About the Author  

Author Brian Phillips was born in the seaside town of Teignmouth in England. As a young man he married and moved to Australia where he fell in love with the Australian lifestyle. He worked as a successful journalist for Rupert Murdoch News Limited in Sydney for 25 years before retiring.  

Through his love for writing and the Australian culture, he penned his one and only book, before he passed away at age 54 from a brain tumour. 

Part of the proceeds from this book will go to Brain Tumour Australia to enable research into brain tumours and to support people suffering with this tragic disease.

READ THE FIRST CHAPTER:

Chapter One 

The pig squealed as it slithered on the shale, running for its life. One hundred and thirty six kilograms of pork travelling at close to 32 kph, lungs striving for oxygen, and its four-year-old heart pounding like a trip hammer. The monster that had shattered the peace of the bush and sent the pig into flight was roaring closer and closer to the young boar as its tusks glinted in the fierce, tropical sun. The ugly, scarred head, now with a mask of saliva festooning the lower jaw, bobbed frenetically, the repellent porcine eyes searching for salvation and spotting a gap in the scrub.

Darryl Horne saw the pig drop its right shoulder and knew instinctively the animal was about to change direction. “Hang on! The bastards turning again!” he screamed above the revving engine as he threw the wheel of the utility, sending dust billowing and scree fanning out in a sweeping arc. “If he gets in that shit we’ll lose him. Nail the bugger, Athol!” yelled Horne, the adrenaline pumping and his mind totally focused on the bouncing rump, oblivious to the dust in his throat and the sweat stinging his eyes.

As the vehicle settled on its springs, Athol Tarbuck brought up the British number four rifle, tucking the stock into his right shoulder and squinting down the 25.2 barrel. “Timing. Timing. Timing. Don’t rush. Timing. Come on you little shit,” muttered Tarbuck. Suddenly the head of the pig bounced into his sights and he squeezed the trigger.

The .303 SAA Ball bullet sped towards its target at a muzzle velocity of 743 metres per second, entering the skull of the pig two centimetres behind the right ear and bouncing off bone and muscle to exit through the left cheek. The animal’s brain was destroyed but its muscles continued to respond to the momentum until it dropped and cart wheeled, some 22 metres past the point where the bullet claimed its life.

“You bloody ripper, Athol! Bet that little piggy wishes he’d stayed at home,” chuckled Horne as he brought the four-wheel drive utility to a slithering stop and cut the engine.

Tarbuck, a barrel-chested man now dripping in sweat and covered head to toe in North Queensland bulldust, grinned, showing tobacco stained teeth as he hopped down from the tray.

“Let’s have the knife, Darryl,” said Tarbuck, “and open up the fridge – I’ve gotta lay the dust as soon as I’ve got the tusks. If the bugger’s not diseased we’ll take a leg back to camp. The birds can have the rest.” He looked up at the white-knuckled man gripping the rail above the cab of the utility and motioned. “C’mon Jim, come and have a bo-peep at your first dead porker, courtesy of some pretty fancy shooting if I do say so myself. Eat your heart out Buffalo Bill.”

Slowly James Ferguson let his R.M. Williams boots make contact with the Queensland earth and he allowed his weight to follow.

He was convinced he would wake up at any moment and the vista of Sydney Harbour would be stretched out before him, the air-conditioning humming quietly in his Vaucluse home and Louise teasing him awake. He surreptitiously pinched himself and knew he wasn’t dreaming – he really was in the middle of nowhere, the temperature nudging 40 degrees Celsius and the humming wasn’t from the air-conditioning. It was from the flies already gathering for the feast.

The pig lay sprawled in the dirt; its sightless eyes seeming to accuse Ferguson as he walked towards the corpse and noted that nature’s cleaning machines were already at work. Bull ants were scouring through the blood and a blanket of flies lifted as they approached. Soon would come the crows, other pigs, dingoes and nothing but glistening bones would be left.

Ferguson stood back from the corpse as Tarbuck went to work with the Bowie knife, cutting through the pig’s jaw to prise the tusks from their deep-set foundations. “Just a young ’un,” said Tarbuck, “’bout four years old. Big bugger for his age, but I’ve heard there’s a great granddaddy white boar in these parts and you’d need a bloody elephant gun to bring the bastard down. He’s got tusks a mile long and curled back like concertina springs. That’d be something to take back to the club in Coogee. Now, let’s see if young piggy here is good eating.”

Pocketing the tusks, Tarbuck weighed the knife in his right hand and then plunged it into the corpse, expertly splitting the breast bone and slicing down to the groin. The pig split open like an over-ripe tomato.

“The bastard’s full of crap,” said Tarbuck, matter-of-factly, as Ferguson clapped a hand to his mouth and tried not to breathe as an incredible stench wafted over the clearing. He spun on his heel, refusing to believe what he’d just seen and smelt and sure he was going to vomit. Then Tarbuck, roaring with laughter, slipped an arm around his shoulders and led him back towards the utility.

“Hits ya right in the gut, dunnit Jimbo?” said Tarbuck, not in the least bit concerned at Ferguson’s plight. “Don’t worry – the first is always the worst. Ya’ll need a beer to get rid of the taste. That’s the trouble with you lawyers and your sheltered lives. It’s all very well looking at pictures in court, but you don’t get the smell of death in there, do ya? By the time this trip’s over, you’ll know how a picture smells. Consider it part of the Tarbuck education, my old son.”

At that moment, Ferguson was seriously considering dropping out of the Tarbuck school of life – and death. How he’s let Tarbuck and the others talk him into going on the trip was beyond him. I’m a 38-year-old barrister destined for greater things, he thought, so what the fuck am I doing here? How is a pig shoot going to further my career and could somebody please, please turn that bloody sun off and take the stink away. God, I’m as Australian as the next man but this isn’t Australia – it’s hell. And where the hell are we, anyhow? He put his thought into words and turned towards Tarbuck. “What’s this place called Athol?” he said.

“The Outback, Jim. The real fucking Outback. This isn’t the show-pony shit all them fancy tour operators take the Yanks and Nips to see, mate. This is raw bloody Australia.

“Up thataways to the north-west,” said Tarbuck extending his left arm, “is the Doomadgee Aboriginal Reserve. The Hell’s Gate Roadhouse is up there, too. Over there to the west, about 200 kms away, is the Lawn Hill National Park which ain’t none of those things – it ain’t lawn, there’s no bloody hills and you’ve never seen a park like it.”

Tarbuck looked at his protégé and saw that the lawyer’s keen brain was doing what it did best – rapidly absorbing information, the discomfort of the heat and the pig’s death temporarily cast aside as Ferguson sought the answer to his question.

Swinging his arm to the south, Tarbuck continued, “Down there, that’s The Isa, where the folk would just as soon have a fight as a feed and Mount Isa Mines makes squillions – you’d almost call the place civilized, if it wasn’t for the stink of copper. And over there to the east you’ve got Croydon, Normanton. Burketown and flies bigger’n a German Shepherd. See, Jim, its raw Australia, land only a boong could love.”

The use of the derogatory term for Australia’s native people brought Ferguson up short. Although he’d known Tarbuck for six years now, the man’s bluntness – coarseness – still rankled. It was almost as if Tarbuck took pride in his ability to offend, particularly those he deemed to be members of the upper crust. Ferguson didn’t rise to the bait; instead he concentrated on the schoolboy atlas and history lessons unfolding in his mind. “Leichhardt country, eh Athol?” said Ferguson, pleased he’d been able to navigate the locale from facts gleaned in his youth. “There should be a tree somewhere around here with his initials on it.”

“Over on Gregory Downs, where we came in,” replied Tarbuck. “But I’ve never seen it – I don’t bother with all that crap.”

No, you wouldn’t, thought Ferguson as he remembered the saga of Ludwig Leichhardt, the escapee from the Prussian military draft who became the darling of Sydney society in the mid 19^th century. On other people’s money – just like Athol, thought Ferguson – Leichhardt led an expedition into the Gulf country in 1845 and returned to Sydney to tell of excellent grazing country for cattle. Lionized by the beau monde, Leichhardt enjoyed celebrity status as he raised funds for a second expedition, which was aborted, with some members accusing Ludwig of being an incompetent. Greedy merchants, anxious for a slice of the El Dorado to the north, persuaded Leichhardt to make the trek again in 1848 and he disappeared. Of 61 men and beasts, not a bone was found. Nothing, save the initials L.L., the Roman numeral V1 and an arrow carved into a tree on what is now Gregory Downs Station.

Old Solly, Ferguson’s fifth grade history master at the exclusive Scots College in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, had a theory the entire expedition had been swept away and deposited in the Gulf of Carpentaria for they knew nothing of the North’s meteorological madness and 9 metre tides which can turn a plain into a raging torrent in a matter of hours. “Lack of research,” Old Solly had intoned. “If Leichhardt had bothered to check he’d have discovered the Gulf was named after Pieter Carpentier, Governor General of the Dutch East Indies, by Jan Carstens who surveyed the area in 1623. He’d also have discovered what Carstens wrote in his journal: ‘We saw no fruit bearing tree and nothing that man could make use of. In our judgment, it is the most arid and barren region on earth’. He’d also have learned about the wet and dry seasons. Make sure, boys, you’re never caught out through lack of research.”

Taking the hint from Solly, the young Ferguson had spent hours in the State Library of NSW, discovering Matthew Flinders had charted the Gulf aboard the Investigator in 1802 and Captain John Lort Stokes, aboard HMS Beagle in 1841, had sailed 80 kms up a river he named the Albert to discover ‘a flat grassy plain that stretched away.’ Now if Ludwig had known about the plain before he went, surmised the schoolboy Ferguson, why, he was nothing but a con artist. He relished the first A Solly had awarded him.

Now, nearly three decades since that precious ‘A’ Ferguson was following Ludwig’s footprints. “Wouldn’t it be great if we found the Leichhardt camp, Athol,” he said. “Pig’s arse,” replied Tarbuck, “who’d give a shit, anyway.”

The man’s a bloody Philistine, thought Ferguson, as they neared the utility where Horne was leaning on the front wheel – there were no mudguards, the vehicle being designed Heath Robinson fashion for the sole purpose of providing a mobile shooting platform – and he looked up as the two men approached.

Horne noted Ferguson’s pasty expression and chuckled. “Feeling crook, eh Jim? I was, too, the first time. Get a Fourex into ya and we’ll celebrate the first kill for the trip. Icy cold, too – luxury, bloody luxury.”

He reached into the cab of the utility and the space normally occupied by the passenger seat. Instead, there was a glistening white car fridge which released a cloud of cool vapour as Horne lifted the lid and pulled out two yellow cans containing Queensland’s revered State beverage. When Australia’s America’s Cup-winning entrepreneur, Alan Bond, had taken over the Castle-Perkins brewery in the 1980s he promptly removed the picture of Brisbane’s Milton Brewery from the Fourex can, substituting the address of his Swan Brewery headquarters in West Australia. Parochial Queenslanders rebelled and Fourex sales slumped as they switched to the brew of local businessman, Bernie Power. Chastened, Bond put the Milton Brewery back on the can but his fortune failed following the stock market crash of 1987. Queenslanders firmly believe Bond’s demise came about because he buggered around with Fourex and God, being a Queenslander, exacted his revenge.

“Here, have a can of Bondy’s Folly – you’ll be right in no time,” said Horne, proffering the beer to Ferguson. He wasn’t used to mid-day drinking but he needed something – anything – to rid him of that revolting smell which seemed to have lodged at the back of his throat. He eagerly grabbed the can from Horne’s outstretched hand, tilted the battered Akubra hat back on his head and swallowed deeply. “Ahh, that’s better,” he said. “God, do they all smell like that?”

“Most of ’em,” replied a belching Tarbuck. “They ain’t clean like the pork you get in the butchers.”

Feral pigs carry all manner of diseases, yet the buggers seem to be immune themselves. Fact is they’re a bloody nuisance, fit for sod-all except stuffing up the bush. They’ll eat anything too, including meat – animal or human. Last time we were up this way they’d just found that poor bloody stockman up in the Channel Country who fell when his horse shied. Poor bugger. He broke his pelvis or something when he hit the deck, but that wasn’t what killed him – it was the pigs! They found what was left of him about four days after he’d been reported missing. He’d managed to knife one of the bastards but the rest did for him – a hell of a fucking way to go, eaten alive by pigs. So don’t think of ’em as cute little farmyard animals. They’re like the boongs – vermin!”

“You’re not wrong, Athol,” agreed Horne. “So let’s go and bump off a few more. It’s your honour this time, Jim.”

The three men tossed the empty cans into the bush, unconscious of the fact they, too, were doing their bit to wreck the environment, just like the even-toed ungulates they were hunting, animals introduced to Australia with the pioneers of the First and Second Fleets and, just like the human animals who came in the wake of Captain James Cook, destroying the land of the Dreamtime.

Horne swung in behind the steering wheel and gunned the Holden V8 into life, the snarl of the five litres causing a multitude of birds to flap into the sky, screeching warnings of the intruders. Tarbuck and Ferguson hopped up on the tray, each tying an elongated leather belt attached to a length of scaffolding over the cab, around their waist.

“Make it good and tight, Jim. We don’t want you leaving us early,” said Tarbuck, handing Ferguson a .30 calibre US Carbine. “Remember, don’t rush it when you get one in the sights. Take it easy, just squeeze the trigger gently. Don’t grab at it.”

From the cab below came the sound of Horne singing, “Hi Ho Hi Ho, it’s off to kill we go” as he engaged first gear and the ramshackle vehicle moved off, heading for a small rise, the huge tyres biting deep. Ferguson, flexing his knees to counter the bumps and hollows, held on grimly as Horne’s happy voice floated from the cabin, “Reckon we should circle back towards the camp, Athol! That gully to the east looked a good spot.”

Squinting against the glare Tarbuck replied, “You’re the driver. Just avoid the peak hour – take a fucking back road.”

Ferguson emitted a cross between a moan and a bark at Tarbuck’s attempt at humour just to show his mentor the funny had registered, but he didn’t feel like laughing.

There was a nervous knot in his stomach and he knew the sweat trickling down his backbone wasn’t being caused solely by the heat. The gun was making him nervous and so was the thought of parting company with the vehicle. On the Burketown to Camooweal road – road, ha! That was a misnomer. No self respecting goat would call it a track – he registered with surprise the signs: ‘Beware of man-eating crocodiles in rivers and estuaries’ and ‘Caution: Tropical estuaries are a crocodile habitat’.

It had never occurred to him that crocodiles could be found so far inland.

Slowly, the engine gurgling with repressed power in the quiet of the bush, Horne brought the shooting platform to the top of the rise and once again the enormity of the continent struck all three men. The vastness of the red loam and black soil plain spread before them seemed to go forever, it’s brutal sameness – boredom was a major killer on Australian roads – broken here and there by small, white trunked gums, acacias and stunted spinifex. There was a lattice-work of trails snaking away through the bush, remnants of the wet season when the Gulf Country becomes an inland sea as flooded rivers stretch their banks from horizon to horizon, depositing the sediment, which, in turn, brings forth the lush Mitchell grass to feed the North’s cattle industry.

The three men peered at the land below. “Gee, it’s a desolate place Athol,” said Ferguson.

“Don’t let the view fool you, Jimbo,” replied Tarbuck. “The place is crawling with life; everything from crocs to bull ants to buffalo and barramundi. Wouldn’t mind bagging a croc but the wildlife boys would have me balls. Protected, ain’t they? Even though they go round eating people, like that poor woman on the Daintree! Just went for a dip to cool off at a piss-up and she was gone.

“If I had my way I’d declare open season on the fuckers. Think of all the shoes and handbags we could export – do wonders for the economy and make the rivers safe to swim in.”

Jim Ferguson didn’t reply. Save for laying cockroach baits in his Sydney flat and hunting flies with a can of Mortein, he’d never killed. He didn’t classify himself as a ‘greenie’ but something in his upbringing had taught him respect for the sanctity of life. He was certainly no wimp – his days as a fullback in the Scots first XV had proved that – but the macho and mateship lifestyle of men like Tarbuck didn’t appeal to him. Quite capable of brutal self-analysis, Ferguson often considered himself an outcast from Australia’s masculine society. No, not an outcast, more of a fringe dweller. He had to be one of the boys to pursue his ambitions and he was good at play-acting the role he’d fashioned for himself – sometimes even enjoying – but he often wondered who he really was. Not his identity, for he could trace that back to Scotland and the 16^th century. It was the core of James Ferguson that fascinated and frightened him.

Would he be able to squeeze the trigger should an unfortunate pig stray into his sights? Even in the compulsory Scots Cadet Corps he’d often purposely pulled the rifle to the right or left when shooting at the silhouettes of the enemy. The last time he’d held a rifle was in a shooting gallery at the Coogee Mardi Gras and he won a stuffed teddy bear for Louise Noake, much to her delight. The bear cost him over $40.00 and it didn’t matter that he could have bought it at Woolworths for a quarter of the price. Knocking down the tin men had somehow proved something to Louise and she’s told him how proud she was of him later as they lay in her bedroom. They’d made love with a fierce passion. Ferguson all the time thinking of the effect rifles can have on women.

“Definitely Freudian,” he’d said to himself.

Now he was in the middle of nowhere, cradling a weapon which didn’t fire small metal pellets at tin men, but lethal lumps of lead jacketed in steel. He wasn’t sure if he could pull the trigger and hoped the opportunity wouldn’t arise, despite Tarbuck’s protestations that killing pigs wasn’t really killing – you were doing the land a favour. He could still smell the stench from his first dead pig but, he reasoned, that had been a living animal and his religious instruction at Scots had hammered into him the Ten Commandments, including thou shalt not kill. But did that include flies and cockroaches?

His reverie was broken by Tarbuck’s shout, “Down to the right, Darryl, down in the long grass, see it?”

Both Ferguson and Horne swivelled their eyes to where the excited Tarbuck pointed. The grass was blowing gently in the breeze, no more than a zephyr, having been burnt off by the sun. Ferguson strained his eyes but could see nothing save the hypnotic swaying of the grass as the animated Tarbuck earnestly implored his mates to see what he’d seen.

“Just to the right of that track skirting the ant hill. There’s something in there and it’s London to a brick it’s not a fucking elephant.”

Horne’s excited voice rose from below, “Got it Athol!”

Still Ferguson could see nothing as Horne engaged first gear and the shooting platform slowly ground its way down the rise. “Safety off, Jimbo?” asked Tarbuck.

Ferguson fumbled with the safety catch and then nodded, still searching for whatever was ahead and then he thought he saw the grass part.

“Is that it, Athol? Like there’s a boat in there making a bow wave!” he said, his excitement inexplicably building.

“You’ve got it, Jimbo,” replied Tarbuck. “Let’s hope there’s no fucking great logs in there. Let ’er rip, Darryl!”

Horne fed the juice into the V8 and the spare tyres, hung on the front, flattened the man-high grass as the engine responded. “Head left, Darryl!” roared Tarbuck as the engine volume rose. “Whatever it is, it’s starting to move! Hit the horn!”

The klaxon, missing from her Majesty’s Dockyard at Sydney’s Garden Island naval base, rent the air as Horne, unable to see past the net because of the grass, struggled to follow Tarbuck’s directions. Up above, Ferguson watched the grass ahead with increasing speed and marvelled at the skill of Horne, driving blind and accelerating, as the unlikely chase continued and birds flocked into the sky as the klaxon, once fitted to a destroyer, wailed.

Laughing and charged with excitement of the chase, Tarbuck was in his element.         “That fucking racket would frighten the shit out of the dead! Look, there he goes! He’s heading for the scrub! Left again, Darryl! You ready, Jimbo?”

Sweat stung his eyes and soaked Horne’s shirt as he jockeyed the shooting platform through the grass unable to wipe his brow for fear of losing control. To an observer, the scene in the cab would have resembled an old-time movie with Horne’s smooth driving movements rendered spasmodic by the flickering shadows caused by sun, speed and grass. The massive tyres thudded and bounced into unseen objects, each threatening to rip the steering wheel from Horne’s grasp and send them out of control.

He felt a jarring pain in his right shoulder as the right front tyre ploughed through a termite mound and he became airborne, the only part of him touching the vehicle being his hands gripping the wheel until he crashed into the door jamb. His right foot quickly found the accelerator and compensated for the power loss as his hands worked feverishly to correct the slide. “Beauty,” he bellowed, “wouldn’t be dead for quids!”

Suddenly, light streamed in and Horne was momentarily blinded as they sped into open country with Tarbuck shouting from above, “Over to the right! The bloody right, ya goose! See the bugger!”

Blinking, Horne regained focus to see a black pig running low to the ground some 36 metres in front and a smirk of satisfaction played around his lips. The pig was about the size of the previous kill, but a female.

“Shit, no tusks,” said Tarbuck. “But she’ll do for Jimbo. Ready, son?”

Ferguson, his throat dry from a combination of the dust, the thrill of the chase and the fear of falling off, nodded quickly. His calf and thigh muscles were aching from the strain of fighting the bucking platform and the knuckles of his right hand were white from holding on. The Akubra slipped over his eyes and he struck himself a glancing blow with his rifle as he raised his left hand to adjust the headgear. The rifle! Christ! He’d forgotten about that. His hat flew off as they switch backed through a dry creek and he could hear Tarbuck roaring encouragement as Horne tramped the accelerator and the distance to the fleeing pig shortened.

“C’mon, Jimbo, line ’er up.” Tarbuck’s almost quietly spoken words penetrated his confusion and Ferguson moved into a shooting position, using the scaffolding as a mound, with his left arm crooked underneath. After the harum-scarum ride through the grass, the open country felt like bitumen and Ferguson found he could easily hold his balance as he squinted down the barrel and felt the cool gunmetal against his cheek. He experienced a rush of blood as the pig jumped into his sights and was then gone again.

“Next time, you bugger, next time,” he muttered, scarcely able to believe he was holding the power of life and death in a tube almost a metre long. The lawyer was oblivious to all else save the black object fleeing from his power in front. He fancied he could hear the animal’s laboured breath and then the head was in his sights. Ferguson snatched at the trigger and the recoil dug into his shoulder, the bullet burying itself into the earth metres behind the pig.

“Smooth! Squeeze, don’t snatch,” yelled Tarbuck.

This time he made a conscious effort to squeeze the trigger and it seemed like an eternity before he felt the thud of the discharge.

In front and off to the right, the pig squealed, stumbled and fell. Rose, then fell again.

“Right up the arse!” boomed Tarbuck, as Ferguson watched, open mouthed. Horne eased off the power and set the truck to circling the downed pig, listening to Ferguson’s excited chatter from above and behind the cabin as he did so.

“I did it, Athol! I bloody did it! Look at that, will you!”

“Yeah, I’m looking,” replied Tarbuck. “Anybody ever ask you if you’ve shot a pig, you can always say, ‘In a pig’s bum, I have’. But at least you hit it.”

Horne brought the truck to a halt about ten metres in front of the young sow, now down on her haunches and blood seeping into the earth. The sow’s bell-like ears were flapping listlessly and she snuffled through the spittle and blood at her mouth.

“Finish her off then, Jimbo. One between the eyes,” advised Tarbuck.

Ferguson sighted the rifle, tracing a line back from the snout, taking his time and enjoying the moment. It was just like shooting tin men at the funfair. Unlike the tin men, the pig wouldn’t get up again and there’d be no teddy bear for Jimbo. He tucked the stock deeper into his shoulder and opened both eyes. The pig seemed to be staring at him, the eyes, dilated with fear and effort asking ‘why?’ as they held his. Sweat trickled from his armpits and down his back and he could feel the tension in his gut as he repeated to himself, “It’s vermin…vermin. Like a cockroach.”

The two and a half kilograms of Carbine seemed to have tripled its weight and he could feel the barrel begin to depress as he slowly tightened his finger around the trigger.

“Hurry up, Jimbo,” Horne called from the cab. “Put the poor bugger out of her misery.”

Misery I’ve caused, thought Ferguson, but Horne was right. There was only one way to end the suffering. He brought the sights to bear again and the Carbine barked once. The pig slumped over and the air raced from Ferguson’s lungs as Tarbuck slapped him on the back.

“Bewdy, Jimbo. The first of many eh?”

Tarbuck eased himself down from the tray, took the pigsticker from Horne and strolled over to the corpse, giving it a quick nudge with his foot and pronouncing life extinct. Quickly and expertly he sliced off the ears and returned to the two men.

“Here’s your trophy, Jim. Pity there’s no tusks, but it can’t be helped,” he said. Ferguson noticed his hand shaking as he reached out for the ears. He felt them. Hard, calloused skin and bristle on one side, down soft and still warm on the other. Droplets of blood fell onto his boots. In a quiet voice he said, “Can I have a tin, Athol?”

“You can have a bloody dozen, mate,” replied Tarbuck. “Nothing like a killing to sharpen your thirst.”

The beer tasted bitter to Ferguson and for a moment he thought he was going to vomit. He was unsure of his feelings. On the one hand he felt like the boy who’d shot the bird and on the other he was pleased to have joined this company of men. With a supreme effort he kept the bile down and even managed to crack a smile as Tarbuck and Horne toasted his success.

“To Jimbo, great white hunter,” said Tarbuck with a smirk.

“And scourge of the Liberal party,” added Horne. 
 

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