Corroboree (19 page)

It frightened him, although he didn't know why. But it also re-affirmed his determination to seek religious justice for Yanluga; and to discover as much as he could about the primaeval secrets of Australia.

Today, on the beach with Captain Sturt, he was no less determined to find Yonguldye and to embark on whatever exploration the search would demand. But he had become suspicious of Sturt himself: not only of Sturt's sudden and copious friendliness, and his immediate readiness to put up the money to send Eyre northwards, but of his repeated explanations that it was necessary for the expedition to be quickly profitable.

Sturt said, ‘Whenever capital is invested, for whatever
purpose, there must always be some return. You appreciate that, don't you?'

‘I'm not sure that the value of burying one black fellow according to his religious beliefs could be totted up in a balance-book,' replied Eyre, although he did his best not to sound sarcastic.

‘Well, of course not,' said Sturt. ‘But we're actually hoping for a little more than that; as I've been trying to tell you. I mean—I haven't misjudged you, have I? You
are
the exploring type? I thought I saw so much vision in you last night. So much imagination. It takes imagination, you know, to be a good explorer. What could lie beyond the next range of mountains? Where could that river run? That wasn't just liquor, was it, that sense of imagination? I mean—you won't think that I'm being offensive, or personal. But today you seem to be more—well, how can I put it?—
closed-up
, as it were. Inward, in your attitudes.'

Eyre said, ‘I'm not lacking in gratitude, Captain Sturt. Please don't think that.'

‘I don't, Mr Walker, not for a moment. But I do want you to understand that it wouldn't be possible for me to finance a venture like this solely for the purpose of finding one Aborigine chief, and bringing him back to Adelaide. There must be benefits for everyone, not just Yanluga; and let us not forget that Yanluga is already dead.'

Eyre thrust his hands into the pockets of his britches, and walked on a little further. He couldn't think why Sturt's proposition disturbed him so much. After all, he was a white man; and he worked for a commercial company which depended on South Australia flourishing, and on the exploitation of whatever riches and facilities the land had to offer. Yet he knew from what Yanluga had told him that the Aborigines had already been dispossessed of many of their magic places, and that scores of sacred caves and creeks had been lost to them for ever. And what the white man did not yet understand—if he ever would—was that the Aborigines depended on being able to visit these places in order to remind themselves of
their complicated and mystical past. None of their stories and songs were written down; none of their magic was recorded in books. The places themselves were the culture; the rocks and the creeks were invested with all the knowledge that the Aborigines needed in order to live and die according to what they believed. Once the places were gone, the culture was gone, irrevocably. To deny the Aborigines access to them was like burning down cathedrals.

Eyre watched a Dutch whaler sailing slowly around the point on its way to the waters of the South Indian Basin, its triangular sails shining in the morning sun. He said, ‘Perhaps I'm just being eccentric. Mr Lindsay is always accusing me of eccentricity. It's just that I feel that whatever we find in Australia we ought to protect as well as exploit. Scores of Aborigines have died of the measles, because they were infected by British settlers. Some tribes have died out altogether. Who will ever know now what they believed, and why they lived the way they did? Each time we destroy something here, we destroy one more secret. I'm simply afraid that if I find opals, or gold, or even a passable cattle-trail—well, this Garden of Eden will very quickly go the way of all Gardens of Eden. Trampled underfoot.'

Sturt dragged a large red handkerchief out of his sleeve, and loudly blew his nose. When he had folded the handkerchief back up again, and tucked it out of sight, he said, ‘You're quite right. Or at least Mr Lindsay's quite right. You
are
eccentric. In fact, you're eccentric enough to be a really great explorer.'

Eyre picked up more shells; and began to skip them over the surf.

Sturt said, ‘Let me put it this way, Mr Walker. I have lived among your Aboriginal at very close quarters; and believe me there is no more wretched specimen of humanity. He survives on insects and frogs and all kinds of repulsive creatures; nourishment to which a civilised man could never turn, even in his direst need.'

‘Alexander Pearce excepted,' commented Eyre, skipping another shell.

Sturt ignored that sharp remark. Alexander Pearce had been a Macquarie Harbour convict, a one-time pie-seller from Hobart, who had twice escaped from prison, and twice survived by eating his companions.

Sturt went on, ‘Every Aboriginal I have come across who has encountered the white man has benefited from the experience. True, many of them have unfortunately caught diseases not endemic in Australia; but Doctor Clarke tells me that they will eventually form a satisfactory resistance to most of the commoner sicknesses. And a few hundred deaths, no matter how regrettable those deaths may be, is a small price to pay for the advantages of Christianity, and clothing, and a good wholesome diet. I must tell you, Mr Walker, that it has long been my dream to teach and train the Aboriginals, to make them into happy servants. Many of them are already useful as constables, and guides, and houseboys. And when they are properly housed, and taught the elements of agriculture and the keeping of sheep and cattle, they will at last be able to develop for themselves the rudiments of civilisation. Do you want to see them forever outcast from normal society? Do you want to see them live in hardship and poverty and shameful nakedness, ignorant and filthy, ridden with venereal diseases, for generation after generation? Do you call that protecting them? They are backward children, Mr Walker; and as such their condition begs every paternal care that we can offer them.'

Eyre said, ‘Does that mean we have to overrun their land, and dig out of it everything and anything valuable? Does that mean we have to desecrate their sacred places?'

Sturt laid his hand on Eyre's shoulder, and smiled at him rather too closely, so that Eyre could see the hairs growing out of his nostrils.

‘To use the natural gifts that the land of Australia holds within her bosom, to give succour and support to her natural inhabitants; that is scarcely destructive. Of what
use to an Aborigine are opals? Or copper? Or gold, even? Far better that we should take the gold, and the opals, and whatever other minerals might be discovered, and sell them where they are most wanted, and in return give the Aborigines food, and education, and proper clothing, and Goulard's extract, and Holy Bibles. Come, Mr Walker; you are the son of a minister. What do you think
he
would have said? Your father?'

Eyre let his remaining shells fall to the beach, one by one. ‘I suppose he would have agreed with you,' he said, quietly.

‘Of course,' said Sturt. ‘Of course he would. A Christian minister.'

‘But I still don't believe that it's necessary to destroy the Aborigine beliefs, and their sacred grounds.'

Sturt smiled again, and shook his head. ‘Omelettes can't be made without breaking eggs, Mr Walker. I know how strongly you respect the native superstitions. That, after all, is your motivation for seeking out this one chief Yonguldye. But sacredness is relative. And the sacred Christian nature of this one great mission, to explore and develop South Australia well, that simply
must
take precedence over the erratic beliefs of a few score of unschooled savages. I very much regret all those sacred places and magical artefacts which must have been lost; but I suppose one could express the same sort of regret about the Dissolution of the Monasteries. And in those historic days, we were dealing with the same God, weren't we, and not with peculiar creatures like the Bunyip and the Yowie, and the Kangaroo-Men. No, Mr Walker, much as we would prefer to preserve these places, we cannot; and if the Aborigines forget their gods because of it, well, they will have forgotten nothing more holy than the boogie-man.'

It was gradually becoming clear to Eyre why Captain Sturt had picked him so quickly, and with such certainty. If Sturt was going to mount an expedition to explore the territory north of Adelaide, and look for cattle-trails and natural riches (and he had obviously been considering such
an expedition for quite a long time) then who better to lead it for him that a man with inspiration, unusual vision, and an uncommon sympathy for the Aborigines? Sturt must have decided that an expedition could be smaller, cheaper, and that it would have a far greater chance of survival, if only the Aborigines could be persuaded to give it every possible assistance along the way.

It occurred to Eyre that Captain Sturt didn't even like him very much. In fact the longer he spoke to him, the more sure of it he became. But like him or not, Sturt wanted him, and quite badly.

Eyre said, ‘I'm interested to know why you don't want to lead this particular exploration yourself.'

Sturt laid a hand on his chest. ‘My health, I'm afraid. I'm still not quite the man I was. Eyesight's poor; lungs still clog up a bit. My wife's not keen, either. And, besides, I feel confident that you would carry it out far more successfully than I.'

Eyre nodded, slowly. He really had no more questions. Not for Captain Sturt, anyway. There was one question, however, which he had to ask of himself; and that was whether he was prepared to search for Yonguldye on an expedition which was intended to bring about the eventual extinction of everything that the Aborigines held to be holy; of their gods, and their totems, and their hunting-grounds; in fact of their existence.

If he went, and if he were successful, Yanluga's spirit could at last be guided to its resting-place in the sky; but it was possible that his discoveries would hasten the white colonisation of South Australia by months, if not years, especially if he were to find opals, or gold. If he didn't go, then the Aborigine's lands might remain unexplored for decades, but Yanluga would have to remain where he was, buried like an animal next to Lathrop Lindsay's favourite horse, his soul unsettled for ever. And there was no guarantee that Sturt himself might not decide to undertake the expedition; or any one of half-a-dozen explorers, some
of them far more inconsiderate towards Aborigines than Sturt.

To Eyre, the responsibility of making up his mind was like a physical pain, and he stood for almost five minutes on the shoreline, his fingertips pressed to his temples, staring out to sea. Sturt, however, seemed to be prepared to wait for him, and sat on a broken wooden bucket nearby, quite calm, and smoked a cigar.

Destiny, thought Eyre. The terrible
jug-a-nath
of destiny. One day he had been responsible for nothing and nobody more than himself, and for keeping the wheels of his bicycle well-greased with emu fat. Then he had fallen for Charlotte, and become acquainted with Yanluga. Now Yanluga was dead, and Eyre had become responsible not just for him, but for every Aboriginal in South Australia. He knew it: he sensed it. What had Christopher called him? ‘One of these chaps who has to do something
noble.
' Why had he been unable to let Yanluga lie? Was it because he still loved Charlotte; and carrying out this expedition gave him one last tenuous connection with her? Or was it truly a Christian sense of duty? The need to do something noble?

He thought of his father, on the night when he had told him that he was going to emigrate; and that he was not going to take holy orders. ‘I am extremely sad,' his father had admitted, ‘
but
I have to say that I respect what you believe All I require of you is that you in your turn, always respect the beliefs of others.'

Had the words of an English country vicar, spoken over supper two years ago to his disobedient son, now become the
leitmotiv
for the gradual dismemberment of an entire primaeval civilisation? Perhaps they had. Perhaps that was the real devastating power of God's holy word, from halfway around the world.

Because what could Eyre believe? In Christ crucified, and the holy testaments? Or in Kinnie-Ger, the cat beast; and Yara Ma, who could swallow a human being whole, and suck up a creek so that a whole village would die of
drought? And much of what Captain Sturt had said was true. The blackfellows in the bush were filthy, and undernourished, and appallingly ignorant. Could it be that Yanluga's death had set in motion an historic series of events that would at last bring them health, and contentment, and the spiritual satisfaction of knowing that they were the children both of Her Majesty the Queen, and of God?

Eyre turned his back on the sea, and walked across to Captain Sturt with his hands still pressed, a little melodramatically, to his temples. He was conscious of the melodrama, but Sturt was, too; and Sturt played his part by smoking his cigar with equanimity and saying nothing.

It was then that Eyre caught a glimpse of a movement among the distant sand-dunes. He slowly lowered his hands, and looked more carefully. At first there was nothing; but then he saw a thin stick, like a reed, or a wand, moving rhythmically behind the curves of the dunes. It began to rise higher and higher, and at last it revealed itself to be a long spear, being carried up the far side of the dune by an Aborigine warrior, fully decorated with ochre and feathers.

The Aborigine stood on the skyline for no more than a quarter of a minute, but it was plain to Eyre that he had meant to be seen; and that his presence there was not accidental. He made some kind of distant hand-signal, and then he disappeared from sight.

Captain Sturt turned around on his bucket just too late to see what Eyre had been looking at.

‘Are you all right?' he asked. He glanced back once towards the dunes and then he tossed his cigar-butt into the surf. ‘Perhaps we'd better be getting back.'