The Clay Dreaming by Ed Hillyer Read Free Book Online

Couldn’t get a word o’ sense out of ’em. Surrendered the fox, though. Smack dab into the hands of Reverend Perfect, the original black beast. Came home from a good run, brush in one pocket, prayer-book in t’other!’
    Rumbustious Sir Ralph concluded his tale. ‘Too bad about the Captain, what? Same day. Sorry business.’
    A brief period of contemplation, and then Charley Dumas spoke up. ‘ Eni na watjala ?’ he asked. ‘You know dat pella, Lawrence?’
    ‘Mm?’ said Lawrence. ‘No, Charley. No, I’m glad to say I don’t.’
    Lawrence dreaded their sort – the kind who liked to exercise dominion over the earth. The hunt was meant for meat, not merely for sport. The Aborigines had taught him that.
    ‘I am told the entire continent of Australia is little more than a desert.’
    A stranger’s voice in his ear, Lawrence turned. He recognised William Viner. ‘What could they possibly do there?’ the fellow enquired. He addressed him directly – as if the Blacks were deaf and dumb, or else entirely absent.
    ‘Live off the land,’ said Lawrence, ‘take pleasure in the hunt…as do the wealthy of our own nation.’
    He paused.
    ‘Or they would, if only allowed to. Excuse me.’
    Charles Lawrence realised: perhaps it was not the conduct of his players that he should be worried about.

CHAPTER VI
    Monday the 25th of May, 1868
INTO LONDON
    ‘Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days’ journey.
     
    And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.’
    ~ Jonah 3:3–4
    The Aboriginal Australian Eleven made their way into England’s capital by train. Whilst in London, the team would be quartered in the Queen’s Head Inn, on Southwark’s Borough High-street – just a short carriage ride from Kennington Fields and the Oval. Their all-important first match was scant hours and a few miles away.
    Lawrence clung to the overhead racks, meaning to address the gathered Aborigines. He jiggered and swayed in the centre of the rolling carriage, and searched his heart to find the right words.
     
    Their protracted journey together had begun nearly ten months earlier.
    He, Lawrence, had spent a memorable first night, steeped in the rich collective smell of them – thirteen Aboriginals, a cook, and the coachman, as well as himself and young Bill Hayman – the entire troupe crammed into a waggon-and-four wherever space among the tents, ‘tucker’ and other supplies could be found. In this delightful proximity they left Lake Wallace, and spent the next eight days trekking some 150 miles southeast.
    It rained all the way from their base at Edenhope to the coast at Warrnambool – a perpetual, torrential downpour. The accommodating Blacks fashioned Lawrence excellent wigwams, and kept the fire up to his toes. Even so, the rigours of Bush travel knocked him up something awful. On his third night without sleep he discovered the reason: when not using it in place of a pillow, he was spending the majority of his time perched atop a wrapped parcel – whichturned out to be the rotting torso of a kangaroo. His expressions of horror amused the natives no end. In one fell swoop he gained their confidence and won their affection, the neophyte team captain their confirmed New Chum.
    On wet spring evenings, the Blacks engaged in shooting ’roo and opossum. Ever sporting, Lawrence had joined them – the sure-fire way to ensure fresh meat. Thunder and lightning writ large across desert skies, they traded jokes and stories around a big campfire; plenty of logs for seats, any amount of mutton chops cooking on the gridiron, and tea piping hot out of a little billy stove. All told, he had enjoyed himself immensely.
    In the simple surround of that earthly paradise, Lawrence had introduced them to the life and teachings of Christ, and met with their curious interest. The Sunday following their arrival he took them all to the Church of England,