Читать книгу Collected Prose - Paterson Andrew Barton - Страница 15

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The first night of the Tug-of-War at Darlinghurst Hall, Sydney, was a great affair. There was a big crowd, mostly Irishmen and what are called "foreigners". The tugs took place on a long narrow platform, having stout battens nailed across it; the men laid their feet against these battens and lay right down to their pull. It was a straight-out test of strength and endurance; but it was whispered about the hall that the Irishmen and the West Indian darkies had not room for their feet between the battens. This should be seen to. There was a parading of teams for a start, and a very fine-looking lot of men they were. Then the Italians came out to pull the Norwegians. The Italian team were mostly fishermen; their rivals were sailors and wharf labourers. It looked any odds on the Norsemen, who were a long way the heavier team, and they won the pull. But the children of Garibaldi fought firmly for every inch, and stuck to it for half and hour. It was a desperate struggle. The crowd were very facetious, and yelled much good advice to the fair-haired men--"Now boys, don't let the ice-cream push beat you," "Pull the organ-grinders over," "Go it, Macaroni,"--and so forth. An interval for drinks--here, the referee took a drink--and the Denmark team had a walk-over, the Welshmen having scratched. The Taffies had not time to get a team together. Then another walk-over, France failing to appear against Sweden. The frog-eaters rely mainly on style and deportment in everything they do, and there are no points given for style in tug-of-war!

Then came what was supposed to be the tug of the evening, Australia v Ireland. As the teams took their places, you could feel the electricity rising in the atmosphere. The Irish were a splendid team, a stone a man heavier than their opponents all round, but the latter looked, if anything, harder and closer-knit. As they took their places the warning bells rang out all over the building: "Now, boys, Sunny N.S.W., for it!" "Go it, Australia!" And from the Irish side came a babel of broad, soft, buttery brogue: "Git some chark on yer hands, Dinny," "Mick, if yez don't win, niver come back to the wharf no more," "For the love o' God and my fiver, bhoys, pull together!" It was a national Irish team right through--regular Donegal and Tipperary bhoys. The Swedes might have been Swedes from Surry Hills, the Russians might have first seen the light at Cockatoo Island, but there was no gammon about the Irish. They were genuine; every other man answered to the name of Mike. They wore orange and green colours, to give the Pope and the Protestants an equal show. Then they spat on their enormous hands, planted their brogues against the battens, and at the sound of the pistol, while every Australian's heart beat high with hope, the Mickies simply gave one enormous dray horse drag and fetched our countrymen clean away hand over hand, pulling them about ten feet more than was necessary before they could be stopped. How did their supporters cheer! Ahoo! Ahoo! The building rang again with wild shouts of exultation. It was a great day for Donegal entirely, likewise for Cork and Killarney. The Australians present pulled their hats down over their eyes and looked at their toes. One man wanted to back a team of lightweight jockeys to pull anything anybody would fetch, but this pleasantry could not avert the sting of defeat. There was no disguising it--the Australians were "beat bad", and the glory of Woolloomooloo had departed.

Next came the West Indies versus Maoriland, which was a very funny business. The Maorilanders were small and weedy compared to their sable opponents, but they hung on gamely. The coloured gentlemen, as seen from the M.L. end, presented a most remarkable sight. Firstly the eye caught the soles of their huge, flat feet, sticking up in the air like so many shovels; their feet hid their bodies altogether, and only allowed their heads to be seen. The heads were all as round as apples, black as ink, and each one had in it two white dots--the glaring eyeballs of the owner. As these remarkable people swayed in unison behind the ramparts of their feet, they looked like--well, it's no good trying to say what they looked like. There is nothing in heaven above, or the earth beneath, or the water under the earth, that will furnish the feeblest comparison. They pulled like good 'uns, and amid loud yells of, "Go it, Snowball!" the Maorilanders were pulled over, fighting hard to the last.

Then "Rule Britannia" from the band, and the English team marched on to the platform--all very neatly dressed, neatly shaven, moving with great precision. "What are they at all?" "A team of marines from the men-of-war." They looked fit to pull a house down. Then the squawk of the band changed to "The Watch on the Rhine", and the sons of the Fatherland came up to do or die for the country of sauerkraut. It looked any odds on the English. But they were white-skinned and flaccid, while the deep, sunburnt hue of the other arms told of hard, toughening work. Bang went the pistol, and after a terrible tussle the Rhinelanders fairly wore out the Britishers and scored a gallant win. There was a strong British section present, and their disappointment was intense. A man-o'-war's man was with difficulty stopped from climbing onto the platform and offering to pull the heads off the whole blanky Dutch team. This win was a surprise, but a bigger surprise was in store when the Russians met the Scotch. Where they found a team of ten Russians in Sydney goodness only knows, but they were gaunt, wiry, hard-featured men--some of them obviously Russian Finns, than whom the earth produces no stronger or more resolute race. Their opponents had a smug, comfortable look, and seemed a long way the stouter men. The Russians were all seamen and seafaring men of some sort. At the signal to go, the Russians gained a little, and then began a tremen-dous wavering pull, each side alternately gaining and losing. The Scotch supporters cheered their men on with wild cries. The Australians impartially barracked both sides. First they would give the Scotch a turn--"Go it, Donald!" "Haul away Sandy!" "Go it, Burgoo!" Then they would turn their attention to the Russians: "Go it, Siberia!" "We'll have to get the knout to you fellows," and so on. But all the foreign nations seemed to form a sort of Mafia to encourage the Russians against the Scotch. Norseman, Dane, and Dago joined in the wild chorus of encouragement. An old man, apparently the father of one of the Russian team, danced alongside the platform shrieking in every language under the sun. The man he was cheering was a great broad-chested giant who threw his mighty strength on to the rope in tremendous surges, and at every pull the old man would howl--"Go on, Manuel, you're doing splendid." Then he would sing out something like "Kyohjnoo," and Manuel would give another heave that would fetch the Scotch team another two or three inches at least. He was a magnificent man, was Manuel. The great wiry muscles stood out on his arms like knotted ropes. And when at last it only wanted six inches more for a win, Manuel lifted his head and gave the old sailor-cry that the men of the sea know so well and respond to--"Yo, heave-ho-o-o-o-o," and the subjects of the Great White Czar gave one mighty lift that fetched the Scotchmen away as if they had been children. It was a grand pull, and one's sympathies went with the little band of Russians, because if they are really Russians (their faces seemed Slavonic) there must have been very few men to pick from, whereas here every third man is a Scotchman. It will be seen, therefore, that the Germans beat the English, the Russians beat the Scotch, and the West Indian blacks beat the Maorilanders. Perhaps (whisper it softly)--perhaps the British and the Australians are not the only strong and determined races on the face of the earth after all.

The Irish on the first night certainly looked like winning. It is said that the team has been carefully picked--that scores of men were tried and rejected before the team was formed. The Continental nations have very few men to choose from. The Australians ought to go and practise pulling the hair off a pound of butter before they compete. They may do better later on. We intend to be there again for a good long evening when the black men meet the Irish. And if you want to get your two eyes knocked straight into one, go and "barrack" against the land of Erin.

In Australia, however, nothing is complete without a strike, and on Monday the teams mostly struck. They wanted a total sum of £156 a night, and the management didn't see it. Then the Italian gentlemen, full of a desire to recover their lost glory, offered to throw themselves into the gap, and were set down as "scabs". By and by a compromise was arrived at, and the show began forty-five minutes late. Scotland and Norway took the rope and in six minutes the former went under amid the ruins of the thistle and the haggis, while a spectral voice in kilts groaned over their discomfiture. Russia, with the potent Manuel on deck, broke Germany up in about twelve minutes, and the signs, at time of writing, seem to be that the sons of the Great White Czar will come out on top. Manuel--we are not quite sure that his name is Manuel, but it doesn't matter--is an awful snag to strike, especially when his aged father barracks for him and urges him on. The longest pull of the evening was between the Englishmen and the West Indies darkies, and here for the first time the Anglo-Saxon race got a show. It took them over an hour to do it, but at the end of that time Ham went under. He deserved better luck, did Ham, especially as he is the lightest team in the show. Australia again had the distinction of knocking under in shorter time than anybody else; he was a disgraced kangaroo in just thirty-three seconds, the Maorilanders bolting with him as if they intended to rush down to Circular Quay. Ireland also went under to Sweden, which was a painful surprise to many individuals named Mick, Terence, and Dinny. Last of all, Italy came on to give a mighty heave for the honour of the banana-vending industry. Denmark took the other end of the rope and held it for thirty-three minutes, and then the stupendous efforts of the fallen Romans carried the day. France and Wales both failed to turn up.

After Monday night's proceedings, Norway, Sweden and Russia were ahead with two wins each, and Ireland, West Indies, Italy, England, Denmark, Germany and Maoriland had one apiece. France and Wales have been on strike since the start, and Scotland and Australia come in dejectedly at the tail with two blanks. If Manuel's boiler doesn't burst, or his father doesn't break a blood vessel while howling for him, Russia should win the big prize; and Italy, if only on account of the demoniac energy of the hulking gentleman with the large feet who pulls at the extreme end of the rope, should be close up. The Bulletin suggests that that huge Roman and Manuel should pull each other single-handed at the close of the proceedings. It would be a gaudy spectacle. The Roman's name, we believe, is Julius Caesar.

The Bulletin, 20 February 1892