Corroboree (48 page)

Eyre took a deep breath, and held it. Then, without another word, he knelt down and began to pick up his bottles. Laudanum, syrup of Toulu, acid of sugar. He had almost finished collecting up the liver-pills when he saw that the tiny amber-glass jar of corrosive sublimate appeared to be empty. He picked it up and held it against the light. Absolutely empty; even though he knew that there must have been two or three drachms in it when they started out on their expedition. Usually, he kept it right at the bottom of the chest, since it was so intensively poisonous, and scarcely ever useful; but Christopher's kick had sent it flying out.

He thought of Arthur; and the sudden way in which Arthur had started vomiting those long stringy white masses of bloody mucus. He had suspected Joolonga before of poisoning Arthur; but the events that had followed had put the matter out of his mind. This empty sublimate jar was proof; at least as far as Eyre was concerned. The pointing-bone may have held some strange and dangerous properties; but none of them could have been half so strong as two drachms of corrosive sublimate. The only question that really remained unanswered was why Joolonga had considered it necessary to put Arthur to death. He had said, of course, that it was to protect them all from the vengeance of Ngurunderi. But nothing
that Joolonga had said or done had turned out to be what it appeared to be. Eyre decided to reserve judgement; but to remain suspicious.

He also decided to say nothing to Dogger and Christopher, not yet. He didn't want them thinking that he had turned completely mad.

‘Listen,' he said, closing the medicine-chest, ‘if the inland sea is as close as Yonguldye said that it is, we should reach it in two or three days. But, if we turn back, we'll have at least a week of hard travelling; and nothing to show for it. Besides, Joolonga will probably still be after us; and the first thing that he will expect us to do is turn south. We'll ride straight into him, more than likely; and then where will we be?'

‘Pickled,' said Dogger. ‘And that's a dead bird.'

‘Nevertheless,' Christopher retorted, ‘I still think that it's foolishness, to carry on. Pride, and foolishness. My vote is that we try to make our way back to Adelaide.'

Eyre handed his medicine-chest to Weeip, to pack away, and then stood and looked at Christopher for a very long time, his hands on his hips, trying to give Christopher the opportunity to change his mind. But Christopher did nothing more than wipe his face with his red-spotted belcher and stare defiantly back at him. Eyre knew that Christopher would have to go; and Christopher knew it, too.

‘Very well,' said Eyre. ‘You and Weeip can leave us here and head southwards. Take Midgegooroo with you. I'll give you fresh bandages and spirits to clean his wounds with. If you're careful with him, he may survive. Use your compass, that's all you have to do; and head directly south. When you reach the ocean, follow it south-east, along the coastline.'

Dogger said, ‘You seem to be assuming that I'm going along with you, you and your donah.'

‘I had hoped that you would,' said Eyre. ‘You're the only experienced man we have left.'

‘Nobody has any experience when it comes to the inland sea,' said Dogger.

‘Of course not,' Eyre agreed. ‘But at least you know how to survive.'

‘If I knew how to survive, I wouldn't have come with you at all,' Dogger told him. ‘I wouldn't have shot those two gents, just for the sake of a grumpy old yoxter like Arthur Mortlock; and nor would I have followed you out as far as this. If I knew how to survive, I'd be back with Constance, well-pissed on home-made beer and tickling her garden-grove.'

‘Are you coming?' Eyre asked him.

Dogger took off his hat, mopped away the sweat, and then replaced it. ‘You know damn-well that I'm coming. If there's an inland sea, I want to wash my feet in it.'

He hesitated, and sniffed, and then he said, ‘God almighty, if I took my boots off now, I reckon every one of those flies would jump off poor old Midgegooroo there and cluster on to my feet like berries.'

So, as the sun tilted away from its glaring zenith, and the shadows around the outcropping began to give Midgegooroo a few inches more protection, it was decided. Christopher and Midgegooroo should ride south to Adelaide, with Weeip as their guide and interpreter. Once in Adelaide, they would go to Captain Sturt and raise fresh supplies, which they would arrange to be taken to a spot on the salt-lake sixteen miles due east of Woocalla, buried under a stone cairn. These supplies would enable Eyre and Dogger to survive on their return journey, when they would probably be desperately short of almost everything, especially water. That was, unless they found the inland sea, and the freshwater rivers which must be feeding it, and the naturally irrigated forests which probably lined its shores. In that case, they would be bringing their own water, and their own supplies, and news of the greatest graphical triumph since Australia had first been discovered.

Eyre and Dogger would take the lion's share of the
supplies, as well as most of the water; and with Minil to help them in any encounter with Aborigines, they would strike due north, until they reached the ocean; and then south-west, to see if they could locate the source of Yonguldye's opal diggings at Caddibarrawinnacarra.

By mid-afternoon, when they had finished dividing most of their supplies, it was clear that the sickest of their horses was finished. Dogger loaded up his rifle and shot it. The animal quivered and then lay still in the sunlight. The sound of the shot echoed through the burning afternoon like the clap of a stage-manager's hands.

Dogger came back with the rifle over his arm. ‘Weeip,' he said, ‘cut that poor old chap up before you go; and we'll share as much of his meat as we can carry.'

But Weeip was frowning towards the eastern horizon. ‘No time, Mr Dogasah.'

‘What's the matter? What do you mean, no time?'

Weeip pointed. Far, far away, a row of tiny black shapes moved in the wavering afternoon heat; like ants in syrup. And off to their right, carried above the hot distorted layers of air by the north-westerly wind, there was an ochre-coloured cloud of dust.

‘Blackfellow,' said Weeip. ‘Very many, running to fight.'

Dogger walked over to his horse, and took a shiny brass telescope out of his saddle-pannier. He slid it open, and peered for a long time in the direction of the Flinders mountains.

‘Well?' said Eyre.

‘They're coming after us, all right,' said Dogger. ‘We're going to have to leave here right away.'

‘And the horse?'

‘Sorry, matey, we'll just have to leave it. No choice. Pity, though, I'm quite partial to horse-meat and pickles.'

Eyre and Christopher self-consciously said goodbye to each other. Eyre shook Weeip's hand and promised him a medal if they ever discovered the inland sea. Only Minil stayed aloof from their fond farewells; squatting on top of
the limestone rock watching the gradual approach of the tribesmen from Yarrakinna.

‘Well,' said Dogger, raising his flask of home-distilled rum. ‘God loves you. Inside and outside.'

Eyre stood by his horse watching Christopher and Weeip ride off towards the south. Behind them, slung over his saddle, lolled the body of Midgegooroo, probably more dead than alive; but now heavily dosed with laudanum to dull the pain of his wound. Eyre stayed where he was until Christopher's horse appeared through the heat-haze to be ankle-deep in water; then Weeip's; and he didn't turn away until all three of them had begun to run and flow like a rainy painting.

‘I wonder if we'll ever see
them
again,' said Dogger, pragmatically.

‘I don't know,' said Eyre. ‘But did you notice something, he didn't even turn around to wave.'

‘Waving,' said Dogger, ‘is for regattas only, and ladies on quaysides or clerical gentlemen on the top of God-permits.' God-permits was what Dogger always called stage-coaches, because their timetables carried the qualification ‘
Deo volente
'.

Eyre realised with some surprise that he was hurt by Christopher's temperamental departure. But at last he beckoned Minil down from her perch, and mounted up on to his horse with a squeak of hot leather, and said, ‘Come on; we have some history to make.'

‘Vultures to feed, more like,' countered Dogger.

It was cold, that night, out on the salt-lake. Dogger decided it was a dog-and-a-half night, not quite a two-dog night; but Eyre found it impossible to keep warm, and huddled in his blankets sleeplessly watching the moon curve from one side of the horizon to the other. The Aborigines often used their tame dingoes as bed-covers, and considering how hot and furry the animals' bodies could be, a dog-and-a-half night meant that it was almost down to freezing.

The next morning, they breakfasted on sugary tea and semolina, and set off early. There was no sign of Joolonga behind them, but Eyre knew that their former guide could follow their tracks as easily as if they had strewn him a paperchase.

The lake was flat for as far as they could see in every direction; and it glittered like ground glass. Their horses' legs soon became encrusted in salt, and they left a powdery trail behind them that even Eyre could have followed.

From time to time, Dogger turned his horse, and took out his telescope, and peered behind them at the distant waves of heat. But it was only towards late afternoon that he beckoned to Eyre, and handed him over the telescope, and pointed south-south-east.

‘See them?' he asked.

The eastern horizon was beginning to darken; and the dust and the heat gave it a grainy appearance in which it was hard to distinguish anything. Eyre saw several black shapes that could have been Aborigine tribesmen, following them; or then again they could have been vultures, circling over a dead kangaroo.

‘I see
something
,' said Eyre, hesitantly.

‘You see Joolonga and Company,' Dogger asserted.

‘How do you know?'

Dogger tapped his head. ‘Long experience, chum.'

Minil reined her horse around and stood beside them.
She still wore Eyre's shirt as an apron in reverse, but she had unwound the scarf from her chest and now wore it on her head, tied loose at the back to keep the sun off her neck.

‘If they catch us, they will surely kill us,' she said.

‘We'll just have to make sure that they don't, then, won't we?' said Dogger, and turned his horse to ride on.

Towards nightfall, however, Eyre's horse suddenly lurched, and almost threw him out of the saddle. Eyre clicked at it to rear itself up, but then it lurched again; and Eyre looked down and saw that its hoofs had penetrated the crust of the salt-lake, and that it was buried up to its cannon-bones in thick grey mud.

‘Dogger!' he called, and immediately dismounted. His own feet crunching on the salt, and made impressions in its surfaces as if it were the frosting on a soft cake. Dogger swung out of the saddle and came cautiously across, leading his horse on a long rein. Eyre said to Minil, ‘Stay where you are, Minil; don't come any nearer.'

‘
Koolbung
,' Dogger explained to her. ‘Salt swamp.'

Eyre soothed and rubbed his horse's nose, and managed gently to coax it to step backward out of the mud. It shook itself and snorted, but the experience had obviously made it nervous.

‘How deep do you think this mud is?' asked Eyre.

Dogger shrugged. ‘Can't tell. The only other salt swamp I've ever been through, it swallowed a horse and a haycart, right up to the driver's hat.'

‘Don't tell lies,' Eyre retorted. ‘That's the same story they tell about Hindley Street, during the wet.'

‘All I'm saying is, we can't tell,' Dogger repeated.

‘Maybe we can ride around it,' Eyre suggested. ‘After all, if there's mud under the surface, that's probably because there's a deeply buried watercourse down below. Perhaps it comes from the inland sea.'

‘Yes, and perhaps it doesn't,' said Dogger.

‘Well, wherever it comes from, it can't be limitless. No
wider than a river. So let's try riding westwards a few miles, and then strike north further along.'

Dogger took a measured swallow from his water-bottle. ‘All right, then. I suppose it's worth a try. But we're better off camping right here for the night, where we know we've got solid ground to sleep on. We've still got some of that dried suet left, haven't we; and some dried plums. Maybe I'll boil up a hooting pudding.'

‘What is “hooting pudding”?' Minil asked, curiously.

‘My old mother used to make it, in the days when we were stony,' said Dogger. ‘There were so few plums in it, they used to hoot to each other to let each other know where they were.'

Eyre looked southwards. ‘You don't think there's any danger that Joolonga might catch up with us?'

‘There's always a danger that Joolonga might catch up with us; but we'll be in a worser fix if we try to ride through that
koolbung
in the dark.'

They tethered the pack-horses and set up their humpbacked canvas shelter. Eyre lit a fire out of gum branches which they had brought with them; and the broken pieces of the box in which they had been carrying their dried fruit. Dogger's pudding would use up the very last of the fruit, and other essential stores were running low. There were only ten pounds of flour left, now that they had divided it with Christopher and Weeip and Midgegooroo, and they were also short of sugar, tea, and dried fish. Almost the only food which they had in plentiful supply were hard navy biscuits; but without an equally plentiful supply of water to wash them down with, these were harshly dry, and painful to swallow.

‘We still have the horses to eat,' said Eyre, as they sat around their small, windblown fire.

‘That's if Joolonga gives us long enough to butcher them,' Dogger replied.