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‘Maggot’s wife, meanwhile, goes to collect his wages. He came from Queensland, so his wages were paid up there and he got beer money down here when he worked. The paymaster tells his wife that there’s no money because Maggot hasn’t worked this last week. All us blokes in the original shed – the ones who bathed Maggot – begin to worry, you see, as the wife is now howling for wages and her husband, who she’s convinced is hurt or dead. I have to be honest now, I too reckoned he’s disappeared and been got by a snake while flying his blasted kite. So they send out a search party. The homestead rings through to the next property that a man’s gone missing, so now that team calls for volunteers and Maggot puts his hand up.

‘Off they go. Maggot’s now in a truck searching for the lost shearer, and they meet up with the other search party. Maggot gets out and goes over to those blokes and says, “Who is it that you’re looking for?” And they say, “You, you stupid bastard!”’

Even Tom had to chuckle.

‘He left soon after, headed back to Queensland and the shed never smelled better, fair dinkum.’

The men sitting around Granite laughed, as he stood to get rid of his stub.

‘We’re throwing butts in the tin, everyone,’ Tom warned. ‘Place is like a tinderbox, so we have to be careful. Bingo, you make sure these are dampened before they’re tipped out.’

Bingo nodded. He was one of the younger rouseabouts and had earned that nickname for having an uncanny knack of losing every bet he made, every card game, and even the simplest of contests. He didn’t seem to mind, glad to be around the older blokes.

Smoko was almost over and they would begin again, working on the lambs first. Their mothers would follow. Tom had been part of the muster to move the sheep from their traditional watering spots into fenced-off areas that would be the only place they could find water now until they were shorn. Once the whole mob had come to water, Tom lent another pair of hands to clap and a mouth to yell at the easily startled animals, who were being expertly herded by a fast-moving and alert trio of dogs along with their masters to the transition yards. Here they waited to be gradually coerced into the shearing-shed pens.

Tom looked over at the lambs, all pressing into one corner, understandably anxious for their mothers, who were waiting to be shorn too before being reunited. It amazed him how those hundreds of lambs could each find their own mother when they were released, far in the distance of the shed and even over hills.

He turned back to Granite at the sound of his deep voice. ‘Am I going too fast for you, lad?’ he rasped, before sipping from a mug of strong tea that looked like stirred mud.

Tom had met Granite’s kind so many times before. They fed off bravado, especially in front of the others, needing the laughter and banter to fuel them for the next two-hour session of brutal work.

‘I’ve never done anything else but wool classing since I was fifteen,’ he said in reply. It was his calculated way of impressing upon the Gun that he could cope with whatever the mountain of a man might like to throw at him but without letting him feel undermined or even challenged.

Granite nodded. ‘I began shearing at fourteen. Couldn’t wait to leave school and join the gang. I did the long run a coupla times . . . that’s ten months away on the hardest of roads.’

Tom gave him a nod to show he understood the harsh nature of those long stints. ‘This is home. My father became the station supervisor here for a few years after my mother died, before he passed.’

‘The orphan wool classer?’

‘That’s me,’ Tom admitted. No one had ever referred to him as an orphan before – or at least not to his face. The word put a strange new slant onto his life, and he wasn’t sure if he was grateful or irritated by the title.

Granite nodded at him. ‘Probably did you a favour, mate. Made you grow up quick. I hear you’re unbreakable.’

Tom grinned despite not feeling in any way amused. ‘Is that right?’

Don, the number two, joined the conversation, tipping out the dregs of tea from the mug in his hand. ‘Granny hasn’t hit his top speed yet, Tommo,’ he quipped.

Tom couldn’t remember suggesting anyone call him that, but Granny had once and it seemed to have stuck. Even so, his mother would turn in her grave, hating his name being shortened. Vern had laughed at her reluctance. ‘Listen, love. The boy’s a country lad and will never be called anything else. Let him get used to it.’

Tom recalled his father reaching down from his lanky six-feet plus to offer one of those rare moments of affection, ruffling his hair. It had felt good. He must have been five then, unable to contemplate not having his parents in his life.

‘I said he hasn’t even moved into top gear.’ Don repeated, dragging Tom from his memories.

‘Neither have I, Don,’ Tom replied.

Granite caught his eye and winked. ‘Let’s see just how good you are then, Tommo. Come on, lads, smoko’s over. Let’s get back to it. I’ve got an itch to hit a personal milestone today.’

The men stood with sighs and made their way back into the earthy-smelling shed, where the pens of sheep were ready to be hauled in by their front legs one at a time to be fleeced. In here, the long timber slats they stood upon with gaps wide enough to let through the sheep dung, created a warmth of their own. The timber, coupled with the golden tones within the cocoon of the shed, felt familiar and safe.

Tom knew every inch of this shed, having grown up around it. His father had returned a fortnight after Moira died and was obliged to stay, given there was no one else to care for Tom. They’d stayed on in the cottage, Vern now supervisor and Tom finding new responsibilities of his own, from making the morning porridge for the station hands to feeding, watering and rubbing down all the horses.

He’d learned a wide array of jobs but had developed a hobby for carpentry, which spoke to his need for precision. The shearing shed had become a home, and he liked that every tool had its spot, and nothing was ever cast aside; you never knew when that bit of rope or old piece of leather might be handy. He’d learned his craft as a rouseabout; he was young and strong, quickly moving through the junior roles to become a wool classer in his own right.

Tom had learned that his wrists ached and sometimes flared up with terrible pain as a ‘roller’; that was the fellow who rolled the soiled edges of the fleece away so the senior classer could focus on assessing the quality. So he’d taught himself some exercises to strengthen his hands so he wouldn’t fall prey to the injuries that could finish a man chasing the demanding wool-classing role in the shed.

Tom waited while the shearing team readied themselves – nine stands were occupied – most keeping one eye on Granny as he went through his ritual of tying himself into a thick belt of his own design; it strapped his back for the relentless bending that was required. One day, Tom thought, they’d design equipment to help a man to bend so he wasn’t relying entirely on his hardworking spine to do all the work – something that allowed him to bend, stretch, reach, twist but take the greater burden of all that strain. That felt a way off, but the shears were now mechanised, with power transmitted to the blades that formerly relied on the strength and adroitness of a shearer’s hand. It still took one man, one pair of arms, one sheep at a time, but the mechanical piece meant a shearer could cut a lot closer to the sheep’s skin, and that translated to millions of pounds more wool to the world.

When everyone was busy, Tom likened the flecks of wool, invisible until the glints of sunlight slanting through the narrow wooden slats of the shed caught their dance, to a snowstorm in the shed. Dust hung in the air as well, lurking on every surface, underfoot at every tread. To Tom, the familiar sound of his life, no matter the situation, was the sound of grit beneath his boots.