Because nothing could be done for the goats.
‘Mr Judd,’ he called, ‘are you aware that flour will turn to paste in water? Put it on the raft, man!’
To such an extent was the German distressed by the fate of the goats, he was determined to make every member of his party hate him, as he pretended not to watch those decent animals descending into hell.
Presently it was the turn of the raft. This was launched with difficulty owing to the steepness of the bank and weight of the green wood, Turner complaining that his guts were busted open, but eventually the craft was bumping on the water, and its cargo loaded, for the most part flour, ammunition, Mr Palfreyman’s ornithological specimens, and plants and insects which were the property of Voss himself. While several pairs of hands steadied the tossing timbers, Judd and Jackie swam their horses across the river, bearing ropes previously secured to the dubious craft.
At this point Voss did foresee the catastrophe that would overtake them, and did almost lift up his voice, but it was too heavy. Fascinated by the doomed raft, he continued to stare. That which he apprehended almost in physical detail had to happen, so he watched, with his chin sunk upon an old woollen comforter that the sharp change in the weather had persuaded him to wind round his neck.
Judd and the blackfellow had moored the raft to a tree on the opposite bank. The plan was that the remainder of the party should swim their horses across, and join in hauling in the ropes. But this was not to be. The current took the raft, once released by hands, and as it bobbed top-heavily at the end of the ropes, solemnly tipped it up. The scene was almost exactly as Voss, in that flash, had visualized, and by this time every member of the party, watching the ridiculous object of the raft, was convinced by his own helplessness that it had to happen thus.
‘Crikey,’ Turner cried at last, ‘there goes our flour, that we could at least have used to paper the walls of the bally caves, for what looks like being a lengthy visit.’
Voss, who had ordered the loading of the flour, did not say anything. Nor did Judd.
Some of the party appeared not to care, but were spurring their horses recklessly down the bank, for, in any event, this most personal river still had to be crossed.
‘Do you think you can manage it, Frank?’ asked Palfreyman, who had already forced himself to accept the loss of his specimens as some form of retribution.
Le Mesurier, who had dismounted during the foregoing operations, was seated on a rock, holding his head. He looked very ill.
‘I cannot sit any longer on a horse,’ he said.
‘You will have to. At least a few more hundred yards,’ Palfreyman replied.
‘He will hold to his horse’s tail, and be drawn across,’ Voss decreed, and continued to explain, and to organize.
Turner, Angus, and Harry Robarts, who were clearing the water from their dazed eyes, had formed a little group with Judd. They were sheltering against one another’s bodies, and watching from the other side.
‘If you are to die, Frank,’ said Voss, ‘it will be more comfortable to do so in the cave.’
‘I do not care if I lie down here and die,’ Le Mesurier answered.
But they got him to his feet.
Then the last of the party was streaming silently, slowly, across the flood. Somewhere on either flank floated Voss and Palfreyman, each holding to his horse’s tail. But it was the central figure, or head, rather, that cut the breath, that played upon the imaginations of those who watched. Le Mesurier was pale as water. Some of the spectators wondered whether they had ever known him. He had plaited the yellow fingers of his left hand into the sharp, blue-black horsehair, but with his right he held above his head a notebook wrapped in a piece of waterproof sheeting. More than anything, he suggested a man engaged in celebrating the most solemn ritual.
Such an emotional intensity underlay this mystic crossing, that the intrusion of solid ground beneath his feet was a violent shock to the invalid. As the horse lunged free, the man was wrested out of his entranced state, and would have fallen into the mud but for the hands that were receiving him.
Seeing everyone delivered safe, Palfreyman would have liked to offer up a prayer, only this, he realized, would not have been politic, and moreover, since his immersion in the water, he doubted whether he could have found the words, so cold was his body, and unresponsive his faculties. In his numb confusion, his mind began to grope after some substitute for prayer with which to express his thankfulness, when he happened to catch sight of a battered quart pot, and cracked and swollen saddle-bag. These objects, of simple form and humble purpose, that exposure to the elements had emphasized, strengthened his sense of gratitude and trust to the extent that he resolved to proffer their images to God, and was at once consoled to know that his intention was acceptable.
Meanwhile, all those who could, had begun to haul on the moorings of the capsized raft, and after considerable struggle, succeeded in bringing it to shore. Any cargo that rope had restrained while it was upside down in the water was in such a sorry condition, it was doubtful whether it could be of further use. What remained of the flour had become a bluish paste.
Then Judd approached the leader, and with unexceptionable modesty, said:
‘Mr Voss, I must tell you I took the liberty to divide the flour into equal quantities. The second half has crossed the river on muleback. What condition it is in remains to be seen, but some of it may serve to fill a corner of our bellies, sir, when they are crying out for it.’
To which Voss made the formal reply:
‘You did right, Judd, to have the foresight.’
But he preferred to leave it at that.
Every man of them was by now the worse for the privations he had endured, and as soon as mules and horses had been unloaded and unsaddled, then hobbled, and turned free, the whole human company was glad to huddle in the shelter of the caves. It was only later that evening, after they had dried themselves at the fires that had been lit, and eaten a little of a skillaglee of flour which Judd had been able to prepare, that any real attention was given to the rock drawings. These appeared immense as the reddish light shifted over the surface of the walls. The simplicity and truthfulness of the symbols was at times terribly apparent, to the extent that each man interpreted them according to his own needs and level.
So there was ribaldry rising out of Turner, who spat, and said:
‘There is no mistaking the old man kangaroo. They have seen to that.’
He spat again, this time at the drawing itself, but the stone and ochre quickly drank his spittle down, and nobody was long humiliated.
‘Women too, eh? Or is it cricket bats?’
So he was brooding in the firelight, and wondering how he might cheat his celibacy.
Ralph Angus, who was seated beside his bawdy friend, had glanced at the drawings, and almost at once looked away. The young landowner would have been afraid of what he had seen, if he had not quickly convinced himself that he was superior to it.
On the other hand, Harry Robarts understood immediately what the drawings were intended to convey. Privation, which had reduced the strength of his body, had increased his vision and simplicity of mind, so that he was treading through the withered grass with the horde of ochrous hunters. Morning stole amongst the trees, all sound wrapped in pearly fog, the kind that lies close to the earth. The pale soles of his feet were cold with dew.
Or he stood in front of another drawing, which he proceeded to interpret:
‘See, this man is going to die. They have planted a spear in his heart. It has gone in at the back through the shoulder-blades.’
In fact, the little fishbone in faded red ochre had entered the wizened pear, that would soon be rattling in its cage of bones. The boy poked his finger between the bars, in order to touch the leathery thing.