The Best Australian Bush Stories Read online

  ‘And . . . and where’s Jim? He ain’t dead?’

  ‘No; he’s married and settled down in Sydney.’

  Long pause.

  ‘Can you . . .’ said the stranger, hesitatingly. ‘Did you . . . I suppose you knew Mary . . . Mary Wild?’

  ‘Mary?’ said the grocer, smilingly. ‘That was my wife’s maiden name. Would you like to see her?’

  ‘No, no! She mightn’t remember me!’ He reached hastily for his swag, and shouldered it. ‘Well, I must be gettin’ on.’

  ‘I s’pose you’ll camp here over Christmas?’

  ‘No; there’s nothing to stop here for . . . I’ll push on. I did intend to have a Christmas here . . . in fact, I came a long way out of my road a-purpose . . .

  ‘I meant to have just one more Christmas with old Ben Hake an’ the rest of the boys . . . but I didn’t know as they’d moved on so far west. The old bush school is dyin’ out.’

  There was a smile in his eyes, but his bearded lips twitched a little. ‘Things is changed. The old houses is pretty much the same, an’ the old signs want touchin’ up and paintin’ jest as bad as ever; an’ there’s that old palin’ fence that me an’ Ben Hake an’ Jimmy Nowlett put up twenty year ago. I’ve tramped and travelled long ways since then. But things is changed—at least, people is . . .

  ‘Well, I must be goin’. There’s nothing to keep me here. I’ll push on and get into my track again. It’s cooler travellin’ in the night.’

  ‘Yes, it’s been pretty hot today.’

  ‘Yes, it has. Well, s’long.’

  ‘Good day. Merry Christmas!’

  ‘Eh? What? Oh, yes! Same to you! S’long!’

  ‘Good-day!’

  He drifted out and away along Sunset Track.

  ‘THE FREE-SELECTOR’S

  DAUGHTER’

  HENRY LAWSON

  I met her on the Lachlan Side—

  A darling girl I thought her,

  And ere I left I swore I’d win

  The free-selector’s daughter.

  I milked her father’s cows a month,

  I brought the wood and water,

  I mended all the broken fence,

  Before I won the daughter.

  I listened to her father’s yarns,

  I did just what I ‘oughter’,

  And what you’ll have to do to win

  A free-selector’s daughter.

  I broke my pipe and burnt my twist,

  And washed my mouth with water;

  I had a shave before I kissed

  The free-selector’s daughter.

  Then, rising in the frosty morn,

  I brought the cows for Mary,

  And when I’d milked a bucketful

  I took it to the dairy.

  I poured the milk into the dish

  While Mary held the strainer,

  I summoned heart to speak my wish,

  And, oh! Her blush grew plainer.

  I told her I must leave the place,

  I said that I would miss her;

  At first she turned away her face,

  And then she let me kiss her.

  I put the bucket on the ground,

  And in my arms I caught her;

  I’d give the world to hold again

  That free-selector’s daughter!

  Part 4

  THERE’S A PATRON

  SAINT OF DRUNKS

  The pub was the social centre of most small country towns when I was living in the bush. They used to say that the perfect town was one that had two pubs, ‘the one you drank at . . . and the other one’. The ‘other pub’ was often the ‘bloodhouse’ or ‘the one you drink at when you’re barred from the good one’.

  Every town also had a resident ‘town drunk’—in fact, most had more than one. Dipso Dan is an amalgam of several town drunks I got to know while living in bush towns.

  The stories here include a couple of Kenneth Cook’s downright scary accounts of the behaviour of men affected by alcohol in the bush. These stories are even more scary, and oddly amusing, because they are so close to the truth. Anyone who has lived in the bush for any length of time and seen the effects of alcohol on certain blokes can attest to that.

  Frank Daniel’s well-observed story, based on his childhood memories, has a gentle, nostalgic humour to it and reminds me just how much attitudes and lifestyles have changed in less than a lifetime. It contrasts sharply with Lennie Lower’s zany and satiric, but also oddly accurate, account of visiting ‘the bush’.

  There are lots of laughs in these stories of inebriation, but not far beneath the storylines lie some rather sobering thoughts and reflections on what is, or was, considered ‘acceptable behaviour’ in the bush.

  ‘DRUNKS’

  ‘SYD SWAGMAN’

  Wild drunks, mild drunks, weary drunks and sad,

  Drunks that ‘knowed your dad, me son, when he was a lad’,

  Tall drunks, small drunks, tubby drunks and thin.

  Drunks that seem to cheek the cops until they get run in;

  Square drunks, lair drunks, moody drunks and loud,

  Drunks that will not drink with drunks because they are too proud.

  Tough drunks, rough drunks, dirty drunks and fat,

  Drunks that shicker with the flies and shicker on their pat;

  Poor drunks, sore drunks—heads as big as tanks,

  Drunks that keep the town alive with their funny pranks;

  Glad drunks, mad drunks, yellow drunks and white—

  Somehow I meet a lot of drunks whenever I get tight.

  SNAKES AND ALCOHOL

  KENNETH COOK

  ‘THERE’S TWO THINGS THAT don’t mix,’ said Blackie slowly and pompously, ‘snakes and alcohol.’

  It would never have occurred to me to mix them but I nodded solemnly. Nod solemnly is pretty well all you can do when you’re talking to a snake man because they never actually converse—they just tell you things about snakes.

  Blackie was a travelling snake man. He travelled in a huge pantechnicon which had wooden covers on the sides. Whenever he found a paying audience—a school or a tourist centre—he would drop the wooden covers and reveal a glass-walled box the size of a large room. This was his snake house, inhabited by a hundred or so snakes ranging from the deadly taipans and browns to the harmless tree snakes.

  Blackie was like all the snake men I’ve ever met, cadaverously thin, very dirty, extremely shabby and without a second name. I think he was called Blackie because of his fondness for black snakes, or perhaps because his eyes were jet black—he had the only eyes I’ve seen that were black. He looked as though his enormous pupils had supplanted his irises, but if you looked closely you could see the faint outline of the black pupils inside them. I tended to feel uncomfortable looking into those two round patches of black and the suffused and bloodshot eyes (all snake men have suffused and bloodshot eyes—I think it’s because snakes bite them so often).

  I met Blackie just north of Mackay in Queensland where we were both camping on a little-known beach named Macka’s Mistake; I don’t know why it’s named that. I was trying to finish a novel and Blackie was doing something complicated with the air-conditioning of his pantechnicon, so we were thrown together for about a fortnight and became firm friends.

  Blackie was so good and confident with snakes that he imbued me with much of his own attitude. I would often go into his snake house, sit on a log and talk to him while lethal reptiles regarded us torpidly within striking distance or slid gracefully and slowly away from the smell of our tobacco smoke.

  Now and then a black, brown or green snake would slide softly past my foot and Blackie would say, ‘Just sit there and don’t move. It won’t bite you if you don’t move.’ I wouldn’t move and the snake wouldn’t bite me. So, after a time, I became more or less relaxed with the snakes, provided Blackie was there.

  Nothing would have induced me to go into the snake cage without Blackie, but I was convinced he could actually talk to the th
ings, or at any rate communicate with them in some way which both he and they understood. It seemed to me at times fancifully possible that Blackie might have some drops of snake blood in his veins. Or perhaps the venom he had absorbed made him somehow simpatico with the creatures. Mind you, I did notice that the snakes had black eyes too, and that made me wonder.

  There was only one other camper at Macka’s beach, Alan Roberts, a fat and friendly little photographer who had set up a tent and was making a study of seabirds. He, Blackie and I would usually meet in my campervan for drinks in the evening.

  Only the previous night, Blackie had been expounding to me and Alan the dangers of mixing alcohol and snakes. Of course, this took place over a bottle of whisky and I was considerably disconcerted when I called on him in the morning to find him unconscious in his own snake house, two empty whisky bottles by his side and his body festooned with deadly snakes.

  The snakes were lying quite still, apparently enjoying the warmth of Blackie’s motionless body. I assumed he was alive because of the snores that shook the glass windows of the snake house. But I had no idea whether he had been bitten and was in a coma, or had simply drunk himself insensible, or both.

  The snakes resting on Blackie were, as far as I could make out: one taipan (absolutely deadly) two king browns (almost as deadly) a death adder (very deadly) three black snakes (deadly) and one diamond snake (harmless).

  My first impulse was to run screaming for help, but there was nobody in sight, and if Blackie jerked or turned in his drunken or moribund torpor, at least seven deadly snakes would probably sink their fangs into him simultaneously. Then, no doubt, the other eighty or ninety variably venomous snakes would stop lying peacefully round the snake house and join the fray. Blackie’s chances of survival would be slight.

  I knew the snake house door did not lock. Normally when not in use it was covered by a wooden shutter, so I knew I could get in. But did I want to?

  I didn’t consider that in his present state Blackie would be able to provide his normal protection against snakes. Going in with Blackie like this would be worse than going in alone. A treacherous voice within me whispered that it would be better to run away and let Blackie wake up naturally. The snakes were used to him and he would probably instinctively act in the proper way with them.

  Sadly, the treacherous voice wasn’t convincing. Besides, I didn’t know whether Blackie had already been bitten and needed medical help urgently.

  I looked around for a weapon. Under the pantechnicon I saw a rake that Blackie used for clearing his snake house. I picked it up and cautiously and very slowly opened the door. There were several snakes between me and Blackie and I wasn’t sure of their species. They all looked lethal. I poked at them gently with the rake and all of them, except one, resentfully slithered off to the other side of the snake house with no apparent intention except of going back to sleep. The one, a big king brown, raised itself on its coils and began hissing, throwing its head back to strike. I knew enough about snakes now to know that as long as I stayed the length of the snake’s body away from its fangs, they couldn’t reach me. Equally I knew that if I tried to pass this snake to get at Blackie, it could get to me.

  I poked at it with the rake again and it struck, its fangs making a tiny ringing sound against the iron prongs. Blackie had told me that this sort of thing was bad for a snake’s fangs. I didn’t care. I poked at it again and it sank to the ground, wriggled over to Blackie, worked its way onto his back, then coiled again and began looking at me threateningly. It seemed much more agitated than before; no doubt its teeth hurt. The snakes already using Blackie as a mattress stirred fitfully, but didn’t go anywhere.

  A black snake detached itself from a group near the wall and came towards me. I banged it with the rake and it retired, probably mortally hurt. Again, I didn’t care.

  The king brown was hissing like a leaking steam pipe and the death adder appeared to dislike this. It made its way off, taking a path over Blackie’s motionless head. There were still eight snakes on Blackie, seven of which were deadly.

  I pushed tentatively at the king brown and it reared back, but didn’t strike again. The movement disturbed the diamond snake and it went off to a quieter place. But that wasn’t any real advantage, as it was harmless anyway.

  A couple more black snakes started circling the walls and I remembered that the door behind me was open. There was a reasonable chance that within minutes the population of the snake house would be ravening around Macka’s Mistake beach. I preferred they should escape rather than remain in the snake house with me, but I didn’t want them waiting just outside when, if ever, I managed to drag Blackie through the door. I banged the rake on the floor in front of them. They stopped, considered this phenomenon, then retreated. I went back and pushed the door almost to.

  What was Blackie’s great maxim about snakes? Handle them very gently and slowly and they’ll never bite you. I eyed the waving, hissing, tongue-flicking king brown on Blackie’s back and decided I didn’t believe this. Possibly if this king brown would just vacate Blackie’s back I might be able to prod the rest away, gently and slowly.

  However, the king brown showed no inclination to move and it was so angry now I felt that if Blackie so much as twitched an ear it would have him. I was sweating with terror and the rake handle was slippery in my grasp. The tension in my body was so great I knew that if I didn’t solve this quickly I would collapse or run weeping from the snake house.

  The devil with treating snakes slowly and gently, I thought; you can also treat them quickly and violently. I swung the rake at the weaving king brown with every intention of decapitating it if possible. It ducked. The rake missed. The snake struck. It became entangled with the prongs and I was holding the rake in the air with the king brown on the end of it. It sorted itself out quickly, coiled itself around the handle of the rake and began moving towards my hands. Convulsively I flung the rake away. It fell flat on Blackie’s body, stirring the current inhabitants into a frenzy.

  Fortunately, they all seemed to think they were being attacked by other snakes. They whipped up onto their coils and began threatening each other. Then, presumably trying for more advantageous positions, they all slipped off Blackie and began retreating towards the walls. Only one, the taipan, came near me.

  All I could do was try the standard procedure of not moving and hope it would not notice that I was trembling uncontrollably. It went past and took up a position near the door.

  Blackie was clear of snakes for the moment. He still hadn’t moved. But now seemed safe to try to wake him.

  ‘Blackie!’ I screamed and prodded him with my foot. He didn’t stir. ‘Blackie!’ I screamed again and kicked him hard in the ribs. He still didn’t stir.

  All the snakes were awake and active now, but inclined to stay near the walls. The only immediate problem was the taipan against the almost-closed door. Obviously there was no chance of rousing Blackie, so I leaned down and grabbed him by the shoulders. He half turned and belched. The alcohol-loaded gust of breath was the only thing I have ever encountered to approach a camel’s breath for sheer noxiousness. The rake was still across Blackie’s back. I grabbed it with one hand and grabbed him by the collar with the other.

  The collar came away in my hand. I grabbed him by his sparse hair, but there wasn’t enough of it to get a good hold. I grabbed him by the back of his shirt. A great patch of it came away, revealing a bony, dirty yellow back. There was not much left to grab him by, so I took him by the hand and began hauling. Fortunately the hand held together.

  Blackie was no great weight and I began inching him across the floor, brandishing the rake at the taipan guarding the door and desperately aware of the sea of serpents to my right and left and behind me.

  A carpet snake, quite harmless, wriggled within a handspan of my right foot and I hit it with the rake out of sheer spite. I was close to the door, just out of range of the taipan, which showed no sign of moving. I pushed at it with the rake but it
ducked disdainfully and stayed where it was, weaving slowly and keeping its evil eyes fixed, I was sure, on my bare, exposed and palpitating throat.

  I was desperately tempted to throw Blackie at the taipan and probably would have done, except that it’s hard to throw a man anywhere when you’ve only got him by the hand.

  I had, of course, been bellowing my head off for help for some minutes now and it came in the form of Alan Roberts, the photographer who, seeing through the plate glass what was happening, gallantly flung open the door to come to my help.

  The violently pushed door caught the taipan fair in the back of the neck and squashed it against the wall. I went through the door, hauling Blackie after me.

  ‘What the bloody hell . . . ?’ Alan was saying.

  Blackie had somehow stuck on the steps of the snake house. The taipan, apparently undamaged by the door, was very close to his exposed ankle, which it was inspecting curiously. The other snakes were mercifully milling some distance away, hissing among themselves.

  ‘Help me get him out!’ I gasped. Alan went through my routine of trying to grab Blackie by the collar, hair and back of shirt and ended up with handfuls of collar, hair and shirt before he grabbed Blackie’s other hand. Together we hauled him through the door and slammed it in the face of the taipan, which seemed anxious to follow.

  Blackie folded into a grubby heap on the ground and I leaned against the glass and tried to start breathing, which I had apparently stopped doing some time before.

  ‘Has he been bitten?’ said Alan.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I croaked. ‘Get an ambulance.’

  Alan, a competent man who was not about to ask foolish questions, turned to go. Blackie jack-knifed to his feet, opened the door of the snake house and tried to go back in.

  Alan and I grabbed him by the shoulders and slammed the door.

  ‘Blackie!’ shouted Alan. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

  Blackie, immobilised, stared at the closed door bemusedly.