The Wool Shed

There was only one rule: don’t open the door. We drilled that into the new blokes, the same way it was drilled into us. We had no idea why it was the only chute in the wool shed to have a door, seeing as the other 20 chutes didn’t. The hinges at the top allowed the door to swing one way only – inviting a freshly shorn sheep to slide down.

The rouseabouts couldn’t resist testing the waters. They’d poke the door with a broom handle. Nothing ever happened, thankfully. We would take them underneath the Wool Shed to where all the chutes emptied. From below, there were only twenty chutes and not one had a door. And we told them about Nev, of course.

Neville the half-caste had been getting cheeky, dangerous for a feller like him. One night, some of the shearers tied Nev up and dragged him to the Shed. When they reached the door, Nev begged for them stop, but they weren’t having it. They launched him through the door and down the chute like a sheep. They figured they’d leave him in the sheep shit till morning.

They hadn’t made it out the door before Nev’s yells for help turned to screams that could curdle milk. Dread kept the men stuck in place all night, listening to Nev slowly being ripped apart. On the morning’s first crow caw, the men could no longer hear Nev dying and ran.

We tell the story of Nev like it’s before our time, but it’s not. I still remember tying Nev’s hands with his own bed-sheet; the sound of a man’s skin being shorn and ripped off his body; the crunchy, wet mastication sounds coming from the other side of the door; and Nev’s continuous prayers wanting to live.