by David Mason
200 metres. They come from the cold where the south wind blows.
I feel the fear take form again, a dark wet reptile causing my belly to spasm and my throat to tighten. Not so much fear of what lies ahead, but rather, fear that I will not be able to do what has to be done. Fear I might discover the person I believe myself to be is a fiction.
180 metres. Brew mug hits the desert with a subdued metal kiss. I reach for the zippered plastic sheath and the rifle of steel and wood inside. I unsheathe it from its home and feel the cool contact of the barrel, the oily touch of the wooden butt and stock. ‘Made in Australia 1943’ it says. It is a good rifle, proven and true. I am a servant who must obey its rules to make it work. Rules allow me to kill if I wish. It was made to kill men in another place, another time. I feel for the magazine in the rifle’s belly. I take it off and check the clutch of golden brass cylinders nestled inside. I press my thumb against the rounds and feel the tension of the spring.
I genuflect in the dust. At my left Kabul is a handshake away. He shuffles his hind legs, spreads them apart and pisses on his tail. His tail slaps wet on his back. Some of the golden piss a benediction on my head.
150 metres. They are coming at us now; two of them. They have seen us. The air so recently filled with the cool of the icy south and fragrance of flowers is now made denser, thicker with the rich sweet, pungency of animals searching for a mate. They see our camp and are working their way in to investigate. They see the females, Chloe and Kashgar, and the bulls begin to trot. Slack lipped, foamed spittle and eyes bright with lust.
Need to concentrate. Need to shoot. Rounds are in the magazine and on the weapon. Just need to cock the weapon and push one of the brass cylinders from the clutch and introduce it into the chamber. Left handed this is not easy. Butt of the rifle goes to my belly, left hand on stock while right hand grasps rounded cocking handle and cocks the weapon. Do it. But the round won’t lock in the chamber. I can still see part of the round. The chamber remains partly open, the gold winking at me, a witness to my failure.
Come on. Come on. Something is wrong. Magazine off. Check the weapon. Put a round in the chamber by hand and work the bolt forward.
100 metres. Still won’t lock. Panic at my shoulder. Nothing works. They are coming to kill.
I can still escape. There is time enough to run. The warm dune summit, alive with gold, white, green and red of the winter is a saviour. No one will know I ran. I can lie on my back and feel the sun kiss my face, the perfume of desert blooms a balm. They want Kashgar and Chloe, not me. They would not chase me there. A part of me is screaming to escape the inevitable rolling eyes and lolling tongue. Panic whispers temptation in my ear – no one will ever know my weakness. But I need the intensity of reality. I ache for it. I need to know that whatever drives me does not also make me weak. I try again.
Don’t move. Snap the bolt into place. No good. No good. Something still wrong. Magazine off, uncock the weapon. Put a round in the chamber manually and work the bolt forward. Still won’t work. The dark reptile in my throat fatter and starting to pulse with strength.
50 metres. Come on. Come on. Butt, belly, stock, cock. Take out the round. Take out the bolt. Seems fine. Blow into the chamber. It’s clean. Look into the barrel. It is clear. Reassemble the weapon. And I see it. The head of the bolt isn’t wound entirely in. I screw it in, the lathed metal fitting neatly, snugly with itself. Slide the bolt into the rifle. The big bull now roaring and burbling. Magazine in the weapon. Butt, belly, stock, cock. The lathed metal of the cocking handle is locked all the way forward. The round is chambered and the firing pin set. Now to my shoulder. Now the safety catch off.
The big bull is running now, head down, his dulaa a wet pink obscenity hanging from his mouth. A pink chewing gum bubble blown from the corner of his mouth, opalescent with vivid capillaries and marbled with his spittle. The hump on his back is a wobbling woollen dorsal fin, lolling from one side to another. He comes at Melbourne Cup pace, so that I can see the river pebble smooth darkness of his feet and the spurts of dust, exclamations against the sand.
20 metres. Calm now. Breathe deep.
The charging golden chest fills my mind and the foresight blade of the rifle is lost in the shadows of his chest as his muscles move and tense to drive him forward. The drumming of pads at one with the pulse pounding in my ears.
Fire. A Rorschach blot florid on his chest. His legs fold beneath him and he meets the desert, half a cricket pitch away. In the silence that follows the round I feel the air tremble on my skin.
Butt, belly, stock, cock and to the shoulder. Now the camel screams. White teeth, canines to rip and blood-red throat. It bellows. The second circles and I squeeze the trigger’s 1.3 kilograms of tension and I will the bullet to his heart. But miss. Knocked to the ground he flails, the dark of his pads circling in the air, exposed the sun. The fat-filled woollen hump stops him from rolling over.
Butt, belly, stock, cock and to the shoulder. They are both on their feet. Charging away from me, their blood drips to the ground which drinks it up. Over the lip of the dune they are gone, my last sight of them the flick of a tail. Gone, galloping east along the French Line.
I grab my water bottle and give chase following the thread of dark red life. I follow for at least five kilometres and find traces of bright red arterial blood, bright and shiny against the terracotta grains of sand. But the camels keep on moving and I realise I have to go back to my own camp, my own camels and my own dreams. I give up the chase because I cannot leave my camels, Kabul, Chloe and Kashgar, alone any longer. To the embers, the swag and caffeine on tongue.
Back at the camp, all three are hooshed down chewing the cud. Lips and tongues and teeth working pulped green desert leaves. I hunker down to where the big camel dropped, just 10 paces from Kabul. All that remains is a blur in the sand and a smudge of darker red. The earth does not remember life, death or fear. It endures.
To my right, not far apart, lie two brass shells, golden exclamations nestled in the dust. I reach for them, the smooth surfaces, warm from the sun against my fingertips. In the palm of my hand they move together, their long bodies, tapered shoulders and dark interiors the abandoned carapaces of golden butterflies. I put them in my pocket, their firmness against my thigh a reminder of transformations.
Evening. As the sun rose higher into the day, climbing above the eastern dunes, it began to suck the colours from the land again and the cool and the moisture from the air. In single file I led Kabul, Chloe and Kashgar at a slow walk out of the desert’s amphitheatre, and climbed to the ridge of the western dune, for a moment a little closer to the darker blue and the sun. I looked to the east and the western facing dune where the sand turned to rippled bloody scabs. With us the creak of saddle leather, and slap and slosh of water in jerry-cans. Everything we need we have, water, food, shelter and shared experience of fear and the knowledge that we can survive. We needed nothing more.
Though both animals had been hit they were able to move rapidly away. This could have been due to my poor shooting, though more probably to the military rounds I used. I had no doubt that having been hit with a .303 round they would not survive long. To defend myself against bull camels with anything less would be irresponsible and might see an animal survive for too long in agony.
I was relatively well prepared. If I had not had a rifle Kabul would have been injured at best, or at worst even killed. Possibly the same with Chloe and Kashgar. Sure I should have used soft points that cause massive trauma, for there were no Laws of War here. It was the rule of the land. If you lived with it and were prepared, you might survive. We had been lucky.
Camp 16
We camped and I used a little of the water for other than drinking or cooking. I dampened sandpaper skin and scrubbed with a soon dark stained towel for a delicious wash. I think we did about 20 kilometres. This meant we had some 20 kilometres until the road to Purnie Bore became surfaced and from there another 29 kilometres. In total 47 kilometres to go ti
ll we reached Purnie Bore. It did not seem far, but a lot could happen in two days or so.
It was a cold night and it sucked the warmth from my hands and from my breath. It was a good night to have a sleeping bag inside a bivvy bag.
Camp 17
It was so cold this morning my ears ached and my cheeks were numbed. At first light I heard a bull camel roar and saw Kashgar and Chloe tremble. Again Kabul was rigid and tense, his ears swivelling to catch the source of the sound and his nostrils flaring to catch a scent. I reached for the rifle, my heart pounding hollow in my chest. During the night I had woken up to piss and put a log on the fire. Perhaps the fire kept the feral bull away and I never saw him.
Before I had finished packing up the camp I looked west to a dune where my eye caught a movement. For a moment I thought it was a cat, but it was too skinny and its tail too long. Just fur and dirty red. A fox.
It warmed up enough to take off my overshirt before midday, even though the breeze was from the south which kept the temperature down and the flies at bay. In mid-afternoon we crossed a dune and there was the intersection with the Rig Road, a hard topped track winding away to the south-east. The French Line heading west looked firm, as though it had been graded and surfaced with clay. It meant that we could move across the land a great deal faster – even though I slowed to allow the camels to browse on the abundant feed.
Just before we moved off in the morning, a four-wheel drive crunched down its gears and stopped. The driver descended, walked over to me and shook my hand. ‘I’ve been hearing about you for a while. It‘s amazing what you are doing and I wish I were with you.’ Then he looked into the fire. From his vehicle came a cry, ‘Don’t leave me alone!’ He turned to the vehicle and then back to me. ‘My wife,’ he said.
I looked to the vehicle and a woman put her head from the passenger window. The newcomer said, ‘It’s okay, come out over here by the fire.’ But she was not so sure. ‘I can’t. I’ll get dirty and there are animals too. Can you come and get me?’
He sighed, walked back to the vehicle and opened the door. She stepped out in a gleaming white shell suit, shiny new white trainers and bleached white hair. The two of them walked over to me and the fire. I shook her moisture cream hand and told them both about the trip. I also told her not to get too close to the embers or her shell suit would melt. With a sharp intake of breath she moved away slightly and trod in something. ‘Er, what’s this?’ she asked.
It was the morning shit I should have buried a little deeper. ‘Last night’s leftovers,’ I said, and she scuttled back to the vehicle. Her husband grimaced, shook my hand again and wished me luck. As I watched them go I wondered why she had come to this special place, a place I felt was a privilege to be earned through effort and a willingness to be touched by its wonder. Maybe I was kidding myself but I knew we valued things that are hard won. It was too easy to come here now.
The map told me that it was another 25 kilometres or so to Purnie Bore. The radio told me that the cart pullers would arrive at Poeppel Corner the next day or the day after. According to people who had seen them, they were very happy. They only needed more tobacco. There was no way they could complete what they had set out to do, and I felt a little sorry for them.
Kabul snoozing among flowers after crossing the Simpson Desert.
Camp 18
We did it! Purnie Bore at 4.00 p.m. The first recorded solo east–west crossing on foot of the Simpson Desert. Cresting the dune I was greeted by a forest of antennae topped with orange or red pennants. To sporadic cries of ‘Ooh, get ya camera,’ we descended to the camping area of Purnie Bore.
To our left was the green drum of the water storage for the shower and the plumes of vapour from the bore, which at first I thought was a large camp fire. There were more than 30 people and nearly as many questions: ‘Where have you come from?’ ‘Where are you going?’ ‘How far do you do in a day?’
We left the camping area, crossed a dune and took photos with the camels. I unloaded my friends and walked them down to the so-called ‘cool pool’, where the temperature was such that you could put your hand in the water for a drink. I was interested to see how my friends might deal with the water. Surprisingly, they took up little more than they would in a normal drink. Once, twice and that was enough. I waited for a few minutes but they seemed uninterested, so I long-tethered them around the camp. Once they were settled in, I had a cold shower. To get myself warm again, I put together a fire and had a ritual burning of my socks, rigid with sweat, grease and desert dust.
What remarkable camels. They appeared not at all distressed by the 16 days from Birdsville. Of the 66 litres they carried for their own consumption, Kabul drank 35, Chloe 22 and Kashgar only 9 litres! It was a reflection of the amount of work demanded of each animal and a testament to the wonderful season in the desert. I was sure Kashgar was getting even fatter!
Camp 18 Morning
I wrote up my diary snuggled deep in my sleeping bag in the swag. There was a frost on everything and the sky was achingly blue.
The towel I used the night before was rigid, frozen stiff on a branch close by. I supposed much of the frost could be put down to the mist produced by the bore where the water temperature exceeded 80 °C. The camels were blowing vapour like woolly dragons.
I went for a short walk and looked at the bird-viewing hut erected by the Friends of the Simpson Desert in July 1992. Cold as it was, flutterings, splashings and plonks accompanied my walk to the hut. The bore was a paradise for bird life. It was also a reminder of the early petroleum exploration that took place in the western Simpson in the early 1960s. At one time the volume of water flowing from the bore amounted to 2.5 million litres per day. Despite lobbying from some quarters to have the bore capped, the flow had instead been reduced so that it continued to provide a habitat for a variety of native plants and animals, particularly birds, as well as providing the last source of readily accessible permanent water before crossing the desert from west to east.
My enjoyment of the birdcalls was interrupted by coughing, forced laughs and coffee making of the people camped by the showers and toilets. Why did people camp so close to ‘the amenities’ and each other? I just could not fathom it.
We left late in the morning and camped 20 kilometres west of Purnie Bore, just off the track to Dalhousie and its natural mound springs. I looked forward to soaking my tired body in their warmth. Not long after leaving Purnie Bore we left the desert country of sand dunes and entered a country of clay-pans and open plains.
As we followed the track we were often stopped and questioned. The Williams had a cattle station between William Creek and Oodnadatta, west of Lake Eyre. On hearing I had crossed the Simpson, an arm reached into the back of the vehicle and gave me a bottle of champagne. They insisted I take it, ‘as we don’t drink it!’ Their little daughter Rene, no more than five years old, hopped from the car and pulled on my shirt to attract my attention. She had to tell me about her horse. ‘Rattler Boy is more than 22,’ she gushed, ‘and, and, he has lots of ribbons!’
In the dark that night I saw the campfire reflected in two eyes. In the morning she lay on her belly watching me. I watched her. She would not get any closer than 20 metres or so, despite my invitations. The dingo was liquid red-gold with a creamy southern cross on her chest, a desert familiar who followed us through the day.
Late in the afternoon she danced for me. Before some dense vegetation changed to open plain, she changed her position from the left flank or rear of our little column, and took up a post in front of us – and waited. We must have been within 10 metres when she stood up on her hind legs and pirouetted! Then she jumped. Twice. Then with a yelp she trotted off, back from where she came. Lean, alive and of the land and so beautiful I felt a sob in my chest and Kabul nuzzled me with his lips, happy to share in something so special.
We were only a few kilometres from Dalhousie Springs and I sought refuge inside the bivvy bag, the hum and whine of mosquitoes ringing in my ears just o
utside the netting. They were driving me mad – as well as the camels. I could hear them stomping and rolling and rubbing themselves against bushes in a vain attempt to rid themselves of the pests.
6 Dalhousie And to the Centre
– 14 July 1998
You got country in you and there’s a little bit of you in the country.
Jimmy, Docker River, 25 August 1998
Chloe’s calf was born on 14 July. I called the little fellow Dalhousie after the springs a few kilometres away. At 0740, in the full light of day, the birth of Dalhousie commenced with Chloe doing a lot of rolling on her back, inhibited as she was by her hump, scissoring her back legs. For much of the time she lay on her side, the other camels very interested in proceedings.
The calf’s offside foreleg appeared first, followed by his little head, and for an hour Chloe lay panting but not overly distressed. At 10 the birth was complete, Chloe getting to her feet and the calf sclooping to the ground. I was a little concerned about the placenta but again Chloe stood and at 11 it too sclooped wetly to the ground.
It was obvious that Dalhousie was a very strong calf. He took after Kabul, solid and alert. His long legs with their large bony knees were touched with white like the leg warmers of aerobic instructors in winter. Being the experienced mother, Chloe directed him to her very swollen udder and he sucked greedily at her nipples.
As I sat and watched I wondered whether I should shoot him. After all, his meat would make a welcome addition to my diet. Only later in the day did I think on how he might be left to live. It seemed to me that we are often given to dispose of those things that prove an inconvenience. So many things in life had become cheapened and disposable because they did not add value to busy lives. Around 4 p.m. I thought I might have a solution and started work. I built a sling on Chloe’s saddle and thought that Dalhousie could be carried in it. We would have few water problems until we reached the Gibson Desert, so I made certain that all the water was off Chloe and now with Kabul.
