by Louis Becke
Produced by David Widger
"FIVE-HEAD" CREEK; and FISH DRUGGING IN THE PACIFIC
By Louis Becke
T. Fisher Unwin, 1901
"FIVE-HEAD" CREEK
I
I had ridden all day through an endless vista ot ghostly grey gums andironbarks, when I came in sight of the long wavering line of vividgreen foliage which showed me that I had reached my destination--aroughly-built slab hut with a roof of corrugated iron. This place wasto be my home for six months, and stood on the bank of Five-HeadCreek, twenty-five miles from the rising city of Townsville in NorthQueensland.
Riding up to the building, I got off my wearied, sweating horse, and,removing the saddle and my blanket and other impediments, led him tothe creek to drink, and then hobbled and turned him loose to feed on thesoft lush grass and reeds growing along the margin of the water. ThenI entered the empty house, made a brief examination of it, and wonderedhow my mate would like living in such an apparently comfortless abode.
I must mention that I had come from Townsville to take charge ofFive-Head Creek cattle run, which had suffered so severely from aterrible drought that it had been temporarily abandoned. We were tolook after and repair the fencing, many miles' length of which had beendestroyed by fire or succumbed to white ants, to search for and collectthe remnant of the cattle that had not perished in the drought, and seeafter the place generally. My mate was to follow me out in a few dayswith a dray-load of stores.
I lit a fire, boiled a billy of tea, and ate some cold beef and damper.Then, as the sun dipped below a range of low hills to the westward, Ifilled my pipe, and, walking down to the bank of the creek, surveyed myenvirons.
"What a God-forsaken-looking country!" I thought as I gazed around me;and, indeed, the prospect was anything but inviting. On both sides ofthe creek the soil showed evidences of the severity of the past drought.Great gaping fissures--usun cracks we called them--traversed andzig-zagged the hot, parching ground, on which not a blade of grass wasto be seen. Here and there, amid the grey-barked ghostly gums, wereoases of green--thickets of stunted sandalwood whose evergreen leavesdefied alike the torrid summer heat and the black frosts of wintermonths; but underneath them lay the shrivelled carcasses and whiteningbones of hundreds of cattle which had perished of starvation--too weakeven to totter down to die, bogged in the banks of the creek. As Isat and smoked a strong feeling of depression took possession of me; Ialready began to hate the place, and regretted I could not withdraw frommy engagement.
Yet in less than a week I began to like it, and when I left it I did sowith some regret, for I had made friends with sweet Mother Nature, whoseloving-kindness is with us always in wild places, though we may not knowit at first, and take no heed of her many calls and silent beckonings tous to come and love, and rest and dream, and be content upon her tender,mighty bosom.
My horse, cropping eagerly at the soft grass and salty pigweed, suddenlyraised his head and pricked up his ears. He had heard something and waslistening, and looking across to the opposite bank I saw a sight thatlifted me out of my sudden fit of depression and then filled me withdelight.
Two stately emus were walking along in single file, the male birdleading, holding his head erect, and marching like the drum-major of aregiment of Guards. On the margin of the bank they halted and looked atthe horse, which now stood facing them; a minute's scrutiny satisfiedboth parties that there was nothing to fear from each other, and thenthe great birds walked down the bank to a broad dry patch of brightyellow sand, which stretched halfway across the bed of the creek. Herethe male began to scratch, sending up a shower of coarse sand, andquickly swallowing such large pebbles as were revealed, whilst thefemale squatted beside him and watched his labours with an air ofindifference. Her digestive apparatus was, I suppose, in good order, andshe did not need three or four pounds' weight of stones in her gizzard,but she did require a sand bath, for presently she too began to scrapeand sway from side to side as she worked a deep hole beneath her body,just as a common hen scrapes and sways and ruffles her feathers in thedry dust of the farmyard. In less than five minutes the huge bird wasencompassed in a cloud of flying sand, and working her long neck, greatthick legs, and outspread toes exactly as an ordinary fowl. Then, havingthoroughly covered herself with sand from beak to tail, she rose,shook herself violently, and stalked away up the bank again, where hercompanion soon followed her, and I lost sight of the pair as they strodethrough the thick green of the she-oak trees.
As darkness fell I built up a larger fire and spread my blanket besideit to sleep under the open sky instead of in the deserted house, forthe night was soft, warm, and windless. Overhead was a firmament ofcloudless blue, with here and there a shining star beginning toshow; but away to the south-west a dark line of cloud was rising andspreading, and I felt cheered at the sight, for it was a sign of rain.As I watched it steadily increasing the first voices of the night beganto call--a 'possum squealed from the branches of a blue gum in thecreek, and was answered by another somewhere near; and then the long,long mournful wail of a curlew cried out from the sunbaked plain beyond.Oh, the unutterable sense of loneliness that at times the long-drawn,penetrating cry of the curlew, resounding through the silence of thenight amid the solitude of vast Australian plains, causes the solitarybushman or traveller to feel! I well remember on one occasion campingon the banks of the Lower Burdekin River, and having my brokenslumbers--for I was ill with fever--disturbed by a brace of curlews,which were uttering their depressing cries within a few hundred yardsof me, and how I at last became so wrought up and almost frenzied bythe persistency of their doleful notes, that I followed them up with aWinchester rifle, mile after mile, wasting my cartridges and exhaustingmind and body in the vain attempt to shoot them in the dark. There is tomy knowledge nothing so mournful as the call of the curlew, unless itbe the moaning cry of a penguin out upon the ocean, when a sea-fogencompasses the ship that lies becalmed. There is something so intenselyhuman about it--as if some lost soul were wailing for mercy andforgiveness.
But on this night the cry of the curlew was pleasing to my ear, for asI lay and watched the rising bank of cloud, I heard others calling fromthe opposite bank of the creek, and then a parrot screamed shrilly--andI knew that rain was certain. I jumped up, carried my blanket, saddle,and gun into the house, and then went out to collect firewood. My horse,as he heard my footsteps, bounded up, hobbled as he was, from the bedof the creek, and neighed to me in the darkness. He too smelt the comingrain, and was speaking to me out of his gladness of heart. I called backto him, and then set to work and soon collected a number of dry logs,which I carried in to the hut and threw down on the hard earthen floormade of pulverised ant heaps, just as the welcome thunder muttered awayoff in the distance.
I brought a burning brand from the fire, threw it inside, and thencalled to my horse. Taking off his hobbles, I slipped the bridle overhis head, and brought him in under shelter of the verandah, where hestood quietly, with a full stomach and contented mind, watching thecoming storm.
Half an hour later the iron roof of the house was singing a sweet,delightful tune to the heavy down-pouring rain, which, till long pastmidnight, fell in generous volume, the dry, thirsty soil drinking itin with gladness as it closed up the gaping fissures, and gave hope andvigour and promise of life to the parched and perishing vegetation ofthe wide plains around.
With supreme satisfaction I sat at the open door, and smoked andwatched, with my fire blazing merrily away; then, before it was toolate, I stripped off, and went out and let the rain wash off the dustand dirt of a day's journey under a fierce, baking sun. How cool,delightful, and invigorating it felt!
I dried myself with a spare shirt, and then lay down on my blanketbeside the fire to listen contentedly to the clamour of the rain uponthe roof. About two in the morning the downpour ceased, the sky cleared,and a fair half-moon of silvery brightness shone out above the tops ofthe white gum forest. Fifty yards or so away, in front of the door, ashallow pool had formed in a depression of the hard, sun-baked soil, andas the soft light of the moon fell upon it there came a whirr of wingsas a flock of night-roving, spur-winged plover lit upon its margin. Icould have shot half a dozen of them from where I sat, but felt that Icould not lift gun to shoulder and slaughter when there was no need,and their shrill cries, as they ran to and fro, afforded me an infinitepleasure.
I took off my horse's bridle, put his hobbles on again, rubbed my cheekagainst his warm, moist nose, and left him. An hour before daylighthe stepped quietly inside and stood near the fire--the mosquitoes wereannoying him, and he had come in to get the benefit