As you may have noticed this story follows on from ‘Loadin Cattle’. I mean it has to because leaving cattle in the truck for nigh on 55 plus years would have attracted the attention of the authorities.
I best cut the drivel - if you haven’t read ‘Loadin Cattle” I strongly recommend you do so as otherwise this story does not make a lot of sense.
So there we are. Its dusk and we have both trucks loaded to the gunnels and we are off to take another load of these poor starving wretches to the other side of Nellyvale where there is hopefully enough feed and water to last them until the drought breaks.
As we pile into the trucks I am lucky enough to get into the International and into the prime seat, right next to Athol. This is great as I can clearly hear his homily on the finer points of loadin cattle into a truck in an efficient and effective manner and if I listen carefully I may also glean some interesting words and phrases; the sort of things real men use.
Athol loads the straight stemmed Falcon pipe with a fresh charge of Dr Pat’s Irish Moss. This rich brown material comes from a round tobacco tin with an exotic green design on the lid.
He lights up and the cabin of the International explodes with pungent aromas that defy words and I can still smell this pungency today. These aromas evoke memories of my hero Athol, mixed with the boyhood imagination of my grandfather Joe and his pioneering outback spirit. Joe, the man who tamed the outback country we now know as Nellyvale. Deep within this aroma, I imagine as a child the far off land of Ireland, for the country is etched in the name on the tobacco tin (Dr Pats Irish Moss) and is carried within my bloodline. A boy could ask no more and when I am advised to follow my nose I can end up in all sorts of places.
Pity I can’t find a place for a heaving bosom here.
With four abreast, Athol at the wheel, me next to him and my cousins Kelvin and Jeff on my left, Athol turns the ignition key of the big gutsy International. The 351 cu inch V8 engine responds with that familiar rumble that says - ‘give me something big and manly to move.’
Athol gently guides the gear shift into low low. We have more gearing options than a centipede. A split gearbox feeding into an electric two speed differential gives us around 12 gears. All this powered by a gutsy V8 and we could pull anything. I still love that feeling and sound of a big motor responding to the challenge of ‘movin that load‘.
Smooth as a babies bum Athol guides the International, the three young men, a couple of dogs and several tons of steel and a heap of starving cows into the darkness.
We are off, headed further west to Nellyvale’s back block.
As Athol deftly changes gear we pick up speed and travel across the rough sandy and dusty tracks we call roads. The old Austin with Keith Roberts at the wheel and cousin Kelvin follow us.
The sandy tracks turn into gravely inclines as we pass over numerous ridges. Nellyvale is predominantly red soil country with the inevitable low rocky ranges running across it. There are small sections of what is called black soil country and these are the edges of the infamous channel country. When the black soil country floods it produce abundant feed for the stock. The red soil with its sparse native grasses and mulga bush provide sufficient nourishment for the cattle to survive. in-between flood water from Queensland or good local rain
Nellyvale and the surrounding stations are locked into the inevitable ‘boom and bust’ agricultural cycle that defines much of Australian. Making a living out here depends on the station owners ability to have the right type and number of stock on the station at the right time. Buy and or breed good stock that will fatten quickly, have them on the station when there is good feed and sell them before the drought gets a grip.
Then it’s hang onto the store breeding stock and wait for the cycle to return.
Nature is the master and you must obey it to carve out a living. Show disrespect and the country will destroy you and all your work.
We crawl and grind our way across Nellyvale for probably about 10 to 12 miles.
Not far into the trip Athol announces that a mistake has been made in the yards.
In the yards we separated off all the calves. The female calves were simply branded with a red hot branding iron and had a unique pattern cut into their ear with a big tool that was similar to a pair of pliers.
Whilst the female calves did not particularly enjoy this adornment to their bodies the male calves were in for some extra treatment.
Breeding stock is much cheaper than buying stock and a quality bull is all important. The last thing a station owner needs is a bull of dubious breeding running around in the herd making poor quality calves.
So whilst we had this section of herd in the yards and were branding etc it was time to remove their testicles.
These young bulls were roped, thrown on the ground with one of us holding their heads and another holding their rear legs in such a way as to fully expose their young and tender testicles.
Whilst in this exposed and vulnerable position Athol would grab the calf’s scrotum in the fork of his left hand. Running his hand up the scrotum he would gently force the testicles to the end of the scrotum. With the testicles bulging into the scrotum (at this point the eyes of the young bull looked similar) he would use a very sharp pocket knife to incise the scrotum. This done the testicles would pop out into the palm of his hand.
With several swift movements of the pocket knife Athol would run the blade up and down the tissue connecting the testicles to the rest of the calves system. With this movement the offending testicles were removed and were then thrown into the dust.
As Athol had observed we had missed one calf or should I say a yearling bull had been loaded and was, so to say ‘intact’. A yearling is a calf that is one year old, and this particular one weighed around 500kg.
Now, where we are unloading has no cattle yards, just a dirt ramp. The cattle have been banged around in the back of the truck and are reasonably stressed and it will be dark when we get there. We are being instructed by an uncle who is very direct and is prone to outbursts of temper. Can you see the emerging problem?
A rambunctious wild and unhappy young 500kg bull; darkness, lots of space and a somewhat fiery uncle intent on cutting the said bull’s balls off. This is gong to be fun.
So Athol proceeds to issue the Working Instructions through the thickening cloud of Dr Pat to the background hum of the throaty V8.
The plan is to get two ropes on the bull whilst in the truck. One around its head and one around a back leg. When all the cattle are out of the truck we allow the young bull out but restrained by the ropes. Kevin and I are in charge of the ropes, Keith Roberts and Jeff will throw and hold the bull while Athol will do ‘the job’.
We get there and the Work Instruction is again gone over and again without safety instructions and with plenty of expletives. We are clearly told that under NO CIRCUMSTANCES is this bull to get away intact. Such an occurrence will result in one or all of us being killed or something worse.
So away we go, all is going to plan.
However during the getting out of the truck and throwing the 500kg bull part of the Work Instruction Kevin and I end up on the opposite side of the truck to the main action, hence we cannot see what is going on. Kevin and I are fully dependant on Athol’s instructions which are being yelled through a cloud of Dr Pats which seemed to amplify the expletives.
Kevin and I secure the ropes to the truck with plenty of knots, and I mean plenty. We were not going to let this one get away.
Through the noise and yelling from the darkness of the other side of the truck we could only guess which part we are up to in the Work Instruction .
Finally we are given the instruction to ‘let go the f++++n ropes’. So we started undoing the multiple knots. (Note: Some Boy Scout training would have been handy at this point , particularly in knot selection and implementation …. and particularly undoing).
During this knot undoing phase comes the instruction ‘Don’t hurry for f**k sake, don’t f****n hurry‘. Assuming Athol is being work like, and has added an additional ancillary point into the Work Instruction we take the instruction literally and slow down.
Amongst increasing noises of grunts, yells, expletives and a bellowing calf comes yet another instruction of ‘for f**k sake don’t you f****n fellars let go them f****n ropes.’
As instructed we stopped the untying process, given that we were going slow anyway.
The instructions kept coming and getting louder ‘I said for f**k sake don’t you f****n fellars let go them f****n ropes.’ .
This was a great experience and I was learning, I turned and said to Kevin ‘Does he think we can’t f*****n hear him?’.
My question was quickly answered as around the back of the truck came a steaming Athol in full flight. The Falcon pipe fully ablaze with sparks flying.
Unfortunately I cannot remember verbatim the gems Athol released as this was the first work critique and feed back session I had experienced.
To summarise the feedback session Athol thought we were deaf, useless, not worth feeding and completely unable to follow simple instructions. Further we were lucky that Athol was not his father (Joe Cronin, our grandfather) as he had a real temper and would have flayed us f****n alive.
We were advise in no uncertain terms that on the other side of the truck the surgery had been completed as per the Work Instruction. The young 500kg bull whilst somewhat unhappy would like to join the rest of the herd.
At this stage Keith Roberts and cousin Jeff were being severely knocked around by hanging onto the said bull whilst the ropes were being undone. Jeff in particular was getting a right ol’ kickin as he tried to hold onto the bull’s (now steer’s) rear legs.
This was our first lesson in the western style of conversation where an instruction of ’don’t f*****n hurry is to be interpreted as ’hurry, f****n’ do it and f***** do it now’ . You can see it is very efficient as it saves many words.
Ever since this experience I have had an interest in the English language and the variety of ways in which it can be used and interpreted.
Thanks Uncle Athol