Читать книгу Up the Country - Miles Franklin - Страница 19

Table of Contents

At the first streak of the grey dawn, the little bride was at her window, anxiously observing the sunless, humid sky. Though the rain held off for the moment, an occasional growl of thunder warned that the heavens were not yet appeased.

The customary song of the Yarrabongo as it flowed around an elbow bend at the southern end of Bool Bool was buried deep in a turgid surging sea of muddied water, stretching over a mile eastward. Only the veriest tips of the riverside foliage were visible above the sullen water flowing towards Stanton's Plains.

Grubb and his wife were already outside, gazing forlornly towards their bark-roofed abode. Built near the bank of the river, only the top of the chimney and the ridgepole showed that it was still standing. Mrs Grubb was weeping for the loss of her few goods and chattels, some of which had been brought all the toilsome way from the old country.

Soon the whole household was surveying the flood. The swollen and confined waters of the Bulgoa still roared like a cataract in a northwestern direction from the back gate.

"Well, there's no hope of Labosseer getting here now," observed Mazere. "I just hope all the people on the flats had the sense to leave their homes, or they'll have been drowned, without a doubt."

"I wonder how they're getting on at the Plains," said Isabel. "The water couldn't touch 'em there unless it was Noah's flood itself," said George. "Pa had enough of the water in the flood of '44. He took no second chance of a bath when he built the new house."

"The people in the bend must all have been washed out. I wonder if we could help them with clothes or food," said Mrs Mazere.

"Indeed, yes," said Mazere. "Bill, as soon as you have breakfasted, you go up to town and see how they are."

"All right, Mr Mazere. Crikey, I'll have to swim across the hollow though!"

In the hollow between the homestead and the township, there now swept a swift stream where hitherto there had been only a winter swampiness, or in wetter seasons, a trickle of a creek that could be stepped across.

"I pray that Labosseer and the parson are safe, and don't run any risks trying to get here in a hurry," said Mrs Mazere.

"If they don't turn up in a day or two, we'll have to appoint a clergyman—and there'll be a whole mob of us ready to step into the bridegroom's shoes," said young Tim Brennan gallantly to the bride. Bert's eyes, bent in the same direction, were full of dawning admiration.

"He'll be here soon enough," said Mrs Mazere imperturbably.

"Soon enough for her to have plenty of married life," said Mrs Richard Mazere, née Amelia Stanton, who was feeling irritable with her spouse.

Bert, who had been gazing across the floodwaters, suddenly pointed across the river. "I think there're some people on the roof of that place to the left."

"Brown's place! My oath there are," confirmed Bill.

"Run, Emily, and bring me my telescope," commanded Mr Mazere, and Emily scampered away with Louisa Pool to get it. Through the telescope, a family could be descried sitting on the sloping roof of a hut on the flats.

"Nothing can be done for them from this side of the river, that's a certainty," said Mazere.

"And nothing from the other side either, till the water goes down a little," said Tim Brennan.

"Terrible loss of property and stock," said George.

"And all the crops on the flats," added Richard.

"It might have been worse," said Mazere equably. "Think of the poor folks farther down who've lost all their goods and chattels. Anyway, if there's not another water spout, this probably should have run off sufficiently by tomorrow for us to see where we really are."

"Let us have breakfast and then see what we can do to help our neighbours—and thank God for our own escape," said Mrs Mazere.

They turned to their duties. Some of the men went off to find and milk the cows and to see about the other stock. The women set the living rooms in order and laid the breakfast table for which, under Charlotte's supervision, great pans of chops had been fried and a cauldron of potatoes boiled. With so many people having already arrived for the wedding, and none of them having bird-like appetites, provisions had to be on a grand scale.

But the flood and the disturbance of the wedding plans filled the family with a restlessness detrimental to its normally ordered undertakings. After breakfast the telescope was set up in the little hall window upstairs, and from this point one or other watched the plight of the hapless family marooned on the roof out on the flats. Also reported were sightings of beasts going downstream, both dead and alive. Occasionally the under rind of a melon floated by, looking like a face on the tide. Logs and trees swept past, making such a pile of debris in the lower bend that only a fire would be able to eventually dislodge it.

After breakfast, despite the fact that the stream in the hollow was well above the girths, Bill, Richard and Hugh saddled up and rode off to the township. They were back in an hour with the news that the people at the lower end had been flooded out early the previous evening and now were quartered with their neighbours who lived on the higher levels of the township proper.

"We have cooked enough food for twice as many people as are here at present," announced Charlotte, officer in charge of the larder.

"Well, the senior Stantons and Brennans and Saunders won't get here for a week so we have plenty of space to put others up," said Mrs Mazere.

"I told them that," said Richard, "but they all seem to be pretty well dug in for the present."

The trying position of the family on the roof occupied everyone's attention. The telescope showed them at midday still without a rescuer and Bert announced that he would see what could be done. The Aborigines, he thought, might be of some help, and he asked for the latest news of the Mungee tribe, which usually reached Maneroo in the warm summer months but this season had not yet appeared.

"Too easy a life at Mungee," said George. "Isabel has them as fat as pigs and as lazy too."

"They moved on somewhere the day before we left," said Isabel. "I saw a camp on the edge of Stanton's Plains as we came along," said Bert. "If Nanko or Yan Yan or Lac-ma-lac are over there, they might be able to help us organise a rescue."

The young men set off after the midday meal, relieved to escape from inactivity and armed with the wherewithal for smoke signals. Arriving at a point where the Yarrabongo was confined between steep, craggy banks, Bert sent up a long, straight signal of smoke, easy to do since there was no wind, and thus announced his presence. In a little while, a similar signal replied from high ground further up the gorge.

"There they are, all right!" exclaimed Bert triumphantly. Going a little higher up the river, the young men could see the camp across the gorge safe above water level. Speech would not carry across the noisy water, so by means of deft gestures and using pieces of bark, Bert suggested the shape of a hut. Then, making a doll out of his handkerchief to indicate a woman, he pointed in the direction of the marooned family. The blacks signalled that they understood and the Three Rivers contingent went home to await developments, speculating on the extent of the detour necessary for the blacks to make their way around the floodwaters, and whether they would be able to ford the Wamgambril River which ran between their camp and the flats.

It rained steadily during the afternoon, but there was no renewal of the terrific cloudburst of the previous evening. The telescope still showed the poor family, including an infant in arms and a couple of toddlers, sitting in the rain.

"Fortunately the corner posts are of red-gum, and well sunk, or the house would have caved in by now," said George Stanton.

At sunset a cheer went up from the watcher at the telescope, who announced that the blacks could be seen taking the woman and baby off in a canoe. Dusk hid the second canoe load from sight, but later a fire signal went up which Bert said was intended to convey that all was well.

"Oh, Mr Pool, could you send a signal hack to thank them?" asked Rachel eagerly.

"I might if you call me by my right name," he said shyly, and that this request was acceded to was proven by Bert soon making wonderful signals which entertained the whole household. Joseph, who had elected Bert as a hero, was so impressed that a little later he was found on the verandah endangering the safety of the household by setting alight beacons of candle bark he had purloined from the kindling wood, for which misdemeanour he was promptly sent to bed.

Following the tension of the day and the unprecedentedly late hours of the previous night, the household assembled early in the big dining room for the family prayers that were always said before retiring. The usual order of procedure—a chapter from the Bible, read by Mrs Mazere (the Old Testament in the morning and the New Testament in the evening), followed by a prayer read by Mr Mazere from the big book which had been presented to him by the Bishop on one of his visits—was slightly altered that evening when Mr Mazere indulged in a little rare extempore communication with the Lord, thanking Him for His mercies to the household and supplicating Him to preserve all others in danger, neighbours, friends and dear ones.

The last reference everyone knew to allude to Simon Labosseer, and the little bride had tears in her eyes as she went to kiss her father goodnight. Holding her affectionately, he said, "Don't you worry now, child. There's no one alive knows more about this part of the country than that man of yours. He mightn't be as showy as some, but he has a headpiece with something in it." This remark was meant to serve the double purpose of reassurance for Rachel and rebuke to the Pool lad, but Bert was oblivious, intent only on the little quivering face.

A little later, Bert sought out Charlotte, who was in the kitchen with the servant women studying which of their viands would "keep" one day longer in the muggy atmosphere, and planning how to maintain the fort if the rain went on and on.

"I say, Charl," he began when they were alone, "that poor little Rachel is awfully cut-up about her intended. You tell her if the rain doesn't get any heavier, the big flood ought to come down in another day and then I'll go poking around to see if I can't get him here." The adventurous Bert was mixed in his emotions just then. He had a lurking wish that Labosseer should never arrive at all, and yet wanted to be the hero to lay the bridegroom before Rachel sound and for the sheer joy of seeing gladness and gratitude suffusing her pretty face.

And thus passed the first day of the great flood at Three Rivers.