The Tales of Bullseye O'Reilly

By Freddie Danny

Bullseye O'Reilly was born into a railway family in Western Australia and worked most of his early life as a stationmaster in remote country towns. His stories tell of a way of life that is now history when all goods had to be carried by train. He describes the loneliness of outback life and the wonderful, and not so wonderful, characters and animals with whom he worked in the railway hierarchy and in the community with compassion and humour. His stories will resonate with railway lovers all over the world and with anyone who loves a really good yarn.
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• Language: English
• Publisher: Freddie Danny
• Release date: Feb 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463095324

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The Tales of Bullseye O’Reilly

Copyright 2013 Freddie Danny

Published by Freddie Danny at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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Table of Contents

Bullseye

Young Bullseye

Alf

Child’s Play

Growing Up

Railway Workshops

The Railway Crash

The Night-time Steak

The Dog without a Tail

Rasputin

Shooting Bottles

Skinny

The Toad

Snakes

The Day Out

The Money

The Foreman

The Derailment

New World

The Flow Chart

Three Wise Men

Orange Juice

Epilogue

Wisdom

Bullseye

It was a Sunday morning when I first came across him. I was holidaying in a small coastal town, and I was walking along the beach. Here was a little old man sitting on a salt-stained crate and using a rickety packing case as a table. He was sitting outside a rundown, almost derelict beach shack, which is common in this area of the coast. As I passed him he looked up with his melancholy old eyes. His beard was long and wispy. He was a sad and sorry sight. On his gnarled old hands his knuckles stuck out of long bony fingers.

As he looked up and said Hello, the timbre of his voice suggested that he was an educated old man. This tweaked my curiosity and I couldn’t resist saying, Hello, what are you doing, old man? The words came out of my mouth so quickly that I felt that I may have insulted him.

To my surprise he said, I’ve written a number of stories of long past events that history has already forgotten, about a young boy who became a man and about the enemies and friendships he forged along the way. I’ve just completed them. Would you like to have a read?

This old man sitting on a packing crate in the middle of nowhere writing a story tweaked my interest further. Why was he in such a desolate place? What had brought him here? Was he so lonely that he would offer his manuscript to the first stranger who passed by. It seemed very odd to me.

He bent forward and, with his gnarled old fingers of one hand, passed me a manuscript, offering his other hand for me to shake. He said, My name is Bullseye O’Reilly, Bullseye for short. You are welcome to read it if you like. When you have finished, throw it into the wind. Let it disappear like the characters and events within it.

With that he slowly rose to his feet and staggered his way to the door of the shack. I get very tired these days. Maybe I’ll see you another day. I’m not as well as I’d like to be. With that he was gone. Simple as that, I had been dismissed.

I was now in possession of a document which I felt might be a complete waste of time. But something about this world-weary old man compelled me to want to read it.

It was a bright sunny morning, there was no wind and the waves were lapping the shore. It was quite mesmerising. I knew this area of the coast like the back of my hand. It was only a short walk to my favourite place; a tiny little cove nestled in between the limestone boulders. I sat down on the smoothest rock I could find, dangled my feet in the water…..and began to read.

The story began about a little boy growing up in country Australia just after the Second World War.

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Young Bullseye

I learnt to look after myself at an early age

Bert, Bert, where are you, Bert? I’ll skin you alive if you don’t come home right now.

Coming, Mum, I said. I was very little with a voice to match. Around the corner of the wooden house I appeared covered in mud from head to toe. I was no more than five years old.

How many times have I told you not to play in that filthy mud? Now look at you. You know that you have no clean clothes, and how am I going to get them clean for kindergarten tomorrow? And look at your shoes; you know they are the only ones you have. You’ll have to go to school with no shoes. You know we’re in a new town and we don’t want to make a bad impression so soon now, do we? she continued.

I meekly passed her but she gave me a good whack on the bum.

There, she said. That will teach ya. Be thankful I’m not Dad. Now get in the bath and wash yourself.

I began to sob; not for the smack on the backside but for the impending bath. I hated baths as the water was always cold.

Why can’t you be like your sister? I heard my mother say as I disappeared into the outhouse out the back.

The next day my mother dropped me off at kindergarten and went to work. I was a small boy with dark curly hair and extremely shy. I entered the kindergarten classroom and was greeted by a giant of a woman with a severe and quite angular face.

She said to me, Sit there and don’t move. My name is Mrs Smith. I guess I’m stuck with you along with the rest of you.

She looked around, making eye contact with each of us as if daring us to move, and left the room. Immediately one of the bigger boys decided that I’d be his prey and started to bully me.

No shoes! he jeered. White trash! and gave me a push; enough for me to fall backwards into the little girl behind me. The little girl screamed, which brought Mrs Smith back into the room.

What’s happening here? she demanded.

Immediately the little girl said, Bert’s fighting Billy. Bert started it.

With this information Mrs Smith gave me a smack on the bum and said, There’ll be no fighting here. Do it again and I’ll take you to the headmaster.

Being only five, I sobbed all day and couldn’t understand what had just happened.

When I arrived home that evening my father asked me why I was so upset. I tried to explain to him the events of the day in the best way I could. At the end, he said, Well, we’ll just have to teach you how to fight and look after yourself. In the meantime don’t let yourself be bullied. Don’t come home snivelling about losing a fight. Keep on going back to the bully until you beat him.

With this advice from my father I resolved to take care of Billy when I arrived at the kindergarten the next day. I knew Billy was very large for his age and that to beat him I’d have to be sneaky. I certainly didn’t want a repeat of my first day. We had recently moved to this rural town and I knew I was the odd person out, as every other child in the class had known each other from birth.

Upon arriving at the classroom I found Billy waiting for me.

Here’s No-shoes, white trash! No-shoes, white trash! he chanted.

Billy hailed from one of the richer farming families in town and knew it. He went to give me another shove but this time I was ready for him. I dodged his push and, as hard as I could, rammed a stone I’d hidden in my hand into his eye. Billy was initially stunned, then the pain hit him and he started screaming and wailing like the little boy he really was.

There! I said. You’ll leave me alone now, won’t you!

Billy’s screaming immediately attracted the attention of the whole school. Mrs Smith arrived and stood shocked at what she saw. Here in front of her was her favourite child with a gash under his eye and the beginning of the biggest shiner ever. Once again the little girl said, It was Bert. He hit Billy with a stone. Billy did nothing.

Mrs Smith grabbed me by the ear and marched me squawking to the headmaster, where I was promptly caned. I’d never been caned before and the impact of these two days in my life defined my formative years. Mrs Smith then telephoned my mother and informed her that I’d been expelled from Kindergarten for fighting.

Back home I received another belting. Not for fighting but for using a weapon (the stone) and for the fact that I’d just cost my mother a half a day’s pay and, with no babysitter, she risked losing her job. I was extremely confused and upset. I’d done nothing but stand up for myself. How could what started as a simple push from a stranger create such a disaster for me? Now I had no friends at school, no Kindergarten, and I was branded a coward for using a weapon.

But I knew Billy would never bother me again.

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Alf

I had one good friend and I still miss him

At primary school I made a new friend – possibly the best friend I would ever have. I still miss him. His name was Alf. His father, Max, was the night-cart driver and my father’s drinking partner. He was a real beer drinker; booze was everything to him. He and Alf and Alf’s mum lived across the road from the local service station. My father had been a pastry cook before he’d moved to Narrogin and joined the railways. He’d been well educated in a brutal Christian Brothers school but something there affected his whole life. Max and my father loved camping and taught us how to survive in the bush, but for them camping was just another occasion for drinking; the bottles would be piled high under the trees around the camp site.

Alf was a year older and more of a tear-away than I was. His mischief knew no bounds. We’d spend hours roaming the bush and local creeks where we’d catch large numbers of gilgies, the local fresh water crayfish, which my mother used to cook for us for tea. Once, we placed them into the household rainwater tanks to try to breed them but they soon went rotten and spoilt the entire household drinking water for twelve months.

This was a time where the Second World War had not been forgotten and the Korean War was still raging. Although we were not short of things to eat, food was one of the most