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Most Cruel JEST of FATE
Woman who fought Blacks and dared the Ocean in a tank... perished of thirst.
Here is the tragic story of one of the pioneer women of Australia, who met death after an amazing attempt to cheat it.
Of such indomitable spirits is the Australian race compounded.
ALTHOUGH the fine monument erected in the main street of Cooktown, in memory of Mrs. Watson, states the fact that this unfortunate woman died of thirst, very few people, outside of Cooktown, are acquainted with the details surrounding the death of this brave and heroic woman.
In the year 1881, with her baby, and her Chinese servant, Mrs. Watson escaped in a tank from their home on Lizard Island, after putting up an heroic fight with the blacks — unfortunately, only to perish a little later from thirst.
* * *
MRS. WATSON was the young wife of Captain R. P. Watson, a beche-de-mer trader, and from the time of their marriage at Cooktown, on May 30, 1880, had resided on Lizard Island.
Six weeks before the tragedy her husband left for Knight Island, a little over two hundred miles further north — with a view to forming a fishing station.
Mrs. Watson and her baby, together with two Chinese servants, remained on Lizard Island.
On September 27, 1881, about ten canoeloads of blacks arrived on the island. They attacked and killed one of the Chinese servants at the homestead farm, about a quarter of a mile from the cottage. The hat found was the only proof of the grim fate of the Chinaman.
The next day the other Chinaman was speared — though not seriously — but the courageous woman put up such a splendid fight with firearms that the aboriginals were temporarily driven off.
However, to remain on the island seemed to the unhappy woman to mean certain death, and on October 3, provisioning an iron tank (used as a bechede-mer boiler) she, with her baby and wounded Chinese servant, embarked in this frail craft and escaped from the island.
They floated all night, and next day landed on a bare reef, where they remained till October 6. Water then giving out, the poor woman pulled the tank over to No. 1 Island, of the Howick Group, but, not finding water, and observing that natives inhabited the island, she again started out, and reached No. 5 Island, about 40 miles away, on the 8th.
* * *
THERE her remains were discovered by Captain Bremner, of the beche-de-mer schooner, Kate Kearney, who, on January 19, 1882, put into the island for the purpose of allowing the boys to cook some fish which they had caught. The baby was resting on her arm.
At a little distance were the remains of Ah Sam, the faithful Chinese servant.
By the dead woman's side was found a diary, written in lead pencil, on some sheets of notepaper — just the merest details, of how she escaped from her savage foes, trusting herself to the mercies of the seas in surely as unique and frail craft as ever carried human freight—only to perish from the agonising torments of thirst on an uninhabited coral isle.
Yet every line tells its own tale of a heart that was courageous and brave to the end.
Only the constant phrase, "no water," tells of the agonies which these unfortunate fugitives suffered during the week which evidently elapsed between the arrival on the island, and their terrible deaths.
By the entry it would appear that the Chinaman was the first to die, and Mrs. Watson's last entry, on October 12, mentioning that the baby was still living, but that they were nearly dead from thirst, betokens that the end was near.
* * *
ONLY a mother can realise the added tortures this woman must have endured there, surrounded by water, yet all salt; seeing her helpless baby dying before her eyes, and she herself suffering the same terrible agony.
The memory of her heroic action in the face of peril from her uncivilised foes, and the subsequent awful fate of this brave woman must surely live in the hearts of all true Australians for all time.
- By - June Eversleigh
Australian Women's Weekly
2 December 1933
Heroic Woman's Memorial
Australian Women's Weekly
16 December 1933
Sources:
- Most Cruel JEST of FATE (1933, December 2). The Australian Women's Weekly (1933 - 1982), p. 17.
- HEROIC Woman's Memorial (1933, December 16). The Australian Women's Weekly (1933 - 1982), p. 13.
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