Freedom's Land (12 page)

When they got to the block, Andrew said curtly, ‘Don’t go beyond the cleared part, children and don’t go poking your fingers into anything. You heard what Mr Matthews said: there are poisonous spiders and scorpions. Your mother and I are going to have a look round.’

When they were out of the children’s hearing, Andrew said bluntly, ‘This is the worst of all the blocks. No creek to give water in summer and more big trees to fell than on other blocks.’

‘We won’t be short of firewood, then,’ she said, trying to look on the bright side. ‘And I like that group of huge trees. Can we build our house in their shade?’

He shook his head. ‘Didn’t you hear Gil yesterday evening talking about how that sort of tree drops branches and kills people. He called them “widowmakers”.’

‘No. I was clearing up after the meal. We’d better ask him where would be best, then.’

‘I want to walk the boundaries today and I think you should too. After all, it’s going to be your home as well as mine.’

‘Is there time? I have to get back and help cook tea.’

Words exploded from him. ‘To hell with cooking tea for everyone else!’ He closed his eyes for a few seconds, then opened them and said in a calmer voice, ‘We’ve come all this way and we both ought to know what our land is like.’ Seizing her hand, he pulled her along. As they reached the edge of the cleared land he looked back to check on the children and called, ‘Your mother and I are going to walk the boundaries. Jack, you’re in charge. Don’t let me down, now.’

The older boy nodded.

Janie looked at her mother, her mouth getting that square, I’m-going-to-cry look. Norah said sharply, ‘Behave yourself, Janie, and do as Jack tells you, or I’ll tan your backside.’ It was a threat she rarely carried out, but Janie knew it meant she was very serious about the orders she was giving.

Relieved, Andrew went on, ‘You three can make yourselves useful by collecting firewood and piling it over there. Look for dead, dry wood, not green branches. Put small pieces for kindling in one pile and bigger branches in another. And bash them with a big stick before you pick them up to make sure there are no spiders hiding in them. If you find any pieces that are fairly straight, like poles, set them on one side for fencing. Now jump to it!’

‘Yes, Dad.’

From the way his sons nodded and set to work, it was clear he was strict with them and even little Ned was used to working. Janie was still looking at her mother pleadingly, but Norah repeated, ‘You heard your father, Janie. Do as he told you.’

A short distance beyond the cleared land Andrew stopped.

‘How are we to be sure of finding our way back?’ Norah asked. It was as if they’d stepped into another world. The bush seemed untouched only twenty yards from the cleared part and it had closed around them as if it never wanted to let them go. It made her feel nervous, but at the same time, she found it beautiful. She’d never been alone in the countryside before, she realised in surprise.

It even smelled different here, a faint tangy scent. She picked a gum leaf off a lower branch of a tree and crumpled it in her fingers, sniffing them. ‘Eucalyptus oil.’

He looked at her.

‘It smells of eucalyptus oil. My mother always keeps a bottle of it handy for when anyone has a cold. If you put some in hot-water and breathe in the steam, it clears your nose. Or you can gargle with it for a sore throat. Fancy me seeing the trees it comes from! Sorry, I’m going on and we have to hurry if we’re to walk round the block.’

He smiled at her. ‘That’s all right. It’s exciting to learn about our new country, don’t you think?’

‘Yes. And I like being out of doors, I always have. But I don’t want to get lost.’

‘We’ll break off branches or pull down saplings to leave a trail as we go. And I’ve got this as well.’ He pulled a small compass out of his pocket.

It took them almost two hours to walk round the boundaries in this way and she’d have gone astray if it weren’t for him and his compass, because try as they might, it just wasn’t possible to walk in a straight line.

When they got back they found the children still in the cleared area, with several piles of branches and twigs collected. The boys were in the middle of a mock sword fight with two straight branches and Janie was sleeping on the ground in the shade of a tree.

‘I’m hungry, Dad,’ Ned complained, abandoning the sword fight to run over to them, ‘and we’re all thirsty.’

‘We are too. We should have brought some water! We’d better remember that next time.’ Andrew looked at the children apologetically. ‘Sorry.’

Norah shook her daughter awake and studied the children’s sunburnt faces. ‘You three had better stay out of the sun as much as possible for the rest of the day, or you’ll get badly burnt.’

The boys eyed her rebelliously and looked at their father.

‘You heard your mother,’ he said. ‘Do as she tells you.’

But it was clear to her from the dirty looks they gave her that they resented this command. So far she’d not had much opportunity to deal with them, but she would have to from now on. She didn’t need anyone to tell her that only by pulling together as a team would they make something of their new life. And if she expected Andrew to make Janie part of the family, she had to treat his boys like her own sons.

Only she still wasn’t sure how they felt about their father’s second marriage. Jack at least had looked at her resentfully a few times, and Janie was still not reconciled to her mother marrying Andrew, or sleeping with him.

Three blocks away, Bert and Susan were quarrelling again.

‘You didn’t tell me it’d be like this,’ she raged. ‘It’s a proper swizzle, this scheme of yours is. These aren’t proper farms and it’s
jungle
out there. I want to go home. I’m not staying here.’

‘Don’t be stupid! How will you get back to England? We don’t have enough money for the fares. Anyway, I don’t want to go back. I’ve nothing to go back to. And we’ve been lucky, got one of the best blocks in this group. It’ll be worth something, that will.’ And he might be selling it sooner rather than later, though he wasn’t telling anyone about that.

‘Well, I won’t—’

‘Won’t what? If you don’t cook, you won’t have anything to eat. And your mother isn’t round the corner here to help you now.’ His anger overflowed and he added, ‘You’re bone idle, you are.’

Her hand flew out to hit him, but he caught it and gave her a hard shake. ‘Stop that! I’ll not put up with it here – and you’ve no brothers to run to and whine.’ Her brothers had beaten him up on more than one occasion for ill-treating their spoilt young sister, on her word, not because they’d seen anything.

Susan burst into loud, angry sobs, but when he walked away instead of comforting her, she soon stopped crying and trailed after him.

She hadn’t gone far into the untouched bush before something slithered past her. For a moment she stood frozen in fear as she saw a long dark snake. It went on its way unheeding, as if she were just another tree, and not until it had vanished from sight could she move. Then she screamed at the top of her voice.

From a hundred yards away, Bert heard her clearly and something about the tone of her voice told him there was a real problem this time, not one of her fusses over nothing. He ran back to find her shaking and in hysterics, and it was a few minutes before he could calm her down and find out what had happened.

When she told him, he pulled her into his arms, soothing her. Then he put his arm round her shoulders, walking slowly back to the road.

They were the first to return to the camp and he went straight across to tell Gil what had happened.

The foreman asked Susan exactly what she’d seen, then pursed his lips. ‘Sounds like a tiger snake to me. They can kill you if they bite you.’ He looked down at her flimsy shoes. ‘You need a good pair of boots, Susan. Those shoes are only good enough for walking round inside a house.’

‘I haven’t got a pair of boots!’ she wailed.

‘Then you’ll have to get some. You can order a pair from Perth through the shop.’ He looked at Bert. ‘Worth the money, for safety’s sake.’

‘I gave her the money to get some before we left, and I thought she had done.’

Susan scowled from one to the other. ‘They’re ugly, boots are. Only common women wear boots.’

Gil shrugged. ‘Your choice. Wear them or risk getting bitten. And since you’re back, you can make a start on cooking tea.’

‘Me?’

‘You expect to eat, don’t you? So you’ll need to share in the cooking. We all have to pull our weight here.’

Bert hid a smile as she stamped off and began opening one of the huge tins of corned beef. But he knew only too well how bad a cook she was, so he was relieved when Pam Beeston came back. She watched what his wife was doing for a minute or two then took over, relegating her to the role of helper.

He was even more relieved to see Susan obeying the older woman’s orders, though she had a sulky look on her face.

He’d made a bad mistake when he married her, the worst of his whole life. Been bamboozled by a pretty face, and wasn’t the first that had happened to. It made him feel angry all the time, being lumbered with her did. If she didn’t start pulling her weight, he’d leave her and hang the vows he’d taken.

The rest of the day was spent in putting up the first humpy on the camp ground. The group would be formed of about twenty families, but the clerk had said the others weren’t due yet. This humpy would be used for keeping the stores dry and safe.

It had been decided quite quickly to put one humpy on each block of land that had been allocated, rather than putting them up at the camp ground and then having to move them later. They all wanted to be on their own land, and Gil didn’t blame them. He’d stay at the camp ground for the time being, so his humpy could go up later.

He warned people that they might have to share with the newcomers, if the others arrived before proper farmhouses were built. He was thankful for his horse and cart, but when Bert started treating it as a piece of group property, he quickly put a stop to that.

‘They’re mine, the horse and cart are. I’m supposed to be issued with a horse, but no one’s got round to that yet. I’m letting the group use them to get things started quickly, but I’m not having poor Daisy overworked. You need to look after a horse of her age properly if you want to get the best out of her.’

Bert stared at him. ‘She’s yours? I hope they’re paying you to use her, then.’

Gil couldn’t hold back a grin. ‘When you’re complaining to the authorities about the other stuff, you can tell them that. Maybe they’ll send me some money for hiring her. I shan’t rely on it, though.’

‘You don’t think much of how this has been organised, do you?’

‘No. Do you?’

Bert shook his head and scowled mightily, then said, ‘Thanks for the loan of the horse and cart, then.’

It had sounded very grudging, Gil thought, but the man had said the words at least. And he must have told the others, because one by one they thanked him. He didn’t want their thanks, he just wanted to get things started here. It made him feel so much better, having something worthwhile to do with his life. Mabel would be pleased with what he was doing, he was sure.

That thought brought a lump into his throat. ‘Eh, lass,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Why were you taken from me?’

He went back to working on the first humpy. They’d erected the wooden frame by hammering the uprights straight into the ground. If they were building to last, they’d put the uprights on stumps, protected by overhanging pieces of metal so that white ants couldn’t get in, but these were temporary structures and wood was abundant and easily replaced. The roof timbers had arrived cut to size – well, more or less – so they’d gone on quite easily. Now, they needed to cover the whole frame with corrugated iron.

He looked up at the sky, blue and cloudless. They’d been lucky so far. It’d not rained on their precious food supplies. But he wasn’t pushing his luck any further than he had to. If the settlers had to stay in the tents another day or two to make sure the stores were safe, then so be it. The store humpy would be built first.

He smiled on another thought. And if he had to put up with more grumbling from Bert about that, well, too bad.

The following day the men began to work the full nine hours required to earn their wages, starting at seven in the morning and finishing at five, with an hour’s break for the midday meal.

Seven of the eight women voted to have a washday, because there were two boilers among the equipment sent out. Susan said nothing, just scowled at them all impartially.

The women persuaded Gil and Pete to set the boilers up over fires and tied ropes between the trees to hang the washing on, then set to work, fetching water, chatting about their families and hopes.

As usual, Susan soon started complaining, spoiling the pleasant mood, and when she could stand it no longer, Norah spoke to her very sharply.

‘Who are you to boss me around?’ Susan asked shrilly, stopping work and folding her arms.

‘Someone who’s doing her full share of the work, unlike you.’

‘I’m not a great strong workhorse like you.’

‘Then you’d better get stronger. Weaklings won’t survive here,’ Pam snapped.

But Susan continued to work slowly and grudgingly, and as the day passed, she found ways to do less than the others. They grew angrier and angrier. If sent to fill a bucket at the creek, she didn’t fill it completely and dawdled back, her thoughts clearly on other things. She went to the latrines more often than anyone else and was found lying down in her tent after one trip there. When dragged outside, she claimed she was too exhausted to work non-stop.

‘I know how we’d have treated her if she’d tried that on in the orphanage where I grew up,’ Pam muttered as Susan vanished yet again.

‘How?’ another woman asked, not stopping rubbing her clothes on the washboard.