She braced herself for Pat to run after her and hit her, but as she glanced over her shoulder, the woman was hobbling back round towards the kitchen, almost certainly to get a weapon.
Dulcie panicked then. From what she knew of Pat and Bill they would punish her severely for what she’d said and done. There was really no choice but to run for it while she had the chance. She darted into her room, snatched her case from under the bed, threw her few belongings into it, and seconds later made off around the side of the house towards the road.
Surprisingly Pat was neither there to head her off nor coming behind her, and the fact that no one was chasing her quickly brought her to her senses. The road was long and straight, the men could very well be working somewhere alongside it, and if they were they would spot her. On the other hand they could be somewhere over behind the house, and maybe this was why Pat hadn’t come after her, because she’d gone straight to tell them what happened.
All at once she was really scared. Facing up to Pat was one thing, but she wouldn’t stand a chance with Bill. What if he came after her in the truck and took her back to whip her?
She broke into a trot, holding the small case under her arm. The stones on the dirt road were already getting warm and she knew that within an hour or so it would be too hot for bare feet, even ones as tough as hers. But she doubted she could walk very far in her shoes either, they were too tight, so she had to get as far away as possible now.
Dulcie kept looking back, ears straining for the sound of the truck, and wondering if she dared jump into the bushes to hide if it did come. She’d learnt the habits of snakes now, they rarely came out on to open ground, and were more likely to shy away from a human than to strike. But jumping into bushes was folly – if they were surprised they would attack.
But the truck didn’t come, and once she was past the end of the Masters’ land she felt a little easier. All the same, the next road stretched on in front of her for miles and that daunted her. She looked up at the sky, it was its usual harsh bright blue, not even a hint of cloud. She thought back to that January day five years ago now when Mr Stigwood had talked about Australia’s sunshine, it had sounded so wonderful then! But a ten-year-old child couldn’t possibly know the difference between English summer sunshine and the remorseless, punishing heat here.
England and its changeable weather seemed so idyllic in retrospect. She remembered summer mornings when it had been raining all night, and getting up to find the sun shining and everything sparkling again. Just thinking of it brought back the smells of wet soil and flowers. She thought longingly of rainwater dripping from overhanging trees, and could almost taste the freshness in the air. Then there was autumn, the leaves turning gold, yellow and red before falling to the ground. She could remember walking to Mass on Sundays with her father, kicking through them, delighting in the crackly noise they made. She had loved the first frosty mornings too, making slides on the pavement, seeing her breath coming out like smoke. She had seen mild frost a couple of times in Perth, but not enough to turn water to ice, and when the leaves stayed on the trees, autumn didn’t have the same appeal. Would she ever get back to England, she wondered.
By the time she got to the next farm sign, Dulcie needed a drink badly and she wished she’d had the sense to fill up a bottle from her washing bucket before she’d run off. But she couldn’t go up the track to the farmhouse – for one thing it was probably several more miles away and besides, the people here might be friends of the Masters. So she put her shoes and socks on, and on she plodded, trying hard not to think of thirst, or how far it was, and offered up a little prayer that a car or truck would come along and stop for her.
Dulcie knew it was midday when she saw she was casting no shadow on to the ground. It was now so hot she felt as if her head was frying. Was it better to stop in the shade of a tree for a while? Or to press on? She decided going on was the only real option, she would only be twice as thirsty after a rest. She passed the second farm sign and hesitated at the bottom of their track.
Suddenly in the distance she heard the sound of a truck rattling down the road in the direction she had come from. Her first thought was to dive behind some bushes in case it was Jake or one of the other men, but just before she made a move she saw it was red, not black like theirs, so she stepped out into the road to flag it down.
The sun was in her eyes so it wasn’t until it was nearly up to her that she saw there were two male occupants.
‘G’day! Where you headin’ for?’ the driver called out of his window. He had fair hair cut so short it stood up on end, and thick blond eyebrows.
‘To Salmon Gums,’ she said, suddenly scared. Sister Ruth had lectured her on the way to Perth station about never accepting a lift from a stranger. ‘I’m fine walking,’ she said, backing away a bit. ‘But have you got any water to spare with you?’
‘Strewth, girl, I’m not leaving you out here. You’ll flake out before you even get there,’ the driver retorted. His face broke into a wide grin, perhaps realizing she was scared, and suddenly he didn’t look threatening any more. ‘We’re harmless as a couple of lambs. Now, hop on in, we’re not going to hurt you.’
Dulcie hadn’t looked at the passenger until then, and she saw he was half the other man’s age, probably only seventeen or eighteen. She thought perhaps they were father and son, though they weren’t alike. He moved closer to the driver to make room for her, and so Dulcie got in, squeezing her case between her feet. The lad handed her a half-full bottle of water and looked curiously at her as she guzzled it down greedily.
‘No drink with you!’ the driver said as he started up the truck again. ‘No hat either! Where’ve you come from?’
Dulcie’s instinct told her to say nothing, but the man had been kind enough to stop, he sounded friendly, and he didn’t look a brute like Bill Masters and his men. ‘A few miles up the road,’ she said vaguely.
‘And what’s in Salmon Gums?’ he asked.
‘The train,’ she said.
‘Ah!’ he said, and gave a little chuckle. ‘So you’re running away! Now, there’s only two places on that road you could’ve come from, and my guess it’s the Masters’ place. Am I right?’
The driver wasn’t looking round at her, he had his eyes on the road ahead, but the lad was looking sideways at her very intently. He was wiry, with dark auburn curly hair and freckles across his nose. ‘Did they treat you bad?’ he asked in little more than a whisper.
‘Now, Ross, I’m the one that asks the questions,’ the driver said, with laughter in his voice. ‘Come on, love, tell me the score. You can trust me.’
Nervous as Dulcie was, her need for, a sympathetic ear was greater. So she took a deep breath, then blurted it all out, the nastiness of the Masters, the stone-clearing, the leftover food, and finally what had happened this morning. The only thing she didn’t say was that she had been sent from an orphanage to work there.
‘I wasn’t going to hang about and get a beating from Bill,’ she said. ‘So I ran.’
‘Can’t say I blame you running off,’ the older man said, this time looking round at her. He was handsome, with smooth, tanned skin and sparkly blue eyes. ‘Fair dinkum, I would’ve done too. But where’re you heading for?’
‘Is Esperance a big town?’ she asked.
Both the man and the boy sniggered. ‘If you blink you’ll miss it,’ the man said. ‘There’s more life in Norseman or Salmon Gums. Know anyone in Esperance?’
Dulcie shook her head. ‘I just thought it would be a better place to get another job than Kalgoorlie.’
‘It’s a beaut place,’ the man replied, looking thoughtful. ‘But work’s hard to find for sheilas. You’d be better gettin’ on home to your folks. Are they in Kalgoorlie?’
‘I haven’t got any,’ Dulcie said, but she felt the boy nudge her with his elbow as if trying to stop her saying anything more. She hesitated for a second. ‘I was brought up by my aunt there,’ she lied. ‘I can go back to her.’
Suddenly they were turning off the smaller road on to the wider one where the station was. She was surprised it had taken such a short time – clearly she’d walked a great deal further than she’d imagined.
The man pulled in at the post office, saying he had to pick up something. ‘You two get out and wait in the shade,’ he said to both Dulcie and the boy. ‘I’ll get some lemonade for you and I’ll ask what time the train is.’
They all got out, the man went into the post office and Ross suddenly caught hold of Dulcie’s arm. ‘You’re from an orphanage, aren’t you?’ he said. Dulcie was taken aback by the intensity in his voice and his eyes – they were a strange tawny colour, reminding her of a cat’s.
Dulcie had always found it hard to lie to a direct question, but her hesitation answered the question for her.
‘I guessed you were as soon as I saw you. But you’ll be in big trouble if the police catch you,’ he said.
‘They won’t catch me,’ she said more confidently than she felt. ‘Unless you’re going to tell them where I am?’
‘I don’t dob people in. But there’s plenty of bastards who will,’ he said, looking deeply troubled. ‘But I ain’t happy about a young sheila out on her own, I’ll be worried about you.’
To Dulcie that was as good as being hugged. Aside from Sister Ruth who’d expressed a little anxiety when she left her on Perth station, he was the first person to show any concern about her well-being for many years.
At that point the man came back out of the post office with three bottles of lemonade. Dulcie felt Ross stiffen, and it seemed to her it was a warning she shouldn’t be too frank with the older man.
‘There’s no train today,’ he said, ‘but there’s a bus to Kalgoorlie at six. You just wait here for it.’
The man introduced himself as John Withers and said he and Ross worked on a property down at Esperance. Ross stood back slightly, just looking at her. Dulcie had a feeling there was a great deal more he’d like to say to her but he couldn’t in front of John.
‘Don’t suppose they need a cook, cleaner or even someone to look after their children?’ Dulcie said, looking up at John hopefully. He had such a nice face, a wide smiley mouth and a direct way of looking at her, so very different to Bill Masters and his men.
‘Sorry love, nothing doing. You go on home to your aunt, and next time make sure you find out about a place afore you get there. A sheila as young and pretty as you shouldn’t be stuck out in the middle of nowhere.’
Dulcie blushed at the compliment, she thought she must look a fright in her old striped St Vincent’s dress. But it could have been worse, she might have been wearing the men’s trousers and shirt she put on for working outside.
‘You got enough money for the bus?’ John asked.
Dulcie nodded.
‘Well, we’d better be off then,’ he said. ‘Look after yourself, Dulcie. You seem a smart girl, try and get a better job, in a shop or sommat. You got to be born to farming to really like it.’
As they got back into the truck, Ross was waving his arm, not like he was waving goodbye, but as if he was trying to tell her something. She looked towards the post office and saw that it closed at two. She thought perhaps he was warning her to get another drink and something to eat before it was too late.
After the hard work of the last weeks Dulcie didn’t mind waiting for the bus one bit. She bought a magazine in the post office, a bar of chocolate and a big bottle of lemonade, then went and sat in the shade over by the station with her back to the wall, and took her shoes off.
She dozed a little, jerking her head up nervously whenever a car or truck went past. But she must have fallen dead asleep because she didn’t hear the man walk up to her and only woke when he spoke.
‘Wake up, little girl,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to talk to you.’
Her eyes flew open to see a policeman crouching in front of her. Panic made her curl into a defensive ball, her arms covering her head.
‘I’m not going to hit you,’ he said gently. ‘Now, just sit up and we’ll have a little talk.’
It was he who did the talking, not her. He said that John Withers, the man driving the truck, had become concerned on the drive back to Esperance because he sensed his young workmate had something on his mind. After some persuasion Ross finally admitted he doubted Dulcie had an aunt in Kalgoorlie and he was scared she’d come to harm.
‘John’s a good man,’ the policeman said. ‘He didn’t call on me to try and make trouble for you, he just didn’t like the thought of someone as young as you wandering around looking for work. Now, suppose you tell me all about it?’
Dulcie took a good look at the man. John had said she could trust him, he looked like she could too, but then he’d told on her. This man looked as if he could be trusted too, middle-aged, chubby, a round unlined face and soft brown eyes that were looking intently at her. His blue uniform shirt was clean and well ironed, his trousers had a sharp crease down the front. He even had a nice voice, she had heard the lilt of Irish in it. She didn’t have any choice but to trust him, but maybe if she told him the whole truth he’d help her get a job.
So she told him everything, in far more detail than she’d told John and Ross. ‘No one should get away with treating me like that,’ she said. ‘I had to leave, those people are pigs.’
He took her hand and helped her up, then led her over to a low wall for them both to sit down. ‘The question is, what am I going to do with you?’ he said. ‘By rights I ought to take you up to Norseman and hand you over to the police there, because this isn’t my patch. I’m stationed in Esperance, see.’ He paused for a moment as if in deep thought. ‘You must have been told by the Sisters what happens if girls like you leave a job before they are eighteen?’
‘The reformatory,’ she said. But even as she said the word she felt angry. ‘But why should I be punished? I haven’t done a thing wrong. It was them who treated me like a slave. That isn’t fair!’
He nodded as if in agreement. ‘The trouble is, you are a ward of the Australian government, and it’s their rule that orphaned children must stay where they are sent. Now, suppose you put yourself in my boots for a moment. Suppose I was to let you get on that bus to Kalgoorlie. You’d get there well after eleven o’clock tonight. I know there are bad men who hang around the bus station waiting for young unprotected girls just like you to get off. Would you think, knowing this, that it would be a kind thing for me to let you do?’