From the Sunday Times 11th May 1941:- A Tragedy Recalled
Coolgardie 1896
Elderly, venerable, Said Mahomet Yar first spread his praying mat and commenced his morning with Allah then rolled and strapped his blankets and dismantled his self made wind sheet. Before continuing his journey he carefully counted the contents of two leather pouches which swung at his girdle. His camel squatted nearby, turning its aloof hooked face towards him, and as only a dromedary can, snarled.
Said Mahomet paid no attention. In the cold early morning sun he chinked his coins, seeing that all was correct. One of the bags was his and one was …. well, anybody’s. Honest devout Said was trusted by his fellow cameleers. To him they would transfer their earnings garnished from stumpy ‘Never Never’ towns, and Said, ever scrupulous, would have it banked for them on their return or secreted in caches. As he returned the pouches to his belt his robe slipped. Said lifted his arms abruptly, shrugging it back into place. The camel was startled, he jerked back his long neck and then forward and dug his protruding teeth into Said’s arm.
Cameleers arriving at his camp at midday found him lying upon his own blood, unconscious. At first from a distance they thought him reclining on a new prayer mat. Later a Goldfields doctor cut away the makeshift bandages and smiled as he picked off a poultice of herbs. He could see the gangrene had gone too far. When Said next took the camel route it was with an empty sleeve. When the mornings came he found it harder to count his money. Onto his blanket he would pour his own small horde and beside it his friends. With his one hand he would pick over his coins and laboriously fill the pouches. One one morning he sat for a long time and frowning he tried to remember what the tally should be.
When next a passing camel team came to him he put a dissolute hand to his head and said “I am not as I was Taj” Since the camel took off my arm much of my sense is also missing. I cannot take your money for you now. It would not be safe with me. Sighing he shook his head once more “I am an old and stupid man Taj”. The cameleers were sorry for him and helped him whenever they could for he never became proficient with the use of only one arm to do the work of two or of three for Said worked hard and carefully. More often now his younger brother accompanied him on the pad marked camel routes.
Early in 1897 the story was whispered about the camps that Said was more than absent minded. Ask Sirdar of Hyderabad. A week ago his camel team had been swaying towards Coolgardie. Near the head of the string rode Said. Suddenly he swirled his one arm above his head as though fighting a hawk then suddenly tumbled from his camel. In the dust he sat dazed and when they lifted him up he moaned as if a hundred men had come from the bush to kill him. They also noted that Said’s brother walked with averted eyes. They did not know then why the young Afghan could not look at Said directly. In the night Said would roll over in his blankets and touch his brother on the shoulder and told him to beware that cameleers were out to murder him.
Said Mahomet sat on a rock and looked over the growing township of Coolgardie. Before him were the camel camps, mine shafts and the pubs of the gold capital. But Said saw none of it. He peopled the empty space before him from his imagination. Wrapped in a swathe like robe and a green turban of the pilgrimage on his head a sinister Mohammedan stood at the head of 20 of his countrymen. From his hand was passed a velvet bag. Fifty pounds he heard the man say, to kill the brother of Said Mohamed. The air around the old man trembled and the sky rumbled. Heavy slow drops of rain fell about him. Said Mahomet sat until it became a downpour and did not move till a cameleer came and took him to shelter. That night the rain continued, Said brushed a hand against the canvas of his shelter and the rain seeped through. It was a clumsy thing to do said Said’s brother, only the greenest of cameleers touched their tents when it rained. Now they would have to seek shelter in a friends tent and wait for the rain to pass.
Other tents were leaking that night and many of the cameleers crowded together, Faiz Mahomet, Said Mohamet, his brother and Said Dardan. Dardan !!! Said Mahomet looked at the man in puzzlement, trying to remember something that had happened that afternoon. Trying to remember a man swathed from head to foot in a dark robe counting money into an eager palm. As the talk continued and the smoke made the air of the tent blue. Said passed his hand weakly over his forehead and blinked again at Dardan. Dardan could feel the old mans eyes upon him and he would turn and smile and remembering the days when he could trust Said with his money.
Later, very carefully, Said crept from his blankets, rain still trickled from the leak he had made in his tent and all the lights of the camp were out. Into the darkness and the rain he went crouching and came back minutes later and buried near the tent a bloodstained knife. Then he peacefully went to sleep. Faiz Mahomet was ten tents away and heard the tent flap swish faintly as he slept but he did not wake till Dardan groaned. Sleepily he prodded his tent mate to wake him from a dream but the first groan was followed by another. Faiz, drowsy, but resigned flung off his blankets and crouched beside his friend. “Wake Up” Silence in the tent and then the splutter of a match and the glow of the lamp. Faiz shuddered in horror and then wiped his hands upon Dardan’s blankets. How had it been done, he had not heard the assassin come and had not heard Dardan shriek. What to do!! Faiz went from his murdered friend to the tent of his old friend Said Mahomet. “Dardan has been killed Said, Wake up Dardan has been killed”. The old man sat up and peered at Faiz through the gloom. His sleepy words came distinctly “I know, they offered Dardan fifty pounds to kill my brother, I saw them, I stopped it, he wont be able to keep his contract now, I killed him”.
The judge 
sentenced Said to death. He asked if Said had anything to say. The old cameleer wavered to his feet. His only hand wavered characteristically to his forehead, “Yes I did murder him, my head is not quite right. Plaintively he looked at the silent courtroom. “When I killed him my head was not quite right” he said again. he met only with cloaked eyes or eyes which would not look at him at all.
This story is about true events which happened in Coolgardie in December 1897. Said Mahomet was indeed convicted of the murder of Said Dardan by his own confession. He was sentenced to death but his sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment due to insanity. After a twelve month term in Fremantle prison he was released due to a petition from his countrymen who gave an undertaking he would go back to Afghanistan never to return to Australia. He was given a ‘ticket of leave’ to return briefly to Coolgardie to settle his business affairs but asked for an extension of this time to six months.
The following was a very inflammatory article in ‘The Sun, 9th April 1899’
The full article can be read at:- http://bit.ly/1Vg5yB4
What do you think? Was Said indeed confused or did he know what he was doing when he murdered Dardan.
Moya Sharp
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