Warrigal's Way (13 page)

“Christ, mate. If you get out of this, promise you'll visit me in hospital!” Barry said.

I was more than worried. Ben and Clarry were having great fun, biffing blokes left and right. I got lifted out of the
seat by a giant. He did it with one hand and he was even too far away for me to get a lick in. His free hand landed full in the middle of my face with such force that I shot backwards straight over the side into the river.

The water was freezing and the suit didn't help. It seemed to take half my life to swim to the Bulimba ferry-landing by the cannery, where I shivered for about half an hour before the tram came along. I could have walked home, but I had had it. I got on the tram and gave the conductor a limp, wet, ten-bob note. “One section, please.”

He gave me my ticket and nine and ninepence change, plus a funny look, but he said nothing.

“Fell getting off the ferry,” I told him.

He just grinned. My nose felt like a watermelon and one eye was shutting. At the Hawthorne stop Barry got on, with a closed eye, fat lips, and like me drenched from head to foot.

The conductor looked at him. “Don't tell me. Fell off the ferry? Lucky I work on the trams. Bloody dangerous, those ferries.”

We got off up by the Brunswick Pub and slopped our way home. Needless to say, Marge and June got stuck into us in spades, and the “I told you so's” rattled around our heads every time we opened our mouths.

We saw the boys at the gate at work next morning, and there was not a mark on them. They had given over half the team a good touch up before the coach stopped it. The way my face felt, I wished they had got the giant as well.

“Aw geez Ed, you gotta learn to keep your guard up.” Ben grinned. “That coach offered us a job playing for them.”

“What did you tell him?” I asked.

“I told him we played Aussie Rules and don't want to muck around with some sissy game,” said Clarry.

They thought it was very funny that we got chucked in the drink, so we invited them home for tea and got our own
back. When the two girls started in on them, I've never seen two blokes move so fast. They told us we were mean buggers for setting them up, and bolted.

Ben said, “Jesus mate, you should have brought those two sheilas. We could have beaten the whole boat.”

They got us into some mean scraps, until we got wise enough to duck when we saw them coming. They were just like the other boys—good solid mates who would give you the shirt off their backs—but we got sick of living with bruises, and getting kicked out of nice places.

17

My relationship with June is sort of hard to describe. Happy and totally relaxed in each other's company. I think we were tuned to each other's mind. She and I were soul mates. She liked Dixieland music, Broadway shows and seafood, and, like me, loved fishing. Neither of us were keen on parties. We were very compatible. Sex was no longer a mystery to me—Teresa had seen to that. With June it was a great adventure. We would spend hours sometimes discovering the delights of each other's body, to giggles and full belly laughs.

We discussed her working behind the bar, as the girls take a heap of cheek and they either handle it or quit. I told her I wouldn't drink where she worked as it wouldn't be fair, to her or me.

“What do you mean it wouldn't be fair on me if you drink where I work?” June asked me.

“Well, do you think I would just sit there and let some drunk abuse you? No. But you know it would be the most stupid thing in the world for me to get up and fight. Then you would have no respect. You have to slay your own dragons? Fair enough?”

“Fair enough. Now come and scratch my back,” she said, stretching.

Barry, Marge and Danny had become a family unit and there was no doubt it wasn't a case of if they were going to tie the knot but when. I had stepped into the big arena a bit, leading June on. I had no intention of getting married. I was doing alright as I was, thank you. I was just keeping that little bit of myself back that makes you feel guilty when you look at yourself in the mirror.

June remarked about my lack of body hair, as I didn't have a hairy chest and only shaved about four times a week. I told her it was a family thing, and she said she didn't care as she didn't like hairy blokes too much anyway. She was a dairy farmer's daughter from the country up behind Gympie, and she could just happily sit and watch the river walk past our back door. It was just a bush thing. We didn't need a lot of words.

You might wonder if it was strange playing house at sixteen. Well, I might have been only sixteen in years, but I was much more in experience. In that department I was as old as Barry, or June. The hardest thing for me was sleeping in a bed with someone else. That took a lot of getting used to, but the rest was no different than living cheek by jowl in the cattle camps.

What happened later with Stumpy was completely unexpected. Stumpy was half-caste but looked full blood, and I think June was just scared of Aboriginals. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I used that incident a bit to get out from under, as I had a heap of relief mixed with the anger. I was so mixed up, I didn't know how I really felt. And the only people I've ever talked to about what happened with June are Mick and old Mum at Opal House, and I was hurting then.

We were all at home one Sunday, and Barry was reading the paper. “Hey, see this? They're gunna change us all into shithouse Yanks next Valentine's Day. On February the fourteenth they gunna change our money into dollars!” He
read on a bit more in silence, then slammed his hand on the table. “Listen to this! The dirty thieving bastards, they'd jail any other bugger that tried this—a trey bit (3d) is going to become two cents, a zac (6d) five cents, a bloody deena (1/-) ten cents, and a
swy
(2/-) twenty cents. What a bloody cheek. We loose three and four on every quid. A good kick in the nuts for the working man again, just so that little shit Holt can look good with the Septic Tanks. The bankers and the pollies will be taking world trips and buying flash houses with our brass.”

“Garn,” said Marge. “Three and fourpence, that's not much.”

“Don't be bloody silly, woman. That's millions. That's out of every note we have in the whole bloody country. They could give it to me, I wouldn't say no.” He looked at me. “How much you got in the bin now?”

“About a grand,” I told him.

“Well, you take three and a half percent off it and that's what you got left—about nine hundred and sixty-five quid, at a rough guess. You just done two days work for these bastards, and you won't get that back in tax. And these bloody drop-kicks want us to vote for them. We should shoot the bludgers. Even the Russians aren't that bad. At least they don't bullshit, they just take,” said Barry, really warming up. None of us knew enough about this decimal currency to know that not only was his maths a bit off but so was his assertion that we'd lose money.

“Give me a look,” said Marge. “Yeah, it's happening on St Valentine's Day alright. They say a dollar is going to be worth ten bob. Look, they've got photos of the new stuff.”

“Looks like play money,” I said.

“Marge and I are doing a course at work on the new tills,” June said. “Should be piss easy with all those dollar notes.

I wonder how much a beer will cost now? They won't miss the chance to put the prices up, I'll bet.” I said, disgusted,
thinking that some fat pig had ripped me off with a stroke of the pen.

About a month or so later, Barry asked me to come down to the pub one Saturday morning. I knew he had something on his mind as he was really quiet. We got a beer and found a table, and I said, “Come on, out with it. What's on your mind?”

“Look, you're my best mate. What do you think of Marge?”

“I think she's one of the nicest people I know. Why? You mob fighting?”

“No mate. I'm thinking of asking her to marry me, but I'm a bit windy she'll say no.” He gave me a sort of sick grin.

“You silly bugger. What the hell makes you think that? Because you're half a black feller? She doesn't give a shit about that. The only ones that worry about those sort of things are the Department, and I'm top of their hit parade. Fire in, or I'll ask her for you if you like.”

“Bugger off and get us a beer. I'll ask her as soon as we get home.”

When we got home, I told June to grab a cardigan and come for a walk in the park.

“Get out,” she said. “It's too bloody cold.”

“Come on, the fresh air will do you good,” I said, hustling her out of the door.

“Why are we walking in this cold bloody park?” June asked me, so I told her Barry's news.

She jumped up and down clapping her hands. “Oh! Hurry up, let's get home. Marge is my best friend, you know.”

“Yeah, well, if you hurry you might be able to sit between them when he asks her. Perhaps you want to sleep in the middle on their honeymoon as well.”

“Don't be nasty,” she said, poking her tongue out at me.

“Well, show some common bloody sense,” I told her, and we walked around for about half an hour, with June getting
in my ear every ten minutes. She nearly broke into a gallop when I said let's go home. Marge and June ran into each other's arms and burst out bawling as soon as we got into the house.

“Jesus, I take it you asked her?” I said to Barry. I told the New Farm News about a half an hour ago. Bloody near had to tie her to a tree to stop her galloping home.”

“Yeah. Consider me an engaged man. Look, we gunna get hitched down the registry office. Will you be my best man?”

“I'd be proud to, mate,” I said with feeling, and I meant it.

The wedding went off without a hitch, on a quiet sunny Friday afternoon. We were going to have a party at home, just the four of us, but to my delight the boys turned up. I heard this bellowing as I walked in through the gate.

“Cousin! You old bugger, your shout,” Stumpy yelled in glee.

“G'day Warrigal,” said Mick.

“G'day you pair of rascals. Come in and meet my lady. June, this quiet, shy bloke is my cousin Stumpy, and this bloke trying to be well-mannered is Mick—two of mine and Barry's oldest mates.”

“Hello boys. Did you have a good trip?” asked June quiedy.

“Yeah. We would have been here for the service, but Mick got lost,” said Stumpy looking all innocent.

“Oh yeah,” said Mick. “I gave him the wheel to get some sleep and when I woke up we were heading for Tassie. Turned the wrong way out of a servo, didn't he, Stump?” Mick grinned. “I had to fight him for the wheel to turn us around. He wouldn't believe me.”

“What happened to Tully and Ronnie?” I asked Stumpy.

“They got a contract to work in Bowen. They'll be up next week. Oh, and Tex is about.”

“Where did you spring him?” I asked.

“We booked into Opal House, then called into the Terminus for a quickie and he was at the bar. He's staying at the Vogue, just up the road.”

We sat around the kitchen table talking and drinking tea for a while, and then the boys decided to take Barry and Marge down to the Brunswick for a wedding drink. June had been pretty quiet for the last couple of hours and it was obvious something was on her mind. I thought it was probably that seeing Marge and Barry married, she might want to jump off the deep end as well. Although I thought heaps of her, marriage is for a bloody long time and I knew I was not ready for that yet.

So I said, “You obviously got something bugging you. Want to tell me what it is?”

She hummed and hahed for a while. Then her answer floored me. “Is Stumpy really your cousin? Because he's a full blood Aboriginal and you're white!”

I was flabbergasted and started to feel sick. There was nothing wrong with Stumpy that I could see. Bloody racist bullshit again! “What the hell difference does that make? He's no different from me, Barry or Mick. We all got Aboriginal in us. We're all Aboriginal, the whole bloody lot of us. What the hell else can we be?” I said, feeling sicker. I thought, this shit follows us around like a bad smell. It's not who you are, it's what you are, in this bloody country anyway. Pisses me off.

“Well, he scares me!” June said.

We ended up having a blazing row, and things were very strained when the others got home. That was it for me. It didn't need any writing. As I told June in our barney, I wasn't about to pick one side or the other of my parentage to acknowledge. I was me, like it or lump it, and if you can't accept me the way I am, stuff you and the world. She flounced off in a huff with Marge.

I explained the situation to the boys and poor old Stumpy got a bit down and started blaming himself. But I told him,
“We are what we are. Nothing can change that. Why should we be ashamed of simply being alive.”

Poor Mick was embarrassed and didn't know what to say.

Barry just said, “What are you going to do?”

“I think I'll just grab some gear and shift into Opal House with the boys,” I replied.

“Yeah, they got plenty of room at the moment,” said Mick.

I threw a change of clothes into a bag, gave my best mate a hug and told him I would meet him at the Terminus Pub after work on Monday. I wasn't too worried about money, as I had saved about fifteen hundred quid, and having a yarn in Stumpy's room that night, we decided to head up north on Tuesday morning.

So ended another love affair. It made me as wary as hell of getting involved with another sheila, for a long time.

18

Opal House was an Aboriginal boarding house in South Brisbane. It was run by a large, warm, outgoing person who everyone called Mum. I took to her straightaway. She ran the place with a rod of iron, but she was one of those people who you felt after five minutes you had known all your life. I unpacked my gear, had a shower and a cat lick shave, and was heading back to my room when Mum called from the kitchen that there was a cup of tea on. I wandered down to the kitchen and Mum poured me a cup of tea out of a big pot.

“Right. Tell me all about it,” she said. So I told her how I felt and what I thought, and she just sat and listened and let me get all the hate out of the road. I must have talked for half an hour or more before I ran out of words. Then Mum gave me a hug and said, “You'll be alright now. You're just shocked and angry, and you'll get over that. And you can't blame June either. It's the way she's been brought up. She can't help it. You've got to look forward now, love—new things, new places. Do you the world of good.”

At the pub on Monday evening I said goodbye to Barry and next morning we were ready to go. Tex had turned up saying, “Got room for one more?” and Mick had told him to chuck his gear in the back.

We were an hour or more out of Brisbane heading north, the car was humming like a Swiss watch, Mick was driving, and Tex was in the front seat with him. Stumps and I were in the back, with the seat down so we could lie full length, and our gear stacked either side of us. Stumpy was asleep and I was reading the “Situations Vacant” to see if any of the northern meatworks were advertising for butchers, boners or even knife hands. Mick and Tex were talking.

“Where we going?” asked Tex.

“We're just going walkabout for a bit. Got about a month before Rockhampton kicks, so we'll just nose about.”

“Suits me,” said Tex.

Suddenly an ad caught my eye. “Hey Stumps, wake up! Pull over, Mick. See what you blokes reckon. Listen to this. I made sure I had everyone's attention and then read it out. “‘Wanted, bean pickers, good money, camping facilities, apply in person, Eel Creek, Gympie.' What do you reckon?”

They all agreed it might be a good way to relax for a bit and make a quid before the meatworks kicked in. So with a roar and quite a few Four-ex cans, we headed off to make our fortune at Eel Creek.

“I tell you,” said Tex, “the last bastard to use this road was Cobb & Co. They only give it up because the horses went on strike.” We bounced all over the car. When we stopped to have a beer, the cans went off like hand grenades as we pierced them, from the shaking they had got. This had to be one of the worst roads in Australia.

When we arrived at Eel Creek we ran straight into Hitler's daughter, head on. She was, as we found out, a ripper. Her name was Eva.

“Goot. Ve haff ze yob, you are campink anyvers. Startink vorks domorrows.” She turned on one heel and stalked back into the house.

“Jesus, what the hell was she talking about?” Tex wanted to know.

“Well, the only thing I could make out is we start tomorrow,” said Mick.

“And ze campink anyvers,” mimicked Stumpy. We broke up laughing. We looked around at the house, the hills, the old cow shed, all in a valley—it would get as cold as stink when the sun went down.

“That old cow shed will do to camp in,” said Mick, and he drove the car over to it and we unloaded our gear.

“Will you fill the billy, Ed? I'll get a fire going. You and Stump want to clean up a bit and lay out our swags, Tex?” Mick never used to say a lot, but he was our natural leader. We would sort of talk things over, then sort of give him the last say.

Man, that first night was rough. By about five thirty, everything alive except us and a million mosquitos was either frozen solid or had emigrated to the Gold Coast. We sat around a huge fire, sipping tea out of tins as our cups were in the boot somewhere. We spent the next hour collecting dry cow dung to burn to keep the mozzies at bay. Tex reckoned they were German mozzies who had survived the war and were now getting their own back, and he was feeling quite faint from loss of blood. After a shower of boots and a chorus of “shut ups”, we slept.

Next morning, at the crack of dawn, I shot about eight feet out of my swag with fright, as Eva stood under the overhang and screamed at the top of her voice, “Rouse! Rouse! Rouse!”

Stumps was crawling around in circles, and Tex up and bolted in one fluid movement. Mick calmly threw some wood on the fire. To say I got a fright would be an understatement. We just looked in awe as Eva continued, “Ve haf vun haff ower to ze bean, is goot, goot.”

Tex came walking back, looking a bit sheepish. “Geez! I thought it was some sheila's old man,” he said. Stumpy was still in deep shock, but Mick and I roared laughing.

After breakfast we went to hunt the deadly bean. A plastic
bucket, a felt tip pen and six hessian bags were our weapons. We were ready! Look out, bean.

He wasn't gonna come easy, zis bean. He was a tricky little swine hiding up the hillside among the rocks.

Eva lined us up at the bottom of the slope. I was surprised to see a few more hardy souls lined up with us. Tex reckoned they got lost among the rocks last year and are desperately trying to escape, but they need enough beans to get them the thirty miles or so to town.

Eva was giving us real hostile looks for not paying attention. Tex reckoned she would fine us ten beans each for laughing. Finally we shut him up and she gave us our instructions.

“Ve ze ver luck peoples. Ve vill paying ze zeventeen zenzes a kilo. Ziz make you ver ze rich manzes. Achtung!! Nine old beanzes, nine ze kinder beanzes, chust goot beanzes.”

So off we went on the trail of the dastardly beanzes.

The others took off like a mob of wounded roos, bobbing and dipping. We dragged our buckets along, gaily chucking whatever looked like a bean into it. Every half hour or so Eva would turn up and do a perfect one and a half with a twist, and dive into our buckets.

“Ach. Got in himmel! Nooo. Nine ziz, nine ziz,” she said, chucking our hard-earned beanzes all over the joint. We reckoned nine was her lucky number. We didn't realise her “nines” were “neins”, until her “nein” started melting our ears in the late afternoon. We would just wait until she shot through and toss the discarded beans bag again and sew it up. If it was too bad we would put Stumpy's number on it. She scared the crap out of him, and better she went up to him than us. He could hardly understand her anyway, but he threatened to kill us about three times an hour. We clued up Tex, who was picking up and weighing the bags, and he would change the number on Stumpy's good bags to one of our numbers. We really had him going until he sprung
us, and he wouldn't talk to us for a couple of days until he saw the funny side of it.

After about three days we ran out of tucker, so since we had to go to town anyway, we decided to harvest our riches and make a bid for freedom. So that night, bent out of shape, battle weary and near deaf from getting yelled at, we crept up to the house and pulled the pin. God! I could-hardly lift my nine dollar fifty cheque. I think between the four of us we might have made enough for a carton of cans. It took a while for the nerves to settle each time someone said beans after that.

“Rockhampton?” said Mick, and we all nodded agreement. “Getting away from Eel Creek must be like getting out of jail, eh.”

“Stump! Take that paper off that Warrigal bastard before we find ourselves on a suicide mission!” said Tex.

Mick agreed. “We don't want another yob wiz the rich manzes.”

“Achtung,” roared Tex. “Ve vill unt ze beanzes and be many ritches.” We were still laughing about it a hundred miles up the road.

“Ungrateful bastards. I find you a nice relaxing job and you bludgers can't handle it.”

Other than stopping for tucker and petrol we went straight through to Rocky. It was a fair size town, fifteen or twenty thousand people. It had grown a bit since I had seen it last. We looked into the Club Hotel in North Rocky, over the river, and went and sussed out the meatworks at Lakes Creek (Angliss) and the Bremmer River (T.A. Fields). They both had cattle in the holding paddocks so we reckoned we'd front in the morning.

I decided it was time. I got my driver's licence. I could drive quite well now, thanks to June. I asked Mick if I could use his car, and he took me to the Department of motor
transport. I passed with flying colours, but I must admit I was as nervous as hell.

We were only getting a day or two's work a week, as the works hadn't really kicked in, but we decided to hang around until they really got going.

Rocky always means snakes to me. We ran into a heap of Kiwi butchers at the Anchor. They were all staying upstairs with us, and were not bad blokes but long on the bull, always skiting and one-upping. Stumpy used to call them “Back homers” because every time they wanted to get one over us, they would start with “Back home in God's own...” The Anchor was a classic old-fashioned pub, two-storeyed, with french doors opening from the rooms on to the veranda. One night Stumpy and Ted had a poker game going. Mick didn't gamble and I didn't know enough, so we were spectators. The talk at the table ranged over all sorts of subjects until it eventually got to snakes. The boys told their yarns and the New Zealanders told theirs (even though there are no snakes in New Zealand). The yarns got wilder and wilder, until they'd make even Harry Butler take a step back.

Mike and I got a bit bored with all this and we went out to Emu Park and had a few beers. On the way home, as we were going past the Bremmer River yards, I spied a green tree snake, about two foot long.

“Whoa, pull up,” I said to Mick, filling him in on what I had seen. It didn't take long to nip back and grab it off the branch and put it in my pocket. “Now we'll show how brave these boogers are.”

Mick gave me an evil grin then burst out laughing.

We got back and the game was still going and the bull was still flying.

“Hey, you blokes! Look what the Warrigal's found,” said Mick with a straight face.

“What?” said Tex, coming to the party.

I took my hand out of my pocket and dropped the snake
in the middle of the table. It uncoiled and started moving across it. The Kiwis sat frozen, their eyes bulging.

“Ahh! you mad bastard,” someone yelled, and that broke the spell. One called Rangi went straight up on the wardrobe, in one bound, looking three shades of pale, and chairs went flying. Have you ever seen five blokes trying to get through one door, all at once? It doesn't work! Four fell down the back stairs, one went up the veranda post, and one who shall forever remain nameless (eh, Dennis) took a running leap over the veranda rail, flying about fifteen feet before landing and breaking an ankle. Mick and I were hanging on to each other, crying with laughter. They all gathered in the bar and reckoned I was a rotten bugger, and got ready to run every time I put my hand in my pocket. They didn't know I had let Sam Snake go out at the back of the pub. I told the bunch of heroes that the family cat was more dangerous than that poor old python, but no way would they believe me. They reckoned it was my evil black side coming out and kept their distance after that. The regulars thought they were touched. Only a bloody Kiwi would be mad enough to jump off a veranda, they said.

The chain in the boning room stopped one morning just before smoko, and the union delegate and a company man announced an all up, stand to your lockers. Two coppers joined them in the locker room. Evidently the company had bought a special line of beef for a customer, and some Herbert had knocked off a full rump. Hence the locker search. The union bloke, the company man and the two cops went along the line while we had an unexpected smoke. Eureka! The skinny cop nearly fainted with joy. “Who owns this locker?” he asked officiously. He must have been having visions of stripes on his sleeve.

“I do,” said Proff, stepping forward. He was about five six, skinny, with a big mop of ratty hair and a beard, and very thick glasses.

“What's in the bag?” demanded the cop, pointing at the bag in question. It was an ordinary hessian sugar bag, tied at the top.

“This one?” asked Proff.

“Don't be a smartarse. What's in it?” roared the cop, the stripes in his mind, getting closer.

“Snakes,” said Proff.

“Bullshit!” said the cop. “Open it, or I do you right now!”

We all became decidedly uneasy, as we knew Proff was a mad bastard who used to catch taipans and milk them. He took the bag out of his locker and put in the middle of the floor, then looked at the two policemen.

“Bloody open it,” insisted the fuzz.

Proff did the tie, the bag dropped open, and four of the biggest, mean snakes you ever saw slithered out onto the floor.

There was instant bedlam. Eight blokes, one door! Some of us went up on the ladders with all the fitness of Olympic high-jumpers. The rest looked like a rush for the last pie on the Randwick race course. The skinny cop jumped into a locker and bloody near suffocated before he was found. The fat sergeant was one of the first out the door, followed closely the union delegate. The company man got trapped at the back of the pack and jumped up and down in about three-foot hops, forever earning his nickname of Roo. We sat on top of those lockers for hours until Proff caught his snakes. They never found that stolen meat. Proff got the bullet and cops were thin on the ground around the Creek that year. I'd loved to have known what the sergeant said to his offsider!