CHAPTER 46
Ghan passed the dirty tents until he reached the last in the row, the canvas brown and sagging and crusted with spiderwebs. He set down his pack. Home.
“By Gawd!” a voice shouted. “It can’t be!”
Ghan stared at a mug nearly as old and ugly as his own. “Whistler, is that you?”
The man slapped his knee and cackled. “Yeh filthy son of a bitch!” He wobbled on bowed legs, white chest hair frothing from his undershirt. “Whot the ’ell yeh doin’ ’ere, Ghan?”
“Workin’. Looks like we’re gonna be neighbors.”
Whistler’s whole face smiled, all the wrinkles shaping like curved lips. “Can’t believe yer still livin’, yeh ugly fart!”
“Can’t kill blokes like us,” said Ghan. “Get right back up by our knuckles.”
“Ain’t that the truth!” The man laughed. His pants slipped down from his waist and he pulled them up without a second thought.
“Yeh don’t whistle no more,” Ghan observed, remembering that back in the day the man had a rotten front tooth with a perfect gray hole in the middle. Every time he laughed, a high-pitched, long whistle would blow from his mouth.
“Got no teeth no more!” Whistler opened his mouth wide. “Hey, yeh hungry?”
“Always.”
“Come on; I’ll fix yeh up somepin. Leave the pack here. Nobody’ll touch it. Good blokes overall.” He stuck a finger in his ear and grimaced. “ ’Cept fer those damn motorbikes. Them E-talians race ’em mornin’ till night, I tell yeh. But good blokes. Yeh’ll see.”
Whistler held the canvas flap open to this tent so Ghan could enter. A tiny stove made out of a kerosene can sat next to the middle pole. Whistler snapped a few twigs and lit the fire. He set the can of water to boil, dropped in the tea and set out two tin cans for mugs. Then he pulled out a frying pan still white with lard and started mixing the standard for damper: flour, water and sodium bicarbonate. Tea and damper—the feast of the bushman.
“Ain’t got no jam,” Whistler apologized. “But got some golden syrup. Quarter the price.”
“So hungry, I’d eat the lard straight.”
Whistler stirred the tea, bubbling and nearly black. He poured it into the cans. “Been outta work awhile then?”
“Yeah. Vets comin’ back from the war. Cripples wiv medals. Can’t compete.”
The old man handed the scalding cup to Ghan, who held it unflinchingly with callused fingers. “They took the leg off?”
“Yeah.”
“It hurt?”
“Like the devil.”
Whistler shuddered. “Have t’kill me first. Don’t have the guts fer the knife. Feel all sick inside jist thinkin’ ’bout it.” Then he laughed so hard drool dripped down his chin. “See whot happens when yeh got a fam’ly full of girls! Makes a man soft as butter!”
“How the girls?” Ghan remembered the five children, all a year apart, blond and sweet. Whistler would watch them with tears, the love just pouring out of his eyes.
“All married. Got good blokes, too. Thank Gawd! No drunks, no hitters.” The man smiled with pride. “Guess how many grandkids I got?”
“How many?”
“Twelve. Wanna know how many are girls? Eleven! Gawd damn it!” Whistler sparkled even as he complained. “Eleven gawd damn girls! Like I got sweet nectar in my blood instead of steel. How a tough-arse devil like me get all ’em girls?”
Ghan chuckled and sipped his tea while Whistler heated the frying pan. Fat melted and bubbled around the blobs of dough, the smell bringing gurgles and grunts from his empty belly.
“My wife . . . yeh ’member Pippa, don’t yeh?” he asked.
“Course. Pretty as yer girls.”
Whistler’s eyes glistened with the compliment. “Died awhile back. Long time now.” He poked at the browning dough with a fork and flipped the damper over, splashing angry grease over the side. “Miss her somepin awful. Doesn’t matter how long she’s been gone, still hurts.” He pounded his chest. “Right in here. Somepin missin’. Gawd, I miss her.”
Ghan stared into the dark steaming tea, his reflection wavy and distorted. He lifted it to his lips and drank the drawn look away.
Whistler set a tin plate and shoveled the dough, the damper’s bloated sides slicked with oil for only a second before drying. He drizzled the golden syrup on and the flies followed. The men ate with food in one hand while swatting flies with the other.
“Whot job they give yeh?” Whistler asked.
“Diggin’.”
The man stopped chewing, the squished dough visible between his lips. “Underground?”
“Yeah.”
“How long it been since yeh dug?”
“Don’t quite know.” Ghan squinted at the smoke leaving the hole in the top of the tent. “Fifteen . . . twenty years maybe.”
The wrinkles fell in the old man’s face. “Why the hell yeh goin’ back under?”
“Told yeh. Need work.”
“No. No. No-oo-oo!” His lips twisted defiantly. “Too long, mate. Once yeh been aboveground that long, it’ll kill yeh t’go back under. Don’t do it.”
“Gotta.”
“Naw.” Whistler swallowed the rest of the dough without gumming it. “Listen t’me, Ghan. Get outta the diggin’ fer that long an’ it’s too hard gettin’ back in. The sun changes a man; the air gets in his lungs again an’ he likes it. Goin’ underground feel like somebody holdin’ yer head underwater.”
Ghan chewed on the dough, couldn’t taste it now. “Ain’t got no choice.”
The man combed his wiry chest hairs with broken nails. “Damn, wish I could get yeh on pickin’ duty wiv me. Doin’ it so long, the managers don’t see me no different than a machine. Got a line a mile long waitin’ fer me to die so somebody can move into my spot.” His face sagged. “Damn, wish I could get yeh a place there wiv me.”
The last of the damper disappeared, leaving round, wet stains on the plate. The flies went to work cleaning, the worry of a swat now gone. “Come on.” Whistler stood and moved out of the tent. “I’ll show yeh the neighborhood.”
The men swerved lazily between the tents, some all canvas, some reinforced with hessian and metal drums, some large enough to fit full families, some nearly too small for a grown man. “G’day, Mrs. Riccioli,” greeted Whistler with a short bow.
A fine-looking woman with black hair pulled tight around her face stopped her sweeping. “Morning.” She smiled. “You awanna eat somepin? You alookin’ too skinny, Whistler!”
He stuck out his stomach. “Got t’keep m’figure fer the ladies, yeh know!” Whistler leaned to Ghan’s ear and whispered, “Those E-talians always tryin’ to feed yeh, specially the women. Good people. ’Cept fer those blasted motorbikes.”
Whistler gave a quick wave to the woman and led Ghan up the line. “Got most of the tents divided like a map. Got the E-talians over here, farthest away. Got the Aussies clustered closer to town. Then yeh got a mix of Slavs an’ Poles an’ couple other blokes scattered round. All work fine together in the pit, but aboveground, they can’t see past their own flags. Used to be a bunch of Germans, but they got run out wiv the war. Shame, too. They were good blokes, strong an’ funny. Gave up a fight leavin’. Poor blokes got their pants licked. Wonder where a German suppose to go when everyone hates ’im. Where yeh think they go, Ghan?”
“Back t’Germany.”
“Naw. Those blokes hated that Kaiser more than anybody. Must be hard bein’ a man wivout a land. Must be hard.” He laughed merrily then. “Gawd damn it! See whot I’m sayin’ ’bout havin’ all those girls? Soft as butter, I am. Melt in yer gawddamn mouth!”
They hobbled past Italian flags, flapping pathetically, half-shredded from razored dust. “More E-talians comin’ every day,” Whistler warned. “Tippin’ the scales. Ain’t good. Makin’ people mad. Not me, course. I could give a crap. But yeh can feel the grumblin’. Anger startin’ to simmer. Managers cuttin’ the wages left and right; makin’ hours longer. I don’t like it.” Whistler slowed his bowed legs. “See the new owner yet: Mr. ’Arrington?”
“Don’t think so.”
“Aw, you’d know. Trust me. He’s a Yank from heel to collar. Got a new clean suit every day. A real dandy. But got hard eyes, that one. Kind of fella that’ll be smilin’ while he’s hurtin’ yeh. Makin’ enemies but makin’ friends, too. The important ones. Holds parties at the hotel all the time. Got lawyers, doctors, government men linin’ up fer drinks an’ gamblin’. Even the sheriff. ’Em boys like the ladies, too. Annie’s whores used to come t’town every Tuesday. Now they’re here three nights a week. Seems everybody wiv a vice is makin’ money—the gamers, the whores, the distillers. But us, the good blokes, out here starvin’.” He sidestepped a trail of soapy water running from a tent. “Ground gettin’ angry. Bubblin’. Don’t like it one bit, I tell yeh.”
“Always been that way.”
“Naw. Not like this. Always been some group or ’nother outta sorts but not like this. Greed is gettin’ too big. The big men gettin’ bigger; the small men gettin’ smaller . . . so small yeh start to not feel like a man anymore—just a big hairless rat crawlin’ outta the pit.”
Ghan chuckled. “Old age makin’ yeh bitter, mate.”
Whistler didn’t laugh. “Ain’t bitter, Ghan. Just seen a lot. Got awake. Near dead in years but finally awake an’ seein’ things how they is.” Whistler’s voice turned cold. “This kind of anger, the one that’s brewin’ from the tents and pits, gives an old man the shivers.”