From Strength to Strength

by Sara Henderson

  ‘I just flushed them all down the toilet, and I didn’t take one last night.’ We put our arms around each other and cried.

  ‘We’ll make it, darling, we’ll make it.’ Danielle came into the room and put her arms around both of us. We all cried.

  In normal times, Danielle and Marlee fought like cat and dog. They fought over anything. But during this time Danielle was the sweetest of sisters.

  Each day saw a step along the recovery path. Of course it would take years to conquer the grief, if ever. But you learn to live around it. You laugh and appear happy and seem to be enjoying yourself while all the time the grief is alive and well inside you. The secret is to control it, so that you can live with it, so that it doesn’t destroy you. Marlee has achieved this, but only after a long, hard, sad road. She presents a smiling face to the world, but, being her mother, I can see behind this. Her eyes say, ‘Sorry, I can’t help still being sad’ and my eyes say back. ‘It’s okay, be sad, just keep it with us’.

  We still have a good cry, but over the years the hopelessness of the grief has faded slightly—it’s become a soft, acceptable sort of grief that can even tolerate a sad smile now and then.

  CHAPTER 24

  1988-1990

  After what is considered, in the business world, a reasonable time, the bank reminded us of the loan money sitting waiting. I thought it would be good to get Marlee away from the station for a while, so she and Danielle drove to Queensland to buy breeders. Most of the legwork had been done by an old friend, Alan Woods, who, through an agent, had narrowed our purchase down to a selection from four properties. True to form, he led us to top quality cattle and the purchase was made.

  They drove back with the cattle trucks, resting the cattle along the way. They arrived on Bullo with decks and decks of beautiful Brahman breeders and a few decks of gorgeous bulls. To see those animals walking regally down the ramp was marvellous. They were Bullo’s future. They had cost a lot of money, but they were worth it.

  Now when I drive through the paddocks and see the beautiful little Brahman calves frisking about, I remember Charles saying, ‘Some day on Bullo there’ll be top quality cattle grazing on improved green pasture for as far as the eye can see.’ When he said that he was looking at inbred shorthorns chewing on stubble on the salt flats.

  We are getting there, Charlie, we are getting there.

  April 1989 was the courtcase with Gus. I tried to settle out of court again, not that this case would affect me emotionally. It was upsetting—I had known Gus since our airport meeting in 1960—but it could not hurt me in the way that an entanglement with your daughter could. Financially, it was a different matter. And that was why we ended up in court, because of money—half a million dollars.

  In the deed signed in 1985, Charles and Gus had agreed that Charles would deliver eight hundred head of breeder cows and thirty bulls. In the hand-written contract they both signed, it was stated that delivery would take place over three years with one last year for any shortfall. Charles had written the delivery as four years, two hundred head per year. Gus said he wanted as many cattle as possible in the first year. Charles said he didn’t think the Bullo herd could stand losing more than two hundred the first year. They finally agreed to change the first year’s delivery to four hundred breeders on the understanding that if Charles could not deliver all four hundred, then the shortfall, indeed any shortfall over the three years, would be made up in the fourth year. In Gus’s own handwriting, on the first handwritten draft contract, and in his own diary, he said, ‘Henderson to have the option to make up any shortfall in 1988.’

  As I said to my lawyers, ‘This is the truth and it is in Charles’s and Gus’s handwriting. This is what they agreed, yet you tell me this cannot be used in court.’

  ‘The court will only look at the final deed.’

  ‘You mean the ambiguous jargon the lawyers wrote?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No one is interested in the truth, a loophole has been found and now there will be endless exchange and manoeuvring of fact and laws, and the truth is out the window, forgotten.’ He had the grace to look uncomfortable.

  So we were in court arguing over an ambiguous clause, even though Marlee and I had agreed to deliver all the cattle to Gus in the three years without the fourth year’s grace. The year Charles died, which was the second year, we could have delivered all that year’s cattle to him, except that it would have been three weeks late. We had one hundred and thirty-three of the two hundred head in the yards and he refused to come and inspect them. The next year we wanted to deliver all the cattle and finish the contract, but he refused to accept them, saying that they were ‘out of time’. Because of these so-called ‘out of time cattle’ he was suing us for half a million dollars.

  So the ponderous wheels of litigation started to move. I knew nothing about courts of law. Except for a few minutes in the courtroom during one of Charles’s endless legal encounters, I had no idea of court procedure.

  Apparently, the first step was to obtain a barrister. Gus Trippe had a top Q.C. from Sydney, so we picked a top Q.C. from Brisbane. He was obviously a good choice because after our lawyers had spent some weeks briefing him, he was appointed a judge. This was February, and the case was in April. Richard, our lawyer, then approached a Q.C. in Adelaide and he agreed to take over the case. After another period of briefing, arrangements were being made for him to come to Darwin when a murder case he was handling was rescheduled to our dates in court, so he had to hand back the file. Richard then approached a local Q.C. Time was running out but Richard said that as the Q.C. lived in Darwin, we would be able to make up for lost time. More briefing. By this time I was feeling more than anxious. It was bordering on lunacy.

  Richard called a week before the trial.

  ‘I don’t know how to tell you this.’

  ‘Let me guess, our Q.C. has been made a judge?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He’s been hit by a bus?’ I would have believed anything.

  ‘No, he has a trial that will now run over into the first three days of our trial. So he’s called to ask if his junior counsel can handle it for that time.’

  ‘A Darwin junior counsel against a top New South Wales Q.C? Why bother going into court?’ I was desperate.

  ‘Leave it with me, I’ll see what I can do.’

  I put down the receiver. Did I have any choice?

  It was Wednesday, five days before the trial, when Richard called. ‘Good news, we have a Q.C. I’ve already started briefing him. Can you be in Darwin on Saturday to talk to him?’

  ‘Yes. And do you think he could lock himself in the courtroom incommunicado until Monday?’

  Richard laughed. ‘His name is Graham Hiley.’

  I put the phone down. I thought, well, I suppose a Q.C. five days before a trial is better than no Q.C. at all.

  Where had I heard that name? I opened the file on the case and flipped through the endless notes that had accumulated during the build-up, I found his name way back at the beginning. I had called a friend in Sydney for advice, and he had come back with the name Graham Hiley. He was considered to be the best Q.C. in Darwin. My heart jumped—we had landed on our feet, we were back in the ballgame.

  We met Graham on Saturday and Marlee and I spent many hours telling the story and answering questions. We both left Graham’s office feeling much happier than we had for many months. We had liked him instantly.

  Monday arrived. Nerves were top billing. Richard told us Marlee was allowed to hear the opening address by both counsel, but then she would have to leave as she was a witness. The Q.C. for Trippe opened. Ten minutes into his address, I felt sick. If he proved any of the things about us he said he would, we were good candidates for the devil’s job. Marlee looked at me and our eyes said the same thing, ‘We are in trouble.’

  This man was certainly living up to his reputation. We were in the right, but I quickly realised that in the courtroom this was irrelevant. It was how you pla
yed the game and we were up against a top pro. I was feeling very sorry for myself when one of the court’s officers came into the room and went up to the judge. Trippe’s Q.C. stopped as the judge held up his hand. The officer whispered something to the judge. He called Graham and the other Q.C. over to the bench. They spoke for a while in hushed tones. We gleaned that this was not part of normal procedure because Gus was asking his lawyers what was happening.

  Gus’s barrister had to leave immediately, his father was critically ill and he was needed back in Sydney. He excused himself and left the courtroom. There was stunned silence.

  The junior counsel stepped in and the address continued. Then Graham spoke and on it rolled. The case really revolved around one side saying each load of cattle had to be delivered in the year stated with twelve months’ grace for each year, and the other side—our side—saying three years to deliver eight hundred head with one year, the fourth, for any shortfall, as per the handwritten contract. But here we were day after day laboriously wading through a mountain of seemingly unrelated facts and reports. What a nightmare. My only advice on going to court is, don’t! If there is any way of settling your differences out of court, take it.

  The biggest blow was yet to come. Trippe informed me that Bonnie was to testify in court. So, in fact, he was able to hurt me emotionally. To watch your own daughter standing up in court and willingly testifying against you is more than any parent should have to endure. I felt completely cold and empty inside. I didn’t think she could hurt me any more, but I was wrong.

  When it was all over we had to wait for the decision. Richard said it could take months, but for the first few weeks we jumped at every phone call. Then, as the weeks passed, the urgency did too. We still speculated endlessly but we were now very busy with the mustering. In June, Richard phoned.

  ‘We won!’ he shouted down the line. I closed my eyes and said a silent thank you to God. ‘All in all a fantastic result,’ Richard went on.

  All I could get out was, ‘Oh Richard, that’s wonderful!’

  ‘Of course it’s not over yet, he could appeal.’

  ‘What do you mean, not over, we won didn’t we?’

  ‘Yes, but he could appeal.’

  Here we go again. I just knew Trippe would appeal. ‘Okay, what happens now?’

  So Richard outlined the complicated procedure of an appeal.

  ‘But if in twenty-eight days he doesn’t file an appeal, it’s over?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Another twenty-eight days. We put our heads down and worked to stay sane. Twenty-eight days passed—no appeal. Again a silent prayer of thanks. For the first time in months we went about our work with some lightness in our hearts.

  After many years of forward planning, the army’s ‘K89’ was finally moved into gear. What a massive undertaking. Most people have no idea of the work entailed in moving men and equipment on this scale. K89 was the largest peacetime exercise in the world and stretched across three States, Western Australia, Northern Territory and Queensland. Most of the Engineer Regiment was stationed on Bullo—about two hundred plus.

  By the end of the exercise, I am sure most of the ‘goodies’ and ‘baddies’ had had tea and banana cake at the Bullo River homestead. At one stage of the ‘war’, I was baking ten supersize cakes a day, and I gave up icing them as they were still hot when the last piece disappeared from the plate.

  The association between Bullo and the Australian Army goes back to 1972. Charles regarded the Australian Army as one of the best fighting units in the world and always welcomed it on Bullo. I suppose in return for this continued support, the army offered to build a causeway across the Bullo River. The Department of Roads supplied the materials, the army, the expertise, and Bullo nine hundred banana cakes and thousands of gallons of tea.

  The war over, and the causeway completed, on their last night we had the opening ceremony. The men were not allowed to drink alcohol, but nothing was said about eating, so Marlee and I made a massive fruitcake and used one gallon of rum in the making. By the night of the ceremony, every soldier within one hundred miles knew there was a gallon of rum in the fruitcake.

  Marlee and I iced the cake and decorated it with ‘Thank you’, and put it safely on the back seat of the Pajero, or so we thought.

  About ten miles from the causeway, a wallaby suddenly exploded out of the grass on the side of the road, with two dingoes in hot pursuit. He tried to jump the Pajero, failed, and crashed into the window behind me on the passenger’s side. The window shattered into a thousand pieces, and they all showered down onto the beautiful rum-laced ‘thank you’ cake.

  When we arrived at the causeway we told the tale of the wallaby. But the anticipation of one gallon of rum was too much and the glass-covered cake was whisked away to the operating table where, with surgeon’s skill, the glass-impregnated icing was delicately removed. The fruitcake was then enthusiastically consumed in record time.

  The dust having settled after the mass exodus of machines and men, we looked forward to a period of relative calm. No such luck. Ten months before, we had bought three hundred breeders from a ‘clean’ (no TB), completely destocked, restocked property. It now seemed that this property had just had what was termed a ‘breakdown’, which meant that TB had been found in the herd. And because we had bought cattle from there, our cattle were now suspect.

  This event happening hundreds of miles away had the following effect on Bullo: we could not sell these cattle, or any of their offspring, except for immediate slaughter—their offspring had been meant for the live-steer export trade. We could not move them to any other part of the property, and the area they were in, which had been classed as clean, was now infected. So our eight-year programme of testing to achieve ‘clear’ status was now possibly down the drain and we had a quarter of the property isolated. Also, the herd was not there alone. With it was a herd of four hundred that had tested clean through the programme, plus sixty breeder bulls, which had been about to move around the property as they were now old enough to work, and eight hundred other breeders bought in Queensland. We were talking about fifteen hundred head of cattle.

  Marlee and I listened in silence as we were told we had to shoot all the beautiful breeders we had worked so hard to buy. At that stage we were working extra bulldozing contracts and entertaining tourists on top of all our other work in order to keep up our interest payments until the breeders’ offspring started to bring in money. Some days it was from four a.m., working cattle in the yards and bulldozing, and then sitting down to dinner with twelve or sixteen guests until midnight. Marlee would slip away around ten and I would stay until the guests went to bed. She would then be up at four a.m. and I could sleep till six. Now we were being told it was all in vain. We came out with the same words in unison.

  ‘Over my dead body you will!’

  Something in our voices must have conveyed our determination because they then brought up the option of testing the herd. The discussions which followed stretched over eighteen months. In the halls of the offices of BTEC, Marlee and I became known as ‘the Henderson ladies’, and an awful lot could be read into that phrase.

  The animals in question had been established in an area termed as ‘bush’. This means a large tract of undeveloped land with very little fencing. In this particular case there was no internal fencing at all. There was a fence at twelve-mile. This was across the valley from mountain range to mountain range and the ‘twelve-mile’ meant it was twelve miles from the homestead. The next fence, again across the valley, was at twenty-two-mile. So the area was roughly ten miles by eighteen miles. Our plan before the breakdown had been to establish the young breeders in that area and let them settle down the first year, then muster them the following year. With the cattle now suspect, we couldn’t do this. We had to muster and test them all, hold them for a period, and then test them again.

  This entailed all kinds of problems. It would take us the rest of the season to build fences to enable us to muster the
m and by the time we had finished there would be no more time to finish our yearly mustering to earn our income. We said we couldn’t achieve this immediately—it would have to be at the beginning of the next season after the wet. After much debating and arguing, they agreed. Over the wet we would build the fencing needed to successfully muster that big area. We finally achieved the testing by about September of the following year and came up clean!

  However, this was another twelve months down the track. At present, it was near the end of the mustering season 1989, and apart from the suspect cattle problem we had had a good season, and both court cases were over.

  Danielle had met ‘Mr Right’. He had his own business in Queensland and he could not come to Bullo, so she wanted to go and live in Queensland for a while. But she felt she was letting us down by leaving. However, as I explained to her, ‘Martin is unhappy because he can’t see you, and you’re unhappy for the same reason.’ And this wasn’t helping the happiness situation on Bullo, because Marlee and Danielle were back to their regular arguing. We would miss her dreadfully, but I thought it would be good for her to go out into the outside world on her own. So in November we sadly waved goodbye and I watched ‘my baby’ take that big step into the outside world and womanhood.

  Marlee caught scrubber bulls with the ‘green machine’ until the rain made it impossible to continue and around the 20th of December we rushed into Darwin for Christmas shopping. While we were there, we visited Richard, our solicitor, and he told us that Trippe had filed an appeal.

  ‘How can he? What about the twenty-eight days? They were up five months ago!’

  ‘They’re claiming the judgment is not complete until costs are settled and that was only done a few weeks ago.’

  Richard did not feel that this was likely to get approval, so our lawyers lodged an objection to the right to appeal.

  New year wasn’t much to celebrate—we had the BTEC problem to solve, the court case was back on the agenda and the interest rates were climbing daily.