Veterans of the Emu Wars

“I’m tired of being made a joke of.”

“We’re not getting any younger.”

“Will you shut up with the ‘we’re not getting any younger’ stuff.”

Anzac Day had come around again and, after the march, three old soldiers were sitting in a cafe. Beneath their table, a blue heeler lay in restless preparedness.

“If the bloody pollies hadn’t’ve got hold of it …” The former sergeant didn’t need to continue. The others nodded at a reiteration that had plagued the last fifty years of their lives.

“Aye, but it’s true enough,” said Snowy McMullan, fidgeting the cutlery into a defensive formation. “I’m thinking this might be my last year.”

The heeler gave an audible sigh.

The cafe was around the corner from the pub on the main street, down which every year marched the local Anzac parade. And every year after the march most of the veterans gathered in the pub, but these beribboned three went to the cafe and had done for as long as they could remember. This year they were expecting to be joined by a younger man, the former sergeant’s nephew. When he entered, wearing Vietnam War ribbons, a visible unease shuffled through the older men. He gave the thumbs up to the cafe manager, who was also a Vietnam vet. Under the table, the heeler thumped its approval.

“The boys are still asking, Uncle Rupe, why you and your mates don’t join them in the pub. Some say it’s because you think Vietnam wasn’t a legit war.”

The former sergeant sighed in exasperation. “It’s got nothing to do with Vietnam, Dale. We understand that the politicians sent you there.”

The third of the trio, Buzz Sutherland, short enough to have been a jockey, grunted out a series of clearing coughs, signalling the dog to rise arthritically to a sitting position.

“Silly as cut snakes are politicians,” commented Snowy.

“I told ’em that’s the way you’d see it,” said Dale, but seeing the others glance between themselves, he hesitated and watched with puzzlement as Snowy manoeuvred a teaspoon to the left of the sugar bowl.

“I don’t mean to pressure you, but clearly there’s something that, er, bothers you and, well, there may not be too many more opportunities. I mean, there’s only you three from your mob left now,” Dale added awkwardly.

“Aye, true enough, it’s just us now,” said Snowy.

“Just us? What do you mean, ‘just us’?” said Buzz, thumping the table, jolting Snowy’s cutlery out of formation. The heeler gave a single nervous bark. “It’s not our bloody fault.”

“Sometimes you talk as if you fought in a different war,” said Dale.

This silenced the older men, till one muttered, “Well, in a way we did.”

“What? Can your war be different?”

“Well, it is a bit like that,” Snowy said mournfully, re-strategising the spoon.

Buzz snorted as if about to speak, but his sergeant cut him off. “For that matter, look what happened to you Vietnam blokes. Took years before you were recognised. Cliffy over there”—he indicated the cafe manager—“still refuses to march.”

“Yes, we’ve all got our own stories,” said Snowy, his lance corporal, in support.

Buzz muttered an obscenity.

Rupe continued. “You boys had this guilt to bear because half the country reckoned it was an immoral war.”

“All wars are immoral,” slipped in his lance corporal. “We fought the Japs in the islands. One day you’re killing them and the next you’re buying their cars.”

His sergeant sighed and said to the others, “Okay, let’s get on with it. We agreed we’d tell our story.”

“Aye, we’re not getting any younger,” said Snowy, who would rather have been on the river in his tinny, fishing for bream.

“I’m not ashamed of what we did. Let’s get that straight,” declared Buzz.

“If you weren’t so bloody touchy and wanting to take on every bugger who mentions it, it might have died a quiet death.”

“Who wants a quiet bloody death?” said Buzz petulantly. The heeler remained at the ready.

“Come on, it can’t be that bad,” encouraged Dale.

“Family or not, no laughing,” said Buzz to him.

“Laugh! Why would I laugh? I have problems with what we did, I admit it. But if I knew what you went through … it might help.”

Under the table, the heeler farted.

“God, Buzz, what are you feeding Bluey?”

“Okay, okay,” the sergeant started. “As you know, we served in Bougainville, in the ambulance corps.”

His nephew nodded.

“But we were originally in the artillery.”

“You don’t you wear their ribbons.”

“Well, that’s it, that’s the … thing.”

“Come on, come on, get on with it,” snarled Buzz. “Tell ’im about the birds.”

“Birds? What’ve birds got to do with it?” the Vietnam vet asked.

“We’re talking about emus.”

Dale threw his hands up in disgust, believing he was being had. “Okay, take it to the grave. I’m out of here.”

“Now, now, don’t go going off half-cocked. Remember we’ve been living with it for a long time.”

“Who’d want to remember what we did?” muttered Snowy sadly. It was the time of the day when the bream were coming out of the shadows.

“I understand there’s stuff that some men don’t want to talk about. But you act like you’re sitting on something, well, shameful.”

The men shuffled and the heeler whined.

“It’ll go no further,” Dale assured them, realising he’d hit a sore spot.

“I want to forget,” said Buzz. “I’ve had nightmares about ’em.”

“Then why continue to march?”

“We’ve as much bloody right to march as any bloke,” said Buzz. “And I’ll deck anyone who says we don’t.”

“Sit down, you silly bugger,” chorused Rupe and Snowy.

“That’s another reason we don’t go to the pub,” said Rupe, “because when the gunner gets a few in him there’s no telling what’ll happen.”

“It’s been more than fifty years now. It’s gonna come out,” said Snowy.

“How?” demanded Buzz.

“There’s this new thing called Freedom of Information.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s what we fought for. Some journo will find it and they always like to have a crack at tall poppies.”

“Who’s a tall poppy?” said Buzz.

“The Royal Australian Artillery. And as we’re the last of our mob, they’ll be pestering us.”

“What’s it matter? We’ll be dead soon.”

This set off a series of nodded acknowledgments till Dale said, “Meaning what? You’ll leave it to the family to cope with?”

“All right, all right.” Rupe turned and beckoned. “Can we get a refill here, Cliff?” He turned back and commenced. “We joined up early because times were tough in ’32. Soon after, a bunch of cockies in the wheat belt made a complaint to their local pollie that emus were ruining their crops. Breaking fences, that sort of stuff.”

Buzz gave Dale a quick look as if to confirm: See, Emus!

“This member passed it on to Canberra and as it turned out we, that is the Royal Australian Artillery, were sent there to cull twenty thousand emus.”

“Twenty thousand?”

“A dreadful thing it was,” muttered Snowy.

“Canberra ordered the artillery to shoot twenty thousand emus?”

“Twenty thousand!”

“Don’t laugh,” Buzz threatened.

“In those days WA was making lots of noise about quitting the Commonwealth,” continued Rupe.

“They reckoned Canberra was giving them a raw deal,” said Snowy.

“Still are,” said Buzz.

“Are you saying WA went to war against Canberra?”

“No, no, no! What I’m saying is that Canberra, in ordering the army to come over here to cull a mob of emus, did it as a fob to get WA back on side.”

“And they picked us to do their dirty work,” said Buzz.

“Shoot twenty thousand emus?”

“The food from the crops had their numbers growing out of all proportion,” said Snowy. “Silly as cut snakes, some of these cockies.”

“So there we were. The Royal Australian Artillery, sent to shoot emus.”

“We were the elite,” said Snowy.

“We were armed with Lewis machine guns,” added Rupe.

“The emus were unarmed,” murmured Buzz.

“Machine guns?” said Dale, still uncertain that he was not being had.

“I have nightmares about it,” said Buzz. “They’re in me head.”

“You blokes are not putting me on, are you?” asked Dale.

“Wish we were.” His uncle sighed. “But no. We drove in convoy across the Nullarbor and set up camp on the western side of the Rabbit-Proof. We thought it’d be over pretty quick.”

Snowy repositioned the cutlery in preparation for an illustration. “I suppose if it had been rabbits it’d be all right, but emus are on the national coat of arms.”

“Because they don’t take a backward step, right?” added Buzz.

“The strategy was to herd them against the fence and drive them towards a drinking hole. This went okay, but when the lieutenant ordered us to fire, they scattered as quick as any rabbits. We were left staring at clouds of dust wondering where the hell they’d gone.”

“The lieutenant was green. Just out of Duntroon and he had us set our sights too low,” Buzz conceded through gritted teeth. “They were gone before we could reset.”

“The Aborigines have been knocking them over with throwing sticks for thousands of years and the Royal Artillery makes a mess of it with machine guns,” said Rupe.

“We should’ve used flame throwers,” said Buzz bitterly.

“We shouldn’t’ve been there at all,” said Snowy.

“They can’t even fly!” said Buzz.

“Our officers reckoned they’d better give it some more thought …”

“I bet they would,” said Dale, inciting a searching glare from Buzz.

“I don’t know who suggested it, but at one stage they ordered a gun to be mounted on a truck …”

“Now get this bit right,” Buzz broke in. “It wasn’t my idea. All I did was draw the short straw as the gunner.”

The sergeant continued, “The problem was that over that rough ground the birds were faster than the trucks.”

“I was being bounced all over the place,” said the gunner.

“And we were doing more damage to the fences than the emus had,” Snowy added. “Probably allowed more rabbits through the fence than when they first crossed the Nullarbor.”

Dale was having difficulty controlling his laughter but managed to ask, “So what happened next?”

“See. I told you he’d laugh. He’s just like all the rest,” snarled Buzz. “This could affect our pensions.”

“Sorry, Buzz. I just didn’t expect anything like this. But what could you do, you had to follow orders.” He bent over to suppress laughter.

Bluey gave a short growl of disapproval and then a belly rumble. When nothing else followed, Rupe continued.

“They tried to keep it hush-hush, in case any country that was thinking of taking us on, seeing that performance, might suddenly feel very confident. You understand.”

“Yes, yes. Sorry. What happened after that?”

“We were ordered to set up an ambush around a dam. We dug in and covered everything with camouflage. Even smeared our faces. Those birds aren’t stupid. But they have to drink.”

Dale bit his lip and wiped his eyes.

“Everything’s got to have water,” Snowy explained.

Rupe continued. “We had a mob of locals join us.”

“Silly as cut snakes they were,” said Buzz.

“Will you let me get on with it?”

“Like I said, the officers were green and had us wait in position all day. Bloody hot it was. Then, come dusk, a big mob of birds came within a hundred yards of us and we opened fire. And again, like a flash they were gone. We knew we had hit some, but they just kept going. The few bodies we found had up to ten machine gun bullets in them. Machine gun bullets! We’re not talking rifles here. Tough! I wouldn’t want to get close enough to use flame throwers on them.” He aimed this last at Buzz.

“The major said that if the army could sustain hits like these birds, we’d be bloody invincible. Tough as Zulus, he called them,” added Snowy with a certain satisfaction.

The table fell quiet as Cliff came over to ask if he could join them.

“Yeah, yeah. Why not? Might as well blab it to the whole world,” said Buzz.

“The next day,” resumed the sergeant, “we used the same strategy in a paddock. Only this time we waited till dusk.”

“You’d have thought the locals would have told us that emus only drink at dusk,” said Snowy.

Rupe gave his former lance corporal a look of exasperation. “Anyway, we were ready for them. And would you believe it, me bloody gun jammed. The others got a few but the rest just scattered and disappeared in the scrub. This went on, day in, day out for a month; by the end of which we had killed maybe a hundred.”

Dale grinned. “Gee, that’s not many out of twenty thousand. And over a month, you say?”

“It was a win to the emus,” Buzz conceded.

“It didn’t seem right,” said Snowy mournfully. “The Royal Australian Artillery shooting our national emblem.”

“When the word got around, clowns in the Navy sent us bundles of sticks, with notes attached. ‘In case you run low on ammo’.”

“And every June we get a parcel of feathers from some smart arses in the infantry.”

“We’ve been a standing joke ever since.”

“I twisted me knee chasing after them, and when I claimed compo, the medicos sent me a bottle of emu oil.”

“That’s rubbing it in,” Dale said cheekily, and stood quickly to say he had to go to the dunny, from where guffaws of laughter were soon heard.

“So how’d it finish?” asked Cliff.

“I can tell you no one got promotion.”

“I’d been due for my second stripe,” said Snowy.

“It was costing so much to keep us out there the Defence Minister ordered a withdrawal.”

“Then there was a debate in the House about who would meet the costs.”

“The Prime Minister announced that the Defence Department wouldn’t be paying for it. I think he would have liked to pass it over to the WA government, but he’d just been over here campaigning to keep us in the Commonwealth.”

“Some drongo in the House of Representatives asked if there would be a medal struck for the action!”

“Yeah, and someone in the opposition told him the emus should get the medal.”

“Silly as cut snakes they are.”

“This is why the emu is on our coat of arms. They’re bloody invincible,” said Buzz.

Dale returned, pushed Bluey away from his chair, and gasped, “You gotta admit it is pretty funny. The Royal Australian Artillery, stumped by a mob of emus. Whew!” He stood decisively and headed for the door. “Gotta go. The blokes’ll feel better about this.”

Bluey started barking and Buzz shouted, “If you weren’t the sarge’s nephew, I’d have your guts for garters!”

A few weeks later, Cliff changed the name of the cafe to “The Angry Emus”. And it’s been full every Anzac Day. 

D.P. Fairborn lives in Perth. This story is based on real events in Western Australia in the 1930s.