5

Marks of passage

DEREK ROFF had had an interesting career. At the time of Azaria’s disappearance, he had been chief ranger of the Uluru National Park for more than sixteen years. He had earlier been a policeman in Kenya, where he had worked with local native trackers and had been eager to learn all that they could teach him. Later, during the Mau Mau uprising, he had put his new-found skills to good use in tracking terrorists as well as poachers and animals. He had maintained his interest in tracking when he moved to Uluru, where he learned more of the craft from some of the tribal elders. Yet, despite almost three decades of experience in tracking, he readily acknowledged that he did not have the skills of Nipper Winmatti or his wife, Barbara Tjikadu, whom he regarded as a ‘superb tracker’.

Another elder with outstanding tracking skills was Nui Minyintiri. As the Pitjantjatjara language contains no numbers beyond five, later ages can only be guessed at, but Nui was probably approaching seventy. He was reputed to have joined the navy during the Second World War, and, although at the time he volunteered he had never seen a more expansive body of water than a billabong, he served overseas for several years before returning to his desert home. He was an impressive man, with grey hair and beard. In 1986, he was to arrive to give evidence before the royal commission wearing old, battered clothes and a colourful beanie. A white man would have been ridiculed for wearing such incongruous clothing in the august surroundings of a courtroom, but Nui exhibited a quiet dignity that seemed to transcend cultural boundaries. One knew instinctively that this was a man who did not need to find security in clothing or the approval of others.

Among the Pitjantjatjara people there is a veneration for the elderly and for the wisdom and knowledge they possess. The adjective ‘old’ is sometimes added to the name of a person less advanced in years as a mark of respect. It was for this reason that Derek Roff had long been known to the Aborigines as ‘Old Derek’. He and Nui had been friends for years, and communicated well despite Nui’s limited grasp of English. Derek also knew some words of Pitjantjatjara, but explained that his capacity to understand Nui’s faltering attempts at English seemed largely attributable to ‘a matter of familiarity and feeling of comfort’.

On the night of 17 August 1980, ‘Old Derek’ and ‘Old Nui’ searched together for tracks, as they had done many times in the past. Yet this time was different. It was dark, and they were trying to pick up the tracks of a predator carrying a human prey. Each scanned the sandy terrain in his own way — Derek with the aid of a torch, and Nui with light from burning spinifex and other shrubs.

When they finally came across the track they were seeking, there was immediate agreement. Nui said simply, ‘This is the one. This is the right track.’ Derek did not require elaboration. He was later to explain that ‘everybody was convinced that we were following the right track, the track of the baby’.

What they had found was a shallow drag mark about eight to ten inches in width that meandered along the ridge of the sand dune. There were pieces of broken-off vegetation within this mark. They could see that it was associated with dingo tracks, although it was not until the next day, when he was able to examine them in daylight, that Derek was able to realise the extent of their correlation. They followed the marks until the track petered out in an area where the ground was packed more densely, and then began to backtrack to ascertain its origin. It was almost but not quite continuous, and they were able to trace it back down the dune to a point seventeen metres due east from the Chamberlains’ tent, where it again became undetectable due to the hard ground.

The drag mark appeared to have been made by something of very little weight, and Derek was to express the view that it was probably the matinee jacket hanging down from the baby’s body. But in three places the dingo had put its burden down, and they were able to recognise depressions in the sand consistent with the weight of a nine-and-a-half pound baby. Within them was a pattern that he thought was like the impression left by a crepe bandage. During the royal commission that followed the trial and appeals, he was to be shown the matinee jacket and the jumpsuit, and to say that the fabric of both garments seemed consistent with the marks he had seen, though he tended to favour the matinee jacket — not only because it was the external garment, but because he thought that the ‘holes in the design’ more closely resembled some aspects of the impression in the sand.

Though Derek was unaware of it at the time, Murray Haby had also found a depression with a cloth imprint in the sand and it, too, had been associated with dingo tracks.

Whilst he did not have a degree in zoology, Derek had made a particular study of the fauna at Ayers Rock. In addition to his familiarity with the more common species that he had built up over his years at Uluru, he had read widely, and at the royal commission he was to engage in an animated debate with Chester Porter QC about the demise of the local population of hopping mice — a discussion that ended only when the bemused judge politely asked whether there was some suggestion that a mouse had been involved in Azaria’s disappearance. More importantly, he was emphatic that there was no game in the area that would have had the weight and shape to account for the depressions he had seen in the sand. Kangaroos do not frequent the dunes, and he had never seen them near that camping area. It was the wrong time of the year for goannas. Furthermore, both joeys and goannas leave very distinctive prints. Rabbits were too light to have accounted for the impressions. He concluded that ‘there is just no animal in that area that fits in with that track in my estimation’.

Derek also explained that the tracks were very fresh and had certainly been made that night. He explained that one could tell the freshness of the tracks by ‘the consistency of the soil ridging,’ and added that, as time passes, ‘you can see the movement of the sand grains, as it were, along the edging …’ He had been back to see them again the next day, and had noted the deterioration in the quality of the imprints. Even at this stage, it was possible to form an opinion as to their age, but they were obviously no longer fresh.

The next day, Nipper Winmatti and Barbara Tjikadu were enlisted to assist in the search. Nipper was a quite a character. He was of a similar age to Nui and, like him, could display great dignity, though he was known locally as ‘a bit of a showman’. His position as tribal elder gave him real authority, and he had a better grasp of English than the other Aboriginal trackers. Consequently, when he was present it was usually left to him to act as spokesman. This caused some confusion. Sometimes, when Nipper said that he had seen something, he meant that another tracker had seen it. He and the other tracker were members of the same group; if one had seen it, the knowledge gained was the knowledge of them all. Pedantic quibbles about hearsay might have been of interest to white men, but they had no place in Nipper’s thinking.

It took some time to resolve that semantic difficulty; but, when finally pinned down on the topic, Nipper revealed that he had followed the tracks personally. He was adamant that the dingo was carrying the baby.

Unlike Derek, Nipper had started at the Chamberlains’ tent. He found that ‘the dingo came from the north, then he went around the tent to the front entrance, and from there he backtracked around the tent’. When asked to demonstrate the path taken by the dingo with his hand, he traced around the tent clockwise to the entrance and then anti-clockwise again to the back. From there, he said he tracked the dingo going east towards Sunrise Hill. Derek later confirmed that this was consistent with the tracks he had seen.

Some effort was made to denigrate the value of Nipper’s evidence by suggesting that he might not have been wearing his glasses when he undertook his search. He said that he had been; and when the matter was raised with Derek, he said he thought that Nipper had been wearing them when he saw him. A photograph was later produced showing Nipper without his glasses, so it is possible that he removed them at some stage during the evening. However, this issue proved to be of little importance when he was shown a number of photographs and demonstrated his ability to pick out fine details without glasses.

Barbara Tjikadu, whom Derek described as ‘the best of the Aboriginal trackers,’ was to prove even more emphatic. She had followed the tracks with Nipper and said emphatically, ‘I know it was the child.’ During cross-examination, she exhibited some frustration at the apparent inability of white lawyers to understand what she saw as perfectly obvious. She had followed the tracks round the tent to the entrance, back around the side, and then up the hill, and she knew that the dingo had been carrying the baby. Finally, when the cross-examining barrister persisted with a suggestion that it might have been carrying a joey, the frustration proved too much. ‘Was there a kangaroo living in the tent?’ she demanded.

Marlene Cousens, the interpreter, was to share her frustration. Barbara was being asked how she knew that the tracks at the place where the baby’s clothes were found were made by the same dingo that had made the tracks found at the tent, when she interrupted with a comment of her own. ‘I would like to tell you something first before you ask questions like that. When Aboriginal people see tracks, they know who it belongs to, what person went there, because they know the tracks, whereas if all these people got out of the courtroom now and walked barefooted, you can’t tell, can you?’

The startled barrister duly admitted his ineptitude in this field. ‘Aboriginal people can,’ Marlene continued with obvious feeling.

Two senior police officers provided further corroboration of the evidence given by the Aboriginal trackers concerning the tracks at the tent. Between 3.30 and 4.00 p.m. that day, Inspector Gilroy and Sergeant Lincoln arrived from Alice Springs to investigate the matter, and found large pug marks right up against the tent wall at the rear right-hand corner. Significantly, that was immediately outside the position occupied by the baby’s bassinet. The prints appeared to suggest that the dingo had stopped there, presumably having caught the baby’s scent. They found further marks along the tent wall on the southern side. These marks were so close that they were initially obscured by the billowing of the tent wall, and it was only when the canvas was held back that they could be clearly seen. A further set of prints were found about two feet out from the southern wall of the tent, heading in an easterly direction towards the sandhill. Frank Morris also saw these prints. Another searcher, Wally Goodwin, was later to give evidence that Morris had told him that an Aboriginal tracker had found paw prints going in and out of the tent.

To the trackers, both black and white, these tracks provided as clear a record as a videotape. There was only one question which left them confused: Why wouldn’t people listen?