To the Islands (7 page)

‘Good evening,’ Justin said, in his deep, quiet voice in which there was not humility but a great carefulness, as if he were afraid that by speaking abruptly he would wound the feelings of the young white man. ‘Good evening, brother,’ to Dixon.

‘How’s the world, Justin?’

Gunn pushed a chair towards him, and he sat down, stiffly, being strange to chairs, with his hands firmly on his bare knees.

‘I thought you might wander in,’ Gunn said, ‘
wunong
.’

It was their custom to address one another as brother-in-law, since Justin had given Gunn a skin name, a classification in the tribe, which put them in this relationship. And Justin smiled suddenly with his white teeth. ‘I didn’t talk to you for a long time now,
wunong
,’ he said.

‘I was going to ask you something. What was it? Ah, I know, about murders. What happens when a man murders someone?’

Justin shifted uneasily. ‘How do you mean?’

‘Where does he go? Does he run away?’

‘He goes to other country,’ Justin said, ‘that way,’ pointing north. ‘Lost man’s country. He stay in that country.’

‘And don’t they chase him?’

‘Might be
babin
go after him. You know,
babin
, all-round man, real clever man, he could kill him. Or might be they just leave him there, in lost man’s country.’

‘You’re a cheerful joker, Bob,’ Dixon complained from the bed. ‘What do you want to ask him about that for?’

‘Just interested. He doesn’t mind. Do you,
wunong
?’

‘No,’ Justin said obligingly.

‘What have you been doing tonight?’

‘I been talking with Brother Heriot. He real sad tonight. He been talking with old man Galumbu about this islands, and that old man nearly crying,
wunong.
This old men, they don’t like you talking about that.’

Dixon asked curiously: ‘What islands?’

‘Oh, islands in the sea. Where spirit goes. Spirit of dead man, you know,
bungama.
’

‘Where are they, the islands?’

Justin pointed, reluctantly. ‘That way, brother. They don’t like you talking about it.’

‘So a lost man,’ Gunn said, ‘might go through lost man’s country and finish up at the islands.’

‘Might be,’ Justin said. ‘If he dead.’

A small silence came down, and through it Gunn pushed back with another question. ‘Ever seen a ghost,
wunong
?’

‘I heard ’em,’ Justin said uncomfortably.

‘Where?’

‘Onmalmeri. Where all the people was murdered.’

‘When was that?’ Dixon asked.

‘Nineteen-nineteen,’ said Justin promptly.

‘When you were just born?’ Gunn probed.

‘No, I was young boy then. Just before they cut me, you know, and start me being a man.’

‘Must have been about nineteen-twenty-seven or twenty-eight.’

‘Might be,’ Justin allowed.

‘Are you going to tell us the story?’

Justin leaned forward, hands gripping his knees. ‘Yes, I tell you,’ he said. His voice became even quieter, he was a careful story-teller and took pride not only in his narratives but also in their delivery. He fixed his bright, dark eyes on Gunn and Dixon in turn.

‘There was two stockmen,’ he said, ‘in fact, three white stockmen, at Jauada homestead. There was Mr George and two other stockmen. Mr George, he was boundary rider, he went out every morning to see if the cattle was running okay, went out early in the morning inspecting the cattle.

‘When he done all the boundary he was heading toward home then. Then he came upon a billabong, saw two old native girls in the water. He galloped up to them and said to them: “What you doing here?”

‘The two old native girls, they just look at him, they was in the water getting
gadja
, you know, lily-roots. He ask them: “What you doing here on the cattle boundary?”

‘He ask the native girls if they got a husband, he ask them in pidgin, like: “Which way you husband?”

‘They pointed, telling him, like: “Under the tree, sleeping.” They couldn’t understand the English.

‘He took the two old ladies where the husband was sleeping, and the white stockman ask him: “What you doing in the cattle run?”

‘The old man just look at him, and talk in his language that he come getting
gadja.

‘Then Mr George, he told him that he shouldn’t be round here, so he got off his horse and flogged him with a stockwhip. I think he gave him twenty cuts or thirty, he beat him for a long time. He broke his spears up, he broke the bottle spear, and the shovel spear, he broke the bamboo, broke it half-way up the stick.

‘And the old bloke looked at him, he was bleeding with the flogging he had, across his eyes, you know. And he turned around and got the shovel spear, he looked at him, and he threw it at him, you know how you throw a javelin, and Mr George got the spear in his lung.

‘He galloped as far as from here to the schoolhouse with the spear stuck in his lung, and he dropped dead. It cut his lung open.

‘The old bloke went over, looked in his pocket, got some tobacco and matches, got some bushes and covered the body. Then he left him in there and went away with his two old ladies.’

‘Later on these stockmen missed Mr George for supper that night. They camped all that night worrying what had happened to him, and they got up early in the morning, and they found a horse with a saddle not far from the station. They walked over and examined the saddle, found blood here and there all over the saddle, drops of blood on the saddle. Then they mounted on their horse and went out searching for the body.

‘They went all around the boundary searching for the stockman. Later on they came upon the billabong. When they looked across some of the distance they saw a mob of crows around the body, picking at the body. And they galloped over to have a look under the leaves.

‘Couldn’t even believe if it was a blackfellow’s body or a white man’s, couldn’t tell the difference. Only one thing that put the pot away, one leaf. There was a leaf sticking on the body, with blood, you know. All the rest of the body was black, but when they pulled the leaf away, they could tell it was a white man then.

‘Straightaway that night they went in with the motor-launch, made a report to the police. Then they got two good policemen, troopers from Albert Creek. Then the troopers got together, finding out who done the murder. Couldn’t get the evidence who done it, so they made their way towards Dampier River.

‘Then they brought the troopers to where the body was, and they buried the body and went to the station in the town. So they couldn’t get the right culprit, the one who done the murder.

‘So they started shooting natives from Jauada all the way up to Dampier River. So many hundred at Jauada, women, men, and children. And all along the Gulgudmeri River. At Onmalmeri there was people camping near the river. They shot the old people in the camp and threw them in the water. They got the young people on a chain, they got the men separate, shot the men only. While they was on the chain the policemen told the police boys to make a big bonfire. They threw the bodies in the flame of fire so no one would see what remained of the bodies. They were burned to bits. They took the women on a chain to a separate grave, then the police boys made a big bonfire before the shooting was. When they saw the big flame of fire getting up, then they started shooting the women.

‘When they were all shot they threw them in the flame of fire to be burned to bits.

‘When they finished at Gulgudmeri River they went all around Dala. They got a mob of prisoners there, Richard was there, he was a little boy then. They got up and brought them to Djimbula—you know, not far from the aerodrome strip there, under the bottle tree. They camped there, ready to send them next morning.

‘Then one morning a boy went out from here—it was Michael, you know, he was horse-tailer—and he saw these troopers’ camp. They sang out to him. He galloped across, and they told him: “We got more prisoners here. Keep it secret,” they told him, “don’t let Father Walton know troopers camping here.”

‘“All right,” he told them.

‘So he got on his horse, came back into the mission and then reported to Father Walton. Told Walton there was troopers camping down there with a mob of prisoners, native prisoners.

‘He ask Michael: “What they going to do to them?” and Michael told Father Walton they were going to get up and shoot them at Gulgudmeri River.

‘So Father Walton, and John Gordon, the aboriginal deacon, and Brother Heriot galloped down to the troopers’ camp.

‘Then Father Walton ask them: “What you going to do with those prisoners?” He knew they were going to shoot them, he told them that they were not going to do that. He told the troopers to set them free, take the right man that murdered the stockman: he was Djodjin, he was in with that mob of prisoners.

‘So they brought the native prisoners into the mission compound and freed them, gave them work, and the troopers took the right murderer into the town.

‘Then, a good while after, Father Walton dreamed a dream. In his dream he saw the figure of a native getting shot. He was a real holy man, God must have told him to go Onmalmeri way.

‘He went up there, told the stockboys that he had a dream that natives got shot. “Up here somewhere,” he told them. “I don’t know where, but here.”

‘He had Mr Mason, a detective bloke, he came from Perth, and Thomas, he was police boy. Then they saw the old tracks where the troopers had their camp where they burned the bodies at Onmalmeri. Then they camped at the old camp where the troopers were camping.

‘The boy, Thomas Mason, that was what they called him, he said: “There’s a big river over here, somewhere on you right,” he told them.

‘They went over, and: “There’s the spot, right there,” he told them, “in the rock, right there.”

‘They couldn’t find any remain of the body, it was burned to bits. It was very hard for Father Walton to believe. Then he stooped down and scratched the grave to see if any body bone remained. So he couldn’t find any bones—he picked up a teeth, one teeth put the pot away.

‘He put it in his pocket, held a burial service, and they left the grave. Then they went to Gulgudmeri River, to the main pool, where they dived into the pool and got some bones. Got the bones, put them in a bag.

‘They ask the boy, Thomas Mason, if any more graves. He told them: “You see that bough over there, hanging? That’s where the women’s grave.”

‘And so Father Walton picked up more teeth, had the burial service, came back to Onmalmeri Station, camped there, and brought what remained of the bones back to the mission.

‘Next day they held the burial service up on the hill there, where the cross is. The bones are in a big box, like this. Then after that they made a report to the headquarters in Perth, and the headquarters told them to come down. Father Walton went to Perth with a couple of boys (Albert, you know Albert, he went to Perth with them). The troopers what were shooting the natives, they was in there in the big court. They paid a heavy penalty then, they done their time or something. And Father Walton came back when the case was over to the mission again.’

Across the road the lighting plant gave a sudden roar, and faded. The light bulb flickered and dimmed, very slowly.

‘Nowadays,’ Justin murmured, ‘now, at Onmalmeri, you can hear ghosts crying in the night, chains, babies crying, troopers’ horse, chains jingling.’ His eyes glowed in the shadows. ‘I didn’t believe it, but I went there, mustering cattle for droving to the meatworks, I heard it, too. We was camping at Onmalmeri Station couple of weeks. We were there sleeping, still. It was all silence. You could hear woman rocking her baby to sleep, “
Wawai! Wawai! Wawai!
” like this, rocking the baby to sleep...’
*

_______

*
This narrative was taken down verbatim from an account by Daniel Evans of a notorious massacre. Here the names of people concerned and most place names have been altered.

Dogs barked, crows cried. ‘
Bau!
’ shouted Djediben, stock-still in the path. ‘
Gadea brambun
.’

Behind her Helen, carrying liniments and ointments, awaited the evacuation of dogs into the bush for the greater safety of the white woman, the
gadea.
In the morning sun the hills, the trees, the grass glowed with blinding colours. She was aware, in the heat, of the heavy, stagnant odours of the grass and of Djediben.

Shouts came from the camp, and they moved, she and Djediben, through the grass and through the encircling trees into an arena where, outside bough humpies or in the shade of leaves, the old people waited for her, the naked and the blind, with their asking eyes. The sun glistened on dark skin warmly polished like old wood, and the eyes, the many eyes, watched her with liking, but aloofly, since she came as an intruder into their refuge from all the
gadea.
They were the old natives never quite won from the bush, never acclimatized to the huts and the food of the village.

She kneeled beside a naked old man on the ground, said: ‘Good day, Nalun,’ and accepting his shy grunt as a greeting in return ran her gentle hands over the dusty back. ‘Is that sore now? That hurt?’

He told her with nods that it did. ‘Rubbem,’ he said, grinning.

With the liniment she soothed him, hardly more than a gesture, an apology for her helplessness to cure him. ‘Is that good?’ she asked, and he nodded, staring straight in front of him. ‘You’re blind,’ she said, with tears unaccountably in her voice, ‘blind.’ But he, without a movement of the head, still stared, grinning slightly to express his thanks. ‘Dear Nalun,’ she said, standing.

From outside a humpy Ganmeri called to her: ‘
Lala! Lala!
’ and she went, carrying her bottles. ‘Rubbem,’ demanded Ganmeri, the old, old woman, dragging her flour-bag dress above her head. ‘Ah, good,’ as the hands stroked liniment on the black back.

‘That’s a new sore,’ Helen said, pointing to the raw patch on the old woman’s thigh. ‘More rubbem there.’

She put down the liniment bottle and took some ointment to treat the sore. And as she applied it, talking with the old woman, a pale dingo pup crept around, peering at her, and upset the bottle.