Off the Map

by Fergus Fleming

  By mid-December Wright and the others had yet to arrive, and Burke decided he could wait no longer. There had been several bad thunderstorms in the past weeks, and all the signs suggested it had been raining to the north as well. It was too good an opportunity to let pass. Accordingly, he divided his party yet again and on 16 December set out for the Gulf of Carpentaria with Wills, King and an ex-sailor named Charles Gray, who had joined the expedition on the way to Menindie and was regarded as a dependable bushman. Brahe was left behind at Depot LXV with orders to follow Burke if Wright appeared within the next few days, but otherwise to stay put until the explorers returned from the north. How long would they be away? Burke estimated it might take three months to cover the 1,400-odd miles to the Gulf and back. But if the going was poor, or if they encountered some unforeseen disaster, they might well be gone for only a month. If they were not back in three months then Brahe was to remain at Cooper’s Creek for as long as his supplies lasted before heading south. Burke, however, was confident this would never happen. When he divided the provisions with Brahe he took sufficient to last four men 12 weeks and, if eked out, the food might stretch a little longer; but he did not expect the need for serious rationing. Brahe thought Burke’s estimate was optimistic. As the six camels moved out, he called to King, ‘Goodbye, I do not expect to see you for at least four months.’

  To begin with, everything seemed fine. True, the ground was rough underfoot, the landscape monotonous, the flies ubiquitous and the heat so great that they had to march by night. But they rarely went more than a few days without finding water and grazing for the camels. When on 22 December they reached the expanse of rock that Sturt had named Stony Desert, Wills was amazed by how little it resembled a desert. ‘I do not know whether it arose from our exaggerated anticipation of horrors or not,’ he wrote, ‘but we thought it far from bad travelling ground, and as to pasture ... many a sheep run is, in fact, worse.’ Four days later the Stony Desert was behind them, and on 9 January Wills was able to write: ‘Traversed six miles of undulating plains, covered with vegetation richer than ever; several ducks rose from the little creeks as we passed, and flocks of pigeons were flying in all directions.’ By 30 January they had climbed a series of sharp 1,000-feet peaks (the Selwyn Range) and were struggling through the boggy territory alongside the Flinders River. Only 30 miles separated them from the coast.

  The route they were following was not unknown to Europeans. The explorers Augustus Charles Gregory and Ludwig Leichardt had previously probed south from the Gulf of Carpentaria. Burke had thus linked the furthest north of Sturt to the furthest south of Gregory and Leichardt and in doing so had effectively crossed the continent. Instead of the baking sands or boundless sea that some had told him to expect, he had found a relatively fertile land. The journey had never been hard, and now, with Aborigines materializing from every quarter to point out the best waterholes, with wild yams growing so freely that one could simply pluck them from the soil, and with flocks of geese, plover and pelican swooping over the marshes, it seemed positively easy. All that remained was to reach the Gulf, which they did on 10 February – or rather did not quite, tasting salt water in the river but not actually seeing the sea, which Burke decided was superfluous. On a tree at their northernmost camp they carved the numerals CXIX.

  At this point Brahe’s judgement looked more accurate than Burke’s. It had taken them two months to cross Australia, and they now had one month’s provisions for the return journey to Cooper’s Creek. But all was not lost: for at least part of the way the terrain had water, vegetation and wildlife; and with careful rationing – 12 strips of dried meat plus a quarter-pound of flour per person per day – Burke reckoned they could reach Cooper’s Creek before Brahe left for Menindie. As they retraced their steps, however, and the rains fell without cease, they made poor progress. By 7 March they had covered about 100 miles and were feeling ill. They had dysentery and were afflicted by what Wills described as ‘a helpless feeling of lassitude that I have never before experienced to such an extent’. Gray was particularly badly affected, and often they had to stop for him to catch up. By 25 March they were through the Selwyn Ranges, but they were no more than halfway home and it had taken them 40 days to get that far. The wildlife that Wills had reported on the way north seemed to have disappeared, and all the land offered (apart from endless rain and mud) was the hardy desert plant portulac, with which they supplemented their rations. Gray, who was in charge of the stores, became weaker, and one day was caught stealing flour, an offence for which, according to Wills, he ‘received a good thrashing. There is no knowing to what extent he has been robbing us. Many things have been found to run unaccountably short.’

  They began to slaughter their animals, drying what meat they could carry and gorging themselves on the rest. They abandoned inessential equipment, hoping thereby to increase their pace. But the rain continued to hamper them. And the further south they went the more frequently they encountered another hazard: sandstorms whose red clouds of dust whipped their faces, reduced visibility to a matter of yards, and for days on end made progress impossible. On 10 April they re-encountered the Stony Desert, through which they struggled grimly, taking it in turns to ride their two remaining camels. Wills, who had written earlier about how fanciful its perils seemed, remarked only that they were very lucky to find water. Seven days later, with the desert behind them, Gray died of exhaustion and hunger. His companions were now so weak that it took them a whole day to dig his three-foot-deep grave. To mark the spot they slung a rifle from the branches of a nearby tree. They also discarded the last of their equipment, retaining only the bare minimum to see them the 70 miles to Depot LXV: a compass and barometer, two spades, their rifles, a small amount of dried meat, and some padding that had been meant for the camels but which they now used as bedding. (They did not have a tent, having slept in the open since their departure.) On Sunday 21 April Burke, King and Wills rose early for the last dash to Depot LXV. It was 30 miles, a hard day’s work by any standard, but the prospect of food – and company – spurred them on. Wright would have arrived and the camp would be a cornucopia. In their debilitated condition the journey was a nightmare. Wills recorded that their legs ‘were almost paralysed, so that each of us found it a most trying task only to walk a few yards. Such a leg-bound feeling I never before experienced and hope I never shall again. The exertion required to get up a slight piece of rising ground, even without any load, induces an incredible sensation of pain and helplessness, and the general lassitude makes one unfit for anything.’ But what did this matter when salvation was so close?

  Brahe, meanwhile, was wondering what to do. Wright had not appeared, neither had Burke, and his food could not last much longer. During the past four months his party had been pestered by marauding Aborigines, who pilfered items of equipment and occasionally threatened them with spears. Brahe had seen the marauders off by firing his rifle in the air. Latterly, he had constructed a stockade to keep the natives at bay. More worrying to Brahe than the Aborigines or the uncertainty of his position, however, was a strange malady that had spread among them. His men’s gums were sore, their legs hurt and their joints were swollen. They felt increasingly feeble. Puzzled, Brahe put it down to kicks they had received from the horses and camels. He did not know it, but they were in the first stages of scurvy. Among the many things Burke had sold on his way north, were the wagons of lime juice. Brahe and his company had been living off a Melbourne-sourced diet of salt port and beef, rice, flour, sugar and tea. Unlike Burke, Wills and King, who had eaten portulac, they had not bothered with vegetables. Nor had they bothered to shoot any game – they had plenty of food, so why go to the trouble of shooting more? By the middle of April, with one man on the point of death and two of his camels going lame, Brahe decided he had no option but to turn for home. He buried his excess provisions, enclosed with them a note saying where he was going, and left for Menindie.

  When Burke, Wills and King staggered into Depot LXV on the even
ing of the 21st, the camp was empty. Engraved on a tree were the words:

  DIG

  3 FT. N.W.

  APR. 211861

  Digging as instructed, they uncovered a box of rations and Brahe’s note. The most dispiriting thing was the date it bore: 21 April. They had missed him by a matter of hours. For a moment they contemplated chasing after him – he was probably camped only 20 miles away. But Burke pointed out the madness of such a scheme. In the note Brahe had specifically said: ‘We have six camels and twelve horses in good working condition.’ Their own two camels were so exhausted that they could not do more than five miles a day. They would never be able to catch up before he moved on. Moreover, the 400 miles between Cooper’s Creek and Menindie was not the picnic that Wills had previously called it; large stretches were waterless and could only be crossed with beasts in prime condition. A more sensible course would be to follow Cooper’s Creek to the west and then strike south to Mount Hopeless, in South Australia, where there was a police station and from where the country was hospitable all the way to Adelaide. Brahe’s box contained food for a month; the distance to Mount Hopeless was 150 miles. At five miles per day they could just make it.

  Burke wrote a note and buried it in the same spot where Brahe had buried his. In it he related their successful crossing of the continent and announced his intention to head for Mount Hopeless. They were infuriated by Brahe’s departure – their rage exacerbated by his taking the spare clothes they had left in his care; their trousers were now so tattered that, as Wills delicately put it, they were ‘in a very awkward position’ – and they were equally cross at Wright’s non-appearance. Burke had given him instructions to return at once with the support group – had expected him to do so in a couple of days – but four months had apparently passed without a sign of him. In his message Burke said nothing of their frustration and resentment. He remarked merely that events had left them ‘greatly disappointed’. Then, finding a rake in the abandoned camp, he propped it against the tree to show that they had been there, his assumption being that it would draw any rescuer’s attention to the words already carved into the trunk. On the morning of 23 April they left Depot LXV and moved down Cooper’s Creek.

  At the start all went well. They travelled slowly, but the water was good and Brahe’s supplies had restored their flagging strength. Occasionally they met groups of Aborigines with whom they bartered small items such as fish hooks in exchange for food. ‘I believe that in less than a week we shall be fit to undergo any fatigue whatsoever,’ wrote the ever-optimistic Wills on 26 April. ‘The camels are improving and seem capable of doing all that we are likely to require of them.’ Two days later one of their camels sank to its neck in mud. Unable to extricate it, they shot it and dried as much of its flesh as they could reach. Shortly afterwards they came to the end of the Cooper’s Creek waterholes. On 8 May their remaining camel collapsed. It was shot and butchered like the first. They were now reduced to living off the land, an experience for which, despite their epic journey to the Gulf, they were unprepared. Wills befriended a passing tribe of Aborigines, who gave him food and showed him how to prepare flour from seeds of the nardoo plant that grew wild in the region. He also trapped birds and rats. By 12 May, however, the Aborigines had moved on, leaving the white men to their own devices.

  While Burke’s party moved west, Brahe’s was travelling south. Not far into his journey he met, at last, the laggardly Wright. Wright’s excuse for not coming to their assistance sooner was lengthy and insubstantial. Some of Burke’s cheques had bounced; nobody would give them credit; he had sent to Melbourne for confirmation that he would be paid as third-in-command but had received no reply; he had been unwilling to move without knowing that he would be paid; and in the absence of news from the organizing Committee he had left the Menindie group – who were completely disorganized – and had spent some time with his wife who lived 14 miles away. He had passed four months in this fashion, until one of his assistants, despairing of his idleness, rode to Melbourne, where an astonished Committee denied all knowledge of Wright’s letter, gave him £400 in cash with which to purchase extra supplies, and instructed Wright to rejoin Burke without delay. He had set out immediately, he said, but had faced terrible difficulties along the way. The Aborigines had been antagonistic, and his group had fallen unaccountably sick. When he met Brahe on 28 April, three of his men were already dead (from scurvy) and he was packing his bags for the return journey.

  Brahe suggested that he and Wright should send the invalids home and make a quick visit to Cooper’s Creek, just to make sure Burke had not returned in his absence. Wright agreed. And so, on 8 May – the day on which Burke was slicing up his last camel – they rode into Depot LXV. They saw the remains of Burke’s campfires, but assumed they had been lit by Aborigines. They saw camel tracks, but reckoned they had been made by Brahe’s animals. They saw the rake leaning against the ‘DIG’ tree, but Brahe thought he must have put it there himself. They did not dig up the cache for fear that Aborigines would notice the disturbed earth and steal the food that Burke might yet – as they thought – find. In total they spent 15 minutes at the empty camp before rejoining the scorbutic casualties in their retreat to civilization. On 8 May Burke, King and Wills were just 30 miles from Depot LXV.

  When, a few days later, the Aborigines moved on, leaving Burke’s party to fend for themselves, the white men were not particularly downcast: they had a quantity of dried meat, there were extensive fields of nardoo in the vicinity and, although they no longer had camels, they were able to cover a fair distance every day. If they continued in this fashion they were sure to find a waterhole somewhere. But after travelling 45 miles south-west towards Mount Hopeless they had yet to find water, and the terrain stretched in a blank, dry expanse before them. So they turned back. On 24 May, while camped on a tendril of Cooper’s Creek, they heard a gunshot. It could only mean one thing: a rescue party had arrived. Wills, the strongest, left on the 27th and reached Depot LXV three days later. Nobody was there. Although he did not know it, the explosion they had heard was not a gunshot but the sound of falling rock as, in the distance, a cliff disintegrated in the heat. Underneath the tree where it said ‘DIG’, Wills deposited his journals and a letter in which he wrote: ‘Both camels are dead, and our provisions are done ... We are trying to live the best way we can, like the blacks, but find it hard work. Our clothes are going to pieces fast. Send provisions and clothes as soon as possible ... The depot party, having left contrary to instructions, has put us in this fix.’ He returned to the others on 2 June.

  By the third week of June Burke’s party was fading fast. The Aborigines had returned and had welcomed them into their camp. But one morning, in their inexplicable fashion, they vanished. The white men did their best, but the diet was too poor and conditions too hard for a group that was already weakened by months in the outback. It took all their energy to gather and pound the nardoo seeds on which their survival depended. In addition, their tattered clothes offered no protection against the thunderstorms and cold nights that now beset them. On 21 June Wills wrote: ‘Unless relief comes in some form or other, I cannot possibly last more than a fortnight. It is a great consolation, at least, in this position of ours, to know that we have done all we could, and that our deaths will rather be the result of mismanagement of others than any rash acts of our own.’ It became apparent that their only hope lay in finding the Aborigines and throwing themselves on their mercy. But Wills, previously the strongest, was now the weakest of the group; he had not the energy even to gather nardoo, let alone trek through the bush. Accordingly, he came to a decision. Burke and King were to leave him behind, he said, while they went ahead to get help. They protested. But as Wills calmly pointed out, if they remained where they were they would surely perish. Splitting the party was their last, slender chance of survival. With a small amount of firewood and some nardoo cakes, he could last for the few days he expected them to be away. If they did not return he would die. But if th
ey did not go he would die anyway. What difference would it make? On 27 June he wrote a final letter to his father: ‘These are probably the last lines you will ever get from me. We are on the point of starvation ... I think to live about four or five days ... My spirits are excellent.’

  Burke and King left on the 28th. Within two days, however, Burke was unable to continue. Like Wills, he wrote a last note for posterity: ‘I hope we shall be done justice to. We have fulfilled our task, but we have been [abandoned].’ He asked King to place his pistol in his right hand. Then, as an afterthought, knowing that King was too enfeebled to dig a grave, he ordered that on no account was he to be buried. Burke never pulled the trigger. He died of starvation on the morning of (probably) 30 June. King pressed on, alone. Two days later he found the remains of an Aborigine camp, which contained a fortnight’s supply of nardoo and where he was able to shoot four crows. Pausing to rest for another couple of days, he took the food back to Wills. But when he arrived Wills was dead.

  It was impossible to tell when the young scientist had died, but if one assumes that he showed the same accuracy when estimating the time left to him as he did when taking the expedition’s readings, it would have been within 24 hours of Burke. For King the sense of solitude must have been overpowering. But there was worse to come. As he prepared to bury the Englishman, he noted that some of his clothes had gone missing. Between Wills’s death and King’s arrival the camp had been visited by natives. The people he had been chasing, the ones who might possibly have saved both Burke and Wills, had been there all the time.