Chapter X: The Hut in the Scrub

THEY were somewhat thoughtful as they turned back into the scrub: a little awed by the wonder they had seen—perhaps a little sober at the remembrance of the long, rough journey home. But there was something of triumph in Robin and Barry, for they had succeeded where others had failed. Many tourists set out each summer for the Merri Creek Falls, but the majority gave up the journey, voting no waterfall worth the trouble of getting through the forest in which this particular fall chose to hide itself. Few of the residents of the district had reached the Falls—being a busy folk with small leisure for scenery. And they had won through! It was small wonder if Robin and Barry felt a throb of exultation.

They reached the place where they had rejoined the track after their long wading in the creek. Dr. Lane halted.

“I wonder if it would not be better to keep to the track for a bit,” he said, rather doubtfully. “If we could save ourselves even half a mile of that unpleasant wading it would be something. What do you think, Robin?”

“I don’t fancy we should risk losing our way,” Robin answered. “It must be the only track, even if it seems to bend to the north; there is no settlement of any kind out here.”

“Do let’s try it for a bit,” begged Barry. “My feet won’t stand too much of those beastly stones; I’m sure I’ve sixteen blisters already!”

“Well, we can try it for a while,” Dr. Lane said.

They followed the track, which almost immediately became more definite. There were signs that it had been used; light scrub had evidently been roughly cut, and once or twice Robin, who was leading, thought that she could make out a footprint. She pulled up, presently, and pointed out a faint mark to Dr. Lane.

“Don’t you think a boot made that?”

“It looks uncommonly like it,” Dr. Lane answered. “There may be someone camped near here: a prospector, or a fishing enthusiast. It would be luck if we could find someone who could tell us if we were going out of our way.”

“It might be a track left by the man you were talking to,” Barry suggested.

“Oh, he was here last summer; no track of his would be visible by this time. That mark looked fairly new. Hullo—!” He broke off suddenly.

The path had swung sharply round a dense patch of dogwood, and they saw before them, in a little open space, a rough bark hut. It stood among a clump of wattles, the trunks of which had been used, so far as was possible, as supports. No more crazy-looking building had ever formed a home: it seemed to lean this way and that, and where the heavy slabs of iron-bark had warped under the weather it was patched with whatever material the bush afforded, and daubed with creek mud. Dr. Lane gave a low whistle.

“We seem to have found our prospector,” he said. “I hope the good man is at home.”

“Man!” said Robin, staring. “It isn’t only a man. Look there!”

She pointed to where a rude clothes-line, made of twisted stringy-bark, hung between two trees. Something fluttered from it: a woman’s dress of faded blue, patched and torn. And as they looked, a woman suddenly came round the corner of the hut, and, seeing them, cried out and ran forward.

She was a very young woman, but her face was lined and worn in a way that was not good to see. Her faded hair was strained back from a face so thin that it looked almost like a mummy’s; her eyes held a world of horror in their sunken depths. Robin gave a gasp of pity and went quickly to meet her, and the poor soul put out a trembling hand, touching her sleeve with a kind of incredulous delight.

“A girl!” she muttered. “I thought I’d never see a woman again!”

“What is it?” Robin asked gently. “Can we help you?”

“I’m just desperate”—the low, strained voice could hardly be heard. “I thought no one ’ud ever come.”

“You are not alone here?” Dr. Lane asked sharply. She shook her head.

“Me husband’s there. He’s dyin’, I think—he’s been ill for weeks. We’d both have been dead pretty soon.” Then she swayed, and would have fallen, if they had not caught her. They gave her a mouthful of brandy and water, and in a minute she made herself sit up and answer questions.

Bit by bit the sorry little story came from her halting tongue—long before it was finished, Dr. Lane had gone off with long strides to the hut, feeling for his pocket medicine-case as he went. She and her husband had come to the district as “married couple” on a farm: they had heard wild stories of gold to be found by fossickers and prospectors along the Merri Creek, and when they had saved a little money they had given up their job and come out into the bush. A farmer who knew the track had brought them up on horses, a packhorse carrying what outfit and stores they had been able to buy.

From the first, bad luck had dogged them. They were of the feckless kind that should never leave a township; and the immensity and the silence of the bush, and its impenetrable nature, had filled their very souls with fear. “We hated to look at it,” she whispered—“only there wasn’t nothing else to look at.” They had managed to burn down their tent, losing a good deal of their property. It seemed that they had expected, in a vague way, to live chiefly on fish and rabbits—and had found neither easy to get. Not a speck of gold had rewarded their pitiful seeking, although they had worked together with aching backs and blistered hands, cheering each other on with visions of “striking it rich” any moment. And then, just as they realized the uselessness of their efforts, Jim, the husband, had fallen ill.

“I don’ know what was the matter with him,” she whispered. “We didn’t have no medicine—it was all burned, the little bit we had. He couldn’t eat nothing: I got a rabbit twice, an’ once I caught a fish, but he didn’t seem to fancy none.” For the last three days he had scarcely moved or spoken, and she was afraid to leave him. There was no food left: there had been none for thirty-six hours. “I knew he was dyin’,” the weak voice whispered. “I just thought I’d lie down an’ die too.”

“Robin!” The doctor’s voice was urgent, and the girl ran to him as he stood in the doorway of the wretched hut.

“Have we any milk left?” he asked sharply.

“There is a bottle in Barry’s haversack,” she said; “and a few sandwiches we kept for the way home. Oh, and I’ve a cake of milk-chocolate. I didn’t dare offer her anything until I spoke to you. She’s starving, you know.” Her voice caught in a sob. “Is he . . . is her husband . . . dead?”

“No, but not far off. Thank goodness I had my medicine-case; and the milk may help to pull him through. But it will be touch-and-go. Get Barry to light a fire and heat some water; we’ll make some chocolate into a hot drink for her. I want all the milk for the man. Don’t give her anything solid yet.” He turned and went back into the hut.

Twenty minutes later Robin had the satisfaction of seeing a little colour coming back into the blue lips as her patient sipped the hot chocolate. She fed her with a spoon, afraid that she might drink it too quickly. The woman’s eyes had gleamed wolfishly at the sight of the drink, but she was too weak to be anything but docile.

“Jim,” she muttered. “Is Jim gettin’ any?”

“The doctor is looking after him,” Robin told her, pityingly. “He is a very good doctor: he will do everything he can for him. We have a little milk, but we are keeping it all for Jim.” And at that the starved creature had given a great sigh of relief, and tears had stolen weakly down her face; it seemed that she had scarcely strength left to weep. Robin made her lie down when she had finished the chocolate, promising her food soon. She pointed, as she lay, to the torn blue dress hanging from the stringy-bark line.

“Couldn’t get me washin’ in,” she muttered, as if in apology. “I rubbed it out in the creek a week ago and hung it up. But every time I put up me arms to get it down I fainted right off. So at last I just leave it stay there.” And at that, Robin, who had been very calm and self-possessed, suddenly burst out crying, to Barry’s infinite alarm. She recovered herself in a moment.

“Sorry I was such a fool, old chap,” she said, gruffly. “It seemed to knock me all of a heap.” She went forward and unfastened the poor little frock—it was pinned to the line with thorns of prickly-Moses—and folded it carefully: and the woman on the grass watched her with wondering eyes that were yet not wholly sane.

Dr. Lane called Barry and Robin to him after he had examined the wife briefly.

“She’ll do: her heart and pulse are not bad,” he said. “The man is a different story, but I’m not without hope. Give me every scrap of food or chocolate that we have.”

It was a very little store, and Barry groaned over it.

“To think we were gorging, not half a mile away!” he uttered. “I didn’t want my last three sandwiches a bit, only it seemed a pity to leave them. If only we’d known!”

“It was a mighty good thing we knew as soon as we did,” said his father. “To-morrow it would certainly have been too late. And now, their main chance depends on you two.”

They looked at him enquiringly.

“I won’t leave them, of course,” he said. “The man’s only hope lies in my being with him, to give him medicine and stimulant at the proper intervals.”

“And we’re to get help?” Robin asked eagerly.

“Yes. You’re sure you can get back alone? I hate letting you go, but there’s no help for it.”

“Rather!” said Barry and Robin, together.

“I wonder if this track is all right,” the doctor said, uneasily.

“The woman says so. She told me twice, pointing to it, that it was the track the horses came. We’ll watch very carefully, and there’s always the creek to guide us.”

“Yes—if you can get to it through the scrub. Well, I can only hope it is safe: you’re a better bushman than I am, Robin. If you have not sent help out by this time to-morrow I’ll start in myself, by the way we came. Here’s a list of what I want—telephone it into Baroin at the earliest possible moment, and have the things sent out by car. Merritt or some of the other farmers will help you about getting stretcher-bearers: we’ll need two stretchers to bring them in, and plenty of relays of bearers, in this awful country. Make them start as early as they can; and you’ll have to arrange for the ambulance from Baroin to come as far as it can to meet the stretchers. That young fellow at the garage has sense: he will help, if you can get on to him. Sure you understand?”

Robin nodded. “We’ll send out food and fresh milk with the stretcher party as well as the things you want from the township,” she said. “You’ll be terribly hungry yourself by that time.”

“By Jove!” said Barry, staring; “it’s pretty awful to think of you having nothing to eat, Father.”

“Oh, I’m well fed,” said the doctor, lightly. “No need to worry about me. Now be off, you two—and remember, I won’t have an easy moment until I know how you have got on. For goodness’ sake, don’t lose the creek!” He smiled at them, letting his hand rest on his boy’s shoulder for a moment. Then he watched them as they hurried into the bush.

For a time the track was plain enough—steep and stony, with sudden drops that made them wonder sharply how men were going to carry a stretcher down it—but not densely overgrown. They were able to make good progress. Then they came to a place where a fallen tree had smashed across it, and it was quite difficult to find the path again in the mass of far-flung limbs; they hated the loss of time while they cast backwards and forwards. When, three or four hundred yards farther on, the track seemed to fork, Robin pulled up.

“I don’t like it, Barry,” she said. “There may have been stray cattle here, making a second trail, and how do we know where it may lead us? The creek is beastly to walk in, but at least it’s safe. I think we’d better get down to it.”

“Right-oh,” said Barry. “But can we?”

Robin put up her hand, listening.

“I think I hear it, don’t you?” She looked at the thick wall of scrub as one looks at an enemy. “Come on: I guess we can worm our way through.”

They wormed—if that term may be given to a struggle that left both breathless. Sometimes they tore aside stiff clumps of dogwood twined thickly with creeping plants: sometimes squeezed through the closely-growing hazel and blanket-wood, stepping downwards upon heaps of slender, long-fallen trunks, so rotten, under their covering of ferns, that at any moment a foot incautiously planted might sink down past the knee. They climbed over huge fallen trees, deep-brown with damp moss or slippery with wet—trunks on which it was no easy matter to get a footing; where, once gained, the slightest misstep might end in a long slither and a broken ankle. They could not see a yard ahead, in most places: only, when they paused a moment to wipe their dripping faces, the song of the creek could be heard, far below, but always coming a little nearer. Often it was easier to crawl beneath a dead giant than to climb over it, even if they had to dig a way through. Nettles, tall and venomous, stung their hands and faces: brambles and wild-raspberry, and all the other hooked enemies of the scrub tore at them unceasingly. When at last they gained the creek, and, plunging in thankfully, sat down on two boulders, they looked at each other and laughed.

“We’re a pretty pair of scarecrows,” said Robin. Barry chuckled.

“We are—if I look like you!”

“You’re worse,” Robin assured him.

“Couldn’t be!”

Their faces were almost unrecognizable with heat and dirt and the brown dust of fern-seed. Their clothes, torn in a hundred places, hung about them in soiled tatters: long, bleeding scratches showed beneath many of the rents. They looked at each other, panting, and laughed.

“At least we can have a drink and a wash,” Robin said. “What a comfort to think we needn’t mind getting wet!” She knelt down in the nearest pool, and as the stone on which she had chosen to kneel decided to turn completely round, she fell sideways into the water with a yelp and a stupendous splash. Barry shouted with laughter. She emerged, dripping, with an air of pained surprise.

“I said I didn’t mind getting wet, but this is wetter than I meant,” Robin said. “Oh, well, I’ll dry soon, and it’s very refreshing.” They scrubbed their hands and faces, dipping their heads under the hurrying water, and coming up with gasps of satisfaction; then they rubbed wet earth into their burning nettle-stings, already showing like angry weals upon the skin. Then, for they dared not linger, they set off upon the toilsome journey down the creek.

It was as well that they had shortened it by keeping to the track above, for their feet were still sore from the wading of the morning, and from being all day in soaked boots; and each step was soon a torment. They had not time to pick their way: the thought of the three whom they had left in the lonely camp whipped them forward, so that they plunged recklessly over the slippery stones, often losing their footing altogether. They had joked over it in the morning, but there was no joking now: it was hard enough to keep from wincing or crying out as the stones pinched and bruised their swollen feet, while their bodies ached with the perpetual effort to retain their balance.

“I think it’s nearly over,” said Robin, as she saw Barry lurch sideways, biting his lip to restrain an exclamation of pain. “Buck up, old chap—I believe we’re almost at the tree where we took to the creek first this morning.”

“Jolly good thing,” said the boy, trying to speak lightly. “You must be pretty sick of it, Robin—your boots are lighter than mine.” He forced a grin. “Wouldn’t this be great country for an aeroplane!”

“Rather—except when you wanted to land.” She looked ahead, and gave a joyful whistle. “There’s our tree!”

“Well, they say all things come to an end, but I was beginning to think that stretch of creek had no finish,” said Barry, as they climbed thankfully up the bank. “It’s all plain sailing now.”

“Yes, thank goodness—and we can hurry.”

It was already evening as they made their way along the rough path—rough as it was, it felt smooth and grateful to their aching feet. Robin led the way, keeping well ahead, so that the lash of the held-back branches should not sweep Barry’s face. They did not speak until at length they came out of the timber and saw, ahead, the cleared hills and valleys that meant home. Then Barry caught up.

“What should we do first, Robin?”

“We must scatter,” Robin said. “You go over to the Merritts’, Barry—you know the way. They will pass the word round among the farms in the hills on that side of the creek; it will be best for the men to meet there, for it’s the place nearest to the Falls track. They are sure to start as soon as it is light in the morning.”

“All right. Will you go home?”

“Yes; I’ll get Mother and Mrs. Lane to drive down to Merri Creek at once: Mrs. Lane can telephone for the things your father wants while Mother is telling the people there. Then I’ll cross our creek and get over to O’Rourke’s.”

“It’s nearly dark,” Barry said, looking anxiously at the sky. “Will there be time to get enough people?”

Robin laughed.

“The whole district will know before morning,” she said. “All the men about here know what it will mean to get two stretchers down the Falls track.”

“Where will I go after I’ve told the Merritts?”

“Home—and get those boots off as quickly as you can.”

“But it’s doing so little, Robin. Can’t I go on somewhere else?”

“There won’t be any need,” Robin said—“unless, of course, Mr. Merritt and the boys are away. But they won’t be: they’ll be milking. Oh, and tell them I’ll be over to give the girls a hand with the cows in the morning after the boys have gone. They will send word on everywhere—one place passes it to another, in a case like this.” She looked at the boy’s dead-beat face, and patted his shoulder. “You needn’t worry, Barry, old chap. They’ll all know you’ve done your bit.”

“I?” said Barry. “I haven’t done anything.” He turned to go. “You won’t be long, Robin?”

“I expect to come straight home from O’Rourke’s,” she said. “Don’t hurry too much—there’s plenty of time to get things ready by daylight.”

But the men of the district did not wait for daylight. It was not long after midnight when the first relay of twenty men set out—men who had no cows to milk, or having cows, had wives and children who could milk them. They carried food and the drugs that Dr. Lane had ordered, and they went on horses, so far as horses could be forced through the scrub. They were men who knew the track to the Falls—knew that it was not necessary to wade the creek as the Lanes and Robin had done. They left their horses when the going became impossible, and pushed onward on foot, making the way clearer for those who should follow: the sound of their axes echoed through the quiet night, and their hurricane lamps sent weird shafts of dim radiance to startle the furry folk of the bush, who only move after day has gone. It was scarcely dawn when old David Merritt halted them.

“We’re not more than a quarter of a mile from the Falls,” he said. “Eight of us’ll go forrard now: you other chaps stay here and get your breath. We’ll want all the breath you’ve got, I reckon.”

Back at the settlement, riders had gone to and fro all night, and men had climbed where there was no footing for a horse in the darkness: and always when the message was given men made haste to pass it on, and women packed food swiftly, catching their breath to think of the woman who had fought for her man’s life in the awful loneliness of the wild bush. From the little towns the lights of cars and buggies gleamed in a long, broken procession, toiling up the hill tracks with men, and yet more men. Hill Farm was the central point: the cars and buggies and horsemen turned in at its gate unendingly, until the little flat below the house was black with vehicles. All night the house was a lit hive of humming activity. Robin and Barry slept the dreamless sleep of worn-out children on the veranda, heedless of the passing feet; but in the kitchen Mrs. Hurst and Mrs. Lane, with other women, gave out great mugs of tea and parcels of food, and the men ate and drank swiftly before flinging off their coats and following the figures that streamed, ant-like, into the silent hills. There were none left when dawn had come. Even the men who had cows had yarded them at two o’clock in the morning, and, their milking done, were on their way before the sun turned the eastern tree-tops to copper and scarlet.

The first men who carried the stretchers did not last a quarter of a mile—old David Merritt’s estimate had been over-sanguine. Two hundred yards was enough, and more than enough, for the strongest man in that terrible descent through the bush, with the dead weight of a helpless burden: feeling with every step for roots and stumps in the track, bending to avoid the clutching branches, bracing each muscle suddenly to avoid shock for the silent forms they carried, when a sudden drop in the slippery path flung them forward. They fell, more than once: it was beyond human power always to retain footing under their loads. But even when they fell they did not try to save themselves—only to ease the fall for the stretchers. And one burden knew nothing, wrapped in a heavy, drugged sleep: and to the other, neither falls, nor weariness, nor hunger mattered any more.

“Both all right?” had been the eager question when the second relay had hurried up in response to a whistle. David Merritt’s headshake had been answer.

“The man’s gone, poor chap. Died in the night. The woman’ll do, the Doc. says.” He dropped his voice. “She don’t know he’s gone. The Doc.’s put her to sleep. I’d say carry her gently, boys, but it’s no darned use!”

It was no use, on that mountain pathway. They changed bearers every hundred yards, while those who were not carrying went ahead to make the way easier with their axes: and still, it was a journey of horror until they had accomplished the first abrupt descent, and of the twenty men, not one but was thankful to sit down and rest. Dr. Lane, heavy-eyed after his night of watching and fasting, glanced beneath the blanket that covered the woman’s face.

“She’ll sleep through, I fancy,” he said. “No need to hurry now, boys: the hurry was for the poor fellow yonder.” His tone bore the sadness of a man who has failed. “I could have pulled him through if I had found him twelve hours sooner, I believe.”

“We got here as quick as we could, Doc.,” said a big, loose-limbed fellow.

The doctor’s eye kindled.

“You were marvels!” he said. “I’m hanged if I know how you did it in the dark—I didn’t expect you until hours later.”

“Aw, that’s nothin’,” they said, awkwardly. David Merritt lit his pipe and pulled at it hard.

“Those youngsters,” he said, “They’re good plucked ’uns if you like—both kids, an’ one of ’em a girl! That boy of yours, Doc.—come up to my place limpin’ and runnin’, with his boots near cut from his feet, an’ the blood runnin’ out of them. An’ him a town kid. It was hard luck they didn’t know the track; it would ’a’ saved them miles of that cruel wading.”

“No joke, that wading isn’t,” said someone.

“No, it ain’t any joke. Gave his message quite clear, the kid did, an’ then wanted to go on to the next farm.”

“Did he go?” asked Barry’s father.

“Not if I knew it! All our work was done, an’ there was plenty of us to send messages. I put him on a pony an’ sent him acrost to Hill Farm—he’d done enough for any boy of his size.”

“Miss Robin’s the same,” said big Tim O’Rourke. “’Twas all I could do to make her go home from my place. Gad, you should ’a’ seen her: clothes cut to ribbons, an’ her feet bleedin’ like the boy’s. I wanted her to ride home. ‘No,’ says she, ‘you’ve only got one pony an’ you’ll need him!’ True enough, too, but I reckoned she needed him more. But she off down the hill before I could so much as get a bridle.”

“Town or country, I reckon them two are darned good Aussies!” said a returned soldier. A murmur of assent went round the group.

David Merritt put his pipe carefully into his pocket.

“Time for another shift, boys,” he said.

It was mid-afternoon before the last relay of bearers came steadily across the Hill Farm paddock towards the motor-ambulance that waited—brought by a cunning driver over ground where it is safe to say its builders had never dreamed that it could go. There was a little crowd about it: a silent crowd, for word of what they bore had gone before them, and if there were pride in the life snatched from the bush it was hushed into speechlessness in the presence of Death. The men took off their hats as the ambulance moved off slowly: here and there a woman sobbed. Big Tim O’Rourke, who had been first and last to carry, stretched his great shoulders.

“Poor chap!” he said. “He done his best. Well, boys, I reckon it’s about time to get home to milk!”