When I was a country parson in the early 1960’s of the little country church in the little country town of Ararat, gateway to the Wimmera, I taught religious instruction each week in the one teacher bush school at Jacksons Creek.

Jacksons Creek was a typical one teacher country school that was still to be found in those days throughout the bush. The one teacher, who had been there for more that 20 years in 1964, was Miss Pat Bradley. She was a no nonsense, country girl made teacher who had dedicated her life to the education of the children in the area where she had grown up.

Miss Bradley was strongly built with good arms, big hands that were used to milking for perhaps the previous 30 years. She wore sensible lace-up walking shoes with flat heels, lisle stockings, and it seemed the same dresses. She was a good hearted Christian who devoted her life to her pupils and when the weekend came spent Saturdays working with the church youth groups and Sundays teaching Sunday School.

Miss Pat Bradley’s whole life centred around children except for when she went back to her parents’ farm which she half ran under the watchful eye of her frail, failing father.

I was a country parson that came out to the little one teacher bush school to teach religious education each Thursday morning. I was a university graduate and had been teaching classes in secondary school for six years. After a week or so Miss Bradley saw that I could cope with the ten, eleven or twelve children who happened to be there and asked if I would mind taking charge for an hour or two while she would slip into Ararat to do the school banking and a few other chores she had to do. That worked well with me and I started a regular routine where I became the teacher for all of Thursday morning while Miss Bradley went into town to do whatever she had to do.

She left me with a good standby “While you are teaching one class your lesson, get the other children to read the next section in the School Reader”, she said. I knew the School Reader fairly well because I had been brought up with it. The School Reader used by the Victorian Education Department, was first issued in 1930 and it was used regularly up until the end of the 60’s. Each child had a School Reader according to their grade and the School Reader became the means of keeping the rest of the classes busy while I taught at an appropriate level. Each week I gave the same lesson three times but adjusted to the advancing grades within the school. The eleven kids were scattered over eight grades.

It was fairly early in morning and the frost was still on the long grass in our backyard. I was at the pile of railway sleepers that we brought home from alongside the railway line and chopped up to place inside our one fire wood stove. The wall had burnt out in the side of the oven and the stove was either blazing hot or going out. We needed a good supply of fuel to keep it going because it also heated our hot water service. The best long burning wood was the old red gum railways sleepers that had been replaced and were left just lying alongside the railway line.

I had a thick wedge-shaped axe which used to split the red gum off in big chunks just suitable for burning. I was chopping enough wood for the day when I heard the siren go at the fire station.

In the country you always took notice of the fire brigade siren. If there were three long blasts of the siren, followed by another three long blasts it was news to everybody in the town that there was a fire somewhere. They then gave a series of short blasts. One blast was for north along the highway towards Stawell. Two blasts was south down on the Hamilton road. Three blasts was east out along the Moyston road, and four blasts was back along the highway down towards Ballarat. Men would leave their job at the railway yards or at the mental hospital or the prison, or up at the Holeproof factory, or perhaps down at Gasons Tractor Cabins factory, or wherever they worked, jump in their car and head off in that direction.

The first person to the fire brigade quarters would open the door and start driving the tanker out in the right direction. Sometimes the other cars would catch up to him and they would stop along the road and he would pick them up, or they would just race ahead of him and find where the fire was.

When you heard the fire siren go in the country you stood and listened. Fire was a dreadful threat in the bush.

But this day the siren gave three short wails, followed by three more short wails, followed by three more short wails, and then three more short wails. I stood up puzzled. I had never heard that kind of a siren before. If ever they wanted to test the siren it was always done exactly at noon and people would understand that that was only a test. This was a different signal. In the two years that we had been in Ararat I had never heard this kind of a signal before.

But almost instantly I heard two cars from the plumbers shop nearby take off in the direction of the fire brigade quarters and then within a minute three or four more cars left the Ararat railway station as people jumped into their cars and headed off for the fire brigade headquarters. It sounded like it was something pretty serious. I felt absolutely useless. I wasn’t part of the fire brigade or even the state emergency squad but I did know that if there was serious trouble anywhere then a minister would be needed. Who was the emergency chaplain? Who was the police chaplain or the fire chaplain? The fact was in Ararat we didn’t have any of those things. I thought I should at least find out what was going on.

My great Morris Oxford pulled up outside the fire brigade. Cars were heading out of town along the road to Ballarat. They would then turn right down the Maroona road and head off further. There was a need. A child was lost and they needed men to go out and search. I questioned whether I should go or not because I felt pretty useless in this situation but the people in the country expected the country parson to be in all of these activities and it would look pretty bad if I didn’t go. So useless or not I turned the Morris Oxford down on the Maroona Road.

All the cars headed eventually into one farm. I didn’t know the farm or the people concerned until talking to the mothers who pulled up in a four wheel drive near me, I said “What is the story? Whose place is this?” Their reply shocked me. “This is Paddy O’Rourke’s place. His young boy, Tim, is missing. He has been gone since late yesterday afternoon. They searched until it was dark and then into most of the night and they haven’t found him. They’ve been searching since first light this morning and he is still not found.”

Timmy O’Rourke was the youngest of the O’Rourke children that attended the Jacksons Creek school. He was also the youngest in the school being in Grade 1. I found it hard even to try to picture what he looked like. He was just the littlest kid in the school who hung round after his older brothers, Michael and Seamus, and his sister, Colleen. I had given him drawings to do as part of our Religious Instruction but even after seeing him each week for several months I can’t say that I really knew him. He was just a quiet and fairly innocent little kid of six years of age.

The police had taken over and the sergeant from the Ararat police station was standing outside with his hat pushed to the back of his head. “Right you men. I want some to go up right round the outside boundary fences. I want some of you to do underneath the wool shed. Make sure you get up into all the corners, particularly the dark and difficult one. Maybe he has crawled up under there. I want a couple of fellows to start moving down through the creek. Make sure every part of that creek is searched. And someone take some ropes and get up near the well up on the side of the mount there. Maybe the little fellow has fallen down inside. Make sure you poke down as far as you can with the water and see if you can feel anything. The rest of you start doing these paddocks one at a time. Make sure you don’t overlook the burrows. Little kids have crawled into warrens before today. Search all round. Make sure the tractor sheds; the shearing sheds have all been searched. Some of you guys go up to the haystack there. Pull it down and make sure he hasn’t fallen down between any of the bales. We all can help Paddy put it back together again after he is found.”

The sergeant was really in charge and everybody headed off in directions where he pointed. Another policeman, a younger constable, was talking with young Michael and Seamus. I thought the kids might need a bit of comfort but they were not showing any signs of being greatly upset. The constable kept asking them “Did Timmy ever talk about leaving home? Did he ever talk about going to Ballarat? What kind of hobbies did Timmy have? Now are you sure that he came home with you last night from school?”

Miss Pat Bradley was standing there too. She kept answering most of the questions for the boys. The constable turned and looked at her. “Was Timmy in any trouble at school? Have you smacked him lately or caused him to get upset? Did you ever hear him say he would like to go anywhere or go and meet any of his friends or to any of their houses?”

Both the boys and Miss Bradley had no other information at all. It was a complete mystery. Mr. and Mrs. Paddy O’Rourke were managers on that property. Paddy was a poor manager but well liked in the area. They were a pretty scrubby family who were always behind in everything, in paying their rent, in paying off any lay-bys they had in town, in paying their bills, and it always seemed that they were a family that would just never get ahead. They not only had Michael, Colleen, Seamus and Timothy at school, but there were another couple of children who had left the Jacksons Creek school and at least two others at home too young to go to school.

Mrs. O’Rourke was sitting in the lounge room on an old and very dusty club lounge. She was a thin, lean woman with straggly hair. She was wearing an apron and wringing it in her hands. She had no tears in her eyes but they had been red from crying all night. There were several women standing around and several sitting on the lounge near her. I went over and held her hand and expressed my sympathy and had a prayer that those who were out there searching might find young Tim before very long. There was silence for a long time after my prayer and I wondered what was the best thing I could do and so said “I’ll just go out with the other men and keep looking.”

When I went out there were a couple of people that were just heading off to search some of the old mine holes along the creek. Most of the old mines which had been dug in the 1890’s when gold had been found out along Jacksons Creek, in fact all the way out to Moyston and down to Dunkeld, most of the old mine shafts had now been filled. A farm used to use a mine shaft as a rubbish dump and it would perhaps take ten years or more to fill it up with the accumulated rubbish from the farm, including carcasses of animals that had died, old cans and pieces of broken down machinery. The problem was that things were thrown down into the mines and something might jam half way down a mine shaft then other things would build up on top of it and gradually the mine shaft would fill to the top but if someone were to jump in the centre of it it may be that whatever was causing the blockage half way down would give way and the mine shaft would collapse taking the person with it. It was important that we went out and checked all the mine shafts along the creek.

As we checked the shafts I kept thinking of little Timmy in school. His clothes seemed to be too big now I come to think about it and were obviously hand-me-downs from Michael and Seamus. His eyes seemed to be too big and he had too many freckles. He wasn’t a kid that really attracted attention in any way. He wasn’t mischievous or troublesome, he was just a quiet little kid who was in the youngest grade of the school.

Our search of the old mine shafts proved fruitless and we slowly drifted back to the farmhouse. From every direction on the farm there were people heading back towards the farmhouse. It was now well after 2 p.m. and people where thinking they needed a bite to eat. No one wanted to come in too early as if they were keen to get to lunch. We all stayed fairly late and then slowly drifted into the farmhouse. It certainly looked like there would be plenty for lunch. As if by magic food appeared as neighbours came. The Ararat PWMU, the Presbyterian Women’s Missionary Union arrived with scones and ham sandwiches, and there were a couple of people from the Salvation Army making big pots of tea. Miss Pat Bradley was there going in and out of the kitchen. She couldn’t keep still. In a strange way young Timothy was her child too.

Lunch was a quiet affair as people sat round outside the back door eating a sandwich or a scone and slowly drinking mugs of tea. Those that did talk talked about everything else – their paddocks were dry, there hadn’t been much rain lately, the creek was down, and so on. And then occasionally someone would say, “Poor little tyke.” And then you would slowly see some of the people take a handkerchief out and blow their nose or wipe their eye with the back of a hand.

There were those who tried to be helpful. “There are a lot of black snakes around – I saw two this morning. I wonder if he might have been bit.” Someone else said “I heard there has been a swaggy hanging around this area lately. Does anybody know anything about him? Would he have been likely to go off with him?” None of the helpful sort of suggestions seemed to prove anything. A group of three men came in on horses. They had been right round the boundary fences looking for any sign of a little boy who might have got through or perhaps dropped something but there was nothing. Some others came in and went straight into the wash house for a big wash up. They had been searching through the chook house and underneath the slats in the piggery. There was a deep drain underneath the slats in the piggery. It was kept blocked purposely and only let go about once a month. It was filled with about two feet of the most foul smelling urine and excreta from all the pigs. The men had unblocked the drain and let it flush out but there was nothing. They had come up for a good wash.

The children were now going through another round of questioning. “Did he have a fight with anybody at school? Are you sure he came home with you last night after school?” The questions had all been asked before except Michael said “No, we didn’t come home straight away. We called in at Thompson’s to look at Ben Thompson’s diamond head snake. Timmy loved to see the snake catch the mice that Ben put in but Ben didn’t have any. He asked us if we had some and we said ‘Yes, you’ll always find mice around our silo’.” Four men jumped up simultaneously and headed towards the paddock gate. They even left their hats behind. They headed straight down towards the silo. Someone yelled out “Anyone looked in the silo?” Someone else replied “Yes, I did – I climbed up and looked in. He is not in there.” But almost everybody left the sandwiches and headed out the home paddock gate down towards the wheat silo. It was a big silo about twelve foot high, built of corrugated iron, standing on corrugated iron legs. It was under a big peppercorn tree and the branches of the tree used to brush over the top of the silo. The mice couldn’t climb the silo but they were able to climb up through the peppercorn tree and they did like the wheat that fell from the door where the bags would be hung.

Paddy went straight to the gate of the silo and pulled the long handle, lifting it up, letting the wheat pour out onto the ground. He didn’t care. He just wanted to know the answer. Someone climbed the peppercorn tree and someone else up the side of the tank. They opened the trap at the top and poked their head in peering into the darkness. There were mice all round the edge of the steel lid. “No, no, he’s not in here. Hang on. God! I can see a leg!.” It was Timothy.

He had fallen into the silo and as he struggled he became sucked into the wheat which eventually covered him. The wheat kept pouring out of the gate all over the ground. One man pulled back the trap and jumped down inside with a handkerchief stuffed in his mouth and over his nose. Clouds of choking wheat dust rose inside the silo. He pulled the little body out and handed it up to another who leant over the top of the silo.

Paddy picked up his little boy and walked up to the house with him in his arms. Wheat continued to pour all over the ground and not one farmer moved to shut the trap but a respectful and silent group of men filled in behind Paddy. They laid him on the kitchen table. Someone said they would go to the radio from the bush fire brigade truck and get Dr. Claridge to come out but there was nothing he would be able to do.

The Catholic church was full that week for the funeral of young Timothy O’Rourke. Old Monsignor McCarthy took the mass. A lot of people came to pay their respects to Paddy and Mrs. O’Rourke in the death of their young son. All of the kids from the Jacksons Creek school were there. I sat with Miss Pat Bradley. We were both in tears.

As we walked out into the Ararat sunshine and the little coffin was placed into the hearse Miss Pat Bradley looked at me and said “We’ve lost young Timmy but do you know what that means?” I looked at her. She went on “We now are below the number of children for this school to stay open. Maybe they’ll close the school now. That Melbourne mob don’t care, they only look at the numbers and if the numbers are not there they just close the school.” I looked at Miss Bradley. The death of young Timmy might mean the death of the Jacksons Creek School and with it her life long occupation. Perhaps her 20 years at the school were now being brought to an end. The Melbourne mob only looked at the numbers and the numbers had said for a long time that the school was too small and it was no longer viable. The children would have to be bussed into Ararat. Perhaps when we lost Timothy we also lost the school.

They were very grim days when I was a country parson, teaching in the one teacher bush school at Jacksons Creek.

GORDON MOYES

Friday, 10th February, 2006, 10:10 am | A Bush Teacher, Australian Short Stories