The World From a Veranda

By Robert Menzies

Arthur is a worn-out war veteran who sits on his veranda smoking, coughing his heart out and spitting at the world as he watches it drag by.
He watches as a gang of itinerants steal goods from his mate Phil's General Store across the road.
When Arthur informs Phil of the thefts the shopkeeper employs a fourteen-year-old girl Jilly, a friend of Arthur's, to help look after the store.
Members of the gang kidnap Jilly from the store and take her to a bush hideout where they terrorise her, beat her and sexually molest her.
When Arthur hears news of this he is incensed. He embarks on a one-man vigilante mission to eke his revenge on the perpetrators of the crime. He doesn't care if he dies in the process; he's dying anyway.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Menzies
• Release date: Feb 18, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310685538

Robert Menzies

Robert Menzies is a retired school principal who now lives with Merilyn his wife of forty-two years at Hope Island on Queensland Australia's Gold Coast. Robert has a daughter Jacquie, a son Ben, a daughter-in-law Natasha and two grandchildren William and Isabella.

Book preview

Chapter 1

These days Arthur just sits on his veranda, chain-smokes, coughs his seventy-two-year-old heart and lungs out, spits blood and phlegm into the rose garden and watches the world pass by.

Not that there’s much of the world to see from his veranda. His little corrugated iron house faces a country road that goes right past into the scrub. There’s a General Store across the road and a post office a hundred yards away. There’s also a little one-teacher school on the corner and a few battered timber, fibro and corrugated iron houses scattered haphazardly around in what they call a village. It’s hardly a village mind you – just a clump of houses, a shop, a school and a post office – ten miles away from a medium-sized country town.

People in town call the villagers fringe-dwellers – and they say it like they’ve got a lemon in their mouths. They see the villagers as people who can’t afford to live in town because they’re either drunks or layabouts or both. This is an unfair perception as most of the inhabitants are hard-working people, most of them unskilled labourers who find work in the local timber mills or on the dairy, beef cattle and potato-growing properties that dot the landscape.

But most of them are also heavy drinkers and this is what helps create the perception of ‘layabouts’. On Saturday and Sunday mornings you will find some of the inhabitants lying asleep in the gutters in town after a heavy night on the booze. But by Monday morning they will have recovered and their routine of hard work continues as normal.

Arthur is a typical villager in many ways. He’s a pensioner now but he’s lived and worked here for most of his adult life. And he was never a drunk or a layabout. He’s worked hard all his life and now he’s enjoying the fruits of his years of labour. Well, he’s supposed to be enjoying it but he’s got some serious problems with his lungs. The doctor says it’s all Arthur’s fault because of his chain-smoking. Arthur knows that’s not the truth. His lungs were irreparably injured more than forty years ago by mustard gas during the Great War of ‘Fourteen to ‘Eighteen. He’s lived with tortured lungs for most of his adult life, so the cigarettes are not to blame. Well not wholly to blame anyway.

The doctor says he wants Arthur to stop smoking before it kills him. But there’s no way he’s going to stop. It’s one of the few joys he has left in his life he reckons. So he’s going to die soon.

‘It don’t need a doctor with a string of fancy letters after his name to tell me that!’ he mutters to himself between bouts of coughing and spitting into the rose garden. He’s known that little fact for some years now – he’s just surprised that it hasn’t happened sooner. And he’s going to die with a cigarette in his mouth too, he reckons.

As I mentioned, Arthur hasn’t much to live for these days. His wife Moll was also a heavy smoker, and a heavy drinker and she died just a few months ago from a combination of liver disease and lung cancer. He misses Moll something terrible and often wishes he could’ve passed away with her. Their marriage had lasted forty-five years. It’d had its ups and downs as most marriages do, and there’d been a few times when Arthur had threatened to leave Moll because of her heavy drinking. But he’d always changed his mind at the last moment; he just couldn’t bear the thought of living the rest of his life alone. He’d never been one to chase other women and even if he left Moll he couldn’t imagine himself taking up with anyone else. So the alternative to putting up with Moll’s drinking had always been the dismal prospect of a lonely existence all by himself in his tiny little corrugated iron house. Not much of an alternative.

Well now she’s gone for good. And God, does he miss her! She’s left him with a terrible cough, a crook lung, a gammy leg and a lonely empty shell of a house. He really has very little to live for.

Arthur doesn’t touch the grog. Never has. Looking back with the wisdom that comes with hindsight, perhaps he should’ve taken up the grog and enjoyed a few more good times with Moll. She’d tried her best to get him to join him in a drink in those early days but Arthur had always refused. His father had been a hopeless plonko and Arthur had made a decision very early in life that he would never touch the stuff. When he looks back on all the times he left Moll to get drunk by herself while he went to bed alone, he thinks now that if he’d had his time over again he might’ve had a few drinks with her from time to time. It couldn’t have done any harm surely, and it might’ve made their marriage a little less rocky.

He wonders why they never had any kids. In the early days of their marriage Moll had tried very hard to get pregnant but it had just never happened. Sometimes when she got drunk she’d blame Arthur for his ‘low sperm count’. Arthur never knew where she’d borrowed that term from because he’d never bothered having himself tested and neither of them ever knew if it was his fault or Moll’s that she never got pregnant. But they did have a regular, quite satisfying sex life in those early days, Arthur remembers with glee. So it wasn’t lack of sex that was responsible. It must’ve been something else.

As time went on they forgot about having kids. Moll began to drink more heavily as the years rolled on and found more and more solace in the bottle; Arthur just found solace in the bush. As Moll sought refuge in the bottle with increasing regularity, their sex life became more and more sporadic until it ceased altogether just a few years before she died.

Arthur was brought up in the Australian scrub and he wanted to die there. He would spend every living moment in the bush if he could. He always looked for jobs that involved working in the forest and his jobs throughout his life had been just that: felling trees, cutting sleepers and fence posts, cutting cork wood and working in timber mills.

There were times however when the bush could not provide Arthur with an adequate enough income to support Moll’s heavy drinking. In those times he’d worked on farms on the fringes of the bush, mustering cattle, building fences and picking spuds. He enjoyed farm work almost as much as working in the bush and he made some good friends along the way.

These days however, Arthur just likes to sit on his veranda every day and watch the world go by. There’s always timber trucks and spud trucks passing through as well as the odd car or farm ute. Sometimes people wave hello and sometimes they stop to say g’day. He likes that. He loves a chat, even though his coughing and wheezing and spitting gets in the way a bit.

There’s one visitor Arthur looks forward to more than any others. It’s a fourteen-year-old girl called Jilly who lives on the farm up on the hill. She rides past Arthur’s place regularly on her horse Chesty and she always stops to say g’day. She’s a lovely kid and they both share a love for horses. Arthur was a great horseman in his day and he believes this kid has the makings of one. They can talk horses for hours, she and Arthur.

Arthur’s known Jilly’s father Ed since he was a young man.

Ed, although twenty years younger than Arthur, has lived a tough life. When he was still in his early twenties his father had selected a property for him to clear and develop as part of the Soldier Settlement Plan. The selection consisted of about a thousand acres of thick scrub back then and Ed as a young man was expected to clear it all with just a few primitive tools and then try and make a living from it by raising cattle and growing a few crops.

Ed remembers how tough it was for him in those days. Not much more than a kid, he slaved from daylight to dark seven days a week, chopping down these huge gums, blackbutts and cedar trees using only an axe and a crosscut saw. Once the trees were felled he would labour from daylight until dark shaping fence posts from the fallen trees, using a handsaw, a sledge hammer and steel wedges to split the logs apart. He built an entire boundary fence this way, but it took him three years of backbreaking labour to complete it.

For four years Ed never made a brass razoo from his place. He’d had to survive by giving up one day a week of his valuable time working for other settlers, felling trees and cutting sleepers. When he finally had his boundary fence completed and some pasture planted in the cleared bush, he borrowed a twenty quid to purchase a Hereford cow and bull. He celebrated the purchase with a bottle of beer – a rare thing for him in those days as he never drank the stuff – or any alcohol for that matter. But young Ed decided to make an exception for this special occasion. Finally he was going to start making a quid from his place – but it’d be a few years before he could actually start making a living out of it.

He build a little shack for himself in one of the few clearings he’d made, using the trunks and branches from the trees he’d cleared. It was pretty primitive, with just one room that served as a kitchen, bedroom, living room and bathroom. He lived in that little shack by himself for five years.

It was after Ed completed his shack that he met Arthur. Moll and Arthur had been married for eighteen years at the time and Arthur was trying to make a living timber-cutting, sleeper-cutting, mill-working, picking spuds, shoeing horses and doing odd jobs for the settlers around the district. Ed gave him a bit of work helping him fell some of the bigger trees and helping with the fencing and the planting of some pasture for his cattle.

Arthur remembers when the Second World War came in ‘Thirty-Nine. He was too old to go and fight, being forty-nine when the war broke out. Besides he’d done his duty way back in the Great War of ‘Fourteen to ‘Eighteen.

Ed wanted to go and fight but the government wouldn’t let him. They told him he had to stay on the farm to provide produce and keep the country running. Arthur thought that was bit rich since in ‘Thirty Nine Ed still only had a dozen Herefords, a few chooks and a decent-sized vegetable garden – hardly enough to keep himself alive, let alone the whole bloody country!

Ed was thus forced to stay on the farm during the war, much to his displeasure. His two younger brothers, who were not farmers, both volunteered for action and they were both accepted. Ed always felt cheated about that.

Ed got married during the war. He’d given himself a hernia with all his heavy lifting and the doctors ordered him to travel to Sydney to have an operation. He left Arthur to mind the farm and took the Spirit of Progress to Sydney. Whilst there, he met this beautiful young nursing sister. He fell in love with her and asked her to marry him. She accepted straight away, not realising just what she was in for.

They were married while Ed was still in Sydney recuperating from his operation. He arrived home a happily married man. Arthur remembers the day Ed brought this posh, city-living woman home to his one-room shack and his one thousand acres of unproductive scrub. He still wonders why she didn’t turn on her heals and head straight back to the city where she came from.

But she didn’t. She obviously loved Ed. He introduced her to Arthur the day they arrived home. Her name was Meg. Arthur reckoned she was the most beautiful young woman he’d ever seen – certainly a lot better on the eye than his own wife Moll who had not looked after herself with the passing years. Sparkling hazel eyes, lovely bright smiling face and a petite, shapely body too.

He remembers asking Meg what she thought about moving from the city to a one-room shack in the bush. She just smiled her lovely smile and murmured, ‘I’m going to help Ed make it into something beautiful.’ Ed just grinned like a fresh-faced schoolboy and gave her a cuddle. Two young people deeply in love, that’s what they were. Isn’t it funny how new love always seems to make the world right, no matter how bad the world might be?

At the time Ed was grieving deeply for his younger brother Wally, who’d gone down on the Sydney when it was bombed in the Pacific Ocean by the German ship the Kormoran. And Arthur knew that Ed’s grief was compounded by the terrible sense of guilt he felt about not being permitted to fight for his country. Meg seemed to understand Ed’s feelings and she appeared determined to make things right for him.

They moved into the one-bedroom shack and immediately Meg began to work miracles with the little place, turning it into a liveable, even charming little cottage. Ed now had a herd of twenty breeders and he was actually beginning to make a few quid when he started sending a few vealers to market each year. Times were hard for them both however, and the two of them laboured endlessly with a little help from Arthur from time to time. Ed couldn’t afford to pay him much and a lot of the time Arthur helped out for nothing.

Then, in ‘Forty-Six, a year after the war ended, Ed announced with great excitement that Meg was pregnant with their first child. Arthur was excited too, but he wondered how in the hell they were going to bring up a baby with the busy life they led. Well, Meg surprised Arthur once again with her resourcefulness and her calm approach to life. She had the baby, a bouncing little boy who they named Walter, after his Uncle Walter who went down in the Sydney. She took Walter with her every day into the bush. He would sit gurgling in his makeshift pram whilst Meg helped Ed clear the forest and tend the cattle.

With a meagre income now helping things along, Ed confided to Arthur that he wanted to build a decent hut for his wife and kid. So whenever a spare moment arrived, the two of them would work on the foundations of the new place. It was a grand design: three bedrooms, a lounge room, a separate kitchen and bathroom, an outside dunny and a veranda going all the way round. It took them two years to build.

Before the house was finished, Meg announced with great excitement that she was pregnant once again. Ed was delighted of course, but worried about now having to support two kids, when all they’d ever planned for was one.

In December 1948 their second baby was born: a gorgeous little girl who they named Jillian. As a baby she was much more robust than Walter and she thrived on the harsh, hot, dry conditions. She grew up to be a strong, athletic, resourceful little girl, whilst her older brother was always quiet, withdrawn and – let’s be honest – a little strange.

Jilly at fourteen years of age has become Arthur’s best friend.

Chapter 2

‘How are you Mr Phipps?’ asks Jilly brightly, as she always does.

‘I’m all right, love,’ Arthur replies in his usual way as he coughs violently and spits into the garden bed. ‘How’s me favourite little mate today?’

‘No use complaining,’ she replies in the laconic drawl she’s inherited from her father.

‘How’s that big brother of yours?’ asks Arthur. ‘I never see him.’

‘Oh Walter’s OK. Keeps to himself, as you know. Spends his time reading books and dreaming. But I love him just the same.’

‘He finishes school this year, don’t he? What’s he want to do with his life?’

‘He doesn’t know. Anything but be a farmer he reckons. Prob’ly go to university I s’pose and turn into some sort of academic or professor or some darned thing.’

‘What about you, Jilly? What do you want to do?’

‘Her pretty face breaks into cheeky grin. ‘I thought you’d know that, Mr Phipps. I want to be a farmer. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.’

‘And you’d make a damned good one too,’ says Arthur. ‘A real good farmer’s wife.’

‘Who said anything about a farmer’s wife? I’m going to have my own place. I’m an independent woman!’

‘Good to hear,’ chuckles Arthur amidst another bout of coughing. ‘But I still think some lucky farmer will sweep you up in his arms before long. And how’s my second favourite horse?’ He reaches out and strokes Chesty’s nose.

‘She’s good. A bit frisky today but. Dad thinks she’s ready for the stallion.’

‘She’ll throw a nice foal. You’ll have four horses then. How’s me favourite horse?’

‘Old Blackie? She’s good. She misses you but.’

Blackie was the first horse Ed ever bought. He bought her as a young mare way back in ‘Forty-Eight, the year Jilly was born. Blackie is now fourteen, the same age as Jilly. But in a horse’s life fourteen years is old age and Blackie’s been put out to grass. She’s been unofficially Arthur’s horse for thirteen of those years, as he’s virtually been the only person who’s ever been able to ride her. As a young mare she was flighty and unpredictable. She threw both Ed and Meg off a number of times so Ed handed her over to Arthur one day to see if he could tame her. Arthur had once been a very good horseman, but by 1949 he was no longer a young man. He’d turned fifty-nine that year and his body was no longer the trim athletic one it had once been. Nevertheless, he was prepared to see what he could do with this flighty but loveable young black mare.

He treated her with kid gloves, talked to her, rubbed her behind the ears and around the flanks, fed her, watered her, brushed her regularly and led her around the yard in an endless show of love and patience. The two of them eventually became the very best of friends. She would let Arthur ride her bareback or with a saddle and she never once ever tried to buck him off. And he was the only one who could ride her. He rode her for hundreds of musters and for hundreds, maybe thousands of miles over the years.

Earlier this year when Blackie reached fourteen years of age and Arthur turned seventy-two it was time for them both to retire. Blackie was put out to grass and Arthur returned to his little corrugated iron house that he and Moll had lived in for near thirty years.

He still hobbles up the hill some days when the pain isn’t too great in his legs and his chest to see Blackie, talk to her, rub her behind the ears and feed her one of her beloved carrots. She always nuzzles up to him and neighs happily when he approaches. Sometimes he rides her bareback ‘round the yard just for old times’ sake. Two old timers sharing their declining years together, reminiscing on good times gone by.

Arthur’s legs and chest have never been much good since the Great War, even though he seldom talks about it or complains. He just puts up with the pain. He worked hard all those years until he retired, never letting on about the pain and discomfort he felt. He often thinks about the war, though he never talks about it to anybody, not even to Moll when she was alive. He was just twenty-four when they asked for volunteers to go and fight for the British Empire in some far-flung European country called France. He was one of the first to put his hand up. Not that he was keen to kill Germans or anything like that. It just seemed to promise a bit of excitement in his life at the time and gave him the opportunity to travel the world. He was totally unprepared for the horrors that awaited him.

He was young, supremely fit, ambitious and foolish. He was chosen during training to be part of a crack team of front-line soldiers that was given special training in mortal hand-to-hand combat. The officers made them feel oh so special and so privileged, being chosen to fight in the front line for the glory of the British Empire against the dastardly krauts. They didn’t realise just what this meant until they actually reached the front line at Villeneuve. The horrors that awaited them, he has never forgotten. The mud, the blood, the screams and moans of the dying, and the hundreds of mortally wounded soldiers all around them. He doesn’t remember how many German soldiers he bayoneted to death in that dreadful battle. Somehow he survived with only minor physical wounds, but with emotional wounds that would never heal.

He was decorated for bravery after that battle and then sent back to the front in the Dardanelles, where he became the victim of mustard gas that burned out one of his lungs. After recuperating in hospital he volunteered for more action. This time he was sent to the front at Ypres in Belgium, where he copped a bullet in the leg. He was hospitalised again and decorated for bravery for a second time. But his involvement in the war was now over. He returned home to great celebration and jubilation – a decorated war hero twice over.

The Great War ended soon after that and Arthur’s bravery and heroics soon become a distant memory. All he had to show for it was a string of medals to hang off his chest on ANZAC Day and Remembrance Day, a gammy leg, a burnt-out lung and a screwed-up head that’s given him nightmares for the rest of his life.

He went back to work as a tree-feller, sleeper-cutter, horse breaker, spud-picker and general roustabout. He was never as agile or as fit as he’d been before the war but he did his best to cover up for his deficiencies. He continued to be a successful horse-breaker and horseman despite his injuries. He met and married Moll two years after the Great War.

It wasn’t until 1938, just before the Second World War that Arthur ended up in Ed’s village looking for work. By this stage the Great War had been over for twenty years. He was now forty-eight years old and unemployed. Ed was a struggling farmer at this stage but he offered Arthur some casual work just the same. Arthur managed to find Moll a little corrugated iron house in the village for them to live in for just a few shillings a week rent. And after thirty years he’s still living in the same little place.

As time rolled on and Ed’s property started to make him a meagre living, he gave Arthur more and more work. Then when he bought Blackie in 1948, around the time