It was still dark when I woke, roused by a soft scrabbling, the rustle of shaken vegetation. Some small marsupial, perhaps, moving through the brush outside? But the sounds continued, and as I listened, I was able to locate them more precisely: not outside, I realised, but within the walls of our flimsy shelter.
Lying in bed as a small child, I would shiver as the owls called from the beechwood or feel the hairs on my neck prickle at the vixen’s scream as she quartered the dark fields in search of a mate. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of out there,’ my mother would say, leaning over me with a candle in her hand, her fine features irradiated like those of the angel in the east window of the church; and when I was a little older, no less fearful but ashamed to call out, I would repeat her words like a charm as I lay listening to the stir of nocturnal life in the darkness outside. Now, in a wilderness shared with blacksnakes and death-adders, I was learning a fear scarcely less intense than my childhood terrors, and altogether more rational. I felt my arm trembling beneath me as I eased myself forward and fumbled for the lamp and matches.
But it was Bullen, I saw, as the flame steadied on the wick, who had disturbed me. He was lying on his back, arms raised, groping blindly to and fro across the ferny ledge behind his head. I threw back my blanket and scrambled towards him.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘My pillow.’ His voice was hoarse and plaintive, like a troubled child’s. ‘I can’t find my pillow.’
‘You have no pillow,’ I said. ‘Lie still now and rest.’
He screwed up his eyes as though he were about to cry. In the dull lamplight his brow and neck glistened with perspiration; his shirt was drenched.
‘My mother’s gone for water,’ he said, ‘but she’ll be back soon. She knows where my pillow is.’
I pulled a shirt from my pack, folded it neatly and slipped it beneath his head. He lay quiet for a moment, then rose awkwardly on one elbow, leaning towards me but with his gaze fixed fiercely on the shadows at my back. His tongue moved restlessly between his cracked lips.
‘What is it?’ I seized him by the shoulder, leaning close, trying to intercept his crazed stare.
‘I thought she’d be back by now,’ he said. And then, with sudden, startling vehemence: ‘Damn the bitch. Out dancing while her own son dies of thirst.’ His head drooped and he began to rock back and forth, whimpering softly to himself.
‘Sssh,’ I said, as soothingly as my own unease allowed, ‘lie back now.’ I patted the folded shirt with the flat of my hand. ‘There’s your pillow.’
‘But no water.’ He seemed to reflect for a moment. ‘Are we in hell?’
‘No. Not in hell.’
‘Then there must be water.’
The logic was wild but the fact was indisputable. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘there’s water.’ I picked up the lamp and took the pan and ladle from the rock-shelf. I could feel his eyes on me, anxiously following my movements.
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I shall be back in a few minutes.’ I ducked outside and made my way to the far edge of the platform.
I knew, of course, that it would have been safer to walk back up the track at first light to collect fresh water from the cascade. But think about it: a three-mile trek with no better container than a couple of chipped mugs and a lidless cooking-pan, Bullen helpless with fever and racked by thirst, Billy perhaps waiting for rescue … My reasoning, I would maintain even now, was essentially sound; but if my experience out there taught me anything at all, it was that we live in a world that cares nothing for reason.
The wallabies’ carcasses, I noticed, had been disturbed by scavengers, the soft flesh of their bellies torn open. I raised the lamp. A slick shine off the spilled entrails, off the pooled water around them; a whiff of staling blood. I skirted the remains and picked my way across the plashy ground until I judged myself well clear of their taint; then I squatted down and began to fill the pan, dipping the ladle where the water lay deepest, careful to avoid stirring the sediment below.
As I worked, I became aware of Bullen’s voice drifting out to me on the quiet air, the words incomprehensible but edged with anger or desperation. I finished my task as quickly as I could and hurried back to the shelter.
He was staring up at the roof but turned his face to the light as I entered, scarcely pausing in his monologue, his eyes wide and vacant. I spoke his name softly, but he gave no sign of having heard. ‘Bullen,’ I said again. ‘It’s Redbourne.’
His gaze flickered. ‘I know who you are,’ he said aggressively. ‘What do you want?’
‘Nothing. You were talking to yourself.’
‘Not to myself. To my mother. She’s come back without. Says I can get my own damned water. Her very words. That’s not natural, now, is it?’
‘Your mother’s not here, Bullen. Only me.’ I set the lamp and the pan of water on the ground beside him.
‘And Billy?’
‘Sit up now.’
He eased himself laboriously on to his left side and propped himself on his elbow again. ‘I dreamed I’d killed him,’ he whispered.
‘Drink this.’ I dipped the ladle and held it to his lips.
He drew back, averting his face. ‘Poisoned,’ he said. ‘I can smell it.’
‘Come on, now. You’ll feel better for it.’
‘Poisoned,’ he insisted. ‘Smell for yourself.’ He pushed the ladle away and slumped sideways to the ground.
I bent forward and sniffed at the water. The faintest tang of iron and rot; nothing to speak of. ‘It’s not as fresh as it might be,’ I admitted, ‘but we’ve no choice at present.’
‘There’s running water somewhere. Listen.’
I could hear nothing but the dry whisper of the breeze in the eucalyptus leaves and the monotonous croaking of the frogs. ‘I’ll get you fresh water when I can,’ I said, ‘but you’ll have to make do with this in the meantime.’ I slid my right hand beneath his head and tried to raise him, but he twisted away.
‘I can’t drink that filth,’ he said.
‘Then you must go without.’ I banged the ladle angrily back into the pan, but he reached out and gripped me by the wrist. ‘Give me the water,’ he said, bearing down on my arm as he raised himself again. ‘I shall have to drink something.’
He grimaced as he swallowed, like a child taking medicine; then he snatched the ladle from my hand, refilled it and drank more greedily, the water spilling in a small clear runnel from the corner of his mouth. He wiped his forearm across his chin and lay back, letting the ladle drop.
His breathing was quick and his colour high, but the agitation was gone from his face and his movements seemed calmer. After a moment his eyes closed and, judging that he had no further need of me, I extinguished the lamp again and returned to my couch.