Wool Away, Boy!

by Alan Blunt

  25

  SNOWBALL, DICK AND THE EAGLE

  After knock-off time, a shower and a couple of Fourex longnecks restored the Rambling Pommy to his boisterous, jovial self. The emu affair, reviewed from various angles, inspired big mobs of mirth – me copping more chaff than the Rambling Pommy, who challenged me to a return wrestling bout: ‘Yorkshire rules, you little fooker. No holds barred, head-butts and forearm jolts allowed.’

  ‘My mother never reared a squib, Rambler; but the conditions are that you first ride a bucking emu to a standstill, use only one arm, and get down to my weight.’

  On Friday morning Ho Chi was again irascible and on the prod. Over dinner The Eagle called out, ‘Who’ll be here for the weekend? The old Wedge-tail will be here to put on a feed, but the more of you he ain’t got to muster grub for the better he’ll like it.’

  ‘I’ve tallied ’em up, Eagle,’ Dick announced. ‘There’s only you and me and the presser.’

  ‘I think I’ll stay,’ Ho Chi announced insincerely.

  ‘Well, make up your bloody mind, Chinaman,’ Dick advised. ‘That’s not what you told me an hour ago. The Eagle wants to know.’

  Ritzy stirred the possum by offering to help out. ‘You’d better come to Hughenden with me for the weekend, Ho Chi. Plenty of giggle-weed and girls. In fact I can point you in the direction of a long-haired mate called Dancing Daisy. She’s about your style: a bit rough around the edges, but they don’t call her “Smoke ’n Poke” for nothing.’ He joined in the laughter and added, ‘Take care of that little lady, Ralph, and she’ll make you a good wife – just what you’ve always wanted.’

  Ho Chi wasn’t laughing. ‘You married blokes give me the shits. You tell everyone you’re having a ball – but you’re really sulking in the marriage slammer, and making the best of a bad situation. Human bondage, they call it.’ He quoted, ‘“Marriage is an institution which turns life’s greatest pleasure into a duty.”’

  The Eagle said, ‘Make up your bloody mind, runt.’

  ‘Why don’t you go to town, you great bag of lard. Then we can all jump out of the play-pen and fly kites.’

  The Eagle had been copping more than his share of Ho Chi’s bile. He wasn’t armed with the sharp repartee necessary to spar with the shearer, so he usually laughed the jibes off or chose silence. Now he counted to ten before replying, ‘I’m putting a bank together – I haven’t had a punt for three months. I was planning to go to the Cup again, but I gave it a miss. Still, I’ll be in Melbourne over Christmas to see my daughter and her husband and my grandkids.’

  ‘The CUP!’ Ho Chi said sarcastically. ‘A likely story! And I suppose Bart Cummings invites you to drinks at the VJC members’ bar?’

  Getting no bite, he continued to cast: ‘Ha ha, that’s rich! Daughter and grandkids! How would you get a wife? You make Frankenstein look like Clark Gable.’

  A few thumping steps and The Eagle swooped upon his persecutor. His face was red and convulsing with anger. His huge hands encircled Ho Chi’s puny throat and he snarled, ‘Shut up, you runt! You don’t know what you’re talking about. Shut up or I’ll bloody well choke you.’

  Ho Chi gasped and gargled until the Rambling Pommy rose swiftly and firmly forced the babbler back, while Dick commanded, ‘Settle down! Easy! Take it easy.’

  Breathing heavily, almost sobbing, The Eagle murmured, ‘I had a wife …’ and went to his bedroom.

  I asked Dick as they walked back to the shed, ‘What do yer reckon stirred the babbler?’

  ‘Well, he’s a cook – and it don’t take much to get a babbler offside, especially putting up with a little shit like the Chinaman. From what I gather he’s got his heart set on seeing his daughter and grandkids. He’s never met the kids and hasn’t seen his girl since she was sixteen. His wife passed on years ago.’

  It was customary for me to head for the kitchen at a quarter to three to assist the cook to carry the smoko to the shed. Jogging past the overhead tank I called politely without looking, ‘Greetings, oh Lord of the Flies.’ I heard Snowball grunt acknowledgement.

  Entering the kitchen I called breezily, ‘Righteo, Chef. Let’s go!’ Getting no answer, I fired a volley of cooees, and did a check of the cook’s bedroom and the toilets, but The Eagle was absent.

  Remembering Happy Jack twenty-odd years earlier at Kahmoo station, a chill of horror halted me for a moment before I opened the meat-house door. To my immense relief The Eagle wasn’t sitting in there, a shotgun between his knees, bloody remnants of his skull and brains scattered about the ceiling and gauze fly-proofing. The room was empty, its white walls and cement floor scrubbed clean.

  On the kitchen table sat a tray of sandwiches covered with a damp tea towel, and another of cakes and biscuits. In the range oven were a dozen hot sausage-rolls; water was boiling and tea was in the urn. I made the tea, balanced two trays on one arm, picked up the urn and headed for the shed.

  Smoko was over and shearing underway before I said to Dick, ‘I’m a bit concerned about the babbler. I couldn’t find him before smoko, and he hasn’t collected the smoko gear.’

  ‘Why worry, Presser? He’s big and ugly enough to look after himself,’ Dick replied, and turned back to grinding combs and cutters.

  ‘There’s a Bundy rum bottle on the kitchen table – with only a nip or two left. I reckon it’s one of yours.’

  Dick swore expressively and we trotted to the kitchen. We searched the huts and cooeed through a nearby patch of scrub. ‘Stupid old bastard; he’s probably gone walkabout and choked under a bush,’ Dick muttered. ‘We’ll go back to the shed and give him half an hour. If he doesn’t show you go to the homestead. Maybe he’s gone there to ring up or something. If he doesn’t turn up we’ll knock off shearing and start searching.’

  As we strode past the tank, Dick stopped short. ‘Whoa! Whoa there, boy! You need bloody spectacles, Presser. Cast an eye!’ The two large bodies, lying down side by side, their whiteness camouflaged with brown slush, looked almost identical. The big boar reacted to a prod from Dick’s boot by standing and squealing in protest. ‘I reckon that one is the pig,’ he commented dryly. We pulled The Eagle, swearing and stammering, into a sitting position. ‘He’s alive, thank God!’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, but he don’t smell like he is.’

  ‘Looks as if he fed his old mate, then tripped over the scrap bucket,’ I observed, indicating a badly bent aluminium bucket.

  Dick grinned. ‘An eagle as pissed as a parrot! Spare me days and give me strength! I thought I’d seen it all!’ He dried his hands on his jeans and the tail of his work shirt and rolled a smoke. Then, resting against the tank stand, he inhaled a relaxing drawback. ‘I’ll wager a packet of Drum to a pinch of sheep shit that The Eagle don’t tell the grandkids about this caper.’

  His voice took on a steely edge. ‘And we won’t be saying anything, either, Presser. It would be dishonourable. We can’t make a laughing stock of a man who fought for his country. We’ll have to watch him for a day or two – when he thinks this through the old bloke’s self-respect will be lower than a black snake’s shadow.’

  I was taken by surprise: already I’d been thinking of the laughs the yarn would raise. I felt a measure of shame that I hadn’t had the decency and gumption to think twice. Old words flashed into my mind: honourable, noble, loyal … They were in common usage around the bush when I was growing up. Now only a few of the older men and women employed them, so they were rarely heard. Had such words all but vanished from the bush vocabulary?

  I looked up and met Dick’s earnest gaze with renewed respect. ‘I’m with you, Dick, a noble consideration. You’re bloody right.’

  ‘We’ll walk him to the washhouse and shove him under the shower – clothes and pig shit and all, and then throw him onto his bunk. I reckon he’ll choke for hours. You can knock off early and keep an eye on him till the boys get away. Then tomorrow morning we might take him to Hughenden with us, have a few friendly drinks and a feed to cheer him up, and bring h
im home before he gets on the punt.’

  The Eagle began mumbling between sobs, ‘Got to see my daughter. I love my girl, she’s my life … Bitch – she never wrote. The kids are named after my darling wife. You don’t think I can remember their names, Dick?’ Giggling between tears, he rambled on. ‘Old Wedge-tail is smarter than you think … Dick, my good friend, Dick – best boss-of-the-board in Queensland. Help me up … Gotta get up and put a feed on, it’s getting late.’

  ‘Shut up, Eagle!’ Dick snapped. ‘Fighting drunks I can handle – crying drunks I won’t wear.’

  The boar had remained an interested spectator, standing in the wallow a few yards away; now he was fixing us with piggy eyes, mixing guttural grunts with excited squeals.

  I said, ‘I reckon Snowball takes a dim view of the way we manhandled his mate.’

  Out of habit Dick’s farmer’s eye had been admiring the boar’s lines. ‘You wouldn’t see a better animal at the Royal Easter Show, Presser – pedigreed without a doubt. I reckon Snowball could win a ribbon in Sydney if I dolled him up.’

  Snowball squealed porcine approval. He rose, turned a disdainful rear end on The Eagle, and swaggered towards the bore drain.

  ‘Too right, old fellow!’ Dick congratulated. ‘A chap has got to maintain his standards.’ He chuckled – and quoted:

  You can tell a man who boozes

  By the company that he chooses;

  And the pig got up and slowly walked away.

  I laughed aloud at the time-worn quote. ‘Too right, Dick! Dad often quoted those very lines. It’s a pity you didn’t meet him. He was a good horseman, like yourself. You’d have been good mates.’ My grin faded to a wistful smile as images of my father, who had died of heart failure three years earlier, occupied my mind.

  I remembered Dad, light of foot, swinging into the saddle of a prancing filly; Dad on the shearing board, grimacing as he stood to ease his aching back, then bending to the task of earning for his family. And I thought about that anxious father, meeting his physically fragile son on the Cunnamulla railway platform more than thirty-five years before. Back then I had been his shiralee: his burden. Little did either of us realise that my twenty-four-hour train trip heralded the beginning of a journey into adulthood, and to health and fulfilment. The Boy would grow into the Presser on a unique voyage through a rugged but rewarding life in the outback wool industry.

  GLOSSARY

  axle-buster A road bump so severe that it destroys axles

  babbler An abbreviation of ‘babbling brook’, rhyming slang for ‘cook’

  backing a tail for a dollar Common idiom for ‘five bob’ (five shillings)

  bag boots Bag boots were a type of slipper generations of shearers wore. They cut a piece of jute from wool-packs using hand shears, shaped it and then sewed it with a large bag-sewing needle. The jute was clustered into a knob over the toes for protection, and laced with twine. In the late 1960s nylon packs, unsuitable for boots, replaced jute

  bait-layer An unflattering term for a cook. You risked death eating a bait-layer’s tucker

  barrowing A shedhand learning to shear

  Beetle A Volkswagen sedan

  billy lids Rhyming slang for ‘kids’

  blackened wool Wool harvested by ‘blacklegs’ (strike breakers/‘scabs’), which the transport unions refused to handle

  blue heeler An Australian-bred cattle dog, also known as ‘bluey’

  bodgie Falsify

  bog-eyes or ‘bogis’ A shearer’s mechanical hand-piece

  bomb Reprimand

  Bosca of the Bog-eye Terminology shearers used to introduce themselves, especially to those they thought snobbish

  brace To confront, demanding explanation

  brolga A large crane which performs an elaborate dance

  brownie A basic fruit cake flavoured with cocoa (sometimes sans the fruit and cocoa)

  bunyip A mythical large, horse-headed swamp dweller reported by early white settlers

  butts Wool-packs containing wool from the board collected by hand. When empty they were ‘packs’, became butts when containing wool, and bales when pressed. Three full butts made a pressed bale

  cackle-nut farm Poultry farm

  carbide light Gas lamp

  cauliflower ear An ear permanently thickened, usually a trademark of boxers

  chuck a grenade Reprimand. Other common slang terms were ‘bomb’ and ‘chip’

  cobbler The toughest sheep in the pen

  colours Discarded chips of opals

  Creek An abbreviation for Julia Creek

  Cup The Melbourne Cup

  Curry Abbreviation for Cloncurry

  cut-out When the last sheep is shorn, the last bale pressed and the men paid off

  dawnies Alcoholics in quest of an early drink

  dero Short for ‘derelict’; a pejorative term for a homeless person

  deuceing Shearing 200 sheep

  dobber An informer

  doggers Professional dingo hunters

  Downs tiger A huge, venomous king brown snake, also known as a mulga snake

  dreadnought Someone capable of shearing 300 sheep in a day – a rare tally

  drongo A person who is as thick as a brick

  ducks on the pond Traditionally called out as a warning to show respect to women entering the shed

  dunnies Toilets

  frog and toad Rhyming slang for ‘road’

  gentleman of the long tube Shearers would jokingly call themselves ‘gentlemen of the long tube’ when trying to upgrade their social standing

  gigging Teasing, also known as ‘chiacking’ or ‘taking the mick’

  guard A reliable and favoured employee

  Hill (The Hill) Broken Hill

  hit the toe Depart hurriedly

  hoop Idiom for jockey

  ice chest A frame covered in hessian, cooled by water dripping in a shady, breezy spot

  Isa (The Isa) Mount Isa

  jackaroo A young man gaining practical experience on a sheep or cattle station

  Joe Blake Rhyming slang for ‘snake’

  Kerosene Bouquet Coarse laundry soap

  khyber An abbreviation of ‘Khyber Pass’, rhyming slang for ‘arse’

  kip A small board from which pennies were thrown when playing Two-Up (manipulative fingers were not trusted)

  knuckle sandwich A punch

  Koertz A common make of wool press. Most good pressers considered it inferior to the Ferrier

  locks-butt A wool-pack containing oddments

  London to a brick Those in no doubt of winning will bet London to win one brick. The expression was made famous by Ken Howard, the doyen of Sydney race commentators in the 1950s and 1960s

  long paddock Idiom for the stock route: a continental maze of interconnecting tracks which allow the movement of stock the length and breadth of Australia

  longneck Traditional 26 oz brown bottles of beer. ‘Big bottles’ and ‘king browns’ are other idioms

  mauley (or maulie) A fist, especially a fighter’s fist

  min min A mysterious light seen occasionally in outback Queensland

  monkey board A square board fitting on the top of a press tamped tightly with wool. The ‘monkey’ compresses two boxes of wool into one bale when the presser swings on the lever

  mulga wire Long distance word of mouth; also known as the ‘bush telegraph’

  Mum The title given to a motherly working woman by lonely lads far from home

  on the board The place within the shed where shearing actually takes place

  picker-up The person who picks up fleeces on the board and throws them on the wool-roller’s table. The knack is to give fleeces flight so they descend spreading evenly on the table. Picker-ups were usually teenagers. A capable ‘boy’ could pick up 1000 or more fleeces a day for six shearers

  piece-picker A rouseabout who sorts the lower grades of wool, removed by the wool rollers

  pitch and toss Rhyming slang for ‘boss’

/>   Pix A common exclamation of doubt, referring to a popular magazine

  plum jams Rhyming slang for ‘lambs’

  pointers People who point the finger at others behind their back

  porky Short for ‘pork pie’, rhyming slang for ‘lie’

  port A suitcase

  possie A good position

  potch Low-grade opals of no commercial value, usually discarded by early miners

  press-up A presser always finished last, after he had ‘pressed-up’ the last of the wool

  provo Slang for a member of the police

  Q fever A debilitating virus carried by sheep and transmissible to humans

  Queenslander A house on high stumps with wide verandahs, built for the climate

  Reach (The Reach) Longreach

  ring Collar the fattest cheque. In smaller sheds the fastest shearer would ‘ring’ the shed; in larger sheds where there were eight to ten shearers the contract cook or presser might get paid the most

  ringer A mounted station hand; also the fastest shearer in a shearing shed

  rouseabout A shedhand

  rousie Abbreviation for ‘rouseabout’

  scratch-pulling A game where opponents sat on the floor, with the soles of their feet pressed together and arms outstretched, holding a broom handle between them. The aim was to pull the other up

  sheep cocky Originally a small land-holder; later used to identify any owner of sheep, regardless of property size

  shiralee A swagman’s bundle; a burden of responsibility

  skirt Wool rollers would ‘skirt’ (or ‘roll’) the rough wool off the fleece before it went to the classer’s table

  snag An obnoxious troublemaker

  snagger A rough, slow shearer

  snobs Sheep that are tough to shear

  soul-case Slang for ‘body’

  Spaniard Common workers’ idiom derived from ‘Manuel [manual] labour’

  speared Sacked

  stubby A half-sized bottle of beer

  stud rouseabout A learner classer/overseer

  tenner Ten-pound note

  tinnies Tins of beer, half the quantity of a longneck