Warrigal's Way (16 page)

Even though I knew my cop friend wouldn't dob me in, I was in a bit of a panic and just wanted to get away. Kevin knew that a mate of Ben's had a station wagon for sale, so we went out to the caravan park where Ben and his mate lived and fortunately they were still up, drinking and yarning. I bought the wagon on the spot. It had five months rego and the motor was sweet. I dropped Kevin and Dave off, and told Dave I would pick him up in the morning. I was so keyed up that I headed straight home, packed my gear into the wagon and drove out to McMillans Road and slept in the car.

21

At seven the next morning I picked Dave up at Perkins Yard. Like me he only had his swag and a port. We took off, only stopping to fill up with petrol before heading off to Katherine. We stopped at Hayes Creek for a beer, and Dave got a carton of VB and a bottle of Bundy. We had a few cans and then sipped on the Bundy all the way to Pine Creek where we filled up with petrol, got a bucket and a bag of ice for the cans and went over to the pub for lunch. Katherine was only an hour away, and when we got there we topped the car up again and had a feed and a beer at Kirby's Pub. Dave took over the driving, and I nodded off as soon as we got onto the Victoria Highway. Dave woke me just before Timber Creek, where we topped up the petrol again, bought a sawdust pie, more ice and another carton of VB, then, with me behind the wheel, we headed for Kununurra just over the border in Western Australia.

As soon as we pulled in, a bloke put the touch on us. “Got half a quid, mate?” he said.

Dave answered him in language I won't repeat and we went into the pub. We had hardly downed our first beer, when the local sheilas homed in on us.

“Buy us a beer, love?” said some woman who was hanging all over me.

I might have been just passing through but I wasn't stupid. I'd knocked around a bit and the promise of a battered eye didn't stir me one bit. As soon as I heard, “Let's get a flagon and go out to the dam”, I was pretty sus. Dave was still pretty cross-eyed from what he had drunk on the road, but I had been driving and was pretty sober. I'd been checking out the blokes over my beer, and they were trying to look like they didn't know the sheilas, and mad bloody Dave wants to go with them. No way, I think to myself. I can feel my wallet heading for the bottom of my pocket. My one thought was to finish the beer, grab Davo, and get out of there. That was the surest set-up I've ever seen. We would have been mad to slope off with those sheilas. About the only thing we'd have got was a biffing and an empty pocket. I put the kibosh on the idea and poured Dave into the car. He was moaning and groaning, but I just ignored that and headed for Fitzroy Crossing.

In Fitzroy at the camping ground we ran into a mob of black stockmen who were on a weekend off and were partying up, with beer and plenty of music. It was a real good night, but by three o'clock, I decided it was time to hit the swag. Dave had crashed about two hours earlier and was sleeping like a baby.

Next morning Dave used my primus and boiled the billy, and the cup of tea was exactly what my body needed at that moment. Talk about the dry horrors. I was watching this bloke and his woman while I was rolling the first smoke of the day. Yeah, I'd taken up smoking again, but it wasn't too bad this time around. I tell you these two were something to see. It must have been their last can, and he was taking a big swig. When the old girl considered he'd had his whack, she gave him a tremendous punch on the ear, and grabbed the can as he dropped it. She got into it, and then he belted her and claimed the can. Christ, I'd rather play tennis. That's about the hardest can I've ever seen drunk.

We packed up our gear, got a carton and a bag of ice from
the pub, and headed for Derby. Just up the track. Derby's claim to fame was an old hollow boab tree where they used to jail Aboriginals in days gone by. Once we'd seen that, well, it was off to the pub. We had no chance of falling over. All the hands stretched out to bludge a buck would hold up the leaning tower of Pisa. We had a few beers and decided to keep going for Broome.

22

Now Broome was a different kettle of fish. Its population was about fifteen hundred, if you count the jail population. It was a pretty place, the main street a mixture of Chinese and Australian shops, and the street ran down to a park by the sea, or Roebuck Bay, as we were told. We found a Chinese restaurant right alongside the jail wall, and I had the best feed of sweet and sour prawns I have ever eaten.

“What do you reckon we have a look at the wharf?” Dave suggested. “I seen a couple of rig tenders—we might know someone.”

So we went down there to have a look around. Funny, the first bloke we ran into was Greg, a Murri bloke from Darwin that I knew slightly. We had a yarn with him and then Jim, the seaman's rep from Darwin, came over to say g'day.

“What brings you pair down this way?” he asked, shaking hands and smiling.

“We got sick of the Top End, and decided to have a look at the side,” I told him with a grin.

“Geez, this is a stroke of luck. Do one of you two want to do a rope watch on the
San Remo?
Give the crew a run ashore?”

Dave was looking at me so I said, “Let's draw straws.” He pulled a match out of a box, broke one, put the two
pieces between two fingers, and of course with my luck I drew the long one.

It is vital to have someone stand rope watch in Broome. With a rise and fall of the tide of twenty-five to thirty feet, if you don't tend the rope your boat can end up hanging from the bollard, or can pull the bollards out of the deck doing awful damage. The locals can tell you plenty of stories about smarties who didn't listen to their advice. You have to pay out on the ebb and retrieve on the turn.

I knew the skipper and crew from Darwin, and the job went without a hitch. The cook left me a big pile of books, and showed me where the goodies were kept. So while Dave and the boys were ripping it up ashore at the Roebuck Pub I was cooking the biggest meal of steak, onions and eggs you ever saw. They were all back at about midnight, Dave coming back with them, and they were off on the morning tide. I reckon I got the best deal, as with penalty rates I had made a hundred and fourteen bucks for the watch, and had had the best feed I'd had since leaving Darwin. Jim said that her sister ship was coming in the afternoon, and I could do another shift if I wanted to, but Dave said he would do this one and give me a turn ashore.

The wharfies had their noses out of joint, as they reckoned the rope watch was their job, but Jim pointed out that under maritime law it was a seaman's duty and we held our books and union cards. If there were no seamen available that was different, but we didn't do their work and they didn't do ours. They saw reason. They didn't want a blue they couldn't justify or win, and didn't want to lose a perk job for good. There were only a couple of greedy buggers turning it on anyway.

We thought Broome was great and decided to stay a week or so. Greg's family owned some land around Cable Beach, and he told us that if we wanted to camp he would clear it with his old man. We picked a spot down by the wharf, then
went into town for bread, salt, butter and other assorted goodies.

In town we ran into the local cop and I let Dave do the talking. He told him who we were and what we were doing. The cop just smiled and said, “Thanks fellers, have a good stay. Don't give me any work and we'll get on like a house on fire. See you about.” He gave us a wave and drove off. I had been holding my breath, and after he'd driven off I realised I was shaking and sweating.

“Christ, are you all right?” asked Dave.

“Yeah, a touch of the heat. I'll be right soon. Let's go and get a beer. That'll fix me up.”

So we went down to the Roebuck where we ran into Greg. We had a session with him, and bought our stores on the way back to camp.

During the night I woke at some ungodly hour and Dave was going spare. The tent was full of land crabs. They were in everything, and he was grabbing them and chucking them out as fast as they were coming in.

“Bugger this. Grab the tucker. It looks like a night in the car for us,” said Dave.

I was in total agreement.

What a bastard it was sleeping in the car. Every time I moved, some thing stuck into me and the bucket seats were breaking my back. Dave had the back seat with his feet out the window.

As it was impossible to sleep, I thought I might as well get the primus out and make a cup of tea. Running into that cop had shot my nerves all to bits. I was hoping that my mate in Darwin did bury that warrant real deep. I wondered whether the cop here had one down at his station. Thank Christ he doesn't know who I am, I thought.

I shook Dave. “Dave, it's cracking daylight. Give us a hand to get this camp in the car, and we can get the hell out of here.”

“Where the hell we gunna go?” Dave asked me as we were
folding up our fly and groundsheet, and stowing them in the car.

“I reckon we just take a drive around towards Cable Beach and keep our eyes open. What do you think?”

“Yeah, can't do no harm. We might see something.”

So I drove while Dave kept an eye out. We'd gone about half a mile when Dave said, “Let's investigate that.” It was a set of wheel tracks off the main road leading out to a small headland. About five hundred yards down the track we came to a sort of clearing that was either an old quarry or an old metal dump. There was a fireplace of sorts, so we decided we would give this a try. We put our camp up again, and once we'd put our groundsheet over the metal and rolled out our swags the camp was nice and snug. We would have to carry water from the wharf but we were going to fish anyway.

The beach was just down the hill from our camp, so we went for a look and found crabs, oysters, clams and periwinkles. I was on my way back to camp to get a pot to collect some oysters for tea when Dave called, “Come and have a look at this!”

I went over, and in one of the rock pools was a blue-ringed octopus. I had heard of them, as a year before a soldier had been bitten by one and died and it was in the papers. I couldn't get over the size of it. It was only about the size of the palm of your hand, sort of dark green with perfect blue rings, like blue Life-Savers. It was a real pretty thing, and I could see how you could pick one up if you didn't know it was lethal. We both agreed we would leave it well alone.

Dave had a long cone-shaped shell in his hand. “See this bludger,” he said. “It has a stinger on the skinny end, so never pick it up by that end. I'm not sure if it's deadly, but it would make you bloody crook.” I had a closer look. It just looked like a long skinny shell. I had seen hundreds of them
and never knew they were poisonous. Crikey, you learn something new every day.

We had gathered a heap of periwinkles as we were going fishing later down at the wharf. But at the moment all we wanted was a good kip. It was still only about five am or thereabouts.

“Davo, get out of the sack. Let's have a cuppa and get at these fish.” I had to laugh, seeing him getting out of the swag. He looked like Burke or Wills on their last day. “Geez man, dip your head in a bucket of water. You look horrible enough to scare a pub full of rascals.”

Dave just grunted and poured a pot full of water over his head. “Geez, I still feel had it. He took a sip from his mug of tea. “Ahh! Man, that's good. Now, what about lines, hooks and stuff?”

“I've got a couple of hand lines and a tackle box in the car. We'll go down the wharf, eh?”

“Whatever you reckon. I'm easy. Want to go now?” he asked, standing and rinsing out his mug. We hung our mugs on a tree branch and set off.

The afternoon was warm and balmy. The tide was coming in and all these small sharks about 3 to 4 feet long were coming in with it. There were mobs of them, and we agreed that swimming was a big no no. We watched a bloke on the beach just to the side of the wharf pull in an eight-foot shark.

“Geez, look at that. Let's go and have a look,” said Dave, so we put our gear down and walked over. The bloke had killed it, cutting its spine behind the head. I don't know what breed it was, but it had the biggest mouth full of the sharpest teeth you ever saw.

“What are you going to do with it?” Dave asked the bloke that caught it.

“I just want the jaws, mate. You can have the rest if you want it.”

There was an old feller standing nearby and he asked Dave what he was going to do with it. Davo sort of looked at him, then at me. “Give us the fishing knife,” he said. I handed it to him and he cut two big fillets off the shark. The meat was white and about an inch thick. “If it will eat us, we gonna eat it.” He looked at me and grinned. “It's alright, I've eaten shark before. Let's go back to camp and I'll cook you a feed to remember.” Dave told the old bloke he could have the rest, and he asked us if we would give him a hand to load it onto his trailer.

“What are you going to do with it?” I asked him.

“Put it in my garden and grow vegies over it. Best fertiliser in the world,” he told me.

So we helped him load it, then went back to camp where Dave cooked the fillets. I was a bit sus when first nibbling into it, but after I got past the first couple of bites it was tasty.

“What do you reckon we have a camp, and try our luck again tonight,” I asked Dave.

“Yeah, good plan,” he answered, lying down on top of his swag and nodding off almost immediately.

I finished my mug of tea and did the same, and woke about nine to the smell of cooking.

“I was just about to wake you,” said Dave, giving me a plate of fish and a couple of bits of bread and a mug of tea.

“Thanks. You must of been up for a while. Couldn't you sleep?”

“Nah. Got off for a while, but woke about half past seven and couldn't drop off again. So I had a nose around the rocks and got a tin of snails and some pippies for bait. Geez, you were doin' alright though, sleeping like a baby.”

“When are we going fishing?” I asked him.

We could go now. The tide will be about half in—just perfect,” he answered.

We did the dishes and squared the camp.

“Okay, let's go,” I said. I tossed Dave the keys. “You drive. I feel a bit full and lazy after that feed. Geez, we're doin'
alright for beach bummin'. Two good feeds in four hours. I reckon we're kicking on,” I said.

The night was warm and velvet-black and the stars were hanging in the sky like jewels, giving us nice soft starlight to fish by. We set ourselves up on the jetty by the wharf and we started to catch good leather jacket. We threw the small ones back and just kept those that were pan size. There were about half a dozen of us on the jetty altogether. I pulled out my tobacco and rolled a smoke, and just as I lit it up a dark bloke came over and asked me if he could get a smoke off me. I handed him the packet and he rolled one, and I asked him if his mate wanted one too.

“Christ, he'd probably give you his left leg for one,” he said.

So we called him over and I gave him a smoke, and we introduced ourselves. Roy was the first bloke's name and Phil was his mate. We told them we had just come down from Darwin and were going to muck around for a week or two then head on down to Port Hedland.

Phil said, “I knew you weren't from here. If we asked a local for a smoke they would tell us to bugger off. They reckon we're lazy black buggers, but none of them will give us a go. Our families have lived in tin shacks up the back of town for years—out of sight, out of mind. If you go looking for work, it's like I said—they call us lazy but won't give us a go.”

Roy agreed. “We usually get a bit of work on the fishing boats or we go crabbing. The bloke at the Chinese restaurant and the other Chinese will buy them off us. We get on pretty good with them, but there's bad feeling between us and the young white blokes here in town. It's been like that for years. The pearl boats used to like black crews because we were good sailors and could free dive pretty good, but the arse has dropped out of that. See out there? One boat—used to be heaps.”

I told them my story over a few smokes, and Phil
reckoned the same thing happened there. Both of them had brothers, sisters, aunties and uncles they had never seen or could only just remember.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” asked Roy.

“Not a hell of a lot, are we?” I said to Dave.

“Not that I know of,” he answered.

“Come and meet our mob in the morning and we'll take you out crabbing—muddies, really good tucker,” Roy told us.

They pulled in their lines and got ready to go, and I asked them if they wanted a lift home as it was a fair step from the wharf to town. They both said yes. I gave them what fish we had caught, and gave Dave the car keys, as he was going to drive them home while I kept fishing. I was going to give them my tobacco but Dave said he would get them a packet on the way.

I caught another couple of fish just before the turn of the tide. Dave came back and said, “You want to see the way those poor bastards have to live. Makes you ashamed to be Australian. It's probably the same back home in Kalgoorlie, but you know I just never seen it.” He threw in his line and sat with his back against a bollard and I could see his brain working. “Geez, they're nice people you know,” he said to me, just as I got a sharp tug on my line.

“Christ, this is a good one,” I said, as my line stretched tight.

“Pull it in, it's probably a skinny,” screeched Dave.

It didn't feel too skinny to me—it was fighting like stink. I pulled it in, and there on the end of the line was a huge pink sea snake. Dave, who had brought the knife over, shot backwards in about three big leaps. I was standing there looking this thing in the eye, as it was wriggling on the line, and all I could think of was that there's no antidote for sea snakes. Dave was jumping about and screeching, “Cut it orf, cut it orf.”

Christ, did I need telling? But he's dancing about with
the bloody knife. He brought it over after I shouted at him a few times, and I let the snake go—hook, line and sinker and quite a few feet of line.