Globusz^® Publishing

The train puffed down the middle of Rockhampton’s main street, thermal energy screeching out from the wheels while steam whistled past a strangled valve to warn the town. Learning out of windows or pub doors at these twice a week intrusions the inhabitants watched out of interest or for returning mates. They were two thirds of the way to their destination a day and a night after leaving Sydney.

They were stiff from staying still in one place on thin padded seats and grumpy from lack of sleep and food. It was early evening in Rockhampton and they still had another night to go through as the train arrived at noon the next day in Townsville. They half fell off the train as the engineers changed and while fresh fuel and water were loaded; the crews looked back with hate at the carriage knowing that they had to re-board again soon.

Jim, Cowboy and I spent the two-hour layover walking hard and fast around the town stopping only to buy hot pies and pasties that we ate on the move. We walked up a sweat in the warm sub-tropical evening. McKenna had told us that Rockhampton sat on the Tropic of Capricorn then postulated that it was twenty-three and a half degrees of latitude south of the equator and at the next stop the temperatures would become a continuous searing heat. We drank our fill of water from a basin tap in the public toilet ignoring the sign that stated, ‘Only to be used for washing hands’; we had a very disturbed train journey.

The others moved from their carriage into the station hotel and drank as many beers as they could afford during the two-hour wait. Within an hour Ted Miller, while trying to keep up with the seasoned drinkers slipped down the wall and stayed crumpled on the floor until he was carried back onto the train.

George was belligerent, Lester was at first agreeable to him. George began an argument with a local man by stating that Rockhampton was a pig of a town and the train should have kept going and not stopped at this dusty hick town. This drew other locals who surrounded him quietly as they laid their beer glasses on the far side of the bar. By the time the row was about to become bloody George had drunk five and a half pints of beer over a short period. At George saying the watered down beer was no good the beefy-faced Landlord nodded to the locals giving his permission to lay-into the loud mouthed foreigner, one of the surrounding locals was an off duty policeman.

John McKenna and Leo were drinking rum and beer away from the crowd; McKenna had consumed three quarters of a pint of rum during the two-hour stopover, being inebriated did not seem to affect the pair. They did not show that they had noticed the trouble forming with their crew; they huddled closer and turned away. Only Lester began to worry as five silent men semi-circled George who was still cursing out the town.

Jim and I entered the bar as the train began to whistle the passengers to board; we understood the situation at a glance.

“The stupid idiot.” Jim mouthed; we looked at each other and pushed non-to-gently through the locals to George.

“Shut up George! Now!” I gripped his arm tightly and would not let go. Jim slapped a ten-shilling note on the counter and turned to the five flat-faced men.

“Sorry. He’s drunk. Doesn’t know what he’s saying. Have a drink on us.” He pointed to the note. “We’ll take him and put him on the train.” Jim grabbed his other arm; we twisted both his arms up behind him and held him immobile; he cursed us now and not the town. We waited looking at the men. The men reluctantly parted to let us through.

Fifteen hours later dusty-hot and ill fed they disembarked and walked into the tropical heat. Urged on by an eager McKenna they followed him as he ran tensely across palm treed Flinders Street and into Bochanan’s Hotel. They drank ice-cold pints of XXXX beer in the bar and, when their thirst was temporally sated, ate at the café opposite when McKenna and Leo departed along the main street of the town. Full stomachs, cooled bodies and their wits dulled by beer they stayed together meandering through the centre of the town waiting for McKenna to return.

They hardly noticed the nineteenth century buildings or their graceful ironwork with the huge open air verandas built with sugar and iron ore trading money. But even in their happy state they could not fail to register the dominant bare granite of Castle Hill; it’s over baring thousand-foot presence stamped on the town.

They were hugging palm trees on the centre island in Flinders Street when a sharp yell from Leo ordered them to follow him to the harbour. At the wharf he pointed down into the water, they crowded to the edge and peered down. Secured by long bow and stern ropes to bollards on the wharf lay the trawler its wooden planking painted an un-glossy black. Standing high, almost reaching their feet, the stern gantry’s steel cross beam, used to haul a trawl net, was painted grey, patched and spotted with orange marine rust-kill paint. The stern well overflowed with boxes while the foredeck was a tumble of ropes, well used crab pots and piles of nets. The central bridge had a half cabin roof covering the wheel and a stand-alone-compass, between them a hatch opened below deck to a tiny galley with a stove and four thin bunks with bottom cupboards, two to starboard and two to port.

The very old and much worn forty-two foot commercial trawler had not been cleaned since it came into port with its last catch of fish and not for a long time before that. A bad smell emanated up; a mixture of long dead fish, old bilge water and dirty body odours made them step back in disgust. Leo’s dark and lifeless eyes glinted.

“Dirty isn’t it? Last season’s crew, didn’t clean it when they left. You lot needn’t when you leave.” He said this in his high-pitched voice; in a quick jerky movement he dismissed the boat.

“It suits me fine as it is. You don’t like it clean it up. This is how we get to the islands and pick up the Dolphin in Cardwell.” He pointed down to an open trap where dark oily water could be seen swirling as it moved on the harbour swell.

“Your first job is to empty the bilge. The electric pump don’t work see. The trawler will sink if we leave it much longer so get some empty tin cans. There’s some in the galley where the last crew ate. Get buckets, you’ll have to look for them under the nets on the fore deck. Now hop to it, you are not on holiday. Get working!”

Jim located three tin cans half full of rotten food in the cabin and two buckets were unearthed from in-among the fishing tackle. The crew stood around the stinking open pit looking down at the bilge water, scummy oil and diesel floated on the surface from which four stiff tiny rat legs protruded.

“Get down there and get the water out,” Leo’s voice pitched through their uncertainty.

“You!” He pointed at me “get into the bilge with a bucket.” I looked up at Leo on the wharf edge; he seemed to tower over me, though rarely fearful I found myself backing away. Eyes looked at me; at me only; cold lifeless eyes. It was as though Leo had no feeling that he would not be personally involved with any hurt or suffering that may occur. I shivered as I stared back at him; mesmerized; I was held in his thrall, joined momentarily through the space between us. Jim swore he had caught sight of the dead rat. It was enough to break the bond between Leo and me jerking me back to reality, ‘that’s stupid,’ I told myself.

In two strides I was at the water pit, I thought how best to handle it, then sitting on the edge dangled my feet into the water. I dipped a bucket in and handed it to Jim calling for the next one.” The rest of you form a chain and tip it over the side. ” I told them. I eventually let myself down gingerly into the water still a foot deep, it slurped up my legs with every swell.

They all worked until dark and exposed the wooden ribs reducing the water line to six inches by finally using the smallest tin can to scoop into the peak. They ate little and fell asleep using the rubble on deck as mattresses. McKenna and Leo stayed in town.

The next two days disappeared in feverish activity with Leo all the time and McKenna occasionally badgering them without letup to prepare the boat. They swore and cursed at the crew never letting them rest; leave the boat or to move from the immediate jetty area. Each morning and evening they spent time empting the bilge; a filthy bad smelling job that they all hated. They tidied the decks stretching the nets out on the jetty before folding them to store in the forward hold. Huge holes and sea-salt rotten ropes corrupted the netting but Leo was indifferent saying that a few fish may escape but it was not worth the effort to mend them. He told them to store the nets ready for use without repair.

They stayed on deck, as the tiny cabin was stuffy and dirty. In the galley the gas burner holes were congealed with thick grease, black and dark brown, which showed signs of being nibbled at by the large flying cockroaches that congregated there. The deck clearing produced broken knife ends, rusted hooks, paint pots with no lids, the paint solid and hard often with a brush handle stuck through it, tin cans, bits of clothing and salt incrusted items that could not be readily identified. The unusable rubbish was placed in piles on the wharf. John McKenna’s appearances sitting on a bollard glassy eyed yelling at them incoherently had to be ignored. Leo Delmont was always there angry, implacable and never satisfied with their work.

The trawler once had a name or a number of them; they had all been obliterated and finally not replaced. The trawler had become an object of no worth, neglected and abandoned without a care as it was tied up at this jetty.

Crated food and equipment, three forty-four gallon drums of diesel nearly filled the stern-well. Leo told me to pack away the food and medical kit inside the cabin cupboards. I dragged a food crate to the top of the ladder and climbed into the cabin. I opened the first cupboard door under the starboard bunk but hurled myself back as a big grey rat eyed me with its red unblinking eyes before it scuttled further into the dark. I looked inside and found it scattered with the rotting food that the rats had been living on.

I picked up a wood board that seemed clear of debris and pulled it out of the cupboard.

I felt sharp needles piercing my hand and lower arm and looking down I saw with horror that I was covered with hundreds of black ants. I stared momentarily into their nest as thousands of worker ants picked up a white egg each racing off to a dark corner with it.

I could not rid myself of the biting soldier ants so I leapt up the stairs and threw myself over the side and into the water.” Man overboard!” All those on board ran to the side of the boat glad of a break and a bit of fun. Ted picked up a length of rope and threw it; it missed by five feet as I was moved away in the flow. The others threw any things they could find loose on the deck aiming at me as a floating target, bottles, cans, and buckets. I was showered with debris. A bottle hit my shoulder and I went deep bobbing up seventy-five feet away from the boat giving them a jeering two fingers up as they called at me to come closer and not swim away in a cowardly fashion. I waved with a grin as I was swept down river in the tide.

When Jim and I warily slid open the bunk cupboard again, this time with a stick anxiously leaning in from the steps, we found only ant marks remained. As we pulled the mattress away from the bunk above it fell apart; the rodents and insects had torn and bitten the leather cover to make nests from the filling and for hollowing out living quarters inside the mattress. I called Leo and asked him how to deal with it; I was dismissed with a shrug and told to handle the problem. We hoisted the sealed food crates onto bunks and pulled the hatch closed.

The crews chores eased and began to make sense as a form of order emerged when Alan Drummond, a boats engineer, arrived on the third day. A small bird-like man he was more at home in the confines of an engine room than on an open deck or on land. His pragmatism eventually brought substance to the crews work. He hopped about the motor, drive shaft and steering gear muttering to himself nodding and touching everything as though greeting it all. At first he ignored everyone on board not replying to their greetings; the mechanics possessed him, he acknowledged only the old rusty hunk of metal, his mind active and racing on the work he had to carry out. He dragged his toolbox to the open hatchway and, removing the engine cowling, began by squeezing oil onto any part that had to move. He eased, with slight movement using the tips of his fingers, rocking more and more until some made a complete circuit; clicking the bottom of his can he squirted oil. Then he began to take the engine apart; tapping, easing and always oiling he gradually removed all bolts and screws that had been frozen into position through the neglect of previous owners. He exposed the heart of the engine; tightening, loosening and adjusting chains and shafts until he was happy enough to know it would all move coherently when he fired it up.

He worked for two days without talking to any of the crew, eating with his head stuck out of the hatch the lower part of his body beside his engine. He did not wash; he pushed morsels of food into his mouth, they included a good covering of black oil that he seemed to thrive on. A new altimeter, cable wire, spark plugs, gear cogs, pipe connections, nuts, bolts, a diesel pump and a clutch of fully charged batteries were brought in from Morecombe Chandlery then all were carefully spliced or shaved into position.

There was no fanfare as he started the engine for the first time. He turned it over twice manually stopping each time to listen carefully and to made adjustments. He pushed the starter on the motor three times before it spluttered and ground into slow life. He kept it roughly ticking over while he checked that the cooling water was being sucked in and again adjusted the timing and throttle thrust until it ran smoothly. Only after ten minutes of low power did he connect the propeller shaft or increase the power.

He seemed to find the rest of the crew with the engine humming smoothly in his ear. They were still empting the leaking bilges regularly by hand and asked him if there was a pump to do the job. As he was a team worker regularly crewing on commercial boats in the Australian coastal trade he cheerfully consented to strip down the bilge pump; cleaning it he changed the gaskets and pulled it into life. Dirty water spluttered over the side through a small pipe in the hull and the crew’s hateful job of empting was finished.

Seeing the boat’s sea preparation problems he sorted through the piles of fishing gear, ropes and crab pots on the deck and on the jetty, he jettisoned most as useless and after dark threw it all swirling down river in the strong current.

I explained to Alan about the rats and the ants in the cabin cupboards and, after tunnelling around in his personal kit, he produced a large white capsule. “This bomb gives out poison smoke. It’ll kill anything. What you do is lash down all the hatches, stuff the holes then put a match to the bomb getting out of there before it hisses. Anything that is in there will be dead very soon.” Jim and I removed the food containers, stuffed the holes and opened all the cupboard doors before lighting the bomb and bolting the hatch door closed. Working by lantern after dark we opened up the cabin and let the poison smoke escape. We gradually pulled out all the old food: bedding and scooping up hundreds of ants dropping it all into the river. Packing away the food in the newly swept and washed cupboards we wondered where the bulk of the rats had gone to as only massed ants, flees and cockroaches had been exterminated.

“You got to scrape its bottom.” Alan Drummond told Leo. “The trawler will labour through the water with all those barnacles pulling it back.”

“We got no where to hoist the boat out of the water to do it.” “The boards are being eaten out.

Few more months and we’ll have bad leaking that not even corking will stop – especially as we are headed north into the tropics.”

“Not doing it Al.” Leo looked hard at him.” Shut up about scraping the bottom and just do what you are paid for; looking after the engines. And while you are here, knock off helping the crew. That’s their job not yours. You are to stick to the engines and keep away from the men. You are on a wage they get paid out of the catch. So mind your business. Clear?” McKenna thrust a school exercise book at me.

“Here. This is your responsibility now. Law says we got to keep a log book when out at sea. So if the police or any authority asks you can show them this.”

“What do I put in it?” I asked. “You know... The weather... Where we are... Things like that... Here is a pilot’s book and there are charts; those rolled up papers over there. The book tells you the longitude and the latitude of each place and pictures of what it looks like from out at sea, how to enter each port, through which channel and how deep the water is. The depth under the keel does not bother us much as the Dory is only a foot and a half deep and this boat about three feet I think. You’d better read up on it anyway or we might hit something.”

“What’s that long something and latitude mean?”

“That’s how you find where you are, the longitude lines run north and south from pole to pole and the latitude ones run around the globe – or the other way around. Read the book and it will tell you. Me. I find out where I am by looking for Venus or asking the locals where I am. Dead reckoning it’s called I think. I’ll show you Venus. It’s a big bright star low on the horizon and to the north, or is it west?

That’s all you need to know really.” As they left their moorings I looked up Townsville in the pilot guide and opening the exercise book at the first page and tentatively wrote.

LOG BOOK

PLACE: Townsville [Lat; 19° 16' S, Long; 146° 48' E]

DATE: Sunday 17th June 1962

TIME: Morning

Leaving harbour. Sailed out through Platypus Channel into Cleveland Bay. Last sightings: Cape Cleveland lighthouse and Castle Hill. Passing to the south of Magnetic Island. Weather hot.

I looked out at Magnetic Island studded with high peaks, thickly wooded valleys with granite boulders standing exposed higher on the hillsides. The many houses mainly hidden behind trees made it an offshore suburb of Townsville, a bedroom suburb where they commuted to the town by ferry each day. Filled with exposed drying coral the lagoon on Picnic Beach was too dangerous for swimming, the shining white beach sand was soiled with ugly remnants of barbeques left by abhorred off-island weekend trippers.

They sailed southeast for nine miles past the entrance of Crocodile creek and passed Alligator creek. Leo was at the wheel with McKenna and me on the bridge.

“Is the tide coming in or going out?” I asked

“It’s an ebb tide lad.” McKenna expounded importantly. I was no wiser with this information.

“Look to starboard. See that opening over there? Don’t ever go in there without a local; years ago I did only once in a small boat with an outboard looking to get some crock skins. Its six feet wide up that creek but so thick with growth you can’t see a foot in front of your face and the weed in the water wraps around the prop. It was a nesting ground for crocodiles. They were fast and vicious. You lean over to clear the prop they get you. I was scared I tell you.” He paused remembering. “Smell the meat works burning the offal. Let’s clear land soon as possible Leo.” They passed a large vessel waiting for a pilot to enter the docks in Townsville; it was tied up to a black striped light-buoy swaying rhythmically in the beginnings of a heavy swell.

“There’s a strong South-easterly blowing,” Leo said as their vessel began to move, “let’s start ’em out right. This will sort the whole lot out. Make ’em wish they were back on land.” He laughed. I wrote more.

LOG BOOK

Continued...

Ebb tide flowing. Steering for Hinchenbrook Island. Strong wind blowing from Southeast... Vessel rolling.

Suddenly and for no apparent reason I sat down on the deck. I could not understand why all the joy had gone out of the day. Everything had turned sour; the day darkened for me and became a nightmare. My head reached forward again and again like a pigeon when it struts, bile burned up through my innards scorching my throat. I jumped up and leant over the bulwark. The wind whipped vomit back over the side of the boat and over my face.

“The leeside landlubber!”– Roared McKenna from the bridge. Not understanding and in agony I ignored the command.

“The other side of the boat! Away from the wind...”

I slowly understood why I was making such a sticky mess of the boat and myself. I staggered across to the other side followed by peels of laughter.

“How can you get sea sick in a mill pond like this?” McKenna laughed louder but heeding my pathetic condition came to the deck.

“Here lad. This’ll fix you.” He shoved a tumbler of raw rum under my nose. I moaned, and gagging, staggered away aft with all the pain and anguish that only a seasick person can know. I prayed hard for the boat to sink and sit firmly on the seabed. The day was lost to the new crew who mainly felt seriously ill in their first experience of a choppy sea.

“There! Over there will do.” McKenna pointed to the island shore as the light began to fade. Leo, still at the wheel, turned the trawler towards a tangle of growth aiming for one particular group of thick trunks. The trawler’s bow cut into the roots tearing them apart until they pulled at the boat cushioning it to a stop. Leo cut the engine and nimbly leaped along the side of the bridge to the bow to tie up around a trunk before the pull of the sea dislodged them from the tangle. The trawler tried to pull itself clear and sweep back into the main channel but the rope held as it fought and twisted to be free.

“Let’s cook up some of that bacon and them sausages. The smell’s going to upset them some more,” Leo said to McKenna. The crew were on deck or on a bunk in the cabin groaning in the agony of seasickness.

“Wait till the mossies come out tonight. We might even loose a couple of the weak ones at Caldwell tomorrow.” As if they were listening to the quiet conversation and as the night darkened further, the buzzy-whine of the first ones descended on the fresh and tender meat. They had been discovered and as the word spread thousands of them come to drink, covering the men in black moving swarms. The feast began on any bare flesh: arms, legs, face, neck, inside an ear, up a nostril, between fingers and inside a mouth with an indrawn breath. The needles sank in sucking the blood out. Hundreds and hundreds of hungry mosquitoes fed as hundreds more arrived. They fought them; slapping, crushing, squeezing; blood splats covered their flesh and clothes as they killed twenty at a time squashing their sacks now filled with blood, two hundred new ones descended to take their place. They tried to cover themselves pulling on long trousers and shirts cocooning themselves with sheets or apiece of tarpaulin stifling in the heat but the frustrated mosquitoes doubled their efforts and found ways under the coverings or pushed their needles through it.

All night the attacks continued until, completely worn out, most of them fell into an exhausted sleep; faces swollen with eyes able to only see out of slits: ankles and wrists twice the normal size. Even then the insects continued on unabated until the rim of the sun grew quickly above the mangrove leaves. The newly building heat drove the mosquitoes, the fat and contented mosquitoes, into a well-earned shadowy rest.

The boat moved all the time on its rope. Short jerky movements as it tried all night to escape from its tether – a terrible unending movement for upset stomachs.

After this uncomfortable night in the Hinchenbrook channel they ran further north and moored near-to the Dolphin that had been beached at Cardwell town. It was an eighteen-foot clinker build motor launch with two Thursday Island natives on board; they greeted McKenna and Leo as old friends and coming aboard the trawler received a welcoming bottle of beer each. They squatted on the deck to drink in silence.

Alan Drummond asked Jim and me to help him carry his tools to the Dolphin, as it was the companies other boat and his job was to look it over. We climbed into the stern well and Alan pulled off the engine cowling beaming at it.

“Nice. Nice. Nice. A Clay marine engine, nearly new...” He started it and began making adjustments turning things round then back again, tapping, listening muttering to himself all the time. He opened up a small tin of spanners and used three different sizes. He patted its top cowling.” You’re a good ’en... You’ll get us there. Not like that other ’en.”

Jim and I looked through the boats tiny cabin that held two bunks, one on either side with leather mattresses and sliding doors to storage cupboards under. I slid open one door tentatively expecting rats to jump out but found the area spotlessly clean and clear of rubbish. Three steps brought us back on deck and under the open yellow topped cabin roof with its glassless windows that covered the wheel, gear connections and clutch. We balanced on the five hundred pound capacity icebox and rounded the cabin to the fore deck where ropes and the anchors were neatly tied down.

“This is a beauty,” Alan called out, “shallow draft maybe only draws half a fathom,” he looked at their puzzled faces, “foot and a half. Just what you need around the reefs and in the mangroves...”

That night I looked through all the charts after McKenna said that they were sailing to Hinchenbrook Island tomorrow.

“None of the charts go to Hinchenbrook John. They finish north of there at Mourilyan on chart two three five zero. We need chart,” I read the small number out of the pilot book, “one two five four. You got one?”

“No. Doesn’t matter. Hinchenbrook’s so big you can’t miss it. Look out there.” He pointed over the dark sea to an indistinct but slightly darker shadow.” See that dark line on the horizon? That’s it. While you were being sick yesterday we passed up the side of it.”

“What about the reefs and dangerous areas they talk about in the pilot’s book?”

“Don’t worry about it Leo knows it well.”

LOG BOOK.

PLACE: Cardwell [Lat 18° 15' S Long 146° 04' E]

DATE: Monday 18th June 1962

TIME: Night-time

Arrived at noon. Anchored the trawler near-to the beach over soft sand. The Dolphin, a half cabin cruiser, was beached. Two crew, Jackie and Thursday, father and son, Thursday Islanders on board, they joined the crew.

Alan Drummond joined the crew [joined in Townsville forgot to put in log. IS] Town ringed by Sister Hills two miles inland, 800 feet high. John demanded my bond today. Reminded him only when I saw a catch.

The spiky hills of Hinchenbrook Island looked solid and impregnable from the sea but as the Dolphin and the trawler drew near they folded inland making an open break into a wide bay. The bay was thickly rimmed with mangrove swamp and had expansive mud flats running deep both to seaward and far inland into the mouths of nine rivers. They disembarked supplies walking them from the trawler through the gentle surf and onto a clear patch of ground. Before returning to Townsville, leaving the Dolphin on the island, they brought ashore food, cooking equipment, tents and sleeping gear, spears and a rifle. After clearing small stands of low scrub three tents were left at Hecote Point on a level area of about twenty feet square. The camp was on the northwest edge of Missionary Bay seven miles across the sea from Cardwell. There were indications of the area having been used many times before, they found two five thousand gallon water tanks half full of rusty tasting but drinkable water placed there twenty years before by the Australian army in nineteen forty two when the Japanese were threatening to invade.

Mud flats and mangrove swamps were within walking distance around a head of low scrubland; the bay opened up with its broken salt-water inlets and miles of exposed and noisy mud. Hinchenbrook Island’s rugged peaks towered three to four thousand feet above the camp site standing as bare sentinels, craggy and windswept, over dark rainforest valleys. The creeks and rivulets made gurgling waterfalls bouncing and tumbling their course to the tepid tropical waters lapping over sand bars in front of the camp.

Ted and Cowboy were the first to go running into the shallow water in their shorts to splash about playing as happily as two children on a beach holiday. Leo Delmont called them back acrimoniously.” Stop this skylarking you two! We’re here to work not play. You two go gather firewood and clear more scrub from around the camp. You and you!” He pointed to Jim and me, “get the tents up. Put the supplies in one. Put them on one side I’m kipping in there with them. The rest of you got two tents to sleep in. You,” he pointed to Kim Rodgers and Geoffrey Pinnacle, “get to the beach and walk up the rest of the gear piled there.” As they made off slowly he yelled, “don’t take all day you lazy beggars! Move it!”

No food was eaten that day as Leo ordered, cajoled and angrily forced everyone to work in the unaccustomed heat. They set up the tents, cleared the growth and accumulated droppings from other campers, unpacked the supplies and made a circle of stones for the cooking fire.

They felt strangely depleted by nightfall; they had not noticed Leo drinking small amounts of water all day or the surreptitious bites of succulent fruit that he ate. They did not know how to live in a tropical environment and had no one to tell them. Leo stationed himself in front of the two water tanks ordering them away to more work if anyone came over for a drink; he worked them hard until it was nearly dark. By night fall their bodies craved for liquid lost during the energetic daytime heat.

The first meal of sausages and fresh bread brought from the mainland was an exciting treat, a first cooked by campfire for most of them; they ate hungrily and drank water. Three of them drank a large amount quickly to make up for having none during the day; they experienced terrible stomach cramps. Others did not know what their bodies craved for and drank very little.

They all stared unbelievingly at the sky crammed so full and bright with stars as the night noises came in with the evening shadows. Crickets, frogs, plop of the feeding fish all mixed with mysterious sounds from deep in the rainforest. All noise seemed to pause momentarily as a dying scream was swiftly broken by a predator’s sharp bite.

The mosquitoes arrived swarming around the men; bare legs and arms were soon covered. Only Leo was use to them in such abundance and he had smeared himself in a thin covering of mud. He sat beside the fire happily looking into the flames while the crew jumped around swatting and cursing the mosquitoes; he mocked them for complaining. Jim was somewhat use to insect bites having lived in the bush on cattle stations; he knew about cattle ticks and the flies that took a piece out of your skin but knew nothing about swamp insects. Jim had the forethought to load a dozen dry cow dung paddies in the boat; they burnt them in small amounts on the open fire to inhibit the insects by the foul smelling smoke and, dampening it, rubbed it over their face and hands. It was meagre protection but it was all that was available. They sweated and suffered throughout the long hot night.

That night they packed into the two tents, four in one and five in the other like sardines in tins, head to foot. Jim, Michael Sparrow and Ted slept exhausted from the day’s activities while in the same tent Des Monty moved and moaned and cried throughout the night. Rolf Morrison jerked the night away on the edge of the other tent; he kept waking Geoffrey who hit out at him in anger at being disturbed. I began the night without even a sheet over me, as it was stifling hot inside the canvas tent. The poignant smell of the hot canvas weighed down on my breathing and, waking during the night, slipped out and went to sleep on the beach by myself; I awoke before dawn itching all over. My bare feet, hands and neck were covered in hundreds of red spots. I danced about itching and scratching myself worried that I had caught a disease. I ran to Leo’s tent and yelled him awake pointing to my red spot covering. He sleepily told me, “They’re only sand fly bites. Now get out and let me sleep.”

Their first dawn on Hinchenbrook Island cracked the dark sky with fingers of vivid coloured light warning the nocturnal creatures back into their holes hungry or fed. Outlining Cape Richards and the five-hundred-foot high bald hills to the east of the camp dawn pierced the cooler morning air already touched with the sure knowledge of coming heat. The land was quickly cleared of the dark night.

“Today we go get crabs on the mud.” Leo Delmont had ordered a quick cup of tea from the billy, and bread for everyone’s breakfast.” Get ready and bring those sacks ’cause we’re leaving in ten minutes. There’s work to do. Clear up this mess,” he pointed to around the camp to the scattered personal gear and breakfast food, “put the fire out and meet me on the beach.” He strode off towards the sea front.

The men rushed around putting things haphazardly here and there. Jim dampened down the fire and set wet sacking over the food supply. I straightened out our shared tent rolling sleeping covers up and pushed the scattered clothing into a corner before tying the front flaps of the tent as I left. I quickly changed into shorts, tee shirt and a pair of sand shoes.

They converged on the beach bunching excitedly before following Leo in joyful crocodile style climbing the small headland through thin bushes and gained their first close sighting of the stretching mud flats. An hour’s walk over dry and broken low hills forcing their way between spindly bushes brought them to the edge of the mangrove swamps far from the camp. In the still of the morning the salty tide was receding through giant mangrove roots, black mud and thousands of new mangrove root spikes became exposed above water. The solid entanglement of slime-covered roots entwined each other growing man high above the mud floor before sprouting into leafy land type plants. The dark roots, under water at high tide, formed an almost impenetrable barrier of live growth at low tide between the land and the sea. Leo started deftly climbing through the centre of the roots with the agility of a monkey; he slithered and looped clinging and pulling his body away from the black floor.

A rotten mud stink pervaded the roots as the younger men rushed in following with whoops of enthusiasm. Climbing the roots between the land and the sea they lacked dexterity, only earned by experience, to pass easily through the higher vegetation that was both hazardous and implacable. In trying to emulate Leo’s agility the men became covered with mud and repugnant slime, they were bruised and scratched all over from sharp crustaceans as they slipped and slithered falling into the receding tide emerging on the seaside of the mangroves a quiet and subdued group.

Spread out before them were square miles of seething black mud flats. Cracking and popping the living ooze was home to uncounted millions of amphibious creatures. Tides of six to eight feet high covered and uncovered this the homeland of the Big Muddie. The Alaskan crab has more meat, the small sand crab many people prefer but the blue coloured Big Muddie has a rich full flavour given to it as the environment sifts through its system. With claws as big as a closed hand the crab can destroy a finger with its bulldog clamp, it will lose its claw rather than opening it to release a grip.

They gathered around Leo, the mangroves behind them the mud in front as he pointed vaguely out towards the horizon.

“You’ll find a million crabs sitting out there waiting for you. You’ll be able to fill your sacks easy this morning.” He paused looking at them. “It’s easy. I’ve done it lots of time. Even you will be able to find them. Look there’s no trees for them to hide behind,” he gestured out over the desert of mud, “all you got to do is pick ‘em up with your thumb and forefinger at the back and drop ‘em in the sack. See? Easy... ” As he finished a cracked grin creased his face. He turned his back on them and facing the mangrove said.” I’m off to find where the best oysters are. ” Without further words he strode away across the front of the roots where the mud was more stable being held together by the plants before disappearing into the green mass. They watched him go then stared out at the ocean of mud stretching five miles across to the other side of the hazy bay.

The mire naturally spread them as they left the almost friendly protection of the mangroves pushing their way out onto the stark flats now beginning to burn with tropical sun. Out and out they went trailing the sacks behind them looking for the obliging crabs sitting on top of the mud waiting to be picked up. None of them had ever actually seen a live crab. Only George and Lester, who were away crewing the trawler, had actually tasted crabmeat.

They trudged in the mud vigilant and keen to sight any movement. While the mud covered only their ankles on small hard humps the main areas pulled them in to their knees impeding their progress as the clinging ooze gripped their straining legs. To move, one leg had to be sucked out while the other encapsulated itself deep in the mud. Huge energetic strain was needed to move only a few feet in any direction. Their deep footmarks were obliterated seconds after they stepped on leaving their passing trackless.

Numerous movements were seen in the distance and noises popped everywhere on the mud, they made slow dashes in the immense expanse in every direction but the entire ensemble of living creatures managed to elude them easily. Sunbaking Big Muddies plopped into their watery holes and disappeared imploding the mud well before the stumbling men approached them.

Leo Delmont stretched out at ease just inside the line of low scrub facing the mud flats where the mangroves started. He watched nine specks making their way outward; a shallow smile cracked his lips. After an hour of watching he slowly moved inland keeping his head below the line of bushes.

They stopped after hours of uncharted meandering and realised that all the edging mangroves looked alike. They were half a mile away from any shore and totally exhausted. They could not stop to rest but had to continue moving as their body weight pushed them deeper into the mud if they were still.

A horrifying realisation dawned that they had neglected to mark their entry onto the morass and had no knowledge as to where the camp lay. Their eyes searched for some irregular, man-made shape breaking the dense green fringe, they looked frantically for any sign that may point them a direction home. They found nothing. They were impotent, tired and worn out, lost in this intimidating wilderness.

“Even if we did know where the camp was it will take us hours to get there.” Their tired muscles screamed for hard land to walk upon as they kept their legs moving the slime about.

“What are we going to do?” Michael Sparrow almost cried in his exhaustion, “we can’t stay here the tide is coming in.”

“We got to get to land.” Jim’s voice was stronger and seemed commanding.” I don’t know any better than you but I say we head that way.” He pointed to where the mangroves stuck out into the flats.

“Why there? Why not there? Or there?” Des Monty whined at Jim’s ordering and taking charge.

“I don’t know why there. Why not?” He stared hard at Des then wearily shook his head. “You don’t like it, go some place else.” He started slowly to draw himself across the mud keeping his eye on the far distant shore following his bushman’s instinct. Very weary, very confused they all followed him.

Sweat ran in rivulets out through every open pore of their bodies, their throats were arid and craved for water. The sweat washed away the ooze in zigzag contours; the heat, a hot blanket, lay stifling and sullen hard on each man. The sun seared and blistered their heads and shoulders. They struggled onwards; the pernicious effort drained them, the mangroves never seemed to draw any nearer. Des was openly sobbing now; others grunted and cursed or silently fought their bodies willing them with all their inner strength to go on.

The tide, past full out, began its return building up wave-by-wave growing closer and fuller. The indefatigable waters would soon to bring in the short savage reef shark and the deadly Man of War and the Box jellyfish.

The trawler engines burst into life propelling a cloud of diesel smoke into the cramped engine space where Alan Drummond inhaled it deeply. Thursday was lowering stores to his father from the deck who stored them in the tiny hold; George and Lester lolled on the fore deck trying to look like seamen. McKenna talked to a hard faced man on the bridge.

“I’ll be back in no time at all Mr Morcome.” McKenna said in a respectful tone, “I’ve got other boats filling up and there’s a big crew of over twenty on Hinchenbrook getting shell fish.” Mr Morcombe looked sceptically at him.

“You haven’t got much of a crew to work the trawler Mr Kenna. How do you expect to do it with only you, a couple of blacks and two green as grass?”

“Mr McKenna. My name’s Mr McKenna. As I said the main crew’s on Hinchenbrook while I get this boat straightened out. As you know we’ve had a lot of trouble with spare parts for the engine,” he looked slyly sideways at Mr Morcombe, “you did say she’d be ready for sea when Leo bought her.” Mr Morcombe’s brow creased and his face hardened, he was a man few cared to reproach.” You get her out of Townsville quick smart. Mr Mc-Kenna. I’ll be waiting to cash in on your catch; you owe me a lot of money. You come and see me in my office in Cairns soon as you arrive.” With one last look around he strode off the bridge and scaling the Jacobs ladder climbed onto the wharf and entered a long shaded window car.

Darkness had long fallen as they staggered into the camp. Totally exhausted they sprawled around the dead fire ring. Caked in stinking mud cracking as it dried on them, their ankles and lower legs were ripped raw by shell fragments. They closed their eyes and were silent.

“Well? Where’s the catch then?” A clean and neatly dressed Leo Delmont stood in front of his tent, hands on hips glaring at them. No one said a word. They just stared into space. Leo strode forward and stood over them aggressively daring them not to have a substantial catch. Jim Searle slowly turned his head and looking over his shoulder drawled at him.

“Go! To! Hell!”

Early the next day Leo ordered them back to the swamp saying that he would go on looking for the best oyster beds as they worked the crabs. I looked at the others in the morning light and saw that they were dithering between taking orders and the uselessness and horror of going back on the mud.

“Get going! Get out of here!” Leo clenched his fists at their reluctance to move out.

I kept looking at my companions calculating their dispositions.

Jim looked straight back at me but was silent.

Ted was ready to go to the mud pliant to anyone’s orders. He watched me. Rolf, Michael and Kim Rogers did not know which way to go, Rolf hopped from one foot to the other. Geoff pouted.

Cowboy was brushing down and trying to straighten his clothing.

Des Monty sat on the ground staring into nothing.

I stepped forward in front of Leo locking eyes.” You come and show us what to do or,” I said into his face, “we don’t go. ” My eyes had become cold. What I said was a final statement – a statement that broached no argument. At this moment as I faced up to Leo a mental capability seemed to germinate within me and with its raw inception the primeval soup of my youth began to fall away. Until now this savage facility had been enigmatic. Known to me as a glimmer, bewildering and used only in uncontrolled patches. Leo’s dark eyes closed to slits as he tensed and began to raise his fists to force his leadership when an apprehension, a deep instinct, made him pause. He hesitated, not out of logic but a foreboding; he somehow felt that if he hit out he would be damaged, damaged very badly. Unable to explain this premonition to himself as it had no reason for he was bigger and meaner than me, he dropped his fists and stepping back sneered at them.

“You are a useless lot! You can’t do anything without me babying you! I’ll show you once. That’s all!”

My inner spring unwound slowly now Leo’s malign influence over them had been averted. I had been prepared to force the issue with a certainty that Leo would not have hit me. It had all happened naturally without thought or planning. This unknown coldness came from deep inside me. I did not understand why I had felt no fear or why Leo had backed down.

Leo spent the next ten minutes preparing himself for the mud. He firstly changed his tee shirt for a long sleeved cotton shirt and his boots to sand shoes with slits cut around the sides enabling the seawater to run out. He topped it all off with an old floppy army hat. He cut strips off the top of one of the sacks and winding them around his lower trousers and ankles formed a garter, a spat against the sharp objects in the mud, he tied them on with rope. Clutching a foot broad plank of wood from a broken section under the water tanks he worked it loose and tied a length of rope on one end then said harshly.” Well. Let’s go!”

The crew were dressed in shorts and skimpy short-sleeved shirts. They now realised why their ankles and legs had suffered so many cuts and why their exposed bodies were covered with irritating bites.

“Why didn’t you tell us to do that yesterday? I got cuts all over me!” Geoffrey jumped to his feet in a temper.

“I’m not your mother!” Leo spat back. “C’m’on let’s go!” He strode off towards the beach.

They did not follow him, they returned to their tents to change into similar protective clothing. In their depleted state, still tired from the effort of the day before, half an hour elapsed as they prepared. As they headed towards Leo they realised that Des Monty was still lying beside the fire ring.

“Aren’t you coming?” I asked him. Des looked up with dreamy eyes and said “No. I don’t feel well today. I’ll stay and clean up around the camp.” I looked at him then shrugging walked to the beach with the others.

Leo walked them past yesterday’s entry to the mud flats and around the west side of Missionary Bay, skirting a range of hills they cut inland to avoid the creeping swamp. After low tide they reached the broken land at the head of the bay with its salt-water inlets. Leo cut himself a fork shaped branch off a low tree, which the other copied, then struck into the thickening mangroves.

The mangroves were very deep at this point not only fringing the bay but also running over the mud. They climbed through but again slipped often into the mud floor while trying to keep to the leafy half of the plant. The roots were slippery with blackish slime and were encrusted with the ruins of razor sharp shellfish embedded in their fibres, the crews hands bled from numerous minor cuts.

The mosquitoes, gnats and flies attacked every part of their exposed bodies and as the sun disappeared behind the greenery, the noisy living swamp enticed the men to plummet to the floor. Resilient, pliant and tough as old leather the roots bound the fragile mud that lay six feet beneath the aerobic crew. They continually slipped to the floor which, when hit, splashed open exposing long dead shell and coral pieces. The still heat oppressed, enveloping them trapped under the green cover. At last sunlight crinkled through the overhead covering growing brighter as they reached the thinning edge of the swamp. Leo warned them.

“Spread out in a line and follow me. Very quiet... Very slow... The Muddies sit on top of their holes and disappear into them as they feel you coming. You use your forked stick to dig ’em out and hold them down. So you’ve got to keep your eye on where the movement was until you get to it otherwise it looks the same as anywhere else. When you dig one out just free it from the hole. Don’t let it get its claws on your stick. Pin it down with the stick then pick it up at the back by hand like I already told you. It can’t get at you there. Then throw it in the sack.” They carried sacks while Leo pulled his wood sled and a sack behind him.

With this he started slowly over the mud like a cat in shallow water. They followed his irregular goose-step motion, skiddy and broken, which crossed the mud field with minimal effort. Slowly, carefully, unlike yesterday’s stumbling rushes, they all slid out.

A movement, a subdued ripple of water occurred twenty feet to the left of Geoffrey. I kept my eyes staring at the spot as I slithered towards it. I dug my forked stick in the hole and poked around. Prod... Heave... Dig... Nothing... An hour of fruitless searching passed attacking holes, cursing then moving on before Jim dug up the first one. He pushed his stick into the hole then heaved. Out it came. In all its magnificent fury, its two six inch claws snapping high in the air ready to tear its tormentor to pieces. Its plate sized body propelled by spindly legs skimmed sideways attacking Jim with its claws. Jim jerked his whole body away in terror. The crab slid under the mud and disappeared. Shame faced and covered in fresh mud the others laughed at him, even Leo’s face cracked a little.

As the day progressed they became more adept at pinpointing and digging up the few crabs that seemed to make their home there. As Michael unearthed one its right claw gripped on the stick; he shook it violently. The claw, with its death grip on the stick remained while the crab, its other claw snapping seemingly contemptuous, scuttled deep into its hole.

Watching Leo Delmont they learnt how to do it more precisely. A crab popped out of its hole and attacked across the mud; he pressed the forked stick on its top shell pushing it flat on the mud but away from its hole. Holding it down and making sure the stick was upright, so the claws could not snap on it he circled around to its rear end and, with a thumb on the top shell and middle finger on its ribbed underside, picked it up. The claws came over the shell then under its belly beating a ferocious tattoo on his fingers as it tried to gain a grip. He then tossed it into his sack.

All that day they worked the mud flats and only when the incoming tide started inundating the area did they move back to the mangroves, tired but happy with success, they dragged their kicking sacks with them.

As the tide reached over their ankles Leo Delmont stopped and pulling out his knife hacked away at black saucer sized shells that were clustered up the mangrove roots. He removed twenty in a few minutes throwing them into his sack together with the crabs.

“Oysters,” was all he said as he headed into the roots slinging the sack and the plank of wood over his shoulder. None of the others had noticed the edible crustaceans.

The crackling fire, the only light in the camp, softened the darkness. The men sat around the campfire watching with hungry eyes as the oysters bubbled away in their shells on the embers. They had not eaten any of the eight crabs they had caught, Leo emphasised that, as crabs were an upmarket food their value was inflated and they must be sold as a cash crop. Leo sent Kim and Des Monty to the boat with the live sacks to be emptied into the fish box aboard the Dolphin together with a little seawater. The boat had been pulled up hard on the sandy beach and tied to a tree in front on the campsite.

After the meal Cowboy and I walked with our heads close together talking quietly as we gathered kindling with Ted ahead of us. Suddenly Cowboy exclaimed loudly.

“Isn’t this Tiger Island?”

“It is that Cowboy.” I agreed. “We shouldn’t be walking out here unprotected like this.”

“Let’s pick up some wood and get back to camp quick.”

“What are you two taking about?” Ted asked

“Tigers mate. Haven’t you heard about this island?”

“I don’t know anything. What do you mean Tigers?” He asked as he looked up the hills through the sparse bush. We began hurrying back to the camp as Cowboy explained.

“An Italian bloke who owned a lot of sugar farms near Cardwell fought in India and Burma in the Second World War and when he came home he brought six tigers with him to breed from and make a business selling them to zoos and the like. There were no people much around then so he caged them up on this island and fed them the roos and rock wallabies that live here.” Ted’s eyes grew large with wonder as Cowboy continued. “But, and this is the bad bit, they escaped to the interior. Hunters from Cardwell combed the island killing all but one, a female and it was thought that she died. But in the last few years there have been sightings and two fishermen and a hunter have disappeared and bits of eaten wallaby have been found nearby here.”

Ted looked around fearfully and then his face crinkled up

“I don’t believe you. There are no tigers in Australia. I will ask Leo.”

“Go ahead. He will say there are none just as not to scare you. Sorry I told you about it. Just forget I said anything.”

Ted did ask Leo that evening and was told not to be stupid as there were no tigers in Australia except in zoos. I gave him an ‘ I told you so’ shrug while looking into dark night illuminated now only by the low burning campfire.

The rest of the evening Cowboy and I kept close to the fire, both obviously nervous as we jerked to face noise or movement from within the pitch-black bush. As the fire died down further a bright full moon lit the area picking out the three tents around the fire but the bush beyond the camp was in dread dark.

Forty-three minutes after the crew had sunk into sleep quiet was over the camp. Heavy sleep breathing and diffuse snores broke the stillness as the men were in their first and deepest part of the nights sleep. A low, barely participle, growl was heard behind the middle tent. Tree branches creaked slightly in a night breeze while small ground rodents scuttled through a newly made rubbish tip. The growling grew stronger, now close behind the rear of the centre tent, and then suddenly the growl wound up to a roar while the tent back and side were slashed and bent inwards towards the sleeping inmates.

Ted screamed and fell rolling out the front flaps and leapt off into the bush. The camp was in an uproar with most of them rolling on the ground howling with laughter. Des Monty looked at them all morosely.

Leo yelled.” You morons! That fool will lose himself running through the bush in the dark! We are not going to waste time looking for him. You are here to work, not muck up. Get some sleep. You got a rough day coming up tomorrow.”

Ted was rounded up eventually, ignominiously hiding in a rock crevice on the hill. Half carried back to the camp amidst general merriment at the clowning he laid awake for the rest of the night.

Ted’s life washed over him. He wished he were still working on the mixed farm outside Bathurst where his life had been centred after he left school at fourteen. His mind carried him joyfully through cutting trees, erecting fences and working the pigs. As season followed season he knew what work he would be doing day-by-day, week-by-week and year-by-year. He liked that.

He had attended the auction after the farm went bankrupt, the farmer stood stiff and outwardly unemotional while his family openly cried as each cherished and hard won item was sold: the livestock first, the farm equipment and then household furniture.

A man wearing a suit and tie who stepped daintily on the rough and dirty ground, so as not to scuff his highly polished shoes, bought the farm as a week-ender, a play-thing. Ted overheard him talking how he was going to “knock down that ‘load-of-rubbish’ to improve the view. ” That ‘load-of-rubbish’ was the sty, and he massed buildings, that he had helped build, maintain and worked-in all his life. He cried with the family.

He departed from Bathurst the next week leaving his mother distraught as he hitched his way over the Blue Mountain ranges to Sydney and the sea. He had wondered what a sea would look like. He wished he were back home with his mother.

After breakfast the next morning they went to inspect the crabs. The heat of the night had caused a bloody devastation as they mashed and tore each other apart in a frenzied escape attempt; not one crab was left unbroken. The icebox had no seawater for the crabs. Des Monty had grown frightened of the dark going through the palms fringing the beach. As Kim opened the icebox lid Des had thrown the sacks into the box and run back to camp. Worried, Kim followed him quickly after replacing the lid. The crabs found their way angrily out of the sack confinement only to be infuriated in the dry enclosed box. Throughout the night as conditions worsened they became mad and fought each other crushing and killing. It was a messy job to clear them out.

As they worked the mud for crabs and their cognisance improved they became aware of just how lucky they had been on their first stumbling day not to have a serious accident. They found small oozing patches, looking the same as the firmer flats, which slowly ate a solid body up sucking it into its depths. Without the small wooden platforms that they now all used there would be no way to lever themselves out.

Leo Delmont went off each day in the Dolphin to look for more oyster areas saying that there was a big market locally.

After that first trip into the swamp Des Monty refused to leave the camp again, no amount of coaxing or mocking moved him. He cooked meals, washed up and cleaned. He had a guitar and, cradling it like a baby, made a nest for himself deep in a covert and sang melancholy songs.

“Why don’t you liven yourself up and stop acting like a housewife?” The jibes would go almost every night. He would hug his guitar even closer and whine.

“Leave me alone you beasts. I work very hard in the camp.” Roars of laughter followed this retort.

“You’ll make some lucky man a good wife Des darlin’.” I called out while Geoffrey exhorted with enthusiasm. “Going to tuck me in tonight dear?” Des stuck his tongue out and disappeared into dark cover from where they could hear only the faint strumming of the guitar. His effeminate manners became more pronounced over the days.

The stores they had brought from the mainland had to be supplemented by game that abounded on the island. As they ran low on food Jim and I decided to hunt wallaby. Jim had hunted kangaroos in the outback shooting them from the back of a pick-up truck at night using spotlights; he knew that being on foot they had to firstly find a wallaby waterhole. Armed with an old army .303-rifle, Jim adjusted its sights on the beach by shooting at rows of shells before we set off to the interior. We carried two cane-cutting machetes as we climbed over hills and dropped down to the rain forest lowland cutting our way through thick growth. We crossed many dry water cut culverts before finding a fresh water stream running towards the sea. Following the stream we lost it disappearing into the ground then found it again bubbling out further downhill eventually loosing it altogether near a sandy stretch on the coast. We examined the ground and bushes probing for the stream but were unable to see any trace of it and were about to abandon the area when Jim saw wallaby spoor leading into thick bush. Parting the undergrowth carefully we stepped in and stood on the edge of a cool glade, overhanging trees screened the sunlight to a small fresh water lake in the middle.

It became shadowy as we lay down on the beach side of the lake facing the boulder-strewn hills waiting for the wallabies to appear for their evening drink. We lay immobile, mute and rigid, as even the slightest movement would be a warning to the wild animals. Mosquitoes and sand flies consumed us. The dusk deepened and we heard the thump, thump, thump of the rock wallabies bounding down the hills from boulder to boulder, dozens approached on all sides and in front of us. On the periphery first one pair of eyes glistened in the darkness then two, then a dozen as they paused timidly between the trees. The soft click as Jim slid a bullet into the breach made the eyes blink. He caressed the trigger. The sound that followed shocked and was deafening in the gentle glade. As one wallaby fell from its rocky perch the rest bounded back up the hill. The birds’ screamed abuse at us as we tied its legs together pushing a thick branch through them then, shouldering the warm meat between us, carried it back to camp. Jim skinned and butchered the animal by the light of the fire and hung the best pieces in the trees to bleed.

Functioning as two teams they planned forays to catch crabs, they balanced and spread the work load so they would not exhaust themselves; they made teams of four men each as Des Monty would not leave the camp again.

Michael Sparrow, Rolf Morrison, Ted and I were one team of four. Rolf’s uncontrollable jerking made travelling on the mud flats very difficult for him; his legs seemed to drill themselves deeper into the mud than the others. As he grew tired his disabilities increased and at the end of the day as they returned to land he lagged behind the others arriving back at camp half an hour after them.

“The Jerk is useless. Never caught a crab yet. Too slow and probably could not hold it if he did.” I talked to Jim while we were away from the camp.” And Mike’s not much better. He found four only bagging one and I think that one was three quarters dead already. Sometimes he looses it: he stands still on a hard patch as we move out. He just stands there, looking down. Ted’s OK though misses a lot but bagged ten over the last couple of days. How’s yours?”

“They’re all right. We go steady and gather. It’s hard going out there but I am getting use to walking on the mud now. I don’t mind it and we are making money.”

As they approached the camp they heard Michael, Rolf and Des Monty complaining to each other.

“I’m hungry,” Rolf, said, “there’s nothing to eat.” His head jerked sideways. “Fish, oysters and potatoes again. And with Leo at us all the time... ” His mouth and eyes moved around furiously. “This is not for me. I’m staying here with Des tomorrow I can’t go out there again.”

“Me too maybe,” said Michael softly, “I have not slept since I’ve been here. I need to rest.” No one seemed to hear him or care what he said.

Leo appeared suddenly from behind the tents, he glowered at the Jerk and Des Monty. ”You will both go to work tomorrow. You have been sitting around the camp for day’s now Des. You are a waist of space. From now on you don’t work you don’t eat. Why should the rest of us get food for you when you do nothing?”

Des jumped to his feet.” I do lots here. I work harder than you!”

Leo looked around.” The camp is a tip. You do nothing and now he’s not going to work either. ” He pointed to Rolf.” You going to sit here all day and jerk next to that lazy sod?” Leo continued to nag at them before disappearing into his tent.

Euphoria from the day’s successful crabbing left Jim and I as we gathered the sacks and walked to the inlet where there were a number of small cages holding crabs. We made more from the roll of chicken wire before sinking them onto the sandy bottom then filled them with crabs, the crabs tried but none managed to escape. There were over fifty tethered and feeding in the inlet but it was a sad and silent camp that night.

The next day only six of them laboured steadily working the mud from dawn to dusk. They began to enjoy their newfound freedom; their skill grew as they persevered, actually thriving on the gruelling work. Leo Delmont was the main impediment, he pushed them to go further and spend a longer time in the swamps every day. He meddled malignantly with the cohesive teams setting unachievable targets making their lives irksome and harsh.

“You lot do as you are told!” He tried intimidating them. ”I’m in charge here and when I say you go into the swamp you go. ”

“We’ve been there everyday now Leo going after crabs that are very thin on the ground. None of us like wading about in the mud and we’re certainly not making much money doing it. Be easier if we dropped pots out of the boat and collected them later at high tide wouldn’t it?”

“That’s not the point!” He yelled back.” You’ve not come across many crabs yet but if you go every day you will and we don’t have any pots anyway. ”

“Well mate,” Jim drawled back in his harsh outback accent, “you can go everyday but, from now on, I’m not. I’m not going to be like them. ” He waved towards the three who had stayed in camp.” But I’m not going out there again any time soon again. ”

Leo jumped up clenching his fists taking a fighting stance before the crew.

My voice cut across the tense stillness.” Oysters are easy to pick. You say we can make money doing it, nine pounds a bucket you told us with a ready market in Cardwell. We are here to make money not waste our time out on the mud fighting crabs.” I faced Leo across the fire; “All you do is run the Dolphin around the island. Why don’t you go to Cardwell tomorrow with the crabs we caught and buy some crab pots?

It is only seven miles over there. ”

Leo Delmont vilified them foully but as the crew were hostile to him he realised that on his own he could do nothing to force the issue.

“All right tomorrow I’ll go to Cardwell. You start on the oysters first thing.”

“Not tomorrow Leo,” I said, “can’t do it without the Dolphin working with us.”

“Well then tomorrow after you have loaded the Dolphin with the crabs you will move the camp, the place stinks. The ants are swarming through here where you have dropped food around. Clear that area over there.” He pointed in the dark towards a flattish piece of land fifty yards away.” And dig proper latrines back here in the old camp, put a board over the holes to sit on and use them.” He paused as he spat hard into the flames his spittle hissing on the fire. “And catch some fish, all the wallaby meat is now gone. I’m not buying any more food, as you are earning no money. And get the sacks ready for the oysters. Got that? I will check all that when I come back. So get your off your backsides and do some work for a change.”

At dawn they half filled the icebox in the Dolphin with seawater and pulling the cages from the sea carried them to the boat where they unhooked the wire dropping the crabs into the box. They pulled the Dolphin off the sand and moored it floating with a long rope tied to a palm. With no cheery farewell Leo waded out and climbed onboard.

Rolf, the jerk ran past the crew and climbed onboard also. “I’m coming too. You take me to Cardwell.” He sat down. Leo ignored him and started the engine. Michael waded slowly to the Dolphin and climbed in sitting beside Rolf. He did not say a word. No one seemed to notice him. A chorus of jeers hooted from the beach aimed at Rolf, Leo cut them off. “Let them come if they want.” Geoff ran out and joined them at the last moment. Leo hauled the rope over the bow and headed out into the bay without looking back. Breaking camp they enjoyed the change from swamp to dry land. They vacated a disordered clutter of leavings with broken bottles, empty tin cans and foul smells of foetus and rotting food; the scavengers had already taken over and begun their clean up operation. Within weeks the decomposition begun by rodents and insects would clean the area turning the human refuge into reusable earth. What could not run through a digestive system would be covered in sand or crushed by creepers.

They talked about the miscalculations they had made living in camp and worked out how to run the new one; it was a more positive group without Rolf, Geoff or Michael. On this day even Des Monty joined in with everyone else as they worked in two teams.

They cut back the scrub with their cane knives then, tying it into brooms, scoured the ground to remove the bindi thorns and checked to see that they were not camping on top of an ant’s nest. They spent a long time preparing the site and trying out alternate ideas. They shook out the bedding picking out any live bugs that did not want to leave and checked through the stores for infestation. They constructed another circle of stones, in want of symmetry but it was only meant to be a useful utility, they started a smoky fire packed with green sticks and leaves. They placed open boxes, bedding and clothes in its thick stream; the ants, cockroaches, fleas and scorpions fled the smoke. Cowboy, Des Monty and I dug out the latrines; two holes in the sand three feet across and four feet deep then laid a fallen trunk across the middle set on two flat rocks after shaving off the bark for a seat to hang a bare bottom over.

After a bite to eat they tried to fish using the four-wire pronged spears that Leo had provided for them. He had said, “It is easy. I have done it many times and even you will be able to catch fish.” No matter how hard they tried the fish were too fast for them or if the prongs accidentally hit a fish they bounced off.

“If I had a hook and line I could catch some.” Kim said. “Why have we only got these spears? Why no normal gear to catch fish? And then that crab catching. I remember fisherman at home dropping rows of pots in the water. I don’t understand it. It’s almost like we are to do everything the hard way.”

In the evening Jim hid by the watering hole again with the rifle but no wallaby came.

Obviously drunk Leo returned as the light was fading. He jumped off the Dolphin and threw the rope to me to secure then walked to the new camp. From the outset he angrily picked faults with it stopping only with full darkness.

“How many crab pots did you get?” Kim asked.

“I didn’t get any. It’s not the way to catch crabs around here, on the mud. The only way is what we do. Set up a buyer for oysters though. Take as many as we can bring him” he said. He finished with a loud burp. “ I saw John in Cardwell and we had a talk about you lot and what to do with you. We don’t like the way you don’t do what you are told when we tell you. Don’t like it at all. None of our other crews were... are... as bad as you.” His enmity worked itself up, his bitterly offensive voice rising all the time. “You are useless and won’t learn. You ruined the camp. You got no food today, you can’t even catch fish and you don’t catch many crabs. We decided you got to work harder and stop playing about. Tomorrow full tide is before dawn. You will get your sacks and I will run you to the other side of the bay and drop you into the tops of the mangroves. I’ve told you what to do. I will come back for you and the oysters on the next high tide.” Leo cracked open a stubby of beer and took a long pull.” There’s a sack of potatoes and one of flour on the boat. Didn’t get much for the crabs so couldn’t buy you nothing much. Make dampers and throw the potatoes on the fire that’ll do you.” He left the fireside and, having eaten his fill in Cardwell, went into his tent to sleep off the drink.

Two hours passed suspended on the roots after they reached the bay. They lowered themselves onto the mud when the tide covered only a few inches hoping any flesh eating fish had departed for deeper waters. They untied the four sacks they each carried and started working the sharp edged oyster shells that clung tenaciously to the roots. The most enormous meaty black-lip oysters were on the outer rim of the mangroves closest to the open sea where the food-laden tide first entered the bay.

At first it seemed impossible to lever them off without a huge effort hacking away with knives or oyster hammers but eventually they worked out ways to flick them loose and soon began filling sacks. They packed ten sacks with the bread-and-butter-sized-plate oyster shells still slimy and covered with encrustations rooted onto their hard shells. In this, their breeding ground, the mosquitoes converged on the crew in thousands.

They worked until the incoming tide inhibited their movements. They piled the full sacks into a pyramidal figure in front of the mangroves wedging a straight root sticking up in the centre. The sea came in quickly covering the sacks, the men climbed high into the mangroves. After an hour and a half sluggishly draped on the leafy mangroves the Dolphin, with its shallow draft of eighteen inches, was timely as it apathetically chugged towards them from the direction of the campsite. They dived for the sacks trusting that the reef shark had not yet returned to feed and heaved them on board. The easier day’s work and the obvious bounty they had gathered made them cheerful as they headed to the camp.

The setting sun laid the slopes of Mount Pitt in shadow while out-lining its peaks with a prism of exploding oranges and purples gently touching the drawn out clouds in its last minutes. Calm and tranquil the Dolphin cut through a mirror smooth sea noisy with fish jumping to feed on low flying insects. For a short time a hush settled on the crew, they felt good and comfortable and at home for the first time. They talked quietly as though not to disturb the stillness.

They were surprised to see a bobbing pinprick of light on Goold Island some five miles out to sea that had always seemed deserted. Leo told them a hermit had lived on the island for many years, was rarely seen on the mainland and did not welcome visitors.

Leo had become malignantly sour to the crew since his return from Cardwell and his conference with John McKenna. He resented the crew enjoying themselves working together and making good-sized catches. Leo grew more irritable and harassed them vindictively day-by-day finding fault with everything. The crew began to ignore him and run their daily operation without him.

“We need a change of diet from oysters, potatoes and dampers, lets work the mud tomorrow for crab meat. We have a big pot to boil them.”

“You are all going on the mud tomorrow?” Leo jumped up in interest.” All right. We have a lot of oysters now. Let’s see. Tomorrow you Ted and Des put all the bags into the Dolphin in the morning and moor it ready to go to the mainland. You others break up into two groups and get crabs from different areas. Get more that way. I will take some boxes from the stores in there to trade for different food. Time we turned our catch into cash. I will bring back smokes and beer.” His unusual enthusiasm surprised them.

They started across the mud the next morning with their forked sticks each trailing a wooden sleigh. Leo Delmont disappeared into the fringing mangrove plants and watched them unseen from within the deep shadows before returning to the campsite now almost at a run.

Kim and Jim were strenuously hauling themselves through a soft patch of mud when they heard recurring screams in the distance. The screams quickly amplified and became uncontrolled like a wild animal with its leg caught in a steel trap. They strode and slid over the monotonous even tenor of the flats. They could see nothing, a finger of mangroves cut them off from the sound, they moved on as fast as was possible. As they rounded the outcrop of mangroves they saw Ted, still across a vast sea of mud, up to his waist in the black slime struggling fiercely to free himself but managing only to entrap himself further. His wooden sled lay ten feet away and out of reach. He was in a bog hole, the mud, ever so slowly, but inevitability was sucking him in deep.

“Don’t struggle Ted! Lie still! We’ll pull you out!” Jim roared, but Ted was deaf and unheeding in his panic. They galloped in slow motion; they loped and crawled with a gait that pulled them forward sometimes on all fours. Eventually the slow creeping passage allowed them to clear the last of the mangroves; they saw Leo Delmont moving away in the opposite direction. He looked over his shoulder as he reached the end of the open ground, saw Kim and Jim, and started pulling himself through the roots in the direction of the campsite.

The two of them pushed on towards Ted using a creeping goosestep, they called out to him to stay still but he continued to struggle sinking deeper and deeper. His entire lower torso had disappeared and then his chest began to be eaten up. Short sharp shrieks forced themselves out of his throat as he pushed his head backwards to give himself a longer time to breathe air. He was up to his armpits, his arms flaying in the soft ooze when they reached him. In feverish haste they thrust boards in front of him, his arms snapped over them. He sobbed stridently. His head and arms were all that were now visible above the hideous maw it having swallowed the rest of his body. He was racked with pain as he heaved great breathes into his crushing lungs. He clung to the boards in a state of collapse unable to leaver himself out.

“Another minute... another minute... I would... have been under.” He gasped “That Filipino!” He could say no more.

“Easy boy.” Lying flat, one on each side of him, on their stomachs, they were spread-eagle straining to grip his shoulders.

“Easy.” Kim said again to calm Ted’s distress.” It’s all right now. We’ll have you out in a sec.”

The angle needed to haul him out was upwards and not sideways where they lay. They exerted all their strength but it was such an awkward position nothing happened, he even seemed to slip further into the mud. All three strained silently combining the strength of their young bodies all to the one purpose. Kim gained some traction by using the third sled. Jim moved around and joined him so they were both on the same side. They tried sharp tugs, they tried pulling in different directions and nothing worked. Jim crawled to Ted on his stomach while Kim held his legs and, leaning over, forced both Ted’s arms onto one sled cutting away its hauling rope with a knife. Kim pulled him back by his legs. Jim cut then joined the three sled ropes together making a lasso and, sliding back, forced it under Ted’s arms. With the extra purchase using the two sleds and the rope to grip they began the backbreaking job of one continual effort to extract him.

Reluctantly, inch-by-inch, the mud yielded him back. With a final gurgle the mud erupted and his legs came free.

They lay back on the flats entirely exhausted; tired to death with Ted sobbing between them each holding one of his hands in a tight grip. Ted moaned.” Dear God. Dear God. ” – Over and over. A great lassitude overcame them, still hand in hand in their turbid condition. They were forced to have a respite surrounded on all sides by a black hell, the beach miles away. As Ted gained a little strength he cursed.

“That Leo. He brought me here. He made me walk into here. He pulled my sled away. He ran off when he heard your voices. Ran off. He left me here to die. Why did he do that?”

Distressed and at the limit of his endurance Ted was supported on either side as they began the gruelling distance to shore.

An all-encompassing lethargy overcame of them once they reached hard ground.

Half a mile away they heard the Dolphin’s motor burst into life.

“I bet that’s Leo getting away! Quick let’s stop him.” Kim and Jim started running to the camp while Ted followed slowly. The boat with Leo on board was past the reef and rounding the point towards Cardwell as they approached the camp. They waved with naive inanity; shouting and jumping up and down they ran along the beach; they were ignored and sank in their tracks. Leo Delmont was off the island and beyond reach. They saw only his back as he stood before the wheel until distance swallowed him.

The men were stranded on the island within sight of the mainland but unable to get there. For three consecutive days they stayed around the campsite stunned and inactive feeling disorientated. They had limited food, a good water supply, and tent cover at night. Their fledgling outdoor living had at least given them the ability to care for themselves.

They stopped working, as it was futile to gather a catch that could not be marketed. They pulled out and opened all the remaining stores in Leo’s tent; the boxes were mainly empty. Des told them that he had helped load a dozen boxes into the Dolphin at the last minute; Leo said he had to catch the tide and would trade these stores to buy better food for his return that night. Sprouting potatoes and weevil-infested flour was all that remained.

Their few clothes had begun to disintegrate. Neglected and being in continual use, washed only in salt water the toughest of the materials were now worn out. Shorts, short sleeve shirts, tee shirts and sandals were ineffective for the protection needed from sharp and hard mollusc shells, vertebrate and stinging flying insects. Jim had to wrap his feet up in sackcloth as his shoes had become unusable.

During these inactive days they bathed their sores in seawater that developed into the best medicine for almost all ills that befell the men. It cured stings and cuts; the salt eased irritating itching and healed open wounds.

They were able to catch fish as they found, hidden in Leo’s tent a line with spare hooks for bottom fishing. Kim sharpened the hooks by using a stone file until they suited catching the smaller and faster top fish; each day he brought back to camp numerous catches with an occasional rainbow trout or a sea cod to share. Jim and I went out on the mud to capture crabs and collect oysters on our return trip. With plenty of drinking water in the tanks, a varied and generous diet of seafood and dampers, once the weevils had been picked out, the crew formed a pleasant routine while living rough. As they waited, with a certainty that the trawler would pick them up eventually, they swam, played and explored a little of the island.

Time as such was suspended. Every day was lived in a vacuum without note, except for the effort to gain food, enjoying sunshine, and cooking the food at night time.

When McKenna sailed the trawler into the island camp he found relaxed and carefree men.

“I knew we shouldn’t have trusted him,” McKenna growled, “now we are in a right pickle. I could not find any prawn beds of any size and I have no catch. That thief must have done it so he could steal your catch. I don’t know why else he would have a go at Ted. There’s only one thing we can do now and that’s to go further north. We’ll go into Cardwell to pick up the Dolphin if Leo has left it there then call into Cairns to pick up supplies and have the radio repaired. We will go straight north past Cooktown after that, its good country up there. I know where the prawns and oysters are up there. Forget Leo. We can do without him anyway. He’ll be miles away by now. Forget him.”

They broke camp burying the rubbish and stowed the camping gear aboard the trawler. They ran to the beach in Cardwell and spotted the Dolphin hard aground on the sand. It was in one piece and in good order but empty of the oyster catch. Jim and I followed McKenna into town taking Ted with us. They found the oyster buyer who told them he had the catch, which was now on the way down to Brisbane; he had paid a hundred and fifty pounds in cash for it. He told McKenna that if he still wanted to sell the Dolphin he would have to prove ownership, as the last man could not.

“I’ve the ownership papers. Look.” He withdrew a slip of paper, the receipt for nearly five hundred pounds.

“See there on it stamped and registered? D’yer see? And I don’t want to sell it.”

As they walked back towards the beach I stopped and said. “We are going in here. Ted come and tell them what happened to you mate.” John McKenna looked at the sign hanging outside the shop front and tried to pull away.

“No! He’s gone now! It’s too late. Leave it.” Without a word Jim held his arm and forced him through the door to face a police sergeant and a young constable.

“We want to report a crime. Well more than one really. They happened right here and on Hinchenbrook,” I said to the sergeant.

They informed him about the attempted murder, then about the catch being sold and the Dolphin that did not sell. The sergeant asked them how they came to be on the island with Leo Delmont. They systematically told the story from the advertisement in Sydney to arriving on Hinchenbrook and how Leo Delmont had treated them. The sergeant listened attentively asking more questions. McKenna did not say a word; he sat on a bench behind them and looked down at the floor.

“What did this Leo Delmont look like?” The sergeant asked and as they described him his face darkened and became stern.

“I will be back in a moment.” He returned with a photograph and showed it to them without uttering a word. It was a prison photograph with Leo Delmont holding a number.

“That’s him!” They all said together.

“Wish I knew sooner. He’s a bad ‘un. He was given two years in Bogger Road Jail for doing to another gang of men what he tried to do to you. He takes your money then makes it so hard and dangerous that you run away and he gets to keep the money. You were lucky he’s near killed a lot of people. Right now he’s wanted in Sydney for serious assault of a woman and child. The child, the report says, is so bad that he will never be able to lead a normal life.” He looked at the three of them standing in front of him then looked over to McKenna.

“I want a statement from all of you. What about you? You’ve said nothing.” McKenna grew red in the face struggling for words managed to say nothing.

“He just came in with us.” I said inexplicability, “he was not on the island.”

As they were leaving the station the sergeant said to them.

“We will begin a search for him now.” The sergeant paused and thought for a moment. “Wait. I am going to read you the report that was sent with the photograph. I am not really allowed to do this but I think after what you have been through you deserve it and he will not have liked you beating him at his own game. He’s probably long gone but watch your backs. The report says in part ‘He is a degenerate with no semblance of humanity. He has an acrimonious temper,’ that means rotten, ‘does not know the difference between right and wrong and an uncontrollable need to hurt and humiliate his victims.”

2ND PAUSE

LOG BOOK

PLACE: Cardwell [Lat. 18° 15' S]

LOG BOOK

PLACE: Cardwell [Lat. 18° 15' S Long. 146° 04' E]

DATE: Tuesday. 3rd July 1962

TIME: Before the sun is at its zenith. [I do not have a watch]

Picked up Dolphin. Lost three four crew, run off: Leo Delmont. Rolf Morrison. Geoff Pinnacle... Michael... something...

Had to sail without one crew. Disappeared: Kim Rogers.

Upped the anchor, with the smaller Dolphin in tow and left the beach area. Gained the sea past Palm Island through Hinchenbrook channel – west, southwest of Hecate point. Three fathoms of water, to two miles out... Mud off sandy beaches.

Relieved to be without the ubiquitous personality of Leo Delmont the crew were in high sprits as they sailed north out of Cardwell; even though they knew he had gone they still felt the omnipresent of his dead eyes looking at them. They could still hear his high-pitched voice nagging at them. They knew now that he had used everyone cruelly only to steal their deposits. He had appeared to the crew to have no normal feelings of enjoyment, sadness, happiness or satisfaction.

They steamed over calm waters in the straits between the coast and the outer reef where huge ocean waves hammered and were broken by the reef wall. The coral cays and atolls slid quietly past; Ellison Reef, Feather Reef, Howic Reef and many more uncharted, they looked exciting from onboard ship, the men felt an urge to dive in the clear waters and swim among them. In those first hours they felt good climbing over the boat from stem to stern, testing the rigging, feeling the ropes and tar corked decking under their bare feet. A thin smoke stack, protruding behind the bridge billowed wispy puffs with a pungent odour of burnt diesel. The forward hatch was braced open towards the bow to catch any slight sea breeze as they were in the doldrums; Lester was below the hatch in the tiny galley cooking up a hash of sausages and eggs that sizzled in a pan.

The boat itself was squalid and unorganised with bits of rigging, ropes, old blocks and other disused boat parts pushed into the waterway outlets around the edge of the decks while forty-four gallon drums of partly used diesel oil were standing in the stern well. Peeling and blistered, after frequent seasons under a searing tropical sun, the hull and superstructure had been neither noticed nor cared for by the boat’s various owners. The tiny lifeboat, sitting crossbeam aft of the mainmast, had more than one board sprung and would probably sink if it were ever used. Aft of the bridge was shaded by a canvas awning slung to the trawl framework to give some deck protection from the sun. Though leaking in the bilges she was a sound enough vessel only in need of a bottom scrape, corking and lashings of lead paint to make her sleek again.

About half way to Cairns the light began to fade and McKenna grew worried about being at sea in the dark but did not know exactly where he was in the roadstead.

“Look at those lights over to the left,” he said pointing, “bet that’s Innisfail. It’s a bit dicey to get into if I remember. I was up here in a coastal cargo boat once.” He eased the trawler’s head towards the coastline. As they closed the land and the house lights grew distinct an outward-bound fishing boat hauled close-to as McKenna hailed it. The fisherman warned him that the sand bar had shifted towards the harbour wall and now lay dried out above the sea level. He told him to keep hard to starboard before heading up the Johnson River and most importantly to keep his speed under four knots as the harbour master was a real nark and ticketed anyone who exceeded it.

“When youa park ata the wharf. My wife shea cook at ‘The Italian Caf ’. Tell her you see me. Marco. Yes. Youa tell her Marco. Shea cook you a good lasagn’... or the cannellon’... You eata good tonight.” With a wave and a smile he chugged to his night fishing grounds.

They slowly passed up Nind creek deep in darkness and docked at the wharf, all the signs were in Italian and a sweet smell of molasses and raw sugar permeated the air. They did eat well that night sleeping peacefully in the Italian run town.

LOG BOOK.

PLACE: Innisfail [Lat. 17° 32' S Long. 146° 05' E ]

DATE: Wednesday 4th July 1962

TIME:

Sailed back to sea very early in the morning before they came to collect wharf fees.

The day is clear with a calm sea. Headed north past a string of beaches, cut by rocky outcrops with hills behind. Shallow sand one mile off shore.

LOG BOOK.

PLACE: Cairns [Lat 16° 52' S, Long 145° 47' E]

DATE: 4th July 1962

TIME: After dark

Moored in Smith Creek.

They made passage along the eastern fork around Admiralty Island to Hambledon anchoring away from the fee-paying area just south of the spillways.

“Anchored to the north last time. Should have heard the racket. Blowing their horns and flashing lights at me... They could have gone round me easily I thought.” I could just see the large red sign ‘PROHIBITED ANCHORAGE’ in the distance. “Tied up to that sign they so they would all see me.”

A bumboat with two officials dressed in dirty overall-uniforms approached and ordered them to Smith’s creek where small boats moored. McKenna had a shouting match with them across the water and told them what he thought of them and their rules but they had to move. They steamed past Admiralty Island again and up the western channel keeping in the middle where it had been dredged.

“The pull of the tide is nothing to worry about, very weak around here, so put your foot down, that stupid Innisfail harbour master is not here, they are slack about that sort of thing in Cairns want to get there before its too dark.” They tied to the pylons of a long wooden wharf; six wide-beamed pearling luggers lay close-by anchored in midstream. McKenna walked inland as soon as they docked; he was going to see his wife and two small children who were living in a campground two miles away.

The crew was impatient for McKenna to return so they could leave for the north and start earning money. After five days the crew was irritated and frustrated at the lengthy stay in Cairns and it was decided to go to the campground to find out if McKenna had been injured or was ill. Four of us, Jim and me together with Ted and Cowboy set out early in the morning to walk the two miles to the campground before the day grew too hot.

We sighted McKenna from a distance as we walked along the row of cabins looking for him. Dressed only in a pair of shorts he sat on the top step of his chalet, a half empty bottle of rum beside him and a glass in his hand.

“What are you lot doing here? I told you to stay onboard and watch the boats.” We were taken aback and standing a distance away from him in a group tried to comprehend how in the early morning McKenna’s words could be slurred and his eyes glassy. “Never mind. You are here now. Have a drink.” He offered the bottle of rum to them as he lent back and fished out another one from the veranda. He was happily drunk. His world was rosy and comfortable and the right way up, he was potent again.

“When are we leaving to go fishing?” Jim asked hesitantly.

“When I am ready son. When I say so. Got it?” They stayed silent not knowing quite what to say.

“We are nearly out of food and we have no money to buy anymore,” I said. “What are we to do?”

“Something. Get work. There’s plenty to do around here.”

“We should leave for the north and make money fishing. Why can’t we leave?” At this McKenna became abusive. He pushed himself to his feet hanging onto the veranda railing.

“I’ll come when I’m ready and not before. Get out of here. And don’t ever come here again! When I am through working here I’ll let you know. Now shove off!” Other campers were looking at them and the noise they were making.

“An’ you lot can mind your own business an’ all!” He yelled at them. They quickly disappeared. His wife and children peeked out from the window; they did not come out of the chalet at any time. We walked back to the wharf disconcerted and unsettled; we were indecisive.

Left to their-own devices the crew tried various ways to making money or amuse themselves.

George and Lester travelled to the sugar plantation areas and signed on at a daily rate to cut cane. They were given machetes and shown to a thickly matted area where the sugar cane was still hot and charcoal covered, the undergrowth had been burnt the day before in a short fierce blaze clearing it ready for cutting and killing the snakes and cane rats. Dry and gritty to the eyes, it was twice as high as a man and densely tangled. The best fields, with clean upright cane, were given to the regular professional cutters where a good cutter made a hundred pounds a day, payment being made on the amount of cane cut and loaded on the train. Casuals, such as George and Lester were given thick low productive cane to cut. They came back on board after three days with seventy-five pounds between them and their hands covered in open blisters from handling the cane knives.

Jackie and Thursday idled away the days mainly squatting on the deck of the trawler saying nothing. They stirred only to take the dory down river to fish for evening meals.

Jim and I became friendly with the crew of a pearl lugger that was tied up in the stream, it was one of the six luggers that had paper nailed to their masts. Their owner, a white Australian, had been forced into bankruptcy working the pearl and troches shell trade which was an outdated business; plastic and other synthetics having taken over as basic button making material.

There were five divers and five ship workers on each boat, the divers were the essence of the operation dropping down to the seabed quickly while holding a large stone to gather the shells. The mortgagor would not let the vessels out of port again excepting for one boat to catch food, as he would not feed them. All the men were very dark skinned well-build Thursday Islander Natives.

Inviting Jim and me aboard they happily and without expectation of recompense shared their meagre possessions. The Islanders were outwardly happy and relaxed, singing and dancing, playing like children throughout the day. We arrived on our second visit with a bag of flour and six bottles of beer to share. One of them was cutting the crew’s hair, he laughed that he had no comb, I donated my own to the barber. The barber left the deck quickly returning with a pair of shorts for me which I tried to refuse as the natives had so little but was made to understand that it was their custom to return present for present and it would be an insult if I refused. I decided not to give them anything else in the future, as it would strain their small resources. They had been tied up for three months and with no means to cross the hundreds of sea miles to their homes had remained with their small fleet. Only after we had formed a bond and gained their regard did we find out how homesick they were for their families.

From the native crews they first heard of Morcombe, the man who nailed the paper on their masts, they spoke his name quietly with palatable fear. They called him a snake, Aboriginals said that maybe he was the returned shade of Julunggul the Great Python who smells blood and swallows people before regurgitated some of them. This belief among them that it could be Julunggul had gained credence when an Aboriginal, who has welshed on an indebtedness owed to Morcombe, disappeared then reappeared terribly hurt. He had been so badly injured that he was unable to function or be productive again and was therefore useless to his tribe. They had left him beside a road so they would not have to feed or care for him.

Being told this story the Thursday Islander noticing my expression said.

“Dat de way it is Bwass. Life very hard... Hurt one slow tribe down when hunt... All die. Not get to waterhole in time. All die. Have to be Bwass.”

Morcome was quite safe carrying out this lesson, in fact encouraged to do so ‘to keep the blacks in their place. ’ The white population in town held absolute supremacy over the Aboriginals, their dominance and whatever actions they carried out to them were accepted as right and proper. The police were the law and they used it to fit circumstances that suited them mainly in two areas; to keep the Aboriginals controlled and against out-of-town whites that had no connections. Their laws went beyond zero tolerance; if the police were drunk and wanted to hurt someone they created a situation that enabled them to pitilessly meter out harsh treatment to satisfy an immediate urge. They were able to tyrannize Aborigines, an act that crushed their sprit, as they were considered only uncounted animals; they were not citizens of Australia and did not have the protection of its laws.

“Boring! Boring! Boring!” Screamed inside my head. In just under two weeks the stores were exhausted, a week had passed since visiting McKenna. “We have no money! No food! No liquor!” I blurted out, “McKenna’s got it all in his campground hut. All the life has gone out of him since Leo jumped ship.” There was silence from the others at this outburst.” He hit the bottle and is not going anywhere soon. We have to straighten this out. Get the truth out of him and get going. ”

I was induced to be the crew’s front man as I was closer to McKenna than the others. I walked the two miles alone to the campground and found him drinking outside in the sun. I greeted him cheerfully and accepted a glass of rum, which I managed to mainly spill on the ground when McKenna was distracted elsewhere. I built on the camaraderie that we had achieved together in Sydney before talking to him.

“There’s a possibility for us to make some money and I want to show it to you. It’s only minutes away. It won’t take you long.”

“What is it?”

“Well, I can’t really describe it but need to show you.” We argued back and forth for a while until reluctantly we drove towards the town, I guided him to a deserted part of the waterfront. The other crewmembers, except for Jackie and Thursday, sauntered from behind a hut and surrounded him.

“What have you done Ian? Why did you bring me here?” McKenna looked up pleadingly at me.

“We cannot go on any more like this John.” I said as the crew stood threateningly close to McKenna.” We haven’t made any money since we left Sydney and we’re not going to make any sitting in port.”

“Can’t you think of anything else?” He shouted at me. “I trusted you! You’re getting as bad as this other lot.” He gestured around. “They are always at me to leave port. We’ll go when I say so and not before!” He spat at me. “Don’t you ever do this to me again!” He turned towards his truck.

With a nod from me George and Jim grabbed McKenna and held him, not very gently, until he stopped struggling.

“Let me go! I’ll have the lot of you up for this!”

“You’ll have no one up! You may well be up yourself for attempted murder with Delmont. Shut your mouth and open your ears. I’ve got a couple of things to tell you and then you are going to talk.”

They released him all staying close, he turned red in the face as I approached and spoke quietly.

“You remember what the police said in Townsville, about Leo in sixty? He took two hundred pounds bond from a gang of men and then left them to die while he absconded with the money.” I paused for effect. “It sounds like now John.”

“So what? What’s that to do with me?”

“You have been his partner for a long time. Come clean man!” My tone grew slightly more menacing.

“We have checked up on crabbing. You don’t catch crabs the way we did on Hinchenbrook. You put pots out for them at high tide and collect them from a boat. The whole thing was rubbish. Hinchenbrook, the mud and everything else were only to get our bonds. We were never supposed to make a profit. We made a hundred and fifty pounds on the oysters only because we forced it.” McKenna’s hands began to shake; I leant towards him, my face no more than six inches from his.

“There are no other boats. Not out at sea. Not on Thursday Island. Not at Cooktown. There is no last year’s profit. There is no nothing. This whole thing is a phoney. And you are a liar!”

I breathed in McKenna’s face.

“The truth, damn you! Or we’ll tear you apart!”

They all moved towards him with an animal growl. McKenna had nowhere to go; he tried but tripped over his own feet. Immediately he was surrounded. In terror he screamed as they towered over his inert body.

“I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you. Don’t hurt me.”

“OK. Let him up, he’ll talk now.”

Just for a moment I felt sympathetic towards John McKenna. He was a cheat and a rogue, crotchety and prickly but, for all his swagger and raucous authority, he now shook from head to foot. All his life his tough exterior and quick conniving mind had carried him through the most difficult situations but now the hard lines on his face crumpled. His soft under-belly exposed making his vulnerability apparent. Years of hard liquor had rotted away his fundamental vitality, his eyes no longer commanded as they darted wildly from one face to another. Going forward I caught him by the shoulders gently saying.

“Tell us the truth John and I promise no one here will hurt you.” I gestured to the others to sit on the ground to reduce, the now unnecessary, threat.

McKenna opened his mouth but with an intake of breath closed it again. Then he started; the words began gushing out, in a torrent.

“It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t think it up. You want to blame that Filipino half-cast scum, not me; he put me up to it. You know he done it before only this time he didn’t get away with it so he ran off with the oyster money – with all the money. You remember Ian I told you not to trust him in Townsville?”

“Sure I remember.” I said sarcastically, I had been told in an off hand way to be careful.

“He’s a bad’un, not a mate of mine at all, didn’t know he was bad. I just went along, just like you.”

“What about the boats in Cooktown and Thursday Island?”

McKenna looked at his feet.” There are no other boats.”

“Have you ever been fishing before?”

The watery eyes came up searching the faces and then dropped back down slowly.” No.”

“Our money. What have you done with our two hundred and fifty pounds?”

“We’ve seen no bank book and Ian says that he has seen no account of it anywhere.”

There was dead silence after this. McKenna looked up again and sighed.

“Well you’ve got to know sooner or later. But remember, it was Leo Delmont who did it not me. We... er... no... He used it to buy the Dolphin and put a deposit on the trawler and buy some gear and get you lot up here.”

“How much is left?”

McKenna seemed to be getting some of his backbone and bluster back as he talked working out ideas. He felt no remorse; only regret that he had been found culpable and had been exposed.

“Nothings left.” He went on quickly. “The last was spent to pay part of the hotel bill in Townsville. Delmont’s idea was that you would get no further than Hinchenbrook. He was going to make life so hard for you that you would quit and break your contracts then he would keep any money and sell the boats. Leaving Ted in the swamps was part of his plan, I did not know anything about that I swear. I didn’t. You’ve got to believe me. I would not do a thing like that. When it didn’t work out he ran out on us. He’s the one you want to get.”

It was now out in the open; the tissue of lies, the swindle carried out with violence.

McKenna desperately tried to sway the crew’s rancour away from himself. He pulled himself upright looking almost his old self again.

“We’ve still got two boats.”

“We can sell them and get some money back.” I said.

“Just a minute.” McKenna began taking the prerogative again now the crew’s fury had abated. “Now we’ve got rid of Leo we can still made this thing work for us. There’s a lot of money in fishing. We’ve got a good crew, why throw all this away for peanuts? What do you say? Will you give it a go?”

“I don’t know,” said Drummond. “I can’t go on much longer without money. It’s been a long time since I had any.”

“OK. OK. If we make a quick catch come back into port and sell it, that’ll fix all our money worries. That’s what we came up here to do. It’s the beginning of the season still, we’ve got two good boats and all the fishing gear we need. What do you say?”

The crew once again were irresolute, vacillating, flotsam on the top of an ocean tide. Broke and hungry they were stranded over a thousand miles away from anywhere that they knew and in an ominous environment. They were disoriented, being counselled to persevere with the fishing and being pressured to sell the boats. They had no idea which way to go.

Still angry with McKenna and Delmont they were frustrated not being able to choose whom to hurt in retaliation. The target of their animosity had been diminished to the small tubby man on the ground. George kicked McKenna twice but his sandshoes inflicted little pain and no satisfaction. They mulled around, indecisive.

George stood with his fists on his hips snarling at McKenna. Lester pushed forward as if to kick McKenna but George pulled him back continuing a strident discourse on McKenna’s lineage without pause.

‘I wish I’d stayed in Sydney among my own crowd. People like me. Not these maniacs. This is terrible. Terrible. What do I do now?’ Des Monty whispered to himself. ‘Again. Another thing is not working. ’ Des sat heavily on the ground, his rimmed eyes filled with tears. He drew into himself, made himself into a cocoon. ‘These people might have been my friends. I might have been one of them. But they too only laugh at me. Being rotten to me. ’ He flicked his long hair out of his face and looked around, a muted vision through his liquid eyes. ’ They treat me like a weak and stupid woman. Mum let me do what I wanted she never said what I did was wrong. She ran her fingers through my hair; use to curl it for fun sometimes. Said she loved my soft eyes and gentle way. Why couldn’t these people? Why, can’t I be me among them?’

Jim was thinking about the sheep-shearing season starting soon and wondered if he could get to the outback and sign on with a gang. He was a hundred and fifty a day man. He earned less than the others but was a good, average middleman; he cared more about not harming the sheep than being a top hand. He wondered how far from Cairns he would have to travel to make sheep country. The two Thursday Island men, father and son, squatted unthinking and uncaring. They would go where the wind blew them. “We got no money to get anywhere anyway.” Cowboy said as he straightened his now dirty clothing pulling his shirt down and tucking it into his trousers.” We got to do something and now. Sell the boats or go earn money. Now! ’Cause we are right out of money! We can’t last long like that. How about you George and you Lester, you earned money, cutting cane. How about putting a bit this way?”

“We worked while you were laying around. Go get your own money. Not that we got a lot left anymore.”

They were not able to make spontaneous decisions. Sell the boats and make travel money back to Sydney? Make a catch and maybe go to Sydney later with money in their pockets?

Now feeling safe and having been shocked into partial sobriety for the first time in two weeks McKenna used his duplicity to advantage.

“There’s just one other thing we must fix before we go any further. Maybe you have heard of a man called Morcombe? Well he’s the one who’s holding a note worth a thousand pounds on the trawler and fifty pounds of my personal cheques that I cashed with him and the bank sent back unpaid. He’s going to repossess the trawler if I don’t pay him a hundred pounds off the debt within a week and he’s going to hold the dory and put me in jail if I don’t pay him the fifty pounds cash.” A stunned silence followed this, for once, unambiguous statement.” You probably heard Morcombe tied up the pearling luggers. Well he’ll nail a note on our mast as soon as wink. He’s a hard man with a finger in every dirty deal in town. He’s a man you don’t mess with. You either pay or else... ” It registered in a rush that, as well as having no money, they soon would have no boats.

“But we don’t have any money to pay him.” Lester stated the obvious. “We will loose everything.”

“Yes we do have money!” McKenna pointed at me.

“He has not paid his two hundred and fifty pound bond yet.” They were unprepared for this windfall, its import dropped like a bombshell, even I had forgotten about it over the past two weeks. I had placed McKenna under duress, strong-arming the confession out of him and influenced the others on an equal basis when I had not put in my share of the losses. The crew’s un-sated acrimony now turned on me. My unconsidered response was to laugh at the expressions of the crew and taunt them with sarcasm.

“That’s right. I’m the only one who hasn’t paid. I told McKenna in Sydney I wanted to see how the business worked before I gave him the money. Wasn’t I right?”

George and Lester moved together, the others crowded behind. George, mad with rage took a compulsive swing at me. I threw two hands in the air palm outwards and yelled.

“Hold it! Hold it! I haven’t said that I wouldn’t pay!” I backed further away from them.

“You’ll pay or else you Pommie Poofter!”

“Ease off a bit and let’s talk.” I looked at these unbalanced men contorted with stress, brutalised and lost in a place that was out of their control. I thought quickly, something I am not good at; much better ideas come with time. I had already formed a plan of action about the money but intended only to use it quietly and without the knowledge of the crew.

“You lousy traitor. You won’t get away with it!” Even Jim looked unfriendly.

“Pretending to be one of us!”

“Pay what you owe you welsher!”

“You’ll pay one way or another!”

I started to get annoyed now they were mouthing off and I seemed out of the immediate danger of a beating. ‘These fools have lost their money and now they demand that I loose mine. ’ I thought to myself but I talked to them in a consolatory tone as they could still be easily pushed over the edge.

“Look at it this way, I’m a bit more cautious than you and my money is in a bank in Sydney where McKenna cannot touch it until I say so. However just because you’ve been cheated by him don’t expect me to throw in good money. You are in a mess and... Only I... Only me...” I let it sink in. “Can get you out. I’ll tell you what I’ll do.”

I stopped talking and walked backwards and forwards in front of them my head bowed trying to show them that I was working on a new decision and not reshaping one that had already been made; I looked at them.

“Maybe we can make money fishing if we get on with the job,” and I then continued hypocritically with feigned caring. “I don’t want you to loose all your money if possible.” Looking at McKenna. “You need a hundred and fifty pounds to get you out of trouble. I’ll give you my bond if you put up the Dolphin as security.” The crew started getting nasty again cursing and swearing saying that I should be the same as them.

“I paid five hundred pounds for that boat!” McKenna’s voice came above the noise.

“Wait till you hear the rest of it! I want the boat in name only. When we start making money, in fact after our first good catch I’ll sign the boat back to the company. But!” Dropping my voice as they all listened. “You will get no money from me any other way. This is the only way John will not go to jail or you not loose all your money. No other way. It is up to you.”

I asked the local branch of my bank for the money, they said it would take a week to arrive if I wanted to keep the transfer costs to a minimum. The crew decided to go to sea and earn some money on a catch during this week.

On their last night in port four of the crew were sitting perched on stools in the long bar slowly sipping a pint of beer each. Cowboy was half way through a story about his cattle station days when a leather handbag slapped him on the side of his head. The stool capsized with a clatter as he spiralled to the floor, a sigh of anticipation ran through the drinkers. Gentlemen, without exception when it came to the treatment of a woman, these rough honed, hardened drinkers appreciated a woman paying back bad times from her man.

“You...!” The flow of words that followed even impressed the listening men; they liked a woman who could stand up for herself. Cowboy tried to rise twice but was sent cowering by the swinging handbag.

“Leave me would you? Take all the money would you? And for that dirty little school girl!” Mrs. Rita Jackson, Cowboy’s wife, abandoned by him six months previously in Cairns while on holiday and forgotten until now, started kicking him and beating him with her bag. Cowboy crawled across the floor as Mrs Jackson picked up a bar stool and hit him with it. No one tried to stop her. He reached the door and scrambled to escape, she threw the stool, missing him broke a pane of glass. Cowboy fell out of the door and ran. Mrs Jackson burst into tears as the barman came from behind the bar. “Come on Mrs.

This is no place for a woman. Come into the lounge. I’ll bring you a stiff gin on the house. But you will have to pay for the broken glass.”

The men in the bar quietly looked around at each other grinning. One man said.

“Worth the price for the entertainment the Mrs. just gave us?” There were muted grunts of approval as, one by one; they each placed a shilling on the bar to pay for the broken glass.

ONLY ½ A PAUSE THEN OUT TO SEA

LOG BOOK.

CAIRNS [Lat. 16° 52

LOG BOOK.

CAIRNS [Lat. 16° 52' S, long 145° 47' E] pop: 25,000 people.

DATE 18 JULY 1962!!!!!

WE left port at three in the afternoon on a high tide. Weather is calm. Headed north towards Cooktown missing one crewmember, Cowboy Jackson ran off. The dory is in tow.

[I should not write this here but as no one will read it no one here will ever know. It’s my birthday today. I am 22 years old. Bet my mother will be thinking of me and wondering where I am [no money to tell her]. No one else cares. Never had a birthday before where I cannot get excited about it but I like not knowing what tomorrow will be like. IS]

LOG BOOK.

PLACE: DANTREE RIVER [Lat 16° 23' S Long. 145° 25' E]

DATE: 19 July 1962

TIME: Mid day

Sailed into the mouth of the river. Banks are heavily foliaged.

Hazard to starboard close to land. There is a shallow sand bar. The trawler’s keel scraped a ridge through the bar.

Sailing north the coast was in clear view on the port beam. They kept a sharp look out for reefs of drying and just under the surface coral. Yule and Korea reefs were half awash a good three fathoms underwater but they had warning sentinels, heads of hard coral poking into the air. Egmont reef and Wentworth reef lay half a mile to the north-west and were given a wide berth as their depths were unpredictable and not marked; they were a blank on the Admiralty chart I found out afterwards.

They passed the estuary of the Mossman River whose flow yellowed a shallow bay with constantly moving sand and mud, its depth too changeable to enter safely. Six miles north of Port Douglas at the entry to the Dantree River they passed over the sand bar, the water all about was thickly discoloured.

“Slowly! Slowly!” McKenna called back to me at the wheel as he leaned over the bow.

“All Stop! Take her back!” He pointed fine off the starboard bow to heaps of stone and iron just under the surface. It was unneeded ballast dumped from arriving boats and left in the river without markings as they readied themselves to take on a load

“Go over to the other bank. Go to the right” His thin use of naval terms ran out during any excitement or at tense moments.

“Steer 3. 1. 9 degrees. ” McKenna said proudly. He had looked it up in the pilot book and called it out at the appropriate moment. I ignored him and aimed not to hit the bank of the river; I zigzagged as I saw protrusions sticking out of the water.

The lazy Dantree River ran a meandering path over the inland plain until its easy course, impeded by barriers of rocks or land outcrops yielded, building sandy beaches before swerving again, turned in on itself, until another outcrop made it turn yet again.

It grew dark before they could find a mooring upriver securing the trawler to a small clump of palms growing lonely, aliens on a mangrove fringed muddy beach.

The next morning they stayed hove-to under the lee of a ten-foot high rock close to Donovan Point. They were four miles north of Cape Tribulation sheltered in a bend of the river and could just see a grassy hill, some three hundred feet high, jutting out from the bold headland. Inland was a steeply rising range of mountains sheering up parallel to the coast which had patterned a succession of single sandy beaches cut by rocky points and fringed to seaward by exposed coral.

For all their time in port and the detailed preparations they had made two days previously they found that they did not have sufficient drinking water; each having assumed the others had filled the tank. They had sailed up the Dantree and anchored there to fill up, as it was the one place before Cooktown with an ample fresh water supply. In a small area on the Dantree River, for a few dozen miles in either direction was a strip of thick rain forest sitting eastward of the mountain range.

Ted and Jim drew the Dolphin abeam of the trawler while I lowered two stainless steel milk churns into the well behind the cabin.

They chugge