A Fortunate Life (Puffin story books) Page 8

  We got on our way before sunrise, and what a sunrise it was. Everything was a golden colour—the hills, the trees. As we slowly made our way along the track to Mullewa, Bill told me that he expected to give kangaroo shooting away soon and have a change. ‘This lady I was telling you about—the one I have my Christmas Day with—wants me to get a regular job such as a station hand or manager, and settle down,’ he said. ‘Last Christmas I asked her to marry me, but she wouldn’t agree because she wouldn’t like me being away for long periods. She said she would be glad to marry me if I could be with her all the time. She is a wonderful woman, as straight as can be and honest as they come.’

  Then Bill told me that a large stock firm in Perth was advertising for station managers or stockmen and he had sent an application. ‘I haven’t received an answer yet,’ he said. ‘I won’t leave Mullewa until the Wednesday after the New Year—that is mail day. I don’t want to build your hopes up too much, Bert, but if I get a favourable reply to my letter, I may be able to fit you in with me if you haven’t a job by the time I leave.’

  That evening, when we unharnessed the horses, Bill said, ‘We are only about eighteen miles from Mullewa. We will make it tomorrow easily.’ I was very tired and went to sleep a few minutes after we turned in.

  When I awakened, Bill had the billy boiled. When we got under way the sky was overcast and it looked like a storm was coming up. I noticed as we travelled along that the country was changing. The timber was smaller and more open, and the scrub thicker. After travelling for some hours, we came up a hill, then all at once Bill said, ‘That’s Mullewa.’ He was pointing towards two or three buildings some three quarters of a mile away. This made me feel sad—I had expected to see a town. As we got near I could see three buildings—a fairly large one, and two small cottages. There was also a railway station. The large building was the hotel, store and Post Office all in one.

  Bill stopped the horses just outside the hotel and said, ‘You stay on the cart, Bert, and mind the horses. I won’t be long.’ A few minutes later he came out of the hotel again, took the reins and said, ‘We will camp at May’s place. It’s about half a mile from here.’

  May’s house was built of granite, and just off from the house was a shed. One end of this was used for a stable and the other was enclosed. Bill said we would camp there for the time being and have our meals in the house.

  We unpacked all the things off the cart and stacked them in the shed, then unharnessed the horses and let them loose in the paddock. Bill said that May wouldn’t be home from the pub until after six, and he unlocked the door of the house and lit a fire, then we had a meal.

  After our meal Bill left me, saying that he was going up to the pub and would walk back with May. At about twenty minutes past six, they arrived home. Bill said, ‘This is the lady you have been hearing about, Bert.’ She looked at me for a moment then said, ‘You are very welcome here, Bert, and I feel sure that you and I will be friends.’ She was a very nice looker—a small woman with a dark complexion.

  May had a gramophone, an Edison, and dozens of different records, like the ones the Station Master at Narrogin had had. The gramophone had a handle and a large springlike clock that had to be wound up, and it would play two records without having to be re-wound. I amused myself by playing beautiful waltz tunes while Bill and May were deep in conversation, sitting in the two easy chairs by the fire. That was a lovely evening for me.

  Christmas Eve went by and Christmas morning came with bright sunshine. Bill was up and had the fire burning, and a few minutes later, Bill called me in to breakfast.

  After breakfast May set about preparing the Christmas dinner. She had two dressed cockerels to cook. Bill was getting the vegetables ready, and as we chatted and joked with each other, we all seemed very happy. He couldn’t take his eyes off May. I played a few records on the gramophone and each time a waltz was played, Bill grabbed May and waltzed her around the kitchen. They had several drinks together that morning. May hadn’t forgotten me—she had lemonade and ginger ale.

  May decorated the table with all kinds of bush flowers and that Christmas dinner was the nicest I had had. When it was over Bill fell sound asleep in one of the armchairs. I helped May do the washing up, then she went into her room. She said she would have a sleep also. I went for a walk into the bush for two or three hours and when I returned they were still asleep.

  Two days later I had a visitor, a small wiry man about fifty. He said, ‘I was talking to Bill Oliver up at the pub and he said you were looking for a job on a station. I’m looking for a lad to go with me and my gang as cook’s assistant on a cattle drive over the Ashburton River route.’

  The man told me his name was Bob McInnis, ‘mostly known as Baldy.’ He took his hat off and said, ‘The crop of hair you see on my head explains why.’ The top of his head was shiny like it had been that way for years, but he made up for it with a big black beard.

  He told me the job would be for five to six months. ‘The gang is made up with four white men and myself and eight blacks,’ he said. ‘We will all be on horseback. We take four pack mules and five spare saddle horses. I’ll pay you one pound a week and keep. You will be paid from the day you take the job to when the drive is finished. It’s not hard work, only the monotony is hard to take, and for a while you will get very saddle sore.’

  After a lot of thought, I decided to take the job. Bob seemed pleased and said, ‘You won’t regret it, Bert. I will supply you with a horse, saddle and bridle, and the horse is the prettiest little thing you have ever seen, a black filly with four white stockings and a white face. She is very quiet and when she gets used to you she will never leave you.’

  Later I spoke to Bill about taking the job and he said he would have liked me to be with him, but his position was uncertain. As things were, he didn’t know what he would be doing. He said, ‘I cannot make up my mind until I get a reply about the station manager’s job. You’re doing the right thing, Bert. You will have a job for at least six months, and one pound a week and keep is good wages for a fourteen-year-old boy.’

  I told Bill that I was puzzled about being at least six months on the job, and said they must go a long way to take that long. Bill said, ‘Did he tell you the name of the drive?’ I said he had mentioned the Ashburton route, then Bill said, ‘Oh, yes, you will take about four to five weeks getting from here to where the drive starts, somewhere up near the Ophthalmia Ranges, over six hundred miles from here, through Meekatharra, right up above the head of the Ashburton River.’

  Then Bill told me a secret. He had been offered a job as a yardman by the owner of the pub. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘I cannot take this job if I get a manager’s job. But in any case, Bert, May and I are getting married, but don’t mention it within May’s hearing. She might tell you herself now she knows you are going with Baldy.’

  After breakfast the next morning, I put my belongings into the cart and drove up to the pub, where I bought two pairs of riding trousers, two shirts, an extra pair of riding boots, two large handkerchiefs and a broad-brimmed hat. I also bought a mosquito net, ground-sheet and a rain cape. Then I went to say goodbye to May. She said she was sorry I was going and suddenly she put her arms around me and kissed me hard. I noticed she had tears in her eyes. That was the first time anyone had kissed me like that besides Grandma. I went all hot and cold. Bill was watching, too. While May still had her arms around me she said, ‘Bert, Bill and I are getting married. Isn’t that wonderful?’ I recovered enough to say, ‘Yes, I wish you all the luck in the world.’ With that I broke loose and got into the cart. I felt I would have cried if I didn’t get away quick. A few minutes later, Bill came out and off we went to Baldy’s place.

  Bill said, ‘May was quite upset when you said goodbye. She thinks it’s a shame that a boy your age has to battle along on his own.’ He looked at me and said, ‘What do you think of her, Bert?’ I said, ‘Bill, she is a wonderful person and I think you are a very lucky man. What knocked the stuffin�
�� out of me was the way she kissed me. It made me feel really happy.’ Bill said, ‘All the time I have known her—before her husband died and over the three years since—she wouldn’t even let me put my arm around her, let alone kiss her, until two days ago when I decided not to go kangaroo shooting any more.’

  A few minutes later we arrived at my new boss’ place, and Bill said goodbye. He made me promise to come and see him and May when the drive was over.

  Bob had a large house built of mud batts and he showed me around his place. He had an eight-stall stable and a large stockyard built around it. When we came to the horses, he pointed out the filly I was to ride. She was the prettiest pony I had ever seen. She was called Dinnertime. He gave me the job of oiling the saddles, bridles, saddle-straps, cruppers and reins. All the leather straps had to be scrubbed in warm soapy water, then put out into the sun to dry. When they were properly dry I had to rub linseed oil into them until the leather became soft and pliable.

  After our evening meal, Bob asked me all about myself, and was surprised when I told him I hadn’t any schooling. I asked him was there any truth in the terrible tales I had heard about the wild blacks up North. He told me that he hadn’t had any trouble with them. He said, ‘Some of the stations had trouble on account of them killing cattle, but the poor beggars have to live the same as we do and they knock off prime bullocks now and again. I don’t think that’s so bad, when you remember how station people shoot hundreds of kangaroos and the kangaroo is the black man’s main meat supply. No, Bert, just be friendly to the blacks, and I’m sure they won’t worry you.’

  Two days later the four white drovers turned up: Arthur Rose—the cook, Stan Smith, George Pogson and Darkey Morgan. Then later that evening six part-blooded Aboriginals and two full-bloods arrived. The next day Bob went to the store for supplies for the trip and that night he announced that we would be leaving the following afternoon. He said that we would be travelling as much as possible in the evening, night and early morning while the weather was so hot, and resting up during the day. He said, ‘Tomorrow morning, finish your packing, strap your bedrolls on your horses, then rest up for the day. We will have a meal about four-thirty and leave at five.’

  We all went to bed early that evening. I felt very excited. Arthur said, ‘Bert, tomorrow and the next few weeks will be bad for you. It takes about two weeks to get over saddle soreness if you’re not used to riding. Ask Bob for some of his ointment tomorrow, and rub it on your bottom and the back of your legs from the knees up. Keep the treatment going every day, it will help a lot.’ Next morning Bob gave me a four-ounce bottle of ointment. He said, ‘Saddle-soreness is going to be your biggest worry for a while, Bert.’

  We set off with the sun behind us on the six-hundred mile trip. As well as our own horses, we had four mules loaded with food, pots and pans, and a camp oven. Five spare saddle horses were carrying feed, nose-bags, ropes, hobbles and other gear. The mules and spare horses were hitched together by a lead, and led by Arthur and Stan. We were all in Indian file and we made quite a long line.

  We followed an unused track until well into the night, then finally the Boss said, ‘We’ll camp now for a few hours, then get going about three o’clock in the morning.’ We all unsaddled our horses, and hobbled them to graze. One of the big troubles on these trips was wild horses, or brumbies, it seemed. There were hundreds of them. The wild stallions would try to entice the mares away, and bite and kick the geldings, so the horses had to be watched all the time. Now one of the men took the first turn looking after the horses and mules and the rest of us had a mug of tea and a meal that Arthur the cook had made. Then we slept until about three o’clock in the morning, and were on our way again soon after.

  This was the procedure for the first four days. We travelled from five to ten-thirty in the evening, then from four to nine in the morning. This made our travelling time about ten hours, and we covered roughly thirty miles a day.

  On the morning of the fifth day we came to a water-hole in a creek. The grass was extra well grown so Bob gave the horses a whole day’s rest. Just after daylight we loaded up and set off again. The day’s rest had done my sore bottom and legs good. I never let on to any of the men, but I had suffered hell for two days before we had the break. I rubbed on the ointment several times while we were resting.

  When we stopped for a few hours, or for the night, Arthur would say, ‘I’ll have to make another grindstone.’ This was a baking-powder loaf made in the camp oven. When he took the loaf out of the oven it looked just like a grindstone. We never had any butter for these loaves because of the heat, but we had plenty of golden syrup, tinned jam and cheese, tinned meat and milk. Our boss used to take two of the horses and go into the station houses we passed to fetch fresh meat.

  Late in the afternoon of the sixth day it started to rain. The Boss told us to make the horses hurry along because it was only a few miles to Lake Austin where we would camp the night. There was a large shed at Lake Austin, built many years before for boundary riders. We were lucky because the old shed had a fireplace and we managed to find enough dry firewood to have a nice big fire. Next day the rain stopped early in the afternoon, and in the evening we moved off. We followed the bush track north-east. Stan said that this track was the Central Stock Route. We kept going for about six hours. Well into the night we camped in a valley through which a creek ran; both sides towered hundreds of feet into the sky with large granite boulders like big monuments on top.

  Time lost importance to us as the days came and went. The Boss and Darkey were the only ones who had reliable watches. The track we were following wound around the high hills and over the smaller ones. The scenery changed from day to day; large trees were few and far between, with none on the high ground. We saw thousands of anthills-some fifteen feet high—all over the low level ground, thousands of blackboys, and patches of mallee. The hills were covered with granite boulders or scrub, and some with a reddish soil which looked very pretty at sunrise and sunset.

  During the third week out from Mullewa we had to have all the horses and mules shod. Stan, Darkey, George and the Boss did the shoeing. We stopped at a boundary rider’s hut that had a small forge. The shoeing was completed in almost four hours, and we all had a good rest before starting out again.

  My saddle soreness had almost gone by now and I was feeling much better. Arthur told me that we were east of the Robinson Range. He said that we were nearly halfway from where we had started and that we had done well, but from here on the going would be harder and, by the end of the third week, the Boss decided to give the horses a day’s rest.

  We came to a large valley the blacks called Wonging Valley. (I was told that Wonging means ‘noises’ in the blacks’ language): Arthur said the whites called it Echo Valley. It did return the sound to anyone calling out. This valley was beautiful and provided shade and shelter, fresh water, and an abundance of feed for the horses.

  During our stay at Echo Valley, the Boss had asked me how I liked my pony, and I said that she was lovely. He told me that four years ago, while on a drive, they came across a mare. She had lain down to give birth to a foal and was then too weak to get up. The mother was beyond help, so the Boss shot her to end her suffering. He was about to shoot the foal when one of the young black boys begged him not to—he suggested that, as they had a young cow in the herd that had had a calf the day before (they had to kill the calf, the usual thing when a calf was born on the drive), they teach the foal to suckle from the cow. The foal got a taste for the cow’s milk, and after a few days, the cow took complete charge of the foal. ‘Now Bert,’ the Boss said, ‘that’s the pony you have on this drive. I broke her in last year. We named her Dinnertime because she always knew when it was meal time while she was on that drive four years ago.’

  Although the men used to tell some fantastic tales about the blacks, we didn’t come across any big tribes until four days out from Echo Valley—then we came to a very large tribe. There were hundreds of them. Their camp
was at a place called Three Rivers near the Collier Range. The men wore kangaroo skin loin coverings, the women had most of their body covered. The little kids didn’t have any coverings at all. They must have had fifty or sixty dogs, all shapes and sizes, and all barking.

  As we approached the camp they ran to meet us. Our horses didn’t like all the noise, especially the din the dogs made. I must have looked frightened because Darkey said, ‘Don’t be afraid, Bert, they won’t trouble us. They’re a friendly lot.’

  We were travelling behind each other Indian file and we didn’t stop. We had travelled approximately four hundred and fifty miles already, and had some two hundred miles or more to go. We were due to take over the first lot of cattle on the first of March, in fifteen days’ time. We followed the track north-east for the next eight days—to a point north-east of the Ophthalmia Range—covering a little over one hundred miles. From the Ophthalmia Range, we turned direct east towards the sunrise, then five days later we came to a rabbit-proof fence, the first the Government built across Western Australia to prevent rabbits from migrating into the stock and wheat portions of the State. There were gates at intervals for travellers to pass through. This fence was the starting point for our long drive.

  We had two days to wait until the Boss took over the first lot of cattle—some two hundred and twenty of them. All sorts and sizes; bullocks with large, wide horns, and cows of all kinds and colours. Arthur, who was my boss, explained how and what we had to do on the drive. He said, ‘We go ahead of the cattle early in the morning each day and prepare a meal. The stockmen will have their meals in relays. Those that were out night herding have their meal first, then the others. Then they all go out and start the herding and we clean up and cut sandwiches for each man for the day. Then we pack everything up and set off and find a place to camp that night. As the herd gets bigger our job gets harder.’