ABPA — The Australian Bush Poets Association Inc.

MET AT A COUNTRY PUB.

© Jim Kent

Winner, 2024 Eastwood/Hills FAW Boree Log, Sydney, NSW.

I met him in a country pub, way out the back of Bourke,
while trucking plant to Opal miners - hot and dusty work.
My throat was parched and tonguing for a cold and frothy brew,
and there I’d stopped to whet the whistle with a beer or two.
 
He was the only customer, his chair beside the bar.
“You’re looking thirsty, mate,” he said, “so join me for a jar.”
I guess he sensed my hesitation and shook his greying head,
“I ain’t no bar fly bludgin’ drinks, I buys me own,” he said.
 
“Besides I ain’t a drinkin’ man, me daily quota’s few,
and sittin’ here and thinkin’, mate, is what I mostly do,
exceptin’ when there’s others here and then I likes to yak,
a lonely place for man and beast, out here along the track.”
 
“It’s mostly quiet hereabouts except on Sat’dee night,
that’s when the ringers from the stations come to drink and fight.
At times there’s shearers passing through, or drifters chasing dreams,
a hopeless track they’re following, for life ain’t what it seems.”
 
I joined him at the bar beneath a rattling ceiling fan,
a rustic friendly bushie who I guessed a lonely man,
with ancient pipe and baccy tin, on the bar a battered hat,
it wouldn’t hurt, I told myself, to stop awhile and chat.
 
“I’m ninety come September, wonderin’ if I’ll make the ton,
the only time I’ve left this place is when we fought the Hun,
in Alamein a German mine removed me bloody peg.”
He tapped his knee to show me that he had a wooden leg.
 
“It’s been no handicap,” he said, “when workin’ on the land,
it didn’t stop me rousin’ – always was a station hand.
Retired now, I spend me time just sitting in the shade,
while thinking of the blokes I’ve met and all the friends I’ve made.
 
“Rememberin’ too those passin’ through and mostly travellin’ light,
with tucker bags near empty, out of work and on the bite.
I’d often lend a bob or so to battlers on the track,
despite the promises they made they rarely paid me back!’’
 
He sparked a distant memory from many years ago,
when Stretch and I were on the track, and always short of dough
while chasing rainbows never found. The foolish dreams of youth,
the visions splendid shattered by an awful bitter truth.
 
We never found our pot of gold, just empty tucker bags,
deciding that we’d had enough we chucked away our swags,
returning home no longer boys, instead much wiser blokes,
and where we’d never have to bludge for tucker, beer and smokes.
 
My bushie friend was yarning still, he liked to hold the floor,
“Yer know,” he said,” I reckon that I’ve seen you here before.
Me mind is shonk rememberin’ names but don’t forget a face,
of fellas met along the track, or stoppin’ by this place.”
 
I said “I’ve been a truckie now for thirty years or more,
and travelled many country roads but not this way before.
Perhaps I passed this place one time, a shearing wannabee,
when skint we were, my mate and I, and on the wallaby.”
 
He snapped his fingers, interrupting, “You’ve been here before,
the fella trampin’ with you tallest bloke I ever saw,
like rabbits on the run you were, and beggin’ for a ride
to dodge the shearers chasing you and after head and hide.”
 
“You’d been to Barlow’s River Station looking for a job,
the shearers there were striking though, a tough, unruly mob.
A pair of scabs was said of you and told to “bugger off!”
you dumped that punchy shearing boss into a water trough.”
 
The memories came flooding back, I hung my head on shame,
I’d thrown the shearer in the trough and Stretch had copped the blame,
and beaten with a wooden post, his face was quite a sight,
I hit one shearer with a brick before we fled in flight.
 
“And baying for yer blood they were, those shearers giving chase,
and close behind, I reckon, when you buggers reached this place.”
The bushie grinned, or was it leered, “They’d skin yer both alive
and hang you high with barbed wire, their wrath you’d not survive.”
 
“The mailman passing by refused to let you in his van,
for he was once a shearer too, also a union man.
I was a simple working bloke, with just a coupla crown,
but reckoned it’d change his mind, he’d take yer into town.
 
He grinned again and sipped his beer, “The bugger let you ride,
escapin’ from that angry mob., the luck was on yer side,
the angry shearers found you gone, a long way down the track
and headin’ fer the town and rail and never looking back.”
 
We rode the rattler out of there and swore we’d not return,
for tramping tracks and shearing sheep no longer our concern.
Now Stretch and I are mates no more, we went our different ways,
forgetting then or so I hoped, those painful distant days.
 
I left that pub a humble man and feeling rather rotten,
beguiled by distant memories I’d thought so long forgotten,
and angry that I’d stopped to chat, the yesterdays revive
when scabs we were and on the run and lucky to survive.
 
I was about to drive away – he called me from the door.
“Before you go,” he said to me, “There’s just a matter more”,
Oh Gawd, I thought and feeling sick, what other evil did?
“Your mate and you,” he called aloud, “still owe me half a quid!”


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