雙語·像愛麗絲的小鎮(zhèn) Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Jean drove the utility slowly up to the tent with Bourneville riding beside her; she took out the gear and stopped it with a sigh of relief. Joe came to her as she sat there.“What's happened to Dave?”he asked.“Didn't he come back?”

She told him what had happened.“I thought I'd better have a go at driving it up myself,”she said.“I've only driven a car about three times before. I don't think I've done it any good, Joe.”

He stepped back.“Looks all right,”he said.“Did you hit anything?”

“I didn't hit anything. I couldn't get the gears in sometimes and it made an awful noise.”

“Do they still work?”

“Oh, I think so.”

“That's all right, then. What were the creeks like?”

“Pretty high,”she said.“It came over the floor of the cab.”

He grunted.“Get along back as soon as we can. I wish this bloody rain 'ld stop.”

She asked,“Is Mr Curtis here, Joe?”

He nodded.“In the tent.”

“What's wrong?”

“Got his leg bust,”he said.“Compound fracture—that's what you call it when the bone's sticking out, isn't it? I think he's got a broken ankle, too.”

She pursed her lips.“I brought up that trunk with your splints and things.”

He asked,“Do you know about breaks? Ever been a nurse or anything like that?”

She shook her head.“I've not.”

“I've had a look at it and washed it,”he said.“I set it well as I could, but it's a mess. I made a sort of long splint this morning and tied it all down on that. We'll get him down to hospital, soon as we can. It's been done two days.”

They set to work to strike camp. They removed the tent from over the injured man and he saw Jean for the first time.“Hullo, Miss Paget,”he said.“You don't remember me. I saw you in Willstown, day you arrived.”

She smiled at him.“You'll be back there in a little while. In the hospital.”

Once as she worked she turned to Joe with a puzzled expression.“Whose land are we on, Joe?”

“Midhurst,”he said.“Why?”

She glanced at the corral.“What's that for?”

“That?”he said.“Oh, that's just a place we put the cattle in sometimes, for branding and that.”

She said no more, but went on with her work; once or twice a little smile played round her lips. They worked a blanket underneath the brushwood bed as the man lay upon the ground, and lowered the tailboard of the utility; then, with infinite care and great labour they lifted him on his bed into the body of the truck. The man was white and sweating when they had done and a little blood was showing on his lip where he had bitten it, but there was nothing else that they could do to ease his pain.

They started off at about nine o'clock, Joe driving the utility, Jean riding in the back with the injured man, and Bourneville following behind, riding and leading the two horses. They passed the bore and went on for about five miles till they came to the creeks. The water was considerably higher than when Jean had crossed a couple of hours earlier.

They crossed the first without difficulty, though the water was in the cab of the utility and only just below the floor of the truck body on which the sick man lay. They came through that one and went on. At the second creek the water was higher. Joe stopped on the edge and consulted with Jean and Bourneville about the crossing they had made before. It seemed shallower fifty yards above the point where Jean had crossed; Joe sent Bourneville into the water on his horse to sound the crossing. It looked good enough, so he drove the utility into the water.

It grew deep quickly, and he accelerated to keep her going. The bottom, under the swirling yellow flood, was very rough; the big car went forward leaping from boulder to boulder under the water. Then she came down heavily on something with a crunch of metal, and stopped dead.

Joe said,“Jesus,”and pressed the starter, but the engine was immovable. Oil began to appear on the eddying yellow surface of the water, and slide away downstream in black and yellow tails. He stared at it in consternation.

Jean said,“What's happened, Joe?”

“I've cracked the bloody sump,”he said shortly.

He got down into the water from the cab, feeling his way gingerly; it was well above his knees, close on waist deep. He called Bourneville and made Jean pass him a coil of rope from the back of the truck. The utility was only about ten yards from the bank. They made a sort of tandem harness for the three horses with lariats that they carried at the pommel of the riding saddles, and harnessed this team to the back axle of the utility, groping and spluttering under the water to do so. In ten minutes the vehicle was on dry land; a performance that left Jean awed by its efficiency.

She got down from the back and went to Joe, who was lying on his back under the front axle. She stooped down with him to look; the cast iron sump was crushed and splintered.“Say it, Joe,”she said quietly.

He grinned at her, and said,“It's a fair mugger.”He picked the broken pieces of cast iron from the hole, and got out from underneath. He went and got the starting-handle from the cab and turned the engine carefully. He sighed with relief.“Crank-shaft's all right,”he said.“It's only just the sump.”

He stood in deep thought for a minute, starting-handle in his hand; the rain poured down upon them steadily. She asked,“Where do we go from here, Joe?”

“I could patch that,”he said,“good enough to get her home. But then we haven't got any oil. It's no good going down to fetch the truck the way these creeks are rising.”He stood watching the water for a minute or two.“Never get the truck through by the time it got here,”he said finally.“There's only one thing for it now. He'll have to be flown out.”

The country round about was covered with rocks and trees.“Is there anywhere an aeroplane can land here?”she asked.

“I know one place it might,”he said.“Five hundred yards, they want, and then a good approach.”

He took his horse and went off to the south; by the river they unpacked the tent and arranged it over Don Curtis to keep the rain off him. The wounded man said faintly once,“Joe Harman's a clumsy mugger with a car. He's a good poddy dodger, though.”Jean laughed.“Pair of criminals, the two of you,”she said.“I'm going to have a word with Mrs Curtis.”

“Don't do it,”he said.“She don't know nothing about this.”

She said,“Lie still, and don't talk. Joe's gone off to find a place where the aeroplane can land to fly you out.”

“Hope he makes a better job of it than he did driving this bloody truck,”said Mr Curtis.

Joe came back in a quarter of an hour.“Think we can make something of it,”he said.“It's only about a mile away.”With Bourneville he harnessed up the tandem team of three horses to the front axle of the truck, and with Jean at the wheel they set off through the bush, steering and manoeuvring between the trees.

They came presently to an open space, a long grassy sward with low bushes dotted about on it. It was more than five hundred yards long, but there were trees at each end. It would be possible to make an airstrip there.“Clear off some of those bushes,”Joe said,“and fell some of those trees. I've seen them use a lot worse places than this.”

An axe and a spade were part of the equipment of the utility; they had tools enough. Their labour was quite inadequate for the work.“We'll have to get the boys up from Midhurst,”he said.“Everyone that's there. And get a message down to Willstown about the aeroplane.”

She said,“I'll ride down with Bourneville to the homestead, Joe. Then he can bring the boys back, and I'll go on to Willstown.”

He stared at her.“You can't ride that far.”

“How far is it?”

“Forty miles, to Willstown.”

“I can get to Midhurst, anyway,”she said.“If I can't go on I'll send Moonshine in with a note to Sergeant Haines. He's the best man to tell, isn't he?”

“That's right. If you do this, there's to be no riding alone. If you go on from Midhurst to town, you've got to take Moonshine or one of the other boys with you. I won't have you trying to cross them creeks alone, on a horse.”

She touched his arm.“All right, Joe. I'll take someone with me.”She paused.“We could get on the radio from Willstown,”she said.“We could get some people over from Windermere to help you then, couldn't we?”

“That's right,”he said.“It would be better if we had a radio at Midhurst.”He paused.“There's one thing that they'll all want to know,”he said,“and that's where this place is. We're about six miles west-south-west of the new bore. Can you remember that?”

“I've got that, Joe,”she said.“Six miles west-south-west of the new bore.”She paused.“What are you going to do?”she asked.

“I'll make a camp here.”He looked around.“I'll pitch the tent over the back of the utility,”he said.“We don't want to shift him again if we can help it, not until we get a stretcher. After that I'll start and fell some of those trees for the approach.”

“What about your back?”she asked.

“That'll be all right.”

She thought of swinging a two-handed axe to fell a tree.“Have you done that, Joe?”

“No, but it'll be all right.”

She said,“If you're going to cut down trees I'll take back what I said about not riding alone. I'll send Moonshine up with the other boongs to help you here.”

“You're not to do that,”he said.“It's not safe for you crossing them creeks.”

“It's not safe for you to swing an axe,”she said.“It won't help if you go and ruin your back up here, Joe.”She touched his arm again.“Let's both be sensible,”she said.“The work you'll do in cutting down those trees alone is only what the boongs will do in an hour when they get here. Don't take risks, Joe.”

He smiled at her.“All right. But you're not to ride alone.”

“I'll promise that,”she said.

It was about half past ten when they put her up on Joe's horse, Robin. Robin was a much bigger horse than she had ridden before, and she was rather afraid of him. He was little, if any, wider for her to straddle than the horses she was used to, and Joe's saddle was much better than the casual saddles she had been using up till then; it was soft and worn and supple with much use and yet efficient and in very good repair. When they got the stirrups adjusted for her legs she found herself fairly comfortable.

She started off with Bourneville at a slow trot through the trees, and so began a feat of endurance which she was to look back upon with awe for years to come. She found the horse docile, responsive, and energetic; moreover, he had a very easy gait when trotting. At the same time, the bald fact remained that she had only been on a horse six times before, and never for more than an hour and a half at a time.

The rain had stopped for the moment, and they came to the creek and waded through the tumbling yellow water, Bourneville beside her. They came through that one and went on, walking and trotting alternately. After an hour they came to the second creek and found it very deep; Bourneville made her take her feet out of the stirrups and be prepared to swim, holding to the horse's mane. That was not necessary and they came through to the other side in good order, and then the creeks were over.

“Too deep for the utility,”she said.

“Yes, Missy. Him too deep now.”

No creeks now lay between them and Midhurst; it remained only for them to ride. The rain began again and soaked her to the skin, mingling with the sweat streaming off her. Very soon the wet strides began to chafe her legs and thighs; she could feel the soreness growing, but there was nothing to be done about that. She had said that she would ride, and ride she would.

She found, on the good going that was before them now, that she could get along faster than Bourneville. She was on a much better horse, and a horse that was fresh whereas he had ridden his from Midhurst with the utility. Frequently she had to slow to a walk for him when Robin would have trotted on, and these walks helped her, easing her fatigue.

They came to Midhurst homestead at about half past two. By that time she had a raging thirst, and she was getting very tired. Moonshine and one or two of the other boys ran out and took her bridle and helped her down from Robin; she could not manage the stretch from the stirrup to the ground. She said,“Bourneville, tell Moonshine to saddle up and come with me to Willstown. I'm going to have a cup of tea and some tucker, and then we'll start. You take all the boys back to Mr Harman. That okay?”

He said,“Yes, Missy.”It struck her that if she was tired he must be exhausted; he had been in the saddle continuously for twenty-four hours. She looked at the seamed black face and said,“Can you make it, Bourneville? Are you very tired?”

He grinned.“Me not tired, Missy. Go back to Missa Harman with the boys after tucker.”He went away shouting,“Palmolive, Palmolive. You go longa kitchen, make tea and tucker for Missy. You go longa kitchen quick.”

She sat down wearily upon the chair in the veranda, and in a very short time Palmolive appeared with a pot of tea and two fried eggs upon a steak that was almost uneatable. She ate the eggs and a corner of the steak and drank six huge cups of tea. She did not dare to change her clothes or examine her sores; once started on that sort of thing, she knew, she would never get going again. She finished eating and called out for Moonshine and went down into the yard. The black stockmen, saddling their own horses and making up the bundles for the packhorses in the rain, put her up into the saddle and she was off again for Willstown with Moonshine by her side.

The short rest had stiffened her, and it needed all her courage to face the twenty miles that lay ahead. Every muscle in her body was stretched and aching. Her legs ceased to function much to hold her in the saddle, but the big horns above and below her thighs came into play and held her in place.

They crossed the creeks, now too deep for a car, and rode on. They were following the car track, and the going was good. She was the laggard now, because Moonshine's horse was fresh and Robin was tiring. She rode the last ten miles in a daze, walking and trotting wearily; for the last five miles the black stockman rode close by her side to try and catch her if she fell. But she didn't fall. She rode into Willstown in the darkness at about seven o'clock, a very tired girl on a very tired horse with a black ringer beside her. She rode past the hotel and past the ice-cream parlour with its lights streaming out into the street, and came to a stand outside Sergeant Haines' police station and house. She had been about eight hours in the saddle.

Moonshine dismounted and held Robin's head. She summoned a last effort and got her right leg back over the saddle, and slithered down to the ground. She could not stand at first without holding on to something, and she held on to Robin's saddle. Then Sergeant Haines was there.

“Why, Miss Paget,”he said in the slow Queensland way,“where have you come from?”

“From Joe Harman,”she said.“He's got Don Curtis up at the top end of Midhurst with a broken leg. Look, tell Moonshine what he can do with these horses, and then help me inside, and I'll tell you.”

He told Moonshine to take the horses round to the police corral and to bed down for the night with the police trackers in the bunkhouse; then he turned to Jean.“Come on in the house,”he said.“Here, take my arm. How far have you ridden?”

“Forty miles,”she said, and even in her fatigue there was a touch of pride in the achievement.“Joe Harman's up there now with Mr Curtis. All the Midhurst stockmen have gone up there to make an airstrip. It's the only way to get him out, Joe says. You can't get through the creeks with a utility.”

He took her in and sat her down in his mosquito-wired veranda, and Mrs Haines brought out a cup of tea. He glanced at the clock and settled down to listen to her in slow time; he had missed the listening watch of seven o'clock on the Cairns Ambulance radio, and now there was three quarters of an hour to wait before he could take any action.“Six miles west-south-west of the new bore,”he said thoughtfully.“I know, there's open country round about that part. I'll get on to the radio presently, and get the plane out in the morning.”

“Joe thought if you got on the radio some ringers might go out from Windermere and help him make the strip,”she said.“He's talking about cutting down some trees. I don't want him to do that, because of his back.”

He nodded.“I'll be getting Windermere at the same time.”And then he said,“I never knew you were a rider, Miss Paget.”

“I'm not,”she said.“I've been on a horse six times before.”

He smiled, and then said,“Oh my word. Are you sore?”

She got up wearily.“I'm going home to bed,”she said, and caught hold of the back of the chair.“If I stay here any longer I won't be able to walk at all.”

“Stay where you are,”he said.“I'll get out the utility and run you to the hospital.”

“I don't want to go to the hospital.”

“I don't care if you want to go or not,”he said,“but that's where you're going. You'll be better off there for tonight, and Sister Douglas, she's got everything you'll want.”

Half an hour later she was bathed and in a hospital bed with penicillin ointment on various parts of her anatomy, feeling like a very small child. Back in his office Sergeant Haines sat down before his transmitter.

“Eight Queen Charlie, Eight Queen Charlie,”he said,“this is Eight Love Mike calling Eight Queen Charlie. Eight Queen Charlie, if you are receiving Eight Love Mike will you please come in. Over to you. Over.”

He turned his switch, and the speaker on top of the set said in a girl's voice,“Eight Love Mike this is Eight Queen Charlie answering, receiving you strength three. Pass your message. Over.”

He said,“Eight Queen Charlie, we've got Don Curtis. Joe Harman found him at the top end of Midhurst. His injuries are compound fracture of the left leg two and a half days old, probably left ankle broken in addition. Position of the camp is six miles west-south-west of Harman's new bore. Tell me now if this is Roger. Over.”

The girl's voice from the speaker said,“Oh, I am glad—we've all been so worried this end. That is Roger, but I will repeat.”She repeated.“Over to you. Over.”

He said,“Okay, Jackie. Now take a message for Mr Barnes. Message reads. Request ambulance aircraft at Willstown soon as possible prepared for bush landing. Just read that back to me. Over.”

She read it back to him.

“Okay, Jackie,”he said.“Now call Windermere for me and let me speak to them. Over.”

She said,“Eight Able George, Eight Able George, this is Eight Queen Charlie calling Eight Able George. If you are receiving me, Eight Able George, please come in. Over to you. Over.”

A tremulous woman's voice said in thirty speakers in thirty homesteads,“Eight Queen Charlie, this is Eight Able George. I've heard all that, Jackie. Isn't it marvellous the way prayer gets answered? Oh my dear, I'm that relieved I don't know what to say. I'm sure we all ought to go down on our bended knees tonight and thank God for His mercy. I'm sure we all ought to do that. Oh—over.”

Miss Bacon turned her switch.“I'm sure we'll all thank God tonight, Helen. Now Sergeant Haines is waiting to speak to you. You stay listening with your switch on to Receive, Helen. Eight Love Mike, will you come in now? Over.”

In Willstown Sergeant Haines said,“Eight Love Mike calling Eight Able George. Mrs Curtis, you've heard Joe Harman's with your husband up at the top end of Midhurst. He's got to make an airstrip for the ambulance to land on, and he's taken all his stockmen up there. Will you send everyone you have upon your station to help make this airstrip? I'll give you the position. If you have a pencil and a bit of paper write this down.”He paused.“The place where Joe Harman is making the strip is six miles west-south-west of his new bore. Six miles west-south-west of his new bore. I want you to send every man you've got there to help him, and pass that message to Constable Duncan if he's with you. Is that Roger, Mrs Curtis? Over.”

The tremulous voice said,“That's Roger, Sergeant. Six miles west-south-west of Joe's new bore. I've got that written down. Eddie Page is here, and I'm expecting Phil Duncan to come back tonight. I'll send everybody up there. Isn't it marvellous what God can do for us? When I think of all His mercies to us suffering sinners I could go down on my bended knees and cry.”There was a pause, and then she said,“Oh, I keep on forgetting. Over.”

He turned his switch and said,“It's not only God you've got to thank, Mrs Curtis.”He was very well aware that most of the housewives in a hundred thousand square miles of the Gulf country would be listening in to this conversation, and one good turn deserves another.“Miss Paget rode forty miles down from the top end of Midhurst to bring this message about Don. You know Jean Paget, the English girl that's started the shoe workshop and the ice-cream shop? She was out at Midhurst spending the day when we heard Don was missing, and she rode forty miles to tell me where this airstrip was to be. She's only been astride a horse six times before, and the poor girl's so sore she can't stand. Sister Douglas has her in the hospital for a good rest. She'll be all right in a day or two. Over.”

She said,“Oh my word. I don't know what to say to thank her. Give her my very dearest love, and I do hope she'll be better soon.”There was a pause, and then she said,“I've been so troubled in my mind about that ice-cream parlour. It didn't seem right to have a thing like that in Willstown, and opening it on Sundays and Christmas Day and all. I couldn't find nothing in the Bible either for or against it, and I've been that perplexed. But now it seems God had that under His hand like everything else. I do think it's wonderful. Over.”

“That's right,”said Sergeant Haines non-committally. He had been uncertain about the shop closing hours himself and had written to his head office for guidance; it was a good long time since he had been in a district where there was a shop to close.“Now I must sign off, Mrs Curtis. Eight Queen Charlie, this is Eight Love Mike. It's okay here if you want to close down your listening watch for tonight, Jackie. I'd like to have a listening watch in daylight hours tomorrow, from seven o'clock on. Is this Roger? Over.”

Miss Bacon said,“That is Roger, sergeant. I'll tell Mr Barnes. If you have nothing more for me, I shall close down. Over.”

“Nothing more, Jackie. Goodnight. Out.”

“Goodnight, Sergeant. Out.”

Miss Bacon switched off her sets thankfully. There was no proper organization for a twenty-four hour listening watch at the Cairns Ambulance; in an emergency such as this everybody had to muscle in and lend a hand. She had been on duty the previous day from eight in the morning till midnight, and from eight o'clock that morning till then; Mr Barnes had taken the night watch and was preparing to do so again. She thought, ruefully, that she had missed Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall; the show would be half over. But there was still one more night, and with any luck this flap would be over and she could see it tomorrow. She went to telephone to Mr Barnes.

Mr Barnes telephoned to Mr Smythe of Australian National Airways, and Mr Smythe telephoned to his reserve pilot, Captain Jimmie Cope. Mr Cope said,“Hell, I hope it's better in the morning than it was today. We'd never have got over the Tableland today. Better say take off at six, I suppose. I'll be along at the hangar then.”

When he got to the aerodrome at dawn the old Dragon, surely the best aircraft ever built for ambulance work in the outback, was running up both engines. The clouds hung low at about five hundred feet, shrouding the hill immediately behind the aerodrome; it was raining a little. Willstown lay about four hundred miles to the west-north-west; the first seventy miles of this course lay over the Atherton Tableland with mountains up to three thousand five hundred feet in height With no radio navigational aids he would have to fly visually all the way, scraping along between the clouds and the treetops as best he could.

He said a sour word or two to the control officer and took off down the runway with an ambulance orderly on board. Once in the air it was worse than ever. He flew at three hundred feet up the Barron River towards the mountains, hoping to find a break in the low cloud that would enable him to get up on to the Tableland through the Kuranda Gap. The grey vapour closed around him and the sides of the jungle-covered gorge drew very near his wings. There was no sign of a break ahead. He edged over to the starboard side and made a tight, dicey turn round in the gorge with about a hundred feet to spare, and headed back for the coast. He lifted his microphone and said,“Cairns Tower, this is Victor How Able Mike Baker. I can't make it by Kuranda. I'm going up to Cooktown by the coast, and try it from there. Tell Cooktown I'll be landing there in about an hour, and I'll want twenty gallons of seventy-three octane.”

He flew on up the tropical Queensland coast at about three hundred feet, and came to Cooktown an hour later. Cooktown is a pretty little town of about three hundred people, but it was grey and rainswept when he got there. He landed on the aerodrome and refuelled.“I'm going to try and make Willstown from here,”he said.“There's not much high stuff on the way. If it gets too bad I shall come back. I'll be on a direct course from here to Willstown.”He said that in case a search party should be necessary.

He took off again immediately the refuelling was finished and flew inland on a compass course. In the whole of that flight he was never more than two hundred feet above the treetops. He scraped over the Great Dividing Range, petering out up in this northern latitude, with about fifty feet to spare, always on the point of turning back, always seeing a faint break ahead that made it necessary to go on. Behind him the orderly sat gripping his seat, only too well aware of danger in the flight and impotent to do anything about it. For three hours they flew like that, and then as they neared the Gulf of Carpentaria the pilot started picking up the landmarks that he knew, a river bend, a burnt patch of the bush, a curving sandy waste like a banana. He came to Willstown and flew round the few houses at a hundred feet to tell them he was there, and landed on the airstrip. He taxied in to where the truck was standing waiting for him; he was strained and tired. It was still raining.

He held a little conference with Sergeant Haines and Sister Douglas and Al Burns beside the truck.“I'll have a crack at flying him back here,”he said.“If it's no better this afternoon he'll have to spend the night in hospital here. I can't fly him to Cairns in this weather. It'll probably be better by tomorrow.”They gave him a freehand pencil map which the sergeant had prepared for him, showing him the creeks and Midhurst homestead, and the new bore, and the probable position of the airstrip, and he took off again. That was at about eleven o'clock.

Following this map he found the place without much difficulty. It was clear where they meant him to land, because trees had been felled upon a line he was to come in on, and bushes had been cleared for a short distance on what seemed to be a grassy meadow. He could see about ten men working or standing looking up at him; he could see a utility parked with a tent over it. He circled round under the low cloud, considering the risks. The runway that they had prepared was pitifully short, even for a Dragon. Time was also short, however; the man had had his compound fracture three days now. Sepsis and gangrene and all sorts of things would be setting in; he must not delay. He bit his lip and lined the Dragon up with the runway for a trial approach.

He came in as slowly as he dared over the trees, missing them by no more than five feet, motoring in with careful graduations of the throttles. Over the cut trees he throttled back and stuffed her down towards the grass, hoping it was smooth. He could... he couldn't, he could never stop her in time. With wheels no more than two feet from the ground he jammed the throttles forward, held her level for a moment, and climbed away.

He turned to the orderly behind him as he circled low under the clouds, keeping the airstrip in sight.“Got a pencil and paper? Write this.”He thought for a moment.“Sorry I can't make it. Strip must be about a hundred yards longer, or a hundred and fifty if you can manage it. I will come back at four o'clock this afternoon.”They put this in a message bag with coloured streamers flying from it, and flew over, and dropped it on the middle of the strip.

Back at Willstown airfield he told them what had happened.“They've not had time to make it long enough,”the sergeant said.“You'll find it'll be all right this afternoon.”He drove the pilot in to the hotel and Al Burns took him to the bar, but the pilot would drink nothing but lemonade till the difficult flying of the afternoon was over.

He lunched at the hotel and strolled into the ice-cream parlour after lunch. It was new since he had last been in Willstown, and he stared around him with amused wonder. He ordered an ice; Rose Sawyer told him briskly to be quick and eat it, because she was shutting up. He asked if she closed every afternoon and was told that she was going up to see Miss Paget at the hospital. Then, of course, he heard all about her ride.

At four o'clock he was back over the airstrip at the top end of Midhurst; the rain had stopped and he was able to approach at about eight hundred feet. He circled once and had a good look; they had made the strip much longer and he would have no difficulty now. He came in and touched down at the near end; the Dragon bounced on the uneven ground and landed again, and rolled bumping and swaying to a standstill.

He stopped the engines and got out; they took a stretcher from the cabin and the orderly began the business of getting Don Curtis on to the stretcher and into the cabin, helped by the ringers. The pilot lit a cigarette and gave one to Joe Harman.

Joe asked,“Did you hear anything about Miss Paget, down in Willstown?”

The pilot said,“She's in the hospital. Nothing much wrong, they say, just tired and sore. She must be quite a girl.”

Joe said,“Too right. If you see anyone from the hospital, leave a message for Miss Paget, will you? Tell her I'll be in town tomorrow afternoon.”

“I'll do that,”said the pilot.“I'll be staying there tonight. It's too late now to get to Cairns; I can't do night flying in this weather, not in this thing.”

The loading was completed now. He got into his seat; the orderly swung the propellers and they taxied back to the far end of the track. It was short, but he could make it. He opened out and took off down the runway, and cleared the trees at the far end with about fifteen feet to spare. Half an hour later he was on the ground at Willstown, helping to transfer the stretcher to the truck that was to take Don Curtis to the hospital.

In hospital that afternoon Jean Paget showed Rose Sawyer the more accessible of her wounds, great chafed raw places six inches long.“Honourable scars,”Rose said.“Pity you can't show them.”

“It's because everything was so wet,”Jean said.“But I'm going to have a proper pair of riding breeches made, I think. Ringers' strides are for ringers' skins.”

“I'd never want to get up on a horse again if it'd done that to me.”

“It's going to be some time before I can,”said Jean.

Presently Rose said,“Tell me, Jean. Do you think there'd be any work up here for a contractor?”

Jean stared at her.“What sort of a contractor?”

“Making roads and things like that. Buildings, too.”

“Is this Billy Wakeling, from Alice?”

Rose nodded.“He wrote me,”she said carelessly. For the bunch of seven letters that arrived by the Dakota regularly every Wednesday, this seemed to Jean to be an understatement.“You know, his father's a contractor in Newcastle—he's got graders and bulldozers and steam shovels and all sorts of things like that. He started Billy off in Alice after the war because he said Alice was expanding and expanding places meant work for contractors. But Billy says he's fed up with Alice.

“He's coming up here for a visit as soon as the wet's over,”she added artlessly.

“He won't get any roads or buildings to contract for here,”Jean observed.“There's nobody to pay for them. I know what does want doing though. Joe Harman wants some little dams built up on Midhurst. I don't know if that's in his line.”

“I should think it might be,”said Rose slowly.“After all, it's shifting muck, and that's what Billy does. He'd do it with a bulldozer in the dry, wouldn't he?”

“I haven't the least idea,”said Jean.“Can he get hold of a bulldozer?”

“His old man's got about forty down at Newcastle,”Rose said.“I should think he could spare one for Billy.”

“They're only little dams,”said Jean.

“Well, everything's got to start. I don't think Billy expects a contract like the Sydney Harbour Bridge, not in the first year.”

Jean asked,“Could you scoop out a hole for a swimming-pool with a bulldozer?”

“I should think so. Yes, I'm sure you could. I went out with him once and watched one working. He let me drive it; it was awful fun. You'd scoop it out first with a bulldozer and then you'd put up wooden stuff that they call shuttering and make the concrete sides.”

“Could he do all that, too?”

“Oh, Billy can do that. Why, do you want a swimming-pool?”

Jean stared at the white painted wall.“It was just an idea. A nice, big pool just by the bore, with diving-boards and everything, big enough for everybody to get into and have fun. You see, you've got the water there, right in the main street. You'd have a wooden thing they call a cooling tower and run the water through that to cool it off before it went into the pool. Have a lawn of grass by it, where people could lie and sunbathe if they want to. An old man taking the cash at the gate, a bob a bathe...”

Rose stared at her.“You've got it all worked out. Are you thinking of doing that, Jean?”

“I don't know. It would be fun to have it, and I believe it'ld pay like anything. Mixed bathing, of course.”

Rose laughed.“Have all the wowsers in the place looking over the rails to see what was going on.”

“Charge them sixpence for that,”said Jean. She turned to Rose.“Ask Billy to get hold of plans and things,”she said,“and tell us what it would cost when he comes up after the wet. I don't believe that there's a swimming-pool in the whole Gulf country. It would be fun to have one.”

“I'll ask him. Anything else?”

Jean stretched in her bed.“A nice hairdressing saloon and beauty parlour,”she said,“with a pretty French brunette in it who really knew her stuff, and could make one look like Rita Hayworth. That's what I want, sometimes. But I don't think that's in Billy's line.”

“It had better not be,”said Rose.

Jean got up next day and left the hospital, and walked awkwardly to the workshop. There was an airmail letter from Mr Pack about the air freight consignment of shoes that he had received from them. His enthusiasm was temperate; he pointed out a number of defects and crudities which would require correction in production batches; most of these they were aware of and had attended to. He finished up by saying he would try and shift them, which, knowing Mr Pack, Jean and Aggie Topp interpreted as praise.

“He'll like the next lot better,”Aggie said. And then she said,“I had two girls come along for jobs while you were away. One was Fred Dawson's daughter; he's the chief stockman or something on a station called Carlisle. She's fifteen; her mother brought her in. She's a bit young, but she'd be all right. The other was a girl of nineteen who's been working in the store at Normanton. I didn't like her so much.”

“I don't want to take on anyone else until that first batch of shoes have been sold,”said Jean.“If Mrs Dawson comes in again, tell her that we'll let her know about the kid after the wet. I'd like to have her if I can. I don't think we want the other one, do we?”

“I don't think so. Bit of a slut, she was.”

They talked about the details of the business for an hour.“We haven't got the overalls back yet,”said Aggie.“I went and saw Mrs Harrison, but her back's bad again. We'll have to find someone else.”They issued the girls with a clean overall each week to work in, and the washing of these overalls was something of a problem to them.

“What we want,”said Jean,“is one of those Home Laundry things, and do them ourselves. We could run it off the generating set.... Of course, it needs hot water.”She thought for a minute.“Think about that one,”she said.“Hire it out, do people's washing for them. Anyway, see if you can find another Mrs Harrison for the time being.”

Aggie said,“Everybody's talking about your ride, Miss Paget.”

“Are they?”

She nodded.“Even that girl from Normanton, she knew about it, too.”

“How on earth did she get to hear?”

“It's these little wireless sets they have up on the cattle stations,”Aggie said.“The boys here were telling me, they all listen in to what everybody else is saying—telegrams and everything. They've got nothing else to do. You can't keep anything secret in this country.”And then she said,“I heard the aeroplane go off this morning. Was the man very bad?”

“Not too good,”said Jean.“Sister thinks they'll be able to save the leg. We ought to have a doctor here, of course.”

“There's not enough work to keep a doctor occupied in a place like this,”said Aggie.“Where did they fly him to?”

“Cairns. There's a good hospital in Cairns.”She turned to the door, and paused.“Aggie,”she said,“how do you think a swimming-pool would go in Willstown? Would people use it?”

Joe Harman rode into the town that afternoon with Pete Fletcher. He put his horse into the stable behind the Australian Hotel and came to find Jean; he was wet and dirty in his riding clothes because the creeks were up, and though he had started spick and span from Midhurst as befits a man going in to town to see his girl, he had had to swim one of the two creeks on the way holding to the mane and saddle of his horse, which had rather spoilt the sartorial effect. He was half dry when he got to Willstown; he combed his hair and emptied out his boots, and went to the ice-cream parlour to ask Rose where Jean was.

He found her in her bedroom, writing a long letter to me. He tapped on the door and she came out to him.“We can't talk here, Joe. I'll never hear the last of it if you come in. Let's go and have an ice-cream in the parlour.”It was borne in on her that this was literally the only place in Willstown where young men and young women could meet reputably to talk; the alternative, in the wet, would be to go into the stable or a barn. They picked a table by the wall; she looked around her at the rectangular walls and the adjacent tables with discontent.“This won't do at all,”she said.“I'll have some sort of booths made, little corners where people can talk privately.”

“What'll you have?”he asked.

“I'll have a banana split,”she said.“I want feeding up. I don't know if you know it, but I've been very ill. Don't pay, Joe—have it on the house.”

He grinned.“Think I'm the kind of man to take a girl out and let her shout?”

“If you're feeling like that, I'll have two. The bananas will be going bad by tomorrow.”She was getting fruit flown in by the Dakota every Wednesday, and she had little difficulty in selling the small quantities she got at prices that would pay for the air freight. Her trouble was that usually she could not keep it for a week.

He came back with the ices and sat down with her.“Now Joe,”she said,“what about that poddy corral?”

He grinned sheepishly, and looked over his shoulder.“That's crook,”he said.“There's no poddy corral on Midhurst.”

“There's something damn like one,”she said, laughing.“Come clean, Joe. What happened to Don Curtis, anyway?”

“He was moseying about on my land where he hadn't got no right to be,”Joe said carefully.“He found that corral where I'd got some poddys—my own poddys, mind you. I'd put 'em in there to consider things a bit, because they'd been wandering. Well, Don went to steal them off me, and he took down the top bar, but they were pretty wild, those poddys were; they hadn't had no water for about four days except the rain. Far as I can make out they pushed the second bar out on top of him when he went to loose it, and knocked him over on his back with the pole on top, and then they all ran over him and bust his leg. They ran out on the horse, too; Don had hitched his horse by the rein to something or other, and these poddys, they come charging down on to the horse and he bust the rein and he went too. So there Don was, and serve him bloody well right for going where he hadn't got no business to be.”

“Whose poddys were they, really, Joe?”

“Mine,”he replied firmly.

She smiled.“Where had they been wandering?”

He grinned.“Windermere. But they were my poddys. He pinched 'em off me. You heard me telling Pete he's got a poddy corral there.”

“Were these poddys that you had in your corral the same ones that you let out of his corral?”she asked. It seemed to be getting just a little bit involved.

“Most of 'em,”he said.“There might have been one or two with them that we picked up as damages, you might say.”He paused.“Things get a bit mixed up sometimes,”he observed.

“Where are the poddys now?”she asked.“The ones that Don let out?”

“They'll be on Midhurst,”he said.“They'll be somewhere round about the bore, I'd say. They won't stir from the first water that they find, not even in the wet.”

She ate a little of her banana split in silence. Then she said,“Well, anyway, you're not to go after any of his poddys while he's in hospital, Joe. That's not fair. He'll come out of hospital and find there's not a poddy left.”

“I wouldn't do a thing like that.”

“I bet you would. I don't know how this game is played, Joe, but I'm quite sure that's against the rules.”

He grinned.“All right. But he'll be after mine as soon as he gets back. That's sure as anything.”

“Why can't you let each other's poddys alone?”

“I'll let his alone, but he won't let mine alone. You see,”he said simply.“I got about fifty more of his last year than he got of mine.”

This conversation, Jean felt, was not getting them anywhere; where poddys were concerned Joe's moral standards seemed to be extremely low. She changed the subject, and said,“Joe, about those little dams you were talking about on Green Island. Have you got anyone to build them for you yet?”

He shook his head.“It's no good thinking about those until the dry.”

“Could a bulldozer build them?”

“Oh my word,”he said.“If anybody had a bulldozer he'd built the lot inside a month. But there's no bulldozer this side of the Curry.”

“There might be one,”she said. She told him about Rose Sawyer and Billy Wakeling.“He's coming up to see her anyway,”she said,“and she says he's looking for that sort of work to do up here. I suppose he's turning into Rose's steady. You'd better take him out to Midhurst when he comes, and have a talk to him.”

“My word,”he said.“If we had a joker with a bulldozer in Willstown it'ld make a lot of difference to the stations.”

“It'ld make a lot of difference here in Willstown,”she observed.“Joe, if we had a really decent swimming-pool just by the bore, with little cabins to change in and green lawns to sunbathe on, and diving-boards, and an old man in charge to mow the grass and keep it clean and nice—would people use it, Joe? If we charged, say, a bob a bathe?”

They discussed the swimming-pool for some time, and came to the conclusion that it could never pay upon the basis of a town with a hundred and fifty people.“It's just a question of how fast this town is going to grow,”he said.“A swimming-pool is just another thing to make it grow. There's not a town in the whole Gulf country that's got a pool.”

“The ice-cream parlour's paying, definitely,”Jean said.“If we can keep up the quality, I feel we're home on that one. I'd like to try the swimming-pool next, I think, if I can get the money for it out of Noel Strachan.”

He smiled in curious wonder.“What comes after the swimming-pool?”

She stared out at the wet, miry expanse of earth that was the street.“They'll get their hair wet in the swimming-pool, so we'll have to have a beauty parlour,”she said.“I think that's the next thing. And after that, an open-air cinema. And after that, a battery of Home Laundries for the wet wash, and after that a decent dress shop.”She turned to him.“Don't laugh, Joe. I know it sounds crackers, but just look at the results. I start an ice-cream parlour and put Rose in it, and young Wakeling comes after her with a bulldozer, so you get your dams built.”

“You're a bit ahead of the game,”he said.“They aren't built yet.”

“They will be soon.”

He glanced around the ice-cream parlour.“If everything you want to do works out like this,”he said slowly,“you'll have a town as good as Alice Springs in no time.”

“That's what I want to have,”she said.“A town like Alice.”