Some of My Friends Have Tails

by Sara Henderson

  Today, it remains vital for many of the still-isolated Outback areas. It is a very important part of my memories of the early days on Bullo. In our first year on the station, Marlee and Bonnie were aged four and two. I watched them as much as I could, and kept them close to the tin shed in which we lived, shouting at intervals from wherever I was, ‘Children, where are you?’ or, ‘Children, what are you doing?’ The replies came back regularly, and I knew they were within range, and all was well.

  One morning I was going into the radio room for the morning session. I called out to ask the girls where they were, and what they were doing, and the reply came from Marlee, nothing much, just sitting. Satisfied, I continued into the radio room, and checked in for the session.

  The station’s call sign, S.O.V. (Sierra Oscar Victor), came to me over the crackle and static, and I started to read out the telegrams I wanted to send. I was halfway through one when I felt a tug at my sleeve. It was Marlee, saying, ‘Mummy, Mummy.’ I paused in the middle of reading and quickly said that unless it was important, she should wait until I had finished. I clicked the microphone on again and continued to read the telegram. Marlee persisted and said maybe Bonnie had broken her arm, and was that important. I let out a scream and dropped the microphone, as I swung around to look at Bonnie. Horror swept over me, as I looked at the expression on her little face, and the shape of the tiny forearm that was being carefully cradled by Marlee.

  I screamed, ‘Oh, Bon, you’ve broken your arm!’

  The little eyes looked up at me, the bottom lip quivering, then the eyes moved to her older sister, who asked me, ‘Is this really bad?’

  The question was asked because their father always told them they could only cry if it was something really bad; they were not to cry over small things, they had to be brave. It was obvious Marlee had told Bon she could not cry until she had ascertained the status of a broken arm.

  ‘Of course, this is very bad!’ I said in a shocked voice. ‘We will have to get a doctor straightaway!’

  Marlee looked closely into her little sister’s eyes, put her other arm gently on Bon’s shoulder and said in a voice of complete and reassuring authority, ‘It’s all right, Bon, you can cry now.’

  The quivering lip went slack and she really did cry. I made her comfortable on the bed, and my panicked brain thought, ‘Doctor, I must get a doctor!’

  Charles was not on the station; he had flown to Darwin early that morning. I jumped up from the bedside, grabbed the microphone, and started shouting, ‘Sierra Oscar Victor—medical emergency, medical emergency!’ The more I panicked, the louder Bon screamed.

  Mr Bardwell’s calm voice came through the static to assure me I didn’t have to scream. I had left the button on when I dropped the microphone and he—indeed, the whole North on two-way radio—had heard all about Bon’s broken arm. He went on to say he would arrange for the plane to come and collect Bon and bring her into Wyndham Hospital.

  The X-ray revealed a greenstick fracture just above the wrist, and so a plaster cast went from her fingers to the elbow. Marlee and I had accompanied her to Wyndham, and Mr Bardwell called the Darwin tower, to have them contact Charlie in flight, and tell him to fly to Wyndham. We had to stay there for the next few days, to make sure the swelling did not continue and make the plaster too tight.

  The next morning I was walking from the hotel room to the hospital, when a vision of black scowling thundered down the street, in the form of Mr Bardwell, to inform me that Bullo River was holding up the entire northern section of the Royal Flying Doctor Service, and what was I going to do about it?

  I had no idea what he was talking about, but he soon explained. When I left Bullo, I had raced off in sheer panic with the children and had left the keys for the liquor store room on the radio desk. I had also left on the station an alcoholic cook! So it didn’t take her long to get roaring drunk, and poor old John, our manager, came riding back that night, right into the thick of it.

  He went into the radio room to check in for the last session that night. At this stage he did not know about Bonnie’s accident. But he had just started to talk to Mr Bardwell when the drunk cook pounced on him. John dropped the microphone and hot-tailed it out the door, leaving the switch open. The result was a dreadful noise over the airways, and everything said in the radio room at Bullo was broadcast all over the RFD network. It was fortunate for John that not long after he returned to the room, and the cook pounced again, the sun set, and transmission after sunset is almost impossible to hear. But Mr Bardwell informed me quite enough had been heard, between John having a few too many swigs of rum, the cook returning, and the sun setting. All of it, he assured me, was against the rules in the RFDS code of conduct book on what you can do and say on the airwaves.

  He demanded to know what I was going to do about it! I pacified him by saying Charles would fly out to the station immediately. Charles took off without delay, but John in the meantime had found the ‘on’ microphone and realised what he had done. When Charles arrived on the station the radio was off, the battery on charge, John had gone bush, and the cook was still drinking. Charles told the cook to pack, locked up what was left of the grog, left a note for John, and brought her back into town.

  John, who was always on the radio up to that disastrous night, didn’t go near it for months, and would not drive to town for a long time. He couldn’t face all the ribbing he knew he would receive in the pub, and from friends in general.

  Mr Bardwell seemed to blame me personally for this breach of radio etiquette, and I was never in his good books from that day on; we were always civil to each other, but he always reminded me if there was any breach of the RFD radio rules by me. According to Mr Bardwell, this was a daily occurrence!

  But the service was always there, and helped in times of need, and even when the situation was laughable.

  Charlie was getting his full share of come-uppances in our first year living ‘close to nature’. While I was in Sydney recovering from a horse kicking me in the head, within weeks Charlie had his next medical emergency. He got through to the RFD base, and the doctor diagnosed a stockman as having acute appendicitis. But it was too late for the plane to pick him up that day, as it was approaching last light and we had no lighting facilities on the airstrip. So the pick-up was arranged for first light the next morning. Unlike Charlie, the pilot would not consider a landing guided only by a torch light balanced on someone’s head, however many times Charlie assured the amazed pilot over the radio it was quite all right, he did it all the time. So Charlie had to face the night alone with a sick Aboriginal, with suspected acute appendicitis, moaning and groaning, in the medical room.

  The tribal medicine man was administering his own style of cure, while most of the boy’s relatives sitting outside the room were also moaning, humming and watching Charlie’s every movement.

  The doctor gave Charles instructions on what to do for the poor boy, but I am sure it went in one ear and out the other, as he tried to persuade them to come that night. He kept a cool cloth on the patient’s head, and talked, and that was about the extent of his medical ability. The medicine man obviously didn’t think it was enough, because he kept racing into the room, throwing dust and various things on the boy, and chanting. When he decided things weren’t getting any better, he shocked Charlie into silence by rushing up and spitting in the boy’s eyes. Charlie wasn’t too up on medical procedure, but he quickly decided this would definitely not help, so he spent the night warding off the tribal doctor whenever he saw a spitting attack approaching. To get some sleep for the boy and himself, he finally had to lock the door.

  The plane arrived at first light. The boy, having survived the night, Charlie’s care and the medicine man, was whisked away to hospital where his appendix was removed. Despite the operation, he had a comfortable night in hospital, far from the medical madness of Bullo.

  We had our fair share of starry-eyed young women applying for jobs as governess, with nothing more in their heads th
an trying to catch the eldest son—or the father, for that fact. One such female arrived, and of course there were no sons old enough, so she set her sights on Charlie. But this one didn’t last too long, because medical problems got in the way.

  She announced that she thought she might have to see a doctor, and could my husband take her to town. I told her, not necessary. We had a daily medical session on the radio, and she could talk to the doctor, and if her complaint was considered serious, the Flying Doctor’s plane would come and take her to hospital.

  Her problem, it seemed, was fluid retention; her hands and feet were swelling. She went on to inform me that she had tablets to control it, but since she had arrived she was experiencing too much swelling.

  I told her it was because she had come from a cold climate into our hottest weather, and even people without this weakness experienced swelling of the feet until their bodies adjusted. I said not to worry, just to elevate her feet a few times a day, and at night.

  She curtly thanked me for the information, but made it clear I didn’t know what I was talking about. I made it clear that Charlie wouldn’t be driving her to town, so she condescended to talk to the doctor.

  I briefed her on using the radio: flip the switch ‘on’ to talk, flip it in the opposite direction to listen, and say ‘over’ when you finish speaking. Well, what a mess she made of those three simple instructions. She shouted at the microphone with the switch in the listening position, switched to speaking position to listen, and had the whole session in an uproar. Mr Bardwell managed to get a word in, and in a booming voice of authority told her not to touch another thing, and to go and get me to supervise her.

  I had left her with the three simple instructions, hoping she would foul up, and was in the kitchen chuckling as she tried to have a conversation with the doctor at the hospital via Mr Bardwell at the RFD base.

  ‘Hullo, are you there, doctor?’; a few too many clicks of the switch had her back to an open line for her to speak, so she couldn’t hear the doctor, and on open air, broadcasting all over the North, she expressed her frustration at our communication set-up.

  ‘Oh shit, I can’t work this f…. thing! Is anyone there?’—click, click—two clicks instead of one click, so the doctor could answer, and she was back on the air with, ‘What the f… is wrong with this bloody thing?’—click, click—‘Doctor, are you there?’—click, click—‘Oh, what a crappy set-up!’

  I was rolling around the kitchen floor, roaring with laughter. She would now be the laughing stock of the North; everyone had heard about her fall from grace. A woman using that language wasn’t accepted in the North in the 1960s, and over the RFDS radio it was sacrilege. If she ever made town, none of the women would let her anywhere near their sons!

  The moment she only clicked once, Mr Bardwell pounced, and his booming voice instilled so much fear into her that she was still frozen when I came into the radio room. It had sunk into her brain by that point that all she had said, mumbling to herself, had gone out over the airways. Even though she was a thoroughly modern type from the ‘big smoke’, she knew she had not just stepped over the line, but plunged into irretrievable depths.

  I smugly picked up the dropped microphone and politely said, ‘Sierra Oscar Victor, Mrs Henderson here, Mr Bardwell, over.’

  ‘Mrs Henderson, would you please inform that person that swearing over radio channels is an offence by law. Please do not leave her unattended again, and supervise her medical call please, over.’ The voice dripped disgust, and put the governess well and truly in her place.

  I then controlled the switch, and held the microphone in front of her so she could answer the doctor’s questions. Whenever she looked like lapsing into descriptive lingo, I cut the transmission. We were progressing as well as could be expected. I had warned her not to tell the doctor she knew everything about her complaint, but she continued to do so. It wasn’t long before the doctor’s voice resembled Mr Bardwell’s.

  Having patiently listened to her work through the history of her swelling feet and hands, the doctor finally got a chance to question her. ‘How do the waterworks work?’.

  She replied, ‘Well, I really don’t know. I have only been here for a few days.’ She then turned to me and asked me how the water system worked.

  I flicked the switch, not wanting the North to hear my reply, and said, ‘Not the station’s waterworks, you blithering idiot, yours! The doctor wants to know how often you go to the toilet!’

  I left her sitting with her mouth open as I quickly flicked the switch and told the doctor I was trying to obtain this information for him; a grunt in reply indicated he wished me luck.

  I turned to the governess, only to find she had stood up and was heading for the door. I told her the doctor was waiting for her answer, and she informed me that he was getting too personal for her liking, and she did not wish to continue the conversation.

  I told the doctor, eliminating all the unacceptable language, that the patient didn’t want to continue the conversation, and the doctor just moved to the next station on the list without comment.

  A few days later, when she said she thought she should talk to the doctor again, I told her no way, and said I thought that someone of such delicate health shouldn’t be in the Outback; she should have a job in the city, near medical help. So arrangements were made to get her to town as soon as possible, and despite much manoeuvring, mostly by her, and some by Charlie, I made sure she was driven to town by one of the stockmen, not by Charlie.

  I heard later via the ‘bush telegraph’ that she was not readily accepted in town, her radio reputation having gone before her, and she soon left for the South, where her colourful language wasn’t so shocking and people didn’t keep ostentatiously asking about her waterworks!

  I marked up one imaginary stroke for me, on the invisible Scoreboard, recording my constant efforts to foil Charlie’s attempted affairs.

  But I must admit, he was willing to fly all over the Kimberleys to help out in emergencies, when the RFD had too many patients and not enough planes. And a few times, to help out in an emergency, he actually missed a prearranged rendez-vous; his sense of duty being so strong it prevailed even over affairs. Unfortunately for me, the RFD didn’t call on him enough!

  18

  * * *

  ET TU BRUTUS ET AL

  We have, over the years, had a most interesting array of animals, but I think the most outstanding breed of dog is the Rottweiler.

  Our first association with this dog came in the 1970s, when we bought Montejinni Station from the Crowsons, and Mrs Crowson asked us to take care of her Rottweiler/Doberman cross, a wonderful creature, aptly named Brutus. Very few dogs make me stop breathing and pause, but when Brutus walked into the room I did just that. Having just said I didn’t mind taking care of the dog, in lumbered this half-horse. My heart dropped, my first thought was, Good heavens, what on earth have I let myself in for? We were told he didn’t like men very much, but was a complete wuss when it came to women. Looking at the black shiny creature before me, I didn’t think that dog could ever be called a wuss. It was the last word I would have used to describe that supreme powerhouse of muscle. But after my panic died down, I could see this massive animal had wonderful eyes.

  I was relieved when Mrs Crowson went on to say he was gentle and good with children; I had been visualising locking Danielle, who was aged around eight, in a cage for our entire stay. But his owner was one hundred percent right; the children fell madly in love with Brutus, and he with them. They were inseparable the whole time we lived at Montejinni. I never had to worry about their safety; Brutus was always there. I think virtually everyone and everything harmful went in the opposite direction when Brutus was sighted.

  There was a lovely narrow creek, emptying into a great little swimming hole at the back of the house, and the children and Brutus and I would play whenever we had time, the girls throwing sticks and then racing Brutus, diving for them.

  He never went into his ru
n the entire time we were there; in fact, I was flat out stopping the children from taking him to bed. He got as close as he could, and then curled up on the mat between the beds.

  After we finished the muster, we were going back to Bullo for The Wet. We pleaded with Charles to let us take Brutus back to Bullo with us, but I think Charles realised this dog was more than a match for him. And Charlie was well aware of the ‘loves-women-and-children, hates-men’ phobia Brutus had, so he flatly refused. His excuse was that Mrs Crowson was taking him back to Adelaide.

  Marlee and I followed this up, because we were determined to have him if possible. But he went to Adelaide as planned, and we had to accept that the few short months we had with Brutus were all we were going to have as memories of him. Marlee called Mrs Crowson and said how much we all enjoyed taking care of Brutus, and we would have him any time, and went on to ask where she bought him.

  It turned out her son had bred him, and he just happened to have a pure-bred male Rottie by Brutus’s father, and a young female. We arranged to have the male puppy airfreighted to Darwin, and that was how Marlee got her first Rottie. She called him Cosmo. It must have been a strong trait of the father’s line, because Cosmo wasn’t too fond of men, either. In fact, he had a very distinct dislike for them, and unfortunately Charlie seemed to be top of his list.

  The situation never improved. Marlee trained Cosmo to do tricks, eat on command, track, guard, but she couldn’t persuade him to be friendly to Charlie, or to men in general. Whenever we had a party, it was difficult for Marlee to dance with anyone, as Cosmo would try to push between Marlee and her partner. It got to the point where he had to be locked in her room when she was dancing, or tied to a chair in the midst of the action, where he could still see her. This was very useful to Marlee if she didn’t want to dance with a particular person; she just let Cosmo off the chain, and he made dancing so difficult that the poor boy would finally agree with Marlee that they had better stop. Of course, if it was someone she liked, Cos stayed well and truly anchored.