Last Horse Standing

In 1971 Jack Camp, a classic Aussie outback type, went mustering with two sons aged 13 and 14, and a couple of stockmen, one of whom was Peter Wann, aged 16 and the narrator of this true story, to muster wild cattle in a vast, isolated stretch of Crown land on the Kimberley coast. Everything went according to plan and 500 head of cattle had been mustered when a sudden cyclone struck, flooding the area and wreaking devastation. The horses and cattle were scattered or drowned, their food and equipment destroyed. The group was left without food, fire or a means to get all of them out of the remote spot, or communicate their plight to anyone. No-one knew their exact location as they were covering a huge area during the muster and they were expected to be gone for some weeks.One son, George, and Otto the stockman had left just before the cyclone hit, so they waited, hoping Otto and George had made it out and would send back rescuers, surviving on occasional raw meat from cattle that Jack managed to catch despite an injured hand, with the help of the boys. The floods had devastated the area and there was little in the way of bush food. When the pair didn't return and with the three of them growing weaker daily, an increasingly desperate (and grief-stricken, believing his other son had died) Jack decided they'd head in the direction of an abandoned homestead some 50 km away, hoping that there might still be supplies and equipment stocked there. The trouble was to reach it they would have to abandon the cattle they'd been relying on for food and strike out across shark-infested channels with dangerous tides. Crocodiles were an ever-present threat.Eventually they made it to the homestead, starved and dehydrated with dingoes closing in. Within a couple of days Jack managed to get an old radio transmitter working and they were rescued . The other two did survive, after a harrowing journey of their own.Keenan, Mike is the author of 'Last Horse Standing', published 2006 under ISBN 9781863255790 and ISBN 1863255796.