They Wait on the Wharf in Black
"Seems to me that honest, hard-working men seem to accumulate
the heaviest swags of trouble in this world." -- Steelman.
Told by Mitchell's Mate.
We were coming back from West Australia, steerage -- Mitchell, the Oracle,
and I. I had gone over saloon, with a few pounds in my pocket.
Mitchell said this was a great mistake -- I should have gone over steerage
with nothing but the clothes I stood upright in, and come back saloon
with a pile. He said it was a very common mistake that men made,
but, as far as his experience went, there always seemed to be
a deep-rooted popular prejudice in favour of going away from home
with a few pounds in one's pocket and coming back stumped;
at least amongst rovers and vagabonds like ourselves -- it wasn't
so generally popular or admired at home, or in the places we came back to,
as it was in the places we went to. Anyway it went, there wasn't
the slightest doubt that our nearest and dearest friends were, as a rule,
in favour of our taking away as little as we could possibly manage with,
and coming back with a pile, whether we came back saloon or not;
and that ought to settle the matter as far as any chap that had
the slightest consideration for his friends or family was concerned.
There was a good deal of misery, underneath, coming home in that steerage.
One man had had his hand crushed and amputated out Coolgardie way,
and the stump had mortified, and he was being sent to Melbourne by his mates.
Some had lost their money, some a couple of years of their life,
some their souls; but none seemed to have lost the heart
to call up the quiet grin that southern rovers, vagabonds,
travellers for "graft" or fortune, and professional wanderers wear
in front of it all. Except one man -- an elderly eastern digger --
he had lost his wife in Sydney while he was away.
They sent him a wire to the Boulder Soak, or somewhere
out back of White Feather, to say that his wife was seriously ill;
but the wire went wrong, somehow, after the manner of telegrams not connected
with mining, on the lines of "the Western". They sent him a wire
to say that his wife was dead, and that reached him all right --
only a week late.
I can imagine it. He got the message at dinner-time,
or when they came back to the camp. His mate wanted him
to sit in the shade, or lie in the tent, while he got the billy boiled.
"You must brace up and pull yourself together, Tom, for the sake
of the youngsters." And Tom for long intervals goes walking up and down,
up and down, by the camp -- under the brassy sky or the gloaming --
under the brilliant star-clusters that hang over the desert plain,
but never raising his eyes to them; kicking a tuft of grass
or a hole in the sand now and then, and seeming to watch
the progress of the track he is tramping out. The wife of twenty years
was with him -- though two thousand miles away -- till that message came.
I can imagine Tome sitting with his mates round the billy,
they talking in quiet, subdued tones about the track,
the departure of coaches, trains and boats -- arranging for
Tom's journey East, and the working of the claim in his absence.
Or Tom lying on his back in his bunk, with his hands under his head
and his eyes fixed on the calico above -- thinking, thinking, thinking.
Thinking, with a touch of his boyhood's faith perhaps;
or wondering what he had done in his long, hard-working married life,
that God should do this thing to him now, of all times.
"You'd best take what money we have in the camp, Tom;
you'll want it all ag'in' the time you get back from Sydney, and we can
fix it up arterwards. . . . There's a couple o' clean shirts o' mine
-- you'd best take 'em -- you'll want 'em on the voyage. . . .
You might as well take them there new pants o' mine, they'll only dry-rot
out here -- and the coat, too, if you like -- it's too small for me, anyway.
You won't have any time in Perth, and you'll want some decent togs
to land with in Sydney."
. . . . .
"I wouldn't 'a' cared so much if I'd 'a' seen the last of her," he said,
in a quiet, patient voice, to us one night by the rail. "I would 'a' liked
to have seen the last of her."
"Have you been long in the West?"
"Over two years. I made up to take a run across last Christmas,
and have a look at 'em. But I couldn't very well get away
when `exemption-time' came. I didn't like to leave the claim."
"Do any good over there?"
"Well, things brightened up a bit the last month or two.
I had a hard pull at first; landed without a penny, and had to send back
every shilling I could rake up to get things straightened up a bit at home.
Then the eldest boy fell ill, and then the baby. I'd reckoned
on bringing 'em over to Perth or Coolgardie when the cool weather came,
and having them somewheres near me, where I could go and have a look at 'em
now and then, and look after them."
"Going back to the West again?"
"Oh, yes. I must go for the sake of the youngsters. But I don't seem
to have much heart in it." He smoked awhile. "Over twenty years
we struggled along together -- the missus and me -- and it seems hard
that I couldn't see the last of her. It's rough on a man."
"The world is damned rough on a man sometimes," said Mitchell,
"most especially when he least deserves it."
The digger crossed his arms on the rail like an old "cocky" at the fence
in the cool of the evening, yarning with an old crony.
"Mor'n twenty years she stuck to me and struggled along by my side.
She never give in. I'll swear she was on her feet till the last,
with her sleeves tucked up -- bustlin' round. . . . And just
when things was brightening and I saw a chance of giving her
a bit of a rest and comfort for the end of her life. . . .
I thought of it all only t'other week when things was clearing up ahead;
and the last `order' I sent over I set to work and wrote her a long letter,
putting all the good news and encouragement I could think of into it.
I thought how that letter would brighten up things at home,
and how she'd read it round. I thought of lots of things that a man
never gets time to think of while his nose is kept to the grindstone.
And she was dead and in her grave, and I never knowed it."
Mitchell dug his elbow into my ribs and made signs for the matches
to light his pipe.
"An' yer never knowed," reflected the Oracle.
"But I always had an idea when there was trouble at home,"
the digger went on presently, in his quiet, patient tone.
"I always knowed; I always had a kind of feeling that way -- I felt it --
no matter how far I was away. When the youngsters was sick I knowed it,
and I expected the letter that come. About a fortnight ago
I had a feeling that way when the wife was ill. The very stars
out there on the desert by the Boulder Soak seemed to say:
`There's trouble at home. Go home. There's trouble at home.'
But I never dreamed what that trouble was. One night I did make up my mind
to start in the morning, but when the morning came I hadn't an excuse,
and was ashamed to tell my mates the truth. They might have thought
I was going ratty, like a good many go out there." Then he broke off
with a sort of laugh, as if it just struck him that we might think
he was a bit off his head, or that his talk was getting uncomfortable for us.
"Curious, ain't it?" he said.
"Reminds me of a case I knowed, ----" commenced the Oracle, after a pause.
I could have pitched him overboard; but that was a mistake.
He and the old digger sat on the for'ard hatch half the night yarning,
mostly about queer starts, and rum go's, and curious cases
the Oracle had knowed, and I think the Oracle did him a lot of good somehow,
for he seemed more cheerful in the morning.
We were overcrowded in the steerage, but Mitchell managed
to give up his berth to the old digger without letting him know it.
Most of the chaps seemed anxious to make a place at the first table
and pass the first helpings of the dishes to the "old cove
that had lost his missus."
They all seemed to forget him as we entered the Heads; they had
their own troubles to attend to. They were in the shadow of the shame
of coming back hard up, and the grins began to grow faint and sickly.
But I didn't forget him. I wish sometimes that I didn't take
so much notice of things.
There was no mistaking them -- the little group that stood apart
near the end of the wharf, dressed in cheap black. There was
the eldest single sister -- thin, pale, and haggard-looking --
that had had all the hard worry in the family till her temper was spoilt,
as you could see by the peevish, irritable lines in her face.
She had to be the mother of them all now, and had never known, perhaps,
what it was to be a girl or a sweetheart. She gave a hard,
mechanical sort of smile when she saw her father, and then stood
looking at the boat in a vacant, hopeless sort of way. There was the baby,
that he saw now for the first time, crowing and jumping
at the sight of the boat coming in; there was the eldest boy,
looking awkward and out of place in his new slop-suit of black,
shifting round uneasily, and looking anywhere but at his father.
But the little girl was the worst, and a pretty little girl she was, too;
she never took her streaming eyes off her father's face the whole time.
You could see that her little heart was bursting, and with pity for him.
They were too far apart to speak to each other as yet. The boat seemed
a cruel long long time swinging alongside -- I wished they'd hurry up.
He'd brought his traps up early, and laid 'em on the deck under the rail;
he stood very quiet with his hands behind him, looking at his children.
He had a strong, square, workman's face, but I could see
his chin and mouth quivering under the stubbly, iron-grey beard,
and the lump working in his throat; and one strong hand
gripped the other very tight behind, but his eyelids never quivered --
only his eyes seemed to grow more and more sad and lonesome.
These are the sort of long, cruel moments when a man sits or stands
very tight and quiet and calm-looking, with his whole past life
going whirling through his brain, year after year, and over and over again.
Just as the digger seemed about to speak to them he met
the brimming eyes of his little girl turned up to his face.
He looked at her for a moment, and then turned suddenly and went below
as if pretending to go down for his things. I noticed that Mitchell
-- who hadn't seemed to be noticing anything in particular --
followed him down. When they came on deck again we were right alongside.
"'Ello, Nell!" said the digger to the eldest daughter.
"'Ello, father!" she said, with a sort of gasp, but trying to smile.
"'Ello, Jack, how are you getting on?"
"All right, father," said the boy, brightening up, and seeming
greatly relieved.
He looked down at the little girl with a smile that I can't describe,
but didn't speak to her. She still stood with quivering chin and mouth
and great brimming eyes upturned, full of such pity as I never saw before
in a child-face -- pity for him.
"You can get ashore now," said Mitchell; "see, they've got the gangway
out aft."
Presently I saw Mitchell with the portmanteau in his hand,
and the baby on his arm, steering them away to a quiet corner of the shed
at the top of the wharf. The digger had the little girl in his arms,
and both hers were round his neck, and her face hidden on his shoulder.
When Mitchell came back, he leant on the rail for a while by my side,
as if it was a boundary fence out back, and there was no hurry
to break up camp and make a start.
"What did you follow him below that time for, Mitchell?" I asked presently,
for want of something better to say.
Mitchell looked at me out of the corners of his eyes.
"I wanted to score a drink!" he said. "I thought he wanted one
and wouldn't like to be a Jimmy Woodser."
-THE END-
Henry Lawson's short story: They Wait on the Wharf in Black
An Australian story from Over the Sliprails collection
A glossary of Australian terms and concepts
which may prove helpful to understanding this story:
Billy: Any container used to boil water, especially for tea;
a special container designed for this purpose.
Bunyip: [pronounced bun-yup] A large mythological creature,
said by the Aborigines to inhabit watery places. There may be
some relation to an actual creature that is now extinct.
Lawson uses an obsolete sense of the term, meaning "imposter".
Gin: An aboriginal woman; use of the term is analogous to "squaw"
in N. America. May be considered derogatory in modern usage.
Goanna: Any of various lizards of the genus Varanus (monitor lizards)
native to Australia.
Graft: Work; hard work.
Gunyah: (Aboriginal) A rough or temporary hut or shelter in the bush,
especially one built from bark, branches, and the like.
A humpy, wurley, or mia-mia. Variant: Gunya.
Jackeroo/Jackaroo: At the time Lawson wrote, a Jackaroo was a "new chum"
or newcomer to Australia, who sought work on a station to gain experience.
The term now applies to any young man working as a station hand.
A female station hand is a Jillaroo.
Jimmy Woodser: A person who drinks alone; a drink drunk alone.
Larrikin: A hoodlum.
Lorry: A large, low wagon without sides, used for heavy loads.
Mia-mia: (Aboriginal) A rough or temporary hut or shelter in the bush,
especially one built from bark, branches, and the like.
A humpy, wurley, or gunyah.
Native bear: A koala.
Pa: A Maori village.
'Possum/Possum: In Australia, a class of marsupials that were
originally mistaken for the American animal of the same name.
They are not especially related to the possums of North and South America,
other than being marsupials.
Public/Pub.: The traditional pub. in Australia was a hotel
with a "public" bar -- hence the name. The modern pub has often
(not always) dispensed with the lodging, and concentrated on the bar.
Push: A group of people sharing something in common; Lawson uses the word
in an older and more particular sense, as a gang of violent city hoodlums.
Ratty: Shabby, dilapidated; somewhat eccentric, perhaps even slightly mad.
Selector: A free selector, a farmer who selected and settled land
by lease or license from the government.
Shout: To buy a round of drinks.
Skillion: A lean-to or outbuilding.
Sliprails/slip-rails: movable rails, forming a section of fence,
which can be taken down in lieu of a gate. "Over the Sliprails",
the title of this volume, might be translated as "Through the Gate".
Squatter: A person who first settled on land without government permission,
and later continued by lease or license, generally to raise stock;
a wealthy rural landowner.
Station: A farm or ranch, especially one devoted to cattle or sheep.
Stoush: Violence; to do violence to.
Tea: In addition to the regular meaning, Tea can also mean
a light snack or a meal (i.e., where Tea is served).
In particular, Morning Tea (about 10 AM) and Afternoon Tea (about 3 PM)
are nothing more than a snack, but Evening Tea (about 6 PM) is a meal.
When just "Tea" is used, it usually means the evening meal.
Variant: Tea-time.
Tucker: Food.
Whare: [pronounced war-ee] A Maori term for a hut or similar dwelling.
Also: a hint with the seasons -- remember that the seasons are reversed
from those in the northern hemisphere, hence June may be hot,
but December is even hotter. Australia is at a lower latitude
than the United States, so the winters are not harsh by US standards,
and are not even mild in the north. In fact, large parts of Australia
are governed more by "dry" versus "wet" than by Spring-Summer-Fall-Winter.
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