A Town like Alice

arrive at Midhust ready to start for the top end.
    She asked, "How far away is Mr Harman, Bourneville?"
    He thought. "Four mile past bore."
    Joe had once told her that the new bore was twenty-two miles from the homestead; that made the scene of the accident twenty-six miles away. She said, "What's the track like? Can the utility get there?"
    "Him bonza track in dry far as bore," he said. She nodded; this was likely enough because the bore had only been made a few months and there must have been trucks going up to it. It would probably be possible to get along it even in this rain. Already the sky was getting grey; full daylight was not far away.
    She asked, "Are there any creeks to cross?"
    He held up three fingers. "Tree."
    "Are they deep? Can the utility go through?"
    "Yes, Missy. Creeks not too deep."
    If Bourneville rode a horse beside the utility to guide her, she thought that she could make it. It was worth trying, anyway; the worst that could happen would be that she would get it stuck and have to send Bourneville back to Willstown with a note for them to send up somebody more competent. So long as he had his horse there was no risk of any great delay. She said, "All right, Bourneville, I'll drive the utility. You come up with me on your horse."
    "Get fresh horse, Missy. Him tired."
    "All right, get a fresh horse." Bourneville must be tired too, but she was too unaccustomed to these seamed black faces to be able to detect fatigue. "You get some tucker," she said. "I get tucker, too. We'll start in half an hour."
    He went off and she put the kettle on for a cup of tea and then went and changed into her riding shirt and breeches. There was an old tin trunk in Joe's room which she had discovered the night before; it was half full of bandages and splints and various medicines. Being of tin, she thought, it would be waterproof, and she filled it up with blankets and some tins of food from the store cupboard, and a small sack of flour. That was all she could think of for provision in case she got stuck half way and had to spend a night or two in the utility.
    She had a cup of tea and a small meal of meat and bread and jam; then she went down to the yard and examined the utility. The huge petrol tank had twenty gallons in it, and the sump was full of oil. She filled the radiator from the water-butt and filled the waterbag suspended from the lamp bracket. Then she sat in it; to her relief the gears were dearly marked. She switched it on and pressed the starter and jiggeted the accelerator, and was both alarmed and pleased when the engine started. Very gingerly she put it in reverse and drove it out into the yard.
    They put the trunk into the back and started off, Bourneville riding ahead of her to show her the way. Partly because of Bourneville on his horse and partly because she thoroughly distrusted her own competence, she never got it into top gear all the way, and never exceeded ten miles an hour. She drove through each of the three creeks along the line that Bourneville showed her, following the agitated, plunging horse as he forced through the yellow water swirling about its legs. Once the water rose above the floorboards of the cab and she was very frightened. But she kept the utility going and the designer had anticipated such usage and had placed the ignition system above the cylinders, and it came through bounding from rock to rock with water pouring out of every hole and cranny.
    Four miles beyond the bore Joe Harman sat at the mouth of his small tent. It was pitched in a clearing in a thick patch of bush in the bottom of a little valley. A heavy log stockade or corral had been built in this clearing and stood immediately behind the tent; the movable logs that formed a gate had been pulled down and the corral was empty. Joe had built a fire before the tent, and he was boiling up in a billy over it.
    A man lay inside upon a bed of brushwood covered with a waterproof sheet, with a blanket over him. Joe turned his head, and said, "What happened, Don? Did they rush you when you got the pole down?"
    From the tent the man said, "My bloody oath. They pushed the pole back on to me and knocked me down. Then about six of them ran over me."
    Joe said, "Serve you bloody well right. Teach you to go muggering about on other people's land." There was a pause. Then he said, "How many of mine did you get last year, Don?"
    " 'Bout three hundred."
    Mr Harman laughed. "I got three hundred and fifty of yours."
    From the tent Mr