The Call of the Pines

by Lucy Walker

  Yes, thought Cherry with compunction, he does feel that aeroplane crash. He’s making a joke of it but he knows that his own personal troubles are only just beginning.

  ‘Alan,’ she said, ‘thank you for crash landing us the way you did. It was wonderful. Any other pilot would have made a mess of it.’

  ‘Oh, and thank Stephen and me for guiding you to safety through python-writhing jungles, waterless wastes of scrub and poison-infested bush,’ said Tracy.

  She too threw a piece of wood on the fire. In a minute all three of them were stooping, gathering small broken sticks and twig ends and throwing them on the fire. They were like children playing at snowballs in a different land and climate.

  ‘I wish I’d seen a python,’ said Cherry, not believing in them and also wanting to say something funny and brave and carefree.

  ‘We ought to have brought home those two we found hanging in the trees yesterday, Stephen darling,’ Tracy said lightly. ‘That would have pleased Cherry’s idea of seeing life.’

  ‘Not really?’ said Cherry incredulously. She suddenly hugged Peter closer.

  ‘Yes, really,’ said Tracy. ‘Ask Stephen. He all but leaned against one to have a rest on our way home from the lake.’

  Cherry closed her eyes and when she opened them looked straight across the intervening space at Stephen.

  ‘And you said nothing?’ she said.

  Stephen’s little amused smile did not, for once, annoy her.

  ‘Oh, you wouldn’t have understood about pythons,’ said Tracy airily, taking a dancing step to throw more wood on the fire. ‘They’re quite the thing up here in this part of the world.’

  Cherry met Alan Donnelly’s eyes and they both seemed to say the same thing to one another.

  Cherry swallowed.

  ‘Thank you for saying nothing,’ she said. ‘I would have been terrified coming through the jungle to-day.’

  She looked from Stephen to Tracy and back to Stephen again.

  Suddenly they both looked different to her. They were both clothed in the secret atmosphere of their nonchalance and their silent bravery. Two people who dealt in pythons! One never had a hair out of place and the other behaved like a slightly irritable man whose main preoccupation was to see the governess did not underfeed his one and only nephew.

  ‘Thanks a lot, old man,’ Alan said to Stephen across the now blazing fire. ‘I’ll admit I was a bit hipped you would make those path-finding forages on your own. Now I can see your point.’

  ‘Tracy was with me,’ said Stephen. ‘She’d charm any snake off a tree.’

  ‘Out of a basket,’ said Tracy carelessly. ‘I’ve always longed to meet an Indian snake charmer. All I need is a reed pipe.’

  ‘Miss Tracy,’ said Alan, bowing, ‘I defer to a very grand little lady.’

  Oddly enough, Cherry felt a pang of jealousy. Ah, if only she could do something grand and heroic!

  She looked down at the face of the small child in her lap. He had turned his head and was looking up at her. He smiled with delight as her face turned to his.

  ‘You’ll do me,’ that smile seemed to say. Somehow Cherry felt solaced.

  The excitement over, Stephen regained his manner of camp chief and detailed off the immediate chores to the others.

  ‘Tracy,’ he said, ‘take charge of that child for a change. Cherry, you had a lesson in cooking last night, you make the earth paste for the ducks and put them under the coals. Never mind the feathers, they’ll come off with the case. Alan, you deploy north and see if you can find the cattle tracks that way. Don’t lose sight of the camp. Return immediately you begin to lose it. I’m going out on the plain. I might be some time.’

  ‘Don’t go too far yourself, and get lost,’ said Cherry, suddenly feeling she couldn’t bear to let Stephen out of her sight. He wasn’t just man anymore, he was of the stuff that gods were made. He had minded them carefully ‒ he had brought them to safety, he had ignored pythons as mere trifles of interest in a day’s march.

  ‘It will be time to worry if I’m not back by starlight,’ he said. ‘I’m a bushman. I won’t get lost.’

  ‘That’s one for me,’ said Alan. ‘I’ve got to stay in sight of the camp.’ Then he laughed. ‘And the ladies too,’ he added with something that was nearly a wink.

  ‘You’d better,’ said Stephen grimly. ‘I’ve enough on my hands finding cattle tracks without finding lost pilots too.’

  It occurred to Cherry that Stephen was too tough to be sensitive. He would never know how that occasional tilt at Alan’s vocation had an unintended barb in it. Or was it that he was not amused at Alan’s jest about remaining in sight of the ladies?

  Chapter Twelve

  It was indeed starlight before Stephen returned from his foraging out on the plain.

  ‘No luck,’ he said. ‘How was it with you, Alan?’

  ‘The same. Not a sign of tracks.’

  ‘We’ll have to wait till sun-up. They’ll be on the move then. We’ll get their direction from their dust cloud.’

  By the firelight of the camp and with the aid of the torch they had examined Alan’s maps which he had brought from the plane and which were now useful. The edge of the jungle country and the proximity of the stock route gave them a near location.

  ‘My guess is, it’s the Timor Bay stock route,’ said Stephen. ‘They’re travelling north in a line parallel with the border about three miles across from us. We’ll strike camp before daylight and be ready to move as soon as we see their dust cloud.’

  ‘You’re not anxious about leaving the vicinity of water?’ asked Alan.

  ‘No. We’re as near that water-hole as we are the lake and we’ll conserve what we’ve got. Meantime we’ll make some firebrands of dried sticks in case a plane goes over in the night. If one is heard all hands out and wave the lighted brands.’

  The cooked ducks had been a success and everyone settled down happily for the night. Their hard travelling might not yet be over and the discomforts would probably continue, yet everyone felt reassured that ultimately they would be found and that now there was an immediate chance of their whereabouts becoming known. This, everyone felt, was of greater importance than their own comfort. Distraught relatives elsewhere were real anxieties to them all.

  No plane was heard in the night and by daybreak they were all up and breakfasted on the remains of duck cooked the night before. Peter had his powdered milk and biscuit in addition to his portion of meat juice. This time Cherry made no objections to this diet. Nothing had happened to Peter. He was as well and happy as the days were long and arduous.

  Clearly, the primitive way of life was heaven for a child, Cherry thought.

  She took Tracy’s lack of attention to her sister’s child for granted. Tracy had other qualities. And probably didn’t like children, anyway. It was a good thing for Peter that Mrs. Denton had indeed sent Cherry along to accompany him on that trip to Timor Bay.

  Cherry wondered now if they would ever see Timor Bay. The urgency for Peter’s injections had dwindled to a small matter of the future.

  They moved out in single file across the plain, Stephen going well ahead. He could map out the land, and would possibly get to the water-hole ahead of them. He could then return with water if the followers were too slow.

  Cherry actually was slow because of her injured ankle but she said nothing of this, walking as fast as she could in the heat and tried sorely by a lot of sharp pain.

  She thought that everyone else in the party had shown bravery and coolness in one form or another since that lightning had struck the plane and it humiliated her to think she might hold them all up by a petty injury.

  She said nothing, hid her limp, took her turn with Alan in carrying Peter or the bags and tried not to be too slow.

  It was early afternoon before they crossed the low stony outcrop of hills, sprouting here and there high grass and small dried-up looking prickly bushes. Below them was the lily-strewn water-hole and all the evidences of a
major camp from the night before.

  The grass had been eaten out by the cattle, the ground trampled until it was as bare as a hard, brown dust-bowl.

  Stephen, using his ingenuity, found the one place amongst the rocks which the drovers had used and where the water was clear.

  ‘If only a plane would go over,’ said Alan. ‘Wonder where the heck they’re looking for us? I wasn’t so far off route after all.’

  ‘They probably combed out this side of the hills yesterday or the day before and have given it up,’ Stephen said. ‘They’re now hunting over the jungle.’

  ‘Which we have vacated,’ said Tracy with a yawn. ‘Oh, well, I suppose there’s nothing left to do but chase the cattle. When do we leave, Stephen darling?’

  ‘They’d travel five to six miles to-day after a good watering,’ said Stephen. ‘That would make them three miles away now. At the slow rate you three have been travelling we wouldn’t reach them before nightfall.’

  ‘Well, what’s stopping us?’ said Tracy.

  My ankle, thought Cherry, but she didn’t say so.

  Stephen rubbed his forehead and looked thoughtfully from Alan to Cherry.

  ‘Can you two make it?’ he asked.

  Alan looked at Cherry. He knew about her ankle. Obviously Stephen had forgotten it. In a way Alan respected her silence about it but he wasn’t going to see her tortured too much. On the other hand, the extra effort might be worth it if it meant a civilised camp for the night.

  ‘Can do, Cherry?’ he asked.

  She nodded.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ repeated Tracy. ‘She’s a sound, healthy person, isn’t she?’

  Night had fallen when they reached the drover’s camp. Twenty minutes before they got there they heard the sounds of a raucous old gramophone splitting the warm night air with unearthly sounds.

  ‘He wouldn’t carry that thing in his saddle-bags,’ said Stephen. ‘Means he’s got a truck for his camp gear.’

  ‘I hate to say it aloud for fear I break our luck,’ said Alan. ‘But I think we’re not only found, we’ve got a conveyance back to civilisation.’

  ‘Don’t count on it,’ advised Stephen. ‘Depends on the size of his plant and whether he can part with it. He’ll put his cattle before us.’

  Stephen spoke with the authority of experience for this is exactly what the drover did do.

  He was an elderly man, almost fierce in his bush-whacking hardness and strength, but also hospitable in the same bush-whacking tradition.

  Everyone was welcomed to the camp-fire, large hunks of beef were cut from the haunches in the meat-bags hanging under a tree and grilled on the fire over a small iron frame. Tea was made, cigarettes were dispensed and only then did the old drover think it was time for conversation.

  While Tracy reclined on the ground, smoking a cigarette, Alan helped the drover and his camp cook, who later turned out also to be the truck driver, Stephen helped Cherry find a suitable place to bed Peter down for the night and brought her hot water with which to mix more of the dried milk.

  ‘There’ll be real red beefsteak juice for Peter this time,’ he said with a touch of the old teasing note in his voice. ‘No objections?’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Cherry. ‘That was part of his daily diet on the station.’

  Cherry left the child in its nest in the bushes to go back to the fire to see how the steak was going.

  ‘There’s a tin under the piece on the end of the grill, missus,’ said the drover through an enormous matting of whiskers. ‘It’s catchin’ the beef drops fer yer little boy. Guess yer husband kin pick it up outa the fire. Too hot for them white hands of yours.’

  ‘My husband?’ said Cherry, puzzled, then realised who the drover meant. ‘Oh, you mean Stephen …’ She blushed furiously but this was fortunately hidden by the fact the only light on her face was from the flickering flames of the fire. Stephen, she knew, had heard for he had just come forward into the circle round the fire.

  ‘He’s not my husband,’ Cherry said hastily. ‘He’s the little boy’s uncle.’

  ‘And she is the nursemaid,’ said Tracy from the ground.

  Cherry felt herself go cold. This time Tracy had meant to hurt. There was an unmistakable attack in her voice in spite of the clipped bored tones.

  ‘What you doing with other people’s babies?’ asked the old drover, flipping over a piece of steak and wiping the back of his hand across his bewhiskered mouth. He straightened up and looked through the flicker of light and shadow at Cherry’s slim figure standing irresolute at the edge of the circle of light. She was still dumbfounded at the clear intention to hurt in Tracy’s manner.

  She was so preoccupied with this mixed feeling of embarrassment and surprise that she did not realise the drover had asked a question.

  ‘Come on, young ’un,’ he persisted. ‘Ain’t you got a husband uv yer own you got to go round wif his children?’ He pointed at Stephen.

  ‘The child is not my child. He is my brother’s child,’ Stephen said steadily, bending over to retrieve the tin that had been catching the meat juice under the grill.

  Tracy went on smoking her cigarette, and Alan was levering the billies of boiling tea from the fire. Stephen tossed aside the piece of bullock hide the drover had handed him to pick up the tin.

  ‘That can cool there,’ he said quietly to Cherry. ‘He’s fallen asleep so I think we can have some supper first. We’ll give him this when he wakes.’

  ‘Ain’t you got any babies?’ the drover asked, turning to Tracy. ‘Which uv these fellers is your husband?’

  ‘No, and neither,’ said Tracy. Since he had asked two questions she answered both. ‘We are two spinsters, not of this parish, travelling with two bachelors. If you’re captain of this ship and have got book or bible you can put it all right for us by just saying the word.’

  ‘What she mean?’ the old drover asked Stephen. Clearly however odd a character he was, he was capable of realising who was the leader of this group of waifs and strays without being told.

  ‘She’s talking nonsense because she’s tired, like the rest of us. We’ll all be more rational by the morning,’ Stephen replied.

  ‘Guess no one’s quite right in the ’ead after a plane crash,’ the old fellow said. ‘Tell you what, I got some pills in that medicine tin the Flying Doctor crowd makes us take round these days. Dunno what they’re for but they reckons they do yer good whatever yer take ’em for. Never took a pill in me life.’

  He paused, wiped his whiskers again and pulled his incredibly shabby hat down on to his forehead. He had been lying down with the hat covering his face when the party had stumbled into the camp. True to type it went back on to his head when he sat up. Day or night no bushman travels without his hat.

  ‘Tell you some more,’ he said. ‘Them newfangled things like planes and sich are no good fer crossin’ this country. Liable to come down. Now on a good horse and with a decent plant a feller can git him and his six hundred bullocks across anything bar the sea.’

  Later, sitting round, knees hunched up and large pannikins of tea in front of everyone, they endeavoured to tell the old man something of their troubles over the last few days. It was quite clear that, though they were welcome to his camp hospitality, he was unimpressed by their crash and the subsequent trek through the jungle.

  ‘Thet’s what comes uv crossin’ territory in airy-planes,’ he said. ‘Now you come along wiv me frum now on and I’ll git you to Warnock’s muster yards inside four days. Split me head in four, if I don’t.’

  ‘How far back is the nearest station?’ Stephen asked.

  ‘That’s the Kunder brothers’. Three days’ cattle march.’

  ‘That means about twelve miles. Could we borrow your truck and take the child back there?’

  ‘You cain’t take no one back there, mister. Like I tells you, they’s the Kunder brothers. They live like natives and they cain’t even read or write. They’s got half a million ac
res and some uv the best cattle in the country and I guess they got nearly as much in the bank or round their dump in milk tins. But they ain’t got a decent homestead and you cain’t take no child back there. Why, thet there Billy uv mine wouldn’t sleep in their dump. An’ thet’s sayin’ a lot.’

  ‘Have they got a Transceiver set?’

  ‘One uv them old pedal kind. Runs on a generator. Thet’s if you could find anyone home from the run to work the old thing up.’

  ‘I’d work it up myself,’ said Stephen tersely. ‘We’ve got to get news back to Yulinga and the airfield at Timor Bay.’

  ‘Thet’s jes’ too bad,’ said the old drover sorrowfully. ‘Cause you ain’t goin’ to git any news to anyone fer four days. You cain’t take the truck ’cause my mate, he needs it. Ef you’ve come from Yulinga I guess yer rich enough to wait. An’ my cattle jes’ wont wait. They’d lose ten pound in weight ef I stood by fer a day in this country. No feed from here to ten mile this side a’ Warnock’s.’

  No persuasion, or offering of money, would move the old man. They could come with him, and welcome, but no one was going to borrow the truck.

  It transpired he was moving this huge mob of cattle with no more than his offsider who was cook and truck driver, one aboriginal stockman ‒ the man called Billy ‒ and three cattle dogs.

  ‘You ain’t the furst one says I’m crazy,’ the old man said affably. ‘But what you don’t know is this. I got a blue heeler that does me instead uv ten men. Hey, Stopper!’

  A blue dog, lean, hazel-eyed, flecked with white, sprang up from his place by the fire and stood watching his master’s face. His ears were pointed, his slight frame quivering as if ready to spring into action. The drover flicked his fingers and the heeler lay down again.

  ‘I don’t hev to talk to thet dog,’ he said. ‘I don’t even hev to think. He jes’ knows.’

  Stephen smiled. He knew that kind of blue heeler. He was a gold and diamond mine rolled into one as far as a lone drover was concerned.

  ‘The other two dogs is jes’ kelpies ordinary. I wouldn’t sell ’em fer a hundred pound. But Stopper here does the think’ fer the whole plant. And thet goes fer Billy and me offsider too.’