Capricornia. Xavier Herbert

rushed into the humpy, and shrieking, flung himself into the outstretched arms of Anna.

      “Whazzer madder liddel man?” she crooned. “Aw wazzer madder wid de liddle myall now?”

      She hugged him close and kissed his distorted face and nursed him and petted him till he could find the voice to speak.

      “Oh trice!” he moaned. “Dibil-dibil—dibil-dibil——Oh jeezon trice!”

       THE COPPER CREEK TRAIN

      THE life of an infant is like a passage over a gigantic strip of carpet that rolls out ahead and up behind as one goes on, hiding the future and obliterating the past. While living with Fat Anna little Nawnim was aware of no other state of existence. Flying Fox and its associations had faded from his mind. The world was the region visible from the humpy, its people the crabs and snipe and occasional crocodile that haunted the shores of Devilfish Bay, and Anna herself, and her Japs an’ Chows, and the devil-devil of the railway-yards, and the few brave whitemen who worked there.

      He spent with Anna what seemed to him a lifetime, but was in fact ten days. Then one night Jock and Mark and Chook came, appearing to him like monsters materialised out of a forgotten nightmare. That was the day before the mail-train’s fortnightly trip to Copper Creek. Next morning Anna woke him early, washed and fed and dressed him with more than usual care, then carried him up to and through the Yards to a whitewashed iron shed that bore on a board in great black letters the name PORT ZODIAC. He himself carried a newspaper-parcel containing a pawpaw and a huge beef-sandwich and a lump of toffee. He knew he was going somewhere, having been told so repeatedly by Anna, but cared about it not at all, supposing that she was going with him.

      A noisy crowd of people of all the primary colours of humanity and of most of the tints obtainable by miscegenation was gathered about the train, moving freely, with neither platforms nor officials to impede it. Somewhat to Nawnim’s consternation, Anna shouldered through the crowds, chatting with people as she went, and pushed about till she found Mark and Chook and Jock Driver. While she was talking to these monsters, each vainly tried his hand at petting Nawnim, who would not take from any hand but Anna’s even the large bag of lollies Mark had brought him. At length Jock gave Anna some money and a pinch on the rump. Then she went off with Nawnim, past the three coaches provided for superior passengers, to the trucks at the front, where the crowd was entirely black. She squeezed him for a while, and kissed and petted him, then passed him to a blackboy. Before he was properly aware of his transfer, he was swung into the air. His heart stopped. A momentary glimpse of the jostling crowd, a last sight of Anna’s face; then he was dropped into an open truck.

      A sense of desolation smote him. He would have bawled and hammered on the wall before him had he not suddenly become aware of the presence of three black naked piccaninnies and a large mangy mongrel dog, all of whom stared at him so hard that he forgot his forming purpose in staring back. Then the dog attacked him, writhing with friendliness, knocked him down, licked him, tore open his parcel, gobbled his bread-and-beef. The piccaninnies pounced on the rolling pawpaw. He had the wits to grab the sweets.

      He had no time to recall the desolation. Scarcely had he recovered from the welcome when the locomotive came. It came horribly, rumbling and grumbling and clanking and hissing, all the more horribly because it could not be seen. All the piccaninnies stiffened. Their faces became blank. Their eyes widened and assumed expressions of sightlessness that told of full sensory powers flung into the one of tense audition. The locomotive stopped, so close that its hot breath choked the listeners and its frightful noises entered their very hearts.

      A terrible voice——“Good-o——ease-up!”

      Hsssssssssssss!

      The voice——“Wha——ho there!”

      Crash! The couplings clanked throughout the train. The children fell. The black ones howled at top of lungs. Nawnim was silent, clinging desperately to the struggling dog. They rose together, to stand huddled like yarded sheep. Hiss and bubble and clatter and chatter and bunkerlunk behind them and around.

      Then to the sudden great delight of the black ones, their parents climbed over the side. Nawnim turned from watching wild embracings to look for Anna. He was watching when a bell clanged. One of the children shrieked, as though the brazen tongue had struck on flesh. Nawnim gasped.

      The voice——“Aller—bo—ud!”

      Sounds waxed louder, reached a climax, suddenly stilled. Then pheeeeeeeeep! And the voice——“Rightaway Fitz—ledder go!”

      Dead silence—silence presaging a dire event. Nawnim’s knees knocked.

      Then a Shriek——a Hssss——then Snort! Snort! Snort! The truck leapt under Nawnim’s feet. He reeled, clutching at the wall. Then the engine shrieked again, and hissed and raged and roared and filled the truck with smoke and steam and cinders.

      Nawnim fell on the dog, which yelped and snapped. Chaos raged in the undercarriage. Wheels groaned and squealed and thumped. Chains and drawbars rattled and crashed. No piccaninny shrieked louder then than Nawnim. He thought it was The End.

      A few sound whacks from a hard black hand soon told him that he was alive and with his kind. The black hand lifted him from the floor and dumped him in a sitting posture by the wall. Overhead reeled black and white clouds in a sapphire sky, and rocky walls and grass and trees, all dancing madly.

      After a while his terror subsided. Rain poured down and proved his condition earthly at least. Rain roared and raged down. The truck would have been filled to the top but for the gaping holes in its bottom. Then the sun beat down and charged the soaking truck with steam and the stench of sweating flesh. By now little Nawnim had found a crack in the wall he leant against. He examined it carefully to be assured that it was no inlet for danger, then set an eye to it, to see a world of trees go spinning by in a wild arboreal corroboree. A red wall leapt at him. He gasped and hastily withdrew. But nothing happened; so he peeped again, and stared and stared and was amazed.

      The train roared over culverts rocking, clattered over bridges shuddering, panted up inclines clanking, raged down declivities rattling as though falling to pieces. Swollen creeks flew underneath; jungles flashed by; stony hills leapt out of grassy plains and plunged into forests; flocks of geese swept up from swamps; a herd of buffalo charged into the bush; while little Nawnim stared and stared and was amazed.

      Back from the engine with the din and smoke and soot and steam were flung the chink of glass and the sound of whitemen’s voices raised in song; and similar sounds joined the whirlwind that followed the van; for the progress of the train to Copper Creek was not so much a business as a pleasure, not so much a journey as a locomotive picnic for the passengers and crew.

      Sometimes the engine stopped for water, or to drop stores at fettlers’ camps, or to accumulate the steam to take it up a heavy grade. It was an old machine and badly strained and prodigal of its vitality. On account of the prodigality, stops were sometimes made to give the fireman a rest and a chance to damp with something from a bottle the fire he stoked within himself while feeding the greedy furnace. And at least two stops were made while the engineer went back with water to extinguish fires that had broken out in axle-boxes missed by the Inspector of Rolling-Stock. When the train was stopped, the clinking and singing could be heard to better advantage by the people in the trucks, who looked towards the source and licked their sooty lips.

      So the hours passed. Little Nawnim, worn out in body and mind by buffetings and sights and sounds, at length fell asleep with head on the weary dog. And while he slept the niggers ate his sweets.

      At two o’clock in the afternoon the train bowled over the Caroline River Bridge and rolled into the 80-Mile Siding, just as Mrs Pansy McLash, the keeper of the Siding House, was flogging a herd of goats from her garden. The goats surged on to the railway, intent on escaping the stockwhip whistling behind; and Mrs McLash went after them, intent on teaching them the lesson of their lives. The small crowd waiting before the