Fools' Harvest. Erle Cox
about Macquarie Street!" asked Gage. The car owner looked over his shoulder at the moaning figure huddled in the back seat. "I tried that," he said in a low voice. "Thousands of people made out of the side streets into the Botanic Gardens and the Domain. Twenty or thirty of the big shells burst over and among them." He passed his hand over his eyes. "It's a shambles. God! It's awful! They are spread out in masses, and the injured are shrieking. The Mitchell Library and Parliament House escaped, but one wing of the hospital is down, and the State Insurance building and the Law Courts are flat. There isn't a building standing on the West side of the street."
Gage turned to me. "I am going to try for the Town Hall by way of Clarence Street; we might get through."
I nodded. It was a matter of indifference to me.
One of the men called out as we turned away. "You're a pair of lunatics. You won't get through."
We hurried along Harrington Street, meeting only a few people who scuttled by and who took no notice of us. As we went the smoke grew denser. As we reached Wynyard Square, and turned up to York Street, we could see it ablaze from end to end. People lying on the pavement by St. Phillips Church cried to us for help, but we pressed on.
Gage's had been a good guess. Clarence Street seemed clear, but it was a mad journey. Between Barrack Street and Market Street, there were burning buildings on both sides, and we were almost suffocated by smoke. Three times we had to scramble over piles of fallen masonry. Again and again we encountered what had been human beings. At. King Street there had evidently been a traffic jam, because a tangled mass, the remains of motor cars and trams, was still smouldering, where a shell burst had hurled them into a common chaos. It took us a quarter of an hour to pass over the dreadful heap of debris. And from the sounds we knew many people were still alive and suffering among it.
Gage's instinct served him well, because a little after four o'clock we reached Druitt Street, to find the Town Hall miraculously untouched. St. Andrew's also seemed to have escaped damage.
After the horrible experience of our journey, the peace of the Town Hall seemed almost too good to be true. In the vestibule there were thirty or forty men in small groups. They were all talking quietly, but with intense earnestness. I left Gage to his own devices for I felt sure I could be of no help. Actually, I heard later that he had recovered his family two days afterward at Katoomba. From what I heard in the following January, I feel he would have been happier if they had been among those lucky ones who were under the ruins of the city.
In the little groups I recognised many a good man I felt that here would be the beginning of order from the chaos around. Talking to a Supreme Court Judge, who was taking notes, was the chief of police, who was smothered in dust, and had one hand tied up in a handkerchief. There were lawyers, business men, and three doctors of fame. Turning, to my satisfaction my eyes fell on Don Ringfield and the Dinker. They, too, had seen me, and left their group.
Don was about to make some jest, but I think he read my face. He got as far as "Did you—?" and stopped awkwardly. I shook my head.
"I was too late, Don." I was able to keep my voice steady.
They looked at one another. "They're—" Everything was in the word the Dinker spoke.
"One of the first shells," I replied.
Thank goodness they understood, and did not try to say anything. The hands they gave me were enough.
By a common consent we turned from the subject. "How about the office?" I asked.
The Dinker summoned up a twisted grin. "Our jobs and the office vanished together. Don and I missed vanishing with them by a cat's whisker."
"It must have been hell!" I commented.
"Wally," said Don, "I don't know what you've seen, but just before the first salvo arrived, the streets were a packed mass of milling, panic-stricken people mixed up with the motor and tram traffic. And then it seemed as though a hundred earthquakes struck in."
"They didn't fall straight," Dinker explained. "They came at an angle, and mostly burst low down throwing the walls out on the struggling mass of human life."
"How on earth did you escape'?" I asked.
"That was The Dinker's inspiration," Don answered, "We were dodging walls, and trying to keep our feet, when we came to where the Mayfair Theatre had been. Dink said they didn't hit twice in the same place, and we went and sat on a hill of wreckage till it stopped."
"Did you know Mosman and Darlinghurst and Paddington are blazing'?" I asked.
The Dinker nodded. "We just heard, but there is worse than that," he added.
"How worse'?" I demanded.
"It's been a hellishly clever job. The Richmond Aerodrome was washed up with time bombs jest as the Hawkesbury Bridge was, about 5 o'clock. There is only one plane left fit for service. All the water is cut off from the Prospect Reservoir, and the entire sewerage service is out of commission.
"And one of the first things they did was to scupper the Bunnerong electricity works. Blew it to a scrap heap in ten minutes," added Don.
"Mason, the Chief Secretary, was telling us, too, that at Canberra they're in no end of a stew because since last night they can get no communication of any kind either from West Australia or Darwin."
"Any news from outsider I asked.
"Nothing, so we hear," Don said. "Great Scot! We seem to be mopped up without a hit back."
We stared at one another helplessly. In reply to my question, The Dinker told me that the Lord Mayor and the Premier were in conference on some plan to organise Red Cross work, and aid for the homeless. There must be thousands of injured here and in the suburbs untended. Then there would also be the necessity of recovering bodies, and preventing looting. "There is some form of sanitary system to be organised or we'll have the place rotten with disease," he added.
Here Mason passed again, and told Dink that Melbourne was untouched, and that the R.A.F. from Point Cook was on its way here.
"Well," I said, "I came in to offer for any job as long as it's work—sanitary if they like."
"We're with you, Wally; let's hang round till something starts."
Almost at the same moment the building shook to the crash of an explosion, and the shelling recommenced.
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