Beyond the Black Stump (19 page)

He dropped off his few clothes, lay down on the bed and pulled the sheet over him, and reached for his Bible. It was his habit in times of stress to lie and leaf this through before sleep came, seeking for a message, discarding the many irrelevancies till he found a verse comforting in his mood. Tonight he lay for a quarter of an hour till a familiar passage met his eyes:

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

He did not fully understand the reference to angels but he knew that that was due to his own insufficiency. The passage seemed to fit Chuck’s death, he did not quite know why, but it comforted him, and he laid the Bible down and turned the light out. There was always a message in the Book if you looked long enough; it had never failed him. Chuck was dead beside the railroad track, but God was still looking after him.

How kind that girl had been, letting him talk about Chuck. How sweet she had been when he kissed her. The kindest girl that he had ever met. The kindest … where had he heard that? the kindest … Practically asleep, he smiled. The kindest hopper this side of the black stump. That was it.

The kindest hopper this side of the black stump.

He slept.

All through April the drill bored deeper, making good about a hundred feet a day on the average. The cores and the spoil brought up were more or less as Stanton Laird had forecast from his geological survey; he did not expect anything sensational before the end of May, when they should have reached the second layer of anhydrite and the domed anticline below. Early in the month they struck the first layer of anhydrite, a belt of hard-cap rock about fifteen feet thick. This took them several days to drill through; beneath it there was limestone heavily charged with water. This was in accordance with the geologist’s prediction and they were prepared for it, but it slowed down their progress because now all casings had to be sealed with liquid cement pumped down between the outside of the steel tubes and the virgin earth to keep the water out, and this necessitated many pauses to let the cement set.

At the oil rig the labour was about seventy per cent Australian, working under the expert directions of the Americans. By paying a wage unprecedented in Australia the Americans had induced Australians to work as enthusiastically as the Americans, and had persuaded them to work
through all the many Australian public holidays. Labour Day and Australia Day had been worked normally at the oil rig, but Anzac Day was approaching, and Topex had been briefed by the Bureau of Mineral Resources that Anzac Day, the anniversary of the landing of Australian and New Zealand troops on the Gallipoli Peninsula in 1915, was in the nature of a Holy Day and there might be real trouble reverberating through the whole of Australia unless work stopped for Anzac Day.

“I guess this Anzac Day must be kind of like the Fourth of July, only a durn sight more so,” said Spencer Rasmussen. “We never stop the drill for Independence Day.”

“I’d say it’s more like Easter Sunday,” said Stanton. “Sort of a religious day. Clem Rogerson from Mannahill, he’s going down to Perth for it, taking all his family. Does that each year, so he was telling me.”

“He does?”

“Uh-huh. He was in the combat group that landed on the beaches at Gallipoli, way back in the First War. Seems like on Anzac Day they get up and parade in the middle of the night, ’n stand to arms at dawn, just like they did then before the assault. It’s just the same as a religious ceremony, kind of a Midnight Mass.”

“Well,” said Mr. Rasmussen in wonder, “what do you know!”

He was willing to co-operate, however. He made arrangements to stop drilling and close down all work at midnight, with the reservation that he himself and one or two of the leading American hands would use the idle time to conduct a stocktaking and an inspection of the plant for latent defects. He made arrangements with the Australian foreman to paint a scaffold pole white and to set it up as a flagstaff on a piece of level ground for the Australians to parade to before dawn, only to find that his Australian labour needed a good deal of persuading to get up at five in the morning on a holiday. However, the Americans were so sincere in their endeavours to do the right thing that the parade took place at dawn and was reasonably well attended, with a fair sprinkling of Americans standing in the ranks and making the best they could of the unfamiliar words of command. A ball game followed in the morning, a cricket match in the afternoon, and a good deal of beer in the evening. Next morning at eight o’clock the drill began to turn again.

The stocktaking and inspection had revealed a number of items to be required from Perth, which should be sent up on the next truck. It had not proved economic to arrange an air service to the oil rig, so that the only mail communication that the Americans had with their head office was by way of the weekly mail truck driven by Spinifex Joe. Most of their communications therefore went by telegram via the Flying Doctor radio service; after the medical calls upon the morning schedule the oil men, in turn with the station owners in the district, would dictate telegrams to the radio operator in Hastings, who would pass them to the post office, who would forward them normally over the land lines.

That morning Mr. Rasmussen sat waiting patiently with a three-hundred-word telegram in his hand, while the radio operator at Hastings, a Mr. Jerry Lee, took down a number of telegrams from various stations, picked at random out of the ether. He sat in the office where the set was now installed, with Stanton Laird nearby standing at his drawing board and poring over the most recent core analyses, correcting the depths marked in neat pencil on his geological surveys. They listened idly while one station sent a telegram reserving two seats on the airline down to Perth, another sent one ordering a water pump assembly for a Chev truck, and a third sent twenty pounds to a daughter stranded without money in Hobart. A fourth, to a stock transport company, was being dictated by a station four hundred miles to the north of them, when a voice broke in, and said,

“I tell you, ’e’s cut his bloody throat.”

Mr. Rasmussen blinked, looked up at Mr. Laird, and said, “What in hell was that?” He saw that the geologist was looking at the set, and that he had heard the words. He reached out, and turned the volume higher.

In Hastings, three hundred miles to the west, Mr. Jerry Lee was alerted, and began transmitting. “All stations off the air, please. Some station seems to be passing a medical message. Will that station please come in again and give station identification. Everybody silent, please.”

There was a long silence, broken only by the crackling of static in a dozen receivers that happened to be listening in, in a dozen stations spread throughout the breadth of northern West Australia. Presently the voice said again,

“’Ullo. ’Ullo.” And then,
sotto voce
, evidently to someone standing by the set, “The bloody thing ain’t working.”
Another voice said, equally indistinct, “Give it them again, Bert.” And the first voice said, “’Ullo. I tell you, we got a bloke here cut his bloody throat. ’E’s bleeding something ’orrible, ’n now Jim Copeland’s muggered off into the bush.”

In distant Hastings Jerry Lee could hear the carrier wave still going on. He tried his own transmission set, but it raised a heterodyne squeal at once; he switched it off again. Throughout the country the listeners sat tense and alert. One, who recognised the name Jim Copeland, began transmitting, but the words were indistinguishable among the squeals, and presently he stopped.

The
sotto voce
voice said, “You got to turn that one to hear. Rec means Receive.” The carrier wave stopped.

Mr. Lee came on the air at once. “This is Six Easy Dog, Hastings Flying Doctor Service. We have received your message about somebody who cut his throat and somebody who went off into the bush. Now I want you to tell us the name of your station and some more about what happened. When you want to speak, turn the little switch low down on the left hand side to Trans, and directly you’ve done speaking turn the same switch to Rec. Don’t touch anything else on the set—it’s going fine. Now, turn your switch to Trans and tell us what happened. Over.”

The voice said, “’Ullo. This is Bert Hancock, at Mannahill. We got a bloke here cut his throat. He’s bleeding pretty bad. ’Ullo. Did you get that?” The carrier stopped.

Jerry Lee came in at once. “Flying Doctor here. I got your message. I’m going to switch you through to the doctor in the hospital in a minute, but first of all, you said somebody had gone off into the bush. What was that? Turn your switch to Trans now. Over.”

The voice said, “Jim Copeland, that was. Went off in the middle of the night sometime. Left a note on the cookhouse table, said he was going back to London. Cookie found it ’bout an hour ago. I’ll turn the knob now.”

“Flying Doctor here. Was this man Copeland walking or riding?”

“Walking, I’d say. The trucks are all here. ’E’s just a youngster, a Pommie out from home, jackerooing. ’E got a bit full last night. We all got a bit full.”

Mr. Lee, sitting in the radio house by the hospital in the little coastal town, thought quickly. He knew the Rogersons
were all away from the station for he had passed the telegram booking their airline seats to Perth. In their absence, it was probable that the station hands had got at the grog, and had gone on a terrific bender all through Anzac Day. One was bleeding to death and he must hurry; there was no time to bother over the Pommie youngster who had walked out into the bush. He lifted his post office telephone, got Dr. Gordon in the hospital, and switched the reception on his radio through to the doctor, monitoring the conversation from his set.

By their receivers a dozen listeners sat, separated in some instances by hundreds of miles, waiting and alert to help if it were possible. The oil rig was one of the closest to Mannahill; they had no means of telling if the Regans at Laragh were listening or not.

The doctor said, “You say this man cut his throat with a razor?”

Bert Hancock said, “That’s right, Doc.”

“Where is he now? Over.”

“Out on the verandah, Doc. We got him sitting up, but it didn’t seem right to move him.”

“Tell me how long the cut is. Is it still bleeding?”

“I’d say it’s about four inches, Doc. It’s bleeding pretty fast still. Real nasty.”

Three hundred miles from the patient, the doctor mustered all his energies to help. He said, “Now look, Mr. Hancock. I’ll come out as soon as I can get the aeroplane, but first of all you’ve got to get that bleeding stopped. Have you got any sutures? Over.”

The other said doubtfully, “I don’t know what they’d be, Doc.”

“Well, have you got a needle and cotton?”

“I got a housewife, Doc.”

“That’s fine. Now what you’ve got to do is this. Take your needle and thread it double, and tie the ends of the cotton together. Then you’ve got to sew up that wound in his throat just as if you were sewing up a tear in your trousers. You’ve got to pull the edges close together, and then make the cotton fast. Then you must get a pad of linen to bind over it. You’d better tear up a clean sheet. Make a pad that will fit close down on the wound, and then tear bandages from the sheet and wrap them round his throat to
keep the pad in place. You’d better keep him sitting up, and keep him warm. Don’t give him anything—no alcohol. I’ll be out this afternoon in the aeroplane, as soon as I can get to you. Now, can you do that? Over.”

There was a long silence. Then the voice said, “I dunno, Doc. I can’t stand blood. Makes me sick at the stomach. Always did, ever since I was a youngster. Gives me a real bad turn.”

In the office at the oil rig the Americans sat listening. Stanton said quietly, “Maybe some of us should go over, with the first-aid kit.”

Spencer Rasmussen said, “Take quite a while. The airplane with the doctor would make it ’most as soon. Hold it a few minutes.”

Over the air the doctor said, “You’ve got to do that, Mr. Hancock. If you don’t the man will die. I’ll be out with you in about three hours’ time. I can’t get to you sooner. If you don’t attend to him, he’ll bleed to death. Now, do as I tell you. Go and get your needle and cotton, sew up that wound, put the pad on, and come back and tell me when you’ve done it. Go and do that now. Over.”

The voice said reluctantly, “I’ll try it, if you say. But I gets sick at the stomach. I chundered once today already.”

The carrier wave stopped, and there was silence but for the crackling of the static. Then another voice broke in and it was the courtly, refined tones of the Judge.

“This is Laragh Station, 6 CO. We have heard the whole of that. Mr. Pat Regan and Miss Regan are leaving at once for Mannahill with medical supplies. They think that the journey will take them about an hour and a half in the jeep. I am afraid those poor boys must have been terribly intoxicated. Over.”

Three hundred miles away Jerry Lee said, “Thank you, 6 CO. I will tell Mannahill when they come on again. Listening out.”

At the oil rig Stanton said, “I guess I’ll go over, take Tex with me. We’re not so far away, ’n it might look bad if we didn’t show up to help.”

Mr. Rasmussen nodded, turned his switch, and said, “This is 6 QT, Topeka Exploration. We heard all of that. Mr. Laird and one other are leaving for Mannahill right now. I guess they’ll be there in about two hours. Over.”

Jerry Lee said. “Thank you, Topex. I’ll tell Mannahill. Listening out.”

At the oil rig Stanton grinned, and said, “I’ll say that they were terribly intoxicated. I guess that’s what happens in this country when the manager goes off to Perth ’n takes his family.”

“Except at Laragh,” replied Mr. Rasmussen.

“Laragh’s different,” said Stanton Laird. “I’d say they’re kind of pickled—it don’t do them any harm. Besides, they’ve got an ex-barmaid in the driver’s seat.”

“That’s right,” said Mr. Rasmussen. “A Scotch barmaid in the driver’s seat. Maybe that’s what you want to run a ranch here, in this country.”