by Nevil Shute
We do not very often see strange faces at Landsborough in the wet, of course. But one day about the end of February or the beginning of March a strange aeroplane flew in and landed at the aerodrome, quite unexpectedly. It turned out to be a Dakota of the Department of Civil Aviation on loan for a period to the Department of Works and Housing. The passengers and crew came into the Post Office Hotel to spend the night and I met them there when I went down to have my tea.
They turned out to be a party of surveyors and architects from the head office of the Department of Canberra; they had spent a couple of days at Brisbane on the way up, and had flown direct from there to Landsborough. Everybody was naturally curious to know what they had come for, and they were forthright people who made no bones about their business. They had come up to reinstate the aerodrome at Invergarry.
I sat at table with the man who seemed to be the head of the party, a grey-haired man of fifty-five or so, a Mr. Hutchinson. “There’s no secret about it,” he said. “It’s all been in the papers, though perhaps you haven’t heard about it here. It’s in connection with the expansion of the R.A.A.F. — we’ve got to open up some of the old wartime aerodromes again and make them suitable for squadrons to occupy upon a permanent basis. It’s a big programme — means permanent buildings and hangars. It’ll take about five years to complete, perhaps longer. Take Invergarry as an example; that’s the one that we’re going to see tomorrow. I understand there’s nothing there at all.”
I shook my head. “I passed by it about three years ago.”
“You did? There’s nothing there, is there?”
“Nothing but the runways,” I replied. “They were all right then. But there aren’t any buildings.”
“None at all?”
“Nothing.”
He turned to one of the others. “It’s as you said, Harry. The Americans took everything away.” He turned back to me. “You’ll think it’s funny that we shouldn’t know,” he said, “but these were American airstrips in the war against Japan, and we never had very much to do with them. And they’re not in places that one goes to every day.”
We talked a little about the job they had to do. Working from the basis of the existing runways, which they had to survey and to map, they had to start in and design a complete new station for the R.A.A.F. out in the middle of the wilderness, capable of accommodating one squadron as a start and for expansion at some later date to take a wing. “It won’t all happen overnight,” said Mr. Hutchinson. “It will be five years at least before a squadron gets there with its aeroplanes, working as we do under peacetime conditions. It might be longer than that.”
I asked quietly, “Will they have helicopters there?”
“Helicopters? Oh, I don’t know about that. Medium bombers is the intention, I believe. Most stations seem to have a helicopter or two about the place these days, though.”
“They’re useful for communications work,” one of the others said.
I sat with them at table for some time after the meal, because the only other place to go was into the bar, and none of the surveyors seemed to be fanatical beer drinkers. And sitting so, and thinking over what they had told me, I thought it best to have the whole of it, and I asked Mr. Hutchinson, “Do you people know Canberra well?”
“We all live there,” he said. “We moved up from Melbourne last year. But I’ve been there off and on about eleven years.”
“Do you know a place called Letchworth?”
“Too right I do,” he said. “It’s just outside the Federal Territory, in New South Wales.”
“Do you know the Yarrow Road in Letchworth?”
He wrinkled his brows. “Can’t say I do. There’s only one or two roads there at all. Simon might know — he worked in Canberra before he joined us. Simie, know the Yarrow Road, in Letchworth?”
A red-haired young man spoke up. “What about it?”
“There is a Yarrow Road in Letchworth, is there? Mr. Hargreaves was asking.”
“There’s going to be,” the young man said. “It’s not built yet. It’s not even pegged out, far as I know. It’s one of the roads running up the hill away from the railway line, all going to be called after places in England. You’ll find it marked on the twenty-five inch plan, dotted.”
I asked, “There aren’t any houses on it yet?”
He shook his head. “It’s all virgin bush. It’s not even scheduled for construction yet, Mr. Hargreaves. How did you get to hear about it?”
I said vaguely, “A chap I know was talking about a house he wanted to build some day, on Yarrow Road.”
Mr. Simon smiled. “He’ll have a long time to wait.”
“Have you got any idea when it’s likely to be made?”
He shook his head. “You tell me first how fast Canberra’s going to grow. It’ll have to be a city of three or four hundred thousand people before Yarrow Road gets built, I’d say.”
Mr. Hutchinson said, “Ah no. Long before that.”
There was a short, desultory dispute. “What’s the population now?” I asked.
“Twenty-one thousand.” He paused. “It might be built in twenty years from now, the way things are going on. Mind you,” he said, “it’ll open up some fine positions for houses when it is built. There’ll be a good class suburb up there on the Yarrow Road one day. But not just yet.”
I went back to my vicarage that night troubled and perplexed.
I had no time to brood over these matters, however, because even in the wet I find my life at Landsborough surprisingly busy. Not only were there the usual occupations such as the morning service for the children, and the visiting, but soon after I came out of hospital they elected me on to the Shire Council, a considerable honour and one which gave me a good deal of say in municipal affairs. I took advantage of the position to press for the institution of a School of Arts, which might be called a public library in other places, and at the same time I was trying to get organized a branch of the Country Women’s Association. All this meant a good deal of work in canvassing opinion amongst uninformed people, and a good deal of scratching round for funds, and a good deal of correspondence with outside bodies in Brisbane and other cities. I found myself kept very fully occupied on all this work and I was glad that it should be so, because I would not like the people to get the impression that their vicar just sits down with his hands folded in the wet when it is impossible for him to get about the parish.
Everything comes to an end at last, and about the middle of March we got a succession of fine, cloudless days with a bright, hot sun. We got a storm or two after that at the tail end of the monsoon, but by the end of the month cars were beginning to move about in the immediate vicinity of Landsborough and the water was off most of the roads. By the middle of April trucks were running through to Cloncurry again, and I was able to get about my parish.
I had a great deal to do, of course. The small radios and the aeroplanes had kept me fairly well aware of what was going on, and there were a number of children born during the wet to be baptized, and a few graves to be blessed. I went first to the east, to the Newmarket River district of my parish. Travelling conditions were not very good, and I had to miss one Sunday at Landsborough, because it was about a hundred and thirty miles to come back and there was so much to be done down there I thought I ought to stay and clean up all the spiritual requirements of the people in that part of the country. I was away upon that journey for eleven days, and although the country down there was still very wet I kept remarkably well, being quite restored to health after my long rest.
I got back to Landsborough on the Saturday, and I had to stay in the district for a week, because there was no transport going to the Blazing River till the following Monday. I filled in the time by visiting the stations around, spending a night at Dorset Downs where Hugh McIntyre very kindly lent me a horse and a black boy as a guide to take me out to Liang Shih’s house.
We started at dawn, and it took us about three hours to get there through the
bush. When we came to the house on the rising bit of land between the waterholes, we found that Liang was already busy in his garden. The receding floods had left a layer of fine mud over everything, and Liang had already hoed and planted an acre or so, and was busy on another plot as large again. It was pleasant to see the little lettuces all coming up, and the neat garden, all bright and fresh in the warm sun.
I got down off my horse and the boy took him, and Liang left his work and came to greet me. I chatted with him for a little and told him that I had come to see what needed doing to the grave, since I was in the neighbourhood. We walked over to it together. The cross had gone, knocked over by some animal perhaps and washed away, but the covering of soil still hid the body, or perhaps Liang had attended to that, because there was fresh soil on the top. He had driven stakes in around the grave and against these stakes he had erected a wall of old corrugated iron sheets, discarded from some roof because of the many rust holes in them, so that the grave now lay within a small rusty iron enclosure. He had not replaced the cross, but at each corner of the enclosure he had planted what I took to be a gladiola.
I was touched by the care that he had taken over the remains of his old friend, and I said something to that effect, but I could make no mental contact with the Chinaman. I asked if he would mind if we put up a headstone on the grave, and he shrugged his shoulders, as if to indicate that we could do what we liked. I asked if he intended to get somebody else to come and live with him, and he said no, but gave no reason. He did not seem to be prepared to discuss his life or his personal affairs at all, though I think he was pleased to see me. I asked if I could send him anything out from the town, and he said that he would be coming into town in a few days and he could shop himself. He had found Sister Finlay’s medicine case as the floods went down, and he gave me this to take her, much ruined by lying in the water for three months.
So I left him and rode back to Landsborough with the black stockman, getting there soon after midday. I turned the horse over to the boy to take back home with him, and after dinner I walked up to the hospital and gave Sister Finlay her case. She made me stay and have a cup of tea with them, and while we were drinking it I told her about the grave.
“I’m glad it’s being looked after,” she said. And then she said, “He was an awful nuisance to us, but one misses him. He wasn’t such a bad old man.”
“I think there was a lot of good in him,” I said. “I found him rather an attractive character in many ways.”
“If only he hadn’t smelt so bad,” said Templeton.
I started off next week upon my second journey of the year, southwards and westwards of Landsborough, travelling for the first day in the mail truck which was running again. We didn’t get along very fast, because traffic was beginning to move about the roads again after the wet, and hardly an hour went by but we would meet another vehicle. When that happened we stopped, of course, and had a gossip for a quarter of an hour because there was so much news to be exchanged, and he would have a drink with us out of our bottle of rum and we would have a drink with him out of his, and so we would drive on after a time. I left the truck that evening to stay with Mr. and Mrs. Cooper at Sweet River, and held a communion service and a christening of an Abo child next morning; in the afternoon Fred Cooper drove me on to Marriboula, where old Mrs. Foster had died of pleurisy about a month before.
I went on like that for a day or two, and it must have been on May the 9th or 10th that I was at Blazing Downs for the night, staying with Mr. and Mrs. Taggart. A stock route passes across one end of Blazing Downs about twenty miles from the homestead, and amongst the other gossip of the district they told me that there was a mob of about twelve hundred beasts passing across their property on their way to railhead at Cloncurry from some station up in the northeast. I asked who the drover was, thinking I might know him.
“Jock Anderson,” Joe Taggart said. “Ever meet him?”
I shook my head. “I can’t say that I know the name.” The only Anderson I knew belonged to something quite unreal, that I had resolutely put out of my mind.
“I don’t know him well,” said Joe. “He’s a Scot from home, from some place in the Highlands. Works mostly in the Territory, but he comes down here once in a while.”
“Has he got much of an outfit?” I asked.
“He’s got Phil Fleming with him,” Joe said. “Old Harry Fleming’s boy, at Camooweal. Got three or four boongs along, too.”
There was nothing particularly interesting in that, and we went on to talk of other things. I spent the night with the Taggarts, and Joe offered to drive me on next day to Wentworth, a matter of thirty miles or so, which was most kind. I arranged to hold a Communion next morning after breakfast because it was a week day and work had to get started, and then there were a couple of aboriginal children to be baptized before we could get on the road.
We were sitting gossiping over the remains of breakfast when we heard the sound of a horse down by the stockyard. I could not have distinguished it from one of the station horses, but Joe said at once, “Wonder who that is?” We had not very long to wait, because a tall, fair-haired man, bearded, in a dirty blue shirt and strides walked awkwardly on to the verandah, and hesitated when he saw us sitting at the table.
Joe got up to greet him. “Come on in, Jock,” he said. “Just in time for breakfast.” He shouted through to the pantry, “Sunshine, go over to Cookie and ask him to give you another breakfast for Mr. Anderson.”
He turned to me. “This is Jock Anderson, Brother. Jock, this is Brother Hargreaves, from Landsborough.”
The tall man shook hands awkwardly. “They told me you would be coming,” he said, and it was very evident that he was Scotch. “I was wondering now, would ye have time to ride over to the camp with me, Brother, to baptize a child?”
From behind me I heard Mrs. Taggart give an audible sniff.
I smiled. “Always got time to baptize a child, Jock,” I said. “Whose child is it? Yours?”
“Aye,” he said steadily, “it’s mine. The wife’s down there in the camp with it.”
I was surprised at that, because the Taggarts had not told me about any woman in his droving outfit. Mrs. Taggart got to her feet and called for Sunshine, her Abo maid, and began picking up the dirty dishes with a bit of a clatter, so that I got an inkling of the trouble. The girl came with a plate piled high with sausages and plains turkey and potatoes, and I sat talking to Jock Anderson while he demolished this.
“I was going on to Wentworth today, Jock,” I said. “You’re somewhere down that way, aren’t you?”
“I am eighteen miles to the north of Wentworth homestead,” he told me. “Forbye, I took the liberty to bring a second horse up with me, Brother, in case you would have time to come.” He hesitated. “If you would ride over with me I will bring you back here before dark. If you would care to stay the night, I would take you on to Wentworth in the morning. But we have only a rough camp.”
“That’s all right,” I said. “I’ve got a swag with me.” I turned to Joe Taggart. “I should think that’s the best thing I can do, Joe. Save you taking me all that way in the utility.”
We discussed it for a little, and it really seemed the best thing to be done. I wondered a little why he had not brought the mother and child over with him to save me the journey, though I thought I knew the reason. However, we settled that I should go back with him to the camp, although I could see that Joe was troubled about the conditions I would meet.
I turned to Jock Anderson presently. “I’m just going to celebrate Holy Communion, Jock,” I said. “Would you care to join us?”
He said awkwardly. “It is many years since I took the Lord’s Supper.”
“Time you did, then,” I replied. “We’d be very glad to have you.”
Before the service, Joe Taggart took me aside. “I’m sorry about that chap, Brother,” he said. “He’s living with a yeller girl. I’d have told you last night, only the wife’s funny about that sor
t of thing. I should have told you that he’d got a gin down in the camp. I never thought of this.”
“That’s all right,” I said. “I suppose that’s why he didn’t bring the baby here?”
He nodded. “The missus wouldn’t like it, and it wouldn’t do, with all these other boongs. It’s best the way he’s done it, but I’m sorry that it’s giving you such a lot of trouble.”
“It’s no trouble at all,” I said. “It’s what I’m here for.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have a rough night,” he complained.
I laughed. “It’s not the first time I’ve stayed in a drover’s camp, Joe, and it won’t be the last.”
We started off about the middle of the morning, after my Celebration and the christening. Jock Anderson had two horses but only one saddle, because it is a little awkward to lead a saddled horse for any distance. He insisted on me taking the saddled horse and we slung my bedroll across the saddle in the front and tied it down with thongs; although he was riding bareback he carried my little case of sacramental vessels. So we rode away from Blazing Downs.
He did not talk much on the way. I asked him where he had come from, and he told me that he had spent the wet at Robinson River two hundred miles or so to the northwest, being under contract to take a mob of store cattle from Wollogorang to railhead directly after the wet. He had been about three weeks on the road, and he expected to get his mob to the Curry in about another twelve days if the going was normal; after that he had to hurry back to Robinson River to fetch another mob from there. He had four men in his outfit besides himself, and about thirty horses. He seemed a steady and responsible sort of a man, apparently in demand by station managers; probably he was making good money, though he was very seldom in a town to spend it.