A Town like Alice

But it's a good station to manage, because the homestead is near the middle, so it's not so far in any one way. Over to the Kernot Range is the furthest; that's about sixty miles."
    "Sixty miles from the homestead? That's where you live?"
    "That's right."
    "Are there any other homesteads on it?"
    He stared at her. "There's only the one homestead on each station. Some have an outstation, a shack of some kind where the boys can leave blankets and maybe a little tucker, but not many."
    "How long does it take you to get to the furthest point, then-to the Kernot Range?"
    "Over to the Range? Oh well, to go there and come back might take about a week. That's with horses; in a utility you might do it in a day and a half. But horses are best, although they're a bit slow. You never take a packhorse faster'n a walk, not if you can help it. It isn't like you see it on the movies, people galloping their horses everywhere-oh my word. You'd soon wear out a horse if you used him that way in the Territory."
    They sat together for over an hour, talking quietly at the entrance to the schoolhouse. At the end the ringer got up from his strange posture on the ground, and said, "I mustn't stay any longer, case those Nips come back and start creating. My cobber, too-he'll be wondering what happened to me. I left him to boil up."
    Jean got to her feet. "It's been terribly kind of you to get us these things. You don't know what they mean to us. Tell me, what's your name?"
    "Joe Harman," he said. "Sergeant Harman-Ringer Harman, some of them call me." He hesitated. "Sorry I called you Mrs Boong today," he said awkwardly. "It was a silly kind of joke."
    She said, "My name's Jean Paget."
    'That sounds like a Scotch name."
    "It is," she said. "I'm not Scotch myself, but my mother came from Perth."
    "My mother's family was Scotch," he said. "They came from Inverness."
    She put out her hand. "Goodnight, Sergeant," she said. "It's been lovely talking to another white person."
    He took her hand; there was great comfort for her in his masculine handshake. "Look, Mrs Paget," he said. "I'll try if I can get the Nips to let your party ride down on the truck with us. If the little bastards won't wear it, then we'll have to give it away. In that case I'll see you on the road again before you get to Kuantan, and I'll make darn sure there's something crook with the truck. What else do you want?"
    "Soap," she said. "Could you possibly get us soap?"
    "Should be able to," he said.
    "We've got no soap at all," she observed. "I've got a little gold locket that one of the women had who died, a thing with a bit of hair in it. I was going to see if I could sell that here, and get some soap."
    "Keep it," he said. "I'll see you get soap."
    "We want that more than anything, now that you've got these medicines for us," she said.
    "You'll have it." He hesitated, and then said, "Sorry I talked so much, boring you with the outback and all that. There's times when you get down a bit-can't make yourself believe you'll ever see it again."
    "I wasn't bored," she said softly. "Goodnight, Sergeant."
    "Goodnight."
    In the morning Jean showed the women what she had got.
    "I heard you talking to him ever so long," Mrs Price said. "Nice young man, I'd say."
    "He's a very homesick young man," Jean said. "He loves talking about the cattle station he comes from."
    "Homesick!" Mrs Price said. "Aren't we all?"
    The Australians had a smart argument with their guards that morning, who refused point-blank to let the women ride down on the trucks. There was some reason in this from their point of view, because the weight of seventeen women and children added to two grossly overloaded trucks might well be the last straw that would bring final breakdown, in which case the guards themselves would have been lucky to escape with a flogging at the hands of their officer. Harman and Leggatt had to put the back axle together again; they were finished and ready for the road about the middle of the morning.
    Joe Harman said, "Keep that little bastard busy for a minute while I loose off the union." He indicated the Jap guard. Presently they started, Harman in the lead, dribbling a little petrol from a loosened pipe joint, unnoticed by the guard. It was just as well to have an alibi when they ran out of fuel, having parted with six gallons to the Chinaman.
    From Maran to Kuantan is fifty-five miles. The women rested that day at Maran, and next day began the march down the tarmac road. They reached a