NEBO IN THE 1940’s CONTINUES
The war was going badly for the Nebo soldiers and airmen.
Francis and Peter Butterworth had been captured in Singapore by the Japanese Army. Bobby Quinn, dad’s mate, had been killed when his bomber crashed in England; his twin brother, who had joined the army, was killed in North Africa.
At our school Jim, who thought we had done so well digging slit trenches, decided to start a school garden. First we had to dig a manure pit. Combining this with a geometry lesson, Jim gave us the measurements and we were set to work to figure out and dig a 10ft x 10ft pit 4ft deep: the diagonals had to be the same length to keep each corners 90degees.
At the same time Jim started to teach singing lessons at the schoolhouse with Mrs Collins playing the piano. I was one of the first boys to be sent to garden digging duties, followed very swiftly by more ‘out of tune’ boys! After a few months Jim declared the pit correct mathematically and ready to fill with manure, which was to be collected from the surrounding flats. Every pull-along cart and wheelbarrow was to be brought to school each Friday morning – Friday afternoons the flats were filled with kids picking up cow dung.
Mrs Jessie Burgess told Jim, when all the surrounding flats were clear of manure, we could dig out her goat pens, which had about a foot and a half of solid goat manure and, for good measure, contained a grumpy old billy goat who didn’t care to leave his pen with the rest of the herd – he smelt pretty bad as well! We got two boys to hold a horn each while our best poddy-calf rider jumped on his back - he immediately swapped ends in mid-air and slammed the unlucky boy onto the ground. We all tried to ride him – without success – just ended up smelling as bad as he did, with skin missing and a small amount of blood spilt. Clabo, Mrs Burgess’ big son, caught us and suggested we get the billygoat cart, which was a sturdy four-wheeler, and he would harness him up if we had a driver. We picked Brian Collins, Jim’s son, as we didn’t want him to go home smelling as bad as we did. Brian was a gentle boy and we did not want him to get hurt. Clabo put the harness on and attached the cart, Brian climbed aboard as we convinced him all would be OK, Clabo slapped the goat who took off like a rocket. The cart went up on two wheels as he raced in a big circle. Brian had lost the reins and was hanging on to the seat – the billy was in complete control – he shot under a low rail and took Brian straight out of the cart. Clabo got Brian breathing again and brushed most of the dust from him. Brian never came to the goat pen again and was given the job of watering the pit when Mert brought a tank of water on Fridays. We only took another three Fridays to get Mrs Burgess’ pens down to natural ground. The billy still taunted us a bit but nobody was game to touch him.
By the time we had all the garden beds dug, the water had turned all the manure to black soil. Jim had us spread it on all the beds and we planted cabbage, lettuce, tomatoes, rosellas, sugar-loaf cabbage, beans, beetroot, watermelons and pumpkins. There were plenty of worms (which Jim, much to our dismay, frowned upon our using for fishing!). Our garden was so prolific every kid from the school took home fresh vegetables on Fridays – a small donation towards the school garden from parents allowed Jim to continue buying seeds.
Mrs Copp owned one of the three stores in Nebo; it was situated across the road from the schoolhouse. She sold all kind of goods and the only shop that sold comics -‘Alley Oop’, ‘Red Ryder’, ‘Hurricane Hawk’ and ‘Buck Rodgers’. The last two were mine; aeroplanes and spaceships. Mrs Copp’s community job in wartime Nebo was that of ‘Aeroplane Spotter’. For this she was allocated a pair of field glasses so she could identify all aircraft overflying Nebo. (I just knew I could have done Mrs Copp’s job!). She was also good at working out what was wrong with sick boys and selling their parents a cure! Any ache near the kidneys we complained of would see mum arrive home with a bottle of De Witts pills – these would make the complaining child pee green with a blue tinge – this was good as it made the other boys wonder if you were a Martian. Rawleigh’s ointment and Iodine was the answer for all wounds, although old Mert swore that Stockholm Tar fixed everything!
Mum had saved enough money to order a water tank from Mackay; the old tank at the front of our house had many rust holes sealed with wooden plugs and painted with a tar paint known as samsonite. The tank had no top so we had to be ever vigilant for dead frogs; it was not uncommon for frog’s legs to pop out on occasions when the tap was turned on… a long stick had been placed inside for them to climb out, but some never made it!
Doug Fairburn was to bring the new tank from Mackay in his Diamond T. truck. The day finally came for delivery when Doug arrived with the most battered tank you ever saw – the overflow was bent sideways, the tap was hanging loose with the solder split and the lid and strainer could not be found in the bush. Doug was standing on our verandah explaining to mum how the tank kept escaping from the back of the truck and leaping into the bush and sometimes passing him on the road. Unbeknown to Doug, he was standing on some very thin floorboards – they broke and he fell through to the ground beneath, standing no taller than I was still explaining what happened to the tank!
Dave Mather came on his three-wheeled bike with his tool kit and had the tank soldered in one day. I was small enough to go inside with Dave’s hammer and a bit of wood to knock out most of the dents.
Chum was still serving overseas and his letters to mum were heavily censored; there was an art to reading them as they contained many gaps in the paper. Mum came from a family of ‘boy soldiers’ and obviously had picked up many tactics to overcome full censorship – I always thought of her as a super-spy! She and dad had obviously worked out a code as one day she was reading his cut-up letter when she read, ‘Sorry to hear George is sick.’ At this mum said, ‘Quick, light the fire and boil the kettle and bring me your school Atlas.’ With the kettle boiling Mum got the envelope and held the stamp on the letter to the steam; with great care she removed the stamp, underneath which was written ‘Goodenough Island’. So, with the aid of the Atlas we found where dad was. Later on the same thing happened and the Island this time was Bougainville where the elite Japanese marines were. Mum told us she used George’s name, as she didn’t want to use any of ours. (George was my black cat – he had almost been killed as a kitten by a tomcat – He was partly blind and had lost his voice, but a great companion never the less.).
Nebo Creek always had many swimming spots, from the big waterhole near the present showgrounds to ‘The Drop’ opposite the Nebo Hotel, ‘The Plum Tree Hole’ down from the old police station to ‘McFarlane’s Hole’. One day we were walking along the Nebo side of the creek when three of us were intercepted by three young teenage stockmen who were with Amos Dixon. The stockmen told us one of us had to fight Amos (they must have been feeling bored!). Believing that I was as good as Hurricane Hawk I said; “I’ll do it “! They explained that there would be rounds and that we had to shake hands before we fought one another. I remember shaking hands first then whacking Amos in the stomach for a first hit. After the first few rounds Luke and Albert said I wasn’t doing too badly because Amos was bigger than me. The young stockmen stopped the fight after a while never saying who had won. Luke and Albert took me to ‘The Plum Tree Hole’ and told me to wash the blood off before I went home. When I dived in and hit the cold water the pain in my face was evidence of how much skin I had lost! When I got home mum said that I couldn’t go to the school dance looking like that and because I had been fighting - so I stayed home with my cat and kangaroo rat. (Luke always said, ‘Get that rat away from my dog it will give him marsupial ticks). I guess he didn’t like it as much as I did – probably not at all, come to think of it! (Amos Dixon now lives in Brisbane – he plays bowls with my younger brother Don. He still remembers the Nebo Creek fight and told Don all about it)!
Sergeant Jaenke, forever vigilant of the goings-on in the community, heard about the fight. He told the young stockmen who organised the fight that he would make them join the army if they had nothing better to do than cause mischief in the town. He said to mum; ‘Your boys’ dad is fighting ‘Japs’ while these lads obviously have nothing better to do than to cause trouble in town’. They soon went quickly back to their cattle station because stockmen were exempt from military service.
The dances at the Nebo Hall were still good fun but we missed the Bruce boys, Foley, Bill and Murray who had recently joined the military. They were the best athletes in town; they could outplay anyone on the cricket field or on the tennis court. Bill used to fix mum’s old radio; an absolute necessity to us – we needed to know what was happening! It was mostly used at night to listen to the news, ‘Mrs ‘Obbs’, ‘Dad and Dave’ and ‘First Light Fraser’. The signal it picked up was from Orange NSW, call sign 2GZ – a very long way from Nebo. During the day mum turned it on near midday to get the correct time. She would hang a large sheet up for 15 minutes to allow Mrs McDonald to set her clock – eventually everyone in Nebo who could see our house knew what time it was!
The Log Cabin was the best dance to watch as the dancers had to jump from side to side which caused all the dust from between the floorboards to fly out with great effect! (The Bruce boys were the very best at this). After this dance, several holes would appear in the floor, then we would have to go outside and break branches off trees to put into the holes so the people in the next dance wouldn’t fall in.
On the other side of the wall where the single ladies sat at the dance, there were rooms for stockmen and swagmen to rent during their sojourns in town. Sadly, dad’s uncle Martin spent a lot of his time, when he was not working as a stockman, passed out in one of these rooms after binge drinking his pay cheque funds.
Martin McCall was a light horseman during World War 1; because the Cavalry could not take their horses into the mud of The Somme, all Cavalry Soldiers fought as Infantrymen. Martin was severely wounded when shrapnel from an exploding shell tore into his back. He said he heard a stretcher-bearer say he was past help; but he eventually crawled back to his trench alone and was evacuated.
When Martin returned from the war in1918, he returned to stockwork. I would see him ride into Nebo on his grey stockhorse with the perfect seat of a Cavalry Soldier – within a few days he would stagger past our school without shoes or shirt, with dried blood on his body from either fighting or falling down. The great tragedy was that the kids, and others mocked him and our family for his behaviour. Martin never married and never talked to anyone about his time ‘at war’. No one knew the suffering he carried with him from the battlefields of France. We had our own war going on and were (at that time) totally oblivious to the actual horrors of it. Thanks to Martin I do not drink, and I think often of the lack of understanding we had for his plight – RIP Martin.
- 3013 Pte McCall Martin
- 47th Battalion –Australian Army September 9th 1916 - July 23rd 1918
- 47th Battalion –Australian Army September 9th 1916 - July 23rd 1918
Ainslie McCall
November 2010
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