Charles Christopher O'Shaughnessy, an Irish migrant from Londonderry, who temporarily stayed with his wife and children in a family hostel for British migrants at the outskirts of the metropolitan area, had once more attended an Australian-English goodwill meeting in the centre of the state capital.

He thought that attending such functions was a better proposition than taking part in noisy protest meetings at the hostel, where disillusioned British migrants angrily denounced the poor conditions of hostel life, high boarding rates imposed by the authorities on the non-working wives and children, making it virtually impossible for big families to save any money for the eventual purchase of a house, and many indignities of the treatment of British migrants by the management of the concentration camps called hostels.

He was a cheerful, easy going man and he disliked either to grumble himself or to listen to other people's complaints. He was sure that after a period of initial difficulties he would make good in this country.

Now he was on his way back to the hostel, a lonely man in a strange land.

He took a rattling tram as far as the terminus, and from there he had to walk a considerable distance to his hostel.

It was a clear cold night and the sky represented a spectacular picture of brilliant, unfamiliar stars and constellations.

Although he even as recently as while sitting in the tram was, as usual, full of thoughts and worries about his future, he had hardly stepped out in the open under the starlit sky as he forgot all his worries, for his thoughts immediately turned over to quite a different problem.

It was a problem which had haunted him since he arrived in Australia few months ago.

Back in Londonderry, you see, he had often heard references to the Southern Cross. People talking about Australia used to say that this and that happened under the Southern Cross; in books describing voyages in the seas of the southern hemisphere he on many occasions had read about the mystical Southern Cross majestically shining above the boundless ocean; in stories and novels on Australian topics the Southern Cross usually occupied a prominent position as well.

Back in Londonderry it looked as if the Southern Cross somehow dominated the nocturnal sky of Australia and played some important, although intangible, role in the life of human beings in that part of the world. It looked, furthermore, as if everybody in Australia would be easily able to point out the Southern Cross at the first request.

But on the night of the very day he arrived by plane in Australia and asked a local chap to show him the Southern Cross, he experienced an unexpected disappointment.

"Hm, Southern Cross, did you say?" mumbled the local chap lifting his unshaven chin upwards and roaming the vastness of starlit firmament with his eyes. "Southern Cross? Hm, I am not sure where she is. Sorry, mate, I cannot help you! Ask somebody else."

Since then Charles Christopher O'Shaughnessy asked a lot of people to show him the Southern Cross, but nobody was so far able to do so, neither simple tradesmen nor educated people he had met. As a matter of facts he used to ask everbody, who happened to share his company on any starlit nights since he landed in this country, to point him out that evasive constellation, but all in vain. The local people were unable to locate the most famous constellation of their hemisphere.

It was even so on that particular night. When he had left the meeting and stayed for a while in the street in front of the meeting hall to have a chat with his new acquaintances, his first move was to ask them to indicate to him the Southern Cross, but they, too, were unable to do so.

Then a member of parliament, who also had attended the meeting, joined the group and volunteered to give him a lift as far as the tram stop. When they walked towards his parked car, he asked the parliamentarian about the Southern Cross. But even the parliamentarian could not help him. He only promised to find out the location of the Southern Cross in the near future and to show it to him the next time they meet.

Now Charles Christopher O'Shaughnessy, this cheerful piano tuner from Londonderry, reached the point, where the road made a long detour along the cemetary which was on the way to the hostel. As the night was clear and it was not completely dark, he decided to make a short cut and go straight across the cemetary as he had done on several previous occasions.

It must be said that while crossing the cemetary he always went past the long row of old graves which were the last in this part of the compound and which bordered on the vast vacant space where only gigantic weeds grew.

He knew the place so well that it was not necessary for him to walk with care and to watch out in order to find his way. As a matter of fact, he was so familiar with that part of the cemetary that he could cross it even with his eyes closed.

So there was no need for him to watch out this time either. He went and gazed at the starlit sky and tried to guess which of the enormous multitude of gleaming constellations was the Southern Cross, but there were so many of them and none of them bore even a remote resemblance with a cross.

Nevertheless it was an elevating experience to gaze at the majestic picture of the southern sky where myriads of stars twinkled and numberless gleaming constellations indifferently looked down on 'him, the migrant piano tuner from Londonderry.

Suddenly his feet stumbled at a heap of lose earth, he lost his balance and before he realized what was the matter he slipped down and began falling deep into the bowels of the earth. While he was falling down like a stone, legs first, a frightful thought crossed his mind with the speed of lightning: I am falling into an open grave!

There was a ghastly scream of terror on the bottom of the grave when he landed on something or somebody alive; he was so terrified from this unexpected experience that he, too, cried out in terror, and felt, at the same time, that a wave of cold perspiration covered his body.

Cold-blooded and resourceful man as he was, he was instantly able to make an appraisal of the situation. Yes, he fell into a deep open grave which had already claimed one victim before himself, for there was another man upon whom he had fallen and who, screaming with horror, collapsed under his weight.

O'Shaughnessy struggled upon his feet and so did the stranger whose slim figure he could feel more than see in the darkness of the grave.

"How do you do?" asked O'Shaughnessy, brushing off the wet earth from his knees. "I hope I have not hurt you."

"Fortunately not," answered the stranger.

"My name is Charles Christopher O'Shaughnessy. I am a piano tuner and non-commissioned war-time officer from Londonderry. Pleased to meet you."

He stretched out his hand, but instead of catching the stranger's hand he inadvertently hit his nose in the dark.

"Ai!" cried out the stranger.

"Sorry!" said O'Shaughnessy, "I wished to shake your hand."

"I am sorry, I could not realize what you are after. I still cannot recover from your sudden appearance. My first thought was that it was a ghost from one of those old graves," said the stranger in good English, but with a strong foreign accent. "My name is Ian Podegrad. I am a migrant from Czechoslovakia. In my country I was an apothecary, but here I work as an assembler at Hoidens. Pleased to meet you!"

And they shook hands.

"Pity that they do not recognize the qualifications of you people here," remarked O'Shaughnessy sympathetically. "What a nuisance it is to be employed as an assembly worker being himself such an educated and qualified man. Back in Londonderry they do not waste apothecaries in that way!"

"Well," said Ian Podegrad, "it really is a nuisance. However, I prefer to be an assembly line worker in Australia than an apothecary in Brno. Here, at least, I have my freedom."

"Not at the moment, unfortunately," commented O'Shaughnessy.

"I am still a free man in a free grave of a free country," answered Ian Podegrad.

"Anyway, it is pleasing indeed to share the distinguished company of such an educated and contented man even in a grave," said O'Shaughnessy. "I would, however, prefer to have the pleasure of your company in some better place than this. The damned pit, by the way, is so deep and there seems to be no way out for us till the morning, when somebody happens to come nearby. Even if I lift you up, — you seem to be much lighter than myself — you would be unable to reach the edge of the grave."

"Yes," said Ian Podegrad, "the grave is too deep. And, what is even worse, there is so much cold water here. I shiver from cold."

Only now O'Shaughnessy realized that his feet were up to the ankles in ice-cold water and that even his clothes were wet from his recent fall to the bottom of the grave. He, too, felt cold now and began to make desperate efforts to suppress his shivering fits.

"And how did you get here?" he asked his companion.

"In the same manner as you, I guess," answered Ian Podegrad. "I was returning from a meeting of our national committee and took a short cut through the cemetary, as I did many times before. I could not know that they have dug and left uncovered such a deep grave in this part of the cemetary. The cemetary is expanding seemingly."

"These damned careless grave-diggers!" swore O'Shaughnessy. "Back in Londonderry ... !"

"And I could understand the situation if I had had a few drinks beforehand," interrupted Ian Podegrad. "But, believe me, lemonade and water were the only brew I enjoyed tonight."

"I didn't have a drop of grog either tonight," said O'Shaughnessy. "And that deprives me of the only possible excuse!"

"Have you, by the way, cigarettes?" asked Ian Podegrad. "My cigarettes and matches became wet when I fell in the water."

"Yes, of course," said O'Shaughnessy and took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. "Hell!" he cried then, "they are completely wet!"

"Heavens!" said Ian Podegrad. "Even your cigarettes are wet!"

"That makes things even worse," complained O'Shaughnessy. "To be alive in a grave without a smoke, phui!"

"Never mind, take things as they are!" remarked Ian Podegrad. "After all, the situation could be much worse than it actually is. You know, I am afraid ... " and he left the sentence unfinished.

"What are you afraid of?" asked O'Shaughnessy with an uneasy premonition.

"I am afraid that our grave might collapse before we are fished out from here; explained Ian Podegrad. "As a matter of fact I am surprised that it did not collapse while I was sliding in, bringing a stream of earth with me."

"It is true that the darn pit can collapse and bury us alive," said O'Shaughnessy, feeling very uneasy. "Thank Goodness that it is a clear, dry night. Let's hope that there will be no rain until we are out of here. I don't think that the grave would fall in without rain."

"In the case of rain our grave will quickly be filled with water even before it fell in," said Ian Podegrad. "And we will drown like two unwanted kittens ... It would be a pity to perish in such a way so far from the homeland. I have a wife and small children with me, they will be in trouble without their breadwinner. And I have an old mum in Brno.

"I, too, have a wife and small children," said O'Shaughnessy. "Five of them. They will be orphans if I perish here. And I have an old dad in Londonderry."

"Let us not talk about these dreadful possibilities," suggested Ian Podegrad. "Let us discuss something different. Look, how bright the stars are when you observe them from the bottom of this grave! What do you think, Mr. O'Shaughnessy, is there life on other planets in the depth of the universe?"

"I wouldn't care in given circumstances," said O'Shaughnessy grimly.

"Well, let us discuss music then," suggested Ian Podegrad. "Are you, Mr. O'Shaughnessy, acquainted with the compositions of the Czech composer Smetana?"

"Do you know what?" said O'Shaughnessy eagerly. "Since I have been in Australia I have been looking for a person, who could show me where the Southern Cross is. And what do you think, Mr. Podegrad? I have not been able to find such a person up to now! Nobody in this country seems to know where that constellation is. Isn't this awfully strange, Mr. Podegrad?"

"What? Unable to show you the Southern Cross?" exclaimed the apothecary from Brno. "Look: there is the Southern Cross!"

And he pointed his hand towards a constellation just on the furthest edge of the sector of the starlit sky they could see from the bottom of their grave.

"Look just in the direction of my hand!" he commanded.

"I can't see your hand in the dark!" answered O'Shaughnessy.

"Well, give me your hand and I will point it for you," suggested Ian Podegrad, taking O'Shaughnessy's hand and pointing it towards the Southern Cross. "See? Those four bright stars with the fifth one between the two of them? Do you see? You do not? Allright, do you see those two bright stars? They are Alpha and Beta Centauri. If you draw an imaginary line over them and continue that line in the same direction, you will strike two bright stars of the cluster of four. See now? With a faint one between two of them which is a stranger? That constellation is the Southern Cross you are looking for! Do you see now?"

And Charles Christopher O'Shaughnessy, the piano tuner from Londonderry saw. And that was how he beheld the Southern Cross from Australian continent for the first time — thanks to the Czech apothecary from Brno.

David Marquis

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