M. M. Chance said evenly, “Sir, Offhand, we are all used to your notorious sense of caprice.”
Offhand however was being careful to show no sign of any caprice at all. “Mr. Chance, if you consider the skills which are invested daily in bringing down to Kempsey the large timber from Kookaburra, and likewise all the daily cleverness which goes into the delivery of cream to the dairy co-operatives, then I’m sure that like me you would be struck by a seamless admiration for the craft of haulage as exercised in the Macleay.”
“I think we may be looking for a more directly martial expression,” Mr. Chance admitted.
Tim’s long, thin moustache, falling in fronds over his lips due to recent growth, was a good veil to smile behind. And so he did smile. Bravo to blazes, Offhand!
Meanwhile, old Thurmond’s patriarchal stance and the curious sense that his red-grey beard was on fire with the force of vision meant he was certain to be called on to thunder yet again. And Mr. Chance, to stop him from combusting on the spot, pointed to him
“I’m dead against this Casual fellow’s proposal…” said Mr. Thurmond.
Men hooted, and Billy corrected himself.
“…All right, Offhand then. I don’t read his rag. But I think you are too kind to him by far, Mr. Chance. Damn him is what I say! Damn the power of his column! I stick by the mounted bushmen resolution which I seconded earlier, and I add to it a second wing, which I shall back with an immediate donation of five pounds.”
He took a scarlet five pound note from his fob pocket, where he must have already placed it in readiness for this scene, and held it extended between his first two fingers for all the room to see…
“I have long been of the opinion too readily dismissed by your committee that every member of this meeting be asked to take the following oath. That as a loyal subject of Her Majesty, I support without equivocation the aims of the British Empire in Southern Africa, including the extinction of all Boer pretensions of sovereignty in Transvaal and Orange Free State. So help me God.”
“Is that a motion?” asked Mr. Chance, in whose nature good sense and not frenzy was so dominant, and who seemed shocked by Billy Thurmond’s fervour.
“That is a motion, sir. It is a voluntary oath, but we know what to make of those who will not take it.”
“Yes,” the farmer Borger called out in his urgent accent. “We’ll know that they’re honest men, careful about swearing oaths at the drop of a bloody hat!”
A loud furore, ranging from whistles to groans to some applause! In a baritone voice Chance demanded and slowly got a little control back, and could at last speak. “Yours will need to be a separate motion, Mr. Thurmond. At the moment we are considering the matter of the Macleay contingent.”
Tim understood he should have foreseen the direction of the meeting: That there would be a publicly observed vote. Those who did not raise their hands would be counted and listed by people like Billy. There a philo-Boer. There a disloyalist. There an Empire-hater. Bloody awful for a man’s business, such a perception. Yet how in hell’s name could you vote casually for the death of the young?
Though he was willing to risk being poor for the sake of everyone thinking him openhanded, he didn’t want to risk it for the sake of politics.
But when the motion was put, Tim sat with both hands planted on his knees. Make of it what you bloody want, old Billy. Chance counted the room and said, “A majority, I believe.” But not sweeping. Sir William Lyne would not be able to be told that the Macleay was unanimous in its militant intentions. Chance enclosed his jaw with his hand, and then took it away, his moustache flattened a little.
The Offhand called, “I think many men would have committed themselves to the fray, Mr. Chance. But not necessarily others.”
“Thank you, Offhand. Is that intended to be a comfort or a reproach?”
The Offhand didn’t answer, but nodded ambiguously, approving of Mr. Chance’s subtlety. A great fellow, the Offhand. Crafty defender of small men, of complicated thought.
Though now Billy Thurmond was enraged in a new way, far above his average level of rancour.
“In view of this disgusting display, Mr. Chairman, I suggest that loyal members of the community be placed at the doors to administer the oath to the members of this meeting.”
Borger yelled. “Men placed on doors? Haven’t you heard of habeas corpus, you silly old bugger?”
Taking his hands from his knees, Tim applauded Borger. It was the first public display he had given, and he could feel the blood prickling its way along his arms and legs. For there was some rare gesture building in him. He was excited by such occasional rushes of courage, but loathed them too, the way they exposed him. He could never have been a willing rebel, for the reason that rebels put themselves willingly at the centre of the picture. All society’s glare and mistrust was turned on them.
Yet Jesus, he was on his own feet, and Chance, out of a desperate desire for a new voice amongst all the repetitious ones, pointed to him.
“Mr. Chance,” Tim resonated out of a throat which felt fragile to him. Bloody hell! Even Billy Thurmond was turned to him with something like a neutral face. “Mr. Chance, we were invited here for a discussion on suitable troops. We were not told that we had to have oaths administered to us. An oath is a solemn declaration, and ought to be reserved for the most serious civil occasions.”
Where in the bloody hell was this speech coming from? His great-uncle John the rebel, in his days as a travelling drapery salesman, calling at Glenlara to punch him on the arm and say, “Are we up to the big life, Tim?” And that little nudge of the knuckle now emerging, after a quarter of a century underground, as a speech. “It seems to me that so serious a matter should have been notified to us in the public advice and advertisements.”
Billy Thurmond talking still and waving his free hand dismissively. Did his maize grow so well because he harangued it? Did the cows yield their cream to get away from his cowshed lectures? Wouldn’t mind having the five quid which sat in Billy’s other hand. Two years board and tuition for Lucy Rochester with hard-handed Imelda.
Faces were however turned approvingly to Tim. Grateful frowns above moustaches. There was something they found alien in Billy’s extreme proposal. The Uncle Johnny speech had seized up in Tim now, quenched by so much approval. By instinct he looked to the Offhand to finish it for him, and the Offhand casually responded, speaking while still seated. “I can imagine men, Mr. Chance, who supported the content of the oath, but not the air of social coercion which surrounds it.”
Tim sat. Look at them. They are nodding. And not all of them readers of the Freeman’s Journal.
On the platform, Ernie Malcolm admitted, “I can see the speaker’s point. In addition, there is a New South Wales Oaths Act we may contravene by recklessly requiring citizens to swear.”
Billy Thurmond couldn’t disapprove of Ernie. Too much social standing there. But he said he wanted his loyal motion to be put on the agenda of the next meeting of the Patriotic Fund. One of Billy’s big sons seconded that.
“Then you won’t get too much of a crowd here,” sang Borger.
Offhand took the final and not quite logical word. “Let’s not forget,” he said poetically, “that our cream all comes in hygienic buckets. And our butter all is salted.”