Back To Billabong

rom below, instead of the swift thud-thud of the screw that had pounded for many weeks. It was late; so late that most of the ship's lights

looking out across the grey, tossing sea to a winking light that flashed and twinkled out of the darkness like a voice that

eather and brass, a "rounding-up" of scattered possessions. The barber's shop had been besieged by shaggy crowds; and since the barber, being but human, could not cope with more than a small proportion of

nrest settled down upon the ship, and the men marched restlessly, up and down, or, gripping pipe stems between their teeth, stared from the railings northwards. And then, like a star at first, the Point Lonsdale light twinkled out of the darkness, and a

motherless, but in Norah's case the blank was softened by a father who had striven throughout his children's lives to be father and mother alike to them, while Cecilia had only the bitter memory of the man who had shirked his duty until he had become less than a stranger to her. If any pang smote her heart at the sight of Norah's worshipping love for the tall grey "dad" for whom she was the very centre of existence, Cecilia did not show it. The Lintons had taken them into their little circle at

old Cecilia. "They never said I was 'only a girl,' and kept me out of things. So I grew up

tall, slender figure and the mass of curly brown hair. They were ge

it will be just as it always was-we'll be three boys together. You know, it's the most ridiculous thing to think of Jim and Wally as grown-ups. Dad

bout Captai

n Jim was a prisoner, and we thought he was killed. But Jim got back just in time to save him from anything so awful. One of the

ack to Australia, w

d looked

just all go to Billabong-we don't seem to think further than that.

er father had for years conducted what they termed a "Home for Tired People," where broken and weary men from the front had come to be healed and tended, and sent back refitted in mind and body. This girl, who leaned over the rail and looked at the Point Lonsdale light, had seen suffering and sorrow; the mourning of tho

o her side, and Norah

"Tommy" to them all in a very short time, and her hated, if elegant, name left as a

much," said T

is saying fifty nice things a minute. And I can smell the gum leaves-don't you

to tune a nose?" as

's the lights of Melbourne. I went to school near Melbourne, but I never loved it much; but somehow,

er girl. "I never had a home that meant

re the woods look as though they were swept and dusted before breakfast every morning. I suppose it is all ordi

omewood-the Home

the Tired People: dad and I will always be thankful we had the chance. But it never was home: and now it's going to run itself happily without us, as a place for partly-

g the deck and to the vaca

Linton's deep voice was always gentle. Norah ga

d as I am, so you need

much worse. I thought you'd sing anthems on the very word Billabong all through th

to look her best for Melbourne, so she's going to bed. Don't hurry, Nora

, on her other side, and a few moments later a deep voice behind the

't go to

ted the squatter, letting his hand rest for a moment on his daughter's shoulder. H

I'll certainly wake up in a minute and find myself in a trench, just getting rea

ly. "Oh, I don't know-I don

ose third from the day, long years back, that he had first come to the station, a lonely, dark-eyed little Queenslander. "She's made the girls scrub and polish until there's nothing left for t

to make pikelets for

d to be the night we came home from school? And now she's gone round all the rooms to make sure she couldn't spend a

im admiringly. "A few hundred years ago you'd ha

r is thinking of," Norah said, laughing. "It all sounds exactly true, at any rate

e shot out of the army; any enterprising provos

h. "Brownie won't be satisfied unless

. He peered suddenly into the darkness. "There's a mo

them. She lay to across a little heaving strip of sea, and presently the pilot was being pulled across to them by a couple of men and was coming nimbly up the Nauru's ladder, hand over hand. He nodded cheerily at his welcome-a fusillade of greetings fr

there, I'd be home before breakfast," he said. "Me people live at Queenscl

n them, and under the silent guns of the Queenscliff forts, and past the twinkling house lights of the little seaside town. There were long coo-ees from the diggers, with shrill, piercing whistles of greeting for Victoria; from ashore came faint answeri

tly they felt the engines cease, and there came the

night and bring us up to Port Melbourne in the morning, after we'd been inspected.

yone did," said Norah, indignantly. "

day, and the sea view is delightful." He broke off, laughing, and suddenly flung his arm round her shoulders in the dusk of the deck. "I thin

to embarrass his fellow-passengers, placed in his mouth the wrong end of the clinical thermometer handed him by the visiting nurse. He sucked this gravely for the prescribed time, reversing it just as she reappeared; and, being marked normal and gi

and domes and spires pierced the dun sky, towering above the jumbled mass of the grey city. They drew closer to Port Melbourne, and lo! St. Kilda and all the foreshore were gay with flags,

a blessed band playin' on the pier! Wot on earth are t

al public back from the pier was a black mass of people; cheer upon cheer rose, to be wafted back from the transport, where the "diggers" lined every inch of the port side, clinging like monkeys to yards and rigging. Then the Nauru came to rest at last, and the gangways rattled down, and the march off began, t

the ship. The captain came to them, at last a normal and friendly captain-no more the official master of a troopship, in which capacity, as he ruefully said, he could make

w, to see her on this voyage, that the time was when I had to know the reason why if there was so much as a stain the size of a sixpence on the deck. Oh yes, it's been all part of the job, and I'm proud

his record; few merchant captains had done finer service in the war, and the decoration on hi

to sympathize with a tidy man. You should have seen my wife's face when she came aboard once at Liverpool, and saw the ship; and she's never had the same respect for me since! T

nding their own returning dear ones. It was but a few moments before a posse of uncles, aunts and cousins swooped down upon the Lintons, whose cab prudently turned down a side street to let the wave of welcome expend itself. In the side street, too, were motors belonging to the aunts and uncles; and presently the new arrivals were distributed among them, and were being rushed up to Melbourne, along roads still

you English people plucky! And I believe that most of you think we're all bl

t!" Bob said, laughing. "But certainly w

d Mrs. Geoffrey Linton. "That is, if they don't put on 'side'; we don't take kindly to being patronized. An

all we have to face-the snakes that creep into new chums' boots and sleep under their pillows, the g

Sunday morning, and the blacks that rush down-what is it? Oh yes, the Block, casting boomerangs about! There is much s

"Oh well, Billabong will be a good breaking-in.

et home without encumbrances, and as we have to present other letters of int

his beloved Billabong. If we get them out to dinner to-night, it's as much as we can hope for. But you two must come to us-we can run you here and there in the car to see the people you want." She put aside their protests, laughing. "Why, you don't know ho

ng in tea-rooms to Tommy and Bob, since it was a vision of russet and gold-brown wood, masses of golden wattle and daffodils,

a party,

dren's school friends, too-Jim and Wally's mates. You can't expect us to get you all back, after so long-and with all those honours, too!-and not

inton's constitutional shyness melted in the heartiness of their greeting. Beyond them Norah seemed to be the centre of a mass of girls, one of whom presently detached herself, and came to him. He said in amazement, "Why, it's Jean Yorke-and grown up!" and actually kissed her, to the great delight of Jean, who had been an old mat

ivals gasp. The last four years in England had fairly broken people in to plain living; dainties and luxuries had disappeared so completely from the table that every one had ceased t

intly. "Jean, you migh

the cakes?" said Je

sleeve-"that substance in enormous layers in that enormous slice

years ago, I suppose. I'd forgotten it existed. And the cake

sh cakes do that?"

's something they take out of

So everything you made with war flour was apt to be dry and crumbly. And when you made cakes with it, and war sugar, which was half full of queer stuff like plaster of paris, and egg s

he aunt faintly. "I could n

years before they came on board the Nauru," said Jim. "It was af

ome butter-we

ey put all their ration into the '

, butler, cook-lady and all. And we hadn't to ask one of them to do it. The Tired People alw

e aunt. "It's too

what a joint looked like. Stews and hot pots and made dishes-you call them that because you make them of anything but meat! We became very clever at camouflaging meat dishe

d you not

thing of all-too much bone. You see, the meat ration included bone and fat,

the aunt, regarding her with a t

es before we looked on them as used up; and how we worked up sheep's heads into the most wonderful chicken gal

es vied in plying the new-comers with the most elabo

ing and wafery pastry. "If I ate that it would go to my head, and I'd have to be removed in an ambulance. And the aw

ouls have gone through," said an aunt soulfully. "

the way of air raids, England knew little or nothing of war: I mean, war as the people of Belgium and Northern France knew it. The worst we had to admit was that we didn't get everything we liked to eat, and that was a joke compared to w

ok substitutes properly. On the other hand, there was no unemployment, and the poor were better fed than they had ever been, since every one could make good wages at munitions. The death rate among civilians was very much lower than usual. Peop

at pride, since his remarks were usually st

r. "A good many people have come back telling most pathetic tales of all

egan, when most of the food coming in was kept in the big towns and the Midlands. That woman could certainly get milk for her youngsters; but for three months the only foods she and her maids were sure of getting were war bread, potatoes,

soak them for a day in warm water and then boil them, you can begin to think about them as a possible food. But Mrs. Burton and her maids ate them for three months. She d

eir coal allowance from the nearest supply, and it was all she could get. The only way to use the beastly stuff was to mix it with wet, salt mud from the river into what the country people call culm-then you cut it into blo

ings and culm and all. And we're even luckier, since we've all come back to Australia, and to such a welcome as you've given us." He stood up, smil

eks of sea. Then they all met at dinner at Mrs. Geoffrey Linton's, where they found her son, Cecil, who greeted Norah with something of embarrassment. There was an old score between Norah and Cecil Linton, although they had not

suade David Linton to remain a few day

ike fifty. I'll come down again, I promise-yes, and bring the chil

ey, half laughing. "Are you going to l

up, or imagines she is-not that she seems to me a bit different from the time when her hair was down. Still I su

ped a hand th

said Norah cheerfully, "there will