‘I don’t really want to be here, I really don’t’, thought the quiet non-assuming young man. He felt he had to be there, he was expected to be there, and here he was, one of the pallbearers for the biggest state occasion Melbourne had ever held. He said to himself, forget it all; if it had not been for me, there would be no bodies to bury. He had felt humiliated, used, and put in a position he hated. It was all over now or was it?
“I’ve been here for ten years now, and I end up having to do this”. Alfred felt hurt and annoyed as he thought of the events that had led to this occasion.
It had been a tiring day, the scorching heat unbearable as usual, and to make matters worse, he had to dress in his best bib and tucker. But now it was all over. The refreshing evening air was creeping in cooling him somewhat. He removed his tall black hat, which he had worn for the occasion. He tossed it around in his hand as he returned to his Uncle’s house where he lodged when visiting Melbourne. He felt he could leave the town, itself without complaint from officialdom. Still swinging his hat in his hand, he sauntered along the main street of the top end of town, mulling over the activities of the day. Here he was, hot tired, and dusty, and out of a job. Had it all been worth it, he wondered.
The Government of Victoria, had for political reason, wanted to find a route from the south to the north of Australia. They wanted a port in the north. Why do governments get themselves in so many muddles? He had been a young man when he left England, at a time when he was not interested in the politics, not that he was now. Was England the same? He did not know nor really care. He was a man who wanted to enjoy his life, wherever he was. He wanted adventure and he was having that to the full. Oh how wonderful it was to be a free man, making your own choices. When things went wrong, it was your fault, but he wondered, was he just lucky or clever, as he was always successful as far as he could ascertain.
Oh how Australia had changed. Would he like to go back to the rough and ready life he had encountered when he first came out to Australia? He recalled the mud, and congestion of Melbourne, a place where everyone just had to be rushing around. The roadways hampered by the stumps of the trees that had been felled to build the houses, the deep ruts in the mud, which led to carts slithering about, pulling the poor horse or donkey in all directions.
In summer the ruts turned hard, giving a very bumpy ride, and in dry periods, the dust in the troughs, blew up, clouding vision, and getting into ones eyes, then you could not see the tall tree stumps. Some of these stumps got behind the cartwheels, pulling them off after getting embroiled with the horses’ shaft. The trees were shallow rooted, so they tended to lean or fall over, leaving them at all sorts of angles. Everyone was in such a hurry; there was no time to clear up the higgledy-piggledy trees blocking the thoroughfare. A cart without a wheel was just another road accident, a blockage.
There was no real planning, people were in too much of a hurry to get permission to purchase or get a licence for land on which to dig for gold. There were hoards of people arriving daily from all sorts of countries, so language was also a problem. Sailors from any country, jumped ship, just to seek gold for themselves. When a vessel was due to sail home, there was little or no crew! More crew had to be enlisted from amongst this unknown crowd. The motto was ‘everyone for themselves’.
Some people took a piece of land, possibly purchasing their plot first, and of course there was the gold office where the diggers brought their gold. Others were usurpers, taking over other people’s diggings. After taking the gold to the gold office, where the gold could be kept in a safe, it was quite usual for them to take their money, then drink or womanizer it away; it was only a few who saved it, keeping it in the safest place the gold office. Most people had no thought of tidying up Melbourne; they just left it as they found it. It was said to be the worst of all the gold rushes, even bigger and more chaotic than the Californian gold rush.
He was still the young wild young man, willing to put his hand to anything, hopefully to give him enough money to survive. Despite all the mess, and to Alfred, the misuse of their legal gains, did not really interest him.
In the last decade, the state of the town had improved. Population had doubled. Now it had a wide thoroughfare, a proper highway, which ran reasonably straight, but unfortunately, still got rather muddy in the wet season. Things were still improving, and the future for the new country was changing rapidly.
He was thinking how he still preferred to be on horseback, rounding up cattle, being thrown over a cow’s head sometimes into a thorn bush, not something he really wished for, but it had happened on more than one occasion. He had written to his mother in England about it, as he had thought it funny, but her reply was far from that; she started to worry about him, and that he did not like.
At least he had had a regular job for a while, but after today he realized with shock, he was now unemployed, and he would have to find some other work. He would not go back to rounding up cattle, because he had plans, big plans, and he had to save up money before he could put them into action
The State of Victoria wanted to gain a northern port and it also wanted to get hold of more land, as at this period there were only two states for the whole country. Other areas were up for grabs, but Australia would eventually, in stages, be divided up into further states. He had heard of all the preparations, and seen all the advertising for people to volunteer to explore such a route. He had heard how there had been disputes, over who should go etc. Some of the men on the Victorian Expedition Committee had ulterior motives as to which people, they wanted to take on, and what roles each individual should play in this expedition. Some of the committee wanted their choice of applicant for personal gain, others for friends. Alfred felt the whole thing was dirty.
“Oh help, will they want me to do their bidding again? Will those on the committee in their ecstasy, remember I now have no job? I had better find another job quickly, but what type of job should I look for”, he thought.
He had held the post of Warden of Gippsland, a job he had for sometime and had been told he did it well, and then the bombshell – dismissal. The Victorian Government had found they were short of money, and this was one way they thought, they could make savings. It was to transpire however, that after a couple of months, the Government decided they had made a mistake, and reinstated him.
Alfred had been pleased he had not been around when all this was happening, especially as he had witnessed the party assembling, and he had told his friends, that he was very glad not to be leading this unruly party. They didn’t even know that horses and camels didn’t like one another! Actually the animals disliked the noises of the opposite species, as a result, these animals were always running away from one another. Someone would then had to chase after them, coax them, hoping to isolate them from one another. Fun to watch maybe, but not such fun if you were the person in charge of such beasts.
Those in the know was the Sepo. He was the man who trained and cared for camels, so he had been employed to look after the expedition camels. He tried to explain to his superiors what would happen, but they knew better than the Sepo! Alfred also told his friends this expedition would be a disaster, and that should anything go wrong, it would be to him, the exploration committee would turn to sort things out, and so it had transpired.
Thee expedition leader was Captain Burke, a former policeman, with a rather dubious past, no one really knew what his past was, except that he was born in Galloway, in Ireland. The Melbourne dignitaries did not know whether he was a Roman Catholic or Church of England, so what sort of funeral service would be in keeping for this man. A man who did not understand the camels, nor how to pack the provisions onto their humps.
The sepoys who had come to Australia with the camels from India with the intention of looking after them on the trek, was over ridden by Captain Burke, the flamboyant and charismatic leader of the failed expedition, who thought he knew better. The aim of the party was to cross the continent, from south to north, and as quickly as possible.
Burke did not understand anything about the costly scientific equipment, which had been provided for the young scientist to use. A young man, John Wills had certain experimental tasks to undertake. The tests and measurements Wills was supposed to make were not understood by Burke, nor did Burke understand the need for such scientific tests, or how carefully