Arthur Upfield - Winds of Evil

On The RoadTo Carie

IT WAS A wind-created hell in which the man who called himself Joe Fisher walked northward towards the small township of Carie, in the far west of New South Wales.

Somewhere west of Central Australia was born the gale of wind this day lifting high the sand from Sturt’s country-that desert of sand ranges lying along the north-eastern frontier of South Australia-to carry it eastward into New South Wales, across the Gutter of Australia, even to the Blue Mountains, and then into the distant Pacific.

Now and then the dark red-brown fog thinned sufficiently to reveal the sun as a huge orb of blood. That was when a trough passed between the waves of sand particles for ever rushing eastward. The wind was steady in its velocity. It was hot, too, but its heat constantly alternated, so that it was like standing before a continuously opened and closed oven door.

It was not always possible for Fisher to keep his eyes open. Although he could not see it, he knew he was crossing a wide, treeless plain supporting only low annual salt-bush. The track he was following could be seen, on the average, for about six yards. On his left ran a boundary-fence, wire-netted and barbed-topped-a fence which had caught a rampart of wind-quickened deadbuckbush, up and over which came charging like hunters the filigree balls of dead and brittle straw.

Quite abruptly, and without warning, a large touring car appeared in the red murk. It stopped at the precise moment that Fisher saw it, and from it the driver clambered, bringing with him a four-gallon petrol-tin.

“Good day-ee!” he shouted to the swagman.

“Let us hope we will have a good day tomorrow,” Fisher shouted back when he joined the driver. “How far are we from Carie?”

“ ’Bouteight miles. What a day to be on the tramp! I’d sooner be me than you. You aim to get to Carie today?”

“No. I intend going only as far as a place called Catfish Hole, on Nogga Creek.”

The driver’s sand-charged browsrose a fraction. He was hefty and tough.

He exclaimed with singular inflection of voice, “Well, I wouldn’t camp there if I were you-not for all the tea in China. Blast!”

“What is the matter?”

They were standing before the radiator, the tin of water at the driver’s feet.

“Take off the cap, will you?” requested the driver.

Suspecting that the radiator was very hot, Fisher gingerly extended a hand, and when his fingers were about an inch from the bright metal mascot, from it to each finger leapt a long blue spark. Beneath the force of the electric shock, Fisher gave a sharp cry.

“There’s enough static electricity in thatflamin ’ bus to run a dozen house lights for a week,” shouted the grinning driver. “Strike a light! I’ve only had that happen to me twice before.”

“But what is the cause?” inquired the astonished swagman. “I have felt the effect, and seen it, too, so now tell me the cause.”

“I dunno exactly. Some say it’s the bombardment of the sand against the car’s metal-work what creates the electricity that can’t get away ’costhe rubber tyres are non-conductors. These wind-storms are fuller of electricity than a thunder-storm.”

Not too happy about it, he again attempted to unscrew the cap, and to his fingers leapt the blue sparks.

“What’s up out there?” shouted one of the three passengers.

“Come out and try your strength on this radiator cap,” he was invited.

The near-side rear door was opened, and a fat man came stiffly out, helping himself to the ground by holding to the metal hood support. Immediately his feet touched earth he uttered a yell of anguish and almost sat down on the track.

“What did you want to let go for?” asked the amused driver. “Why didn’t you stay making contactso’s the electricity could run out of her?”

“It’s a remarkable phenomenon,” observed Fisher.

“Phenomenon! Two to one on that word. Reckon you’re right, dig. Phew! What a corker of a day. You’ll bemeetin ’ another swagman presently. We offered him a lift, but he was too independent to get up. He’s about a mile back.”

“Well, do we stay here all day?” demanded the fat man. To which the driver replied with a show of impatience:

“I’m notlookin ’ for a seized engine, Jack. We’ll drain off the juice this way.”

He tilted the tin of water against the bumper-bar, being careful to release it the moment before it touched the metal. At contact there was a brilliant blue flash. Nothing further happened, and when the driver extended his hand to remove the radiator cap he received no shock.

“Mighty strange to me,” grumbled the fat man. “Wonder the car didn’t blow up or something. It’s good for the rheumatics, anyway. My right leg was aching like hell before I got that shock, and now she’s all right.”

“The petrol-tank might have exploded,” calmly stated the driver, who was now filling the radiator from the tin. “I’m dragging a wheel-chain from now on, like the petrol-wagons drag a chain down in the cities.”

“Might be as well,” agreed the fat man. “I’d sooner have the screws than be blown up. Cripes! No wonder me wife’s mother has to lie down when the wind blows like this. She says the electricity in these storms takes all the strength out of her.”

The grin on the driver’s face became a wide smile.

“Better get her to wear thick rubbed-soled shoes. Then the next sand-storm will charge her with static till she blows to pieces,” he suggested,

“Not a bad idea,” conceded the fat man without smiling, but his dust-rimmed eyes were twinkling when he turned back to enter the car. Fisher was chuckling delightedly as he called “Good day” and left the driver fixing one of his wheel-chains to the rear bumper-bar.

The wind sang its menacing song as he plodded northward, a small swarm of flies hovering in the back draught produced by his body and the swag on his back, the left side of his face and his left hand continuously stung by the sand particles. Before and behind him thebuckbush charged the fence rampart, sometimes singly and at times like a squadron of horses, many to leap right across the track. Now and then a filigree ball would strike the swagman’s head, either to bounce from it or to collapse against it and wrap straw about his face and neck.

The horrible discomforts of this evil day were for a while lessened by thinking of the phenomenon of the electrically charged body of the car. Fisher was not sure that the driver’s explanation of the cause was correct, although it was certainly feasible. Petrol-wagons had been known to explode, or ignite, by the static charge generated, so some said, by the constant movement of petrol within the tank. It was certainly interesting. This may be the real cause of aeroplanes exploding in mid-air during great storms. It was, indeed, a problem of interest to a thinking man.

Fisher came upon the swagman mentioned by the car driver. He was trying to boil water in a small billy at a fire partially sheltered by a track-side bluebush. That he was an old man of fixed ideas was already proved by his refusal of a lift this terrible day. At Fisher’s sudden appearance he leapt to his feet, with surprising agility, obviously much frightened.

“Good day!” shouted Fisher. “D’youmindme boiling my billy at your fire?”

The old man stretched his bent body, venting a sigh of relief.

“I suppose you can,” he consented grudgingly. “You pass a car?”

“Yes. The driver had stopped to fill his radiator, and the machine was so charged with static electricity that he couldn’t remove the cap. He said there is more electricity in these wind-storms than there is in a thunder-storm.”