Lasseter Lewis Hubert
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LASSETER [ Lewis Hubert “Harold Bell” Lasseter ]
Hermannsburg became involved in the Lasseter story because of the wireless trans¬mitting and receiving set. At that time the pedal transmitter provided power only for morse; we received by wireless telephony, but replied by morse, to Cloncurry in Queensland, a distance of about 620 miles. In spite of such disadvantages, not only did the Mission make use of the facility, but many other people as well, especially neighbours.
We had read in the press about this expedition being organized in Sydney on a large scale, mainly by the President of the Australian Workers' Union. Lasseter had suc¬ceeded in convincing the president, or was he the general secretary, Bailley , that he had been through the Centre and had gone right across to the coast of Western Australia. He had produced, as evidence, scrapings from rocks, or some scooped up from the ground, containing good percentages of gold. Lasseter was so successful in his negotiations that a company was formed in Sydney, an office, elaborately furnished, was established and a full-time secretary appointed. Money began to flow in very freely, and as a result the Company was in a position to buy everything they thought necessary to ensure the success of the venture. The most expensive items as far as an outsider could judge, were a new 8-wheel truck and an aeroplane; also a wireless transmitting and receiving set from Amalgamated Wireless was secured. The daily papers had been alerted and reports appeared from time to time.
At Hermannsburg the long drought had broken and abundant rains had resulted in feed for stock. This had enabled us at the Mission to plan our first trip to the outback, North and North-West of Hermannsburg, visiting Aboriginal people wherever they happened to be. The Finke Mission Board, when commissioning us for the service at Hermannsburg had included this mandate, because up to that time the work of the Mission had been confined mainly to the Hermannsburg area of Central Australia. Now, after the abundant rains toward the end of 1929 and early 1930, animals soon became strong enough to under¬take the first exploratory trip. It was on this trip that we happened to come across Lasseter's trail.
Prior to our first encounter, something happened to that Gold Exploration undertaking which cast a shadow on the whole. They had started out from Alice Springs in their truck, and by afternoon they had reached Red Bank Station owned by a Halfcaste by the name of Archie Giles. He employed a white man to help him with his cattle. These two men lived in a camp and were joined by the eleven men of the Gold Exploration Company. It was late in the afternoon and after removing their swags from the truck the men made preparations to have their tea before darkness descended upon them. Then as their billy was boiling they discovered they had forgotten to bring out any bread from Alice Springs. This was an unpleasant discovery. However, a member of the party came up with the suggestion that Harry Lasseter could easily solve their problem by making a large damper. They had plenty of flour and baking powder with them. But here came their first disappointment with their leader. He did not know how to go about making a damper. It must have come as a great shock to each one of them and their faith in Lasseter was shattered. It seemed incredible that a man who claimed to have travelled on horseback from Queensland through the Centre to the coast could have done so without making a damper. Every traveller in the bush had to rely on meat and some damper instead of bread. This experience right at the beginning must have cast a shadow over the whole undertaking, and the following incident cast even more gloom upon the 11 members.
After breakfast on freshly baked damper, the party set out for Ilbilla, a rockhole in the Ehrenberg Ranges. The year before, or thereabouts, Mr Mackay, doing an aerial survey with mapping, with the approval of the Government in Canberra, had made Ilbilla a sort of headquarters. Bob Buck had been employed with several Aborigines to clear a landing ground and build a number of huts from brush and spinifex. This had been widely publicised and now Lasseter planned to make use of the facilities. Unfortunately for the party they did not travel very far the first day, in fact only as far as the next creek crossing, possibly the Dashwood Creek, because the 8-wheel truck ploughed into the deep sand and became stuck.
What happened there in detail I am unable to recall. Suffice it to say that they stripped the gearbox completely and whenever they started the engine it gave out a sound like a large coffee grinder. f Their tragedy was complete when they brought out their new transmitting set, the new machine that the firm had purchased from Amalgamated Wireless in Sydney. While listening it was normal and they could hear stations from many parts of the continent, but they could not transmit a sound. It was discovered later that a crystal had not been put in and without it the set could not be operated. From what I found out later the enthusiasm that had been shown at the beginning, largely faded. Still, the agreement that Lasseter’s lawyer had drawn up with the Company in Sydney was such that the party had no option but to continue. They managed to contact some stockriders with horses, and they were given a message with an order for spare parts and a mechanic to come out. In due course the vehicle was again roadworthy and they moved on. The distance from the Dashwood to Ilbilla is at least 60 miles and there was no road, mostly sandy country. However they negotiated it and arrived at their destination. It was here that our team on camels established the first contact. . Coming from the east, from Pikili ( Vaughan Springs ) we saw some of the brush and spinifex huts built by Bob Buck for the Mackay aerial survey expedition. In one of these huts we found a pile of cases, bags of flour and sugar as well as an assort¬ment of bags of tools, obviously for use when digging of removing stones in search of the gold. The whole stack was covered and tied down with a new tarpaulin, in front of which was fastened the end of a tea chest. On this was written with a strong car¬penter's pencil, words to this effect: “This is the property of Das Lasseter, and unless you are in want do not touch anything as we depend on the supplies on our return from the Petermann Ranges. Signed Das Lasseter.” It is worth recording that the Aborigines at Ilbilla, who had been fed on damper and tea with sugar while Bob Buck was clearing the landing ground, had never touched anything. I, with my two Christian native camelmen, soon established contact with the local Aboriginal population, and what they told us was significant. Two of their men had been asked to accompany two white men, Johns and Lasseter on their trip across the desert to the Piltadi Rockhole, on the eastern tip of the Petermann Ranges. However the natives gave a flat refusal. When in the camp the white men had placed some empty petrol tins nearby and then fired their revolvers doing some practice shooting. The Aborigines who had been for some weeks with Bob Buck while clearing the landing ground and later on while Mackay carried out his survey flights, had had occasion to acquaint themselves with the firepower of the white man’s weapons and now to go on a long trip with these two men seemed too great a risk. Johns and Lasseter left alone. It was a courageous bit of work, They had to travel for 11 days without water, up and down sandhills, each about 50 feet high. These sandhills were so steep that the camels could climb over them only by going sideways up and sideways down again. When they reached the large salt lake Amadeus, they could have shortened their journey a little by cutting across the tip of this salt expanse, but found upon testing, that the crust was not strong enough to support a camel with a load. Earlier, when Johns and Lasseter had come to this lake, Lasseter had decided to leave part of his heavy load on the lake, probably in order to relieve themselves of the need to lift the bags of flour etc. up and down when loading and unloading the camels. From this lake it was only another 20 or 30 miles before reaching their destination, the Piltadi Rockhole. The camels, though not specially trained, stood up to the ordeal. They naturally looked around now for the plane that the company in Sydney had purchased especially for keeping contact with the party in the field and with headquarters in Sydney. The two men would have appreciated help in pointing out open waters in the area they planned to explore. But since there was no sign of the plane, they decided to proceed on their own, travelling towards the W.A.border. Later on pegs were found indicating they had tried to find traces of gold. More than a year later two men from the W.A. Government( Blatchford and Talbot) who had been lured away, had inspected this area and in their opinion this was not even gold-bearing country. 3
How¬ever they had made an honest attempt in their search for this precious metal, then turned back, travelling via Piltadi and Lake Amadeus. Here an ugly incident occurred. Johns related to me how he had upbraided Lasseter for leaving part of their supplies on the Salt Lake. He said: "I will tell you why you did it. It was so that your wife in Sydney could continue to collect her weekly payment cheque from the Company." As he said that, Lasseter, who was eating prunes as part of the midday lunch, threw a handful of these dried prunes into the face of Johns who was sitting opposite him. Johns retaliated immediately by whipping out a revolver and aiming it at Lasseter. After a while their tempers cooled and they decided to go on. They faced again a stretch of country where they could find no water for 11 days. The return journey to Ilbilla was uneventful and they arrived at their destination safely. After a short rest Lasseter told Johns to go to Alice Springs and secure some additional Mining Licences in anticipation of the big discovery. Johns took two camels and started out. At the end of the first day he began to wonder what Lasseter had written, so he opened the letter and to his surprise found no mention of Mining Licences, but a full report of the incident at Lake Amadeus, when Johns had aimed a gun at him and had disarmed him. Johns came to Hermannsburg, delivered the gun he had taken from Lasseter and said he was going to deliver the letter to the authority concerned and explain that he had had an accident when some tea was spilled on the letter. And since he felt that it could not be delivered in that state he opened it. When he reached Alice Springs he did as he said. The sergeant of Police, when told by Johns, only remarked " Pity he didn't shoot him." This is an irrelevant remark, but it shows up signifi¬cantly the atmosphere prevailing at the time. But here it is necessary to return to the Company plane, especially purchased to maintain contact with the explorers and the home base. The plane had been bought and a pilot engaged, a man by the name of Earl Coote. He had come up from Sydney before the party arrived in order to familiarize himself with the country. I have no knowledge of his overall plans, but a few incidents may be related. On a flight to the north of Alice Springs something happened and he had to come down. It was some sort of forced landing and he broke a collar bone, necessitating a time in hospital. When flying again he one day came down in the street of Alice Springs. Later on, after the party had set out for the Petermanns, the pilot decided to follow. One Sunday, after he had spent a night as the guest of the Mission schoolteacher, he made ready to fly out to the Petermanns and establish contact with Lasseter. When asked by me whether he had some spare rations, he replied: "What for? The machine has never let me down, and I do not expect trouble this time." When asked about water he told us that he had 2 bottles, which he considered enough. Since we could see that there was no point in trying to persuade, he was brought at least some sandwiches which he accepted, almost reluctantly. Wishing him a safe return, he left. He expected to be back again in two days' time and promised that he would pass Hermannsburg on his way to Alice Springs to show that all was well. We waited two days another day and yet another, and when we had seen nothing, engaged two of our Christian natives. We supplied them with several camels and an adequate supply of rations and above all extra water and they left. After about a week our men returned, and said that some aborigines had noticed the plane flying back therefore saw no need to go further. More than a week later the Alice Springs District Officer came out to Hermannsburg on some official business, and he brought us the news that the plane of the Lasseter Expedition had actually arrived in Alice Springs. The Company in Sydney requested that it be returned to Sydney. Apparently after an incident with the propellor, it was not considered safe to fly it back so the plane was put on the train. Upon arrival in Sydney, Earl Coote was dismissed and the plane was subjected to a refit. Provision was now made for two pilot seats and extra petrol tanks and water tanks were built in. Above all the Company engaged, two men to man the plane, Pittendridgh and Hamre, a mining engineer. While these men were preparing for their first flight Johns returned on camels. He carried with him an instruction from the Company to clear the landing ground at Ilbilla which had been overgrown since the Mackay Expedition had left.
And on Dec. 10th, 1930 Johns and his companion Taylor were to have a smoke fire going at Ilbilla and to watch for the arrival of the plane between 10 and 11 am. The plane duly arrived as advised and some aborigines in the vicinity observed that the pilot circled the area where a smoke fire was to guide him to land, but he saw no sign of smoke nor anything to indicate where he could put his machine down. After flying around the place several times he felt he could no longer use up his petrol and decided to return. It became known afterwards that the men who should have been waiting for him were asleep, even though they had been expecting his coming for several days. The petrol that the pilot had in his machine lasted till he came to the Dashwood area where he decided to land. For the time being he and his co-pilot had some provisions but these soon came to an end. In the meantime the two men at Ilbilla were still looking for the aircraft but when nothing had happened for some days, they decided that one of them should go to Hermannsburg, a distance of 200 miles, with a telegram to the Company in Sydney. Johns made the trip travelling day and night and killing one camel. When he arrived ; at Hermannsburg he looked more like a ghost. The message he brought was scribbled in pencil on a piece of paper and had to be morsed through to Cloncurry, about 620 miles away. It was summertime and hot. By the time I had it all clear there was little dry clothing left on me. Incidentally, the message was intercepted by some Airforce wireless station at Point Cook, near Melbourne, and acted upon. Two planes left the base and landed at Mildura the same afternoon. Arriving at Hermannsburg the following day the two pilots had a little refreshment and took off, flying first to Ilbilla in order to get more accurate information. They made Ilbilla alright, but when taking off again, one of the planes was hooked to a mulga stump and broke one of the wings. One returned and reported the matter to their base. The Military immediately stopped the one plane from further flying, advising the pilot to await the arrival of a second machine. In a day's time, the other machine landed at Hermannsburg and now the search for the two men began. They met with almost immediate success. One of the officers, Flt. Lieutenant Dalton spotted a huge " T " made of ashes near a campfire. They dropped a message saying : “ If you are so and so, lie flat on the ground." This they did. They returned to Hermannsburg as fast as they could, picked up some food and water and, after writing out a message to the Company for me to morse through to Clon¬curry, they returned. By now people in the neighbourhood had been alerted and they went out in motor vehicles to pick them up. { In the meantime Lasseter is somewhere in the Petermann Ranges looking for an aeroplane to contact him. The question has been asked whether they could have saved him if the men who were ordered to salvage the plane had been directed to go out and look for him.
I would not have an opinion on that. However the fact that the Company in Sydney had ordered the salvage of the plane before trying to safeguard their gold seeker, is significant. The ten men in the original party-had broken up near Ilbilla when they had hired Paul Johns and his camel team to take the prospector on, and they all returned with their new 8-wheel truck. I understand they had made a number of attempts to travel from Ilbilla to the Petermanns, via Lake Amadeus but found the sandhills quite impossible to negotiate. If Lasseter, as he had claimed, had travelled there on horseback years before, he would have known this. Furthermore in those early days, if a white man came by a telegraph office, his identity would be established and a record entered, but nothing of that kind was found with regard to Lasseter.
If the incident with the damper had widely destroyed his reputation as a leader of an expedition, the fact that they carried with them one of the first wireless transmitting sets had disasterous consequences. If it would not have been for some stockmen riding in the vicinity, they could have perished. We have a right to ask: " Was it only negligence or an Unseen Hand " moving behind the scenes"? We must think here also of the incident of the two men falling asleep by 10am, when they had been advised to watch out for a plane. One must also ask for the wisdom when the two men could not agree and one of them was sent to Alice Springs to secure additional mining rights. It would have been much wiser had both returned and Lasseter made a new approach. This was something left entirely in his hands. However, we shall from here follow only his ‘last ride’
After he had sent Johns to Alice Springs, Lasseter made his way back to the Petermanns, eleven days without water. From pegs we found later, we could see he had tried to locate some gold bearing areas without success. Eventually he arrived on the Hull River where he found a soak with good water. At that time he felt the need of nature and obviously not wanting to pollute the water upstream, he hushed down his camels and walked a little distance to relieve himself. As he got up in the twilight, his camels jumped up in fright and started to run. He did what he could to catch them, but to no avail. Some aborigines camping not far away saw this happening and related this to us. The camels while galloping away lost some of the food supplies, such as little bags of rice and dried fruit, also some tea and sugar. However the bulk of his supplies had been secured to the saddles and the camels took it with them. Lasseter collected what had fallen, off the camels, returned to his soak and eventually to a small cave a few hundred yards away. And in this small cave he lived for weeks until the Aborigines decided to take him nearer to some white habitation. Fortunately some pads of writing paper had fallen off the camels and Lasseter made quite extensive use of it. Bob Buck picked up these papers when he buried Lasseter's body. One part was addressed to his wife and we never looked into them, but the rest was obviously meant for general information, and when Bob Buck brought the papers to us I had no hesitation in reading through the lot. It was of interest to note how for some time his handwriting was firm, but then it gradually showed signs of weakness. The last entries were no longer legible, clearly indicating that his strength had failed him. In his writings Lasseter showed that he was concerned about other people’s opinion. At one point he said that he was a sinner but hoped God would forgive him. He expressed concern for his two boys and for his wife, and made suggestions as regards their edu¬cation. Yet it is hard to understand when he speaks of having found a reef with gold, but does not make any attempt to indicate where it is. He was a fairly well educated man and could easily have sketched some sort of a map indicating in relation to other landmarks, where people could have looked for it. He is concerned that the aborigines who had been helpful, should be rewarded with bags of flour, tea, sugar and tins of beef, as well as jam. Some of the men had not been friendly and he describes them and suggests that nothing should come to them. It is certainly a cry from the depths of his soul when he writes: “The worst of all is not to know why I have been abandoned here." Reading between the lines one can see that it was the aboriginal women especially who had taken pity on him and supplied him with what they managed to collect from day to day. Of course, like the people themselves he had to go hungry, perhaps for days. Although for many weeks his life was sustained, even the aborigines must have noticed he was losing ground. They were obviously afraid that if he died near their camping ground the white people would hold them responsible. They decided, therefore, to move Lasseter to a place nearer white habitation. I was told by some men who mainly supported him, that for some distance from his cave they walked him, but when he could no longer walk, they carried him on their backs. Eventually they reached Winter’s Glen where they found a little water after a shower of rain. The men constructed some sort of shelter from nearby bushes, and helped Lasseter into it, so that at least he was out of the sun. It is impossible to say how long he lasted here until he passed away. As far as I could ascertain, they made no attempt to bury the body. But where were the people with the plane to contact him? We remember how the plane had come down in the Dashwood area after the fuel supply ran out, and how military planes succeeded in locating the machine and the men and rescued them. The question has been asked whether they would still have come in time if directed, after the rescue of the men, to proceed and contact Lasseter. I am unable to give a reply because I do not know the time of Lasseter’s passing. It is significant, however, to note that the company in Sydney showed more concern for salvaging the plane and having it put on the rails at Alice Springs. This occupied about two weeks and only after this operation was com¬pleted did they ask Johns and Taylor to go out on camels and look for the prospector.
Both men declined, Johns saying, he had had enough of the bush and Taylor said he was returning to England. to be married It was then that the Company approached us at Hermannsburg with a request to engage someone else. The only one in the district available was Bob Buck who accepted after the company had agreed to pay his wages and camel hire. He arrived from his place and final arrangements were made. But after he had left and had been on the road for two days, he remembered he had come away without any brandy and asked us to procure him a small case from Alice Springs. It was fortunate that in a few days' time a truck was due to come out with Mission loading and the small case of brandy was promptly deliv¬ered. The native man took the parcel on his camel and Bob Buck was now equipped to proceed. Buck had two aborigines with him, both able to speak Pitjentjara, the language of those parts. In due course they arrived at Piltadi Rockhole on the eastern tip of the Petermanns. Arriving towards evening they found an elderly aborigine camped near the water. Bob Buck immediately questioned him as to whether he had seen a while man there, but the aborigine denied it. The same negative answer came to the question whether he had seen a dead white man. The old man was not going to give anything away, thinking he was talking to a policeman, whom the aborigines call “The Catcher” . Bob boiled the billy for his two men and himself and the man they had found near the water received his share too. After Bob had rolled himself in his blankets the old man warmed up to talk to Bob's two camelmen. He told them there was a dead white man just across the range at Putta Putta, and on the following morning he accompanied Bob right to the spot. He found the body not even badly decomposed and he dug a shallow grave alongside it and just ro11ed him in. After some years one of the prospector's sons came to Centra1 Australia, dug up the remains and re-interred them in the general cemetery in A1ice Springs. When reading this unfortunate story one cannot escape the feeling that an unseen hand was moving behind the scenes: forgetting to test their most essential means of com-munication, their wireless transmitter, then the two men at Ilbilla falling asleep when they had been instructed to have smoke fires going to guide the plane to the landing site. However it is easy to sit in judgment in retrospect, but of more importance is it to draw a lesson for one's own life.
Pastor F. W. Albrecht MBE 58 Fisher St Fullarton ( 1982 }
Memories of Lasseter Lewis Hubert
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