Warrigal's Way (10 page)

“Want a smoke?” asked Barry, offering me his packet. Completely forgetting the lesson I had learned the hard way, I took one and lit up without really thinking. I took a
great big drag, swallowed it, and Ted's bloody hand grabbed me by the throat. I tried to cough, breathe or inhale, going green in the face trying to get fresh air. I thought I could hear Ted laughing but it was Barry and Tom killing themselves.

“Jesus mate, you should have said you don't smoke,” said Tom.

“You'll come right soon. Go and get a drink of water, that'll help,” Barry told me with a grin.

Geez, bloody smoking. I'll never learn.

“Come up to the office and sign for your pay,” said Tom, leading the way. I signed as Ed Robinson, and he never even turned a hair. He paid us three pound ten for the day, because he reckoned we'd done a good day's work.

“You on for a beer up the Brickies?” they asked.

“Nah, I'll give it a miss, I think. I want to get home.”

“Righto,” said Barry. “Do you want to meet me in the morning and we'll go out to Angliss' in Footscray?”

“Yeah, why not. I'll see you in the same place about half six.”

“We can grab the train,” Barry said.

“Righto, see you in the morning. See you Tom.” I sort of staggered out and got the train into the city, and another one down to the Port. I had to waste a bit of time until dark in case someone saw me sneaking into the car crate motel. I was too buggered to go looking for a room and wasn't too fussy. The car crate would suit me for now. God I was sore. That was the first heavy manual job I had ever done. I've done all sorts of jobs since, but I'll never forget that first job, working as hard as that at fourteen.

I started thinking about Mum and wondered if this new bloke was love or convenience and if he would belt her around every time he felt mean or trapped. I felt the mean rising up from my toes—those rotten government and political bastards destroying families, using the dirtiest
weapon they had, churches, self-righteous bloody despots, running government slave labour camps. Australia called them missions. Germany was more honest—they called them death camps, which they were for some of our mob. At first some of our mob were hunted down and shot like animals, nowadays though they do it differently, they take us away from our families so that we don't know who we are. They hope that we'll grow up white. So me and other kids like me are lost to our mothers and families who we will never see on this earth again.

I didn't think I'd get to sleep, I was not only freezing, I was angry and had too many questions running around in my head looking for answers I couldn't find.

Up again with the crows, I took my port and bogey gear and had a wash and brushed my teeth at the service station on the way to meet Barry, arriving at the cafe at about a quarter past six. The bloke had just opened up. “I can do you coffee and a Sanger,” he said. “Nothing's warmed up yet.”

“Yeah, that'll do me fine thanks.” Just as I started on it Barry turned up.

“How you feeling?” he asked, sitting down.

“I'm not too bad, just stiff and sore. I'll come right.” Because he was coloured I decided to tell him the score. I thought he might get into trouble if he was with me and the Department rocked up.

He took it in his stride. “They're a bunch of low life bastards. They took my mum when she was little, and took my brother. I done the same as you, shot through four years ago. You stick with me, you'll be alright. I'll wheeze the blokes at the meatworks, they're all pretty tight down there.”

We got off the train at Footscray and walked up to Angliss' gate.

“Just follow me,” said Barry. “Come over and meet the
boys. This is Tully, Mick and Stumpy. I gave you a build-up and gave them the mail on your problem. They're top blokes. You'll be okay with them.”

“Stick with us,” said Tully. “I'll tell the buggers you're my cousin. That should put them off a bit.”

The bloke came out of the office with a list and started reading off names. Geez—Tom Brown and Dick Smith must have the biggest families in history.

“Robinson!” He called twice before I realised that was me. “Slaughter floor on the broom. Mick, Stumpy, first leg. You done mutton on the table, Barry?”

“Yeah, but I got no mutton boning gear with me.”

“Hang on then and I'll give you a chitty for the store.”

“Tag along with us, Ed. We'll show you the ropes,” Stumpy told me.

I followed along and we went into the store.

“What size boot?” the bloke asked, putting an apron and hat on the counter.

“Eight please.” The gear was standard issue the boys told me.

“Grab the gear and I'll show you the locker room,” said Mick. We walked across to a big building and went up a set of stairs and into the locker room.

“New bloke for you, Dick,” said Stumpy to an old grey-haired bloke with a broom.

“Hello young feller. Follow me. There's an empty one just up here. Yeah, there we are, three thirty six. You want to remember that. I known blokes to lose their locker. You be right now?” he asked.

“Yes thanks, Dick. Thanks very much.”

“That's alright, lad,” he said, going back to his broom.

“Nice old bloke, Dick,” said Mick. “Top butcher in his day. Don't want to retire. Another thing too, he's one of the boys. You can tell Dick anything and that's as far as it goes. Hitler's mob be lucky to get anything out of him.”

I changed my boots and put the cap and apron on and
Mick said, “Just wander up those stairs over there, and when you get up to the chain, ask for Blue and tell him we're just rubbing up a knife and we'll be up directly.”

With that, I nodded and went up the stairs onto the board. It was a bit like I remembered it from the time I was with Mike in Townsville, but these were sheep instead of cows. There was a bit of blood on the floor, and down one end were woolly sheep with their throats cut, hanging from hooks. Blokes on a stand were cutting open the back legs with sharp knives, and they went from there to a big mob of blokes all doing something until they came to the other end, where blokes were peeling the skin and wool off them like peeling an orange. Another bloke was cutting the belly open and dropping the innards into a row of moving trays, another bloke was sorting out the different bits, and another feller was peering into the cut belly. Last of all a bloke with a spray hose was washing the whole sheep down.

I was bug-eyed trying to see everything at once. A red-haired bloke in a dustcoat with a book in his hand came up and I held out my chitty and asked him, “Are you Blue? Mick and Stumpy said to tell you they will be up as soon as they sharpen a knife.”

“Goodo, they know what to do. Come down the floor and I'll give you a kick-off. Yeah, this will do.” He grabbed a broom that was leaning against the wall and started to sweep bits of fleece, meat and hide away from around the butchers.

“Got it?” he asked, handing me the broom. “Don't want these blokes slipping over with a razor sharp knife in their hand.”

“I'll be right. I get the point,” I said, giving him a grin. He gave me a tap on the shoulder and walked away. I started sweeping with gusto, working my way down the board.

“G'day sport. New on the job?” one of the butchers asked me.

“Yeah, never done it before.”

“You'll be right, son, as soon as you get the hang of it.”

Good mob these butchers, I thought, as I worked my way down to the legging table. I found after a while that I had forgotten my queasy stomach, and the sight of the sheep being turned into roasts and mutton chops didn't worry me too much any more. I was working too hard to worry about it.

“G'day, Ed. Going alright?” asked Mick.

“Right as rain,” I told him, feeling pretty good.

A bell rang, the chain stopped, and Stumpy came up and said, “Coming down the canteen to get some tucker?”

So, armed with a pie and a drink we headed for a group of tables.

“Play five hundred?” asked Barry.

“We have the world champs here every lunch time,” laughed Tully.

“Here Ed. Meet another of the boys. This is Ron. Oh, and the bloke who just sat down is Ray.”

“How you doing?” I said, shaking hands.

“Tully tells us these buggers are trying to put the snatch on you. Don't worry about us knowing, we all been there before,” Ray said.

The bell rang and we all trooped back to work. The day was pretty uneventful until about half past two, when Blue came and said, “Put the broom down, mate, and follow me.” My spirits dropped around my knees as I followed him down the blood alley to the sticking floor, where he told me a cop and a civvie had been asking at the gate about runaways and were coming up to look.

“What's the go? You a runaway?” I said I wasn't and told him my story. “Right,” he said, “we'll put a crimp in their plans. Grab a sheep and hang on to it. I'll be back in a mo. Tex, anyone comes down here, tell them to piss off.”

“No worries,” said Tex, who was the bloke sticking. He gave me a big wink and said, “you'll be right, mate. Good bloke Blue.”

I stood holding on to that sheep like the end of the world had come.

Blue came back with a pair of padded overalls with a hood, a pair of cotton gloves and a pair of padded mittens. “Quick, put these on,” he said. “I'll take you down the freezers. They won't look for you in there. Don't worry about your pay. I'll give it to Barry, and you can get it after work.”

He took me to Don, the load-out foreman, who said, “You'll be right with us, mate. Come and I'll show you what to do.” We walked past frozen carcasses covered with cloth bags and stacked in bins, and there was ice on the floor and all around the walls. “Here we are. Got an offsider for you, Brad. Show him the ropes, eh.”

With that Don walked off and Brad and I introduced ourselves. “It's pretty easy, just awkward. The carcasses come down that slide over there from upstairs, and we've got to put them on the load-out slide here. Watch your hand though. These buggers are hard as iron and can crush your hand if you get it caught between two of them.”

We worked away, chatting to each other about footy and things, when a whistle came up the slide. “Right,” said Brad. “Lapo. We get ten minutes out every twenty minutes, stops frostbite or something.”

He led the way down and onto the dock. There were four blokes sitting near a covered box wagon half full of the mutton we had been sending down. They were dressed in ordinary blue overalls and had padded gloves beside them, and they were talking and smoking.

“Hey! You blokes, meet Eddie my new offsider. That's Tom, Allan, Bob and Cliffy.”

They all said g'day and gave me a wave, and Brad and I sat on the dock. He pulled out a packet of smokes and offered me one, but I said, “No thanks, mate, them and me don't agree.”

He just laughed. He was about twenty-five, I reckon, six
foot, a wiry build and a pretty nice bloke. He told me that with penalty and casual rates I would probably pick up about six and a half quid for the day. It's less if you get put on permanently, he told me. I asked him what time we knocked off and he said about half past three or four o'clock, depending on how fast we did the second wagon.

Allan said “time” so we climbed the stairs back to our spot, Brad turned the conveyor on and we got into it again. Just before knock-off Blue came down again, and told me they were still at the gate. “Don't worry. The boys on the meat trucks will take you out.”

“Thanks Blue, for all you've done.”

“She's right, mate. Can't have you thinking all whitefellas are bastards.”

The meat trucks delivered the meat to all the butcher shops and boning rooms all over the city. They were called lumpers, and they were a top mob of blokes to me.

“Thanks Ken,” I said to the driver as he dropped me off outside the Plough Hotel in Footscray, where the boys were waiting for me.

“Any time, mate. See you tomorrow at work.”

They were a tight bunch alright, I thought to myself, as I walked across the road and into the bar.

“Over here, mate,” yelled Stumpy as I walked in the door. “You want a beer?”

“Does it taste like a cigarette?” I asked. Stumpy looked puzzled and Barry choked on his beer. “Go on, tell them. I can see you're busting.” So Barry filled them in on my smoke at the grain stores and they all had a laugh and I got some good-natured kidding.

Stumpy turned up with a tray of beer. “Want one?” he asked.

“Yeah, give us one for a try.” It wasn't the first time I'd tasted beer as I'd had a sip on Mike's bottle now and then, but it would be my first beer in a pub and in company. I had been waiting for this day for years. All that waiting outside
holding the horses, and now I would find out what went on, at last. I was about five months off my fifteenth birthday.

“Geez, don't start, mate. You'll end up a shakey dero like this mob,” said Ronnie.

I drank down my first beer and decided it wasn't bad at all.

“Here mate, before I forget.” Barry handed me my pay packet. “Blue said to give you this and to tell you Don wants you for a walk up start tomorrow. You must have done well. He's usually a hard bugger to please.”

Then he put his hand on my shoulder and said with a laugh in his voice, “Come on, cousin, tonight's the night for firsts—first day at the works, first beer, first cousin and first shout.”

The boys gave a hoot as I picked up the tray and headed for the bar. I was trying to look a hundred years old, and was not very confident as I got closer to the bar. The barman fixed me with a gimlet eye and said, “The same?”

“Yes please,” came out in a squeaky treble.

“My name's Claude,” he said, holding out his hand. “You down at the works?”