"THE TRAIN STANDING ON PLATFORM 17 WILL BE LEAVING IN 5 MINUTES. IT WILL ARRIVE IN LAKE CARGELLIGO AT 12:30 PM TOMORROW. ALL THOSE WHO ARE TRAVELING ON THE TRAIN SHOULD BOARD NOW."
"Is this the train to Burgooney?" I said to a platform ticket man.
"It sure is mate. Ya got a long ride ahead of ya. You'd best hop on her 'cause she's pulling out soon."
"Thanks mate." I said and threw mi 2 large suitcases and mi trumpet case up the 3 steps and into the carriage. After I found my reserved seat I put mi cases where I could keep an eye on 'em, then made misen comfortable. Pretty soon the old train gave a big jerk and a few clunks and slowly pulled out of Sydneys' Central Station.
'Well, here we go.' I thought. 'There's no turning back now.' I realized that the other boys must all have been thinking the same as me when their train pulled out of Central.
There was only a couple of people in my carriage, a woman and a man, so I put mi feet up and looked out of the window at the suburbs which were now flying past. The train to Lake Cargelligo was an Express. The word Express had nothing to do with the speed of the train, which was quite slow in comparison to the English Steam Trains.
On the floor, under where my feet were supposed to go was a sort-of half-round tin can. It was about 18" long, 10" wide and about 5" deep. It was the strangest contraption that I'd ever seen on a train before. When I made some investigations I discovered that each seat had the same tin can underneath it.
The first stop was Paramatta. It was a small suburb of Sydney and lay at the bottom of the Blue Mountains. I had read in the brochures that the BBM sent me in England that Paramatta was once a penal town. There was a well-known jail there, which used to house the convicts in the early settlers days. In the 1700s' there was no road or rail across the Blue Mountains so when the convicts escaped they always took 2 or 3 weaker mates with them so that they'd have some food when they ran out. The stronger convicts killed off the weaker ones and ate them just to survive. That will give you an idea of how rough that mountain range was in those days.
It was getting dark now as the old train made its way slowly up and over the Blue Mountains. Once we got through Luera and Blackheath, the train picked up some speed and headed out due west to the Bush.
"Tickets please." Said the conductor. I handed him my ticket and he said,
"Burgooney, eh mate?"
"Yes."
"Ya just come out from the old country have ya mate?"
"Yes, I've been here for nearly a month now."
"Jesus Christ mate, you're in for a right eye-opener."
"What do you mean?"
"You'll find out sport." He said as he punched the ticket.
"What's this can for?" I said.
"Oh, ya never seen one of those before mate? At around 8 O'clock tonight, one of the stewards will fill it up with hot water. Keep ya feet warm mate. It gets pretty cold out West this time of year. There's a blanket overhead. You'll need that or you'll freeze ya arse off. You can get ya self some sandwiches and hot tea when the canteen opens. You'll need that too. Give us a holler if ya need anything else. There's hardly a soul on the train so I've got lots of spare time this trip."
"Thanks." I said and put mi ticket in mi back pocket so I wouldn't lose it.
After, I bought some sandwiches, hot tea, a bottle of pop and a couple of bags of chips. I ate them all and then set about rolling myself a big fat Havelock cigarette. It was pitch dark out the window now so I read an old newspaper that someone had left behind.
All through the dark night we traveled, almost non-stop. The tin of hot water was great to put mi feet on because by now it had gotten really cold. I dozed and nodded the night away and when the sun came up at 6 in the morning I could no longer recognize any of the scenery. Looking out the window all I could see for miles around was wide-open spaces. Some of the red land was quite barren in places and in others there was only small bushes for miles and miles.
"Lamb chops, bacon and eggs do ya for breakfast?" said the steward.
"That sounds great."
"It's being served up in the dining car in about 10 minutes so you'd might as well go through now."
I had not rested too well that previous evening because it was so cold and the thought of bacon, eggs and lamb chops with a hot cuppa' tea was all I needed to get mi stiff little body mobile again.
As soon as breakfast was over I went for a walk around the train. There was only 3 people left on the whole train now. I was beginning to wonder where the hell Burgooney was. After the train left Parks, one old couple got off and at Forbes, the remaining old lady left the train. I was the only paying passenger left besides the conductor and the steward. That was it!
We passed a small bush town called Condoblin and the train chugged on for another hour or so.
"Your stops coming up shortly mate." said the conductor as he walked through the carriage.
I got mi 2 big suitcases and trumpet case ready by the door so it wouldn't take me so long to get off. The train started to slow down but as yet I could see no station in sight. Five minutes later the brakes started to squeal as the old train ground to a halt.
"Here ya go mate." Said the conductor. "This is Burgooney. Give us one of those cases; I'll give ya a hand off with it. Someone coming to meet ya are they?"
"Yes, a bloke called Burt Booth is supposed to pick me up."
"Christ, I hope he's not too late mate. She must be a hundred degrees in the shade today."
I jumped down off the train and the conductor handed me mi 2 large suitcases and mi trumpet case.
"Best of luck lad. You better hang out in the shade or you'll fry in this heat. It's a good job that you've got that Bush hat to keep the sun off or ya wouldn't last but 5 minutes today."
The guard blew a loud, shrill whistle and the old train and its 4 carriages took off slowly down the railway track.
Burgooney station consisted of one small-corrugated tin shed, which was securely locked, and a half-moon sign that read:
BURGOONEY
I was now in a state of shock. Almost immediately, hundreds of small bush flies decided to give me a warm welcome. I tried in vain to keep the bush flies off mi face. I opened one of mi cases and found a tin of Air-o-guard but it made no difference at all. When I looked in one direction there was nothing as far as my eyes could see and in the other direction all I could see was small bush trees.
It was the most frightened and despondent time I have ever felt in mi whole life, up till that point.
Miles away in the distance, I could see a small cloud of red dust.
Everywhere I looked were shimmering heat waves and in some places the heat mirages looked like big waves of water. As I sat there in the heat on one of mi suitcases, the sweat was streaming down mi face and the bush flies were tormenting me to death.
'Now you've really done it Richard!' a small inner voice said. 'The farmer has probably forgotten you and you'll starve to death out here and no one will ever find you. Why did you leave your mothers' warm, cozy house? At least you had food and water there and Jim Bailey was a good bloke compared to this hell-hole!'
'Piss off!' I said to the voice, out loud. The curse shattered the hot, dusty silence for a split second then got lost in the wide-open space.
The only form of life I could see was 3 black crows that sat in a gum tree and cawed out loud every now and again.
I decided to move around 'cause the hundreds of bush flies were just about driving me insane now. I could feel the heat of the ground burning its way through mi shoes as I walked around the tin shed.
When I looked through the dusty window of the shed I made the mistake of putting mi hand on the tin wall, which was burning hot. Instantly, I pulled it away and cursed.
"Shit! Fuck! Bastard!" I said as I shook mi hand and then looked at the large red patch that had just formed. I was now close to tears. I walked around the back of the station shed to investigate further.
All of a sudden I noticed a great big lizard who was sat in the sunshine staring straight at me. He was a couple of feet long and had hard, thick scaly skin. Around his neck was a big frill of scales. I didn't know if he would attack me or not so I bent down and grabbed a broken limb and hurled it in his general direction.
The tree limb almost hit him so he took off at full speed straight under the tin shed. As he ran he kicked up a small cloud of red dust behind him. All over the ground were these small brown burrs with tiny barbs sticking out of them. Growing up the back-side of the shed wall was a patch of brittle looking thistles about 4 feet high. The ground was as hard as concrete and it looked as though it had never rained for years in these parts.
A bit further along I saw a huge mound of dirt, which had holes the size of a sixpence all over it. Picking up a hot, flat rock, I threw it at the mound. Within seconds, the biggest ants I had ever seen came marching out to investigate the violent intrusion. I stood well back as I watched them scurrying over and around the mound. They had 2 little pincers at each side of their mouth and they looked very much to me like miniature black crabs. Later on I came to know they were called Bull ants and could give a nasty bite to an unsuspecting victim.
Off in the distance, the small cloud of red dust was now beginning to get bigger and bigger. About 10 minutes or so later, I could see a small white dot in front of the cloud of red dust. A few minutes later I recognized the white dot as a pickup truck.
Ten minutes later the pickup ground to a halt in front of me in a cloud of red dust that got up my nose and made me cough a bit. In the back of the truck were 2 black dogs with pricked ears and yellow eyes. They stared straight at me and as soon as I moved they started to bark.
"Sit down ya bastards!" roared a broad Australian voice from inside the cab. The drivers' side opened and a rough-looking Bushman climbed out from behind the dusty steering wheel.
"G'day." He said, "My name's Burt Booth. You must be Richard, are ya?"
'Yes, that's right."
"Throw your ports in the back of the Ute mate and we'll git moving."
Burt Booth was about 5'10". On his head he wore an old 'diggers' slouch hat which was covered in oil and sweat stains. The crown of the hat had two large holes in the top front crease from years of taking it on and off. His face was creased and weather-worn brown. It had long, deep lines all over it from years of working in the Sun and heat. He had a large hooked nose, just like an eagle. At each side of the nose were two small slits that were his eyes. Above the eyes were big, bushy eyebrows that grew in all directions except straight. He also had dirty gray whiskers. His clothes were old, ex-army dark karkhi. The pants were woolly and the shirt was cotton and over that he wore the karkhi battle-dress jerkin. On his feet were a pair of big rubber-soled work boots that were covered in red dust.
Before I sat down, I dusted the seat with mi hand and when I looked at it, mi hand was a dirty red color.
"Git in mate, a bit of fucking dust won't hurt 'ya. Slam the door 'cause it'll fly open if ya don't."
Burt Booth was not a pleasant looking character. Already I could feel he was mean-spirited, not at all like Bill Defoe, so I just sat there looking out of the window.
The old Ute picked up speed as it went along the bush dirt track. Red dust flew up behind the Ute as we drove along. The dirt track was covered in pot-holes and corrugation. The old Ute banged and rattled so much I thought it was going to fly to pieces before we arrived at the farm!
At long last old Burt spoke,
"Ya see all this Mali country? Well, we're in the process of clearing it all so we've got some more country to sow the wheat and oats down."
"That's great.", I said, as I sat there looking at him. Then I started to think about clearing Mali country. 'Maybe I'll learn to drive big bulldozers and crawlers. That will be great!'
As we drove along in silence a few kangaroos hopped across the road in front of us.
"Oh look, there's some kangaroos!", "I said.
"Plenty of those bastards out here. They're a bloody nuisance, those roos. One roo will eat as much crop as 10 sheep in one night."
"How do you stop 'em doing that?"
"Lead! We shoot the bastards with shotguns. We wait till it's dark, then we go out in the Ute with a good spotlight. Soon as we pick 'em up in the spot we let the bastards have it! Hop out and open that gate and don't forget to chain it back up. I don't want these sheep to get mixed up with the others 'cause I've just finished drafting 'em."
After a long drive through his paddocks we finally came to his place.
"This is the house paddock and over there behind those pines is the house."
The old white Ute pulled up in the red, dusty yard in front of his one-story house. The house had a chain-link fence around it which kept the stock out of the vegetable garden. Next to the house was a couple of large water tanks that sat on 2 tall, wooden platforms.
The front door of his house opened and a porky, middle-aged woman came out.
"This is the missus.", said Burt.
"Pleased to meet you.", I said.
"I'm so glad you're here. You'll be a lot of help for Burt. We've been waiting for a new boy for about 6 months now."
"You'll be staying over in that shed.", said Burt. "Take ya gear over there and lunch will be served in half an hour. The missus will ring the cow-bell when it's ready."
Burts' wife was at least 50 years old. Even she was ex-army, like his clothes. She used to be a nurse in England and when the second World War started she was sent to Australia to look after the wounded troops. Burt had met her after the war and once they married he brought her out to the Bush. She had straight gray hair which was chopped off above her shoulders. Her face was lined just like Burts. Under her nose and on her chin she had almost as much hair as Burt did. She also had a small dark mole on her face, out of which grew 5 or 6 long gray hairs. She had a bust like a Jersey milking cow which hung down to her waist, just about. Her waist was long gone and her arse was about 1 and 1/2 axe-handles wide. Her legs were covered in dark stockings and she still wore her nurse-type shoes.
I picked up mi cases and headed over to the shed where Burt had pointed. From the outside, the shed was made up of corrugated iron, just like the locked shed at Burgooney Station. The door was a faded blue with paint peeling and flaking off all over it. I put mi cases down and turned the warm, round handle. The door creaked open on its own, revealing a small room about 9 feet by 7 feet. In one corner was an old rusty bed frame with a stained, flock mattress on it. Next to that was an ancient cupboard with three horizontal drawers in it and in another corner was a small wardrobe with a long stained mirror on the door. The floor was covered in cheap oil cloth that had been patched together. There were still large torn holes in it, as if someone had run out of patches. The small window was almost impossible to open and a faded curtain hung down each side of the frame. The walls of the hut were not lined. Already I was noticing the heat as I stood there.
'This place is nothing but a dump.', I thought. 'Maybe everyone lives like this in the bush.'
I put mi thin bush coat over the back of the only broken chair in the place and then put mi cases under the bed and sat on the edge of the rickety chair, surveying the stained mattress.
'I hope no one pissed on that.', I thought as I stared at it in disbelief.
I decided to turn it over to see how the other side was but it looked like it had been turned over on many previous occasions. I pulled out one of mi cases and found a couple of clean linen sheets which I promptly covered the mattress with. Then I knocked all the dust out of the pillow and dropped it into a brand new pillowcase. The foisty smell still emanated out of the pillow so I gave it a couple more whacks with mi flat hand and threw it into place. The corners of the small room had large cobwebs growing across them but I decided I'd knock 'em down later. I kicked off mi good shoes which were now covered in red dust and very carefully lay on mi back on the rickety old iron-framed bed.
I lay there staring at the corrugated iron roof until I heard the sound of the cowbell ringing. When the cowbell stopped ringing I made mi way across the dusty yard to the main house. Old Burt was standing under the tank stand at a small homemade table with a dinted aluminum dish full of brown water, washing his face and neck. After he finished, he threw the dirty water over the fence into the vegetable patch.
"After ya washed up, throw the water in the veggie garden. You'll have to learn to conserve water out here mate. She's been a real dry summer this year. We've only had a few points of rain over the last 7 months. Use the tap over there, that's the washing water. It's pumped up from the dam by that big windmill next to it. When you've finished, come on inside for a bite to eat. The missus has got the tucker out on the table already so hurry up before the flies carry it away!"
I put the battered dish under the tap and turned the tap with a pair of rusty pliers that were sat on a stone next to it. The water came out a dirty reddish brown color and it was quite warm. The square, rough block of soap that was sitting on the wooden table was as hard and scratchy as hell. I found out later that old Burt made it himself. No matter how hard I rubbed with the soap, no lather seemed to appear. After I finished I put mi shoes where Burt had left his and walked inside.
To my surprise, Burt and Kays' house was very clean and tidy inside and the furnishings, although not new, were in really good shape.
Three large pieces of cold mutton were waiting for me at the table as I sat down. Next to the mutton was a couple of medium-sized tomatoes and alongside those were 3 cold potatoes.
Old Burt was already eating as I sat down. "Dig in mate and if I was you I'd put a heap of salt on that mutton 'cause if ya don't eat a lot of salt out here in the Bush you'll end up as sick as a mangy dog."
I put some more salt on mi meat and reached for a thick piece of hand-cut bread. I put the normal amount of butter on it and before I could finish Burt said,
"Christ mate, go easy on the butter. That's gotta last a few days before I make another batch!"
During lunch, Kay Booth asked me a few questions about my life. I told her about Yorkshire, mi dads' farm and the Ellan Silver Prize Band. As I finished talking Burt said,
"I'm off back up the paddock. Ya can start work tomorrow morning. Have a look around the place this arvo and don't leave the house paddock 'cause I don't have time to look for a new chum who's got himself bushed in the first afternoon!"
Back outside, old Burt hopped in his decrepit Ute and drove away out of sight. I decided to investigate the house paddock. I took off in the direction of the big windmill. There were burrs and saffron thistles all over the place and the ends of the thistles were so sharp they went straight through my thin work jeans and stuck in mi legs.
The dam was quite large and as soon as I got close to it a group of wild-wood ducks flew off up into the air. I walked up the small dam banks and stood there looking at the brownish murky water. Just then, a mob of wild, sulphur-crested Cockatoos landed in a big gum tree and started to squawk. They were the largest parrots I had ever seen. They had jet black eyes and a big yellowish plume on top of their heads. A few of them flew out of the gum tree and landed at the waters edge to take a drink. They did not seem to mind me standing there as they stuck their beaks in the muddy water, then put their heads up to swallow it. A few moments later a large flock of Budgerigars landed next to the Sulphur-crested cockeys and took up their drinking positions. When they had drunk their full they all flew up into the pine and gum trees which held plenty of shade for them.
I noticed some old sheds at the bottom end of the house paddock so I slowly walked in that direction. The Sun was already hot now and the bush flies were a real nuisance. The more I swished them away from my eyes the more it seemed to encourage them to come.
There was broken-down rusty old machinery lying all over the place. Most of it, I guess, was left over from the old horse-drawn days. Some of the old sheds housed bags of seed wheat and the others were for the tractors and combines. At the far end of the paddock was what smelled to me like a sheep-shearing shed. I also saw a few half-full bales of wool lying open in one corner.
I spent most of the afternoon walking around to familiarize myself with the place. When I got back to my tin hut I noticed, just across the way, a couple of large logs. I went over to check it out. When I got closer, I saw what it was. Burt had split a large log straight down the center and the white ants had eaten the whole middle of the log away. He had dug a small hollow in the ground and placed the half-hollow log over the top of the hole. At the back of the log was a square piece of corrugated tin that he'd bashed into the hard ground. The tin sealed up the back. At the front was a metal stake with a dog chain welded to it.
'What an ingenious idea.' I thought. 'The dogs can go down inside the hole into the cool earth during the day when it's hot. The dog kennel looked like a natural den which would have made them feel real comfortable.'
I spent the rest of the day putting a few work clothes I would need into the old cupboard of mi tin shed. After another meal at Old Burt's house, I went to bed early so I'd be raring to go in the morning.
I was up before the hot sun next morning waiting for old Burt to come out of the house. He was up bright and early and walked across the dusty yard to where I was sitting on the small step of mi shed.
"G'day. We've got a big day ahead of us today so we'd best git crackin'. There's a couple of bikes in that shed over there. Grab the old black one and peddle down the road to that bottom paddock. You'll see the milking cows down there and we'll get started on 'em."
I found the dirty bike leaning against the shed wall right where he said it would be. The bike was in worse condition than my old bike in England. I turned it around and blew the red dust off of the seat and pushed it outside.
Burt was nowhere to be seen now so I threw mi leg over the bike and peddled down the dirt track to where he said the cows were. It was very difficult to peddle the bicycle on the dirt track 'cause as soon as the front wheel hit a hole, which was filled up with bull dust, the bike came to an abrupt halt. At one hole the front wheel stopped dead and I shot off the seat and nearly ruptured misen on the cross bar. Swearing in mi newfound Aussie language, I peddled on down the dirt road. When I reached the gate that Burt had described to me, I got off the bike and undid the chain. The large tubular steel gate opened back on its own. I pushed the bike through and stood there looking for the cows. They were really hard to spot because they were grazing way off in the middle of a 500-acre paddock.
The paddock was thickly overgrown with 4-foot high saffron thistles. I just sat on the bike wondering how I was going to reach them. There was no other way that I could see except to ride through the thistles. Twenty feet into the paddock I was cursing and yelling as the hard, dry thistles stuck through mi thin work jeans and into my soft white legs.
'Fuck this for a joke!' I thought. 'At this rate it will take me all day!' I turned the bike around and peddled back to the side of the fence. When I got off the bike I pulled mi jeans down and saw tons of small, sharp barbs sticking out of mi legs. After I'd removed them, I pulled the rest out of mi jeans. When I pulled mi jeans back up there was still a couple of places where I'd missed getting the thorns out but I tried to forget about it and peddled back up towards the house. A couple of thorns scratched at mi soft, white legs the whole way back.
When I eventually got back to the yard, old Burt said to me,
"What happened to the cows?"
"They're right out in the middle of a thistle paddock!", I said.
"So ya just left 'em there?"
" 'Course I did. What else was I supposed to do?"
Now he got really angry and I could see his meanness come up to the surface.
"Ya useless fucking, stupid pommy bastard!", he yelled at me. "Go and git my fucking bike out of the shed!"
After I came back with his bike, he jumped on it and started to peddle real fast down the same dirt track.
"Come on, you useless pommy bastard! What the fucking hell do you think I'm paying you 3 quid a week for if I've got to get mi own cows?"
I was really quite scared by now so I kept mi mouth shut and tried to keep up with him as best I could. When we got down to the paddock gate Burt rode straight through the gate and headlong into the thistles he peddled. After a few yards I stopped mi bike 'cause by this time mi legs were burning with thistle stings again.
"Get back on that fucking bike, ya useless bastard!", he roared.
"They're pricking mi legs!"
"Ya fucking useless! You're as soft as fucking shit, ya little bastard. If ya don't get back on that bike, I'll have ya deported back to England where ya bloody well came from!"
"It's alright for you, you've got real thick pants on. These blue jeans of mine are paper thin."
"Ya nothing but a winging, pommy bastard!", he roard again as he peddled off across the thistle paddock.
By this time I could take no more. The shock of the tin shed and the lack of human warmth was too much for a 15 year old boy from Yorkshire to take. I broke into tears and peddled the bike back up the dirt track. When I reached the house yard Kay Booth was throwing some feed to the chooks. I dropped the bike to the ground and headed straight for the tin shed where I lay on mi bed and cried mi eyes out.
After a while Kay came over and knocked on the door.
"Are you alright Richard?"
"Go away, I don't want to talk to you."
"Let me in Richard."
"Go away and leave me alone!", I said, between sobs.
Some time later I heard Burt coming up the track with the milking cows. Shortly after, I heard Kay talking to Burt and a few minutes after that she was knocking on mi door again.
"Open the door Richard."
The tears had dried up by now so I got off the bed and slid the wooden bolt back to open the door. She came in the room with a rather worried look on her face.
"You'll have to forgive Burt. He's lived and worked in the Bush his whole life and sometimes he forgets that you're only a boy."
"He's a real mean old man."
"It's not that he's mean Richard. I know he really likes you like a son but he's not got a lot of patience."
"If he likes me like a son, I'm glad I'm not his son."
"Go over to the milking shed. I've had a word him so he'll be alright now."
There was not much choice in the matter and I was scared he'd have me deported so I walked over to where he was milking the cows. As I walked past the pigpens I saw a dead, skinned fox laying half-eaten in the mud and the small piglets had all lost their curly little tails. When I climbed over the wooden fence Burt said,
"Ah, there you are. Can you milk a cow?"
"Yes, mi dad showed me how to do it."
"Good. At least ya can do something. Come over here and milk this one and be careful 'cause she's a kicker. Make sure her leg is tied back like that or she'll put her foot in the bucket of milk."
The teats on the cows' bag were really small and it make milking her very difficult. As soon as he could see I'd done it before he said,
"Your job's to bring the cows in and milk 'em 6 days a week. I'll do it on ya day off which is Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday.
Each morning, at breakfast time, old Burt would drink a large glass of fizzy stuff.
"What's in your water that makes it fizz?"
"Epsom Salts, mate."
"What's it for?"
"Stops ya getting bunged up and keeps ya on the go. Wanna' try some?"
"What's it taste like?"
"Not too bad once ya git used to it."
"Alright, I'll try half a glass."
Kay mixed up half a glass of Epsom Salts and I took a big mouthful. It was really putrid and made me screw up mi face.
"Now what's the matter?" He said as he laughed out loud. "Don't tell me ya can't even drink half a glass of salts!"
"It's putrid!" I said, as I put the glass down on the table.
"Don't waste those salts. Finish it off whether ya like it or not!"
That was the last time I ever asked him what he was drinking!
After breakfast we tied an axe and a shovel each onto our bikes. He tied the Esky box on his bike rack and we peddled off on another dirt track up into the Mali. That day and almost every day after that for 5 months we chopped down small trees and suckers. Sometimes we would stack up big stumps and logs and then set fire to 'em. The shovel was to carry hot coals from one pile of wood to another. This was what old Burt meant by clearing Mali country. No bulldozers or tractors for me, just a big, heavy axe and a long-handled shovel!
It was like living in hell working with old Burt in the Mali. We worked 9 or 10 hours a day. The heat was up around the 100-degree mark and, to make matters worse, the heat from the big fires burned my face and arms as I tried to get close enough to shovel a pile of red-hot ashes.
The first week I could hardly open mi hands. I had blisters growing on broken blisters. I pissed on mi hands so many times that I thought I'd of run out of piss by now. Burt had done this kind of work all his life so he was used to it by now and at the end of a day he was just as fresh and fit as ever. I was so knackered that first week that it took me all mi time to peddle the bike home.
One morning, as we were re-stoking up the fires, a 4 foot Copperhead snake came wriggling out from under a large stump.
"Look out! That's a Copperhead! Stand still and it won't hurt ya!" yelled Burt.
The Copperhead was about 5 feet away from me and about the same distance from Burt. Its head was a shiny copper color and the rest of its body was a deep reddish-brown. As soon as it turned to go, old Burt swung the long-handled shovel and hit the snake in the middle of the back with the flat of the shovelhead. It was really pissed. He swung the shovel again and this time he hit the snake with the side of the shovel and cut it clean in two! The shovel head cut the snakes head off about 3 inches behind the copper coloring. The snake wriggled around for a few minutes before it was stone dead.
"Watch what ya doing with those bastards. One bite from those and you'll be dead in minutes. The venoms so strong you'll have a heart attack!"
From that day on, I was very careful where I walked in Mali country, as it was infested with all kinds of poisonous snake.
The more I worked in the Bush, the more I learned its harsh lessons. There were hundreds of poisonous snakes around the Bush. Browns, Copperheads and Tiger snakes were the most deadly and the most common in those parts. There was no lack of lizards either. Blue Tongues, Bog Eyes, Frill Necks and Goanas were in plentiful supply. After a couple of weeks Burt would send me off up the Mali, on mi own. I had to be real careful then 'cause one bite and I'd have been one dead Pommy bastard!
Sometimes Burt and me would go up the paddock in his old Ute. At those times he always had the .22 rifle stuck up the back of the window ledge. On this particular day we saw a mob of roos sitting in the middle of the dirt track. Burt stopped the Ute and grabbed the rifle. He stuck it out the window, took careful aim, then 'BOOM'! He shot a big, gray male but it never went down. It just sat there, dazed, as the bullet sank into him.
"Come on!" yelled old Burt as he jumped out of the Ute.
I jumped out after him and we ran toward the huge gray male. Burt took aim and put another bullet into him and he wobbled over on his side.
"Grab him by the tail!"
"Not likely! He's still alive! He'll probably kick me!"
"Roos can't kick backwards. They can only kick forwards. Grab him by the tail!" he yelled!
I ran forwards and grabbed the roo by the tail. He was about 6 feet tall. As soon as I got mi hands around his thick strong tail he seemed to come back to life again. He scrambled back onto his feet and started to growl! I was shit-scared by now but I was even more scared 'cause if I let him go he would have ripped mi guts out with the big, sharp, hooky toenails on the end of his feet.
"Hang on to him mate!" said Burt as he roared with laughter. "Don't let him go or he'll kick ya guts out!"
The big old roo was really strong. He tried to twist around and grab mi head with his large hands and every time he twisted round I had to duck as well as hang on to his tail.
BOING! BOING! BOING! He hopped all over the track trying to get away from me but I was hangin' on for dear life!
"Shoot him before he kills me!"
"Hang on to him mate. It'll do ya good. Make a fucking man out of a boy!"
After a few minutes, I could not longer hold him, so I yelled out,
"I'm losing mi grip on him!"
"Hang onto the gray bastard. You're a goner if he grabs hold of ya!"
After another minute or so, Burt picked up a long, hard Mali stick and yelled to me.
"Keep ya fucking head down, Pommy, or you'll get it knocked off!" Old Burt came up close to the roo that was now so pissed he had froth coming out of his mouth.
"Hang onto him mate!" said Burt, who took a well-aimed blow and brought the Mali stick crashing down hard on the roos' head. This big blow slowed him down 50 percent and another well-aimed blow from the stick sent him sprawling to the ground. The dogs, who were tied up in the back of the Ute, were going nuts!
"Let those fucking dogs loose mate."
I was so relieved to let that roo go, I almost shit misen with fear and excitement. I ran over to the Ute and unhooked the dogs. They leapt out of the Ute and grabbed the roo by the throat. In seconds, the dogs had ripped the roos' throat out. Burt called 'em off and sent 'em back to the Ute.
"He's a big, rough bastard that one. Look at the size of the knackers on him! They're bigger than mine and yours put together mate."
"Why d'ya tell me to grab his tail? I thought he was dying."
"Take more than a couple of .22's to kill one of those big bastards. Anyway, how are ya mate?"
"I was really scared he was gonna kill me. Would you have shot him if he got hold of me?"
"Don't be silly sport. A .22 bullet is worth more than a pommy any day." he said and then roared with laughter.
"Fuck you Burt, ya miserable old Aussie bastard!"
Burts' bushy eyebrows raised up a ways and then he roared with laughter again. After a minute or so he stopped laughing and went back to his normal, miserable self again.
"Throw the bastard in the back of the Ute. There's enough dog tucker there for a week, mate."
On another occasion Burt sent me up the Mali on mi own to do some clearing. It was a beautiful, clear and bright sunny morning as I peddled the old bike along the dirt bush tracks. The red wattle trees were in full bloom and the slight odor of tea tree drifted on the gentle breeze. Each side of the track was dense bush. A few feet ahead of me, sitting in a small gum tree was a 6-foot Goana. He was laid along a thick branch taking in the morning sun. I stopped mi bike and got off, then leaned it against a bush. The Goana looked huge to me as I circled the trunk of the tree looking up at him.
Just then, an idea flashed across my mind. I remembered, as a child, seeing David Attenborough on the TV. He caught big lizards with a long pole and a slip-noose on the end. 'If David Attenborough could do it, so can I', I thought as I hunted around the bush for a suitable long branch.
The Goana just sat up the tree, not really too interested in anything but sunning himself. At last I found the right branch. I went back to mi bike and removed the axe. It did not take long to trim up the branch. The next job was to walk the fence line looking for a piece of fencing wire. This was not as difficult as one may think as there is always a scrap of wire lying along a fence line. I made a noose in the end of the high-tensile wire and then fastened the other end to the long pole. Standing under the tree, I very carefully slid the pole through mi hands, up in the air toward the big Goanas' head but as soon as he saw it coming, he crawled a bit further up the tree out of range of my long stick.
'A cunning bastard are ya?' I thought to miself. 'Now I'll have to get a longer stick 'cause it's a battle of wits now.' The next long pole I cut, I fixed the wire noose to the end and pushed it back up in the air. The very same thing happened. The Goana crept further up the branch. Eventually he ran out of branch and could go no further so when I found the longest branch I could, I knew I had him. Very carefully, I pushed the long pole up in the air. I maneuvered the wire noose close to his big scaly head. Then POP! The noose went over his head and I gave it a good pull and started to back-peddle. The six-foot Goana came crashing down out of the tree and landed with a thud in a cloud of red dust.
'O shit! What now?' I couldn't remember what Sir David did with his big lizard once the noose was around its neck. Here I am with a large Goana on the end of a long pole and he's really pissed now. The Goana ran in all directions causing a big cloud of dust to arise as he thrashed his long, scaly tail. At one point he tried to run me over but the long pole brought him to a fast halt. It felt like having a 6-foot shark on the end of a small pole as he thrashed around on the dirt track. It took about half-an-hour before he decided to call it quits.
Once he was laid quiet, I got the axe handle and put it across the back of his neck and stood on it so he couldn't move, although he kept thrashing his tail. Then I carefully pushed the wire back through the slip-noose till it loosened and opened up bigger. No sooner was the noose off his head and my foot was off the axe handle, I ran one way and he ran the other way, straight back up another tree. This time he chose a larger gum tree, one that was so high I could barely make him out as he lay heavily breathing, camouflaged by silvery gum leaves.
'That was a lot of fun!' I thought as I peddled on up the track. Sir David would have been proud of me. By this time, I had wasted about 4 hours. The next day, when Burt came back up the paddock he knew, by what was left of the sticks and stumps, that I'd been up to something.
"What the hell were ya doing all day yesterday? You've only done a couple hours work. D'ya think I pay you mi hard-earned cash to fuck around all day? I suppose ya were sat under a fucking tree in the shade, flogging ya bloody maggot for half a day? Next time ya slack off I'll stop half-a-days pay on ya, ya lazy good-for-nothing Pommy bastard! Ya wouldn't work in an iron lung, ya bastard! Now git ya arse up and ya head down. I wanna see this whole section cleaned up today and put that bloody cigarette out! Ya can't work and smoke at the same time. Smoke in ya own time, not mine, ya lazy Pommy bastard!"
While it's true, I wasted 4 of his hours, I was not a 'lazy bastard'. At that point I decided I was going to work this old, miserable bastard into the ground before I pulled the pin on him.
I learned many more hard lessons with Burt Booth. I even learned to respect his working ability but I never learned how to like him and what he stood for. There were even times when I had a good time with old Burt but they were very few and far between.
One lunchtime, while I was in his house, the bedroom door had been left open. Me, being very inquisitive, I looked through the opening of the doorway, as I sat at the table.
"What's laying across ya bed, Burt?"
"That? Come and have a butchers, mate."
Laying the full length and width of his bed was a beautiful fox-skin rug. When I touched it, it felt thick and soft. Along both sides of the rug hung 8 bushy foxtails.
"She's a beaut eh?" said Burt
"Yes. It must have cost you a small fortune?"
"The only expense it cost was to have a bloke tan 'em and cut and stitch 'em together and sew the backing on."
"Where d'ya get the skins from?"
"Shot 'em miself. They're all first-class winter skins. Shot every one of 'em with a headshot. There's no holes in those skins, mate. I made it for mi missus for an anniversary present. She wouldn't be able to sleep without it now."
"Can we go fox shooting one night Burt?"
"Suppose so. Can't see why not. Ya can hold the spot for me, I'll drive and do the shooting."
A couple of nights later, on a new moon, we took off into the paddocks on Burts' tractor, spotlighting for foxes. Once we got in a paddock Burt would drive slowly around in the dark and I shone the spotlight all around the paddock and bush looking for 2 shiny eyes.
"There's one! Hold the spot on him steady!"
Burt aimed his .22 and BANG! the two bright eyes disappeared.
"Ya missed him Burt!"
"Not a bloody chance! Got the bastard right between the fucking eyes! Keep the spot where it is mate or we'll lose him!"
I kept the spotlight right in the same place, as Burt tore across the paddock, bumping over the fallowed ground as we went.
"There he is mate! Dead as a fuckin' maggot. Hop off and grab him. He must have a mate somewhere around here."
When I picked up the fox by his bushy tail, I could see Burt was right. The fox had a small, dark hole right between his eyes. As I carried him over to the tractor, blood started to drop out of the hole and got all over mi work boots.
"Can I have a go shooting now Burt?"
"I don't think so mate. You'll probably miss and hit one of mi good steers. You just hang on to the spot. That's your job mate. Leave the shooting to me."
As it turned out, old Burt was wrong. I ended up being a crack shot with a rifle and a shotgun.
A couple of nights later, Burt knocked on mi door.
"D'ya wanna go roo shooting?"
"Do I ever!" I said excitedly.
"Git some warm gear on then. We'll be out for about 4 hours and it's a cold night. You'll freeze ya knackers off, if not."
"Where's the rifle?" I said to Burt as he sat on the mudguard of the tractor.
"We're taking the shotgun tonight. Those bastard roos are eating all mi good wheat crops. They've already eaten more than a mob of bloody sheep! A few lead pellets in their arse and they won't come back in a hurry."
"There's a mob of 20 or so Burt!" I said, as the spotlight picked them up. The roos were quite happily sat in the middle of Burts' wheat paddock, pulling up fresh young wheat shoots, chewing the juicy roots off and throwing the rest away.
Burt put the tractor into road gear and we tore off across the paddock after the roos. With his spare hand he reached for the 5-shot pump-action Browning. As soon as the roos heard us coming, they took off at top speed across the paddock heading for the fence and the safety of the bush on the other side.
Sometimes it is very hard to shoot roos 'cause many times a Cockies paddock would be surrounded by Mali and once the roo jumped the fence he was home and free, laughing at the Cocky on the other side. No one would blame a mob of roos for coming out of the scrub, hopping over the fence and having a good feed of sweet, young wheat or oat shoots. Too much of that and the Cockies profit would be eaten away in a month.
"Grab the steering wheel!" said Burt, as he raised the shotgun.
The roos were now going flat-out towards the safety of the Scrub.
BOOM! went the old pump-action. BOOM! BOOM!
"Three shots and one roo down Burt!" I yelled.
Burt let rip with 2 more shots and 2 more roos hit the dust. The rest of the roos were now close to the fence, so Burt slowed the old tractor down.
"That'll teach the bastards! They won't come back for a few nights now. Let's go and pick up the dead ones."
Burt swung the tractor around and I shone the spot all over the paddock looking for the dead roos.
"There's one!", I said. "And there's another!"
"The other one should be around here somewhere.", said Burt, as we hung them on the back of the tractor.
"There he is!", I said. "He's still alive Burt!."
Burt handed me a large spanner, which he kept on the tractor at all times.
"Here ya go. Bash the bastard on the bloody head and look out he doesn't grab ya. He's still got a lot of fight left in him."
Burt took hold of the spotlight and shone it on the roo. He was really pissed and cranky as he balanced on his one good leg and tail. I took a firm grip of the heavy tractor wrench and jumped off the tractor into the dirt. As I walked up to the big gray, he made a loud growling sound.
"Look out mate. Keep ya eye on him or he'll have ya!:"
"How do I get close enough to hit him?"
"When he goes for ya, sidestep him and give him a good whollup behind the ears and don't fucking miss or he'll grab ya and kick ya guts out!"
I tried to circle the roo but he was an old, cunning bastard and he kept his eyes on me at all times. All of a sudden, without warning, he jumped at me and quick as a flash, I jumped to the side and swung the wrench towards his head. The end of the wrench connected with his head and he fell over sideways.
"Git into the bastard. If ya let him get up, he'll have another go at ya!"
I shot forwards to where the roo had fallen and gave him a good, hard whack between the ears with the wrench and another one in the same place and he kicked his last.
"We might make a good Aussie out of ya yet mate.", said Burt, as he chuckled to himself in the dark.
That night I had nightmares about the big, old roo.
After a month of works at Burts' property, he said to me,
"We're off into town tomorrow arvo. If ya wanna come, come over to the house later and I'll pay you ya months wages."
"Sit down at the table,", said Burt, as I walked into the kitchen. "Now ya see this form? It's the Award Wage Sheet. Ya see this column? 15 years old and across here it sez, 44 hour week and at the end column 7 pounds sixpence, right? Now, it says here, the maximum amount to be deducted for tucker and room, no more than 4 quid. That'll leave ya 12 pounds and 2 shillings for the month. I'll pay ya the money in town tomorrow afternoon when I cash a cheque."
That evening as I lay on mi bed, I was remembering all the hard work I'd done over the first month. '3 quid a week doesn't sound too good to me.', I thought. 'I made 25 bob a week off of a newspaper round in Yorkshire for a couple of months. I won't be able to save too much on that miserly amount!'
