I was glad to get back to work when that bloody war was over. They asked me to stay on and help 'em put the pieces back together again. But I didn't fancy it. All that salutin' and givin' orders. I wanted to get away for a while and do some honest yakka.
Got meself a job on the Snowy Scheme. They needed a bit of a hand with the tunnellin'. Engineers or someone had buggered it up - as usual. So I gave 'em a few pointers. But I got jack of that pretty quick. Not much of a challenge.
So then I found myself out west again, workin' on the rabbit-proof fence. Never seen so many rabbit holes. Hard country that was. Nothin’ much to eat and what there was wasn't good eatin'. Used to cook galah. You know how to cook a galah, don't ya? Boil a large billy of water. Put in two or three rocks and then add the galah. Boil it hard until the water evaporates. Then throw the galah away and eat the rocks.
There was a bloke out there who reckoned he was a rabbit hunter. Silly bugger couldn't catch a rabbit to save 'is life. An old bloke give him the drum one night at the pub. 'Look mate', he tells the hopeless one, 'first yer catch a rabbit, tie a lighted stick of gelignite to him and let him run back into the burrow. You'll kill more rabbits than the mixxy in no time flat'.
So this bloke thought ‘e'd give it a try. But he couldn't catch even one rabbit to start off with. So he buys one from the pet shop. He ties the stick of geli to it, lights it and send it towards the nearest rabbit hole. But it's been born in captivity, this rabbit, and don't know nuthin' about what wild rabbits do. It runs round in a circle and then runs straight under this bloke's brand new ute and blows it to bits.
I was on the border fruit-fly control squad for a while. We used to search people's cars for fruit that might be contaminated. The fruit flies used to fly across the border over our heads in droves. I ask yer, what do they use for brains, these booro-crats and the like!
I had a little roo dog then. Good little dog. One day I shot a roo and ‘e ran after it. But the dog caught itself on a barbed wire fence and sliced itself fair in half. Lucky I had me weldin' gear with me. I welded him together again before it was too late. But I was in such a hurry, I welded the two halves the wrong way round. The dog had two legs on the ground and two stickin' up into the air. Didn't bother the little bugger though. He took off after the roo again. First he ran with two legs in the air until he got tired. Then he turned over and ran with the other two. Fair dinkum! That's as true as I'm standin' 'ere. And when he finally caught that roo 'e bit both ends at the same time.
I give away the fruit-fly policin' after a while and took up train-drivin'. The 'Last of the Fast-Times' they used to call me and I shifted some pretty fast freights, I can tell you. Leastways, I did at the end of me time. When I started the trains were so slow we used to throw tomato seeds out of the engine and the guard would pick the tomatoes as he went by. They was only in their first bloom, mind you.
Another time we were on the old Binangon Mail bringin' down a body to be buried. It was a scorcher. The guards-van was like an oven an the ice was melting as soon as it hit the water - or whatever they were drinkin. After a few hours the conductor came back empty-handed. Where's the ice?, gasped the hot and thirsty guards? 'I don't think we'd better use any more', said the Conductor, 'the corpse is showing'.
I worked for some mean cockies on me travels, but there was a bloke over the back of Buggerup who really took the cake. He give me a job alright. 'Sunup to sunset - Sunday off - take it or leave it'. Well, I was broke at the time so I had to take it. The first day we started at sunup and worked straight through the day. Flamin' 'ot it was, too. Finally, the sun started to dip down behind the hills. I straightened up and took me hat off. 'That's it - sundown - I said to the cocky. But he kept right on workin'. 'Not yet, mate. Climb up on the fence, you can still see the sun from there'.
Hard bastard he was. Used ter feed yer breakfast before sunup and yer never got yer supper 'till all the stars were out. That cocky was so mean 'e wouldn't give you a drink from a mirage on 'is own block.
It was this same cocky I worked for when the Great Binangon Drought broke. The rain pissed down after months without a drop. We all ran outside and danced around in the wet. Except the cocky. 'Come in out of that rain, you stupid buggers', he yells at us. 'Don't worry, we don't mind gettin wet'. 'I don't care about you gettin' wet - you're keepin' the rain off me ground.'
Speakin' of cooks - which I wasn't: I was shearin' once for some cockie who hired on the worst cook that ever fed me. This bloke's puddin' was like glue, his pies were like chunks of jarrah and his custard must have been made with rancid butter. After a couple of weeks of this the blokes were gettin' pretty ugly. Words were said - not nice ones - and the cook complained to the boss about being insulted by the men. The boss came down straightaway and wanted to know who called the cook a bastard. I stepped right up to him and said 'who called the bastard a cook?'
It was out there where I met him again. Yer know ‘oo I mean. ‘E was knockin' the fleece of a four-year old and, casual-like, I asked him 'how 'e'd be?'
'How'd I be? How'd I be!? How'd you bloody-well think I'd be? Dags all over me, sweatin' blood shearin' sheep that shoulda been dogs' meat years ago and workin' for the meanest bastard God ever put breath into. There's no pub for a hundred clicks and the one that's there serves warm beer. 'Ow'd you think I'd bloody well be?'
I left ‘im to it an’ went quietly on me way.
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