The Dig Tree

by Sarah Murgatroyd

  Accounts differ on how the quarrel was resolved but, whatever the details, the result was melodramatic and undignified. According to Landells, Burke burst into tears and begged his deputy to stay, saying, ‘My God! I never thought you would leave me, as I have great dependence in you. Come on: I hope none of the men have seen this.’ According to Burke, Landells wanted to return to Melbourne, claiming he had only ever agreed to go as far as the Darling. According to Wills, Landells maintained he had a ‘secret agreement’ with the committee and would continue only if he had complete control over the camels. When Burke threatened to withhold his pay for ‘disgraceful behaviour’, Landells backed down and agreed to stay on.

  Wills’ prominent role in the proceedings revealed his growing influence on the management of the expedition. The surveyor respected Landells’ work with the camels but nevertheless decided he was:

  nothing of a gentleman, either in manners or feeling…sentimental, good natured, more particularly towards dumb animals, and, as a natural concomitant selfish in the extreme, mildly persevering, and perseveringly mild; but, at the same time, he must always make people dislike him, from his unmannerly diffidence and want of substance.

  While the camp seethed with gossip, the camels, all of them, took it into their heads to vanish into the bush. Hodgkinson, King, McDonough and Dost Mohomet set out to find them, but only succeeded in losing themselves. Landells and Belooch then failed to locate either the men or the camels, forcing Burke and Becker to wander around lighting fires and sounding the Chinese gong to guide everyone home. King, McDonough, Dost Mohomet, Landells and Belooch returned that night but Hodgkinson did not come back until noon the next day. No one found the camels.

  This enraged Burke so much that he considered abandoning the camels altogether. Becker reported a further series of fierce arguments between the leader and his deputy but was reluctant to record the details. It was only when Burke paid an Aboriginal tracker £5 that the camels were located. ‘Them long-neck yarrowman’ were grazing just a kilometre away from the camp.

  The Moolgewanke arrived on 9 October and the supplies were transferred to the steamer. The rum was left behind at Phelps station along with assorted boxes of stores. When the party finally departed for Menindee on 11 October, the atmosphere was tense. Determined to prove he could keep pace with the horses, Landells drove the camels long into the night and poor Becker was once again caught in the crossfire:

  It was a most harazing affair; beside this neither myself nor Mr. Landells were sufficiently prepared to go on in this way, we had no food and no water, and the moon was down—but a few matches assisted us in looking for the track. On we went for miles and miles; Mr Landells, staggering in front, was scarcely able to keep himself free from falling asleep; I, behind, pulling the camels and looking out anxiously for our camp-fire…One disappointment followed the other till half an hour before midnight when we reached the long longed for halting-place. We found everyone asleep, however the cook willingly assisted us in getting a drop of tea. It was near two o’clock before our overtaxed limbs were allowed to rest. We had travelled this day 22 miles.

  Three days later on 14 October, Becker’s horse trod on his foot, ‘splitting the nail of the big toe’, and ‘forcing one half of it through the flesh down to the bone’. The accident left the artist barely able to walk and Burke was forced to allow him to ride one of the horses.

  By pushing his animals to the limit, Landells arrived in Menindee on 15 October just twenty-four hours after Burke. He and his exhausted animals pulled up under the shade of the river red gums on the banks of the Darling, and the camel driver went triumphantly to report his arrival. But it was not Burke who awaited him in the leader’s tent. It was Wills. The young surveyor calmly told Landells that he was fired.

  In a calculated act of humiliation, Landells had been sacked by a junior officer. Landells accused Burke of insanity. The Irishman responded by branding his deputy a scoundrel and challenged him to a duel with pistols. Landells refused, saying he had come to ‘fight the desert’, not his commanding officer. He tendered his resignation once more, this time in writing. Burke scrawled on the back: ‘Since that time I believe that he has been doing everything in his power to obstruct my orders.’

  The next morning, as if to prove he could dispense with Landells’ expertise, Burke had the camels lined up and fitted with special ropes attached to their nose-pegs. The animals bellowed as one by one they were led towards the slippery riverbank. To Landells’ consternation, the camels were about to be swum across the Darling in defiance of his recommendation that they be ferried over by boat. Camels can swim quite well provided they are not too fat. If the hump is too heavy, they tend to overbalance and drown. The men kicked the dirt in embarrassment as yet another argument broke out and raised voices began to echo up and down the river.

  Burke deliberately placed Wills in command of the operation, declaring that if such a ‘trifling obstacle’ as the Darling River was enough to stop the animals, then they ‘would be of little use upon the contemplated journey’. As Landells stood glowering on the sidelines, each camel swam across the muddy waters. His humiliation was complete. He packed his bags and made immediate arrangements to travel back to Melbourne. It was Wills who informed the rest of the party of Landells’ resignation. By nightfall his position was official—Burke had promoted him to the post of deputy leader.

  Landells’ departure sent the camp into a frenzy of speculation about what would happen next. Beckler made the first move. Later that evening, he too announced his resignation. ‘It was no little matter for me,’ he admitted, ‘to draw back from a wish nurtured so ardently and for so long as this expedition, to renounce so suddenly what had been a fervent desire.’

  The expedition had only been in Menindee two days and already the tumultuous events had provided the settlement with more excitement than it had ever seen before. Rumours swirled down the Darling and resurfaced in newspaper editorials nearer Melbourne:

  The opinion of parties able to judge on the Darling is that Mr Burke will not be able to make any more than 200 miles beyond the settled districts this season, and that he is not the right man for the work he has undertaken. It is stated that instead of making himself agreeable to the men, he harasses them soldier style and in going to camp at night will not allow a man to dismount until he gives the word, although he may be a mile away.

  The Victorian Exploring Expedition had disintegrated on the easiest section of the journey and was now lying in tatters on the edge of the desert. The journey of 750 kilometres from Melbourne to Menindee had taken fifty-six days—a horseman could ride it in ten. Of the nineteen original recruits, eleven had resigned or been dismissed. Eight more men had been hired. Five of these had also left. Burke had lost 60 per cent of his staff.

  The most significant departure, aside from Landells, was that of the experienced hand Robert Bowman. It seems he could not bear the ineptitude paraded before him daily. Beckler noted that Bowman ‘did not like it with us at all and left us after only a few days’. Another account says that Bowman was ‘so imprudent on one occasion as to contrast the superior skill of Gregory with the bungling of the Victorian leader’.

  Now, perched on the outskirts of European civilisation, Burke faced the challenge of rescuing the expedition before it disappeared behind the ‘shimmering veils’ of the desert. From now on there would be no tracks, no signposts and no local information, save for the wisdom of the indigenous people who lived along the route. The next stage of the journey would take him to the very edge of the map—to the giant coolibah trees that stood on the banks of Cooper Creek.

  Nine

  An Excess of Bravery

  ‘The desert is not just a place where greedy men may find precious metals. It has something more to offer in making us aware of the ultimate questions in life.’

  Manning Clark

  Menindee lay in Baagandji Aboriginal territory and took its name inexplicably from their term milhthaka, meaning egg
yolk. There were a few bark huts, a pub, a store and a police station. Only the Darling River brought the area to life. Its ‘coffee and plenty of milk’ coloured waters rolled through the sandhills and life in Menindee settled down to much the same pace.

  This was as far as European settlement had penetrated. The pioneers had come in search of grazing land but, as the climate grew more fickle and the countryside less productive, farming became a precarious exercise. It took a particular brand of obstinacy and optimism to believe that imported sheep and cattle would thrive here. Hermann Beckler was amazed that anyone would attempt to exploit such an unforgiving environment:

  If one were to show this country to an expert just arrived from Europe and tell him that this was good pasture land…he would laugh in your face…for the most part it was a miserable country of a strangely sombre nature…grasses were hardly to be seen. Small gaunt trees made the country seem even poorer and half of these were dead.

  Menindee owed its continued survival to the riverboat pioneer Francis Cadell. He set up a fortnightly steamer service and a small trading post in 1859. When the river was high enough, boats brought supplies up from Adelaide and returned south laden with cargoes of wool. Once the shearing was finished and the fleeces disappeared around the last bend in the river, the only entertainment was to drink rum at Thomas Paine’s Hotel, until the heat, the flies and the dust melted into oblivion.

  Ludwig Becker’s sketch features Thomas Paine’s Hotel where members of the expedition spent much of their spare time.

  Today the pub has been remodelled by fire and renovation. It is still possible to sit and stare at the faded portraits of Burke and Wills on the wall, but these days the outside world is beamed in via satellite, and the saloon jangles with television commercials and poker machines. The surrounding countryside has been transformed by a series of dams and giant artificial lakes, but ten minutes’ walk into the dunes takes you straight back into the same arid land that the explorers found in 1860.

  After rain, the light is soft and the land green and smothered in wildflowers. But in the dry season, the sun is blindingly intense. It scorches away the deeper tones to leave behind earth that is not black and brown, but orange and yellow. The grass withers to a jaundiced beige and even the sky is bleached white around the edges. As the summer heat melts the landscape into a quivering canvas of deception, the only solid point of reference is found around the riverbank, where lines of river red gums stand like sentinels guarding the precious water of the Darling. Each October, the time of year Burke’s party arrived, a fierce wind blows down from the north-west; a whirling force that sends dust skittering along the water’s edge. To stare across the dunes, screwing up your eyes against the dust and the sun, is like gazing at an over-exposed photograph. Only rain will restore the balance.

  The expedition had reached Menindee far later than expected. It was the ‘wrong time of year’ to leave the safety of the Darling River system for Cooper Creek, nearly 600 kilometres away to the north. Summer was beginning to shrivel the waterholes, but Burke was determined to push on. Before resigning, Landells and Beckler had petitioned strongly to wait out the summer on the banks of the Darling. They argued that since the expedition had missed the cool season between April and September, it would be better to stay put where there was access to fresh supplies. But the thought of delaying for another three months only seemed to exacerbate Burke’s desire to escape—postponement would be an admission of defeat.

  Transport (too little) and supplies (too many) were still the expedition’s main problems. To make matters worse, as the men began unloading the rations from the steamer Moolgewanke, it was discovered that the dried ‘pemmican’ meat had rotted. If the whole party was to reach the Cooper, it would take at least a month to procure fresh supplies of dried meat.

  It seems incredible that such a lavish expedition should find itself facing logistical problems before it had left the settled districts. Perhaps the answer lay in reducing the party to more manageable proportions? Burke’s instructions, however, required him to take his entire outfit to Cooper Creek. If he officially split the party now, it would be in direct contravention of his orders. The alternative was to send a forward party up to the Cooper with half the supplies, then return the pack animals to retrieve the remainder. This was a risky option. Burke had few experienced men, insufficient pack animals and only one qualified navigator. The history of Australian exploration is littered with the corpses of men who underestimated the power, the size and the unpredictability of the outback.

  Burke’s solution was to extract the ‘best’ elements of his party for himself and leave the remainder behind to fend for themselves. He decided to take Wills (as his deputy and surveyor), John King (to look after the camels), William Brahe, William Patten, Thomas McDonough, Charley Gray and Dost Mohomet, along with three-quarters of his remaining horses and camels. This would leave the rest of the men plus seven horses and ten camels on the banks of the Darling with a vague promise that they would be called up to the Cooper at a later date.

  On 17 October, in a final hollow gesture towards scientific endeavour, Burke asked Becker to join the forward party, saying:

  Do you like to stay in the depot, or to go on with me now to Coopers Creek? If you like to be with the party, you are welcome, but I must tell you, there is no time for scientific researches, nor a horse or camel to ride on, you will have to tramp all the way, and must do the work like the other men.

  Burke knew Becker had injured his foot and would have no choice but to refuse. A gifted artist—the only man capable of recording and preserving the expedition’s achievements—was being forced to stay in Menindee, an outpost he could have reached comfortably by river steamer. Having discarded the expedition’s ‘dead wood’, Burke retired to the Menindee pub, where he fell into conversation with a local man named William Wright.

  Wright was a man of profuse whiskers and few words. With his rough weatherbeaten hands and slow direct manner, he had all the hallmarks of a hardened bushman. Until recently he had managed the nearby Kinchega sheep station, but the business was being sold and Wright was on the lookout for an opportunity. As the two men talked at the bar, Burke discovered Wright had just returned from a 250-kilometre journey towards Cooper Creek and was keen to explore further. Several drinks later, Wright volunteered as a guide and Burke accepted. Accompanying the expedition may have been an excuse for Wright to survey new sheep runs for a new farming operation, so it wasn’t surprising that he suggested leaving Menindee as soon as possible. He also recommended keeping the expedition together so the entire outfit could reach the Cooper while the waterholes were full.

  Burke took the first piece of advice and ignored the second. He asked Hermann Beckler to take charge of a rearguard camp with just four men: Becker, MacPherson, Belooch and Hodgkinson. Beckler was unenthusiastic but agreed to stay on, at least until a replacement officer could be found. Since the recent altercation with Landells, Burke was edgy and secretive. He knew the locals were sceptical of his abilities and that it wouldn’t be long before rumours of his incompetence percolated down to Melbourne. Menindee might be remote but a recall was not out of the question. Public humiliation would follow and his reputation would be ruined.

  Burke’s overwhelming motivation was to get away as soon as possible—after that his intentions are difficult to decipher. He kept no written records and, crucially, he issued no written instructions to his subordinates. He told Ludwig Becker, ‘I intend to look for a road up to Coopers Creek, and how the way is, and about the water; and as soon as I have found a spot where to form a depot, I shall send for you to come up with the others and with such things as wanted.’ But did he really mean to fetch up the rearguard party and make a proper depot on the Cooper or was he just setting up a quick dash for the north coast?

  If Burke was genuinely planning to reunite his party, he never made it clear whether he expected the remaining men to make their own way to the Cooper with the animals they had left, o
r whether he planned to send back extra transport to help them. Either way, his strategy made little sense. From now on, many of the expedition’s most valuable supplies would be sitting in Menindee, while the men who needed them most were out in the desert.

  This Melbourne Punch cartoon was drawn by Nicholas Chevalier at the height of the inter-colonial rivalry between Victoria and South Australia. The public loved the idea of a race between Burke and Stuart.

  Perhaps the biggest reason for Burke’s decision to leave the Darling so soon had arrived aboard the Moolgewanke. It carried South Australian newspapers revealing that John McDouall Stuart had failed in his first attempt to cross the continent. He had just returned to Adelaide after a journey that had taken him to within 800 kilometres of the north coast. He had planted a Union Jack in the centre of Australia, and then continued north, only to be turned back on 26 June 1860 by an Aboriginal ambush near the present-day town of Tennant Creek. Neither side sustained casualties but with food supplies dwindling and his men and horses weakening fast, Stuart decided to retreat. Burke guessed that it would not be long before his rival set out again. In the meantime he had at least a two-month head start over the South Australians and he was determined not to squander it.

  The idea of a race had always appealed to Burke. It implied there would be a winner and, more than anything else in life, Burke needed to prove he was a winner. Stuart’s failure had given him a real chance of success.

  On 19 October 1860, a new incarnation of the Victorian Exploring Expedition left Menindee. There were eight Europeans, two Aboriginal guides and a string of sixteen camels and nineteen horses. Burke must have felt an overwhelming sense of relief as he clattered out of town—the wagons and the scientists were gone, he had escaped any censure from the committee, and he was at least two months ahead of John McDouall Stuart. At last the politics were over and the journey into the unknown had begun. Burke was undaunted by the 600 kilometres of wilderness that lay between him and Cooper Creek. Just before he left Menindee, he wrote to the committee, ‘I still feel as confident as ever in the success of the main object of the Expedition.’