I’LL HAVE MY DESSERT

Korero (AEWS), Volume 3, Issue 8, 21 May 1945, Page 30

I’LL HAVE MY DESSERT

By

Once upon a time I revelled at the sight of a green field where sheep idly grazed or wandered in slow follow-the-leader fashion to nowhere in particular. There was a time when juicy chops sizzling over a slow fire made a beautiful picture to my hungry eyes. But now it is not so. The sight of either brings tears to my eyes for the one only conjures visions of the other. How come that I should be so sentimental ? I will tell you. In the days before yesterday the red and white carcasses hung on hooks round a city butcher’s shop were accepted by me as the original ancestors of a juicy grilled chop. Raw chops spluttering (over a red fire) as drops of fat made little spurts of flame leap from the embers, were sweet music to my ears. And when they were black on the outside and nice and pink on the inside and flavoured with Worcestershire sauce, with these before me little cared I what lay behind them. But after yesterday it will never be the same again. It was a beautiful morning, with thin streams sparkling in the sun as they ran down the side of the mountain, whose

rugged top cut sharply into the blue of the sky. The air was crystal clear and faintly smelt of the wet earth and drying blue-gum leaves. And there was I gaily singing— ''Sierra Sue” was the songto a flock of sheep that I was driving to fresh grazing. As I said, it was a beautiful morning, and I felt a glorious exhilaration ; I was as one with the birds and the trees and the mountain and the sheep ; it was good to feel myself a part of the wonderful world about me ; and maybe I sang for the same reason as the birds in the treeslife was good. Then the boss appeared from nowhere, and, coming up to me, he pointed his walking-stick at four old stragglers of my flock and said, “ I reckon they could do with their throats cut.” Paradise slipped from under my feet, and I came down to earth with a jolt. As I walked on ahead to get the knife from the tool-shed, the eyes of the sheep that I’d just been singing to railed me with bitter stares ; I could see the trees nudging each other with their branches, some of which were pointing at me, and I wondered what they were sullenly whispering about ; and the birds discreetly flew away.

I found the knife, so wandered back, hoping that while I’d been away the fellow who usually does the killing had come on the scene. But no, I was to be the sole, or soulless, performer in the act. Having caught one of the old ewes, I pulled her to the ground then sat squatlegged on her chest. I felt the blade of the knife with my thumb, and I think I was more on edge than the blade, though, admittedly, not so keen. Then with one hand I forced her head back, trying not to return her hopeless stare, and with the other hand I murdered in warm blood. And the last to die had gazed at the awful sight of the last weak kicks of those who had gone before him ; had shuddered at the sound of their last stertorous gurgles. As I wiped the blood from the knife with a tuft of grass, and the sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand, I looked on what I had just done, and a chill shiver ran down my spine. The eyes of the live sheep fixed solemnly on their dead, and the trees were reverently quiet. Through the silence I heard a

soft lap-lapping—it was our mongrel dog lapping at a dark patch in the grass. “ Grilled chops ? No, thank you, I’ll have my dessert.”