Taj and the Great Camel Trek (16 page)

It was becoming hard again to find the energy to do my jobs. Peter and Jess Young were looking pale. Alec and I compared the bruises we had that wouldn't heal. They were like the ones I had before we found Queen Victoria Spring. So I had scurvy again.

Jess Young checked us and confirmed that we had scurvy. ‘I've seen bruises like that on sailors when they haven't had enough vegetables.' He knew all about it, so did Padar, but there was nothing we could do to help ourselves. There were no vegetables in the desert.

It seemed as though everything moved slower, even the string itself. We stopped shortly in a place where Tommy found lowans' eggs. I wondered where he found his energy and how come birds lived in the desert. Then we travelled over granite ridges. Mr Giles liked granite; he poked around on foot while the rest of the string carried on. He called, ‘Tommy and Taj, you come and help.'

We searched the rocks – it was a pretty enough place. Tommy found tracks of crows and humans. There was
smoke from fires above the scrub. Surely the people must be close by but they didn't show themselves.

‘Look boss!' Tommy discovered a little native well in a grassy water channel. It looked hopeful. He took off one of his boots to scrape up water, and Reechy and Mustara drank from his hat. Tommy laughed.

‘Perhaps we can get more water with a shovel,' Mr Giles said, and he sent Tommy back to the string to get one. ‘Two hundred miles from Queen Victoria Spring and no water but this.'

Mr Giles and I watched Tommy gallop off on Reechy; Tommy always rode fast and Reechy could run at twenty miles an hour. Then suddenly, Reechy sank to her knees.

‘What the devil–' Mr Giles started forward.

Tommy shouted from the saddle. ‘Gabi, gabi! Plenty watta! Plenty watta!'

We raced over to Tommy and found a large well. It looked as if permanent water was supplied by the drainage of the rocks all around. This was why Mr Giles was so interested in rocks. He was even more pleased with Tommy. After Reechy and Mustara had drunk their fill Tommy and Reechy galloped to find the string. Mr Giles and I searched around but couldn't find any other water, so we sat and waited for the others.

‘That Tommy is a handy chap to have around. What do you think, Taj?'

I swallowed. ‘Yes, sir. He's very clever.'

Mr Giles laughed. ‘So you think he's clever, eh? He works from his instincts, not cleverness. Thousands of years of it bred into him.'

I had no comment to make for I felt Mr Giles had made Tommy less than he was. With a start I realised that not long ago I would have agreed.

‘Do you think jealousy is a curse, Taj?' He seemed about to add something, musing, knowing I wouldn't answer him. Then, ‘No, we all get along tolerably well. Don't you think?'

‘Y-yes, sir.' But I wondered what he was going to say before he thought better of it. Mr Giles was not a jealous man. Was it to do with Mr Tietkens or Jess Young? When he mentioned jealousy my heart leapt in guilt. Hadn't I been jealous of Tommy for winning those races, for his talents, his closeness to Mr Giles?

Mr Giles stood up. ‘What's that?'

I heard voices. Two naked women walked down to fetch water. They had a water carrier; it looked like a small bark trough. We kept silent but when the women came close enough to see us they ran away a short distance, then stopped to look back at us.

Mr Giles stood and bowed to them and made a sign that they should come back and get their water. He wasn't frightened. But the women were; the bowing didn't work. They dropped their bark troughs and
walked off as if they'd like to run but thought running might make us chase them. It was a good thing Mustara was out of sight munching on plants he liked; what would the women have thought of him?

We picked up the troughs. ‘These are coolamins. They look like miniature canoes, don't you think, Taj?'

I couldn't comment for I had never seen a canoe. The coolamins were made from the yellow bark tree, tied at the ends with bark string.

‘When they are full of water the women carry them on their heads,' Mr Giles said.

‘I've seen women do that near Beltana.'

These were the first desert people I had seen on the expedition. I wondered if the women would tell their men we were there. Mr Giles didn't have his gun. What would we do if they came for us? We sat where we could see any movement over the rise, but no one appeared in the four hours we waited.

It felt as if the whole afternoon had passed when the string finally arrived. ‘Them march six miles before I catch 'em,' Tommy told us.

It was wonderful to see all the camels watered. They had come 200 miles with only that one watering from the troughs seven days before.

While the camels were still drinking, seven men and a boy appeared. They were quietly spoken, and a
few had some English words like ‘boy', ‘whitefella' and ‘what name?'.

They were astonished, not only by the camels, but that they could drink so much. The camels drained the well dry, and the look on the men's faces worried me. It was obvious they had never seen the well dry before. What would they do? Fortunately, water seeped into the well again and in an hour it was as it was before, though purer.

Jess Young tore his red handkerchief into strips. Mr Giles tied these around the men's foreheads and they seemed very happy with them. The bag of trinkets came out under Tommy's watchful eye and a few mirrors and necklaces were given. Three or four more men came to camp once we had settled and Peter began cooking damper.

One man had a piece of oyster pearl on a string around his neck and another had a feathered ornament which he popped over his mouth and laughed through. He looked like a jinn, though Mr Giles was trying to talk to him, calling him Feather and making signs with his hands. Feather broke the string around his neck and couldn't wear his ornament so Jess Young found some elastic to attach to it. The man thought the elastic too fearsome until Mr Giles put it over his own head. Only then did Feather accept the elastic.

Mr Giles gave the men some damper and sugar each.
Of course they saw what Peter was cooking in the coals: lowans' eggs that Tommy had found. They were as concerned as when they saw their water disappear and they pointed at them and spoke to one another. Perhaps they thought the eggs were their own food since Tommy collected them from near there, but Mr Giles didn't give them any. ‘We have to eat too,' he said when he caught Padar staring at him. Finally the men returned to their own camp.

We were camped between two acacia trees. There were plenty of the pea plants that Mustara liked and shady trees and bushes. It was much like Wynbring. That seemed so long ago, way back in June. I braced myself for sleeping; it was going to be cold in the night.

Before sunrise the mercury fell to 32 degrees, freezing point, though it felt even colder. I had taken to sleeping with my boots on though that didn't help much. Before breakfast Tommy and I saw tracks of emus, wild dogs and people. I worried about the wild dogs, though Alec said they wouldn't bother us when there were so many people and the camels. I hoped he was right but I kept Dyabun close beside me.

Feather and the men came to visit early in the morning; we hadn't even finished breakfast. Tommy said some of the scars on their bodies were the same as the ones from Fowler's Bay. ‘Them Wangkatja people,' he said. He could even understand a few of their words but he didn't want to get too friendly with them. I thought that was strange.

I went with Alec, Jess Young and Peter to our neighbours' camp that afternoon. There were men sitting together, but they didn't have any food. Perhaps the women were finding some. We wouldn't be able to give them much as we had to feed ourselves and keep
enough to reach Perth. They had some tin billies so they must have seen white people before.

Jess Young was surprising: he managed to speak with some Wangkatja men and found out the name of the place. It was called Ularring. They said it as Padar would, making more of the ‘ring' sound. Later Mr Giles was pleased to hear the place had a name already. ‘Now I don't have to try and think up one from my numerous friends,' he said.

When I arrived back at our camp Padar called me. A few of the camels were still nearby and Wardah, one of the baggage cows, was with them. Padar lifted up her left front foot for me to see. Wardah turned her head and growled. She had a long mulga stake stuck in the thick sole of her foot.

Mr Giles came over to see. When he saw the stake he pulled out his knife and called to Tommy, ‘Fetch the pliers.' Padar held Wardah's leg while Mr Giles pulled out the long piece of the wood with the knife and pliers. Did she bellow! And kick. It was good she was wearing hobbles. Wardah, was a pretty dark colour; that was why we called her Wardah, for it means red. It also means brave and I encouraged her to live up to her name.

I inspected Wardah's foot early the next morning. The lower part of her leg was more swollen than before, but
I couldn't tell if we had left some wood in. I hoped she would get better while we were camped.

Feather and his friends came again. Some of them wanted to go with us as we journeyed west. They seemed so friendly that I wasn't frightened of them. Jess Young must have heard a lot of stories about spearing, for he kept a watchful eye on Feather.

A pretty girl came with a young man later on. She was younger than Emmeline, and very thin. Everyone thought she was sweet, and Mr Giles looked as if he would put her in his saddle bag. She stayed by his side much of the time even when he was writing. When a whirly wind sprang up and blew Mr Giles' papers she helped us run after them until they were all found. Mr Giles gave her a shirt to wear and Peter gave his old coat to the man.

Once she stood up and mimicked men throwing spears, talking the whole time but we couldn't understand her. She spent most of the time after that watching Peter do his chores. If she had been any older I would say Peter had found himself a wife.

It was a lazy afternoon: there was a breeze, shady trees, and the people were friendly. Jess Young carved Mr Giles' initials and the date on a grevillea tree. I hoped we could stay long enough so the camels could rest. Who knew how many more times they would have to march without water?

It was earlier than usual when Peter's welcome call told us it was time to eat our evening meal. No one minded stopping their work. Jess Young finished his dried beef stew first and rose to his feet. ‘What's going on?'

Two men stood on a sandhill, like scouts, making signals to the others who were still sitting in our camp. ‘They must be sending a telegram,' Mr Giles said.

‘More like morse code.' Mr Tietkens laughed.

Jess Young didn't join in on the jokes, instead, he reached for his gun.

Then suddenly we saw an army approaching, guided by the two scouts. They were all painted and had feathers on them, armed with spears and clubs. I had heard so much about such attacks but after their friendliness, I didn't think I'd ever see one. My first thought was Mustara – what if he got in the way of a spear? So I picked up Dyabun and ran to Mustara and pulled him further away behind the trees. I tied the pup to Mustara's hobbles.

Jess Young called the alarm and immediately the desert men were swarming into our camp in closely packed rows. There must have been a hundred of them.

Before Mr Giles had his gun ready, Jess Young began firing.

One of the men who had been visiting in our camp suddenly jumped up when he saw Mr Giles aim his gun and grabbed Mr Giles around the neck. He kept shouting, ‘Don't! Don't!'

Mr Giles grappled with him but he still managed to call, ‘Fire! Fire for your lives.'

‘Stay where you are!' Padar said to me and he raced towards Mr Giles. I couldn't do as he said – what if he was speared? I followed Padar and was almost up to him when Padar hit the Wangkatja man with the butt of his gun. Mr Giles made a final effort and threw off the man. I stood there amid the shouting and firing of guns. A scream startled me and suddenly Padar pushed me backwards out of the path of a man with a club who looked as if he would use it on me. Jess Young's snider fired, the club dropped to the ground, and the man turned and ran.

Tommy was suddenly speaking fluently to the two Wangkatja men who were still in our camp. Had they been spies after all, sent to see what we did and when it was best to attack us? Padar aimed his rifle into the mass and I crouched low, ready to help if anyone got close enough to club any of us.

The strangest thing was the little girl. She ran from man to man and especially to Peter, patting him on the
back. She didn't understand the danger of the guns. It was as if she thought it was a game.

Once Mr Giles was free to fire in earnest, the army retreated, carrying some wounded. ‘I've seen a lot of native attacks and this was the most organised of them all,' he said, watching them disappear over the sandhill.

What if they came back once they had regrouped? We picked up many of the spears. They were long and barbed. What dreadful damage they would do to a man's body. The girl and one other man were still in the camp and when Mr Giles broke some of the spears, the man shouted at us until he finally took the girl away.

Mr Giles asked Tommy, ‘How is it you could speak so fluently with those natives?'

‘They want me go with them, boss.'

‘They'd kill you if you did.'

It was a strange thing to say, especially since Tommy then said, ‘I tole you blackfella coming.' But only Alec remembered him saying that. I had untied Dyabun and was calming down the highly strung camels like Rani when I heard Alec and Mr Giles having words.

‘It needn't have happened. It was precipitated.' Alec's voice rose. It was the first time that Alec had ever argued with Mr Giles. Mr Tietkens didn't look happy either. I didn't hear Mr Giles' answer, but Alec soon strode back to his bed roll.

We had to keep watch through the night now.
Alec and I were on duty first. There were no noises from the other camp. I could only hear the camel bells and Wardah's groans as she tried to make herself comfortable.

Dyabun snuggled into my blanket. It was strange that Alec wasn't in the mood for talking. It was as if he thought we had experienced a tragedy when none of us was hurt. ‘I'm sure it could have been avoided,' he said. ‘It may have been only a ceremonial dance.'

I wasn't so sure. ‘But Mr Giles said the girl and the man were spies.'

Alec turned to me. ‘They stayed in the camp while it went on. Would they have done that if it was a proper attack? Besides, they didn't throw a spear until we fired first.' I remembered Jess Young firing before Mr Giles gave the order. Was Alec thinking of that too?

He fell silent, but it wasn't the easy quietness between two friends. What if he was right, and the man grappling with Mr Giles was only trying to stop him from firing? And the girl miming the attack was only miming a dance? What had we done?

We woke the next morning to dreadful screams. ‘What is it?' I asked Padar. It sounded as if we were being attacked again. Jess Young sprang out of his blanket with his gun already in hand.

‘Some black men were wounded,' Padar said, ‘and perhaps someone has died.' The screams and crying
continued, then later on the girl and the quietest man sauntered into camp as if nothing had happened. This I couldn't understand. Didn't they think we were enemies? Why come back? This time the man had the shirt on and the girl was wearing Peter's coat. She looked odd in it for it dragged two feet in the dirt. We gave them breakfast and they returned for dinner. Mr Giles ordered them off after that. What would happen next if we allowed them to stay? Another attack?

Alec whispered to me, ‘See? Would they have come back if they were guilty?'

None of us had the stomach to camp at Ularring any longer. Jess Young quickly planted some seeds by the well in the afternoon while Padar and I filled the water casks and made sure everything was ready to be packed in the morning. None of the Wangkatja people had used the well since we had been there and we didn't find any other water. Jess Young and Peter kept first watch that night.