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This edition published by ETT Imprint, Exile Bay 2017
First published in Australia by Angus & Robertson 1992 First published in the USA by HarperCollinsWorld 1993
Reprinted in 1993
Copyright © Mudrooroo 1992, 2017
This book is copyright.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be addressed to the publishers:
ETT IMPRINT
PO Box R1906
Royal Exchange NSW 1225
Australia
ISBN 978-1-925706-11-6 (eBook)
Cover illustration by Gretta Kool
To the men who did time in Fremantle Prison
1.
Back Again
Well, I can dream can’t I? Dream ?—nightmares, more like it. All I have to do is dream, dream, scream ... I’m now walking through this posh suburb, walking?—more like slinking. Wildcat on the prowl. Naw, though maybe checking out the streets for a bust. Eyes dart this way, that way, all ways, focus, man, on the main chance. Take it and break it real good; but are there any chances left? Not with my luck! Yeah, it’s like that! And then this kid, this tiny kid with mum in tow oozing milk outa her breasts so that I can smell it and all anxious loving eyes, but not for me, comes outa this nice neat home and across the nice neat closely cropped green lawn, smooth as a snooker table. And they come onto the nice clean pavement, littered only with this slinking black cat, who has no business being there except to raid their neat rubbish bins with their garbage all wrapped up and sprayed so that it’ll smell good as that woman oozing her milky smell, though not for me.
The kid catches her distaste, she ain’t ever going to give me a saucer full, and picks up a pebble and with all the viciousness that kids are capable of, flings it at me. It hits me on the right leg, shin bone, and I look down at the instantly formed scar, still hurting like her glance, like her milky smell, and I stare at that kid with murder in my eyes, and snarl: ‘You rotten little brat, just wait till I get hold of you.’ I drag my leg towards him and the white lady, the mum becomes all hot and bothered, she flushes red. ‘Yo! I gotta have protection in this world,’ I begin; but she isn’t listening. Her milky smell turns sour; her eyes incandescent with morality turn, spitting fire and fury at me. ‘He’s only a child,’ she says.
‘Ain’t we all, lady, and I’m going to get that fucker ...’ and just then the leg collapses under me and I’m down on my hands and knees, belly down flat on the ground, ears laid back and tail droopy. Just a pussy cat. Nice looking one though, but she won’t take me in; not even a sour saucer of milk for me. Another stone lands on my back and I scoot away. The lady laughs and says: ‘You aren’t no child, you’re just an animal and should be locked up ...’
Well lady, you’ve got your wish. This so-called menace to society is not going to slink around your nice clean lives for a long, long spell. They’re, you’re going to lock him up ...
So much for dreams and nightmares, screams and accusations. Now I’m suffering just for being alive and not doing so well outa it. Just sitting here with my arm hurting like blazes and my mind hurting like blazes, and there’s a scream sounding and resounding in my head. Shake it, sound tremolos, screeches to a new height, cuts out. Blessed silence; but, man, I’m more than depressed. Depression you can wear, dig? But this is more than that. Like all those sad songs you bought from the jukebox ganging up on you and dragging at your guts. That’s how I’m feeling. Got the ‘Who’s Sorry Now Blues’, and I’m huddling there filled with all that painful feeling, when this old digger with the scabby face, you know, the old red and peeling one of a true rummy, enters my misery and goes into this spiel. Yeah, man. I listen, got to get my mind off my troubles, off the misery in my guts, off the pain from that arm. The right one, because the cops in their infinite wisdom forgot that I was left-handed when they broke it. Stupid cunstables!
‘I was at the Cove,’ says the old codger. ‘9th Battalion, 1st Company under Red Ryder. Anzac Cove, went in on the first boat, and guess what?’ he asks.
‘Well, guess what?’ I fling back at him.
‘We hit the wrong bloody spot and get just this far up that bleeding beach. Red Ryder said “all over”, but it was the wrong bloody beach and we get just this far over,’ he replies, moving a space between his two trembling hands.
‘Well, my great-grandfather was at the battle of Pinjarra,’ I retort, not being provocative, but sorta to put him in his silly old place, though what battle was it when they came up on us, men, women and children and shot us down making us no tomorrow ...
‘Never heard of that one, mate,’ he replies, his ears pricking up as if to appropriate it for later use; and I think would Jacko Turk understand this thing they done to us?
‘Yeah, it’s when you blokes murdered a lot of us Nyoongahs, men, women and children,’ and I smile (if looks could kill) at him as he switches off like a good soldier hearing the word ‘volunteer’.
‘I was at the Cove,’ he begins again, and I can’t help thinking that he’s evading the issue of my smile. He repeats again, adding detail for my delectation. ‘I was at the Cove,’ he repeats adding detail as if it meant something to me. ‘I was at the Cove,’ he repeats, as if it’ll mean more to me by repetition. ‘Ever been in a big mob of ships?’ He goes on, ‘Ever been amongst a big mob of men waiting and thinking while they order you here and there and back again? It was like that, nice peaceful night with the orders shouting up at the starry sky and they push us into those boats. Thirty or forty to a boat, squashed in like sardines, mashed together like bully beef. Little steamboat come puffing up, lines are thrown, linking us up, three boats to that little tug, and then we are off to God knows where. The land humps on the horizon, but as we are just out from Gyppoland we know it ain’t France. We hang in there, not muttering a word ‘cause we are ordered not to. Dark and peaceful, just before dawn. But, cobber, what I remember still is a bloody great flare coming out of the funnel of that tug. It scares the shit outa us, but you know, there is worse to come ...’
‘Worse to come,’ I mutter. There is worse to come, yeah.
‘Worse,’ he repeats. ‘Know what happens to poor diggers, like me? Discarded, like you Abos,’ he whines. ‘What use are we when the fighting’s done? Cannon fodder, mate, that’s us.’
‘Well, you shouldn’t go waving that gun of yours around,’ I sneer, for he’s a flasher as well as a rummy.
‘But, you know what,’ he goes on with that one-groove mind of his, ‘can take this place standing on me head. Army life, cobber, army life is just like boob. What can they throw at you after you’ve had the sergeant major dressing you down, up, sideways and back, you tell me that?’
‘Yeah, it’ll be just like those good old days again, won’t it? That sergeant major of yours is now a screw, ain’t he?’
‘Yeah, but he wasn’t at· the Cove,’ the silly old bugger says, just as if the arm of the gramophone
