POISONED

John Patrick Bell. Cardigan Station. 1915.. 

We’re going back in time to a disturbing incident when my great uncle, my grandfather and another man were poisoned.

It occurred at Cardigan Station, near Charters Towers in 1900. The station was managed by my great uncle, John Patrick Bell. My grandfather, Richard George Bell, was working there at the time. After returning to the station after mustering for a few days, my great uncle went to the cupboard containing bottles of brandy, whisky and port. Yes, the Bells did not drink milk.  John poured a glass of port and brandy for Richard and himself.  After tasting his, John complained that it had a bitter taste. He told my grandfather that he thought it must be off. They decided against drinking anymore.

The next day, a visitor by the name of Graham was visiting and that evening, John got out the bottle of brandy and poured glasses for Graham, himself and my grandfather. Graham drank his first and immediately said that it contained poison. He then fell to the floor and started convulsing.  Fortunately, Graham did not die.

After straining the brandy, my great uncle found crystals at the bottom of the glass. John suspected it was strychnine and informed the police. If you don’t know what strychnine is, it is a deadly poison that is pink in colour and has a bitter taste. If inhaled, absorbed through the eyes or mouth or swallowed, it can cause severe convulsions and death by asphyxia. It is the poison that has been portrayed in literature and movies over the years.

When the police arrived from Charters Towers, they questioned a young employee named Frederick Cole who was only fifteen. Cole confessed under questioning that he had decided to kill my great uncle who had earlier chastised him. Cole said that he had stolen the poison from my grandfather’s locker and put it in the bottles of alcohol. My grandfather used the poison to kill dingoes.

Cole was arrested. My great uncle, grandfather and Graham had no lasting effects from the poison.  It takes more than a glass of poison to kill outback men.

RUNAWAY FOR A DAY

The Escapee.

In keeping with the theme of my latest blogs, I will relate a story about my most adventurous near miss. 

As a kid on a cattle station, I was always on the move or on the run. I think as soon as I could walk I was off down the bush seeking adventure. You could call me a runaway, an infant escapee. Others may have used less flattering descriptions for me.  As you would expect, living in the bush is more hazardous for a kid than one living on a suburban street. For a start there’s no wild pigs, thick bush, deep rivers or snakes in most leafy suburbs.

My parents just had to turn their backs and I was gone. A friend of my parents suggested they tie me to the clothes line if I was outside. My parents used to smack me when I came back but that was no deterrence. Usually I’d disappear for a few hours, usually in the company of two cattle dogs. I remember a female dog called Battler. Those dogs are most probably the reason why I didn’t die. I’m convinced God and those cattle dogs were looking after me.

The day of the Great Escape, I apparently took off in the early morning, heading for the river as usual. Mum was left at the homestead as Dad and the stockmen were out mustering cattle. As you would expect, mum soon went into a blind panic when she couldn't find me. She ran to the river but couldn’t find me. She could see bubbles in the water. She went in but of course I wasn’t there. She ran back to the homestead and tried to use the radio but she couldn’t get it to operate (we didn’t have a phone). She tried to start the car but without success, then she attempted to catch a horse but it bolted. She must have been overwhelmed with fear of what had happened to me. Alone and afraid, she probably had already decided I wasn’t coming home. All she could do was to keep searching, hope and wait.

As for me, I don’t remember much about that day (I was aged only three) except for two events. I can still see clearly in my head, the two cattle dogs attacking a bunch of wild pigs near the riverbank. Whether, I had walked into them and the dogs were defending me, I can’t remember.

The other recollection, is sitting naked (I apparently always took off my clothes when I took off. Thankfully, it’s not a habit I have anymore) and covered in sand in the kitchen of the homestead. Then my mother came into the kitchen, saw me sitting in the chair.  You'd think she would have  grabbed me and smacked my bare behind wouldn't you? Instead, I remember clearly her crying and collapsing on the floor.

I probably kept running away but I never ran away for that long again. Even as a kid, I saw no future in it.

      

    

  

DON'T ROCK THE BOAT.

On the road to the cattle station. Parents and I with a Land Rover.  Circa 1964.

Rule number one when rowing across a river if you’re a teenager. When you’re a  teenage boy crossing a river and you want to tip all of your mates, don’t forget to ask if everyone can swim first.

Somehow, I found myself , aged all of seven, in dad’s rowing boat in the middle of a the river with a bunch of rowdy teenage boys, when some bright spark decided to tip everyone all of the boat. I knew that I couldn’t swim but no one else seemed to know that. I had a thing about learning to swim at the time. Dad tried to teach me lots of time. It was probably a good idea when you live close to two intercepting rivers but I used to go beserk every time dad tried to put my head in the water. I had a big fear of drowning. Still do. 

Of course, it was a little too late to contemplate swimming lessons when you’ve just been tipped out of a boat into the murky depths of the Suttor River. I didn’t even have time to yell. I just remember going down and down, like I was floating in a huge water bubble. I tried to thrash my legs about but it was like trying to climb a set of stairs when there aren’t any stairs. I was going down. I stopped panicking and started surrendering to the void. Then a hand plunged into the water from nowhere and I suddenly found myself being pulled from the deep by one of the teenage boys.

I was coughing and sputtering my guts out but I was alive. Thankfully the boat hadn’t sunk so someone had been able to pull me back into it. Asked quickly if I was all right to which I responded in the affirmative. I quickly followed that by spewing up a lungful full of water. Then one of them of them implored that I don’t tell my father.  And I didn’t until much later. How silly of me. If I hadn’t have been a naïve bush kid, I could have eaten a lot of lollies and chocolates and acquired some more toy cars.     

THE WILD,SHOELESS KID

Standing on the roof of a car with my pet goat.

It’s really hard to confine a kid with a non-existent attention span  in the Australian bush. I know. I was that kid who if my parents turned their backs I was off seeking adventure.

I think my mother was always hovering on the brink of a nervous breakdown, always worried about where I would end up.  My father was more laid back about my wanderings. Or maybe he had resigned himself  to my fate. There was a strong possibly I was going to die in childhood and the bush has many ways to kill you, especially if you’re a kid. 

For a start there was the nearby river. I couldn’t swim. Dad had attempted to teach me but without success. I did only manage to nearly drown twice. I think I’ll do a drowning blog as both episodes are interesting.

Talking about near misses. There was the wild pig that charged at me when I went with dad to check a dam. Luckily my father was there to save me. Wild pigs are big, black brutes with razor sharp tusks. They can do a lot of damage. Then there are the snakes. Venomous ones.  I once rode over one on a tricycle. Dad grabbed me before it could bite me. Can you see a theme developing here? My father was a good rescuer.

I think the closest I came to being taken out was when I wandered into a stock yard  full of cattle aged five. I climbed into the yard only to have them rush at me. Fortunately for me they stopped in front of me or I would have been trampled to death. Was that all of the near misses.

 I ran away for a whole day and managed to come home. I was aged all of three.

That deserves its own blog. Stay tuned.

 

  

SWIMMING WITH CROCODILES. PART TWO.

My father was going back to the river care of the crocodile.  He had heard recent reports from stockmen that a crocodile had been in the river near the homestead. Having just been nearly taken crossing the river overnight, there was clear evidence of that.  He knew it would be most probably at the Big Hole as it was known. Crocs liked to sun themselves during the day and where better; The Big Hole.

The Big Hole was a large bend in the Suttor River which flowed past the Lornesleigh homestead. Its measured depth was over twenty feet deep. A large sand bank jutted into it and it was a great place to swim on a hot day.  Years later, I remember that it looked like an expanse of beach.  Only difference is the river sand is course and the water wasn’t rolling waves but murky still water. In fact, my mother had been recently swimming in The Big Hole while she had been pregnant with me. Obviously a croc was not in the big hole at the time or was it?

My father left the homestead armed with a German Mauser bolt action rifle 9.3 calibre. It had previously belonged to a game warden in Kenya. The homestead was two miles from the Big Hole. Dad said he stalked the croc upwind along the river for a mile. He knew by previous experience that crocodiles were sensitive to smell and movement.  Getting to a hundred yards from the big hole he was able to first see sight of his target. Thinking it was going to one crocodile, instead it was two; a male and female.

My father stepped slowly forward, but started to sink into a patch of soft sand up to his waist. He pulled himself out of it but the noise of his exertion, started to unsettle the crocodiles. They slid slowly towards the edge of the sand. Dad knew he only had seconds to shoot. He slipped off the safety, aimed and fired just as they slipped into the water. The male buckled as it was hit and then both crocodiles disappeared under the dark water. 

Thinking he had missed, dad returned disappointed to the homestead. A few days later, the mailman was crossing the river when he spotted the male crocodile floating dead on its back. It measured 16 feet ( 4.8 metres). The female crocodile disappeared but there were always suspected sightings over the years. Swimming in the river always made me feel a little uneasy as a kid. Would the female crocodile ever return? Thankfully, she never did.   

SWIMMING WITH CROCODILES

For many years crocodiles filled the rivers that my family’s cattle stations were situated on. They had not taken a human being during the hundred years that my family lived there but that wasn’t for want of trying.

The danger with crocodiles is that you could not see them in the water even if they were right near you as the water is very murky. You would only see them when they came out of the water and grabbed you. The crocs could always see you. Dad remembers an Aboriginal stockman filling his billy can at the river bank one day. The stockman couldn’t move quick enough to fill his billy and jump back from the water. He knew they were there.

Crocodiles were always a danger to cattle especially when they wandered down to the river to drink. Dad had seen bulls over the years with large claw marks on them. Those cattle were the lucky ones, probably only saved by their weight and fighting spirit.  The closest one of the my family had come to being taken by a croc was when my father tried to cross a river one night, only to be confronted by two orange-coloured eyes coming towards him through the water. The water was up to his chest and he luckily had time to get out of the water.

Choosing discretion over valor, dad decided to sleep that night on the river bank.Unfortunately for dad, when he arrived back at the homestead in the morning for breakfast, my mother got very angry with him. She thought that he had been drinking all night with his brother at the other station. Dad went to the gun cabinet. For the sake of domestic harmony that croc had to go. More of that story in my next blog.  

Until the 1970s, crocodiles could be hunted and so my father and uncle had made a concerted effort to rid the rivers of the man-eating reptile. They finally succeeded in the late 1950’s. Dad is always credited with shooting the last crocodile.  I was born in 1958 and don’t remember seeing any crocodiles in the rivers as a kid. But there was always the myth that not all had been shot.  To be continued. 

OFFICIAL TRAILER FOR THORNYDEVILS.