John Marsden - While I live

The Scarlet Pimpernel’s real name is Sir Percy Blakeney and no-one suspects him because he’s the stupidest guy in Britain. Even his wife doesn’t suspect him. But he’s really diabolically clever. He uses disguises and quick thinking to stay out of the clutches of the enemy.

I couldn’t help recognising similarities to Homer in the description of the Pimpernel. But I wasn’t sure how far I could take it. The day my parents died, the day Homer and Gavin and I had been hiking up the spur, I’d have been willing to bet the whole farm and the cattle that Homer wasn’t involved in any secret organisation or border raids. I just couldn’t credit that he’d be in something like that without telling me, without at least dropping a lot of hints.

Since then, yes, I could imagine that he might be getting involved in something, but not as the leader. He wouldn’t have been able to set up a whole network that quickly. It was very confusing.

I stopped thinking about it though when I got home and went to check the cattle. Oh God. The things that can go wrong on a farm. As soon as I saw the trampled fence near the south-west corner I knew there could be big problems. I raced down the hill, my heart drumming. Soon I was through the break, into the wetlands, and in among the first of the mob. They gazed at me in fascination, the way cattle do, and started crowding around. I ran on. A number of them were standing in the water and I couldn’t tell yet whether some were caught or not. But there were at least four that looked to be in trouble.

I made myself stop and try to think what to do for the best. Marmie was still too young and untrained to be much use. I could try on my own to move the unbogged cattle back into their paddock but the mob was so scattered I wasn’t sure I could do it. These guys were still pretty feral, and the mothers with calves wouldn’t like me messing with them. They formed the bulk of the mob. I might end up with them scattered between heaven and earth, and half of them stuck.

Twenty or more had followed me down the hill and were now a lot closer to the water. In the time it took me to go back to the house and get Gavin we could end up with a major disaster. But I had no choice. I did a bit of yelling and huzzaing to frighten away as many as I could, then ran up the slope and grabbed the bike.

They’re always talking about farm accidents and farm fatalities, and you read some of the stories about how people get hurt or killed on farms, and you think ‘How stupid of them’, but you forget how when there’s a crisis you go like stink and forget about safety. I just jumped on the Honda and took off. Halfway home I saw a ditch that had somehow dropped out of my consciousness. I hit the hand brake and the foot brake with everything I had but I must have been doing about eighty and the next thing I’m flying through the air and smacking the ground hard enough to rattle every bone in my body.

I’d hardly stopped rolling before I was up and running back to the bike. Between my chronically bad knee and the ache in my calf from a bullet wound during the war, plus all the new pains I’d now added, I wasn’t running too fast.

Despite that I picked up the bike and got it going and was away again inside thirty seconds. But in the next few minutes I started to really hurt. I felt jarred and bruised and shaken and I had dust all down my left-hand side. I pulled up outside the house and staggered in, with only my right-hand side working properly.

Gavin was watching TV but his radar was in good working order. One look at me and he was out of his seat and following me to the shed.

In the machinery shed, as we threw a winch and ropes and chains into the back of the ute, I told him the situation. ‘The cattle got out of the paddock and some of them are bogged in the lagoon.’

Marmie was leaping around barking with excitement so I chucked her in the cab of the ute as well. Gavin got in from the other side and away we went.

This time I drove a bit more carefully, but not much. I was relieved to see when we got there that the cattle had spread out and were grazing peacefully again. But there were four bogged, two of them cows. Their calves were running backwards and forwards along the edge of the lagoon making that pitiful yearning noise that calves are so good at doing.

Trying not to stir up the other cattle we moved as many as we could back into the paddock. I did use Marmie for this. Once she was in the right place she did OK. In other words if I put her behind the mob and encouraged her to fetch them up and to let out a nice little bark once in a while she was quite effective. They say a good dog is worth three men. Ignoring how sexist that is, I’d say Marmie was worth as much as Gavin and me, this time anyway.

There were other times when she was as useful as a stuffed olive.

I left Gavin to put the fence back up as well as he could. I told him to tie Marmie to it when he was done; she would bark her little head off at any cattle who came within twenty-five metres. While he was doing that I ran down to the lagoon.

It was a cold afternoon and already the light wasn’t good. I dreaded going into the water but I didn’t have a choice. I screwed up my face and waded in with the rope. I thought I’d deal with the cows first, but I realised as I got closer that one of them was in deep mud and was stuck more firmly than the other three. So I thought I’d try to get the other cow, and the two steers, and then worry about the worst cow.

I ploughed my way through the mud and water, making nice encouraging noises as the first cow eyed me suspiciously. You say such ridiculous things in situations like that, because you know no-one’s listening. ‘Who’s a pretty girl then? Having a mudpack to make you look even lovelier? Hey, have I got a bull in the next paddock who’d be hot for you. Yeah, baby.’

I think it must have been the promise of the blind date with the bull that did it, because she stayed quiet and let me slip the rope around her. Then I reversed out, up the hill to the ute. I would have preferred the tractor but there hadn’t been time to get it. The ute was a four wheel drive with a limited slip diff so I figured it’d be up to a job like this.

I looped the rope round the towbar and took off at eighty k’s an hour. No, just kidding. But I was thinking of the ad on TV where the farmer pulls the cow’s head off. I eased the ute up the hill, checking the rear vision mirror and wishing Gavin was back already so he could give me a few signals. But everything went OK. The cow popped out and started dragging her weary body to the edge of the lagoon. Her calf came towards her at the gallop.

I got the rope off her and left them to it. I would have liked to put them back in the paddock but there wasn’t time. I had to hope she’d have the good sense not to bog herself again, although using ‘cow’ and ‘good sense’ in the same sentence is probably a bad idea.

I knew it’d be dark soon so I splashed in and roped up the first of the steers. As I sloshed back to the ute Gavin reappeared. I was extremely pleased to see him. Now all I had to do was watch his signals as I got the ute into gear and inched it forwards. Again we didn’t have any problems. Gavin gave me the thumbs-up, with a big grin, and I was able to leave the ute and go back to the lagoon.

On one side of me was the calf frantically guzzling at the mother we’d pulled out, on the other side was a muddy steer shaking himself and looking pissed. But already he was grabbing huge mouthfuls of grass, tearing it off as fast as he could chew. That was a good sight: food can work miracles for animals in poor condition, giving them new energy. And these beasts could have been in the swamp all day while I was at school. In the cold water, weakened by their struggles to get free, they would have used up energy fast.