if they would take it, but how few, how very few, would listen, any more than they would listen to the Dogger’s and Angus’s plan for reconstructing society. They would gallop hundreds of miles to snatch at a wage, to wear themselves to death, parch in the heat, and shiver in the cold, only so that they might not be left to the tender mercies of the police and the half-starvation of ‘rations’ in the outdoor workhouse of the roads. Humanity seemed to him so pitifully, so heartbreakingly, hopeful.
The Battlers Page 41