by A B Facey
The day after Jock went away, I met a young chap looking for work. His name was Robert Howe (Bob), and we chummed up. He came and stayed at Mrs James’ place and agreed to come into partnership with me on the chopping and burning job. He was a nice chap, twenty years old, tall and wiry like myself and a good worker. He was also a good footballer, as far as country players go, and went with me to training.
Our work was only a little over a mile from the boarding-house, and Mrs James agreed to cut our lunches if we would board with her while we completed the job. So we started work for Mr Smith on the first of September.
The day before we started the job, I borrowed a saddle-horse and rode out to Aunt Alice’s place to spend the whole day with Grandma. It was my eighteenth birthday. Grandma was so pleased to see me and we had a wonderful day. Aunt Alice and Uncle Archie and all my cousins made me welcome and wished me a happy birthday. Grandma wanted to know how I had been getting along with my schooling. I told her that, owing to shifting about so much, I had neglected my books but there were many things I could read well enough to be able to follow, and I could write a letter and sign my name very well. Grandma shook her head and said it was a shame that I hadn’t had the same chance as the others to go to school. She said I was very bright as a child, and if given a reasonable schooling, she felt sure I could have gone far. As things were, she thought I would always have to do hard work for a living.
The work for Mr Smith was very hard. Chopping scrub and trees down, and cutting logs for burning the large trees down. With a breeze blowing you could burn down a large green tree in a little over a day. We would have as many as twenty trees alight in one day, and while they were burning down we would cut the scrub and small trees down. The job was finished when all the scrub and timber had been felled. For this we were paid fifteen shillings an acre. Working long hours we earned a little over five pounds a week each.
We never worked on Sundays but played football with the Wickepin team when they had a match. Bob was a good player. He played at full-forward and taught me quite a lot about the game. Our return match with Narrogin was a triumph – we won well. Several games were arranged with other teams and we won more than we lost. My game improved and I was mentioned as one of Wickepin’s best players several times. I was very proud of this.
We finished our contract with Mr Smith at the end of November. After that Bob got a job in a blacksmith’s shop – he had served an apprenticeship as a blacksmith a few years before so he was at home in his new job. I got a job working for a carrier, Jack Adams, at Wickepin. This was only a temporary job but an easy one. I had to drive a horse and lorry delivering goods in and around the town and carting goods from the railway station to the hotel and stores. I also delivered the mail to the Post Office.
I worked at this for two weeks, and then Mr Adams gave me a job wheat-lumping at the Wickepin railway yard. He employed two other men. Our wages were one penny for every bag of wheat that we lumped or one pound each day, which ever was the greater.
It was very hard work – the farmers around Wickepin had had a bumper harvest. The money was good though, and we got extra pay from the farmers for unloading their superphosphate when it came. This saved them paying demurrage as some of them were thirty miles or more away from a station and only came in for their mail once a week. A lot of them wouldn’t be putting in their first crop till the next winter but had to get their super then to get the benefit of a railway concession. (The concession applied to the super that had come in the trucks consigned to cart the wheat back to the Port of Fremantle.) We used to get four shillings per ton for unloading it out of the railway trucks. We had to do this in our own time, before the yard opened at eight a.m. or after five o’clock in the evening. When the farmers came for their super they were only too willing to pay us because demurrage could be charged up to thirty shillings a day if the super was not unloaded within thirty-six hours.
This job lasted until the third week in February 1913. We did very well out of it, as, between the three of us, we lumped one hundred and sixty thousand bags of wheat. Most of them we had to handle twice. When there weren’t any railway trucks on standby, we stacked the bags, and then loaded them later, getting a penny for both times we lumped them.
Although the three of us worked at full speed, I have seen as many as thirty teams waiting to be unloaded. Every bag of wheat had to be weighed, the weight put on a docket and stamped onto the bag. A clerk did this. The farmer would put each bag onto the scales which were on a platform level with the back of the waggons to make the job easy. The platform had two sets of handles on each side and was moved from the back of one waggon to another as they were filled.
45
SOLIDARITY
I finished the lumping job and was wondering where to look for work. Then I noticed quite a lot of men turning up at Wickepin – some staying at the boarding-house and many pitching tents on the reserve – all waiting for something. This puzzled me until I met Jock McKay walking along the main street. He was all smiles and told me that the Government was going to extend the railway line from Wickepin through to Merredin, and that he hoped to get a job on the plate-layers gang. He suggested that I put in for the job with him. He said he was what they called a ‘dogger’. His job was driving in spikes to hold the rails firmly against the sleepers. The spikes were called dogs, so hence the name. I said I hadn’t ever done work like that and wouldn’t have any idea what to do. He said he could teach me in a few minutes and the pay was good – one pound for an eight-hour day. So he talked me into having my name put down for the job.
The Engineer had an office in the railway yard and Jock took me to him. Jock introduced us and told the Engineer that I was a dogger and had worked with him before. That satisfied the Engineer and he asked me my full name and age. Jock said that I was twenty. The Engineer said, ‘If you’re half as good as Jock at driving dogs, you’ll do.’ When we were away on our own again I told Jock he shouldn’t have fibbed about my age and about me being a good dogger. He replied, ‘You will be a good dogger before we start on that job because I’ll show you all there is to know. As regards your age, that won’t matter. If we had said your proper age he may have been suspicious about your experience.’
For the next two days Jock showed me how to use the special hammer for spike driving. It had a long narrow head so that it could hit the spike without touching the rail.
The first Monday in March a large gang of men were sent out; some to start on the formation work and others to put in the culverts and bridges. Jock and I, and several other men, were told we would be taking the train out of Wickepin the next morning. We had to go to Narrogin, then catch the train to Perth and travel to Spencer’s Brook, a railway siding about five miles south-west of Northam. From there we were to catch the train going to the Goldfields and get off at Merredin. There we were to join another gang of men. All these men were expert at plate-laying. (All except me of course.) There were forty-two of us altogether, not counting the Ganger, who was the boss.
We started laying and fixing the rails to the sleepers on the first Thursday in March. The town of Merredin, where we commenced work, was only small. There was a hotel and shops, a boarding-house, a school and a place where we could get a meal at certain times during the day. We had all our meals there – a Mrs Wilson was the proprietor and the food was very good.
We worked for the first two weeks doing shunting lines and points in the railway yard before we started on the new line. Mrs Wilson offered to follow us along with supplies and provide us with three meals a day for twenty-five shillings a week, providing we would all patronise her and she could get some help from the authorities to move her along close to our work. (Mrs Wilson had done this work before. She had a travelling kitchen and a large marquee tent with tables and chairs to seat fifty people.)
We called all the men together and decided to help to shift her along as requested, on Sunday mornings. The Engineer gave her an assurance to keep her supplied with ple
nty of good water and wood and said that she could use the trolley for supplies whenever she wished. She said she would let her place at Merredin while she was away.
I didn’t like our ganger, but the Engineer was a nice understanding man and all the gang liked him very much. This section of the new line had already been formed with culverts and bridges, and temporary rails had been laid.
Our job was to complete the line ready for traffic. This was all strange to me but after a few days I felt quite at home – I had some anxious moments though, and broke the head off some of the spikes. When this happened I had to get a brace and bit to bore another hole, then enter another spike and drive it home. Hitting the spike too hard was what broke the head off. Jock was a good mate. We had to finish the day together, so when a spike or hammer handle broke, we would help each other by slipping over onto the other’s rail and driving some spikes. We had to watch to be sure that the Ganger wasn’t around.
Everything went fine for the first six weeks. Then one day – I think it was in the third week of April – I was forced into a fist fight. This happened over the breaking of two spikes in succession. The Ganger was standing close by and it made me nervous so that I missed a spike and broke it. Feeling uneasy with him watching me, I missed with the second spike and the Ganger called, ‘Clumsy fool.’ I picked up the brace to bore another hole and he said, ‘What will you do when you run out of room on the sleeper, goat?’ I didn’t answer him but just went on boring the hole. This seemed to annoy him and he called me a ‘clumsy bastard’. I threw the brace down and walked over to within two or three yards of him and said, ‘I don’t mind what you call me, but don’t you put a slur on my mother. You take it back.’ He just stood there and stared at me. Then he said, ‘I’ll see you in hell first. So what are you going to do about it, mug?’
This man was over six feet tall and about fifteen stone. He looked very strong and powerful, and although I hated him at that moment, I must admit that I was afraid of him. I must have shown it because Jock called out to me, ‘Don’t take any notice of him Bert. He’s trying to aggravate you into fighting. He has done it before and the men that have fallen for it have ended up getting a hiding, then the sack. He is too big for you Bert.’ The Ganger turned on Jock and said, ‘Shut your mouth or I’ll shut it for you.’
By now all of the men within a hundred yards had stopped work and were watching to see what was going to happen. The Ganger turned on me again and said, ‘Well, what are you going to do? What are you going to make of it?’ I said (and I was scared stiff of this giant of a man), ‘If you won’t withdraw what you said I’m prepared to test you with your king-hitting business. You can’t say that about my mother.’ He walked into a clear space some ten or fifteen yards away and said, ‘We’ll settle this here and now.’
All the men close had gathered around, some trying to talk me out of it and saying that he would kill me. Others were saying that the Ganger was a big bully. One of the men around the fifty age mark came to me and said that his name was Mr Strong and that he had been a boxer in his younger days. He asked me if I had had any experience with this sort of thing. I said, ‘Only a little with Charlie Burns for two years or so.’ He knew Mr Burns well and told me to keep the Ganger off by using a straight left if I could, and to keep him from grabbing me.
So the fight was on. The Ganger came at me like a mad bull and swung a terrific right at my head. I ducked and drove a straight left that hit him flush on the mouth and nose. He increased the force of my hit by rushing in and I put everything I had into that punch. It stopped him and blood started running from his mouth and nose. Without easing up I repeated the punch again and again, and each time a punch landed his head jerked back. Blood started to run off his chin all over the front of his shirt. Now all fear had left me and I was in full command of the fight. I was able to side-step him and hit him at will – he was very groggy. We had only been fighting two or three minutes when a right cross to the chin dropped him into a sitting position. He sat there dazed for a full three minutes. Then I said, ‘Come on, get up. I want to finish this.’ He held up his hand and said he had had enough.
I told him to withdraw the slur he had cast on my mother or I’d belt him until he did. He said, ‘You go get your time and get out of here, you’re finished.’ I grabbed him and started to pull him to his feet to give him some more and he said, ‘I’m sorry about your mother but you’re still sacked.’ He got a red time ticket out of his pocket, filled it out and handed it to me saying, ‘Get going.’
Then something happened that surprised us both. The whole gang came to where we were and demanded their time tickets. When he refused them, they sat down and refused to work under him unless I was reinstated. It was now about eleven o’clock in the forenoon. The Ganger refused their request and got on a trolley and went towards Merredin.
We had a meeting and as they were all firm in their support for me, I offered to pull out as I felt I was the cause of the trouble. They wouldn’t have a bit of that. A lot of the men had worked under the Ganger before and there wasn’t one that spoke a good word of him. They all seemed pleased that they had a chance to get rid of him. We waited for someone to turn up or something to happen. After awhile Mrs Wilson’s dinner gong sounded so we all went and had some lunch. We had just finished when the Engineer and the Ganger turned up. The Ganger had some dressing on his lips and he looked a sight. I was lucky – he hadn’t managed to hit me so I didn’t have a mark on me.
The Engineer called us all together and said, ‘I have heard the Ganger’s story about this. Now what is your story?’ He was addressing me. Just as I was about to speak, Mr Strong chipped in and said that he had seen and heard everything and would be glad to tell the Engineer the whole story. The Engineer said, ‘Are you men satisfied for Mr Strong to be the spokesman on this?’ They all agreed and then he turned to me and said, ‘What about you?’ I replied, ‘Mr Strong was close to me when the incident happened. Jock McKay was closer but he is my mate so I think Mr Strong would be the best to explain everything.’ Everyone agreed so Mr Strong quietly explained the whole affair as it had happened.
When he finished explaining, the Engineer turned to the Ganger and said, ‘That just about finishes you with this gang.’ The Ganger protested and claimed that Strong had told lies. He said, ‘That bloke there – pointing to me – hit me first without any provocation.’ With that several men came forward and said that they were prepared to swear on the Bible that what Mr Strong had said was true. The Engineer said to me, ‘Give me that ticket of dismissal you have.’ He tore it into pieces and threw them away. Then he said, ‘Men, this business is all over. Get back to your work and forget this has happened. There won’t be any loss of time and I’ll arrange for another Ganger to be with you during the afternoon.’
We all went back to work, very happy – we had had a victory. My victory was doubled many times, as I had, that day, made forty-one very staunch friends. The fight was the talking-point of our gang for weeks.
Just before knock off time the new Ganger arrived. Mrs Wilson was pleased that we had got rid of the old one. She didn’t like him as he used to make very rude cracks at her and her girls. She had a daughter, about fifteen years old, and she also had a woman helping in the kitchen and a waitress about nineteen. None of them liked him. Our new Ganger was tops, he was very fair in his judgement and we all liked him.
In time I became quite expert at my job as dogger.
The new line passed through some of Western Australia’s best wheat-growing country. We had reached the place called Bruce Rock by the end of May, and Corrigin in early August. Our gang was then taken to Wickepin.
Arriving at Wickepin, I was asked to go to the Post Office as the Post Master wished to see me urgently. I went there and he had bad news for me – my mother had died suddenly. He showed me a telegram that had come two days earlier. I saw our Ganger, who gave me leave to go to the funeral. A friend at Wickepin drove me to Narrogin where I caught the midnight trai
n to Perth, arriving at eleven thirty the next morning. I caught a taxi and went straight home but was too late. The funeral had been at eleven o’clock.
Although my mother hadn’t been a good mother to me, I felt her death very much. Jack and Mollie, her youngest, were still children and also felt the loss of Mother terribly. I stayed at home two more days to help out and then went back to my work on the railways.
At Wickepin we were to finish the new section, working from Wickepin back to Corrigin. We completed our work on this line by the third week in October, 1913. This meant that I had driven nearly every spike on one rail from Merredin to Wickepin, a distance of about one hundred and twenty miles.
46
PRIZE FIGHTER
When we got paid off we all boarded a train to Narrogin. We intended going to the Narrogin Agricultural Show. This was on for two days and was one of the biggest agricultural shows outside Perth. We had been starved for entertainment for the past six months so we all went. We just about took up all the accommodation at the Narrogin Railway Coffee Palace and the boarding-houses and hotels.
A lot of men got full, but Jock and most of the others were looking forward to the show. I liked these country shows. They were great fun with the side-shows and ring events – there wasn’t a dull moment. Mr Strong, Jock and I kept together and stayed at the Railway Coffee Palace.
The show was grand fun, and as we did the side-shows, we tried our skill at everything until we came to the boxing marquee. It had a platform out front with several boxers challenging all comers. There were light-weights, middle-weights and heavy-weights. The heavy-weight was a large Negro man. The man running the boxing offered five pounds to anyone who could stay in the ring for four two-minute rounds with the Negro. Several challenges were made by men in the crowd so we paid our four shillings to go into the marquee and see the fights. There were to be three fights in all.
