Arthur Upfield: Death of a Lake

“So you’re from Queensland, eh? From oldUradangie. Long time back when I was up there. Ustabe five pubs in my time. Theystill doing business?”

“Four are. The Unicorn was burned down.”

“That so! Hell! Remember the Unicorn. She was kept by ole Ted Rogers. Ruddy doer he was. So was his ole woman. They took turns in minding the bar… week and week about. Neither could last longer than a week at a time. End of the week’s spell in the bar, and both of ’emwas a cot case. I did hear that Ted Rogers died in the horrors.”

“So did Mrs Rogers. She was in the horrors when the pub went up.”

“Was thatso! ” RedDraffin spat with vigour and almost automatically drove the loaded vehicle along the track twisting about low sand dunes, across salt and blue-bush flats, over water-gutters, and across dry creeks. “Well, Ma Rogers could always drink asgood as Ted, and he was extra. I seen him open a bottle of rum and drain the lot withoutwinkin ’. Hell! Men was men in them days. What brought you down south?”

“Change of country,” Bony replied. “I get around.”

“Iusta,” admitted RedDraffin.“Never stayed on one fly-speckmore’n a month.”

“You have settled down?”

“Yair. Youblows out in the end, y’know. You find that thesandhill beyond the next one’s just the same, and thatOrstralia is just a pancake dotted with pubs wot are all alike. Course, times have changed a lot. The coming generation is too sap-gutted with fruit juices and milk in their tea, and nowadays if a man has a go of the horrors heain’t liked. Once on a time if a man didn’t have the horrors he wasn’t reckoned a man’sshadder.”

“Had a bender lately?” Bony politely inquired.

“No, not for a long time now. I’mgettin ’ on, and after a bender Isuffers something terrible from indigestion. Got to take a bit of care ofmeself.”

“How old are you?”

“Don’t rightly know. Last census time, the Boss estimated me at sixty years. Whatd’you reckon aboutcarb soda?”

“For the horrors?”

“No, me indigestion.”

“I’ve been told thatcarb soda is good for anything.”

“ ’Boutright, too. Read in the paper that a bloke in Russia lived to be a hundred and forty ’coshe washed everyday incarb soda. Might take that onmeself. Carb soda’s cheap enough.”

Bony thought the suggestion an excellent idea, but asked:

“How long have you been working onPorchester?”

“Me? Nine years and a bit. I’vekinda settled onPorchester. Wallace is a good boss, and, as I said a mile or two back, the pubs in Menindee is just the same as theyusta be up atUradangie. Whisky’s got more water in it and they charges six times more, that’s all.”

“You’d know this run, then?”

RedDraffin spat at the passing wind, flexed his shoulders.

“I know every water-hole, everysandhill, every blade of grass onPorchester. Every ruddy sheep knows me be name, and this year there’s over sixty thousand of ’em. Never took much to horses, though. You like horses…musta.”

“Yes, I like horses. What’s the overseer like at Lake Otway?”

“Mister Martyr? Good enough,” repliedDraffin.“Knows his work. Done no one a bad turn that I ever heard about. Keeps his place and expects us to keep ours. You married?”

“Yes.”

“Me, too. Lasted eleven days and a bit. Found out me wife was married to a butcher in Cobar. She cleared out with a shearer, and me and the butcher’s been good cobbers ever since. Women! You go careful with the women at Lake Otway.”

“There are women?”

“Two. Mother does thecookin ’ and the daughter does thehousemaiding.”Draffin chuckled.“Ruddy termites, both of ’em.”

“How so?”

Theyeats into a man’s dough from the inside out. And there’s blokes wot likes it. Wouldn’t leave the place. Reckons they got a good chance with the daughter or the mother. Theysends away to Sydney or Adelaide for presents for ’em. You’ll be a wake-up in no time.”

They passed a deserted hut built of pine logs, used only at the shearing season. An hour later they sighted a windmill and two huts partially surrounded by a high canegrass wall.

“Sandy Well,”Draffin said. “Get a bit of lunch here.”

“Half-way house?”

“That’s right. Twenty-six mile to the homestead and twenty-six on to the Lake. Feller called George Barby cooks here when heain’t fur-trapping. Good bloke, George Barby, though he is a pommy.”

Three dogs came racing to meet the truck and escort it to the door in the canegrass wall. From the view of the surroundingsandhills Bony deduced that the wall was essential when the storms raged.

Through the door there emerged a slightly-built man, dark of hair and pale of skin. He was wearing white duck trousers and a white cotton vest. After him came an enormously fat pet sheep, and after the sheep came two outsized black and white cats. Finally there appeared a tame galah, red of breast and grey of back. The parrot waddled forward absurdly, flapped its wings and raised its rose-tinted comb while shrieking its welcome.

The pet sheep chased RedDraffin round the truck, and George Barby said to Bony: “Come on in and have a cuppa tea.”

The Thinker

FORAMANof sixty, RedDraffin could move. So, too, could the pet sheep. The bootless, whiskered man appeared from behind the truck and raced for the door in the wall, the large wether hard astern and bouncing the sand with legs like props. Shouting with laughter, the truck driver kept the hard, butting head at bay with one hand and with the other he thrust a plug of black tobacco between his teeth, bit off a chunk and presented it to the sheep. The sheep almost spoke his thanks and retired placidly chewing.

Throughout this exhibition, the pale-faced cook never smiled; in fact, Bony fancied he detected disapproval of RedDraffin’s undignified behaviour. He led the way through the door in the wall. After him went Bony, and after Bony came RedDraffin. Following on came the two enormous cats, and after the cats waddled the galah. The dogs only remained without. The sheep arrived later.

Inside the wall of canegrass were two huts, and the cook led the procession to that which served as the kitchen-dining-room.

“Boss said you were coming out,” he remarked, waving to the table set for three. “Did you bring me stores and mail and things?”

“Get ’emoff the load later, George,” repliedDraffin. “Meet Bony. He’sgoin ’ out to the Lakebreakin ’.”

George and Bony nodded the introduction, andDraffin went on:

“Bony’s come down fromUradangie. Younever been up there, George?”

Barby asked to be told why he should have been up atUradangie and Bony looked about the hut. It was surprisingly clean and tidy. The cooking was done with camp ovens andbillies on the large open hearth. There were crevices between the pine log walls and several holes in the corrugated iron roof. But the place was cool this hot day, and what it was like when the wind blew the sand off the summits of the surrounding dunes he could imagine.

Barby served roast mutton, potatoes and tomato sauce. The bread was well baked and the tea was hot. He sat on the form at the table opposite his visitors, and the conversation at first excluded Bony. Slightly under fifty, he had been so long in Australia that his Lancashire accent had almost vanished. His face was long, his chin pointed. His eyes were dark and, in the soft light, brilliant. And like the great majority of bush dwellers he was intelligent and well read.

To Bony’s amusement the galah suddenly appeared above table-level. Using beak and claws, the bird climbed the cook’s cotton vest to gain his shoulder, and once there distended its rosy comb and emitted a screech of defiance at the guests. Barby went on talking as might a mother pass off the misbehaviour of her child, but the effort was ruined when the bird said softly and confidentially in his ear: