LOUIS de BERNIÈRES

LO

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de

BE

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VINTAGE BOOKSTAKE YOUR IMAGINATION WITH YOU

FICTION

VINTAGE Australiawww.randomhouse.com.au

VINTAGE BOOKS

Front cover images by David Darcy

RE

D D

OG

www.reddogmovie.com.au© 2011 Screen Australia, ScreenWest Inc, South Australian Film Corporation and Woss Group Film Productions Pty Ltd

‘In early 1998 I went to Perth in Western Australia in order to attend the literature festival, and part of the arrangement was that I should go to Karratha to do their fi rst ever literary dinner. Karratha is a mining town a long way further north. The landscape is extraordinary, being composed of vast heaps of dark red earth and rock poking out of the never-ending bush. I imagine that Mars must have a similar feel to it.

I went exploring and discovered the bronze statue to Red Dog outside the town of Dampier. I felt straight away that I had to fi nd out more about this splendid dog.

A few months later I returned to Western Australia and spent two glorious weeks driving around collecting Red Dog stories and visiting the places that he knew, writing up the text as I went along.

I hope my cat never fi nds out that I have written a story to celebrate the life of a dog.’

Louis de Bernières

Now a major motion picture9 781742 752259

ISBN 978-1-74275-225-9

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Copyright © Louis de Bernieres 2011. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

A Vintage bookPublished by Random House Australia Pty LtdLevel 3, 100 Pacifi c Highway, North Sydney NSW 2060www.randomhouse.com.au

First published in Australia by Knopf, an imprint of Random House Australia, 2001Vintage paperback edition published in 2002This Vintage fi lm tie-in edition published in 2011

Copyright © Louis de Bernières 2001Illustrations © Alan Baker 2001

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Random House Australia.

Addresses for companies within the Random House Group can be found at www.randomhouse.com.au/offi ces

Cataloguing-in-Publication information available through the National Library of Australia

Cover images by David Darcy, courtesy of Woss Group Film Productions Pty LtdCover design by Joanna PenneyInternal design by Alan BakerPrinted in Australia by Griffi n Press, an accredited ISO AS/NZS 14001:2004 Environmental Management System printer

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The paper this book is printed on is certifi ed against the Forest Stewardship Council® Standards. Griffi n Press holds FSC chain of custody certifi cation SGS-COC-005088. FSC promotes environmentally responsible, socially benefi cial and economically viable management of the world’s forests.

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AUTHOR’S NOTE

The real Red Dog was born in 1971, and died onNovember 20th,1979. The stories I have told here are all based upon what really happened to him, but I haveinvented all of the characters, partly because I knowvery little about the real people in Red Dog’s life, andpartly because I would not want to offend any of themby misrepresenting them. The only character who is‘real’ is John.

There are two factual accounts of Red Dog’s life.One is by Nancy Gillespie, first published in 1983, andnow out of print. There is a copy in Perth public library,Western Australia. The other is by Beverley Duckett,1993, obtainable at the time of writing from the touristoffice in Karratha, Western Australia, and in local libraries.Dampier and Karratha public libraries also keep press-cuttings about Red Dog, and I wish to thank theirlibrarians for their invaluable and freely given help.

Non-Australians will find a glossary of Aussie termsat the back of the book.

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part one

From Tally Ho to Red Dog

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THE STINKER

‘Strewth,’ exclaimed Jack Collins, ‘that dog’s a realstinker! I don’t know how he puts up with himself. If Idropped bombs like that, I’d walk around with my headin a paper bag, just to protect myself.’

‘Everyone likes their own smells,’ said Mrs Collins.Jack raised his eyebrows and smirked at her, so sheadded, ‘Or so they say.’

‘Well, it’s too much for me, Maureen. He’s going tohave to go out in the yard.’

‘It’s his diet,’ said Maureen, ‘eating what he eats, it’sgoing to make smells. And he gulps it down so fast, hemust be swallowing air.’

‘Tally would let off even if you fed him on roses,’ saidher husband, shaking his head, half in wonder. ‘Shameit’s a talent you can’t be paid for. We’d all be millionaires.

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You know what I think? We should hire him out to theairforce. You could drop him in enemy territory, he’dneutralise it for three days, more or less, and then youcould send in the paratroops. It’d be a new era in air-borne warfare.’

‘Don’t light any matches, he’s done it again,’ saidMaureen, holding her nose with her left hand, and waving her right hand back and forth across her face.‘Tally, you’re a bad dog.’

Tally Ho looked up at her with one yellow eye, keep-ing the other one closed for the sake of economy, andthumped his tail on the floor a couple of times. He hadnoted the affectionate tone of her voice, and took herwords for praise. He was lying on his side, a little bitbloated after gnawing on one of his oldest bones. He wasonly a year old, so his oldest bone was not too old, but itcertainly had plenty of flavours, and all the wind-creatingproperties of which Tally Ho was particularly fond.

Tally was the most notorious canine dustbin in thewhole neighbourhood, and people delighted in pre-senting him with unlikely objects and encouraging him to eat them. With apparent relish he ate paper bags, sticks, dead rats, butterflies, feathers, apple peel,eggshells, used tissues and socks. On top of that, Tally atethe same food as the rest of the family, and at thismoment carried in his stomach a goodly load of yester-day’s mashed potato, gravy and steak and kidney pie.

This is not to say that Tally ever raided dustbins orbrowsed on garbage. That would have been very much

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beneath his dignity, and in any case, he had never foundit necessary. He had never lacked success in obtainingperfectly good food from human beings, and ate oddthings in good faith, just because human beings offeredthem to him. He made up his own mind as to what wasworth eating again, and whilst he would probably bequite happy to eat more eggshells, as long as they stillhad some traces of egg in them, he probably wouldn’ttry another feather.

‘I’m going to take him to the airport,’ said Jack, ‘hecan work off some energy, and get some of that gas out.’He went to the door and turned. Tally Ho was lookingup at him expectantly, both yellow eyes open this time.His ears had pricked up at the magic word ‘airport’.

‘Run time,’ said Jack, and Tally sprang to his feet inan instant, bouncing up and down with pleasure as ifthe floor was a trampoline. The caravan shook and the glasses and cutlery in the cupboard started to rattle.Tally Ho seemed to be grinning with pleasure. He wasshaking his head from side to side and yelping.

‘Get him out before he demolishes the whole place,’said Maureen, and Jack stood aside for Tally Ho to shoot out of the door like the cork from a bottle ofchampagne. He bounded out of the small garden, anddid some more bouncing up and down outside the car.Jack opened the back door, said ‘Hop in’ and Tally Hojumped onto the back seat. In an instant he hoppedover and sat in the front seat. Jack opened the front passenger door and ordered ‘Out!’

5

the stinker

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Tally looked at him coolly, and then deliberatelylooked away. He had suddenly gone deaf, it appeared,and had found something in the far distance that wasterribly interesting.

‘Tally, out!’ repeated Jack, and Tally pretended to belooking at a magpie that was flying over the caravan.

Jack used to be in the Australian army, and he liked hisorders to be obeyed. He didn’t take it lightly when hewas ignored by a subordinate. He picked Tally bodily offthe seat, and deposited him in the back. ‘Stay!’ he said,wagging his forefinger at the dog, who looked up at him innocently as if he would never consider doing the slightest thing amiss. Jack closed the door and went round to the driver’s side. He got in, opened allthe windows, started the engine and called over hisshoulder, ‘No bomb-dropping in the car. Understood?’

Tally waited until the Land Rover had started offdown the road, before springing lightly once more overonto the front passenger seat. He sat down quickly andstuck his head out of the window, into the breeze, sothat he would have a good excuse for not hearing hismaster telling him to get in the back. Jack raised his eye-brows, shook his head and sighed. Tally Ho was anobstinate dog, without a doubt, and didn’t considerhimself to be anyone’s subordinate, not even Jack’s. Itnever occurred to him that he was anything less thanequal, and in that respect you might say that he wasrather like a cat, although he probably wouldn’t haveliked the comparison.

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Seven kilometres away the car stopped outside theperimeter fence of Paraburdoo airport, and Tally Howas let out. A Cessna light aircraft bounced along therunway and took off. Tally chased its shadow along theground, and pounced on it. The shadow sped on, andTally ran after it in delight, repeatedly pouncing, andwondering at its escape.

Jack got back into the car, and drove away. He blewthe horn, and Tally pricked up his ears.

It was a red-hot day in February, which in Australiais the middle of the summer, and all the vegetation waslooking as if it had been dried in an oven. It was one ofthose days when you are physically shocked by the heatif you go outdoors, and the sun feels like the flat of ahot knife laid directly onto your face. The air shimmers,distorting your views of the distance, and you can’tbelieve that it really is that hot, even if you have livedthere for years, and ought to be used to it. If you havea bald patch, and you aren’t wearing a hat, it feels asthough the skin on the top of your head is made ofpaper and has just been set alight. It seems as if the heatis going straight through your shirt, so you go as fast asyou can from one bit of shade to another, and every-thing looks white, as if the sun has abolished the wholenotion of colour.

Even the red earth looked less red. Visitors to thatplace can’t believe that the mining companies are actually allowed to leave all those heaps of red stonesand red earth all over the place, without caring about it

the stinker

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at all, but the strange fact is that all those heaps and pileswere put there by nature, as if She had whimsicallydecided to mimic the most untidy and careless behav-iour of mankind itself. The difference is that naturemanaged to do it all without the help of bulldozers, diggers and dumper trucks. Through this ungentle landscape galloped Tally Ho, raising his own little plumeof red dust in the wake of the greater plume raised by Jack Collins’ car. His whole body thrilled with thepleasure of running, even though the day was at whiteheat, and even though he had to blink his eyes againstthe dust. He was young and strong, he had more energythan his muscles could make use of, and the world wasstill fresh and wonderful. He understood the joy ofgoing full tilt to achieve the impossible, and thereforehe ran after his owner’s car as if he could catch it withno trouble at all. As far as he was concerned, he reallydid catch it, because after seven kilometres there it was,parked outside the caravan, its engine ticking as itcooled down, having given up the chase, too tired tocontinue. As for Tally, he could have run another sevenkilometres, and then another again, and caught the carthree times over. When he arrived home he came leap-ing through the door, headed straight for his bowl ofwater, and slurped it empty. Then, his tongue hangingout and leaving drips along the lino, he went back out-side and lay down in the shade of a black mulga tree.

That evening Mrs Collins opened up a big can ofTrusty, and Jack set his stopwatch to zero. Tally Ho had

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a special gift for bolting food at lightning speed, and sofar his record for a whole 700g can was eleven secondsflat. Tally Ho put his forepaws up on the table to watchthe meat going into his bowl, and Mrs Collins put onher curt tone of voice and said, ‘Down, Tally! Lie down!’He slumped down on the floor, and put on his mostpathetic and appealing expression, so that she felt sorryfor him even though she knew it was only an act. Hesighed, and raised first one eyebrow and then another.His whole body was quivering with anticipation, themuscles in his legs just waiting for the moment whenhe could hurl himself at his dinner.

‘Are you ready?’ asked Mrs Collins, and Jack Collinsnodded. She put the bowl down on the floor, Tallyleaped up and Jack pressed the timer on his stopwatch.‘Crikey,’ he declared. ‘One hungry mongrel! Ten pointone seconds. Truly impressive.’

Tally cleaned his bowl conscientiously with histongue, and then cleaned it again just to make sure.When there was definitely not one atom of food left init, he strolled outside and lay down once more underthe shade of the tree, his stomach feeling pleasantlystretched, and very soon he fell asleep. He dreamed offood and adventuring. When he awoke half an hourlater, fully restored, he lay for a while, enjoying the waythat the evening was cooling off, and thought aboutgoing walkabout. He felt curious about what might begoing on in the wide world, and the thought of miss-ing out on something made him feel uneasy. He got to

the stinker

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his feet, stood still for a time whilst he thought a littlemore, and then set off past the other caravans, and intothe wilderness. He found a path worn through thespinifex by kangaroos, and set off joyfully down it,quickly losing all sense of time, completely absorbed byall the mysterious smells and noises. He was sure that hecould find a bilby or a quoll.

In the morning Jack Collins said, ‘I think Tally’s gonebush again,’ and Maureen Collins replied, ‘I’m worriedthat one day he’s going to disappear for ever.’

‘Don’t say that,’ said her husband. ‘He always comesback eventually.’

‘It’s the call of the wild versus the call of the supper-dish,’ laughed Mrs Collins.

‘He always seems to come back well fed, though.’‘Maybe he’s got other people who feed him.’‘Wouldn’t surprise me,’ said Jack. ‘Tally’s no slouch

when it comes to tucker.’Three days later, just when the couple had almost

given up hope of ever seeing him again, Tally Ho reappeared, bang on time for supper. He was dusty, hisstomach was nice and full, his nose had a long scratch onit courtesy of a feral cat that he met on the roo-trail, and he was grinning with self-satisfaction. That night hepolished off a big can of Pal in nine seconds flat.

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