Collected Australian Stories

By Paul Morrison

COLLECTED AUSTRALIAN STORIES is a visit into the Australian mind and the various facets of this ancient land. The impressive culture of the Aborigines, the original inhabitants of the land is brought to life in such stories as The Challenge and The Stone Country. Other stories such as The Wejii Man examine deeper cultural beliefs. The more recent history of Australia is also explored through such stories as Lost Souls, a story of hope and despair in the convict Australia of the early 19th century, as well as the haunting and ghostly story of The Light Keeper’s Wife. The unique Australian humour, which may bring more than a smile to the face of the reader is visited in several of the stories, including The Bunyip Hunters and The Day the Railway Came To Bumbaldry. This Australian mosaic of 30 fictional and entertaining stories included in this volume will allow the reader to discover how the people and the land merge in the eyes and the creative imagination of an Australian story teller...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paul Morrison
• Release date: Jul 2, 2013
• ISBN: 9781925074055

Paul Morrison

Paul Morrison, a retired museologist, has also been a writer for most of his life. “I cannot remember a time when I was not writing, even when I was five or six years old. I grew up with books such as TREASURE ISLAND, 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA and THE TIME MACHINE — these and the many other books which I read in my early years fed my imagination, a voracious imagination transporting me to faraway places, other worlds and to other times in both the recent and the more distant past...” Many of these worlds and places are visited in the novels and short story collections he has written.Besides a love of fiction, Paul also reads widely on ancient history and archaeology. “I am particularly interested in Ancient Egypt, mainly Old Kingdom Egypt during the age of the pyramid builders. I have always been intrigued as to how the pyramids were built and also about the lives of the pharaohs and the workers who constructed the pyramids. There were many questions filling my mind, but few if any answers.” This inquiring interest led to the GIZA TRILOGY books, THE PHARAOH, THE SPHINX and THE THREE QUEENS, a monumental work of well-researched fiction set against the backdrop of the three pyramids on the Giza Plateau. Together, with their associated books, THE DIVINE LIGHT, ETERNAL EGYPT (Supplement to the Giza Trilogy), and SECRET OF THE PYRAMID, these books total more than 1.3 million words! Other books written by Paul cover a wide range of subjects including historical fiction, science fiction, ghost and detective stories as well as many other genres.Paul currently lives in Hobart, Tasmania with his wife in a house overlooking the Derwent River. “The magnificent views of Hobart and Mount Wellington inspire me in my writings — but the most important inspiration is my wife, Helena.”

Book preview

THE STONE COUNTRY

Nothing lived in the stone country. There were no rivers or creeks, no kangaroos or wallabies, no flies even, and certainly no people. It was a lifeless land of sun-bleached dirt and baked rocks, and the only signs of movement were when the winds blew in from the west and the dust rose up in eddies that danced like ghostly spirits across the emptiness of the stone country. This is what one would see at a quick glance, but on further and closer examination it all seemed suddenly and so mysteriously different...

Ants. They were everywhere. They had not been there before — only an hour before when the land rover broke its axle on the dirt track. Benjamin Grujulii watched them with casual interest until a sudden fear overcame him. Ants needed food and there was not much food for them in the stone country. He was a large man with an even larger beer gut and Benji suddenly guessed that the ants were sizing him up for a meal. He glanced at the pale blue sky, partly obscured by the yellow orb of glaring light baking the stones of the stone country as if they were loaves of bread in an oven

It would be dark in another two or three hours. Benji didn’t know the time because he didn’t wear a watch. A watch was only worn by white fellahs; a watch controlled these white fellahs — telling them when this had to be done and when that had to be done. The traditional owners of the land, Benji and his people did not need to be controlled like that. They knew when this had to be done and that had to be done simply when they felt like doing it. It had been that way for many tens of thousands of years...

Benji climbed from the shade of the land rover’s cabin and glanced up and down the dirt track. He had left the mission station six hours before and had another five or so hours before he reached the town. It was still another two hundred kilometres in one direction and probably two hundred in the other to get help. He climbed under the vehicle again and examined the axle until the furious little black dots forced him to retreat. It could be five or more days before anyone came along the track. He now summed up the situation he was in. It did not look good...

He could try and walk out but at best, he could only do ten kilometres a day in the desert heat. There was no shade and certainly no water in the surrounding desert and most likely, he would last only three days. It seemed better to stay where he was.

Benji had always been impulsive and carefree, but now he cursed this impulsiveness. He had set out on a round trip journey through dangerous and uninhabited country, and yet, had foolishly failed to tell anyone at the mission where he was going. He would not be missed. The others would think he was merely going out to inspect the fences along the cattle spread, which was the mission’s only source of income. He had often done this, spending a week or more following the fences from one end to the other. The spread covered more than a thousand square kilometres and was dotted here and there with small dams fed by underground streams. There was always plenty of water — but not here. The underground streams shunned the stone country and there was no water — only the water Benji had brought with him which at best would last no more than four days.

What will I do now? Benji asked himself aloud. He was feeling lonely, a feeling he had never felt before. He needed the sound of a voice, any voice, even his own to take this loneliness away. He glanced up and down the track once more hoping for the dust of another vehicle. There was nothing.

What will I do now? Benji repeated with a sigh of resignation, his attention returning to the nearby ants. He had water for four days but little food, only a packet of biscuits and a chocolate bar. He sighed again, this time more deeply. At least the ants would have something to eat and the thought of this made him shudder.

He remembered Jack Mirriguara and how two years before, they had found his body on another track to the north. It took them five weeks to discover him and what the ants had not eaten, for it was only the soft tissue they ate, had been mummified by the dry heat. Benji remembered seeing the head when it was brought back to the mission station, the only part of the body not devoured by the hungry little creatures. Jack’s head was like tanned leather and though the eyes were missing, (they were soft tissue), the face seemed to have a grim and morbid smile on it, a smile that had disturbed Benji’s sleep for countless nights after. He climbed back into the shade and took out a large, dirty and torn map.

The nearby place names on the map gave him little comfort. There was Lake Disappointment, merely a dry salt flat which only filled during the wet season still four months away; a small cattle station named Last Chance, abandoned more than thirty years before; and a mountain, more of a hill that had been named after a long forgotten explorer who had discovered it sometime in the mid-nineteenth century. Needless to say, the long forgotten explorer had perished after another and later expedition in the same area. Benjamin Grujulii suddenly noticed another mark on the map written in much smaller writing. It was simply called the Creek and seemed to rise from nowhere in particular and flowed to nowhere in particular. He checked the scale on the map with his location, or at least where he thought he was located. It was close, maybe only four or five kilometres to the south-east.

Benji looked to the south where he thought the Creek would be, and then he glanced up at the blinding sun that continued to bake the land beneath it. Five kilometres in this heat might as well be fifty! Of course, when night came it would be cooler but it would also be far more dangerous. He knew there must be snakes hiding beneath the baking rocks during the day, only to come out in the coolness of the night in search of food. What they ate in this seemingly empty land, Benji was not too sure. Besides, the battery in the land rover was unreliable. If the light inside the cabin suddenly went out he would not be able to find his way back in the dark. He would be trapped in the freezing desert until daylight. Five kilometres might as well be fifty...

Benji decided to wait for help. Someone would come along the track in the next day or so. The ants scurrying back and forth kept him amused. He even discovered what it was that they ate. They were cannibals and seemed to fight endless wars, nest against nest, with the dead and the injured carried off by the victors. Soon, they would have the biggest feast they could ever imagine — it was the morning of day three and the track to the east and to the west was empty... Benjamin Grujulii was now becoming desperate.

He remembered what the ‘old fellahs’ had tried to teach him when he was a child. They were the elders of Benji’s tribe, the ones who had guarded the ancient ways taught to them when they themselves were young and which had been passed down by those before them, countless generation after generation after generation. These old fellahs had tried to teach Benji the ways of the land. As he watched the morning sun rise above the horizon, a soft pink ball at first which would soon become a blazing red, Benji remembered their long ago words...

You cannot go hungry, cause there is always plenty of food. You cannot go thirsty, cause there is plenty of water to drink. Even if the land is nothin it is always there, food and water — you just gota’ find it. The old fellahs had tried to teach Benji and the other youngsters where this food and water could be found. The young people, however, showed little interest and were slow, reluctant even to learn. They were more interested in watching television or simply sitting round and doing nothing. And in this doing nothing, nothing was learned. In the last decades of the twentieth century, the old ways, the ways learnt over the many thousands of years and which had protected Benji’s people from the harshness of the land were quickly forgotten. Benji felt a sudden sadness.

The ‘old fellahs’ would never have gone thirsty or hungry in the stone country. They would have feasted. Benji wished he had listened to what they had tried to teach him. Benjamin Grujulii knew he was going to die. He was convinced of it!

It was day five and there were only a few drops of water left for one more day. He would perhaps last only two days beyond that. The ants seemed busier than ever around the broken vehicle. In his desperate frustration, Benji stamped on them and tried to kill as many as he could, but this only succeeded in bringing more and more of the ants out of their nests. It was as if they were preparing for the feast which could not be far away.

When night came on this fifth day, Benji took a blanket from the back seat of the land rover. The night was extremely cold. The battery of the vehicle’s engine, the battery he was using to keep the cabin light on for a few hours each night, a desperate beacon to anyone who might be nearby, (although this possibility was remote), gave him a small comfort and hope. When Benji awoke from his restless sleep it was still dark outside, but the rising sun could not be far away. Already, he could see a faint tinge of grey smudging the line of the horizon to the east. He was suddenly more desperate. If he walked fast he could reach the Creek in less than an hour. He wanted to be back in the shade of the vehicle before midday. He grabbed up an empty jerry can to fill it with the precious water he hoped he would find there. Deep in his now weakened and delirious mind he knew it was all a waste, but Benji did not want to die in the land rover and be eaten by the ants.

The sun rose quickly above the horizon, or so it seemed. He had covered only half the distance. Maybe he was walking too slowly. Though his body was weaker than ever he quickened the pace, stumbling over the bleached and whitened stones of the stone country. He tried to take strength from the old fellahs and what they had told him when he was young. However, the words escaped his confused mind. The burning sun was high in the sky and his exposed body blistered when he finally reached the Creek.

It was in a narrow gorge — it did not surprise him that it was dry. The Creek was merely a seasonal creek that filled only during the wet season, those short months of the year when the rains came and the desert mysteriously blossomed into native flowers and vast patches of wild grass. This wet season was still months away...

Benji sat beneath a large rocky overhang in a corner of the gorge. It was the only shade he could find. He was thinking hard, thinking what the old fellahs had tried to teach him. He lay on his back and looked up at the rocky ceiling beneath the overhang. Though his mind was weakened and his eyes blurred, he was suddenly surprised by what he was now seeing.

Stick figures had been painted on the rock — long and spidery figures painted in red ochre. Some were hunting equally thin and spidery kangaroos while others seemed to be dancing. There were women and children also painted on the walls of the rock. They were the ancient ancestors: Benji Grujulii’s ancestors. A strange sensation came over him. He no longer felt alone. He was sure that the ghostly and spidery figures were watching over him. He began to hum a song, an old tribal song taught to him by his grandmother when Benji was barely five years old. The words were coming back to him quickly beneath the cooling shade of the overhanging rock. Benji was now thinking hard. He looked at the patch of sand in the far corner of the gorge near where he lay — it was all coming back to him, the words of the old fellahs. Would their words be enough?

The Aborigine stockman, (stockman: Herder of cattle over vast distances) was driving the cattle to the water hole when he noticed the figure walking towards him. The figure looked thin and exhausted, and leaving the cattle to continue their journey, the stockman walked his horse cautiously towards the unexpected visitor.

Benji Grujulii, cried an exhausted voice.

Is that you, Benjamin Grujulii? called back the surprised stockman as he continued moving his horse forward but now more quickly. Benji Grujulii had been missing for three weeks in the desert and was dead! The stockman pulled his horse to a sudden halt several metres from the man who continued stumbling towards him. Are you his ghost?

I’m no ghost, called back the weakened voice. I’m Benjamin Grujulii. The stockman hurried his horse forward again.

How did you survive those three weeks in the stone country? asked the stockman a short time later, when Benji had eaten some food and drank a fair share of water. The weaken face looked at him and smiled.

"It was easy. There is plenty of food in the stone country. I listened to the old fellahs and what they taught me. There’s lizards and snakes hiding beneath the rocks, and if you feel like a delicacy, there is always the ants — there is plenty of those ants".

No water though? enquired the stockman.

Benji laughed. Them dried out creeks are filled with water in the wet season. The water has nowhere to go. It seeps down into the soil. If you dig deep enough you will find it. He looked back towards the empty desert from where he had emerged. And never alone. The spirits of the ancestors still walk the stone country...

BESSIE, WILL YOU STILL WAIT FOR ME?

They had been cutting down the strands of timber along the remote river for more than two weeks. The year was 1810, barely six years after the founding of the Hobart penal settlement. There were perhaps fifty men, all convicts involved in this work, as well as the eight soldiers whose presence was not to guard the convicts, (for there was nowhere to escape in the dense and unexplored forests), but to protect them from local aborigines who had taken offence at the intrusion into their hunting grounds by these unwelcome strangers. Shamus O’Reilly, a convict serving twelve years in the Hobart penal colony for robbery and murder was one of the unwelcome strangers.

To be fair, there were doubts over the charge of murder and it was perhaps these doubts which had saved Shamus from the hangman’s noose. The charge of robbery, however, was a proven one. The Irishman had already served five years in the colony of Port Jackson, but being a known trouble-maker had then been transported to the more remote colony of Hobart where he had served another five years of his twelve year term. With only two still to be served, Shamus O’Reilly was a man with a smile on his face. Besides the gift of freedom, there was also something else which waited for him after those final two years had been served...

She is there waiting for me, Shamus confided one morning to a fellow convict. They were out in the forest, cutting down the trees beside the river. "She has been waiting for me these ten years and she will wait another two — my Bessie."

Your wife? asked the other convict, a man called Richard Hungerforde. Shamus smiled as he looked out across the river towards the north-east in the direction of Hobart.

We ain’t married, but I do consider her my wife. He thought carefully for a moment. When I get my pardon we will get married. I promised her that on the day I was sentenced by the London courts. She has waited since. She even followed me out to the colonies. Bessie has kept her part of the bargain. I intend on keeping mine.

She must think the world of you to wait twelve years, Hungerforde replied. Twelve years is a long time and you are not a young man anymore. Your Bessie must also be getting on. If I were you, I would release her from those silly vows and then get myself a younger woman — one with firm breasts and a sexual appetite to fulfil your twelve years of imprisonment. Shamus should have been angry at these words but he merely laughed.

Bessie is still young, with firm breasts and an appetite I am sure will match my own. She has sworn to celibacy until we can be together once more. I met her when she was barely fourteen and I, a year older. She will be twenty six when we marry in the chapel in Hobart.

That will be an expensive wedding, said Richard Hungerforde.

Bessie has been working and saving, Shamus replied. She even purchased the wedding rings. She works for Mr. Frobisher in his shop near the wharf in Hobart, the shop that sells the fancy lace for the officers’ wives and shoes as well as fine clothes for the merchants and the government officials.

Do you still get to see her — to talk with her?

Occasionally. There was a sense of loss in the words. Two or three times I got to speak with her. Richard Hungerforde remained silent but was thinking deeply about what Shamus O’Reilly had just told him. A young woman, both beautiful and unmarried, and more importantly, with some money was a rare catch in the colonies.

In the following days when they were out in the forest cutting down the trees, Richard Hungerforde continued to ask questions about this Bessie who so intrigued him. Shamus was more than happy to answer the questions. After a while, however, Shamus’ pride soon gave way to suspicion. He avoided the questions Hungerforde continued to ask him. One day, when they were busy rolling the cut logs down a hill and into the river he confronted Richard Hungerforde.

"Why are you so interested in my Bessie? She is mine and has promised to wait for me!" Hungerforde remained silent but in the silence of his gaze as he looked directly into Shamus’ own eyes, Shamus could see jealousy and then greed until finally there was a strange and unexpected anger in Richard Hungerforde’s eyes.

"Why should your Bessie wait another two years? I am to be pardoned in six weeks and will be a free man." There was a fleeting movement as Hungerforde crouched down, his now crazed eyes still on Shamus. Within seconds, the rock was picked up and thrown, hitting the side of Shamus’ head. Shamus staggered backwards, losing his balance before falling and then rolling down the muddy slope. When he reached the bottom, he looked up to see Hungerforde struggling to roll down on top of him the heavy log that lay on the edge of the slope...

A man entered Mr. Frobisher’s shop in Hobart six weeks later.

I would like to see a young woman whose name is Bessie. I believe she is in your employment? Mr. Frobisher studied the man closely. From the cut of his clothes he could see that the man was a recently released convict.

What is your business with Bessie?

I have some sad news. Mr. Frobisher seemed a little confused. Richard Hungerforde now explained further.

"Shamus O’Reilly is dead. He was recently killed in an accident whilst cutting timber along the Huon River."

I do not think this will make much difference, replied the shopkeeper. It was now Hungerforde’s turn to show confusion.

Why? Has she already found another?

Mr. Frobisher motioned for Hungerforde to follow him and in silence, he led him through the shop and out into the backyard. They always said they would wait for one another. He pointed to a corner of the yard where there was a slightly raised mound of soil. Bessie died from fever four years ago. Shamus did not want her buried in the town cemetery alongside convicts and ruffians, so we buried her here.

Shamus O’Reilly knew of her death? Mr. Frobisher nodded his head.

"He never got over her sudden departure from this life, but always said that his Bessie would