Chapter 6

Enter Reg Trigg

A significant chapter opened in my quest for knowledge of the Tasmanian tiger when I spoke with a former Tasmanian bushman who was to provide me with much historical anecdotal material.

Many of my early ‘Tiger Tales’, comprising stories of the Tasmanian tiger gleaned from old bushmen, actually had their genesis in conversations with Reg Trigg. His many stories inspired me to translate them into print. Over a four-month period beginning in January 1980, this most unlikely source shared a host of fascinating anecdotes and valuable information relating to the Tasmanian tiger. We first became acquainted during the summer of 1979–80 when we met during the course of my employment in South Australia.

The unusual story of our chance meeting deserves recounting:

Reg and I unexpectedly crossed paths as he walked his small terrier around the perimeter of the school sports fields I was maintaining on contract at the time. For several weeks I had watched him slowly walking past as I mowed the ovals and I would give him a nod or wave as he went by, but he rarely if ever responded. The old chap usually appeared deep in thought, head down and noticeable clouds of smoke following — he was seldom to be seen without a cigarette in his mouth. The little dog kept itself busy madly chasing after flocks of seagulls and numerous other birds that settled on the grass in search of seeds and food scraps.

Then came the day the unexpected happened; the dog ran into a patch of three-cornered-jacks and promptly pulled up screaming in pain as the sharp thorns cruelly dug into its tender little paws. It stood there, seemingly frozen to the spot, afraid to move for fear of causing itself more pain.

Sensing the dog was in trouble, I promptly wheeled the tractor around and drove straight to it. Lifting the quivering little bundle, I began removing the spikes protruding from its bleeding feet. It wasn’t long before his master arrived on the scene, slightly flushed and out of breath, showing deep concern for his little mate.

‘Three-cornered-jacks,’ I said, as I handed him the dog. He looked hard at me for several seconds, not uttering a word as we both got to work removing the remaining thorns.

‘You carry him over to the tractor shed,’ I suggested as I climbed back on the tractor. ‘I’ll dab his feet with methylated spirits and that will help remove the stinging and soreness.’ I had the shed open and the bottle of spirits and some cotton wool at the ready as they arrived.

‘You take a good hold of him now, because this is going to sting a bit,’ I gently instructed, and in less than a minute it was all over. The old fellow gingerly placed the fluffy little bundle back on the ground and almost immediately he was off after the birds again. Taking advantage of the situation, I held out my hand in friendship to this rather unusual man who up to then hadn’t offered as much as a word of thanks for my kindness to his dog.

‘Col’s my name…Col Bailey,’ I said apprehensively.

He looked down at my extended hand, then looked me hard in the face as if to say, what’s all this about? The seconds ticked by and for a moment I didn’t fancy my chances of getting a response.

‘Yair…yair, I’m Reg Trigg, how ya goin’ mate,’ he eventually responded, firmly shaking my hand.

‘I’m pleased to meet you, Reg. Are you from around here?’

‘No mate…no…not from around here…no.’

‘What’s your little dog’s name?’ I asked, and once again, the answer was a long time coming.

Eventually came back the reply, ‘Jack…his name’s Jack.’

‘Oh, you mean Jack as in the three-cornered-jacks that got stuck in his feet just now?’ I replied with a smile, only to be met with a rather cool, unfriendly glare.

With that, he whistled up the dog and was off without another word.

‘Maybe I’ll see you again some time?’ I shouted after him.

‘Yair…. you might…if you’re lucky,’ came the dour reply.

And that was how it all began, with that first, rather unpromising meeting on a warm early January afternoon in 1980.

I prided myself on having a good rapport with all who walked those sports fields over the many years I worked there, but I suspected becoming friends with this elderly gent was going to be quite a challenge.

A cool, rainy afternoon a week or so later Reg and little Jack turned up looking like a pair of drowned rats. It was far too wet for outdoor work and I was busy doing equipment maintenance in the tractor shed when I heard a voice call out at the door, ‘Got time for a chat?’

I looked up to discover Reg and his dog standing there, drenched to the skin. ‘Come in out of that rain before you both catch pneumonia!’ I hollered.

‘I thought we’d make it home before the next shower,’ Reg replied rather sheepishly. ‘Not very good weather for cutting grass, is it?’

With rather unhappy memories of our last meeting still fresh in my mind, I wasn’t particularly keen on being cornered in the tractor shed on a wet, miserable day by someone I found difficult to converse with. I frantically wracked my brains for something to say.

‘Haven’t seen you around for a few days,’ I began.

‘No…no mate, I’ve been a bit off colour lately.’

‘How’d the pup go after getting stuck in the prickles the other day?’

‘Oh, okay. Struth, he’s a tough little devil, aren’t you, boy?’ he answered, looking fondly at the pup.

I looked at the sweet little dog, who stood quietly, wagging his tail and looking as wet as a shag on a rock, his sparkling brown eyes begging me to pat him. I obliged and immediately seized on the pup as a talking point.

‘How long have you had him?’ I asked, as I smothered little Jack with affection.

‘Oh, a long time…a real long time…quite a few years in fact. He’s my best mate, aren’t you, boy?’ Reg looked proudly at the dog. ‘To tell you the honest truth, he’s the only true friend I have left in the world right now.’

I looked up at Reg, carefully pondering his answer. Now here’s a terribly lonely man, I thought, as I silently began to scrutinise him.

‘Got any family, Reg?’ I asked.

‘No mate…No, they all went a long time ago. There’s only me and little Jack left now,’ he replied sadly.

‘Do you live around here? Somewhere close?’

‘No, I don’t live here at all, mate. You see little Jack and I are over from Victoria looking after a place down the road a bit for some people I know.’

‘Who are they?’ I asked. ‘Perhaps I might know them?’

‘Oh…you wouldn’t know them, mate. They’ve only just shifted down from Queensland and now they’ve gone back again to fix up some of their affairs. They expect to be back in about six weeks or so.’

I sensed that this reply was deliberately avoiding the question. For some reason he didn’t want to tell me where he lived and I quickly changed tack so as not to get his back up.

‘So I might be seeing a bit more of you?’

‘You never know your luck, mate, you never know your luck,’ he replied in a dry, off-handed sort of way as he purposely stuck his head out of the shed door to test the weather.

‘Well, we’d better be off now, little Jack, before it starts coming down again,’ he muttered, as he gathered up the dog. And with that he was out the door and off without so much as a goodbye!

I sat there reflecting on our brief conversation, trying to comprehend the odd behaviour of this strange-mannered man. Despite his impolite, off-hand style, I found him interesting in an unusual sort of way. Little did I realise that what was to follow would enlarge and significantly deepen my overall understanding of the Tasmanian tiger.

Reg Trigg was a reasonably tall man of thin, wiry build and slightly stooped with age. He was a little over 80 years old when I met him. He had a long, lined but open face, and was a ruggedly handsome man for his advanced years. His rather abrupt manner hinted at a strong, determined character. He had enquiring brown eyes, a prominent nose and jawline and rather large ears, and I suspected his thinning grey hair would once have been dark brown. Although basically clean-shaven, he often exhibited at least a day’s stubble.

Always neatly dressed in brown slacks, an open-necked shirt and a dark green cardigan if the weather required it, he was equipped with a soft tenor voice that was easy on the ear. His retiring manner could easily have passed as a facade, for he possessed an undeniable charm that became more evident as time went by. Well-educated and intelligent, he was always careful to scrutinise my every question in those early meetings, and seemed extremely reluctant to discuss his private life. Faced with what he considered were prying questions, he would become sullen and off-handed to the point of outright rudeness, and it took me some weeks to build up an element of trust with him. To be perfectly honest, at that stage I didn’t actually place any great importance on our slowly evolving friendship.

It wasn’t until a conversation several weeks later that I got any indication of his knowledge of the Tasmanian tiger. I had just returned the tractor to the shed, locked up, and was about to head off to start another job when little Jack came bounding up for his customary pat and cuddle. I guessed that Reg wouldn’t be far behind, and sure enough, he soon appeared puffing on his customary cigarette.

‘How are you today, Col?’ he called as he approached. It was the first time he had called me by name, and I was pleasantly surprised by his friendly tone.

‘Good, Reg, real good…And yourself?’ I replied warmly.

‘I’m ridgy didge mate…ridgy didge. Looks like I’ll be around for a bit longer than I thought. The people whose house I’m minding phoned from Queensland this morning and want me to stay a few weeks longer. They’ve still got a fair bit of business to clear up, and I reckon it could be up to a month or more before they eventually get back again.’

It was a different Reg Trigg that afternoon, far more relaxed and friendly than I’d previously seen him and, although I still had a few more jobs to attend to, I decided there and then to take advantage of the situation.

‘Like to come for a walk with me and Jack around the ovals?’ he invited as he strolled ahead, beckoning me to follow. I must admit I wondered what on earth we would find to talk about, for it still appeared we had little in common.

We covered a few hundred yards making small talk before deciding to sit on a bench under the shade of several gum trees that bounded one of the ovals. It was good to escape the penetrating heat of the afternoon sun. The little dog soon joined us, panting profusely after his latest bird chasing exercise.

‘Ever been to Tassie?’ Reg asked, catching me completely off guard.

‘Why, have you?’ came back my rather guarded reply.

‘My oath I have, mate, my oath I have. I used to live there, and it’s a really bonzer place, I can tell you.’

‘I thought you told me you came from Victoria?’ I shot back.

‘Yes, mate, I’m a Victorian boy for sure, but I spent a fair few years over in Tassie before and after the Second War. It was during the early years of the Great Depression that I first went over looking for work, otherwise I would probably have never gone within a bull’s roar of the place.’

‘What did you do in Tasmania?’ I asked, my interest growing by the second.

‘Finished up trapping in the highlands, near the Walls,’ he answered casually.

‘The walls?…What walls?’

‘What’s now called the Walls of Jerusalem, that big national park thing they’ve got there now, way up in the central western highlands. That’s the most beautiful stretch of country in the whole joint, I reckon.’

I carefully monitored his face, his weary old eyes lighting up as he began to drift off on a nostalgic journey, remembering a cherished lifestyle now long gone.

‘What sort of animals did you trap?’ I asked, my interest heightened by the fact that my father was an animal trapper in that same era.

‘Wallaby and possum mainly,’ he went on. ‘They made the best pelts. And of course I caught a lot of rubbish as well…native cats and devils…even caught a Tassie tiger once,’ he continued in an off-handed fashion.

‘A tiger,’ I gulped. ‘You mean a real live Tasmanian tiger?’

This disclosure came as a bolt from the blue. Reg paused momentarily and looked hard at me, bemused by my reaction. I determined to keep the conversation on this topic as long as I possibly could.

‘Yes, Col…I once trapped a real live Tassie tiger! A young female she was. Kept her as a pet for a time…called her Lucy,’ he went on.

My eyes lit up and my mouth was agape and he must surely have sensed the impact of his words as he shifted uncomfortably and proceeded to light up another cigarette.

‘Do you think there’s any left around today?’ I asked matter of factly, trying hard to disguise my enthusiasm.

He paused for several seconds, appearing to cautiously weigh up the question before answering.

‘Tigers?…You know it’s funny you should ask that, Col,’ he said at length, ‘because only a few months back a bloke I know up in the high country of Victoria reckons he seen one. But I don’t know any more. There was a time when I reckoned there were still a few around the place…in fact I was sure of it, in Tassie at least, but it’s been a long time between drinks now, hasn’t it?’

Now determined to grab the bull by the horns, I drove straight off the rank and trod where angels fear. Because of Reg’s unpredictable nature, I now realise that I took a big gamble with my interrogation, but after all, what did I have to lose?

‘Tell me about this Tasmanian tiger you named Lucy,’ I began. ‘Why did you call her Lucy, and how long did you have her?’

A wry smile crossed the old trapper’s face. I was acting like a fish on a hook, and he knew it. Now I was about to be reeled in!

‘Oh, I believe it was after a lovely young lady I met while on leave in England during the First War,’ he began. ‘A real little bottler she was and I’ve never forgotten her. But that was a long, long time ago, and she’s only a fading memory now…’

We must have talked for the best part of an hour that day, but it proved to be one of the most productive hours I had ever spent discussing the Tasmanian tiger.

That afternoon, I pressed Reg hard and long to share the story of Lucy, and although he only skirted around it, he promised he’d save it for another day. As our friendship strengthened, I discovered his wealth of information about the Tasmanian tiger. He assured me that it was knowledge he had never chosen to share with anyone before. For me it was akin to discovering a reef of gold, glittering, untapped and waiting to be mined.

Over the coming weeks I managed to persuade Reg to share a significant part of his life story with me. I found it was most productive to let him ramble off on his own accord, rather than continually press him for information. Although reluctant at first, he finally agreed to let me tape his stories on my old reel-to-reel recorder, especially those concerning Lucy, as well as various other tiger yarns. What follows is Reg Trigg’s story as told to me in January 1980, and of the many accounts he shared with me, his own chronicle was without doubt the most fascinating.

***

Born in the high country of Victoria towards the close of the nineteenth century, Reg could ride a horse almost before he could walk. By the age of 14 he could rope and muster almost as well as any man on the high plains. Horses were his life, and it was only natural that when he ran away from home at 16 years of age determined to enlist in the army, he should choose to serve in the mounted brigade, later to become famous as the Australian Light Horse.

Having to put his horse down at the end of the desert campaign shattered Reg as nothing before or since, and his wartime experiences left him a resentful and disillusioned man. The bitter memories of the war years were so deep and painful that they were to haunt him for the rest of his life. Returning home from overseas service in 1919, Reg found it impossible to settle, drifting aimlessly from place to place until eventually finishing up in Tasmania during the worst years of the Great Depression.

One afternoon in November 1929, Reg was drinking in a pub in the inner Melbourne suburb of Carlton when he overheard a conversation between two slightly inebriated patrons debating the virtues of Tasmania. One chap was singing its praises, boasting there was plenty of work in the island state and ‘everything was apples down there’, while the other downplayed his claims, loudly countering that ‘the impoverished, lousy little joint had sunk deeper into the mire than the Titanic’.

Placing his glass on the counter, Reg tapped the praise-singing one on the shoulder. ‘Excuse me, mate, but is there any work down in Tassie for a mountain cattleman?’

‘Cattle?…Cattle?’ came the slurred reply. ‘Why the flamin’ place is crawlin’ with ’em.’

That was incentive enough for Reg to hurriedly pack what little he had and catch the next available steamer across Bass Strait. The only trouble was, he forgot to ask what kind of cattle Tasmania had. There is a marked difference between the beef and dairy varieties. On arriving in Launceston, he soon found to his utter dismay that there was no work, whether or not it was with cattle, which in any event appeared to be mostly of the milking persuasion.

‘I was down to me last quid and a damn long way from home,’ Reg told me, ‘and I had little hope of getting back again, at least not in the foreseeable future. I couldn’t afford lodgings, so I just humped me bluey from place to place looking for work. I was desperate enough to try just about anything to keep from starving because, stone the flamin’ crows, work was hard to come by, I can tell you. It was summer and the weather wasn’t too bad, and I mostly kipped under the stars. When it was raining I got under a bridge or in a public shelter somewhere. I managed to find a bit of work here and there, you know, a few hours chopping wood, stacking timber at a mill, helping the local blacksmith, milking cows, anything at all to keep the wolf from the door. Work was getting harder to find all the time as more men hit the road. They were getting laid off in their flamin’ hundreds and there simply wasn’t enough work to go ’round. In the end it was a case of do anything that came your way or starve. After scratching around Launceston for a bit, I decided to head for the country districts where I felt more at home. That was when I came across these two young blokes, only bits of kids they were and barely half my age…I was a bit over 30 at the time.

‘There they were standing alongside the road to Hobart like a couple of stunned mullets trying to hitch a ride south. Nice young blokes too, but fair dinkum, they didn’t have much of an idea. I’ll give ’em their dues though, they were willing to have a go at anything. Lance and Joe their names were, bonza young blokes, and they seemed like good company, so I decided to take them under my wing as a sort of father figure. First of all we headed north-west but there wasn’t much doing up there, so we turned and headed back again. We were lucky to get a few days’ work stacking hay and fencing near Elizabeth Town. It didn’t pay much but the tucker was good and we copped a soft bed in the hay shed for a few nights. Those two kids were real greenhorns and they came away from that job proper cot cases with badly blistered hands and bruised egos. Then we worked our way towards Deloraine, where we scored over a week’s work digging spuds. That job almost finished the lads off completely; it was backbreaking work for them. I copped the horse and dray, loading up bags of spuds out in the paddock and unloading them in the barn. That flamin’ horse was a real pig of a thing to handle. It’d bite and kick like a mule…a real spoilt mongrel of a thing it was. But my oath, I can assure you that after a few lessons in manners I had him working extra well by the time we’d finished. He carried on like a pork chop at first. The old story goes that you’ve got to be cruel to be kind sometimes, and it worked a treat with that blighter. After that we worked our way over near Frankford and then back down to Carrick, always managing to pick up a few jobs along the way. The work was varied: fencing, loading hay, digging spuds, milking cows, mending sheds, clearing dams, a little painting. There was no end to the variety and it all added up by the end of the day.

‘Because I was good with the horses, I was often able to pick up a bit of blacksmithing work while the lads just sat around and watched…and hopefully managed to pick up a few clues along the way. Then, one day my big break came. We were out near a place called Blackwood Creek and on our way to Cressy when this old bloke comes chugging along the track driving a two-horse cart. We didn’t take much notice of him at first, just gave him a casual sort of glance as he drew alongside. Then, down the road a bit, blow me down if he doesn’t suddenly bring the rig to a halt and he sits there waiting for us to catch up. He sits for a while, not saying a word, just sat there high up in his seat on the old cart carefully scrutinising us. You could feel his eyes working you over and I wondered what the hell he was up to.

‘Eventually he opened up. “You interested in a few days’ work, son?” he says, pointing straight at me.

‘“What sort of work is it?” shot back one of my companions.

‘“Not you…him I asked,” he replied sharply.

‘“As long as there’s a warm bed and some good tucker, I’ll do anything,” I said, looking hopefully up at the old bloke.

‘“Jump up then, son…be quick about it now. I want to get home before dark.”

‘All I had time to do was to give a brief parting wave and shout a few words of encouragement to my two young companions. I never laid eyes on them again.

‘As we rumbled along the rough, narrow dirt road, the old fella began to open up a little.

‘“Frank’s my name, son, Frank Scott,” he said, holding out his hand. “What’s yours?”

‘“Reg…Reg Trigg. Pleased to meet you, Frank,” I replied, warmly shaking his large, calloused hand.

‘“Returned man, are you?”

‘“Yes, Frank…Middle East campaign.”

‘“Thought so, son. That’s why I chose you over those other two.” It suddenly dawned on me that I still had my service badge pinned to my lapel. That’s how he knew.

‘Frank Scott was a tall, well-built sort of bloke in his late sixties. He had a rough, weather-beaten face, and it gave you some idea that the old bloke must have lived a tough sort of life. He had one of those deep, resonant voices that was good to listen to.

‘It was right on dark when we arrived at Frank’s farm. After helping him with the horses, he invited me into his hut. Stoking up the fire, he lit up two oil lamps and the large one-roomed hut lit up. In this huge brick open fireplace there was a large cauldron and iron kettle. The hut was clean and tidy, although she was a little light on furniture. Those walls were covered with the largest assortment of animal skins I’d ever clapped my peepers on. You should have taken a Bo Peep at them all. Dozens of them, all shapes and sizes.

‘The old bloke grabbed two enamel bowls from the mantelpiece and scooped a whacking great ladle full of rich, thick wallaby stew into each of them.

‘“There you are, son, tuck into that,” he said as he handed me one of the bowls. It’d been quite a few days since my last square meal and I reckon that would have had to have been the best flamin’ stew I’ve ever tasted. Then the old bloke disappeared outside, and soon returned with the largest loaf of bread I had ever laid me eyes on. He had an oven built into the back of his chimney where he did all his baking. After we’d finished the stew, he produces a large stoneware jar of his own honey, and invited me to help myself. I got stuck into the old billy tea and I’m telling you, Col, I enjoyed every mouthful.

‘“Don’t live flash here, son, but we eat well,” the old bloke crowed, as we both got stuck into the tucker.

‘As I drank my cuppa, I sat there, sort of gazing round the room. “Tell me, Frank, what sort of skin is that over there?” I asked, pointing to a strange, striped skin hanging on the wall of the hut.

‘He looked at me and smiled. “Don’t you have hyenas where you come from, son? Some folks down south call them tigers.”

‘“Where in the hell did you get that?” I casually asked the old bloke.

‘“Shot the rotten thing in my back paddock about six years ago and haven’t seen any since…and I don’t want to,” he growled. Just talking about it made the old fella real rotten.

‘“That sod of a thing killed my best hunting dog…clamped his jaws around poor old Barney’s head and killed him stone dead.”

‘I sat there, mesmerised; my eyes wide open, looking at that skin as I listened to the story. I’d really begun to warm to the old bloke.

‘Old Frank’s eyes narrowed as he fair spat out the story. “Had a few sheep out in the back paddock until that mongrel of a thing slaughtered the lot. That’s after he killed the dog. I sat up for three nights in the freezing cold waiting for it to come back. Finally it did and I got it with my first shot. I reckon it must have been the last one in these parts because I haven’t laid eyes on any since.”

‘I got up from my seat near the fire and walked over to have a closer look at the peculiar skin. What I didn’t know then was that several years later I would meet up with Lucy.

‘I continued helping Frank around his farm for several months and I reckon he really appreciated having me around the place. The old fella was having trouble with rheumatics and it would often take him ages to do simple manual-type jobs. And besides, we got on extra well together and I looked to him as a sort of father figure. He’d lost a son about my age in the Great War. He never spoke about it much, but I reckon he was still grieving, although that would have happened about 15 years before.

‘It wasn’t long before I began to get footloose again, and it must have shown. One day Frank came to me and asked if I was interested in taking up a trap run in the highlands. He’d had the run for donkey’s years but was getting a bit too old to work it. I dips me lid to the old fella though. He was a cunning sort of bloke and in the end he could read me like a flamin’ book. I’d done a bit of snaring with my old dad when I was a youngster back on the high plains, so I knew my way around the traps. So I grabbed the chance, although I felt a bit guilty leaving him on his own like that, but he assured me that he’d cope okay until I got back again in a few months time.

‘Several weeks later we loaded up the old cart and he drove me to a drop-off point out from Mole Creek. I humped as much gear as I could carry, making several trips into the bush and stashing it away where it was safe until I could pick it up again later. I was still young and fit and stood up to the test well. I remember the old bloke sitting there silently watching me trudge off into the wilderness. What was going through his mind I didn’t know, but I was as happy as a lark to be on my own again…for the next few months at least.

‘“Be sure and come back again now, son…don’t you forget,” he hollered after me as I gave him a parting wave.’

The sequel to this fascinating story was to follow a week or so later, as soon as Reg was prepared to continue.