Taj and the Great Camel Trek (9 page)

Salmah's calf was born in the night. ‘You must write down the date later,' Alec said, ‘the sixth day of July, 1875.'

Padar named the camels carefully for they know the sound of their names, and they may grow like their meaning. But Mr Giles named the calf: he called her Youldeh. It was an explorer's name, the name of a place. Padar raised his eyebrows but he didn't object. The calf was tiny, her body not much bigger than a cat's perched on long stilts for legs. Around her neck clung dried pieces of the placenta she had lived in for thirteen months. I watched her trying to stand but every time she landed on her belly, her legs crumpled under her like a dead spider's. I understood her frustration: sometimes I felt I was on stilts, I was growing so fast. I hoped we could stay there for the calf to grow strong enough to follow her mother in the string. She couldn't drink Salmah's milk until she could stand. If Padar was worried about Mustara keeping up when he was half grown,
how would this little one? Salmah stood close by watching with uncharacteristic patience.

The calf was soft and woolly, and bleated for milk but I couldn't stay petting her for long. Padar called me to help him. The well at Youldeh had sand in it so that was our first job for the morning. It was hard work, digging out the well, re-slabbing it, then making up the canvas troughs for the camels to drink from. Mr Giles had some canvas troughs to carry water in and he made alterations to those while the rest of the men helped Padar and me work on the well.

I took off my boots, for the mud was deep, and left them on a rock nearby. We dragged and shovelled mud all morning until Mr Tietkens was satisfied that we could start re-building the sides. ‘This is just like building a mud wall,' Alec said.

Tommy found small rocks to use. He grinned at me a few times but I wasn't sure why. I hadn't said or done anything funny but I tried not to worry about Tommy's ways. Then just as I was searching for the right stone to fit between two rocks, Tommy leant over and offered me one. It was the perfect size as if it had been fashioned to fit there. His grin was wide. Was he being friendly or showing me he could find a stone better than me?

That night Alec begged Mr Giles for a story. ‘Tell us about the expedition across, the Gibson Desert. Father told me something about it.' Mr Tietkens took up the story for he was with Mr Giles in the Gibson Desert.

Mr Giles chuckled at first but when Mr Tietkens told how young Alfred Gibson died, Mr Giles didn't make a sound. ‘Mr Giles and Alf Gibson were searching for water and couldn't find any. Gibson's horse died, so Mr Giles let him take his own horse to get help.'

I gasped at the sacrifice – what if Mr Giles had died out there? ‘Alf followed the wrong tracks and no trace of him was ever found. Mr Giles walked back to the depot where I was waiting. He was delirious. It was fifty-five miles with only one water stop. He was so hungry on the way he ate a young wallaby – raw – fur and all.'

There was a silence. Would that happen to us?

I watched Mr Giles as Mr Tietkens told the story. There seemed to be many more lines under his eyes; was he thinking how he could have done it differently?

Alec and I talked about it afterwards. ‘Mr Giles knew Gibson was not a good bushman, Taj. He would have died for sure if Mr Giles left him there by himself. Mr Giles is one of the bravest men I know.'

I hoped so, for an unwelcome thought had occurred to me: what would happen if we couldn't find water
further west? I decided then I wouldn't complain any more about the weight of the water casks.

Mr Tietkens woke us up the next morning banging on Peter's gonging plate. ‘Wake up! Today it is the seventh day of July. We celebrate Mr Giles' birthday.' I thought Mr Tieltkens must be very fond of Mr Giles: usually he hardly made a noise, let alone banged on a plate with a spoon.

Mr Giles groaned like Salmah. ‘Really, William, do you have to? It's just a day like any other. Besides, it's two weeks away.'

Mr Tietkens smiled at him. ‘We'll be dividing the party and who knows if we will be back together by the 20th. I say we celebrate today, for a fortieth birthday is too special to miss.'

‘Hear, hear,' cried Alec and Peter. After Alec's talk of birth dates I was interested to see what would happen. Would there be special prayers? But the day was much like any other: camels to be checked for sores, the water level in the well watched, saddles to repair.

Jess Young picked up his rifle and called to Padar. ‘Saleh, are you coming with me or not?' Jess Young's smile was different from Tommy's. Even though I didn't always understand Tommy's smiles, Jess Young's were so loud it was possible to hear them. I wondered if Padar felt like I did when Tommy laughed at me.

‘Certainly.' Padar brought Sultan to his knees for Jess Young to mount and then mounted Roshni. They caught three pigeons, all properly killed, for Peter to make a birthday feast, as Alec put it. I helped Tommy with the plucking.

‘You like wearing boots?' he said after his first bird. Was he teasing me? I wasn't sure so I didn't answer. He didn't wear boots, but why shouldn't I?

Jess Young brought his concertina out after the pigeon stew and damper. The damper was never as good as Padar's chapattis. It was too thick, but it filled us up which was all Peter had to do. ‘Go get your tabla, Taj,' Padar said. I glanced at Jess Young and he nodded. I learnt a new song: ‘Happy Birthday'. The men sung it with passion though it had little meaning. Padar had brought some spare camel bells to the fire and let them fall against his leg as the concertina played. He had a faraway smile on his face.

Jess Young asked Mr Giles for his favourite song so that he could play it as a birthday gift. Mr Giles found it difficult to answer. ‘Oh, if only Byron had written music.'

‘I will play one with the best poetry.' Jess Young pulled his concertina shut, opened it and started to sing:

Down yonder green valley where streamlets meander,

When twilight is fading I pensively roam.

It was a song about the love between a man and a woman. Padar knew such songs from Afghanistan too. One was Leyla and Mejnun. Mejnun goes mad in the desert from his love for Leyla.

It didn't take long for Mr Tietkens to join in the song. It was called ‘The Ash Grove'. Alec's voice lifted beside me and I remembered the words since Jess Young played it three times. Tommy grinned at us and slapped his hands against his thighs. Did he have songs to share?

When the singing was over, Mr Giles told us he had business to attend to in Fowler's Bay to the south. I watched Tommy for I knew that was where his family lived, but he didn't even smile.

‘William, you and Jess can travel north to look for water and a place that would make a good depot like this one.' The men looked pleased to be asked to do their own exploring. ‘Saleh, you go too, to help with the camels.'

‘I go with them, boss.'

Mr Giles hesitated before saying, ‘Are you sure, Tommy? Don't you want to see your family?'

Tommy had a look of horror on his face, like when we were plucking the emu. I was surprised. Wouldn't Tommy want to be with his family?

I was to go with Mr Giles and Alec. He had to deliver a few camels to Fowler's Bay for Mr Elder. I thought of how we would have fewer camels to carry the loads and
I prayed for good conditions ahead of us, for camels can survive well in the desert if they only have themselves to worry about. Carrying a heavy load can be a different matter.

Peter was to be left alone to care for the remaining camels. ‘Do you mind?' I asked him.

He smiled, his gaze softening as it strayed to little Youldeh. ‘Of course not, this be a proper depot with water. And you won't be long.'

Mr Giles, chose three camels to take besides our riding camels: Monsoon, Shajee and Gul. They were good pack camels and I would miss them but at least it wasn't Rajah or Malik who I tended when they were poisoned, or sweet-natured Khushi.

Mr Giles, Alec and I were almost to Fowler's Bay just past Colona Station when we met some Wirangu people. They were Tommy's relatives and one was called Bobbie. We stopped and made a small camp by the track. Bobbie knew English words and we found out why Tommy's relatives hadn't met us on the track. ‘Been big sickness,' he said. ‘Many die.' Tommy's poor Uncle Jimmy had lost his two daughters, Mary and Jinny. Mr Giles didn't seem to know what to say.

Another boy that Mr Giles was fond of had died as well. His name was Fry. ‘I was going to bring him back with us,' Mr Giles said. ‘He would have been company for you and Tommy.' I nodded and tried to look him in the eyes for that is what the English call respect.

At the mention of Tommy, his relatives said his father had died in the epidemic as well. How would Tommy take that news? There was a lot of head shaking and sorrowful looks. Would he feel badly now that he didn't go to meet his family? We three were subdued as we marched towards the sea.

While we were at Fowler's Bay I wrote out a letter for Emmeline that Alec corrected. I could already recognise the words that were used a lot. We gave the letter to a Mr Richard Dorey to post to Adelaide by ship.

A man called Mr Armstrong gave Mr Giles a case of brandy which I loaded carefully so it wouldn't break. I didn't say it was haram to drink it for the English didn't seem to mind.

We left the bay on the seventeenth day of July. ‘I'm sorry to leave the sea,' Mr Giles said. He talked about the spindrift and spray of the Southern Ocean. There were many words Mr Giles used that I didn't understand.

‘Spindrift is the mist of the water above the waves,' Alec said to me when he saw me frowning. It made me think of the haze of heat above the sand in the desert near Beltana.

This is how my letter to Emmeline looked.

I wrote my first name in Persian so she would know it was me.

Two strange things happened when Tommy learnt that his father had died. Tommy didn't cry but he turned to Mr Giles and said, ‘My blooming old father dead too.'

Mr Giles was shocked. ‘Is that the way to talk of your poor father?'

‘I couldn't help it.'

I think it was the sadness. A person can be so shocked he doesn't know what is coming out of his mouth. I
couldn't comfort Tommy, not like Alec who put his arm around Tommy's shoulders. Even Mr Giles gruffly said he hoped Tommy would feel better in time.

I looked at Tommy, at his eyes dulled with hurt, and the second strange thing happened. It was as though I had just heard of my mother's leaving. It was a year ago, yet I felt the punch in my gut as though it had just happened. There had been no feeling of doom, no indication that the day would be different to any other. She was smiling, pleased to visit her friends. She kissed me the same way as she did at night when I went to sleep, the same way that said, ‘See you in the morning.' Why didn't she say goodbye? Or did she decide later not to return? Wasn't her love for me, for Padar, enough to draw her back? That was what lay so heavily in a dark pit inside me – something I rarely let myself think about – the fact that my mother had not loved me.

I left the group and went to sit by Mustara where he was resting in the late-afternoon shade. I picked a blade of grass and chewed it as Mustara chews his cud. I didn't want to think these thoughts; I wanted to drown them deep where they couldn't surface. When Padar had tried to talk about her I refused to listen. How could it help? It just made the knife in my heart twist deeper.

When the shadows grew cold and long, Alec joined me. ‘Come and eat, Taj.'

I hoped no one else had noticed my solitary time
for I didn't care to answer any questions. Fortunately, everyone wanted to hear each other's stories of discovery. It didn't take Mr Giles long to tell about our trip to Fowler's Bay, then we were listening to the details of the officers' and Tommy's trip north to find water.

Tommy had helped them by following horse tracks to find the first place of water called Paring. It was dry. Tommy didn't even look pleased as he usually did when someone was talking about him.

Mr Tietkens told the story: ‘The next two days we went about twenty-five miles each and only found a native well with a small amount of water in it. After that we found some small water sources until finally we came to a prettily grassed place with several wells. Some native people were there and Tommy managed to learn the name of the place – Ooldabinna.'

Mr Giles slapped his thigh. ‘I'm pleased you found a new depot with water, even if it is ninety-two miles away.'

Tommy seemed to be able to do anything – track, find water, now find out the names of places. I was shocked at the intensity of my own feelings. I should have been feeling sorry for Tommy – he had just lost his father. But all I could think of was my own loss and that Tommy had a family and hadn't even wanted to go home to them.