Downstream
From Griffith REVIEW Edition 12: Hot Air
© Copyright Griffith University & the author.
Written by Matthew Condon
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Whatever lies under a stone
Lies under the stone of the world
The Green Centipede – Douglas Stewart
A month after the funeral of Wilfred Lampe's mother, and having not seen or heard from Wilfred, Mitchell the publican was delegated to drive out to the house in the valley.
The lucerne was so high from the front gate to the house that Mitchell was forced to drive through a straw-coloured tunnel, the stalks taller than the vehicle. Inside the open house, on the kitchen table and resting under the sugar canister, was a note: Back next year.
It was grief, they discussed quietly at the Buckley's. It did strange things to people. Grief could crowd out an empty house. Send you into unmapped terrain.
"He's gone fishing, probably," they said. It was their age-old euphemism for rectifying all of life's ailments – death, depression, money problems, diseased stock and even sin.
Wilfred had told his employers the Cranks nothing. It was days before they noticed his absence. It was mentioned as brief and passing news at the dinner table in the main house, in between discussions on the perennial problem of flyblown sheep and the titillating findings of the recent royal commission into the sly-grog rackets.
There were more than a few who thought Wilfred had gone, yet again, to find his missing sister, Astrid. His only sibling, and now the mother passed on. That he wouldn't stop until he'd tracked the girl down and brought her home. It did not matter that she had vanished from the Monaro almost twenty years before, and had, over that time, become a figure of myth, a firmament in the folklore of Dalgety. She had become an ageless character in their storybook. He would never stop looking for her.
SO AS THE TOWN THEORISED NOW ABOUT THE WHEREABOUTS of Wilfred Lampe, he was fewer than sixty kilometres away, as the crow flies, leading a team of drillers and surveyors into deep, mountainous scrub near Geehi. He had become a bush guide for the hydro-electric scheme.
They were partly right, back in the Buckley's Crossing Hotel. He had viewed his mother's death as portentous, entangled somehow in the preparations and activity upstream.
And, indeed, he had gone fishing for three days after the funeral, and landed a few slender browns, which he cooked there and then, over an open fire, on the gravelly bank. There was always something satisfying about cooking and eating a catch beside the river.
At the end of the third day, as he was packing his gear, he noticed a man's black felt hat carried by swiftly on the surface of the water. He stood with creel and rods in hand and watched the hat glide past. Within seconds it had disappeared around the bend.
The next day he rode into Cooma and found the pink-cheeked Dunphy and signed up with the scheme. He didn't care about the money, though they immediately provided saddlebags and supplies and even a new pair of boots. He had to see, first-hand, what they planned to do with the river.
That night, he drank beer in a pub crowded with freshly arrived workers. Dunphy, across the bar, tipped his pork-pie hat at Wilfred.
Men were playing cards and backgammon at several tables. Wilfred's boots felt tight and ill-fitting.
Someone tapped him on the shoulder.
"Herr Wilfreed. No. Meester Wilfreed. I am pleasured to make your acquaintance."
Wilfred turned and faced a short, sandy-haired man in a black suit and tie. The wiry man held out his hand in greeting, his elbow seemingly pinned to his ribs.
"Mr Wilfreed. I am Boris Hintendorfer, sir. I will be your accompaniment to the camp tomorrow."
They shook firmly and once.
"Mr Dunphy is informing me that you are the expert of the Australian boosh that will take us to our camp site, sir."
"That's right." Dunphy beamed across the room, his cheeks aflame, and touched the brim of his hat again.
"Very good, Mr Wilfreed. A beer for you, yes?"
For more than an hour Hintendorfer sat with Wilfred and asked questions about the terrain and the river and creek systems. Each time the German struggled with his English his eyelids fluttered uncontrollably.
"I am accustomed to the forests around Hamburg, sir, but familiar I am not with this they call the boosh."
"You'll be familiar with it soon enough."
"Yes, Mr Wilfreed, thank you, but can you illuminate on the animals of danger that we may encounter. As team leader I am to be aware of all possibilities."
He jotted down pertinent facts in a small, black flip-top notebook, nodding and fluttering as he scribbled with the pencil.
"Ja?" he said as he wrote. "Ja?"
They drank more beer. A scuffle had broken out over at one of the backgammon tables. A dozen men rushed to placate the players.
"I had a German teacher once," Wilfred said, almost to himself. "Mr Schweigestill."
"Schweigestill. Ja. Das ist Deutsche."
"He created an opera."
"So, Mr Wilfreed. You are to say there are none of the wolves?"
Hintendorfer licked the tip of the pencil and his heavy eyelids batted like moth wings.
THE FOLLOWING DAY, WILFRED MET HINTENDORFER AND THE TEAM at Jindabyne, and they headed over the range to the proposed camp site at Windy Creek, north of the Geehi River. They were mainly surveyors and drillers and of several nationalities – Poles, Balts, two other Germans and three from Norway. Two Italians commandeered a Land Rover that followed the team.
Hintendorfer rode in the vehicle as far as the eastern foothills of the range, then saddled up and joined Wilfred.
A fresh and steady wind funnelled down from Kosciuszko.
"This is not the boosh as they call it?" Hintendorfer said.
"Not yet."
"Is beautiful in its own way," the German said, "this that is not the boosh."
They crossed the range and into the lightly wooded scrub below the snowline. Wilfred followed an old brumby track into a steep gorge. The horses' ears twitched at the grinding of the Land Rover's gears.
It was mid-afternoon before they reached the site for the proposed camp. The Land Rover was still half an hour away. It moaned like an injured animal in the distant bush.
Hintendorfer dismounted, beaming. He inspected the thick carpet of ferns at his feet and the tree canopies. "Is quiet, Mr Wilfreed, like the cathedral."
Wilfred unpacked the horse and set up his swag for the night. The grinding of the Land Rover made him clench his teeth. He was irritated after the long ride and tired of Hintendorfer's officiousness. This small man of sharp angles and precise movements. He was a shiny piece of fresh-cast metal here in the scrub.
The next day, they cleared the site and erected neat rows of tents, a mess and rudimentary lavatories within view of the camp.
Wilfred built the central fire. Hintendorfer erected a portable outdoor office for himself beneath a large gum. He sat there going through his paperwork and could have been in a building by the Hamburg docks. He brushed seeds and insects off his papers as he worked.
For the next few weeks, Wilfred led several teams of the men into the bush for surveying and retrieving soil samples. He took two of the Norwegians down to the Geehi, where they performed several tests on the river. He sat quietly and watched them on the river bank.
There were men – like the Norwegians – with boxes of instruments standing knee-deep in creeks and rivers all across the mountains. The whole place was being measured and pinched and scratched at. Reduced to numbers and figures and dashes.