September 3:
“…he stabs her legs with a pen-knife…”
There’s a half-caste bloke here, Ben, who is bad news. He brings in grog and drugs and sells it to the youngsters. When drunk himself, he is quite dangerous and already had several police convictions. One was for chasing a bloke with a loaded rifle and trying to shoot him. He’s on a good behaviour bond over that little incident. One of the nursing staff said he often turns up at the clinic at night with his wife. She is usually bleeding from open wounds on her upper legs which he insists were done by falling on a broken bottle. His wife says nothing. She is dumb, beaten down into submission. If she tells the truth, he will take her out in the bush and bash her senseless. Some of the older women revealed this to me. When Ben can’t get his way with his wife, he stabs her legs with a pen-knife, then takes her to the Nganampa Health clinic for treatment.
When I was new here, he tried to stand over me one morning, threatening to bash me if I didn’t give him a weekly pay for which he did not work. While he was doing his utmost to stand over me, I picked up the office phone and called the police, telling them of his threatening behaviour. A copper spoke to him on the phone. Ben quietened down at once. He had already has a taste of the lock-up and he didn’t want any more, that was obvious. That same night my house was stoned by the sniffers. I found out later from one of the uninvolved sniffers that the attack was engineered by Ben. He pays the sniffers with petrol to do his dirty work for him. Rocks were hurled for several hours at the walls and roof of the house, each sounding like an exploding bomb. It was impossible to sleep. I rang the police, but no one answered the phone. When I called the police again during daylight hours, they condescended to come out to view the evidence of the nocturnal attack. Dozens of large rocks were scattered all around the house. The copper said: “I bet you didn’t get much sleep.” Obviously! I couldn’t positively identify any of the sniffers, so no charges could be laid. That’s the way it goes.
