Arthur Upfield - Murder Must Wait

Constable Robins drove his own car, with Bony and Alice as passengers, and a mile out of town the macadamised road gave place to the natural earth track of the outback… the road to Albury. This was followed for two miles, over the barren flats, under the occasional gum or box tree, until, when the track was about to cross a creek, a branch track took them to the Aboriginal Settlement.

Compared with the river flats, the site of the Settlement was a surprisingly pleasant change. Several acres occupied an elbow of the tree-lined creek, and guarding the elbow stood the Superintendent’s house, with the store on one side and the church on the other. Behind this first rampart were the trade shops, the school and the hospital, and beyond these buildings, in the elbow itself, were streets of one-room shacks capable of housing a family.

It was shortly before eleven, and the ‘streets’ were empty of children, who were now packed into the school and singing their lessons. Those aborigines to be seen were dressed in white fashion, the women in gaily coloured clothes.

The Superintendent, the Reverend Mr Beamer, received the visitors in his office, occupying a part of the store. He was young, obviously enthusiastic and not averse to cigarettes. Further, he was brisk, frank, dressed in white duck, and reminded Bony of a successful peanut farmer.

“As Sergeant Yoti explained on the telephone,” Bony opened, “I’ve come to interview Bertrand Marcus Clark. I brought my cousin, Miss McGorr, with me because she wishes to see your work with the aborigines.”

“Then, Inspector, Miss McGorr is more welcome than you,” Mr Beamer said decisively. “We are always delighted to meet those who are interested in our efforts and, perhaps excusably, less delighted to receive anyone representing the law. Clark appears to have been more sinned against than sinning… by the look of him.” Mr Beamer chuckled.“Quite a sound thrashing for being in town during prohibited hours.”

“That’s the view taken by Sergeant Yoti, I believe,” returned Bony. “However, my interest in him lies in the reason for his being in town. There is no restriction on these people by you?”

“Regarding their freedom, none at all. They may come and go off on walkabout at will, but we do persuade the children to stay during school terms. Everyone knows, of course, that they must not be in town between sunset and sunrise unless with official permission. And they have to keep the rules governing their conduct when in the Settlement.”

“And white people are not permitted to enter the Settlement without your sanction?”

“Correct. Actually they want for nothing, being provided with rations, from flour to tobacco. They are also provided with straw-filled mattresses and blankets. Reverting to Marcus Clark, his real reason for being in town late that night was to visit Ellen Smith. He wants her to marry him, but, I understand, the courtship isn’t running smoothly.”

“And Ellen Smith is…?”

“The domestic employed by Mrs Marlo-Jones. Ellen is a full-blood lubra. Mrs Marlo-Jones told me that Ellen won’t make up her mind aboutClark, and that as he was pestering Ellen, she ordered Clark away from the house and told him not to go there again.”

“Ellen Smith is probably being wise,” Bony said, smilingly. “I cannot sense the romantic in Clark’s makeup. How long have you been in charge here, Mr Beamer?”

“A little over three years,” replied the Superintendent, who, Alice guessed, was wondering what really lay behind these questions.

“During your service here, have there been upsets among them?”

“At the beginning of my term, yes, quite a number. Then I knew very little about these people… from personal contact, but…” The minister smiled and Alice liked that… “but I was very willing to learn and I readily admit that Professor and Mrs Marlo-Jones were towers of strength.

“I found that these people hadcome a very long journey from the tribal discipline enjoyed by their ancestors. They had become too closely associated with white civilisation, and because our civilisation will not or cannot assimilate them, for I refuse to believe the Australian aborigine cannot himself be assimilated, they were fallen into a condition of racial chaos.

“We came to this country and conquered with guns and poison. What a basis for national pride today! From the aborigine we took his land and the food the land provided. Worse, we took his spirit and trod it into the dust, leaving him with nothing excepting the pitiful voice crying: ‘Gibbittucker.’ When plain murder was no longer tolerated, we tossed the starving aborigine a hunk of meat and a pound of flour and told him to get to hell out of it. A wonderful Christian nation, are we not?

“Forgive me for becoming heated,” pleaded Mr Beamer. “I had never placed the aborigine on a pedestal, but I have sought ways and means of helping him to help himself back to his former independence of mind and spirit. I roused the head men from their indifference to exert again their old influence and power… of course, under my general supervision. Thus the people were brought under the kind of discipline they can understand, and they became keenly interested in the least obnoxious of the corroborees and the folk-dancing. This in turn has enhanced the tribal and community spirit, and that pride in themselves without which no people can exist, let alone flourish.”

“Good work, Padre,” warmly complimented Bony, and Alice wanted to add ‘Hear! Hear!’ “Thereafter you have had less and less upsets?”

“Yes. But the credit must go largely to the Marlo-Joneses. They are both knowledgeable and understanding.”

“You must have the vision and the energy to translate it to reality,” softly insisted Bony. “You have been able to gather the head men into conference?”

“Yes, they meet in council. Often I am invited to attend, and still more often I ask them to attend on me. One great advantage is that delinquents like Marcus Clark are tried by the head men and, if they persist in misbehaving, are banished from the Settlement. Very seldom do I participate.

“We insist that the adults attend church service twice on Sunday and find we need to use no coercion. The children… you shall see them at work… give pleasure to their teachers, not worry. The point to be determined with the children, and here Professor Marlo-Jones has been of enormous assistance, is how to give them the best education to occupy the tragically limited spheres in which white civilisation will permit them to live. You know how it is. Other than stockmen and domestics, they are not wanted.”

“Yes, I know how it is,” admitted Bony, and Alice caught the note of bitterness. “Whatstaff have you?”

“My wife runs the school with aboriginal women of Intermediate standard. We have an aborigine who is an excellent store-keeper and he helps me with the books. I received my medical degree shortly before coming here and so, with the assistance of Dr Delph, manage the hospital. We have an aboriginal butcher, and aboriginal carpenter, another a blacksmith, and an old fellow who actually repairs watches for a Mitford jeweller.”

“Excellent, Mr Beamer.”Bony stood. “Well, we won’t keep you longer than can be avoided. Thank you for being so patient.”

“Thanks are due to you, Inspector, and to you, Miss McGorr. Would you like to look round now?”

“Yes, very much.”

At the school they were presented to Mrs Beamer and her assistants, where they examined the children’s work and listened to their singing. They were shown over the church, and greatly admired the tapestry done by the senior girls. They looked into the neat and well stocked store, and found the watch-mender at his bench in the blacksmith’s shop, an ancient man with a scraggy white beard, scraggy white hair and scraggy white eyebrows. He amused Bony, talking and joking while displaying his fine tools, and Bony wondered if the metal filings on the bench were likely to be blown into the mechanism of the watches. Alice was completely absorbed when in the hospital she found two new babies not yet old enough to have lost their red skins.