From Chart House To Bush Hut Part 8

CHAPTER XV.

MORE IMPROVEMENTS--BULLOCKYS.

The weather had fined up and remained so for months. Beautiful warm sun, tempered by the cool breeze by day, and cold, sometimes frosty, nights.

It was ideal weather for work; and Len and I worked well, ate well, slept well, and for the first time I started to throw off the effects of all that worry and nerve-strain I had undergone at sea.

Those glorious days! We would be off just after daybreak, red-nosed and s.h.i.+vering, clad in thick garments and heavy coats, with perhaps a frost on the gra.s.s. Ten minutes with the axe and off came the coat. Another ten, and the extra pair of pants followed suit, and by half-past eight the benignant suns.h.i.+ne reduced one to pants and s.h.i.+rt. How you could work! and when lunch-time came, eat!! It was good to be alive, life was rosy, and every lungful of the glorious crisp bush-scented air put fresh manhood into us.

Then the still more enchanting moonlit nights. Small print could be read with ease by the moonlight, and with the air so still the howl of a lonely dog three miles off came clear and distinct. From the hut we could see mile on mile of rolling scrub, sombre and still, and in the distance a long line of scrub-clad hills, clear cut against the star-strewn, ink-blue sky. The spirit of the romance of pioneering took possession of us. We were the only inhabitants of a new-found beautiful world; we were s.h.i.+pwrecked on an unspoiled pre-Adamite island; we were, well--just a couple of enthusiastic bush-lovers, with some ability to appreciate the beauty of old mother Nature.

Len was a good mate, and time pa.s.sed on winged feet. On Sundays we tramped in for tucker and spent best part of the day at the open house his hospitable parents kept. We had whips of vegetables from my garden, until Braun in an unlucky hour gave Ellison permission to turn a few cows into his paddock. Now my cabbage garden was down on the creek at a place where several big trees had come down, the s.p.a.ces between being filled up with smaller timber. This formed a barrier that I thought no mortal cow could ever get over. I didn't know cows.

At 8 p.m. one night three thousand beautiful cabbages and about a quarter of an acre of other green stuff formed a patch of cultivation to gladden the eye. At 7 a.m. next day I, newly-arisen, came to the door of the hut just in time to see the last of a line of ten dropsical, bloated cows see-saw over the impregnable logs out of a trampled muddy waste that had been a garden. I rushed down. Too late by hours. Absolutely nothing remained, save a few mangled stalks. Oh! my cabbages! that were to have paid the storekeeper's bill, rent, rates, and left a few pounds in hand. Gone! all gone! With murder in my heart and profanity on my lips, I chased the horrible wretches, who, grunting with distension and, I fondly hope, suffering pangs of indigestion, could hardly get up a slow trot. The tangled gra.s.s tripped me up, and I could only stand swearing impotently, and throw a few futile sticks at the brutes waddling heavily across the creek, where they lined up on the opposite bank, turned round and grinned--_grinned_ at me. Ever see a cow grin? Wait till they manage to crawl into your cultivation patch, or land a hefty kick home when you're putting the leg-rope on, and then you'll find out. I know now why the conventional devil has horns and hoofs. The monks of old who first pictured him kept cows. That's why.

I swore at them until my breath failed, while the light breeze gently waved the frosted gra.s.s against my bare legs and turned my nose blue, then scurried back to the house. Len laughed unfeelingly, told me to put a secure fence up, and grow some more. He gave me a hand with the fence on Sunday. We always put off play-time jobs like that till Sunday.

Terry O'Gorman had come back to his place by this time, doing a bit more falling, and it was quite like old times again, for, of course, the three of us camped together. Terry was great on springboard work. A springboard is a six-inch by one-inch board four feet long, with a horse-shoe bolted on one end point up. You cut a notch two inches deep in a tree, insert the board, and stand on it to chop, the point of the shoe being driven by your weight into the upper edge of the notch and holding firm. Terry would go up three "lifts" (twelve to fifteen feet) without nervousness. The advantage is that the higher you go the easier it is to chop, the grain of the wood being straighter. When the tree goes, you scuttle away as best you can. I have heard it described as chopping with one foot in the grave and other on a bit of orange peel; but it's not quite that bad.

About a month after we commenced falling I actually got a "divvy" out of my place. A local bullocky had an order for "some small Kauri pine," and some on my block were the handiest, so I got 5 for about 12,000 super feet (worth over 200 in Sydney, I suppose), and I thought myself lucky to get that.

Pardy, the bullocky, was a big, rough, dark-complexioned bloke, with a shambling walk, a rough tongue and a heavy hand. He absolutely didn't care a d.a.m.n for anybody or anything. The only way we could get the timber out was across a steep gully with a little muddy ditch at the bottom. It was hard work for the bullocks to come up dragging the empty jinker, but going down! Pardy would snig his log to the brow, then--whis.h.!.+ The whip sent skin and hair flying, and the poor brutes took the descent at a canter, the log behind skidding from side to side, while Pardy would stand on the brink cracking that awful whip, yelling, "Go it! you ---- sons of ----! Head over turkey; I thot she wud," as they brought up all standing in the little creek, bullocks in an untidy mob, log broadside on, and the polers down. How on earth he didn't kill half his team every time, I don't know. The place is known as "Pardy's jump-up" to this day.

All sorts and conditions of bullockys! There was Pardy, sweating and swearing, and knocking his cattle to pieces, without enough breath left at night to cool his tea with, and yet not doing nearly as much as his rival Robin Hood, who, with a team of young steers and cunning old "stags" only, would haul a 20 per cent. bigger load to the railway an hour quicker than Pardy; never raising his voice; just talking quietly to his beasts, and never more than flicking the whip at them. He had their confidence! A striking example of what kindness and patience will do.

Jack Bayton was another one. He had a team of magnificent animals that could pull the guts out of any other on the road. He could haul some astonis.h.i.+ng loads, but used to let the brutes just dodge along, while he admonished them with loving profanity. "Baldy! Baldy!! You ----! I'll teach y' ter go pokin' inter the scrub!" (Baldy was after shade and a spell.) Flick! would come the whip without force enough to kill a fly, and Baldy lazily resumed the track. Or perhaps Spot would stop and reach for a bunch of Commonwealth weed. "Ha! you Spot! ---- you, ye blanky ol'

----! I'll ---- well teach yer about wastin' time eatin' weeds." Spot looks back with a sleepy eye, shoves out, gets his weed, and walks on calmly chewing. A fat lot he cares about Jack, who affectionately apostrophises him. "Luk a' that now! Jevver see sich an ol' ----!

Cunnin' as a ---- ---- rat, so he is." Jack thought the world of his team, and cripes! they could pull when they let themselves out. It was a treat to see his plodding team swaying up a long hill, without a pause, with 2500 of bulloak, perhaps, aboard. Very few would do it.

Tom Faringdon was another type again. Big, black, hairy as Esau, a bloodshot eye, bristly beard and a frightful temper. Doesn't take long for that sort of man to upset a team. Let his waggon get stuck, and then watch the circus. What ho! A frightful stream of language. Still stuck.

Then the whip, till the fall was sticky with blood; then frantic rushes fore and aft alongside the team, digging into their ribs with the b.u.t.t of the whip. His voice would be nearly gone by this time, and, with his Mephistophelian face and glaring eyes, he looked a perfect fiend. Next he uses the whip handle--smas.h.!.+ smas.h.!.+ smas.h.!.+ along the unfortunate s.h.i.+vering line, who, lowing with fright, don't know what to do. The handle breaks across a bullock's back. A frantic howl; down goes his hat, and he dances it madly into the mud, while his hands (like old "Dad Rudd's" when the horses went down the well) are raised, but not in prayer, to Heaven. Then, extremes meeting, he gets so mad that he becomes calm, and so finally gets the team clear--to repeat the whole process another half-dozen times before he reaches the station yard.

Well, good or bad, your slow, plodding bullocky is the true pioneer.

Always first in the field, following the fresh cut tracks after timber in country that perhaps years after will be thrown open for selection--and his old tracks made the future main roads of the district. He has a rough, lonely life. Works hard, lives hard, ay! and sometimes has to die hard too. Collectively, a brave, hardy and useful member of the mighty Brotherhood of Labour.

Len and I went on chopping, the days pa.s.sing pleasantly, the work interesting. Occasionally we attended a dance at the school house on Sat.u.r.day nights (of which more hereafter), which was the only break. We had about thirty-five acres down, and then came----

CHAPTER XVI.

AN ACCIDENT.

The August day was bright and fine, but very gusty.

"Don't like the looks of it at all," said Len, after breakfast. "Too windy to be safe."

"Think we'd better stop home?" I hazarded.

"M--m! Can't spare the time," he demurred. "Got our work cut out to finish in good time for the burn, you know, so guess we'll chance it."

"Righto!" I answered. So 7.30 a.m. saw us at it as usual. I was on a "mad" patch--trees leaning every way--on the side of a hill. I had sent several drives up; then had to go among the fallen stuff to send the last four trees of that patch down hill. The last one of these four was a long willowy crowfoot elm, and as he had a bit of a lean uphill I "nicked" him well, to make sure he'd go; scarfed the others, and then started on the driving tree. It was blowing fresh and I was a bit nervous. I hurriedly got the belly cut in, and had the back in near enough to make him start talking (i.e., cracking a bit), when a strong gust came along, making the trees sway dangerously. I stood a second or two undecided whether to go or stay, and "he who hesitates is lost." A sharp crack! and the long crowfoot broke back over the scarf, automatically becoming the driver, and sending the whole lot down on top of me. "Oh, Christ!" I panted, and made a jump for safety. A stumble, a slip, and I was down. Up again, and, with the whistling rush of the falling trees loud in my ears, I turned to face and, if possible, dodge them, as the fallen stuff round prevented my jumping aside. The first trunk missed, but tore the s.h.i.+rt off my arm as it swept to earth, throwing me off my balance; then a whirling stick split my head open, sent me down on my face, and next second I was buried in falling limbs.

Whack! whack! whack!

I suppose the whole business was only a matter of seconds, but to me it seemed like an eternity. Half-stunned with fright and the bursting crash of breaking branches, with the breath beaten out of my body, I thought at each fresh thump: "This has done it! N-no, not quite yet." Then a sudden silence and a slowly dawning realisation. "Why! I'm not dead!"

I lay a second or two gathering my scattered wits; then slowly raised my head, which sang like a kettle. I was in a sort of rustic grotto of green stuff piled six feet over me. Lord knows how I escaped being killed. Then I set to work to overhaul myself. Didn't feel the least pain. Good! But hallo! What's the matter with my left arm? There should be no joints between elbow and wrist, and here's at least two. I felt an insane desire to laugh as I waggled the injured member about, with the blood running down my face from my cut head. Both bones were broken twice, and the wrist as well, but that seemed to be all; so, under the circ.u.mstances, I had got off fairly easy. I crawled out with some difficulty, lay down, and coo-eed for Len.

There's something about the call of a hurt man that can't be mistaken, and Len dropped his axe and raced for me at the first sound of my voice.

Again I felt the hysterical desire to laugh at the sight of him tumbling, scrambling, tripping over the jumble of fallen stuff in his eagerness to get to me. He rushed up. I must have looked rather startling--pale and blood-stained, and the s.h.i.+rt half-torn off me.

"My G.o.d! Charlie! What's happened?"

"All right, Len," I answered. "Ain't going to snuff it yet; but my arm's broke, and I feel awful sick."

"Well, tell us what to do, ol' chap," he said, fluttering round like a distressed hen. "I feel as useless as the fifth wheel of a coach; but tell us what to do, and I'll do it."

He got a bit of a stick, and we bound the arm to it with the remnants of my s.h.i.+rt. Then, with his a.s.sistance, I crawled painfully over the fallen stuff, down and up the steep banks of a creek, and so to the hut. Didn't feel any pain, only a dreadful sick, vomity sensation. I lay down a bit while Len brewed a strong mug of tea; swallowed that; felt a heap better; dragged on my Sunday-go-to-meetings, and prepared for the tramp into hospital. My back was bruised to a jelly nearly, but I didn't feel it. A real injury seems to be its own anaesthetic somehow. We left the humpy about ten o'clock on the ten-mile journey to the station, I cheerfully ruminating en route on this being the end of everything. I wonder how many times since then I've had the same thought: "Oh, Lord!

this set-back really _is_ the end." Oh, well! It's all in the day's work.

We tramped in. n.o.body had a buckboard in those days, and I couldn't ride a horse. We got to the station about half-past three, and had to wait for the lengthsmen to finish a job they were at before taking me in on the pump-car, meanwhile telephoning for the ambulance to meet me at the next station. I sat down, and, for the first and only time in my life, fainted.

Finally I got into Atherton Hospital, sick and shaky, about 6 p.m., and didn't I suffer that night! My arm ached, my head ached, the left shoulder was hurt somehow and also ached, and my back was one huge ache.

I got over it all right, though my arm was very weak for two years after. What with one thing and another I was in hospital six weeks, and if it hadn't been for worrying over the selection would rather have enjoyed the holiday. The cheerful nurses called me "Skipper" (every patient had a nickname), and were rather inclined to "pet" me. Take it all round, I had rather a fine time.

I needn't have worried either, for several of the blokes out there left their own pressing work and bogged into my scrub, doing it under regulation price, so that I wouldn't have to find any cash over what the bank had advanced. I don't know about the towns, but in the Bush you'll always find them willing to help a lame dog over a stile like that.

You've only got to be sick to find out how some, perhaps intolerably bad tempered, hitherto unfriendly neighbour will turn-to and do his bit for you with a will. You don't find that sort of spirit much at 'Ome in the Old Dart.

CHAPTER XVII.

SOCIAL AMENITIES.

Atherton Hospital was a very good country hospital in those days. Now, what with added buildings, increased staff, X-ray plant, and so forth, it can hold its head up with a metropolitan inst.i.tution. It wants to be good, too, in a rising place like the Tableland, where there are so many accidents in the bush. I was glad of the change, but my heart being in the scrub, I welcomed the day when the doctor said I could go back. I was just in time to see the last trees of my falling go down. The bank paid me, I settled all outstanding accounts, including storekeeper's bill for seven months, and had about 5 left. Couldn't do any heavy work, but got the promise of a wardsman's job at the hospital for the following January, which, being fairly light toil, I thought I could tackle.

Meanwhile I put in the time reaping seed in O'Gorman's, to sow my falling when it was burnt. Len's twenty-first birthday happened, and his hospitable parents gave a big party to celebrate it. Everybody was invited, and came as soon as possible after evening milking, and what with dancing, singing and a splendid supper the evening was a great success. I made the first speech of my life on this occasion, congratulating Len, and presented an admirable picture of stuttering nervousness. "Steele Rudd's" selection stories are somewhat apt to give the impression that bush folk mostly attend such "do's" in rough boots and patched clothes. Practically all the settlers here started like myself, with nothing to speak of, and all were still in the struggling stage; but there wasn't a bloke among them who didn't have a good suit carefully packed away for such occasions, no matter how badly off he was. Same with the girls. All had tasteful frocks, neat blouses and good shoes; and the bright eyes, rosy cheeks and superabundant energy, which is imparted by this glorious climate (in which, according to certain interested persons, the white man can't live), with the laughter and chatter of happy young people, make a cheerful scene, good to look at.

On such occasions, usually held at the school-house, Mrs. Bloggs and Mrs. Jimson, who haven't been playing speaks on account of "things I 'eard you'd bin sayin' about me," bury the hatchet, and unite in condemning the tale-bearing party. Roberts forgets that Robinson's bull broke the fence, got into his cultivation, and that he had to repair the fence himself. All is peace and friendly feeling. Everyone is bent on casting care to the winds and enjoying himself or herself--for that one evening, anyway.