before he went on.
'My bet is that you're that kind of tee total, Haig. One drink and you
wake up ten days later; that's it, isn't it?
One drink and - pow! - the old girl gets it in the chops and the kids
don't eat for a couple of weeks.' Haig laid the rifle down carefully on
the bed and looked at Wally with his jaws clenched, but
Wally had not noticed.
He went on happily.
'Andre, take the whisky bottle and hold it under Old Teetotal
Haig's nose. Let's watch him slobber at the mouth and his eyes stand out
like a pair of dog's balls.' Haig stood up. Twice the age of Wally - a
man in his middle fifties, with grey in his hair and the refinement of
his features not completely obliterated by the marks that life had left
upon them. He had arms like a boxer and a powerful set to his shoulders.
'It's about time YOU learned a few manners, Hendry. Get on your feet.'
'You wanta dance or something? I don't waltz, - ask
Andre. He'll dance with you - won't you, Andre?' Haig was balanced on
the balls of his feet, his hands closed and raised slightly. Bruce
Curry placed his razor on the shelf above the basin, and moved quietly
round the table with soap still on his face to take up a position from
which he could intervene. There he waited, watching the two men.
'Get up, you filthy gutter-snipe.'
'Hey, Andre, get that. He talks pretty, hey? He talks real pretty
'I'm going to smash that ugly face of yours right into the middle of the
place where your brain should have been.'
'Jokes! This boy is a natural comic.' Wally laughed, but there was
something wrong with . the sound of it. Bruce knew then that Wally was
not going to fight. Big arms and swollen chest covered
with ginger hair, belly flat and hard, looking, thick-necked below the
wide flat-featured face with its little Mongolian eyes; but Wally wasn't
going to fight.
Bruce was puzzled: he remembered the night at the road bridge and he
knew that Hendry was no coward, and yet now he was not going to take up
Haig's challenge.
Mike Haig moved towards the bed.
'Leave him, Mike.' Andre spoke for the first time, his voice soft as a
girl's. 'He was only joking. He didn't mean it
'Hendry, don't think I'm too much of a gentleman to hit you because
you're on your back. Don't make that mistake.'
'Big deal,' muttered Wally. 'This boy's not only a comic, he's a bloody
hero also.' Haig stood over him and lifted his right hand with the fist,
bunched like a hammer, aimed at Wally's face.
'Haig!' Bruce hadn't raised his voice but its tone checked the older
man.
'That's enough, said Bruce.
'But this filthy little-'
'Yes, I know,' said Bruce. 'Leave him!'
With his fist still up Mike Haig hesitated, and there was no movement in
the room. Above them the corrugated iron roof popped loudly as it
