Now you've got
him down."
Kneeling in front of the dish, I pounded obediently at the mixture; and
as they alternately cheered and advised and I wrestled with
circumstances, digging my fists vigorously into the spongy, doughy depths
of the damper, a traveller rode right into the camp.
"Good evening, mates," he said, dismounting. "Saw your fires, and thought
I'd camp near for company." Then discovering that one of the "mates" was
a woman, backed a few steps, dazed and open-mouthed - a woman, dough to
the elbows, pounding blithely at a huge damper, being an unusual sight in
a night camp in the heart of one of the cattle runs in the Never-Never.
"We're conducting a cooking class," the Maluka explained, amused at the
man's consternation.
The traveller grinned a sickly grin, and "begging pardon, ma'am, for
intruding," said something about seeing to his camp, and backed to a more
comfortable distance; and the damper-making proceeded.
"There's a billy just thinking of boiling here you can have, mate, seeing
it's late," Dan called, when he heard the man rattling tinware, as he
prepared to go for water; and once more "begging pardon, ma'am, for
intruding," the traveller came into our camp circle, and busied himself
with the making of tea.
The tea made to his satisfaction, he asked diffidently if there was a
"bit of meat to spare," as his was a "bit off"; and Dan went to the
larder with a hospitable "stacks!"
"How would boiled cabbage and roast turkey go?" Dan called, finding
himself confronted with the great slabs of cabbage; and the traveller,
thinking it was supposed to be a joke, favoured us with another nervous
grin and a terse "Thanks!" Then Dan reappeared, laden, and the man's
eyes glistened as he forgot his first surprise in his second. "Real
cabbage!" he cried. "Gosh! ain't tasted cabbage for five years"; and the
Maluka telling him to "sit right down then and begin, just where you
are" - beside our camp fire - with a less nervous "begging your pardon,
ma'am," he dropped down on one knee, and began.
"Don't be shy of the turkey," the Maluka said presently, noticing that he
had only taken a tiny piece, and the man looked sheepishly up. "'Tain't
exactly that I'm shy of it," he said, "but I'm scared to fill up any
space that might hold cabbage. That is," he added, again apologetic, "if
it's not wanted, ma'am."
It wasn't wanted; and as the man found room for it, the Maluka and Dan
offered further suggestions for the construction of the damper and its
conveyance to the fire.
The conveyance required judgment and watchful diplomacy, as the damper
preferred to dip in a rolling valley between my extended arms, or hang
over them like a tablecloth, rather than keep its desired form. But with
patience, and the loan of one of Dan's huge palms, it finally fell with
an unctuous, dusty "whouf" into the opened-out bed of ashes.
By the time it was hidden away, buried in the heart of the fire, a
woman's presence in a camp had proved less disturbing than might be
imagined, and we learned that our traveller had "come from Beyanst," with
a backward nod towards the Queensland border, and was going west; and by
the time the cabbage and tea were finished he had become quite talkative.
"Ain't seen cabbage, ma'am, for more'n five years," he said, leaning back
on to a fallen tree trunk, with a satisfied sigh (cabbage and tea being
inflating), adding when I sympathised, "nor a woman neither, for that
matter."
Neither a cabbage nor a woman for five years! Think of it, townsfolk!
Neither a cabbage nor a woman - with the cabbage placed first. I wonder
which will be longest remembered.
"Came on this, though, in me last camp, east there," he went on,
producing a hairpin, with another nod eastwards. "Wondered how it got
there." "Your'n, I s'pose"; then, sheepish once more, he returned it to
his pocket, saying he "s'posed he might as well keep it for luck."
It being a new experience to one of the plain sisterhood to feel a man
was cherishing one of her hairpins, if only "for luck," I warmed towards
the "man from Beyanst," and grew hopeful of rivalling even that cabbage
in his memory. "You didn't expect to find hairpins, and a woman, in a
camp in the back blocks," I said, feeling he was a character, and longing
for him to open up. But he was even more of a character than I guessed.
"Back blocks!" he said in scorn. "There ain't no back blocks left.
Can't travel a hundred miles nowadays without running into somebody! You
don't know what back blocks is, begging your pardon, ma'am."
But Dan did; and the camp chat that night was worth travelling several
hundred miles to hear: tales dug out of the beginning of things; tales of
drought, and flood, and privation; cattle-duffing yarns, and long tales
of the droving days; two years' reminiscences of getting through with a
mob - reminiscences that finally brought ourselves and the mob to
Oodnadatta.
"That's the place if you want to see drunks, ma'am," the traveller said,
forgetting in his warmth his "begging your pardon, ma'am," just when it
would have been most opportune, seeing I had little hankering to see
"drunks."
"It's the desert does it, missus, after the overland trip," Dan
explained. "It 'ud give anybody a 'drouth.' Got a bit merry meself there
once and had to clear out to camp," he went on. "Felt it getting a bit
too warm for me to stand. You see, it was when the news came through
that the old Queen was dead, and being something historical that had
happened, the chaps felt it ought to be celebrated properly."
Poor old Queen! And yet, perhaps, her grand, noble heart would have
understood these, her subjects, and known them for the men they were - as
loyal-hearted and true to her as the highest in the land.
