the old bitch back into gear before running out of slope – so explaining the route they’d taken through a stand of big old gidgee trees instead of the clear strip between them.
Course Blue was helping too, barking his stupid bloody brains out and trying to rip bits of rubber off the tyres as he chased it down the hill.
Teddy must have got the gears sorted, however, because when the dust had settled the truck was at the bottom of the gully, still right side up and with the engine running. The drums of diesel and tool boxes and most everything else had come off again, but at least the engine was going.
After that it was just a matter of salvaging what we could, mending two of the four flat tyres the old girl had staked going down through the gidgee thicket, then bashing through the scrub along the bottom of the gully until we could find somewhere we might be able to drive out again – you know, where the going wasn’t too steep.
Back on level ground we took stock of our situation. By this time it was just about dark, so before we could make camp for the night we had to find ourselves a bit of clear ground with enough gradient to get the old wreck moving again in the morning, so we could roll-start the engine. As for the trailer… Well, that would just have to stay there for the time being.
I took a long puff on my rolie then got up and threw another stick on the fire. The way the sparks flew up into the breeze you’dve reckoned I’d thrown in a half stick of gelignite.
“The only place I ever saw a min-min light was when I was working on Carandotta Station, out from Urandangie,” I said later, in answer to Teddy’s question. We’d managed to round up the grass fire the sparks had started by this time and were walking back to the truck in total darkness, trying to find where we’d parked the bloody thing.
That’s the trouble with grass fires out there. You run yourself ragged trying to put the buggers out, then suddenly it’s as dark as a dog’s guts and you don’t know where the hell you are. And in that situation out on the tablelands even daylight coming might not be a lot of help.
“I was fifteen at the time,” I told him as we walked this way and that along the edge of the burnt-out area. “My uncle made me go bush to straighten me out a bit, see. The old bastard reckoned I was getting into too much trouble in town. He knew the manager of Carandotta Station, and with them being short-handed in the stock camp I was given a job. Tailing out the weeners, I was; they put me on a horse and said to look after ‘em while the others attended to the branding.
“Anyway, not long after I started there one of the ringers got a bit curious about the ‘Medical Rubber Goods’ things that were advertised in Man Magazine back then, so he wrote away for some – to be sent to him in ‘plain brown wrapper’, as they claimed. I can’t remember his name; he only lasted there a few weeks after I started. We called him ‘Weetbix’ ‘cos he seemed to half live on the stuff.
“Course what come back in the mail was a box of six ply heavy-duty French-frangers – which is what they were like in those days. Gees but, didn’t all the other ringers give him a bloody shyackin’ about it, too.
“Anyway, this young Weetbix feller was a bit of a dag, see – always playing tricks on the others in the stock camp or letting oil out of the boss’ Land Rover ‘cause of some mongrel thing the old bugger had made him do. But for one reason or another he must have decided to have a go at putting the wind up me – me being the current newchum around the place, I suppose.
“So one night him and one of his hairy unwashed mates snuk out of camp together and blew up one of these frangers – like a big balloon – after which they ties a long string to it. Then Weetbix comes back towards the camp a little way and shines his torch on it while his mate starts waving the thing around gently on a long piece of twisted number eight wire – sort of like a line on a fishing rod.
“It’s as dark as buggery and they’re down the flat a little way, see, and Weetbix has his back to us. All we can see from the camp is this pale sort of glowing apparition thing floating around in the dark.
“Well, being young and impressionable it certainly had me fooled. It was kinda spooky, too, the way it was drifting around. Then the other ringers started laying it on a bit thick like, to try and rattle me. But I wasn’t scared, ay; more like I was curious. Anyway, just as I was starting to think about walking over for a closer look maybe, our camp-cook woke up and saw it.
“Now the cook there was a raddled old alky we called The Chlorodine Kid. This was on account of his tucker, see. The best idea was to top up your plate with hot sauce like – sort of in self defence. You’d find out later if it worked or not. If it didn’t you’d have to dose yourself up with Chlorodine and sweat it out until the squits was finished with y’se. Actually it’s a wonder he never killed some poor bugger, ay, and course for all I know he bloody well might have.
“When he was a young bloke he was the star turn at Roxin deGlóvez Travelling Country Boxing Troupe, apparently, with Rocky touting him around the back-blocks as the Chloroform Kid – mainly because of how quick he could knock out his opponents. Later he became a practising alcoholic and tried to knock ‘em down with his breath. This didn’t work out nowhere as good, though, which is most likely why his dial finished up looking like it did.
“Old Chlorodine swore to me once that no one had ever laid a glove on him. The reason he was so scarred-up, he claimed, was the result of a cattle stampede – long after he’d given the boxing game away.
“’Straight through the camp they came,’ he’d said – ‘a coupla hundred of ‘em.’ And all he had to fend ‘em off with was a frying pan and a lump of corned beef. It never worked too good neither, he reckoned. That’s how his dial got chewed up – most of the buggers took the opportunity to tread on it as they went past.
“Course his cooking must have been a lot better back then. From what I’d seen of it, just holding up a bit of his corned beef would’ve turned a mob of cattle, never mind no frying pan.
“Now out in the stock camp old Chlorodine always slept with a bottle of two-forty volt rum under his pillow and his three-oh-three rifle alongside, except that whenever he was in the horrors we’d empty out the magazine. This was in case of him waking up in the night, see, ‘cause he was a bit prone to blazing away at any bloody thing. The old bugger could be a bit cunning about it too. Sometimes he’d jam it into one of his elastic-sided boots … and simply approaching their proximity was a fair sort of challenge for anyone faint of heart.
“Anyhow, this particular night he’d choked-down straight after dinner but later woke up to go for a leak – just as the ringers’ shenanigans were getting started. Course the first thing he saw on sitting up was the fake min-min light bobbing and weaving about down the flat.
“Quick as a flash he pulls on his boots. Then he grabs his rifle as he gets to his feet and rips a bullet into the breech. ‘I’ll get you this time, y’ stinkin’ bastard!’ he yells as he bolts off into the dark.
“He was dead set on sorting it out, too, that’s for sure – whatever he thought it was. None of us ever found out why but, or anything else about it for that matter.
“Course me not knowing what was going on down at the min-min light meant I wasn’t too concerned about Chlorodine taking off with the rifle. But the other ringers… Bloody hell! They were all yelling and yackaying as loud as they could, trying to get him to come back. None of them seemed in a hurry to go after him, though.
“It was all open downs country around there, see, so there was nothing for him to run into – no trees or anything bar the couple old gidgees where we were camped. Anyhow the next thing we hear is a wild bellow and the rifle going off, and at the same moment the min-min light goes out. Then on top of the yelling another voice starts up, screaming like there’s this terrible pain. Then someone else starts shouting: “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” …which makes three of ‘em carrying on there, sort of like an opera in the dark.
“Now the first voice belongs to the cook, see. He’s screaming like he’s
coming out of a bender and is in the fair dinkum horrors. But I’m a bit suspicious about the other two voices; those sound not unlike a couple of our illustrious ringers. As a result I shine my torch around the camp – you know, to check on things. And wouldn’t you know it: two of the swags are still rolled up.
“The other ringers, though; they don’t know what to do. They’re shit-scared someone might’ve got shot, of course, but I didn’t know that at the time. What they do know is: the cook still has plenty of bullets left.”
Just then we stumbled onto the truck. Teddy went to the billy and took a few mouthfuls of cold tea, after which he turned over the campfire ashes to bring up some coals and started coaxing the flames back to life via the time-honoured ritual of “The Waving Hat”. I just had a drink from the waterbag.
Once combustion had resumed Teddy took some firewood from our reserves on the truck and added a couple more pieces to the fire. That done, he sat on the ground, settled himself back against his rolled-up swag, then fixed me with that flinty-eyed stare of his and waited for me to continue.
Old Blue lay alongside him instead of retiring to his usual pozzie under the diesel tank. Probably he wanted to hear better, him getting a bit deaf as he was. I’d