Best Australian Short Stories (13 page)

By the light of the moon his dog killed a snake; and, after the man had cooked it, they ate it between them.

Two days subsequently they were still sucking at the spiny vertebrae; the dog, with this thick tail wound up over his back, happy enough; and my grand-uncle, meditative, feeling hungry again. He recollected the dingo—how that beast, when no other food is obtainable, devours his own anatomy.

Experimentally, G.U. searched his body, but, because there was no fat, gave, up that idea. Even his arm, separated, hadn’t meat enough to make foundation broth for
soupe aux choux
.

Besides, there were no
choux.

So, his thoughts returned to civilization, via cutlets in curlpapers, and jelly pudding with cream. Claret, too: deliciously cool. Repeating Doctor Maginn’s advice: “A glass of brandy after every four glasses of claret corrects the frigidity”, my grand-uncle took the gun-flints out of his mouth and continued in a dream.

“Shag” lay before him, elegantly spread, showing legs, shoulders, neck and saddle; all the best cuts there were.

The temptation became too great for G.U., who dragged a tomahawk from his belt. (He could do it in one stroke, or a couple at the most!)

Ignorant of the axe in the air Shag leant sideways, his tail draping itself over a log.

Such a beautiful tail!

Such a fat one!

My grand-uncle made a lightning change in the direction of the blade. The axe fell, and Shag disappeared into the jungle, leaving his appendage behind. The latter, scraped, then broiled on red-hot gum branches, proved to be rank eating, yet it stayed the stomach for a day at least.

After my grand-uncle had satisfied his hunger, he whistled for Shag to return to him.

But the dog was afraid.

Nevertheless, his master, who did not like to be alone, kept on whistling.

While he did so he grew aware of a curious motion about his interior; a motion which coincided with the notes of his call. From the first “phew-phew!” to the last, this mysterious some-thing vacillated inside him.

When he stopped, it stopped.

When he began; it began also.

Then it dawned upon him that this must be Shag’s tail, signalling affectionate answers. Because the result was uncomfortable, he never whistled any more; or if, by accident, he did, a gruff “Lie down, sir!” brought him effectual peace.

THERE was a man called Big Bill. He was in one of those companies that backed up the men that struck out for Hill Sixty; for many of these had got their death earlier, fighting over against Rahman Bair.

Now, when this battle had been under way some time, and these men had fought on as far as they then might, they had dug in; and this Big Bill was throwing bombs, one after another, into the trench facing ours. He had got a neat pile together; and the Turks near there were hard put to it because of these bombs. On this side of him, stuck clean through with his bayonet, lay a heap of their dead, and on that side, another heap. He had done much there. And sometimes he would sit down upon one of these Turks, a hefty fellow, who lay heavy, like the new-killed carcass of an ox.

This Big Bill had neither hat nor tunic on; his shirt hung about him in so many bits of foul rag; his breeches were soaked through with blood—some of this had run out from his own wounds. His puttees, which had come loose, so that they were like to have tripped him up, he had cast aside. His hands, his clothes, were caked all over with blood and dust; and his forehead and two cheeks, where he had drawn his fist across them to wipe the sweat off, because of the blood upon it, were all blotched red. His eyes were hard and bright.

At some distance off, the length of a long shot, there was a Turkish sniper; he lay, covered over by some low bushes, up on a little spur, across the lines, to the right. This sniper saw what hurt this Big Bill had dealt out to his comrades; he thought, then, it would be a thing well done to put an end to that business. So there he lay, this sniper, trying, shot after shot, to cut down this Big Bill, so that he must needs give over.

When this sniper had been at work some time, he had so often just missed his bull that the Australian thought he would have no more of that. He let the bombs lie as then, picked up a rifle that lay alongside one of his dead mates, looked over it, and sighted it fair into those bushes. Then both rifles were let off; they rang out like one. The Australian then kept feeling about with his bullets in the sniper’s shelter, raking it over; and the Turk could get his shot in only when that other did. And thus they kept it up for a long time; for neither could make an end of his man.

Now, if there is one thing more than another that an Australian will take no pleasure in, it is what?—to leave any matter, once put in hand, undone. And this Big Bill had but four shots left. So, when he had taken thought, he did this—he tied a strip of rag to his rifle, raised this up as straight as he might, waited till well-nigh a minute had gone past, and then fired the gun off at that angle. Then he stood up slowly, and put himself, open, before the Turk.

The Turk, who had got tired as well, it may be, of that duel as they had up till then played it, knew very well what was afoot. He took aim, fired, and brought away his rival’s left ear.

The Australian to that said: “Near enough! That was my good ear; but, if luck and my hand are in, I have sold it cheap.” Then the Turk, after ragging his rifle, and doing as Big Bill had done, stood up out of the bushes.

The Australian took aim, fired, and hit his man—but not so cleanly as he had looked to. He put down his rifle, and said: “My father’s son, if the old chap but knew it, has made an end of his work this day. That shall be seen now.” Then he stood up again in front of that Turk.

The Turk fired as before. He shot well, in spite of his wound; his bullet went so near doing its deed that it grazed that other’s right temple, tearing away the flesh about his eye upon that side.

“Ah,” said Big Bill, “doesn’t God know what he’s up to? He might have made us men with but one eye only; and then must I have given over.” He shot well with his left eye.

Then, when that Turk was again ready, the Australian once more took aim, and pulled from the left. His luck was still out though; his bullet, though it got home, did not kill.

“That,” he said, “is not like me. Still, that eye was never so sure but it would sometimes go back on a fellow.”

The Turk, spending more time upon it, now took his turn again; whether for his wounds, or because his blood shook in him, the shot went wide.

At this Big Bill, who knew very well what he was about, twisted his bloody face into a grin. “There is now,” he said, “a dead man over there. My last bullet was always my best.” Then he took aim again.

He did not fire though. Another Turk had got tired of waiting; and it was his shot that had the luck. Through the Australian’s head it went, clean. He fell down, kicking out a little with his legs, into the rough trench, and lay upon the stones at the bottom of it like nothing so much as a bundle of old rags. When they advanced, his mates left him there.

As for that Turk, though they tried hard enough, no one could find out how he got on.

THEY had been mustering all day on the wide plains of Murndoo station. Over the red earth, black with ironstone pebbles, through mulga and curari-bush, across the ridges which make a blue wall along the horizon. The rosy, garish light of sunset was on plains, hills, moving cattle, men and horses.

Through red dust the bullocks mooched, restless and scary still, a wild mob from the hills: John Gray, in the rear with Arra, the boy who was his shadow: Wongana, on the right with his gin, Rose: Frank, the half-caste, on the left with Minni.

A steer breaking from the mob before Rose, she wheeled and went after him. Faint and wailing, a cry followed her, as though her horse had stepped on and crushed some small creature. But the steer was getting away. Arra went after him, stretched along his horse’s neck, rounded the beast and rode him back to the mob, sulky and blethering. The mob swayed. It had broken three times that day.

John Gray called, “Yienda (you) damn fool, Rosey. Finish!” The gin, on her slight rough-haired horse, pulled up scowling. “Tell Meetchie, Thirty Mile, tomorrow,” John Gray said. “Miah, new moon.”

Rose stewed her horse away from the mob of men and cattle. That wailing, thin and hard as hair-string, moved with her. “Minni!”

John Gray jerked his head towards Rose. Minni’s bare heels struck her horse’s belly. With a turn of the wrist she swung her horse off from the mob, turned, leant forward, rising in her stirrups, and came up with Rose. But the glitter and tumult in Rose’s eyes, Minni looked away from them.

Thin dark fiugures on their wiry station-bred horses, the gins rode into the haze of sunset towards the hills. The dull, dirty blue of the trousers wrapped round their legs was torn, their short fairish hair tousled by the wind.

At a little distance, when men and cattle were a moving cloud of red dust, Rose’s anger gushed after them.

“Koo!”

Fierce as the cry of a hawk flew her last note of derision and defiance.

A far-away rattle of the men’s laughter drifted back across the country.

Alone, the gins would have been afraid, as darkness coming up behind was hovering near them, secreting itself among the low writhen trees and bushes: afraid of evil spirits who wander over the plains and stony ridges when the light of day is withdrawn. But together they were not so afraid. Twenty miles away over there, below that dent in the hills where Nyedee Creek made a sandy bed for itself among white-bodied gums, was Murndoo homestead and the uloo of their people.

There was no track; and in the first darkness, thick as wool after the glow of sunset faded, only their instinct would keep them moving in the direction of the homestead and their own low, round huts of bagging, rusty tin, and dead boughs.

Both were Wongana’s women: Rose, tall, gaunt and masterful; Minni, younger, fat and jolly. Rose had been a good stockman in her day: one of the best. Minni did not ride or track nearly as well as Rose.

And yet, as they rode along, Minni pattered complacently of how well she had worked that day: of how she had flashed, this way and that, heading-off breakaways, dashing after them, turning them back to the mob so smartly that John had said: “Good man, Minni!” There was the white bullock—he had rushed near the yards. Had Rose seen the chestnut mare stumble in a crab-hole and send Arra flying? Minni had chased the white bullock, chased him for a couple of miles, and brought him back to the yards. No doubt there would be nammery for her and a new gina-gina when the men came in from the muster.

She pulled a pipe from her belt, shook the ashes out, and with reins looped over one arm stuffed the bowl with tobacco from a tin tied to her belt. Stooping down, she struck a match on her stirrup-iron, guarded the flame to the pipe between her short white teeth, and smoked contentedly.

The scowl on Rose’s face deepened, darkened. That thin, fretted wailing came from her breast.

She unslung from her neck the rag rope by which the baby had been held against her body, and gave him a sagging breast to suck. Holding him with one arm, she rode slowly, her horse picking his way over the rough, stony earth.

It had been a hard day. The gins were mustering with the men at sunrise. Camped at Nyedee Well the night before, in order to get a good start, they had been riding through the timbered ridges all the morning, rounding up wild cows, calves, and young bullocks, and driving them down to the yards at Nyedee, where John Gray cut out the fats, left old Jimmy and a couple of boys to brand calves, turn the cows and calves back to the ridge again while he took on the mob for trucking to Meekatharra. The bullocks were as wild as birds: needed watching all day. And all the time that small whimpering bundle against her breast had hampered Rose’s movements.

There was nothing the gins liked better than a muster, riding after cattle. They were quicker in their movements, more alert than the men, sharper at picking up tracks, but they did not go mustering very often nowadays.