Then he slipped out the back door of the cottage, while the wake to mark his aunt’s passing was still in progress.
Chapter
5
T here were no regrets. Brennan had never really liked the noise, the bustle and the smell of the city. His
favourite times had always been when he was alone with Ede, or when he was visiting with Sly Joe. Now he walked with a new purpose and a light heart, each step taking him further away from the city.
The further he walked, the fewer houses he saw. Gradually the streets had become a series of quiet lanes as the city slowly gave way to the country, until at last there was just a single road leading deeper into the bush. He felt his heart racing. As he walked through the tall trees, he breathed in the freshness of country air that was laced with the scents of the wildflowers and shrubs adorning the roadside. This, he realised, was where he wanted to be – on the road and as free as the birds in the sky. For the first time in his life he did not care how old he was or where he had come from originally; he just knew that he loved the sweet perfumes of the bush. And so, as he tramped along the narrow road that led him away from the dirty, crowded city, he was happy.
Once he’d left the busy streets, he’d also noticed that there were fewer and fewer people on the roads until all that remained were the occasional bullock team or some country farmers on their way to the city markets in wagons and sulkies. Their vehicles were loaded with farm produce of all kinds: bags of grain, bales of wool, piles of fresh vegetables and fruit or loudly protesting animals of one kind or another. Most of these travellers had afforded him little more than a polite nod as they’d passed, as for the most part, he’d kept his eyes lowered. He had not wanted to be questioned about his intentions, where he had come from or where he was going.
It was late in the afternoon when he came upon a winding track which led away from the main road. Answering an unspoken call, he left the highway without hesitation and began to follow the meandering track between the towering gums that crowded the roadside. The shadows lengthened as he walked, and the lane grew dim in the deepening twilight. The swarms of bush flies, his travelling companions most of the day, had departed; now a few grey mosquitoes whined about his ears as he walked. When night fell a fat moon marched out among the stars in the heavens. Brennan was not afraid as he tramped along the track in the gloom, but he was tired and hungry.
As he crossed a narrow wooden bridge over a small creek, he was surprised to hear music coming from the scrub off to his left. Peering through the bush, he spotted the glow of a nearby campfire dancing among the trees near the water’s edge. He left the track and walked towards the camp, the fatigue, hunger and thirst he had been ignoring all day suddenly surfacing and demanding his attention. His nose twitched and his mouth watered as he smelt tea brewing and damper browning in the coals of the fire. A short stout man with a round tummy and the thickest, widest beard Brennan had ever seen probed in the fire with a long stick. He was lifting a black billy of tea from the flames just as Brennan walked into the circle of firelight.
Another, older man had been sitting off to the side, his back resting against a log as he played a slow, sad, and mournful tune on an old concertina. As he stretched and compressed the bellows, his short fat fingers danced about the buttons of the instrument like wriggling worms. The music rose up among the branches of the trees and mingled with the whisper of a little breeze among the leaves and the tired evening songs of the birds.
The man stopped playing as Brennan approached, looking up without surprise at the boy who now stood before him in the flickering firelight. “Lookee here, Happy Jack,” he said without rising, “your cooking has attracted a dinner guest, a young man from the big smoke, I’ll vow.”
The cook flipped two plump dampers and some johnnycakes from the coals with his stick before turning to stare at Brennan. “So it has, and that’s the truth,” he said cheerily, holding his big arms wide as he beckoned to the boy. “Don’t be shy, lad, come and join us; we are about to have our tea, and there’s always enough for one more.”
Brennan smiled as he walked over and sat on the log. “Thank you,” he said. “I’m very hungry and thirsty; I’ve been walking all day.”
The man sitting against the log laughed and went back to playing the concertina, very softly this time; the notes hung gently on the night air like the subtle perfume from the gum-blossoms. “We been trampin’ for twenty years, lad,” he said happily. “Yer git useta it in time. Bad times and the big drought gave us a reason to go on the tramp back then; there was no work about so we went looking for a living on the track. When the drought ended, the reason became an excuse, because we’d discovered we liked the life. Now we don’t much care how we justify our lifestyle; we’ll tramp the road until we die, like as not.”
He glanced over at Brennan, who was quietly eyeing the food as he listened.
“My name’s Josie,” the old man said. “They call me the oldest swagman, so you must be the youngest. The little fat bloke doing the cooking is Happy Jack. They call him that because he’s as mad as a magpie, but he makes the best damper on the wallaby track, and his johnnycakes can bring a tear to a strong man’s eye.” Josie stopped playing the concertina and struggled stiffly to his feet. “Roll out your swag, my boy. Then you can sit on it and rest against this friendly log while we eat. Here, I’ll help you, for I’ll wager this is your first night waltzing Matilda.”
Brennan did not object as the old man helped him unroll his blanket. He had packed in a hurry and his meagre possessions spilled untidily on the ground. Josie clucked his tongue. “Tsk, tsk,” he clucked. “Come the mornin’ and we’ll have to show yer how to set a swag, lad.”
“My name is Brennan,” the boy said. “I walked from the city.”
“Brennan it is, then,” Happy Jack said airily. “But where you come from and why is no business of ours. We all have a secret or two on the wallaby track, so we don’t ask questions of each other. What we want known we tell; the rest we keep to ourselves.”
“What’s the wallaby track?” Brennan asked quickly.
Happy Jack laughed, his eyes twinkling under the thick crop of grey hair about his head. “Humping the bluey, waltzing Matilda, tramping the wallaby track; they’re all the same thing, Brennan, my little swagman.” He laughed again, holding his round tummy while the thick white whiskers danced about on his chin. “Or perhaps we should call you the swag boy, seein’ as how yer so young. Come now; let’s eat these cakes and damper. There’s a fat young rabbit baking in the camp oven as well, and I’ll vow old Josie’s got a tot of rum to warm an old man’s heart. But yer too young fer rum, Brennan; yer’ll have to settle fer a strong pannikin of billy tea.”
They sat in the dancing firelight and ate the damper, the johnnycakes and the crisp baked rabbit. Brennan gulped down several mugs of tea before lying back contentedly on his blanket. Josie began to play the concertina again while Happy Jack finished off the rest of the food. One could not see his mouth; he just shovelled the food into the dark hole that opened in his beard as he ate. His whiskers bounced wildly as he chewed, his eyes half-closed with the pleasure of eating. No wonder he was so fat, Brennan thought as he watched the little, round man devour the food with relish.
Josie was as old, scrawny and haggard as Happy Jack was rotund and ruddy. His back was stooped and his joints creaked as he walked. He too had a thick beard, though not so grand as Happy Jack’s. The rest of his hair was sparse, sprouting in tufts from his shaggy head. But his old eyes were full of life and he played the old squeezebox beautifully, pausing frequently to swig rum from a bottle he kept at his side. As he played, he began to sing in a deep, rich voice that sent little shivers up and down Brennan’s spine.
When he reached the chorus, Happy Jack joined in, having finished eating and rolled out his own swag. Sighing contentedly as Josie finished