An Outback Nurse

by Thea Hayes

  ‘It was a very distressing incident,’ I told him, ‘but I’d still really like to stay. I’ve decided just to say a few words to the boys so they don’t get the wrong idea about me.’

  So that’s what I did, at breakfast.

  ‘Sister wants to say a few words to you boys,’ announced Tom.

  I stood up and all the boys stood to attention, their heads bent down. All except Tony, who stared at me. So, having no one else to look at, I directed my little talk to him. ‘I just want to say how shocked I was at what happened last night. Please don’t anyone presume that they can come to my room uninvited. In fact, I’m going to ask Tom for a rifle to have in my quarters, and by George I will use it if I have to.’ I ‘forgot’ to mention that I’d never held a gun in my life.

  It was a very quiet meal.

  Tony was most insulted that I’d directed my reprimand to him as though he was the guilty party and not one of the heroes. He was such a joker that he never let me forget it.

  10

  The cracked hide and the watering hole

  At Wave Hill life was different to anything I’d ever known. I felt excited and was eager to discover more about this fifteen thousand square-kilometre property with its forty-odd subartesian bores and the Victoria River running through it.

  One lunchtime Tom asked me if I’d like to go for a ‘run’ out to one of the property’s four stock camps. This was Number Three Camp, run by Lynn Hayes with Gunner, his jackeroo.

  As we drove up to the camp we could see the boys, Lynn and Gunner, under the bough shed. The Aboriginal stockmen were sitting in groups, chatting or playing cards. Camp ovens and billy cans lay around the campfire, which was surrounded by a carpet of grey ash. Swags were scattered about the flat; the horses’ saddles and bridles were hanging on rails. As the vehicle pulled up, the boys came out to greet us. Tom, who’d downed a few beers before we left, decided to sit under the bough shed and have a sleep.

  The Vestey cattle stations were ‘dry’ at the time, meaning no alcohol was permitted for anyone but the manager, and that was mainly for him to share with VIP visitors. Tom seldom shouted the staff a drink. Occasionally someone’s ‘hide’ would ‘crack’: they felt desperately in need of alcohol. A vehicle would sneak off to fetch a cargo of grog from the nearest ‘watering hole’, which in our case was the Top Springs roadhouse, 160 kilometres to the north. Staff wouldn’t turn up for work and a jackaroo was usually sent down to investigate.

  One time, Ralph and Sabu were ordered to find out why the saddler Colin Cerdergreen hadn’t been seen in a couple of days. When they arrived at his place there was no answer. They tried pushing the door but met resistance. Colin was dead just inside. He had cut his throat.

  Quite a few men came to the Territory to escape problems from their pasts. They did their work, no one bothered them, and they found peace except when there was alcohol around. Another Colin, a ‘Sydneyite’—bright and intelligent—became very attached to one of the Aboriginal girls. They lived together and had three children, and the Inland Mission made them get married. Sadly, Colin died of alcoholic poisoning some years later.

  Back in the stock camp, as Tom continued to snooze, I chatted with the boys.

  ‘Do you ride, Sister?’ Lynn asked.

  I had always longed to become a good horsewoman, but living in the city my opportunities to ride were rare. Three very quiet horses were all I could brag of.

  ‘Of course I do,’ I replied

  ‘Would you like to have a ride?’

  ‘Oh yes, Lynn, I’d love to.’

  Gunner was sent off to get Codeine, the previous sister’s grey stockhorse. They saddled her up and Lynn helped me get on. I gave her a bit of a kick and nothing happened. I tried again. Codeine did not move. So Lynn gave her a whack on the backside, and away we went.

  Codeine had galloped about ten metres when the stirrup leather suddenly came undone and down I went, landing on my chest. It all happened so quickly.

  I couldn’t breathe, but I could hear. And what I heard was Lynn laughing uncontrollably, while trying to ask me, ‘You all right, Sister?’

  His laughter was so infectious I got the giggles myself and found it very difficult to breathe and laugh at the same time. When I got to my feet I made the boys promise they wouldn’t tell Tom. I should have said, Don’t tell anyone, because at dinner that night Lynn’s brother, Ralph, asked, ‘What happened to your forehead, Sister?’

  I had a small abrasion above my right eye. I didn’t think anyone would notice but, of course, most knew about my accident.

  Looking daggers at Ralph and Lynn, I retorted, ‘I ran into a door.’

  The boys were trying to suppress their laughter while Tom glanced around, quite confused.

  11

  Bushfire

  At the end of October 1960, a bushfire started about forty-eight kilometres from the station. Every man was mustered up to help put it out. I insisted on going as well, so we all went after dinner.

  The fire was raging for miles, racing towards the bore country, which is the best country on the station. I’d thought I was going out to fight the fire, but instead I had to drive the jeep and follow the firefighters. Imagine me driving a jeep by myself, let alone over scrub and rocks! The old engine would give one almighty roar, and then I’d stall the damn thing. No one to help me, so I just had to get it going the best I could. I kept up with them, but I’ll never know how. I was unable to see more than a few feet ahead even though it was a moonlit night—and a good thing, too, as when I saw the area in the daylight, some days later, I was shocked at what could have happened. Valuable experience, I guess.

  Later on that night I finally had my ‘whack’ at the flames, with hessian bags and tree branches. We fought on until three-thirty in the morning, and then turned for home, as the fire had headed off into gullies and more barren country.

  But by morning the wind had changed, and the fire had come back over to the bore country. It was a frightfully hot and windy day. Out everyone went again, except me: I’d had enough. Even the house girls went out to fight; they thought it wonderful until they had to start dancing around the flames in their bare feet. Everyone stayed out battling the fire all day and night, arriving back the following afternoon, absolutely exhausted.

  That was a Saturday afternoon, and that night there was a party on at the Wave Hill police station, seventeen kilometres away. The firefighting didn’t stop the men. We all went. Basil Courts was the policeman, and his lovely wife, Molly, was a superb cook and hostess. By the end of the evening I was pooped too, as there were about thirty men who all wanted to dance and only four women.

  We danced on the cement floor in the breezeway: boogie-woogie, rock and roll. We had so much fun. I loved to dance.

  One evening not long after the fire, Alice, one of the dining-room girls, came to me with her sick baby, Raymond. I asked her why she hadn’t brought him up to the clinic that afternoon. ‘Him gets sick quick fella, Sistah,’ she replied.

  Poor little Raymond was very ill. He showed signs of pneumonia. Quickly getting on to the Aerial Medical Service, I relayed the critical condition of my patient to the doctor on call. Antibiotics were ordered; permission given to use the antiquated oxygen tent Tom produced from his quarters.

  Although Raymond required evacuation, medical planes back then weren’t equipped to fly eight hundred kilometres and land at night, so we had to wait till the morning for his evacuation. Tom and I sat with Alice. Tom was a wonderful support; he’d seen some tragic emergencies in his years in the bush. We had an emergency situation and there was nothing we could do. We were helpless.

  In the early hours of the morning, baby Raymond passed away. His mother was devastated, and so were Tom and I. I felt a terrible feeling of failure, but Tom restored my confidence with, ‘You did all you possibly could.’

  Alice took her baby home, and the next day he was wrapped in a blanket and buried in the graveyard on the other side of the Aboriginal camp. The funera
l was terribly sad, with much weeping and wailing.

  12

  New responsibilities

  One could presume that living on an outback station in the Northern Territory could get rather lonely or boring, but that is far from the truth. Everyone made their own fun: reading, listening to music, playing cricket, arm-wrestling and training horses for the all-important races at the Negri, of which I was about to learn more about.

  I kept discovering new responsibilities such as the vegetable garden, and the lawns and flowerbeds in front of the homestead. I found plenty of packets of seeds in the store, and having had some experience as a child growing vegetables and flowers, I planted lots of everything and was surprised when it all thrived.

  The vegetable garden was run by Baker Dolly, a young Aboriginal woman with blonde hair who had come in from the desert with her blond-headed children some years before. She always worked with one of her children sitting on her hip. Cracker, who helped the butcher, was also Baker Dolly’s offsider in the garden.

  Every imaginable vegetable could be successfully grown in the dry season. During the wet, however, only capsicum, shallots, watermelon and rockmelon flourished. Summer salads consisted of potato or rice. No one had heard of baked-vegetable salads back then, which is a pity as we had plenty of potatoes, onions and pumpkins brought in with the supply truck every six months.

  You can imagine the state of the flour after six months: creeping with weevils. However, when the bread is cooked, you don’t notice—it’s a bit like multigrain!

  I was expected to serve supper to the visitors who arrived nearly every night during the dry season. They came in by the hundreds: travellers, Vestey guests, and contractors working on the station. One month there were six hundred visitors, and Tom and I would entertain them on the smoko verandah.

  The first night we had guests, I went out to the pantry to boil the kettle and found the fire in the fuel stove had gone out. The girls had gone for the day; there was no electric jug; we had 110DC power with no electrical whitegoods. Even the lights went out at ten o’clock. What to do?!

  That was when Ralph came to my rescue. He lit the fire and showed me what was available for supper: Jatz biscuits, tinned cheese and gherkins. That’s all we ever had. After that, whenever visitors came, Ralph helped me get supper. He was so supportive, sweet and helpful. We started to get to know each other.

  There were thousands of feral donkeys on Wave Hill and Tom would occasionally take the ‘weapon carrier’ out to do a spot of shooting. The weapon carrier was a vehicle originally designed for desert warfare that had seats on either side of the rear open area for carrying troops. The first time I saw these feral animals was when Ralph asked one weekend if I would like to go with him, as he and the boys were going shooting, so off I went. After driving for forty kilometres, we cut across country to where the donkeys had last been seen. I was packed in with cushions—treated like royalty, thank goodness—as we bounced over bushes and thick scrub and into creek beds.

  Finally we found the donkeys, which just stood staring at us while the boys popped them off one by one with rifles. It was horrible. The boys kept telling me it was necessary. ‘The donkeys are feral pests,’ they said. But I still wouldn’t talk to them all the way home.

  A couple of days later, I went with Tom and some of the boys to deliver stores to a stock camp. On the way back, the men started shooting at feral donkeys and brumbies too; these animals were there in their hundreds. Gradually I got used to the slaughter.

  When I arrived in 1960, the station roads were still graded by Pompeii, an older Aboriginal man, using a fire plough that was pulled by up to forty donkeys. Pompeii would drive the donkey team with his family walking behind the plough, throwing any rocks off the new road.

  As years went by we graduated to graders, and Ralph employed a driver nicknamed Claypan. Pompeii retired to the camp.

  *

  ‘How are the dairy cows going, Thea?’ Jim Tough, one of the stockmen, asked at breakfast one morning.

  ‘Beg your pardon?’ I replied.

  ‘The sister is in charge of the milkers and the milking team,’ Jim said, a cheeky look on his face. Everyone around the table started smirking at my discomfort.

  So after breakfast I walked up to the dairy, which was halfway between the homestead and the Aboriginal camp. There, two older Aboriginal men, Jacko and Jerry, were busy milking two Shorthorn cows. Two other cows stood waiting in the old yard. The calves were making quite a racket as they’d been locked up since the night before.

  ‘Is everything going okay, Jerry?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, Missus, him good milker this one.’ He pointed to the cow he was milking.

  Knowing absolutely nothing about dairy cows, I quite happily left them to it and went on my rounds, via the kitchen, to find out what happened to the three buckets of milk that were delivered every day. One went to the soup kitchen for the children, and the other two to the main kitchen.

  The cows weren’t the only animals that I supervised: orphaned foals were brought in from the camp for me to look after. I would feed them powdered milk when I fed the toddlers each day. Once I watched the breaking in of a few wild horses. I thought Frank Frith, the Aboriginal horse breaker, was going to get his skull kicked in. One poor stallion ripped his flank open; the tear was about a foot in length. I brought needles, thread, Dettol and rags. It took six boys to hold the stallion down. I couldn’t get through his tough hide, so I became the instrument nurse and Ralph did the sewing up. The wound eventually healed with regular powdering of sulphur to dry it out and stop infection. I called him Hyperion, one of the twelve Titans of Greek mythology.

  13

  Initiation

  One October the temperature had risen to around thirty-eight degrees Celsius and continued to rise unmercifully. No rain came to relieve the unbearable heat, and we had no fans or air-conditioning. In the Territory they call it the suicide month.

  One was continually running to the hessian waterbags found hanging on the verandahs, with an enamel mug suspended on a wire hook waiting to be used by all and sundry. It was too hot to eat, too hot to sleep. If one wanted to lose weight, it was an ideal environment. I’d resorted to sleeping on a stretcher outside, as the past couple of nights panting in the heat and brushing off spiders and moths were more than I could bear.

  Peter Morris, the Vestey general manager, was arriving with Reginald Durack, the company’s pastoral inspector, for a few days of routine inspection. Mr Durack was in charge of overseeing all the company managers in the area; he was also a cousin of the well-known pioneering Durack family from Argyle Station (which is now under Lake Argyle). The men arrived in a Beechcraft Baron aeroplane, owned by the Vesteys, which Mr Morris flew whenever he came to Darwin. The staff of Wave Hill were in a frenzy—you would have thought royalty was visiting!

  It was my first meeting with Peter Morris, as he’d been in the Northern Territory when I had my job interview in Sydney. He was a good-looking man backed up by a bucketload of charm. Make no mistake, though: behind the charisma was an astute man who knew a lot about people and never failed to pinpoint their strengths and weaknesses. Everyone called him Mr Morris.

  Several days later, Tom had to go with Messrs Morris and Durack to inspect a property north of Wave Hill called Tipperary, which was for sale. This meant that Ralph was in charge for two weeks while Tom was away.

  Ralph had always been a cattleman of the north. He’d grown up on Waterloo and Rosewood stations, which his father, Dick Hayes, and mother, Mary, had managed from 1936. The war years brought separation and divorce to Mary and Dick; and the three children, Ralph, Lynn and Milton, were scattered among relatives and friends. Ralph was sent to Tom at Manbulloo Station, where he and Sabu grew up together. The family reunited and plans were made to buy Roper Valley Station, but disaster struck: Dick was diagnosed with leukaemia and died six weeks later. This left the family penniless. Before going to Wave Hill, Ralph gained more cattle experience worki
ng with his grandfather—‘Squizzy’ Taylor—in the abattoirs and cattle yards of Cannon Hill, Brisbane. It should be noted that he was not the gangster Squizzy Taylor.

  While Tom was away with Mr Morris, Ralph would wander down to the hospital to chat and I would pick his brains about the Aboriginals resident on the station. He knew them all; he could even speak their languages, Gurindji and Warlpiri.

  They were such happy people, working on the station during the cattle season and going ‘walkabout’ in the wet.

  After the stock camps closed each wet season, the Aboriginal employees would take it in turns to go walkabout, leaving some staff to work around the station on maintenance, fencing and looking after the bores. Walkabout usually lasted a couple of months and participants would ‘go bush’, living on kangaroos, emus and bush tucker. Before they left on walkabout, they were usually issued with a month’s rations: a bag of flour, a pound of tea, two or three pounds of sugar, plus baking powder, a tin of golden syrup or jam, and a few sticks of tobacco; quite a load for the female walker, who usually had to be the packhorse.

  It meant no bogey—as the Aboriginals called a bath—no washing hair, no looking clean for the missus.

  Some of the Aboriginal people would spend their walkabout at other stations, visiting relatives, often getting a lift on a vehicle; but many would walk as they had done for centuries. They usually returned noticeably thinner.

  Ces Watts, who later became the pastoral inspector for the Vesteys, told me that when he’d been at Sturt Creek in 1952, a group of Aboriginal people walked in from the desert. They had very little English and no clothes, and the women and children were terrified of white people. Those at Sturt gave them food and rations, and then they went off, out to the Tanami Desert on walkabout again.