He Made War On The Desert

Radio Record, 25 March 1938, Page 10

He Made War On

The Desert

Written for the "Record" by

The Rev.

J. R.

Blanchard

FLYNN’S ’PLANES FLY OVER THE CAMELS TO-DAY

HILE Dictators crash through frontiers, it seems a black world. But in all the moods and forms of life there is the law of action and reaction. It is this law that balances the scales against the forces of evil with the forces of good, And against the horror of war and bloodshed there is still good in a world that can produce the 20th century knightswhose weapons are not shining lance and spear but aeroplanes . and radio sets-like John Flynn and his. flying doctors who made war-on the desert of Central Australia. The story of that war is told here for the ‘’Record" by his intimate friend, the Rev. J. R. Blanchard, well known Presbyterian Minister of St. John’s Church, Wellington.

OME 25 years ago ayoung man was riding alone on camel-back through Central Australia. He was a hefty lump of a young fellow, though sparsely built; a quietly determined chap, al-

ready showing & — signs of the crow’s-feet that were to wrinkle his face; his blue eyes were those of the born dreamer; his long brown hair was unkempt: Following him plodded another camel, attached by a line from its nose-peg to the leader's tail. It was loaded with water-canteens, packbags, quart-pot and swag. As he rode, the only sounds to be heard were the soft drumming of the camels’ feet, the swish of water in the canteens, the squeak of cordage as the packs swayed right, left, right, left, throughout the morning and afternoon. He wus on a Jong trek, in which hours were to melt into days, days into weeks, and weeks into months, The rider was Jehn Flynn, who had given up scheol-teaching to enter the church. After much grinding, he had finished his course ef training, and was at last a padre cut on the lone patrol. His was a parish so vast that you could almost lose the North Island of New Zealand in it. It was a land of gibber desert, where the heat was intense, the water scarce, the sand-storms terrific, the. population only one to every hundred or two of square miles, and where, if you took the wrong turning, you would be lucky to get home again. His job was to go round from homestead to homestead, from camp to eamp, to let these lonely people of the inland know that the outside world really cared for them, to do whetever he could for their material comfort, and through sy pathetic friendship offer the spiritual gifts of the religion he carried in his heart. His task was to miss nobody,

whatever their creed or character. HERE, for example, he would be told of a lonely prospector who had gone out somewhere into’ the wilds, a hundred or two miles further out into: the

: wWwevyer-Never. iNObody knew just where he was. With a wave of the hand, which took in the horizon, they would say: "He’s somewhere out there." It was Flynn's job to find him. It might take a week to do; but he would do it; just to spend the night with him and in the morning saddle up tlie camel-pad on to the next parishioner, Maybe he would find the man siek and have to dector him as best he could, and possibly bring him in. Or he might find him far through, and administer the last rites to the dying and, with nebedy there to help or to meurn, bury him. It was a full-size man’s job, ‘this that Flynn was on; and on by his own request to his Church. N this inland, which fascinates with its many lures those who venture into it, only to. kill them if it can, Flynn had his close calls. Here is the account of one, told by one of those hard seeds, but generous souls, who live in that land. The account has been edited by the censor. "Old Reece saw him coming. It was a pload-red sunset, just after hell’s own dust-storm. Out of the haze a camel-man loomed up, man-and beast with eyes bloodshot, their nostrils choked with sand, and gasping. Fivnn was clinging to the saddle, all humped up like a sick evow. Crows followed him, teo. "hey flapped low overhead and settled..on ‘a withered coolabah just ahead of the camel’ as Reece watched. Flynn was all in when the caniel lurched

fouN FLYNN will speak for the NBS at 4YA on April 6 on "The Manile of Safety-The Story of the Flying Doctors in Australia,"’ and at 1YA on April 26 on "Australia and New Zealand: Resemblances and Contrasts."’ Mrs. Flynn, his wife, speaks from 3YA on March 28 from the women’s point of view. The NBS hopes to take a recording of John Flynn’s talk on ‘The Story of the Flying Doctors,"’ so that it may be heard from all its stations. &

down, but he smiled at Reece. "You don’t mean to say you’re this parson we’ve heard about?’ asked Reece. "Why not?’ croaked Flynn. ~ ©Vou’re a sticker.’ "*We are like that,’ "‘Hi’m,’ said Reece. ‘A parson is a rare bird out here, but you'll do. Come, and Vl put the billy on." O did this young Australian camel-pad it through the Inland, winning his way into the hearts of those who fought their grim fight there, dreaming his dreams und sticking to them though they all thought him "dippy’-to use their own word, though shorn of decorations-and sticking to them until he made them come true. There were certain things which he saw in this Inland which made him dream his dreams, and which made him feel that God had put him into this world and into this particular bit of it, to make that dream materialise. Flynn had seen such things as these: A blue-eyed youngster suddenly taken ill, with the near est doctor 200 miles away! Flynn knew of the fearful drive through day and night to get that child to the doctor: the change of horses at the station, then day and night again; the overturning of the buggy down a black ravine: the cry of the mother as she groped for the child. When the horses dropped, the parents walked. It was a terrible jour-

ney over rock and sand with the smell of dead animals in the foetid water-holes that they passed. At last they saw the glint of roofs’ away down there in the tiny outback hamlet. Only one more hour to go-but the child was dying in the mother’s arms. "Tt was not fair," Flynn grumbled to himself as he dreamed. "The child should have lived; and would have lived if only the doctor had been near." QQ)NE day, again, he came

to a bush home down among the hills. They were husband and the wife with dren were more quiet than saw a visitor once in a year. a tired sigh. "Oh, well," he said, "I

quiet folk, the brown-bearded brave, grey eyes. The chilshy, even though they only After lunch, Flynn rose with won't stay any tonger, You have no need of me."

"Yes, we have," said the man quietly, And they took him down into the paddock where, under a pretty tree, was a wee mound with creepers already flowering upon it. "There was no doctor," said the man. "We did not know what to do." Flynn read the service; and passed on, dreaming and grumbling as he dreamed: "It was not fair, The child should have lived; and would

have lived if only the doctor had been near,

GO he went through his parish, seeing the lonely graves of a continent; _ rain-flattened,

mounds under coolabah and gum; wind-scoured mounds under desert oak ; graves by creeks that seldom held water; grass. covered resting-place-of the plains, and graves ,by the billabongs; resting-places of children and mothers and _ breadwinvers who had fallen by the wayside. So many lives could have been saved, could now be saved, if organised help, quick in action, were. sta-

tioned within a radius even of 300 miles. His dream was of how to save those lives by organised help.: He was only a lone camel- man with nothing in his pocket. What could he do? -He would rouse his

Church to do something. But what could he suggest that his Church should do? There for a ‘time~ his mind came to a full stop, and he went on camel-pad-ding it through the Inland, dreaming and dreaming of what could be done, drawing maps of the centre of Australia in the sand as he camped at midday or in the moonlight, locating on those maps where people lived, brooding over the long distances that separated them and the nature of the country that lav between. and of

, the spots of habitation that would be most central in given areas. ({ RADUALLY he evolved a plan. He would have a chain of nursing homes through the Inland, each establishment at a centre as reasonably accessible to everybody as possible. That would be something where, at present, there Was nothing. And Flynn came in from the interior for a season to stir up his Church to that work. The story of how he carried that through and of the splendid work those nursing homes have done, and are still doing, is tdo long a story to tell just now. But as Flynn went camel-padding in connection with the founding of these homes, and with the superintending of them, he saw that even they were quite inadequate. ‘There was the problem of how to get the sick and the injured to those homes. Camels and horses were terribly slow in that terrible country. Motor transport was swifter, certainly, but in a land of gibbers and sandhills most uncertain. The Jong, rough trip would kill the patient before he got to the nursing home! Some better means of transport must be devised. NE day, as he dreamed on this problem, from his lurching seat on the back of his camel under a blazing sun, he thought: "The wings of death are swifter than camels or horses, or even motors." "The wings of death!’ The phrase stuck in his mind. "Wings." Aeroplaues! That word crashed into his mind. Aeroplanes! Winged ambulances! Flying doctors! Flynn had his vision; that was enough. What did it matter that the Old World was still only experimenting in aviation at that time! They would succeed, Flynn said to himself, They. will perfect flying and the Inland must have flying doctors, (Continued on page 40.),

War With Desert.

John Flynn’s Work (Continued from page 11.) PHAe is Flynn all over. He is a man of astounding faith. With him it is a cardinal doctrine of life that faith 18 the substance of things hoped for. He has, to a remarkable degree, the dreamer’s capacity for long-range appropriation of the thing dreamed about, He began, then, to study aviation. Everything he could read about it be read. The technicalities of it he deyoured. He talked about it until people were sick to death of his talking about it. Anybody who was known to be a bit of an expert on it he sought out and literally dunned. He invaded with his dream the mindy of the biggest men in Australia hé could lay hands on an4, like Coleridge's ancient mariner, he would not let them go. He was laughed at by many, smiled at by some, believed in by a few. "lynn, you’re 50 years ahead of your time," he was told repeatedly. But Flynn only grinned, made a wry face, which laughter from his blue eyes lit up, lurched up from his chair with a hunch of his shoulders, and with 2 quiet voice, which I have never yet heard edged with anything like bitterness, would make some jocular remark and pass on. And what happened? As one prominent Australian has put it: "You listen to him, thinking what an unpractical visionary he is, and before you know where you are you are helping him to do it." -A ND it has been done. In May, 1928, an aeroplane rose from the aerodrome at Cloncurry, Queensland, inaugurating the Aerial Medical Service of Australia. It was one of the most important flights in the history of aviation in that continent. It was a world flight historically, for it inaugurated the world’s first flying-ambulance service. And here is the grim humour of it. It was the flying doctor’s first case, being called for it immediately he reached Cloncurry. And it was to save the life of a man who had cut his throat! But first of all the men who have made the service possible is a camelpadre who, 17 years’ before, was fresh from college, buried in the isolation of the Inland, and with nothing in his pocket. He had only his dreams, his faith it the calling of God and his love for his fellow-men. But they have proved to be everything, for without them those flying doctors would sot have been possible. T a very early stage in his dreams Flynn saw that, bound up with his Flying Doctor scheme, there was another problem. What was the use of having Flying Doctors if the doctors did not know where to fly to? And how were these isolated people going to let them know immediately they needed them? They could not run down the road and call him. Bush telephones were very scarce, and how impossible to think of wiring the whole Inland with (Continued on page 56.)

War Against Desert

(Continued from page 40.) a telephone system! Here was a hard nut for Flynn to crack. But the solution came, as did the solution of the Flying Doctor; It came in a flash! Wireless! That also came to Flynn when the Old World had not got past the stage of merely experimenting with wirejess. But he had heard of the experiments and was sure that they would succeed. He got busy at once, He studied Wirelesg as he had studied aviation, until as one expert said he knew the very "innards" of wireless. He was after a set that could transmit as well as re ceive, that would be small in size and cheap in cost. His idea was to equip every home, camp and post of the Inland with such aset. He got the wireless experts interested and then busy. I have not space to tell you of the long chain of experiments, how Flynn, the cheerful optimist, kept on believing and kept his experimenters keeping on. T last they WERD successful. A _ young South Australian, Alfred Traeger, invented a baby transmitting set, the power for which the operator generates by working a pair of pedals like those on a@ bicycle. The

message is sent out through it by Morse code. But who Was to teach the Morse code to the Inlanders? Flynn saw it was not necessary to do so. He had a machine invented with a keyboard the same as that of a typewriter, When the key is struck the type makes and breaks contact with a metal bar at the back of the machine which registers the Morse signal for that letter. That goes over the air and ig picked up where it is needed. When these sets were ready, a patrol padre was appointed to Zo round the urea with a mechanic and have these sets installed. They are supplied at factory cost, and where people are not able to pay for them the mission of which Flynn is the superintendent donates them. O far, the Flying Doctor has been established under this Australian Inland Mission, in one centre, that of Cloncurry in Queensland. But Flynn is patiently working on to have the same thing done in six other centres, according to a map which he prepared years ago. When that ig accomplished the whole of the Inland will be seryed . The Cloncurry doctor operates over an area more than twice the size of New Zealand. He receives a call from some baby transmitter set over 200 miles away. He fixes the locality in his mind and asks about landing grounds, Some are able to describe the cleared

paddock or bare patch that must serve as such, Others are not so sure, "Have you 400 yards clear run against the winds enywhere?" asks the doctor, "Ves," "Are there any trees close?’ "A few." "Well, would you drive a car straight over that ground at 80 miles an hour? You think you could? H’m, Well, then, expect us in a little over an hour!" And the machine roars up and away. T is nothing for this doctor to do a 200-mile flight before breakfast, operate on his patient on the spot, and be back in Cloncurry for lunch. One day, again, he received a call from 60 miles out to a woman who had suffered a severe accident. In 85 minutes she was Safe in Cloncurry hospital. In former days she would very probably have lost her life and ‘2 lonely man with an erphaned family be left to carry on as best he could. The Flying Doetor is kept on the go. Here is a typical case: HUS has John Wynn Spread a mantle of. safety over the great Inland. You do not need me to tell you that from thousands of hearts there rises the nightly prayer-"Thank God for the Flying Doctor!"