Beyond the Black Stump (11 page)

“It’s no trouble. They wash every day, saving Sunday. Just bring it in and dump it in the wash house, and they’ll do it.”

Mollie said, “Can Ma and I come out one afternoon and see what’s going on, Stan?”

“Why, certainly,” he said. “Come any time you can. I don’t suppose we’ll have much to offer you, except ice cream.”

“Ice cream? Where on earth would you get that from?”

He was a little surprised. “We make it. We’ve got a freezer in the truck.” A considerable power plant was necessary to their seismic observations, and the current from this could be used to run a variety of domestic electrical appliances. It would have been hardship indeed to the seismic crew if they had missed out on their ice cream in the outback.

She laughed. “What flavours have you got?”

“I’d say only strawberry and vanilla,” he said apologetically. He called to the camp cook, “Hey, Ted! What flavours of ice cream do we have?”

“Strawberry, maple, and vanilla, boss.”

“I’ll have a maple,” said the girl. “I’ve never tasted maple ice cream.”

He smiled at her, “I’ll have it ready for you.” He climbed up into the driver’s seat of the truck. “’Bye now.”

He drove off from the station buildings with Donald Bruce riding in the seat beside him; the Australian directed him on to a faint wheel track that scarred the red earth. “This is actually the road to Lucinda Station,” he said, “where David Cope lives—the young fellow that you met at Mannahill. The best way for us is to go out to the boundary, by the Chinaman’s grave, and then turn north along the
fence. It’s two sides of a triangle but there’s a track all the way. It’s a bit rough if you try and go direct over the hills.”

Stanton nodded, and the truck rolled on in the shimmering heat, following the jeep tracks that wound in and out of the biggest clumps of spinifex. The other two vehicles followed in his dust. After half an hour a gallows-like erection appeared on the horizon. “That’s right,” said Donald Bruce in slight relief. “That’s the cemetery.”

“The cemetery?”

“Yes. There’s a cemetery here.”

The geologist drove on in silence. Presently they came to the erection he had seen in the distance. Two vertical posts supported a cross member which carried a painted board above a gate between the posts, and on this gate was painted,

SHIRE OF YANTARINGA
CEMETERY

A single strand of barbed wire supported on tumbledown posts cut from the bush stretched away into the distance on each side of the gate. Inside the enclosure a single low mound, untended, was marked by a vertical post of sawn timber.

The geologist slipped the gear out and brought the truck to a standstill, surveying the scene. “I guess there’s not much business,” he said. “Who gets buried here?”

“Nobody,” said Mr. Bruce.

“Then why have a cemetery?”

“Aw, look,” said Mr. Bruce. “It’s this way. All this land is held on pastoral leases from the state—it’s not freehold. The Regans hold Laragh Station on a long pastoral lease. Well, it’s a law of West Australia that no one lessee may rent more than a million acres. Some time back before the war they made a survey checking up on some of these properties, because they reckoned that the station owners had been grabbing a bit here and a bit there till they’d got too much, ’n anyway they weren’t paying enough rent. It’s not much they pay, anyway—about three and six a thousand acres. Well, they found the Regans had been paying rent on about seven hundred thousand acres, but they were actually occupying a bit over the million, so they had to get rid of some. Tom Regan wasn’t going to give land to
a neighbour, of course, on principle. So they picked on this Chinaman who happened to be buried by the track here, ’n said the Shire must have a cemetery or shift the body off their land. The Shire reckoned it was cheaper to accept a few hundred acres, especially as Tom Regan said he’d look after it and fence it. So we’ve got a cemetery.”

The geologist said, “Well, who was the Chinaman?”

“I don’t think anybody knows. He died of thirst along the track—oh, a long time ago. When Tom Regan made the cemetery he didn’t like to put a cross up on the grave because he might not have been Christian—probably he wasn’t. So he just put up that bit of straight timber.”

“Uh-huh.” The other sat staring out over the grey-green landscape, shimmering in the heat. “What did you say the rent they pay is? Three and six?”

“That’s right.”

“Forty two cents? For a thousand acres, for a year?”

“That’s right.”

Stanton slipped in the gear. “Well, let’s get rolling. I guess I’ve seen everything now.”

“Don’t kid yourself,” said Mr. Bruce. “You’ve not seen half of it.”

A mile past the cemetery they came to the boundary fence that ran between Laragh and Lucinda. It consisted of three strands of wire loosely supported on bush timber. A gate crossed the track, and this was adorned with a notice board, with ancient, half-obliterated lettering painted by some angry man in bygone years

SHUT THIS
BLOODY
GATE

“That’s the way on to Lucinda,” said Mr. Bruce. “It’s about ten miles to the homestead. Just follow the tracks and you can’t go wrong. We turn right here, along the fence.”

Stanton swung the truck round and began to follow the line of the fence; faint wheel tracks ran beside it where a jeep from Laragh had run occasionally loaded with posts and wire for repairs. “He seems a nice sort of a young fellow, the one who lives at Lucinda,” he said. “I met him last night at Mannahill Station.”

“That’s the one,” said Mr. Bruce. “He’s bought himself
a packet of trouble with that property. There’s practically no water at all on it.”

“There’s not much on this one.”

“You’re wrong there. Laragh’s got good water—bores all over the place.” He pointed to the vanes of a windmill faintly seen in the distance, three or four miles away. “Look, there’s one there.”

“Quite a ways from here.”

“Not so far. You’re never out of sight of water on this station. It’s very different on Lucinda.”

“Does he live alone, or is he married? What’s his name, again?”

“David Cope. Yes, he lives quite alone, but for the blacks. He’s always over at Laragh nowadays. He’s got his eye on Mollie.”

The American said nothing to that. He drove on for a minute in silence, studying the road. Then he said, “I guess I’ll go and see him one day. Or will he come over to our camp?”

“He wouldn’t do that,” said Mr. Bruce. “He wouldn’t come on Laragh Station without asking the Regans—they’re a bit touchy sometimes. I know he’d be glad to see you over at his place. It must be pretty lonely there at night.”

“It will be a long time before I go wandering about this country in the night,” said Stanton. “If I go, I’ll go in the daytime with a compass and a navigation outfit to take shots of the sun.”

“It won’t do you any good,” said Mr. Bruce. “The sun at midday’s just about overhead.” He turned to the American. “That’s one thing you want to remember, Stan. It’s no good looking at the sun around midday to get the north. If you get bushed, the shot is to camp and wait for sunset, and go by that. It’s all right going by the stars at night, of course. Best time to travel, anyway. But middle of the day, the sun’s no good to you.”

“I’d say it’s not much good to you any time in this country.”

They drove on another five miles by the fence. Then Mr. Bruce directed the American to bear in to the right. “I get it,” said Stan. “That’s the big limestone outcrop in the air photograph.”

“That’s right. I’ve not been this way before. It looks all right for the trucks, though. Take it easy. When we were
here before we came down from the north, and then went over the hills to Laragh homestead. We were travelling in jeeps, though.”

Stanton drove the truck carefully across country, threading his way around the occasional boulders and around the thickest clumps of spinifex, too busy to take much note of the geological formations they were driving over. Presently the Australian directed him down from a spur towards a piece of flat country seamed by a dry river bed, beneath the big limestone spur. “I’d say a camp down there would be as good as anywhere.”

Stanton stopped the truck, and killed the motor, and sat motionless at the wheel looking at the country ahead of him; the two trucks following him stopped also. Presently they all got out and stood looking over the barren landscape. There were a few sheep in the valley, but no other sign of life.

“I guess this is it,” said Stanton presently. “This is what we’ve come for.”

Hank said, “Run a line of shots across the valley, boss. See where that limestone goes.”

“Maybe,” said Stanton. “We’ll make our camp down there by the dry river bed, for a start.”

A
WEEK
later Mr. Bruce left the seismic crew, to return to Melbourne. Stanton drove him to Malvern Downs via Laragh and Mannahill; at Malvern he got a lift in a truck going into Onslow and from there he went to Perth by the regular airline. One of the first jobs if oil should be found on Laragh Station would be to construct an airstrip near the rig.

At Malvern, Stanton Laird met reinforcements. An American from Texas, Spencer Rasmussen, had come up to take over the management of the camp, freeing Stanton for his proper technical work. Stanton had met this man in Arabia and had got on well with him; he had been a driller as a young man and had worked in the oil industry all his life. At the age of forty-five he had drilled many wells in many countries; he was tough with labour and supremely efficient at the job he knew so well. In his leisure moments, which were few, he liked pitching horseshoes and playing the accordion. He brought with him three more men, a jeep, and a big eight-wheeled truck furnished with a miniature drilling rig to drill the shot holes for the seismic observations.

His arrival at the camp took a great load of organisation off the geologist. For the first time Stanton was able to get down to work upon the drafting board in the tent that they had set up as an office, poring over the ground observations of the previous party reinforced by his own observations. He was able to work relatively quietly there for hours on end, clad in a pair of shorts and sandals only, analysing the results of the previous day’s observations and laying down the programme for the next day. Gradually, on paper and in his mind, he began to build up a picture of the run of the strata deep down in the earth beneath their feet. Frequently he would take the jeep and drive two or three miles to some spur of the hills, and spend an hour or two with plane table and theodolite. Very soon these expeditions took him close to the Lucinda fence.

He took time off one afternoon, and went out in the jeep
to pay a call on David Cope. He had arranged the visit beforehand over the radio telephone after the morning schedule of the Flying Doctor service, and David was waiting at the homestead when the jeep drove up.

Lucinda homestead was a little place of five rooms only, built on the earth instead of up on posts; at some time in the past a layer of concrete had been laid on the bare earth floors of the rooms. The structure was of wood supporting a covering of white asbestos sheets; inside, the walls were lined with some synthetic board, dark yellow in colour and unpainted. There was no verandah, a considerable deprivation in that climate, for the house was small and very hot.

David greeted the American warmly. “Come on in,” he said. “The house isn’t much—not like Mannahill or Laragh, I’m afraid.”

Stanton said, “It’s a palace to me, Mr. Cope. We’re living in tents.”

“David’s the name, Stan. It’s what they do in this country. They’re bloody touchy about names.”

“I know it.”

“I expect your tents are a damn sight more comfortable than this house. But do come in. I’ve got a kettle on the stove for tea, and I got the gin to make some cakes. I don’t know what they’ll be like.” They went into the house. “The folk at Laragh haven’t broken you in to rum yet?”

The geologist laughed. “Not yet. Say, do they always drink it that way in this country?”

“They seem to in the outback. Not down in Perth—it’s just like England there.”

“I wonder they’re not all nuts, the way they drink that stuff.”

“It’s the climate or something,” David said. “Or else it’s the way they shoot it down with a chaser of water. It doesn’t seem to hurt them, like it would you or me. The Regans are good graziers, you know.”

“I know it,” Stanton laughed. “That’s the part that I can’t figure out.”

The sitting-room, so called, that the front door opened into was very sparsely furnished. A deck chair, a steamer chair, and a table, all rather soiled and old, made up the only furniture. “I’m afraid it’s not much to look at,” David said apologetically. “I got this place walk-in, walk-out, and this is the only furniture that was in it when I came. I did up the
bedroom that I use, but I haven’t been able to get around to the rest of the house yet.”

The bedroom door was open, and Stanton glanced in. There was a good bed with a bright, clean bedspread over it, good bedroom furniture, new colour wash on the walls, and a couple of strips of carpet on the floor. It was a clean, decent room to look at, unlike the rest of the house.

David saw the glance and led the way into the bedroom. “This is the only room I’ve got fixed up yet,” he said, a little proudly. “I’m going to get the rest of the house like this within twelve months. Do it room by room, in the evenings. The mugger of it is I haven’t got a lighting plant yet, so it’s all got to be done with kerosene lamps, and that makes it hot working.”

The American said, “You’ve got this fixed up mighty nice.” A bookcase caught his eye, half filled with about fifty books in a uniform binding. He started at it in wonder; there were far more books there than in his home in Hazel. “I see you’re quite a reader,” he said.

David took up one and leafed it through. “Reprint Society,” he said. “They post you one a month. It’s the best way to get books in a place like this, where one’s a bit out of touch. Don’t you find that?”

“Uh-huh,” said Stanton. “I get the
Saturday Evening Post
and
Life
mailed out from home each week.” He glanced once more around the room. Three framed photographs stood upon the chest of drawers. Two were of elderly people, almost certainly the father and mother. The third one, very simple and rather appealing, was a portrait of Mollie Regan.