WHEN the sun was gliding the tops of the bloodwoods bordering the gully between the land shoulders, Bonaparte was standing on the dam wall, watching the fish jumping for flies. The cement-faced barrier was all of two hundred yards in length, and was at least a hundred feet high from the bed of the gully. Wide enough on the top to permit a wagon to be driven across it, it barred back a reserve of precious water sufficient to defy the worst of droughts. Smoke was rising from the house kitchen, and from the kitchen-dining-room beyond at the men’s quarters. The white-clad figure of the men’s cook appeared from a cane-grass meat house carrying a tray of beef steaks. For a moment Bony turned to gaze out over the golden pavement of the plain to the distant hills, softly blue-grey and mysterious, an inviting picture hiding its hideous tragedy.
Crows cawed and galahs shrieked. Calves bellowed for their yarded mothers, awaiting the milking. And Napoleon Bonaparte began another day’s work by seeking an interview with the men’s cook. Just inside the kitchen doorway he greeted the tall white figure standing before the stove with its back to him.
The cook twisted his body, and then continued to twist his neck until he was able to look back over a narrow shoulder. He was an elderly man, and was engaged in transferring the beef steaks to a large iron grill.
“Good day!” he said, his voice thin and piping. “How’s thingsup your street?”
“Fairly quiet, I think,” he said, finding himself in the usual interior of a kitchen-dining-room. “Have you many to cook for?”
“No-oh, no! Only me and old Jack and half a dozen nigs. I bake the bread and cake for the big house, but thatain’t much. I can do theflamin ’ lotstandin ’ on me head. Itain’t a bad job, as far as it goes. We allhas to work under the ruddy capitalist system, but the timeain’t far off when us workers will break our chains.”
“You think they ever will?” inquired the interested Bony.
“Too right they will,” asserted the cook, and with a crash he tossed the empty tray to a nearby bench. “The day’sgonna come when us slaves will take over the means of production, distribution and consumption, and then there’sgonna be no more unemployment and starvation and wars and things. I tell you-”
“Stow your noise!” commanded a deep and full voice from without. Following the voice, entered the old man whom, late the previous afternoon, Bony had seen attending to the garden. He wore long white side-whiskers like the Emperor Franz Joseph, and when he removed his old felt hat he revealed a cranium completely bare of hair.
“You and your revolutions and slaves and up-and-at-’emworkers,” he scoffed. “Why, you touch your forelock to the boss every time you see him, fearing you’d lose your poisoning job.” Then to Bony: “Good day to you, mister! Has this gallows bird made a drink of tea yet?”
“Well, I was hoping so,” Bony ventured.
“Coo!” snorted the cook. “Can’t you wait for breakfast? Think a man’s a slave to bemakin ’ tea all day and all night?”
“Stow your noise, and let me at the tea billy,” said the ancient, and strode towards the kitchen range whereupon stood a steaming billycan. As he passed Bony, he winked one eye. Taking two bright tin pannikins from a row hanging on wall hooks, he filled them and returned to the table. “Here you are, mister! Help yourself to milk and sugar, and don’t take any notice of our localpoisoner. He’s not too bad.”
Having well laced his tea with milk, he removed the square board, covering a seven-pound jam tin serving as a sugar basin, and proceeded to helphimself to spoonful after spoonful.
“Hey!” cried the cook. “You go easy on the sugar.”
Again the lid closed over one bright eye, whilst the other sparkled at Bony.
“Stow your noise,” again came the command. “First you’re a slave and then you’re not. First youblackguards the boss and then yell because he might go bankrupt. You are the mostcussedestpoisoner I’ve ever come in contact with.”
The cook grabbed a pannikin from the wall, filled it, and stalked to the table. If anything, his mood was a little lighter. He indicated the ancient with a motion of his long head.
“He thinkshisself smart,” he said to Bony, adding directly to the allegedly smart one: “Anyhow how’s things up your street?”
They sat on the form flanking the long table, and the cook began the loading of a black pipe with jet-black tobacco.
“Not too good, Alf,” the old man replied, his bright eyes clouding.“Something’s ’appenedwhat I can’t make out. You know that bed in front wherethem Madam Leroy standards is growing?”
“Yes. Didn’t you show ’emto me that day you swore you’d ask for your cheque if the hoppers cameagain. They come the next week, but you’re still ’ere.”
“That’s the bed,” asserted the old man, triumphantly. “Well, on the grass near that bed, whatd’you think I found?”
“Dunno. Not a quid note, I’ll bet. I’ll bet thereain’t one on theflamin ’ station. What did you find?”
Bony, seeing that he was supposed to ask the same question, asked it.
“I found a dent deep enough to put me hand in.”
“A dent!” exclaimed the cook. “What kind of a dent?”
“Just a dent, Alf, just a dent. And in that dent was a lot of dry sand. Now-you tell me how dry sand got into that dent; and how the dent got into the lawn when last evening there wasn’t no dent, and the lawn was wet from watering and there wasn’t any sand, wet or dry, on the lawn at all.”
“Well, I suppose theflamin ’ windblow’d the sand into that dent, you old fool,” growled the cook.
“Stow your noise!” snarled the ancient, and gulped loudly at his tea. “I tell you there wasn’t no dent there last evening, and no sand, wet or dry, in the dent last evening. What I’m asking you is to tell me how that dent got there.”
“How the hell do I know how the dent got into your lawn?” asked the cook.
“Well, as your mind’s a bit weak, Alf, I tell you something else what I can’t make out.”
The cook rose to his feet, stalked to one of the open windows and expectorated a stream of diluted nicotine.
“There’s lots of things youain’t making’ out thismornin ’. What’s this new one?”
The old man stood up, seemingly the better to make his remarks clearer by means of sauce bottles, milk jug and sugar tin.
“Now, this here’s the bed of them MadamLeroys,” he began. “This here is the dent on the lawn. Now here, in this part of the Madam Leroy rose bed, is where I seen a disturbance of the ground, and under the disturbance I finds a treacle tin. It’s been buried there.”
“One of thedorgs, I suppose.”
“Dorgmeeye. In that treacle tin was a lot of dry sand, the same as the dry sand in the dent. Now why should anyone bury a treacle tin with sand in it, in my best rose bed?”
“Yes,” Bony said in support. “Why should anyone burya treacle tin in that rose bed?”
“How do I know?” demanded the cook. “Why dodorgs bark? Why do men work like slaves? Why do motorsteerin ’ gears go bung at the wrong time? Why do airplanes fly around after dark? Why do nigs walk aboutcarryin ’ suitcases?”
“Suitcases!” exclaimed Bony.
“That’s what I said,” stoutly maintained the cook. “Early this morning’I seen Itcheroowalkin ’ away from the stockyards, carryin ’ a suitcase. All he wanted to complete thepitchur was a top ’at.”
“Was it a large suitcase?” pressed Bony.
“Large! It wasn’t much larger than a fair sized damper. What with the nigscarryin ’ suitcases around before breakfast, and dents and dry sand and airplanes and things, the world’scomin ’ to a pretty fine pitch.”
“The world!”sneered the old man. “Whatd’youknow about the world?”
“More’nyou do, anyhow. Youain’t seen theflamin ’ world for the last seventy years,” replied the cook.