Beyond the Black Stump by Nevil Shute Page B

in any place they wished. When Mrs. Foster, now Mrs. Tom Regan, had arrived upon the scene with two young children, she had found too much to be reformed to cope with everything at once. Moreover, it was necessary for her to look after the children at their meals, and she did not want to bother the men with them. So she pushed the blacks out of the kitchen to eat in the scullery, and took the kitchen as her own domain, where she ate with the children. The custom, once established, had endured throughout the years.
    Stanton, accustomed as he was to the American way of life, was troubled when the women did not turn up to the meal, though he said nothing. It was hot in the dining-room; over their heads a punkah fan turned slowly. Mrs. Regan and Mollie came in from the kitchen and placed a huge dish on the table with two legs of hot roast mutton in it, with boiled potatoes, sweet potatoes, and cabbage, and retired to their own place. The men ate in virtual silence; conversation at meal times was unknown on Laragh Station. The Countess slopped around in bare feet, huge, black, smiling, and shapeless in a cotton frock worn very evidently with nothing underneath, removing used dishes from the table and carrying them out to wash. Mollie appeared and set down a big steamed pudding with a bowl of hot lemon sauce, and went out to the kitchen again. Perspiration broke out on the American’s forehead and his temples began to throb as he manfully tackled the pudding.
    They said good-bye to the Regans after lunch and set out for their location to make camp before nightfall, having refused an offer of the shearers’ quarters. “I guess we’d better camp out where the work is,” Stanton said. “Fourteen miles is a little far to go and come for meals, ’n we’d be needing gas most every day if we did that.”
    Mollie and Mrs. Regan appeared shortly before they left. “Be sure now to let us know if we can do anything for you,” the mother said. “The laundry, now. What will you be doing about the wash?”
    “Do it ourselves,” said Stanton. “We always do that.”
    “Ye’ll be carting water all the time. Why don’t you run it in here every couple o’ days, and let the gins do it along with ours?”
    The offer was too good to refuse. “It certainly would help us if we could do that,” said the American. “It’s mighty kind of you.”
    “It’s no trouble. They wash every day, saving Sunday. Just bring it in and dump it in the wash house, and they’ll do it.”
    Mollie said, “Can Ma and I come out one afternoon and see what’s going on, Stan?”
    “Why, certainly,” he said. “Come any time you can. I don’t suppose we’ll have much to offer you, except ice cream.”
    “Ice cream? Where on earth would you get that from?”
    He was a little surprised. “We make it. We’ve got a freezer in the truck.” A considerable power plant was necessary to their seismic observations, and the current from this could be used to run a variety of domestic electrical appliances. It would have been hardship indeed to the seismic crew if they had missed out on their ice cream in the outback.
    She laughed. “What flavours have you got?”
    “I’d say only strawberry and vanilla,” he said apologetically. He called to the camp cook, “Hey, Ted! What flavours of ice cream do we have?”
    “Strawberry, maple, and vanilla, boss.”
    “I’ll have a maple,” said the girl. “I’ve never tasted maple ice cream.”
    He smiled at her, “I’ll have it ready for you.” He climbed up into the driver’s seat of the truck. “’Bye now.”
    He drove off from the station buildings with Donald Bruce riding in the seat beside him; the Australian directed him on to a faint wheel track that scarred the red earth. “This is actually the road to Lucinda Station,” he said, “where David Cope lives—the young fellow that you met at Mannahill. The best way for us is to go out to the boundary, by the Chinaman’s grave, and then turn