A Town Like Alice

  When Palmolive had gone away, she was alone in Midhurst for the night, with only the puppies and the wallaby for company. Somewhere out in the darkness and the rain Joe Harman would be pushing on towards the top end of the property, horses and men soaked through, picking their way cautiously through the darkness. She could do nothing to help them, nothing but sit and wait.

  She learned a lot that evening. She learned a little of the fortitude that a wife on a cattle station must develop, even, she thought a little grimly, a wife with fifty-three thousand pounds. She learned that a radio transmitting and receiving set was almost indispensable to such a wife; even on that first evening she would have liked to exchange a word or two with Jackie Bacon in Cairns. She learned how much a lonely person turns to animals, and queerly the memory of Olive came into her mind, the brown Abo girl who could not bear to be separated from her kitten even on a visit to the Willstown hotel. By the time she went to bed she understood Olive a bit better.

  She went to bed at about nine. There were one or two old British and American magazines about the place, tattered, much read stories about a different world. She took one of these and tried to read it in bed, but the fiction failed to satisfy her or to quell her anxieties. The rain stopped, and started, and then stopped again, and presently she slept.

  She slept lightly and woke many times, and dozed again. She woke before dawn to the sound of a horse in the yard. She got up at once and put her frock on and went out on the veranda, and switched on the light, and called, ‘Who’s that?’

  A man came forward into the light at the foot of the steps, and said, ‘It’s me, Missy, Bourneville. Missa Hope, him come back?’

  He spoke with a thick accent; she could not understand what he was saying. She said, ‘Come up here, Bourneville. What is it?’

  He came up to her in the veranda. He was a man of about fifty years of age, very black, with a seamed, wrinkled face and greying hair. He said again, ‘Missa Hope, him come back?’

  She understood this time. ‘He’s gone over to Windermere. He came back here, and went on to Windermere. What’s happened to Mr Harman, Bourneville?’

  He said, ‘Missa Harman, him up top end. Him find Missa Curtis, him leg broken. Missa Harman, him send me back fetch Missa Hope, him drive utility up top end, bring Missa Curtis down.’

  She was angry with herself that she could not fully understand what he was saying. The fault lay within herself; a woman of the Gulf country would understand this man at once, and it was terribly important that she should understand. She said quietly, ‘I’m sorry, Bourneville. Say that again slowly.’

  She got it at the second repetition. ‘Mr Hope’s not here,’ she said. ‘He’s gone to Windermere.’

  He was silent for a time. Then he said, ‘No white feller here, drive utility?’

  She shook her head. ‘Can you drive the utility, Bourneville?’

  ‘No, Missy.’

  ‘Can any of the other Abos drive the utility?’

  ‘No, Missy.’

  The thought came to her that she could drive it up to them herself, with Bourneville as a guide, but it was not a thing to be undertaken lightly. She had never owned a car, and though she had driven cars belonging to various young men from time to time and knew the movements, her total driving experience did not exceed five hours. Again, she was angry and humiliated by her own incompetence.

  She lit a cigarette and thought deeply. It would benefit nobody if she attempted to drive the utility and crashed it. It was a very big vehicle, larger than any ordinary car and much bigger than anything she had ever driven before. The alternative would be to send Bourneville riding on to Willstown, perhaps to the police station; they would send a truck or a utility out with a driver who would go on to the top end. The return journey to Willstown was forty miles. It would mean at least six hours delay before the truck could arrive at Midhurst ready to start for the top end.

  She asked, ‘How far away is Mr Harman, Bourneville?’

  He thought. ‘Four mile past bore.’

  Joe had once told her that the new bore was twenty-two miles from the homestead; that made the scene of the accident twenty-six miles away. She said, ‘What’s the track like? Can the utility get there?’

  ‘Him bonza track in dry far as bore,’ he said. She nodded; this was likely enough because the bore had only been made a few months and there must have been trucks going up to it. It would probably be possible to get along it even in this rain. Already the sky was getting grey; full daylight was not far away.

  She asked, ‘Are there any creeks to cross?’

  He held up three fingers. ‘Tree.’

  ‘Are they deep? Can the utility go through?’

  ‘Yes, Missy. Creeks not too deep.’

  If Bourneville rode a horse beside the utility to guide her, she thought that she could make it. It was worth trying, anyway; the worst that could happen would be that she would get it stuck and have to send Bourneville back to Willstown with a note for them to send up somebody more competent. So long as he had his horse there was no risk of any great delay. She said, ‘All right, Bourneville, I’ll drive the utility. You come up with me on your horse.’

  ‘Get fresh horse, Missy. Him tired.’

  ‘All right, get a fresh horse.’ Bourneville must be tired too, but she was too unaccustomed to these seamed black faces to be able to detect fatigue. ‘You get some tucker,’ she said. ‘I get tucker, too. We’ll start in half an hour.’

  He went off and she put the kettle on for a cup of tea and then went and changed into her riding shirt and breeches. There was an old tin truck in Joe’s room which she had discovered the night before; it was half full of bandages and splints and various medicines. Being of tin, she thought, it would be waterproof, and she filled it up with blankets and some tins of food from the store cupboard, and a small sack of flour. That was all she could think of for provision in case she got stuck halfway and had to spend a night or two in the utility.

  She had a cup of tea and a small meal of meat and bread and jam; then she went down to the yard and examined the utility. The huge petrol tank had twenty gallons in it, and the sump was full of oil. She filled the radiator from the water-butt and filled the waterbag suspended from the lamp bracket. Then she sat in it; to her relief the gears were clearly marked. She switched it on and pressed the starter and jiggeted the accelerator, and was both alarmed and pleased when the engine started. Very gingerly she put it in reverse and drove it out into the yard.

  They put the trunk into the back and started off, Bourneville riding ahead of her to show her the way. Partly because of Bourneville on his horse and partly because she thoroughly distrusted her own competence, she never got it into top gear all the way, and never exceeded ten miles an hour. She drove through each of the three creeks along the line that Bourneville showed her, following the agitated, plunging horse as he forced through the yellow water swirling about its legs. Once the water rose above the floorboards of the cab and she was very frightened. But she kept the utility going and the designer had anticipated such usage and had placed the ignition system above the cylinders, and it came through bounding from rock to rock with water pouring out of every hole and cranny.

  Four miles beyond the bore Joe Harman sat at the mouth of his small tent. It was pitched in a clearing in a thick patch of bush in the bottom of a little valley. A heavy log stockade or corral had been built in this clearing and stood immediately behind the tent; the movable logs that formed a gate had been pulled down and the corral was empty. Joe had built a fire before the tent, and he was boiling up in a billy over it.

  A man lay inside upon a bed of brushwood covered with a waterproof sheet, with a blanket over him. Joe turned his head, and said, ‘What happened, Don? Did they rush you when you got the pole down?’

  From the tent the man said, ‘My bloody oath. They pushed the pole back on to me and knocked me down. Then about six of them ran over me.’

  Joe said, ‘Serve you bloody well rig
ht. Teach you to go muggering about on other people’s land.’

  There was a pause. Then he said, ‘How many of mine did you get last year, Don?’

  ‘’Bout three hundred.’

  Mr Harman laughed. ‘I got three hundred and fifty of yours.’

  From the tent Mr Curtis said a very rude word.

  10

  Jean drove the utility slowly up to the tent with Bourneville riding beside her; she took out the gear and stopped it with a sigh of relief. Joe came to her as she sat there. ‘What’s happened to Dave?’ he asked. ‘Didn’t he come back?’

  She told him what had happened. ‘I thought I’d better have a go at driving it up myself,’ she said. ‘I’ve only driven a car about three times before. I don’t think I’ve done it any good, Joe.’

  He stepped back. ‘Looks all right,’ he said. ‘Did you hit anything?’

  ‘I didn’t hit anything. I couldn’t get the gears in sometimes and it made an awful noise.’

  ‘Do they still work?’

  ‘Oh, I think so.’

  ‘That’s all right, then. What were the creeks like?’

  ‘Pretty high,’ she said. ‘It came over the floor of the cab.’

  He grunted. ‘Get along back as soon as we can. I wish this bloody rain ’ld stop.’

  She asked, ‘Is Mr Curtis here, Joe?’

  He nodded. ‘In the tent.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Got his leg bust,’ he said. ‘Compound fracture – that’s what you call it when the bone’s sticking out, isn’t it? I think he’s got a broken ankle, too.’

  She pursed her lips. ‘I brought up that trunk with your splints and things.’

  He asked, ‘Do you know about breaks? Ever been a nurse or anything like that?’

  She shook her head. ‘I’ve not.’

  ‘I’ve had a look at it and washed it,’ he said. ‘I set it well as I could, but it’s a mess. I made a sort of long splint this morning and tied it all down on that. We’ll get him down to hospital, soon as we can. It’s been done two days.’

  They set to work to strike camp. They removed the tent from over the injured man and he saw Jean for the first time. ‘Hullo, Miss Paget,’ he said. ‘You don’t remember me. I saw you in Willstown, day you arrived.’

  She smiled at him. ‘You’ll be back there in a little while. In the hospital.’

  Once as she worked she turned to Joe with a puzzled expression. ‘Whose land are we on, Joe?’

  ‘Midhurst,’ he said. ‘Why?’

  She glanced at the corral. ‘What’s that for?’

  ‘That?’ he said. ‘Oh, that’s just a place we put the cattle in sometimes, for branding and that.’

  She said no more, but went on with her work; once or twice a little smile played round her lips. They worked a blanket underneath the brushwood bed as the man lay upon the ground, and lowered the tailboard of the utility; then, with infinite care and great labour they lifted him on his bed into the body of the truck. The man was white and sweating when they had done and a little blood was showing on his lip where he had bitten it, but there was nothing else that they could do to ease his pain.

  They started off at about nine o’clock, Joe driving the utility, Jean riding in the back with the injured man, and Bourneville following behind, riding and leading the two horses. They passed the bore and went on for about five miles till they came to the creeks. The water was considerably higher than when Jean had crossed a couple of hours earlier.

  They crossed the first without difficulty, though the water was in the cab of the utility and only just below the floor of the truck body on which the sick man lay. They came through that one and went on. At the second creek the water was higher. Joe stopped on the edge and consulted with Jean and Bourneville about the crossing they had made before. It seemed shallower fifty yards above the point where Jean had crossed; Joe sent Bourneville into the water on his horse to sound the crossing. It looked good enough, so he drove the utility into the water.

  It grew deep quickly, and he accelerated to keep her going. The bottom, under the swirling yellow flood, was very rough; the big car went forward leaping from boulder to boulder under the water. Then she came down heavily on something with a crunch of metal, and stopped dead.

  Joe said, ‘Jesus,’ and pressed the starter, but the engine was immovable. Oil began to appear on the eddying yellow surface of the water, and slide away downstream in black and yellow tails. He stared at it in consternation.

  Jean said, ‘What’s happened, Joe?’

  ‘I’ve cracked the bloody sump,’ he said shortly.

  He got down into the water from the cab, feeling his way gingerly; it was well above his knees, close on waist deep. He called Bourneville and made Jean pass him a coil of rope from the back of the truck. The utility was only about ten yards from the bank. They made a sort of tandem harness for the three horses with lariats that they carried at the pommel of the riding saddles, and harnessed this team to the back axle of the utility, groping and spluttering under the water to do so. In ten minutes the vehicle was on dry land; a performance that left Jean awed by its efficiency.

  She got down from the back and went to Joe, who was lying on his back under the front axle. She stooped down with him to look; the cast iron sump was crushed and splintered. ‘Say it, Joe,’ she said quietly.

  He grinned at her, and said, ‘It’s a fair mugger.’ He picked the broken pieces of cast iron from the hole, and got out from underneath. He went and got the starting-handle from the cab and turned the engine carefully. He sighed with relief. ‘Crank-shaft’s all right,’ he said. ‘It’s only just the sump.’

  He stood in deep thought for a minute, starting-handle in his hand; the rain poured down upon them steadily. She asked, ‘Where do we go from here, Joe?’

  ‘I could patch that,’ he said, ‘good enough to get her home. But then we haven’t got any oil. It’s no good going down to fetch the truck the way these creeks are rising.’ He stood watching the water for a minute or two. ‘Never get the truck through by the time it got here,’ he said finally. ‘There’s only one thing for it now. He’ll have to be flown out.’

  The country round about was covered with rocks and trees. ‘Is there anywhere an aeroplane can land here?’ she asked.

  ‘I know one place it might,’ he said. ‘Five hundred yards, they want, and then a good approach.’

  He took his horse and went off to the south; by the river they unpacked the tent and arranged it over Don Curtis to keep the rain off him. The wounded man said faintly once, ‘Joe Harman’s a clumsy mugger with a car. He’s a good poddy dodger, though.’ Jean laughed. ‘Pair of criminals, the two of you,’ she said. ‘I’m going to have a word with Mrs Curtis.’

  ‘Don’t do it,’ he said. ‘She don’t know nothing about this.’

  She said, ‘Lie still, and don’t talk. Joe’s gone off to find a place where the aeroplane can land to fly you out.’

  ‘Hope he makes a better job of it than he did driving this bloody truck,’ said Mr Curtis.

  Joe came back in a quarter of an hour. ‘Think we can make something of it,’ he said. ‘It’s only about a mile away.’ With Bourneville he harnessed up the tandem team of three horses to the front axle of the truck, and with Jean at the wheel they set off through the bush, steering and manoeuvring between the trees.

  They came presently to an open space, a long grassy sward with low bushes dotted about on it. It was more than five hundred yards long, but there were trees at each end. It would be possible to make an airstrip there. ‘Clear off some of those bushes,’ Joe said, ‘and fell some of those trees. I’ve seen them use a lot worse places than this.’

  An axe and a spade were part of the equipment of the utility; they had tools enough. Their labour was quite inadequate for the work. ‘We’ll have to get the boys up from Midhurst,’ he said. ‘Everyone that’s there. And get a message down to Willstown about the aeroplane.’

  She said, ‘I’ll
ride down with Bourneville to the homestead, Joe. Then he can bring the boys back, and I’ll go on to Willstown.’

  He stared at her. ‘You can’t ride that far.’

  ‘How far is it?’

  ‘Forty miles, to Willstown.’

  ‘I can get to Midhurst, anyway,’ she said. ‘If I can’t go on I’ll send Moonshine in with a note to Sergeant Haines. He’s the best man to tell, isn’t he?’

  ‘That’s right. If you do this, there’s to be no riding alone. If you go on from Midhurst to town, you’ve got to take Moonshine or one of the other boys with you. I won’t have you trying to cross them creeks alone, on a horse.’

  She touched his arm. ‘All right, Joe. I’ll take someone with me.’ She paused. ‘We could get on the radio from Willstown,’ she said. ‘We could get some people over from Windermere to help you then, couldn’t we?’

  ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘It would be better if we had a radio at Midhurst.’ He paused. ‘There’s one thing that they’ll all want to know,’ he said, ‘and that’s where this place is. We’re about six miles west-south-west of the new bore. Can you remember that?’

  ‘I’ve got that, Joe,’ she said. ‘Six miles west-south-west of the new bore.’ She paused. ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ll make a camp here.’ He looked around. ‘I’ll pitch the tent over the back of the utility,’ he said. ‘We don’t want to shift him again if we can help it, not until we get a stretcher. After that I’ll start and fell some of those trees for the approach.’

  ‘What about your back?’ she asked.

  ‘That’ll be all right.’

  She thought of swinging a two-handed axe to fell a tree. ‘Have you done that, Joe?’