I DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE - Henry Macey (rooftoppers txt) 📗

of his cab and ran over to tell us about the crash. As he was getting back in the cab, I asked how he knew we were here. He closed the door looked at me, and, as he pulled away he sang. ‘Sun de rise in de morning,’ what did he mean by that?”

 

I looked at him shrugged my shoulders and spread my hands, “don’t know, I think Don has a sixth sense.” I wasn’t going to tell him our secrets and have every trucker booked for speeding. He had nothing better to do, so he sat hiding in the bushes with his engine going, and his windows closed so he could sit in air-conditioned comfort.

 

Now I have given you the impression, that the sides of the roads had a thick growth of vegetation. That is not the case at all; in fact, the bushes in the outback were very sparse. But here and there, there would be thicker patches.

 

Just enough growth to camouflage the shape of a hidden car, but thin enough for you to look through. If you weren’t looking too closely at a particular spot, you wouldn’t see the blue and white of his car. When you did see it say at two hundred feet, he would have already shot you with his speed camera.

 

Anyway, it was his wish to be comfortable that told us he was there. We were always going south, at about this time of day. I say south generally the road from Headland to just above Carnarvon actually runs south-west, which puts the sun looking up our tailpipes. I said the road was straight, but it wasn’t flat, it undulates and you ride up and down like a ship sailing over a very long swell at sea.

 

It reminded me of my Navy days when we were closed up for action. I was a stoker, and when I was not on duty below, my action station was a feeder to a pom-pom crew. I would stand on the wings of the bridge deck, and look at the ships fore and aft. Watching the signallers with their adis lamps, flashing (…---…).

 

I wasn’t going to tell him that with the sun at the right altitude his car was sending out Morse code.

 

We had walked to the first body, bending, I took hold of the tarpaulin. I looked away as I lifted it to show him the body.

 

“Bloody strewth,” he said “cover him up mate, I haven’t had my lunch and I want to hold onto my breakfast. Any idea what made him end up this way?”

 

As I beckoned him back to the road, I said: “there are two of them and he wasn’t driving.” I indicated the marks in the road I had found. “Going to fast and half asleep I reckon you can see where he started to drift on the loose gravel. And the deep ruts where the wheels dug in and flipped it into its death roll.”

 

“Is there any evidence that something else could have caused the accident?” he asked.

 

“Sorry I’m not with you” I answered, “No beer cans to suggest he was drinking?” he asked. I looked around the area then said, “I don’t see any do you?” “No not one at all, but if there were, I would have suggested that they disappeared as I searched my car for my measuring tape” he answered.

 

My opinion of him changed at that moment because his measuring tape was already clipped to his belt. Anyway, there were no beer cans because I had already thought of that as a matter of course and had policed the wreck site, picking up all the shiny cans. I had even picked up the torn carton to put the cans into, and carried what I could to the trailer and put them inside it.

 

Then I returned to search for more I even climbed into the cab, where I found the driver’s legs wedged behind the driver’s seat. I found one can in there between the seat and the door. The seal had not been broken, but it was dented and covered in his blood.

 

I washed the can and my hand in the pool and then put the can with the others in the trailer. Then, I climbed in and counted them. As I hid them between the two bulkheads, we had pushed up to the front of the trailer so that no one would see them if they opened the door.

 

There were six missing from the twenty-four which would have been in the carton. These could be anywhere along the side of the road, from here to Port Headland. I just hoped they were not under the van.

 

When I got out of the trailer and closed it, I cried like a baby. As I kicked seven bells of hell, out of one of the tyres. I was full of hate, anger, sorrow, desperation, frustration, and even guilt. These men were not just working mates, we knew them socially. We knew their wives and their kids. One of their sons played soccer in the same team as mine.

 

We had been to their barbeques as they had been to ours. I had danced with their wives, and they had danced with mine at the soccer club dances. We had been on picnics together and spent Christmas day on the beach with them. That’s why we brought goodies up for them from Perth, you know, homemade birthday cards from the kids.

 

Letters from their wives and homemade cakes. Once, a milk tooth from a little girl who wanted her daddy to have for keep's sake. Then there were the things which were cheaper in Perth than up here, like writing paper and suntan lotion, packets of biscuits and sweets, cartons of cigarettes, and beer!

 

 

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Publication Date: 10-27-2017

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