An Alice Girl

by Tanya Heaslip

  Dad of course couldn’t communicate directly with us on the ground, so he would dip his wings and roar over the top of us when he wanted our attention. After a while he started opening the window of the plane and yelling out instructions as he dive-bombed us. That rarely worked because we couldn’t hear a thing over the roar of the engine. It did impact the stock, though, which would flee in terror.

  To avoid this, Dad started scribbling notes and dropping them out the window, which was a nightmare because the note would flutter off and be lost in the wind before we could get to it. Or if it simply fell to the ground, it was always a challenge to follow it with our eyes from the plane window to where it landed. A lost note was a terrifying thing. As often as not, we couldn’t find it, and Dad would furiously scribble another one. His writing was almost indecipherable on a good day, but when he was trying to fly and scribble a note, it was almost impossible to read.

  We all became as telepathic as possible, trying to intuit what a turn of the plane or a dip of the wing meant. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. The person who actually found the note, picked it up and read it was the hero of the hour. We’d all race to hover around, anxiously, trying to decipher Dad’s instructions. We always feared Dad’s fury if he was forced to land in the middle of nowhere to give those instructions in person.

  One day, when Charlie was still with us, we were mustering Bendy Bore on the west side. We quickly learned to hate that leg of mustering more than anything. Flat, red earth and thick scrub provided a perfect place for unwilling cattle to simply sit down in and either hide or not move. It was an endless trek. It was always stinking hot and because it was such a long route, we would have to go without water for hours. The water in our water bags was precious and was kept for emergency sips.

  We had camped overnight at the aptly titled Mob’o’rock Dam, and in the early light we started our long trek to Weii Ben Dam, named after the birth of Benny. The plan was for us to pick up cattle from that dam and paddock and move them on to Bendy. Dad flew over us and dropped a note. As usual we all rushed to get it. M’Lis got there first, jumped off her horse and grabbed it, climbed back on again and read it out to us all, triumphantly. ‘Cattle in the Round Yard in dam.’

  We were all confused. The round yard was back at Mob’o’rock, which we’d just left. We didn’t know what to do. Did that mean Dad had run the cattle back to it? That didn’t make sense. However, we were too scared to disobey orders, so we turned around and galloped back towards the bore we had just left.

  We were secretly hopeful. Perhaps this meant we didn’t have to do the long, dreadful trek to Weii Ben after all. But as we galloped back from where we’d just come, Dad’s plane hurtled towards us. The next minute he dive-bombed us with another note.

  We hammered to a halt, our stomachs sinking. This time Charlie jumped off and grabbed it. He read out loud, slowly. ‘Can’t you read? Cattle in Weii Ben Dam.’

  Charlie shouted to M’Lis, ‘Gimme that first note, eh?’

  M’Lis fished it out from her pocket with dirty fingers and Charlie did a lengthy comparison. Charlie rubbed his forehead under his hat.

  Then he read out, ‘Cattle in and around yard and dam.’

  Dammit—we were off to Weii Ben after all. Turning our horses back, we galloped again to try to catch up to the plane.

  Dammit. Dammit.

  Eventually, Dad realised the notes weren’t very successful, so he had a loudspeaker fitted to the plane. We all hoped that would help, though we were nervous it would frighten the cattle. There was still the roar of the plane engine too, so we could rarely hear more than half the message. His jumbled voice would burst in and out, and we’d all turn to each other, shouting, ‘What did he say? What did he say?’

  When it was obvious that we didn’t understand Dad, he would dive-bomb us again, even closer and more terrifyingly, yelling harder. Sometimes it worked and sometimes we were none the wiser. In the latter case, we raised our hands to him, hoping he’d realised we hadn’t understood. Then he’d fly off and we’d be forced to follow him, hearts in our mouths, hoping what he was saying was ‘Follow me’ and fearing the consequences if it wasn’t.

  Once, we were out at New Well Bore. It was wintertime, 6 a.m. and one degree. We’d camped out the night before and were in thick jackets, our hats pulled low, our fingers blue in the frosty morning as we rode out. Our breath froze on the chilled air. Then we heard the familiar drone and finally saw the plane, with Dad swooping over the top of us. We made out the words, ‘Cattle … behind … hill. Follow me.’ Or at least that’s what we thought he said.

  After a quick, frozen discussion, we all agreed it was.

  M’Lis and Brett turned to each other and grinned. Then they offered up what would become their standard response: ‘And good morning to you, too, Dad.’

  When Dad did have to land—usually because he needed to give instructions we hadn’t understood—it was risky and I always felt sick to the stomach. Would there be somewhere safe for him to land? Would we incur his wrath for forcing him to land? Then, assuming he did land safely, could he take off again?

  The ground was invariably rocky and pitted with rabbit holes and spinifex tussocks, or sandy and scrubby. Light aircraft were built to land and take off on airstrips, not in wild bushland. Landing and taking off were also the most perilous part of flying, according to Dad. ‘Easiest part is when you’re in the air,’ he’d say. Our innards would twist whenever we saw him roaring towards the ground.

  One New Year’s Day Brett was out at New Well Bore helping Dad put in a dam. Brett was on the ground, driving the Land Rover (he’d started to drive it when he was five so was pretty good now), and Dad landed to give instructions. Dad only had a short distance in which to land but Brett watched him get the plane down, skidding to a fast halt. Dad got out, gave his instructions to Brett, then got straight back in the plane. Brett looked in concern at the space in which Dad had to take off—at least half that of the airstrip at the homestead—but Dad simply kicked the propeller into life and roared off, pulling the plane up into a U-turn in order to get the wheels off the ground. Brett watched, stunned, convinced Dad would crash in the middle of the U-turn. But the next thing, Dad pulled the plane up and was soon just a speck in the sky.

  Another time, Brett and Charlie were out mustering at the greatly misnamed Tanya Dam (it took in water for a couple of years and then dried up, becoming completely useless after that). Dad landed on a small flat with his usual skidding stop, met with the team and gave instructions. Then he climbed back into the plane. However, due to recent rain, the small flat now had a huge ditch in the middle. While Dad had been able to put the plane down, there was no room to take off. Undeterred, Dad kicked the engine into life, upped the speed, put on second-phase flaps to the wings, and got just enough speed to ‘leap’ the plane over the ditch, before touching down on the other side and then pulling the plane up into the air. It was a miracle. Brett later explained it to me like this: A one-phase flap is used in aircraft to create speed, while second and third phases slow the aircraft for landing. Dad had worked out that second phase also got DQG’s wheels off the ground quickly, without the plane climbing upwards, which meant he could use it to jump over ditches, logs or big rocks in the way. So in effect, DQG clawed itself off the ground to a height of a couple of metres for a distance of about fifty metres, until it was safe for Dad to increase speed, after which he’d climb upwards. Yes, it was absolutely a miracle!

  Brett was once in the Plant Paddock mustering, with Dad overhead. Dad nose-dived over some cattle, then pulled the plane up high, arcing back onto the cattle with a turn so sharp that the plane should have stalled. But to Brett’s disbelief, Dad dived again, pulled out and flew over the nearby Bushranger Yard with aplomb.

  Over the years we got to see firsthand Dad’s skill of twisting the plane around, descending low over cattle or fences and then pulling up with the stall button flashing and beeping furiously. Beep beep beep beep beep be
ep! In the end Dad got so sick of the button flashing and beeping that he got some thick black tape and stuck it over the top of the button. It still beeped, but at least he couldn’t see the flashing, which he said was distracting.

  Mum was horrified, and said we weren’t allowed to tell anyone about any of this.

  Charlie refused to go up with Dad unless he absolutely had to. Indeed, most people avoided flying with Dad when he was mustering—he flew like one of the ‘Dambuster’ pilots, low over bridges and dams, ready to bomb them—but Brett and I loved going with him in the early days.

  Dad could have been a war pilot, Mrs Braitling confirmed admiringly. ‘He’s a natural—flies by the seat of his pants!’

  The daredevil aspect of it sent a rush through me like nothing I’d ever experienced, not even galloping flat out on a horse. There were, however, scary moments, especially when Dad came up out of a dive. Gravity pushed me back into my seat and tightened my ears and contracted my chest. I could never breathe properly until he levelled out. My body felt like it had been through a compressor. But it never stopped me wanting to go flying with him.

  Sometimes Dad would take us if he needed a cattle spotter. I wasn’t a very good spotter, given my tendency to daydream, so that job would often fall to M’Lis or Brett. Brett saw what an aircraft could do in the right hands and it instilled in him a passion for flying.

  Dad had an uncanny way of flying his plane all morning and issuing instructions and then, once the cattle were moving forward steadily, disappearing. We’d watch him fly off and think, furiously, Lucky Dad, he’s going home, where it’s nice and cool, and he can have a drink of water.

  But Dad usually flew home, dived over the homestead (which was a message to Mum to saddle up Limerick and have him ready and waiting) and then landed fast, put DQG in the hangar, and rushed back to the homestead to take Limerick’s reins from Mum. Then he’d ride out to help us out near the end, at the most crucial moment of the muster. We might have been going for five kilometres or fifty kilometres, but the final half-hour when we had to get all the cattle through that last gate and safely into the yard was the riskiest. If they broke away at that stage, we could lose the lot, and the whole muster would have been wasted.

  So, it was always like a miracle when Dad arrived fresh and took the lead. We—along with our horses—would be hot and exhausted, but Dad would walk the cattle into the yards through that last gate like a hero.

  Dad’s arrival was a gift from God to me. If Dad and Limerick were there, and they took the lead, we’d be right. I had as much faith in Dad as I did in God.

  He was the be-all and end-all.

  Dad was always giving us instructions. They were varied, but mostly revolved around the welfare of his stock.

  Make sure you check and double-check cattle after you finish trapping them, because often you’ll find some left behind by mistake.

  Make sure you check and double-check where your cattle are all the time—never let cattle run out of feed or water.

  Make sure you check and double-check bores and tanks and pipes all the time.

  Always put your stock, your animals and your equipment before yourself.

  Vigilance is everything. Water and feed are everything. Water is absolutely everything.

  Dad would only tell us something once, so we had to listen carefully. He had learned his lessons the hard way, and expected us to do likewise. Asking him to repeat or explain anything a second time was something you’d only do once. So if for any reason we didn’t quite understand his orders, it was safer to simply pretend we did, and hoped we were heading in more or less the right direction.

  When Dad wasn’t giving instructions or asking us questions, however, he could go for hours, if not days, without speaking. Mum said it was because he had to concentrate so hard on so many difficult, complicated things at once, which left no time or energy for talk. We knew most bush men were like this, and rarely dared break his silence.

  Nor was he a man to give praise. He thought it weakened people.

  Challenges, he said, strengthened them.

  He would say, ‘It’s like DQG. You have to take off into the wind, against the wind, because it lifts you higher. You need the obstacles because they push you higher.’

  To the best of our recollection, he made an exception to his no-praise rule only three times.

  One day, he said to M’Lis, ‘Right, you and I are going to muster Palmer’s Camp, and Brett and the others can go straight to Hijack Dam.’

  ‘On our own?’ M’Lis was wide-eyed.

  It was a huge responsibility for M’Lis. It was a very large area to muster between the two of them—there would be no back-up. However, she felt such a sense of importance riding out with Dad. It was a long day but they got all the cattle, which M’Lis then described as an amazing feat. They met up with Brett and his mob and brought the combined mob in. A successful end to a muster, which wasn’t always the case. Everyone was happy.

  Once the cattle were in the yards, and they were unsaddling, Dad turned to M’Lis and said, ‘You and I did this, just the two of us, Lis.’

  M’Lis swelled with pride. It was perhaps the biggest compliment she had ever received in her life.

  Brett’s moment came when Dad told him he had to muster Todd Dam, on his own, and Dad would assist from the air. It was a vast area to muster, and with no back-up, a big job. But Dad was on a deadline, no one else was free, and our two stockmen had just left.

  Dad helped Brett saddle up at 3 a.m., and sent Brett off in the darkness. By now Brett was eleven and considered capable of doing a man’s job. Dad would fly out at daylight to meet him.

  Brett, like we girls, was no more than twenty-five kilos, wringing wet. We were strong but tiny. Brett was riding a 16-hands-high and very flighty horse called Blueberry, who could easily toss him off, but could also gallop all day with someone as light as him on her back. That was lucky because Brett and Blueberry did have to gallop all day to bring home the mob. Dad rode out on Limerick to meet them, joining him just before the homestead hills. Both Brett and Blueberry were done in by this point.

  When they finally got the cattle in, just before dark, Dad tilted his chin towards Blueberry.

  ‘Blueberry did sixty kilometres today.’

  He nodded again at Brett.

  Hot and dirty, thirsty and hungry, Brett never forgot that nod. A sign of acknowledgement from Dad.

  And once, when I got a mulga stake in my leg, but continued mustering all day despite it, and made it back with the cattle rather than giving up, Dad said three words that I held precious for years to come.

  ‘Good job, Tanya.’

  18

  Characters

  The Territory was renowned for its characters, especially in its stock camps.

  One of those characters was Tommy Burrows. He’d once been an excellent horseman and brilliant with stock, but he’d had a bad horse accident and never quite recovered, mentally or physically. At some point he was taken in by the wonderful Ted Egan, the famous Alice Springs musician. When Tommy wasn’t staying with Ted, a number of station people shared him around. Mostly it was the Braitlings on Mount Doreen, the Goreys on Yambah, and us on Bond Springs. Tommy had to be shared around because he could only stay in one place for so long, both for his own mental health, and ours.

  Tommy would arrive for his stint with us, complete with camp oven and swag. Then he’d find Mum and kiss her, slobbering as he did.

  ‘Hello, Mother darling!’

  Mum endured Tommy as part of her Christian duty—but only just.

  Dad didn’t think much of Tommy hanging around Mum, always wanting to kiss her, so as soon as he arrived Dad would pack him off to the stock camp to cook for us. But once there, we had to endure him, watching, terrified, as Tommy marched about in his wonky way, waving his arms, his eyes slightly askew.

  We’d been told of his accident, and felt sorry for him, but that didn’t stop us avoiding him whenever we could, which was not
easy given he was in charge of our meals in the camp. And worst of all was Tommy’s cooking. He often made rabbit stew from rabbits he’d caught. It wasn’t too bad if he’d caught the rabbits that day. But mostly he’d had the dead animals lying in his pot for days on end. The stew was, therefore, mouldy and tasted disgusting. The bubbling smell made us feel sick. Almost everyone in the camp refused to eat it, which really said something, because at the end of a day of hard physical work, everyone in the camp was exhausted and starving. Then Tommy would chase us because he was so angry, waving his pots and pans in the air.

  When we finally got home, he’d march straight to Mum.

  ‘Those buggers of kids, Mother darling,’ he’d shout, angrily. ‘They won’t eat my rabbit stew.’

  Then he’d tried to kiss her in his slobbery way.

  Tommy Burrows reminded us of the character in a poem called The Drover’s Cook, taught to us by a wonderful, wild bush man named Bill McKell, who was a local stockman and spent a lot of time out at Mount Doreen. We loved the poem so much we learned it off by heart.

  ‘Remember teaching us The Drover’s Cook?’ we’d ask Bill breathlessly, whenever we saw him, and we’d start reciting it there and then.

  Images of a cook with a bloodshot eye, the fly on his trousers open, and saliva dripping into his terrible cooking were hysterical to us. And they captured everything we thought about Tommy.

  Of course, Tommy did his best, and looking back, we were cruel and unthinking, but we were always so relieved when he left. We just never felt safe with him around. There was always a chance we’d get belted by pots and pans, and it wasn’t much fun surviving on an empty, rumbling belly given how much hard, physical work we did.