Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 112, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 May 1912 — The Heroism of John Romanes [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Heroism of John Romanes

by L.Warburton

OU will not find the name of John.— Romanes on the scroll of honor, for men win the 2 badge of fame in many ways and there are many degrees of valor and many varying rewards won by its display. “POace has her heroes, no less renowned than war,” is the as-

sertion of the poet, but this must be qualified by the omission of the word “no.” It is so at any date in the case of John Romanes, for his deed was performed in- the silence and solitude of the great Australian bush, without a single spectator who could bear witness to its exemplltude of courage of the highest quality, devotion seldom equaled, and a self-sacrifice so rare that few men unacquainted with the perils of the bush can appreciate it As the subject of Romanes* heroism it shall be my duty to tell to a wider circle of readers the events which earned for a hero no greater reward than my own undying gratitude and admiration. It seems strange to me that, so far, few persons outside of Australia have ever heard of the stupendous efforts the government of Western Australia has made to prevent the incursion of the rabbit pest into the farming and pastoral regions of that state and, as my story has to do with that mammoth work, I feel bound to speak briefly of it. For over fifty years the rabbits, Imported to Australia by some misguided immigrant, have been a fearful scourge to the eastern states of the island continent. Net fences had proved a success in tile east and the government at once entered on the stupendous task of running a rabbitproof fence right across the country to act as a barrier to the : invading hosts. That fence stands today, a completed and successful obstacle to the inroads of the pest. It is over 1,500 miles long, and stretches from Starvation Boat harbor, in the Great Australian Bight, to Condon, in the Ninety Mile Beach, away in the tropic north. It cost the country over $1,500,000. , To maintain the barrier in a state Of effectiveness against the depredations of the hostile natives, the blind attacks of emus and kangaroos and the ravages of flood, tornado and fire, a whole army of men are employed constantly patrolling it In the far north, however, where the fast disappearing bands of black aborigines are still in great numbers and are savage and treacherous, the boundary riders always work in pairs. They have great hardships to encounter and great dangers to brave—consequently they are picked men and re- • oelve high wages. They go armed always, and in the spinifex country, with which my story is concerned, they are mounted on camels, because of the scarcity of water. I was associated in the early days of the construction of the fence with the advanced survey party and, on the completion of the structure, was Induced by the high pay to accept the position of Inspector of a length of fence in the far north. A “length” is the namfe given to a section of the fence which is patrolled or ridden by one boundary rider, or two, as the case might be, but an inspector’s "length” may consist, as in my case it did, of three ordinary lengths, a distance in thifi instance of close on three hundred miles. The inspector establishes a central depot where stores kept, a decent well sunk and where the boundary riders meet after working back along their lengths. ■lt was in April, 1908, that I left Separation Well, the southernmost point of my section of the fence, and proceeded north to the De Grey river, a distance of 200 miles, where 1 had my main depot. There I was to meet Romanes and his mate Gregory, who had to patrol the last hundred miles of jay territory. When I reached the depot, then in charge of two men who were kept there as a relief, I found Romanes in camp, with his mate, who was very ill with malaria and quite unfit to take the track for some time, although his condition was not serious. I was particularly anxious to see the northern section of my part of the fence, because there had been a tropical flood a we£k or two before and from some overlandIng stockmen I had heard thr* the * fence was In a bad state of repair. When I questioned Romanes,/whom I did not know very well—in pact, I had entertained a suspicion of him from the moment the reports as to the state of his particular length came to me—he was rather nettled and challenged me to come out -wth him Without delaying for a. week’s nest to which he was entitled aftjr completing his cut and back ridel The camels were in good fettle and I took Stamm new at his word and decided that SEMUIXJ fit »»kTD Csv USMv

with him I should go out two days later. This we did, taking with us the two best camels available for riding purposes and a third to carry supplies for a fortnight’s journey. Before leaving the depot I asked both Romanes and the man in charge whether the natives were “bad” along the track. “Queensland Charlie, that ‘boy’ of Turnbull’s at the De Gray station, told me that ’Major’ and ’Toby’ were loose again and heading this way, but I don’t believe it,” said Romanes. “They would make back into West Kimberley to dodge the police. and anyway, if they do get down here Turnbull tells me he had word that they are not armed. I don’t reckon we’ll see anything of ’em, boss.” “Well, I hope not,” I said, “but we’ll take some extra cartridges and keep a sharp lookout.” As events proved, my fears of trouble with the roving band under “Major” and "Toby,” two escaped native prisoners and the worst characters that were ever loose, were better grounded than I knew. It took us eight days to make the one hundred miles of our eastward journey, as we made a careful inspection of the fence, which I found to be in better shape than I expected, although we had to do a lot of strengthening to the temporary repairs which Romanes had effected on his previous trip. At the end of my section near Mount Bruce we met the two boundary riders who had worked south from the next section to the north. They had heard nothing of the movements of Major and Toby and reported everything quiet. We parted company next day, Romanes and myself proceeding on what should have .been a six-day trip back and the other'men returning north.

We made a good day’s march and camped at a rain shed about eighteen miles out, just as it was getting dusk. Not a sign nor a sight of a native had either Romanes or myself seen. In fact, we had not given them a thought. I lit a fire of mulga sticks behind a clump of gidgie bush and was soon busily engaged on the task of making a “damper,” or bread baked in the ashes. A flock of Nor’ West parrots flew screeching overhead. Romanes hobbled the camels and turned them loose with their bells making a monotonous “clamp-clamp,” as they went in search of young and tender spinifex bush. _ _r—“How would stewed parrot go, boss?” Romanes asked me as he looked after the rowdy birds, which bad settled in a solitary gum tree a couple of hundred yards Inside the fence. “Pretty good,” I replied. “Take the gun and bag a few.” Romanes picked up my double-bar-reled Greener gun, stuffed a couple of extra cartridges into his pocket, and was about to follow up the parrots when I advised him to take the Winchester too, saying that he might bring back the tail of a young kangaroo for soup. I lost sight of Romanes a minute later and went on with my preparations for our evening meal. The “daniper” was made and I was just raking out the clean live coals of the fire on which to bake it, wben I beard a rustle in the bush at my back. . As' I turned a spear whizzed by me and stuck fflMvering in the “grub bag” of the, camel saddle a few feet away! ‘ ■'At the same moment Lsaw half a

dozen savages in all their war paint I rose and literally threw myself at the nearest saddle, against which a second Winchester rested. With that in my hand I could make a bolt and protect myself in a running fight. But that was not to be. A second spear, aimed with half a dozen others, went through my left wrist, and, as I involuntarily dropped the rifle and grabbed at the spearshaft, a waddy descended on my head and my senses left me.

What actually transpired from the moment I lost touch with mortal existence until I found myself again in the depot I had to glean from the unwilling answers of Romanes to my question, and fill in the blanks from my Imagination. When he left me to follow the parrots, Romanes did not anticipate going more/than a quarter of a mile, at most, into the scrub and expected to be back in camp within fifteen minutes at the outside, but before he could get a shot at the birds they had led him on for a mile. It was while he was on his way back to the camp that he heard a shout, which resembled very closely the yell of triumph the natives give when they have captured their game, be it human or animal.

Approaching the camp cautiously, Romanes caught sight of the natives raiding the outfit, tearing open the "grub bags” and generally making themselves acquainted with everything in the camel packs. Having "tumbled to what had happened, Romanes’ first thought was to open fire on the blacks and before the natives knew what had happened a double charge of parrot shot struck them. With a yell they arose, the leader (whom it subsequently transpired was Major) grabbing the Winchester and firing wildly in the direction whence the shot had come. Romanes had taken shelter behind a bush which, while it obscured him from view, gave him no protection against bullets. He fired one shot from his rifle, and, dashing from his cover, made for a tree a hundred yards away, the natives following in a body. Once behind a stout trunk he brought his rifle into play ,and emptied the magazine with such effect that three of the natives fell and the others, meeting such a stout foe, bolted into the bush after vainly hurling all their spears and spending what cartridges were in the captured Winchester.

Not knowing how many natives there were, or whether there ..were more than he had seen in the neighborhood, Romanes wasted no time in climbing into the tree, there to wait until it was quite safe for him to make a further move, as the superstitious nature of the blacks Would prevent them from making any further attack. When he had spent a couple of hours in his high perch Romanes quietly slipped down and approached the camp, for the main purpose of endeavoring to get a further supply of ammunition, and to secure one of the camels in order that he might get away from the dangerous locality as soon as he had collected anything of value which the natives had left He expected to find me dead as a doornail and battered beyond recognition, but he got the shock of his life when he bent over me and found me breathing. There was a big wound on the back

of my head,’ and the first thing Romanes had to do was to stop the flow .of blood and pack me up somehow out of the way of swarms of ants that already were busy at work. Having made me as comfortable as possible, Romanes went in search of the camels, his idea being to strap me to one and get away without delay, for if the natives should return in the morning in increased numbers, neither of us would ever leave the spot. Poor John, he little knew then what a burden he had assumed in finding me alive! Better for him would it have been if I had really died then and he could have buried me, and, unhampered by a delirious man, have hastened to safety. His first disappointment came when he stood /jp to listen for the bells of the camels, which should have been heard. He failed to catch the faintest tinkle. His disappointment became alarm when not three hundred yards from the camp he found our pack camel dead, with several spears sticking it, and the other two, fifty yards fuurther on, hopelessly wounded. His determination not to leave me placed him in this predicament: he had first of all to'shlft me to a place of safety before morning brought the natives on us again; and alone he had then to get me into the De Grey depot, a distance of nearly eighty miles, the best part of it over waterless country. It was impossible for me to move of my own initiative, for that had left me and I lay like a log, senseless, delirious. If my life was to be saved I had to be moved from the spot where I fell and be carried to a place of safety. That was the cohclusion Romanes arrived at and before another dawn broke we were ten miles away from the scene of our last camp and I was safely resting in the shade of a bush, while Romanes went in search of water and food.

In the dark hours of the next night Romanes carried me another twelve miles and collapsed beside me near an old native well. How long into that day he slept, Romanes never knew, but when he awakened, probably as the result of my ravings, he saw a native coming along the fence scarcely two hundred yards away. His first thought was to shoot at sight, believing that the black must be one of our old enemies, but feeling certain that the black fellow could not have seen us in our retreat, he decided to wait till he came right up. The native was apparently following our tracks and was already turning off into the bush just where we had left the fence, when Romanes recognized him as a native he had seen at Turnbull’s station.

“Hullo there!” he yelled. The black fellow stopped, saw the strange and dilapidated white man with a rifle in his hand, and turned with a yell to bolt into the bush. Romanes called to him to halt and at the same time used Turnbull’s name, and dropped his lisle. At the familiar name, and seeing that he was not to be shot instanter, the na-tive-stood still while Romanes walked toward him and told him who he was. •The black accepted the peace overtures, and When Romanes learned that he was making for the De Grey station with the news from an outstation that the warlike natives were about, Romanes decided to trust him and conducted him to where I was lying. He inspected my wounds with many grunts and exclamations of concern. He made a native plaster for my wounds, composing it of leaves and sticking it on with wet clay, over ~whleTi~Wttrrl)ound thepieceofoMrt--sleeve which Romanes had first used to staunch the blood. Then with a message to both the depot and his employer, asking them to hasten to our assistance and telling them where they would find us, dead or alive, the native was dispatched by Romanes. Romanes then picked me up again, and, footsore and exhausted as he was, carried me another nine miles. There for three whole days and nights we lay, myself in a high state of fever, happily oblivious to all that, happened, and Romanes incessantly on the watch for blacks. On the morning of the fourth day after our arrival at the shed, relief came. When poor Romanes, by this time half-insane as the result of his hardships, realized that he actually saw white men and that the hordes of furious savages rushing on him were merely the creation of his bloodshot eyes, be broke down and wept. Three days later I awoke to consciousness and found myself in comparative comfort at the De Grey depot, where the surveying party’s cook —a first-rate amateur surgeon—had patched me up and doctored me in great style from the outfit’s medicine chest. I was still a helpless wreck, but my brain was clearing, and when I realized where I was I asked about Romanes. They brought him to me and it was harder work for that brave fellow to answer my question as to how I got safe in from Mount Bruce than it had been for him to carry me the best part of the journey. It was a month before I was well enough to travel down to Geraldton and there convalesce, but before I left I had the satisfaction of knowing that Major and Toby had met with their Inevitable fate. They had “stuck up” the Turkey Creek station, and, on being beaten off by the stockmen, ran into the arms of a police patrol, who killed many of the natives, including the ringleaders, and captured the balance. When I was able to report to headquarters a further piece of Intelligence pleased me. That was that my rescuer, John Romanes, had been promoted to the charge of an inspector’s section and had been assigned to one of the best stretches Of fence in the southern country.