Kings In Grass Castles

by Mary Durack

  Father, who often enough in his journals had mused on the comparative comforts and advantages of city life and had become restless on receiving news of his college friends forging ahead in their white-collar businesses and professions, was now shocked, not only by the wet and cold but by the ugliness of city life:

  …the mob of gaping faces threading a most abominable thoroughfare…buildings of antiquated design with bedaubed signboards—ungrammatical at that…indeed a poor little country town compared to the eastern capitals. Fremantle as the main business centre is brisk enough but Perth, though very prettily situated on the Swan River, is quite dead and alive and gives the impression that there is little real prosperity or progress over here. As far as the beef market is concerned with the population more or less at a standstill there is little here to boost it beyond what it is at present…

  The rather disgruntled tone of his journal may have been due in part to finding himself something of an outsider. The name of Durack cut little ice with the entrenched families of the West to whom his people, if known of at all, were a crowd of Irish blow-ins from ‘the Eastern States’. The Irish background that had become so shadowy a thing to himself loomed large for others:

  …it’s being somewhat taken for granted that I entertain certain subscribed views or prejudices on current affairs and notably that of the Irish question.

  This nettled Father who had, in fact, given precious little thought to the matter at all but who, since the Irish were undoubtedly a pretty impossible sort of people to deal with, would not have considered the case against Home Rule entirely unjustified. He began to wonder whether his father would get on so well down here after all and whether he might be prevailed upon to express himself generally with a little more ‘tact and discretion’. The old man had been so accustomed to ruling the roost in his own little kingdom and to holding forth freely on all occasions and all subjects. Although in many respects fairly tolerant of other men’s views, there were certain issues on which he became increasingly dogmatic and would not hesitate in dubbing a man of the opposite opinion ‘a rogue, a hypocrite and a mountebank’. Father liked hearing both sides of an argument propounded, not necessarily without fire, but in such a way that all sides parted on a basis of mutual respect and with a sense of having participated in an improving discussion.

  Meeting certain west Kimberley pioneers on their home ground, Father could see for himself that there were essential differences between them and those rugged, self-made men who had entered via the Territory. These Westerners, whatever privations they might have suffered or to whatever menial tasks they might descend, had this indestructible background of British gentility and even if defeated could always return to their stronghold in the south where success had little bearing on social acceptability.

  He discussed the matter with Dennis Doherty who expressed himself humorously on the stuffiness of Perth society but was little concerned about it. He and his charming wife, herself a West Australian, had a big circle of friends and acquaintances, by no means all of the Irish Catholic community, and it was not long before Father was writing of garden parties, ‘cake fairs’, musical evenings and concerts with ‘items altogether of a classical order and rendered by the most beguiling cherubs’, and various other forms of ‘fruitful pleasure’ that passed the weeks of waiting for the arrival of his father and sisters with whom he was to return north. The lean, rather gawky youth who had arrived in Kimberley seven years before was now a distinguished-looking young man, tall, broad-shouldered, courtly and with neatly clipped beard and moustache. Mrs Doherty, declaring he had the air of a Spanish grandee, had dubbed him ‘Miguel’ which thereafter stuck to him and helped dispel a little of the general confusion of family names.

  But there was a more important reason for Father’s change of attitude towards life in Perth, for within a short time of his arrival it became apparent that the tide of history had turned for the Cinderella colony. A man called Paddy Hannan had found a nugget in a desolate little place called Kalgoorlie about 350 miles east of Perth, and as fast as carriages, horses, camels or human legs could travel the goldseekers were flocking to the scene. Soon the news had got abroad and shiploads of prospectors were making for the port of Fremantle.

  Anyone not knowing the circumstances [Father wrote] might well wonder at the sudden change that has come upon the sleepy little city of Perth as though life from some mysterious source had been breathed into it and its inhabitants. Perhaps after all we are to be compensated for our bitter disappointment at Hall’s Creek, for gold anywhere in the State will bring population and population will bring markets for Kimberley beef.

  Frank Connor and Alex Forrest as Members for the district approached the Premier to close loopholes in the Stock Act of ’88 which taxed the entry of all livestock imported for slaughter. The amended Act imposed a duty on all livestock except stud crossing the Kimberley border, thus safeguarding the Kimberley cattle men from a rush of stock out of Queensland and the Territory to swamp their market. It also put an immediate end to overland droving treks from the east by cattle men eager to take up land in Kimberley. ‘Hungry’ Jimmy Tyson had to disband a big mob already on the way to stock new country around Hall’s Creek. It would not, however, stop the steady flow of individualists, tough little men driven out of Queensland by the drought, the flood, the bank smash or the defeated shearers’ strike. In fact, as the small men moved out of West Kimberley, others were moving in on the east side to start the brief but stirring era of the ‘poddy dodgers’ between Wyndham and Hall’s Creek.

  Grandfather arrived with his girls, in better spirits than he had departed. He dearly loved the excitement of a gold rush and he was delighted as well by these two charming grown-up young daughters who fussed and adored him. Birdie, heartbroken at the death of her mother, deeply attached to the nuns with whom she had spent those four impressionable years and having, unlike her sister, no hankering for bush life, had wanted to enter the noviciate but had been persuaded that her duty at this juncture lay with her family. That Mary should return alone with their father to Kimberley seemed unthinkable, but in a year or two, the Reverend Mother said, when, please God, the family would have a home in the city she could return to the convent if she so desired. Every month, until her death, the good nun would write to her ‘dearest child’.

  Pray always and be steadfast, my little one, for well I know that the devil will strew distractions in the way of your true heart’s desire. Do not let him blind you to the narrow way of the cross or muffle your ears to His call…You are so kind, my child, so gentle and reluctant to offend any living soul, only draw the line always between gentleness and weakness, for the two are allied but may be kept a world apart.

  ‘Why does Reverend Mother write always to you, and send me only her love at the end?’ her sister would ask and Birdie, touching her sweetly, would reply:

  ‘Because you are strong, my dear, and I am just a poor little weakling birdie tossed out of its nest.’

  That arrival in Wyndham, early in August ’93, was a flutter of veils, parasols and petticoats among the bobbing of topees and twirling of moustaches as the fresh-faced young girls were welcomed with moist handshakes and frilly embraces.

  ‘Miguel, you old oyster! Why didn’t you warn us you had such pretty sisters? We won’t have a young man left in Wyndham once they get to Argyle.’

  ‘Mind you don’t step on a crocodile! They often bask on the jetty, you know, but they’re tamer than the brutes up the Ord.’

  Aunt Mary laughing and excited, Aunt Birdie smiling nervously, half inclined to believe any tale of this stark, torrid land, both mindful of the warnings and tearful prayers of the nuns, of Reverend Mother’s parting homily delivered through trembling lips:

  ‘It is God’s will, my dears, a great test of your strength and courage. You must make the station a home for them now and look after them. It is so easy for men to fall into careless ways in the outback. You have a great calling, a great responsibility.’
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  The picnic journey from Wyndham to Argyle was quite an expedition with Uncle Galway Jerry, Aunt Fan and the children from Rosewood, Uncle John down from Argyle, and two young would-be pastoralists, Joe and Jack Hart, who had come north on the same ship. Along the road, droving stud bulls inland from Wyndham, they met a young man who was at last recognised among cries of surprise as brother Pat, taller than Miguel now, and no longer the smooth-faced boy they had last seen in Brisbane three years before.

  They camped at the Ord River crossing, bulls and all, while Grandfather and his boys rode looking at country ‘well watered and with some excellent pockets of good grass and picturesque beyond description along the range where there are the most entrancing pools of cold water overhung with fern’.

  Grandfather named Valentine Creek after the camp horse he was riding and the family determined then and there to take up this chunk of country, embracing ranges, river and lagoons—Ivanhoe, the lovely lonely playground of our youth.

  Meanwhile the family camped and gossiped, Aunt Mary happy and excited in the adventure of the new life, Aunt Birdie fussily attaching nets and veils to the children’s hats, brushing the flies and ants from their food, loving and mothering and deploring the beasties of the bush. It was Birdie, however, who requested that their picturesque camping site be named Carlton Reach ‘after a dear friend in New South Wales’.1

  Again Argyle was full of movement and life. Hacks must be trained and saddles adapted for the girls and a new homestead pegged out higher on the river bank. This time it was to be of local stone with cement floors, the walls plastered inside, the rafters decently hidden behind tin ceilings. Joe and Jack Hart had agreed to assist with the building between expeditions with Father looking for a suitable station block. Grandfather, older and whiter since his wife’s death, found relief in hard work, the company of his children and frequent visits from his brothers, Galway Jerry from Rosewood and Stumpy Michael from Lissadell. No doubt this concern for others helped divert his thoughts, for although the control had slipped from his hands into those of his eldest son he never ceased to plan and advise. His greatest worry at this time was for his brother Stumpy Michael who at forty-five was now a shadow of his old robust frame but who struggled on at Lissadell with his son Ambrose, determined to build this last asset into a going concern for the wife and family he yearned to be with.

  Black Pat was also now at Lissadell, having sold his store and taken up a tentative holding some thirty miles from Wyndham where his brother Jim was camped.2 The Mantinea run, however, was soon abandoned to become part of Ivanhoe.

  At the end of August a police patrol including Constables Collins and August Lucanus, who had again joined the force, arrived at Argyle, this time with a new policy. Collins, a big man with a wealth of flowing beard, claimed long experience with blacks in other parts of the State, and entertained the family with stories of his exploits and adventures, his knowledge of native law and psychology. He was a humane man with a real interest in tribal customs, was no adherent of the policy of wholesale slaughter, and had been posted to East Kimberley by reason of a reputation for having some influence with the black people.

  ‘The news of my coming has always been signalled ahead of me,’ he said. ‘For some reason I am associated with one of their tribal heroes and am known to them all by my beard. It is my talisman, for no black dare harm a hair of it.’

  Galway Jerry was sceptical.

  ‘You need more than a talisman with the niggers round these parts,’ he said. ‘As for this idea of reasoning with them—it’s a case of “first catch your bird”.’

  ‘The rest of you may carry weapons if you wish,’ Collins said. Tor myself—I have no need of them.’

  Jerry thought it a ‘damn fool idea’, but was willing to try anything to prevent the further killing of Rosewood stock.

  Young Boxer volunteered to contact the natives, giving false clues as to the whereabouts and intentions of the police. The encampment was located and the raid organised. The fateful dawn came and Collins rode into the midst of the sleeping blacks. Pandemonium followed, the blacks shouting and flourishing their spears as they disappeared into a nearby thicket. Collins rode towards them with hand outstretched. A spear flashed from the scrub and he fell heavily, grasping the long-handled weapon in his side.

  His companions hurried to his aid. Spears came from all directions, rifles barked out above the din of rage and terror as the blacks fell dead and dying and the survivors fled in confusion.

  ‘But they didn’t harm a hair of my beard,’ Collins said when they returned to him.

  Galway Jerry galloped to fetch a buggy but when he returned to the scene of the fight the brave man was already dead and his companions digging his grave.

  As after the death of Big Johnnie Durack, a chain of fires blazed defiance from range to range. Lucanus marshalled his forces and rode the countryside, and slowly the fires went out.

  The incident touched off another spate of correspondence in the southern press and an unsigned article in the Catholic Record, in which we surely detect the outraged eloquence of the bishop, denounced ‘another blood-stained page’ in the State’s history:

  The following is the official account, sent by wire, of a most painful incident:

  ‘From Sub-Inspector Drewry of Derby—On the 18th September 1893, whilst police were endeavouring to arrest some natives for horse and cattle killing, Constable Collins was speared through the body. He died next day and was buried on the spot, on the Behn River, 140 miles from Wyndham. There were other narrow escapes. A borrowed horse was killed. Twenty-three natives were shot before they could be driven off.’

  Filling in with the help of experience the meagre details supplied in this cautious message we may take it that the trooper and his companions acted in the usual manner…Even if we take it that their tactics were intended merely to awe the natives, what other course could they have than to cause a conflict?…Had they any reason to suppose that by laying down their arms they might have saved their lives, even at the expense of their liberty?…We doubt whether in the circumstances they saw any alternative than to kill or be killed…We know how the unequal struggle fared. There is no glory in an achievement where there is so little risk. The swiftness of his horse and the long range of his rifle make the white man complete master of such a situation…In the affair on Behn River, therefore, the troopers had the game in their own hands. And on their own showing, brutally did they use their advantage. It is not credible that the natives obstinately stood their ground and threw futile spears until the whole twenty-three had fallen.

  …It is perfectly clear that in this case no choice of surrender was given to them. Some were slain fighting and some as they ran and how many of these deliberately followed up and shot down as they made off? This was no ‘fight’. It was a massacre. A white man fell too, one who is described as having been a good and useful officer. His death is much regretted, but still more the manner of it, for putting aside the question of colour, is one life to be considered an equivalent for twenty-three—or more?

  A pile of dead victims sacrificed to the ruthless Moloch of Australian civilisation, at this moment lies rotting under the tropical sun of Kimberley. And surely every gaping wound in their bodies calls incessantly to the Creator for justice. For after all of what crime were these men guilty at the worst?…The story of their accusers we have heard but their defence we shall never hear…

  At Argyle Miss Cameron’s fairy fingers accompanied Aunt Mary’s singing of Irish melodies while Aunt Birdie unpacked copies of classic art executed at school—‘Mariana of the Moated Grange’, ‘The Courtship’, The Monarch of the Glen.’

  As Mrs Doherty had predicted, the girls at Argyle brought a constant stream of visitors. The young men of the district seldom from this time used the ‘back road’ to Hall’s Creek but took the longer road through Button’s Gap and the Cockatoo Sands for the sake of a day or two at Durack’s station, while the bridle tracks between Argyle, Rosew
ood and Lissadell became well worn with the constant coming and going of the girls and their escorts, friends and relatives.

  At the end of October, Argyle cattle were mustered to stock country thirty miles from Wyndham that Father had helped select for the brothers Hart.

  The general feeling of expansion since the Kalgoorlie gold boom is reflected in a jotting made in Wyndham at this time:

  Sent wire to Lands Department. Mr Hart Senior telegraphs to have £1300 transferred our account for stock delivered Carlton. Send telegram Goldsborough and Mort asking quotation for 500 or 1000 unbranded weaner heifers for ourselves. Doherty has dinner with Harts and self when we break a bottle of Rhine to drink their success…Champagne drinking again becoming fashionable. Three bottles broken today in Cable’s dining room. The luck of Doherty phenomenal. Nobody able to put him down at dice…

  Despatches to the Lands Department were for the lease of some 800,000 acres for stud property on the lower Ord, later to be known as Ivanhoe.

  One night, camped with Ulysses near the Ord crossing during his inspection of the area, Father had fallen asleep while reading Scott’s Ivanhoe and left the red and green buggy lamp burning at his head. Towards dawn he was awakened by a hue and cry of natives fleeing in terror and young Ulysses doubled up with laughter under the net beside him.

  ‘Boss,’ he said, ‘they reckon you got the debbil-debbil eye all right. They properly frightened this time.’

  To the end of his days Ulysses would dissolve in mirth at recollection of this incident from which the new station was to derive the name of Ivanhoe.