Corroboree by Graham Masterton Page A

kissed her one last time before letting her go. She hurried off along by the stringy-bark gums at the end of the lawns, her blue ruffled dress shining pale in the moonlight, a fleeing ghost in a garden of ghostly trees.
    Just before she could reach the ha-ha at the far side of the garden, however, and disappear from view; flashing lanterns appeared at the side of the house, and Eyre saw Lathrop’s two Aborigine dog-handlers, Utyana and Captain Henry, struggling across the south-east patio with six greyhounds each. The dogs were straining at their leads until their eyes bulged, their claws scratching and skittering at the stone pathways.
    â€˜
Koola! Koola!
’ Captain Henry shouted to his dogs, and they snarled and gnashed and writhed against their leads in a froth of hunting-lust. ‘
Koola
’ was Aborigine for kangaroo, and these dogs had been trained for two years to chase after kangaroos and bring them down as quicklyand as bloodily as possible. The dogs had to be strong and vicious because the kangaroos were strong and vicious; even the youngest kangaroo could run for miles before the hunt caught up with them, and a fully grown buck could fling a greyhound into the air and break its back. Kangaroos were unnervingly intelligent, too. Last season a big red had caught Lathrop’s favourite hound Rocket with its front paws and held it under water at the Nguru water-hole until it had drowned.
    Eyre shouted, ‘Charlotte! Hurry!’ and Charlotte at last reached the shelter of the ha-ha and began to run towards the house with her skirts raised. But the dog-handlers had already seen her, and must have thought she was an intruder, or even (knowing how superstitious they were) a Koobooboodgery. And now Lathrop himself appeared, in his flapping nightshirt, carrying a lantern in one hand and a musket in the other.
    Captain Henry must have asked for permission to let the dogs loose; for Lathrop nodded, and in the next instant six of the greyhounds were streaking across the moonlit grass in sudden silence; pale shadows so quick that Eyre found it difficult to follow them.
    He wrenched open the garden gate, and shouted at Lathrop, ‘It’s Charlotte! Call them off, Mr Lindsay! It’s Charlotte!’
    Lathrop stared at him from twenty yards away in complete amazement. ‘Walker?’ he demanded, lifting up his lantern. ‘What the blue devil are you doing here?’
    â€˜It’s
Charlotte!
’ Eyre screamed at him.
    â€˜What?’ Lathrop turned, frowned towards the ha-ha, frowned back at Eyre; and then said, ‘Charlotte? What’s Charlotte?’
    There! For the love of God, call those dogs off!’
    It was then that they heard Charlotte scream, and the growling and snapping of the dogs.
    Lathrop suddenly understood what was happening, and roared at Captain Henry, ‘Call them off, man! Call them off! They’ll kill her!’
    Captain Henry held his hands on top of his head in complete misery. ‘Can’t do it, sir. Won’t come now, sir. Not until they bring the
pipi
, sir.’
    Eyre felt cold. He knew what
pipi
meant—entrails. Without thinking of anything at all, he began to run across the lawn towards the ha-ha, his vision a jumble of grass, gum-trees, flashes of moonlight. He could hear himself panting as he ran as if somebody else were running close beside him.
    He reached the brink of the ha-ha, his shoes skidding on the dry grass. Charlotte had stopped screaming now; and was desperately trying to scramble up the side of the slope, one hand pressed to her face to keep the greyhounds from tearing at her nose and eyes. All six dogs were leaping and snapping and hurling themselves at her like suicidal acrobats. Two of them clung on to her petticoats to drag her down, while the others bit at her arms and her ankles and her bare shoulders.
    Eyre roared at the top of his voice, and bounded down the ha-ha and right into the tussle of dogs, shouting,