Ned took us hunting most Sundays unless sport or some other activity intervened. His little grey Ferguson tractor, the ‘Fergie’, pulled a homemade trailer made from the tray of an old truck. A couple of thick planks of timber running down the middle made two rows of seats holding 40 to 50 children at a squeeze, most sitting around the edge with legs and feet dangling over the sides.
The Fergie had a top speed of less than 25 kilometres per hour. This suited Ned as he was never in a hurry to get there or back. He always carried an axe and, over the years, had built tracks through mallee scrub and York gum forest over huge areas of salt-lake country so that every part of the property was accessible to his tractor and trailer. We would visit the garden first and gather vegetables such as potatoes, onions, cabbage and cauliflower and, in summer, watermelons and rockmelons for the kitchen.
Ned’s two hunting dogs stood together at the front of the trailer, keen and tense, noses in the air. At the slightest scent of a kangaroo they were off at breakneck speed through the scrub or across the lakes to bring down their quarry. The dogs worked as a team: Sunta, the heavier and slower dog, brought up the rear, while Teena, who was very fast and smart, outflanked the kangaroo and cut it off at the front. Mostly we waited on the trailer until the dogs barked, which indicated they had bailed up a kangaroo and then off we would run to find it.
Once the kangaroo had been caught, Teena seized the poor animal’s throat, choking it to death, while Sunta held on to its tail. If the dogs bailed up a very large marlu or worse, a euro – the most powerful and dangerous of Australia’s kangaroos – Ned called them off, because these powerful creatures could easily injure or kill a dog. A fleeing kangaroo would often head for water in a dam or a soak hole and drown the dog. Another common defence used by the kangaroos was to latch on to the dog’s collar with its paws and choke the dog to death.
The best eating marlu was a young ‘blue flier’ – a half-grown buck or doe. They were very fast and also very tasty. Animals too big or too old had tough gamey meat, so Ned would add more curry to cover the gamey taste and boil the stew longer to make the meat more tender. Ned believed that the kangaroo was a valuable resource and once the dogs had caught one or two that was enough. If we had enough to eat, and the dogs had meat for a couple of days, he was happy.
Sometimes the dogs wouldn’t bark and 20 or so minutes later would return to the trailer, puffing, heaving and dripping heavily with saliva. Ned had a way of determining whether the dogs had caught a kangaroo, even when there appeared to be no sign of blood or hair on their bodies. We then had to rely on Ned’s tracking skills. Ned had inherited one of Brother Howe’s old sheepdogs, Pooch. He had trained Pooch to track kangaroos and the pair worked together. When Pooch found a dead kangaroo, he howled and stayed by the carcass until we arrived.
Emus were a different matter. As they were declared vermin, the government paid four shillings for the top beak of the bird, which we regarded as a fortune. The sight of the dogs working together to kill emus was both horrible and awesome. Sunta with her long-gaited gallop drew alongside the fleeing bird, tripping it up, while Teena bit the bird’s head, killing it instantly. I saw the dogs kill nine in a row in a single paddock one Sunday afternoon. These two animals were killing machines. Yet the birds could retaliate and sometimes kill a dog. The birds used their powerful feet, with claws sharp as nails as weapons.
More than once, Sunta’s neck was torn open, laid bare as if a surgeon had cut all the skin with a scalpel and left it hanging. Ned stitched the wound, dressed it with a blue liquid and bound it with an old wheatbag. Sunta howled in pain day and night until she recovered.
Neither Brother Howe nor Ned allowed their dogs to chase goats, for good reason. Ned’s hunting dogs were killers, and if they learned to chase and kill goats, the sheep also would never be safe. Dogs that killed sheep were shot – everyone accepted that rule. But Brother Howe’s sheepdogs sometimes had learned to bite, as goats, unlike sheep, were difficult to herd. The goats were often aggressive and fought the dogs.
Ned was the quintessential Australian bushman, and would set off with the tractor and trailer on his annual holiday to explore the country east of the school. Ned cut tracks through the bush or followed old tracks to the long-abandoned Mugga Mugga and Gullewa goldmines and to Barnong Station.1
1 ‘Station’ is an Australian term for a large holding of land, the minimum size of which would be around 1 million acres. in north America it would be known as a ranch.
No-one would see or hear from him for a month, and he would live off the land along with his dogs. He had a great knowledge of the bush and he could name plants, animals and insects. Anyone who was interested could learn a great deal – those who weren’t were told regardless. He liked to dispute anyone with superior knowledge on any subject and would argue at length until he won.
Ned named the vast salt-lake country north-east of Rowley’s block ‘no man’s land’ and here he discovered a number of Aboriginal soak holes and granite outcrops. As well, he found a native pine forest missed by the early woodcutters, some of which the school was able to use for strainer posts in the fences. Unlike other Australian timber, native pine is impervious to white-ant attack and many a property’s fence built from this wood 100 years ago still stands today – a testament to its unique properties.
Regularly joining our bush expeditions was the Catholic bishop of Geraldton. Bishop Thomas, like Ned, loved the Australian bush. One day near a soak hole in ‘no man’s land’, while the morning billy was boiling for tea, an Irish lad named Mick found a lizard and asked Ned to identify it. We all gathered around as Ned described its features and habitat, turning it over before giving its Latin and common names.
Later that afternoon, Mick lifted a rock and found another lizard, so we gathered again to hear Ned’s description. After another lengthy description he gave this lizard different Latin and common names to the one Mick had found earlier. With this, Mick stood up and declared it was the same lizard. We all laughed, including Ned and the bishop, although Ned’s eyes weren’t laughing. He was embarrassed and furious. Mick was deep in it.
Next day Ned said to Mick, ‘Little man, I’ve got a job for you in my garden’ and set him two weeks of pulling weeds. However, so inspired was the bishop that later he too put one over Ned.
‘I see a pair of yellow-throated pardalotes nesting in the tree by the hostel,’ he casually declared over a cup of billy tea.
‘Well, it’s the time of year, Bish. They’re migratory birds so we can expect them from now on,’ replied Ned.
The Bishop unable to contain his laughter said, ‘I just made that up. I doubt that such a bird exists.’
August was the beginning of the nesting season when the birds began laying eggs in hollows of York gums. One of our gang had spotted ‘grassies’ (mulga parrots) gathering on a regular basis in a thicket of scrub about 100 metres south of the explosives magazine, a reinforced concrete storage room for gelignite and other explosives, in front of the main building. We spread some grain on the ground to get the birds used to feeding, then a few days later set the trap, an old bed-frame covered with fine chicken wire, one end propped up by a stick attached to a long piece of twine.
A small group of 28s were under the snare when we pulled the string, trapping two of them. Percy held each screeching bird by its wings, one in each hand, and we headed back to our cage with our two new additions. Attracted by the noise, Quirke suddenly appeared, demanding that Percy kill the birds.
‘How sir?’ he asked, tears streaming down his face.
‘Knock their heads against the wall,’ demanded Quirke. ‘Now!’
Percy’s feeble attempt only angered Quirke. ‘Harder! Harder!’ he yelled. Soon Percy was holding two dead parrots that he would have rather set free.
Quirke’s behaviour that day was hard to fathom because usually we were allowed to trap and cage birds. He saw the parrots as destructive pests while we, of course, viewed them as lovable pets. Despite this setback we later discovered more parrots’ nests and hand-raised the chicks, even selling some for pocket money.
In 1959, Brother Hewat replaced Brother Quirke as Superior, and few, if any, of the children or the Brothers were sorry to see Quirke go. Quirke was a fine administrator who saved the school from financial ruin and, despite his shortcomings, made it possible to settle English, Maltese and Australian young men on their own farms. Without his financial ability, ‘The Scheme’, as it was called, would have floundered. In a strange way I would miss this gruff character, whose only real fault was his inability to deal with the extraordinary demands of disturbed and angry children who often stoked the fires of resistance. A tough man, he had been shaped by his era. An unintended consequence of Quirke’s attitude was that we toughened up, ready for the hard life awaiting us all once we left the institution.