Steve Brown's Bunyip, and Other Stories

In Short

This collection of short stories captures the rough, often brutal reality of life in the Australian colonies and the perilous reaches of the Pacific. Through a series of vignettes ranging from mutinies on merchant ships to desperate struggles for gold in the inland scrub, the author explores the lives of sailors, stockmen, and dreamers. The stories endure because they offer an unvarnished, authentic glimpse into a frontier existence defined by physical hardship, profound isolation, and the stubborn persistence of men and women caught in the grip of nature and their own ambitions.

The Story

The narrative arc of the collection functions as a cross-section of a vanishing colonial world. It begins with the heavy, atmospheric weight of the Australian bush, where the boundaries between life and death are perpetually blurred. We encounter scenes of grotesque tragedy, such as a man who, feeling the onset of a mortal illness, binds himself to his saddle to avoid falling and rotting in the scrub, only to be discovered as a horrifying, grinning corpse by a woman fleeing an abusive marriage. From the land, the narrative shifts to the sea, where the internal politics of shipboard life—often marked by cruelty and systemic neglect—lead to acts of defiance. On the Sardanapalus, a crew tormented by a sadistic mate orchestrates a systematic, rebellious destruction of the cargo to avoid the law while satisfying their spite.

As the collection progresses, the settings become more desolate. We move to abandoned goldfields and "Dead Finish" camps, where the silence of the landscape is punctuated by the violence of spear-wielding attackers or the psychological unraveling of men driven mad by greed and heat. There are moments of dark, dry humor, such as the squatter who pays a fortune for a champion ram, only to be presented with a wretched, mule-like creature, or the itinerant book peddler whose "genuine" literary treasures are merely cheap, glue-bound imports sold to unsuspecting bush folk.

The collection concludes by circling back to the sea, emphasizing the inescapable pull of the ocean on those who have lived by it. In tales of Cape Horn and distant, frozen southern latitudes, the protagonists face mirages, shipwrecks, and the crushing isolation of the deep. One sailor recounts a harrowing escape from a subterranean sea-cave, a trial that borders on the hallucinatory. The final stories return to the recurring theme of professional and personal restlessness; even when men reach the relative security of station life, the "magic and mystery" of the sea inevitably calls them back. The cycle of the "rovin’ men" remains unbroken, with the narrative leaving them once again at the mercy of the elements, forever caught between the safety of the shore and the indifferent, thundering power of the water.

How It Unfolds

The grim reality of the outback The collection opens with the harsh, dusty stillness of the interior, where human bodies are often found in states of abandonment. It establishes the theme that in these "new and naked lands," death is a constant, often lonely companion.

The mutinous sea The perspective shifts to the decks of merchant vessels, where the brutality of officers creates a powder-keg environment. Sailors take calculated, illicit revenge against the cargo to maintain their dignity and sanity under oppressive regimes.

The folly of the frontier Middle stories explore the absurdity of colonial life, from the pretenses of "gentleman" settlers to the swindling of bush workers by traveling merchants. These beats highlight the desperation and the sharp, cynical humor required to survive in isolated communities.

The lure of the abyss The final movement returns to the sea, focusing on extreme survival against natural forces like ice, mirage, and starvation. It emphasizes the psychological toll of isolation, showing how the mind can turn a survival ordeal into a descent into a private Hades.

The cycle of return The book closes with the recognition that no land-based stability can fully cure the restlessness of the sailor. The final beats show men abandoning the relative comfort of the station for the known dangers of the forecastle, closing the loop on a life defined by the sea.

The People

The characters are archetypes of a frontier society, defined by their resilience and their flaws. Steve Brown and the various sailors like Jack Ashby represent the "rovin’ men" who find themselves unable to settle; they are perpetually torn between the material comforts of land life and the visceral pull of the deep. Jack Ashby specifically embodies the internal conflict of the laborer who realizes the hardships of the sea—the "weevilly biscuits" and "frozen rigging"—yet finds the monotony of the station equally intolerable. Billy Cooronga, an Indigenous guide, serves as a sharp-witted foil to the oblivious or entitled European travelers, using his understanding of the land and human vanity to turn the tables on his masters. Mr. Potts, the book peddler, is the embodiment of colonial opportunism, a man who navigates the bush with a cynical eye for profit and a profound, if mocking, understanding of the people he exploits. These figures do not necessarily grow in a traditional moral sense; rather, they are revealed through their reactions to catastrophe, showing either a capacity for grim stoicism or a tendency toward vengeful obsession.

In Its Own Voice

"Only the corpse at each jerk nodded in a ghastly cordial sort of fashion."

This describes the macabre discovery of a man who had bound himself to his horse before dying in the scrub.

"He thought, too, of tyrannous masters and mates; of drenched decks and leaking fo’k’stles, of frozen rigging, of dark wild nights of storm, and of swaying foot-ropes and thundrous canvas slatting like iron plates about his ears; of hunger, wet, and misery."

This internal monologue reflects the sailor's complex, haunting memory of the life he tried to leave behind for the safety of the station.

What It's Really About

The central argument is the indifference of the natural world to human ambition. Whether in the vast, arid interior of Australia or the shifting, icy wastes of the southern oceans, the landscape is presented as an active, often hostile force that strips away the pretenses of civilization. The book asks whether humanity can ever truly "tame" such a landscape or if it merely survives in the margins of it. There is a persistent question regarding the nature of freedom: is it found in the pursuit of wealth and settlement, or is it an inherent, restless state of being that prevents men from ever truly finding "home"?

Why Read It Today

Readers who appreciate the rugged, unsentimental realism of writers like Jack London or the atmospheric tension of early colonial literature will find this collection compelling. The prose is precise and unadorned, effectively conveying the sensory details of a life lived in extreme conditions. Modern readers should be prepared for the period-specific attitudes and the "pigeon English" dialect of the era, which reflect the racial and social hierarchies of the 1905 context. These elements are part of the book’s historical honesty, capturing a time when Australia was viewed as a "new and naked land" full of both opportunity and peril. The stories are best read as a series of sharp, vivid snapshots rather than a linear novel. What stays with the reader is the haunting contrast between the vast, empty landscapes and the intense, often violent human dramas enacted within them. It is an honest, gritty work that does not offer tidy moral resolutions, but instead provides an authentic, sometimes chilling, window into a bygone frontier.