Death of a Swagman Read online

  “Nor did we,” Mrs Marshall said. “But Rose Marie hated him. Did she tell you why?”

  Bony nodded, saying:

  “It appears that Rose Marie likes young Jason, and that Redman bullied young Jason.”

  “Redman as good as accused young Jason of having murdered Kendall, but then he as good as accused a dozen people of having done that,” Marshall put in.

  “What is your opinion of young Jason?” Bony asked.

  “He’s a surly pup, and he’s a long way from being handsome,” replied the sergeant. “There is one great thing in his favour, and that is that children like him and trust him. Our Florence has long conferences with him; quite often she will sit with him on a box or against a petrol pump and talk and talk. And sometimes there will be half a dozen children in the conference.”

  “He tells them fairy tales,” Mrs Marshall said. “But are you actually going to do the painting about the place?”

  “Of course,” replied Bony. “Didn’t you know that I have been sentenced to ten days’ hard labour with paint and brushes?”

  He rose to his feet. “A fortnight hence you won’t know your police station. Thank you for your morning tea ... and the breakfast you so kindly sent over.”

  “And I am really to call you Bony?”

  Her large open face pleased him.

  “ Pro tem my name is Robert Burns ... with apologies to every Scotchman,” he said, smiling. “However, all my friends call me Bony, and I hope that I may include both of you among my friends.”

  After he had left her kitchen with her husband Mrs Marshall sat down at the table, poured herself another cup of tea, and stared unseeingly at the hot stove, her mind seeing him bowing to her prior to his leaving.

  At the expiration of the lunch hour, which began at one o’clock, Bony returned to the front fence from which he had begun to scrape the old paint. The previously clear morning sky was now filling with blue-black clouds having ponderous snowcaps, each cloud mass sailing like a galleon upon an azure sea. There was no wind, and the air was slightly oppressive.

  When, a little before three o’clock, he left his work and walked to old Bennett’s hut, a vast cloud shadow lay upon the land between the township and the Walls of China, which were sunlit and rested along the distant horizon like misty blue velvet upon which were the blue-black undersides of distant thunderclouds.

  The dead man’s hut and the large group of people gathered outside the gate were all bathed in the hot sunlight. The tin-sheathed dwelling gleamed like gold, smeared here and there with the fire of opals. Shimmering heat rose from the bonnets of several cars parked beyond the hut as though incense was being burned in honour of yet another representative of a great and vanishing generation.

  “Looks like there’ll be a storm before Ted Bennett’s put away into his final bed,” predicted one of the group.

  “Bit of a gamble,” ventured another of the group. “Bet an even quid no rain holds up the planting.”

  “That’ll do me,” agreed the other. “And the winner spends the quid on a glass wreath for old Ted. He’d appreciate a wreath bought with a bet. Ah! Here comes Jason and his turnout.”

  Originally the massive body of this hearse had rested upon a horse-drawn chassis, but it had been transferred to the chassis of a motor truck and now was grossly out of proportion. In the roof of black wood was the figure of a woman lying in an attitude of grief prostrate, whilst the once-silvered guide rails now were masked with white ribbon. In front of the hearse body, and dwarfed by its size and magnificence, was the low engine bonnet and the driving seat without back or roof.

  Down from this roofless and backless driving seat stepped Mr Jason. He was wearing a top hat of nineteenth-century vintage, the crêpe about its middle failing to obliterate its emphatic waist. His frock coat was faintly green down the back and over the shoulders and its hem came two inches below the baggy knees of trousers that had been built for evening wear. The trousers were slightly short for the wearer, and the rear hem of each leg rested with persistent confidence on the top of the rear tag of each elastic-sided boot.

  With solemn aspect Mr Jason surveyed the gathered people before striding to the gate and entering the hut.

  The driver stayed in his seat. He was a young man with a harelip and deformed body. He wore engineer’s overalls and stared directly away over the engine bonnet, the butt of a rolled cigarette between his lips. A cloth cap, worn peak foremost in deference to the occasion, was none too free of grease.

  “Gonna rain, Tom?” asked one of the wagerers.

  Young Jason surveyed the sky, rolled his cigarette end to the opposite side of his mouth, spat without removing it, and replied:

  “If she does we’re all gonna get bogged.”

  Further discussion on the chances of rain was prevented by the appearance at the door of the hut of a clergyman wearing a black cloth gown. After him came bearers bringing out the mortal remains of Edward Bennett, which they placed on trestles in the front yard. The people drew nearer to the fence, the personal mourners, the bearers, and Mr Jason and the clergyman grouping themselves about the casket. From a book the clergyman began to read the first part of the burial service in a high nasal whine, the end of his every sentence higher still in tone.

  Not much more than thirty years old, he would have benefited by physical exercise. He looked flabby when his build and years should have suggested hardness of flesh and resilience of muscle. His pale eyes appeared dark in an unwholesome, square face at present devoid of all expression.

  Distant thunder preceded the closing of his book with a sound equally significant. Mr Jason signed with his hands to the bearers, stood back, and then stalked ahead of them out through the gate and to the rear of the hearse. There, with dramatic deliberation, he swung open the glass-panelled doors, stepped to one side, and in his full and rich voice directed the bearers when sliding the casket into the glass interior. He closed the doors with the slow deliberation with which he had opened them.

  People began to walk over to the cars. Bony counted five. The minister got into one and was followed by two men. Mrs Fanning and husband boarded another, and a tall, angular woman wearing a Merry Widow hat and a tightly fitting grey costume was escorted by two young boys to yet another car. Mr Jason, standing beside the hearse, waited. He waited until the parson’s car was drawn up behind the hearse and the other cars behind it, and not before he was satisfied that all were in order of procedure did he get up beside the driver of the hearse.

  Even then he did not at once sit down. By standing he could look back over the top of the hearse for a final inspection of the mourners' cars. Then, without haste, he surveyed the silent crowd. Being apparently satisfied, he touched the driver’s leg with a foot, and the driver started the engine. Thereupon Mr Jason turned to the front, raised his right hand on high, maintained it there as though he were an orchestra leader, and finally brought it smartly to his side. That was the signal for all drivers to let in the clutch and so begin the last journey for old Bennett. Mr Jason sat down, obviously having enjoyed the drama of the ceremony.

  In low gear the procession moved away toward the road to the accompaniment of a long and loud roll of celestial drums.

  The small crowd began silently to drift from the tin shack to the only street, silently, for old Bennett had been a sterling character and his generation had been great in Australia.

  Unnoticed, Bony walked with the others, now and then glancing ahead to observe the hearse reach the road and turn eastward on to the earth track and so begin the downward run to the cemetery one mile from the township. Once on that road, the pace quickened, so that when Bony reached the end of the street the trails of dust raised by the vehicles hid all within a rising red cloud.

  Haste certainly was indicated by the weather portents.

  On reaching the police station fence, he stood with blowlamp and paint scraper in either hand, and gazed down the main street to see the Walls of China lying clay-white beneath
a vast ink-black cloud from which rain already seemed to be eating up the northern extremity of the gigantic sand wall. The dust cloud raised by the funeral cortege hung steadily in the air above the track, and then abruptly from its left flank dust billowed as the vehicles turned left off the track into the cemetery. Gleeson, who came to stand beside the detective, said:

  “They’ll have to make it snappy or they’ll get caught in the rain, and it would be no time, in rain like it is over there, before that track becomes a bog soft enough to stick up a rabbit.”

  “Like that, is it?”

  “Worst bit of road in the district. What did you think of old Jason?”

  “I like him better as a mortician than a magistrate. Look, the edge of the storm is drawing near to the cemetery. Observe how the colour of the Walls of China is changing just in front of the rain.”

  “Makes ’em look like a purple carpet all tuckered up, doesn’t it!” Gleeson said. “I never get tired of looking at that range of sand. It always seems different. Ah...”

  Out to the road came the first of the returning vehicles, others coming on fast after it in the misty edge of the rainstorm. Lightning flickered and darted to earth apparently immediately behind the last vehicle to leave the cemetery. Thunder began in a single splitting crack and continued in a prolonged roll, shaking the earth on which stood the township. Above Merino the face of the cloud mass threatened to topple forward and smother the township with snow and ice. From the breadth of a man’s hand southward of it the sky seemed to be without height.

  Men were called from the hotel, and they moved to the middle of the street to obtain a less obstructed view of the oncoming motor vehicles.

  “Bet a level pound that the doctor gets back to town first,” called one of the group.

  The ghost of a smile came to Gleeson’s mouth.

  “If it wasn’t against the law to bet in a public place,” he said, “I’d back the hearse if I could be sure it was first to clear the cemetery and reach the road.”

  Bony chuckled.

  “We are inside the station fence, and therefore we stand on government property, not a public place,” he pointed out. “I am having ten shillings on the Jasons against the rest of the field, under any circumstances.”

  “Well, sir, if you set such an example, who the heck am I to quibble about the side of a fence ... or ten bob?” replied the constable. “Sure, I’ll take you.”

  “Well then, we may as well have our money’s worth and see the race properly. Let us go to the centre of the street. Why did you favour the Jasons if they first reached the road?”

  “Because young Jason wouldn’t let any driver overhaul and pass him. He’d block any such attempt. Looks as though they left the cemetery just in time, doesn’t it?”

  The first of the oncoming vehicles was still half a mile from the lower end of the township where the macadamized street gave place to the earth road. Behind it nothing could be seen in the dust raised by its wheels save now and then when a black dot appeared to draw level for an instant before falling away again into the dust cloud.

  “Must be doing fifty, sir,” estimated Gleeson.

  “And the rain is doing sixty, Gleeson,” the delighted Bony pointed out. “It will soon catch up with them. And please remember not to call me sir. I am supposed to be a prisoner of the state. My friends all call me Bony. If you don’t like to be a friend, call me Burns. Ha! Ha! That second vehicle almost got ahead.” He was rubbing his hands with glee, and he shouted: “It’s the Jasons leading. Come on, the Jasons!”

  A voice roared from the group behind them:

  “No, it ain’t. The doctor’s leading. I’m ’aving a bit on ’im. Five bob on the quack, Jack. Make a note.”

  Thunder crashed, rolled away over the mysterious Walls of China, only the southern portion of which could now be seen. The sound of it dampened men’s voices into unintelligible murmurs. When it ended, a man shouted triumphantly:

  “It isn’t the quack. It’s the parson. Come on, Jamesey. Come on, you beaut.”

  “I told you so! I told you so!” yelled a man farther down the street, a man who turned and waved his hat and then slapped it against a thigh. “The Jasons are leading. Good old Tom! Drive her, Tom. Step on it, lad. Let her have it.”

  The leading unit of the returning funeral cortege was now nearing the eastern end of the macadamized road. One drop of rain “tanged” on the garage roof. Then another pinged on the roof of the police station. Sergeant Marshall came out with his wife and stood at the gate. The group in the middle of the street took not the slightest notice of the presence of the police, and called betting odds and shouted and cheered.

  “You win your ten shillings,” Gleeson told Bony. “Now watch ’em clear the final hurdle.”

  The hearse appeared like a horse rising to take a fence as it was driven off the earth road on to the macadamized street. The car almost touching its rear doors also took the jump, as did the remainder.

  A bad flash of lightning made the excited onlookers blink, and the ensuing thunder shook the air about them. Up along the street came the hearse. The car behind it swerved to its left and entered the driveway of the house next to the church. Bony now could see Mr Jason’s white face, and beside it the rounder face of his son. They both were crouched forward so that the faces appeared as ornaments above the engine bonnet. Mr Jason was gripping the top of the low windscreen with both hands. The top hat was not visible.

  Like a machine gun being steadily fired, huge raindrops fell upon the iron roofs and actually raised little balls of dust when they dropped on the sandy places on the sidewalks. The onlookers now could see Mr Jason’s moustache apparently glued to the windscreen, and they could see the cigarette end in the wide mouth of his son. It looked like the same butt which had been there when the cortege had left old Bennett’s hut.

  The hearse roared past Bony and the constable, who had gained the shelter of a pepper-tree, and there, lying in state inside the vehicle, was Mr Jason’s top hat. Tyres screamed when the turn was made into the garage, almost drowning out the roar of applause given by the onlookers from the hotel who now were gathered under its veranda.

  The rain began in very earnest, its roar on iron roofs deepening in cadence and increasing in volume. The doctor’s car turned off the street. The Fannings did likewise. The last car home roared to a halt outside the hotel, and the woman wearing the Merry Widow hat and the grey costume appeared from it like a Jill out of her box, to run round the front of it and dart into the main entrance of the hotel, followed by two small boys.

  Then from out of the garage raced Mr Jason and young Jason. The father was carrying his top hat under an arm. The son was wearing his cloth cap back to front. They sped across the street in the cloud of rain and vanished into the hotel.

  Chapter Five

  A Wake Without the Relatives

  ON ENTERING THE BAR, Bony’s swift appraisal numbered fourteen men in addition to the licensee, who in that instant announced that the drinks were on him.

  The gloom within the bar was now and then banished by lightning which flickered against the windows, and men’s voices were drowned by the resultant thunder which blotted out the roar of the rain on the veranda roof without. Men named their drinks, and one who took it upon himself to transmit the orders turned to Bony to ask his choice.

  This man was not a bushman. He was wearing tweed slacks and black shoes. He had no coat and the striped cotton shirt he sported beneath a waistcoat was similar to those worn by city men.

  “You’re the feller who got ten days this morning, aren’t you?” he asked with a friendly smile. “Never mind. Bit of bad luck. The sergeant was telling me only yesterday that he’d have to get someone to paint his fence.”

  Bony’s teeth flashed.

  “I always try to meet adversity like a sportsman,” he said.

  “Good on you. That’s the spirit. I’m Watson, the local press correspondent. Own the news agency and fancy goods shop in this town
. Your name’s Burns, isn’t it?”

  “That’s so. Hope there are no Scotchmen present.”

  “Not Robert Burns? Lovely! You know, I get more fun out of this township than ever I did get out of Sydney. Now don’t be in a hurry to drink. Just wait, and you’ll see something that you’ve never seen before.”

  When the drinks were all set up, no one appeared to be abnormally thirsty. It appeared to Bony that everyone waited for a signal to drink to be given, for certainly no one was too bashful to drink first. Even the licensee waited, his elbows on the counter, his hands cupping his round and red face. All present seemed to be covertly watching Mr Jason, who stood in the centre of the gathering.

  He stood with his back to the counter. The tall hat was perched at an absurd angle at the back of his head. Leaning hard against the counter, he was cutting chips from a jet-black tobacco plug with a knife having a four-inch blade. His long-fingered hands were obviously strong, for the knife did its work with methodical ease.

  Men discussed the homeward race of the funeral cortege with slackening interest as their interest in Mr Jason increased.

  He snapped shut the knife and placed it, with the tobacco plug, in his trousers pocket. Then with the palms of his hands he shredded the tobacco and crammed it with some care into the bowl of a cherrywood pipe. At his right elbow stood two glass mugs of beer.

  The pipe loaded, Mr Jason audibly sighed, long and deeply. His face bore the evidence of grief and he appeared oblivious of those on either side of him.

  “Watch,” breathed Mr Watson into Bony’s ear.

  From a pocket in the skirt of his remarkable frock coat Mr Jason produced a box of matches, struck one, and laid it against the pipe bowl. Followed then a period of expectant hush as the assembly watched with extraordinary intentness Mr Jason draw and puff until the pipe seemed on fire. Then he began to inhale smoke. He inhaled to the capacity of his breath three times without exhaling, upon which he turned slowly to the counter, laid down his pipe, and took up and drank the two mugs of beer. That was the awaited signal for all to drink.