Some of My Friends Have Tails

by Sara Henderson

  Only a few months later, Dick was out again, this time in Darwin. Charlie finally found him. It had been a quiet visit, just the regular stack of charges and a list of loans from ‘friends’; when the borrowing ran out, he lost himself in an Aboriginal camp for a few weeks. I was in town with Charlie and the children, so we all had to come home in the plane together.

  Charlie had told Dick to wash and clean himself up. He arrived at the plane in clean clothes, wrinkled but clean, and he had washed. But washing couldn’t eliminate the smell of whatever he had been drinking, anything from metho to after-shave to cheap plonk, to homemade whatever. This was seeping out his pores as perspiration; the smell was amazing and sickening. He couldn’t shave for fear of cutting his throat, so he had a very untidy beard and he had lost his false teeth, again. All in all he was his usual shocking self, looking the same as he always did after a bender. I couldn’t stand Dick drunk, or in this sobering-up condition, and he knew it, so he kept his distance until he finally climbed into the plane with us. Charlie had told him to help load the stores into the back of the plane, our Beaver de Havilland, Bertha.

  We were also taking with us a quiet young boy who was considering going into the priesthood. One of the Brothers in the Darwin office of the Catholic missions had asked Charlie could he bring him to Bullo for a few weeks. He had his reservations about whether the boy was ready for priesthood but, like everyone else, thought that if he could survive a few weeks on Bullo under Charlie’s command, he would be able to handle anything. He was sitting next to me; Charlie had Dick next to him in the front, the children were in the back with the stores. Before we got into the plane, I caught a whiff of Dick and smelt rum very strongly. Charlie said No way. I insisted I could smell rum; then Charlie’s face fell, and he walked to the cargo door to look for the carton of his favourite rum that he had just purchased. He found one bottle almost empty; Dick had consumed it in the few minutes while loading the plane. We both looked at him. He looked harmless enough, but was definitely swaying in the wind. Charlie said it would be all right, he would probably sleep all the way home, but he would make sure Dick was strapped in tightly or he might open the door in flight and fall out.

  So with everyone in position, Charlie taxied out for takeoff. He received clearance from the tower and was doing the run-up check, when Dick announced he was not going to Bullo, he wanted to go back to the pub for another drink. Charlie told him to shut up. Our poor guest by this time was wide-eyed, listening to Dick and Charlie abuse each other. I explained to him Dick was drunk, but was a much nicer person when sober … he’d see in a few days’ time.

  Charlie started down the runway; the plane’s engine roared as she lifted gracefully despite the full load. Charlie was fully occupied flying the plane during the crucial period when it was only about twenty-five feet off the ground. Suddenly, right out of a sleepy stupor, Dick latched onto Charlie’s throat with both hands and started choking him. Charlie had his hands full, keeping the plane straight and level while he pushed Dick away with his elbow. I heard an urgent command uttered in a strange, constricted, rough, husky whisper, ‘Get the idiot off me, we’ll crash!’

  The plane dipped one wing violently every time Charlie tried to fend Dick off with his elbow. We were no longer over the tarmac, but veering wildly sideways as Charlie struggled desperately with the controls in an effort to keep the plane level. Trying to get as much space as he could between the plane and the ground, and still keep climbing without stalling the engine, Charlie took quick swipes at Dick whenever he could, but then had to grab the controls again as the plane lurched in another direction. Dick was swinging his arms and grabbing for Charlie’s throat with the ferocity of a windmill out of control in a high wind.

  I was transfixed, watching the scene played out in front of me, eyes darting from the unbelievable happening in the plane, to the trees, houses, roadways and telegraph poles that kept rushing up at us every now and then, too close for comfort. Landing was now out of the question because we were still veering and dipping sideways and had long since run out of landing strip.

  All these events happened within seconds, but seemed like an eternity. Charlie fought Dick and the controls, gasped for air whenever he got the chance, and resisted blacking out. The next gasping request had such urgency, it jolted me into action. ‘Sara, quickly!’

  I undid my seat belt, lurched forward and put an arm around Dick’s neck. I was fully committed now; I had no seat belt, so if we crashed, I was history. I was also in quite a state of panic by this stage, my heart pounded and my pulse was racing. The adrenalin release must have been ‘all floodgates open’; heaven knows how much pressure I was exerting on poor old Dick’s neck, but it must have been superhuman because his eyes nearly shot out of his head. He let go of Charlie’s neck instantly, and his hands, in a frantic fumble, shot to his neck and my arm.

  It seemed forever; my back was aching, my arm was cramping, but I still held Dick immobilised in an arm lock. My eyes were on Charlie, watching as he gained control of his breathing and Bertha settled down to a calm climbing pattern.

  ‘Darwin Control, to Echo-Papa-X-ray,’ shouted the radio.

  But Charlie ignored Darwin Control as he coaxed the plane slowly higher, moving and changing controls until he was satisfied the plane was performing at maximum. After a deep breath of air, he glanced sidewards at Dick and said, ‘Sara, you had better release your grip and give him some air, he’s turning blue.’

  My arm around poor old Dick’s neck was still in a deathlock. I had quite forgotten Dick, so intent was I on Charlie’s fight to bring the plane back under control. I looked at Dick and true, he was a terrible colour and his pleas for air were very feeble indeed. I let go and sprang back in horror.

  But Charlie yelled, ‘Don’t let him go, for Christ’s sake!’

  I was shaking and near tears. Poor old Dick slumped into a heap up against the door, looking not even capable of blowing out a candle. I told Charlie I could not sit for two hours with my arm around Dick’s neck, and besides he looked harmless now.

  The words had barely left my lips when Dick came to life and grabbed, not Charlie’s neck, but the controls!

  Again we started swooping and weaving all over the sky as Charlie alternated between pushing Dick away and correcting the plane’s crazy lurching. The control tower kept calling, ‘Echo-Papa-X-ray report, Echo-Papa-X-ray report!’ over and over without let-up. The cabin drowned in their repeated call as we careered all over the sky, with Charlie yelling above it for me to put an armlock on Dick again.

  As the plane once more lurched in a downward, sideways motion, I leapt forward and wrapped my arm around Dick’s neck again. This time my strength was a result of pure anger: his stupid behaviour could kill everyone. As my forearm tightened over his Adam’s apple, his hands left the controls. Charlie’s next orders, still shouted over the control tower’s unrelenting calls, were for me to get Dick out of the front seat. We argued at high volume over how I was supposed to achieve this; Charlie said he didn’t care how, just get him away from the controls or the next time we might not be so lucky. He again had the plane flying normally and, ignoring my questions, answered the still-persistent Darwin Control. He told them everything was now in order, just had a minor problem for a few minutes. Minor!

  He then smoothly launched into report procedure, altitude such and such, tracking Bullo River, etc, etc, and finished by saying he would phone in an Incident Report on the malfunction when he arrived at Bullo River, and would come into the briefing office tomorrow, then give his ETA Bullo. They weren’t happy, but knew they wouldn’t get any more out of Charlie on why his takeoff had not been by the book. He certainly couldn’t blame the brakes, as he had for a lot of the unusual landings over the years. Never in a million years could they guess the reason for the takeoff they had just witnessed. I could just see it typed neatly in an incident report: ‘Strangled by drunk on takeoff!’

  Charlie had dealt with air control; we were climbing
past eight hundred feet, but we still had Dick sitting with vital controls only inches from his fingertips, not to mention Charlie’s throat. Our poor young guest had himself jammed in the corner as far away from the action as posssible. When I asked him to help me drag Dick over the seat into the second row where we were sitting, I thought he was going to jump out the door. Somehow, with Charlie holding Dick’s feet so he didn’t kick any of the instruments or controls, and my firm hold still on his neck and with little help from our terrified guest, I dragged and shoved Dick, kicking and thrashing, away from the controls. I told the young boy to climb over into the front seat. I had to endure the smell of sour alcohol that was seeping out of Dick’s every pore, right next to me, for the remaining hours of the flight, so I wanted as much space between us on the seat as possible.

  By now my anger was bristling; if Dick even as much as moved a finger I screeched at him like a banshee. He slumped in the corner of the seat, as far from me as possible, very hesitant to move, as I bombarded him about his disgusting behaviour. I didn’t draw breath until we landed at Bullo, by which time Dick was holding his head with his hands over his ears, and thankfully stumbled out of the plane, out of earshot.

  The children took it all in their stride; to them it seemed an adventure. The entire journey they played games or did drawings except when there was action, and then three little faces up to nose-level, and six sets of fingers, would appear over the back of the seat, watching with interest. I often worried what effect this type of travel had on their young minds. But the moment the propeller had turned its last three hundred and sixty degree rotation, they were out of the plane, off at high speed for the horse paddock, and the next adventure.

  Their mother, drained of all energy, headed for the kitchen and the next meal. Charlie was walking silently beside me, no doubt deep in thought, inventing the reason for his outstandingly unusual takeoff, when the sounds of Bertha’s engine, spluttering and stalling, filled the air. We spun around and there was Dick trying to start the plane. Charlie sprinted back, threw the door open, dragged Dick out, and propelled him, arm up his back, to the house, where he locked him in one of the rooms to sleep off his drunken stupor.

  When he woke the next morning, Dick said he didn’t remember any of it; he was completely mystified as to how he got to Bullo, so he said. Knowing Dick, I suspect this was a convenient way to get out of apologising for his really disgraceful and unacceptable behaviour.

  The young boy survived the flight, and his stay with us. When he returned to Darwin he told the Brothers he did not think he knew enough about life; he still wanted to enter the priesthood, but to make him a better priest he should first see a bit more of life. Bullo had made him realise that in order to help people deal with life, he needed to know what they are talking about.

  The Brother asked Charlie what on earth had happened in the two weeks to bring about such a change. Charlie’s only reply was, ‘Where can I possibly begin?’

  As you have probably gathered by now, Dick was one continuous story; events like these happened almost every week, whether on the station or away. I could probably write a whole book just on Dick’s trips to town; on or off the station, he was a one-man disaster area.

  The next Uncle Dick problem was on the station; the mustering camp was at Bull Creek, a good twenty-five miles or forty kilometres away, by a very treacherous and slow road through miles of sand. The children and I were in Darwin for two days. Dick was supposed to be sober and running the generators and the workshop. Charlie flew straight back to the station after dropping us in Darwin, to load meat for a delivery to Port Keats Mission. He arrived to find Dick had used bolt cutters to cut through the padlock on the liquor store room. He and a good percentage of the meatworks staff had consumed wine, beer, rum, vodka, scotch, tequila, right across the board. They had cleaned out the whole store room. What they hadn’t consumed, Dick had hidden, for later. A complete and utter mess greeted Charlie when he arrived. Charlie had meat to deliver urgently, but he couldn’t leave Dick at the homestead alone, even for the half day to fly me back. The best solution he could come up with was to take Dick out to the stock camp so they could take care of him.

  All the four wheel drive vehicles were out at the camp and you could not get over that road in any of the vehicles left at the house, so the only other way was by horse. Charlie saddled up his horse and one for Dick, and tried to get him into the saddle. Dick kept getting on back to front and would end up facing the wrong way, or fall off. So Charlie tied him on, still back to front, and rode all the way out to Bull Creek with Dick bumping up and down in the saddle, shouting to Charlie to stop, laughing uproariously, and complaining all the way. Somewhere on the trip, while laughing or shouting or coughing, Dick lost his teeth, yet again. Charlie left him in the care of the head stockman at the camp and drove back in one of the Toyotas. He delivered the meat to Port Keats and came on to Darwin to pick me up, cutting short the visit. I had to return to the station to guard the house and liquor while Charlie delivered the rest of the meat orders.

  He needn’t have bothered; Dick was so saddle-sore he couldn’t even sit for days. We didn’t see him for three days and still he could only just hobble; even sober, Dick didn’t ride.

  Unfortunately, my prediction expressed over the last few years, of never seeing Uncle Dick again, came true. He died in the first week of September 1994, while I was in San Francisco speaking at a conference. And so I write these final words about someone who was so much a part of my life, and the developing years (and quite a lot of times the destruction, when he was on a drinking spree) of Bullo. I am sure he will end up in the same place as Charlie. So maybe, somewhere, they are sitting on a cloud, both laughing, and—more likely—arguing, over old times, drinking endless drinks. Even if they aren’t in heaven, with an endless supply of drinks at their disposal and no work to do, they would think it was heaven! Wherever it is, how everyone else there will put up with both Charlie and Uncle Dick, I really don’t know.

  Goodbye, old mate …

  8

  * * *

  FRUIT BAT AND CHARLIE

  It was early morning, the sun had not yet appeared over the hills; everyone had departed in various directions for the day’s work, although the din in the kitchen of a stock camp eating breakfast was still hanging in the air. I made myself a cup of coffee and sat in a cane chair on the front verandah, a favourite spot.

  With feet resting on the stone table, I sipped the coffee, savouring my few minutes of peace and solitude, the only possible time I could relax before the bedlam of a normal day at Bullo started. My eyes wandered peacefully across the familiar landscape, while my mind frantically raced through the day’s impossible agenda. The sun’s first rays shot tiny shafts of red-gold light across the semi-dark valley, darting through the trees and around and over buildings. It was a vista of intangible beauty, witnessed just in those minutes before the sun broke free of the earth’s bondage. That ethereal, spirit-like mist of first light revealing a grazing horse, birds in flight, the red mountain range on the far side of the valley, was having a wonderful effect on my mood.

  Soon the brilliant flashes of red reminded my racing brain of the heat of the fast-approaching day. Still, the desire to stay put for a few extra minutes was strong.

  But gradually I realised something was amiss. My eyes went back slowly over the familiar landscape, looking for that ‘something’ out of place. A sick animal lying on the ground? … Or an animal limping? The eyes scanned again … then stopped, lingered and waited for the brain to register. Yuk! A fruit bat hanging by one wing on the barbed wire fence.

  I jumped up and thought, Now what? Everyone had gone; I was alone with the dogs until lunchtime, with a thousand and one things to do, and now a bat impaled on a barbed wire fence.

  I hate bats, no, I am terrified of bats. Ever since my childhood and Saturday matinées about vampires, I have felt a complete repulsion for bats; I found them more frightening than the vampires. But there I wa
s faced with a very large fruit bat hanging captive on barbed wire. I couldn’t leave it there to die in the heat of the day. I put down my coffee and walked across the lawn.

  The main joint of one wing was impaled on the prongs of the barb. In an effort to free itself, the bat had tried to fly and had wound its wing around the wire many times, so I couldn’t see the barb prongs at all. In its struggle to get free the other wing was also caught, though not nearly as completely. The frightened eyes looked at me. I reached out to free the less tangled wing, to take pressure off the badly impaled one. The bat’s head darted forward, teeth bared. I recoiled in horror, as all the vampire matinées flashed again before my eyes. After many, many words reassuring the bat that I was only trying to help, I approached again from the rear to free the wing. It twisted around and almost bit my hand; too close for comfort. Even though it was still early, the sun on my back had started trickles of sweat. I rushed back to the homestead and put on a pair of heavy gardening gloves and a large hat, then gingerly approached once more. The bat kept biting the gloves as I worked on the wing. I started at the very tip of the wing, as the wide wingspan was caught in several places on the barbs. As I got closer to the body the bat attacked my glove repeatedly. I had to control a feeling of sheer panic as its teeth repeatedly dug into the thick suede material of the gloves, and I could feel the pressure on my fingers.

  At last the wing was free, allowing the bat more freedom of movement. It immediately swung around and wrapped its feet around my arm. I let out a piercing scream and fell backwards over the dogs in my attempt to get away from those clammy miniature hands. When I had regained my composure I sat up and looked at the bat. It was hanging by one wing, attacking my glove viciously to counteract the pain it was feeling in the still-impaled wing. Now I only had one glove; attempts to retrieve the other almost had little teeth biting my fingers. And I had another major problem. To get it free I would have to unwind the bat around the fence wire. That meant holding the bat’s body.