THE men of Thunder Ridge were revelling in the rain and playing
boisterously in it like children at the seaside, or ducks in a pond.
They had come splashing into the hut in the afternoon, laughing, and
shouting, and stamping the mud from their boots on the verandah, and
shaking the water from their hats.
They watched the lowering skies, and groaned when the downpour
slackened a moment, and yelled and cheered again when it increased and
came sweeping in blinding sheets down the valley.
They flung off their wet boots and sat to tea, and listened to the
water roaring on the iron roof, till they had to shout to make
themselves heard; they kept jumping up to look out of the door, and
came back grinning widely, with the assurance that it was coming down
“Bonzer”; they hurried over their meal, and crowded out on the verandah
to stand and watch the waterfall that cascaded down from the overflowed
gutters.
Aleck Gault made them set his window wide as it would go, and haul his
bed over beside it, so that he could lean over and stretch his hand out
and feel the rain beat down on it. And he laughed when Steve swore at
him for letting the water run down his arm and soak his shirt-sleeve,
and threatened if they said much more to flop out of bed, leg and all,
and crawl out into the rain.
Scottie caught his horse and rode down the hill track and out on to the
plains, and came back with the water streaming from his hat and cloak,
and told the men that “The flat was full o’ water as a wet sponge, an’
the billabong full an’ rinnin’ fast.” And the men cheered the news as
men cheer a stubborn fight and gallant victory.
They cheered again when the roof sprang a leak and a stream of water
began to trickle down on the table; they cheered Blazes arranging pails
and kerosene tins to catch the flood; they shouted with laughter and
cheered again when Darby the Bull, running across the yard, slipped and
fell, and picked himself up covered with mud. They were bubbling over
with joy and good-humour, and flung jokes, and bandied words, and
shouted roaring laughter at the feebliest of fun and clumsiest of wit.
And when Darby, saying that now he was dirty and half wet he might as
well have the pleasure of getting properly wet, went out grinning and
took his stand under a spouting water pipe, they shed their clothes and
flung them into the hut, and ran down and stood in the downpour. They
slapped one another’s naked backs and limbs, and came on the verandah
and soaped themselves, and stood out in the rain and washed and
lathered themselves, and held their arms wide and turned their faces to
the sky, and let the clean, sweet water sluice their mother-naked limbs
and bodies.
And when Whip Thompson and Jack Ever pranced round in imitation of a
black fellows’ corroboree and war dance, or Cocky Smith waddled across
the yard and flapped his crook’d elbows and qua-a-ack-uack-uack-ed, or
Darby held his hand out and looked up at the sky, and solemnly said he
believed he felt a spot of rain, while the water ran in streams from
him, they guffawed in gales of laughter, and yelled in an ecstacy of
mirth. It was all very foolish and very childish, of course, but—well,
the rain had come, plentiful, drenching, drowning rain; and let them
and their folly be judged only by those who have known the rain come
after a dry spell in the outside country, for no others can.
They were children for the time being, it is true—happy, boisterous
children—but a few clipped sentences and a mouthful of speech was
enough to turn them to men again.
A horseman splashed up out of the rain, and was met by a torrent of
chaff and rough witticisms. “Did they come?” he asked, without heeding
their banter. “Did they get through?”
A hush dropped on them at his anxious words. “Who?” someone asked. “Did
who get through?” The horseman groaned. “Then they didn’t,” he said.
“Dolly Grey started out to drive Miss Ess over here in the buggy this
afternoon.”
Scottie and Steve Knight had come running from the house when they saw
the horseman, and they came in time to hear his words. “What’s the
billabong like?” said Scottie, quickly. “And how did you get here?”
asked Steve.
“First billabong was runnin’ hard,” said the man, “and the second one
was worse. I started after that heavy shower, and when word came in
that the river was up and risin’ fast, I came along the bank o’ the
river, an’ had to swim the billabongs.”
“Couldn’t they have turned back?” said Jack Ever.
“No, the boss was out in his sulky,” answered the man, “an’ he scoured
right along the edge o’ the first billabong for miles. The tracks
turned into the water, but it was too deep for him to ford it, so they
couldn’t have got back. I come along by the river bank where the
ground’s a few foot higher than the plains. An’ the river was just near
sloppin’ over. You couldn’t get back that way now.”
“Dolly never reckoned on the higher ground along the bank,” said Steve,
“and he’d turned away from the river, thinking the ground must rise
that way, or that he could round the end of the billabong. And now
they’re cut off on the high ground somewhere, and the water rising.”
He turned, and “I’ll bring the horses up,” he shouted, as he ran across
the yard.
The men leaped for their clothes, and dragged out oilskin coats and
waterproofs, and were ready when Steve splashed back, driving the
horses before him.
“I’ve been thinkin’, Steve,” said Scottie, “the only thing for’t is tae
mak the township an’ the bridge an’ ride up the ither bank till we can
get a crossin’, an’ get a boat if the water’s too deep for the horses.”
“That means the Toss-Up Track,” said Steve, quickly. “We all know what
that is, but there’s some of us should win through it.”
Well the men knew what the Toss-Up meant, in that weather, and at
night. It was the “Toss-Up” Track, because someone had once said it was
a toss up whether a man came through or broke his neck riding it. It
was rough and risky in ordinary weather and by day. None of them had
tried it under conditions like the present. But there was no dispute or
discussion over it now—it was the quickest way, and speed counted for
everything. Some might come down, but, as Steve said, some would surely
come through and be able to attempt a rescue.
Ten minutes after Steve brought the horses in the men were mounted and
splattering out of the yard, and heading for the hills. Steve and
Scottie led the way, and set the pace at a stout canter for the first
mile. The track here was rough, but fairly good—rock, stones, and
boulders certainly, but the horses were used to that and made nothing
of it.
“Now the fun begins,” said Steve, as he and Scottie rose the crest of
the Black Hill and dived down into the winding path that dropped in
long loops beneath them. The hill was soft earth, and the earth had
turned to greasy, slippery mud, and the horses slipped, and floundered,
and sprawled, and recovered and slipped again. Darby was the first to
go down, but he flung himself cleverly clear of the falling horse, and
in an instant was up and helping the struggling brute to its feet.
“Come up, Blunderbuss,” he shouted. “Wot the blazes d’yer want to lay
down there for?”
He climbed hastily to the saddle, and slid off downhill after the
others. They had shouted rough chaff as they passed, but they had not
stopped—there was no time for stopping that night, and if a man went
down it was understood he must pick himself up, unless he was too badly
hurt to do so.
There were more falls before the foot of the hill was reached, but it
was soft falling, and no one was hurt.
“All here?” shouted Steve, glancing back.
“All here,” came the response, and Steve turned and drove into the path
that twisted through the thick bush. The path was a foot under water
and slippery as glass, the twigs and branches whipped and slashed at
their faces and bent heads, but they went through at a hard gallop, and
swung out on to The Pillow—the long hill where the track curved up over
the swelling roundness like a string of beads over a woman’s breast. It
was soft earth again, and a slip over the edge of the track meant a
sliding shoot down to the foot, with nothing to save or break the fall.
“Can we ride it?” said Scottie. “Safer to walk, maybe.”
“But quicker to ride,” said Steve, and spurred up at a trot. They
reached the top with the horses panting and blowing, but they made no
halt, and raised a gallop across the top of the hill. When the rain
came down in a sudden and blinding torrent again, so that they could
see nothing of the track before them, the men simply slacked the reins
and left the horses to pick a way amongst the pitfalls of paddy-melon
holes.
They bucketed downhill again in single file on the drop that led to the
Clay Pit and the swamp water beyond, and Darby shot sliding almost on
top of Jack Ever.
“Look where yer bargin’ to, you lop-eared ellerfant,” yelled Jack.
“Hi, some o’ you,” roared Darby. “There’s a midge ridin’ a moskeeter
down the track ahead o’ me. Take ’im away, someone, afore I treads on
’im an’ flattens ’im out.”
“Open out a bit there,” yelled Steve. “Take room to fall easy without
bringing your mate down”; and the men opened the intervals between
them, and one by one squattered down into the Clay Pit.
Whip Thompson rode a little wide of the narrow margin of ridable track,
and splashed and floundered girth deep in the soft ground along the
edge.
“Hammer ’im out, Whip—hammer ’im out,” shouted the others as they
struggled past. “Gimme ’is reins,” said Darby the Bull, pulling up and
sliding down into the ankle-deep mess. Whip flung him the reins, and
with a heave and a lift and a shout the horse was dragged out. They
mounted and plunged on, and drove out into the swamp waters with the
splash of a launching battleship.
“Where are ye all?” yelled Darby. “Are ye all drowned?”
“Come on behind,” came a faint shout from the darkness ahead. “Come on
an’ have yer merry surf-bathin’. Oo-o-oo! Ain’t that a luvverly roller?”
They wallowed through, and on to the firmer ground, and the litter of
rocks and logs that strewed the track. Falls up to now had been a thing
to laugh at, for the ground was soft as porridge and a man could hardly
hurt. But on the hard track and amongst the stones it was a different
thing—a fall there might mean a broken bone, or at best a crippling
bruise or sprain. But hard or soft, rock or mud, the men drove forward,
galloping where they could, cantering where they could not gallop, and
hardly slowing to a less pace than a trot.
“Hupp,” shouted Steve, lifting his horse in a cat-leap over a fallen
log, and twisting in the saddle to look back at Scottie. “Can you take
it? Jump if he will. The landing this side is good enough.”
Scottie came over with a rush, and one by one the men followed, jumping
if the horse would jump, scrambling over anyhow if he would not.
“Gerrup there, Darby,” shouted Jack; “this ain’t a place to be playin’
at see-saw.”
Blunderbuss was sprawled over the log on his belly, swaying and kicking
and scraping frantically, till he tilted over and slid on to his
forefeet, and hunched his hindquarters over.
“See-saw yerself,” said Darby, scornfully, as Jack took the log with a
leap. “You’d find it better’n comin’ your way,” he added, as Jack’s
horse missed its footing and went rolling.
Jack dragged him up again, but cursed luridly as he saw the hanging
foreleg and watched the dip-and-heave limp as he made him walk.
“Sprained ’is shoulder,” shouted Jack. “Go on—I’m out of it.”
So they left him cursing there, and ten minutes later Whip Thompson
fell out at the Trickle—and a wild joke the name of the Trickle was
that night, as it foamed down fifty yards wide, and boiled about the
horses’ knees. Whip’s horse stumbled and went to his knees in it, and
staggered up and went down again, and up again and out the other side,
with Whip wading beside him.
“Broke both ’is knees,” said Whip to the next man to ride through.
“I’ll get back an’ join Jack.”
At “The Ditch” Darby’s horse refused to take the three-foot drop to the
water below the undercut bank, and the others had to leave him there,
standing in the water up to his waist, his foot braced against the
bank, and his hands twisted in the wet leather of the reins, as he
strained and hauled to pull his Blunderbuss in on top of him.
All the others kept the ranks till they came to the Axe-Cut and the
Creek. The path down the Axe-Cut was running water like a young river,
and the rock track under it was slippery as wet slates. They went down
it in kicking, struggling heaps, the men dismounted, and the horses
plunging and shooting down, partly on their four feet, partly on their
gathered haunches, and partly anyhow.
As they picked themselves up at the foot of the Cut, they halted a few
minutes to breathe the blowing horses and readjust the displaced saddle
gear.
“I’m thinkin’ it wull be chancy wark at the Creek,” shouted Scottie
above the droning roar of the rain and the hiss of the water cascading
down the Cut. “Seein’ there’s as much water in the ither burns, the
Creek’s like tae be runnin’ a banker.”
“Mean swimming, I expect,” said Steve, tersely. “If it’s been raining
like this away up in the hills at the head waters of the river,
Scottie, there won’t be much ground above water on the Coolongolong
flats.”
“I’m wishin’ it had been ony ither man than Dolly,” said Scottie; “he’s
no used wi’ this country, an’ I misdoot he wadna ken whar tae strik for
the highest groun’.”
“He couldn’t help but move back from the water as it rose,” said Steve,
“and that should bring him to the highest. And the river couldn’t rise
so quick as to flood out all the high ground surely.”
It had not ceased to rain steadily, but now there came another of the
pelting, driving downpours, and they stood a moment listening to the
furious beat of the flooding sheets of water, till the Axe-Cut beside
them spouted again, like a choked gutter.
“Longer we wait the worse the Creek gets,” shouted Steve, and they
climbed into the wet saddles again, with their hats pulled down over
their eyes and the rain lashing down on their stooped shoulders.
When they came to the Creek, they pulled up and looked at it in dismay.
For twenty yards out from the edge it boiled and seethed in leaping,
creaming foam, and, beyond the white glimmering edge of this milky
swathe of angry turmoil, it ran smooth and still to the other edge,
where they could just faintly see the glint of broken water fretting at
the bank. The white water looked bad, but they all knew well that it
was the centre strip that ran so smooth, and still, and swift that held
the danger.
“They’ll never mak it, Steve,” shouted Scottie. He had to shout with
his lips to Steve’s ear, to make him hear through the noise of the
storm and the rushing water. “We’ll have to mak up stream tae the
Prong, an’ win ower above it.”
The others were pressing close and shouting their opinions of the
chances, and all seemed to think that no horse could wade and swim to
the other side alive.
“It’ll take all of two hours to ride round,” shouted Steve. “I’ll try
it, and if I think it’s good enough for you to try I’ll coo-ee. If you
don’t hear me, don’t try it.”
“I’ll try it wi’ you, Steve,” said Scottie. “Twa micht be a help tae
ane anither.”
They arranged it so, but, just as they were preparing to ride in, there
was a shout from the darkness, and Darby the Bull clattered up and
halted abruptly, grinning wetly at sight of them.
“I beat ’im,” he shouted. “I beat the silly cow. Turned ’im round so ’e
couldn’t see the water, an’ smacked ’im about the chops wi’ me ’at. An’
he backed an’ backed till ’is hind legs slipped over the bank, an’ then
I shoved ’im in. ’E couldn’t climb back, so he come on over.”
When he heard the plans just made, he announced his intention of taking
it with the other two.
“Ol’ Blunderbuss can make it if any ’orse can,” he persisted. “You’ve
no idea wot a wunner ’e is for water. Go on—I’m comin’.”
So they rode down to the edge and let the horses sniff at it, and back
away, and advance cautiously again, and wade slowly and carefully in.
Blunderbuss was loath to go, but Darby wrenched his head back every
time he tried to turn, and flailed at his flanks with spurred heels.
They came through the broken water and passed slowly into the smoother
but stronger current beyond.
The horses went in a step at a time, snorting fearfully as they went,
the riders leaving their heads free and sitting ready to slide off
their backs if they were swept away and forced to swim. Steve’s and
Scottie’s horses lost their footing almost at the same instant, and
went shooting downstream with the men dragging behind, and striking out
to lessen the drag. Darby’s horse stood higher and his weight was
greater, so he won a few paces further before he was carried down, and
he made a straighter and faster line across, and won to the shallower
water on the other side above the other two. But just as he found
footing again a stick of floating timber shot out of the darkness and
took the horse off his feet, and carried him away, rolling over and
over as he went.
Steve and Scottie came to the firm ground just in time to see Darby
come squattering ashore like a duck with a broken wing. “Rough luck,”
he sputtered ruefully, “after gettin’ ’im so far; but serve the silly
blighter right.”
“You can walk the rest to the town,” cried Steve. “We won’t coo-ee to
the others. It’s bad enough, and we might lose more horses, or a man,
and we’d lose time trying to help him. You’ll be able to pick up
another horse in the township, Darby. Come on, Scottie.”
“Say,” bellowed Darby, “d’you think that ’orse o’ mine ’ad a
presentingment that he was goin’ to be drowned?” And the others pressed
on and left him to ponder the problem.
They were winning near to the township now, and the “Fly-on-a-Wall” was
the only desperately bad bit of the track left. They took it dismounted
and with the greatest caution, but for all their caution Scottie’s
horse went.
The Fly-on-a-Wall is a narrow ledge winding along the face of the cliff
that runs alongside the Creek, and the solid rock path was slimy wet
and dangerous, and the horses went up with glancing hoofs and sides
pressed hard in to the rock wall, snorting and cowering back with
glaring eyes from the plummet-drop over the edge to the rocks and the
gleaming water below.
Scottie’s horse slipped, and its feet shot from under it, and it came
down with a thump and a crash, and lay kicking with its legs right over
the edge.
Scottie yelled and braced himself, and lay back hauling on the reins,
and Steve edged back past his horse to help.
The fallen horse struggled wildly, but it slipped further, and its
haunches slid over till its hind legs were dangling clear. Even then it
hung on its chest and forelegs on the path, and its hind legs hammering
and scraping at the cliff face. It slid again, despite Scottie’s
efforts, and as Steve grabbed at the reins, it still slid slowly. They
had to let go or go over with it, and the horse slid again, with
starting eyeballs and quivering nostrils. Then it vanished with a
blood-curdling scream, that shut off suddenly. The men heard the body
crash on the stones below, and then silence except for the brawling of
the river and the rush of the rain.
Steve dashed the rain from his eyes and ran back to his horse. “Follow
on, Scottie,” he called. “It isn’t far.”
When he rode off the Fly-on-a-Wall and out on to the crest of the last
hill that overlooked the river and the township, he caught for the
first time the full, deep, sullen roar of the flooded river. He halted
and strained his eyes into the darkness, and then with an oath flung
down the hillside, slithering, plunging, and spattering, till he came
to the water, and realised with a sudden swirl of fear that it was
right over the banks.
But he could see the gleam of the light on the end of the bridge, and
drove desperately for that, and came through to it, this time without
swimming, although the water rose to his saddle-flaps as he rode.
The bridge was built on trestles, and rested on high banks on both
sides of the river, but the water was a bare six foot below the planks
of the roadway, and, with a sinking heart, he knew that this meant that
there would be little or none of the high ground left uncovered on the
flats of Coolongolong.
For the first time that night he began to despair; but the game was not
played out yet, he told himself grimly, and spurred a last gallop out
of his staggering horse, and pounded up the rise of the bank and on to
the hotel, to gather what news of the flood he might.
He found Dan the trooper there, and a little gathering of townsfolk.
The river was rising inches every hour they told him, and they were
beginning to fear it would come over the higher bank on the township’s
side, as it had done on the other. The flats for twenty to thirty miles
back from the river would be flooded on the Coolongolong side, but on
the other bank the ground was higher, and none of it was covered yet.
“There’s a man and a girl in a buggy somewhere out there on our flats,”
said Steve, “and I’m going to ride up the east bank and swim for it
across to the highest ground on the other side. Who can let me have a
horse?”
“Steve,” said the trooper, “it’s mad ye are surely. Ye’d have fifteen
or twenty mile to swim before ever you struck ground. There’s deep
water for all that distance back, an’ the river itsilf is comin’ down
boilin’ like a potato pot an’ runnin’ strong as a steamer. Let be, lad,
let be. Ye can do nothing.”
“A boat,” said Steve, eagerly. “Is there a boat to be had?”
“There’s a boat or two belongin’ to the township here,” said Dan; “but
there’s no boat’s crew that iver pulled a stroke could make head up
against that current.”
Steve knew that he was right, and he groaned. “I can’t stand idle here
while they drown,” he said. “They’ll be on the high ground, if any of
it’s uncovered, and the water creeping up on them. I’ll ride up the
bank and swim for it, as I thought first.”
“There used to be a boat up at Battle Creek,” said one of the townsmen.
“You might ride to there and get it, and make over the river.”
Steve turned to him eagerly. “Good,” he said eagerly. “That’s the best
I’ve heard this night. Will there be oars in her?”
“She belongs to Seaman Dick West,” said the man, “and he’s sure to have
everything for her. He’s workin’ up at the Creek, an’ keeps the boat
for crossin’ or goin’ after the duck.”
“I’ll be off,” said Steve, “at once, if anyone can loan me a horse.”
“Come up and have a bite an’ a sup o’ hot tay at the house, Steve,”
said the trooper. “Sure, the missus’ll bate me black if I let ye go
widout that.”
“I can’t, Dan,” said Steve, earnestly. “While I’m eating, she might be
drowning that very minute. The food would choke me.”
“Ye can have my horse,” said a man. “Come wi’ me an’ bring yer saddle.
Ye can leave ’im at the Creek, for the flood will bring ye down back to
hereabouts, I suppose, an’ you’ll not be gettin’ back for im.”
Steve went with him at once, and ten minutes later was cantering hard
out of the town.
The road was soft, but level and fairly good, and he kept the horse at
a hard canter, and sometimes at a gallop, almost all the way, only
pulling him down to a walk to breathe him at long intervals. He was in
a fever of impatience, and kept peering out into the darkness towards
the river. The growling mutter of the waters came up to him, and the
hiss and beat of the rain, but no other sound, and he struck the spurs
in again and scurried on.
A light was burning in the house at Battle Creek Station, and at the
sound of his horse’s hoof-beats a door opened and a man stood framed in
the light. Steve rode up to him and flung the reins over his horse’s
head and leaped down.
“You have a boat somewhere here?” he said. “I want to borrow it,
please. There is a man and a girl out on the Coolongolong flats and——”
“God help them,” said the man. “But take the boat an’ welcome. I’m Dick
West, an’ I’ll just let the boss know, an’ come an’ get the oars an’
things. Put your saddle in the shed, and you’ll find a feed for the
horse in the box there. Then come over here an’ I’ll be ready.”
Steve hurried off with the mud-splashed weary horse, and fed him, and
was back in five minutes, and found Seaman Dick waiting for him with a
suit of oilskins on, a coil of rope and pair of rough oars over his
shoulder, and a puffing pipe in his mouth, with the bowl turned upside
down.
“I thought you wouldn’t wait for tea,” he said. “You seemed sort o’
drivin’ ’er, or I’d ’ave asked you before.”
“No, thanks, nothing,” said Steve. “It may be touch and go with them
every minute.”
“Heave ahead then, mate—this way,” said Dick, and led the way down to
the Creek.
“There’s a lamp an’ matches in the locker aft,” he said, when they came
to the boat, and he had flung the oars aboard. “Light it while I unmoor
’er.”
Steve lit the lamp, and shipped the straight-bladed oars, and took his
seat waiting for the man to shove him off. Seaman Dick flung the boat’s
chain in the bow, stepped to the stern and shoved off, and stepped
neatly aboard.
“You’re not coming with me?” said Steve, in some surprise.
“I thought I was,” said Seaman Dick, coolly. “Reckon a man that’s used
to a boat may be some use to you.”
“More use than I am,” said Steve, and thanked him warmly.
“I know there’s a bit of risk about it,” he said, “but I’ll make it up
to you if the boat’s damaged, or for the use of her.”
“You can buy me a drink when we get to the township,” said Dick,
lightly. “We’ll need it if we get there. An’ we won’t need it if we
don’t, for we’ll have had all the drinks we’ll want—o’ flood water. But
you’d better let me take the oars across the current. I’m maybe more
used to ’em than you, an’ will make more headway.”
They changed places, and Dick rowed steadily down the Creek until they
came to the river.
“Now, stan’ by,” he said. “Don’t move if anything bumps us. There’ll be
some wreckage runnin’ down, but we’ll dodge that. An’ out we go.”
He pulled lustily, and the boat shot out into the stream, twisted as
the current caught her, and went forging slowly across and rapidly
sweeping sideways downstream.
“The dawn,” said Seaman Dick, and Steve turned in the seat astern and
looked at the dim grey in the sky behind him.
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