DEATH FROM THIRST

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 53, Issue 3813, 25 September 1936, Page 5

DEATH FROM THIRST

EX-NEW ZEALANDER. THE AUSTRALIAN NORTH. Sydney, September 10. Circumstances surrounding the death of Bertram H. Coombes, 44, a returned soldier, who came to Australia from New Zealand about seven years ago, bear eloquent testimony to the hardships of life in the outback of North Australia. Coombes was a buffalo hunter in the Northern Territory, and his body was found by his mate, Edward Sawdy, near the driedup Alligator River. Coombes had died from thirst and exhaustion. Sawdy reached Darwin, after many sufferings himself, with news of his mate’s death, and his story was an illustration of the risks men and women “up north” take in the course of their everyday existence. Sawdy said that Coombes, who was. making for the nearest settlement to get petrol for their car, apparently had a dispute with the aboriginal who was guiding him to Namborgo Swamp, and the native cleared out. Also with the party was a piccaninny who remained loyal to the white man. Coombes rode their horses till they knocked up, then walked with the piccaninny towards the coast, carrying a motor tube over his shoulders to hold water. Coombes worked back towards the river and stayed there five days. He had fever, and when he became weak, he scratched a message on a tin billy and sent the piccaninny back to Sawdy. The piccaninny did not want to leave his master, but went when Coombes threatened to shoot him if he stayed. The message read: “Perished Namborgo. Dried out. Can’t find water anywhere.—Bert.’’ There was another line at the bottom

of the tin which Sawdy could not decipher, something about matches. Next day Sawdy found Coombes eight miles from water, exactly where the piccaninny had left him. Coombes had then been dead twelve hours. Sawdy had nothing to dig a grave with so went to the neares* water hole and then straight to Another buffalohunter’s camp, where he arranged for flour to be sent to the camp where Mr. Sawdy and Mrs. Coombes were staying. Sawdy sent a letter to his wife, whom he described as “worth fifty men,” telling her to break th* news to Mrs. Coombes. Sawdy said he was anxious about Mrs. Coombes, who came from England and was not a bushwoman, but not about his own wife, a Hawkesbury woman of thirty, who was a real bushwoman.

Sawdy then continued his tedious journey to Darwin. The coastal steamer Maroubra will take him, a coroner, police, and a doctor to Alligator River, whence they will endeavous to find where Coombe’s body was left. Meanwhile no news has been received of the plight, of Mrs. Sawdy and Mrs. Coombes, but Sawdy has full confidence in his wife’s ability to keep them safe. '