Sweet Fairy Ann
THE WEATHER MAP showed the entire southern half of the Continent to be controlled by an anti-cyclone, and the glass at the hotel registered 30.18 inches on the morning that Bony left on his trip over Sweet Fairy Ann. But the gulls were still loafing on the Inlet creek, and another straight ribbon of high cloud was nearing the zenith.
When once off the highway, it was necessary to shout to make oneself heard above the clatter of the empty truck, no hardship to Dick Lake and his partner. Bony quickly gave up the effort. He was glad to be packed between the two men who helped to cushion the jolts.
There was no one about the Wessex homestead, but smoke was rising from the kitchen chimney, and several cows were placidly cud-chewing outside a milking shed. The farm gave way to trees which angled the track and Moss had plenty to do with the steering wheel.
“Fred got this far, anyhow,” remarked Dick Lake when they were crossing wet ground which betrayed the wheel marks.
“He called on Mr and Mrs Wessex yesterday afternoon,” Bony shouted. “I was there at the time.”
“How was he?” asked Moss.
“Just drunk enough to be booked.”
“S’longas he didn’t go on from Lake’s homestead last night he’ll be OK.”
“My ole man wouldn’t let him go on last night,” Dick said, and chortled.“Ruddy character. He’syellin ’ for more beer time we gets to Geelong, and we have a few at the ‘Belmont’ and then he sits down in the pictures, folds up and goes to sleep. And he don’t wakeno more till the pictures comes out. Then he wants crayfish for supper and we can’t get only bacon and eggs, and so we runs around the town for two hours trying to find a fish joint open. Ends up with finding nothing open and has to come back hungry.”
“Did well in the Navy, didn’t he?” asked Bony, when the truck was passing silently over a flat stretch of track. Dick chuckled and turned to present that most attractive grin.
“Shanghaied,” he said. “There’s me and Eldred Wessex and Fred goes up toMelbun to join the AIF. Been cobbers since kids and wanted to keep together in the Great Stoush. Gets toMelbun late that night, and next morning we agrees to meet outside Young and Jackson’s pub at two, as Fred wants to see a sister what lives in Carlton.
“While he’s waiting for me and Eldred to turn up at Young and Jackson’s, Fred goes in for a ‘quickie’, which he repeats until he gets to his sleeping stage when he reckons we’d gone off to therecruitin ’ office without him. So he nabs a taxi, and tells the driver to take him to the war office.
“When Fred wakes up, he’s in the Navyrecruitin ’ office, not the Army, and he’s that dithered he can’t tell the difference in the uniforms. So when he comes to, he’s in theflamin ’ Navy what won’t let him out to join me and Eldred what’s in the Army.”
“You two should have joined the Navy, too, and so kept with Fred,” suggested Bony, and Dick explained the difficulty of thinking straight after searching two dozen hotels for a pal.
“Any’ow, it wasn’t so bad,” he said, yelling at the top of his voice and keeping himself down on the seat as the truck passed over a stony ridge. “That taxi driver could have taken Fred to the Policerecruitin ’ office.”
“He would have been properly sunk then,” averred Moss. “More sunk than he was on thePerth.”
The track flowed down to a depression between the hills, and followed a stream about which grew tall white-gums and ironbarks, with the ground so free of rubbish that the scene was not unlike a well-kept park. Travelling here was much easier, and more interesting, for Bony noted kookaburras and black cockatoos, kangaroos and trails of possums up the tree trunks.
An hour after leaving the hotel, the forest abruptly ended at a gate, beyond which was grassland divided by the track which merged with the dwellings of a distant farm homestead. As though halted by an ambush, when the truck stopped outside the main house it was immediately surrounded by shouting children of all ages, an enormous woman and a tall, crippled man adding their welcome to the din.
Mrs Lake took charge of Bony, who noted two rangy youths lifting hauling gear and tackle to the truck, before being metaphorically carried into the large kitchen-living-room. The others trooped in soon afterwards, and all were regaled with “tough” cups of tea and huge mounds of buttered scones and buttery cakes, the butter being white and obviously home-made.
“Fred’s about three hours ahead of you,” roared Mr Lake, as one long accustomed to roaring to makehimself understood. The commotion was terrific. A lanky youth leaned against the wall. A small tot clawed at Bony’s trouser leg and screamed to be taken up. A lath of a girl regarded him solemnly, and her mother’s vast front shook as she tried to edge in an opinion or two. Outside, calves bellowed and dogs barked and the chooks crowed to vie with the shrieking of a caged cockatoo.
The rattle and creak of the truck was hospital-quiet by comparison.
Two of the youths now stood on the truck maintaining hold by gripping the rear edge of the cabin. With them were numerous dogs which never ceased to yap excitedly, and though they had brought pandemonium with them, Moss and Dick shouted with unnecessary vigour. About nothing. They were as two small boys taking a train ride to the zoo.
Like a sardine in the middle of the tin, Bony managed to roll a cigarette before they passed through the farther boundary gate. He was thoroughly enjoying himself, and not far removed from the exuberant mood of his companions. The farm left behind, the forest closed upon them, and the track no longer so clearly defined as heretofore. Previously it had attempted a grade, had found an easy way among the hills: now it seemed to have taken leave of its senses and lost all caution.
Moss Way concentrated on his driving, and Dick Lake did remarkable feats with the wisp of cigarette which dangled from between his lips. The truck lurched and the engine roared and whined, and the back wheels bumped and sometimes felt as though springing off the ground. They were mounting a slope, following a trail left by Ayling’s car.
They topped a ridge, but the trees were so massed that nothing could be seen of a vista, and then they were rolling down a deceptive slope, the truck in low gear to assist the brakes. Across a gully, splashing through water, and on and upwards for hours, or so it seemed, and every yard the world limited by the forest of trees which blotted out compass points and often held the sun at bay.
“Old bitch’sboilin ’,” remarked Dick.
“Yair. Not as good as she was,” observed Moss. “Reckon she’ll go to the top without seizing up?”
“Oughter.”
The dogs were now quiet. The engine went through its repertoire, and constantly the driver shifted gears with lightning rapidity. Bony gripped the seat edge to keep his body down and his head from crashing against the roof, for the farther theyproceeded the rougher the track.
Presently the trees thinned, became smaller. The sky with its sun began to take charge of the world, and swiftly dominated it. Then the trees gave out altogether and they were crawling just below a red-rock ridge, here like tessellated castles, there like a city of church spires. The trees became an arboreal floor, crumpled like a carpet after a party and littered with outcrops much like discarded orange peel. Only the crudest work had been done to make the trail sufficiently level to prevent a vehicle from toppling over, and how these men expected to bring back and down a load of ten tons was beyond Bony. It was hair-raising enough to be going up in the empty truck.
Eventually it seemed that the very sky itself stopped further progress, and they arrived at a little plateau where the truck stopped, the engine collapsed, and silence was a blow.
“There she is,” Dick Lake said, opening his door and getting out. The dogs were already to ground to welcome him. The youths joined them, and Bony got downto stretch his arms and legs.
“Is this Sweet Fairy Ann?” he asked.
“Yair. Beaut, isn’t she?” replied one of Dick’s brothers. “Comin’ upt’other side’s worse, though.”
“See a long way,” said Moss, dragging a tin of water from the truck and proceeding to fill the radiator. “Not a drunk’s track, this one.”
“Why I said to bring no beer,” supplemented Dick. “Even Fred wouldn’t tackle this track with a drink in him, and if he tried to, my oldman’d stop him.”
“Where did the bullock wagon go down?” asked Bony, and was told it was farther on.
“Weleavin ’ the tackle here?” inquired a youth.
“No, better take it down below the Slide.”
Even the engine sounded refreshed by the rest, and again all aboard the truck rolled across the plateau and gave Bony a shock. From the edge there was no track bar the corrugated rock as steep as a house roof for a hundred feet or more to a ledge which curved from sight. The vehicle crept down the roof to the ledge, and then hugged the rising wall of rock upon one side and shrank from the gulf on the other. Bony looked down. There was no bottom to the gulf save a faint white mist.
He wanted to get out and walk, but the wall prevented one door from being opened and there was nothing but space beyond the bottom of the other.
“Great view, ain’t she?” obtruded Moss’s voice. “That mountain over there we call Lightning Bill ’cosevery thunderstorm coming across belts hell out of it. Wouldn’t live there for all the tea in China. Hate lightning. Never could stand for it.”
“Me, too,” supplemented Dick.“Themjungle storms put the wind up me.”
The ledge slanted and curved about overhanging shoulders reminding Bony of that miniature ledge leading down to the boys’ pirate cave. He kept his gaze upon distant peaks, and the soles of his feet unpleasantly tingled. Lightning he thought preferable to heights, and to come out this way for ten tons of firewood appeared ridiculously uneconomical. He said, cheerfully:
“I wonder if Mr Penwarden has knocked up the coffins we ordered.”
Moss laughed and Dick spat outside and chuckled. They were quite happy, and this made Bony inclined to annoyance. The ledge angled sharply, and he was positively sure that at the angle it was not wide enough to take the truck wheels.
Beyond the angle the gulf ended at a rock wall joining this with another mountain. Bony was greatly relieved until he saw that the wall was, indeed, just a wall and that beyond it the ledge went on to cross a precipitous slope of loose shingle.
“This is where the bullock wagon and all went down,” remarked Dick. “Old Eli Wessex tells of it. He knew the driver and his offsider. They never found ’em… or bullocks… or the wagon. Got buried under the mullock whatfollered ’emdown to the river.”
“An’ diddled old Penwarden outer his price for coffins,” added Moss. “Looks likeFred’s done a bit of patching up here and there.”
The cut across the slope bore evidence of someone’s labour with a shovel, and without hesitation the driver permitted the truck to negotiate the cut. Bony expected the entire slope to give way, and again he wondered at the stupidity of coming over this mountain for a mere ten tons of firewood, which could so easily have been secured on the track back from Lake’s farm, when he thought he had the answer. Fred Ayling lived in this vast wilderness, quite without reason save the one of living adventurously, and these friends of his were making the trip because it was hazardous and because it was beyond the mundane orbit of their lives.
Thinking thus, Bony felt relief when the truck crossed the slope and the ledge became a trail following an easier grade again to enter the forest. Half an hour, perhaps, and abruptly they came to a hut built of logs, with a bark roof, and a smaller shed roof over an open fireplace. The fire was blazing, andbillies hung from a cross pole. Fred Ayling stood by the fire, and behind himpranced a pert Australian terrier.
“Good day, blokes!” he shouted.
“Good day-ee, Fred!” came the chorus, as the truck disgorged its human freight. “How’s things?”
“Okeydoke.”Fred tossed fistfuls of tea into boiling water. “Better have it right now. Gonna rain soon and hard, and the Slide won’t take too much weight.” Grey eyes gleamed when they encountered Bony. “Day, Mr Rawlings!”