The Killer Koala (2 page)

The
king brown was hissing like a leaking steam pipe and the death adder
appeared to dislike this. It made its way off, taking a path over
Blackie's motionless head. There were still eight snakes on Blackie,
seven of which were deadly.

I
pushed tentatively at the king brown and it reared back, but didn't
strike again. The movement disturbed the diamond snake and it went
off to a quieter place. But that wasn't any real advantage as it was
harmless anyway.

A
couple more black snakes started circling the walls and I remembered
that the door behind me was open. There was a reasonable chance that
within minutes the population of the snake house would be ravening
around Macka's Mistake beach. I preferred they should escape rather
than remain in the snake house with me, but I didn't want them
waiting just outside when, if ever, I managed to drag Blackie through
the door. I banged the rake on the floor in front of them. They
stopped, considered this phenomenon, then retreated. I went back and
pushed the door almost to.

What
was Blackie's great maxim about snakes? Handle them very gently and
slowly and they'll never bite you. I eyed the waving, hissing,
tongue-flicking king brown on Blackie's back and decided I didn't
believe this. Possibly if this king brown would just vacate Blackie's
back I might be able to prod the rest away, gently and slowly.

However,
the king brown showed no inclination to move and it was so angry now
I felt that if Blackie so much as twitched an ear it would have him.
I was sweating with terror and the rake handle was slippery in my
grasp. The tension in my body was so great I knew that if I didn't
solve this quickly I would collapse or run weeping from the snake
house.

The
devil with treating snakes slowly and gently, I thought; you can also
treat them quickly and violently. I swung the rake at the weaving
king brown with every intention of decapitating it if possible. It
ducked. The rake missed. The snake struck. It became entangled with
the prongs and I was holding the rake in the air with the king brown
on the end of it.

It
sorted itself out quickly, coiled itself around the handle of the
rake and began moving towards my hands. Convulsively I flung the rake
away. It fell flat on Blackie's body, stirring the current
inhabitants into a frenzy.

Fortunately,
they all seemed to think they were being attacked by other snakes.
They whipped up onto their coils and began threatening each other.
Then, presumably trying for more advantageous positions, they all
slipped off Blackie and began retreating towards the walls. Only one,
the taipan, came near me.

All
I could do was try the standard procedure of not moving and hope it
would not notice that I was trembling uncontrollably. It went past
and took up a position near the door.

Blackie
was clear of snakes for the moment. He still hadn't moved. But now it
seemed safe to try to wake him.

'Blackie!'
I screamed and prodded him with my foot. He didn't stir. 'Blackie!' I
screamed again and kicked him hard in the ribs. He still didn't stir.

All
the snakes were awake and active now, but inclined to stay near the
walls. The only immediate problem was the taipan against the
almost-closed door. Obviously there was no chance of rousing Blackie,
so I leaned down and grabbed him by the shoulders. He half turned and
belched.

The
alcohol-loaded gust of breath was the only thing I have ever
encountered to approach a camel's breath for sheer noxiousness. The
rake was still across Blackie's back. I grabbed it with one hand and
grabbed him by the collar with the other.

The
collar came away in my hand. I grabbed him by his sparse hair, but
there wasn't enough of it to get a good hold. I grabbed him by the
back of his shirt. A great patch of it came away, revealing a bony,
dirty yellow back. There was not much left to grab him by, so I took
him by the hand and began hauling. Fortunately the hand held
together.

Blackie
was no great weight and I began inching him across the floor,
brandishing the rake at the taipan guarding the door and desperately
aware of the sea of serpents to my right and left and behind me.

A
carpet snake, quite harmless, wriggled within a handspan of my right
foot and I hit it with the rake out of sheer spite. I was close to
the door, just out of range of the taipan, which showed no sign of
moving. I pushed at it with the rake but it ducked disdainfully and
stayed where it was, weaving slowly and keeping its evil eyes fixed,
I was sure, on my bare, exposed and palpitating throat.

I
was desperately tempted to throw Blackie at the taipan and probably
would have done, except that it's hard to throw a man anywhere when
you've only got him by the hand.

I
had, of course, been bellowing my head off for help for some minutes
now and it came in the form of Alan Roberts, the photographer who,
seeing through the plate glass what was happening, gallantly flung
open the door to come to my help.

The
violently pushed door caught the taipan fair in the back of the neck
and squashed it against the wall. I went through the door, hauling
Blackie after me.

'What
the bloody hell . . .?' Alan was saying.

Blackie
had somehow stuck on the steps of the snake house. The taipan,
apparently undamaged by the door, was very close to his exposed
ankle, which it was inspecting curiously. The other snakes were
mercifully milling some distance away, hissing among themselves.

'Help
me get him out!' I gasped. Alan went through my routine of trying to
grab Blackie by the collar, hair and back of shirt and ended up with
handfuls of collar, hair and shirt before he grabbed Blackie's other
hand. Together we hauled him through the door and slammed it in the
face of the taipan, which seemed anxious to follow.

Blackie
folded into a grubby heap on the ground and I leant against the glass
and tried to start breathing, which I had apparently stopped doing
some time before.

'Has
he been bitten?' said Alan.

'I
don't know,' I croaked. 'Get an ambulance.'

Alan,
a competent man who was not about to ask foolish questions, turned to
go. Blackie jackknifed to his feet, opened the door of the snake
house and tried to go back in.

Alan
and I grabbed him by the shoulders and slammed the door.

'Blackie!'
shouted Alan. 'What's wrong with you?'

Blackie,
immobilised, stared at the closed door bemusedly.

'He's
very drunk,' I said. I don't know whether he's been bitten or not.' I
was beginning to doubt it. I didn't think people came out of snake
poison comas quite so abruptly. If he was out of a coma.

'Blackie,'
I said, 'are you awake? Has a snake bitten you?'

Blackie
started to turn around, so we let him go. He stared at each of us in
turn as though he was trying to work out who we were.

'Blackie,'
I said again, 'has a snake bitten you?'

Blackie
focused on me and said disdainfully, 'Snakes don't bite me.'

'I
think he's just drunk,' I said quietly to Alan, and then to Blackie,
'better come up to my campervan and lie down for a while, Blackie.'

'Sure,'
said Blackie, 'just lie down in here.' And he turned and tried to get
in with the snakes again. Alan and I grabbed him.

'Come
on, Blackie, come up to the van and have a sleep.'

But
Blackie had looked through the plate glass and seen his beloved
snakes rushing backwards and forwards or coiled and waving and
hissing.

'Something's
wrong with my snakes!' he roared, and began to struggle with us to
get free.

'Blackie,
Blackie,' said Alan, 'take it easy. You've had a few drinks.'

'
'Course I've had a few drinks,' said Blackie. 'Can't a man have a few
drinks?'

'Of
course you can, Blackie,' I said soothingly, 'but you were passed out
with snakes all over you. We just hauled you out.'

Blackie
looked at me closely. 'So that's why my snakes are all upset,' he
said.

'That's
right, Blackie.'

Blackie
thought about that. 'Ah well,' he said after a while, 'I suppose you
meant no harm. Don't do it again, though.'

And
the wretched man pulled away and tried to get in the door again. Alan
and I could hold him easily, but we weren't prepared to do it
indefinitely.

'Now
listen, Blackie,' I said firmly, 'just come over to my van and have a
few hours' sleep and you can come back to your snakes.'

'I'm
going back to my snakes now,' said Blackie. 'Get your hands off me.'

We
let him go, but Alan slipped between him and the door. Blackie
considered this new problem.

'I'm
going in there,' he said quietly and threateningly.

'Calm
down, Blackie,' said Alan reasonably.

Blackie
took a wild and ineffectual swipe at him. Alan and I looked at each
other helplessly. I mouthed the word 'Police?' behind Blackie's back
and Alan nodded regretfully.

'Can
you keep him out of there?' I asked.

'Yes,'
said Alan confidently. I thought he could, too; Blackie was far too
drunk to put up much of a fight.

The
trouble was I didn't know where the nearest telephone was. As far as
I knew I might have to go into Mackay, eighty kilometres away.

I
drove at incredible speed down to the highway and was delighted to
see a police patrol car go past at the junction of the roads. I sped
after it with my hand on the horn and it stopped. I leaped out of my
van and ran to the police car. Two solemn Queensland policemen, both
fat, redfaced, without humour, eternally middle-aged, looked at me
expressionlessly.

'I
wonder, would you follow me?' I said breathlessly. 'I've got a friend
who's very drunk who wants to sleep with his snakes.'

There
was a long pause.

'What?'
said the two policemen eventually, simultaneously.

'I've
got a friend who's very drunk who wants to sleep with his snakes,' I
said again, but this time I could hear my own words.

There
was another long pause.

'Could
you explain a bit more, sir?' said the driver policeman. Even then I
could wonder at the talent of policemen for using the word 'sir' as
an insult.

'Oh
the hell with it, it's too difficult to explain. Just follow me, will
you? It's urgent.'

I
thought they probably would follow me, if not necessarily for the
reason I wanted them to. I was right. They did and we arrived back at
Macka's Mistake to find Blackie pinned to the ground with Alan
Roberts kneeling on his shoulders. The snake house was still a whirl
of activity. Blackie was shouting obscenities with considerable
eloquence.

I
don't say the policemen put their hands on their guns, but they
looked as though they might any minute.

It
was all too difficult to explain, so I just gestured at the strange
tableau of Blackie and Alan in front of the snake house.

'What
seems to be the problem?' said one of the policemen.

Blackie
stopped shouting when he saw the uniforms. Alan let him go and he
stood up, stared for a moment then looked reproachfully and
unbelievingly at me. 'You called the cops,' he accused.

'What
is all this?' said the policeman.

Blackie
saved the necessity for an explanation by feebly trying to punch the
policeman's nose. They took him off to Mackay and charged him with
being drunk and disorderly.

Alan
and I waited through the day until we felt he must be reasonably
sober and then went down and bailed him out.

Blackie
was silent until halfway through the journey back when he suddenly
and tearfully asked, 'How could you do this to me?'

Alan
and I explained the sequence of events to him.

'Is
that true?' he said.

'Perfectly
true, Blackie. We had to do it.'

'I
can see that. Funny, I don't remember any of it.'

I
tactfully made no reference to the two empty bottles of whisky.

'I'm
really sorry,' Blackie said. 'Just goes to show, though
—
snakes
and alcohol don't mix.'

Crocodiles and Sex

There
are many phenomena in Nature for which I am grateful, but the
strangest is that the sex life of a crocodile is exhausting.

I
discovered this on a trip up the East Alligator River, which runs
along the border of Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. I had been
lured there by Roger Huntingdon, a lecturer in one of the natural
sciences at Sydney University. He had obtained a grant to study the
great estuarine crocodiles that inhabit the coastline of northern
Australia and he invited me to go with him. I had some passing
acquaintance with crocodiles, but only the freshwater type, except
for one salt water fellow I encountered in distressing circumstances
after he was dead. Roger's offer sounded interesting, so I went
along.