From Chart House To Bush Hut Part 2

"Humph!" and off he trotted ash.o.r.e.

He was a decent chap to me, and I was sorry to give him trouble, but----

Here I may mention one of the injustices of English maritime law. On being engaged at home, one signs articles for three years. This is a survival of old sailing-s.h.i.+p days, when s.h.i.+ps were often away that period. Nowadays no man expects to be away anything like that time. If he did never a man would sign on. But if the s.h.i.+p happens to be pitchforked on to a run like this Pacific trade, well--there you are, stuck fast, and you can't get out except on one plea--a medical certificate of unfitness.

I went to the best private pract.i.tioner in Newcastle. He made a thorough examination, and gave his opinion that I had been for months unfit to hold my responsible position, and gave me a certificate to that effect.

Armed with this, I again bearded the captain.

"No good, old chap," he said. "I'm sorry, but I have my own position with the owners to look at if I let you go."

So off I went to the port medical officer, a grave and courteous gentleman, who listened sympathetically to my tale of woe.

"Well," he said, "of course I can't possibly issue an order for your discharge if there isn't something radically wrong with you. You know that. However, strip, and let's have a look at you." A long examination, then, "Hum! There'll be no difficulty about _you_. Y'ought to have been out of it long since. But, understand now, I'm going to emphasize your attacks of migraine--blindness--and if you come here looking for a job again I won't pa.s.s you. You burn your boats behind you if I issue this order."

I was willing, and with the order for my discharge like a waving battle flag, I metaphorically knocked out the captain, who capitulated to that mandate, and paid me off on Sat.u.r.day. On Sunday morning, 28th February, 1912, I watched, from the balcony of my hotel, the old s.h.i.+p pa.s.s between the breakwaters and proceed to sea. I did have a pang or two, for she had been my home for four years, and I had enjoyed many a good time aboard her. Good-bye, old hooker, and good luck go with you! A last long look, and I slowly turned away and faced the unknown future. I was twenty-seven years of age, with 70 in my pocket, and all Australia to pick a home in.

"The chance of my life," I thought. "It'll be my own fault if I don't make the most of it." And so downstairs to lunch, the slight cloud of regret at leaving the old s.h.i.+p dissipating as I hummed to myself the sailor's chantey, "Off to Philadelphia in the Morning"--only it was Brisbane, not Philadelphia, in my case.

CHAPTER IV.

I BECOME A LAND-LUBBER.

When I was a bra.s.s-bound apprentice on a wind-jammer, aged sixteen, I visited Melbourne on my first voyage, and became acquainted with the young lady who now enjoys the honour of being Mrs. Senex. Naturally then, when the idea of settling in Australia occurred to me, Victoria was the State I first thought of. I applied to the Government, stating my case, and their reply was a very distinct damper. Regarded in the light of a hint not to come, it was a verbal brutality:--

"The amount you mention is utterly inadequate to make a start in Victoria, and we should not advise you to leave your present employment until something more certain and easy eventuates."

A distinct "t.i.te-Barnacle" flavour about it altogether. New South Wales was my next try. Far more encouraging. I could certainly come to that State; I would be put in touch with farmers in whatever district I selected, and when I thought I had enough experience to start for myself they would do their best to find me land. Also they sent me some pamphlets.

Then Queensland. Ah! that _was_ something like a hospitable invitation:--

"Certainly you ought to make a decent start with the amount you mention. Even with nothing you are welcome if willing to work. We hope you will decide to come.... If you are not afraid of work and a bit of roughing it, you should command success," and so forth.

Accompanying this missive was a parcel of pamphlets on which six s.h.i.+llings postage had been paid. So I reckoned Queensland was good enough for me, and it was--and is.

I watched my s.h.i.+p leave Newcastle on the Sunday. Next day I was in Sydney enquiring about a boat for Brisbane. It was the time of the Badger tram strike, and, as most people remember, s.h.i.+pping was being held up. However, the company I went to said they were running a special boat on Wednesday, and I might squeeze in. Went steerage, of course; had to study economy now. And it _was_ a squeeze-in all right. She was an awful old tub. I won't mention her name. The steerage bunks were two high and two abreast--four in a section. My berth was on the cold hard deck under a bottom bunk, whose inhabitant had, of course, an unpleasant habit of spitting. Two blokes camped on the table, and several, like myself, on the deck. Well, I hadn't forgotten my old sailor dodge of "p.r.i.c.king for the softest plank," so it was no particular hards.h.i.+p to me, and I pa.s.sed a fair night.

I went on deck about 6 a.m., in time to see my old pal, Sugarloaf, abeam.

The weather was clear, blowing a bit, and a good lop of following sea.

Breakfast was at 7.30. When the bell went I was on the fo'c'sle head, and waited a minute or two before leisurely descending. The mob was jammed round the table like peas in a pod, jaws working overtime, eyes hungrily roaming over the table, hands ever and anon reaching like talons for the eatables. I accosted the steward, poor man, who, with a care-lined face, was hovering round like an unquiet spirit.

"Can't help it, sir," says he; "you'll just 'ave t' do the same as th'

others--grab what ye can, and Go delp the last man. Cripes! They are a 'oly lot er cormorants this trip."

So I grabbed a spud, a ragged lump of meat, and a hunk of dry bread, which were all I could effect salvage on, but it kept the worms quiet.

After that I was always anch.o.r.ed in mid-table half an hour before meals, and held on like grim death against the rus.h.i.+ng tide when the bell went.

Very soon half of them were squatted round the table like vultures half an hour before time, so my dodge failed in the end.

They were a merry, rough, happy-go-lucky crowd. Mostly shed hands, rouseabouts and suchlike, bound for Rockhampton and Townsville. They soon jerried that, if I was a pretty smart seaman, I was also an extremely raw new chum; and the old, old gohanna farm tale was sprung off on me with enthusiasm. I didn't know what a blooming gohanna was. I was also advised to keep my eye open for a few likely-looking emus when I got settled, as there was good money in their plumes. I got a bit suspicious of fifty-foot carpet snakes, but swallowed cannibal blacks and crocodiles in the Atherton scrub. North of Townsville, I was informed, it rained for nine months, and then the rainy season started.

I caused a good deal of amus.e.m.e.nt all right, and the roars of laughter might have been heard all over the s.h.i.+p when I mentioned casually that I had some heavy blocks ash.o.r.e in my baggage, with a view to hauling down scrub timber. (N.B.--The blocks were stolen from my s.h.i.+p, but as I originally stole them from the Standard Oil Co.'s wharf in New York, I reckoned I'd a proprietary right to them. You'll find the mate of the average tramp an accomplished pincher. He's got to be, the way owners cut requisition lists). They enquired if I had any idea what scrub was like. I said "No, but I supposed it was just ordinary trees." More merriment.

It was late in the evening when we arrived in Brisbane. I got ash.o.r.e at once, and chartered a cabby to take me to some decent place to camp. He did, and charged me five s.h.i.+llings for a five minutes' journey to that fine caravanserai, the People's Palace. Next morning I was early at Roma-street station, enquiring for my traps from Newcastle. They hadn't arrived, and wouldn't do so for a week or more--congestion at Wallangarra. Bestowing my blessing on the Railway Department, I strolled down to the Lands Office, and interviewed the gentleman with whom I had corresponded aboard s.h.i.+p. Let me pay a tribute to his courteous urbanity, and the patience with which he answered the innumerable questions I was inspired with.

"Yes, Mr. Senex, Queensland has good soil ... er--it _is_ suitable for growing potatoes. Yes, it _is_ possible to go dairying in the State. Orchards? Oh, yes! Fruit grows here," and so on.

How he must have laughed when the brand-new, fresh-minted, new chum left him! Well, I learned that among the earthly paradises abounding in Queensland the district of Atherton was, for climate, scenery and general farming purposes, the nearest approach to Heaven in the State. I could do anything there--grow my beloved spuds (my dad was Irish, by the way), or dairy, run an orchard, or raise chooks. In fact, the trouble was not so much what to grow as what not to raise, in case of swamping the market, off twenty acres.

Of course it was Atherton for me after that--you bet! Couldn't get there quick enough. I found time, though, to worry the Department of Agriculture a bit, and I have no doubt they were very delighted to see the last of the infernal bore who "wanted to know, you know," and wouldn't be satisfied with the a.s.surance that Atherton _was_ a good place.

"Yes; but," said the bore, "have you ever been there?" And when they said "No," the bore opined that they couldn't know so very much about the place after all, and doubtless caused secret fist-shakings behind his unconscious back.

One brilliant gentleman told me he'd give me a half-fare concession to visit Gatton College next day, and, in the joy of getting something for nearly nothing, I forgot to worry them any more. The other gentlemen probably stood him a drink that afternoon.

I thoroughly enjoyed that trip, and it was queer to think that at Gatton I was further away from the sea than I had ever been since I was born, and I don't think I bored the College people. I was such a palpable "newey," with such an eager interest in everything and so easily entertained. I caused one of the princ.i.p.als a heart-throb though when he turned round and caught me clambering over the fence en route to pat old "Spec," one of the savagest bulls in Queensland, I think, standing treacherously quiet on the other side. I was hauled back by the neck, while "Spec" boomed his disappointment and pawed up the earth in showers. I would have liked to have stayed there a week, admiring the beautiful, sleek cattle and dropsical pigs, snoring in bloated contentment, but the setting sun and the 8 p.m. train took me back to Brisbane.

I went to the Lands Office next day and worried them some more. They gave me a railway concession as far as Gladstone, and I left, staggering under a pile of maps, plans and pamphlets, which I afterwards conscientiously waded through and finally used for papering the walls of my bush humpy to keep the draughts out.

About 9 p.m. that evening I boarded the Gladstone mail train, and found myself one of a herd of males penned up in a bare wooden "three-in-one"

dog-box of a carriage, with a mouldy odour of mildew, sulphur and antediluvian "Flor-de-Cabbagios" hanging about it. A short wait, a long whistle, a jarring jerk or two, and we slowly rumbled out of Brisbane into the moonlit country, and into the romantic mystery veiling the unknown life before me.

CHAPTER V.

NORTHWARD HO!

The train appeared to go very much faster than it really did, being rather a narrow-gauge line; still fungus didn't grow on the wheels. We stopped at every station, and each stop was hailed by the same enquiry from a half-sozzled bloke in our pen, "Say, g-guard, thish-h North Pi-ine?" When we got there he refused to believe it, saying he didn't "re-rec-kernize" the place. Guard whistled, waited for the engine's answering toot, then hauled the beery one out by the scruff of the neck, jumped aboard, and left him squatting on the gravel.

The press eased at every halt, until finally there were only half a dozen of us left. I amused myself for a while gazing at the countryside lying calm and peaceful in the moonlight, as we rattled along. Then, just as I was thinking about forty winks, up spoke an old chap in one corner, grey-bearded, sunburnt, and attired in dungarees, grey woollen s.h.i.+rt and patched coat.

"Look, blokes! I' ben sufferin' torches with these 'ere dam boots all day, and I'm goinner take 'em orf."

"All right," we grinned; "fire away, Dad."

He shed his canoes, disposed of his "torchered" feet comfortably along the seat with a sigh of relief, and proceeded to fill a villainous old pipe, which presently filled the carriage with fumes.

"Py yingo, Dat!" said a stout, good-humoured Swede next me. "You'

tobaggo schmells stronk. Fot brandt is 'e?"

"It's good ol' R----," said Dad, slowly removing the pipe from his gills and waving it about to point his remark. "Some people ses it stinks, but they won't give it a fair go. It'll do me. Smokes good, 'n only 'bout 'alf the price of the other stuff, and grown and mannyfactered right 'ere in the country. I likes it all right."

I asked him for a pipeful to try, and he shoved a plug across. I found it all right, in spite of its strong reek, and have always smoked it since. Subsequent experience makes me think that if Australians only would try their own country's productions a bit oftener, there might be perhaps fewer strikes and more work to be got. However----