you about
him. Don't worry, he'll be all right in the morning.'
'But.
. . but the camel . . .'
'We'll
find it tomorrow.'
We
did, too. It was a bit tattered around the rump, but not seriously
injured.
Bill
was right. The Track is not like other places.
The Very Angry Pig
Australian
wild pigs have the ugliest faces in the world. They have characters
to match. I know, because one recently made a very serious attempt to
eat me. It had right on its side because I had been making an equally
serious attempt to shoot it. However, at the time of the encounter I
wasn't interested in the moral issue, merely in surviving.
I
had just written a novel called Pig and the firm of C.C. and
P. Pty Ltd, film producers, had taken an option on the film rights.
In researching the material for the book, I had spent a lot of time
hunting pigs in various parts of Australia and considered myself
something of an amateur expert on the subject of feral pigs. They are
very nasty creatures that are destroying much of the wilderness in
Australia. I was expounding my views on the generally pestilential
nature of pigs to the film company's producer, John Crew, when he
asked me whether I would go out west and secure a suitable specimen
of feral pig that the model makers could use as the basis for the
mechanical pig that had to be created for the film. I readily agreed
because the fee he was offering was considerably more than the job
was worth. Or so I thought. I knew where there were plenty of pigs
and I was quite experienced in the technique of shooting them.
I
made plans to drive in my Honda Civic out to the Macquarie Marshes in
central western New South Wales where I knew there were thousands of
feral pigs. Moreover, there have been pigs in the marshes for more
than one hundred years and they have reverted to the classic
ridgebacked, black, huge and vicious creature of porcine legend.
A
couple of days before I set out, I bumped my right eye on the catch
of a window. It was a very minor matter, but I had to have four
stitches in my right eyelid.
In
due course I drove out to the marshes and obtained permission from a
local farmer to go and shoot myself a pig.
I
was looking for the biggest and nastiest feral pig I could find,
because the plot of my novel deals with such a creature. The idea was
that as soon as I shot the pig I would load it into my car and rush
it back to Sydney, where the model maker would stuff it. I was armed
with an old army .303 which I had owned for some years and with which
I am reasonably proficient.
I
drove into a paddock and parked the car about two hundred metres from
the rushes that mark the beginning of the marshes and then decided I
had better clean my rifle, which I hadn't used for some time. I
completed this simple task quite quickly, made sure that I had a full
magazine of six cartridges and a pocketful of spares and strolled off
towards the marshes.
It
is necessary to understand that I am a middle-aged man of generally
sedentary habits, given to the avoidance of exercise and to
overindulgence in food and alcohol. In other words, I am fat and out
of condition. If I were unarmed I would never venture near a wild
pig, but with a .303 in his hands the most effete of men is a match
for any pig.
I
was barely a hundred metres from my car when I saw the biggest,
ugliest, blackest and most vicious-looking wild boar I have ever seen
in my life. It was standing just outside the rushes gazing at me
speculatively.
This
was good fortune beyond belief; my only doubt was whether I would be
able to get the beast into the back of my car.
I
raised the rifle, sighted carefully and fired, confidently expecting
the boar to decently drop dead.
It
didn't. It squealed with rage and charged me.
I
was surprised because I was reasonably sure I had hit the creature
and most pigs hit by a .303 bullet lie down quietly. But I was not
disconcerted because I had been charged by pigs before. All you do is
keep firing at them until they
him. Don't worry, he'll be all right in the morning.'
'But.
. . but the camel . . .'
'We'll
find it tomorrow.'
We
did, too. It was a bit tattered around the rump, but not seriously
injured.
Bill
was right. The Track is not like other places.
The Very Angry Pig
Australian
wild pigs have the ugliest faces in the world. They have characters
to match. I know, because one recently made a very serious attempt to
eat me. It had right on its side because I had been making an equally
serious attempt to shoot it. However, at the time of the encounter I
wasn't interested in the moral issue, merely in surviving.
I
had just written a novel called Pig and the firm of C.C. and
P. Pty Ltd, film producers, had taken an option on the film rights.
In researching the material for the book, I had spent a lot of time
hunting pigs in various parts of Australia and considered myself
something of an amateur expert on the subject of feral pigs. They are
very nasty creatures that are destroying much of the wilderness in
Australia. I was expounding my views on the generally pestilential
nature of pigs to the film company's producer, John Crew, when he
asked me whether I would go out west and secure a suitable specimen
of feral pig that the model makers could use as the basis for the
mechanical pig that had to be created for the film. I readily agreed
because the fee he was offering was considerably more than the job
was worth. Or so I thought. I knew where there were plenty of pigs
and I was quite experienced in the technique of shooting them.
I
made plans to drive in my Honda Civic out to the Macquarie Marshes in
central western New South Wales where I knew there were thousands of
feral pigs. Moreover, there have been pigs in the marshes for more
than one hundred years and they have reverted to the classic
ridgebacked, black, huge and vicious creature of porcine legend.
A
couple of days before I set out, I bumped my right eye on the catch
of a window. It was a very minor matter, but I had to have four
stitches in my right eyelid.
In
due course I drove out to the marshes and obtained permission from a
local farmer to go and shoot myself a pig.
I
was looking for the biggest and nastiest feral pig I could find,
because the plot of my novel deals with such a creature. The idea was
that as soon as I shot the pig I would load it into my car and rush
it back to Sydney, where the model maker would stuff it. I was armed
with an old army .303 which I had owned for some years and with which
I am reasonably proficient.
I
drove into a paddock and parked the car about two hundred metres from
the rushes that mark the beginning of the marshes and then decided I
had better clean my rifle, which I hadn't used for some time. I
completed this simple task quite quickly, made sure that I had a full
magazine of six cartridges and a pocketful of spares and strolled off
towards the marshes.
It
is necessary to understand that I am a middle-aged man of generally
sedentary habits, given to the avoidance of exercise and to
overindulgence in food and alcohol. In other words, I am fat and out
of condition. If I were unarmed I would never venture near a wild
pig, but with a .303 in his hands the most effete of men is a match
for any pig.
I
was barely a hundred metres from my car when I saw the biggest,
ugliest, blackest and most vicious-looking wild boar I have ever seen
in my life. It was standing just outside the rushes gazing at me
speculatively.
This
was good fortune beyond belief; my only doubt was whether I would be
able to get the beast into the back of my car.
I
raised the rifle, sighted carefully and fired, confidently expecting
the boar to decently drop dead.
It
didn't. It squealed with rage and charged me.
I
was surprised because I was reasonably sure I had hit the creature
and most pigs hit by a .303 bullet lie down quietly. But I was not
disconcerted because I had been charged by pigs before. All you do is
keep firing at them until they
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