exact. âWhat do you think of it?â
âGood.â
âMake of Nippon,â grinned the soldier.
âThat good-looking kid in your lot,â said Buckler, âthe one whoâd like to think I didnât exist, heâs Birdy Pringleâs Hammond, isnât he?â
âThatâs Hammond all right. Proved a bit of a runaway but we nabbed him good.â
Bucklerâs truck needed a tow and they chained it behind de Greyâs. It was another dayâs drive to Eureka homestead where a blacksmithâs shop and a mechanic on the payroll promised repairs. Faces grinned at Bucklerâs dependence while he jolted in the passenger seat and tried to doze with his arms folded tight. Only one face, that boy Hammondâs, kept itself turned away.
They came out into a vast dusty bowl with ancient hills behind them, crossed sand ridges, skirted a salt lake crusted with red-stained rime, plugged on through saltbush and arrived at the station, which loomed in a mirage of galvanised iron pavilions long before they debouched like gypsies with the reek of diesel in their baggy trousers, and stamped their boots.
They crossed an open width of ground under the hot sun wearing their slouch hats with leather chinstraps fitted. When Slim observed Buckler and Abe marching in step beside him, he gave a skip and the three of them were crisply aligned.
Then behind them de Greyâs boys fell in, and de Grey was heard grunting âhep, hep, hep right hepâ.
âLook at the half-arse army,â said a watcher in the shade, and Buckler couldnât help it, he bridled at any slur on the band.
Eureka was five million acres give or take a few hundred thou, epitomising the old continent worn down and reduced to whatever nutrition could be wrung out in the name of sheep. It had a stone homestead with a wide paved verandah and a stone shearing shed architecturally huge under a sheet-iron roof. On average thirty shearers shore one hundred thousand sheep fed on saltbush that sprouted past all horizons. While a war went on somewhere, and our men were in it, a noted Australian battle was continued here between man and truculent beast, between men and men in the realm of boss relations. One of those fighters was Hoppy Harris from Broken Hill.
âHarris the contractor?â said Buckler, his mouth going a little dry.
âSo youâve heard of me?â smiled the hairy fellow oiling his handpiece.
There were only four shearers present, and the jackaroo Randolph Knox doing the work of ten, sweeping, skirting, fleece-rolling and pressing, wool piled on every side like mountain ranges. Harris roared over the engine noise, âI canât speak to you now, you can see Iâm fucking flat strap shorthanded. Unless you happen to know your way round a fleece, push off.â
Despite the forceful language Harris eyed Buckler neutrally enough, perhaps only indicative of what he reserved for everyone he met. But whatever went on under the look was perhaps something else, on the theory that men suspicious of each other in the realm of sexual betrayal were inevitably polite until tactics declared otherwise.
Buckler being of rank was welcomed a mile away at the big house where there were linen tablecloths, silver cutlery, napkin rings and a saddle of mutton accompanied by hermitage wine from the Barossa Valley, the bottles packed in sheaths of straw with the heads of wheat still on them. Buckler had sherry with the manager, Oakeshott. The jackaroo Knox entered wet-haired and breathless as the clock struck seven, and Oakeshott and his wife eyed him for manners and to be sure, when he was invited to remove his jacket, that his shirt was buttoned to the wrists, covering the yolk boils on his forearms from too much delving in wool. Randolph Knox had the biggest jaw Buckler had ever seen on a bloke, like a sack of marbles. They sat in chairs with carved backs. This Knox, Buckler realised, was the Head
âGood.â
âMake of Nippon,â grinned the soldier.
âThat good-looking kid in your lot,â said Buckler, âthe one whoâd like to think I didnât exist, heâs Birdy Pringleâs Hammond, isnât he?â
âThatâs Hammond all right. Proved a bit of a runaway but we nabbed him good.â
Bucklerâs truck needed a tow and they chained it behind de Greyâs. It was another dayâs drive to Eureka homestead where a blacksmithâs shop and a mechanic on the payroll promised repairs. Faces grinned at Bucklerâs dependence while he jolted in the passenger seat and tried to doze with his arms folded tight. Only one face, that boy Hammondâs, kept itself turned away.
They came out into a vast dusty bowl with ancient hills behind them, crossed sand ridges, skirted a salt lake crusted with red-stained rime, plugged on through saltbush and arrived at the station, which loomed in a mirage of galvanised iron pavilions long before they debouched like gypsies with the reek of diesel in their baggy trousers, and stamped their boots.
They crossed an open width of ground under the hot sun wearing their slouch hats with leather chinstraps fitted. When Slim observed Buckler and Abe marching in step beside him, he gave a skip and the three of them were crisply aligned.
Then behind them de Greyâs boys fell in, and de Grey was heard grunting âhep, hep, hep right hepâ.
âLook at the half-arse army,â said a watcher in the shade, and Buckler couldnât help it, he bridled at any slur on the band.
Eureka was five million acres give or take a few hundred thou, epitomising the old continent worn down and reduced to whatever nutrition could be wrung out in the name of sheep. It had a stone homestead with a wide paved verandah and a stone shearing shed architecturally huge under a sheet-iron roof. On average thirty shearers shore one hundred thousand sheep fed on saltbush that sprouted past all horizons. While a war went on somewhere, and our men were in it, a noted Australian battle was continued here between man and truculent beast, between men and men in the realm of boss relations. One of those fighters was Hoppy Harris from Broken Hill.
âHarris the contractor?â said Buckler, his mouth going a little dry.
âSo youâve heard of me?â smiled the hairy fellow oiling his handpiece.
There were only four shearers present, and the jackaroo Randolph Knox doing the work of ten, sweeping, skirting, fleece-rolling and pressing, wool piled on every side like mountain ranges. Harris roared over the engine noise, âI canât speak to you now, you can see Iâm fucking flat strap shorthanded. Unless you happen to know your way round a fleece, push off.â
Despite the forceful language Harris eyed Buckler neutrally enough, perhaps only indicative of what he reserved for everyone he met. But whatever went on under the look was perhaps something else, on the theory that men suspicious of each other in the realm of sexual betrayal were inevitably polite until tactics declared otherwise.
Buckler being of rank was welcomed a mile away at the big house where there were linen tablecloths, silver cutlery, napkin rings and a saddle of mutton accompanied by hermitage wine from the Barossa Valley, the bottles packed in sheaths of straw with the heads of wheat still on them. Buckler had sherry with the manager, Oakeshott. The jackaroo Knox entered wet-haired and breathless as the clock struck seven, and Oakeshott and his wife eyed him for manners and to be sure, when he was invited to remove his jacket, that his shirt was buttoned to the wrists, covering the yolk boils on his forearms from too much delving in wool. Randolph Knox had the biggest jaw Buckler had ever seen on a bloke, like a sack of marbles. They sat in chairs with carved backs. This Knox, Buckler realised, was the Head
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