Читать книгу Told by Peter - Mary Grant Bruce - Страница 6

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I NEVER knew any time go quicker than the first few weeks of these hols. There is always a lot to do when I come home, for Dad keeps jobs for me like shifting bullocks from one paddock to another or mustering scrub cattle in the back country. He says it’s part of my education, and I rather fancy he thinks it’s the most important part. I know it’s what I like best. I have to keep my wits about me, remembering bullocks I haven’t seen for three months and looking them over to judge how they have come on in the time, and Dad puts me through a regular exam. about them. But it isn’t like exams. at school, where you sit and chew the end of your pen and wonder how masters manage to set questions that don’t seem to mean a single thing to you.

Generally the days go on quietly enough, working times among the cattle mixed up with picnics and bathing, and sometimes a run in the car to the township if there happens to be a decent picture at the cinema. But this doesn’t often happen, because that township is a very one-horse place, and twenty-five miles on a bad road isn’t much fun unless you have something worth going for. Most times we’d rather knock about at home, because even if it is quiet, it’s never dull. But in these hols unusual things happened almost from the start.

The first thing was one day when we’d all gone out to the far end of the run, taking lunch with us. It is mostly bush out there, very dense near the river, and thinning out when the country begins to rise in low hills. Beyond our boundary there’s scarcely any settlement for miles, but a few people have taken up land and manage to scratch up a living somehow. It must be hard scratching, too, because it really isn’t farming country. Mother says the selectors’ wives are the pluckiest people she knows. Sometimes she has gone out to look after a sick woman, and she says they seem to live chiefly on pumpkins and burgoo. That is porridge, in case you don’t know, patient reader.

Well, this day we had ridden all the morning, and it was pretty late by the time we all got together and camped for lunch near the river. We made a fire, and the billy was just boiling when suddenly the dogs began to prick up their ears as if they heard something. We listened, and presently we also could hear something coming towards us in the scrub. We thought it was a bullock, but Bran jumped up and started barking, and he never barks like that for cattle. Darkie, Dad’s old cattle-dog, joined in; we shut them up, but they growled and didn’t like it. The noise came nearer, a regular crashing, and presently a man dashed out of the scrub. We had to hold the dogs back then, but he didn’t seem to notice them.

He was an object. His shirt and trousers were in rags—not just worn, but ripped open everywhere, with flaps of stuff hanging down. He must have gone through the bush without noticing it—there were scratches and weals all over his face and arms. For a moment we thought he was mad, he looked so awful, and we all got up in a hurry. Then Dad recognized him as a man from one of the little farms.

“What’s up, Dickson?” he asked him. “Not bushed, were you?”

Dickson shook his head: he was panting too much to speak at first. Then he gasped out:—

“My kid. He’s lost.”

Then he went all queer, and Dad just caught him in time. He gave him some brandy out of his flask, and when he was able to sit up we made him drink some tea. The poor beggar wanted it horribly, but we could scarcely force him to drink it: his only idea was to go on looking.

Dad had to be stern with him. He said, “Look here, Dickson, don’t be a fool. If you knock up in the scrub what chance has your youngster got? When did you have anything to eat last?”

“Last night,” said Dickson. “Leastways, we were just sitting down to tea when we found he was missin’. Me an’ the missus have been huntin’ all night.”

“Where’s your wife?” said Dad quickly.

“I made her turn back towards home a few hours ago. Told her he might be there. But he isn’t—I know he isn’t. The only tracks we could find led towards the river.”

We couldn’t look at his face when he said that. But Miss Tarrant took some sandwiches and put them into his hand. She said, “You eat those, and tell us where to look.”

He told us, between bites—when he once tasted the food he began to know how hungry he was. He said little Timmy was five, and generally he had sense and never went away from the house. But he had a young puppy, and when Mrs. Dickson was busy in the kitchen he came in half-crying and said it was lost. Mrs. Dickson said, “Oh, rubbish, Timmy—you run and find it”; and he went off. She never dreamed he’d go beyond the yard. Then Dickson came in from milking, and she was helping with the milk and getting tea ready, and they never thought of Timmy until it was time to call him in, and he didn’t come. So they went out, and there was no sign of him, but presently the wretched puppy crawled out from under the wood-heap—it must have been there all the time. And the marks of Timmy’s little boots were in the dust of the path leading down to the river.

“But the river’s a good way from your house,” Dad said. “You didn’t track him right down to it?”

Dickson said no, they hadn’t. The track was faint, and pretty soon they lost it. They knew he might easily have turned off into the scrub. They hunted until it was dark, and then they came back for lanterns and went out again. They went in opposite directions, arranging to meet at the house in the morning; and whoever found Timmy was to hurry home with him and fire two shots with Dickson’s gun as a signal that he was all right.

“Every few minutes I kept thinkin’ I heard a shot,” he said. “You’d never guess how many sounds there seem to be in the scrub at night—I’d stand still an’ hold my breath listenin’ for the next shot. But it never came. The missus said she was just the same. She was nearly all in when we got home this morning. It was pretty late, and the cows were bellowing like mad to be milked. So I milked ’em; there’s only three of ’em, but it seemed to take about a year. I left the milk in the buckets an’ went straight out again.”

Miss Tarrant said, “And your wife?”

“Oh, she didn’t have to milk, so she didn’t wait at all. She’s huntin’. An’ I’m further than I should be; Timmy couldn’t have come this distance. But I heard one of your dogs bark, an’ I knew it could only be some of your people from Weeroona, an’ you’d help. I came like smoke, for fear I’d miss you.”

We held a council of war, though Dickson went off almost as soon as we’d begun. Dad wouldn’t let Binkie stay, no matter what she said; she’s a bit young for a job like that. And he didn’t want Mr. Smedley, because an Englishman would only lose himself; so he said Binkie mustn’t go home alone, and would Mr. Smedley take her and help Mother to raise the district to come and help. Miss Tarrant flatly refused to go back.

“I won’t stay in the scrub all the time,” she said. “I’ll get to the farm and have things going there—food ready and all that. And I’ll milk. My goodness, Mr. Forsyth, when I think of that wretched man having to sit down and milk those three cows——!”

“But why did he?” asked Mr. Smedley—and that was about the only stupid thing I ever heard him say. We left Binkie to explain it to him if she wanted to. Clem and Dad and I stuffed all the food we could carry into our pockets and Miss Tarrant took the rest—we knew there wouldn’t be much to eat at the farm. We let our horses go; Dad said we’d only be hampered by them. He told Miss Tarrant how to get to the farm—she had only to keep to the line of the river and strike north when she came in sight of a pointed sort of hill that was once an old volcano.

Poor old Binks looked frightfully unhappy. She whispered to me that she was coming back, and I said, “Mother’s sure to come with food supplies—she’ll bring you.” Binks looked a bit better at that idea, and she fairly ran to saddle her pony. I heard her telling Mr. Smedley to look sharp as we four went off in Dickson’s track.

Dad wasn’t too happy about Clem and me. He gave us strict orders never to lose our bearings with regard to the river, and to keep in touch with each other if we could. We thought at first he was a bit fussy, but when we got into the scrub we soon found out how easy it would be to get bushed. Landmarks are no good to you when you can’t see a dozen yards ahead; and after you’ve wasted ten minutes in fighting through a specially bad bit it’s quite possible to find yourself heading in the wrong direction. Or, what’s worse, to be heading in the wrong direction, and not to find it out. We—that is, Clem and I—lost a lot of time at first by trying to cover too much ground. When you’re on a hunt like that, you feel as if you must explore everywhere; whereas the only sensible thing to do is to keep to one line as much as possible, leaving the man on each side of you to do his share. Dad made that clear to us, without sparing our feelings either, after we had strayed on to his line once or twice. After that we kept to our own country: Dad nearest to the river, then Clem and then me.

Dad had the worst of it, of course, but even where we were it was hard going. There was any amount of low-growing dogwood—mixed up with all sorts of creepers; and plenty of clumps of prickly Moses, which is fairly awful to get through. The only thing was that we didn’t have to hunt into it, because no kid would go near prickly Moses, no matter how daft he was. Everything else had to be explored—every stump and hollow tree, and every log, because a tired kid would be likely to curl up against a log or under a bush and go to sleep. It made one feel pretty queer to think that that five-year-old had been alone in such country, for over twenty hours.

I tried to reason out what kind of a line he would have taken—he’d have strayed along, dodging all the thickest parts, just hoping to come out in some clear place where he could see his home. But I had to remember that he could get through spaces that I couldn’t, so I tried to allow for his height. But you really can’t do much reasoning like that when you’re dodging about here and there: you can only keep your eyes skinned and hope for the best.

Dickson had told us Timmy was wearing a blue shirt and grey knickers. Grey melts into the colour of the scrub, but I knew that blue would be easy to see—and of course I imagined I saw it hundreds of times, and went racing to the place, only to find I’d dreamed it. We kept calling as we went along, “Timmy! Timmy!” and listening in case he answered. We’d arranged how to signal by coo-ee if we found him, and I kept thinking how gorgeous it would be to catch sight of him and then nearly to burst my lungs coo-eeing.

Bran stayed with me all the time. I would tell him to get for’ard and find, and he’d go off as hard as he could, thinking I meant a bullock. Presently he’d come back looking ashamed of himself. It wasn’t the game he knew, and he was awfully puzzled. Probably he thought I was mad, but I kept on sending him, because I knew he would bark if he came in sight of a strange boy and he would be quicker to see than I could ever be.

Gosh, it was hot. It was one of those blazing January days that are all right when you are out in the open on a horse, but on foot in the scrub it was simply breathless. I was dripping all over before I’d gone half a mile. Bran felt it too, and whenever I wasn’t looking at him he would lie down under a bush with his tongue out, panting. It got harder and harder to make him go for’ard, and it didn’t do any good to get wild with him; he’d only crouch down on his tummy and come wriggling to me, wagging his tail, with his eyes asking me what on earth I meant by it all. I was sorry for the poor old chap, and I would have been a bit sorry for myself but for the thought of Mrs. Dickson. She’d been at this game ever since they found that the kid was gone. And Timmy was the only kid they had.

I was ploughing along between the bushes with Bran just ahead of me, when suddenly he gave a yelp and sprang to one side. He twisted round and growled savagely, and I jumped too—as hard as I ever jumped in my life. I was only just in time. A big tiger-snake came shooting at me—Bran had made him angry, and I was right in his track. Most snakes will get out of your way in a hurry, but you never can tell what a tiger-snake will do if he’s annoyed. I dodged and grabbed up the nearest stick and make a smack at him, but the rotten thing broke, and he very nearly had me: his head just missed my leg. Then old Bran dashed in and snapped at him, and I was simply scared to bits for fear he’d get bitten. I yelled at him to get back, and caught up another stick—luckily it was a tough one this time. The snake had become more angry with Bran than he’d been with me, and Bran had not taken the slightest notice of my order. I saw the beastly flathead come up, ready to strike, with Bran’s nose only a foot or so away, and I jumped in and hit as hard as I could. That settled him: it broke his back just behind his head, and all he could do was to thrash round until I finished him up.

Bran and I looked at him. He was big as tiger-snakes go, and I’d never seen one so bright in colour; the stripes across his back were almost golden. And suddenly I thought of little Timmy Dickson meeting one like that, and it made me feel a bit sick, for there’s precious little hope for anyone who gets bitten by a tiger. So we left him in a hurry and went on hunting.

There were other things in the bush, too, that might have frightened a kid. I saw several big goannas and now and then a grey wallaby: harmless of course, but young Timmy might have thought they were dangerous. I kept thinking of him meeting one and running away, not seeing where he was going: perhaps going head-first down a hole, or over a rock. There were plenty of places where a little chap could have been hurt. And I wondered how soon he had begun to be thirsty. I hadn’t been in the scrub long, but I knew just how thirsty I was.

Well, it didn’t do any good to think about those things, so I just went on looking. Ages, it seemed. At last the scrub grew thinner, and I caught sight of Clem a good distance away. I was pretty glad to see him, too, because we’d forgotten all about trying to keep in touch—not that we could have done it, anyway. I’d begun to worry about him, because he isn’t as strong as I am, at least as I was then, and he hadn’t been used to the bush all his life. But he was sticking it like a good ’un, ranging along like an old dog, with his eyes everywhere. We waved to each other and went on. It began to grow dusk, and a little breeze sprang up, which helped; but it was awful to think that night was coming and Timmy not found.

We heard a whistle, and Dad came into view, with Darkie at his heels. He signalled to us to stop, so we joined up and waited for him.

“We’d better get up to the house,” he said. “No use hunting in the dark.”

It was quite dark before we reached the farm. There was a light in the window, and as we came up we could see Miss Tarrant working in the kitchen. She came running out to meet us. I think she’d hoped we might have Timmy with us, but she didn’t say so. She showed us where to wash—there was a tin basin and soap on a bench near the pump, and weren’t we just glad to see them. Then we went into the kitchen where Miss Tarrant was making tea.

“Mrs. Dickson’s lying down,” she said. “She came in half an hour ago, hardly able to drag herself, just to see if there was any news. She wanted to go out again, but while we were arguing about it she fainted. I think it was just as well. So I put her on her bed, and now she’s asleep, poor woman. Dickson came in for a lantern and went out again. Have you people any food left? There’s hardly anything in the house.”

We had nearly all we had taken—it had been too hot to eat in the scrub, with nothing to wash it down with. Everything was in a hopeless mash, but we were hungry enough to eat anything, once we’d had some tea. Clem looked as if he had been in the wars, because he’d put a ripe tomato in his shirt-pocket and it had squashed. We drank all the tea, and Miss Tarrant made some more, and we drank that. It was great.

“There are no beds, you know,” she said. “The cottage has only two rooms—this, and the bedroom. I’m going to lie down on Timmy’s bed, and then I shall hear Mrs. Dickson if she moves. She simply must not go out again—her feet are badly blistered, for one thing. There’s a shed outside with hay in it, and I’ve found a couple of old rugs. Can you manage there?”

“First rate, for the boys,” Dad said. “There’s a second lantern, isn’t there? I’m going out again.”

We wanted to come too, but Dad wouldn’t hear of it. And it honestly would have been silly, unless we’d had more lanterns. All the same, it felt not too good to see him going off into the dark while we went to bed like kids.

Miss Tarrant came with a candle to show us where we had to sleep. It was only a little shed, half-full of hay. There was a roof, but no sides, but even then it was hot. We pulled off our boots and lay down on our rugs, and she went back to the house. I could see the stars getting brighter, and I wondered if they were sort of keeping young Timmy company. I was hoping they were when I went to sleep.