Five-Head Creek; and Fish Drugging in the Pacific

by Louis Becke

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Pages: 22

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About this book

A drought-stricken cattle run near Townsville gives Louis Becke's opening sketch its setting. The narrator arrives at Five-Head Creek to mend fences and gather surviving cattle, expecting six months in a rough slab hut. His first dismay gives way to close attention to the place: emus bathe in sand, curlews call across the plains, and a long-awaited storm changes the sound and feel of the night.

Daily work shares space with fishing, hunting and observations of birds along the creek. Becke records both the practical business of preserving food and the damage settlers have done to local wildlife. The volume pairs this Australian bush narrative with a piece on Pacific fishing practices. Readers interested in frontier writing and natural history will find a mixture of camp routine, weather, animal behaviour and the narrator's shifting attachment to an isolated home.

About the author

Louis Becke

Louis Becke was an Australian short-story writer and novelist whose years as a trader and traveler in the Pacific supplied much of his subject matter. Born George Lewis Becke in Port Macquarie, he went to sea young, worked in Samoa and Micronesia, survived shipwreck, and later turned those experiences into fiction.