A SHORT STORY

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 38, 7 May 1927, Page 14

A SHORT STORY

THE MOYSTON MAIL COACH BY “L” Very many years have passed since that eventful day when I set out to gain “Colonial experience” —as the phrase went then —on a large sheep and cattle station in the Wimmera district, Victoria. I had been destined for a learned profession, but adverse circumstances intervened, and I was obliged to exchange the seats of learning, and the gilded youth with whom I had consorted, for the bush, and the pastoralists, rough riders, and other inhabitants of the backblocks. Thus it happened that one morning, just after the Christmas holidays. I found myself standing under the verandah of the “Bull and Mouth” Hotel, Ararat (then kept, I remember, by a genial Irishman named Mulcahy), awaiting the arrival of the Moyston coach. My artistically-tailored suit and silk hat had given place to a monkey jacket, a Crimean shirt, corduroy trousers, and a wide-awake hat. My swag, containing all my possessions, was rolled, strapped together, and slung athwart my shoulder, after the fashion known among soldiers as “en banderole.” I was then a slender and rather delicate youth, that did not seem much fitted for bivouacs in all sorts of weather, mustering, drafting, branding, hard fare, and rough living; but I was wiry, and, as it turned out, the next two or three years proved among the most enjoyable of my life. However, that is by the way.

Moyston was then a little village about 14 miles from Ararat, and the homestead of the run, to the proprietor of which I bore credentials, was two or three miles distant thence. While I was meditating rather sadly upon bygones and the uncertainty of the future Cobb and Co.’s coach clattered up. This was waggonette-built, painted red, and drawn by a pair of strong, handsome horses. There was not much traffic between the two towns —just about sufficient to justify the daily trip of this not tooluxurious conveyance. There was but one other passenger—a short stout Frenchman with a round chubby face and moustaches carefully waxed out into points at either extremity. He smoked a cigar through a meerschaum tube, and regaled himself from the columns of the “Petit Journal Pour Rire.” I accordingly pitched my swag inside, mounted upon the perch beside the driver, and lit my pipe. We started almost immediately, calling upon our way at the post office for Her Majesty’s mails. The driver was a short, thick-set individual, with mutton-chop whiskers, a chubby nose, and a wooden leg, or rather a stump. As we fell into conversation he told me that he was a sailor, but that after following his avocation from youth into middle-age lie had unfortunately been stranded through an accident which, as he expressed it, “razee’d” him. For some time he was in pretty hard straits: but, having the good fortune to be acquainted with an individual who had influence with the coach people, he had been engaged for this service. Since then he had been pretty comfortable, he said, as he was captain of his own ship, the cargo was easily stowed, and the voyagers were prosperous, for his craft was by no means a dull sailer, especially upon a wind. I was yet to find out the full significance of this last phrase. I wondered where he had served his apprenticeship to the ribbons, for it appeared as though Cobb and Co. were taking some risk in entrusting the direction of their vehicle to a man more familiar with hawsers than horses. I hinted something of this; but he only replied gruffly that a sailor who knew his work could handle all sorts of craft—“except women,” he added, retrospectively, “for sich craft was hard to weather, and liable to miss stays in tacking.” About half-way to Moyston there was a steep hill approached progressively in a series of little rises, each one swelling beyond the other; but on the further side the track (for it was little better) descended a steep declivity and intersected a forest of acacias and wild cherry trees, with a tangled undergrowth of ferns and long grass. We proceeded at a leisurely pace until we reached the summit, when suddenly old Jack gathered up the reins, uttered a whoop, and saluted each of the horses with a smart cut across the withers. The animals, who somehow did not seem to be taken by surprise, responded by breaking into a helter-skelter gallop, at which pace we began a furious descent of the undulating, steep, and devious track. Pebbles and debris flew from the horses’ heels, as they tore along at a pace which, with the vehicle following on top of them, they could not have lessened even had they tried. The coach rocked and pitched with the motion, lurched sharply to one side and another, as inequalities in the road presented themselves, and the various articles of lading were tumbled hither and thither with a jarring clatter. Having been quite unprepared for this demonstration, I had, at the outset, a narrow escape of being flung violently off; but I contrived to recover myself, and held on for dear life, managing as soon as I got breath to shout in intermittent gasps: “What the mischief are you driving like that for?” To which this peg-legged shellback merely growled: “Fair wind, mate; fair wind. Set all plain sail!” It might have seemed plain sailing to him, but it wasn’t to me, and the effect upon the French gentleman would have been diverting to an outside spectator. He made frantic but unavailing attempts to rise to his feet, with the intention (I really believe) of throwing himself out of the vehicle if he could see a reasonable chance of doing so. And he vociferated in mixed French and English somewhat after this style:—“Hola! cocher! Halte—arretez—stop! What is this to be. then, for a bolt! Wo-ohoroo!” he yelled, as a projecting branch switched him across the face. “Diable boiteur! Will you pull up your horses. Hold them hard, I tell you! Sacre tonnerre! —I swear—,” crack went the whip. “Ah, misericord—stop, sacred dog of vip! and pe tarn to you. The vip is for ze ass not ze luyse!” Suddenly as we turned a corner, we encountered a number of cattle, which were leisurely crossing the path. The startled horses swerved violently into the bush; we smashed over a fallen log and capsized. The pole snapped short off, and the traces becoming disengaged at the same time, the frightened animals bolted away. My fall was broken by a bush (luckily not a thorny one), into the midst of which I was deposited; and I escaped unhurt except for a few scratches and bruises. Not so fortunate, however, was my Gallic fellow passenger. He was flung with considerable violence upon the projections of a granite formation beneath the surface, and although no bones were broken, his right leg was bruised and cut by the rough elements upon which he had fallen so that it was with some difficulty that I succeeded in helping him upon his feet. “How do you feel now, Monsieur?” I asked.

“Fell! Oh, Ciel! I have no feelings. I shall be broken up—l am all broken down—ooh—those rascally stones—they have broke all my bones!” I could not forbear smiling, for I perceived that he had not in reality been severely hurt, and his words reminded me of the old ballad, “Rattle his bones over the stones.”

“You’ll be better directly,” I said. “It might have been much worse. The driver must be mad, I should think.”

“Ze drivare? He have drive me mad, I think I shall an action bring. I do not pay ze firm to drive me mad! Ooh, my leg! And ze culotte —ze trousaires will never again be a fit.” They certainly would not for they were much rent. I took his arm, and thus assisted he hobbled to the trunk of a fallen tree upon which he contrived to find a seat. He craved for some eau de vie, but I hadn’t a flask, nor, it appeared, had he. I turned my attention to the author of our misfortunes, the driver. It would seem that he had overheard our conversation, for he was brandishing a small wickercovered bottle. “That’s a sample of good whisky from the ‘Bull and Mouth,’ ” said lie. “I promised to take it over to a cove at Moyston that’s almost forgot the taste o’ goo dstuff. But p’r’aps you d better give it to the Frenchy to stop his jaw. ‘Old on a minute.” He applied the flask to his own lips, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then passed it to me with a recommendation to do the same, with which, however. I did not comply, but took the medicine to Monsieur, who received it with much satisfaction, but some ingratitude. “Whis-key is good,” he said. “It is what you call ze ‘Hop Scotch,’ —ze whis-key and ze bag-pipe.” He took a swig. “Ah!—bua ze cognac la belle France. Ciel! Ze Peg Leg Gulley—The Cocher! He shall get his hot drink from his friend aux enfers! Sapriste! —he has gone what you call Dot and go Von —he is an old stick in ze mud, eh?” He took another swig, and then I deemed it prudent to regain the bottle. It appeared that Monsieur’s last piece of sarcasm concerning our too rashly impetuous charioteer had, in a certain sense, literally hit the mark, for he had apparently turned a complete somersault and been pitched into a little hollow which had recently been filled with rain water, but this had dried, leaving a deep deposit of soft clay into which his wooden support had plunged over the shoulder and wedged tight. He presented the appearance of a man propped upon the fragment of one leg and with the other projecting beside him, and his ludicrous expression of disgust and dismay increased the whimsicality of his aspect. The task of liberating him, however, was by no means easy. The leg could not be unfastened as it was buried 100 deep, and for extrication Jack was fairly heavy, and the glutinous mass fixed him as firmly as if he had been riveted in. In vain I hauled and strained, and in vain he endeavoured to second me—the more I tugged the more tightly jammed did he appear to get. These exertions were stimulated from time to time by such ejaculations from the Frenchman as, “Two pulls more and up go ze donkey!” “Pull ze devil, pull ze bakair!” “Would he like to cut his stick?” and so forth. He seemed to regard the trouble as a just retribution—which indeed, perhaps it was, but half-an-hour’s fruitless labour left him just as he was. What was to be done?

“I’m afraid,” said I, ultimately, “that I shall have to go for assistance.” “Don’t you go for nothink of the sort,” he replied, in much apparent alarm. “This place fairly swarms with dingoes. I don’t want to be made dog’s meat of; nor I don’t want to be stacked ’ere for fodder for the larfinjackasses.” “If I could catch the horses,” I observed, “I might hitch them on to you by the harness, and they could haul you up.”

“Ho! could they?” he retorted. “Spose anything went wrong with that cow-hitch of yours? I might’ ave my 'ead pulled hoff, or 'ave myself turned insides-out. It’s be hall hup then, and no mistake.”

“Well, what’s to be done?” I asked pettishly, for he seemed a little unreasonable. “I suppose you don’t want to remain there like a sign for ‘The Coachman’s Plant?’ ”

Ultimately among the cargo of the coach I was fortunate enough to find a spade. I thereupon set to work to dig him out—a job involving no small exertion, for the spade sucked at each stroke as though drawn by some magnetic attraction, and it required all my strength to withdraw it. However, I accomplished the business at last, stimulated from time to time by Jack’s denunciatory blasphemy, and rescued the old sinner from what was literally an extremely unpleasant fix.

We next went in search of the horses which, fortunately, had not strayed far: they had been brought up by the thickness of the bush, and we found them a little further down the slope, grazing quietly, but much encumbered by the remains of the pole. As it was obviously impossible for us to proceed with the remains of the coach until the necessary repairs had been effected. Jack suggested that I should mount one of the horses, ride to Moyston, and report at the inn where the agency was. I acceded and resumed my swag. We removed the harness—winkers and reins excepted—from one of the steeds; I scrambled upon his back and set off. After an uncomfortable journey I fulfilled rnv mission, and proceeded without further adventure to the station to which I was accredited.

And this was my initiation into bush experience.

Since the events recorded in the foregoing veracious narrative the hill and approach have been considerablv levelled and a cutting made, through which runs a well-macadamised road. The mail coach is a more up-to-date vehicle and the driver an expert. It is not at all likely, therefore, that anv more sensational incidents will occur on the way. Yet there may be in Ararat and Moyston some old inhabitants who can remember the original coach and the queer old sailor who made the most of a fair wind. “The Australasian.”