Walkabout - James Vance Marshall [31]
‘Say, Pete,’ the girl had a sudden thought. ‘Remember that pool way back in the salt-pan. Remember how the darkie sucked up water with a reed. We can do that.’
They searched for and found a couple of hollow reeds: reeds of the watermat grass. Mary remembered to plug one end with moss (as a filter); then they plunged the reeds deeply into the pool, and sucked. The water they drew up was clean and cool.
Their thirst was slaked. Their hunger remained.
It was Peter who, purely by luck, solved the food problem. He was idly stirring the pool with his water-mat reed – and dragging all sorts of leaf-mould and water plant to the surface – when he noticed a queer little prawn-like creature clambering out of the stirred-up water.
‘Hey, Mary! There’s food in the pool.’
The girl came running. Eagerly. But when she saw the ‘food’ she wasn’t impressed.
‘He’s awfu’ small, Pete. And all arms and legs.’
‘Maybe there’s other ones.’
Together they peered into the brackish water, but saw nothing.
‘Say, Mary!’ – it was Peter’s turn to think back now – ‘ ’Member how the darkie killed all them fish. Throwing stones. Couldn’t we do that?’
‘No good here, Pete. Stones would go squelch in the mud.’
They stared disconsolately at the pool. Then the girl hit on the answer.
‘I know. Let’s stir up the mud. Anything in the pool will get all choked. Will have to climb out.’
It worked like a charm; better than they had dared to hope. They collected a couple of branches, plunged them into the pool, and churned up the mud. In seconds the water took on the consistency of soup: thick soup; brown and heavy: creamed with mud and scum. And almost at once the yabbies – diminutive crayfish of the bush – came bobbing up to the surface. Choked and blinded, they fled their mud-bed haunts; desperately, like drowning men, they struggled for the bank. Bedraggled, they hauled themselves up –out of the frying-pan into the fire. For on the banks the children were waiting for them. They snatched them up; smashed their heads against the earth; killing them instantly. On and on the slaughter went, till a full three dozen yabbies (each between four and eight inches long) lay dead beside the pool.
It was Mary who called a halt.
‘That’s enough, Pete. Let’s not kill any more.’
The yabbies, roasted on fire-heated stones, made a delicious meal. The children ate their fill, and still had enough left over for breakfast.
Soon, curled close together, they settled down for the night.
It was cooler in the hills, and they were glad of the warmth of the fire. The girl had dragged up an extra large supply of branches; and from these she picked out a couple of arm-thick trunks, and tossed them on to the fire. The sparks flew skyward; wreaths of wood-smoke drifted across the stars; down-valley a dingo howled at the crescent moon. Charleston was in another world.
They woke cold and coated with dew; but the resurrected fire warmed them quickly, and a breakfast of yabbies put them in good heart. They collected another two dozen of the crayfish out of the pool – for the way ahead looked barren and devoid of food – then, Peter leading, they hit off across the hills, skirting the pyramid of wine-veined quartz.
The hills had a primeval grandeur. They had been old when the Himalayas were first folded out of the level plain. Their rocky slopes were hard; enduring; unchanging from aeon to aeon. The children traversed them slowly: ants on a gargantuan tableau.
In the clear, hazeless light distances and angles were hard to judge. Slopes that looked an easy ten minutes’ stroll turned out to be an hour’s exhausting climb. And always at the top of one rise was another: wave after wave of swelling hillocks, always steepening, always climbing; never dropping away, never falling into the longed-for valley.
In silence the children plodded on, watched by blue-wrens and moffets that tucked their