by Nevil Shute
She was called before dawn, and was out at the aerodrome with the first light. The aircraft this time was a vintage Dragon, which wandered round the cattle stations as on the previous flight, Canobie and Wandoola and Milgarra. About midday, after four or five landings, they came to the sea, a desolate marshy coast, and shortly after that they put down at Normanton. Half an hour later they were in the air again for Constance Downs station; they had a cup of tea here and a chat with the manager’s wife, and took off on the last leg to Willstown.
They got there about the middle of the afternoon, and Jean got a bird’s-eye view of the place as they circled for a landing. The country was well wooded with gum trees and fairly green; the Gilbert River ran into the sea about three miles below the town. There was deep, permanent water in it as far up as Willstown and beyond, because she could see a wooden jetty, and the river ran inland out of sight into the heat haze with water in it as far as she could see. All the other watercourses, however, seemed to be dry.
The town itself consisted of about thirty buildings, very widely scattered on two enormous intersecting streets or areas of land, for the streets were not paved. Only one building, which she later learned to be the hotel, was of two storeys. From the town dirt tracks ran out into the country in various directions. That was all that one could see of Willstown, that and a magnificent aerodrome put there in the war for defence purposes, with three enormous tarmac runways each a mile long.
They landed upon one of these huge runways, and taxied towards a truck parked at the runway intersection; this truck was loaded with two barrels of petrol and a semi-rotary pump for refuelling. The pilot said to Jean as he came down the cabin, “You’re getting off here, Miss Paget? Is anyone meeting you?”
She shook her head. “I want to see a man who’s living in this district, on one of the stations. I’ll have to go to the hotel, I think.”
“Who is it? Al Burns, the Shell agent out there on the truck, he knows everybody here.”
She said, “Oh, that’s a good idea. I want to see Mr. Joe Harman. He’s manager of Midhurst station.”
They got out of the aeroplane together. “Morning, Al,” the pilot said. “She’ll take about forty gallons. I’ll have a look at the oil in a minute. Is Joe Harman in town?”
“Joe Harman?” said the man in the truck. He was a lean, dark-haired man of forty or so. “Joe Harman’s in England. Went there for a holiday.”
Jean blinked, and tried to collect her thoughts. She had been prepared to hear that Harman was out on his property or even that he was away in Cairns or Townsville, but it was absurd to be told that he was in England. She was staggered for a moment, and then she wanted to laugh. She realised that the men were looking at her curiously. “I sent him a telegram to say that I was coming,” she said foolishly. “I suppose he didn’t get that.”
“Couldn’t have done,” said Al Burns slowly. “When did you send it?”
“About four or five days ago, from Alice Springs.”
“Oh, no, he wouldn’t have got that. Jim Lennon might have it, out at Midhurst station.”
“That’s dinky-die is it?” the pilot asked. “He’s gone to England?”
“Went about a month ago,” the man said. “Jim Lennon said the other night that he’d be back about the end of October.”
The pilot turned to Jean. “What will you do, Miss Paget? Do you want to stay here now? It’s not much of a place, you know.”
She bit her lip in thought. “When will you be taking off?” she asked. “You’re going back to Cloncurry?”
“That’s right,” he replied. “We’re going back to Normanton tonight and night-stopping there, and back to the Curry tomorrow morning. I’m going into town now while Al fills her up. Take off in about half an hour.”
Cloncurry was the last place that she wanted to go back to. “I’ll have to think about this,” she said. “I’ll have to stay in Australia, till I’ve seen Joe Harman. Cairns is a nice place to stay, isn’t it?”
“Oh, Cairns is a bonza town,” he said. “Townsville, too. If you’ve got to wait six or eight weeks you don’t want to wait here, Miss Paget.”
“How could I get to Cairns?” she asked.
“Well,” he said. “You could come back with me to Cloncurry and then go by train to Townsville and up to Cairns. I don’t quite know how long that would take in the train — it must be between six and seven hundred miles. Or you could wait here till next Wednesday, today week, and go by the Dakota straight to Cairns in about two and a half hours.”
“How long would the train take, from Cloncurry to Cairns?”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I don’t think they go every day from Townsville to Cairns, but I’m not really sure. I think you’d have to allow three days.” He paused. “Of course, the best way would be to fly from Cloncurry to Townsville and then fly up to Cairns.”
“I know.” She was getting very sensitive to the cost of flying these vast distances, but the alternative of three days in an outback train in sweltering heat was almost unbearable. “It’ld be much cheaper to stay here and go by the Dakota next week, wouldn’t it?”
The pilot said, “Oh, much. From here to Cairns would cost you ten pounds fifteen shillings. Flying back to Cloncurry and then on to Townsville and Cairns would be about thirty pounds.”
“I suppose the hotel here is quite cheap?”
“About twelve and six a day, I should think.” He turned to the Shell agent, busy with the fuel. “Al, how much does Mrs. Connor charge?”
“Ten and six.”
Jean did a rapid mental calculation; by staying in this place and waiting for the Dakota in a week’s time she would save sixteen pounds. “I think I’ll stay here,” she said. “It’s much cheaper than going back with you. I’ll stay here and see Jim Lennon and wait for the Dakota next week.”
“You know what it’s going to be like, Miss Paget?”
“Like the Post Office Hotel at Cloncurry?”
“It’s a bit more primitive than that. The whatnot’s out in the back yard.”
She laughed. “Will I have to lock myself in my room and take a revolver to bed with me?”
He was a little shocked. “Oh, you’ll find it quite respectable. But, well, you may find it a little primitive, you know.”
“I expect I’ll survive.”
By that time another truck had appeared, a lorry with a couple of men in it; they stared at Jean curiously. The pilot took her suitcase and put it in the back; the driver helped her up into the cab beside him. It was a relief to get out of the blazing sunshine into the shade again.
The driver said, “Staying in Willstown?”
“I wanted to see Joe Harman, but they say he’s away. I’m staying here till next week if Mrs. Connor can have me, and going on to Cairns in the Dakota.”
He looked at her curiously. “Joe Harman’s gone to England. You’re English aren’t you?”
The truck moved off down the wide tarmac runway. “That’s right,” she replied.
He beamed at her. “My mother and my dad, they both came from England. My dad, he was born in Lewisham, that’s part of London, I think, and my mother, she came from Hull.” He paused. “My name’s Small,” he said. “Sam Small, like the chap with the musket.”
The truck left the runway and began bumping and swaying over the earth track leading to the town. Dust rose into the cab, the engine roared, and blue fumes enveloped them; every item of the structure creaked and rattled. “Why did Joe Harman go to England?” she shouted above the din. “What did he go for?”
“Just took a fancy, I think,” Mr. Small replied. “He won the Casket couple of years back.” This was Greek to her. “There’s not a lot to do upon the stations, this time of the year.”
She shouted, “Do you know if there’s a room vacant at the hotel?”
“Oh, aye, there’ll be a room for you. You just out from England?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the rationing like at home,
now?”
She shouted her information to him as the truck bumped and swayed across the landscape to the town. A wooden shack appeared on one side of the truck, and fifty yards on there was another on the left; there was another some distance ahead, and they were in the main street. They drew up in front of a two-storeyed building with a faded sign-board on the first floor veranda, AUSTRALIAN HOTEL. “This is it,” said Mr. Small. “Come on in, and I’ll find Mrs. Connor.”
The Australian Hotel was a fair-sized building with about ten small bedrooms opening on to the top floor veranda. It had wooden floors and wooden doors; the whole of the rest of it was built of corrugated iron on a wood framework. Jean was accustomed by that time to the universal corrugated iron roofs, but a corrugated iron wall to her bedroom was a novelty.
She waited on the upstairs veranda while Mr. Small went to find Mrs. Connor; the veranda had one or two beds on it. When the landlady appeared she was evidently only just awake; she was a tall, grey-haired, determined woman of about fifty.
Jean said, “Good afternoon. My name’s Jean Paget, and I’ve got to stop here till next week. Have you got a room?”
The woman looked her up and down. “Well, I don’t know, I’m sure. You travelling alone?”
“Yes. I really came to see Joe Harman, but they tell me he’s away. I’m going on to Cairns.”
“You just missed the Cairns aeroplane.”
“I know. They say I’ll have to wait a week for the next one.”
“That’s right.” The woman looked around. “Well, I don’t know. You see, the men sleep out on this balcony, often as not. That wouldn’t be very nice for you.”
Sam Small said, “What about the two back rooms, Ma?”
“Aye, she could go there.” She turned to Jean. “It’s on the back balcony, looks out over the yard. You’ll see the boys all going to the gents, but I can’t help that.”
Jean said, “I expect I’ll survive that.”
“You been in outback towns before?”
She shook her head. “I’ve only just come out from England.”
“Is that so! What’s it like in England now? Do you get enough to eat?”
Jean said her piece again.
“I got a sister married to an Englishman,” the woman said. “Living at a place called Goole. I send her home a parcel every month.”
She took Jean and showed her the room. It was clean and with a good mosquito net; it was small, but the passage door was opposite the double window opening on to the balcony, giving a clear draught through. “Nobody don’t come along this balcony, except Annie — she’s the maid. She sleeps in this other room, and if you hear any goings on at night I hope you’ll let me know. I got my eye upon that girl.” She reverted to the ventilation. “You leave your door open a chink, prop your case against it so that no one can’t come barging in by mistake, and have the windows open, and you’ll get a nice draught through. I never had no difficulty sleeping in this place.”
She glanced down at Jean’s hand. “You ain’t married?”
“No.”
“Well, there’ll be every ringer in this district coming into town to have a look at you. You’d better be prepared for that.”
Jean laughed. “I will.”
“You a friend of Joe Harman, then?”
“I met him in the war,” Jean said. “In Singapore, when we were both waiting for a passage home.” It was nearer to the truth than her last lie, anyway. “Then as I was in Australia I sent him a telegram to say I’d come and see him. I didn’t get an answer so I came here anyway. But he’s gone walkabout.”
The woman smiled. “You picked up some Aussie slang.”
“Joe Harman taught me that one, when I met him in the war.”
Sam Small brought up her suitcase; she thanked him, and he turned away, embarrassed. She went into her room and changed her damp clothes for dry ones, and went along to the bathroom and had a shower, and was ready for tea at half-past six when the bell echoed through the corrugated iron building.
She found her way down to the dining-room. Three or four men were seated there already and they looked at her curiously; a well-developed girl of sixteen whom she came to know as Annie indicated a separate small table laid for one. “Roast beef, roast lamb, roast pork, roast turkey,” she said. “Tea or coffee?”
It was swelteringly hot still. Flies were everywhere in the dining-room; they lighted on Jean’s face, her lips, her hands. “Roast turkey,” she said; time enough to try for a light meal tomorrow, when she knew the form. “Tea.”
A plate was brought to her heaped high with meat and vegetables, hot and greasy and already an attraction for the flies. Tea came, with milk out of a tin; the potatoes seemed to be fresh, but the carrots and the turnips were evidently tinned. She thought philosophically that the flies would probably result in dysentery but she knew what to do about that; she had plenty of sulphatriad to see her through the week. She ate about a quarter of the huge plate of food and drank two cups of tea; then she was defeated.
She got outside into the open air as soon as possible, escaping from the flies. On the downstairs veranda three feet above the level of the ground there were two or three deck-chairs, a little distance from the entrance to the bar. She had seen nowhere else in the hotel where she could sit and she already knew enough about Australian conventions not to go near the bar; she went and sat down in one of these chairs wondering if by doing so she was offending against local manners.
She lit a cigarette and sat there smoking, looking at the scene. It was evening but the sun was still strong; the dusty great expanse that served as a street was flooded with a golden light. On the opposite side of the road, more than a hundred yards away, there was a fairly extensive single-storey building that had been built on to from time to time; this was labelled — Wm. Duncan, General Merchant. There was no sign of any other shop in the town. Outside Mr. Duncan’s establishment three coloured Abo Stockmen were gossiping together; one held the bridle of a horse. They were big, well-set-up young men, very like negroes in appearance and, like negroes, they seemed to have plenty to laugh about.
Farther along the other side of the great street a six-inch pipe rose vertically from the ground to a height of about eight feet. A fountain of water gushed from the top of this pipe and this water seemed to be boiling hot, because a cloud of steam surrounded the fountain, and the stream running away into the background was steaming along its length. A quarter of a mile away a small hut was built across the course of the stream so that the stream ran into the hut and out the other side, but Jean had yet to discover the purpose of this edifice.
A low murmur of voices reached her from the bar; from time to time a man passed her and went in through the open door. She saw no women in the place.
Presently a young man, passing by upon the road, smiled at her and said, “Good evening.” She smiled back at him, and said, “Good evening.”
He checked immediately, and she knew that she had started something. He said, “I saw you come in with Sam Small this afternoon. Came in the aeroplane, didn’t you?”
He was a clean-looking young yokel; he walked with the typical swaying gait of the ringer, and he wore the green jodhpurs and the elastic-sided boots that marked his calling. It was no good trying to be standoffish. “That’s right,” she said. “I came up from Cloncurry. Tell me, is that water natural?”
He looked where she was pointing. “Natural? That’s a bore. Never seen one before?”
She shook her head. “I’ve only just come out from England.”
“From England? Oh my word.” He spoke in the slow manner of the outback. “What’s it like in England? Do you get enough to eat?”
She said her piece again. “My Dad came from England,” he said. “From a place called Wolverhampton. Is that near where you live?”
“About two hundred miles,” she replied.
“Oh, quite close. You’ll know the family then. Fletcher is the name. I’m Pete Fletcher.”
“Too right,” he said. “It’s mineral, too — you couldn’t drink that water. There’s gas comes up with it as well. I’ll light it for you if you’d like to see.” He explained that it would make a flame five or six feet high. “Wait till it gets a bit darker, and I’ll light it for you then.”
She said that that was terribly kind of him, and he looked embarrassed. Al Burns, the Shell agent and truck repairer came by and stopped to join them. “Got fixed up all right, Miss Paget?”
“Yes thank you. I’m staying here till Wednesday and then going on to Cairns.”
“Good-oh. We don’t see too many strange faces, here in Willstown.”
“I was asking Pete here about the bore. Pete, do the cattle drink that water?”
The boy laughed, “When they can’t get nothing sweeter they’ll drink that. You’ll see that they won’t touch it in the wet, but then in the dry you’ll see them drinking it all right.”
“Some bores they won’t touch,” said Al. He was rolling himself a cigarette. “They sunk a bore on Invergordon, that’s a station between here and Normanton — over to the south a bit. They had to go down close on three thousand feet before they got the water and did it cost them something, oh my word. The bore crew, they were there close on three months. Then when they got the water it was stinking with the minerals and the cattle wouldn’t touch it, not even in the dry. What’s more, it wouldn’t grow grass, either.”
Two more men had drifted up and joined the little gathering about her chair. “Tell me,” she said, “why is this town so spread out? Why aren’t the houses closer together?”
One of the newcomers, a man of forty that she later learned to know as Tim Whelan, a carpenter, said, “There was houses all along here once. I got a photograph of this town took in 1905. I’ll bring it and show you tomorrow.”
“Were there more people living here then?”