He was a part of the building, of the hectic scenery, and all knew him as ’Un. Bony was still to learn the genesis of this name, bestowed on Brown during the First World War when he arrived from nowhere wearing a Kaiser Wilhelm moustache in full bloom. The fall of the Kaiser’s Germany found the moustache as aggressive as ever, and even when the years bleached it and the beer stained it, the name clung. The Hun, born in Birmingham, degenerated to ’Un, even the local Germans affectionately so calling him.

He squatted this early evening on the hotel veranda beside the solitary chair occupied by Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, unaware of the guest’s profession and rank, and his reputation in every police department in the Commonwealth. Along the stony street passed a flock of goats in charge of a small white boy and an aborigine of the same age and size, and beyond the dust-dry creek the setting sun was flailing the armoured tors of Black Range.

“How long I been here?” echoed ’Un. “I came here back in nineteen-fourteen. Same pub. Same police station. Same houses. Two years laterme and Paddy the Bastard found the Queen Vic Mine, and we went through threeforchunes in three years. All in this pub, too. The year after Paddy died, I sold the mine to a syndicate for a thousand quid.”

“Real money, eh?” murmured Bony.

“Too right! Easy come, easy go. Paddy drankhisself to death right on this here veranda. It took the policeman and five men to hold him down.”

“A powerful man, indeed.”

’Unapplied a match to what might be tobacco in the bowl of his broken pipe. Despite the years spent in this undeveloped territory of Australia, the Brummagem accent was strong. When he chortled the sound was not unlike the frantic calls of the rooster.

“Powerful!” he said. “Why, when I broke me leg out at the Queen Vic, he carried me here, and that’s all of nine miles. Why, when he spat at a man, that man went out like a light. Him and Silas Breen got into a argument on what won theMelbun Cup in 1900 and they fought for a week, knocking off only to eat. Hell of a good mate was Paddy. I never hadno mate after him. Now, strike me pink! Here’s theBreens coming to town.”