A Regrettable Death

THEcoach captain was young, smart in the grey uniform of the company, and a facile talker. It was obvious that his female passengers found him disturbing; that he was being mentally seduced by those inwhom hope was waning and those whose husbands had exhausted their repertoire.

The voice from the amplifier was pleasing, and grammatical errors easy to condone. Therewas little of the bored tones of the guide, and more often than not the man spoke as though to close friends, as, indeed, the majority of the passengers had become, for they had left Sydney ten days before on this tour to Adelaide and now were on the return journey. Only one man had joined them at Adelaide.

“We are now approaching Murray Bridge,” announced the captain. “As you all know, we are returning to Melbourne via the Princes Highway, and here at Murray Bridge we halt for morning tea. I know you understand how we must keep strictly to schedule, so please don’t go wandering down the street.”

“Not unless you go with me, Captain,” said a middle-aged woman who was good for a solid tip at the end of the tour.

Again on the road a man remarked:

“Country looks terribly dry even this far south.” And the amplified voice said:

“Droughtiestyear for the last seventeen. All across South Australia and Victoria, and high into New South Wales, the man on the land is being hard hit.”

“Old Ben Wickham was right again,” a woman said, and her travelling companion added:

“He’s been right for years, but this time all the farmers believed him. Pity he died.”

Both before and after leaving Border Town the effect of the drought was apparent. There was no new fallow; the grass paddocks were burned brown and patchily bare; there were no green crops. It was as thoughthis were the end of summer and all the thirsty land awaited the autumn rains. But it was early spring, whenall the world should have been bursting with vigorous life. Brown was the universal colouring, broken only by the dark of pine plantations and the barbered gardens of neat homesteads. The district was almost denuded of stock. Of human activity there was none to be seen.