From Chart House To Bush Hut Part 6

That night I slept out in the open. I was really down now. Next morning I did what I ought to have done at once instead of wasting the time looking for an "officah's" job--went down to the wharves after an A.B.'s berth, and got it inside two hours. I kept the job until I got enough to pay Len for my falling. The ship was a collier running round to South Australian ports from Newcastle. Never once did she hit Melbourne, where the only girl in the world was, which was a sad disappointment; but still we lived well, had good times, and made good money--indeed, more than I was formerly getting as a deep-water mate.

Only one exciting incident occurred in the time I spent aboard, and that was one awful night in a heavy South-Easter off Montague Island, when some spare spars on the fore deck broke adrift. With the decks full of water, these charged up and down like battering rams, and started the bridge-deck bulkhead and fore-hatch coaming before we got them secured--a job which took all hands most of the night.

I left her early in October, sent Len his cash, then, as I wanted to try and get some c.o.c.keying experience and, if possible, learn to milk before I returned home, I took a trip to the Richmond, having heard a lot of this splendid district.

Do you think I could get employment? Not on your life! I tramped on, trying place after place, offering to work for tucker just for experience, which only succeeded in arousing suspicion. Finally I drifted into Broadwater Sugar Mill, and became a member of the Rat-gang.

Now indeed were the mighty fallen with a vengeance! It was 1 a week and tucker then, and the barracks were great barns, sub-divided into sties by walls of corrugated iron, whitewashed, depressing, hideous as the walls of h.e.l.l. There was a large element of Sydney tagrag and bobtail there, and one had an uncomfortable sort of feeling that one was in a species of chain-gang.

Yet even that place had compensations, and I have happy recollections of glorious Sundays spent lying naked on the splendid curve of beach between Evans Head and the Richmond entrance basking in the life-giving Australian sunlight, and every few minutes taking a header into the blue-green foam-capped breakers bursting on the sand.

I endured being in the Rat-gang until I had enough to pay my way North; then one glad day, when the sun seemed to shine once more, I turned my back on the place, and, with 5 in my pocket, cheerfully shouldered "Matilda," and turned my face towards Byron Bay. I had entered that mill a crusted Tory. I left it, well--I won't say an I.W.W. (not being quite a lunatic), but certainly a fervid Labourite.

I enjoyed that walking tour. Between Ballina and Byron Bay one gets some beautiful land and sea-scapes. I guess the bloke who rushes round in a motor car never has time to appreciate half of what he goes to see.

Tramping along on Shanks's pony one can stop and admire occasionally. I lay under the beam of Cape Byron light that night, slept like a top, and was up early next day to try and make Murwillumbah by dark. Didn't do it.

I crossed the lovely little Brunswick River by punt, and made the pace along the fine road winding up the height of land between the river and Crabbe's Creek. About half-way up, with a rock-wall overhead and a precipitous drop of some 300 feet below--no fence either--a trap overtook me, containing a little girl and a middle-aged lady. She pulled up, offered me a welcome lift, and I climbed aboard. There was a vixenish, sore-mouthed mare pulling us, and all went well until we reached the top of the rise. Here the old lady tightened her grip on the reins for the descent, and instantly the brute in the shafts shook her head, pranced about a bit, and at last fairly bolted down the long winding road, the trap swaying and skidding along behind. I shut my eyes at every curve. The old girl kept her head though, and with pale lips spoke quietly to the four-legged demon that was racing us to destruction. Then came a four-chain straight, with oblivion beyond, the road curving in so sharply that, looking down on it, one seemed to be going straight over the b.u.mp. I never felt so scared before in all my experience of close calls at sea, for I had always had to be flying round; while here I could only sit tight and do nothing, as I didn't know "B from a bull's foot" about a horse, so couldn't offer a.s.sistance.

I was aroused from the contemplation of a sinful past by a snapped command from the lady. "Lean well in towards me!" I obeyed. The horse's head came level with the turn. She threw her whole weight on the starboard line, and we whipped round the curve like a shot, skidding fully six feet broadside on towards the edge, and--we were safe, for a long, straight, gentle grade led down to the level, and the frisky beast, having shot her bolt, so to speak, became amenable to discipline before we reached it. I left the trap near Crabbe's Creek station, paying the old lady a compliment on her splendid nerve. Cripes! There wasn't six inches between our wheel and the edge as we swung round that corner!

I got along at a good pace now, as rain was threatening and it was getting dusk, keeping my weather eye open for a likely place to camp.

Presently a "tick-gate" barred the way, and just beyond was the tent of a road maintenance man, where I craved shelter for the night. With typical Australian hospitality he not only granted it at once, but insisted on my sharing his tucker as well. I was glad of the shelter that night, for the rain poured in torrents, and I slept all the sounder for the row it made outside.

Next morning I left my hospitable host and made tracks for the Tweed.

Pa.s.sed through Murwillumbah, a pretty little rather sleepy town, about noon, and boarded a boat for the Heads, being instantly asked for my fare, and regarded with dark suspicion while I was forking it out. Got down to the Heads at 4 p.m., getting a glimpse of boiling white surf on the bar as we shot out of the swift current into a quiet little dock, where we disembarked, and once more my ready foot pressed the soil of Queensland.

CHAPTER XI.

HOME AGAIN!

I went straight across to the ocean beach, and swung along at a good bat over the hard sand of that beautiful curve of foresh.o.r.e. Made my camp that night on the sand just south of Corrumbin. The mosquitoes were as the sands for mult.i.tude and tigers for ferocity, and I went to sleep completely covered up, head and all. Damme! They bit through the blanket! Woke up somewhere about midnight to find it raining hard. Pitch dark, no shelter and no tent. What a night! I sat there in the pouring rain, huddled in a blanket, wet, shivering and miserable until dawn appeared, the sun, shortly springing from the ocean, bringing a fine warm day with him. I stripped, tied all my wet belongings to bushes, where they soon flapped themselves dry, and, as soon as I got sufficiently warm, raced across the sand and plunged into the foaming surf. Ten minutes in the water, then, panting and refreshed, I dived back and collected my duds. Was scrambling into them when I heard a chatter of voices, and a bevy of ladies with attendant squires, all in fantastic bathing rig, hove in sight on the beach. Thank the Lord for those sheltering bushes! If I'd only been a couple of minutes longer in the surf--oh, Lord! I didn't have any bathing trunks. I didn't know of the big hotel on the creek just back of me.

That night sickened me of carrying "Matilda," so I took the evening train from Corrumbin, and arrived in Brisbane late at night.

On the journey an unpleasant, shabbily smart individual fastened to me.

A terrible talker, whiskered, dressed in white ducks, with somewhat "busted" white pumps on his hoofs, and with a swaggering, boastful air, he combined a habit of pointing his remarks with a contortion of his features and a clearance of his nasal organs. Of course he was an importation, informing us in a loud voice that he was from 'Ome, and I blushed for him. He alighted for a refresher at nearly every station, having to race violently after the train, and board it under way. It got quite interesting at last to the other occupants of the carriage.

"He'll miss her this time." "Ay, she don't stop long here." "There's the whistle! He's done." "'Ere he is. Look at him running. Two to one he don't do it." "He will!" "He won't!" "He--begob, he's just managed it!"

and presently the nuisance was among us again, stinking of whisky and more voluble than ever. He hung on to me until next morning, when he asked me as a special favour to lend him a pound. I told him his price was too high, but I'd give him five shillings to go away. He took it and went. He got to windward of me though, for I found when settling up at the pub that he had told them "his mate" would foot the bill. I did so, to avoid trouble--like a fool. He had held forth on the train about his politics, which were Liberal; but his dealings with me were a regular War Profits Act.

At the pub I heard a chap asking for pick and shovel men for a job out Laidley way--rate eight shillings a day. I had heard a lot of this district, and thought it a good opportunity to see it and earn tucker as well, so I volunteered.

I stuck it ten days, being by that time so blistered, sore and generally used up that I could hardly crawl. I therefore handed in my resignation and left, richer by about 3, and the knowledge that the Atherton country looked heaps better than this, at that time of the year, anyhow.

I waited in Brisbane a while for a mate who wrote he would join me there and come North with me, but when my funds had reached 4 I gave him up, and cadged another railway concession to Gladstone from the Lands Department after making futile efforts to work my pa.s.sage on shipboard.

Got the boat at Gladstone and arrived in Cairns on 3rd December, 1912, with just enough to pay the fare to Atherton, where I arrived at noon next day without sufficient to buy a feed.

I slipped into the lavatory, hastily doffed my glad rags, and climbed into flannel and dungarees once more. Ten minutes after leaving the train I was gaily tramping the long road out to my selection, my old friend "Matilda" caressing my shoulders, penniless, happy and blithely whistling, glad to think I would soon be home again.

I stopped at a c.o.c.ky's house a mile or two out, and offered him an hour's work for a feed.

"Righto, bloke," he said. "Freeze on to Douglas there and cut us some firewood."

I cut him a good pile, and the decent pot not only gave me a good square feed, but enough to carry along for another as well. Armed with this I marched along to the Barron River, where I found the river was up owing to recent rain, and I nearly got drowned crossing the atrocious ford of slippery stones which the "powers that be" consider safe, wading waist deep in the rushing stream.

I finally reached the barn at 7 p.m., where I found Len and Terry just finishing tea. Their welcome made the welkin ring. I don't quite know what the welkin is, but anyhow it rang. And wasn't I just glad to get back to where I was known and there were friendly faces to greet me! We talked sixteen to the dozen, and at ten o'clock, with hearty good-nights, we turned in, and again I slept the heavy sleep of the tired under the hospitable roof of Braun's old barn.

CHAPTER XII.

SCRUB LIFE.

Next day I was up with the sun to see what my burn was like, Terry O'Gorman having let my place go when he burnt a fortnight before. I was a.s.sured that I had a good burn, but when I saw the black waste, gridironed with logs and strewn with big stumps, I was a bit dismayed.

What on earth could I do with it to make a living? It looked pretty hopeless.

I tried to get a fire going round some of the big stumps, but, of course, they wouldn't burn, being too green. When I looked at the place, and thought how many years it would be before it was clear of refuse, it made me feel despairing. Of course, I know now that I had a really good burn, and was lucky, and that in five years I would be able to plough patches, with no other effort than dropping a match here and there, when the logs had rotted a bit; but experience has to be learned. I tried digging a patch, but that was hopeless, the ground being a network of roots, almost impossible to dig among; so I gave that up too. I could have planted corn easy enough; but then, even if the roads had been decent, the price of haulage to the station would have been more than the crop would fetch; so there was nothing to do but sow gra.s.s in the clearing. Plenty of rain lately had brought Braun's paddock into seed, and I set to work to reap it. A week's work gave me more than enough to sow my burn.

Of course, I made a botch of the sowing at first, putting on about five times as much as was necessary, but soon got the hang of it, and a week's work finished it, a faint green sheen down on the creek showing that the seed was good and fertile. Then I got to work on a creek flat where the silt was piled high over the maddening roots, and got a number of vegetable seeds put in. All sorts of garden truck here grow prolifically, almost without cultivation. Terry and Len finished sowing the former's place same time as I did, and next day proposed a trip out to the Range by way of a holiday. As I hadn't been there I was eager to go.

The track lay through dense scrub all the way, being an old road well made forty years ago, and disused for a decade. It was used hauling cedar out to the Range, with a view to shooting it down the mountain side to the Mulgrave River, down which it would be rafted to the sea. As they salved only about one log in twenty the scheme didn't pay, so was abandoned, and the road, with its bridges and box-cuttings, went to ruin. We tramped along and, in an hour or so, saw, as through an open door at the end of the avenue of scrub, the sunlit gra.s.s of the open forest at the range head, and a glimpse of a gum tree or two. Presently we were waist deep in the lush gra.s.s, clambering over the mouldering cedar logs lying there by the score, with the scent of the gums strong in our nostrils, and the shrilling of the cicadas nearly deafening us. A few minutes more and we were standing among gigantic granite boulders, looking down at such a glorious view as I had never seen before.

The Trade wind was snoring strong on this exposed position, and there was a champagne-like exhilaration about the slightly rarified, gum-scented air which set us laughing and romping like school-kids. The Range went almost sheer down 2000 feet or more to the Mulgrave Valley at our feet. On the other side, facing us, stretched a heavily timbered range of mountains. At each end to right and left was a glimpse of blue sea, and in the background to the extreme right the blue ma.s.s of Bartle Frere, Queensland's highest mountain. Winding along the valley floor ran the narrow violet ribbon of river, flecked with white here and there, where were rapids. I found it hard to realise that those low bushes were really tall trees, and that that narrow blue streak of water was half a mile wide in places. I think one could notice a man moving on the white sandbanks, the atmosphere is so clear. Away to the left, where the valley opened out, could be seen the chess-board of cultivated canefields, with Gordon Vale and its mill embosomed among them. Further still, a bit of Cairns, the Inlet and the blue sea, with a tiny speck or two on it, which close investigation showed to be steamers entering or leaving the port.

The Range, steep as it is, is clothed from foot to summit with gra.s.s and timber. The ground is gravelly; the formation free granitic. There is plenty of water there, as elsewhere on the tableland. We shot a couple of scrub turkeys (megapodii) on our way home. Good enough eating but gamey, and one soon tires of them. They are about as big as a good-sized rooster. I'd never go after them with a shot-gun unless I was really hungry. When started off the ground the poor wretches just make for the handiest branch, and squat there. A shot-gun is plain murder, while a pea rifle will give them a sporting chance, for if you miss they are off a hundred yards or so to another branch, and one must want a change of diet pretty badly before one will force a way through p.r.i.c.kly lawyer-vines after him.

Just before we turned into Braun's a huge ca.s.sowary, with three chicks, stalked on to the track ahead. We stopped dead, and the beautiful bird then hesitatingly came towards us with her slow, dainty step, and we had a real good "dekko," as she turned her handsome blue and red head this way and that, eyeing us with eager curiosity. Terry then said "Boo!" and she was off like a shot. Not being "sports," not one of us had even dreamed of raising the gun at her.

Christmas Day was at hand--beautifully fine. Last one I had spent making up for Valparaiso before a howling Southerly; a tremendous sea was on, and it was freezing cold.

Len took me in to his parents' place to spend the day, and I was introduced to Dad, Mum, and a host of strapping brothers and sisters.

Dad was a fine-looking, middle-aged man, tall and spare, with short, square-cut, sandy beard, thoughtful grey eyes, good-humoured smile, and spoke concisely and deliberately, laying emphasis on every other word, thus:--"_Well_, Mr. Senex, I am _delighted_ to _make_ your _acquaintance_." He was a more or less self-educated, well read man, a most interesting companion and a keen debater, though rather p.r.o.ne to excitement in argument. Lastly, he was the most confirmed optimist I have ever met. Mum was a handsome Junoesque blonde, sharp of eye and tongue, distinctly the boss, and inclined to make the most of it. Rather cold and hard perhaps, but kind-hearted enough. They were very good to me in my early struggling days, and I was glad to accept their ungrudging hospitality.

Christmas Day pa.s.sed with the usual accompaniment of pudding and other fairly solid comestibles, and I stopped there overnight, as a picnic had been arranged for next day to go and see the famous Lake Barrine. The day was bright and clear, and about twenty of us set out through the dense scrub along a fairly good road. After an hour or two's march we turned into a narrow pad, and presently saw a blue gleam through the trees. It was a steep descent, and the first effect of the sight of the lake was, queerly enough, that of looking right _up_ at it.

However, we were soon at the water's edge, and I got my first view of the deep cobalt blue mere, lying calm and peaceful, embosomed in the dense scrub.

It is about a square mile in extent, very pretty, dangerous to bathe in if one is a poor swimmer, as the banks are steep and very deep (the water being six feet deep only eight feet from the bank). It is locally considered unfathomable, which probably means that a forty-fathom line would bottom it. Still one could get comfortably drowned there. I have heard enthusiasts compare these little lakes, Eacham, Barrine and Euramoo, to the Irish Killarney, which is a wild absurdity, though the lakes are pretty enough to be worth going to see. The three of them, about three miles apart, are perched on the very lip of the Range, 2500 feet above sea-level, and are the craters of extinct volcanoes. Barrine is blue, cheerful and bright; Eacham is green, cold and depressing, and one has a feeling as of some dreadful Thing just below the surface, waiting for one's foot to slip. Euramoo I haven't seen, though only a mile or two away, since the scrub is impenetrable. The blacks think these lakes "debil-debil," and won't go near them after sundown.

Our party boiled the billy, explored round a bit, played the usual picnic games, and had a dip in the enticingly cool water. I, who can't swim, in spite of my thirteen years at sea, cautiously kept within reach of the overhanging shrubs growing close to the water. Then, as the cows must be milked though the heavens fall, and those who had some to put through were beginning to get restive, we packed up and wended our way home again, I going straight out to the barn to be in trim for work next day.

The next three weeks I worked at clearing a site for a house, planting panic.u.m gra.s.s on the creek banks, and attending to the vegetables, which, with a few good rainy days, were looking well. The rainy season burst on us early in January, and for nearly a fortnight it poured in a steady, ceaseless torrent, drumming on the iron roof of the barn until one had almost to shout to be heard. By mid-January my gra.s.s was a foot high, pumpkins running all over the place, and I had about three thousand cabbages coming on well, which I thought to make money out of by and bye.

Terry and Len were timber-cutting on the former's place, in spite of the wet. When it got really too bad, we stayed in the barn, played crib, mended clothes, got axes and brush-hooks to a razor-like sharpness, and so on. One thing about the wet weather was that it was warm, and it didn't matter how soaked you got, so long as you wore the universal short-sleeved grey flannel, and changed at once on coming home. You could work then in the wet all day without ill-effect.