Warrigal's Way Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Warrigal’s Way

  1: Mum and me

  2: A Spell in Sydney

  3: Heading north

  4: The house

  5: Meeting Hugh

  6: Learning the ropes

  7: Out on the track

  8: Working the cattle

  9: Breaking in a pushbike

  10: My place in the pecking order

  11: A moment in Dingo

  12: Swansong on the cattle

  13: Back into enemy territory

  14: I get the fright of my life

  15: Off to the grapes

  16: Back to the Sunshine State

  17: June and me

  18: Working our way up north

  19: Going further north

  20: Back to the Territory

  21: West to Western Australia

  22: Broome in the golden west

  23: A Family Man

  24: Visiting the Shakey Isles

  25: Down to the South Island

  26: Back home again

  UQP BLACK AUSTRALIAN WRITERS SERIES

  Copyright

  Warrigal’s Way

  Edward Warrigal Anderson was born in 1948. As was the custom of his mother’s people, he was named Warrigal after a dingo that witnessed his birth on the ground in the Wimmera district of Victoria. At the age of ten, he fled from his home in Moonee Ponds to avoid capture by government officers. He never saw his mother again and still hopes to re-unite with the sister he has not seen for forty years. His life has taken him all over Australia and New Zealand where he has worked as a drover, meatworker, commercial fisherman, and crane operator. In 1982 he settled in Katherine where he lives and writes full-time.

  I would like to dedicate this book to the men of my childhood—Hugh, Mike, Jim, Russell.

  And especially Ted Hanson, who through his unselfish effort gave me the world. “Education is riches Mate, the more you get, the richer you are.”

  My special thanks to: Eric and Val Brierly, Jill Brain, Margaret O’Shane and Melissa Brickell, David Jones and Russel Young for keeping me at my work and keeping my feet on the ground by pointing out my faults and keeping this story on track. To Bob Pitt and Joe Smith, for their time in editing this manuscript.

  To all the above, I thank you.

  (Eddie) Warrigal Anderson.

  KATHERINE 1995.

  1

  Mum and me

  I don’t remember my old man, I was much too young, but Mum told me about him one night when she was down in her cups and drinking wine. He was her second husband. (Her first husband and my half-brother died in 1930—something of measles.) Mum said the old man was a top bloke, but the war had turned him strange and he did terrible things. Like bashing her something terrible and scarring her for life with his stockwhip. Breaking bones and kicking her for such crimes as not going to bed with one of his drunken mates when he was feeling generous, or serving up his tea cold when he came home from the pub at some ungodly hour. And other small petty things, like breaking my brother Gordon’s nose and cheekbone when he ran to the door and was greeted by a casual backhander, just like you would swat a fly. It didn’t stop there. Mum said he tried to rape Pauline, my oldest sister, when she was about nine. That was the last straw for Mum.

  You would have to be Aboriginal and my age to understand how hard it was for my Mother with three young kids, me a babe in arms, to walk out and try to make a life of her own, and raise us. Particularly in the days when you were considered less than a white man’s dog. (At least they had to be registered.) From what I’ve been told we shifted into a shack on the outskirts of Swan Hill. That’s where Pauline was taken from. I was too young to remember her, so we have never met. (So if you’re about sixty, have green eyes and remember being called Kylie as a child, get in touch, Sister.)

  Among my early memories is a policeman and a big bloke in a black suit, taking Gordon away in a black car. Mum said the Black Suit was from the department and that he had a warrant. I didn’t know what a department was, or a warrant, but that big bloke in the suit put the fear of God into me for years. I have no idea why they didn’t take me. Maybe I was too young, or they didn’t know about me. Anyway, Mum and I took off. We played hide and seek with that department all over the place, endless towns, staying two to three weeks. Sometimes Mum got work in a pub and I would have to hide in a room. We even camped in a big dry water tank for a week before we went back to Swan Hill. Mum got a job picking grapes, but the old man found us and gave her a belting until the local people bashed him and she got away. You know, for the life of me I can’t remember it, although Mum says I was there.

  We went to Melbourne from there. I was about to turn ten. Mum wasn’t sure of the date but this was the year. “Early in March ‘48. March, that’s your birthday, love. Dunno the day. We had no calendar on the road that year. 1958, yeah, you be ten this March.” So with no trumpets or drums my birthday came and went. We were living in a shed in the backyard of Cobby and Marge’s place, friends of Mum’s. Mum was making really good money and killing herself working two jobs. The city was full up for some reason, and there was plenty of work about. We went back to rooms after Mum had a row with Cobby, as he wanted to put the rent up on the shed. So I spent the next nine months hiding in rooms, flats, friendly houses. I was rarely allowed out to play and we were always ready to flee in an instant. Mum as usual was working in a pub housemaiding or doing washing. I was at home, pretty young and dumb. I had never gone to school. Being classed as a government ward, with an arrest warrant on me, it wasn’t a good idea to go wandering about if I wanted to stay out of a welfare home. “Like a jail, love, with locks and bars on the windows and iron doors. That’s where they got Pauline and Gordon, the Department welfare home.” The Department, Mum called them. I didn’t know just what a department was, but I knew it was big and the people wore black suits and hung around with police. Any big bloke in a black suit could trigger fear in me, because of the one who took Gordon. Even to this day, I’m uncomfortable around authority.

  One day Mum came running in through the door of the flat we had over the top of a shop on the main street of Moonee Ponds. “Quick love, grab your port, they’re coming.” She didn’t have to tell me who. “I can’t come with you, and there’s no time to go to the bank, so take this.” And she gave me her pay, five pounds. “Go to Halls Gap and ring Fred. He’ll take you out to Auntie Rose. Wait for me there, alright?” I gave her a hug and put my sandals on, grabbed my port, one last hug, and Mum said, “Don’t come back here, love. You bolt and keep going. If they catch you they will lock you away in a big room, so you hit the frog, keep out of trouble and tell Fred I’ll ring him.” With that I was out the door and off, not realising that would be the last time I would ever see my Mum.

  I hurried down the street, looking back over my shoulder for a mob of blokes in black suits trying to catch me. I got to the Moonee Ponds railway station just as the train came in, so I shot in and jumped aboard. Although I had been to town on the train with Mum, I had never bought a ticket in my life and didn’t know how. I got off at Flinders Street station and a bloke asked me for my ticket. “Mum’s got it,” I said and kept walking. It was late afternoon, half past three or thereabouts. The streets were crowded with people knocking off and going home from work—cars, trams, buses, trucks, noise like I never heard before. It was so confusing. I was feeling lost and a bit frightened, and I walked around looking in shop windows till dark. I really didn’t know what to do, but as luck had it, I found myself at Spencer Street station. I went into the station and bought an orange drink and a packet of sandwiches, tomato they were, and they had gone all soggy. I ate them because I was hungry, then sat and watched
the people walk past. I noticed a fat bloke in a black suit who was eyeing me off, and I was convinced he was a spy from the Department. (I have no idea, to this day who he was.) He scared the hell out of me and shot me into instant action. A lady was going through the ticket barrier with a heap of kids, so I tacked on behind. Once on the platform the handiest place to hide was the train standing at the platform. We came to Melbourne from Swan Hill on the train, so this one would take me back again, I reasoned, so I jumped on to it like a drunk finding a bottle of whiskey.

  Walking along the carriage looking for somewhere to sit, this real old lady (she must have been all of twenty-something) said, “You can sit here, love. Are you going to Sydney on your own?” Sydney! I thought. I’m goin’ to Swan Hill. This Sydney must be on the way. So I told the lady “Yes,” and sat quietly. The train moved out and ran for a bit. Miss Twenty had nodded off, and the guard came through, “Tickets, all tickets please.” I told him Mum had mine up front and he was happy. He gave Miss Twenty a shake, and she gave him her ticket, and he moved off happy. I never got asked again. It was a good trip, but I started to miss Mum real bad. I was feeling sad and a bit down in the mouth. Miss Twenty, who said to call her Nancy, had a big basket full of tucker and a tube full of hot tea (she said it was a flask). She fed me and looked after me a treat, but kept asking questions I couldn’t understand. When she asked me why I was going to Sydney, I told her I was going to see Uncle Fred and Auntie Nellie who would take me to see my Nana Rose. They were no relation really, but Wemba Wemba people, and probably my Mum’s oldest friends. But Lady Twenty was happy and she said to call her Nancy again. She told me about her boyfriend Peter (the pig), who had been telling her lies (lying pig) and reckoned he wanted to marry her (lying pig), but he was already married and had been telling her big porkies all the time (big lying pig). She was a pretty girl, long black hair and blue eyes, so I think he’s also a silly pig.

  We got to Seymore and a big mob of soldiers got on, and as I had never been close to many drunk blokes before, I thought they were all mad. One was a loudmouth who fancied himself quite a bit. He tried to chat up Nancy who didn’t want a bar of him. He told me to shift, but she told me not to, then he got real nasty and started calling her names and yelling at her. Another Army bloke came and asked Nancy was this Herbert bothering her. She said yes, and this bloke went wallop! and knocked the Herbert rotten, then carted him away. Well, that scared the crap out of me and I headed for Nancy’s lap. She met me halfway, and soon as she opened her arms I was there. I must have fallen asleep, because when I woke Nancy said, “Come on, let’s go for a cuppa.” We were at Cootamundra, I think. We got a cup of tea and some sandwiches and got back on the train. I was thinkin’, this Sydney’s a long way.

  I asked Nancy, “Are we nearly there yet?”

  She smiled. “We’re about three-quarters of the way but we won’t be there until breakfast.” So I snuggled up and went back to sleep.

  I woke with Nancy shaking my shoulder. “Wake up, Ed, we’re nearly there. About another five minutes.”

  I sat up and combed my hair with my fingers and looked out the window. I’m not sure what I expected to see, but the sight of all the big buildings crowded around made me wonder if we had left Melbourne. To me it looked the same.

  “Is this Sydney?” I asked Nancy.

  “Yes, Why?” she answered.

  “It doesn’t look any different to Melbourne.”

  The train pulled in and I gathered up my little port, and we walked down the platform to the lobby. Nancy asked, “Are you being met?” I didn’t know what to say, so I said yes, but I had to wait. So she gave me a great big hug, and wrote her phone number and address on a bit of paper for me, and told me to come and see her any time, made me promise. What a nice lady. I waited awhile in the lobby, then picked up my port and walked out of the station, straight into chaos.

  2

  A Spell in Sydney

  I had never seen so many cars, trucks, buses and people in my life. It beat Melbourne hands down, especially the noise and the stink. There was a blue haze over everything which made my eyes water. I just followed the crowd and crossed the road at the lights, then went for a walk down what I thought was Sydney’s main street. The people didn’t look much different from those in Melbourne, dressed from real flash to raggedy poor, all lookin’ real serious, and all in a hurry—to do what, I never found out. It was a bit overpowering and I felt a bit frightened and ready to run. I couldn’t tell you why, but that was the feeling I had or that the place gave me, sort of like you were off balance and you were trying hard not to fall over, sort of scary. Maybe that’s why everybody hurried everywhere and looked serious.

  I walked along looking in shop windows. I didn’t want to get too far away from the station just in case I couldn’t find it again. I found a shop selling food and bought a pie, a ham sandwich and a bottle of orange juice and put them in my port. The main street seemed to stretch on for miles. I found a seat overlooking a park, where I sat and ate.

  Just as I finished a big kid, old, about sixteen, sat down alongside me and asked, “Where you from, kid?”

  I went on the defensive straightaway. When you’ve been brought up to distrust, you can sus a pig straight off. “What do you want?” I asked.

  “What ya got in the port?” he wanted to know, reaching for it.

  “Just gear,” I said, pulling it towards myself.

  He grabbed the end of it and pulled it towards himself, leaning towards me, looking me in the eye. So I let it go, and he smiled in my face. “Hard luck, kid,” he was saying as I poked a rigid index finger in his eye. He dropped the bag. I caught it and ran for dear life, him bellowing and roaring behind me. But he had no chance. Roger Bannister couldn’t have caught me. That dropkick had no chance and I soon got away from him.

  I looked around and realised I was lost. I walked for hours, but I couldn’t find that main street again. It started getting dark and I didn’t know what to do. I knew if the police got hold of me they would find out about the warrant and give me to the Department. I didn’t even bother to reason how the police would find out. I was just convinced they would. So I was feeling a bit panicky. I found a big thick hedge in front of a house and crawled under it. I made a space and tried to sleep. After three lifetimes it was just crackin’ daylight, so I crawled out and walked up the road. I didn’t know where I was, but I knew it wasn’t a working-man’s suburb—all the houses were huge with lush trimmed surgical gardens. I came to a small park that looked like a poor relation. I was surprised. I would have thought the people that lived here would have sent their gardener to paint the trees green, and roll out some lawn. But it had a tap, so I had a wash, brushed my teeth and combed my hair with my fingers and felt heaps better.

  At a small corner shop I got two luke-warm pies for breakfast, and ate them out on the footpath, then walked till my feet were sore. As I said, I had no clue as to where I was. I couldn’t see the sea, so I must have been walking inland, tired, footsore, more than a bit confused. It started to rain and I got soaked. I walked until I came to a small shopping centre and sheltered there. There was a telephone, so tired, wet and cold I rang Nancy. I had to have three tries, I matched the numbers wrong on the first two tries, and talked to strangers. I had an advanced case of the shivers by this time, so I got in a closed shop doorway and took my shirt off and towelled myself dry. I put my dry shirt on. It was as thin as a boarding house blanket, and you could put your arms through any of the holes. But it was dry—until I had to put my wet jacket on. There was a pretty girl in a uniform waiting for a bus so I asked her if she would ring the number for me, as I keep getting it wrong. She said alright, and I gave her the pennies. She got Nancy first try and I thanked her, and told Nan what happened. She said to get a taxi and show the driver the paper she had given me, and he would bring me to her house.

  “I have to get a taxi,” I told Jill, the girl who had rung for me.

  “Don’t waste money ringing up,
they’re going past here all the time,” she said. “I’ll show you how to get one.” She went and stood at the side of the footpath and waved her arms and yelled, and like magic a cab came to a stop. I thanked her shyly and she squeezed my hand. I thought she was tremendous, beautiful and worldly wise. I didn’t find out for years that she was a student in her high school uniform.

  It didn’t take long to get to Nancy’s, and cost seven and six. The driver said two and six flag fall, whatever that is, and five bob fare, so I must have been a fair way away. Five bob was a good amount, even in 1958. Nancy paid the taxi and hustled me upstairs, and to my mortification took off my gear, completely ignoring my howls of protest.

  “Get out, I’ve got a heap of young brothers,” she told me, putting me in the bath. It was warm and tremendous, and to add insult to injury, she got me out of the bath, dried me off, then wrapped me in a warm robe and sat me on the settee in front of the heater. The front door opened and in came Sue, Nancy’s flatmate.

  She gave me a big smile and called out, “Nan! There’s a man in our flat.”

  Nancy came in from the kitchen and introduced us. “This is the boy from the train I was telling you about,” she said.

  Sue was a small girl, just a bit taller than me, and had a sort of round narrow face, if you know what I mean, blond corn-coloured hair framing her face and highlighting her china-blue eyes. You couldn’t help but notice them. They were the feature that highlighted her face, that and her suntanned honey-coloured complexion. And she was nice, one of those people who seemed to be more alive than it was possible. The world seemed to be a different place in her company. We got on famously, and when she smiled my whole world lit up.

  “Are you Nancy’s boyfriend?” Sue teased me.

  “No! I’m Ed. I’m not the lying pig.”

  Nancy had just come back into the room from the kitchen. She looked at Sue and they both broke up laughing.