NORTHWARD HO!
The train appeared to go very much faster than it really did, being
rather a narrow-gauge line; still fungus didn't grow on the wheels. We
stopped at every station, and each stop was hailed by the same enquiry
from a half-sozzled bloke in our pen, "Say, g-guard, thish-h North
Pi-ine?" When we got there he refused to believe it, saying he didn't
"re-rec-kernize" the place. Guard whistled, waited for the engine's
answering toot, then hauled the beery one out by the scruff of the neck,
jumped aboard, and left him squatting on the gravel.
The press eased at every halt, until finally there were only half a
dozen of us left. I amused myself for a while gazing at the countryside
lying calm and peaceful in the moonlight, as we rattled along. Then,
just as I was thinking about forty winks, up spoke an old chap in one
corner, grey-bearded, sunburnt, and attired in dungarees, grey woollen
shirt and patched coat.
"Look, blokes! I' ben sufferin' torches with these 'ere dam boots all
day, and I'm goinner take 'em orf."
"All right," we grinned; "fire away, Dad."
He shed his canoes, disposed of his "torchered" feet comfortably along
the seat with a sigh of relief, and proceeded to fill a villainous old
pipe, which presently filled the carriage with fumes.
"Py yingo, Dat!" said a stout, good-humoured Swede next me. "You'
tobaggo schmells stronk. Fot brandt is 'e?"
"It's good ol' R----," said Dad, slowly removing the pipe from his gills
and waving it about to point his remark. "Some people ses it stinks, but
they won't give it a fair go. It'll do me. Smokes good, 'n only 'bout
'alf the price of the other stuff, and grown and mannyfactered right
'ere in the country. I likes it all right."
I asked him for a pipeful to try, and he shoved a plug across. I found
it all right, in spite of its strong reek, and have always smoked it
since. Subsequent experience makes me think that if Australians only
would try their own country's productions a bit oftener, there might be
perhaps fewer strikes and more work to be got. However----
"Noo chum, ain't yer?" asked Dad, as I handed his plug back.
"Yes," I answered, "bound up for Atherton."
"Ah!" he returned, "that's the place fer cows n' corn;" then, puffing at
his old gumbucket with drowsy contentment, "I mind when I wis up there
in '90...," and a small flow of anecdote. He was an accomplished
raconteur; had been all over Queensland, mostly mining; possessed the
usual retentive memory of the illiterate, and really turned out to be
what in more polished circles is usually referred to as a "charming old
gentleman." He told us most interesting yarns of his experiences. Mines,
sheep, prospecting, scrub-felling, fire and flood--pretty well
everything. I must say though that he didn't string me on, but, knowing
where I was bound, gave me some sound advice which I laid to heart.
Thus we passed the night, yarning, smoking, dozing; while the train
rattled and bumped along. Going up a steep grade somewhere near the
Glasshouse Mountains, the carriage got quite a perceptible tilt fore and
aft, and the long series of terrific jerks the engine gave, in her
efforts to negotiate the pinch, brought my heart into my mouth thinking
what would happen if a coupling broke and sent us adrift back down the
grade. Daybreak showed us scrubby, measly-looking forest country, flat
and uninteresting. Then, about 10 a.m., Bundaberg. A wash, some tea, and
a bit of a leg-stretcher along that fine wide avenue, Bourbon-street.
Back to the train, more hilly stretches of forest gradually merging into
the dismal mangrove-bordered mud flats, and we slowed down and brought
up at Gladstone.
Into the main street I went under the guidance of my fellow-travellers,
three of whom were Gladstonians, and popped into a pub for lunch
(_only_ for lunch, of course), where my Scandinavian acquaintance,
who possessed a quiet sort of dry humour, created a bit of a
disturbance. The dining room was full. Soup was served, the hostess,
distinctly an Irish woman, personally attending to us. Olaf smelt his
soup, made a face, cascaded the liquid with his spoon, and generally
made it apparent that something was wrong. The hostess, with the
danger-signal flying in her cheeks and all the room's attention
attracted, bore down on us.
"And is the soup not t' yer liking, sirr?"
"Vell, ma'am," said Olaf, "do you know fot dey gall dis stupf een
_my_ contree?"
"An'-phwat-wud-they-be-afther-callin'-the-good-soup-in-yeer-counthry?"
with terrific emphasis.
"Soup, ma'am!" said he quietly, and went on drinking it with gusto, for
it was good.
Not quite in the best of good taste, perhaps; but the roar of laughter
was good to hear, and the hostess joined in with a good-humoured, "Gwan
wid ye, y' heathen."
Lunch over, we boarded the train again for the ten minutes' run to the
long curve of wharf where the A.U.S.N. boat was lying. A few minutes'
bustling confusion, whilst we burrowed in the heap of baggage for our
personal belongings, and I superintended the embarkation of my chests,
which had miraculously turned up from Wallangarra the previous
afternoon. Then myself, Olaf and old Dad boarded the steamer; they were
bound for Townsville. Half an hour sufficed to get the mail bags and
some odds and ends of freight aboard, then again I heard the old
familiar orders, "Single up!" "Let go aft!" etc., and felt quite out of
it because it had nothing to do with me. Away we went down the harbour,
and bore up towards Mackay as the sun slowly sank behind the landward
hills.
It was a fine night, and after tea I spent a good while promenading the
poop, watching the dim shapes of the points of land coming abeam and
passing in slow procession astern. I built many castles in the air, and
I smile as I think how many fortunes I made between Brisbane and Cairns.
But wouldn't life be a dreary business if a bloke didn't let his
thoughts take wing occasionally and let him forget the monotonous grind
of daily routine?
Hallo! Six bells. A musical call from the look out, the staccato answer
from the bridge, and I went below, tumbled into a sufficiently
comfortable bunk and knew no more until the morning.