Arthur Upfield - Death of a Lake

Lake Otway

LAKEOTWAYWASdying. Where it had existed to dance before the sun and be courted by the ravishing moon there would be nothing but drab flats of iron-hard clay. And then the dead might rise to shout accusations echoed by the encircling sand dunes.

The out-station crowned a low bluff on the southern shore, and from it a single telephone line spanned fifty miles of virgin country to base on the great homestead where lived the Boss ofPorchester Station, which comprised eight hundred thousand acres and was populated by sixty thousand sheep in the care of some twenty wage plugs, including Overseer Richard Martyr.

There wasn’t much of Richard Martyr. He was short, dapper, wiry, every movement a hint of leashed strength. His face and arms were the colour of oldcedarwood, making startlingly conspicuous his light-grey eyes. Always the dandy, this morning he wore well-washed jodhpurs, a white silk shirt and kangaroo-hide riding-boots with silver spurs. Why not? He was Number Two onPorchester Station, and this out-station at Lake Otway was his headquarters.

Martyr stood on the wide veranda overlooking the Lake, the Lake born three years before on the bed of a dustbowl, the Lake which had lived and danced and sung for three years and now was about to die. The real heat of summer was just round the corner, and the sun would inevitably murder Lake Otway.

Short fingers beating a tattoo on the veranda railing, Martyr gazed moodily over the great expanse of water shimmering like a cloth of diamonds. It was a full three miles across to the distant shore-line of box timber and, beyond it, the salmon-tinted dunes footing the far-flung uplands. To the left of the bluff, the shore-line curved within a mile; to the right it limned miniature headlands and tiny bays for four miles before curving at the outlet creek, where could be seen the motionless fans of a windmill and the iron roof of a hut named Johnson’s Well. When Lake Otway was dead, that windmill would be pumping water for stock, and perhaps a man or two would be living at the hut six hundred rolling miles from the sea.

The cook’s triangle called all hands to breakfast. Martyr again puckered his eyes to read the figures on the marker post set up far off shore. He had seen the figure 19 resting on the water; now he could see the figure 3. Only three feet of water left in Lake Otway. No! Less! Only two feet and ten inches. Were there a prolonged heat-wave in February, then Lake Otway wouldn’t live another five weeks.

The men were leaving their quarters to eat in the annexe off the kitchen. The rouseabout was bringing the working horses to the yard. The hens were busy before the shade claimed them during the hot hours. The chained dogs were excited by the running horses. The crows were cawing over at the killing pens, and a flock of galah parrots gave soft greetings when passing overhead. A city man could never understand how men can be captivated by such a place… six hundred miles from a city.

Martyr turned and entered the dining-room, large, lofty, well lighted, and sat at the white-clothed table to eat alone. He could hear the men in the annexe, and Mrs Fowler, the cook, as she served them breakfast. Then he looked up at Mrs Fowler’s daughter.

“Morning, Mr Martyr! What will it be after the cereal? Grilled cutlets or lamb’s fry and bacon?”

She was softly-bodied and strong and twenty. Her hair was the colour of Australian gold, and her eyes were sometimes blue and sometimes green. Her mouth was small and deliciously curved when she was pleased. But her voice was hard and often shrill.

“Cutlets, please, Joan. No cereal. Plenty of coffee.” Noting the set of her mouth, he asked: “A war on, this morning?”

“Ma’s in one of her moods.”

Tossing the fine-spun hair from her broad forehead, she departed as though trained to walk by a ballet master, and he remembered she had walked like that one morning when the Lake was being born, and she was just seventeen, and the Boss had come close to dismissing her and her mother because she could be dangerous… among men without women.

“What upset your mother?” he asked when she was placing the covered dish before him.

“Oh, one thing and another.”

“You haven’t been nagging, have you?”

She moved round the table and stood regarding him with eyes he was sure were green. She lifted her full breasts and lightly placed her hands against her hips, and he knew that to be a wanton a woman needed no training.

“A girl never nags, Mr Martyr, until she’s married.”

“I believe you, Joan. Go away, and don’t annoy your mother.”

“Well, she started it.”

“Started what?”

“Oh, nothing,” she said, and walked from the room rippling her bottom like a Kanaka woman.

Martyr proceeded with his breakfast, which had to be completed at a quarter after seven. Mother and daughter were constantly warring about nothing which came to the surface for men to see. As cook and housemaid they formed a team the like of which Lake Otway had never known. The food was excellently prepared and the house managed expertly. The main cause of contention between these women, Martyr shrewdly guessed, was their closeness in age, for the mother was still young, still vitally attractive, retaining that something of wantonness she had bequeathed to the girl. The husband? No one knew anything of the husband.

Martyr recalled Lake Otway on his accepting the appointment. The Lake was dry then, and the domestic staff comprised a man cook and the lubra wife of one of the hands. The house was merely a place to sleep in; these two quarrelling women gave it life.

When he was entering the office the telephone rang twice. The call would be for George Barby, who cooked for stockmen at Sandy Well, midway between the main homestead and the out-station. Martyr seated himself at the desk and filled a pipe, and had applied a match when the telephone rang thrice… the Lake call. He counted ten before taking up the instrument.

“Morning, Dick!” spoke a deep, tuneful voice.

“Morning, Mr Wallace.”

“How’s the Lake this morning?”

“Two feet ten. Gone down an inch since yesterday afternoon.”

“H’m! No sign ofrain, andInigo Jones says we needn’t expect any till March 18th. Feed still going off?”

“Within a couple of miles of the Lake, yes. Rabbits in millions. More ’roos, too, this last week than I’ve ever seen. Moving in from the dry areas. White Dam is down to four feet.”

“Better shift those hoggets, then,” advised the Boss. “In fact, Dick, we’d better think of shifting a lot of sheep from your end to the Sandy Well paddocks. When the Lake goes, it’ll go quick. The last foot of water could dry out in a day. It did last time, I remember. We lost two thousand ewes in the Channel that time. Whatd’you intend doing today?”

“I’ll send Carney out to ride White Dam paddock. AndMacLennon to Johnson’sWell to make a report on the mill and pump and tank.”

“Better get Lester to go along with Mac, and remind ’emto lower a light down the well before they go down. The air will be foul after all this time.”

“All right, Mr Wallace. What about the horses? Any sight of a breaker?”

“Yes, I was coming to that,” replied the Boss. “Feller here now, wantingbreaking work. Good references. I’ll send him out tomorrow on the truck. Let me know tonight what you want out there.”

“The breaker, is he to have a free hand?”

“As he’ll be working on contract, yes. Feed with the men, of course. The name’s Bony.”

“Bony what?”

“Just Bony. Talks like a uni’ professor. Queenslander, I think. When you’ve drafted off the youngsters for him, better send all the spares in here. We’ll put ’emin the Bend. Well, I’ll ring again tonight.”