Death of a Lake. Arthur W. Upfield
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The entire surface of the great Lake was thrashed with spurts of spray as the fleets of pelicans, the swans and wild geese, the countless ducks and the cormorants all skidded over the water to take to the air, the alarm passing from bird to bird with the speed of light.
“Look at ’em! Look at ’em!” shouted Witlow.
A chain of swans swung by, low above them, and the swans were bright red. The gulls fluttered as though nervous of being rammed; they were crimson and reminded Bony of Dampier Bay and Broome where the widows were murdered. Crimson fire flashed from the plumage of whirring ducks, and the white markings of the pelicans grandly wheeling in great wedges looked to the men like splashes of blood.
“What d’you know about that?” yelled Witlow. “The bleedin’ Battle of Britain. What d’you ...”
Abruptly he sat down, floundered, came up again spitting water.
“Strike me pink if a flamin’ fish didn’t charge through me legs,” he complained.
The birds gained height. The pelicans and the swans and the geese became armadas of heavy bombers, pounced upon, attacked by the meteor-swift ducks. The cormorants weaved as though completely bewildered, and the moorhens dived to the surface and huddled together as though in conference. And higher than the mighty bombers and the streaking fighters, the eagles spun their invisible webs beneath the scarlet sky.
Sudden and powerful pressure was applied to Bony’s left leg, and he could feel the slimy body of the fish cannoning off him. It seemed, too, that all the fish had gone berserk, for his legs registered continued collisions, and the limpid surface of the lake was like a huge pot on the boil.
“That’s worth wading out here for,” he said, and Witlow nodded agreement.
The sun went down behind distant trees whose ghostly shadows raced to them, passed them by, yet held them with threat of inevitable night. The water slowly became placid, and the fish quietened. The smaller ducks came tumbling down the airways to shoot long arrows of lilac spray as the water braked them. But the big birds remained aloft.
The two men began the journey to the shore, without haste, a little awed, for both were close to this spirit of Australia so impervious to Time and such finite matters as the birth and death of a lake. The distant bluff and the buildings upon its summit now were purpling, the shadows between the buildings like jet. The gulls flew on ahead, their colour now of gentian blue.
“What do you reckon about the blokes around here, Bony?” asked Witlow a trifle too casually.
“They aren’t very pally,” Bony replied, easily.
“Can’t nail ’em down. Must be the women what’s upset ’em.”
“One would think most of them were old enough not to be upset by women.”
They plodded onward for a space in silence before Witlow said:
“You could be right, but the conditions ain’t usual. I hitched to a drovin’ outfit one time bringing cattle out of the Territory. Two men run the outfit, both of ’em older than either of us. Hard doers, too. Fight and booze artists. Been cobbers for twenty years. They thought only about cattle and grog and racehorses. And then an abo joined up, and he brought his gin with him. Young gal she was, and ugly as hell. Inside a week them two old bastards were in holts, and if I hadn’t given the abo the wink to get going and take his gin with him, them two blokes would have murdered each other and the cattle would have scattered all over Australia. Day after the gin departed, they was back to usual. Beats me.”
“They say a man is apt to slip when he’s seventy, or is it sixty?” Bony said, laughingly. “There’s certainly something eating the lads here at Lake Otway.”
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