by ALLEYNE HALL
In memory of my father, John Leslie Hall
From Tallarook, VIC – June, 1931
After our first search, in teeming rain, on horseback,
through mud and steep bush, they radioed me at the station …
I still had a feeling the plane had come down in this area —
I reckoned he’d hit tall timber, up in these Tallarook mountains.
It was J. H. Ekin, civil aviation inspector of aircraft
thrilled with his hobby, with success at his mastery of the bi-plane:
his destination an aero pageant, but he had never arrived.
He’d told me once, he could observe the land below
as if from the centre of the universe …
I had laughed — as a Senior Constable myself,
I saw humans as the middle of the world …
The Minister of Aviation had ten planes searching
From Essendon, along the Murray, to Albury.
Joe Ekin’s Moth was wood and fabric over tubes of steel
At a time of transport on foot or by horse-power through bush.
Yes, at the police station I had a phone
But when I heard a knock at the door, it was Giesue Adello
An Italian rabbit trapper — he had found the plane
Walking five miles through thick bush to tell me …
I stared in utter disbelief, before gathering ranks; horses and men.
For two hours we trekked, through rain and bush and mud.
And there it was, the lost plane … Ekin still strapped tight,
Stiff, white. From a head injury, his blood had drained out …
So there we were, on the front page of the city paper
Photographed at the scene, amid the tall trees
With the plane embedded head-first in the soil
And us standing silent, among the mountain gums
Stern-faced, shocked — a case closed to us …