Lantana Lane (23 page)

“Pretty good, eh?” he said exultantly. The other three men assented—but in tones which betrayed varying degrees of fervour. Bruce was impressed, and had already collected data for his calculations by consulting his watch at intervals, and pacing out distances. Dick sounded a note of jubilation, for at this rate he could hardly fail to collect from Aub at the end of the day. And Aub, with this selfsame thought in mind, expressed his concurrence rather moodily, though hope was beginning to revive in his heart. For Barry had reached a point where the grass gave way to a dense growth of every known weed, among which there grew some smallish trees, including a few self-sown exotics gone native—a couple of lemons, a little grove of paw-paws, a clump of bananas—and here, where Ken's foot-track plunged into the Stinking Roger, he was having his first spot of bother. It was not, of course, the vegetation which incommoded him, nor was there any band of rock; but there were rocks—and large ones, too, whose dislodgement and removal called for more circumspection, and took more time than did the disposal of mere earth. Moreover, the grade had become steeper; the wall of earth on the upper side was now ten feet high, and on top of it the monster's excavations had left a particularly vast boulder so unsteadily balanced that any more undermining would obviously bring it crashing down. Down it must come—but not in its own time and manner, for though the metal giant had already taken the buffetings of many falling rocks with perfect indifference, this one was big enough to give it a very nasty buffet indeed. Barry was attending expertly to the problem, but it was delaying the dramatic speed of his advance.

The monster backed, paused, lifted its snout high into the air, made a quick sally and a lightning jab, and retreated again, leaving the boulder quivering for a few seconds before it settled on its base once more. The beastly contraption, admitted Marge to herself, was revealing unexpected qualities. It was not all savagery and brute force; it was capable, under Barry's expert hands, of subtlety, finesse and delicate manœuvring. It moved as lightly as a dancer; it positively pirouetted. Again and again it thrust at the rock, and swung nimbly back out of danger; again and again the rock trembled and subsided, while cascades of earth and stones fell away from around it. Aub's gloomy face grew brighter and brighter. “No hurry, son,” he called solicitously, “take your time.”

Barry may or may not have heard this gratuitous advice, but he gave no sign. He had backed away, swinging his massive vehicle dexterously on its tracks until it lurked close beneath the bank, like a huge beast of prey in ambush, and from here he was studying the rock with an expression which boded it no good. Softly and warily he sneaked up on it again, fiercely and accurately he jabbed, and swiftly he retreated as it slid forward, and remained hanging so precariously on the crumbling brink that Marge decided not to look any more. Nor did she—until a dull crash, almost drowned by congratulatory cries from the audience, proclaimed the climax; then she turned to see the boulder leaping down the hill, gouging a deep scar through the undergrowth, smashing a shapely sapling, and fetching up with a sickening thump against a large log at the bottom. Aunt Isabelle, suddenly appearing at her side, remarked appreciatively that this was an operation the most interesting and educational, to which Marge replied sadly that maybe it was, but the hillside used to look so pretty.

Aunt Isabelle treated this with robust contempt. How, she demanded, would the agriculture flourish if good land were to remain uncultivated because its natural state was pleasing to the eye? This was the view of an unpractical aesthete, and however appropriate in artistic circles, entirely out of place here. For herself, she had resolved to recreate herself in the likeness of her peasant ancestors, who, in their time, must have despoiled many and many a flowering hillside. . . .

“Not with bulldozers,” objected Marge.

Aunt Isabelle very properly made short work of this feeble reply. Let Marrrrge not mistake herself, they would have been enchanted to use bulldozers had it not been their misfortune to live before the age of these mechanical marvels. It was unbecoming, she added sternly, to speak with the disapproval of this wonderful invention, for such machines were undoubtedly among the greatest benefits which Providence had conferred upon mankind.

Marge gave up. This continual passing of the buck to Providence depressed her, and she began to think rather crazily about a new version of Genesis in which an eighth day was devoted to the creation of bulldozers. And while she was thus absurdly and unprofitably engaged, Barry—stimulated by success and applause—was working with concentrated fury. He was getting through the troublesome bit, and making up for lost time, Lesser rocks tumbled about him as he sliced into the wall; a landslide bore down two young paw-paw trees and a dead stump; a large groundsel bush, crowned with a froth of white blossom, descended gracefully, still upright, and a burnt log rolled down on top of it; the front edge of the banana grove toppled, and vast leaves sank slowly, like green sails. The monster, advancing and backing, swinging and turning, scooping, pushing and rending, implacably flattened them into a mangled mass, shoved them over the lower bank, and continued to tear its path out of the hillside, leaving behind it a trail of devastation.

But it left behind it, also, a road, and so exhilarated was Barry by this miracle fast growing beneath his hands, that an invitation to share the smoke-oh which Marge and Mrs. Jackson carried down from the house, was austerely declined. “Suits me best to keep goin' mate,” he declared when Ken went down to fetch him. “Once you start on tea, it's just natter, natter, natter for an hour, I seen it too often. Anyway, me breakfast's still ridin' nice and high.”

This Spartan attitude abashed the spectators slightly, but not enough to blunt their appetites, or still their tongues, and they sat on the grass, natter, natter, nattering while they watched the road extend and descend like a bleeding wound across the slope below. Dick was jubilant, but Aub, though shaken, refused to admit defeat. The kid might strike trouble yet, he insisted hopefully; but Ken slapped him on the back and told him he might as well part up at once, because there wasn't any more rock down there, and by the way things were going the job would be done by lunch-time. He looked so elated that Aunt Isabelle patted his hand fondly, declaring that this step he had taken to enlarge his farm was both bold and prudent, as the actions of a young man about to assume grave responsibilities should always be, and she begged—speaking with emotion—that he would lose no time in bringing his sweetheart to the Lane, that all might take her to their bosoms. It was well and movingly done, but Ken did not rise. “Break it down, Auntie,” he protested, clipping her round the waist and planting a kiss deftly on her cheek, “what would I want with any other sweetheart when I've got you?”

Towards midday the amazing truth could no longer be denied, even by Aub; the road would be finished inside another hour. The audience had grown by now, though its composition had altered as one or another of its members reluctantly mooched off to do some work, and someone else arrived to watch. Dick and Bruce had gone, but Aub (perhaps still hoping against hope for a band of rock) had stuck it out. Doug Egan had parked his truck outside the Arnolds', and come in to take a gander; Wally Dunk had left his alongside Kelly, and just nipped down on the thin excuse of telling Mrs. Jackson they were temporarily out of cinnamon at the store. This news he had not imparted, however, for Mrs. Jackson had earlier withdrawn to the house, after explaining that although it was real nice sitting out in the sun, she somehow couldn't enjoy it while there was work waiting to be done, some could, of course, and she wished she could too, but she was funny that way. Henry Griffith had turned up because, he said, it was plain that one would be socially a dead loss in the Lane for ever if one had seen nothing of this remarkable event; and Sue had promptly followed him because she darned well wasn't going to be the only mug left slaving at home. Alf, EElaine, Tristy and Gaily had been and gone, but Amy and Gwinny had turned up together, and brought their knitting. Ken had spent much time prowling about on the road as if proving its existence to himself by walking on it, but he had now rejoined the group and was arguing with Aub about whether Kelly would be able to get up it after rain. At this stage Jack and Joe arrived, and it was Jack who presently remarked that it looked as if Barry might finish with a bit of time to spare before he ran out the fifty quid.

“That's right,” agreed Ken, consulting his watch. “A good quarter of an hour, I reckon. Might be twenty minutes, even.”

“Them things can do a lot in twenty minutes,” observed Joe.

“I'll say!” said Doug with enthusiasm, staring at the road.

They looked at the bulldozer far, far away at the foot of the hill; it was still backing, thrusting and manoeuvring, but on comparatively level land now, and the job was all but done.

“Might as well get him to shove out a bit of that lantana on the flat while he's here,” said Ken. “I'll need to fix up a few fences down there before I put anything in. If the kid could just clear me a line along where the old south fence used to be, I'd get it done in half the time—eh, Jack? I reckon there might be some of it still left under the lantana.”

“How's he going to know where the line is, in all that muck?” Aub objected.

“I can show him, can't I? See that bit of a track through the thickest part? That's where I brushed a path last year when the kids wanted to get down to the creek for a swim. It goes right through the fence line, and comes out on that little clear, grassy patch—see? Well, that's about fifty yards the other side of the fence. All Barry's got to do is follow me along that till I tell him to stop, and then clear a line at right angles. Easy as winking. I'll just nip down and word him about it.”

Everyone got quite a kick out of seeing him tear off down the road which had not existed a few hours ago, and Gwinny caused much astonishment by announcing that although Alf hadn't ever held with the Casket, he said it did make a difference what you did with the money, and he reckoned it was real sensible of Ken to have the road made.

Presently a strange silence fell as the buildozer came to a standstill, and ceased its sputtering roar. Ken and Barry were seen in consultation, pointing and gesticulating. The road, it seemed, still required a few finishing touches, but at last Ken marched off towards the lantana, and the monster lumbered powerfully after him. He entered the thin thread of track, his blue shirt making a bright spot of colour against the green, and the onlookers above could see him pushing his way along it; Jack remarked that it must have grown over a lot by now, and he'd have done better to take a brush-hook with him. The bulldozer came up against the green wall where the track entered it, and began to shove.

“Cripes, she shifts it, all right!” exclaimed Joe admiringly.

Indeed she did. She shifted it so effectively that it piled higher and higher before her ravening snout; the ground was firm and level, so she moved at a good pace, too. It was suddenly observed that the blue dot began to exhibit signs of haste and agitation, moving ever faster along the track, and turning frequently to hold up its hands in a gesture which those above had no difficulty in interpreting as an attempt to halt the traffic. “By golly,” breathed Aub ecstatically, “the flaming thing's got him on the run!”

Through the ocean of lantana the bulldozer moved remorselessly forward like Leviathan, pushing a high wave of greenery before it, and along the track ahead scuttled the blue dot, leaping, ducking and wildly gesturing. Aunt Isabelle clasped her hands to her breast and shrieked : “
Halte!
He is trapped I
Halte!
““Save your breath, old lady,” said Henry soothingly. “He can't hear you. He can't even hear Ken.”

It was too obviously true. Barry could neither hear nor see the unhappy fugitive he was driving before him. The hungry roar of his monster drowned all other sounds; the mountain of lantana piled before it shut off his view of the ground immediately ahead. In the overgrown track, pushing, stumbling and tripping, Ken could not move fast enough to increase the distance between himself and his pursuer; nor had he time to effect an escape by struggling into the lunatic undergrowth before he should be overtaken. He could only flee—and he fled. Up above, his unfeeling neighbours were by now convulsed with laughter—all but Aunt Isabelle who, wringing her hands, exhorted them to hasten to his aid. Finding this plea quite disregarded, she warmly declared them a set of miserable poltroons, announced that she herself would shame them by proceeding to the rescue, and was half-way down the bank before Sue seized her and dragged her back.

“Keep calm, Isabelle,” she besought. “For goodness' sake, keep calm. It'll be all over long before anyone could get there.”

Admittedly these words were not well chosen, but Sue was excitedly intent upon the spectacle, and she spoke in haste. Aunt Isabelle uttered a scream of horror.

“All over! He is to be murdered, and you tell me to keep calm? See how it pursues him! He is mad, that boy who drives! He should not proceed when he can no longer see before him!
Halte! Imbécile!
Henri, you must act! . . .”

“What for?” asked Henry callously. “Ken's showing all the action that's needed. Just look at him—what more do you want?”

“Reckon he must be getting pretty close to where the fence used to be,” said Joe, staring raptly.

“Somewhere near,” Jack assented. “Wonder if there
is
any of it left?. . .”

“By jings, he'll need to be nippy if there is!” Doug exclaimed. “I wouldn't want to get through a fence with that thing right on my tail!”

“Me, neither!” agreed Wally fervently.

“Bad enough getting through a good fence,” said Aub, “but an old one—all loose barbed wire tangled up in lantanna! . . .”