The powder monkey moved slower than the rest of us around the Dead Swaggie creek camp, and out on the job. He was from somewhere in the Balkans, his name was Jakob, but he was called the Yak because he called himself Yakob as his teeth were warped from crimping blasting caps onto detonators, and he pronounced his Js as Ys. He was about five foot-six, gaunt, his face pockmarked with small black spots from a blast which had blown back on him, but you didn’t ask where or why, not on jobs in places like this. Like a lot of us in the single men’s camp he might have had something behind him, from unpaid maintenance payments to break and enter. He could tell if he wanted to.
For the most part, I saw the Yak moving quietly around the camp, and occasionally when my gang had to offside him setting up blasts. But the main task of the gang I was with was clearing grand, vine-linked timber off the tops of hills too rugged for big D8 and D9 'dozers. We were dropped off at a bush track leading uphill, complete with chainsaw, fuel, axes and files for sharpening, and our own kit, then make our way upslope through the unsuspecting glades until we made our camp. Then our ganger, Jack, a big easygoing Queenslander, and one of the married men, would find a survey peg, take a bearing and find our line to clear along, and the great trees would fall. Sometimes, linked with vines, they would drag other trees down with them as they crashed to the ground. That was why Ron, the leading hand, also our chainsaw man, always cut a path back from the main tree, so when it gave the first indication it was on its way down, he and his mate could turn and bolt, sometimes hurling the chainsaw as they got out of the way. The moment of great forces thundering down closed with a dazed silence and the bush seemed to seek its peace again, the dust settled, and such wildlife as was still around took stock of what we had done to their world. And then we’d boil the billy for smoko or lunch, the smokers would pull out their tins of tobacco which we rubbed before rolling it into a cigarette, lighting it and having a smoke, and then we would start over. All things considered, I’d say we were generally good men about what was then honest work.
