The Killer Koala (10 page)

The
next pool was only ten minutes' walk away. It was much larger, with
only a couple of trees on the banks and a large clearing all around
it. Again, there were all sorts of tracks and droppings and the pool
had been disturbed by something.

'That
looks more like it,' said Jack. 'It has to be pretty deep, too. We'll
give it a hell of a blast.'

He
began packing gelignite sticks into the metal container.

'Will
that kill him if he's in a cave?' I asked.

'Oh,
yeah. The pressure this sort of thing creates under water is
unbelievable. Trouble is, you kill everything else in the pool too.
Still, that can't be helped.'

He
tossed the container into the centre of the pool and fed out a lot of
wire while it sank.

'It's
deep all right,' he said.

For
some reason I realised that the civilians hadn't spoken since we
started out, except to answer Jack's query about the guns. Now they
stood at one side of the clearing, holding their weapons with the
muzzles conscientiously towards the ground, quietly watching.

The
four of us gathered on the edge of the clearing well back from the
pool and Jack set off the charge.

The
explosion was not nearly as loud as the first, even though the charge
was much bigger, because the water was so much deeper. The spout of
water was very broad, but didn't rise much higher than a man's
height. The whole surface of the pool erupted into small choppy
waves. The green slimy weed broke up, and injured and dead fish mixed
and swirled with the vegetable debris.

We
walked to the bank and stared down as the water settled.

A
vast reptile shape appeared in the murk, first as just something with
a huge head, four outstretched legs and a strangely misshapen tail.
It was visible only as a ghostly form just below the surface of the
muddy disturbed water. I heard three rifles being cocked.

'Wait
for it,' said Jack. 'Wait till he's right up.'

The
thing seemed to be about to break the surface when a huge bubble
erupted on the water to the sound of a horrendous belch. A gust of
stinking crocodile breath hit us with such force we all stepped back.
Then Jack moved right to the water's edge with his rifle ready. The
shape was disappearing. Jack began to fire. The two civilians joined
him and twenty or so shots were fired at the slowly fading shape.

'No
good,' said Jack, 'the bullets won't carry through water.'

'Christ,
he's a big bastard,' said one of the civilians. 'Twenty foot at
least.' Which since I have at last been converted to the metric
system, translated at around six metres.

'Bloody
hide's worth a fortune.'

'Was
he alive?' I asked.

'Wouldn't
have thought so,' said Jack. 'Not after that lot of geli. But he
shouldn't have sunk. He must be nearly dead anyway. Some
of
those shots might have got him, too.'

'What
are you going to do, blast again?'

'Would
if I had any more geli ... but I shoved the last of it into that one.
Stupid, really, but I thought he was probably there and wanted to
make sure of him.'

'Think
those shots would have buggered the hide?' one civilian asked the
other.

'Mine
didn't
—
I aimed at the
head.'

'Me,
too. That soft-nosed slug of his wouldn't have hurt it much,' he
nodded at Jack. The conversation took place as though Jack and I were
either not there or couldn't hear it.

'Well,
if he's not dead, he could stay down there for a hell of a long time
and he might wedge himself into some roots or something and just die
and never come up,' mused Jack. 'I'd better get back to Weipa and get
some more geli.'

'No
point in waiting around for a while to see if he comes up?' I asked.

'He
might, of course,' said Jack thoughtfully. 'But then he might not. We
could wait here all night, but I can get to Weipa and back in a
couple or three hours, and we'll certainly get him up with more geli.
No,' he said decisively, 'I'll go back.'

He
turned to the two civilians.

'Now
listen, you two, I'm going back to Weipa to get some more geli.' Just
as they had talked to each other as though he didn't exist, he was
now assuming they hadn't understood the words just spoken virtually
in their ears. They nodded as though it was new intelligence. 'I want
you to wait here and if he comes up, haul him onto the bank. Shoot
him if you think he might be alive. Got it?'

'Sure,'
said one civilian.

'And
listen,' said Jack grimly, 'don't open him up. If your mate's inside
him I've got to be here when he's opened up. Do you understand?'

'Sure.'

'Well,
make sure you
are
sure,' said Jack, slightly
threateningly. 'If that croc comes up, don't open him till I get
back, or there'll be hell to pay.'

'Sure.'

Jack
nodded to me and we set off back along the creek. I thought it was
sensitive of him to suppose that I would rather go with him than wait
for a couple of hours with the civilians. He was right, too.

I
stopped off at my camp and waited until Jack reappeared in the middle
of the afternoon.

'I
got a double load,' he said, 'to make sure. You wouldn't mind
carrying a pack in?'

'Not
at all.'

At
the civilians' camp we loaded ourselves with the packs of gelignite,
which weren't particularly heavy, and then Jack took from the back of
the truck a large, heavy plastic bag and draped it over his
shoulders. I didn't ask what it was for. He took up his rifle and we
marched briskly into the bush, knowing exactly where we were going
now.

My
writer's instinct was definitely on the wane now. I still wanted to
see the crocodile, but nothing more. My troubled imagination was
causing me enough discomfort, but it did not anticipate the peculiar
horror of the shock awaiting us in the clearing around the pool.

The
crocodile was on the bank with its skin off.

The
enormous, evil, ancient head was intact, with the grinning teeth and
half-shut malicious eyes, but the rest of its six-metre length was
naked white and glistening fat. Half the tail was missing, lost years
before in some reptilian battle. The creature would have been
grotesque if it had been intact. Stripped of its armour, it was
obscene. The greatest obscenity was the spreading white bulge of its
belly. The skin was pegged out on the ground nearby, looking twice as
large as the body it had come from.

The
civilians were sitting near the crocodile's head, smoking, regarding
Jack with overacted nonchalance.

'You
bloody pair of bastards,' he said softly. 'I told you not to touch
it, didn't I?'

'You
said not to open it,' said one civilian defensively.

'We
didn't open it,' said the other. 'Just took the skin off.'

'Skin's
worth a lot of money,' said the first one.

'Nothing
illegal about taking the skin from a dead croc. We didn't kill it,
you did.'

Jack
glared at them, obviously for once shocked out of his professional
detachment.

'Your
mate's probably inside that bloody thing,' he said.

The
civilians shrugged.

'We
didn't open it, like you said. We didn't open it.'

Jack
stared at them for a while, but he had no words for them. There
weren't any words for them.

'All
right,' said Jack. 'Let's get on with it.' And drawing out a sheath
knife, he advanced on the corpse of the crocodile.

It
is sufficient to say that the 'mate' was inside.

Camel Rides: Five Dollars

It
is commonly supposed that there are no dangerous creatures in
Australia apart from crocodiles, snakes and spiders. This is wrong.
There are Aborigines and camels. Individually they are formidable.
Combined they are almost lethal.

They
have two qualities in common; an ineffable awareness of their own
superiority, which is unfortunately justified, and a total disregard
for my personal welfare.

I
was wandering around for some obscure purpose I have long since
forgotten in the Great Sandy Desert in northwest Western Australia
when I met Namitiji. He was camped alongside the track with three
women, seven dogs and two camels. The dogs were all scratching
themselves, the women were minding their own business and the camels
were looking haughty.

Namitiji,
a slight, quizzical-looking man of about thirty, with a mass of curly
hair, a beardless, flat-nosed wide-mouthed face, and wearing only a
pair of ragged trousers, was sitting beside the track next to a
handwritten sign that read:
CAMEL
RIDES
—
FIVE DOLLARS
.

It
was irresistible. The nearest white habitation was at least 150
kilometres away at Port Hedland and the traffic along this track
would have been something like one vehicle every month or so, and
here was a man offering camel rides to passers-by.

Obviously
he'd seen the dust of my van a long way off, set up his sign and sat
down to wait for me.

I
had to stop.

It
was September and very hot, and the flies were very thick so I didn't
intend to stop for long. Namitiji and I introduced ourselves. The
women went on minding their own business, all sitting around a
cooking fire in their floral dresses, the dogs went on scratching and
the camels went on looking haughty.

After
a few minutes' desultory conversation I gestured at the camels.

'Do
you make a living out of this?' I asked.

'Yeah,'
said Namitiji with a bit of a quizzical grin. 'Yeah, I make a
living.'

'But
you can't get many customers out here.'

'I
get enough.'

I
supposed that the wants of a primitive nomad were few and simple and
$5 every month or so was enough to supply them.

'Would
you mind if I took a photograph of your camels?' I said, with the
idea of getting an article out of the situation at some time. I also
wanted to photograph Namitiji and his women and dogs but I knew that
many Aborigines objected to cameras, believing as they did that if
you captured their image you captured their spirit.

Namitiji
had no such notions.

'Five
dollars for the camels and another five for one of me and the girls,'
he said promptly.

That
was fair enough, I thought, and spent several minutes taking shots of
the group of people before turning my attention to the camels.

I
thought first of a nice close-up of a camel's face, so I walked up to
the nearest one.

It
burped at me.

That
was the first time I had encountered what must be the most fearsome
thing on God's earth
—
a
camel's breath.

Imagine
the odour of the contents of a vulture's stomach, a dreary long-dead
cat in a cesspit and a decaying Indian curry four days after
somebody's eaten it. Combine these odours and you have something that
would smell like Chanel No. 5 by comparison with a camel's breath.

I
reeled back and choked and coughed and wondered whether I really was
going to die. Namitiji looked politely the other way until I
recovered. Then I contented myself with taking a few medium shots of
the camels, keeping myself away from their heads.

'Thanks
very much,' I said to Namitiji, and gave him a $10 note.

'Don't
you want a ride on a camel?' he asked.

I
looked up at the enormous beasts and imagined myself, plump, soft and
unagile, perched on top of a hump that seemed at least twice my own
height off the ground. Imagine being up there. Imagine being up there
if the beast turned and breathed on you.

'No,
thanks,' I said.

Namitiji
looked slightly downcast and thoughtful.

'Wouldn't
you like a photograph of yourself on a camel?' he asked.

Now,
that hadn't occurred to me. As is the case with most writers, the
cowardice of my nature is tempered by avarice. A photograph of me on
a camel would help sell the story I planned.

Even
so, looking at those haughty evil faces and their uncomfortable
looking humps so high in the air, I demurred.

'I
couldn't get up there,' I said to Namitiji.

'Oh,
they'll get down for you,' he answered, and barked an order in some
strange tongue, probably camel language.

The
nearest camel immediately folded its front legs and sank to its
knees, then bent its back legs and lowered its rump. The hump was
still as high as my head and I didn't see how I could get up there.

'I'll
give you a leg up,' said Namitiji. He grabbed a blanket that had been
lying by the fire and laid it across the camel's hump. 'That'll make
it more comfortable for you,' he said.