The Camel’s Revenge – ‘Spinifex’ Alan’s Fatal Folly

The Bull Camels Murder Lust
by John Drayton

The man who fools with a camel is not likely to make a similar mistake if he comes out of the disagreement alive. This would have been the opinion of “Spinifex Alan” if he could have expressed an opinion after his bull camel had finished mauling him outside a shanty at Duketon. “Spinifex” had come in for a day or two in civilisation and had filled himself far past the plimsoll mark with the violent fighting whisky of the camp. He was an ugly, temperamental man in drink, and his camel was that way all the time.

Image by ChatGPT

What they disagreed about was not patent to the small crowd that witnessed the start of the final argument. “Spinifex” was seen was seen to snatch at the string attached to a peg through the nostril of the beast and angrily jerk at it to “hoosh” him down.

The bull stubbornly resented the pull at his nose. He would not go down in the dust of the track. There was a bush across the road, and the animal was no doubt hungry. “Spinifex” was insistent. The camel was obstinate. The man was determined to demonstrate the superiority of the human – there was no cow of a he-camel on this side of perdition that would boss him.

He jerked hard at the nose line and roared at the bull. The reply came all too swiftly. The snake head of the beast shot out, and its prehensile lips closed on the man’s thigh. He was off the ground in a second, and the camel was shaking him in the air much as a bull terrier shakes a rat. From a height of six feet or so. “Spinifex” was thrown to the ground, to be picked up by the arm, and again tossed up. His leg was broken, and it was obvious that when he fell again, his arm would be useless. He was as helpless as a baby in the jaws of a lion.

The camel was intent on worrying him to death.

There was nothing to be done. Not a man in the little gathering had a weapon of any kind. The blacksmith had a rifle in his camp, but that was some distance away, and anyhow, only a marksman could have shot to drop the bull without hitting the man. The ungainly brute was murder-mad. The desire for revenge on the man who had ill-used it was the one idea in its mind. The bone of his victim’s arm had been chewed to rags; he was suspended by the muscles of the smashed limb and was being swirled about like a rubber doll in the hands of a vicious child. From the beginning, he had offered no resistance; at first because he was taken completely by surprise and later for the reason that he was unconscious.

The finish of the assault was as sudden as the commencement. The bull dropped the man and rolled over on top of him so that his withers made contact with the head of the prospector, and then, jumping to his feet, he shuffled off at a slow trot into the bush and began to eat.

There was no doctor in the camp, but that didn’t matter much. There were few unbroken bones in the body of the man, while his head had been crushed to a pulp.

When Fortune Smiled and Other Tales of the Goldfields
by John Drayton. Prepared by Peter J Bridge, Angela Teague and Rina Ashcroft

$30.00 + Post Available from Hesperian Press and The Eastern Goldfields Historical Soc

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Moya Sharp

Owner at Outback Family History

My name is Moya Sharp, I live in Kalgoorlie Western Australia and have worked most of my adult life in the history/museum industry. I have been passionate about history for as long as I can remember and in particular the history of my adopted home the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia. Through my website I am committed to providing as many records and photographs free to any one who is interested in the family and local history of the region.

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