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| ISBN-13: | 9781925266450 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Allen & Unwin |
| Publication date: | 04/01/2015 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
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Daughter of the Territory
By Jacqueline Hammar
Allen & Unwin
Copyright © 2015 Jacqueline HammarAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-925266-45-0
CHAPTER 1
North to the Territory
My story begins with my father, Arthur Edward (Jack) Sargeant. Queen Victoria was still sitting steadfastly upon her throne in the early months of the year he was born. He and the twentieth century began their journey through time together.
At fifteen he left his home in South Australia and joined the army. There was no conscription during the First World War, with young men joining for adventure, for patriotism, or both. Perhaps my father presumed life in the army wouldn't differ much from life as the youngest of seventeen children in a strict Presbyterian household.
After lying about his age, he was given an ill-fitting uniform and sent on a 20-kilometre fitness march that resulted in the army doctors diagnosing ingrown toenails. These were smartly removed (and never grew again) and he was soon on a ship sailing off to war.
And what a war it was! One of guts, no glory, no glamour, and such appalling horror that a child soldier could only return from mud-filled trenches and bayonet charges on the battlefields of France as a man.
In his journal, my father tells a little of his war:
We went up through the Hindenburg Line recently taken by Australians, we were in trenches up to our waists in mud, I was on Lewis Guns, we were there for a week, it was my sixteenth birthday, and the men celebrated my birthday with sixteen lighted matches in a loaf of bread.
We were relieved by the first American troops to come into the front line, the 32nd Battalion. They seemed not to have good leadership for they tried to get through the barbed-wire entanglements where they were caught, and the Germans machine-gunned them, every one.
We were ordered out; the only way through the wire was to climb over the dead bodies of the Americans. There was no other way. There was a moon that night and it was a sight I'll never forget, men caught on the wire, their frozen grimacing faces, white in the moonlight.
My father caught the Spanish flu that killed thousands of fighting men. While he was lying in an army hospital, yet another flu victim was placed in the bed beside him. In the morning, seeing the bed empty, my father said with the naivety of a bush lad, 'Has he gone home, Nurse?' The nurse replied, 'Yes son, he's gone home.'
He was invalided out to hospital in England, later onto a hospital ship back to Australia. They called in to Colombo, but he was too sick to go ashore. Then the ship set sail right into a cyclone, during which everything on top of the vessel was blown away — showers, toilets and sadly, their entire cargo of potatoes. The men remained battened down below or they would have gone too. Blown hundreds of miles off course, they finally sailed into Albany rather than Fremantle.
At war's end, my father was still a teenager. The years that followed his return held a diversity of adventurous pursuits for him.
* * *
In 1919, ten years before a railway line linked Oodnadatta in South Australia to Alice Springs, my father rode into the Northern Territory on the back of a camel. Eighteen years old, a soldier returned from war, he had been directed north by the British Australian Telegraph Company to work on the Overland Telegraph Line. This was an amazing feat of human achievement that linked Australia across more than 3000 kilometres, from Port Augusta in South Australia to the far tropics of Darwin. There it joined with the cable that ran along the ocean floor to Java, and so to communication with the rest of the world.
My father left Adelaide on the slow train that crawled through dust and heat every two weeks, taking an overnight break to the relief of passengers at Marree. Originally the area was named Hergott Springs — the story goes that a German explorer was the first man through and exclaimed in horror, 'Herr Gott!' at the desolate scene. It was in fact named for Hergott, an artist in John McDouall Stuart's exploration party who'd found water there.
Next day the train moved on to Oodnadatta, where the rail line stopped dead in the sand. A collection of dirty Afghan tents and a tin mosque defined it as little more than a camel camp. From there, my father travelled with the Afghan camel train over the red sand dunes of Central Australia, a journey of around three weeks. Like desert caravans of ages past, camel trains regularly travelled this route, one of the hottest and driest in the world. Turbaned Afghans packed their long strings of camels with every conceivable form of goods, furniture, building materials, grog — you name it, they found a way to load it.
My father wrote in his journal:
My travel documents stated, 'Train to Oodnadatta, connecting with mail to Alice Springs.' With expectations of a mail truck to continue on, I found no such thing — there was no mail truck, not a sign of a mailman, so back to the railway station.
'Where's the Alice Springs mail truck, mate?' I asked.
'That's it up there; see those camels? That's how the mail gets through. A lot of sand between here and the Alice, a motor vehicle couldn't handle it.' He went on to explain, 'There are two camel teams, this one goes as far as Old Crown Station, that's about halfway, there they change to another string to continue on to the Alice. They return the same way.'
My baggage consisted of a suitcase, which went into one of the boxes located on each side of a pack animal, and my swag, which I carried on my camel. 'When you mount you'll find a waterbag on one side, and on the other a satchel with food,' I was told. On inspection, food was revealed as a packet of SAO biscuits and a can of sardines.
Loaded and ready to travel, we set off at what could be described as a fast amble — a shuffling sort of gait, the best way to travel, too fast, loads might shift, too slow, a feeling of motion sickness could overcome those so inclined. The camels were joined, nose to tail, in a long string, heavily loaded for settlements along the way. A big bull could carry half a ton and go without water for a week if conditioned to do so. We left camp before daybreak. Sometimes we travelled into the night; sometimes spent a day unloading.
When we finally reached Old Crown Station, the halfway point, the camels were unpacked, with blissful thoughts of some dinner and rolling out the swag for a few hours' sleep before continuing. It was not to be: the new team, ready to travel, was preparing to leave, so reluctantly I remounted, settled myself as comfortable as possible, and with a 'Hoosta' my new mount swayed to its feet and we were away again.
My father's route followed the watering places that explorers had first marked about half a century earlier: Bloods Creek, Alice Well, Deep Well and, just across the present Northern Territory border on the 26th parallel, Charlotte Waters. A story of hardship and loneliness goes with each one. At that time even Alice Springs — or Stuart township, as it was then known — consisted of the telegraph station, a ramshackle pub and a couple of stores, along streets of red sand.
* * *
In 1870 the South Australian government had undertaken to build the Overland Telegraph Line in eighteen months. The British Australian Telegraph Company would finance it and lay the undersea cable to Java, with a penalty clause of £70 sterling a day if work proceeded after 1 January 1872. Charles Todd, the South Australian superintendent of telegraphs, was appointed to lead and organise the project.
At that time, the interior was virtually unknown country. In 1862 John McDouall Stuart's exploration party had crossed the continent from north to south on its sixth attempt. Information gleaned from their records wasn't encouraging: hundreds of miles without water in the dry season and flooding rains in the wet, and the country was peopled with Aboriginals who were not about to make welcome these strange pale debil-debils.
So when the OT Line was proposed and the contract signed, newspapers said it couldn't be done. They published derisive cartoons and made great fun of such an impossible project; of Charles Todd's need for thousands of insulators and permanently manned repeater stations that would be necessary to convey Morse code along the line.
Todd's men went out with swag, water bag, bullock drays, wagons, and horse and camel teams across empty land with no cattle stations, little wild game and uncertain delivery of supplies. For $2.50 per week in today's money they toiled northwards through spinifex plains into the tropics, where they were marooned for weeks by torrential rains. Bogged down, they subsisted on damp, weevil-infested flour, and boiled and ate their leather gear and greenhide. Volunteers made a boat of sorts from a tarpaulin-covered dray and careered crazily down the Roper River to hurry back the supply boats to the starving workers.
Still the poles went up, the wires sang in the wind, the line moved steadily forward. The project was completed in just two years.
As a Territorian, I admit to a thrill of pride, that prickles along the spine, when I read that with a twist of wire at Frew Ponds, England and Australia were joined in communication. In Adelaide, on 22 August 1872, with the town hall's bells ringing, Charles Todd's message was tapped through by Morse code:
We have this day, within two years, completed a line of communications two thousand miles long through the very centre of Australia, until a few years ago a terra incognita believed to be a desert.
Now there would be no more waiting months for the blue flag to flutter from Adelaide Town Hall, heralding the arrival of the P&O ships carrying stacks of English newspapers.
My father knew and spoke with men who had worked on the construction of this great line. Now his work was to help maintain it. As a linesman he travelled with packhorses from the Barrow Creek to Powell Creek telegraph stations, climbing the poles to test and repair. With handsets that attached to the main line, he could make contact with the nearest base. A break in the line meant a serious disruption in overseas contact, so constant surveillance was necessary.
The line was also vital for contact within Australia. When a man lay dying from spear wounds after an attack on Barrow Creek, his wife in far-off Adelaide farewelled him through the Morse code of the operators. Can it be imagined today, farewelling a husband with dots and dashes?
CHAPTER 2Mounted Constable Jack Sargeant
In Central Australia, Sergeant Robert (Bobby) Stott was The Law and The Order. As police commissioner for the region, he was known throughout the country as the uncrowned King of the Centre. He dispensed justice decreed by the times, by the isolation and with the small police force of the day.
My father always claimed, with some amusement, that he was shanghaied into the Territory Mounted. Sergeant Stott — ever on the lookout for recruits to swell the ranks of his small force — jovially persuaded my father to sign his little form: maybe in a few years, when he was older, Jack would be called upon to join the police force. Thinking nothing would come of it, my father signed.
A few weeks later, a telegram from Stott was tapped through to my father by Morse code:
You have this day been appointed Mounted Constable Northern Territory Police Force, a horse plant is being sent from Newcastle Waters to convey you to Rankine River. You will change horses at Anthony Lagoon and the plant will return to Newcastle Waters.
Just like that, with no specific qualifications for the job, no educational or health requirements — certainly no training period — my father was officially policeman, stock inspector, mining warden, protector of Aboriginals, registrar of cattle brands, receiver of dingo scalps from doggers, issuer of permits to employ, gravedigger for spear wound and fever victims, and supplier of rations. And he was still employed by the British Australian Telegraph Company.
Territorians have always referred to Alice Springs as 'The Alice', Katherine as 'The Kath-Er-Ryne', and the high stony ground of Newcastle Waters as 'The Ridge', so when my father set off with his horse plant to take up his first police post, it was to 'The Rankine'.
The Rankine River on the Barkly Tableland is dry for most of the year. The fierce cold wind of the dry months made a drover's life hell, plodding along in the dust of a thousand head of cattle. But with the flooding rains of the wet season, all of the Tableland's rivers and creeks come to life, and its nearly 300,000 square kilometres of grassland could gladden the heart of any cattleman. Amid the nutritious Mitchell and Flinders grasses of the Barkly, huge cattle stations were established early, and a packhorse mail run came through every six weeks.
* * *
The arm of the law was very long on the great plains of the Territory in 1921. A meagre police force patrolled more than a million square kilometres of country that spread from desert borders in Central Australia to the jungle tropics along the Arafura Sea. Within these boundaries were arid desert, lush grassland, rivers and mountain ranges — mirage and desolation, unmapped, unpeopled.
Police outposts had no outside communications except for those stationed along the Overland Telegraph Line. Officers spent months patrolling over hundreds of kilometres with packhorse plant and native tracker. Roads were rough or non-existent in the dry; impassable even by horseback in the wet.
When my father came to the Rankine in 1921, there was a bore for water, with a turkey-nest holding dam, and a store catering to drovers. The police station was a small iron building, hot as an oven within. Over its entrance hung an indomitably authoritative sign: Police Post GRV (George Rex V). Was King George, on the other side of the world, even aware that this small speck of habitation on the great plain existed?
Bush police posts left much to be desired and in some cases were merely iron sheds or worse. Nicholas Waters, the first Commonwealth Inspector of Police in the Northern Territory, protested in a 1922 report:
Better quarters should be provided, so as to allow them to get married, as most stations are unfit for occupation. When last heard from the Constable at Lake Nash Station, he was occupying an old tent and bough shade for over two years.
The cattle station there had promised to improve his quarters, but nothing has been done. There is no means of securing prisoners except by chaining them to a post or tree. I submit lockups should be erected at Timber Creek, Rankin River and Roper River.
Rankine was a two-man station; my father joined Alf Stretton, who years later became superintendent of the Territory police force. Born in Borroloola, Stretton was one of the many children of W.G. Stretton, an early Territory policeman who'd endeavoured to tame the lawless gangs of travellers taking the Old Coast Road to seek fortune in the goldfields. In 1872 Wentworth D'Arcy Uhr had established this track when he made a trip from Charters Towers with 400 bullocks for Palmerston; pioneer cattlemen had followed with great herds.
At Rankine, Stretton and my father, along with two trackers, were the only police presence within thousands of square kilometres. Later John Creed Lovegrove took Stretton's place. The arm of the law was very long indeed.
As stock inspectors the Rankine police were responsible for dipping the big herds coming through the Barkly Stock Route during the droving season. They used an arsenic dip for tick and kept a close watch for the parasite's attendant red-water fever. They also administered to the health of Aboriginal people: yaws and leprosy were common diseases, and it was no easy task persuading bush Aboriginals to leave familiar country for medical treatment; unless detained, they silently disappeared into the night and were never seen again.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Daughter of the Territory by Jacqueline Hammar. Copyright © 2015 Jacqueline Hammar. Excerpted by permission of Allen & Unwin.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Prologue,PART I,
1 North to the Territory,
2 Mounted Constable Jack Sargeant,
3 Old Darwin Town,
4 Life Down Batchelor Way,
5 Searching for Gold,
6 Murder in the Desert,
7 Hard Times,
8 My Parents Wed,
9 My Welcome to the World,
10 The Many Ways to Die in the Bush,
11 Newcastle Waters,
12 He Redeemed his Vices with his Virtue,
13 Daughter of the Mounted,
14 North to Gold Field Country,
15 Buffalo Shooting,
16 Darwin Convent School,
17 Leaping Lena,
18 A New Darwin Emerges,
19 War is Declared,
20 The Bombing of Darwin,
21 Our Hearts Were Young and Gay,
PART II,
22 Emerging from the Cloister,
23 Back to Newcastle Waters,
24 Anyone Can Do Anything,
25 Go Bush, Young Man!,
26 And That Says It All,
27 The Old Stockman of the Bush,
28 A Time Long Gone,
29 Hard Men Who Lived Hard Lives,
30 Travellers on the Murranji Track,
31 On the Wilton River,
32 Jackie's Gone a Drovin',
33 Droving Across the Barkly Tableland,
34 An Invitation,
35 The Townsfolk of Borroloola,
36 Under a Wide and Starry Sky,
37 Graveyards in the Grasses,
38 Naming Butterfly Spring,
39 My 'Get Up and Go' Had Got Up and Gone,
40 'With All My Worldly Goods I Thee Endow',
41 Missus Ken,
PART III,
42 Managing McArthur River Station,
43 Our First Wet Season,
44 End of the Wet,
45 New Additions,
46 Heading Bush,
47 My Unique Household,
48 The Good Old Bush Life,
49 A Bush Child Comes Home,
50 Alone Under the Milky Way,
51 Twenty-Chebbin Dog Johnny,
52 Along the Old Coast Track,
53 Bauhinia Downs Station,
54 Money is Like a Sixth Sense,
55 A Veritable Noah's Ark,
56 Bush Race Meeting,
57 A Bush Christmas,
58 Working on Bauhinia Downs,
59 'Just Shoot the Bloody Thing',
60 Our New Homestead,
Epilogue,
Picture section,
Acknowledgements,