The Forgotten Pearl (6 page)

5

Alexandra Downs

Poppy woke the next morning in the dark and dressed hurriedly. Her father was already up, sipping a cup of tea. Honey wagged her tail hopefully when she saw Poppy, but it drooped when she saw Poppy's bag over her shoulder. She sat up on her hind legs and begged hopefully.

‘Sorry, Honey old girl, you can't come today. Those big station dogs would eat you in one bite.'

Honey whined piteously at the kitchen door as they left.

Doctor Trehearne drove them out to the airport, dodging the potholes on the unpaved road.

The pilot, Bert, met them at the hangar. ‘You riding up front with me, Miss Poppy?' he asked with a grin.

‘Yes, please.'

Poppy scrambled up into the front seat of the four-seater de Havilland biplane. Her father threw her bag into the back with his own medical kit and duffel bag.

The sun was just rising as Bert fired the engine. Poppy held on tightly as they bumped over the runway, gathered speed, then soared into the air. In moments, the ground was far below. The pilot flew north-west over the town and the port, then swooped around in a semicircle and headed south.

To the east Poppy could see the golden-pink blush of sunrise on the horizon. The tiny buildings of the township clustered around the harbour soon gave way to thick scrub spreading as far as the eye could see. They followed the red dust of the winding track to the south for a while, then broke away, heading south-west. The scrub became sparser and the land increasingly parched. The wet season had not yet brought the transforming greenery and wildlife to the outback.

Poppy eagerly scanned the landscape below, watching for any signs of human habitation.

‘Would you like to fly for a while?' asked Bert. ‘Take the controls and just keep her steady.'

Poppy's face lit up. ‘Absolutely! Is it safe?'

‘I'll be right here to take over if anything goes wrong,' Bert assured her. ‘Just fly straight.'

Poppy felt a surge of excitement and adrenaline as she took over the controls, trying to hold the plane on course. The plane shuddered a little until she became used to it. Bert let her steer the plane for fifteen minutes, chatting to her about some of the interesting flights he had done over the outback. Poppy reluctantly handed back the controls.
It was an amazing feeling, steering a tiny plane so high in the sky.

After about an hour, Bert recognised something on the featureless plain and circled lower. Poppy soon made out a straight strip of grass that looked different to the surrounding scrub. In the distance, she could see a cluster of buildings that she recognised as the Shanahan homestead.

Bert circled again, dropping altitude, then brought the biplane down for a bumpy landing over the tussocky grass strip. As the plane came to a stop, Poppy could see a horsedrawn dray parked in the shade of a large banyan tree.

Bert opened the doors to let them out.

A tall, thin youth of about sixteen jumped down from the dray to shake hands with Bert and Mark. He was dressed in a light-blue cotton shirt, pale moleskin trousers, elastic-sided riding boots and the ubiquitous bushman's Akubra hat pulled low over his eyes.

‘Beautiful morning, Jack,' called Doctor Trehearne.

‘Hello, Doctor Trehearne,' Jack replied. ‘Thanks for coming. Good to see you, Bert. Hope you brought us some mail?'

‘Oh no, Jack, I forgot – and I'm sure there was a big pile of valentines for you, too,' teased Bert. Jack punched him on the shoulder.

‘Not for me. You must have me confused with the Dandy at Victoria Downs.'

Jack turned towards Poppy with a warm smile, lifting his hat to reveal dark-blond hair, damp with sweat.

‘G'day, Midget. Long time no see. How're you going?'

Poppy suddenly felt shy. Jack seemed to have grown about eight centimetres since she had last seen him a
few months ago. He suddenly looked so grown up. ‘Hi, Jack.'

His blue eyes, creased at the corners from squinting against the sun, twinkled with humour. ‘Cat got your tongue? That's not like you, Midget. Normally you could talk the back leg off a camel. Come on, let's get your gear onto the dray before that sun gets up any higher.'

Everyone helped unload the plane and pack the goods onto the dray. As well as the Trehearnes' baggage, there were mail, parcels for the station and a sack of sugar.

Poppy climbed up onto the front seat next to Jack, and Bert and Doctor Trehearne sat on top of the baggage in the back.

‘Giddup, girl.' Jack clicked his tongue and flapped the reins, and the horse broke into a slow trot towards the homestead.

‘Fuel is getting so scarce,' complained Jack. ‘The old Ford is rusting away in the shed.'

The flight party was welcomed enthusiastically at the homestead. Jack's brothers and the other men who had been out working in the cattle yards had come back when the plane had been sighted. Jack's mother had prepared a late breakfast to celebrate the arrival of the visitors – bacon, eggs and slabs of home-baked bread with sweet, hot tea.

After breakfast, Doctor Trehearne set up a surgery in the dining room. A line of patients had gathered on the verandah – stockmen, station hands, the Chinese gardeners, the Aboriginal wives and their children. Some had ridden over from the neighbouring stations the day before. There were burns, broken limbs, sprains, cuts, viruses and eye infections. Most of the small injuries were handled by
Mrs Shanahan on a daily basis, with advice from one of the Darwin doctors by radio if required. In an emergency, a doctor would fly in and evacuate the patient back to Darwin.

Poppy was helping her father lay out some instruments on the white tablecloth when Jack poked his head around the door.

‘Hey Midget, there's a mob of cattle we missed this morning. Do you want to come riding with me to muster them in?'

Poppy glanced at her father for permission. Doctor Trehearne looked stern, then smiled at her hopeful expression. ‘I thought you were meant to be my nurse today?' he asked with an expression of mock hurt. ‘Oh well – I guess if you're careful. Some of these Shanahan cattle can be a bit wild. I have enough patients to tend to today without
you
breaking anything.'

Poppy flew and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. ‘Thanks, Dad. I promise I'll help you when I get back.'

Poppy raced to get changed into her jodhpurs, riding boots and hat. When she emerged onto the verandah, Jack was saddling a black mare for her. His own chestnut stood tied to the gate, snuffling at the grass.

Poppy offered her hand to the black mare. ‘Hello, Sheba. There's a good girl.'

Poppy swung herself up into the saddle and grasped the reins. Jack mounted his own horse and led the way. They rode in companionable silence, alternately walking and cantering.

Jack spotted a plume of dust up ahead and broke into a gallop. Poppy followed him up a rise, her eyes peeled for
rabbit holes. They paused at the top of the hill, looking down into the gully below. A strange sight met their eyes: a string of eleven camels plodded through the dust, their humped backs laden with hessian sacks and boxes.

Leading the procession on a shaggy pony was a wrinkled, brown-skinned man, who looked like something straight out of
Arabian Nights
. He wore gold earrings, baggy pants, a loose cotton shirt and a turban, the loose tail covering the lower half of his face.

‘Ali,' yelled Jack, galloping down the rise towards the exotic caravan. ‘Welcome. They'll be glad to see you at the homestead.'

‘Hello, Mister Jack.'

Jack and Poppy rode alongside Ali for a while, listening as he shared news from further down the track.

Ali the cameleer wandered the tracks of the outback for thousands of kilometres with his camel-back emporium. The hessian bags held all sorts of necessities that were hard to procure so far from civilisation – bolts of material, dresses, shirts, hats and boots, needles and thread, tools, cookware and outback gossip.

‘Any news of the war?' asked Ali, dropping the wrapping from around his chin.

Jack nodded, frowning. ‘A few days ago Prime Minister Curtin announced that HMAS
Sydney
was attacked by the German cruiser
Kormoran
just off the coast of Western Australia. The
Sydney
was sunk and everyone on board killed – a total of six hundred and forty-five men. The German cruiser went down, too, but most of the Germans survived and have been taken as prisoners-of-war. The government tried to keep it quiet but the information leaked out.'

‘That's not good news,' replied Ali with a sigh. ‘So many killed.'

Jack shook his head. ‘It's a bit close to home. Apparently the Germans were pretending to be a Dutch merchant ship.'

Ali looked around at the featureless scrub. ‘Can't imagine what the Germans would want with this place.'

‘Oh, it's not so bad, Ali.' Jack flashed a grin. ‘We quite like it, don't we, Midget?'

Poppy turned her head back to the conversation. She tended to tune out when people started talking about the war. It all seemed so far away.

‘Oh, yes,' replied Poppy. ‘It's beautiful.'

‘We'll see you back at the homestead, Ali,' Jack finally said with a wave of his hand.

Ali covered his face again and trotted off, the animals raising a cloud of red dust.

‘It must be a very lonely life,' Poppy commented as she watched the camel caravan disappear. ‘No one to talk to but camels.'

‘The Afghans are used to it, I think.' Jack shrugged his shoulders. ‘Some of them travel with their wives and children. They know the deserts like you know the streets of Darwin. They follow the hidden springs across the desert from South Australia right through to the far north.'

Jack turned the head of his horse and trotted south.

‘Look, there are my cattle! You take the left and I'll take the right. If any of them charge you, just get out of their way as fast as you can.'

The two friends worked together to round up the cattle, Jack using his stockwhip to get the beasts moving. Poppy's
horse, Sheba, began to prance with delight, eager to get to work. When a cow and a calf made a break for the shelter of the scrub, Sheba leapt into a canter without being urged, racing to head them off.

A fiery young steer charged Jack, its horns down. Jack's horse, Meg, sidestepped to safety and Jack brought the steer back into the herd with a loud ‘YAAA!' and a flick of his stockwhip.

At last, Poppy and Jack trotted the beasts in to join the rest of the herd in the dusty, steamy cattle yards. Flies buzzed and nipped. The sun beat down relentlessly, making humans, cattle and horses equally crotchety. The thermometer hanging in the shade crept up and up until it hit forty-six degrees – and still they worked.

Jack's dad was there, checking over the cattle for signs of disease and picking out the ones that would be walked by the drovers for hundreds of kilometres to the railway, for further transport to the meatworks in Darwin. The stockmen worked like a well-oiled machine. One by one, the cows and calves were directed through the race and into the crush to be examined, treated if necessary and released into one of two yards – those going to market and those staying.

Jack helped his father move the cattle through the race, using his hat to prod, urge and hasten them forward. Poppy helped where she could, cutting out calves, urging on recalcitrant steers, opening the crush. Jack passed around a leather-skinned water bottle. It tasted horrendous but Poppy was too thirsty to care, slurping the warm liquid down her throat.

Cows mooed. Calves bellowed. The bull stamped and snorted. Clouds of dust billowed up from stomping feet. It was early afternoon when the last cow was released and the herd had been divided into two.

‘Well done, everyone,' said Jack's father, Mr Shanahan. ‘Let's head back to the homestead for lunch. It's been a big morning.'

Poppy was too tired to talk as she mounted Sheba and rode her towards the homestead.