Arthur Upfield - Battling Prophet

He did not shout at the dog. Instead, he closed the door and took another drink, a real snort this time, and walked, steadily and surely, to the sitting-room. He took down from the wall one of his beloved whips, passed out to the front veranda and along the cinder path to the gate in the wicket fence, the whip slanted over a shoulder, the long belly and long leather lash trailing on the ground.

No bullock driver ever appeared to the stars and the sleepy birds as this one did. Mr. Luton, arrayed in dressing-gown and slippers, white hair ruffled, white moustache bristling, walked with his old-time slouch towards the line of great trees near the river-bank. He paused to survey these trees. Then he spoke:

“Now, Ben, first thing you got to remember is that bullocks can’t hear too well if they don’t want to. Another is, bullocks don’t understand polite language. If you say to ’em: ‘Git-up there!’ they think it’s a cat purring. Now watch and listen to me.”

Mr. Luton whistled-one long-drawn note. “Smokey! Red! Pieface! You loafing get from a Tory-bred snivelling bloody runt. Come here, Squirt! Bit more! Come here, Squirt! Red! You…”

Mr. Luton’s by no means palsied arms lifted the whip off his shoulder, and slowly proceeded to whirl in a circle above his head the heavy leather, reaching some eighteen feet. His tall body swayed to gain momentum, and suddenly tautened, swung slightly backward to halt the whip handle. The leather flowed away like a living anaconda, flowed to the very tip of the lash with a deafening report.

“That’ll do! Whey! Whoa-back!” The driver turned slightly to his rear. “Get the knack of it, Ben? The voice is more important than the whip-crack. You never hit a beast if hedon’t deserve it. Remember thatbullocks is a bit sensitive. If you mooch along thinking of the last pub, the bullocks will likely enough fall down dreaming of the last time it rained and brought up the pigweed. If you put guts and energy into your driving, them bullocks will put energy into their hauling. And you got to steady ’emand get ’emall hauling together. I’ll show you how to get ’emexcited, to pull through this here sand-bog.”

Again the whistle for the leaders to pull ahead and straighten the haul-chain right back to the pole. Again the command to “Lean into it!”Again the stream of invective, this time directed to Lumpy, whose ancestors had been most careless. The whip swung round, faster and faster, the report sharper and louder than that of a discharged shot-gun, and the driver swaying, his feet wide, his shoulders almost bursting the seams of his dressing-gown, shouting and swearing, cajoling, threatening.

“What!” he yelled. “You’d stop the wagon dead in the middle of a sand-bog, would you?” Mr. Luton pranced up and down the line of trees. The whip touched one, slashed another, hissed at a third. One minute of pandemonium passed, a second had almost sped when Mr. Luton dropped the whip and pressed both hands to his chest.

“I’mgettin ’ on, Ben. You know that, don’t you? Can’t cut capers like we used to, but, by hell, you and me could still make bullocks shift thirty-forty tons on a tabletop. Getting old, all right. Dropped meflamin ’ whip. Have to put another cracker on her sometime. We’d better go on over to the house for another snort.”

Shouldering the whip, Mr. Luton walked across the clearing to the front fence. And the trees nodded and began to chew their cud, and old Squirt turned his great head with the sawn-off horns to watch his master depart.

Mr. Luton closed the wicket gate, walked strongly along the cinder path, stepped lightly up to the veranda and entered his house. Closing the front door, he proceeded to replace the whip on the wall nails.

When he turned to make for the door to the living-room, he saw two men who seemed to be emptying the cupboard of his hoard of rum. He made no effort to reduce the sound of his movements, and the two men went on with their task. On entering the kitchen he roared:

“What in helld’you think you’re up to?”

Neither man spoke. One looked at the other; the second man nodded. The first casually approached Mr. Luton, his face without expression, his eyes expressionless. He punched him on the chin, and, as Mr. Luton was trying to recover his balance, snatched an automatic from a shoulder-holster and laid the butt against Mr. Luton’s temple. As the victim was collapsing to the floor the man hit him again.

Boots and All

MR. LUTONdiscovered himself lying on the living-room floor. That was after he had accustomed his eyes to the direct rays of the ceiling light. Pain hammered at him, and swift anger burned. The clock on the mantel took shape, and he remembered that the time was of more importance than the cause of his discomfort.

Twenty-three minutes after four o’clock.

A voice said: “Get up.”

The toe of a shoe pounded against Mr. Luton’s ribs, and he scrambled over to draw up his knees and with effort at last managed to stand. A chair was jammed against the backs of his legs, and he sat, the chair against the wall so that he faced the back door, with the sitting-room to his left. One man was decidedly foreign, the other less so. One was tall andslim, wearing a dark suit under his unbuttoned overcoat, and the other was smaller and wore his overcoat with the collar turned up. Their heads wereround, large. The hair of both was dark and grew far back above foreheads narrower than the width of the face. Their eyes were dark and small, and appeared prominent in faces almost devoid of colour.

The tall man seemed to be the leader. He sat at the table, opened a suitcase, produced a length of light sash cord and tossed it to the smaller man, who proceeded to bind Mr. Luton’s hands. Mr. Luton kicked him in the ankle, forgetting he was wearing slippers. The blow failed to produce a wince, and the binding continued.

“Keep your feet still,” ordered the man quietly.

Mr. Luton rebelled, and the heel of a shoe was stamped on his toes. Expertly and swiftly, Mr. Luton’s feet were bound to the chair-legs and his tied wrists bound to the chair-back. The man then stepped back, carefully gauged distance, and viciously kicked Mr. Luton’s right knee-cap. With the same methodical approach, he kicked Mr. Luton’s left knee-cap.

You have to hand it to these people. They can deal it out without heat, without even the faintest visible hint of malice.

Mr. Luton craved to be sick, such was the pain. Fire consumed him and icy-cold sweat drenched him. And deep down was born a fury that he couldn’t take it, that he was too old, that he was weak when once he had been strong.

“Luton,” said the man seated at the table. “I require information. You have that information. You were dear friend to Benjamin Wickham. You drank together. You have tales to tell. Wickham told you about his work with the weather. He told you about his papers. I want them. Where are they?”

“Don’t know,” growled the old man.

“Mr. Wickham had a secret book, a book with green covers. Where is it?”

“Go to hell.”

The slim man nodded, and the other once again took careful aim and kicked Mr. Luton’s right knee-cap. Only the cords kept the victim from falling off the chair. Blood from a temple was flowing slowly down his lined cheek and stainingredly his white moustache.

“Tell,” commanded the tall man.

Mr. Luton was mute. His eyes were glazed. The man at the table sighed with resignation, and took from the case a hypodermic syringe and a capsule.

“No more assault, Paul. Too old to stand it,” he said calmly. “He might not know of that we want. This drug will prove it. Rip the sleeve.”

The shorter man produced a clasp knife, opened it and advanced to Mr. Luton. His approach was casual. In neither face had there been any evidence of sadism, but the complete lack of emotion was more horrible than the depraved leer of a devil. He expertly ripped the sleeve of the dressing-gown, and was about to insert the point of the knife in the sleeve of the pyjama coat, when there was a loud report and, for the first time this night, emotion did register on the white face.