Riverslake Page 21

  Previously he had known no permanence, but had shared with most of his kind the feeling that he was caught in a vacuum of inactivity, a doldrums of effort that would end only when his two-year contract ended. Then he would be free to return to Europe, if he had the fare, and there take up whatever work he had been doing. Perhaps not the most satisfactory work, but at least amongst his own people and hearing his own tongue. And with a name.

  Now, staring down at the greasy water that covered his arms to the elbow, he smiled grimly, remembering the posters that had drawn him to Australia. One, of a brown, muscular man in a white singlet and a wide felt hat who strode across a ploughed field of rich, red earth, surrounded by symbolical stacks of yellow grain and piled fruit and thick-fleeced, solemn sheep—all the wealth of the new land that would be his for the working. Of another man who galloped a spotted horse past a farm-house with windmills and red barns and a tractor that turned over the earth in a near paddock as big as an entire Polish farm. Of other men in overalls who stood statuesquely against a back-drop of belching chimneys and hot-mouthed furnaces with hammers and wrenches in their hands. Men, men, men, doing a man’s work in a land of limitless promise.

  The only poster he had not seen was one of a man stooped over a stinking sink in a hot kitchen, or peeling vegetables in a dank cubby-hole, or cleaning up a mess-hall after other men who seemed to spill as much food as they ate. And none of the heroic figures in the posters was labelled “Bloody Balt”.

  Novikowsky wiped down the last dixie, put it on the rack and walked out of the kitchen. As he stood for a moment sucking in the fresh air, a dishevelled figure lurched round the corner of the mess. The man, whoever it was, saw Novikowsky and bustled steadily towards him.

  “Hey, digger, you got any dough?”

  Novikowsky’s mind grappled with the hurried, slurred words.

  “Dough?” he repeated uncertainly, staring at the man who had accosted him.

  “Yeah, dough—feloose, mazuma!” The derelict held out his dirty hand, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together. He reeked of wine and blinked stupidly as he tried to focus his gaze on the Pole’s face. “Harry’s been lumbered by them dirty copper bastards an’ I wanna borra two quid t’ spring ’im. Len’s two quid till pay-day?”

  “I not know Harry,” Novikowsky said coldly. “He is not friend for me.”

  “Wait a mo’.” The drunk peered into his face owlishly. “You an Aussie?”

  “I am Pole.”

  “Stone the blasted crows, ain’t there any Aussies in this damn dump?” The drunk flung away savagely, cursing obscenely as he went. At the corner of the mess, he turned and glared at Novikowsky, who stood looking after him, a frown on his dark face.

  “Stick your dough, you Balt bastard!” he snarled, and lurched out of sight.

  Novikowsky flushed with anger and for a moment his hands knotted at his sides. Then he shrugged and walked away towards his room.

  Just inside the door he stopped and stared round suspiciously. Nothing had been disturbed that he could see, but a foreign smell hung on the hot air, a stench of stale sweat and spirits. Walking straight to his bed, he rolled back the mattress and stared down, unmoving in the silence. Then gently he lowered it.

  He looked up. His face stared back at him like the face of a stranger from the mirror on the wall. His nostrils were flattened and white, his eyes flattened slits in a flat, expressionless mask. He knelt unhurriedly and dragged a tattered leather case from beneath his bed. He opened it, and after rummaging for a moment he found what he had brought with him from Poland and had hidden beneath his bed for just such a time as this. He put it in his pocket and walked quietly out of the room.

  Randolph left Mama Kasnik sleeping gently, her head pillowed on her arms, and returned to Riverslake. It was late in the afternoon and he hurried into his hut to change into his whites before tea. He had hardly begun when Murdoch walked in and sat down. He picked up a lemon from the bowl on the table and smelt it, quiet for a moment, looking round at the bare painted walls and the bare, scrubbed floor; plain green curtains hung at the window were the only relief from the almost Spartan bareness of the room.

  “Where have you been, hooks?” he asked suddenly.

  “Up to Mama’s,” Randolph replied. “Chuck over that pair of strides, will you—I’m further behind than Walla-walla.”

  “Yeah, I forgot,” Murdoch said. “How was the old girl?” There was something guarded in his tone.

  “O.K. when I got there, but like a stunned magpie when I left. She threw a few snorts of brandy at me and hit herself.” Randolph recounted briefly the events of the afternoon, but made no mention of the old lady’s request regarding Murdoch and the girl Marika. Before tea there was not enough time. He would have to tread warily with Kerry on that subject.

  “Have yourself a time, eh?” Murdoch remarked. “You should have been here, though—your mate’s got himself into a bit of a blue.”

  “My mate?”

  “Stefan.”

  “Why my mate, particularly?”

  “Hell—he thinks the sun shines out of your dinger! I know, I work with him.”

  “Go on! Well, what did he do?”

  “Stuck a knife into Bellairs.”

  “What?”

  “You heard—you ain’t got flannel ears. He stuck a shiv into Bellairs. Not much, just nicked him, but from the way the big bastard was performing in the rec-room, you’d have thought that he’d lost his gizzard.”

  “What the hell for?” Randolph demanded. He was still shocked with surprise. “What did he do that for?”

  “Dough,” Murdoch said cryptically. “The roll he got at the game last night. He went back to his room after lunch and it was gone. I don’t think I told you last night—Bellairs was at the game. He saw Stefan cop that dough and tailed us for a bit on the way home—at least, I think it was him. He was working round the camp today, planting trees or some damn thing———”

  “Yes, I saw him,” Randolph said. He was thinking of what Carmichael had said about Bellairs and his light fingers.

  “It was him or one of his cheesy mates. Stefan put two and two together and pinned him.”

  “And got the dough?”

  “You bet. Bellairs reckoned that he’d found it by one of the huts and was just going to take it to the office.”

  “In a pig’s eye!”

  “Yeah. Stefan just goes to his room and waltzes in. Bellairs’s lying on the cot. Stefan ankles over to him and pulls out his pigsticker and puts it against Red’s gullet. He says he hasn’t got the dough, so Stefan nicks him, and Bellairs coughs up pronto. The bastard’s yellow. You know, big and weak like a boarding-house cup of tea.”

  “I don’t know.” Randolph grinned. “The point of a pig-sticker’s a pretty persuasive argument—especially with a bloke like Stefan on the working end of it. He got the dough, though?”

  “Sure!”

  “Then that’s all there is to it.”

  “Pigs, is it!” Murdoch snorted with a hard laugh. “It might be just a bloody start. Bellairs’s been telling the world all the afternoon, adding a bit here and taking a bit off there, until I bet most of the blokes think that Stefan robbed him, the bloody animal!”

  “So what?”

  “So Stefan’d better be pretty damn careful walking around the camp at night.”

  “I’d back him to look after himself.”

  “Famous last words!” Murdoch scoffed. “In a fair fight, he might, but if Bellairs and a couple of his thug mates jump him in the dark, he’ll get his guts kicked out.”

  “Come on,” Randolph said, making for the door. He had no answer to Murdoch’s logic. “Ziggy’ll have pups if we don’t get stuck into it.”

  There was an unusual and in a way menacing silence in the kitchen when they walked in. The work was going on but without the usual rac
ket and horseplay. The men seemed to avoid each other’s glances and gave Novikowsky a wide berth where he was bent over the sink, unconcernedly washing the utensils they dropped at his feet. When Randolph walked over to him and began to talk to him, the eyes of the other cooks and the kitchenmen followed him covertly. Excepting Zigfeld, who looked up from the goulash he was stirring on the stove and squinted after him.

  “Randy!” he shouted. “C’m on here and tray these spuds. We ain’t got all night!”

  He had listened to the cooks while they freely discussed Novikowsky’s knife-play, and he knew instinctively that it would not improve matters if they had to stand off and watch Randolph talking about it to the Pole. Better to keep them apart until it had blown over—if it did blow over.

  “Hold your water a minute!” Randolph said over his shoulder.

  Novikowsky looked up as he stopped by the sink. He grinned a welcome to Randolph, as though the whole camp were not humming with talk of what had happened between him and Bellairs.

  “What’s this I hear, Stefan,” Randolph demanded, “about you and Bellairs?”

  “Is nothing,” the Pole replied with a shrug. “He take it money from me, I take it money back from him. Is all.”

  “You shouldn’t have used a knife, though!”

  “No?”

  “No!” Randolph balled his fist and held it up. “This is enough for us—we don’t use knives when we quarrel in Australia!”

  “In Poland, we not steal from work-mate,” Novikowsky countered coldly. “But if some man is—k’rrr!” He drew his finger across his abdomen.

  “You’re not in Poland now.”

  “That I know.” It was more than a statement—there was bitterness and realization in it that Randolph could not answer. Zigfeld shouted to him again, and once more he was glad of an interruption.

  He left Novikowsky and walked over to the stove. Condamine looked up with a sneer as he approached.

  “What do you think of your mate now?” he demanded with thin sarcasm. His usually cold face was animated by his spite. “A nice animal—they’re all the same.”

  “Dip your eye!” Randolph said with gutter coarseness, putting into the words as much as he could of his dislike of Condamine.

  “It’s all right about dip your eye,” Paramor observed ponderously. “But a blasted knife—we should refuse to work with him. I seen the day when there would’ve been a jack-up over it.”

  “Would you have jacked up because Bellairs took the Balt’s money?” Randolph demanded savagely.

  “That’s different.”

  “Be damned, is it!”

  “Get those bloody spuds trayed!” Zigfeld barked. “Do your arguing after!”

  Randolph bent over the ovens, dragging out the trays of roasted potatoes. It was funny how they seemed to forget what had started the row—that Bellairs had slunk into Novikowsky’s room like a dingo and robbed him. All they thought about was the knife.

  “By hell, times’ve changed all right,” Paramor growled to nobody in particular, though Randolph felt the remark directed straight at him. “I seen the day when we jacked up over the colour of a cook’s hair, let alone one of your mates being carved up by a bloody Balt!”

  “If Bellairs is one of your mates, you’re welcome to him,” Randolph said coldly. “And be damned about being carved up—he was hardly scratched!”

  “It wasn’t the Balt’s fault he wasn’t! Once, he would’ve been hurled out on his ear, without any fooling around.”

  “My oath, yes!” Condamine interjected. “Those were the days!”

  Randolph swore viciously under his breath.

  “The union rep’d just race in,” Paramor went on. “‘All right, boys!’ he’d say. ‘No work—drop everything!’ And by hell, it’d be on. But not now—a man’s not safe with these hooers around with their flaming cutlery.”

  “Yeah, the bastards!” Condamine agreed.

  “If you had the choice, Para, who would you pick?” Randolph demanded, looking up from the potatoes he was traying. “The bloke who slunk in like a dirty Wog to thieve the dough, or the bloke who had the guts to go after him and get it back?”

  “Guts?” Condamine sneered. “You don’t need guts to use a knife on a man!”

  “You’d know about guts!” Randolph said scathingly. “Who, Para?”

  “It don’t come to a choice,” Paramor said shortly. “Knives is no way to settle a blue. And anyway, it’s an Aussie and a bloody Balt—naturally you stick to your own countryman.”

  “If Bellairs is an Australian, call me a Chow,” Randolph said coldly.

  So that was the line they would take, as he had thought. Bellairs could do no wrong because he was an Australian. Novikowsky was fair game because he was a Balt. He looked directly at Condamine, and then at Paramor, and at Warner who was preparing spaghetti farther along the stove. He was taking in everything, as usual, but saying nothing.

  “If anything pops out of this,” Randolph said, “I’m with Novikowsky, for whatever I can do.”

  Zigfeld had been watching them narrowly. He had guessed correctly what line Randolph would take, and what would happen when they began to discuss it. Before Paramor or Condamine could answer, and add further fuel to the fire, he waddled ponderously over to the stove.

  “All right,” he interrupted harshly, “you, Con, finish traying those spuds. Go up to the press, Randy—they’re just about ready to let them through. You, Para, go into the freezer an’ bring out them hams—an’ slice it thin, too. It’s not the blasted butcher’s picnic!” He stood by the stove and watched them move off. He knew that although he had broken up the argument for a while he could never kill the feelings that had provoked it. They would wear out only in time, or be shaken out in an all-out row.

  “Cranky bastards!” he observed, under his breath.

  When Randolph went up to serve on the press, and the men began to file past him, it was evident to him that the incident of the afternoon had become known round the camp. As Murdoch had said, Bellairs had done a good job of spreading it, with embellishments, if the looks of the men were any indication.

  Novikowsky was ladling out the soup. As they passed him, they stared at him, some curiously, some with open hostility and some with their lips twisted round ugly epithets. He ignored them, no matter how they looked at him.

  Condamine, at the head of the line, was determined that the matter should not be forgotten. Every few minutes Randolph heard his nasal voice above the racket of the mess, discussing it with the men he was serving.

  “Look out when you get your soup—you might get your throat slit, too.”

  “Get my throat slit?”

  “Didn’t you know? The Balt—the big bloke on the soup—tried to cut Bellairs’s throat today!”

  “Bull!”

  Another man held out his plate.

  “What’s that bull you’re handing out?”

  “No bull—you ask anyone you like. See if it’s bull!”

  “What over, in God’s name?”

  “Dough he lost up at the game, or something.”

  “If that’s a fact, the bastard ought to be slung out!” the next man said, looking along the line to where Novikowsky was standing.

  “It’s a fact, all right,” Condamine said, “but he won’t be—they’re protected birds. You’ll see.”

  “By God, are they! We’ll see, all right!”

  Randolph, listening, felt his cold hatred of Condamine gripping him viciously. Novikowsky was not much further along the press, and he must have heard it too. If he did, and if he understood the slurred, colloquial speech, he gave no sign. His face was impassive, his movements as calm and as unhurried as ever.

  Almost at the end of the meal hour, Hughie Mancin, who was as usual half drunk, slipped with a tray of apple-pie and spilled it all over the floo
r. While one of the kitchenmen went below to bring up another, the line banked up. Condamine sat on the edge of the press, toying with a long ladle. He shot a malicious sneer at Randolph.

  “Hear about the blue?” he asked the man who lounged in front of him, waiting for the line to move on.

  “A bit—what’s the guts of it?”

  “One of the Balts tried to slit an Aussie’s throat—over dough. Got the knife right into him.”

  “Jonic?”

  “Jonic!”

  “Hell, I heard it, but I didn’t believe it. Who did he stick?”

  “Bellairs.”

  “Well, I don’t blame him on that score, much. Bellairs’d be no loss to the joint. But still—a knife. What a nice sort of animal to have around the camp!”

  “We certainly got the pick of the bunch,” Condamine said, “a murderer and a spy and God only knows what else!”

  “A spy?” the man on the other side of the press echoed, and others looked round with interest.

  “Yeah, didn’t you know? You want to keep your ears open!”

  “What kind of spy, for God’s sakes?” someone said.

  “Oh, I dunno—from one of those Balt joints,” Condamine said with a shrug. “Everybody’s onto it.”

  “Which bloke’s the spy?”

  “He’s down in the kitchen, now—a little snowy rooster called Felix. Most likely a Com. Lots of ’em come in with these cows. Here, you want beef or mutton?”

  Randolph quietly laid down the fork he had been using and walked along behind the press.

  “You’re a damned liar, Condamine,” he said, his voice trembling with anger.

  Zigfeld, standing at the far end of the race by the sweets, saw him move. He followed, moving his bulk with deceptive speed.

  “I wasn’t talking to you,” Condamine snapped. “Mind your own damned business!”

  “When anyone tells lies about one of my friends, and I hear, it’s my business, all right,” Randolph replied, more quietly. He could feel the interested scrutiny of everyone within hearing. “You’re a liar and a yellow bastard.”