2011 - Theses - Flinders University

His is somewhere aware that others pray for him, imagining a trying time as the lonemissionary while Will and Iris are half a continent away to be married. When he sleeps, hesleeps easily, his Bible still open at the underlined verses of Psalm 96: ‘Declare His Gloryamong the heathen’.For all the moments of peace Jim pens to Miss Morris, it is a trying time.Jim passes through culture shock with a thin-lipped smile, diligent duties and privateemasculation. His days are led to the harsh tune of the shunting yards. Jim watches theshunters work: the loco sets the carriage rolling towards where the man waits, holding arough iron hook. Close enough—nearly too close—and with sudden flexion flip! the hookfalls into its notch, the shunter whips his fingers out of the way and, for a moment, the jarringof metal on metal might give way and inexorably wedge the man’s body between thecarriages. But it doesn’t: the hook holds, the stock reels a little, then settles still on the rails.The shunter flips the second bar over the hook and threads through the lock pin. 81 Theshunter moves to the other end of the carriage and it all begins again. He builds the train,piece by piece.Jim is not sure he is building anything. He sweats doing the women’s work Will left tohim, tending their handful of young children who cry for their mothers while they hang on hisangular, awkward arms. He tries to cuddle them, struggling against his fear of insectinfestations and skin diseases and trying not to breathe the acrid smell of grease, firesmokeand sweated urine through his nose. But the children stiffen and edge away, not so practisedat hiding their disgust at the sharp stench of whitefella sweat slippery on raw scrubbed skin.55