"Fallen clean out with
bullock-punching. Wouldn't put his worst enemy to it. Going to tackle
something that'll take a bit of jumping round." Then the mail-bags and
et-cet-eras came down in successive thuds, and no one was better pleased
with its detail than our Fizzer: fifty letters, sixty-nine papers, dozens
of books and magazines, and parcels of garden cuttings.
"Last you for the rest of the year by the look of it," the Fizzer
declared later, finding us at the house walled in with a litter of
mail-matter. Then he explained his interruption. "I'm going straight on
at once," he said "for me horses are none too good as it is, and the lads
say there's a bit of good grass at the nine-mile ", and, going out, we
watched him set off.
"So long!" he shouted, as cheerily as ever, as he gathered his team
together. "Half-past eleven four weeks."
But already the Fizzer's shoulders were setting square, for the last trip
of the "dry" was before him - the trip that perished the last mailman - and
his horses were none too good.
"Good luck!" we called after him. "Early showers!" and there was a note
in our voices brought there by the thought of that gaunt figure at the
well - rattling its dicebox as it waited for one more round with our
Fizzer: a note that brought a bright look into the Fizzer's face, as with
an answering shout of farewell he rode on into the forest. And watching
the sturdy figure, and knowing the luck of our Fizzer - that luck that
had given him his fearless judgment and steadfast, courageous spirit - we
felt his cheery "Half-past eleven four weeks" must be prophetic, in spite
of those long dry stages, with their beating heat and parching dust
eddies - stages eked out now at each end with other stages of "bad going."
"Half-past eleven four weeks," the Fizzer had said; and as we returned to
our mail-matter, knowing what it meant to our Fizzer, we looked anxiously
to the northwest, and "hoped the showers" would come before the "return
trip of the Downs."
In addition to the fifty letters for the house, the Fizzer had left two
others at the homestead to be called for - one being addressed to Victoria
Downs (over two hundred miles to our west), and the other to -
F. BROWN, Esq.,
IN CHARGE OF STUD BULLS GOING WEST
VIA NORTHERN TERRITORY.
The uninitiated may think that the first was sent out by mistake and that
the second was too vaguely addressed; but both letters went into the rack
to await delivery, for our faith in the wisdom of our Postal Department
was great; it makes no mistakes, and to it - in a land where everybody
knows everybody else, and all his business, and where it has taken
him - an address could never be too vague. The bush-folk love to say that
when it opened out its swag in the Territory it found red tape had been
forgotten, but having a surplus supply of common sense on hand, it
decided to use that in its place.
And so it would seem. "Down South" envelopes are laboriously addressed
with the names of stations and vias here and vias there; and throughout
the Territory men move hither and thither by compulsion or free-will
giving never a thought to an address; while the Department, knowing the
ways of its people, delivers its letters in spite of, not because of,
these addresses. It reads only the name of the man that heads the
address of his letters and sends the letters to where that man happens to
be. Provided it has been clearly stated which Jones is meant the
Department will see to the rest, although it is wise to add Northern
Territory for the guidance of Post Offices "Down South." "Jones
travelling with cattle for Wave Will," reads the Department; and that
gossiping friendly wire reporting Jones as "just leaving the Powell," the
letter lies in the Fizzer's loose-bag until he runs into Jones's mob; or
a mail coming in for Jones, Victoria River, when this Jones is on the
point of sailing for a trip south, his mail is delivered on shipboard;
and as the Department goes on with its work, letters for east go west,
and for west go south - in mail-bags, loose-bags, travellers' pockets or
per black boy - each one direct to the bush-folk as a migrating bird to
its destination.
But, painstaking as our Department is with our mailmatter, it excels
itself in its handling of telegrams. Southern red tape has decreed - no
doubt wisely as far as it goes - that telegrams shall travel by official
persons only; but out-bush official persons are few, and apt to be on
duty elsewhere when important telegrams arrive; and it is then that our
Department draws largely on that surplus supply of common sense.
Always deferential to the South, it obediently pigeon-holes the telegram,
to await some official person, then, knowing that a delay of weeks will
probably convert it into so much waste paper, it writes a "duplicate,"
and goes outside to send it "bush" by the first traveller it can find.
If no traveller is at hand, the "Line" is "called up" and asked if any
one is going in the desired direction from elsewhere; if so, the
"duplicate" is repeated "down the line," but if not, a traveller is
created in the person of a black boy by means of a bribing stick of
tobacco. No extra charge, of course. Nothing IS an extra in the
Territory. "Nothing to do with the Department," says the chief; "merely
the personal courtesy of our officers." May it be many a long day before
the forgotten shipment of red tape finds its way to the Territory to
strangle the courtesy of our officers!
