The cook’s triangle called all hands to breakfast. Martyr again puckered his eyes to read the figures on the marker post set up far off shore. He had seen the figure 19 resting on the water; now he could see the figure 3. Only three feet of water left in Lake Otway. No! Less! Only two feet and ten inches. Were there a prolonged heat-wave in February, then Lake Otway wouldn’t live another five weeks.

The men were leaving their quarters to eat in the annexe off the kitchen. The rouseabout was bringing the working horses to the yard. The hens were busy before the shade claimed them during the hot hours. The chained dogs were excited by the running horses. The crows were cawing over at the killing pens, and a flock of galah parrots gave soft greetings when passing overhead. A city man could never understand how men can be captivated by such a place… six hundred miles from a city.

Martyr turned and entered the dining-room, large, lofty, well lighted, and sat at the white-clothed table to eat alone. He could hear the men in the annexe, and Mrs Fowler, the cook, as she served them breakfast. Then he looked up at Mrs Fowler’s daughter.

“Morning, Mr Martyr! What will it be after the cereal? Grilled cutlets or lamb’s fry and bacon?”

She was softly-bodied and strong and twenty. Her hair was the colour of Australian gold, and her eyes were sometimes blue and sometimes green. Her mouth was small and deliciously curved when she was pleased. But her voice was hard and often shrill.

“Cutlets, please, Joan. No cereal. Plenty of coffee.” Noting the set of her mouth, he asked: “A war on, this morning?”

“Ma’s in one of her moods.”

Tossing the fine-spun hair from her broad forehead, she departed as though trained to walk by a ballet master, and he remembered she had walked like that one morning when the Lake was being born, and she was just seventeen, and the Boss had come close to dismissing her and her mother because she could be dangerous… among men without women.