The Killer Koala Read Free

back to my snakes now,' said Blackie. 'Get your hands off me.'
    We
let him go, but Alan slipped between him and the door. Blackie
considered this new problem.
    'I'm
going in there,' he said quietly and threateningly.
    'Calm
down, Blackie,' said Alan reasonably.
    Blackie
took a wild and ineffectual swipe at him. Alan and I looked at each
other helplessly. I mouthed the word 'Police?' behind Blackie's back
and Alan nodded regretfully.
    'Can
you keep him out of there?' I asked.
    'Yes,'
said Alan confidently. I thought he could, too; Blackie was far too
drunk to put up much of a fight.
    The
trouble was I didn't know where the nearest telephone was. As far as
I knew I might have to go into Mackay, eighty kilometres away.
    I
drove at incredible speed down to the highway and was delighted to
see a police patrol car go past at the junction of the roads. I sped
after it with my hand on the horn and it stopped. I leaped out of my
van and ran to the police car. Two solemn Queensland policemen, both
fat, redfaced, without humour, eternally middle-aged, looked at me
expressionlessly.
    'I
wonder, would you follow me?' I said breathlessly. 'I've got a friend
who's very drunk who wants to sleep with his snakes.'
    There
was a long pause.
    'What?'
said the two policemen eventually, simultaneously.
    'I've
got a friend who's very drunk who wants to sleep with his snakes,' I
said again, but this time I could hear my own words.
    There
was another long pause.
    'Could
you explain a bit more, sir?' said the driver policeman. Even then I
could wonder at the talent of policemen for using the word 'sir' as
an insult.
    'Oh
the hell with it, it's too difficult to explain. Just follow me, will
you? It's urgent.'
    I
thought they probably would follow me, if not necessarily for the
reason I wanted them to. I was right. They did and we arrived back at
Macka's Mistake to find Blackie pinned to the ground with Alan
Roberts kneeling on his shoulders. The snake house was still a whirl
of activity. Blackie was shouting obscenities with considerable
eloquence.
    I
don't say the policemen put their hands on their guns, but they
looked as though they might any minute.
    It
was all too difficult to explain, so I just gestured at the strange
tableau of Blackie and Alan in front of the snake house.
    'What
seems to be the problem?' said one of the policemen.
    Blackie
stopped shouting when he saw the uniforms. Alan let him go and he
stood up, stared for a moment then looked reproachfully and
unbelievingly at me. 'You called the cops,' he accused.
    'What
is all this?' said the policeman.
    Blackie
saved the necessity for an explanation by feebly trying to punch the
policeman's nose. They took him off to Mackay and charged him with
being drunk and disorderly.
    Alan
and I waited through the day until we felt he must be reasonably
sober and then went down and bailed him out.
    Blackie
was silent until halfway through the journey back when he suddenly
and tearfully asked, 'How could you do this to me?'
    Alan
and I explained the sequence of events to him.
    'Is
that true?' he said.
    'Perfectly
true, Blackie. We had to do it.'
    'I
can see that. Funny, I don't remember any of it.'
    I
tactfully made no reference to the two empty bottles of whisky.
    'I'm
really sorry,' Blackie said. 'Just goes to show, though — snakes
and alcohol don't mix.'

    Crocodiles and Sex
     
    There
are many phenomena in Nature for which I am grateful, but the
strangest is that the sex life of a crocodile is exhausting.
    I
discovered this on a trip up the East Alligator River, which runs
along the border of Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. I had been
lured there by Roger Huntingdon, a lecturer in one of the natural
sciences at Sydney University. He had obtained a grant to study the
great estuarine crocodiles that inhabit the coastline of northern
Australia and he invited me to go with him. I had some passing
acquaintance with crocodiles, but only the freshwater type, except
for one salt water fellow I