It was towards the end of the typescript, a semi-technical account that constantly referred to the high cost of treatment due to the presence of antimony and the inconsistencies of the reef. Faulting had apparently been a major problem. On page 324 he gave the date of closure — November 21, 1937. But on the following page he referred to the final blow — a cave-in and the mine flooded at the lower level. No indication of when this had happened. The writing here was very vague, mostly an angry diatribe against the absence of any increase in the price if gold and the collapse of the Australian gold share market. It concluded abruptly with these words: The end of all my hopes — the effort of half a lifetime wasted. I wish I had never discovered that Soak. And then, without a pause, he went on to deal with the problems of maintaining the wool clip in country that was deteriorating year by year. This, too, seemed to have been written at a later date, but it was much less vague, probably because he knew more about the land than he did about mining, had in fact a strange affection for it; and unlike other graziers around him he realized what the effect of overstocking must be:
I remember when I first came to JJ. It was so beautiful at times it took your breath away — saltbush, bluebush, a whole world of native shrubs and grasses, all tough enough to exist in the harsh arid heat of this outback country, and the mallee and the ghost gums shimmering their leaves in the wind, shading the ground from the sun. But now — my God! when I look at what I’ve done to keep that bloody mine going and those blasted miners in booze and women. The land is desert. It’s shagged out. Maurie and Pete, they both say I should burn off like they do to encourage new growth in the spring. They don’t see that that’s the last straw in this poor unhappy land. I’ve tried it, seen the young growth come, and then there are more lambs, more hungry sheep-jaws champing, and before you can say knife the green that should have grown lush and big in the wet, the seedlings, that might have been trees — they ‘re all gone. It never has a chance to seed. And you burn again and it burns the seeds in the ground. Pete’s mentally retarded, a grown child, not caring. But Maurie ought to be able to see it. Betty does, I know, but he’s a pig-headed bastard. Eighteen years I’ve been running sheep here, more and more every year. Quantity to offset the steady decline in quality, and now I look at the place and I can’t recognize it. Even the mulgas are dying with no vegetation to shade their roots in the heat, and this year in the dry those damned sheep were stripping the bark they were so famished for food. And Ed — what will Ed make of it when he comes home? Thank God he ‘II never know what this country was like when I first came to it. There’s nothing left to show him by comparison what I grabbed and what he ‘II inherit. But my heart bleeds for him. One thing he must do is get rid of the blasted sheep, get back to cattle — a small herd, and give the land a rest, a chance to recover if it can. I turned back to the early part, reading entries here and there, oblivious for the moment of anything but the world Big Bill Garrety had lived in. There was a lot about Golden Soak in the entries for 1905 and 1906 — the first tentative shaft, the establishment of a mining camp, and then the adit driven into the side of Mt Coondewanna, the sinking of the main shaft to 200 feet, the difficulties of getting machinery to the site, the problem of supplies. The first cross-cut from the shaft into the quartz completed on April 4, 1907, and on April 6: This day we brought up the first bucketful of ore from the 200-foot level — the booze-up went on all night, the men singing by the camp fires, four sheep roasted whole and the camels scared to death. There was a lot about the camels after that — camel trains took the ore to Nullagine, coming back with the crushing machinery, all in pieces, and sleds for the heavier parts. Money pouring in, and all of it ploughed back into the development of the mine. And then, suddenly, the entries became shorter, more widely spaced — Perth, a troopship, Gallipoli, finally the trenches and the mud of Passchendaele, all told with stark simplicity, just the facts, nothing more. Even the period in hospital, when he’d lost an eye after a sniper’s bullet had grazed his head, only rated three short entries — the last dated June 9, 1918: Invalided home. Arrived Fremantle feeling quite fit after voyage though ship very crowded. Can’t wait to get back to JJ.
‘You’ve let your coffee get cold.’
I looked up, startled, to find Janet standing across the table from me and my coffee cup still full.
‘Sorry, I hadn’t noticed.’ I was still in the past thinking of his wound and how he’d died an alcoholic.
‘Shall I heat it for you?’
‘No, it’s all right.’
‘I had a little argument with a goanna — that’s why I’ve been so long. Didn’t you hear me shoot it?’
I shook my head. I couldn’t remember hearing a shot.