Taj and the Great Camel Trek
Page 13
The best thing there was the pea-vetch with the purple flower which Mustara loved. I climbed the hill after my jobs were done and saw a ridge to the west. That was the way we would go the next day. I stood there thinking about how much had happened: we had come so far and not only across a country. There was a country inside us that I was learning about, a country that could also be a desert and needed nourishment and love to survive.
I heard a step and there was Alec. Peter must have told him what Padar and I were talking about during the storm for he started speaking about his mother. At first I didn’t want to listen, but then I realised his intent. ‘When I was eleven we all moved up to Umberatana to live with Father on the station. He was the manager.’ He paused and I knew that what he was going to tell me was difficult to say, and perhaps to hear as well. I turned to face him. ‘She became ill on my birthday. My sisters still tried to make a happy day for me, but nothing hid their worry. Three days later she died.’
He watched me as he spoke. He’d had six years to become accustomed to his mother’s death, but still I recognised the yearning in his eyes. I wanted to say I was sorry – it was the right response to make – but I was still too sorry for myself. I think he knew. He didn’t say it would get better in time as Mr Giles said to Tommy. They would have been hollow words for me. His silence showed he understood my pain. I remembered the shadows in his face at the talk of his birthday all those months ago, and his tears at a Scottish song. Didn’t the same thing happen to me?
There’s a proverb Padar taught me: a true friend is one who takes the hand of his friend in times of distress and helplessness. I wasn’t alone and perhaps that was all Alec wanted me to know. I smiled at him; he stumbled forward and clutched me to him. It was a man’s hug – one of sharing strength and knowledge – and when it was finished, I felt I was a child no longer.
Later, as Peter was cooking, I watched Tommy play with his pup. He looked up and grinned at me. Was it possible I had misunderstood those smiles? His smile now looked friendly and he gestured me over. I hesitated.
Then Tommy did something astonishing. He walked to my blanket. He had Dyabun in his arms. ‘Taj.’ He was still grinning. ‘You have him. He your pup now.’ Tommy put Dyabun into my arms and left before I could say a word.
Tommy would not take Dyabun back. I tried to make him, for it was his pup, but he left the pup by itself when we left the next day. We had gone a mile when I realised that Tommy meant to leave the pup there: it was his no longer. I didn’t wait to tell Padar; I wheeled Mustara around and pushed him into a gallop. What if Dyabun had wandered off? Been stung by a scorpion? Someone who owned the spears come to take him?
Mustara skittered into the campsite. ‘Hooshta!’ He found a soft place to kneel, and I jumped off before he’d properly settled. I couldn’t see Dyabun. I whistled, then I heard a scraping in the scrub. When I found him he was looking at me, his head to one side. I picked him up, but he didn’t whimper. He was my pup now for I had saved him, and I realised that was Tommy’s intention. I thought of renaming him Asad but that would not be honouring Tommy. The pup stayed Dyabun, little one. But I didn’t know how to thank Tommy. I was in his debt and I knew in my heart I didn’t deserve his gift.
On the eleventh day of October it took Padar and I many hours to find the camels and even then they didn’t want to come to camp to be loaded. ‘Salmah is even grumpier than usual,’ I complained to Padar. I felt grumpy myself, but I had no sympathy for them.
‘They all are, beta, they haven’t eaten for two nights.’
When we finally set off there were many salt lakes and Mr Giles wanted to cross the longest one to save the camels’ strength. It would have taken days to go around it.
Padar warned Mr Giles, ‘We had trouble near Beltana with salt lakes.’ Mr Giles listened to Padar but still he gave the order to march forward. Padar drove Roshni on first; the string followed him. Tommy rode Salmah beside Roshni.
I was watching when suddenly Padar shouted, ‘Rocko! Rocko! Stop! Pull off nose ropes!’ He turned his head so we all could hear. ‘Do not follow!’
‘What the devil–’ Jess Young reined in beside me.
Then I could see the problem. Mr Giles was close enough that I heard his bad words. The salt had cracked and Roshni was slipping knee-deep in a bog. Wild Gazelle and Rajah had heavy loads and they were sinking swifter than Roshni. Salmah was floundering. Tommy tried to back her up. ‘Hoy hoy!’ he shouted. He even kicked her flank but she roared at him and sank further.
I worried we’d lose the camels – how far would they sink? Until they drowned? What if they broke their legs in the mud? Mr Giles called out orders and every one jumped off their camels and helped. I rushed to help Tommy pull out Salmah. Alec and Peter waded in and helped Padar undo Rajah’s and Wild Gazelle’s loads. It was difficult, for the camels couldn’t kneel. Jess Young and Mr Tietkens carried a water cask each on their backs. How they did that when they were nearly up to their necks in the salty mud themselves I couldn’t fathom. All the men helped carry pack saddles and instrument boxes out of the mud, even Mr Giles. Jess Young was much stronger than he looked. He had heavy equipment boxes on his shoulder; Padar carried a few boxes on his head.
With the loads on dry ground Padar and I pulled the camels’ legs carefully with ropes while Mr Giles pressed tarpaulins in the holes left behind. Tommy pulled at their nose ropes until they dragged themselves free. Truly, a camel in a bog is like a baby lost in the desert.
Rajah was the last. He was so much heavier than the others that I wondered if we could save him at all. That thought must have been on Mr Giles’ mind too. ‘Jess, William, here quickly. Bring shovels.’
With tarpaulins and the men using the shovels, Padar finally pulled Rajah free of the bog. Rajah growled and held one leg high on the sand, then another as if he could still feel the bog dragging him down.
After we had the camels on dry ground, Mr Giles didn’t let us rest. ‘Load up again. It’s too hot, and there’s nothing for the camels to eat here.’
The men groaned as loudly as the camels.
We travelled along the shore of the salt lake where we finally camped, exhausted. Our clothes were like tin sheets and we had no way of washing them. There still wasn’t feed for the camels. They’d had nothing to eat for three days and it was 98 degrees in the shade. Mustara’s eyes were woeful as they stared at me. He was sure I was being unkind in not showing him where the pea-vetch bushes he liked were.
After unloading yet again, I brought Dyabun with me to help Tommy start the fire for Peter. He grinned at me. ‘Nice pup you got.’ I realised he was joking and I smiled. ‘Thank you.’ There was more I needed to say to Tommy but I wasn’t sure which words were best.
It wasn’t until the next day that we found a few bushes for the camels to eat. I was glad for I was sure Mustara’s hump was shrinking and that morning I caught him nibbling at Peter’s cooking tent. I pushed him through to the bushes between Malik and Tameem to make sure he found some leaves, for all the camels were grumpy and might not have let him get close. Mustara had marched four days without eating and he purred like a cat as he chewed.
We saw smoke from campfires so while the string was getting ready to march along the lake, Mr Giles told Tommy and I to walk across it to see if we could find water or anyone to tell us where it was. ‘You are the lightest,’ he said, ‘and you won’t break through the crust. Jess, you stay behind with the camels; you can catch up the string when they return.’
The salt crunched as we walked on it. What if Mr Giles was wrong about our weight and even Tommy and I sank into a bog? How would we get out without the others to help? But Tommy wasn’t worried. Although we searched and called we couldn’t find anyone so we returned to Jess Young.
‘Did you find any natives?’ We shook our heads. He was relieved and I understood why, but whatever fears we had, we needed to find people to tell us where
water was.
The string had gone sixteen miles before we caught them up. They had stopped and were investigating a rock hole. There was a tiny amount of water – not enough to water the camels. So we carried on and camped in the scrub yet again. We pitched the tents near some quandong and currajong trees.
‘By the look of the land no rain has fallen for a long time,’ Mr Giles said, ‘perhaps a hundred years.’
I stared at the ground that powdered as we walked on it. Perhaps he was right.
It was becoming hard again to find the energy to do my jobs. Peter and Jess Young were looking pale. Alec and I compared the bruises we had that wouldn’t heal. They were like the ones I had before we found Queen Victoria Spring. So I had scurvy again.
Jess Young checked us and confirmed that we had scurvy. ‘I’ve seen bruises like that on sailors when they haven’t had enough vegetables.’ He knew all about it, so did Padar, but there was nothing we could do to help ourselves. There were no vegetables in the desert.
It seemed as though everything moved slower, even the string itself. We stopped shortly in a place where Tommy found lowans’ eggs. I wondered where he found his energy and how come birds lived in the desert. Then we travelled over granite ridges. Mr Giles liked granite; he poked around on foot while the rest of the string carried on. He called, ‘Tommy and Taj, you come and help.’
We searched the rocks – it was a pretty enough place. Tommy found tracks of crows and humans. There was smoke from fires above the scrub. Surely the people must be close by but they didn’t show themselves.
‘Look boss!’ Tommy discovered a little native well in a grassy water channel. It looked hopeful. He took off one of his boots to scrape up water, and Reechy and Mustara drank from his hat. Tommy laughed.
‘Perhaps we can get more water with a shovel,’ Mr Giles said, and he sent Tommy back to the string to get one. ‘Two hundred miles from Queen Victoria Spring and no water but this.’
Mr Giles and I watched Tommy gallop off on Reechy; Tommy always rode fast and Reechy could run at twenty miles an hour. Then suddenly, Reechy sank to her knees.
‘What the devil–’ Mr Giles started forward.
Tommy shouted from the saddle. ‘Gabi, gabi! Plenty watta! Plenty watta!’
We raced over to Tommy and found a large well. It looked as if permanent water was supplied by the drainage of the rocks all around. This was why Mr Giles was so interested in rocks. He was even more pleased with Tommy. After Reechy and Mustara had drunk their fill Tommy and Reechy galloped to find the string. Mr Giles and I searched around but couldn’t find any other water, so we sat and waited for the others.
‘That Tommy is a handy chap to have around. What do you think, Taj?’
I swallowed. ‘Yes, sir. He’s very clever.’
Mr Giles laughed. ‘So you think he’s clever, eh? He works from his instincts, not cleverness. Thousands of years of it bred into him.’
I had no comment to make for I felt Mr Giles had made Tommy less than he was. With a start I realised that not long ago I would have agreed.
‘Do you think jealousy is a curse, Taj?’ He seemed about to add something, musing, knowing I wouldn’t answer him. Then, ‘No, we all get along tolerably well. Don’t you think?’
‘Y-yes, sir.’ But I wondered what he was going to say before he thought better of it. Mr Giles was not a jealous man. Was it to do with Mr Tietkens or Jess Young? When he mentioned jealousy my heart leapt in guilt. Hadn’t I been jealous of Tommy for winning those races, for his talents, his closeness to Mr Giles?
Mr Giles stood up. ‘What’s that?’
I heard voices. Two naked women walked down to fetch water. They had a water carrier; it looked like a small bark trough. We kept silent but when the women came close enough to see us they ran away a short distance, then stopped to look back at us.
Mr Giles stood and bowed to them and made a sign that they should come back and get their water. He wasn’t frightened. But the women were; the bowing didn’t work. They dropped their bark troughs and walked off as if they’d like to run but thought running might make us chase them. It was a good thing Mustara was out of sight munching on plants he liked; what would the women have thought of him?
We picked up the troughs. ‘These are coolamins. They look like miniature canoes, don’t you think, Taj?’
I couldn’t comment for I had never seen a canoe. The coolamins were made from the yellow bark tree, tied at the ends with bark string.
‘When they are full of water the women carry them on their heads,’ Mr Giles said.
‘I’ve seen women do that near Beltana.’
These were the first desert people I had seen on the expedition. I wondered if the women would tell their men we were there. Mr Giles didn’t have his gun. What would we do if they came for us? We sat where we could see any movement over the rise, but no one appeared in the four hours we waited.
It felt as if the whole afternoon had passed when the string finally arrived. ‘Them march six miles before I catch ’em,’ Tommy told us.
It was wonderful to see all the camels watered. They had come 200 miles with only that one watering from the troughs seven days before.
While the camels were still drinking, seven men and a boy appeared. They were quietly spoken, and a few had some English words like ‘boy’, ‘whitefella’ and ‘what name?’.
They were astonished, not only by the camels, but that they could drink so much. The camels drained the well dry, and the look on the men’s faces worried me. It was obvious they had never seen the well dry before. What would they do? Fortunately, water seeped into the well again and in an hour it was as it was before, though purer.
Jess Young tore his red handkerchief into strips. Mr Giles tied these around the men’s foreheads and they seemed very happy with them. The bag of trinkets came out under Tommy’s watchful eye and a few mirrors and necklaces were given. Three or four more men came to camp once we had settled and Peter began cooking damper.
One man had a piece of oyster pearl on a string around his neck and another had a feathered ornament which he popped over his mouth and laughed through. He looked like a jinn, though Mr Giles was trying to talk to him, calling him Feather and making signs with his hands. Feather broke the string around his neck and couldn’t wear his ornament so Jess Young found some elastic to attach to it. The man thought the elastic too fearsome until Mr Giles put it over his own head. Only then did Feather accept the elastic.
Mr Giles gave the men some damper and sugar each. Of course they saw what Peter was cooking in the coals: lowans’ eggs that Tommy had found. They were as concerned as when they saw their water disappear and they pointed at them and spoke to one another. Perhaps they thought the eggs were their own food since Tommy collected them from near there, but Mr Giles didn’t give them any. ‘We have to eat too,’ he said when he caught Padar staring at him. Finally the men returned to their own camp.
We were camped between two acacia trees. There were plenty of the pea plants that Mustara liked and shady trees and bushes. It was much like Wynbring. That seemed so long ago, way back in June. I braced myself for sleeping; it was going to be cold in the night.
Before sunrise the mercury fell to 32 degrees, freezing point, though it felt even colder. I had taken to sleeping with my boots on though that didn’t help much. Before breakfast Tommy and I saw tracks of emus, wild dogs and people. I worried about the wild dogs, though Alec said they wouldn’t bother us when there were so many people and the camels. I hoped he was right but I kept Dyabun close beside me.
Feather and the men came to visit early in the morning; we hadn’t even finished breakfast. Tommy said some of the scars on their bodies were the same as the ones from Fowler’s Bay. ‘Them Wangkatja people,’ he said. He could even understand a few of their words but he didn’t want to get too friendly with them. I thought that was strange.
Jess Young was surprising: he managed to speak with some Wangkatja men and found out the name of the place. It was called Ularring. They said it as Padar would, making more of the ‘ring’ sound. Later Mr Giles was pleased to hear the place had a name already. ‘Now I don’t have to try and think up one from my numerous friends,’ he said.
When I arrived back at our camp Padar called me. A few of the camels were still nearby and Wardah, one of the baggage cows, was with them. Padar lifted up her left front foot for me to see. Wardah turned her head and growled. She had a long mulga stake stuck in the thick sole of her foot.
Mr Giles came over to see. When he saw the stake he pulled out his knife and called to Tommy, ‘Fetch the pliers.’ Padar held Wardah’s leg while Mr Giles pulled out the long piece of the wood with the knife and pliers. Did she bellow! And kick. It was good she was wearing hobbles. Wardah, was a pretty dark colour; that was why we called her Wardah, for it means red. It also means brave and I encouraged her to live up to her name.
I inspected Wardah’s foot early the next morning. The lower part of her leg was more swollen than before, but I couldn’t tell if we had left some wood in. I hoped she would get better while we were camped.
Feather and his friends came again. Some of them wanted to go with us as we journeyed west. They seemed so friendly that I wasn’t frightened of them. Jess Young must have heard a lot of stories about spearing, for he kept a watchful eye on Feather.
A pretty girl came with a young man later on. She was younger than Emmeline, and very thin. Everyone thought she was sweet, and Mr Giles looked as if he would put her in his saddle bag. She stayed by his side much of the time even when he was writing. When a whirly wind sprang up and blew Mr Giles’ papers she helped us run after them until they were all found. Mr Giles gave her a shirt to wear and Peter gave his old coat to the man.