The White Earth (16 page)

‘Take a seat,’ his uncle said, typing on.

William selected a chair near the desk and waited. His glance fell on one of the tables, where a hulked shape had been unveiled from beneath its dust sheet. He realised that it was an old printing machine. A crank handle stuck out from its side, and William knew exactly the sort of noise it would make — he had heard it clanking away for the past three days. The smell of ink was in the air, and beside the contraption sat several thick piles of paper, freshly printed in smudgy purple lines.

The old man hit an emphatic full stop, then dug around in a drawer. He retrieved a sheet of paper, and slid it across the desk.

‘Have a look at that.’

It was a small poster, and it showed a flag, slightly furled as if blowing in a wind. The flag was blue, and bore a white cross with a star at the tip of each arm and a star in the centre.

‘You recognise it?’

William shook his head.

‘You should. That flag has been flying on the flagpole out front ever since you got here.’

William had never seen the flag outside do anything but hang limp against its pole. He studied the poster again. There were bold capitals above the picture — THE AUSTRALIAN INDEPENDENCE LEAGUE. His uncle held out a hand.

‘Are you telling me you’ve really never seen that flag before?’

William gave the poster back.‘No.’

‘Not even at school? You’ve never heard of the Eureka Stockade?’

William lowered his eyes. Was this another of the old man’s tests? William had resolved to be as adult as he could, but what was he to do when there were just things he didn’t know?

‘Good Lord,’ the old man mused. Then he straightened in his chair. ‘Eureka was one of the first movements for independence in this country. There was a group of gold miners, during the gold rush down in Victoria, in the 1850s, when Australia was still a colony ruled by England. The miners were digging away and trying to scratch out a living, and suddenly the colonial government came along and inflicted huge licence fees on them. Fees that would ruin most of the miners. It wasn’t just the money, there were other issues too, but basically people were sick of being at the beck and call of the lords and ladies back in England. What right did England have to charge fees over Australian soil? So the miners revolted. They threw up barricades and flew the Southern Cross flag and declared their own republic. There were hundreds of them, and the whole state of Victoria went into a panic. These were volatile times. Australia was a brand new place, and when rebels talked about republics a lot of people got excited. The colonial government didn’t muck around. They mustered all the troops they could and sent them in. It was a full-scale battle, and the miners lost. But they won too, because nothing was the same after that.’

His uncle picked up the poster again, turning it towards William.

‘This is their flag. You could argue that it’s the first truly Australian flag, not like that monstrosity with the Union Jack. But these days the Eureka flag gets used for any old thing. People fly it to sell used cars and hamburgers, or stick it on margarine labels. They think it just means something patriotic. Other people use it as a protest flag. Even the Australian Communist Party waves it around sometimes — as if the miners were socialists, for Christ’s sake, and Peter Lalor was our answer to Karl Marx.’ He dropped the poster on the desk.‘But I use it because of what this flag really stands for. Independence. That’s the key word. You know what it means, don’t you?’

‘I think so,’ said William.

The old man laughed.‘Then you’re a rarity,Will, because not many people do.’

William blinked in bafflement. His uncle sobered and returned his attention to the sheet of paper in the typewriter. William noticed now that the sheet was a waxy stencil, and that the letters were actually holes, punched through by the typewriter keys. Satisfied with what he read, the old man pulled out the page and stood up.‘So what did you do while I was away?’

It sounded a casual question, but William knew otherwise. This was what he’d been waiting for. ‘I looked around,’ he answered, very serious. ‘A lot.’

‘Ah.’ His uncle was smiling.‘The old place doesn’t seem so bad now, does it?’

William shook his head gravely.

‘Good. Maybe you’ll understand what’s at stake then.’ He moved over to the printing machine and began fixing the stencil to an ink-stained drum on top of the device.‘This property — it’s mine, isn’t it? I own it. If I don’t want anyone knowing about that water hole, for instance, then that’s my business. Right?’

‘Right.’

‘Well, there are things happening in this country that will take that choice away, if people like me don’t put a stop to it.’

‘What things?’

‘Government things. Same as always.’ He inserted a sheaf of blank paper into a tray at the rear of the machine, then stood back. ‘You see these old paintings?’

He was pointing at the smoky images upon the walls — the fox hunt on one hand, and on the other, men riding amidst sheep as the golden plains rolled beyond.

‘They were done in the 1860s, when the House was built. The Whites spared no expense in getting the artist. They wanted the finest of everything. But don’t go thinking Kuran Station was always like that. Go back to the 1840s, when white men first came here. This was a wilderness, far beyond the colonial frontier. There was no civilisation, no law and order — that was all a thousand miles behind, back in Sydney. So those first men were completely alone, a law unto themselves. Something like that is unimaginable these days. It would scare most people to death.’

The old man was moving along the wall, peering at the faded scenes of Kuran’s bygone days. The more William stared, the more he could see — the painting growing almost luminous and three-dimensional, the grassland extending away into the distance.

‘They marked out their properties, drove great mobs of sheep up here, all by themselves, and set up their station houses. Not the mansions that came later — just little shacks in the middle of nowhere. There were no roads, no tracks, and it was maybe twenty miles to the next sign of life, and all you found there anyway was another man, just as alone as you were. For the first ten years there weren’t more than maybe two dozen white people on the whole of the Darling Downs. Now there’s two hundred thousand at least.’

From the murky wall the horse-riders stared out, their faces white blurs, stoic and impassive. William’s uncle strode amongst them.

‘It was a hard life. And then there were the sheep to watch. No fences, of course, only a shepherd. I told you about shepherds. They lived wild, often without even a shack to call home, just a bit of canvas for a tent. In the meantime the blacks were spearing the sheep, or just as likely the shepherds. Nothing you could do if they did — no police, no hospitals, no one to help. A man had to look after himself.’

The old man rested his hand briefly on the dark figures gathered in the lower corner of the painting.

‘
That’s
independence for you. It means hard work and self-reliance. And that’s how Australia began. It took those men years and a lot of them died, but slowly they built up their stations. Built better houses. Built stockyards and shearing sheds, brought their wives and children up from down south. It was the end of the earth, but they made it work somehow.’

He had turned to the other wall and was frowning at the men in their red coats, with dogs at their feet and the misty castle floating in the background.

‘And that’s when, and only when, the government finally took some interest. If people are making money somewhere, the government always wants to know. The Darling Downs were officially placed under colonial jurisdiction. And from that moment on, the rights of people up here started getting stripped away. Suddenly they owe the government money for the land they’ve settled. They’ve got to sign leases, pay rent, go through all the red tape. Suddenly there’re laws about what they can and can’t do with their properties. And more people come up. Agents and civil servants and shopkeepers and schoolteachers and priests and all sorts of fools who think they want to be farmers. And all these people want land of their own, so the government starts taking it off those that got there first and did all the hard work.’

The old man gazed intently into the depths of the painting, and then seemed to relent slightly. He turned away, back to the printing machine.

‘All right, maybe it was always going to happen, they could hardly keep it all to themselves. But those first men, the ones who did it all — can you imagine what sort of nerve it took? There aren’t people like that any more. We’re a weaker lot now. We sit in our suburbs and do what we’re told and wait for the government to make us happy. And that’s
not
good enough.’

He took hold of the handle of the printing machine and turned it just once. The machine clanked, the drum rolled, and a single printed sheet slipped into a tray at the front. The old man lifted the paper, inspected it carefully.

‘So this is my newsletter, my own way of trying to stop things getting worse. Twelve issues a year, and this is our twelfth year running.’ He glanced at William. ‘One day I should get a computer. This Mimeograph is as old as the hills. Still, it should never be too easy. Otherwise every idiot would be doing it.’

He was cranking the handle steadily now, and the smell of ink was pungent. A stream of pages was emerging. ‘It’s a big job. We have three hundred and sixty-odd full members in the League, mostly from Queensland, but from the rest of the country too. Most newsletters run five or six pages long, so that’s at least two thousand pages. It’s more actually, because I always print five hundred copies of each issue. I take the leftovers with me when I travel and leave them in shops, pubs, wherever. We’re always recruiting. Not a cheap business either.’

‘Is it a club?’ William asked.

His uncle shook his head. ‘It’s a league of concerned citizens. People who are worried about what’s happening to this country. I’m the president, and there’s a central committee that meets four times a year. I’m the editor of the newsletter too. Members send in their own articles sometimes, but mostly it’s all written by me. That’s where I’ve been the last two weeks, travelling around Queensland to see what’s happening, talking to people, researching stuff in Brisbane. These are grim days. Dangerous things are in the wind.’ He took up a printed sheet from one of the piles across the table.‘See — we’re getting ready.’

It was a map, hand-drawn and rough, but William could see that it showed the Kuran Plains, and gave directions on how to reach Kuran Station. There was even an inset which depicted the village and the House. Arrows pointed the way along the driveway, leading past the House and onwards into the heart of the station. A black square had been marked there and labelled ‘Campgrounds’. William stared at it, confused. He hadn’t seen any campgrounds during their drive.

The old man said, ‘We’re having a rally in about a month. I expect we’ll get a couple of hundred people. It’ll be held over a weekend. People can bring their tents and vans and camp out.’

‘A rally? What for?’

‘That’s what this edition is all about.’ He lifted another sheet from one of the piles.‘Here’s the front page.’

In the wake of the Mabo judgment, the federal government is currently drawing up plans for sweeping Native Title legislation which it plans to introduce before the end of the year. This will alienate land to the black minority, and affect us all directly! It is vital that we meet to formulate an action plan and ensure our voices are heard before it’s too late. As president, I am happy to offer my own property as a meeting ground, and a date has been set for…

The article went on, talking about the federal government and about legislation and the prime minister, Mr Keating. There were many words William didn’t understand.

‘It’s all right,’ the old man said.‘I’ll explain it all in time. Now, do you think you can crank this handle while I get going on the envelopes and addresses?’

William nodded. He set his hand to the handle and began to turn. It wasn’t hard, and freshly printed pages slid into the tray, one by one.

His uncle patted him on the shoulder.‘Just keep going till the paper runs out. Five hundred copies. Call me if they start to smudge too badly.’

William cranked and watched the pages stack up. So this was what his uncle did, this was his secret work. He felt vaguely let down. The old man had said that something dangerous was happening, but it actually seemed rather dull. And yet maybe that was what being an adult was all about. It was important, in any case, that he did what his uncle asked. Then he remembered the rally. Two hundred people, and camping up in the hills. At least that sounded interesting. Maybe he would get to sleep in a tent.

His eyes settled on the page he was printing. Under the words ‘Our Charter’ was a series of statements.

We reject the monarchy and the two-party system of parliament.
We reject the United Nations and any other body that seeks to limit
Australian sovereignty.
We reject government interference with basic individual rights.
We reject excessive immigration and the dilution of traditional
Australian culture.
We reject excessive control of Australian resources by foreigners.
We reject special and preferential treatment of elite minorities.
We reject the alienation of Australian soil to elite minorities.

We believe in a republican and proudly independent Australia.
We believe that all Australians are equal and should be treated as such.
We believe in an Australia run by all Australians for the benefit of
all Australians.
We believe that the rights of the individual cannot be interfered with.
We believe in the inherent value of Australian culture and traditions.
We believe in One Flag.
In One People.
One Nation.

William blinked and looked up. His uncle was watching him from behind the desk.

The old man smiled. ‘Not bad, hey?’

Chapter Seventeen

I
T TOOK WILLIAM AND HIS UNCLE THE REST OF THAT DAY AND most of the next to assemble the newsletters. First the pages had to be stapled together. William went back and forth along the separate piles, gathering up the sheets. Then each newsletter had to be folded and inserted into an envelope, and finally the envelopes had to be stamped and addressed. That was his uncle’s job. The old man had pulled a large black ledger from the desk drawer. Laboriously running his finger down the pages, he found the address of each member, then wrote it out by hand. It was slow work, but William enjoyed it. On the second day the weather grew cool again, so the fire was lit, and it felt good to be shut away in the big dark office, with bright flames burning. To William’s delight, Mrs Griffith even brought in his lunch on a tray, next to his uncle’s. The housekeeper shot him a foul look, but for once he wasn’t afraid of her. He felt warm, secure and useful.