The Wayward Gang

by Wal Watkins

Rigby, 1965, [First Edition], hardcover, dustjacket

Very Good Condition, minor edge and shelf wear, minor rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, dustjacket shows some edge and shelf wear with some rubbing, bumping, creasing and small chips and tears to edges and corners (see photographs)

“A lonely stretch of Transcontinental railway in the mulga country that approaches the barren wastes of the almost uninhabited Nullarbor Plain is maintained by a tough gang of fettlers – the Wayward Gang.  Life in a fettler’s camp is no picnic.  The conditions are such that only the brawny non-conformists and the unskilled misfits can be recruited.  Many of them are little more than drifters attracted perhaps by the knowledge that they can’t so easily “blow” their wages so far from the temptations of the city.  The aura of booze, brawling, and sex which surrounds this little nomadic community helps to build up a tension conducive to violence.  Only Dale, the hard-bitten, hard-slogging gang boss, and David Trennery, a young writer who has joined the gang in search of colourful literary material, struggle against the explosive situation which is developing.”