Across No Mans Land in Central Australia – part 3 (final)

ACROSS NO MAN’S LAND IN CENTRAL AUSTRALIA
Camel Bitten By Copperhead
Mr. Terry Given a Fright.
by Michael Terry

LIGHTNING struck a nearby range and fused the rock, one night when the Terry prospecting party was in camp. Next day a copperhead snake killed a camel, and Mr. Terry, after touching the venom, suffered pains which made him think the poison had got into his blood through wind cracks in his fingers.

DOWN in the Blood Range- where we were driven for water, after a bad stage out west from Thomas’s Reservoir — we had an alarming thunderstorm one night. Shortly after a flash had come to earth most unpleasantly close to camp, giving each man a nasty jolt, a vivid streak of violet lightning struck the top of the range about a mile away and 1,000 feet above us. At once a fire, so it seemed, sprang up, but as nothing could possibly have burnt in the drenching rain then falling, we quickly realised that it had been our good fortune actually to see the rock fused. It had been heated to a glowing mass, and for well over five minutes we watched the first brilliantly white light changing to a ruddy hue before disappearing in the darkness.

Copperhead Snake – Drawing WA Museum

Snake Brings Death
To the superstitious, this sight might have been an omen of evil, as it actually turned out to be, for the following afternoon a tragedy occurred when the string was halted so that we might attend to a load. As luck would have it, the boys had either lost or broken their spears and boomerangs, so, when a big green snake five to six feet long with a copper head was seen to be approaching the camels between the tufts of spinifex, no handy weapon was available to kill it. Not daring to interfere with it till the camels had moved on, the killing was postponed until they were safely away. Then O’Grady and Jack burnt off the area where it had taken cover, and, in due course, the work completed, mounted to catch up with the string.

Hardly had we started along the pad when we saw the camel Darkie, which walks last and never breaks a nose line standing alone, although the rest were still marching ahead. At once the terrible fear of something untoward gripped one, and the camels were speeded up to learn the worst. Sure enough, as we neared Darkie, a heap on the ground ahead of him spoke of tragedy. Yelling to Nicker to halt, we sat the camels down, and there, half hidden in the spinifex lay poor King on his side, boxes tumbled over beside where he had fallen, saddle all awry. “That filthy snake has got him,” I said to Stan, as we stood by in mute impotence while my favorite camel, after a final feeble struggle, lolled out his tongue and quivered in the throes caused by the poison. In no time the whole party was standing with us, and it goes without saying that each was more than a little upset.

Poor King, who every morning used to smell me all over in a manner that was almost a caress, had climbed his last sandhill to the land where quandongs are always green and there is a billabong at every camp. Our boys, Lockey and Jack, simply howled like kids, and for some minutes, while tears streamed down their faces, had to be left alone to overcome their sorrow. Soon the team was brought near the fallen one, for, as ever, the ship must sail on, no matter what may befall the crew. King’s load was transferred to the Erldunda Cow, then marching unloaded. All useful mountings were removed from the saddle for use as spares. But King’s mates would not come anywhere near his body, they knew death, and circled wide, sniffing and fidgeting uneasily. Imagination, active after this, we rode ahead in silence, obsessed with the sense of loss, anxious indeed whether it was to be the one and only snake tragedy of the expedition.

Incidentally, there was an amusing (now that it is over) sequel to the death. Impelled to see where King had been struck, I lifted the leg he had been trying to bite before he died, and in doing so, put my fingers on the spot where he had been struck, just above the pad. When Nicker saw the sticky substance, he warned me at once to wash it off, and I realised in a flash that surplus poison could quite easily get into my blood through open wind cracks on the fingers. To a canteen, I hurried and washed the beastly stuff off, and forgot all about it, till, when I was riding again and smoking my pipe, a queer feeling came over me.

A prospector with his camel train 1930’s -Photo SLSA

“My God,” I thought, “I’m for it also.” Down the neck and thighs, a troublesome ache developed. I began to sweat a little and feel very shaky. Remembering that a great big strong camel had died in ten minutes, a terror seized me that if the worst was occurring I couldn’t have more than two or three minutes to go. “Don’t be an ass,” I kept telling myself. “Everything’s all right. Keep steady, my lad.” Smoking more furiously than ever, gripping the saddle tightly, I fought the panic in me, though it took every effort I possessed to control the impulse to sing out and halt for whatever preventive measures could be taken in a few minutes, however, the spasm passed, and I realised that it had been simply a case of auto-suggestion. For in the back of my mind must have been the fear that some of the poison might have entered through the sores on my hands, and I was sort of holding myself in suspense for any of the dread signs of it getting to work.

War On Snakes During the whole trip, flies hardly troubled us at all, but after the coming of warm weather both snakes and ants were uncomfortably plentiful. In day time and at night we had snakes in camp — one ran over Nicker’s head one night — and so thick were they that for a period the herbage about camp had to be burnt off each night to keep them away (we hoped) while we slept. Why, in the Blood Range, when I used to ride ahead, Nicker too frequently noted where a snake crossed over my camel’s tracks before the string. 150 yards astern, passed along, winding in and out of the huge green tufts of spinifex.

DESERT RAT, which Mr. Terry believes
to be very rare.  Photo SLWA

Matron Hart Laverton Hospital – Photo Shire of Laverton

To revenge King, the camp agreed to kill every darned snake we saw and in carrying out this policy I rather seriously injured my back. Near the end of the trip my camel, having broken its nose line, bolted through the scrub at a gallop, and, in dodging the tree limbs and bushes through which he was charging. I ricked my back, though I rode him to a standstill. A casualty two days later, having killed a snake that morning already, I dismounted to finish another. But the stick was rotten and the blow served only to annoy the snake. It whisked round and fairly jumped at me, so, leaping sideways, I gave it a coup-de-grace, but in so doing did some radical injury to my back. Intense pain started at once, but a couple of hours later Charlie Cable, returning alone on a truck from the Warburton Range, caught us up and took me ahead to the Laverton hospital. There Matron Hart worked wonders with massage, and the folk of the town were very sympathetic.

Of all the small towns it has been my fortune to visit, Laverton stands out ahead of the rest, because of its people. No small community can surely pull together so well as that in this far-away goldfields town. The residents took to my companions, O’Grady and Nicker, at once, and the day after their arrival, came to the hospital to tell me what fine fellows they were. When we left on the train for Kalgoorlie, just about the whole town came down to see us off, and quite affected us with their cheery farewells and wishes for our speedy return to carry on chasing the elusive precious metal.