The Killer Koala (8 page)

'I'll
stand and hold her head,' said Alan promptly, 'just to make sure.'

'Well,'
said the vet, 'here goes. You're quite sure she'll put up with this?'

'It's
never been done before,' said Alan, putting his hand on Annie's
trunk. 'But don't worry, I've got her.' If she decided to object,
Alan would be as much use as a minnow trying to stay the progress of
a whale.

'Here
goes then,' said the vet.

Annie
turned her head around once with a gaze of infinite reproach as the
operation started, but then she turned it back again and let it droop
until her trunk was lying on the ground. A most dejected elephant.

'Trouble
is,' said the vet, 'I've really no idea of the length of an
elephant's large intestine. All I can do is keep feeding this in
until it stops and hope I don't do any damage. Still, the guts should
be pretty tough.'

He
fed the hose in vigorously. Vast lengths disappeared. I pumped. Annie
swelled. The level of water in the drum fell rapidly. My leg began to
ache.

When
about ten metres of hose had disappeared, the vet paused. 'Nothing so
far,' he said. 'Just keep pumping and we'll see if we can swill it
out with water.'

I
pumped. Annie continued to swell. Alarmingly. The drum was half
empty. There was a lot of water in Annie.

'What
exactly do you expect to happen?' I said belatedly.

'The
obvious,' said the vet. 'Get ready to duck.'

I
had been ready to duck for some time. I glanced enviously at the
neighbouring four farmers, who were laughing their heads off a good
five metres back.

'OK,'
said the vet. 'We'll try a bit further.'

More
of the pipe disappeared. I pumped. Annie swelled. The drum was almost
three-quarters empty. My right leg was aching severely.

'Trouble
is,' said the vet, 'I could be wrong. If it's not a soluble blockage,
I'm only making things worse. But there's nothing else to do; keep
pumping.'

I
kept pumping. Annie continued to swell. The tension was increasing
dangerously. Surely something had to happen.

It
happened.

There
was a sound like tearing canvas, unbearably amplified, impossibly
close, continuous, like the furious rumble of heavy artillery. I
flung myself to one side and landed on my back. The very sky above me
darkened and a black cloud blotted out the sun. I rolled over and
scrambled away and then turned on my hands and knees and looked.

A
black thunderstorm ten metres long and five wide obscured most of my
vision and the thunder of its passing deafened my ears. It was
astonishing, and even more astonishing when four blackened and
dripping figures emerged from it and staggered towards me, all with
their hands to their faces and rubbing their eyes. The four laughing
farmers had not been far enough away.

The
vet was jubilant. 'We've done it! We've done it!' he shouted through
the thunder. I couldn't see anything but his legs. He was on the
other side of the black cloud.

The
whole thing lasted the better part of two minutes. By the end of it,
Annie
—
considerably reduced
in bulk and looking very relieved
—
had
already started eating. The hose had been automatically detached.

The
farmers were rolling on the grass trying to clean themselves. Alan
was laughing himself silly. The vet was explaining proudly that he
had fixed it. It had only been a simple blockage. Nothing to worry
about at all, now.

Alan
was becoming hysterical and he kept on repeating two words endlessly.
I picked myself up and concentrated on what he was saying.

'Liquid
assets!' he was saying. 'Liquid assets!'

A Couple of Interesting Specimens

I
was hunting butterflies in Cape York Peninsula when I came as near as
I ever want to come to the violent death of a human being.

The
butterflies and any other insects I could find were for a friend of
mine who collected them commercially. I was paid a small sum for the
specimens I sent south, so small that I calculated that if I charged
my running expenses against the project, each specimen would be
costing me about $20.

But
it gave me an excuse for wandering around the bush. As the first
question everyone asks you up north is, 'What do you do?', it was
more acceptable to say, 'Collect insects', than, 'Write books'. Not
much more respectable, just slightly more.

I
was camped in a clump of pandanus about fifty kilometres out of Weipa
one morning when I heard the sound of a motor.

About
a quarter of an hour later, a four-wheel-drive police vehicle came
down the track. The driver swung over towards me as soon as he saw my
camp. There was nothing remarkable in that
—
everybody
stops to talk to everybody on the Peninsula.

Three
men climbed out of the police vehicle. The first was a tall,
good-looking policeman aged about thirty, neatly dressed in his bush
uniform of shorts and shirt and wide-brimmed hat; the other two were
about the same age but dressed in rough bush clothes and looking
shifty. One of these was very well built and tough-looking with black
bushy hair, a black beard and brutal brown eyes. The other was thin,
almost bald, more or less clean-shaven, with brutal watery blue eyes.

'G'day,'
said the policeman.

'G'day,'
I said.

'G'day,
g'day,' said the two civilians.

'G'day,'
I said.

There
followed the inevitable long, contemplative pause.

'Warm,'
said the policeman.

'Yes,'
I said. Then added hastily, 'Yeah.'

'For
this time of the year,' added the policeman in explanation.

'Yeah,'
I said.

Another
quite long pause.

Then
the policeman got down to business, obviously embarrassed by his own
unseemly haste.

'Seen
a fellow around on foot the last couple of days?'

'Saw a Murri
^*
over the beach the day before yesterday.' I regretted this as soon as
I said it because it then occurred to me that the policeman was on a
manhunt and I didn't want to be an informer, at least until I knew
what the man was being hunted for.

'No,'
said the policeman, 'a white bloke.'

'On
foot?' I said. You never saw a white man on foot there.

'Yeah,'
said the policeman, 'probably.'

'No.
I haven't seen any whites, on foot or otherwise. What's he done?'

'Nothing.
Just lost. What you doing up here?'

'Catching
insects.'

'Oh.'
(Long pause.) 'Getting plenty?'

'Yeah.'

'Good.'

Another
pause. 'Seen any crocodiles?'

'Yeah.
Quite a few.'

'In
the creeks, you mean? Little fellas?'

'Well,
one was about six feet long,' I said defensively.

'Yeah,
but freshwater. Haven't seen a big estuarine croc?'

'No.
But I haven't been near the sea much.'

'Oh,
they go overland. You want to watch it while you're camping.'

'They
ever grab anybody?'

The
policeman plucked a straw of grass and began chewing it. 'We think
this bloke we're looking for might have been taken by one,' he said.
' He was camped with his mates here,' he nodded towards the two
civilians, 'and went off for a stroll by himself. Didn't come back.
No sign of him since.'

'Where
was all this?'

'About
half an hour up the track from here. Anyway, if you see him, let him
know we were looking for him, will you?'

'Sure.'

They
drove off and I continued hunting insects, keeping a wary eye out for
crocodiles. I had always thought they stuck to the water or very
close to it, and only attacked swimmers or drinking cattle. The idea
of a crocodile roaming around in the scrub seemed as unlikely as it
was disturbing. I thought the policeman might have been pulling my
leg. Queenslanders are like that.

Late
that afternoon the policeman, whose name was Jack, called at my camp
again. The civilians weren't with him.

'Did
you find him?' I asked.

'No.
You seen anyone?'

'No.'

Jack
squatted on one haunch in the manner of those who live north of the
Tropic of Capricorn. I tried to imitate him but found it very
uncomfortable and settled for sitting on the ground.

'Found
his clothes,' said Jack.

'His
clothes?'

'Yeah.
Shoes, socks, shirt, pants and hat, all neatly stacked against a
tree. Must have taken them off and put them there himself.'

'Why?'

'Probably
wanted to cool off in a creek. There's a bit of a creek there. Enough
water to sit in.'

'What
do you think then?'

'Croc
might have got him.'

The
thought lay heavily between us for a few moments.

'
'Course, it might not have,' added Jack.

'What
else, then?'

Jack
thought. 'He might have wanted to blow through. Disappear. Make
people think a croc had got him, or he had got lost or something.'

'Why
would he want to do that?'

Jack
shrugged. 'People often do. Might have been on the run, or just
wanted to get away from a wife or something. Happens a lot. Bloke
always seems to turn up, though. Get charged if they do.'

'What
with?'

'Public
nuisance. Can't have blokes like meself tearing around looking for
people if they're not lost or dead.'

'No.
I suppose not.'

'
'Course,' said Jack reflectively, 'he might've been knocked off.
Thought that yesterday. Not so sure now.'

'Who
might have knocked him off?'

'His
mates,' said Jack, looking surprised that I would ask so obvious a
question. I thought about the 'mates" brutal eyes.

'Why?'

He
shrugged again. 'People do. Might have had a row over money, or a
woman or something. It happens.'

'What
are they doing up here?'

Jack
shrugged again. 'They reckon they're fishing. I think they're
probably poaching.'

'Poaching
what?'

'Crocs.
Protected, you know. Skins worth a hell of a lot of money.'

'But
you don't think they . . . knocked off . . . their mate now, eh?'

'No.
Clothes were too neatly stacked. Those two wouldn't have got them off
him as neatly as that if he was dead. Anyway, they're not bright
enough to lay a false trail like that. No, I reckon a croc got him.'

'Well
there's not much you can do about that, is there?'

'Probably
have to get the croc.'

'How?'

'Oh,
trail around until I find it. It'd be a pretty big one.'

'But
what's the point?'

'Get
the body back. If it's not digested. Besides, have to kill the croc.'

'Why?
Particularly if they're protected? I mean, any big crocodile is
dangerous, isn't it? This one's not more dangerous because it's
killed a man.'

'No.
But we always kill 'em if they take somebody. If we can.'

That
seemed to me like killing a tree because it dropped a branch on
somebody, but I didn't pursue the argument.

'Anyway,'
said Jack, 'he might have just got himself lost and be still
wandering around, or he might have shot through.'

'So
what are your plans?'

'Going
back to get instructions from the boss,' he said, standing up. 'Be
seeing you. If you happen to see him, don't forget to tell him I'm
looking for him. You'll know him because he'll have no clothes on,
probably. Be seeing you.'

'See
you.'

He
dropped in again next morning, ostensibly to ask again whether I had
seen the missing man, but really because he just liked dropping in.

I
had more or less worked the area dry for specimens, but I was
interested in hanging around to find out what had happened.

'My
boss reckons the setup's a bit crook,' he said. 'I've got to keep
nosing about until I find out what did happen to the bastard.'

'Does
your . . . boss . . . think it was a crocodile?'

'Should
be more signs if it was, he says. Fair enough. You see, the creek
near where his clothes were was pretty small
—
you
could step over it. If he was sitting in there and the croc got him,
you'd expect to find some blood and stuff on the banks
—
but
it might have all been washed away. Then if the croc got him on dry
land, there should be some traces around
—
until
the ants clean it up, of course. It's a pity he wasn't wearing his
clothes. Always something left when a stiff's been wearing clothes.'