Joe Wilson and His Mates [62]
It looked like two corpses
laid out naked. I finished the whisky and started up over the gap.
All of a sudden a great `old man' kangaroo went across the track
with a thud-thud, and up the siding, and that startled me.
Then the naked, white glistening trunk of a stringy-bark tree,
where some one had stripped off a sheet of bark, started out
from a bend in the track in a shaft of moonlight, and that gave me a jerk.
I was pretty shaky before I started. There was a Chinaman's grave
close by the track on the top of the gap. An old chow had lived
in a hut there for many years, and fossicked on the old diggings,
and one day he was found dead in the hut, and the Government
gave some one a pound to bury him. When I was a nipper
we reckoned that his ghost haunted the gap, and cursed in Chinese
because the bones hadn't been sent home to China. It was a lonely,
ghostly place enough.
`It had been a smotheringly hot day and very close coming across the flats
and up the gully -- not a breath of air; but now as I got higher
I saw signs of the thunderstorm we'd expected all day, and felt the breath
of a warm breeze on my face. When I got into the top of the gap
the first thing I saw was something white amongst the dark bushes
over the spot where the Chinaman's grave was, and I stood staring at it
with both eyes. It moved out of the shadow presently, and I saw that it
was a white bullock, and I felt relieved. I'd hardly felt relieved when,
all at once, there came a "pat-pat-pat" of running feet close behind me!
I jumped round quick, but there was nothing there, and while I stood
staring all ways for Sunday, there came a "pat-pat", then a pause,
and then "pat-pat-pat-pat" behind me again: it was like some one
dodging and running off that time. I started to walk down the track
pretty fast, but hadn't gone a dozen yards when "pat-pat-pat",
it was close behind me again. I jerked my eyes over my shoulder
but kept my legs going. There was nothing behind, but I fancied I saw
something slip into the Bush to the right. It must have been the moonlight
on the moving boughs; there was a good breeze blowing now. I got down
to a more level track, and was making across a spur to the main road,
when "pat-pat!" "pat-pat-pat, pat-pat-pat!" it was after me again.
Then I began to run -- and it began to run too! "pat-pat-pat" after me
all the time. I hadn't time to look round. Over the spur and down the siding
and across the flat to the road I went as fast as I could split my legs apart.
I had a scared idea that I was getting a touch of the "jim-jams",
and that frightened me more than any outside ghost could have done.
I stumbled a few times, and saved myself, but, just before I reached the road,
I fell slithering on to my hands on the grass and gravel.
I thought I'd broken both my wrists. I stayed for a moment
on my hands and knees, quaking and listening, squinting round
like a great gohana; I couldn't hear nor see anything. I picked myself up,
and had hardly got on one end, when "pat-pat!" it was after me again.
I must have run a mile and a half altogether that night.
It was still about three-quarters of a mile to the camp,
and I ran till my heart beat in my head and my lungs choked up in my throat.
I saw our tent-fire and took off my hat to run faster. The footsteps stopped,
then something about the hat touched my fingers, and I stared at it --
and the thing dawned on me. I hadn't noticed at Peter Anderson's --
my head was too swimmy to notice anything. It was an old hat of the style
that the first diggers used to wear, with a couple of loose ribbon ends,
three or four inches long, from the band behind. As long as I walked quietly
through the gully, and there was no wind, the tails didn't flap,
but when I got up into the breeze, they flapped or were still
according to how the wind lifted them or pressed them down flat on the brim.
And when I ran they tapped all the time; and the hat being tight on my head,
the tapping of the ribbon ends against the straw sounded loud of course.
laid out naked. I finished the whisky and started up over the gap.
All of a sudden a great `old man' kangaroo went across the track
with a thud-thud, and up the siding, and that startled me.
Then the naked, white glistening trunk of a stringy-bark tree,
where some one had stripped off a sheet of bark, started out
from a bend in the track in a shaft of moonlight, and that gave me a jerk.
I was pretty shaky before I started. There was a Chinaman's grave
close by the track on the top of the gap. An old chow had lived
in a hut there for many years, and fossicked on the old diggings,
and one day he was found dead in the hut, and the Government
gave some one a pound to bury him. When I was a nipper
we reckoned that his ghost haunted the gap, and cursed in Chinese
because the bones hadn't been sent home to China. It was a lonely,
ghostly place enough.
`It had been a smotheringly hot day and very close coming across the flats
and up the gully -- not a breath of air; but now as I got higher
I saw signs of the thunderstorm we'd expected all day, and felt the breath
of a warm breeze on my face. When I got into the top of the gap
the first thing I saw was something white amongst the dark bushes
over the spot where the Chinaman's grave was, and I stood staring at it
with both eyes. It moved out of the shadow presently, and I saw that it
was a white bullock, and I felt relieved. I'd hardly felt relieved when,
all at once, there came a "pat-pat-pat" of running feet close behind me!
I jumped round quick, but there was nothing there, and while I stood
staring all ways for Sunday, there came a "pat-pat", then a pause,
and then "pat-pat-pat-pat" behind me again: it was like some one
dodging and running off that time. I started to walk down the track
pretty fast, but hadn't gone a dozen yards when "pat-pat-pat",
it was close behind me again. I jerked my eyes over my shoulder
but kept my legs going. There was nothing behind, but I fancied I saw
something slip into the Bush to the right. It must have been the moonlight
on the moving boughs; there was a good breeze blowing now. I got down
to a more level track, and was making across a spur to the main road,
when "pat-pat!" "pat-pat-pat, pat-pat-pat!" it was after me again.
Then I began to run -- and it began to run too! "pat-pat-pat" after me
all the time. I hadn't time to look round. Over the spur and down the siding
and across the flat to the road I went as fast as I could split my legs apart.
I had a scared idea that I was getting a touch of the "jim-jams",
and that frightened me more than any outside ghost could have done.
I stumbled a few times, and saved myself, but, just before I reached the road,
I fell slithering on to my hands on the grass and gravel.
I thought I'd broken both my wrists. I stayed for a moment
on my hands and knees, quaking and listening, squinting round
like a great gohana; I couldn't hear nor see anything. I picked myself up,
and had hardly got on one end, when "pat-pat!" it was after me again.
I must have run a mile and a half altogether that night.
It was still about three-quarters of a mile to the camp,
and I ran till my heart beat in my head and my lungs choked up in my throat.
I saw our tent-fire and took off my hat to run faster. The footsteps stopped,
then something about the hat touched my fingers, and I stared at it --
and the thing dawned on me. I hadn't noticed at Peter Anderson's --
my head was too swimmy to notice anything. It was an old hat of the style
that the first diggers used to wear, with a couple of loose ribbon ends,
three or four inches long, from the band behind. As long as I walked quietly
through the gully, and there was no wind, the tails didn't flap,
but when I got up into the breeze, they flapped or were still
according to how the wind lifted them or pressed them down flat on the brim.
And when I ran they tapped all the time; and the hat being tight on my head,
the tapping of the ribbon ends against the straw sounded loud of course.