Corroboree (39 page)

As Eyre made his way closer to the fire, the chanting died away; and a ragged chorus of cries and responses was taken up, like a primitive version of a Church of England collect. The responses were accompanied by a loud sporadic clapping that sounded like boomerangs being slapped together. A voice shouted a hoarse incantation, and there was an answering cry that ended with an Aborigine word that Eyre recognised,'—
wynarka!
' It meant ‘Stranger'—and judging from the ferocity with which it was cried out, these blackfellows plainly felt very little affection for the ‘stranger' about whom they were singing.

Eyre crouched and half-crawled his way up behind a mulga bush, and pushed the branches apart with his hand so that he could see the corroboree more clearly. As far as he could make out, there were ten or twelve blackfellows there, gathered around the fire, all of them naked, all of them painted with horrific masks of white pipe-clay. Their hair was elaborately pulled up into high top-knots, and there were rows of wallaby's teeth hanging across their foreheads. Two of them were sitting cross-legged on the ground; one of them clapping two boomerangs together to produce the sharp wooden rhythm that had first woken Eyre up, the other playing a large wind instrument that looked like a decorated tree-trunk, but which obviously must have been hollow. The booming, flutey song that this instrument produced was the most scaring noise of all; it didn't even sound as if it could have been created by a human at all, but rather by the wind, blowing through some lonely curve of eroded limestone, or by a breathing
Bunyip, or by some other strange creature from Australian legend.

Eyre watched the ritual for nearly half-an-hour. The blackfellows sang and clapped, and then they took each other around the waist and danced in a circle, swaying and shuffling, and humming in an undertone which was even deeper and more vibrant than the voice of the wooden instrument. Eyre began to wish very much that he hadn't ventured out this far, because he was now faced with the difficult task of returning to the gully without being noticed. The sky was lighter now, and the singing and the humming and the clapping had died away; and he was much more likely to be seen or heard. And there was no doubt about it: the collection of weapons which lay stacked beside the fire included not only spears with pirri points, but ‘death-spears' with rows of sharp quartz flakes stuck along the sides of them with gum—spears which could inflict terrible wounds and which could usually be removed from a victim's body only by being pushed right through.

‘The Lord is mice pepper,' he breathed to himself, a self-mocking repetition of the prayer which Weeip had told him. Then he stealthily backed away from the mulga bush, and then began to hurry like a frightened hunchback towards the edge of the gully.

He was panting as he ran; and his footsteps sounded thunderous as he weaved through the scrub arid the spinifex grass. He kept imagining that he would hear the noise that the north Australian Aborigines described as
bimblegumbie—
the sound made by a spear launched from a woomera—and that seven feet of quartz-tipped kalyra-wood would stick into his back and bring him down before he could even tell Christopher that he loved Charlotte irrationally but passionately, and that she could have his bicycle, if she wanted it.

He was almost there. He could see the gums that surrounded their makeshift encampment. But just as he was about to slide down the slope towards the
billa
, something
attenuated and dark rose out of the bushes beside him and made him shout out, ‘Jesus!' in uncontrollable fear and surprise.

‘Quiet
, Mr Walker-sir,' said Joolonga's urgent voice.

‘Quiet? You scared me half to death.'

‘I saw you had gone, Mr Walker-sir. Weeip was supposed to be keeping watch but Weeip was asleep. I was coming after you, in case you needed me.'

‘You could have given me a heart-seizure, you black rogue. Have you heard all that singing and chanting? Have you heard those fellows? Out there, by the fire. They've been singing and dancing away there for hours.'

‘Yes,' said Joolonga, enigmatically.

‘Well, do you know what they're doing?' Eyre asked him, as they made their way down to the water.

Joolonga squatted down by the oil-black surface of the pool, scooped his hand into the water, and splashed his face; then the back of his neck. His eyes glittered in the night like coins glimpsed at the bottom of a sunless well. ‘They are holding a corroboree, Mr Walker-sir. A sacred dance to celebrate the coming-alive of a dreamtime story. It is here, tonight, that the coming-alive of the story begins.'

‘Out here? What are you talking about?'

‘Out here is where it was always foretold that the story would begin.'

‘I'm not at all sure that I understand you.'

Dogger rolled over testily in his blankets, and called out, ‘If you two want to spend the night nattering, why don't you do it somewhere out of earshot? I'm uglier than both of you put together: I need my beauty-sleep.'

Joolonga stood up, and beckoned Eyre to follow him further down the gully, until they were out of sight of the camp behind an outcropping of rock, overgrown by mulga bushes. Then Joolonga lit up his crab's-claw pipe and filled the night air with the strange pungency of his tobacco. ‘I can safely tell you now, Mr Walker-sir. Before tonight, you may not have understood why this expedition was so
important to us; and you may have declined to embark on it, in spite of how you felt about young Yanluga.'

‘Go on,' said Eyre, warily.

‘Well, Mr Walker-sir, it was always said in the dreamtime that the spirits of the dead would one day return from the place of the setting sun. When the first white men came here, most of us believed that they were the ghosts of our forefathers, since they came from the west, and their skins were white. Dead people, you see, were thought to shed their earthly skin when they rose up to the skies. In the early days, white men were always called
djanga
, which is the same word we use for “spirits of the dead”.'

‘Well?' said Eyre, a little testily. ‘What does that have to do with this expedition?'

‘Simply that it was always foretold, Mr Walker-sir, that one of the
djanga
would visit Tandarnya, which is what we call Adelaide; and that he would accidentally take the life of a blackfellow whose name in the story is Utyana, which means a boy who has not yet been initiated. But the
djanga
would seek atonement for what he had done; and would seek out a clever-man in order to be forgiven for taking the boy's life. He would have to journey for many weeks across the plains in order to find the clever-man; just as you have been obliged to.'

‘If this mythical spirit is supposed to be me, I think you're forgetting that it wasn't
I
who killed Yanluga; it was Lathrop Lindsay, and those hounds of his.'

Joolonga looked unperturbed. ‘You have said yourself, Mr Walker-sir, that if you had not gone to meet with Mr Lindsay's daughter that night, Yanluga would still be alive. It was always foretold that you would cause his death, Mr Walker-sir, and no matter what you did, no matter how you tried to avoid it, the foretelling had to come to pass.'

‘Rubbish,' Eyre snapped. He was silent for long, deafened seconds, while Joolonga attentively smoked. Then he said, ‘How does the story end?'

Joolonga spat into the darkness. ‘In the story, the
djanga
comes across the trail of the clever-man at a place where the kangaroos come to drink. That is why we have come here to Woocalla. I think that Mr Dogger is probably right, and that Yonguldye is already at Yarrakina, the place of the ochre-mine; but it was necessary for us to come here in order to fulfil the story. That is why my brothers are out there tonight, dancing. They know that the foretelling will soon come to pass. They are celebrating.'

‘Does the story say what happens when the
djanga
meets the clever-man?'

Joolonga nodded. ‘It is known all over South Australia as the Story of the Spirit's Gift; for when the
djanga
meets the clever-man, he gives him in atonement all the knowledge of the spirit-world, so that living men might at last know all the strange and marvellous secrets of the land beyond the setting sun. These days, however, the blackfellows realise that the story foretold the landing of the white man, rather than the return of ghosts from the world above, and they believe that the chosen white man will give to the clever-man all the magical knowledge that makes the white man so superior; and that the clever-man will pass this magical knowledge from tribe to tribe, so that at last the blackfellow will be able to stand as an equal to the
djanga;
and protect his lands and his secret places from the white man's thievery.

‘You, Mr Walker-sir, are the
djanga
for whom the Aborigine people have been waiting for hundreds of years, ever since the dreamtime. On your shoulders, the future of the Aborigine people completely rests; and they look to you for their salvation. Do you now see why you have been followed and protected by Aborigine warriors ever since the day of Yanluga's death; ever since you first declared that you would give him the burial which you believed he deserved?'

Eyre smeared chilly sweat away from his forehead with the back of his hand. The sky was far lighter now; and the
billa
shone like a cold memory, its surface circled only by
the beaks of early-rising zebra-finches which had come down to the water's edge to drink while it was cool.

Eyre said, ‘Listen to me, Joolonga. I determined to come out on this expedition firstly to do my duty by Yanluga; and secondly to make my name; so that I can claim the bride I want, and the fortune I want. But those two goals are the beginning and the end of it; whatever interpretation you and your Aborigine chums wish to put on it. I am a Christian, and I am as a moral as the next man, although I have no pretensions to holiness. But, damn it, Joolonga, I am not a messiah. Nor ever shall be.'

‘Captain Sturt doesn't seem to agree with you,' said Joolonga, with a sly smile.

‘Captain Sturt? What does Captain Sturt know about it?'

‘Everything, of course.'

‘You mean he knows about the legend of the
djanga?
'

‘Of course,' Joolonga nodded. ‘That is why he chose you to lead this expedition. Do you think there could have been any other reason for choosing an inexperienced shipping clerk to plunge straight into the deserts of South Australia? Captain Sturt came directly to talk to you at the Spring Ball, do you remember? Why do you think he picked you out so readily?'

‘You
,' said Eyre, ‘are the black devil.'

‘No, Mr Walker-sir; I am Captain Sturt's man.'

‘But how did Captain Sturt come to hear so quickly of what I wanted to do? How did he know that I wanted to find Yonguldye? And what possible good could it have done him, even if he
did
know?'

Joolonga waved a mud-wasp away from his ear. ‘You remember Captain Henry, who took you home after Yanluga was killed? He heard what you promised Yanluga, and heard it clearly, and he believed right away that you were the
djanga
of whom the foretelling had always spoken. Captain Henry is a Wirangu, sir, and in his own time was a clever-man of a kind. He was very excited. He told Yagan, who is the head man of the Aborigines who camp by the Torrens River, in Adelaide, and Yagan in
his turn told me. Yagan has believed all his life that the blackfellow must find a way to live with the white man, but that he must have strength, and knowledge, and understand the white man's power, in order to survive. Otherwise, he will be like nothing better than a possum attacked by dingoes. Torn apart, ripped to pieces, out of weakness and ignorance.'

Eyre said nothing. He felt both angry and humiliated. Angry most of all that Captain Sturt should have deceived him; but deeply humiliated that he hadn't been chosen for this expedition because of his determination to find Yonguldye or because of his confidence and clear-headedness, but because he had appeared to a few superstitious blackfellows to be the thunderous coming of some mythical messiah; a magnificent but stupendously ignorant delusion which Captain Sturt had obviously done his best to exploit to the very limit. Captain Sturt had known his Aborigines better than he had let on; and his white men, too.

Joolonga said, casually, ‘I told Captain Sturt all about you; and Captain Sturt contrived for you to meet him at the Spring Ball.'

‘How?' Eyre demanded.

‘A friend of Captain Sturt's talked to
your
friend, Mr Willis. I think the friend persuaded Mr Willis that Captain Sturt would soon talk you out of any ideas of looking for Yonguldye. And, I think there was some money.'

Eyre felt as if the flesh were being boiled of his bones. ‘
Why?
' he hissed at Joolonga; too furious and too shocked even to shout.

Joolonga shrugged. ‘Finance, Mr Walker-sir. That is the word for it, isn't it? South Australia is almost bankrupt: the whole colony. Lately, Captain Sturt has lost thousands of pounds of his own money in sheep and wheat farming; while Colonel Gawler has already drawn £200,000 on the London Commissioners to build new roads and houses in Adelaide, and they say they will order him back to England
if he draws any more. South Australia has no money, sir, and things go from bad to worse, and worse to terrible.'

‘And that is why Captain Sturt has decided to make the best of me, is it? That is why he sent me off to meet with the Aborigine clever-men, and find out anything I could about opals, or copper, or cattle-trails to the north; anything that would pull his financial chestnuts out of the fire? And in the guise of a dreamtime spirit!'

Eyre stood up, and he was shaking. ‘My God,' he said. ‘Captain Sturt knew how much I respected the Aborigine religion. He knew what guilt I felt for Yanluga's death. And yet he calmly deceived both me and blackfellows who take me for their
djanga
. They were out there all night, around their fire, dancing and singing and celebrating! You saw them yourself! They believe that I'm that legendary spirit of yours! They believe that I can help them against men like Gawler and Sturt and Lathrop Lindsay! And
you
, Joolonga, what the hell do
you
believe? Not in your own people; that's quite obvious. Not in your own religion and your own legends. Nor do you believe in me; or you wouldn't have tricked me for so long. Is it money you believe in? Is that it? Is that all? God, man, you have no morals at all!'