A Fortunate Life

by A B Facey

  There was nobody around when I got out of the well so I went to our camp, stirred the fire up and put the billy on to make a cup of tea. It was somewhere near midday. The tears had stopped and I felt a little better but I still had that awful sick feeling in my stomach. I was later told that it was shock.

  While I was waiting for the billy to boil, a man came galloping up to our camp on his way to the well. When he saw me he jumped off his horse and said loudly, ‘Have you seen or heard anything about that bloke that’s down the well?’ Then without waiting for a reply he went on, ‘He’s done for. I wouldn’t go down that damned thing for a thousand pounds.’ And while he rambled on about the dangers, three men came up in a horse and cart. Jock was one of them. He jumped out of the cart and ran over to me, put his arms around me and said, ‘How in the hell did you manage to get out?’ The man that came on the horse stood back dumbfounded and said, ‘It was you! How did you get out?’ They all looked at me in amazement. I said, ‘Don’t talk about it, not now.’

  Jock made a big billy-full of tea and they all had some. Then Bentley arrived with three men in a cart and was just as surprised to see me. He asked the same question, ‘How did you get out?’ I asked them all to excuse me and said I didn’t feel very well. I had that terrible feeling in my stomach still and now I felt as if I was going to vomit. I went to my tent and lay down on my bunk. After awhile Jock brought me in a mug of tea and a thin slice of buttered damper. I drank the tea and ate the damper and felt a little better. I didn’t feel like I was going to vomit any more, but I couldn’t get rid of the sick feeling in my stomach – it was a fainting feeling.

  I told Jock that we couldn’t do anything about the well – it was too dangerous. I said that we would stop where we were until tomorrow and that I thought we should cover the well with logs in the morning, after taking the windlass off. ‘I don’t feel like doing any work this afternoon.’ I said, ‘so you both better take things easy for the rest of the day. Get yourselves some dinner. I don’t feel like any at the moment. I may be better later but all I want to do now is lie down until this awful feeling goes.’ I asked them not to go near the well. We had plenty of water to drink and the trough was full for the horses.

  I lay there thinking about the whole dangerous business – how things can happen and how lucky you can get. When I thought about how close to death I had been, a cold shiver ran down my spine.

  Then, Jock and Bentley came running to my tent and Bentley yelled, ‘The windlass has gone.’ I jumped up and went outside and sure enough the whole top part of the well had given away. We went to the well to have a look and saw that the top part had slipped down into the well and the windlass was about six feet down the shaft. There wasn’t a thing we could do about it. I said to the men, pointing to the well, ‘It’s a complete write-off. We’ll pack up tomorrow and start for Wickepin.’ I would have to report to the Inspector. We had the eight buckets that we fished out – they were good steel buckets so we would take them with us.

  We left the next morning after pulling and packing our tents and gear. It was some thirty miles to the depot at Wickepin and we let the horses take their time. I still hadn’t recovered properly from the shock and the scare I got down the well. Jock and Bentley asked me a couple of times how I managed to get out but I still didn’t feel like talking about it. I put them off, saying that I would tell them all about it later.

  We arrived at Lake Yealering at one thirty that afternoon after covering about eighteen miles, and we camped there for lunch. It was a lovely spot with a fresh-water lake covering about two to three hundred acres – there was about five feet of beautiful fresh water. We gave the horses about two hours rest and then continued our journey to the depot.

  We arrived at about six thirty that evening and there wasn’t anyone there – it was a Saturday. The Inspector was to meet us, but as he wasn’t expecting us for another four or five days, he might have gone off on an inspecting job. So, as I told Jock and Bentley, we would have to wait until he returned.

  We put our gear into an unused room. There were several of these because the depot was once a public school building with classrooms. When the railway line was built out to Wickepin, the town soon took shape and a State School was built and the Water Supply took over the old building.

  The following day there was still no sign of the Inspector or Tom, his driver, so I put the two horses into the cart and told Jock and Bentley I was going to visit my relatives and I would be back that evening. My grandma was still living with the McCalls, on their property three miles north of Wickepin, and I hadn’t seen her for awhile. She was so pleased to see me and said that I had grown into a fine big man. She said that I was the image of my father. I had lunch with them and then we all had a long talk. Uncle Archie came home just before lunch and he wanted to know what I had been doing. They were all taken by the two horses. Uncle said that he would have liked a team like that.

  Uncle Archie and Aunt Alice had gone ahead with their farm and were doing fine. I never mentioned the near-tragedy at the well as I knew it would worry Grandma. At four o’clock that afternoon I left and drove back to the depot.

  There was still no sign of the Inspector or Tom. Jock and Bentley didn’t mind doing nothing and getting paid for it. The following morning the Inspector and Tom turned up at about ten o’clock. I had just finished telling the Inspector about the cave-in when Mr Sublet and Harry arrived. They had come by train to Wickepin and were driven to the depot in a friend’s car. Harry had been in hospital in Narrogin for a few days. They had patched him and he said he was much better. We were glad to see him despite his grumpy ways – he was a good boss and gave credit when it was due and didn’t forget to let you know if he wasn’t pleased with your work. (He had noticed me writing and learning to spell one day and from then on he helped me and told me many things.)

  Mr Sublet and the Inspector retired to the office and after awhile I was called in. The Inspector had written down my report as I had told it to him and when I went in Mr Sublet was holding it. He had just finished reading it and he looked up and said, ‘What do you think went wrong?’ I replied, ‘It’s hard to say. I can only guess water was coming through the west side all the time I was down there before the cave-in.’ I told him that about a week before we finished at Kunjin we had had heavy rain and that may have caused the water to come. It could have been that the water continually seeping through was too much for the timber which must have been rotten in places. I gave them some more details of the accident.

  Then Mr Sublet said, ‘Did it occur to you that the men on the top may have been careless?’ I replied, ‘No. Jock is very careful and very reliable and I would also trust Bentley with my life.’ That satisfied them and Mr Sublet said, ‘All right, you had a very lucky escape. I am going to recommend to the Government that they put down a two-thousand yard dam for the settlers at Jubuck.’

  43

  DINGO KILLER

  We were told that afternoon to get ready to go out to a place some sixty miles east of Wickepin, to fence and put pumps and water troughs onto two dams. We would also put in drains and clear catchments.

  Harry gave Jock a list of the materials required, with instructions to get it all together ready for loading early next morning. There was rabbit-netting, pipes, troughs, pumps and fittings. He told me to make out a list for enough stores and supplies to last us seven or eight weeks. Bentley and Harry gave me their list for stores and Jock and I made out our list together. We were the only ones sharing a tent – Harry camped in a tent by himself and so did Bentley.

  I drove into Wickepin and got the stores and supplies. The men had given me the money for their orders. They all trusted me to handle their money matters and it was good schooling for me and I liked doing it.

  The following morning we were all up bright and early and after breakfast we loaded up – and what a load it was – tents, bedding, stores, materials and four men. It was the biggest load I had ever put on the spring-cart in fact.
It was so heavy I suggested that we cut the centre out of a blackboy to make two bumpers, then wire them onto the top of the springs at a centre position to stop the springs breaking should we have to travel over any rough roads. (The blackboy is a grass-tree and has a tough spongy centre that is light in weight – it has a fair amount of give and is ideal as a bumper.)

  We had a long way to go and wanted to get to the first dam by the end of the second day. We travelled roughly forty miles the first day and camped at a place called Kulin. That left us roughly twenty miles to go the next day. The first dam we were to service was south-east of Kulin near Pingaring road and the second dam was some fifteen miles north of that.

  We arrived safely and made camp about a hundred yards from the dam, which was half-full of water. There were several new settlers who had just settled on their land and were busy putting up huts made from bush timber, with bark rooves and bag sides and room dividers. Some of these huts were pretty crude. The Boss said he wouldn’t like to start like these people. ‘Sixty miles from the nearest town,’ he said, ‘and not much hope of schooling for their children. What a life.’

  We made our camp and built a large fire. We always pitched our tents close together so we could use the same fire for cooking. We often made a stew and we all had to cook our dampers.

  I don’t think any of us will ever forget the first night we camped at this spot. We were pestered by dingoes – there must have been hundreds of them. Jock and I always kept our meat and bread inside our tent in a bag safe which we hung on the ridge pole. Believe it or not we were kept awake all night chasing the dingoes away from trying to get at the safe. They howled all night long and all around. Bentley was scared out of his wits. He hadn’t had any experience with dingoes like that before. He came to our tent and said that they had taken his meat. It had been in a camp oven with the lid on and they had knocked the lid off and taken it. He was shaking with fright, and brought his rugs into our tent and slept on the floor – or at least, he tried to sleep.

  I got my rifle and tried to get a shot at one of them but it was too dark. Daylight came and I got out of bed. Peeping through the tent flaps I saw a large dingo standing in front of Bentley’s tent. I shot him and when the bullet hit he sprang into the air, then fell dead. The report of the shot woke up the rest of the men and they came out to see what had happened. Bentley was quite excited. For several days I shot the dingoes – I killed four and some got away wounded. This frightened the others and we weren’t troubled so much, although they still howled all night.

  We were just about three weeks fencing the dam, clearing the catchment area and ploughing the drains. When we knocked off the last evening we had only the rabbit-stop to erect on the main drain where it entered the dam, to finish the job. (The rabbit-stop was a timber frame built across the main drain where the fence crossed it – a sheet of heavy flat iron was hinged to the frame and the iron would rise with the flow of water and fall back into place when the water stopped. This stopped the rabbits from getting into the dam.)

  We were all sitting having our evening meal as the sun was setting when the Boss called out, ‘Look, there’s a dingo in the dam.’ There it was, standing on the bank looking at us. Jock realised that it must have got through the rabbit-stop, and grabbing a pick handle he ran to the opening. Bentley and I followed. Bentley grabbed an axe and I picked up a handy piece of wood about two inches thick and about three feet long. Jock said to me, ‘Get your rifle.’ I said, ‘We don’t want a rifle for this one.’ Then I said, ‘Bentley, you go around one side of the dam with the axe and I’ll go around the other side. When the dingo sees he’s cornered he will go for one of us so be ready to hit him – one good blow will do.’

  The dingo ran to the fence, then doubled back towards where he had come in. Jock was there with the pick handle. The dingo turned back and made straight for Bentley. To our surprise, Bentley dropped the axe and jumped into the dam. The water was about eight feet deep in the middle. Then we got another shock – Bentley couldn’t swim. Jock called to me, ‘He’s drowning!’ I had no alternative but to jump into the water and pull Bentley out. We both got a ducking, as he grabbed me and I had to dive down under him to make him let go. Finally I got him out. The Boss had joined Jock at the spot where the dingo had got in, so Jock ran to my assistance and helped to drag Bentley up the side of the dam on to the level ground. He vomited from all the water he had swallowed.

  The dingo just stood looking at us. When Bentley was safe we helped him to where the Boss was and I said, ‘I’ll get the rifle and finish that dingo off.’ Harry, the Boss, gave a grunt and said, ‘Are you scared of it?’ This amused Jock and he said to me, ‘I bet you’re not game to tackle it with a stick.’ I picked up the mattock handle that Jock had left near the opening and advanced towards the dingo. He was still standing on the bank of the dam. As I approached him I noticed the bristles on his back were up. This was a sign of fear. He ran around the dam towards the opening. This was funny for a moment as Bentley soon got over his sickness and jumped over the fence. The Boss also scrambled over. Jock grabbed a shovel that happened to be there, and as the dingo approached him, he let out a terrible yell. This frightened the dingo and he ran back towards me. I had followed him around when he had made for the opening.

  Now the fun turned into dreadful fear for me. That dingo knew he was cornered, so he sprang straight at me. Lucky for me I had the mattock handle above my head in a striking position. By the time the dingo got close enough for me to strike him, his head – with teeth bared – seemed to be going straight for my throat. Aiming between his ears, I brought the mattock handle down with all my might… the blow got him where I wanted it to. He collapsed into a heap on the bank of the dam and I gave him two or three more blows to make sure he was finished.

  In a few seconds just before the dingo sprang, I think I was the scaredest that I had ever been in my life. The Boss, Jock and Bentley all agreed that they had the scare of their lives too. They were as relieved as I was when the dingo fell. I scalped the dingo as I had done with the others – the scalps were worth one pound each.

  We finished our job the next morning at this dam and packed up ready to shift. We had an early lunch and went onto the next dam at a place called Karlgarin. We had to do the same work at this dam as we had done at the last dam only the job was much harder. The catchment was heavily timbered, so we had to do more clearing. However, we finished our work without any further incidents of note, although we still had trouble with dingoes. We always had to be sure that our food, especially the meat, was out of their reach. I think Bentley was more frightened now of dingoes than ever before.

  44

  KICKING AROUND

  We arrived back at the depot at the end of the third week of August. We had to wait until Mr Sublet came to be given our next job. He turned up two days later with bad news – our gang was to be put off as the kind of work we had been doing was finished. We were all paid up and Tom drove us into Wickepin in the buggy.

  Jock and I went to Mrs James’ boarding-house and booked in while we made up our minds what we would do next. Board and lodgings were one pound a week.

  We were offered a job burning and chopping down timber about a mile and a half west of the town for a man named Louis Smith. He was paying fifteen shillings per acre and there were two hundred acres to be done. I wanted Jock to go partners with me to do the job but he wanted to go down south where a timber firm was building a railway and advertising for plate-layers. Jock had done this work before and liked it. The pay was good and the work wasn’t hard, but as I didn’t know anything about plate-laying, I decided to stay at Wickepin and see what happened. Jock left the following Tuesday by train.

  The Sunday before Jock left, I was invited to play in a football game – Australian Rules. Wickepin was playing a team from Narrogin and was short of players. I had learnt how to kick a football but didn’t know much about the game. I had watched several games while living with my stepfather in the city –
he had been a good footballer in his younger days – so I had some idea, although I hadn’t actually played in a match. I agreed to be one of the team. All football was played on Sundays in the country.

  I don’t think I will ever forget that game of football. Several of the Wickepin players talked to me before the match. One was the captain and he said that he was short of ruckmen, and as I was tall he thought I would be good in that position. I asked him to explain to me some of what I had to do – there were rules on things you could and couldn’t do. The captain explained these to me, but he told me so many things it was impossible to remember them all, especially when the game was on.

  For a start, every time I got near the ball the umpire would blow his whistle and give one of my opponents a free kick – he would call out ‘around the neck’, ‘over the shoulder’, ‘push in the back’, ‘holding the ball’, or ‘running with the ball’. Believe me, I must have given twenty free kicks away during the first half of that game.

  At half-time the captain and the full-forward came to me and explained it all again. During the second half I did much better and got some free kicks, but I felt sure I was the worst player on the ground.

  After the game the captain told me that for a chap that had never played before, I had done well, and he would like me to come to training on Tuesdays and Thursdays. They wanted as many players as they could get as there was to be a return match at Narrogin in a fortnight’s time. He said, ‘We want to beat them as they won easily today.’ I told him that if I stayed at Wickepin I would come to training but it all depended on what work was about. I explained about the chopping-down job and said that if I could get a mate to come in partners with me, I would be stopping at Mrs James’ boarding-house for a couple of months.