Demons
at Dusk by Peter Stewart
Temple House Pty Ltd
Pp. 326
It took Peter Stewart almost 30 years to
write Demons at Dusk and he has
researched it thoroughly. The book explores the most infamous massacre in
Australia’s history by combining official records and transcripts from the
trials to recreate the story of what happened that day, the events leading up
to it and its aftermath. It is written in a very straightforward and basic
tone with no embellishments and seems more of a text book or a schoolchild’s
history than a novel. It is, however, a very important story and needs to be
told, which may perhaps mitigate the poor writing style.
In 1838 on a remote cattle
station on the NSW frontier a free settler who looked after the property
(William Hobbs) invited a group of Aboriginal people from the Weraerai to
Myall Creek station with the promise of protection from the bands of marauding
troopers and stockmen who roamed the countryside. They developed a close
relationship, particularly with Old Daddy, a big elder, Charley, a young boy,
and Ipeta, a woman with whom one of the younger hutkeepers, George Anderson,
had some sort of relationship. While Hobbs was away, a group of powerful
settlers came to the station and massacred 28 unarmed
Indigenous Australians.
The massacre itself was not
unusual, as many similar events occurred across the country, but it stands out
as significant in history as being the first time the murderers were
prosecuted. George Anderson’s evidence was instrumental in bringing justice to
the Weraerai, and death to the murderers. This is a known story, but Stewart
questions why Anderson would speak up, so he introduces a love interest, which
many critics find jarring. They argue that for a story based on historical
fact, it makes no sense to invent a fictional romance, and detracts from the
magnitude of the event.
Because so much of the story is
taken verbatim from contemporary letters,
newspaper reports and court transcripts, the introduction of assumed emotions
is incongruous and the tone becomes preachy and didactic. Some disquiet
has also been raised over the perceived patronising effect of a white author
putting words into Australian Aboriginal English: “And de tings don’t belongem
to eachfella. Everything belongem everyfella. Everyting belongem all mob."
Stewart tries to introduce the
tropes of foreshadowing and hindsight. The former is unnecessary: if people
know this story, there is no surprise, just horror,
so there seems little reason to try and build tension in this portentous
manner: “They sat and ate and talked and laughed, unaware it was to be their
last meal together, for twenty-four hours later Death would come to the
Weraerai camp.”
The
horrors of the massacre itself are stated baldly through flashes of atrocity.
There are critical complaints that the novel would work better as a film, and
on this occasion it is deliberately written in a screenplay style.
"Baby wrenched from mother’s arms and thrown to ground… Sandy and Tommy lunge forward to protect… Two shots ring out… Sandy and Tommy fall to the ground… Sandy struggles to feet, sword slashes back of his neck, severs head… Bobby’s wife knocked to ground, her baby grabbed… Mother wails… Baby screams as held by legs and head smashed against tree… Mother slashed with sword… Terror… Head hacked off…"
Stewart
also attempts to explain the particulars of the court case and the attitudes of
the time through patently unrealistic dialogue. Much of the court-case
communication is taken verbatim from the transcripts of the trials with, as
Stewart writes, “only very minor additions to illustrate how someone may have
been feeling or to highlight the importance of a particular piece of evidence.”
This level of gauche intervention makes it more like one of those American
documentaries than a novel.
