Hunger Town (23 page)

‘Ran like rabbits,' my father jeered later. ‘We couldn't defeat the bastards of shipowners but, by God, we made short work of their minions. They won't come back.'

But I knew it was a false hope.

It was a pathetic debacle and momentarily it looked as if the watersiders could count the day their own. But it wasn't yet over. As they turned to march home, slapping each other on the back, re-living their exploits, shouting triumphantly, a posse of mounted police with foot police behind them blocked their way. Aghast, I saw they were armed with guns and waiting motionless with granite faces. My photographer friend, who had been frantically taking photographs, was also shocked by the threat. ‘Bloody hell,' he exclaimed. I felt chilled to the bone with fear.

The Port men saw them but were ebullient, in high spirits at their perceived success, drunk with victory. But then the real battle began. The mounted police advanced quickly with deadly intent and precision. In a silent grim line they simply rode down the unionists. Batons out, they flayed heads, shoulders, arms, faces. They used their horses to knock unionists to the ground and the foot police following beat and kicked the fallen. Several unionists, herded to the edge of the wharf, jumped for their lives. As the water closed over their heads I heard a cheer go up from the scabs, who had regrouped. Lost hats were thrown into the water after the men. Someone yelled, ‘Here's yer hats. We hope yer heads are under ‘em.'

My father later told us that he had been one of those who had to swim for his life. He climbed the Jacob's ladder of the
Nardana
, discovered a scab hiding on her and was so enraged that he grabbed him, pitched him into the river, and yelled, ‘Swim back to Italy you stinking bastard. You and your other fascist mates. I hope you all drown.'

It was warfare. The Port men fought back, punching, kicking, hitting out at the horses so some reared, throwing their riders. They dragged mounted police from their saddles even as batons rained down on them. Horses and men fought and struggled together. The mounted police dragged from their saddles and assailable on the ground were punched and kicked. Horses trod on fallen men. It was a chaos of police, men and horses. The mounted police who kept their seats hit every head without a police helmet. Even from the hulk I could see the blood dark on their batons.

But the struggle was unequal. Some of the beatings were so terrible I feared to look, but felt compelled to see it all. The brutality would haunt me for years to come. I knew this but stood fixed to the railings. Horrified, I thought it would go on until every marcher was dead.

It was Victoria Square all over again but here I was helpless. No wiles of mine would save my father. Frightened, I couldn't spot him in the melee. I hadn't seen him since breakfast time. When he left he had taken a piece of iron pipe with him. My mother saw it but said nothing. There was no point. He would take whatever he wanted and he had a right to try to protect himself. This pipe, more than anything else, had told me what the day might bring. I no longer felt some pity for the scabs. As far as I was concerned they were a squealing rabble, parasites sucking the lifeblood out of other men. They hid behind a police force that served the interests of British shipowners: shipowners, who would not negotiate to end the strike, preferring to find an excuse to employ cheaper and cheaper labour.

It seemed the warfare must go on and on and on. And then a shot rang out, scattering the seagulls that huddled together on the roof of the warehouse. It ricocheted from walls, splintered across the wharf and burst across the river. Its effect was instantaneous. Almost ludicrously everyone stopped, arrested in whatever action they were about to take. Batons remained lifted, legs ready to kick froze.

‘Bloody hell,' the photographer working his camera said again. ‘Just look at that. They'll kill somebody.'

For a minute nobody seemed to know what to do. Then the police superintendent shattered the silence. ‘Present arms,' he shouted. I saw a line of foot police raise their guns. ‘Prepare to fire!'

At the same time I saw the marchers hoist their baling hooks. Terrified, I watched them back away, pulling and dragging their injured. Everything was quiet. But ominously so. Someone shouted from the marchers, ‘Fire one shot and we'll tear your guts out.' Faced with the line of grim-faced marchers clutching baling hooks at the ready the police superintendent paused. Fearfully I watched this moment of confrontation. One false move on his part and it would be a massacre. I held my breath.

He withheld the order. I sucked in a gasp of air. He called for a spokesperson from the marchers. I saw Jock, Pat and Frank confer, and Frank went forward. He spoke with the superintendent and I saw him point to the guns and raise his baling hook. I couldn't hear what was negotiated but Frank returned to the marchers, spoke with them, and they silently retreated along the wharf. The martial threat evaporated. Dishevelled, bleeding and injured unionists limped away supported by friends. The police straightened their uniforms, collected their wounded and marched away in formation. The clip-clop of horse hooves faded away.

It was over.

A few stragglers from the scabs remained. They had been felled in the battle and now struggled to their feet and lurched towards the entrance to the wharf. Nobody was the least concerned about them. How strange, I thought, they might easily have been men from the Port for one wounded man was indistinguishable from another.

The photographer, Jim, packed up his gear and grinned at me. ‘Phew,' he said. ‘What a day to write home about. Now I know what it's like to be a war photographer—exciting and terrible.'

The Port labourers struck again, their only hope being that the scabs would prove to be too inefficient to be employed. But I knew that eventually my father and his mates would be defeated. They would finally be forced back to whatever work they could get on whatever wages. I raged at their suffering, their pain and humiliation.

The battle on the wharf had been the moment when my outlook shifted—almost an epiphany. Now I saw my society divided into warring forces and I moved closer to Nathan's views: the inexorable booms and busts of capitalism that he preached made sense. My community was being forced to its knees by forces beyond its control. We, the working people of Australia, were virtually the forgotten people. Poverty made us invisible. All over Australia there were people like us struggling to survive—the timber workers, coal miners, waterside workers in Victoria and Western Australia, all like us, a country divided. The injustice of it weighed on my chest like a huge indigestible meal that produces an unrelenting nausea.

Outrage rather than pity now fuelled my cartoons, and they became savagely political. There was less charity, more biting criticism in them. Without going down Nathan's path to communism and revolution, I attacked those whose power destroyed everything that I loved.

I took on the shipowners. In one cartoon I drew two bloated shipowners toasting each other on the deck of a ship flying a British flag. Beneath them in the water two men are clearly drowning. On their hats, barely visible above the water, I captioned
Unionists
. Looking down on them one shipowner is gloating to the other, ‘
I can't understand why it took so long.
'

In a second cartoon I drew the room of an impoverished shack. At a table sits another fat shipowner. Opposite him cringe a skeletal woman and starved child with a begging bowl. The caption reads:
You can't expect food when I'm saving the economy for you
. I sent them to the
Sun News Pictorial
but I wondered how they might be received. I was losing my expectation that justice would prevail.

My father had returned from the wharf, dark and silent with rage. I had seen by the wild expression in his eyes that no words could express the depth of his fury. He and his anger were shut away in a place deeper and blacker than the coal hold. My mother did not attempt to speak with him. She bathed the gash in his head and rubbed iodine ointment onto the contusions on his shoulders and back. He thanked her in a tight voice, nodded to me and took himself out on deck to sit alone.

My mother had boiled water for a pot of tea, taken down the tea leaves from yesterday's brew, looked at them with disgust, walked out on deck and savagely pitched them into the river. With a grim face she returned, took a fresh tin of tea from the shelf and made a strong tannin-coloured brew hot and strong. She took a cup to my father and returned. Then she poured one for herself and me. I hadn't dared to intrude.

‘I'm sick of this, Judith,' she said.

I wasn't sure whether she meant the weak tea or something else.

She sat opposite me at the galley table and we sipped in silence. Finally she looked up. ‘Those sisters of the Medusa who were here when Harry was hurt …'

‘Yes,' I said, ‘Nathan's sisters.'

She grimaced. ‘An unattractive pair.'

‘Yes. Very.'

‘They talked of a women's army to support the men.'

‘Yes.'

‘I didn't care for the idea then.'

‘No.'

‘The time wasn't right, I suppose.'

‘None of us could have foreseen this, Mum.'

‘They may have. Those sorts of gloomy women are usually right. They expect people to be bastards.'

‘They're communists,' I said. ‘They believe in the inevitability of class war and violence.'

She smiled at me, a tired, bitter smile. ‘What a strange idea, Judith. Aren't we all humans? But it seems they could be right. I've never been one to hesitate at admitting my mistakes. Life's too short to waste time covering up for pride.'

‘I'll talk to Nathan,' I said. ‘He'll know what, if any, progress has been made in organising women.'

She nodded. ‘That would be a good idea, Judith. This can't go on.'

Later I heard that Frank, Pat and Jock and sundry others had been arrested. They were probably looking at hefty fines or jail sentences. I told Harry that we would like to speak with Nathan's sisters and he promised to pass on my message.

I hadn't seen Winnie for weeks, but now she sent me a note reproaching me for my neglect. It was typical of Winnie to blame me when she had been equally neglectful. She suggested that we meet in town and have lunch together in the gardens. Was I free from class then? I sent a return note through Harry.

Sure enough a week later I found Winnie waiting for me in the corridor outside the office of the Arts School. She looked as pretty and well dressed as always. Since so much had happened at the Port it was an odd sensation to find that Winnie had not changed at all. She had her hair shingled and short little curls bobbed out from behind her ears and across her forehead. She had a charming heart-shaped face and the effect was very fetching. As usual I felt an ugly duckling.

She kissed me and wrinkled her nose. ‘Eugh. You smell of oil paint.'

‘It's the room,' I said. ‘The smell soaks into our skins even when we don't use the paint. I don't notice it any more. I'm so used to it I forget.'

She took my arm. ‘I've brought our lunch. So we don't have to find a cafe and have plenty of time to talk.'

‘Winnie,' I was suspicious, ‘do you think I need to be fed?'

She was never a good liar and blushed. ‘Harry mentioned … the Port … Oh, Judith, he says it's just dreadful.'

‘Things are very tough,' I said. ‘But I'm a professional woman now. My cartoons are selling. We are better off than most.'

I didn't tell her that what extra money we had went into the strike fund. As a family we could scarcely take more than our needs while others starved. These days everybody I knew seemed to be surreptitiously trying to feed me. Each morning Miss Marie arrived with a basket of food. ‘The poor models,' she lamented, ‘so thin and hungry.' But it was a feeble excuse, for none of them was thin and hungry, in fact, they mostly looked plump and well-fed. It was we, her students, she came to feed. Her specialty was nasturtium-leaf sandwiches. The bread was always fresh, well buttered and thinly sliced; the sandwiches delicate triangles; the nasturtium leaves peppery and delicious.

Before the strike and our dependence on government rations I had never craved nor dreamed of particular foods but now I constantly longed for an apple or an orange, any fruit or vegetable freshly picked and served. I think that to Miss Marie nasturtium- leaf sandwiches were a gourmet delicacy, something she prepared to delight us. But to me they were a craving satisfied and I was hard put not to greedily devour more than my share. No one knew how great an effort it was to refuse the last sandwich on the tray.

To add to our joy she often also brought in a box of chocolates. Once she caught me trying to wrap mine in a piece of paper to take home to my mother. She was stern, ‘No, Judith, the chocolates are for you. You must not hurt me by stealing them away.'

I was defensive and discomforted. ‘Then may I have the empty box?' I blurted out.

‘The box?' She was puzzled.

‘Yes, the box. For our soup kitchen.'

‘But what use a box?'

‘For fuel. We have to scrounge for anything that might burn. Wood is nearly impossible. People won't give us wood any more. They sell it or keep it for themselves.' I knew my voice had risen. Explaining the situation made it sound so hopeless, so desperate.

Sympathy drenched her face. ‘
Mon Dieu, ma pauvre.
' Impulsively she hugged me. ‘
Ma pauvre.
But certainly you shall have all the boxes you need.'

She rushed about the room seeking and eventually finding a large linen bag under a set of folios. She wrenched it out and the folios crashed in a heap on the floor. She ignored them.

‘Here.' She held up the bag triumphantly. ‘Ruby, Lil, Adie, everyone, here is the bag for chocolate boxes. See, I hang it on the wall for our Judith who needs them for her soup kitchen.'