From Billabong to London

by Mary Grant Bruce

Along every yard of its great length lay mighty ocean-going steamers: mail-boats, Orient and P. & O., big White Star cargo-ships, French liners, and all the miscellaneous collection of ships that ply from up and down the world to Australia. Trains were coming and going along the railway lines running down the centre of the pier, piercing the air with their shrieks of warning, while people moved hastily out of their way, stumbling over the intricate network of rails. A motley crowd they were: passengers from the steamers; officers—sunburned men in blue uniforms; wharf labourers; sailors in blue jerseys, bearing the name of their ship across their breasts; dark-skinned Lascars from the P. & O. ships; Chinese; well-dressed city people tempted out by bright sunshine and blue sea; and the never-failing throng of children to be found on every great wharf, drawn to “the beauty and mystery of the ships.” Amidst the crowd dock hands worked at loading and unloading cargoes; the shrieks of steam-cranes sounded as great wooden cases were lifted from the trucks, to be poised perilously in mid air over the pier before being swung in-board and lowered into the gaping holds. Each ship bore on its mooring-ropes wide discs of tin, to discourage the rats which would otherwise have found the rope an easy track into the steamer.

It was the usual Australian wharf scene; but there was another factor in it, by no means so familiar. Among the crowded ships were several painted in neutral colours, bearing no name, but only the letter A and a number. They were alongside the wharf, and on their decks men in uniform were working with a feverish activity quite unlike the ordinary movements of the dock-hand in Australia. At each gangway stood a sentry; and other men in khaki went up and down swiftly, some of them receiving salutes from the men who worked—not always, because the new Australian soldier was a free-and-easy person, and, having much to learn, did not easily see that saluting is a mark of respect to the King’s uniform, more than to the man who wears it. The privates did not mean any disrespect to the uniform—they only knew they were busy, and that it seemed to them foolish to stop and salute a man whom they had perhaps known for years as “Bill” or “Dick,” who might have been the fag of one of them at school, or perhaps worked for another for wages on a farm. There are all sorts of queer ups and downs in the composition of a Colonial volunteer force, and social distinctions are apt to collapse altogether before military ability; so that the man with a big property and more money than he knows what to do with may find himself a mere private working under a martinet of a captain who possibly delivered his meat in the piping times of peace. Moreover, he will do it cheerfully. But he will find the saluting hard.

There was a steady hum of preparation on all the grey troopships with the white numbers. Stores and kit were being loaded into them rapidly, each item checked by an officer; on some, the decks of which were boarded up, soldiers, stripped to shirt and breeches, were working with great bundles of compressed hay and straw, emptying truck after truck in readiness for the horses that were to be the chief passengers. From within these could be heard the sound of hammering; they had been stripped of all their inside fittings, and every available inch of space was being turned into stalls and loose-boxes, made with due regard to the comfort of the puzzled four-footed occupants whose homes they would be for so many weary weeks.

All the quay-room was taken up; and besides, out in Port Phillip Bay, the ships lay thick: troopships; cargo-boats waiting their chance to unload, or busy discharging their goods into lighters; sailing vessels, tramps from every harbour in the world, with towering masts and rusty sides; and a host of smaller craft that nosed in and out among the big ships. Near some steps leading to the water a motor-launch tossed in the wash of a paddle-steamer leaving for some Bay port.

A large party, variously laden with hand-baggage, came rapidly along the wharf from the railway-station, and down the steps. At sight of their leader one of the men in the launch steadied her, while the other busied himself with the engine.

“We’ve sent all our heavy things on board, and this is quite the most comfortable way to get over to Williamstown,” David Linton was saying. “No, it’s quite unusual, of course, to be sailing from there; but war has upset everything, and there’s simply no room for any more big ships at this pier. Williamstown is a fearsome place to embark from; it’s bad enough to get there, to begin with, and when you have done so, the pier is miles from anywhere, and you traverse appalling tracks in finding your ship. Much simpler to run across the Bay from Port Melbourne by launch.”

Edward Meadows, a tall, lean man, very like Wally, nodded assent.

“I’ve never seen the fascination of travel,” he said lazily. “To me it’s only bearable with the maximum of comfort—especially when you go to sea.”

“Well, there’s not much maximum of comfort about your back-country trips in Queensland,” said Wally, rather amazed. “And you have plenty of those, Edward.”

“Oh, yes, but that’s different! You don’t expect comfort, and you’d be rather surprised if you got it. And the Bush is different, too,” replied his brother, a trifle vaguely, yet conscious that his hearers understood. “You can live on corned-beef, damper and milkless tea for weeks in the Bush, and sleep in the open, with your saddle for a pillow, and on the whole you quite enjoy it; but you’d feel quite injured if you had to do it on board ship. Possibly it’s the clothes you wear—I don’t know.” He looked round, as if expecting to find enlightenment. “Let me help you in, Miss Norah.”