Molly, Daisy and Gracie were very much at home in this part of the country. They evaded capture by practising survival skills inherited from their nomadic ancestors.
“My legs are sore, Dgudu,” cried Gracie. “I can’t walk.”
“My legs hurt too,” chimed in Daisy.
“Mine are sore, too,” said Molly. “But we can’t hang around here all day, we gotta walk on further.”
“I’ll carry Daisy first, have a rest then it will be your turn, Gracie,” said Molly.
“Alright,” both agreed.
The progress was slow and laborious but they persisted. When Molly’s turn came to have a break from carrying them, the younger sisters took turns piggy-backing each other.
To fool possible informants, they would approach a farmhouse or a station homestead from one direction and pretend to go off in the opposite way. Then they would do a full circle, making sure that no one was following them, and double back when all was clear and continue along their usual route. But they never ventured too close to any towns throughout the Upper Murchinson district.
One late afternoon, the girls were enjoying the mild winter day, with the sun shining on their backs. It was the kind of day when you felt happy to be alive. The absconders gleaned all the positive energy from the environment, from everything that lived and breathed around them. It would have been perfect if only their legs hadn’t been so painful and they had something to eat. Molly was out in front of the other two when she crouched down suddenly amongst some thick prickly kurrara trees and picked up a small stone and threw it at Daisy and Gracie. They had stopped to dig a hole under a large mulga tree. When they looked up, she signalled to them to come to her and sit down.
“Look over there, a station out-camp,” whispered Molly. “Go in there and look for some food.”
The two youngsters were used to this kind of request. When it came to obtaining food, they never sneaked or crept up to the places—the frontal direct approach was their method. Molly watched them from the safety of the trees and shrubs, as they walked up to the shed. Daisy peeped through a crack in the wooden door and saw the shed was unoccupied.
“Come on,” she called to Gracie. “There’s nobody in there,” she added as she unbolted the door and entered.
Inside the camp, which was merely a tin shed with a bough shelter in front of it, were two camp beds, a table and empty four-gallon tins scattered about in an untidy mess. Daisy and Gracie quickly searched the shelves and the table and found some matches, flour, salt and three large Sunshine milk tins.
Removing the lids with a butcher’s knife, which they had found on a rough bench, they were immediately overcome by the appetising aroma of dgingi, the tins were filled with dripping. They couldn’t remember when they had smelt this last. They hadn’t eaten since breakfast and they were very hungry, so they dipped both hands into the tin and scooped up as much fat as they could and ate it.
“This tastes really good,” said Daisy, as she dipped in once again.
“We gotta hurry up,” Gracie reminded her sister as she snatched up some of the precious finds.
“Come on,” she urged and she rushed out through the door. Daisy spied a billy can underneath the table. She grabbed it and the remaining items and joined the other two outside.
They got as far as the kurrara trees where Molly was waiting for them, when both girls simply doubled over and vomited. When Molly heard what they had done she said, “You silly beggars, you shouldn’t eat that dgingi by itself. See you both get sick now.” She waited impatiently for the two little girls to finish emptying the dripping from their stomachs.
“Are you alright?” she asked them. They nodded in reply. “Well, come on. Let’s move along.”
Daisy and Gracie recovered enough to straighten up and take their position behind their older sister who was striding on towards the rabbit-proof fence.
That evening they supped on hot damper, which was made on a clean spare frock, and sweet black tea, then they slept in a dry gully. Their simple meals were just like the ones they ate at home—especially when they managed to find birds, birds’ eggs, rabbits and lizards to supplement their meagre diet. But their festering sores were still aching and they could find no relief. Despite the pain they pressed on using the same procedure as before; taking it in turns
to carry each other—except Molly who was heavier and bigger than the other two.
One day about midday, when the sun was high in the azure sky, Daisy and Gracie heard an excited shriek from Molly who, as usual, was walking ahead of them.
“Here it is. I’ve found it. Come and look,” she yelled as she laughed and waved her arms.
“What is it?” asked Gracie. “What are you shouting for?” “I’ve found the rabbit-proof fence. See,” she said, pointing to the fence. “This will take us all the way home to Jigalong.”
“But how do you know that’s the rabbit-proof fence, Dgudu?” asked Daisy, with a puzzled look on her face. She didn’t notice anything special about this fence.
“This fence is straight, see,” Molly explained. “And it’s clear on each side of the fence.”
She should know, after all her father was the inspector of the fence and he told her all about it. Now the fence would help her and her sisters find their way home. There was much excitement when the girls at last reached the rabbit-proof fence.
From when she was young, Molly had learned that the fence was an important landmark for the Mardudjara people of the Western Desert who migrated south from the remote regions. They knew that once they reached Billanooka Station, it was simply a matter of following the rabbit-proof fence to their final destination, the Jigalong government depot; the desert outpost of the white man. The fence cut through the country from south to north. It was a typical response by the white people to a problem of their own making. Building a fence to keep the rabbits out proved to be a futile attempt by the government of the day.
For the three runaways, the fence was a symbol of love, home and security.
“We’re nearly home,” said Molly without realising that
they had merely reached the halfway mark, they had almost eight hundred kilometres still to go.
“We found the fence now. It gunna be easy,” she told her younger sisters. They were glad to hear that because each morning when they awoke they were never sure whether they would survive another day.
Molly was determined to reach Jigalong and nothing was going to stop her. She renewed her vow as she greeted the fence like a long-lost friend, touching and gripping the cold wire.
“We gunna walk alongside it all the way to Jigalong,” Molly said confidently. It would stand out like a beacon that would lead them out of the rugged wilderness, across a strange country to their homeland.
“They must have had plenty of rain around this country,” said Molly as they tramped through the tall green grass. It was difficult to imagine that within a few weeks this landscape would be transformed into a mass of colour and beauty as pink, white and yellow everlasting flowers bloomed. These would cover the red earth and delight any travellers who passed through. But the three girls would not have that pleasure as they would be miles away by then, out of the Murchinson and into the Pilbara region.
By mid-afternoon, they entered a clearing amongst the mulga and gidgi trees and found some murrandu holes that appeared promising. But at that very moment, they heard a man yelling out to them. “Hey, you girls. Wait.” The voice came from down the track along the fence.
They saw an Aboriginal man riding a bike. The three dashed into the bush forgetting the pain of the sores on their legs.
“Don’t run away. I want to talk to you,” he shouted. Peeping out from the thick acacia bushes they saw that he was holding something in one hand as he pedalled with great difficulty. “Look, I’ve got some food to give you. See,” he said. “Come on, don’t be frightened.”
Their need and desire for food overcame fear and caution. The man’s name was Don and he explained that he worked on Pindathuna Station. He shared his lunch of tinned meat and bread with them and gave them a box of matches.
“Where are you going?” he asked them.
“We gunna follow the railway line to Wiluna,” said Molly. Stockman Don Willocks reported the incident to his boss. Mr A.H. Gillam telephoned Constable Robert Larsen at the Yalgoo police station who reported that:
Don Willocks had noticed signs of the girls three days earlier in one of the Pindathuna paddocks, but he saw only two sets of tracks which indicated that, “they were in a bad way, as in places they appeared to be dragging their feet and that he thought inquiries should be made”.
However, when he caught up with them, he was pleased to notice, “that there was nothing wrong with them”. He found that there were three of them and that two were carrying one girl between them.
Constable Robert Larsen of the Yalgoo police station, had led an earlier search party for the girls and so he was keen to follow up these reported sightings. At last he would be able to inform Inspector Simpson at the Geraldton police station that some contact had been made with the girls.
A tracker named Ben from Noongal Station was brought
into the search and he and Larsen travelled to Pindathuna to pick up Willocks on 5 September 1931. It was impossible for the men to find the tracks because heavy rains the night before had washed them away. Nevertheless, the search party proceeded along the rabbit-proof fence for a few kilometres, searching for tracks as they went. Finding none they continued parallel with the fence until dark then made a camp. At dawn the next morning they continued their search and came upon fresh tracks. Finally, however, Larsen recorded that the tracking was discontinued “owing to the tracker having sore feet, myself having to attend the Police Court on Monday 7/9/31. I decided to return to Yalgoo”.
Constable Larsen, Don Willocks and Ben, the Aboriginal tracker, left the tracks about 28 kilometres north of Dalgaranga Station. What they didn’t know was that the three runaways had climbed over the rabbit-proof fence and doubled back to pick up some bush tucker and return the same way.
In his report to Inspector Simpson, Larsen wrote:
Molly, Daisy and Gracie realised that although they were in familiar territory they were not safe from the authorities. The girls knew that they could be captured at any time of the day or night and be sent all the way back to the settlement. It was too risky even to stop to light a fire to cook their murrandu.
By early September, the police were increasing their
efforts to find the girls and any information they collected was passed on to other officers stationed further north. Constable Summers, for example, notified Constable Fanning by railway phone on 8 September that the girls were following the fence and would probably be going near Nannine and Gumtree Creek.
Constable Larsen kept Inspector Louis Simpson informed about the search. “The Tracker Ben is of the opinion that if these girls come in contact with the Sandstone blacks they will be done away with as they will not stand any other natives in their country, as they are a very treacherous tribe.”
The girls had been on the run for five weeks and were surviving on bush tucker and water. They would sleep for only a few hours under bushes as they were aware that they could be caught following their contact with Don Willocks. They purposely avoided station homesteads and despite the cold nights no fire was lit.
Thus reported Louis D. Simpson, Inspector of Police, Geraldton on 10 September 1931.
One day in a clearing close to the fence, the girls spied an emu and a family of six tiny black and white striped chicks strolling along behind him. While Daisy stood perfectly still behind some trees, Molly and Gracie chased and captured a chick each. The old man emu turned on them but gave up when he remembered that the other four chicks were unprotected.
The three girls waited in the seclusion of the small acacia
bushes to see if anyone would come to investigate the commotion, but no one appeared so they plucked and cooked the emu chicks for supper, accompanied by damper and washed down with black bitter tea; there was no sugar left.
After supper they slept under some thick shrubs. That night Molly dreamed that she and her younger sisters were being pursued by a policeman and a black tracker on a horse. She could see them riding beside the fence on magnificent grey stallions, coming towards them from the north. They were coming closer, and closer—at that critical moment she woke up shaking with fear and covered in sweat. Then she heard them. It wasn’t a dream after all. It was real. Clop, clop, clopping of the horses came.
Molly shook the other two awake. “Keep still and don’t make a noise,” she whispered, shivering slightly. “It might be a policeman and that Mardu tracker.”