Arthur Upfield - The Bone is Pointed

They swarmed to land on his “island,” the first of them to run without hesitation to the netting, which flung them back. Again and again they dashed at the barrier dazed yet unafraid and determined.

Where, less than a minute before, there had been no living thing beyond the fence, now rabbits stood on their hind legs against the netting, some pushing their noses into the mesh, others savagely gnawing the wire. And without cease countless rabbits came swimming to the island to join in the onslaught on the fence.

Now above the mirage sea the yellowish fog was rising higher. The silence itself began to throb.

Life Gone Mad

THE migration of rabbits sweeping south-eastward from Meena Lake was the first Napoleon Bonaparte had seen. Once, beside a lonely campfire, he had listened to a man describing a rabbit migration that had ended against the South Australia-New South Wales border fence in a forty-mile-long rampart of carcases. And now the rabbits were piling into the V made by an angle of the Karwir boundary fence.

Normally rabbits are controlled by fear of their many enemies-men, dogs, foxes, eagles. Their lives are governed by caution begot by fear out of hereditary experience. Having no defensive weapons other than claws and teeth, which they employ ineffectively and seldom in time to be of service, they never attack other animals and rarely attack each other.

A host of rabbits had sprung into being over the miles of country bordering Meena Lake. Then came the first of the dry seasons when, moisture failing in grass and shrubs and herbage, the host had centred upon the drying water of the lake. When the water had vanished the host increased no more. Yet all the enemies of the rodent seemed to make not the slightest reduction of the total number. Then came that April rain during which Jeffery Anderson had disappeared, and, as soon as the new grass appeared over the uplands, like a giant bomb the host burst outward to take charge of deserted burrows, clean them out, and show the world how it could breed.

Every doe began to breed after reaching the age of nine weeks. Every litter ranged from five to seven young ones among which the females predominated. From April to the end of September every doe gave birth to about twelve young ones. And the does greatly predominated.

During October a fearful battle for existence had been waged against starvation and thirst as well as against the increase of natural enemies. Only the strongest of the young ones had survived, but even so those that died were as nothing to the number that lived.

About the hour that Diana Lacy and John Gordon discussed Bony’s illness at the boundary fence, an order was issued to the rabbits massed on the shores of Meena Lake.

What issued the order no man can tell. The order impelled the host to move away from the place that had given it birth to some mysterious place far to the south east and in obedience to the order nothing could halt its progress except a river of water or a netted fence.

Natural caution and fear were in a flash of time driven out of these Meena rabbits. They became controlled by one mass idea like the people of a totalitarian state. Formerly each individual unit lived independently of other units, swayed by fear and governed by hunger; now they had no desire other than to obey the order. Even the primary instinct of self-preservation had been taken from it. From a shy and docile creature, self-willed and possessing a degree of cunning, it had become an automaton in a mass relentless in purpose, irresistible in movement, entirely fearless.

Close though Bony was to the bush and its varied and often hidden life, he sat his horse entranced by this unfolding drama of the wild. Compared with it his human dramas were petty and ridiculous.

Normally the mirage lying so deeply over the depressions culminating at Green Swamp would have drained slowly away as the sun set; but this late afternoon the rabbit host rushing upon Karwir quickly dispelled the mirage water beneath the surface of which it moved. On the Karwir side of the fence the “water” remained long after it had vanished on the Meena side.

In the van ran the leaders, big strong grey bucks, their teeth bloodied in many a combat, their rumps scarred and scabbed, their ears bearing honourable wounds. Without halt they advanced to the barrier, dashed against the mesh as though blind, and were flung back in dazed astonishment. The manner in which they then behaved clearly indicated that the impact had momentarily awakened their minds. Then the mass hypnosis controlled them again, and again they charged the fence. After several defeats, they stood against the netting with nostrils scenting the wire and sharp teeth testing its strength.

The does forming the main body of the horde had not yet reached the fence. They were advancing on a front miles wide, until the left flank struck the barrier eastward of the northern corner post of the two mile north-south section, and ran along the fence past Bony’s camp and the mulga-tree. The right flank met the fence somewhere westward of the gate spanning the Karwir road to Opal Town, and from this point ran along it eastward into the V of the angle.

Bony’s frenzied dogs sprang to the fence, clambered over the topmost barbed wire and jumped down to slaughter rabbits. There was no chasing the rodents. They ran straight to the dogs’ slavering jaws, ran between their legs as though unconscious of them. In less than three minutes the dogs wearied of the killing. One lay down pantingly and rabbits leapt over it. The other slunk towards the fence to gaze up at Bony, and rabbits bumped against its legs till, suddenly prompted by fear, it leapt over the fence, followed by its amazed companion.

Now when Bony urged his horse northward along the barrier he met rabbits running the fence southward, following the line of least resistance to their general advance to the south-east. Rows of rabbits were standing against the netting testing it with their teeth. From the north-west countless others were arriving every second to join those running the fence southward, and now among the arrivals were black, blue, white, fawn, and piebald rodents, rarely seen in normal conditions.

Bony had forgotten the triumphant conclusion of his investigation. He was unconscious of his physical weakness. When his horse desired to leave the fence to walk direct to the camp, he reined her back so that she kept alongside the barrier.

The sun was low to the distant horizon, now hidden by the faint red dust-mist raised by the horde. The sun itself was an orb of scarlet. So still was the evening air that this mist did not extend eastward of the fence.

At the northern corner post, Bony was interested to see how the rodents followed the line of least resistance when reaching the fence. Those that arrived south of the corner post proceeded southward and those that were met by the fence eastward of the corner ran to the east past his camp and over the sand-dunes. As far as he could see, west and north, uncountable rodents were advancing from the north-west.

The dogs slunk to camp with him and, having yarded and fed his horse, Bony made a pint of meat extract and drank it with bread broken into it. And then, having fed the dogs with grilled rabbit, he stood for a moment in the gloom of early night listening to the march of life gone mad beyond the fence. It was not unlike wind among mulga leaves.

He was up again at break of day, feeling stronger, but still far from normal. In the silence of early morning, he again heard the sound not unlike wind among mulga leaves, and when the light of the sun reached the earth he saw at the foot of the fence a thick line of fur, tipped with little sticks moving endlessly up and over the sand-dunes to the east.