A yarn by Murray Norris

Ringer of Broome

On a droving trip to Wave Hill in early 45, we camped one day near a bore about 15 miles from the Armstrong River on the Monteginni Station - country which was an outstation of Victoria River Downs.
About 3 pm we heard cattle coming in to water, so we got on our horses and rode out to give a hand to put them on water.
It was a drover who was very short handed.
He had about 1200 head of bullocks in the mob and he should have had five men.
He only had three.
Jackie Brown, who was with me said: "Christ mate, having you got any men beside the cook and horse-tailer?"
The drover said: "I had a Beagle Bay Aboriginal but he got lost back at the river yesterday and hasn't caught up yet."
I butted in and said: "Hell, a Beagle Bay man wouldn't know up from down being a mission boy, and he'll be doing a perish if he goes the wrong way."
After some pretty heated discussion we lay down the law: the cattle would rest up the next day and we would leave at daybreak and try to pick up the lost one's tracks.
So at daylight next morning, Brownie, Bill Cousins, the drover, myself and Laddie, an Aborigine from the Wave Hill country, one of the Gurrindji tribe, rode back to where the river crossed the track.
We rode down it for a mile or so and Laddie picked up the tracks of the Beagle Bay man.
He was going dead south instead of north - and south was the country that Hitchcock and Anderson perished in after they landed there searching for Kingsford-Smith.
Laddie was a good tracker and we followed the tracks at a good pace all day.
Late that evening we first saw his horse and then the lad.
He was lying under a bush.
His tongue was swollen up and had ants all over it.
We put a towel over his tongue and mouth, and dribbled water over it until the swelling went down and he came to.
We kept the water up to him at night and by morning he was fit enough to ride.
Laddie led us back across country to our camp and next day we were on our way again.
In 1946, when as an organiser for the NAWU in Darwin, I went around the cattle stations. I pulled in to a mustering camp on Alexandria Downs. As I got out of the utility a joker got up from the fire and came over with his hand out.
He was the lad we had tracked and found the year before.
He was "ringing" in a mustering camp.
He gave me quite an introduction to the other ringers and he was the first one to get his union ticket.
He finally went back to his country again and I lost track of him until I was in Sydney in 1975 waiting for redundancy.
On a job one day I met the ex-president of the Broome Branch of the WWF.
He mentioned that they had a number of Aborigines in the Branch and one of them he named rang a bell; "Ringer" Corpus - the same lad we had saved on the Murrangi Track.
In '82 I was in Broome and spent some time with Paddy Young, the Branch VO.
He told me that "Ringer" Corpus had died a short time before, that he was a good unionist and often mentions that he had nearly done a perish when he had been heading down into the Tanami Desert.


From the Maritime Worker, March 1984

At the time when this was published Murray had retired from the wharf and was living in cairns. After the war he played a pivotal role as an organiser for the famous North Australian Workers Union. Read his facinating account in Rough Reds http://roughreds.com/rrone/norris.html

GLOSSARY:

NAWU North Australian Workers Union
WWF Waterside Workers Fereration
VO Vigilanti Officer -- Union official with the responsibility of seeing that agreements are adherered to.

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