Cops, Crocs & Leopard-Skin Jocks. Bob Magor
Munro, “I’m stuffed. I can’t keep going.”
Munro replied, “We have to. There must be water around because we’ve seen cattle and they must be drinking somewhere near.”
But I was rooted. “I can’t go on,” I gasped again. Munro looked around and found a little stone.
‘ “Here. Suck this,” he said as he handed it to me. “It will stop you feeling thirsty. Suck it you weak bastard.”
‘The abuse and the stone certainly did the trick for half an hour or so and then I hit the wall again. “I’m stuffed,” I croaked, “My legs are stuffed and I’m thirsty. I can’t go any further. You go on. I’ll stay here and die.” I still had the stone in my mouth but it wasn’t creating saliva any more. My head throbbed, my whole body had begun to shut down, my legs felt numb and I was dropping backwards and forwards into unconsciousness. I knew my end was near.
‘Munro began to abuse me again but I just didn’t care any more. As he stood there squinting into the sun he said, “Look. I can see the fan of a windmill in the distance.”
‘ “Get stuffed,” I croaked. “I’m not falling for that one.” I dropped into the orange dirt.
‘ “No, it’s true,” he yelled excitedly. “I can see it about two miles away.”
‘He sat me up and I squinted into the distance. It was there all right. I wasn’t sure if it was a mirage or not but it sure got me going again. It seemed to take half a day to get there with Munro half-dragging me along. As we got closer we could see it definitely wasn’t a mirage and it wasn’t a tank. It was just a big hole in the ground that the water pumped into from the windmill. It was pretty grotty from the cattle and animals that had drunk and shat in it over the years but it was the best and sweetest water I’d ever tasted. I drank and drank. Then I spewed and spewed. Then I drank and drank again. Then I spewed again. What a bloody performance! But I didn’t care.
‘While we were lying in the water we heard a noise. We looked up to see a Blitz truck coming in our direction. The windmill was right on the edge of the road so Munro had no trouble flagging it down. Our salvation was complete. We reckoned that only the good die young, so there was the reason we were saved!
‘We filled up the waterbag and they gave us a lift back to our car. The other two weren’t too bad because they hadn’t been walking for two days, but they sure enjoyed a drink of that crappy water. The blokes in the Blitz took us to Top Springs and dropped us off.
‘Old Ma Hawkes was the tough old bird who ran the pub there. I had my swag with my rifle poked through the strap. I’m not sure whether she’d heard of me or just didn’t like the look of me and my rifle because she contacted the Katherine coppers. They turned up later that day and looked us over. They decided to take the other three to Katherine but not me because I was pretty weak and they didn’t think I should travel. They told Ma I should stay there and rest.
‘She wasn’t too impressed with this idea, especially when Munro decided that he’d stay with me. She could see that we were just going to hang around with no money and no nothing so Ma rang Roy Harvey, the Wave Hill copper, and said politely, “I want this arsehole out the way!” She had a way with words, old Ma.
‘Roy Harvey came down to sort things out. He took my gun and threw it on the back seat of the Willys jeep he was driving. We went back into the pub and a couple of hours later a stock inspector called in to wet his throat as he passed. He was heading back to the Stuart Highway and was happy to give us a lift for company. He’d decided to have a couple of drinks with the copper before he went so I sneaked out and got my rifle from the copper’s jeep and rolled it up inside my swag instead of through the strap.
‘The stock inspector gave us lift into Dunmarra, where we hitched a ride to Katherine and eventually back to Broome. It had been a bigger adventure than we’d anticipated and it was the only time in all my outback life that I looked like dying of thirst. Norman Munro definitely saved my life on that trip just by making me put a stone in my mouth. I was ready to give up. I was absolutely rooted.
‘We lobbed back in Broome with a story to tell and me without a car. Nothing had changed but a familiar pattern began to emerge. I began to be a nuisance again and the police started paying me lots of attention. I went to gaol a few times for fighting and I was also arrested for cohabiting with the Aboriginals. That was a crime in those days. They were trying to stop a half-caste race from evolving but that was really a lost cause. I don’t know why they tried because half the blokes in the Top End and the Kimberley lived with black women. There weren’t very many white ones so, unless you became a monk, there wasn’t much alternative.
‘I’d earned a reputation as the “Kingpin of Broome”, which made me a target with the local coppers all the time. It also made me a target for any bloke full of booze or a blow-in who wanted to top up his own reputation by having a go at me. Eventually they got me before a magistrate, who looked at my long list of convictions around Australia and shook his head.
‘ “We can do without your type in town,” he said. With that he gave me the ultimatum of six months in gaol, or thirty days to leave town and never to return above the 26th parallel. That was somewhere around Carnarvon. I agreed to the latter. Never being good with directions, when I left town I went to Derby instead of heading south. There was still lots of country I hadn’t seen.’
It was a great night between Anne’s expertise in the galley and a number of beers thanks to Allan. I think they have more stars in the bush because I’d never seen more. The warm night air was so humid you could almost eat it with a fork so getting to sleep in my swag was going to be a chore.
Rest suddenly became important when Roy’s voice broke the ambience. ‘We’re catching the 6.30 tide in the morning. There’s a slab of horse meat in the meat-house to cut up for crab bait so if you don’t get an early start you’ll miss breakfast!’ The last part of his statement was directed at me.
Welcome to the real world, I thought. It wasn’t much fun being a slave!
A combination of heat and Roy’s orders had me out of my swag long before dawn. The horse meat was getting past its use-by date but I assumed the crabs wouldn’t care. The dogs didn’t either as they rubbed around my legs looking hopeful.
As I walked back to the main camp to wash my hands I spotted Anne’s shadowy form knocking up breakfast. What a girl! As we shared a brew in the darkness and waited for Roy to get out of bed Anne told me how her brother always loved his fighting. ‘Even as a kid he’d go down the beach and talk his mates into having a bit of a play fight. “Let’s have some fun and get a bit of exercise,” he’d say. He’d take on three of them playing around and sparring, but eventually one would accidentally clip him and he’d forget they were his mates. Next thing they’d be on the ground and he’d be apologising. It happened every time but because they idolised him they came back for more.
‘He eventually took up boxing in the amateur clubs during his teens and had trophies to show his success. This new talent, of course, made him a brawler around town. There were usually only two hits – he hit someone and they hit the ground! It usually meant that the police also became involved. Bad Roy!’
‘Who’s bad?’ Roy asked as he descended from his caravan. ‘You done that crab bait?’
‘It’s in the boat, Roy,’ I replied.
‘Those bloody dogs better not have eaten it or you’ll be in strife,’ he growled. He grabbed a couple of slices of toast and jam that Anne was about to eat and yelled, ‘Let’s get moving. No time to stand around gossiping when there’s work to be done!’ It seemed that Roy wasn’t a morning person. Once in the boat we took off flat strap, with his trademark Yeehah filling the air.
‘During this part of my Kimberley life,’ Roy said as we headed up the glassy Wearyan