Thirst in the Desert

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 80, 3 January 1941, Page 5

Thirst in the Desert

At first grey light of an early summer’s day, Dick and I took out the compass, set course south and shouldered a bag of kit-a billycan, tea, sugar, a little flask of brandy and a revolver. We had baked some scones on the fire ashes and put in the last of a piece of boiled salt beef, just enough for a snack at middle day to keep us going till nightfall at Soakage Creek. We had boiled out a gallon oil tin and filled it from the car supply. It had had old oil, but three boilings seemed to have’ cleaned it. We started with light hearts and lively feet. But in two hours the plain began to take toll.. The black soil was a mass of paddy-melon holes, gaping drought cracks which crumbled and opened up much larger than they seemed. The wretched grass tufts fought with our feet: stones aided and abetted them, A ploughed field would have been heaven. The sun rose and growled. Mirages danced and mocked. And our mountain mark wobbled about in the heat haze a few miles on our left. It became a freak hot day. We were as hard as nails, but it made its mark. Towards noon a line of timber showed up across the way we were heading. Funny, I thought, they said open plain all the way to Soakage Creek. Anyway, directions were clear and we carried on south. By noon we were both darned thirsty and ready for food. We sat down under the first tree we reached, lit a fire and got ready to boil up. But Dick was too dry to wait for tea. He put the tin to his mouth, drank-and spluttered. He spat the water out. Concisely and vigorously he told me it was fouled with old engine oil. I tried it also and agreed vehemently. We strained it through a shirt and tried several other dodges, but it was no good. Oiled it was and oiled it stayed- It developed a horrible grimy scum when boiled. So we didn’t eat, being too. thirsty-(" Thirst in the Desert,’ by Michael Terry, F.R.G.S., F.R.E.S., 4YA, December 21.)