AN ACCIDENT.
The August day was bright and fine, but very gusty.
"Don't like the looks of it at all," said Len, after breakfast. "Too
windy to be safe."
"Think we'd better stop home?" I hazarded.
"M--m! Can't spare the time," he demurred. "Got our work cut out to
finish in good time for the burn, you know, so guess we'll chance it."
"Righto!" I answered. So 7.30 a.m. saw us at it as usual. I was on a
"mad" patch--trees leaning every way--on the side of a hill. I had sent
several drives up; then had to go among the fallen stuff to send the
last four trees of that patch down hill. The last one of these four was
a long willowy crowfoot elm, and as he had a bit of a lean uphill I
"nicked" him well, to make sure he'd go; scarfed the others, and then
started on the driving tree. It was blowing fresh and I was a bit
nervous. I hurriedly got the belly cut in, and had the back in near
enough to make him start talking (i.e., cracking a bit), when a strong
gust came along, making the trees sway dangerously. I stood a second or
two undecided whether to go or stay, and "he who hesitates is lost." A
sharp crack! and the long crowfoot broke back over the scarf,
automatically becoming the driver, and sending the whole lot down on top
of me. "Oh, Christ!" I panted, and made a jump for safety. A stumble, a
slip, and I was down. Up again, and, with the whistling rush of the
falling trees loud in my ears, I turned to face and, if possible, dodge
them, as the fallen stuff round prevented my jumping aside. The first
trunk missed, but tore the shirt off my arm as it swept to earth,
throwing me off my balance; then a whirling stick split my head open,
sent me down on my face, and next second I was buried in falling limbs.
Whack! whack! whack!
I suppose the whole business was only a matter of seconds, but to me it
seemed like an eternity. Half-stunned with fright and the bursting crash
of breaking branches, with the breath beaten out of my body, I thought
at each fresh thump: "This has done it! N-no, not quite yet." Then a
sudden silence and a slowly dawning realisation. "Why! I'm not dead!"
I lay a second or two gathering my scattered wits; then slowly raised my
head, which sang like a kettle. I was in a sort of rustic grotto of
green stuff piled six feet over me. Lord knows how I escaped being
killed. Then I set to work to overhaul myself. Didn't feel the least
pain. Good! But hallo! What's the matter with my left arm? There should
be no joints between elbow and wrist, and here's at least two. I felt an
insane desire to laugh as I waggled the injured member about, with the
blood running down my face from my cut head. Both bones were broken
twice, and the wrist as well, but that seemed to be all; so, under the
circumstances, I had got off fairly easy. I crawled out with some
difficulty, lay down, and coo-eed for Len.
There's something about the call of a hurt man that can't be mistaken,
and Len dropped his axe and raced for me at the first sound of my voice.
Again I felt the hysterical desire to laugh at the sight of him
tumbling, scrambling, tripping over the jumble of fallen stuff in his
eagerness to get to me. He rushed up. I must have looked rather
startling--pale and blood-stained, and the shirt half-torn off me.
"My God! Charlie! What's happened?"
"All right, Len," I answered. "Ain't going to snuff it yet; but my arm's
broke, and I feel awful sick."
"Well, tell us what to do, ol' chap," he said, fluttering round like a
distressed hen. "I feel as useless as the fifth wheel of a coach; but
tell us what to do, and I'll do it."
He got a bit of a stick, and we bound the arm to it with the remnants of
my shirt. Then, with his assistance, I crawled painfully over the fallen
stuff, down and up the steep banks of a creek, and so to the hut. Didn't
feel any pain, only a dreadful sick, vomity sensation. I lay down a bit
while Len brewed a strong mug of tea; swallowed that; felt a heap
better; dragged on my Sunday-go-to-meetings, and prepared for the tramp
into hospital. My back was bruised to a jelly nearly, but I didn't feel
it. A real injury seems to be its own anaesthetic somehow. We left the
humpy about ten o'clock on the ten-mile journey to the station, I
cheerfully ruminating en route on this being the end of everything. I
wonder how many times since then I've had the same thought: "Oh, Lord!
this set-back really _is_ the end." Oh, well! It's all in the day's
work.
We tramped in. Nobody had a buckboard in those days, and I couldn't ride
a horse. We got to the station about half-past three, and had to wait
for the lengthsmen to finish a job they were at before taking me in on
the pump-car, meanwhile telephoning for the ambulance to meet me at the
next station. I sat down, and, for the first and only time in my life,
fainted.
Finally I got into Atherton Hospital, sick and shaky, about 6 p.m., and
didn't I suffer that night! My arm ached, my head ached, the left
shoulder was hurt somehow and also ached, and my back was one huge ache.
I got over it all right, though my arm was very weak for two years
after. What with one thing and another I was in hospital six weeks, and
if it hadn't been for worrying over the selection would rather have
enjoyed the holiday. The cheerful nurses called me "Skipper" (every
patient had a nickname), and were rather inclined to "pet" me. Take it
all round, I had rather a fine time.
I needn't have worried either, for several of the blokes out there left
their own pressing work and bogged into my scrub, doing it under
regulation price, so that I wouldn't have to find any cash over what the
bank had advanced. I don't know about the towns, but in the Bush you'll
always find them willing to help a lame dog over a stile like that.
You've only got to be sick to find out how some, perhaps intolerably bad
tempered, hitherto unfriendly neighbour will turn-to and do his bit for
you with a will. You don't find that sort of spirit much at 'Ome in the
Old Dart.