Another ‘Ripping Yarn’ from the pen of N E Gledhill, kindly shared by his Great Nephew Allen Gledhill with thanks:
The transcontinental roared westward through the shimmering film of heat that hung like a diaphanous curtain over the Nullarbor Plains Nothing but sand stretched away for miles until it was ringed in with a ragged belt of silky blue that seemed almost to fade as it dipped over the yellow edges. And as the wind blew in veering gusts, stinging particles of dust that spat against the carriage windows, the passengers sweltered to the monotonous rustling of the half folded newspapers that served them for fans.
Had the door of the farthest “2nd” compartment been ajar, through the haze of cheap tobacco smoke and the odour of stale beer might have been observed on the end of one seat pair of “patent” boots; a distance further along a copy of the Sydney Morning Herald, and seemingly perched on top of it, a rakish looking Borsalino, which three articles, it was obvious by means of their contiguity, were attached to a human body.
By the other seat, a cigarette stump smoldered uncertainly from a stained holder which matched beautifully the fingers that held it, while their owner gazed sulkily out of the window. Suddenly he of the hat and paper shuffled himself onto his side and stared moodily at the other. “If this is a bit of Kalgoorlie weather, the sooner we’re out of the rotten place the better.” He spat dexterously through the window into the dust outside to emphasise the statement.
The Golden Eagle Nugget on display – Photo T F McKAY SLWA
His companion probed professionally at the depleted cigarette in the holder. “Heat! That’ll be nothin’ when the summer comes. Whose idea was it anyway?” “My idea, that’s whose it was, Larrigan. And it’s going to be my job, heat or no heat Remember that when it comes to figurin’ out the execution of it, Understand?”
“Look, McGann, good ideas are pretty scarce at the best of times. Chaps like you only get one in a lifetime, and you’ve had yours, now leave it alone. It’s going to take a man who’s spent most of his time in the town—big place, Kalgoorlie—and I knows the ins and outs of it, thorough, and has got the brains to do the job.” He paused long enough to light
another cigarette. “And that’s me !”
“H’m, that’s you, eh—you’ve got the brains to pull it off? Same set as landed you two years’ hard, I suppose.”
He chuckled sardonically and, stretching himself on the seat, sighed appreciatively at the cable page of the Herald, across which, in huge block type, ran the heading, “New Eldorado! Huge nugget on view at Kalgoorlie.” Then, burrowing a comfortable position with his hip, and covering his face with the paper, he dozed the doze of the content.
Hannan street was agog with excitement. Nothing like it had been seen since Bayley’s, and during the past few days, life had become a rush for the soil, with the devil take the hindmost. Out over Maritana, and along the pipeline towards Coolgardie, continual streams of packed motor cars and loaded bicycles sweated perilously with their burdens of picks, shovels, pannicans, and paliasses; while others, equally optimistic, though less fortunate, humped their “blueys” with easier freights of empty purses and buoyant hopes.
In the arcade of an empty shop by McKenzie’s Buildings, a small wooden table was surrounded by an excited crowd of men, women, and children. Standing carelessly at the edge of the footpath on the outskirts of the crowd a police constable yawned wearily as he watched, for the thousandth time in a few days, each of the onlookers raise a gold nugget which lay upon the table, beneath a suitably inscribed card, and staggering a yard or two, test the precious weight. Women grouped in small bunches forecasted excitedly, while here and there, gazing silently and smoking their eternal cherrywoods a digger or two dreamed of the nineties with their blasted hopes and broken hearts.
Excitement had been added to the find by the statement, appearing in that morning’s “Miner” that a cinematograph company, at the time operating in the Eastern States, had decided to come West with the object of “shooting” the exhibition of the nugget and weaving a romance about it. Things certainly seemed to be taking a turn for the better, and towns that had threatened in their turn to become merely sleepy hollows, now promised to yield fortunes, and flourish again as Meccas of romance and easy money.
It was about noon the Wednesday, six days after the discovery of the nugget, that a motor car drew alongside the curb a few yards from the crowd. – From it stepped a weedy looking individual with a rakish hat and the satisfied air of a competent man. He opened the back door of the car, hauled out a cinematograph, and adjusted it in a favorable position by the gutter. Then, nodding affably to the constable, he pushed his way through the crowd—which suddenly lost all interest in the nugget and surged around the camera—and shifted the table into a better position to better the “shoot.” This done, he returned to the camera, completed a few minor adjustments, focussed his sights on top of the box, and waited. The constable, smiling good-humouredly, pushed back the crowd that had gathered about the machine with the interest that comes of novelty and short-sightedness.
Suddenly the cinematographer waived a signal and, to the delight of the crowd, from the car stepped an armed and masked figure. The camera commenced clicking as the newcomer with automatic levelled, advanced threateningly through the crowd to the nugget on the table.
“Put up your hands, and keep ‘em up!”
The crowd, egged on by a signal from the operator, threw up their hands; while several artistic souls, anxious to figure prominently in the scene, made threatening advances and then fell back apparently cowed. The newcomer cast a hasty glance towards the table, then, keeping his eyes well around him, gathered the nugget under one arm and staggered to the car. Frantically gesturing the constable to keep back the crowd, the operator turned his camera and continuing to “shoot”, slowly pushed it forward. Having reached the side of the car he suddenly left the machine and climbing to the wheel, threw in the gears, and the car leaped from the curb in the direction of the Kalgoorlie racecourse. The crowd, thrilling to the situation, smiled approvingly.
It was not until several hundred yards had been covered that they began to turn to each other with anxious expressions. The official cap was tilted on one side, and nervous fingers scratched a worried brow. Then somebody noticed that the cinematograph carried faked spools, and with a terrific yell, the crowd scattered in all directions A bewildered policeman, standing open-mouthed, watched a car take the crest of a hill and disappear into the distance.
On it went, through the outskirts of the town, past the back of the racecourse, and headed south for Boulder and the bush. The figure in the rakish hat bent over the wheel, while the other, with fingers twitching, peered through the rear vision glass for a sight of possible pursuers. Not a word was spoken on either side until they slowed down four miles south of Boulder by the Lakeside woodline, and Larrigan took a rough view of the surroundings.
“Left – Hit the Track about a mile further on, then follow it south.”
The car leaped forward again, until it finally came to a standstill about 6 miles below the town, at the foot of Mt. Robinson where the low scrub, relieved here and there by the occasional tree, sloped gradually away to where, about half a mile in the distance, the two men could see the wide expanse of Hannan’s Lake roasting in the sun. Larrigan climbed from the back seat and hitched his trousers. “Better leave the car here and give us a hand with this. It’s harder to follow boot marks. We’ll camp near the lake for the night. One of us can make Lakeside after dark—it’s about six miles south—and get eats for a couple of days.”
McGann hauled out the nugget. “The idea’s right Larrigan: things’ll be easier in a day or two. When it’s dark you’re going to Lakeside. You’re right—it takes someone who knows the district thorough—and, as you said, that’s you.” He grinned aggravatingly. They carried the slug in silence between them to a secluded spot a short distance away, ringed in by a circle of trees, about fifty yards to the left of a clay embankment which extended for half a mile to the end of the lake. From the top of the embankment was a straight drop of about twenty feet to the sun-baked floor, from which the January sun had caused the water to recede a yard or two. Having “safely” deposited the nugget in the fracture bag, Larrigan scoured the bush and returned presently dragging a couple of forked branches, several small saplings for cross pieces, and a few green bushes. Setting the props in an upright position, he leaned the saplings against them, then stripping the bushes and hanging them over the framework the two men stretched themselves beneath the shelter and waited for the darkness.
The shadows of the oncoming night were slowly creeping over the dense shrub and scattered outcrops, although the leaves of the taller trees were still, with a riot of green and amber, bathed in sunlight. Along a track scarcely distinguishable through the carpet of spinifex needles, rode a figure on horseback, dressed in a grey flannel, blue dungarees, and outsize bluchers, the toes of which aspired to Heaven like a Moslem at evening prayer. His “bluey” hung awkwardly over one side of the saddle; and, as he reined the ambling horse to the left of the lake, using a dried stick for a scythe he carelessly whipped the fringes of the dogwood and cotton bushes that lined the track.
The stranger had left Lakeside two hours earlier, and had intended making Kalgoorlle that night — the later the better — calculating that a disturbing curiosity on the part of the local police force, owing to his interest in some articles callously described as “missing”, would never extend anywhere near a centre that suggested work. Time being no object, he had taken a circuitous route, and sundown found him hopelessly off his track and still some-six miles from the town. He looked about for a cool spot in which to rest until the blazing sun, which still burned like a copper disc on the horizon, should disappear and make travel a little more agreeable.
A huge Hume pipe about two feet in diameter and lying a few yards to the end of a long embankment attracted his attention, and tethering his horse to a nearby sapling, he decided to inspect. It was cool, and quite roomy; an ideal spot where one could forget the heat of the day or the ardour of a police force. So, crawling into it, he stretched himself to his full length and lazily watched the shadows steal gradually up the tree trunks.
* * * * * * * *
The sky was a forest of stars when McGann awoke with a start and groped anxiously for the fracture bag. Turning up his collar against the keen night air, he shook his companion. “Come on Larrigan, it’s late. God knows how long we’ve been here. Better get going. You’ve got a long walk in front of you, and you won’t want to be tracking back this way in daylight.” Larrigan climbed wearily to his feet, and counted the silver in his pocket. “This is a man-size job, McGann, and if it weren’t that you didn’t know the track I’d be sittin’ comfortable there meself now watchin’ you walk. Besides, I don’t know that a man should leave a thing that needs so much lookin’ after in your care.”
“Guess I was born to look after things, Larrigan. Besides, takes brains to do a job like this, doesn’t it? – good, let’s see what it looks like to get started.” He watched Larrigan’s figure until it became one with the black gum trees, and the sound of its boots on the dried spinifex had died away in the distance, then he drew the nugget from its bag and examined it by the moonlight.
* * * * * * * * *
Yellow, yellow as paint. Nothin’ worse than the Herald had said it was. Fancy the Herald not exaggeratin’ – it was a beauty. Anything up to three or four thousand pounds of it. He weighed it tentatively in his hands. Well, everything going right and— out of it, Singapore, perhaps Hawaii, somewhere, anywhere away from the push with their pinch and scrape existence. It was a good day’s work for the two of them when — He paused in his calculations. Two of them! That somewhat lessened the prospects. He replaced the nugget in the bag to consider things more clearly. Two!—that meant only fifteen hundred, or perhaps two thousand. That couldn’t be right. Besides, as Larrigan said, whose idea was it? and who was Larrigan, anyhow? Nobody, absolutely nobody! It was easy to offer to come in on the job when everything was planned. But ideas were what people paid for. Besides, it was his money had financed the trip; his money had hired the car; his money. Now suppose someone beat them for the gold. Suppose nobody did — but suppose Larrigan thought somebody did. Anyhow, damn Larrigan.
He looked out beyond the embankment to where the far side of the lake, lit by the moon, lay like a thin strip of steel. Drawing the tapes of the bag tightly, he gazed pensively at the water. Suddenly his eyes lit with excitement, and springing to his feet he hoisted the bag upon his shoulders and made for the embankment leaning above the water’s edge. Larrigan meanwhile kept straight ahead until he came to the end of the lake; then he stopped, and slinking behind a tree, held his breath and listened. Satisfied that he had not been followed he clambered down the embankment to the sun-dried strip along the water’s edge and, doubling on his tracks, made towards where he had started from. The parched mud crackled like dry bread beneath his feet, and he cursed to himself as he kept close to the embankment.
* * * * * * * *
McGann must be mad. It was just I like him to take everything for granted. Somebody else to shoulder the work; somebody else to walk to Lakeside. Yes, and how would they have got on if it had been left to McGann to get them out of the mess? Ugh! – useless as slip rails on a goanna farm. Well, it rested with him now, Joe Larrigan, to find a way out for them; and when he did it wouldn’t be with a share of the spoils. The lot or nothin’. Why, McGann’d push him out of the deal without the flicker of an eyelid if he got half a chance. But he wouldn’t get it. Damned if he’d get it. It would be an easy job to climb the embankment and creep up to the shelter. Then if once McGann left the nugget, or p’rhaps dozed for a minute—
Stopping beneath a spot he calculated would be somewhere below where McGann lay he felt cautiously for a foothold. A cascade of pebbles rattled around him as, taking the weight on one leg, he hoisted himself prone upon his stomach. Even as he did a dark object hurtled over the ledge above him and, striking the sloping bank, rebounded with a heavy smack onto the mud at the water’s edge. “Hell’s delight!” The start caused him to lose his footing and he slid to the ground. “What a damn fool thing for somebody to do. Chuckin’ rubbish about like that, not know in who’s handy to collect it!”
He bent over to examine the object and his fingers touched a fracture bag. Flinging himself on his knees he tore excitedly at the strings and pulled back the opening over the contents. Then he sat back on his heels and whistled softly. “So that’s the game, McGann. Roguin’ a pal, eh? Goin’ solo. That’s what a man gets for tryin’ to be straight with you. I might have known you’d get up to them schoolboy tricks. Well, you’re right, this thing’s goin’ solo— but it’s not goin’ with you.”
He tightened the strings, and hoisted the bag upon his shoulders; then, staggering along past the water’s edge, he looked for a hiding place. Suddenly his gaze lighted on a long cylindrical object, silver in the moonlight, and partially concealed by a clump of trees. He made towards it. “A pipe, a Hume pipe! Great! Big enough to hold a man, easily. Made to order for the slug. It’d be safe here for—” he jumped at a sound like the stamp of a horse’s foot behind him, then re-assured himself with an effort. “Nerves, damn nerves; a man’d go queer out here alone in a week. Well, any excuse would do McGann now. Lost the track, anything—what did it matter?” He lowered the nugget and lifted it to the opening of the pipe: then pushing it into his arm’s length, he retraced his steps along the embankment and approached the shelter_ from the direction he had left it. McGann came rushing to meet him.
“Nothin’ doin’, McGann—lost the damned way; we’ll—” “Lost the way! Hell, Larrigan, that’s nothin’. We’ve lost the gold!” “We’ve lost the what!” “We’ve lost the gold, I tell you! Do somethin, don’t stand there lookin’ stupid. It’s gone, I tell you – four thousand quids’ worth in a lump.” He kicked viciously at a stump of spinifex. “Curse the rotten stuff—someone must have followed us. Just dozed for a minute and the damned thing went. The best thing we can do is get while our luck’s in; someone’s wise to us. Anyhow, no gold, no cops.” He laughed to himself.
Larrigan shrugged himself to life. “Well, of all the ——. The dirty swindlers; can’t even thieve honest! Come sneakin’ about when a man’s damn fool enough to leave a thing with you, you useless ——. That’s what a man’s up against—dirty low-down tricks. Come on, quick, before I do somethin’; let’s get goin’.” He laughed to himself.
Two days later, through the bar doors of the City Arms walked a stranger in a grey flannel, blue dungarees, and outsize bluchers, the toes of which aspired to heaven like a Moslem at evening prayer. Walking to the counter, he pulled out a belt pouch, threw down a small piece of gold chipped from a slug, and called for drinks for the house. He laughed out loud!
Moya Sharp
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