From sun-up to sun-down on Tuesday, the train glided quietly forward on
its way towards the Never-Never; and from sun-up to sun-down the Maluka
and I experienced the kindly consideration that it always shows to
travellers: it boiled a billy for us at its furnace; loitered through
the pleasantest valleys; smiled indulgently, and slackened speed
whenever we made merry with blacks, by pelting them with chunks of
water-melon; and generally waited on us hand and foot, the Man-in-Charge
pointing out the beauty spots and places of interest, and making tea for
us at frequent intervals.
It was a delightful train—just a simple-hearted, chivalrous, weather-
beaten old bush-whacker, at the service of the entire Territory.
“There’s nothing the least bit officious or standoffish about it,” I was
saying, when the Man-in-Charge came in with the first billy of tea.
“Of course not!” he said, unhooking cups from various crooked-up
fingers. “It’s a Territorian, you see.”
“And had all the false veneer of civilisation peeled off long ago,” the
Maluka said, adding, with a sly look at my discarded gloves and
gossamer, “It’s wonderful how quietly the Territory does its work.”
The Man-in-Charge smiled openly as he poured out the tea, proving
thereby his kinship with all other Territorians; and as the train came
to a standstill, swung off and slipped some letters into a box nailed to
an old tree-trunk.
At the far end of the train, away from the engine, the passengers’ car
had been placed, and as in front of it a long, long line of low-stacked
sinuous trucks slipped along in the rear of the engine, all was open
view before us; and all day long, as the engine trudged onwards—hands in
pockets, so to speak, and whistling merrily as it trudged—I stood beside
the Maluka on the little platform in front of the passengers’ car,
drinking in my first deep, intoxicating draught of the glories of the
tropical bush.
There were no fences to shut us in; and as the train zig-zagged through
jungle and forest and river-valley—stopping now and then to drink deeply
at magnificent rivers ablaze with water-lilies—it almost seemed as
though it were some kindly Mammoth creature, wandering at will through
the bush.
Here and there, kangaroos and other wild creatures of the bush hopped
out of our way, and sitting up, looked curiously after us; again and
again little groups of blacks hailed us, and scrambled after water-melon
and tobacco, with shouts of delight, and, invariably, on nearing the
tiny settlements along the railway, we drove before us white fleeing
flocks of goats.
At every settlement we stopped and passed the time of day and, giving
out mail-bags, moved on again into the forest. Now and again, stockmen
rode out of the timber and received mail-bags, and once a great burly
bushman, a staunch old friend of the Maluka’s, boarded the train, and
greeted him with a hearty hand-shake.
“Hullo! old chap!” he called in welcome, as he mounted the steps of the
little platform, “I’ve come to inspect your latest investment”; but
catching sight of the “latest investment” he broke into a deafening
roar.
“Good Lord!” he shouted, looking down upon me from his great height, “is
that all there is of her? They’re expecting one of the prize-fighting
variety down there,” and he jerked his head towards the Never-Never.
Then he congratulated the Maluka on the size of his missus.
“Gimme the little ’uns,” he said, nearly wringing my hand off in his
approval. “You can’t beat ’em for pluck. My missus is one of ’em, and
she went bush with me when I’d nothing but a skeeto net and a quart-pot
to share with her.” Then, slapping the Maluka vigorously on the back, he
told him he’d got some sense left. “You can’t beat the little ’uns,” he
declared. “They’re just the very thing.”
The Maluka agreed with him, and after some comical quizzing, they
decided, to their own complete satisfaction, that although the bushman’s
“missus” was the “littlest of all little ’uns, straight up and down,”
the Maluka’s “knocked spots off her sideways.”
But although the Territory train does not need to bend its neck to the
galling yoke of a minute time-table, yet, like all bush-whackers, it
prefers to strike its supper camp before night-fall, and after allowing
us a good ten minutes’ chat, it blew a deferential “Ahem” from its
engine, as a hint that it would like to be “getting along.” The bushman
took the hint, and after a hearty “Good luck, missus!” and a “chin,
chin, old man,” left us, with assurances that “her size ’ud do the
trick.”
Until sundown we jogged quietly on, meandering through further pleasant
places and meetings; drinking tea and chatting with the Man-in-Charge
between whiles, extracting a maximum of pleasure from a minimum rate of
speed: for travelling in the Territory has not yet passed that ideal
stage where the travelling itself—the actual going—is all pleasantness.
As we approached Pine Creek I confided to the men-folk that I was
feeling a little nervous. “Supposing that telegraphing bush-whacker
decides to shoot me off-hand on my arrival,” I said; and the Man-in-
Charge said amiably: “It’ll be brought in as justifiable homicide;
that’s all.” Then reconnoitring the enemy from the platform, he “feared”
we were “about to be boycotted.”
There certainly were very few men on the station, and the Man-in-Charge
recognising one of them as the landlord of the Playford, assured us
there was nothing to fear from that quarter. “You see, you represent
business to him,” he explained.
Every one but the landlord seemed to have urgent business in the office
or at the far end of the platform, but it was quickly evident that there
was nothing to fear from him; for, finding himself left alone to do the
honours of the Creek, he greeted us with an amused: “She doesn’t look up
to sample sent by telegram”; and I felt every meeting would be, at
least, unconventional. Then we heard that as Mac had “only just arrived
from the Katherine, he couldn’t leave his horses until they were fixed
up”; but the landlord’s eyes having wandered back to the “Goer,” he
winked deliberately at the Maluka before inviting us to “step across to
the Pub.”
The Pub seemed utterly deserted, and with another wink the landlord
explained the silence by saying that “a cyclone of some sort” had swept
most of his “regulars” away; and then he went shouting through the
echoing passages for a “boy” to “fetch along tea.”
Before the tea appeared, an angry Scotch voice crept to us through thin
partitions, saying: “It’s not a fit place for a woman, and, besides,
nobody wants her!” And in a little while we heard the same voice
inquiring for “the Boss.”
“The telegraphing bush-whacker,” I said, and invited the Maluka to come
and see me defy him. But when I found myself face to face with over six
feet of brawny quizzing, wrathful-looking Scotchman, all my courage
slipped away, and edging closer to the Maluka, I held out my hand to the
bushman, murmuring lamely: “How do you do?”
Instantly a change came over the rugged, bearded face. At the sight of
the “Goer” reduced to a meek five feet, all the wrath died out of it,
and with twitching lips and twinkling eyes Mac answered mechanically,
“Quite well thank you,” and then coughed in embarrassment.
That was all: no fierce blocking, no defying. And with the cough, the
absurdity of the whole affair, striking us simultaneously, left us
grinning like a trio of Cheshire cats.
It was a most eloquent grinning, making all spoken apology or
explanation unnecessary; and by the time it had faded away we thoroughly
understood each other, being drawn together by a mutual love of the
ridiculous. Only a mutual love of the ridiculous, yet not so slender a
basis for a lifelong friendship as appears, and by no means an uncommon
one “out bush.”
“Does the station pay for the telegrams, or the loser?” the landlord
asked in an aside, as we went in to supper and after supper the
preparations began for the morrow’s start.
The Sanguine Scot, anxious to make amends for the telegrams, was full of
suggestions for smoothing out the difficulties of the road. Like many
men of his type, whatever he did he did it with all his heart and
soul—hating, loving, avenging, or forgiving with equal energy; and he
now applied himself to helping the Maluka “make things easy for her,” as
zealously as he had striven to “block her somehow.”
Sorting out pack-bags, he put one aside, with a “We’ll have to spare
that for her duds. It won’t do for her to be short. She’ll have enough
to put up with, without that.” But when I thanked him, and said I could
manage nicely with only one, as I would not need much on the road, he
and the Maluka sat down and stared at each other in dismay. “That’s for
everything you’ll need till the waggons come,” they explained; “your
road kit goes in your swag.”
The waggons went “inside” once a year—“after the Wet,” and would arrive
at the homestead early in June. As it was then only the middle of
January, I too sat down, and stared in dismay from the solitary pack-bag
to the great, heaped-up pile that had been sorted out as indispensable.
“You’ll have to cull your herd a bit, that’s all,” Mac said; and
needlework was pointed out as a luxury. Then books were “cut out,” after
that the house linen was looked to, and as I hesitated over the number
of pillow-cases we could manage with, Mac cried triumphantly: “You won’t
need these anyway, for there’s no pillows.”
The Maluka thought he had prepared me for everything in the way of
roughness; but in a flash we knew that I had yet to learn what a bushman
means by rough.
As the pillow-cases fell to the ground, Mac was at a loss to account for
my consternation. “What’s gone wrong?” he exclaimed in concern. Mac was
often an unconscious humorist.
But the Maluka came with his ever-ready sympathy. “Poor little coon,” he
said gently, “there’s little else but chivalry and a bite of tucker for
a woman out bush.”
Then a light broke in on Mac. “Is it only the pillows?” he said. “I
thought something had gone wrong.” Then his eyes began to twinkle.
“There’s stacks of pillows in Darwin,” he said meaningly.
It was exactly the moral fillip needed, and in another minute we were
cheerfully “culling our herd” again.
Exposed to Mac’s scorn, the simplest comforts became foolish luxuries.
“A couple of changes of everything is stacks,” he said encouragingly,
clearing a space for packing. “There’s heaps of soap and water at the
station, and things dry here before you can waltz round twice.”
Hopefulness is always infectious, and before Mac’s cheery optimism the
pile of necessities grew rapidly smaller. Indeed, with such visions of
soap and water and waltzing washerwomen, a couple of changes of
everything appeared absurd luxury. But even optimism can have
disadvantages; for in our enthusiasm we forgot that a couple of cambric
blouses, a cotton dress or two, and a change of skirts, are hardly equal
to the strain of nearly five months constant wear and washing.
The pillow-cases went in, however. Mac settled that difficulty by saying
that “all hands could be put on to pluck birds. The place is stiff with
’em,” he explained, showing what a simple matter it would be, after all.
The Maluka turning out two cushions, a large and a smaller one,
simplified matters even more. “A bird in the hand you know,” he said,
finding room for them in the swag.
Before all the arrangements were completed, others of the Creek had
begun to thaw, and were “lending a hand,” here and there. The question
of horses coming up, I confided in the helpers, that I was relieved to
hear that the Telegraph had sent a quiet horse. “I am really afraid of
buck-jumpers, you know,” I said, and the Creek looking sideways at Mac,
he became incoherent.
“Oh, look here!” he spluttered, “I say! Oh, look here! It really was too
bad!” Then, after an awkward pause, he blurted out, “I don’t know what
you’ll think, but the brute strayed first camp, and—he’s lost, saddle
and all.”
The Maluka shot him a swift, questioning glance; but poor Mac looked so
unhappy that we assured him “we’d manage somehow.” Perhaps we could tame
one of the flash buck-jumpers, the Maluka suggested. But Mac said it
“wouldn’t be as bad as that,” and, making full confession, placed old
Roper at our service.
By morning, however, a magnificent chestnut “Flash,” well-broken into
the side-saddle, had been conjured up from somewhere by the Creek. But
two of the pack-horses had strayed, and by the time they were found the
morning had slipped away, and it was too late to start until after
dinner. Then after dinner a terrific thunderstorm broke over the
settlement, and as the rain fell in torrents, Mac thought it looked
“like a case of to-morrow all right.”
Naturally I felt impatient at the delay, but was told by the Creek that
“there was no hurry!” “To-morrow’s still untouched,” Mac explained.
“This is the Land of Plenty of Time; Plenty of Time and Wait a While.
You’ll be doing a bit of waiting before you’ve done with it.”
“If this rain goes on, she’ll be doing a bit of waiting at the
Fergusson; unless she learns the horse’s-tail trick,” the Creek put in.
On inquiry, it proved that the “horse’s-tail trick” meant swimming a
horse through the flood, and hanging on to its tail until it fought a
way across; and I felt I would prefer “waiting a bit.”
The rain did go on, and, roaring over the roof, made conversation
difficult. The bushmen called it a “bit of a storm”; but every square
inch of the heavens seemed occupied by lightning and thunder-bolts.
“Nothing to what we can do sometimes,” every one agreed. “WE do things
in style up here—often run half-a-dozen storms at once. You see, when
you are weather-bound, you might as well have something worth looking
at.”
The storm lasted nearly three hours, and when it cleared Mac went over
to the Telegraph, where some confidential chatting must have taken
place, for when he returned he told us that the Dandy was starting out
for the homestead next day to “fix things up a bit.” The Head Stockman
however, waited back for orders.
The morning dawned bright and clear, and Mac advised “making a dash for
the Fergusson.” “We might just get through before this rain comes down
the valley,” he said.
The Creek was most enthusiastic with its help, bustling about with
packbags and surcingles, and generally “mixing things.”
When the time came to say good-bye it showed signs of breaking down; but
mastering its grief with a mightily audible effort, it wished us “good
luck,” and stood watching as we rode out of the little settlement.
Every time we looked back it raised its hat, and as we rode at the head
of our orderly little cavalcade of pack horses, with Jackeroo the black
“boy” bringing up the rear, we flattered ourselves on the dignity of our
departure. Mac called it “style,” and the Maluka was hoping that the
Creek was properly impressed, when Flash, unexpectedly heading off for
his late home, an exciting scrimmage ensued and the procession was
broken into fragments.
The Creek flew to the rescue, and, when order was finally restored, the
woman who had defied the Sanguine Scot and his telegrams, entered the
forest that fringes the Never-Never, sitting meekly upon a led horse.