From Strength to Strength

by Sara Henderson

  However the problem still had to be faced. I regretted my outburst. Charles was the sick one, chained to an oxygen hose in the wall. I headed once more for the hospital. In any case I needed one of the chequebooks to pay my hotel bill.

  When I walked in he smiled at me sheepishly. He was in one of his normal moods. I didn’t give him a chance to speak. I launched into my little speech.

  ‘I only came back because I need money to check out of the hotel I stayed in last night.’ He started to interrupt and I said, ‘No, let me finish, then you can say something if you want. I thought long and hard last night. I really didn’t think you could hurt me any more than you already have in our life together, but I was wrong. What you said to me last night finishes everything. I no longer want anything to do with you or the name Henderson. I want out. I’ll sign all the shares back to you. All I want from you is a release from the mortgage guarantees I have signed. I’ll have to start again and when I do make some money, I don’t want to find I’m suddenly paying back your debts again. I need a bit of money now to get to my sister, and that’s it.’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘You seem to have a nice network going for you here, all these people running around at your beck and call. If you wave Bullo under their noses they’ll all dance to your tune. Just don’t tell them how much money you owe.’

  ‘I don’t want them here, I want you.’

  ‘Well you’ve a funny way of showing it. What about last night? What about that lady friend who always scurries away when Janie or I arrive?’

  ‘I want you here.’

  ‘Well you’d better inform her of your views because she thinks it’s her you want.’

  Again he told me he wanted me to stay. He said he had not meant any of the things he had said the night before. He was jealous, Janie had let on that I was seeing a man.

  I had met someone the year before and he was in Sydney on business so we had been to dinner a few times, the only bright spots in my months of darkness. Charles wanted to know his name, but I told him no way. I knew all his little tricks and even though he was sick, he could still have reached far from that bed. He said he was worried this man was after my money. I laughed.

  ‘What money? Anyway, he has his own money and I’m sure his business is in better shape than Bullo.’ He realised it was a closed subject. He gave back the chequebooks and promised to behave.

  He had more x-rays. He was not improving; in fact he was starting to lose weight rapidly. Up until now, he had read and written all day. Suddenly, he stopped. He became obsessed with time and he looked at his watch incessantly. If the nurse was ten seconds late with his pills, he would fret. He had a schedule written out and he would tick it as each pill was taken.

  Janie and I were showing signs of wear, so we started running for an hour in the morning and we split the shifts so we could get a break and do other things in our lives.

  It was now the end of May and it seemed as if this life was going to stretch on forever. The hospital asked me to make arrangements to move Charles.

  ‘Move him where?’

  ‘Home.’

  ‘Home is a cattle station two thousand miles away, fifty miles off the road and two hundred and fifty miles from the nearest town.’

  ‘Oh well, he can’t go there. But he can’t stay here any longer. There’s nothing else we can do for him.’

  Sue and Ralph said we could come and stay with them on the beach until he was stronger and then we would work something out.

  More problems. His lungs were in such a terrible condition, he could not fly in a pressurised plane. But if we drove, Janie and I would have to carry him in and out of the car, and anyway the trip in winter would be too much for him. As we discussed different possibilities time passed, and he lost more and more weight.

  It was Queen’s Birthday weekend and I was about to become a patient myself. My periods would not stop, I suppose due to the stress. They were up to ten days long and that morning the flow had increased noticeably. I was supposed to take Charles out of the hospital in a few days and I was on the verge of collapse. I spoke to the doctor and he sent me to the women’s hospital across the road. I was examined. The doctor said everything seemed okay. He gave me an injection to control the blood-flow, and said if it did not stop in forty-eight hours, I would have to go into hospital and have a curette. It was a miserable weekend, but the flow corrected itself and I was saved from the operation.

  The next big event was Charles leaving the hospital. We hired a limousine to drive him to the house I had rented in Palm Beach. The plan was that we would stay there for six weeks and when he was stronger, we would move to my sister’s at Bargara. After that was months down the track, so we would worry about that then.

  In the meantime there was the problem of the station. Over the last month, Charles had showed no interest in it at all. When I asked him for instructions he simply wouldn’t answer. I finally told Marlee to start mustering, work out a plan for the year and do the best she could. I had called her the week before and given her the phone number at the house. Charles was to leave hospital on the 14th of June—the date of the first muster.

  The car drove up the drive at Palm Beach. The house was right on the water, very quiet and peaceful. From the bedroom you could see the Mary Blair at anchor. This cheered Charles greatly.

  We settled him into bed and he seemed the best he had been for a long time, although the trip had exhausted him. Janie and I sat with him as the sun set and we talked and joked about the exercise routine we were going to put him through. He asked me to sleep in the room with him that night, so I put a mattress on the floor next to his bed and he was happy. He dozed for a while then became restless. He said he was not getting enough oxygen. I called the hospital and they said to increase the flow. An hour later he said he needed more. The first doctor had gone off duty, but the new doctor said to increase it again.

  By one o’clock Charles was panicky and so were Janie and I. I called the hospital again. None of the doctors who had been treating him all those months was on duty, but the doctor in charge said he was probably having an anxiety attack and would soon settle down.

  ‘Sit and talk to him,’ he said.

  So we did, and it did help. But it now seemed we were running out of oxygen and this really panicked him. So we called and ordered more. The people were very sympathetic and sent it in the middle of the night. The driver was a wonderful man. He had a cup of tea and sat and talked to Charles about war, Charles’s favourite subject. He finally left around three a.m. Janie went to bed and Charles and I talked some more.

  At around four a.m. he said, ‘Thank you for being with me tonight.’

  ‘That’s okay, I can sleep here every night if it helps.’

  ‘No, tonight is special, thank you.’

  I drifted off to sleep holding his hand.

  Janie was whispering in my ear. I sat up. ‘It’s seven o’clock. Will I wake him?’

  ‘Well, we only went to sleep after four, maybe let him sleep.’

  ‘If I do that all his pill times will be messed up.’

  ‘I guess you’re right, we’d better wake him.’

  I went to get the water. I was half way to the kitchen when Janie called out. I raced back to the room.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s stopped breathing. I helped him up to take his pills, he mumbled something and then he stopped breathing!’

  The rest of the day was a nightmare. I raced to call the ambulance and Janie started mouth-to-mouth. She was wonderful, she didn’t stop until the ambulance arrived. Blue and Margaret arrived and we sat silently as the ambulance men took over from Janie. But it was no good, the lungs had just stopped.

  Blue and Marg took me home. Their house was just up the road. I don’t remember much. Blue gave me a stiff scotch and I slept most of the afternoon.

  The next week was a haze. Friends in the Australian Army arranged a wonderful service in Charles’s honour. I then flew some
of Charles’s ashes back to Maryland to be buried in the family plot in Easton. With all the problems awaiting me on the station, flying to America was the last thing I should have been doing, but there was no way I could just send his ashes to Maryland. I had to take him home. I knew he would want this. Marlee and Danielle understood and went back to the station to start the season again.

  I thought a lot on the long flight to the east coast. This was my third trip to Maryland. Christmas 1966 had been my first trip, when Charles and I had been married six years. When we were married in 1960, Charles had sent his mother and father a telegram which read, ‘Marrying Australian native 4th July. Love Charles.’ It was one of Charles’s many sick jokes.

  When I married Charles, he had not spoken to his father for many years so I assume the telegram was aimed at him.

  The second visit was with Bonnie when she was about sixteen. Charles decided she could not go alone, so I had to go along. He told me that she was not to date boys. Bonnie was asked on many dates and Charles’s sister and mother were very surprised when I wouldn’t let her go. Bonnie wasn’t interested, so it didn’t worry her. I finally gave them our phone number in Australia and told them to call her father.

  ‘He said “no dating”. If he says “yes”, she can date.’ The subject of Bonnie’s dating was not mentioned again.

  Now here I was again, taking Charles’s ashes home to Maryland.

  We had a small gathering of close relatives at the family plot and part of Charles was laid to rest. The next day there was a memorial service and, afterwards, friends and family gathered on the lawns of Lloyds Landing. That afternoon many facets of this unusual man were revealed. As I watched the large group of people I marvelled at the enormous impact Charles had had on so many. For all his faults, there is no doubt that on the 15th of June 1986 the world lost a remarkable human being.

  I never thought Charles would die, and I am sure Charles was of the same opinion because he never talked about what kind of burial he wanted. However, he loved Maryland, he loved Bullo, and he loved the sea. So now part of him is in Maryland, part of him is on the highest point of the mountain range overlooking the Bullo Valley, and part of him is with the sea. I think he would have approved.

  CHAPTER 19

  1986

  The problems I returned home to in Australia were quite unbelievable. First there was the bank. I managed to convince them that my daughters could run a cattle station, and I was aware of the recent loans because we had just started with this bank. But those debts were only the tip of the iceberg. When it all came together, I was staggered.

  I was feeling my way through the meeting with the bank, when the manager said, ‘Now, will the company settle Mr Henderson’s personal overdraft, or shall we file it with the estate?’

  ‘Personal overdraft?’

  ‘Yes, he took it out a few months ago.’

  He told me the amount and I stopped breathing for a few minutes. ‘The company.’ I couldn’t manage any other words.

  I was home just over a week when Gus called to say we were out of time on the delivery of the cattle according to the deed and he was suing me for half a million dollars. I asked him what he was talking about, and said we fully intended to deliver the cattle. We would have them ready within the week, surely he wouldn’t do this to us when Charles had only just died?

  He did!

  We were still reeling from this blow when our lawyers called to say my daughter Bonnie was suing me for forty thousand dollars. No, she said, she wasn’t suing me, she was suing Bullo River Pty Ltd. That was different?

  While Charles was in hospital, he had asked Bonnie to come to Sydney to see him. I was in Bundaberg visiting Mum in Hospital at the time. He gave her a cheque. Of course there was no money in the bank, so when the bank talked to Charles about not meeting the cheque, he cancelled it. Charles was a director of the company so after his death, Bonnie sued the company.

  The next news was that Charles’s sons in America had a lawyer in Sydney looking for a will that left everything to them. The lawyer wrote to Charles’s lawyer asking about such a will. He was informed of the only will on record and nothing more was heard through legal channels, although some of the boys called me to ask if I knew of such a will.

  If I had never known the feeling of complete and utter annihilation, I knew it now.

  With a heavy heart I picked myself up, and Marlee, Danielle and I began the long battle to survive, to save Bullo, to pay all Charles’s debts and to defend ourselves in the courts.

  We finished the mustering season as best we could and withdrew for the wet season to recuperate and prepare ourselves emotionally for the battles that 1987 promised.

  Most of the wet was spent answering letters and cards from friends and people who had known Charles. It was a very sad time. I found myself crying for hours on end.

  Some letters poured out praise, some apologised for not liking him, some told of their fascination, some criticised. Charles evoked every possible emotion in people.

  Very few people had known the true Charles, but one person who had was Major General Ron Grey. Not a longstanding friendship, Ron had met Charles only eight years before his death, but after a few initial rounds of sparring, they had settled down to a rare friendship. They would debate and argue for days, with Ron patiently listening, while Charles told him how to run the police force, the government, the army, the world.

  In his letter to me Ron quoted parts of Tennyson’s ‘Ulysses’.

  I cannot rest from travel: I will drink

  Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy’d

  Greatly . . .

  Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’

  We are not now that strength which in the old days

  Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;

  One equal temper of heroic hearts,

  Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

  To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

  Charles left me with insurmountable problems and unbelievable debts, but all these pale into insignificance beside the gift of friends.

  ‘If there is anything I can do to help the Henderson family, please just ask.’ This was said to me over and over again, and it gave me the strength to stand up and fight.

  In the new year Marlee and Charlie went to Queensland. After a month there, Marlee called to say she and Charlie had found a great 6×6 ex-army truck. We needed this type of truck to complete the equipment for our bull-catching operation and though we were spending money we couldn’t afford, the 6×6 would make money next year. I told her to go ahead and purchase the truck. I should have known it wouldn’t stop there—then we had to fill it up.

  ‘Well Mummy, it’s silly to drive the truck all the way back to the station empty.’

  By the time the truck left Queensland, it had one of the famous Bullo loads. Whenever one of our trucks went to town, it would finally leave loaded down with anything from a shower curtain and drums of avgas, to a beach umbrella and a windscreen for a grader.

  There were endless phone calls.

  ‘Mummy, can we buy a washing machine for the staff quarters? It’s so cheap.’

  ‘Mummy, if we buy some milking cows, we won’t have to buy powdered milk.’ Three milking cows later.’

  ‘Mummy, a friend of Charlie’s has a magnificent breeding bull. He’s the only one left and we can have him at discount. He’s De Manso blood and really lovely.’

  ‘Oh Mummy, I’ve found the perfect stallion.’

  Charlie finally said, ‘No more!’ and Marlee reluctantly had to stop her gathering.

  When they were ready to leave I called Bob, our insurance agent, and started to list the contents of the truck. Halfway through the list, he interrupted me.

  ‘Is all this on one truck?’ he asked.

  ‘I suppose a more apt description would be “Noah’s Ark”.’ Bob named the policy ‘Operation Noah’s Ark’.

  When the ‘Ark’ finally a
rrived at Bullo, the animals all marched off like little angels.

  ‘Aren’t they well-behaved!’ I said.

  ‘Should have seen them last week,’ grunted Charlie.

  The first day of this long journey they had just loaded all the animals in together, with no division, and waited. Of course Marlee had given them all names. Our first super-duper, papered stud bull, she called Henry VIII, because he would have so many wives, about thirty-five in all. The milking cows were Pickle, Pumpkin and Daisy, and the stallion, whose registered racing name was ‘Grey Cab’, she called Rastas.

  Henry and Rastas chose opposite corners with their backsides jammed up against the truck, as far away from each other as possible, and Pickle, Pumpkin and Daisy all put their heads in another corner trying to hide.

  Marlee hung hay nets all around the sides of the crate and strapped an awning to the overhead framework. There was thick hay on the floor for them to rest on. They didn’t give the animals too much time to decide if they liked their travelling companions—the idea being that if the truck was moving, they would have to concentrate on standing and would leave each other alone.

  When they stopped for lunch, the animals had not moved. Rastas and Henry were still having a staring contest and the girls still had their heads in the corner.

  Marlee had arranged resting yards each night along the way. The first night the animals could not wait to escape and retreated to the furthest corners of the yard, trying to ignore each other. They had not touched the hay in the nets, so they spent most of the night eating.

  The next morning at loading time they were not keen to reboard. Charlie had to almost throw them on. The second day was the same as the first. Henry and Rastas continued their ‘Mexican stand-off, and the girls hid in the corner. No one would eat. At the end of that day, they again exploded out of the truck in their rush to get away from each other.

  By the third morning, things were tense. Charlie, who liked things to be orderly and systematic, was feeling the strain of this slow trek across Australia with an unwilling menagerie. He threw the animals on the truck again and the morning passed in silence. Lunch also passed in silence, and so did the afternoon. By unloading time things were grim. The animals did their usual bolt into the furthest corners of the yard and Charlie walked away throwing his hands in the air.