| Narrative | 'Among the first to follow in the tracks of Cox and Uhr in 1872, and not far behind them, were Joe Walker (aka Joe Pettit), Tommy McBride, both horse thieves, with Billy Banks who followed soon after Cox and Uhr' (Roberts 2005, p 24). Arthur Ashwin knew both Walker and McBride and spoke about their 1872 overland journey from Qld to the NT in his Reminiscences: 'They had a very rough time with the niggers' (cited in Roberts 2005, p 24). Roberts re-tells the story, with interspersed direct quotations from Ashwin: 'One night, possibly near the Queensland border, the men saw figures in the darkness and began shooting. The Aboriginals then attacked, but after suffering casualties they ran off and all was quiet until the morning: "then they came in strength and Joe and Billy [Banks] made sure of a nigger every shot and told [McBride] not to fire and waste cartridges. They soon dispersed them". That night, while camped at what appears to have been the Robinson River, they noticed Aboriginals gliding silently across to the other bank on pandanus logs, a method widely used in the Gulf country and elsewhere in the north to protect against crocodiles. The men assumed another attack was underway "…just as the moon was going down there was a good mob there and Joe and Billy fired into them as fast as they could. They had two Colt revolvers each and did good work. Tommy McBride did not have a shot. Joe had a shot or two at niggers' heads as they swam back; they splashed a lot to frighten the alligators"' (Roberts 2005, p 25). |
