1932
The Lurking Terror
It was just at sundown. My bank of the river was lined with dark green scrub, while opposite, the water mirrored the graceful palms. Behind me the hills rose steeply right from the water’s edge. From the black falls up-river a murmurous volume of sound rolled down. I carried no rifle, for Charlie had taken it pig-shooting with the natives, and the Pierce brothers had taken theirs into the bush seeking a beast. Norman was miles away down the river.
I pushed out from the shrubbery on to a jutting ledge of rock where the water looked dark and deep, an ideal fishing-pool. At a sharp hoof-click against a stone I looked across the water and saw the little roan filly coming down through the solitary scrub-patch opposite. Cattle had broken a pad through the undergrowth there to the one shallow waterhole, and along this came the filly, her steps hesitant, ears twitching nervously, nostrils distended. She edged down the sloping bank but stood well back from the water’s edge, peering in big-eyed anxiety. It looked an innocent pool and was a favourite drinking place of cattle. But the filly was timid: perhaps she had received a fright there. She advanced a step with lowered head, peering into the water. Though the water was shallow the bank appeared just a little undermined.
At last the filly ventured, evidently thirsty. Standing well back she stretched her muzzle to the water. Even then she did not drink; fearfully she stared, her nostrils quivering, ready to bound away. Finally she drank, slowly at first, then deeply, at last in gulping confidence. The long snout of Big-nose thrust up, and, gripping her nose, almost dragged her straight in with that first wrenching pull; An awful, struggle followed as she wrenched back against the weight of the alligator, her eyes bulging, her body arched as she strove to lever herself backwards. Her hooves crunched the bark from the roots, her tail wedged between her legs, and her mane ruffled stiffly in terror. Those fangs buried in her nose choked every whimper. Her muscles tautened violently, her ribs stood out as she wrenched in frantic straining. With convulsive strength she almost lifted the brute from the water. His massive grey back and chest was a hideous weight as his claws sank into her shoulders ripping the flesh to ribbons; then his bulk thumped back with a splashing whouff! whouff! as he used his weight while wrenching his head as a dog does when dragging a wallaby to the ground. Back-paddling, tugging with his snout, swirling his tail for leverage he twisted her head to the very roots while both made coughing, gasping, wheezing sounds. Under that awful strain she grew appreciably smaller, shrank within herself. As inch by straining inch she began to give way, her struggles grew all the more terrible, her slipping hooves wedged deeper between the roots.
Foiled in that swift pull, he tried to drag her muzzle under. He could breathe with his mouth full of muddy water; hers was crushed in his snout. He thrust her back upon her haunches as his chest heaved upwards only to surge back, then heave up and wrench down again. I hurled stones in a shouting helplessness as bitter as that terrible fight opposite. As the filly weakened her body nearly overbalanced, her straining legs appeared ready to snap. Then he swirled his bulk almost side on and tugged as his gorilla-like forepaws snatched at the bank for leverage while his great tail whipped up over the bank. The hammer-like blow echoed as the broken-legged filly came tumbling into the river. Even then she struggled in choking agony against being dragged under, while his submerged body clawed and tailed its way backwards along the bottom. Presently only the hind-quarters of the filly were visible, wobbling in feeble tremblings. In deep water his weight dragged her down to the depths.
Men of the Jungle (1932) in Gems from Ion Idriess,
Angus & Roberston, Sydney, 1949