The Green Mill Murder (20 page)

‘We’re halfway,’ said Vic, pointing to a red sock tied to a low branch. ‘That’s my marker. Now we turn a little and then down again. Let the pony pick his way, Phryne, and you follow. He won’t fall.’

Hanging onto another warm-blooded creature, which moreover appeared to know exactly what it was doing, did much to restore Phryne’s confidence. The trees grew thicker, the path wandered across the face of the slope rather than going straight down it, and she had time to observe the change in the vegetation. More wattle, past its bloom but bravely golden still, and scarves of mist caught in the olive-green leaves of snow gums. Decorated bark which looked as though it had been dyed; once the unmistakable shape of a scar showed that a bark dish had been cut from a very old tree.

‘Did the Aborigines live here?’ she asked.

Vic, further down, stopped. ‘They didn’t live here, they came here. Every year, November to January, the Brabiralung and the Yaimathang people, clans of the Kurnai.’

‘They came here? Why?’ asked Phryne. ‘Surely the hunting would be better in the lowlands, and how did they manage the cold?’

‘October is an odd month up here. Usually it’s warm, but it can change like lightning. November’s the beginning of summer, and it brings the Bogong moth.’

‘The what moth?’

‘Bogong.
Agrotis Infusa,
to be precise.’ The cool, educated enunciation which Vic had been taught at school had hever left him, and sounded very odd out here in primeval forest. ‘It’s a brown moth which aestivates in caves up here. In millions. The tribes used to walk up to eat all the Bogong moths they could catch and cook. Someone has cut a coolamon from that tree, as you noticed. But they never stayed. It was a truce time for the tribes—ordinarily they did not get on. Not far now. Mack!’

Phryne edged closer to the packhorse, holding on by the cheek-strap, as Mack the dog belted past, almost knocking her off her already uncertain feet. The path seemed to have no end. The mist made it impossible to see very far down, and Phryne felt that this was probably fortunate.

At last the slope became easier. Phryne let the horse have its head and it led her confidently down through virgin forest into a completely unsuspected clearing.

There was flat space, perhaps forty yards long and fifteen wide: a shelf where a large chunk of mountain had fallen off a few million years ago. It was green, clothed in soft, silvery grass, and it showed signs of habitation. Where a spring leapt down the crags, presumably the MacAlister Springs, a wooden tub had been built. A stable and a house, complete with outhouse, nestled back into the hill. They were made of grey timber, clinker-built, and roofed with carefully cut shingles. Two large tree-trunks lay across each roof, lashed down, and dotted with large stones. The clearing looked vaguely Swiss, certainly alpine, and was extremely welcome.

‘Come in,’ invited the hermit, pushing open a stout wooden door. Phryne stepped over the lintel into a large room. She walked to the fire and subsided in a heap in front of it, aware that she was dangerously cold.

Vic built up the fire with knots of what he called woollybut, until the flames leapt up the stone chimney, breathing heat in gusts like a dragon. He swung the kettle—hung on a stout, blackened iron hook and chain—over the fire, and went out to rub down and rehobble Lucky. Phryne began to thaw. As soon as she could feel her feet she got up and began to explore.

So this was the Old Bark Hut of song. Interesting. It was certainly a luxury version. It had floorboards, for a start, where the original had probably had a dirt floor. The walls were thick, and lined with a fascinating collection of old newspapers. Useful, Phryne thought; if one ran out of books one could always read the walls. ‘Peace,’ one headline said. The next proclaimed ‘Influenza Epidemic: New Government Measures’. Vic had built a lot of furniture. There was a tall cupboard against one wall, filled with books and papers. Phryne pulled out a stout red volume.
The Native Tribes of South Eastern Australia
by A. Howitt. Hmm. Was that the same Howitt of Mount Howitt? She expected that it was. How many Howitts could there be in east Gippsland? She scanned the books quickly. Botany, ethnology, famous travellers, children’s books, John Buchan for adventure, the whole of Dickens for the winter. Another cupboard held tinned and preserved food, several cups and plates, salt and flour. The hermit’s bed was a bunk, built into the wall, loaded with blankets and skin rugs. The only sign of Vic’s old occupation was his army knapsack, with his name and rank still stencilled on it in white paint.

An axe, a twig broom, and miscellaneous rabbit snares hung on the wall, and several skinning knives were stuck into a block.

Phryne sat down in the easy chair, which had been carved from the bole and two branches of a gum, and cushioned with rabbit skins most beautifully tanned and finished. The room was lit by two windows, with rolled-up blinds and shutters. A kerosene lamp swung on a chain from the roof. The hut was clean, neat and smelt refreshingly of pine.

Vic had made a chimney by collecting grey volcanic stones of a reasonably uniform size and gluing them together with mud. It seemed solid enough.

Phryne realised that her hands were sufficiently warm to take off her gloves, and was attempting to do so when Vic re-entered, carrying her hamper and suitcase and the sack.

‘Can you help me?’ she asked. ‘My fingers won’t work.’ Vic knelt and eased off the sopping sheepskin until each glove was turned inside out. Phryne’s fingers, she noticed, were still blue.

‘Better get warm,’ he commented, holding both of her hands easily in one warm clasp. ‘What about your feet?’

Phryne allowed him to unlatch and remove her boots, and the two pairs of socks (one silk, one wool) underneath. He rubbed her toes back into a semblance of life.

‘It must be very cold in the sky,’ he said, putting down one foot and taking up the other. ‘Is it always like this?’

‘No, not at all. Not unless one is idiotic enough to fly over mountains and land in freezing fog. Compared to today, all previous cold has been pleasantly cool.’

‘I’ve brought in all your baggage. Is there anything I can bring you? Sit and get warm.’

‘Smelling salts? No, I’m fine, getting warmer by the moment. A cup of tea would be heavenly. Tell me, Vic,’ she gestured at the other massive chair, ‘why did you build two chairs?’

‘Why, in case I had visitors. I see a lot of people during the season, you know. Even up here I hear most of the news, and I can order books from Melbourne and stores from Talbotville. Stockmen drop in for a yarn occasionally, and one year three of them were bushed in the biggest snowstorm I’ve ever seen. We were unable to dig out past the stable for three days. Luckily I had enough stores, or we would have done a perish. Ah. Kettle’s boiling. I’ll just feed the dog and you shall have your tea, Miss, er, Phryne.’

He smiled an enchanting smile, extracted a rabbit carcass from the meat safe, and called Mack.

‘What sort of dog is he?’

‘Kelpie. Kelpie cross, I think. Black and White dog.’ Vic reached an acceptable definition. ‘Missus Anne gave him to me when he was a puppy. He’s a good dog, anyway,’ he added, giving the rabbit to Mack, who sensed that he was being complimented and wagged his tail. ‘Take it outside, Mack, there’s a good chap.’

Mack took the carcass in a firm grip and leapt out the window with it.

‘He’s showing off,’ said Vic indulgently. ‘Used to do that when snow was too high for him to get out the door.’

Phryne accepted the tea in a large china mug.

‘There’s no milk, but sugar’s in that dish. Aren’t many ants up this high. Would you like a rug? Are you still cold?’

‘Yes, thank you.’ Phryne wondered at the acclimatisation of Vic, who was clad only in drill trousers and a flannel shirt. He tucked a large rabbit-fur rug around her.

‘Lovely tanning. Did you do it?’

‘Yes. I don’t like hunting the native beasts, but rabbits are pests, and the skin cures easily. I need meat—I have to feed Mack. He can hunt for himself as long as there isn’t too much snow, but the weather’s late this year.’

‘How about Lucky?’

‘I bring up a bag of oats and some beans when I bring the stores, and he can graze. It’s thin grass up this high, but it’s good.’

‘There’s something . . . large, under your bunk,’ said Phryne. This was not what she had been intending to say. The bunk creaked. Vic laughed. He rummaged in the sack and scattered a handful of bright yellow daisies with roots on the floor, and whistled. It was a carrying, pleasant, bird-like whistle. The thing under the bunk heaved forward, blinked at the light, and sniffed loudly, as a pig will.

‘It’s a wombat!’ cried Phryne with delight. ‘I’ve never seen one close before!’

‘That’s Wom. I’ve had him since he was a little ’un. He must have lost his mother. He isn’t really big yet. Come on, Wom, old man, come and meet the lady.’

He heaved the creature along the floor, gave it another handful of daisies, and Phryne patted her first wombat. He was a stocky, faintly belligerent animal, with black boot-button eyes and stumpy legs. He stood with his front feet on the edge of the skin rug and champed, allowing Phryne to stroke his thick, deep fur and run her hands along his muzzle and up to the round, furry ears. He had bristly black whiskers as strong as cobbler’s thread.

‘Pretty thing,’ murmured Phryne. ‘Aren’t you lovely?’

Wom finished the daisy roots and stumped back across the floor and under the bunk. The show was over.

‘You see why I can’t go back to the city, don’t you?’ asked Vic.

Phryne surveyed the cosy hut and listened to the wombat eating the last of his daisies. Faintly, as though it was far away, she heard the song of a thrush, and the shuffle of horse-hoofs shifting as Lucky grazed.

‘Yes,’ she said gravely. ‘I see.’

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Nicky:
It’s funny how Mother’s generation always
longed to be old when they were young, and
we strain every nerve to keep young.

Bunty:
That’s because we can see what’s
coming so much more clearly.

Noel Coward
The Vortex

‘It will be dark soon,’ Vic observed. ‘Come and have a look at
the mountains. The mist has lifted a bit.’

Phryne dragged on her stiff boots and wrapped her rug, toga-fashion, around her shoulders. She had been soundly beaten at chess, which did not surprise her, and had absorbed an interesting soup made of native yams, onions, and other ingredients which she had not identified and about which she did not want to enquire. That delicate, fish-like flesh—was it indeed fish, or was it possibly snake? Much better not to know. She found a safety pin in her case to secure the rug, and followed her host out of the hut and along the cleared space to view the prospect.

‘Oh, Lord,’ she breathed, standing back from a precipice.

‘Mount Howitt,’ said Vic, pleased with the response. ‘That is the Cross-Cut Saw, beneath it is the Terrible Hollow where the Wonnangatta is born, somewhere down in the depths. See how deep it is? Those are the very tops of snow gums you can see along the edge. That’s Mount Speculation, and next to it, the Viking.’

It was beautiful country, with a terrible, cold, geometric precision. A god with a strange sense of humour had carved the serrations in the Cross-Cut Saw, knowing that men would come to harvest and spoil the forest, and sometimes pay for it with their lives. Olive leaves, grey rocks, pale sky, silver kangaroo grass speckled with little points of colour that were alpine flowers. And at her feet a drop of a thousand feet, straight down.

‘Why did they come here?’ she asked, speaking to herself. ‘Why on earth did men come here? They aren’t wanted.’

‘Not so much not wanted, just not noticed. You could hide an army in that valley, and no one would know. This is a dangerous place, Phryne, and I fell in love with danger. I came here broken, half destroyed—damaged, as I thought, beyond repair. I came, I came without any expectations at all; just the need to get away from men, chattering, murdering monkeys. You don’t know what it was like. You know about me, don’t you? You’ve researched me. But you don’t know about Poziéres.’

‘Well, yes, I do, I spoke to some friends of mine who were there. They were right, too. They said that Poziéres would have done for you, as it did for them.’

‘What happened to them?’ asked Vic, staring out into the blue haze of further mountains beyond the Viking.

‘They were wounded; one was wounded and the other developed soldier’s heart, and they were sent home.’

‘They were lucky.’

‘They know. They said that Poziéres was worse than Gallipoli.’

‘Poziéres was like hell. I couldn’t hear after the first twelve hours. I mean, I couldn’t hear voices, but inside my head the big guns fired incessantly. They never stopped, not for a moment, not while I slept or ate, always a creeping barrage getting closer and closer, and the crump and the flash of H.E. every time I closed my eyes. I shook as though I had malaria. The vibrations and shock had entered my bones. I wanted to die, but it seemed too easy just to die.’

Vic was talking eagerly now, as though the words had been pent inside him for a long time, never spoken, not even to himself, the dog, or the mountains.