Wool Away, Boy!

by Alan Blunt

  ‘Piss off, you idiot,’ was a common reply. Other responses often implied a low opinion of wool pressers in general and myself in particular. I had been ‘barrowing’ – learning to shear – in my spare time for years, and could shear my hundred in easy sheep, so now and then a victim of my rough humour would shove a bog-eye into my hand and say, ‘You’re so smart, Presser! Put yer head below yer arse and avago yerself.’ Bronco had his own version: ‘Before you piss off, Presser, shear one of these bloody monsters while yer old mate has a smoke.’

  At smoko time this particular day, the habitual possum stirrer became victim. As I sat on a four-gallon drum on the shady side of the shed, Boomi came over. I doubled up and heaved. ‘What did you say, Presser?’ he queried innocently. He turned and called to the team, ‘Hard to say what the old mate’s on about, but I think he wants more wool.’

  ‘Tell him to keep quiet,’ someone called. ‘He’s making me feel crook.’

  When I thought I had finished spewing bile, and was beginning to wonder whether death by strychnine might be preferable, I took some chlorodyne from the shed first-aid kit and mixed fifteen drops of it with water. A few minutes later my stomach began to settle. I dosed myself again on the hour and worked doggedly on.

  When the bell ended the last two-hour run of sweat-soaked toil at 5.30pm, Yabba led the way to one of the bountiful wonders of the arid outback: a flowing bore drain. It was bordered for a few feet on either bank by green grass and meandered close by the huts. Easing our weary carcasses into the hot water, we quietly rejoiced at the restorative power of the flowing mineral waters, before emerging after ten minutes to top off with a cold shower. Thereon a soothing dip in the bore drain followed by a cold shower became a regular practice for most of us.

  Bronco and Carl placed two planks across the stream to serve as a ‘bar’ for tinnies and longnecks. These had been covered in hessian earlier in the day and cooled on wet earth in the shade under a 3000-gallon rainwater tank. We would loll and luxuriate in the water, putting the day’s toil and aches behind us, and joke about our good luck in finding a holiday resort so far off the beaten track.

  One afternoon a dripping Bronco waded ashore in his birthday suit and grabbed an overhead pepperina branch with one hand. Grinning, he yelled, ‘Whatever yer do, boys, when yer write home don’t tell ’em about this joint. Ain’t it heaven on earth: icy-cold beer and hot medicinal waters. If tourists hear about this they’ll give Surfers a miss and be here in droves. We’ll knock off work and won’t get near this lovely beach because those Sydney sheilas in bikinis will swarm all over the place. Yer won’t even get strap-hanging room much less a park for the Mercedes or the Rolls. I’m givin’ yer the drum: tell ’em nothing and take ’em nowhere.’

  When a musical mood struck him Wallace would strum three chords on a beat-up old guitar and sing country songs in a rugged, tuneful baritone. One afternoon, he sat on a four-gallon drum in his dripping-wet underpants and sang a parody of ‘The Dying Stockman’. The chorus was well known, and the lads sang lustily:

  A strapping young shearer lay dying,

  His bog-eye supporting his head;

  The rousies around him were crying

  And wishing the bastard was dead.

  Only Carl’s head and a tinnie of VB were above water as he yelled sincerely, ‘Good on you, Wallace! You sound a lot like Hank Snow.’

  ‘Good on yer be buggered!’ Bronco Bill called. ‘More like a squawking bullfrog halfway down the gullet of a black snake.’ Wallace let out a wild up-country cooee and belly-flopped into the pool. He ducked Bronco, and bathers cursed and scrambled for shore with their tinnies and longnecks held aloft. ‘Bloody brumbies!’ and ‘Piss off yer mad bastards!’ came from all directions as Bronco and Wallace giggled and swore and grappled like schoolboys.

  ‘Grow up, yer mad bastards,’ Yabba yelled, struggling to save his beer. Zulu, who always took horse play for an invitation to draw blood, jumped in and joined the melee until I pulled him out by his stumpy tail.

  Carl and Wallace usually ran ‘dry’ in the shed and enjoyed a few drinks in town on weekends, but the heatwave and their lack of shearing condition combined to weaken their resolve. They borrowed a few tinnies on the Tuesday after work, and on Wednesday night decided to drive to Wyandra and pick up a couple of cartons to repay the beer and sustain themselves over the duration. Curly jumped into the rear seat of the Morris, and Carl reluctantly allowed the Jewel to join him. It had been quickly noticed at Elmina that the Jewel and Wallace weren’t on speaking terms. The rumour was that the Jewel and Wallace had been workmates a couple of years earlier on, and Wallace and his de facto wife had invited the Jewel to stay at their forty-acre bush block north of the city for a few days. What occurred there was anyone’s guess.

  I watched the car roar off towards relief in Wyandra, like a perishing camel bolting for an oasis, then went to bed. With the temperature bottoming at about ninety degrees Fahrenheit (thirty-two degrees Celsius), most of us chose to sleep outdoors in the ‘Southern Cross Motel’ and pulled our stretchers well away from the huts to take advantage of any occasional breezes.

  At around 11pm there was a commotion emanating from the gap between the quarters and the kitchen. I arrived with a torch just as Yabba approached wearing leather slippers and a drab dressing gown. Seeing Wallace and the Jewel facing off, Yabba spoke with authority: ‘Break it down, you men! Keep it quiet. You know the babbler’s got to be up at sparrow’s fart to muster breakfast.’

  ‘Sorry, Yabba,’ Wallace said. He turned to the Jewel and spoke sharply. ‘You hear that? You’re drunk. Forget about it.’ As he began to walk away the Jewel snarled, ‘Don’t turn your back on me, you big bastard. You’re all bluff! And you’re a bloody fool, too – letting a woman come between good mates. That slut you’re keeping is having a lend of you. Half a bottle of sherry and she’ll open her legs for anyone!’

  Wallace wheeled and snapped, ‘I’ll see you at six o’clock in the morning.’

  The Jewel laughed sardonically. ‘Tomorrow never comes.’

  I had heard it before.

  The babbler appeared, carrying a carbide light. ‘What’s the racket?’ he queried sharply. The flickering light dramatised his middle-aged face – a life-map of a spirited, honourable man striving for respect and independence.

  Other men emerged from a hot and fitful doze. Most, like me, were wearing only underpants and thongs. ‘Sorry, Jack. The boys are out of order,’ Yabba said. He added angrily, ‘Cor blimey! They should bloody know better – and they bloody well will. I’ll call a swarm first thing in the morning and straighten things out. And I’ll tuck these ignorant bludgers in their little beds right now.’

  The cook said formally, ‘I appreciate that, Rep. Good night.’

  ‘What’s he whingeing about?’ the Jewel demanded loudly. ‘He wakes me every night with his bloody nightmares! You must have f—ing well heard him yelling in the middle of the night. Then he’s clattering about in the kitchen at cock-crow. Noisy old bastard!’

  ‘Break it down!’ Yabba warned. ‘Drag your bed outdoors like the rest of us. You sweat all day then you sweat all night. No wonder you can’t bloody well sleep. Wake up to yerself!’

  ‘Come on, pack it in,’ Carl advised calmly. ‘I’m going to hit the sack, and –’

  The Jewel truncated Carl’s sentence with a straight right to the jaw that dropped the man in his tracks. The big shearer was by choice and inclination a man of peace, but he was also a proud rugby league forward for his home town. Stunned, he rolled onto his feet and automatically went through the motions of playing the ball. Then, bellowing like an enraged bull, he charged and buried his man as a second-rower buries a breakaway half-back. Transformed into a shouting, screaming berserker, he slammed the Jewel’s skull up and down on the packed earth until Yabba and I dragged him off. He was still struggling to get free as the Jewel stumbled around the corner, swearing. ‘You’re all against me. You can all get stuffed.’

 
We all went back to bed and at 5.30am I was dozing under the sheet I had pulled over my head to keep out the swarming bush flies and the glare of the rising sun, when running feet thumped past my bed. I got a rear view of Wallace rounding the far end of the quarters. The shearer pounded by again. On his third circuit I realised he was warming up for combat, and followed quickly: I wouldn’t miss this stoush for quids. Bronco and Yabba – both early risers – were standing smoking under a pepperina tree, where I joined them.

  Fist fights were rare in shearing sheds as there was an unwritten rule among Union men and staff that fisticuffs waited until the shed cut-out – by which time the animosity that caused the blue had often perished. However, Yabba realised this case was an exception; that Wallace – a quiet man – was determined to pay his debt.

  His mind set, wordless and fixed of eye, Wallace ran past us, jumped the two steps onto the verandah and bored into the Jewel’s room. I was right behind him.

  ‘You said tomorrow never comes,’ Wallace snapped angrily. ‘Well, tomorrow is here! Get up and we’ll see if you’re as good as you were last night!’

  Hungover, the Jewel squirmed and mumbled protests. ‘I was drunk. Forget about it. Go away.’ He turned to the wall, and Wallace tipped his stretcher violently. The Jewel’s bones jarred as he banged on the floor. Wallace hauled him upright, applied a half-nelson to steer him through the door and shoved him stumbling down the steps.

  Word of the fight had already spread around the drowsy camp, and most of the team had gathered. Unaware of the night’s events, they gazed sleepily in puzzled wonder. Sensing no sympathy among the onlookers, the Jewel backed against the pepperina. He shaped up and snarled, ‘You want it, you big standover bastard? Come and get it.’

  Yabba shouted, ‘It’s a fair fight! Give ’em room!’ The overseer strode swiftly from his hut as if to intervene, but stopped short and wisely stood back.

  Wallace stepped in a pace and feinted. Still trying to shake the hangover from his wits, the Jewel weaved low and fired a combination that Wallace caught on his brawny arms. He retreated a pace, then advanced launching long-armed, hard-knuckled punches with close to thirteen stone of work-hewed muscles behind them. The Jewel ducked low, presenting only his skull and shoulders – an effective defence in a gloved fight with the Marquess of Queensberry presiding, but suicide on the grass. Wallace hammered the soft tissue of his neck and shoulders, then crouched and straightened his man with powerful uppercuts. The sound of his grunts and the thud of knuckles on flesh and bone were amplified by the morning stillness. The Jewel desperately took a side-on guard, but was battered back until he hung in the fork of the tree, stunned and defenceless.

  Hovering close Yabba swooped to intervene. ‘He’s had enough, Wallace,’ he shouted. ‘That’s it!’ But Wallace had already stepped back. Breathing deeply he glanced vacantly around the spectators. We stood as if mesmerised as he inspected his bruised and bloody knuckles, and then strode without a word towards the showers.

  The Jewel struggled free of the tree fork. Bronco moved to support him, but was rebuffed. ‘I’m alright,’ the Jewel mumbled as he straightened his shoulders and mounted the steps without glancing at the silent watchers. Bronco and I followed.

  ‘C’mon, mate, we’ll get you over to the shower,’ Bronco said. The Jewel sat on the one upright bed and coughed blood and mucus into a towel. He breathed painfully, and felt his rib cage. ‘The big bastard’s broken a couple of ribs,’ he said. ‘Hand me the rum and the waterbag. The shower can wait.’ As we left, he added bitterly, ‘Ask Brian to make my tally up and phone for a taxi.’

  Regardless of booze or the blues or inner turbulence, the Jewel always cared about his appearance. He had showered and shaved and was wearing an ironed blue shirt and grey slacks when he walked to the shed to get his cheque. He entered through the wool room and shook hands with me. ‘No hard feelings, Presser,’ he said. ‘Tell Bronco the same. As for that other big bludger: tell him he’ll keep – and I’ll take the slack out of him when I’m fit and sober.’

  ‘Put it down to experience,’ I said. ‘He’s too big for you.’

  The taxi brought a replacement shearer before dinner, and returned to Charleville with the Jewel.

  Bonded by the mateship of hard yakka and humour the team became work fit and unified, and from then on shearing progressed smoothly to cut-out. On that last day while I cleaned up the wool and the overseer finalised his book-keeping, the vehicles revved away. Carl and the other boys from New South Wales headed south of the border, and Yabba and a couple more homed for Goondiwindi via Charleville. Too impatient to wait for me, Bronco threw his swag into the back of Yabba’s ute and jumped in after it. ‘Get mobile, Yabba,’ he yelled. ‘There’s a lively filly waiting for the Bronco in the exercise yard. Let’s hit the frog and toad.’ He sang lustily:

  I’ve got a girl in Mungindi

  And another one in Goondiwindi;

  And if these sheilas ever meet

  They’re bound to kick up a shindi.

  I followed them to town in short order and left my swag and dog at a mate’s place. Then I headed to the Greek’s for steak, egg and chips, and the Cattle Camp pub for a beer and a yarn. I was glad to greet Marjorie at her regular post behind the bar. She was a human adding machine and swift-handed marvel, who could carry five full glasses in one hand while distributing change to drinkers with the other. She was a friend, arbiter and entertainer, and folksy psychologist. Her current ‘patient’, my mate Wallace, was leaning on the bar, drunk as a lord, repetitiously explaining that he wasn’t drowning his sorrows over his lost love – the lady he thumped the Jewel over – he was celebrating his freedom.

  Marjorie broke in. ‘Closing time! Drink up!’ Slopping up beer with a bar towel, she said, ‘Friday nights – I dunno why I bother. Shearers big-noting themselves and shearing more sheep in the pub than they have all week on the board – and slopping booze all over the bar.’ She glanced accusingly at Wallace before continuing, ‘And when I get home at midnight I’m as footsore as Dobbin, and worried about me boys and Mary – they’re out God knows where – and the old man is half-shot and thinks he’s horny.’

  ‘Cheer up, Mum,’ said Wallace, leaning over and puckering his lips. ‘Give me a kiss and feel twenty-one again.’

  ‘Close your eyes, lover boy,’ she said, and slapped his pouting lips with the soggy beer towel.

  ‘Yer a sloppy kisser, Mum.’

  Marjorie laughed and helped me steer him to the V-Dub.

  10

  COUNTRY GIRLS AND A CRAZY COP

  The next night I took a local girl to the movies. She was fun, feisty and teasing, and as lively and lovely as Marilyn Monroe. I called her Marilyn and, as we’d done before, we spent much of our date laughing. Afterwards I drove her home and, at her insistence, parked at her front door, where we had a lusty, giggling smooch until her mother summoned her. Feeling restless after she left, I drove to the river in search of a party. I parked with other vehicles under lofty branches, and walked the thirty yards to the action.

  Despite the heat, the ritual big fire had been blazing but had died down to small tongues of flame darting from a bed of coals. Beneath a half-moon three or four couples were kicking up dust to rock’n’roll music issuing from a tape recorder, while about ten blokes and four or five sheilas were standing around, chatting, boozing and laughing.

  A half-shot Wallace was there with three off-duty nurses. Two were dancing, the third, a feisty dark-skinned beauty with Asian eyes, was circling the coals with Wallace, the two of them sparring flirtatiously. ‘C’mon, Wallace! Walk through the fire and you can have me. C’mon, Wallace, prove your love for me,’ she teased him.

  The tape ran out and the dancers stopped to watch the fun. One of the lads called, ‘Where’s your nerve, Wallace? Avago, mate.’ The girls whistled, and one of them cried, ‘Gees, you’re easy, Annette! Make him work for it!’ Bronco Bill loomed out of the night behind Wallace. ‘Go, Johnny, go!’ he urged. ‘Holy
snappin’ duck shit! I’d crawl through hell soaked in kerosene for what Annette’s hidin’ under her knickers.’

  Half-drunk, and enchanted by the temptress on the opposite side of the fire, Wallace stood with a silly grin, as though anchored in cement; then suddenly let go a lusty yodel, kicked off his thongs, and ran through the glowing coals. He grabbed the astonished girl, and the pair folded in to a lusty kiss while the onlookers whistled and cheered wildly.

  As Wallace was quickstepping the coals a vague shape loomed up on my right. I took no heed until a weighty open-handed wallop on the cheek sent me stumbling sideways. Expecting further enemy action I skipped a couple of steps for distance before fronting in fighting stance. My assailant was a confident young bloke, above middle height with a clean-cut profile, wearing grey slacks and a summer sports coat. Having got me out of his way, he was intent on watching the lustful embrace.

  I took a step forward and was about to challenge him when the newcomer waved a revolver above his head and shouted authoritatively, ‘Now hear this! Everyone remain as you are!’

  I scuttled back two steps before the gun was waved in my direction. Looking straight up the barrel, I stiffened like a tailor’s dummy. Recognition hit me at the sight of the gun: the man was a copper who had been pointed out to me as a complex personality. When he was sober people said that he was a lovely guy, but when he drank he became unhinged. In fact, a year earlier news had spread that the off-duty cop had terrified people by pulling a similar stunt at the same spot. The word was he had fired a couple of shots skywards, but no one had reported the incident to his superiors, perhaps because they regarded the boys in blue as an unassailable unit, with a long arm and a long memory if one of their number was accused or attacked in any way.