The Australian Outback

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31107, 9 July 1966, Page 4

The Australian Outback

Wheel Tracks. By W. W. Ammon. Angus and Robertson. 220 pp.

This chronicle of the early days of trucking in the wild northern parts of Western Australia has an epic quality. The author, “Snow,” so called from his blond hair, began his arduous career in 1925 carrying mail and station supplies between Carnavon and the isolated stations further north. Roads were at best only tracks, and subject to the weather could be dustbaths or quagmires; loads were extremely heavy, and often had to be taken off to lighten the vehicle when going through creeks or bogs; the pay was 3d a mi]e, and the same rate was paid whether for driving or pushing the truck. No compensation was paid for injury or permanent disability result ing from the hardships and dangers of the life. It was indeed a bad spinal injury which led to the author's compulsory retirement. Withal, he looks back nostalgically to those hard days, and his story is full of anecdotes, illustrating the humour, tragedy and unexampled heroism of friends, many of whom perished in the course of duty. Nowhere in the world do the forces of nature seem to combine so much against the human animal as they do in this harsh, sparsely populated country, and he in his turn comes to regard them with stoical philosophy. Interspersed with descriptions of bogged or broken-down trucks, blinding heat, cyclones, and droughts, are others of the author’s -friends and companions. Heart-rending incidents are related of the depression, when desperate men slogged on foot from station to station looking for work where no work could be offered. To these victims of fate the truck-drivers were only too often benefactors who saved them from starvation. One of these swagmen, having been given food and a ride, apologetically asked the author for a small loan to enable him to send a birthday gift to his mother. It sounded an unlikely tale, but the goodnatured “Snow” lent him 10s, never expecting to see

the money again. Two years later, however, he received a letter enclosing a £lO note from the young man, together with a letter containing an offer to cut the author in on a gold strike he had made. In the same category of early misfortune were two boys for whom Mr Ammon shot a kangaroo, and who fell on it, raw, with tears of thankfulness. They disclosed that they had eaten nothing for 48 hours. The tale of Tommy Bassett, who won £lO,OOO In a lottery is told on a happier note. Having been persuaded, with great difficulty to entrust his money to a bank, and receiving a cheque-book for his needs, he cheerfully blowed half his money on entertaining his friends; but when his cheque book ran out of cheques decided that he must now be penniless, and returned to his job. The appalling danger of being lost, even temporarily, in the bush is illustrated by the tragedy of the fencer unused to bush conditions, who lost his bearings, and, though found within 24 hours by trackers, was already dead from thirst Gus the Swede was another victim of the cruel climate. Having bought some good land he ran into a long drought and, toiling to the last to save his stock, was trampled to death by them in a stampede after some water he had found.

Whether writing of kangaroos or less attractive fauna such as scorpions, sandflies or snakes the author’s pen is graphically illuminating. Thirty five years after he had left it he revisited the outback with his wife, to find good roads and a flourishing countryside, as well as organised labour conditions of which he had never dreamed in his own youth. A young man saving to buy a house and get married, disclosed that his wages as a truck-driver were £65 a week, and that be was fully Insured against disaster. This is a far cry from those 3d a mile days when, after working perhaps 18 hours at a stretch, a man was liable to fall asleep and wreck his truck and own health if not lose his life. For all readers who appreciate real-life adventures this book can be highly