TUESDAY 11/7/22 - SATURDAY 15/7/22

The first point to make about this "gap" is that we have to concede that we have little or no information on which to base a reconstruction of what Lawrence did between Monday, when he started chapter xviii, and Saturday, when he apparently "threw down his pen" (echoing the advice - see above - he gave to Mollie Skinner after she had "splashed down reality"). He could have taken his time and written more slowly over the intervening days. He is no longer making any attempt to finish the MS to catch the Sonoma, which is due to leave the next day, Wednesday, for the U.S. Instead he now intends to send the MS on the Mankura, leaving a week or so later on July 20. So there is no pressing need to hurry. He could have indeed taken several days to finish his text. But it is unlikely that he would have spun out the very thin and rehashed content of chapter xviii for more than one session. So we should assume that Monday July 10 is his last substantive writing-session - as far as Kangaroo is concerned - in Australia. Yet it would be unusual for Lawrence not to touch his manuscript for almost a week, before packing it up for dispatch to America. The strong likelihood is that he spent Tuesday-Saturday revising the text. However, we have no idea what he did on what day, so we will just have to call this five-day period, section #31 MS pp 1-559 (revision).. That implies, given how long it apparently took, a substantial revision. Dr Bruce Steele in his 1994 CUP edition of Kangaroo pointed out that Lawrence's revision of the MS in Thirroul (presumably starting on Tuesday July 11) was extensive. Over half of his 559 manuscript pages have corrections or revisions. Some, clearly, are "running" changes. But many if not most seem to be later revisions, presumably done during this revision period. However, there is no sign, in these or any subsequent revisions, of Lawrence going back over his text to disguise or "play down" his revelations about Scott and Rosenthal's clandestine organisation. He was, apparently, oblivious - apart from the Seltzer letter mentioned above - of the fact that those he called "the Diggers" would be, to put it mildly, very unhappy about his exposure of their illegal - indeed traitorous - activities. He seemingly had no real comprehension, either then or later, of what he had in fact run across while in Sydney in June 1922 - an Australia-wide "secret army". Like most other people, Lawrence did not know what a secret army was, even after it was explained to him by Jack Scott*.

SUNDAY 16/7/22-FRIDAY 11/8/22

Two further periods are germane to the composition of Kangaroo. The first is what happened between the dispatch of the MS to Mountsier in New York on the Mankura on Saturday July 15, and Lawrence's later departure from Sydney on Friday August 11. Several events in that period came to be part of the infamous "last chapter" (as mentioned above and below). The second is the further revisions Lawrence made on the first typescript in Taos in October 1922.