Beyond the Black Stump (18 page)

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Authors: Nevil Shute

BOOK: Beyond the Black Stump
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When Stanton Laird got this letter he read it through twice in the privacy of his cabin, and then went to the washbasin and wet his face-cloth and wiped his eyes, because it was time for him to go up to the laboratory hut beside the rig to inspect the samples brought up by the last shift. He did his routine tests with the fluoroscope, washed and scrutinised the samples from the screen, and wrote up the day book. Then he went out, and took his jeep, and drove up on to the limestone ridge two miles from the rig. Here he parked, and read his mother’s letter once again.

Chuck was dead. Never again would he sit with him in the Piggy-Wiggy café sucking a coke or licking an ice cream. Of all the men that he had met, in all his life, Chuck had understood him best; perhaps in turn he had understood Chuck best. The circumstances of his death were no mystery to Stanton Laird. Chuck had been killed in practising his own particular joke, probably initiating one of the other instructors into the jest; he had met his death with laughter in his heart and one landing light on. In all his grief Stanton felt instinctively that it was better so. Chuck would never have grown old graciously, and now he would remain for ever young.

There would be no more packhorse trips up into the Hazel mountains with Chuck, to look forward to. Never again would he see Chuck rise slowly to his feet behind a tree in the clear mountain air to shoot his arrow at a buck. Never again would he lie under the stars beside Chuck, recalling the blazing ardours of their first youth, the touch-last crash, and the disgrace that had brought them so close together, that had made them lifelong friends. He had never had so close a friend as Chuck. As he sat there, lonely in his jeep, looking out over the drab spinifex and the red earth beneath the bright Australian sun, he knew that he would never have so close a friend again.

He could not work that day. He felt a great need to get away out of the camp, to find somebody to talk to about Chuck, someone who would understand. There was only
one person in the district who would be willing to listen to him in his trouble; perhaps if he went over to Laragh Station he could find an opportunity to talk to her alone.

He got into his jeep again and drove down to the camp. He picked up three copies of his own magazines from the recreation room to serve as an excuse for going over, said a word to Spencer Rasmussen, and drove out on the graded road that led to Mollie Regan.

As he drove up to the wool shed and the yards of Laragh he saw the men doing something with a mob of sheep held in the yards, and the huge, red-headed figure of Pat Regan with them. He hesitated, and decided that it would be discourteous to drive past to the grazier’s homestead, and so parked his jeep and walked across to where the grazier stood exhorting his two sons as they crutched and anointed the fly-struck sheep. The old red-headed man stood hatless in the blazing sun, his grey collarless flannel shirt open down his hairy chest, one hand tucked into the leather belt that held up his soiled trousers, the other gently stroking the kangaroo mouse on his shoulder with one finger.

The geologist said, “Good afternoon, Mr. Regan.”

“God save you,” said the other. “Have ye come to tell us that ye’ve found oil down in the deep earth?”

Stanton shook his head. “Not yet. I wouldn’t say we would before we get down to the second anhydrite. We’re bringing up shale right now.”

“How far down would the oil be, then?”

“If there’s any oil at all, I’d say it might be around seven thousand four hundred feet. I’d say we’d probably bring up some gas when we get that far down. Whether there’s oil there I just don’t know.”

“How deep would that be down, in miles?”

“About a mile and a half.”

“Well, isn’t that a great way to be sinking a bore down into the earth! It’s day and night you’re working, so herself was telling me.”

“It suits us better to keep going,” Stanton said. “It takes a long time to start up the plant and get the mud moving.” He paused. “They’re changing the drill head this afternoon,” he explained. “I brought some magazines over for Mrs. Regan and Mollie.”

“Ye’ll find them within.”

“You’ve still got the mouse, I see.”

“Aye.” The grazier put up his hand to the creature on his shoulder and rubbed its side gently with a gnarled forefinger; it leaned towards the rubbing with little chirrups of pleasure. “Wait now, while I show you.”

He left the yards and went into the shade of the wool shed, the geologist following him. The grazier lifted the mouse down from his shoulder and set it gently on the floor by the wool press, and retired a few yards over to the bins. There he squatted down upon one heel, ringer fashion, and called quietly, “Hop—Hop—Hop! Hop when I tell ye, ye little divil. Hop!”

The mouse paused for a moment and then hopped towards him in two-foot bounds, hopped on to his knee, his elbow, and up on to his shoulder. The red-headed old man took the tin box of matches from the pocket of his belt and opened it, and took out a screw of paper laid on top of the matches. From this screw he extracted a few morsels of rotten beetle and cheese which he proceeded to feed to the mouse on his shoulder, swearing at it gently as he fed it. “Take that, ye wicked little bastard …”

The American said, “You know somethin? If I’d read about that in a book or magazine I’d have said it wasn’t possible. I mean, to tame a critter like that.”

The grazier got to his feet. “Ye’ll not see the like of it, not if you searched the whole wide world,” he said with simple pride. “Not all the Cardinals in their red robes within the sacred city would show you the like of that, nor the Holy Father himself. She’s the kindest hopper in all West Australia, the kindest hopper this side of the black stump.”

Stanton walked back with the old man to the yards, got into his jeep and drove on to the homestead, leaving Pat Regan with his sheep and his half-caste sons. The Countess, shapeless and very black, was languidly sweeping out the dining-room; she poked the fly door open with the handle of her broom and looked out at him. “You want Missis or Missy?” she enquired. “I go tell ’um.”

It was the middle of the afternoon, and they might be taking a siesta on their beds in the heat of the day. “Don’t bother them,” he said. “I’ll just wait here. What time do they have tea?”

“Bye ’m bye,” she said.

“I’ll just sit right here till you bring tea.”

“No call Missy?”

“No. Leave her be.”

The Countess hesitated, perplexed at the strange ways of the white strangers, inhibited and repressed. “That her room,” she said helpfully, pointing to a french window opening on to the side verandah.

“Okay. I’ll just sit right here.”

The Countess withdrew doubtfully, not certain if she had made herself clear. Stanton sat down in a cane chair on the verandah and lit one of his very occasional cigarettes, an American cigarette made in New Jersey. Chuck was dead and he would never see him again now; in spite of what his mother had said in her letter he was glad that he was not in Hazel at this time. Here in the Lunatic life went on the quiet tenor of its way, a world that Chuck had never known, that had not known Chuck. It helped him with a sense of proportion. In Hazel grief would have been unrestrained, but here the world went on unknowing, a world where an unregenerate old man took simple pleasure in the taming of a mouse, a world where a black woman naïvely assumed that if a young man wanted to go into a young woman’s room he just went.

In a few minutes Mollie appeared in a clean print dress; she had been lying awake and had heard all that went on on the verandah, but the Countess was no novelty to her and she paid little heed to that part of the conversation. She said, “Why, Stan—it’s nice to see you. Come over for tea?”

“I guess so,” he said. “Didn’t have anything to do, because they’re changing the drill head. I brought some magazines.”

She took them from him gratefully. “Why—you’re smoking!”

“I do sometimes.”

“I’ve never seen you smoke before.”

“No—I don’t do it so often. I guess I’m kind of upset today.”

She glanced at him quickly. “Why—what’s the matter?”

“I got bad news from home,” he said. “Friend of mine called Chuck Sheraton. He got killed, flying.”

He looked up at her, and she saw that his eyes were filled with tears. She said, “Oh Stan, I’m terribly sorry! That’s not the Chuck that you were telling me about, that you went shooting deer with, with bows and arrows?”

“That’s right,” he muttered. “It doesn’t seem any time ago, hardly.”

“How did it happen, Stan?” she asked gently. “Don’t talk about it if you’d rather not …”

“I guess it kinda helps to talk to some folks,” he muttered. “He got to beating up trains on one-track lines, ’n then last week he hit one.”

She wrinkled her brows. “Beating up trains?”

“Yeah. He was always thinking up some damfool joke.” A tear escaped and trickled down his cheek.

She did not understand at all what Chuck had done; she only understood that Stanton Laird was in deep distress. At any moment now the Countess might bring tea to the verandah, or her mother might appear; she wanted to spare Stan the embarrassment of meeting her mother till he had got himself under control. The long open shed that housed the trucks and jeeps, the Humber Super-Snipe that the hens laid their eggs in, and the workshop, was not far away; it was shaded and cool, and there they could talk undisturbed. She said, “Let’s go over to the garage, Stan.”

They walked together out into the blazing sun, and as they went he told her what had happened. In the cool shade of the shed he finished his account. “I guess he had it coming to him,” he told her. “It’s kind of hard to take, though, all the same.”

“You were very great friends?” she said.

He nodded. “Ever since we were in High School.” He hesitated. “We got in a kind of scrape together, like kids do,” he said. “After that we got to be real buddies. Went hunting or fishing or on ski trips together, and fixed things after we left school so’s we’d both be back in Hazel on vacation at the same time, if we could arrange it.” He hesitated again. “Chuck got married pretty young, but that didn’t seem to make any difference, as it sometimes does. You see, we’d all been in Hazel High together.”

“His wife’s alive, of course?”

He nodded. “She was with him down at this place Harrisburg.”

“Any children?”

“Yeah. He had four children.”

“Oh, Stan, how terrible! Will she get a pension?”

“I guess so,” he said. “I wouldn’t know exactly, but I’d say that she’d class as the widow of a veteran, same as if he’d been killed on combat service in Korea. He was only a lieutenant, so it wouldn’t be so much. Her Dad runs the lumber yard back in Hazel. I guess Ruthie ’n the kids ’ll be kind of hard up.”

She let him talk on, and he talked on for a quarter of an hour, gradually calming down, gradually building up a picture in her mind of the small town he loved so well. In the end he said, “I guess I’ll have to write to his mother, and maybe to Ruthie too. Apart from that, I dunno that there’s much that anyone can do.”

“There’s nothing more you
can
do,” she assured him. “It’s the sort of thing that happens, and one’s just got to make the best of it.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Just got to take it.” He glanced down at her. “It’s been mighty nice of you to let me talk like this. It kind of helps.”

“I know it does,” she said. “You’ve got to talk to someone.” She had noticed that tea was on the verandah and that her mother was there with the children. The American had regained control of himself now. “Let’s go over and have a cup of tea.”

“Just one thing.” He took her hand and drew her to him, and kissed her on the cheek. He smiled at her. “That’s for letting me talk.”

She withdrew, flushing a little. “That’s very sweet of you, Stan. But I didn’t want payment just for letting you talk to me.”

“I guess not,” he said. “But I kind of wanted to pay.”

They walked together in the hot sun across the sunbaked earth to the verandah of the homestead. “Stan’s got an afternoon off because they’re changing the drill or something,” the girl said to her mother. “I’ve been showing him the welder.” Later that evening she told her mother about Chuck Sheraton, and of Stanton Laird’s distress.

“Aye,” said the Scotswoman, “always up and down. Highly emotional, as they’d say. They’d all be the better for more self-control.”

“It must have been a frightful shock, Ma,” the girl protested. “I think he’s got plenty of self-control.”

“They wouldn’t have thought that in Edinburgh, when I was a child.”

“His great grandfather was a Scot. He’s a Presbyterian.”

Her mother looked up in surprise. “Do ye tell me that! Is that where the name Laird comes from?”

“That’s right, Ma. They emigrated from Scotland to the States sometime about a hundred years ago.”

“And the laddie’s a member of the kirk?”

“That’s right. All his family are Presbyterians.”

Her mother sat in silence, digesting this information. “Ah, weel,” she said at last in the intonation of her childhood, half forgotten now, “maybe there’s more to him than I was thinking.” She had never complained about the turn of fate that had made Roman Catholics of all her children, and it was many years since she had been inside a church of any sort herself. A fellow Presbyterian could still evoke her sympathies, however, even though he were American and only a very distant Scot.

Stanton Laird drove home that evening rested by his conversation with the girl, very much more at ease. The letters he would have to write tomorrow to Chuck’s mother and Chuck’s wife were no longer the ordeal they had seemed before; his talk to Mollie had given him back his sense of proportion and he now felt that he could write those letters without tears. He was immensely grateful to the girl, he hardly knew for what unless it was for her kindness in letting him talk. She was pretty, and young, and very, very kind.

He was tired when he got back to the camp. He did not want to meet his colleagues, and he was not hungry; he cut out supper altogether and went to his cabin. He had a cabin to himself, a privilege reserved for senior officials which he shared with Spencer Rasmussen. He was tired now, and sleepy; his distress assuaged, he knew that he would be able to sleep. Chuck was dead and he would never quite be forgotten, but now everything had come into proportion and Stanton Laird could sleep.

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