THE WELCOME OF AUSTRALIA
A path of moonlight lay across the sea. Into it drifted a great ship,
her engines almost stopped, so that only a dull, slow throb came up from
below, instead of the swift thud-thud of the screw that had pounded for
many weeks. It was late; so late that most of the ship's lights were
extinguished. But all through her was a feeling of pulsating life, of
unrest, of a kind of tense excitement, of long-pent expectation.
There were low voices everywhere; feet paced the decks; along the port
railings on each deck soldiers were clustered thickly, looking out
across the grey, tossing sea to a winking light that flashed and
twinkled out of the darkness like a voice that cried “Greeting!” For it
was the Point Lonsdale light, at the sea gate of Victoria; and the men
of the Nauru were nearly home.
There was little sleep for anyone on board on that last night. Most of
the Nauru's great company were to disembark in Melbourne; the last two
days had seen a general smartening up, a mighty polishing of leather and
brass, a “rounding-up” of scattered possessions. The barber's shop had
been besieged by shaggy crowds; and since the barber, being but human,
could not cope with more than a small proportion of his would-be
customers, amateur clipping parties had been in full swing forward,
frequently with terrifying results. Nobody minded. “Git it orf, that's
all that matters!” was the motto of the long-haired.
No one knew quite when the Nauru would berth; it was wrapped in mystery,
like all movements of troopships. So every one was ready the night
before--kit bags packed, gear stowed away, nothing left save absolute
necessaries. Then, with the coming of dusk, unrest settled down upon
the ship, and the men marched restlessly, up and down, or, gripping
pipe stems between their teeth, stared from the railings northwards. And
then, like a star at first, the Point Lonsdale light twinkled out of the
darkness, and a low murmur ran round the decks--a murmur without words,
since it came from men whose only fashion of meeting any emotion is with
a joke; and even for a “digger” there is no joke ready on the lips, but
only a catch at the heart, at the first glimpse of home.
Norah Linton had tucked herself away behind a boat on the hurricane
deck, and there Cecilia Rainham found her just after dusk. The two
girls had become sworn friends during the long voyage out, in the close
companionship of sharing a cabin--which is a kind of acid test that
generally brings out the best--and worst--of travellers. There was
something protective in Norah's nature that responded instantly to the
lonely position of the girl who was going across the world to a strange
country. Both were motherless, but in Norah's case the blank was
softened by a father who had striven throughout his children's lives to
be father and mother alike to them, while Cecilia had only the bitter
memory of the man who had shirked his duty until he had become less than
a stranger to her. If any pang smote her heart at the sight of Norah's
worshipping love for the tall grey “dad” for whom she was the very
centre of existence, Cecilia did not show it. The Lintons had taken them
into their little circle at once--more, perhaps, by reason of Cecilia's
extraordinary introduction to them than through General Harran's
letter--and Bob and his sister were already grateful for their
friendship. They were a quiet quartet, devoted to each other in their
undemonstrative fashion; Norah was on a kind of boyish footing with Jim,
the huge silent brother who was a major, with three medal ribbons to
his credit, and with Wally Meadows, his inseparable chum, who had been
almost brought up with the brother and sister.
“They were always such bricks to me, even when I was a little scrap of a
thing,” she had told Cecilia. “They never said I was 'only a girl,' and
kept me out of things. So I grew up more than three parts a boy. It was
so much easier for dad to manage three boys, you see!”
“You don't look much like a boy,” Cecilia had said, looking at the tall,
slender figure and the mass of curly brown hair. They were getting ready
for bed, and Norah was wielding a hair-brush vigorously.
“No, but I really believe I feel like one--at least, I do whenever I
am with Jim and Wally,” Norah had answered. “And when we get back
to Billabong it will be just as it always was--we'll be three boys
together. You know, it's the most ridiculous thing to think of Jim and
Wally as grown-ups. Dad and I can't get accustomed to it at all. And as
for Jim being a major!--a major sounds so dignified and respectable, and
Jim isn't a bit like that!”
“And what about Captain Meadows?”
“Oh--Wally will simply never grow up.” Norah laughed softly. “He's like
Peter Pan. Once he nearly managed it--in that bad time when Jim was a
prisoner, and we thought he was killed. But Jim got back just in time to
save him from anything so awful. One of the lovely parts of getting Jim
again was to see the twinkle come back into Wally's eyes. You see, Wally
is practically all twinkle!”
“And when you get back to Australia, what will you all do?”
Norah had looked puzzled.
“Why, I don't know that we've ever thought of it,” she said. “We'll just
all go to Billabong--we don't seem to think further than that. Anyway,
you and Bob are coming too--so we can plan it all out then.”
Looking at her, on this last night of the voyage, Cecilia wondered
whether the unknown “Billabong” would indeed be enough, after the long
years of war. They had been children when they left; now the boys were
seasoned soldiers, with scars and honours, and such memories as only
they themselves could know; and Norah and her father had for years
conducted what they termed a “Home for Tired People,” where broken and
weary men from the front had come to be healed and tended, and sent
back refitted in mind and body. This girl, who leaned over the rail and
looked at the Point Lonsdale light, had seen suffering and sorrow; the
mourning of those who had given up dear ones, the sick despair of young
and strong men crippled in the very dawn of life; and had helped them
all. Beside her, in experience, Cecilia felt a child. And yet the
old bush home, with its simple life and the pleasures that had been
everything to her in childhood, seemed everything to her now.
Cecilia went softly to her side, and Norah turned with a start.
“Hallo, Tommy!” she said, slipping her arm through the
new-comer's--Cecilia had become “Tommy” to them all in a very short
time, and her hated, if elegant, name left as a legacy to England. “I
didn't hear you come. Oh, Tommy, it's lovely to see home again!”
“You can't see much,” said Tommy, laughing.
“No, but it's there. I can feel it; and that old winking eye on Point
Lonsdale is saying fifty nice things a minute. And I can smell the gum
leaves--don't you tell me I can't, Tommy, just because your nose isn't
tuned up to gum leaves yet!”
“Does it take long to tune a nose?” asked Tommy, laughing.
“Not a nice nose like yours.” Norah gave a happy little sigh. “Do you
see that glow in the sky? That's the lights of Melbourne. I went to
school near Melbourne, but I never loved it much; but somehow, it seems
different now. It's all just shouting welcomes. And back of beyond that
light is Billabong.”
“I want to see Billabong,” said the other girl. “I never had a home that
meant anything like that--I want to see yours.”
“And I suppose you'll just think it's an ordinary, untidy old place--not
a bit like the trim English places, where the woods look as though they
were swept and dusted before breakfast every morning. I suppose it is
all ordinary. But it has meant just everything I wanted, all my life,
and I can't imagine its meaning anything less now.”
“And what about Homewood--the Home for Tired People?”
“Oh, Homewood certainly is lovely,” Norah said. “I like it better than
any place in the world that isn't Billabong--and it was just wonderful
to be able to carry it on for the Tired People: dad and I will always be
thankful we had the chance. But it never was home: and now it's going to
run itself happily without us, as a place for partly-disabled men, with
Colonel Hunt and Captain Hardress to manage it. It was just a single
chapter in our lives, and now it is closed. But we're--all of us--parts
of Billabong.”
Some one came quietly along the deck and to the vacant place on her
other side.
“Who's talking Billabong again, old kiddie?” Jim Linton's deep voice was
always gentle. Norah gave his shoulder a funny little rub with her head.
“Ah, you're just as bad as I am, so you needn't laugh at me, Jimmy.”
“I wasn't laughing at you,” Jim defended himself. “I expected to find
you ever so much worse. I thought you'd sing anthems on the very word
Billabong all through the voyage, especially in your bath. Of course I
don't know what Tommy has suffered!”
“Tommy doesn't need your sympathy,” said that lady. “However, she wants
to look her best for Melbourne, so she's going to bed. Don't hurry,
Norah; I know you want to exchange greetings with that light for hours
yet!”
She slipped away, and Norah drew closer to Jim. Presently came Wally, on
her other side, and a few moments later a deep voice behind them said,
“Not in bed yet, Norah?”--and Wally made room for Mr. Linton.
“I couldn't go to bed, dad.”
“Apparently most of the ship is of your mind--I didn't feel like bed
myself,” admitted the squatter, letting his hand rest for a moment
on his daughter's shoulder. He gave a great sigh of happiness. “Eh,
children, it's great to be near home again!”
“My word, isn't it!” said Jim. “Only it's hard to take in. I keep
fancying that I'll certainly wake up in a minute and find myself in
a trench, just getting ready to go over the top. What do you suppose
they're doing at Billabong now, Nor?”
“Asleep,” said Norah promptly. “Oh, I don't know--I don't believe
Brownie's asleep.”
“I know she's not,” Wally said. He and the old nurse-housekeeper of
Billabong were sworn allies; though no one could ever quite come up to
Jim and Norah in Brownie's heart, Wally had been a close third from the
day, long years back, that he had first come to the station, a lonely,
dark-eyed little Queenslander. “She's made the girls scrub and polish
until there's nothing left for them to rub, and she's harried Hogg and
Lee Wing until there isn't a leaf looking crooked in all the garden,
and she and Murty have planned all about meeting you for the hundred and
first time.”
“And she's planning to make pikelets for you!” put in Norah.
“Bless her. I wouldn't wonder. She's planning the very wildest cooking,
of course--do you remember what the table used to be the night we came
home from school? And now she's gone round all the rooms to make sure
she couldn't spend another sixpence on them, and she's sitting by her
window trying to see us all on the Nauru. 'Specially you, old Nor.”
“'Tis the gift of second sight you have,” said Jim admiringly. “A
few hundred years ago you'd have got yourself ducked as a witch or
something.”
“Oh, Wally and Brownie were always twin souls; no wonder each knows what
the other is thinking of,” Norah said, laughing. “It all sounds exactly
true, at any rate. Boys, what a pity you can't land in uniform--wouldn't
they all love to see you!”
“Can't do it,” Jim said. “Too long since we were shot out of the army;
any enterprising provost-marshal could make himself obnoxious about it.”
“I know--but I'm sorry,” answered Norah. “Brownie won't be satisfied
unless she sees you in all your war paint.”
“We'll put it on some night for dinner,” Jim promised. He peered
suddenly into the darkness. “There's a moving light--it's the pilot
steamer coming out for us.”
They watched the light pass slowly from the dim region that meant the
Heads, until, as the pilot boat swung out through the Rip to where the
Nauru lay, her other lights grew clear, and presently her whole outline
loomed indistinctly, suddenly close to them. She lay to across a little
heaving strip of sea, and presently the pilot was being pulled across
to them by a couple of men and was coming nimbly up the Nauru's ladder,
hand over hand. He nodded cheerily at his welcome--a fusillade of
greetings from every “digger” who could find a place at the railings,
and a larger number who could not, but contented themselves with
shouting sweet nothings from behind their comrades. A lean youngster
near Jim Linton looked down enviously at the retreating boat.
“If I could only slide down into her, an' nick off to the old Alvina
over there, I'd be home before breakfast,” he said. “Me people live at
Queenscliff--don't it seem a fair cow to have to go past 'em, right up
to Melbourne?”
The pilot's head appeared above on the bridge, beside the captain's, and
presently the Nauru gathered way, and, slowly turning, forged through
the tossing waters of the Rip. Before her the twin lights of the Heads
opened out; soon she was gliding between them, and under the silent guns
of the Queenscliff forts, and past the twinkling house lights of the
little seaside town. There were long coo-ees from the diggers, with
shrill, piercing whistles of greeting for Victoria; from ashore came
faint answering echoes. But the four people from Billabong stood
silently, glad of each other's nearness, but with no words, and in David
Linton's heart and Norah's was a great surge of thankfulness that, out
of many perils, they were bringing their boys safely home.
The Nauru turned across Port Phillip Bay, and presently they felt the
engines cease, and there came the rattle of the chain as the anchor shot
into the sea.
“As the captain thought,” said Jim. “He fancied they'd anchor us off
Portsea for the night and bring us up to Port Melbourne in the morning,
after we'd been inspected. Wouldn't it be the limit if some one
developed measles now, and they quarantined us!”
“You deserve quarantining, if ever anyone did,” said Norah, indignantly.
“Why do you have such horrible ideas?”
“I don't know--they just seem to waft themselves to me,” said Jim
modestly. “Anyhow, the quarantine station is a jolly little place for
a holiday, and the sea view is delightful.” He broke off, laughing, and
suddenly flung his arm round her shoulders in the dusk of the deck. “I
think I'm just about insane at getting home,” he said. “Don't mind me,
old kiddie--and you'd better go to bed, or you'll be a ghost in the
morning.”
They weighed anchor after breakfast, following a perfunctory medical
inspection--so perfunctory that one youth who, having been a medical
student, and knowing well that he had a finely-developed feverish
cold, with a high temperature, and not wishing to embarrass his
fellow-passengers, placed in his mouth the wrong end of the clinical
thermometer handed him by the visiting nurse. He sucked this gravely
for the prescribed time, reversing it just as she reappeared; and, being
marked normal and given a clean bill of health, returned to his berth
to shiver and perspire between huge doses of quinine. More than one such
hero evaded the searching eye of regulations; until finally the Nauru,
free to land her passengers, steamed slowly up the Bay.
One by one the old, familiar landmarks opened out--Mornington,
Frankston, Mordialloc, while Melbourne itself lay hidden in a mist cloud
ahead. Then, as the sun grew stronger the mist lifted, and domes and
spires pierced the dun sky, towering above the jumbled mass of the grey
city. They drew closer to Port Melbourne, and lo! St. Kilda and all the
foreshore were gay with flags, and all the ships in the harbour were
dressed to welcome them; and beyond the pier were long lines of motors,
each beflagged, waiting for the fighting men whom the Nauru was bringing
home.
“Us!” said a boy. “Why, it's us! Flags an' motors--an' a blessed band
playin' on the pier! Wot on earth are they fussin' over us for? Ain't it
enough to get home?”
The band of the Nauru was playing Home, Sweet Home, very low and
tenderly, and there were lumps in many throats, and many a pipe went out
unheeded. Slowly the great ship drew in to the pier, where officers in
uniform waited, and messengers of welcome from the Government. Beyond
the barriers that held the general public back from the pier was a
black mass of people; cheer upon cheer rose, to be wafted back from
the transport, where the “diggers” lined every inch of the port side,
clinging like monkeys to yards and rigging. Then the Nauru came to rest
at last, and the gangways rattled down, and the march off began, to the
quick lilt of the band playing “Oh, it's a Lovely War.” The men took
up the words, singing as they marched back to Victoria--coming back, as
they had gone, with a joke on their lips. So the waiting motors received
them, and rolled them off in triumphal procession to Melbourne, between
the cheering crowds.
From the top deck the Lintons, with the Rainhams, watched the men
go--disembarkation was for the troops first, and not till all had gone
could the unattached officers leave the ship. The captain came to them,
at last a normal and friendly captain--no more the official master of
a troopship, in which capacity, as he ruefully said, he could make no
friends, and could scarcely regard his ship as his own, provided he
brought her safely from port to port. He cast a disgusted glance along
the stained and littered decks.
“This is her last voyage as a trooper, and I'm not sorry,” he said.
“After this she'll lie up for three months to be refitted; and then I'll
command a ship again and not a barracks. You wouldn't think now, to see
her on this voyage, that the time was when I had to know the reason why
if there was so much as a stain the size of a sixpence on the deck. Oh
yes, it's been all part of the job, and I'm proud of all the old ship
has done, and the thousands of men she's carried; and we've had enough
narrow squeaks, from mines and submarines, to fill a book. But I'm
beginning to hanker mightily to see her clean!”
The Lintons laughed unfeelingly. A little mild grumbling might well be
permitted to a man with his record; few merchant captains had done finer
service in the war, and the decoration on his breast testified to his
cool handling of his ship in the “narrow squeaks” he spoke of lightly.
“Oh yes. I never get any sympathy,” said the captain, laughing himself.
“And yet I'll wager Miss Linton was 'house-proud' in that 'Home for
Tired People' of hers, and she ought to sympathize with a tidy man. You
should have seen my wife's face when she came aboard once at Liverpool,
and saw the ship; and she's never had the same respect for me since!
There--the last man is off the ship, and the gangways are clear; nothing
to keep all you homesick people now.” He said good-bye, and ran up the
steps to his cabin under the bridge.
It was a queer home-coming at first, to a vast pier, empty save for a
few officials and policemen--for no outsiders were allowed within the
barriers. But once clear of customs officials and other formalities
they packed themselves into cabs, and in a few moments were outside
the railed-off space, turning into a road lined on either side with
people--all peering into the long procession of cabs, in the hope of
finding their own returning dear ones. It was but a few moments before a
posse of uncles, aunts and cousins swooped down upon the Lintons, whose
cab prudently turned down a side street to let the wave of welcome
expend itself. In the side street, too, were motors belonging to the
aunts and uncles; and presently the new arrivals were distributed among
them, and were being rushed up to Melbourne, along roads still crowded
by the people who had flocked to welcome the “diggers” home. The
Rainhams found themselves adopted by this new and cheery band of
people--at least half of whose names they never learned; not that this
seemed to matter in the least. It was something new to them, and very
un-English; but there was no doubt that it made landing in a new country
a very different thing from their half-fearful anticipations.
“And you really came out all alone--not knowing anyone!” said an aunt.
“Aren't you English people plucky! And I believe that most of you think
we're all black fellows--or did until our diggers went home, and proved
unexpectedly white!”
“I don't think we're quite so bad as that!” Bob said, laughing. “But
certainly we never expected quite so kind a welcome.”
“Oh, we're all immensely interested in people who take the trouble to
come across the world to see us,” said Mrs. Geoffrey Linton. “That is,
if they don't put on 'side'; we don't take kindly to being patronized.
And you have no idea how many new chums do patronize us. Did you know,
by the way, that you're new chums now?”
“It has been carefully drilled into us on the ship,” Bob said gravely.
“I think we know pretty well all we have to face--the snakes that creep
into new chums' boots and sleep under their pillows, the goannas that
bite our toes if we aren't watchful, and the mosquitoes that sit on the
trees and bark!”
“Also the tarantulas that drop from everywhere, especially into food,”
added Tommy, dimpling. “And the bush fires every Sunday morning, and the
blacks that rush down--what is it? Oh yes, the Block, casting boomerangs
about! There is much spare time on a troopship, Mrs. Linton, and all of
it was employed by the subalterns in telling us what we might expect!”
“I can quite imagine it,” Mrs. Geoffrey laughed. “Oh well, Billabong
will be a good breaking-in. Norah tells me you are going up there at
once?”
“Well, not quite at once,” Bob said. “We think it is only fair to let
them get home without encumbrances, and as we have to present other
letters of introduction in Melbourne, we'll stay here for a few days,
and then follow them.”
“Then you must come out to us,” said Mrs. Geoffrey firmly. “No use to
ask my brother-in-law, of course; he has just one idea, and that is to
stay at Scott's, get his luggage through the customs, see his bankers as
quickly as possible, and then get back to his beloved Billabong. If we
get them out to dinner to-night, it's as much as we can hope for. But
you two must come to us--we can run you here and there in the car to see
the people you want.” She put aside their protests, laughing. “Why, you
don't know how much we like capturing bran-new English people--and think
what you have done for our boys all these four years! From what they
tell us, if anyone wants to go anywhere or do anything he likes in
England, all he has to do is to wear a digger's slouched hat!”
They stopped in Collins Street, and in a moment the new-comers, slightly
bewildered, found themselves in a tea-room; a new thing in tea-rooms
to Tommy and Bob, since it was a vision of russet and gold--brown wood,
masses of golden wattle and daffodils, and of bronze gum leaves; and
even the waitresses flitted about in russet-brown dresses. David Linton
hung back at the doorway.
“It isn't a party, Winifred?”
“My dear David, only a few people who want to welcome you back. Really,
you're just as bad as ever!” said his sister-in-law, half vexed. “The
children's school friends, too--Jim and Wally's mates. You can't expect
us to get you all back, after so long--and with all those honours,
too!--and not give people a chance of shaking hands with you.” At which
point Norah said, gently, but firmly, “Dad, you mustn't be naughty,” and
led him within.
Some one grasped his hand. “Well, Linton, old chap!” And he found
himself greeting the head of a big “stock and station” firm. Some one
else clapped him on the shoulder, and he turned to meet his banker;
behind them towered half a dozen old squatter friends, with fellow
clubmen, all trying at once to get hold of his hand. David Linton's
constitutional shyness melted in the heartiness of their greeting.
Beyond them Norah seemed to be the centre of a mass of girls, one of
whom presently detached herself, and came to him. He said in amazement,
“Why, it's Jean Yorke--and grown up!” and actually kissed her, to the
great delight of Jean, who had been an old mate of Norah's. As for Jim
and Wally, they were scarcely to be seen, save for their heads, in
a cluster of lads, who were pounding and smiting them wherever space
permitted. Altogether, it was a confused and cheerful gathering, and,
much to the embarrassment of the russet-brown waitresses, the last thing
anybody thought of was tea.
Still, when the buzz of greetings had subsided, and at length “morning
tea”--that time-honoured institution of Australia--had a chance to
appear, it was of a nature to make the new arrivals gasp. The last four
years in England had fairly broken people in to plain living; dainties
and luxuries had disappeared so completely from the table that every one
had ceased to think about them. Therefore, the Linton party blinked in
amazement at the details of what to Melbourne was a very ordinary tea,
and, forgetting its manners, broke into open comment.
“Cakes!” said Wally faintly. “Jean, you might catch me if I swoon.”
“What's wrong with the cakes?” said Jean Yorke, bewildered.
“Nothing--except that they are cakes! Jim!”--he caught at his chum's
sleeve--“that substance in enormous layers in that enormous slice is
called cream. Real cream. When did you see cream last, my son?”
“I'm hanged if I know,” Jim answered, grinning. “About four years ago, I
suppose. I'd forgotten it existed. And the cakes look as if they didn't
fall to pieces if you touched 'em.”
“What, do the English cakes do that?” asked a pained aunt.
“Rather--when there are any. It's something they take out of the war
flour--what is it, Nor?”
“Gluten, I think it's called,” said Norah doubtfully. “It's something
that ordinarily makes flour stick together, but they took it all out of
the war flour, and put it into munitions. So everything you made with
war flour was apt to be dry and crumbly. And when you made cakes with
it, and war sugar, which was half full of queer stuff like plaster of
paris, and egg substitute, because eggs--when you could get them--were
eightpence halfpenny, and butter substitute (and very little of
that)--well, they weren't exactly what you would call cakes at all.”
“Butter substitute!” said the aunt faintly. “I could not live without
good butter!”
“Bless you, Norah and dad hadn't tasted butter for nearly three years
before they came on board the Nauru,” said Jim. “It was affecting to see
Nor greeting a pat of butter for the first time!”
“But you had some butter--we read about it.”
“Two ounces per head weekly--but they put all their ration into the
'Tired People's food,'” said Wally.
“It wasn't only dad and I,” said Norah quickly. “Every soul we employed
did that--Irish maids, butler, cook-lady and all. And we hadn't to ask
one of them to do it. The Tired People always had butter. They used to
think we had a special allowance from Government, but we hadn't.”
“Dear me!” said the aunt. “It's too terrible. And meat?”
“Oh, meat was very short,” said Norah, laughing. “Of course we were
fairly well off for our Tired People, because they had soldiers'
rations; but even so, we almost forgot what a joint looked like. Stews
and hot pots and made dishes--you call them that because you make them
of anything but meat! We became very clever at camouflaging meat dishes.
Somehow the Tired People ate them all. But”--she paused, laughing--“you
know I never thought I could feel greedy for meat. And I did--I just
longed, quite often, for a chop!”
“And could you not have one?”
“Gracious, no!” Norah looked amazed. “Chops were quite the most
extravagant thing of all--too much bone. You see, the meat ration
included bone and fat, and I can tell you we were pretty badly worried
if we got too much of either.”
“To think of all she knows,” said the aunt, regarding her with a tearful
eye. Whereat Norah laughed.
“Oh, I could tell you lots of homely things,” she said. “How we always
boiled bones for soup at least four times before we looked on them as
used up; and how we worked up sheep's heads into the most wonderful
chicken galantines; and--but would you mind if I ate some walnut cake
instead? It's making me tremble even to look at it.”
After which Jean Yorke and the russet-brown waitresses vied in plying
the new-comers with the most elaborate cakes, until even Jim and Wally
begged for mercy.
“You ought to remember we're not used to these things,” Wally protested,
waving away a strange erection of cream, icing and wafery pastry. “If
I ate that it would go to my head, and I'd have to be removed in an
ambulance. And the awful part of it is--I want to eat it. Take it out of
my sight, Jean, or I'll yield, and the consequences will be awful.”
“But it is too dreadful to think of all you poor souls have gone
through,” said an aunt soulfully. “How little we in Australia know of
what war means!”
“But if it comes to that, how little we knew!” Norah exclaimed, “Why,
there we were, only a few miles from the fighting--you could hear the
guns on a still day, when a big action was going on; and except for the
people who came directly in the way of air raids, England knew little or
nothing of war: I mean, war as the people of Belgium and Northern France
knew it. The worst we had to admit was that we didn't get everything we
liked to eat, and that was a joke compared to what we might have had.
Hardly anyone in England went cold or hungry through the war, and so
I don't think we knew much about it either.” She broke off blushing
furiously, to find every one listening to her. “I didn't mean to make a
speech.”
“It's quite true, though,” said her father, “even if you did make a
speech about it. There were privations in some cases, no doubt--invalids
sometimes suffered, or men used to a heavy meat diet, whose wives had
not knowledge--or fuel--enough to cook substitutes properly. On the
other hand, there was no unemployment, and the poor were better fed than
they had ever been, since every one could make good wages at munitions.
The death rate among civilians was very much lower than usual. People
learned to eat less, and not to waste--and the pre-war waste in England
was terrific. And I say--and I think we all say--that anyone who
grumbles about 'privations' in England deserves to know what real war
means--as the women of Belgium know it.”
He stopped, and Norah regarded him with great pride, since his remarks
were usually strictly limited to the fewest possible words.
“Well, it's rather refreshing to hear you talk,” remarked another
squatter. “A good many people have come back telling most pathetic tales
of all they had to endure. I suppose, though, that some were worse off
than you?”
“Oh, certainly,” David Linton said. “We knew one Australian, an
officer's wife, who was stranded in a remote corner of South Wales
with two servants and two babies; it was just at the time of greatest
scarcity before compulsory rationing began, when most of the food
coming in was kept in the big towns and the Midlands. That woman could
certainly get milk for her youngsters; but for three months the only
foods she and her maids were sure of getting were war bread, potatoes,
haricot beans and salt herrings. She was a good way from the nearest
town, and there was deep snow most of the time. There was no carting out
to her place, and by the time she could get into the town most of the
food shops would be empty.”
“And if you saw the salt herrings!” said Norah. “They come down from
Scotland, packed thousands in a barrel. They're about the length and
thickness of a comb, and if you soak them for a day in warm water and
then boil them, you can begin to think about them as a possible food.
But Mrs. Burton and her maids ate them for three months. She didn't seem
to think she had anything to grumble about--in fact, she said she still
felt friendly towards potatoes, but she hoped she'd never see a herring
or a bean again!”
“She had her own troubles about coal, too,” remarked Jim. “The only coal
down there is a horrible brownish stuff that falls into damp slack if
you look at it; it's generally used only for furnaces, but people had
to draw their coal allowance from the nearest supply, and it was all she
could get. The only way to use the beastly stuff was to mix it with wet,
salt mud from the river into what the country people call culm--then you
cut it into blocks, or make balls of it, and it hardens. She
couldn't get a man to do it for her, and she used to mix all her culm
herself--and you wouldn't call it woman's work, even in Germany. But she
used to tell it as a kind of joke.”
“She used to look on herself as one of the really lucky women,” said
David Linton, “because her husband didn't get killed. And I think she
was--herrings and culm and all. And we're even luckier, since we've all
come back to Australia, and to such a welcome as you've given us.” He
stood up, smiling his slow, pleasant smile at them all. “And now I
think I've got to go chasing the Customs, if I'm ever to disinter our
belongings and get home.”
The girls took possession of Norah and Tommy, who left their menfolk
to the drear business of clearing luggage, and thankfully spent the
afternoon in the Botanical Gardens, glad to have firm ground under
their feet after six weeks of sea. Then they all met at dinner at Mrs.
Geoffrey Linton's, where they found her son, Cecil, who greeted Norah
with something of embarrassment. There was an old score between Norah
and Cecil Linton, although they had not seen each other for years;
but its memory died out in Norah's heart as she looked at her cousin's
military badge and noted that he dragged one foot slightly. Indeed,
there was no room in Norah's heart for anything but happiness.
The aunts and uncles tried hard to persuade David Linton to remain a few
days in Melbourne, but he shook his head.
“I've been homesick for five years,” he told them. “And it feels like
fifty. I'll come down again, I promise--yes, and bring the children, of
course. But just now I can't wait. I've got to get home.”
“That old Billabong!” said Mrs. Geoffrey, half laughing. “Are you going
to live and die in the backblocks, David?”
“Why, certainly--at least I hope so,” he said. “I suppose there must
be lucid intervals, now that Norah is grown up, or imagines she is--not
that she seems to me a bit different from the time when her hair was
down. Still I suppose I must bring her to town, and let her make her
curtsy at Government House, and do all the correct things--”
Some one slipped a hand through his arm.
“But when we've done them, daddy,” said Norah cheerfully, “there will
always be Billabong to go home to!”