When Colts Ran by Roger McDonald Page B

Boy of Colts’s school, the former schoolboy cricketing great – how the mighty were averaged, Buckler reflected, removed from their marvellous contexts, smitten with boils and made into anxious apprentices.
    That night the men took over huts almost empty of station workers. De Grey and his band had their blankets unrolled under the stars.
    Oakeshott took Buckler riding early. He said he was tolerant of de Grey’s coons for the sake of the war push. The two riders seemed to be going nowhere with the dawn light on their backs until they came upon relics undisturbed since the overland telegraph penetrated last century. Old huts with rifle slits, rusted horseshoes dangling from white-anted boards, eaten away iron pots, amber rum bottles tumbled in heaps.
    Buckler said, ‘Nothing to show the white man has any more claim on the dirt than the little yellow bastard brandishing his sword from Timor.’
    â€˜Except we’re here,’ said Oakeshott.
    â€˜ Je suis d’accord .’
    â€˜And look at our field of fire. Three hundred and sixty degrees and cleaner than the veldt.’
    Oakeshott was a noted woolgrower and eminent sheep classer with reason to reflect on achievement but personally liverish. Each morning the jackaroos were given their day’s jobs with barking precision. Stations were run as monarchies and, with his drooping moustache and silvered Pickelhaube haircut, Oakeshott added despotism. He wasn’t an owner – that was a pastoral company in Adelaide with directors who interfered. What Oakeshott held was the hereditary impact he’d made on strong-woolled merino sheep over a lifetime of attentive breeding. When he retired his line would be spent unless he found a worthy successor. Young Randolph Knox, he confided, could be the one.
    Back at the house tea and scones were served by Mrs Oakeshott’s Martha, a girl around the age of Birdy Pringle’s Dorothy, but luckier than her because she had these good people civilising her in a lace mob-cap and pinafore.
    Over to the men’s camp Buckler went to make himself felt. All was in order and he thanked Jack Slim.
    â€˜Bugger thanking me, it was de Grey.’
    The truck was unloaded, gear stacked, and de Grey and his lads were at the shed with Harris, helping with the shearing now their own work was done, all except one worker – the lean boy who kept his distance as if by reverse magnetism. When Buckler walked around the end of the men’s quarters verandah, the boy sloped off around the other so that Buckler only saw his legs. Then through a window Hammond Pringle could be seen sitting on a tool trunk cleaning his rifle.
    Abe had the kitchen range going. In a side room Slim had the radio set up.
    â€˜You two have fallen on your feet,’ said Buckler. ‘I’d call it over-comfortable. Won’t be for long.’
    â€˜What have you got for me in the way of loot?’ said Slim. ‘Anything special?’
    â€˜Oakeshott’s a good man. I haven’t pressured him yet.’
    Slim said, ‘It’s all right supporting the war effort but better if your neighbour does it, and there are few exceptions to that golden rule not excluding managers protecting their patch for the sake of city slickers. Have I got that right, Major?’
    â€˜Something like it.’
    â€˜Here’s my selection,’ said Slim, handing Buckler a list he’d made after poking around in the Eureka sheds.
    â€˜That’s not a lot either,’ said Buckler.
    â€˜Prime stores,’ agreed Slim. ‘Pastoralists pay peanuts, but when it comes to gear they really know how to stint.’
    â€˜Get over the resentment factor, Lenin.’
    â€˜There’s a lorry, a pump engine, and what about this adaptable trailer with fuel drums strapped on? I think we should grab it. Then we could really go the distance. De Grey thinks so too.’
    â€˜Who’s running this army –