Give the Devil His Due (34 page)

Practically every town is visited by tramps, who pass along from one town to another, and since the depression the number has increased considerably. Some are very decent fellows, in search of work, but others often make a nuisance of themselves, and it is a difficult problem to know what is best to do about these “birds of passage.” One of the first things they naturally do on arrival in a town is to find a place of shelter, and get some wood to make a fire. Sheds on reserves and empty houses are generally sought, and although the unfortunate men need shelter, they are seldom made welcome in any of their locations, and often adjacent wood-heaps suffer, while nearby residents are frequently perturbed by the proximity of so many of whom are of doubtful character.

Morwell Advertiser, 1934

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T
hey had been walking for an hour or more. Rowland's eyes had become accustomed to the darkness, but unable to see, Clyde stumbled often on the steep uneven ground and each yard was hard won. Razor sharp, the cold bit through exhaustion and pain. They stopped talking, and concentrated grimly on moving forward.

When Rowland first saw the distant light he said nothing, worried he might be imagining it. The light persisted. He told Clyde— hoarsely, because he was parched. “It's hard to tell, but there's a light that couldn't be more than half a mile off.”

Clyde nodded. “Carry on, Rowly,” he wheezed. “I'm fine.”

Soon Rowland realised the light was cast by a campfire. He had hoped it would be a more substantial sign of civilisation, but a camp at least meant humans and hopefully ones who were familiar with their bearings.

As they came within earshot, there were voices. Someone was playing a harmonica and perhaps, because of this, they were unnoticed until they walked into the midst of the campers. The man with the harmonica turned and caught sight of them first. He screamed, a high pitched cry of pure terror. He dropped the harmonica and scrambled away. “Sweet mother of God protect us!” The second man grabbed a stick and a third seized rocks.

Rowland pushed Clyde behind him, confused. “I'm sorry… Please don't…”

An Aboriginal man squatting by the fire started to laugh. “Cripes, what's wrong with you blokes?” he roared. He waved his hands above his head and wailed, “Wooooooooo.”

“Rowly, what the devil is going on?” Clyde demanded, trying to make out something with the eye that was not completely closed.

“I'm not entirely sure,” Rowland replied.

“They're just blokes who's been living rough, you fools,” the laughing man told his compatriots. “Gawd that was funny… never seen men so scared. Petey here screaming for his mama… you lot getting ready to pelt these poor fellas with rocks!” He wiped tears from his eyes, and shook out his mirth. “Whoa, haven't laughed like that in ages.” He stood and walked up to the bewildered intruders. “Albert Thompson. And who be you two?”

“Rowland Sinclair, Mr. Thompson. This is my friend, Clyde Watson Jones.”

Thompson turned to his companions. “Where are your manners, fellas? Let these gentlemen sit down; they've clearly had a hard day! And introduce yourselves for heaven's sake!”

The men made room beside the fire, sheepishly muttering their names as Petey Holmes, Steve Eather, Mick Green, Bruce McIntyre and Johnny Grady.

“What can we do for you gentlemen?” asked Eather, as he tossed the stick he'd grabbed to fight them off onto the fire.

“If we could trouble you for some water?” Rowland said.

“Oh, we can do better than that.” Thompson pulled a billy off the coals and poured tea into tin enamel cups. He instructed his companions to shut up until their guests had drunk. The tea was weak but it was hot and it coated the woolly dryness of their throats.

“So did you fellas fall off that lorry that come past a couple of hours back?” Thompson asked.

“Yes, I suppose we did,” Rowland replied.

“You blokes look like hell!” Thompson grinned. “Petey here thought he was looking at some kinda apparition!”

“Leave off, Albert!” Petey Holmes' voice was still a little shrill.

Rowland pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and, with Thompson's permission, moistened it from a water pail by the fire. He put the soaked cloth in Clyde's hand. “Hold this against your eye—one of them anyway. It's not as good as ice but it'll help.”

Clyde applied the makeshift compress to his face.

“There'll be plenty of ice later,” Eather said. “It's going be a cold night and that old bastard Jack Frost might visit, I reckon.”

Rowland noticed how thin and thinly clad the men around the fire were. “What are you gentlemen doing out here?” he asked.

“Travelling,” Thompson said. “We're looking for work… heading for Penrith.”

“If we don't freeze to death in Leura,” Mick Green added.

“Leura?” Rowland murmured. “We're in the Blue Mountains?”

Thompson nodded.

“How far are we out of Leura?” Clyde asked.

“'About ten miles.”

Rowland groaned. They'd never make it tonight. Even if Clyde were in better shape, his own limbs were stiffening and heavy now.

“Are you in a hurry, Mr. Sinclair?” Thompson asked cheerily.

“There are a few people who are probably worried about us by now,” Rowland said, wincing as he contemplated the reaction to their disappearance.

Thompson looked from him to Clyde. “Looks to me like they had good reason to be worried.”

Eather chimed in sombrely. “We've only got one blanket to spare, so you gentlemen will have to share.”

“Thank you,” Rowland said, in no doubt that the spare blanket probably wasn't particularly surplus to requirements.

“It won't be enough,” Thompson warned. He pulled several old newspapers out of a swag and showed Rowland how to line his jacket and Clyde's with the extra insulation. “If you blokes sleep close to the fire, you shouldn't freeze to death,” he said optimistically.

Bruce McIntyre, who until that point had said barely a word, set the billy back on the coals. “We'd best clean you fellas up a little or you're going to scare the living Dickens out of Leura.”

It was only then that Rowland realised how they must look. He couldn't see his own face of course, and he hadn't taken as many blows there as Clyde obviously had, but he was aware of dried blood on his forehead and in his hair.

Thompson took charge of Clyde, softening encrusted blood with a warm, soaked cloth and cleaning up his face in a manner that was surprisingly gentle. One of Clyde's eyes was starting to open again. Grady produced a small flask and regretfully handed it over. “Seems like a bloody waste but you should probably clean out those cuts.”

Thompson resoaked Rowland's handkerchief with rum and applied it to Clyde's cheek. Clyde swore, blanching as the alcohol burned the open wound.

“Sorry,” Thompson murmured, giving the flask to Rowland. “On your forehead above your right eye.”

“Here, I'll do it,” Holmes volunteered, grabbing the flask and pouring rum directly upon the cut. Rowland pulled back from the sting as rum mixed with blood ran down his face and soaked his collar.

Grady leapt up and snatched back his flask. “Not so much, you bloody fool. This has gotta last me till we find work.”

“So what is it that sees you fellas in such a state of dishevelment?” Thompson asked as his comrades bickered.

Clyde told him, more or less.

The campers made more tea as they listened, and when Clyde was finished Eather whistled low. “Where I come from, this kinda intervention is generally only called for when some bastard flatly refuses to marry your sister. So what are you gonna do?”

Clyde shrugged miserably. “I'm going to walk away.”

“Because you'll get killed if you don't?”

“No, because Rosie wants it that way. She doesn't want me anymore.”

“You won't be the first man to have his heart broken, mate,” McIntyre said with obvious compassion. “I was in love once…”

One by one the men about the fire shared their own stories of romantic disaster. McIntyre's wife had run away with his brother; Eather's great love had thrown him over for a stockman from Kalgoorlie; Grady, it appeared, was running from his wife who, he claimed, had a murderous nature; Green had once proposed to a beauty who turned out to be a young man in a frock; and poor Petey Holmes had never even kissed a girl. Rowland wasn't wholly sure how comforting Clyde found the tales of empathetic woe, but they did help pass the time and distract them from the cold and the gnawing hunger of their bellies.

Rowland had no tale of tragic love to offer because he did not see his story that way, was determined it would not end that way. Instead he found his notebook, apparently overlooked by their abductors, and proceeded to draw the company of men from the snatches the flames illuminated. The firelight shaded their faces into stark gaunt planes, but their eyes were bright and unbeaten. Rowland pencilled thin limbs and hollow cheeks, suspecting that they too had gone some time without a meal, holding starvation at bay with weak, warm tea and conversation. He wondered how long they'd been travelling in search of work.

“My brother has a property in Yass,” Rowland said quietly. “If you don't mind heading out there, I'm sure he could use some extra men.” He had no idea if that were true, but something would be found.

“What, all of us?” Grady asked.

“Yes, of course.”

“Must be a bloody big property to take on five extra men!” They laughed at him. They had met delusional men on the track before, raggedy men who believed they were kings and offered knighthoods for a cigarette. And la-di-da accents were not unheard of on the wallaby—the Depression had seen to that.

Edna strode determinedly up to the double doors. Nine in the morning was a strange time to find oneself at the threshold of a nightclub, but she was not there for the usual reasons.

Rowland and Clyde had not returned. There was no sign of them, though an envelope containing Rowland's pocketbook had been delivered to the gatehouse. The police were making enquiries of course, but they could find no one who would admit to having seen the two gentlemen enter the wine bar. Wilfred Sinclair had arranged and attended a meeting with Eric Campbell the previous evening to demand the return of his brother. The gleeful colonel had offered his sympathies and the services of his New Guardsmen in any search. Milton had set off to locate Wombat Newgate with every intention of beating the whereabouts of Clyde and Rowland out of the bookmaker. Edna too was not about to suffer quietly the abduction of her dearest friends. She had slipped out to call on old acquaintances.

The Lido at Bondi Beach was notorious for a disreputable clientele, expensive sly grog and cheap women. Its proprietor and the architect of its flamboyant immorality was Dr. Reginald Stuart Jones.

Jones' wife had informed Edna that her husband would be at the Lido that morning, doing what she did not know or care. Edna had considered waiting for Milton's return, but had decided the precaution was unnecessary. While Stuart Jones liked to attach himself to dangerous men, it was because he himself was a coward. In fact, false bravado would probably make the doctor less likely to cooperate in Milton's presence.

She pounded on the door of the converted dance hall. For a time there was no response, but she persisted. Eventually the door opened a crack and a furtive eye peered out. The eye widened and brightened and the door was swung wide. “Eddie, darlin'. What a simply delicious surprise!”

She pushed past and stepped into the Lido. “I need to speak to you.”

Stuart Jones beamed. “I knew it! Your feigned indifference was for Sinclair's benefit, I suppose. But what he doesn't know…” His eyes moved quite deliberately to her waist. “I say, you're not in trouble, are you, gorgeous? Is that why you're here?”

“Don't be an idiot, Reggie. I want to know where you've taken Rowly.”

“It's not Sinclair I want to take somewhere, darling.” Stuart Jones put his arm about Edna's shoulders. “Unfortunately I'm just a teensy bit busy at the moment—”

“I don't care how busy you are!” Edna said, removing his arm.

“Eddie, angel,” Stuart Jones pleaded. “I won't be long.” He laughed and grabbed her around the waist. “You always were an irresistible minx. How about a kiss to tide you over?”

Edna hit him with her handbag. “Don't touch me! This is not funny, Reggie. Look, for old times' sake or because I'll kill you otherwise, tell me what you've done with them.”

“Them?”

“Rowly and Clyde.”

“I haven't done anything with them!”

“But you know who has. Just tell me Reggie—the authorities would probably look kindly on your help.”

“It's not the police I would need to worry about, Eddie. But honestly darlin', I didn't even know they were missing till just now.”