The Plain’s Last Assault
ONE? Two? How many days ago was it when we rested for hours and hours at that dump the Inspector had called Bumblefoot Hole? What the Hell! He wouldn’t look at the ruddy Plain. That was no use. Nothing to see, nothing but that precipice at the end, and the feeling of being pushed over it. Therewasn’t even any clouds to look at, and looking at Joe and Ted and moody old Clifford was like looking at himself.
Mark Brennan tramped. He was tired of whispering to himself ‘left, right, left’. But he could still hear it and it wasn’t his voice shouting. He recalled the voice, the man and the place. The place was a road bordered by green paddocks. There were roadside gums, and in the distance were green hills. The man was a sergeant marching beside a squad of fellers like himself. He had ribbons, too, thesarge had, medals from War One.
A good mob that was. Lot of ’emgot killed, and some perished as prisoners of war. Pity he hadn’t gone off with ’em. Pity he’d lost his block over that wench. The bitch! Him doing his duty by the country, and her rushing to marry that schemer who had no intention of fighting, going to stay on the farm and make lots of dough out of black markets and things.
He had stopped ’emall right. They thought themselveslookin ’ good when they came out of that church. Still, addin ’ it all up, it was a bloody silly thing to do. Not worth being kept in the jug when the mob was overseasbein ’ kind to the girls andfightin ’ the enemy in their spare time. Not worth a lot of other things too. He could have let ’emalone, and intime that bitch would have given the husband hell without any assistance from Private Mark Brennan.
Not worthbreakin ’ up the old man like it did, either. Decent old bloke, too. The old lady had taken it bad, but she’d stuck it out, and carried on the farm and was waiting for him to go back and help her out. Would have done it, too, if he hadn’t beenshanghai’d into those caverns. Still, better late than never. Now he was on his way to the farm and the old lady, perhaps. On his way? What way? Go on, keep your feet up. Pick ’emup, there! Pick ’emup! All right, Sarge! All right!
Good bloke that sergeant, what’s his name? Decent warders, too. Some of ’emcrook, but not many. Most of ’emwould give a bloke a fair go. The Governor, too. Wished him luck. Would have got home if he hadn’t fell for that skirtdrivin ’ the car, and took her on when she offered him a lift. If he met her again, he’d choke her. Offerin ’ him a nip of coffee royal and doping him well and truly. Choke her to death! Hey, wait, Mister Mark Brennan. None of that. You’ve had all that. You got to lay flowers on the old man’s grave and look after the old woman from here on.
Left, right! Ease up, Sarge! I’mgoin ’ through. Don’t worry. Goin’ through this damn bloody Plain with Inspector Bonaparte. Inspector Bonaparte! He’s all right. Once on a feller’s tracks, just like the Tasmanian tiger cat, never leaves ’em. Good feller, too. Bloody good feller. Would have been sunk if it wasn’t for him. Tire him out! What a hope! Did you ever see eyes like that, Mark, you rotten swine? Did you? “What’s that, Clifford? What did you say?”
“Nothing, Mark. Nothing at all.” What is there to say? I have to be careful with my feet. I have to think where to put them, and that makes lifting them up even more of an effort. Don’t interrupt, Mark, please. Not now. If you do you might make me forget to lift up my feet and put them down, and then I’ll never walk again. How could I? What book was that in? Never mind the tide. The writer said that everyone was destined to walk this earth, and was given a number of the steps he would take before he laid himself down with exquisite relief and died. Do you know what? I think that very soon I shall reach the allotted number of my steps, years before my time.
Zombie! Freda called me a zombie. I certainly felt like one when she kept on and on screaming into my mind. I wouldn’t have been so desperate if only she hadn’t screamed. And to say all those things in my own office, with Kendal and Mace listening. To repeat them over and over that night we left the Urban Committee Meeting. What the men thought I could see in their faces.
I tried to be merciful. I wouldn’t have given her strychnine had I known its terrible effects. I could have given her cyanide instead. Now, Clifford Maddoch! Don’t forget to raise your feet and put them down-this one, that one, this one, that one. That’s it, Clifford. Inspector Bonaparte is doing this. He doesn’t forget. He doesn’t forget anything.
How stupid I was to crush that little kangaroo mouse. I could have kept it in a pocket, then sent it to a taxidermist in Sydney and had it stuffed, and no one could ever say I hadn’t been in the real Australia, could they? Pity Mitski died. Funny that his voice was so like my wife’s. Mitski would have composed a tune to that little kangaroo mouse. Now he’s down somewhere in Fiddler’s Leap. Fiddler’s Leap! Bumblefoot Hole! Big Claypan! Curley’s Hate! What curious names.
I’ll make twelve more steps before I look up to see if there’s anything to see. One, two, three… ten, eleven, twelve. Nothing. Nothing at all except the saltbush, and the sky. Two things. I’ll try that again. I’ll make it twenty-four before I look up.“Sorry, Riddell. I wasn’t laughing at you.”
Ruddy squirt. Always hated the cocky jumped-up. Bashed old Mitski, he did. Saw him doing it. Like a cocksparrer the way he’s moving. If he’d been a man like me, Joe Riddell, he wouldn’t have fed poison to his missus; he’d have picked her up by the feet and cracked the backyard cement with her head. Could always say she fell outer the upstairs winder. Oughta had more brainsmeself, come to sum it up. Shootin ’ that cocky formoanin ’ about the cow was a bit raw. Nothin’ to be proud of. Ishoulda pushed him up into the fork of a tree and left him with his neck in the fork. Could’ve explained how he wentclimbin ’ treeslookin ’ for bees’ nests.
Gord! How much more of this? Week after week walk-in’ tonothin ’, that’s what we’redoin ’. Shouldastayed behind with old Havant. Woulda, too, if that slut had stayed. I’d have found out what she was made of.
Crikey! That land over there looks different to what it wasyestiday. Must bemovin ’ along it. There’s a rabbit. Ain’t seen a rabbit after that one what done a bunk from them sticks and things Mark stirred up. Eat! I’d eat him fur an’ all. When I get off this ruddy Plain I’ll get the lend of a hundred quid off Maddoch-have to talk cobber-like-and I’ll buy a hundred loaves of bread, half a side of beef, two sides of bacon, ten dozen eggs, and I’ll hole up somewhere. No more farmers for me. No morelivin ’ with cows. Wimmen! To hell withwimmen. Grub… tucker… food… that’ll be all I’ll ever want. I’ll eat, and eat, and eat.
The sun rises in theeast, sets in the west… ran the mind of Edward Jenks. Can’t bluff me. Makin’ south, all right. Getting closer to that land all the time. The d. knows his onions, give him his due. More sting in him than all the rest in the bag. Caw! Joe’s all in, the big slob. Mark’swobblin ’ like a drunk, and Clifford couldn’t run a yard if his missus turned up.
That leaves me. Tough Ed, they called me. Well, Iain’t done sobad at that. Lottalife in the old dog, as I’ll show ’em-an’ that trollop, when I get me chance. No woman puts it over me like Cliff’s missus did. Come to think it allout, that leaves this ruddy cop what calls himself a Detective-Inspector. Got a reputation they say. So has Mister Edward Jenks, Esquire, A. B. Different method, that’s what. Another day, maybe two, an’ we arrives some place. Then we all start again on scratch, and if ever I happen to meet that Myra Thomas on a dark street, well, well, what do we say, Mister Jenks and Missus Thomas?
The nights now were mere interludes. The rest periods ordered by Bony were without reality. Myra Thomas existed on her dreams of power and glory. Jenks looked up now and then, not at the Plain which was battering them into themselves, but at the lurching figure of the female shape in male attire. None of them even noticed the crows that came to meet them from the ‘coast’, as though they were doves leading them to the land and trees where they roosted o’ nights, safe from wild dogs and foxes.
The following day was to be the last day of this trek, and during the afternoon they skirted the coast, travelling from one promontory to the next. Bony watched the sun, maintained a check of time, and camped that night in the shelter of a small ‘island’ on which grew a few mulgas. They had one tin of meat and two of fish, and that was the end of the food supply.
Argument arose because three tins could not serve as plates for six people.
“Caw! What am Igoin ’ to eat out of?” snarled Jenks, and the girl said, contemptuously:
“Be your natural self. Eat off the ground, of course.”
Jenks glanced at Riddell as though expecting support. Bony quickly suggested a pannikin in lieu of a golden platter, and emptied half a tin of herrings in tomato sauce into a pannikin for himself, and presented the other half in its tin to Myra, saying:
“At our last camp we still had plates and forks, you will remember. Someone has left them behind. Now we have only our fingers.”
“Which will serve Ted for the rest of his life,” sneered the girl.
“Ain’twegettin ’ snooty, Myra? Next week we’ll beseein ’ Mrs. Myra Thomas, the famous ex-murderess, a-strollin’ down Pitt Street. And no one will bethinkin ’ that the lovely on the prance lived with a lot of men on a Plain where there’s never no bushnor a tree to hide it. Will you betellin ’ your dear public aboutall the terrors you went through?”
“I’ll tell my public all about you, Jenks. About how you eat like the guzzling pig that you are.”
“And how youwas the hen with all the roosters, I suppose. How you fought off the roosters and saved it? And how you bumped off your husband because he found out you’re sexless, like Doc Havant said. I could’ve fixed that. Woman! Caw! Youain’t a woman. You’re all blah and bilk. Why, them ten-bob-a-timers in the back alleys off the water-front is more a woman than you. Youwasn’t even born a female. Wait till I have my little say on the wireless.”
“You won’t. They’re particular about keeping the air clear of microbes.”
“What about calling it a day?” complainedMaddoch. “No one enjoys listening to your polite conversation.”
“Don’t you butt in, Clifford. You know how this cow played us all against each other. You know how she worked us up so that someone bashed poor old Mitski. She could’ve done him in only she was being raped by Mark at the time, wasn’t she, Mark?”
“Don’t drag me into it,” pleaded Brennan. “I’m too leg-weary even to think about it. Give us peace… peace… and more peace. Why thehell were women invented?”
“Lovely liars,”drooled Jenks. “Smooth legs ’n soft beds. I just itch to see ’emagain, nothavin ’ seen a woman for years. I…”
“It will be even more years before any of you again see women, lovely or otherwise, if you forget to obey me when we reach this homestead,” Bony interrupted. “There are white men and white women, and we shall be dependent on them for food, clothes and transport to the railway. You may even recognise someone who was instrumental in your kidnapping, and should you lose your temper and do anyone an injury, then you will surely find yourselves back again in jail to serve the rest of your sentences-plus a little extra.”
“Ah! So youthinks we might meet up with someone we’d like to argue with, do you, Inspector?” Jenkspressed, his voice hard.
“I do. You have never troubled to conceal your hope for revenge, Jenks. To prevent you doing something which would result in Mark and Joe and Clifford being returned to jail, I have half a mind to arrest you now.”
“Don’t you worry, Inspector,” snarled Riddell.
“No, just leave that to me,” added Brennan. “Anyone makes a break stopping me getting back will get a guts full of bash.”
“So be it; d’yousee that star?”
“That red star?” asked Myra. “Low down?”
“That’s the one, Myra. It happens to be a light in a house window. That is the homestead called Mount Singular. Do you think you could walk there, now?”
“Now! I’ll have a damn good try.” She rose to her feet without sign of fatigue, and the others were as agile.
“How fard’you reckon?” asked Brennan.
“About four miles. Hard miles, too, and a hard cliff at the end. I’d like to get there before midnight when most radio stations will be off the air. We’ll walk single file. Mark, you take the rear. No talking. No striking matches.”
Maddoch said, excitement shrilling his voice:
“We won’t have to carry anything, will we?”
“Nothing,” Riddell growled.“Only our ruddy selves.”
Excitement sustained them over the first mile. Then Brennan fell, cursed wildly and lurched to his feet. The girl tripped and had to be assisted, and actually requested a halt and the flare of a match, that she could use her small mirror. The promontory on which Mount Singular was built eventually rose before them like a wall against the starry sky, and the ‘star’ which had beckoned them set like the moon behind a cloud.
As on that night in the long ago when they left the caverns, so now did they follow-my-leader, who had eyes with which to see, and a nose with which to scent. He led them in and out among the boulders and over the shallow gutters to the northern base of the promontory, and then, when bringing the bulk of land against the sky to determine the least difficult ascent, he stopped.
“Can you people smell what I smell?” he asked.
“Kerosene,” replied the girl.
“Petrol,” Brennan decided.
“A garage,” voted Maddoch.
They appeared to be standing on a clear space, and Bony led them forward till stopped by an obstruction. They could just see his raised arms. They saw him stoop, and then heard him knock with a stone, on wood.
“Doors at the entrance to a cave,” he said.“Wooden doors.” He lay on the ground for a second or two.“Oil and petrol on the other side. Doors wide and high enough to admit a helicopter. Now for the final effort. And, for the last time, remember it rests withyourselves whether you go on to life and lights, or back to jail.”