Capricornia. Xavier Herbert

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ Frank McLash shunting trucks.

      Just before the train left, while passengers were leaving the dining-room and Mrs McLash was occupied with collecting the money, Jock slipped into the kitchen and caught Yeller Elbert unawares. Mrs McLash came to the rescue with a broom.

      “I’ll dawg him,” shouted Jock, struggling with the woman, “I’ll dawg thaht moongrel bawstid off face yearth I will—lemme at him——”

      “Get on the train!” screeched Mrs McLash. “Think I want a thing like you on me hands for a fortnight? Get out or I’ll brain you—Hey!—Hey!—stop, you cheat, you aint paid me for your dinner!”

      For some time after the train had gone Oscar stood on the track conversing with members of the fettling gang, while Marigold sat on the Siding House veranda on the knee of Mrs McLash, innocently listening to a low-spoken discussion of her Uncle Mark and Cousin No-Name. Mrs McLash’s companions were her son, Joe Steen, a settler of the neighbourhood, who was reputed to be her lover, and Peter Differ, who was employed by Oscar. While they talked they kept their eyes on Oscar, delighted to have the laugh on one they hated for his superiority. He stood there with the shabby grubby fettlers, tall and erect and neat and clean as ever. It was not clothes that made him so. He would have looked superior as a swagman. He wore a battered wideawake hat, faded blue tunic-shirt, rusty black neckerchief, grubby white moleskin pants, and spurred topboots that were colourless with dust. Nor was it means that made him so. Any of the fettlers were better off in respect of ready-money than he was.

      The discussion stopped abruptly when Oscar left the gang and came across. All looked at him with something like respect, except young Frank, who looked at the landscape and snickered. Oscar glanced at Frank distrustfully. They were not friends, these two, having become rather too well acquainted as master and man in the early days of Frank’s residence in the district.

      Mrs McLash began to talk at once of a piece of news that had come up with the train. There followed a pause, during which Oscar, leaning against a veranda post, rolled a cigarette, and Frank, lolling on haunches near him, bombarded an ant with spittle. Then Frank said in a thin drawling voice, “Eh Oscar—you hear about your yeller nephew?”

      Oscar looked at him while licking the cigarette.

      “That kid Jock Driver was tellin’ you about.”

      Out of the corner of his eye Oscar saw Frank’s mother shake her head and glare. He asked, “What’s that?”

      Gazing afar again, Frank said, “Jock had one of Mark’s half-caste kids with him on the train.”

      “Don’t be a fool,” muttered his mother.

      Frank looked at her and said, “’S fact—you’s been talkin’ about it last half hour yourself.”

      She flushed and snapped, “Garn—bag y’r ’ead!”

      Oscar flushed too, and said to Peter Differ in a rather strained voice, “What is it Peter?”

      Differ, who had been studying the ground, looked up and for a moment held Oscar’s eye. He was himself the father of a half-caste, for which he knew Oscar despised him. Therefore he was pleased to tell the truth. He spoke quietly, in a rather cultured voice, saying, “Your brother Mark gave Jock one of his half-caste piccaninnies for a stock-boy. Jock had him on the train.”

      Oscar looked astonished. After a moment he said huskily, “Bosh! Mark hasn’t got a—a half-caste.”

      “Well that’s what Jock said,” answered Differ.

      “He said Mark’s got two yeller-fellers at Flyin’ Fox,” said Frank, “and plenty more in the bush.”

      Oscar carefully lit his cigarette, then said, “You can’t believe a drunken fool like Pommy Driver.”

      “Jock’s a decent coot,” snapped Frank, “even if he is a Pommy.”

      “May suit you,” said Oscar coldly; then he turned to Differ and said in an employer’s tone, “Got everything ready?”

      “On the buckboard,” said Differ in the tone of a Capricornian employee.

      “Good-o. Then let’s get going. Come on Marry.”

      Marigold slipped from Mrs McLash’s knee, stood for a moment to be kissed, then went to her father. Mrs McLash then assumed an amazingly childish expression of goodwill and admiration and said, “Goodbye Mister Shillingsworth. I’m sorry for what Frank said. Goodbye lovey-ducks—tatta pretty dear. Please don’t take no notice of poor Frank, Mister Shillingsworth. I’m afraid he’s not all there.”

      “Oh that’s all right Ma,” said Oscar. “Hooray.”

      “Let Frank do his own polgisin,” Frank growled as Oscar went away.

      His mother showed her few teeth at him and said with terrible emphasis, “You fool! Your mouth’s bigger’n your brains.”

      “Where’d I get me mouth—and me brains too?”

      “Not off me you poor galoot. And don’t you start young man.”

      “Well you stop then.”

      “My gawd—to think I ever took the trouble to raise it!”

      “Who asked you to?”

      “Damn you boy——”

      “Shut up, Frank,” cried Joe Steen. “Don’t go upsettin’ your Ma or I’ll dong you one.”

      “Try it!” yelled Frank, then rose because his mother rose, and fled.

      Train-day was a special day to people living on the railway, particularly to the fettlers, to whom the train brought not only mail and stores and news from civilisation in the form of gossip, but wages for the past fortnight’s work and liquor for the next fortnight’s drinking. At least in the Caroline River Gang’s camp the night of the day was always one of carousal.

      It was the habit of Joe Ballest, ganger of the Caroline Camp, to invite his men to his house to drink beer on train-day nights. He was one who liked company with his beer so much that although these parties always ended in a brawl he persistently gave them. And he was one who loved beer so much that, not having means to buy it in quantity sufficient for his needs, since beer cost two-and-six a pint and he could consume four pints for every working-hour of a day while he earned but three-and-six, he brewed his own. He was not particular about the taste of beer so long as it was strongly alcoholic and hopsy. He brewed with hops and sugar and yeast and mashed potatoes and any other likely ingredient he happened to have in hand, and fortified with a liberal dosing of overproof rum. Owing to the climate it fermented well and quickly; indeed it often frothed right out of the barrel, especially at night, since then it could work without interference, when it would even creep into the brewer’s bed and cause him pleasant dreams. In such a climate the use of preservatives in brewing was imperative; but Joe Ballest would use none but O.P. rum; he belonged to that backward school of drinkers which regards scientifically-preservatised liquors as All Chemicals and therefore harmful; hence his beer always turned out to be all clots and ropes and bacteria.

      Ballest held his usual party this train-day night. His guests were his mate, Mick O’Pick, and the ordinary fettlers, Funnigan and Cockerell and Smelly. СКАЧАТЬ