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Getting Bogged at Dulacca.
An extensive pocket of fertile black soil in the south east of Queensland is known as the Darling Downs. It starts at the top of the Great Dividing Range in the east and runs west through to the town of Roma in the west.
When blacksoil becomes wet it is like plasticine. One cannot drive on it. Even with grass cover vehicles including aeroplanes sink. After 3 days after rain I was working off the Dulacca town strip on the Darling Downs. Dulacca is a town of about 20 or 25 people.And back soil. The strip was doughy. It had a hump near the west end and that obscures the vision from the loading site.
I did a silly thing. I taxied to the west end to takeoff to the east. I stopped for some reason, the aeroplane sank a little and she just would not move. This could not be seen by Adrian and the farmer, Big Col McLennan and his helper, Jacko who had arrived. I walked back to the loading site to get somehelp. I had them come to the aeroplane and push. Adrian on the left wing, Big Col on the right. I didn’t give Jacko a job because he was pissed. I cranked and applied full power. Adrian and big Col pushing. Now Jacko felt a bit left out so he went and pushed on the tail plane. The plane rolled, I applied back pressure on the pole, accelerated, and became airborne.
When I returned for the next load Adrian was in stiches. For what had happened when I had applied back pressure on the pole Jacko had his forefinger jammed between the elevator and horizontal stabiliser. He ran behind until his legs would carry him no longer. He fell. His fore finger continued for the ride. The story got around. And got bigger and better. Big Col had run after the aeroplane and had Big Col not caught him, Jacko would have gone splat on the ground just like a water melon dropped from a great height.
Now with blood gushing everywhere it was decided to get him to the Miles hospital. To get there they needed to pass the Dulacca pub and since Jacko had lost so much blood they had better replenish his body fluid. The publicans wife took to panic and bandaged and mothered him. I don’t know what happened after that but some weeks later I was in the Queensland pub at Miles. I saw this bloke with his finger right up his nose. It looked disgusting. Then I preconised him as Jacko. Infact he had no finger at all. It was only the stump of his forefinger at the base of his nose. Yeh, he was having a go at me. I laughed, he laughed. We drank some cold beer together.
The story got around the farming community and Jacko became a bit of a legend. I bet even today he just loves to tell the story on how he lost his finger