I started modestly and rather cautiously in Landsborough. I visited each of my white parishioners in the first week and got a Sunday School going for the children. That went all right, and presently I got some of the women to come to matins; I found, as I had found in other places, that the half-caste women and quadroons were more devout than the pure whites. Presently I started a short children’s service each morning five minutes before school, consisting of one hymn and a short Bible reading, and a lot of the children used to come to that because my church is on their way to school. I visited the hospital each morning and the iron shanties of the blacks each afternoon, and I engaged in a good deal of correspondence to try to get hold of an old cinema projector for the town to make a diversion from the bars.
All this was well enough, but it did little to touch the major social problems of the district, which concerned the men. I had hardly been six weeks in Landsborough when the first race meeting brought all the stockmen into the town in one body. At that time I was taking all my meals at the Post Office Hotel, the larger of the two, run by Bill Roberts and his wife. Cooking a meal is hardly practicable in my vicarage; I have a Primus stove on which I can boil a kettle for a cup of tea for my breakfast, but dinner and tea I usually take at the hotels, changing from one to the other every week to avoid offence.
For the next four days the hotel was a bedlam. Normally only one or two of the ten bedrooms would be occupied, but for the race week Bill Roberts set up seventeen extra beds in the verandahs, and the other place had as many. A travelling roundabout for the children turned up from Cloncurry and was erected in the main street; it had a great loudspeaker that blared canned dance tunes every night till one in the morning, and could be heard ten miles out in the bush. Two pedlars arrived in trucks that opened up as shops, and to crown everything the cinema truck arrived on one of its infrequent visits, displaying films that I had seen ten years before in distant Godalming on the far side of the world. Miss Foster closed her school, and all the town went to the races.
A race meeting at Landsborough has one or two features that distinguish it from Ascot. All the horses must be bred in the district and they come straight off the cattle stations, ungroomed of course, and sometimes covered in mud where they have been rolling. The jockeys are the stockmen from the stations decked out in brilliant racing colours, each riding a horse that he has picked out from the mob of two or three hundred in the horse paddock of his own station, and that he confidently believes will one day win the Melbourne Cup. The racecourse itself is in a natural clearing in the bush, the posts and rails are rough, untrimmed saplings cut a hundred yards away. The centre of the racecourse is the aerodrome and the ambulance aeroplane was there in case of accidents, and for a more mundane reason, because its crew were busily running a gambling wheel to pay for the aeroplane. There is no grand stand, but over the horse lines and the bar rough roofs of gum tree boughs with the leaves on them have been erected to provide a little shade. There is a stockyard for the Rodeo which comes on the last day of the meeting. There is a great deal of unrelieved sunshine, a great deal of beer, and a great deal of dust.
I drove out to the races with Mrs. Roberts and her coloured maid, a girl of about seventeen called Coty. We were a little late in starting because they had served over sixty hot dinners cooked on an old fashioned kitchen range with the shade temperature in the yard outside at a hundred and five. It seemed only fair to stay and help them with the washing up, so it was after three o’clock when we got out to the racecourse. I knew a number of the managers and stockmen by that time, of course, and I spent the afternoon with them pleasantly enough, drinking one beer to every three of theirs and putting my two shillings on the tote each race on their advice.
Towards the last race, I met Stevie for the first time in my life. I was standing with a little group that included Jim Maclaren, manager of Beverley station, when I saw a very tattered old man zig-zagging towards me. He wore a dirty blue shirt without a collar, open to show his skinny chest, and dirty drill trousers held up by a ringer’s belt with a leather slot for the knife and a leather pocket for the tin box of matches. He had no hat; he was very tanned, with lean, not unpleasant features; he had worn out elastic sided riding boots upon his feet. He was unshaven and rather drunk; indeed, he looked as if he had been rather drunk for some considerable time.
He came up to us and stood swaying a little, and said, “You’re the new parson.”
“That’s right,” I said, and held out my hand to him. “My name’s Roger Hargreaves.”
He took my hand and shook it, and went on shaking it; he wouldn’t let it go. “Roger Hargreaves,” he said seriously. There was a pause while he considered that information. “That’s your name.”
“That’s right,” I said. “That’s my name.” I knew that everyone beside me was smiling a little, watching to see how the new parson reacted to this drunk old man.
“Good on you,” he said at last, after another pause. “The Reverend Roger Hargreaves. That’s what they call you.”
“That’s right,” I assured him. “That’s my name.”
He stood motionless, still holding my hand, while his mind changed gear. “I heard about you,” he said. “You’re a Pommie. A bloody Pommie.”
“Aw, cut it out,” Jim Maclaren beside me said. “Mr. Hargreaves, he’s been in Queensland twenty years. Buzz off and buy yourself a beer, Stevie. I’ll shout you one.”
“Mr. Hargreaves!” said the old man scornfully. He still had me by the hand. “If he’s right, why don’t you call him by his name? His name’s Roger.”
“He’s right,” said Jim. “I called him Mr. Hargreaves because he’s the vicar. Buzz off and get yourself a beer. Tell Albert that I’m shouting for you—I’ll be along in a minute.”
“He’s all right,” I said to Jim. I turned to the old man. “What’s your name?”
“Stevie,” he said.
“Stevie what?”
“Stevie,” he repeated. “I’m Stevie and you’re Roger. Put it there, chum.” He shook my hand vigorously. He peered up into my face and breathed stale beer at me. “Cobbers, ain’t we?”
“That’s right,” I said. “You’re Stevie, and we’re cobbers.”
He released my hand at last, and stood swaying before us. “He’s right,” he informed Jim, “even if he is a bloody Pommie.” He turned to me, full of goodwill. “Who’re you betting on?”
I smiled. “I’m the vicar,” I said. “Two bob on the tote is my limit. I was thinking of going on Frenzy.”
“Don’t do it,” he said earnestly. “Don’t do it, Roger. Black Joke. You go on Black Joke and you’ll be right.”
“Aw, you’re nuts, Stevie,” said Fred Hanson. “Come on over ’n I’ll shout you one.” He took the old man by the arm and drew him away towards the bar.
I glanced at Jim Maclaren, and we were both smiling. “Who’s he?” I asked.
“Stevie? Oh, he’s always about. Lives with a Chinaman about ten miles out. He don’t do nothing now—he’s too old. Used to be a good man once, they tell me. I did hear he was manager of Wonamboola, years ago.” He hesitated, and glanced at me. “Bit of a nuisance, now and then.”
I turned and looked at the tote board behind us; up till then only one punter had fancied Black Joke. “What about Black Joke?” I asked.
“He’s a joke all right,” said Jim. “You stay on Frenzy, Mr. Hargreaves.”
I wandered away just before the race and had a look at the horses as they cantered down to the start. Frenzy was the only one with any breeding; Black Joke was a thin, starved looking animal with a big head and a small rump. I strolled towards the tote and there was still only one backer for Stevie’s fancy, against over forty on Frenzy. The dividend, if certain, would be very small. I thought of old Stevie, whom I was sure to meet again, and who was sure to ask me what I had backed, and I put my two bob on Black Joke.
I sometimes think that Ascot misses something that places like Landsborough have got. Tommy
Ford was riding Frenzy, and Tommy was resolved to win that race; he came surging forward at each start and spoiled six starts in quick succession. By that time every horse was dancing on its toes and practically out of control, and the starter had a rock in his hand. On the seventh start he flung this stone at Tommy’s head and checked his rush as the two-pound rock whizzed by within an inch of his ear. One of the other horses spoiled that start. On the eighth start Tommy came surging forward again and the starter flung another rock which ricocheted off Frenzy’s head between the ears and hit Tommy fair and square in the chest. Frenzy, startled by the blow upon his head and the yank on his mouth, went bush; the start was a good one but fifty yards down the course Frenzy crossed the field, barging against Daisy Bell, who fell, and Coral Sea, who sat down on his haunches for a rest, while Frenzy jumped the low rail and made off into the gum trees with Tommy standing in the stirrups sawing at his mouth and cursing. Black Joke was left to race against a poor little mare called Cleopatra, and won by a length. I collected two pounds seventeen and sixpence from the tote.
I looked around for Stevie, but he was nowhere to be seen. I was rather glad of that, because if I had seen him then I could hardly have avoided standing him a beer, and he had had quite enough. Jim told me later that he had gone to sleep in one of the horse stalls, on the ground, where there was a patch of shade. Most of the horses stayed out at the racecourse for the night with a few of the black stockmen to look after them. When Stevie woke up it was dark and starry, one of the magnificent Queensland winter nights, cool and balmy, when the stars burn right down to the horizon and it is a pleasure to sleep out on the bare earth. The black boys had built a fire to boil up and they were sitting around and yarning. They gave Stevie a mug of tea out of their billy and a tin plate of meat, and presently he left them and started on the mile and a half walk into town, to the bar.
I did not see Stevie again that night. I had my tea at the hotel and helped them with the washing up. Then I made off towards my vicarage, but Jim Maclaren saw me as I passed by the bar out in the street and I had to go in and have a drink with them, and shout one in return out of my winnings. I found that my bet was the main topic of the evening; not only was the whole of the last race an interest and an amusement to the men who thronged the bar, including Tommy Ford, but they all showed genuine and unaffected pleasure in the fact that the parson had won two pounds seventeen and sixpence on a long shot. North Queensland is a rewarding place to work in.
I tried to find out a little more about Stevie in the half hour that I was in the bar before I could withdraw without offence, but I did not get very far. He was much older than most of the men present, and he had been in the Gulf Country for as long as they could remember. There was a tradition, backed by the pilot of the air ambulance, that Stevie had served in the Royal Flying Corps in the 1914–1918 war, and that he had been a pilot. He was known to have been manager of Wonamboola station some time in the Twenties, probably soon after that war, but nobody was old enough to remember that time personally. Since then he had gone steadily downhill. He had worked as a saddler and as a cook on various stations at various times; nobody in the bar that night knew his surname and nobody knew of any relatives that he might have. He was now unemployable, but he had a pension of some kind that he drew from the post office. He lived with an old Chinaman called Liang Shih who ran a market garden ten or twelve miles out of town, and he helped in the garden in return for his keep. These two men lived alone. Stevie never had any money in his pocket because his habit was to go straight from the post office to the hotel and drink his pension before going home, but when his clothes became indecent Sergeant Donovan of the mounted police would wait for him outside the post office and take him to the store and make him buy a new pair of pants before releasing him to the bar.
I knew a little bit about Liang Shih, because he was the only source of fresh vegetables in Landsborough. At that time I had not seen his house, though I saw plenty of it later on. He had his garden between two long waterholes on rather a remote part of Dorset Downs station, about fifteen miles from the homestead. The waterholes were really part of a river that ran only in the wet season and joined the Dorset River lower down; in the dry the land between these waterholes was very fertile and adjacent to permanent water for irrigation. Here Liang Shih cultivated two or three acres of land and on it he grew every kind of vegetable in great profusion; he had an old iron windmill to pump water, and he worked from dawn till dark. He had a house built on a little rising knoll of ground near by, above the level of the floods. Twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays, he would drive into town in a two wheeled cart drawn by an old horse to sell his vegetables, and then he would go straight back home. He did not drink at all.
I met Stevie next morning in the street as I was on my way to the hospital. The bar did not open until ten o’clock, and he was looking pretty bad; his hair was matted, his eyes bloodshot, and his hand shaking. Clearly he had slept out somewhere, because his shirt and trousers were dirty with earth, and there was a little hen manure on his left shoulder.
I stopped by him, and said, “I got on Black Joke, like you told me to.”
He mouthed his dry lips, and said, “Good on you. They told me last night in the hotel. You’re Roger, aren’t you?”
“That’s right,” I assured him. “I’m Roger, and you’re Stevie.”
“Got a drink in your place, cobber?”
“I’m afraid I haven’t,” I said. “I don’t keep it in the vicarage.” I paused, and then I said, because his distress was evident, “The bar opens at ten.”
“Too long,” he muttered. “The last one, he was better than this bloody chap. He’d give you a drink any time. This mugger, he’s scared of the bloody policeman.”
“I tell you what,” I said. “Go up to my place, the first house this side of the church, and have a shower and wash your shirt and pants. They’ll be dry before ten, and it’ll pass the time. I’ve got to go up to the hospital, but I’ll be back by then, and I’ll shout you a drink for Black Joke.”
“It might pass the time, at that,” he said. “Up by the church?”
“That’s right,” I said. “You’ll find soap and everything up there. A razor, if you want to use it. I’ll be back before ten, and then we’ll come back here and have a beer.”
I went up to the hospital—I forget what for, or who the patients were. I didn’t stay long in the wards; I call them wards for courtesy, though they were no more than three bedrooms with two beds in each. When I was ready to go Sister Finlay asked me to stay for a cup of tea; they usually gave me morning tea when I went to the hospital.
I went into the sitting room, where Nurse Templeton was pouring out. There were only the two of them to staff the little place. “I mustn’t stay long,” I said. “I’ve got Stevie up in my house waiting for me.”
“For Heaven’s sake!” said Sister Finlay. “What’s he doing there?”
“Having a bath,” I replied.
Nurse Templeton looked up, giggling. “He usually has that here.”
“Do you see a lot of him?” I asked.
“Do we not!” said Sister Finlay, sighing a little. “He’s a horrible old man. He gets drunk or gets in a fight, or just falls down and hurts himself, and then he comes to us and we have to patch him up. Last time he went to sleep in Jeff Cumming’s yard behind the house, and Jeff’s dog came and bit him in the arm.”
“Sister would have bitten him herself, only he smelt too bad,” said Templeton. “Here’s your tea, Mr. Hargreaves.”
“I made him go and have a bath before I dressed his arm,” the sister said. “Templeton washed his clothes and turned him out spruce as a soldier. But he didn’t stay that way.”
“He’s a bit of a nuisance, is he?”
She nodded. “He’d be all right if it wasn’t for the drink. It’s not as if he was a vicious man. But the drink’s got him now, and he’s got to have it. That, or something else.”
“Something else???
?
She said, “He lives out in the bush, with that Chinaman who brings in vegetables. Out on Dorset Downs.”
“I know. I ought to go out there some time and visit them.”
She glanced at me, and hesitated. “I don’t know that they’re very Christian, Mr. Hargreaves,” she said at last. “I think you ought to know that, if you’re thinking of going there. I don’t know about Stevie, but Liang Shih’s a Hindoo or a Buddhist or something, and there’s an idol stuck up in a sort of niche in the wall.” She hesitated again. “It’s none of my business, but I wouldn’t like you to get a surprise.”
I smiled. “Thanks for the tip. Is Stevie a Buddhist, too?”
She laughed. “Oh—him! I shouldn’t think he’s anything, except a Beerist.” She paused, and then she said, “Sergeant Donovan took me out there with a party one day when they were shooting duck on the waterholes, and we looked in and called on them. Stevie was sober, and he looked ever so much better—quite respectable. The Sergeant says it’s only when he gets some money and comes into town he gets like this. He’s all right living with Liang Shih out in the bush.”