The Storm

[thestoryteller]

The incident I had previously mentioned came about after a freakish storm hit the place one day while I was working up at the pigsties. It had followed the Lachlan River down on a five mile front, building in intensity, until it took its fury out on 'Nanami'. A fellow station hand was working about twenty yards away from the sties when the wind blew him head over turkey, dumping him up against one of the fences. That was where he sat it out, huddled into a ball, while fallen branches and rubbish covered him. I took shelter behind the walls of the farrowing pens, which were covered with a roof made from hay and bush poles. Gum and Box trees were being stripped of foliage and broken like match sticks, some even torn clean out of the ground. Windmills were thrown to the ground and their heads buried in the dirt on impact, as if some giant had discarded them like a useless toy. I could see the pigsty roofs lifting up and down with the wind, but they somehow managed to stay attached to the buildings. An old bagman who had been tramping down the driveway, calling in for rations when it hit, had sought shelter in the sties with me. As the storm finally moved on down the river, he looked at me and said in a passive sort of tone, "Bit of a wee squall lad."
"A wee bit mate," I replied, as he bid me,
"G'day," and moved on.

THE STORM

The sun had been real hot that day out on the “Nanami”.
Our chore was cleaning out the sties my young workmate and I.
When birds along the Lachlan’s banks began to disappear
as instinct warned them of the storm they knew was drawing near.

The banks of heavy cloud that morn had turned as black as sin.
A five mile front of squalling winds converged with such a din.
It threw my mate some fifty yards and up against a fence.
He lay there huddled in a ball the dust now thick and dense.

Green foliage from the gums and box was stripped before my eyes
while others snapped like matchsticks and they fell with mournful cries.
The windmills spun out of control and raced around and ‘round
until the wind, like some great giant, just threw them to the ground.

I hid behind the pigsty walls and viewed the scene from there;
joined by a bagman off the track; a rather frightened pair.
The pigsty roof of round bush beams, beneath thatched straw and mud
blew up and down though stayed attached throughout that violent scud.

Outbuilding walls and iron roofs were scattered far and wide.
This storm it raged for half an hour before it did subside.
My mate now hid by limbs and leaves crawled out from where he lay,
Old bagman with his swag in toe strode off and said, “Hooray.”

The Run it looked a battlefield now soaked by drenching rain.
Bewildered souls now re-emerged; old sun beat down again.
Those memories will stick with me until the day I die
of how the storm tore through that day that run called “Nanami”.

© Merv Webster

From the book In Days Gone By
http://users.tpg.com.au/thegrey/InDaysGoneBy.htm