The stockman who refused to die / By Richard Sheats

The stockman who refused to die / By Richard Sheats

            “Alone in the outback, his leg broken, Daniel Matthews had to rely on luck, guts and a sheer determination to stay alive.”

            The morning of Monday July 15, 1985, was mild and sunny, as Daniel Matthews, a stock inspector with South Australia’s Department of Agriculture, loaded his truck.

            “ Get back by Friday,” his wife Rosalie reminded him as he kissed her good-bye at their home in Port Augusta. “We’re booked for the cabaret in town.”

            One of five stock inspectors working in the department’s northern region, 39-year-old Daniel was driving to Andamooka station, some 260 kilometres north-west, to check on an area declared cattle free under a brucellosis and tuberculosis eradication programme. Concerned that infected stock could jeopardize Australia’s valuable meat trade, the government had decided in 1976 that diseased or suspect cattle must be destroyed. Some cattle, born in the bush, ran wild. If Daniel found any of these animals, he had to muster them for inspection—if he could—or shoot them.

            At sunset, Daniel turned off the road to camp for the night. He reflected on how much he enjoyed the bush and its silence, broken perhaps by a dingo call, the thump of a kangaroo tail, a scurrying lizard or a fleeing emu. His work was not so much a job as a way of  life.

            Playing safe.

            Early next morning, Daniel drove to the boundary fence built originally to keep dingoes off Andamooka station and adjacent properties. He dragged his 250cc motorcycle from the truck and headed out looking for signs of cattle inside the fenced area. In sand hills alongside a dry swamp, he found new cattle tracks, but his front tyre was punctured, and he rode back to the truck to mend it.

            While he was there, he tried to radio his headquarters in Port Augusta to say that he was on the station, but he failed to get a response. He spoke to a stock inspector based at Marla, 680 kilometres north-west of Port Augusta, and asked him to pass on the message to base. Then, playing it doubly safe, he called David Coverdale, another stock inspector, working along another route some 375 kilometres away. Daniel knew the problems a lone man could run into in the outback, and if anything went wrong his colleagues would know where to look for him.

            Just before 2pm, Daniel drove the truck to the dry swamp, setting up camp on its southern tip. Then, with a ten shot .30-30 rifle slung across his back, he followed the tracks east on his motorbike. Daniel planned to yard the cattle in a wire enclosure, 25 metres square, built near the swamp. Ahead, he saw seven animals scampering away. For nearly an hour he herded them until, suddenly, a wild cow, never handled by man, took off with her calf and a young bull. Daniel cursed. That cow’s as mad as a snake, he told himself.

            Unable to control the other cattle, he shot them. Now, dodging a succession of myall trees, he tracked the three wild runaways for some 20 kilometres. As he killed the bull, Daniel dropped one of his long leather gloves. But his attention was fixed on the cow and her calf. If he failed to kill them, they would perhaps pass on disease to other stock. After a two-kilometre chase, he shot them.

            Out of control.

            By now, Daniel’s petrol was running low, but the cold wind of the Australian winter made him realize that he was missing his glove. He found it quickly and, instead of taking a direct line west towards his truck, he rode north to the boundary fence. Then if he ran out of petrol he could follow a route through the sandhills to where he had set up camp.

            As he rode along the fence in the gathering twilight, he didn’t see the cluster of red stones until he was on them. The bike’s front tyre ricocheted from one rock to another. Then Daniel felt the bike being thrown from under him. He was out of control, falling, rolling, sliding. . . .

            As he sat up his left shin felt strange. Blood was seeping through the fabric of his jeans. He didn’t need a surgeon to tell him that a broken shinbone had pierced the outer skin.

            Daniel had taken a multitude of bumps and bruises in the bush before and knew he must not panic. First he had to stop the bleeding. He put a handkerchief pad over a seven-centimetre gash in his shin, and pulled his army-style leather boot up as far as he could, lacing it tightly. Then he tied the butt of his rifle to his leg, using its strap and the wide elastic kidney belt he wore to lessen shock in motorcycling over rough ground.

            Now he took stock. His situation was frightening. He’d got a message to base, but John Heron, Port Augusta’s radio operator, was on holiday. He couldn’t be sure relief staff would act if he failed to check in each day. Rosalie wouldn’t expect him until Friday—three days away.

            Daniel decided to make his way towards the swamp. By keeping to the fence he was sure to strike water. Painfully, he dragged himself to the fence and pulled himself to a standing position on one leg. He considered trying to get on the bike, but it was agony when he put the injured leg down. And only a madman would try to ride across such rough terrain with a broken left leg—the one that operated the gears.

            You’re going to have to drag yourself there, Daniel told himself. And it’s one hell of a long way, mate.

            Lifting, thrusting, scraping.

            He pulled himself along on his stomach, digging his gloved hands into the soil and stones, but the toes of his injured leg scraped the ground. Then he tried sitting, palms flat on the stony ground. Lifting his backside, he levered himself backwards. In 90 minutes, he moved only about half a kilometer and, despite the evening cold, he sweated a little.

            He reckoned that the swamp with water in its northern region, was ten kilometers away—two or three days of lifting and thrusting and scraping, at his present rate. But the muscles in his upper arms and shoulders rebelled against their task, and occasional wrenching cramps locked his forearms and fingers. Many times he stopped to doze, the cold waking him each time. By daybreak, he had covered just four kilometers.

            Daniel Matthews thought about his family. Rosalie would soon be up to attend to their son, James three, and daughter Ellisa, two. Breakfast would be cooking. How Daniel wished he were home!

            As he dragged himself on, his rifle butt kept catching the ground. So he untied the makeshift splint and scrapped the barrel against his shin. He found some loose sticks of mulga wood and tried to use them as crutches. Some pieces were too short. Others were too long, and he could not break them. Near the fence Daniel saw a small brown beer bottle. He tucked it into a pocket to use if he found water.

            All that Wednesday he struggled on – thinking about Rosalie, the kids…. Did his office know he was missing? Drag, rest, drag, rest …. He found some parakeelya, a native succulent, and bit into the leaves to suck the juice. Surprisingly, he was not very thirsty.

            Fighting despair.

            As darkness fell, he had covered another three kilometers. A mob of kangaroos bounced towards him on the other side of the fence. “You beauty!” he yelled, sure they were scampering from a vehicle, a farm hand perhaps. But nothing followed, and Daniel’s spirits sank.

            To survive he had to fight despair. He challenged himself to a test of will power and strength – to see how far he could go without resting. Until now, his pattern had been to do ten lifts, then pause. “Twenty lifts,” he said. “Come on – you can do it!” Gasping with pain, he succeeded. Then he tried 50. His best efforts that cold dark night was 120.

            Before dawn on Thursday, his body demanded rest. His arms were losing their strength and his buttocks were sore from the incessant thumping and scraping. Daniel blessed his tough-seated jeans. And thank God I went back for my glove his hands would have been ripped to pieces in the first hundred metres.

            At daybreak, Daniel found water contaminated with cow dung. He was not thirsty, but forced himself to drink. He trickled water into the beer bottle’s narrow lip, trying to keep out the cow muck. It tasted foul, but he swallowed a few mouthfuls.

            The day was hot – or did it just seem hot? – and his efforts rapidly depleted his strength. Sweat poured down his face, and his shirt clung to his body. From early morning until six that evening, he travelled only half a kilometer. Now, his fingers curled inwards into his palms. He trembled violently with cold. He tried to make a fire to warm himself by rubbing two sticks together, but the effort was too much.

            As Thursday night lengthened Daniel became thirsty for the first time. He was almost to the swamp and knew that water was not far away. He left the fence, thinking he had a good line on the stars. But after dragging himself south he became disoriented and ended up going north until he came to the fence again. He had travelled perhaps one and half kilometers for nothing!

            Life-restoring drops.

            Now despair overcame him. One part of  his mind said: “You’ll never make it. You’ve dragged yourself along for three nights and two days. Give up! But then Daniel’s fighting spirit took over: You’re nearly there mate! Keep going!

            On Friday morning, Daniel found water. Hardly deep enough to drown a mosquito, he told himself, but he sucked up some life restoring drops. As he rested he thought about Rosalie. He pictured her watching for his return and getting increasingly anxious. Now he had to get to the truck. If he couldn’t drive, he could radio for help.

            Dragging himself south-west through the middle of the swamp, Daniel could hear trucks in the far distance going to and from Roxby Downs uranium mines. Help was so near, yet for him a daunting distance away. Exhausted, he pulled himself on to a narrow track running along the western side of the swamp and dozed.

            He woke to a chilling cold. It was dark and lights glowed at the Roxby Downs uranium mines some 40 kilometers to the south. If he followed them, he would find his truck. Then doubts troubled him.

            Confused, he decided the lights came from the town of Andamooka. If he followed those, he’d be going away from the truck. He dragged himself west, away from the lights that should have guided him.

            At dawn he found another pool of muddy water. He was thirsty, and sucked up all he could. A dingo watched his frantic bid for survival. Then Daniel saw the sun, and thought it was rising in the west! The Good Lord has sent the sun up on the wrong side, he thought. Reason reasserted itself, and he knew he had been heading away from the truck. The oozing wound in his left leg pounded with pain. If he didn’t reach his truck soon, he knew he would die.

            At the Matthews’s home in Port Augusta, Rosalie was racked with worry. Daniel should have been home by now. She was accustomed to him returning a night later than planned, but this time she sensed  that something was wrong. Just another hour or two, she thought, and she’d try to contact someone from the Department of Agriculture.

            Shortly after 11 am three men travelling to Andamooka in a jeep saw strange tracks on the dusty road—two long tails with small depressions on each side. “Looks like some weird kind of giant lizard,” one of them joked.

            They rounded a bend—and jammed on the brakes. Daniel exhausted, heard someone ask, “You got a broken leg, mate?”

            The three men lifted him into their vehicle and covered him with blankets.

            An hour later, they carried Danny into the tiny Andamooka Hospital, run by two nursing sisters—and left without giving their names. Soon Dr Vincent O’ Brien, from Port Augusta’s Royal Flying Doctor Service base, was flying to Andamooka to take Daniel to the hospital in Adelaide via Port Augusta. When Daniel arrived at his home-town airstrip, Rosalie kissed his forehead with relief. “From what they tell me, you’re a lucky man,” she said.

            “I reckon I’m that, love,” Daniel murmured.

            What did save Daniel Matthews’ life? “It was guts,” says Dr O’Brien, “ a sheer determination to stay alive—and the luck that it happened in winter.”

            Daniel’s nightmare—he calculates that he levered himself up and along at least 28,000 times in his five-day ordeal—has caused the Department of Agriculture to tighten the safety rules. Never again will South Australian stock inspectors go alone into the outback. Says Daniel, “We’re learning to treat its vast and wonderful wildness with more respect.”

“You can’t turn back the clock. But you can wind it up again”                      -Bonnie Prudent  

One man against the pirates / by Clark Norton and Howard Kohn

One man against the pirates / by Clark Norton and Howard Kohn

“For weeks the drunken toughs had terrorized the Vietnamese boat people stranded on a tiny island. Rape, torture, murder—seemingly without end. Now it was up to one young American to stop it,”

            On November 16, 1979, Theodore (Ted) Schweitzer, a new field officer for the United Nations High Commissioner for refugees, was in his office at the Songkhla refugee camp in southern Thailand, a temporary home for thousands of “boat people” who had fled Vietnam. For Schweitzer, a simple, soft-spoken, 37-year-old American overseeing the camp was not an entirely exotic assignment. He had taught English in Bangkok three years earlier, and was married to a Thai woman. Fluent in Thai, he had already battled local authorities to get better conditions for his refugees. But now his job was about to take on a new dimension.

            That morning, Schweitzer was visited by an oil-company helicopter pilot who reported spotting dozens of refugees on Ko Kra, a tiny island 50 kilometres off Thailand’s eastern coast. Schweitzer had never heard of Ko Kra, but with missionary zeal he asked the pilot to fly him over the island. Soon he was looking down on a one and a half-square-kilometre patch of mountain, jungle and coral-flecked beach. Below, tattered refugees waved at him in desperation.

            Schweitzer pleaded with the pilot to land, but the man had spotted pirate boats offshore and bodies floating in the water, and he refused. “I’m not hired to fly combat missions,” he said.

            Back on the coast, Schweitzer persuaded Thai marine police to take him to Ko Kra by launch. Together, they rescued 157 men, women and children.

            Schweizer was aghast at the refugees’ tales of terror: pirates had attacked their boats, robbed them, then they towed them to uninhabited Ko Kra, where the refugees were thrown overboard hundreds of metres from shore. Seventeen had drowned. The rest were marooned with little more than their clothing. Then the real nightmare began. Boatloads of pirates—as many as 50 vessels in a day—repeatedly returned to Ko Kra to rape the refugee women. (For centuries, many Thai and Malay fishermen have doubled as pirates. In the past decade, with a million boat people setting sail from Vietnam in fragile vessels, the piracy has swelled like the tidal waves that also plague these waters.)

            One young woman, Vu Thanh Thuy, a former journalist in Vietnam, begged Schweitzer to do something to stop the pirate attacks. “I promise,” he told her.

            Before leaving Ko Kra, one of the 157 refugees had scratched Schweitzer’s name and UN affiliation on the wall of an abandoned lighthouse. Two weeks later, an old fisherman smuggled a message to Schweitzer: “SOS: we are 17 South Vietnamese refugees, just arrived Ko Kra island. Our lives are in danger and we need immediate help.” On December 3, Schweitzer returned to the island on a police boat and rescued this second group. A month later he rescued another 80 people.

            Piercing screams.

            Then, in mid-january 1980, after sighting more refugees from a helicopter, Schweitzer set off on his fourth rescue mission. It was plague by trouble from the start. The weather was stormy and the Thai police were unwilling to risk the violent north-east monsoon. Schweitzer ended up renting an old fishing boat and its crew for $500 of his own money.

            Alerting the Thai authorities to his plans, Schweitzer and crew set off in the late afternoon on January 14, hoping to reach the island by morning. But the storm tossed seas heaved the boat on six metre swells, driving it in circles. Not until midnight on the second night did they reach Ko Kra, dropping anchor 400 metres offshore to avoid the rocky shallows. Then the captain shut off the engines.

            Suddenly, screams from the island pierced the night. Exhausted from the journey, Schweitzer sat on deck and listened until he could listen no more. I have to do something, he thought. Impulsively, he stripped to his underwear and dived into the water.

            The current was swift, and Schweitzer struggled towards the beach. But instead of getting closer to it, he could see it receding. I’m being swept out to sea!

            Straining desperately towards a rocky outcropping at the far west end of the island—the last piece of land before kilometers of ocean—Schweitzer collided with something in the water. His blood froze as he stared into the face of a dead man. Then a mountainous swell picked Schweitzer up and smashed him against the outcropping. Somehow he grabbed on to a small ledge.

            With waves threatening to wash him back to sea, Schweitzer crawled his way 15 metres up the slippery cliff to a wider ledge. His legs, slashed by the rocks, ran with blood. Shivering, he crouched and waited for daybreak.

            Hellish prison.

            An hour passed like a year. Then he heard voices.

            “Hello!” Schweitzer shouted, pulling himself to his feet. He looked up and saw the smiling faces of two Vietnamese men pop over the edge of the cliff. One cried in English, “Oh, we are saved!” Using a pair of trousers, they hoisted Schweitzer to the top of the cliff, then bandaged his legs with an old skirt. Schweitzer asked about the screams.

            “The robbers are raping the girls,” he was told.

            The men led Schweitzer down the back side of the cliff. In a grassy area by the beach, he saw campfires. Dozens of fierce looking young toughs lay around them in an alcoholic stupor. The pirates ! The Vietnamese told Schweitzer that the pirates had taken their watches, jewellery and other valuables. One old man had his gold-filled teeth wrenched out with pliers and a screwdriver. But what really kept the pirates around was the refugee women. Ko Kra had been turned into a hellish prison of rape and torture.

            Some women had fled to the hills or into the tall elephant grass. But the pirates tortured the men to reveal their hideouts. Once, when the pirates set fire to the elephant grass to smoke out the terrified women, a teenage girl jut let the fire burn over her, not crying out as it scorched her back. But when the elephant grass was gone, the pirates found her and raped her anyway. Now, Schweitzer watched with horror as the pirates raped Vietnamese girls in view of everyone.

            “Where are the other men?” he asked the two Vietnamese.

            “Hiding.”

            “Show me where.”

            An hour later, Schweitzer was at the head of a ragtag band of about 35 half-starved Vietnamese men. Hanging on to one another for support, they advanced towards the pirate campfires.

            At the sight of the foreigner, the pirates cursed and rose on unsteady legs. Speaking Thai, Schweitzer called out that he was from the United Nations. “All these people are under my protection,” he shouted. “ If you leave immediately, I won’t have you arrested.”

            About 50 pirates stood their ground, facing Schweitzer and the refugees. Schweitzer looked grimly at their scarred bodies and rippling muscles. Doggedly, he stepped closer.

            The pirates waved a small arsenal of weapons—guns, hammers, axes, lead pipes—and shouted, “Stand back! Stand back!”

            Schweitzer and his outmatched band halted. If he didn’t act fast, the men behind him might retreat to the bush. I can’t show any sign of weakness, Schweitzer thought. If I do, I’m a dead man.

            “ I am a representative of the United Nations!” he repeated. “ If you kill me, the whole world will hunt you down!”

            The pirates laughed, yet some began to retreat. The sight gave the refugees sudden courage, and several sprang forward, beating the pirates with their bare hands.

            “Don’t! Come back !” Schweitzer yelled. But it was too late.

            The pirates turned and attacked. With one swing of a lead pipe, their leader opened a bloody gash on Schweitzer’s head. Another blow sent him to the ground. In a daze, he felt his side and stomach being kicked in repeatedly. Then he lost consciousness.

            “All must make it.”

            When Schweitzer regained consciousness, it was dawn and the pirates were gone. But he could see their boats lingering off-shore. Knowing that their attackers would return, some of the refugees fell at Schweitzer’s feet, begging to be taken from the island.

            With no time to lose, Schweitzer told the hysterical refugees, “Be quiet! Do exactly as I say!”

            Their first task was to find the women and children who were still hiding. From previous rescue missions, Schweitzer knew of several hideouts, including a rocky cave half-filled with sea water. On his first mission he had found a young woman who had stood waist-deep in water for 18 days. She had had chunks of her flesh eaten away by sea crabs. Seeing her, Schweitzer had broken down and cried. Now he found more women in the cave, some too weak to walk. He carried them on his shoulders down the mountain to the beach.

            “I have a boat standing by,” Schweitzer told the refugees. Dividing them into three groups—men who could swim, men who could not, and women and children—he matched up swimmers and non-swimmers.

            Then began a grueling series of swims out to the rented fishing boat. Human chains were formed: Schweitzer or another man towing a woman, who in turn held a child.

            As Schweitzer placed the first refugees on board, he thought he saw a pirate boat returning. Should I leave with those already on board? No, all must make it?

            A second boat appeared on the horizon. Another pirate ship? Schweitzer took note of its markings: a Thai navy boat. Thank God, we’re going to make it.

            And they did—although their boat ran aground just one and a half kilometers from the mainland and they endured another 12 hours as pirate ships menaced them. But a rising tide finally carried them to shore and safety. Because of Schweitzer’s courageous efforts, 88 more refugees survived the horrors of Ko Kra.

            Sense of accomplishment.

            During his remaining four months at Songkhla, Schweitzer returned to the island another two dozen times, leading an average of one rescue mission per week. In all, he helped save 1,250 refugees. He was beaten up twice, shot at, stabbed, and threatened with murder. Once, a pirate kicked him so hard in the kidneys that red urine spurted uncontrollably down his trousers. His wife, sick with fear, suffered two miscarriages, and their daughter was threatened with kidnapping. Much of the time Schweitzer was forced to act alone, for officials didn’t like to admit the extent of the problem.

            Finally, in May 1980, Schweitzer accepted a transfer, this time an office job in Geneva, Switzerland. His health was wrecked; he awoke every night in a nightmare sweat. Twice he had to undergo emergency kidney operations.

            Still, Schweitzer felt a sense of accomplishment. Besides saving refugees, he had persuaded the UN to invest in life-saving equipment so that others could carry on his work. And he won the “deep gratitude” and “personal admiration” of Poul Hartling, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, who presented him with a replica of the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the agency in 1981.

            Today, Schweitzer is back in the United States, still determined to do whatever he can to save the boat people from pirates. He has formed his own anti-piracy organization, called the SEA Rescue Foundation. Its goal is to establish a piracy-free zone across the Gulf of Thailand, using helicopters, speedboats and sea planes.

            In 1983 a US-based Vietnamese refugee organization, the Boat People SOS committee, gave Schweitzer its award of merit. Instrumental in bestowing that award were California residents Vu Thanh Thuy, the young journalist Schweitzer rescued on his first mission, and her husband, Duong Phuc, whom Schweitzer had also rescued.

            “We would have died on Ko Kra if not for Mr Schweitzer,” Vu Thanh Thuy says. “We could never thank him enough.”

            And in a city in southern France, a young boy is growing up, born to one of the women rescued by Schweitzer from the watery cave of Ko Kra. She has named him Theodore.

“The big advantage of a book is it’s very easy to rewind. Close it and you’re right back at the beginning.”

                                                                                                                                                -Jerry Sienfield

A tragedy ignored             Pirates continue to roam the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea, preying upon the men, women and children who risk their lives in rickety boats to free the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.             In 1985, for instance, 451 boats managed to make it from Vietnam to Thailand or Malaysia. Crammed into these vessels were 10,706 Vietnamese. Nearly a third of the boats had been attacked by pirates, usually more than once. Seventy four passengers had been murdered, 111 kidnapped, 110 raped.             How many boats failed to reached freedom will never be known. What is known is that increasingly the pirates are murdering all passengers after robbing them and often raping the women. In March 1985, for instance, a refugee boat slipped away from Can Tho, Vietname, with 117 passengers aboard, including 36 children under ten. Four days later, it drifted across the path of five pirate vessels. Only one managed to survive.             Though the Thai navy has expanded air and sea patrols, the pirates have an essentially free hand since they operate largely in vast international waters. There are 4,356 documented cases from 1981 through 1986 of murder, kidnapping and rape, but 40 convictions. And the ongoing tragedy is largely ignored by the rest of the world.

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“He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not is a fool –leave him!

He who knows not and knows that he knows not is simple –teach him!

He who knows and knows not that he knows, is a sleep –wake him!

He who knows, and knows that he knows, is wise –follow him.”

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“ Calmness is the sure indication of a strong, well trained, patiently disciplined mind.

The calm man knows his business, be sure of it. His words are few, but they tell.

His schemes are well planned, and they work true, like a well balanced machine.

He sees a long way ahead and makes straight for his object.”

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 “If you dream something long enough,

a door seems to open and through that door,

come mighty forces that will guide you

in your efforts, to make the dream come true.”

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“All science, research and study is a prayer,

that God will reveal His eternal secrets to us.

For God does have secrets which he reveals,

only when man searches reverently for them.

God did not make all his revelations in the past.

He is continually revealing Himself, His plans and his truths

to those who will search for them.”

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“Those people who are prepared to suffer do the least suffering.

It is those who are always running away from pain

who receive the greatest amount of suffering.”

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