Again, that we had
business at the homestead; for six weeks had slipped away since our last
mail-day, and the Fizzer was due once more.
CHAPTER XII
The Fizzer was due at sundown, and for the Fizzer to be due meant that
the Fizzer would arrive, and by six o'clock we had all got cricks in our
necks, with trying to go about as usual, and yet keep an expectant eye on
the north track.
The Fizzer is unlike every type of man excepting a bush mail-man. Hard,
sinewy, dauntless, and enduring, he travels day after day and month after
month, practically alone - "on me Pat Malone," he calls it - with or
without a black boy, according to circumstances, and five trips out of
his yearly eight throwing dice with death along his dry stages, and yet
at all times as merry as a grig, and as chirrupy as a young grasshopper.
With a light-hearted, "So long, chaps," he sets out from the Katherine on
his thousand-mile ride, and with a cheery "What ho, chaps! Here we are
again!" rides in again within five weeks with that journey behind him.
A thousand miles on horseback, "on me Pat Malone," into the Australian
interior and out again, travelling twice over three long dry stages and
several shorter ones, and keeping strictly within the Government
time-limit, would be a life-experience to the men who set that limit if
it wasn't a death-experience. "Like to see one of 'em doing it
'emselves," says the Fizzer. Yet never a day late, and rarely an hour,
he does it eight times a year, with a "So long, chaps," and a "Here we
are again."
The Fizzer was due at sundown, and at sundown a puff of dust rose on the
track, and as a cry of "Mail oh !" went up all round the homestead, the
Fizzer rode out of the dust.
"Hullo! What ho! boys," he shouted in welcome, and the next moment we
were in the midst of his clattering team of pack-horses.
For five minutes everything was in confusion; horse bells and hobbles
jingling and clanging, harness rattling, as horses shook themselves free,
and pack-bags, swags, and saddles came to the ground with loud, creaking
flops. Every one was lending a hand, and the Fizzer, moving in and out
among the horses, shouted a medley of news and instructions and welcome.
"News? Stacks of it" he shouted. The Fizzer always shouted. "The gay
time we had at the Katherine! Here, steady with that pack-bag. It's
breakables! How's the raisin market? Eh, lads!" with many chuckles.
"Sore back here, fetch along the balsam. What ho, Cheon!" as Cheon
appeared and greeted him as an old friend. "Heard you were here. You're
the boy for my money. You BALLY ass! Keep 'em back from the water
there." This last was for the black boy. It took discrimination to fit
the Fizzer's remarks on to the right person. Then, as a pack-bag dropped
at the Maluka's feet, he added: "That's the station lot, boss. Full
bags, missus! Two on 'em. You'll be doing the disappearing trick in half
a mo'."
In "half a mo'" the seals were broken, and the mail-matter shaken out on
the ground. A cascade of papers, magazines, and books, with a fat, firm
little packet of letters among them: forty letters in all - thirty of them
falling to my lot - thirty fat, bursting envelopes, and in another "half
mo'" we had all slipped away in different directions - each with our
precious mail matter - doing the "disappearing trick" even to the Fizzer's
satisfaction.
The Fizzer smiled amiably after the retreating figures, and then went to
be entertained by Cheon. He expected nothing else. He provided feasts
all along his route, and was prepared to stand aside while the bush-folk
feasted. Perhaps in the silence that fell over the bush homes, after his
mail-bags were opened, his own heart slipped away to dear ones, who were
waiting somewhere for news of our Fizzer.
Eight mails ONLY in a year is not all disadvantage. Townsfolk who have
eight hundred tiny doses of mail-matter doled out to them, like men on
sick diet can form little idea of the pleasure of that feast of "full
bags and two on 'em," for like thirsty camels we drank it all in - every
drop of it - in long, deep, satisfying draughts. It may have been a
disadvantage, perhaps, to have been so thirsty; but then only the thirsty
soul knows the sweetness of slaking that thirst.
After a full hour's silence the last written sheet was laid down, and I
found the Maluka watching and smiling.
"Enjoyed your trip south, little 'un?" he said, and I came back to the
bush with a start, to find the supper dead cold. But then supper came
every night and the Fizzer once in forty-two.
At the first sound of voices, Cheon bustled in. "New-fellow tea, I
think," he said, and bustled out again with the teapot (Cheon had had
many years' experience of bush mail-days), and in a few minutes the
unpalatable supper was taken away, and cold roast beef and tomatoes stood
in its place.
After supper, as we went for our evening stroll, we stayed for a little
while where the men were lounging, and after a general interchange of
news the Fizzer's turn came.
News! He had said he had stacks of it, and he now bubbled over with it.
The horse teams were "just behind," and the Macs almost at the front
gate. The Sanguine Scot? Of course he was all right: always was, but
reckoned bullock-punching wasn't all it was cracked up to be; thought his
troubles were over when he got out of the sandy country, but hadn't
reckoned on the black soil flats.
