by Barbara Wood
When Captain Fielding's pipe was lit and he filled the air with pungent smoke, he said, "Did I ever tell you folks about the time ..." And he launched into a tale of voyages to distant lands, populated with exotic maidens, cutthroat seamen and sea serpents. His companions listened politely, but without much interest, because they had heard all Fielding's stories in the weeks since leaving Merinda, and he was starting to repeat himself. But it was better than listening to the desert silence, which had become frightening and humbling, and reminded them of their vulnerability. While they half-listened to Fielding talk, his companions kept an alert ear toward the silence, thinking of Commissioner Fox's warnings back in Kalagandra of snakes and scorpions and of Aborigines who would spear a man just for his tobacco. Joanna and Beth had been particularly watchful for wild dingoes, which he had also warned them about.
While Fielding talked, Joanna looked at the compass in her hand. She was mesmerized by the peculiar action of the needle, swinging erratically between north and south. She looked up at the sky. "Strange ..." she murmured. "No moon or stars. Just a peculiar blackness."
Eric Graham was thinking the same thing. His pencil made a scratching sound as it moved across the pages of his notebook: "I have never heard such silence," he wrote. "It makes me wonder if we have somehow been transported to another world, where there are no moon and no stars."
Eric was beginning to feel his spirits flag as the prospect of finding the mysterious Karra Karra grew remote. He was worried about going back to Melbourne with nothing to report. When Frank Downs had asked him if he would like to go along on the expedition, Eric had jumped at it. He was tired of writing human interest stories about whales being spotted off the coast. He longed to make a name for himself in real news reportage. And this was a tremendous opportunity for an ambitious reporter willing to take risks, because, he thought, it would be the first time such a story was reported firsthand by a newsman, instead of it being "as told to." He hoped it would bring him prestige and fame, and a chance to prove himself as the best in the business. It could also change the mind of a certain young lady who had rejected his marriage proposal. But first they had to find something.
"Faith!" he said, dropping his pencil and rubbing his hands together. "It gets blessed cold out here at night!"
Captain Fielding suddenly stood up and looked around. "What is it?" Joanna said.
He narrowed his eyes and searched the darkness. "I don't know," he said. "The air—it doesn't feel right."
"Beth," Joanna said, pulling her shawl tightly about her, "are you warm enough?"
"I'm fine, Mother," Beth said, without looking up from her reading.
Joanna had given Lady Emily's diary to Beth on their first day out of Kalagandra, explaining to her daughter that it was time she knew the real reason for their journey into the desert. And as Beth had read a little of it every night, Joanna had seen how absorbed her daughter became in the words from the past, how still she sat, what a faraway look she had in her eyes. Afterward, when they retired for the night, Joanna and Beth would spend time talking about what she had read, and Beth was usually so full of questions that they sometimes talked for an hour before falling asleep. Now, she was near the end of the book, and completely engrossed.
"Gosh," she said, finally looking up. "I wonder what it's all about. I mean, why are we afraid of dogs, Mother? I know I am because of what happened with the dingoes and poor Button. But Grandmother was afraid of dogs, and so are you. Do you think there really is a curse on us? How exciting!"
"Exciting?" Joanna said. "Yes, I suppose in a way it is."
"And do you suppose Great-grandfather committed a crime? I wonder what it was. Did he steal the opal, maybe? It's very valuable, I know, but I thought the Aborigines didn't have possessions. They wouldn't have thought an opal was valuable, would they?"
"Perhaps the opal has a different kind of value ... a religious value, possibly." Joanna had shown the stone to Beth the first night they had made camp. Beth had seen it before, but this time, when Joanna had explained its true significance, she had held it in her hand, feeling its peculiar warmth; she had stared into its depths, mesmerized by the brilliant red and green flashes, and she had said, "Why do you suppose it was hidden inside Rupert?"
Now she said, "I'll bet Great-grandfather Makepeace found an opal mine! Doesn't Grandmother mention another legacy in here?" she said, handing the diary to Joanna. "Something that she felt she had to come back and claim? I'll bet that's what the deed is for!"
But Joanna wasn't sure what the "other legacy" might be. As she carefully replaced the old book inside the leather satchel, with the opal—which, valuable though it was, she had decided to bring with her—her grandfather's notes and the deed, Joanna recalled something Sarah had said to her a long time ago: "The book is your mother's Dreaming. It is your songline, as it was hers. Follow it, and you will find the place you seek."
But how could she follow it, she wondered, if she couldn't read the clues it contained? Perhaps there were signs in the diary that pointed the way, but for some reason Joanna had never been able to see them.
When she saw Fielding walk away from the campfire, she said, "Is there anything wrong, Captain?"
"I've got a bad feeling," he said.
"Hello," Graham said, looking up. "What's that sound?"
They listened. "It sounds like thunder," Beth said.
But Sammy was suddenly on his feet. "Water!" he cried.
They turned in the direction the noise was coming from. They couldn't see anything, but they felt the ground begin to rumble.
"What—" Graham said.
And suddenly it was upon them.
"Mother!" Beth cried.
"Beth!"
Joanna opened her eyes and stared up at the sky. She lifted her head, and a wave of nausea swept over her. She lay still for a moment, trying to think, searching her mind for her last memory. What had happened? She touched her head, and sand showered down into her eyes and mouth. She coughed and sat up, and the world seemed to tilt. She put a hand to her forehead; and felt a painful lump.
She looked around. The terrain was not familiar; this was not the place where they had camped the night before; the hills and trees were in all the wrong positions. And the tents weren't there. Nor the camels. Nor the men.
And then it came back to her—the rising wall of water suddenly rushing toward them.
Beth!
She struggled to her feet, and frantically searched the landscape, looking for signs of Beth and the others. But there was nothing, no one. Surely she wasn't the only one here! Surely her companions had made it through the flash flood and were now waking up to this same shocking reality, and would soon be making their way back to her.
Surely, dear God, she thought, Beth hadn't perished!
She hugged herself tightly, thinking, don't panic. Keep your head. Don't lose control.
She tried to remember what had happened. They had been sitting around the campfire, Graham had said, "What's that sound?" And they had turned in time to see a dark wall rushing toward them. Joanna remembered Beth reaching for her. After that—nothing.
When she began to shake suddenly, and the world tilted again, she realized that she was going into shock.
She saw a nearby eucalyptus tree that had somehow escaped the raging water; it still stood upright. She made her way to it and leaned against it, shivering, her teeth chattering. The day went dark and then light again, and she knew she was about to pass out. She quickly sat down and put her head between her knees.
"Oh God," she sobbed. "Let the others still be alive. Beth—"
After a few moments, the vertigo subsided and Joanna was able to take control of herself. She took a more careful look at her surroundings. Judging by the brightness of the day it was about noon. She saw the same brown wilderness dotted with stunted eucalyptus and mulga that she had been traveling through for four weeks, except that now the trees and shrubs were all uprooted, their pale roots pointing toward
the sky. There was no sign of her camp. Not a chair, not a saddle. It was as if the face of the world had been washed clean.
And Beth. Where was Beth?
She realized that she had also lost the satchel—the opal, her mother's diary, the deed. Everything.
She stood up again and, holding onto the tree, steadied herself. She saw shadows moving on the ground a short distance away and looked up to see large birds circling in the sky.
And then she saw something. A dark form lying in the sand.
She recognized the naval jacket with brass buttons. "Captain Fielding!" she cried, running to him. "Oh thank God!"
He was lying on his back, his eyes closed, his mouth open. She felt for a pulse at his neck. He was dead.
Joanna wrapped her arms around her knees and fought down panic and hysteria. She could not remember having ever been this frightened. Or this thirsty. Where was she going to find water? Strangely, the ground was dry. How could that be, after such a flood? Had she lain unconscious longer than she thought? She squinted up at a lone eagle circling overhead. She knew that eagles sometimes carried off newborn lambs, and even human babies. Would it attack a helpless woman?
She had to take control of herself. The flash flood had swept everything away, but she had been spared. This might mean the others could also have been spared, and perhaps supplies from the camp.
As the dark bird-shadows moved over the ground, Joanna covered Fielding's body with sand and rocks, and when she was done, she fashioned a cross out of branches and stuck it at the head of the makeshift grave. Then, exhausted, she said a prayer, and stood up. She kept the captain's jacket.
She looked for the sun, but saw only the same mocking whiteness stretching from horizon to horizon. She studied the trees and bushes that had been uprooted, determined the path of the flash flood and began to walk.
As she left the grave behind her, she stayed alert for any strange or suspicious object in the landscape. She was hungry, and an acute thirst told her that she needed to find water soon. She called out as she walked, "Beth! Sammy! Mr. Graham!"
After a few hundred yards, she began to find things: a waterskin, still full of water; a tin of salted beef and another of biscuits; Eric Graham's hat. She drank some of the water as she paused to assess her situation. She decided that she had enough food and water to last a few days if she was careful.
She had to find Beth. But where to look? How far could she go on the few provisions she had? And then she recalled Captain Fielding's warnings about wandering into the Great Victoria Desert, which was most likely an even more hostile terrain than this one, a place where she would surely get lost and die. Hugh was probably already in Perth, she thought, or even on the train to Kalagandra at that very moment, and when she didn't show up there when she had said she would, he would certainly come looking for her. She decided she would make camp where she was, and wait to be rescued.
Joanna took a small sip of water from the waterskin and held it in her mouth for a long time before swallowing. She estimated that she had just over a cup of water left. She had eaten the last of the food that morning.
She stepped out of the crude lean-to she had erected against the eucalyptus tree and surveyed the landscape. In five days, nothing had changed. The sky was still strangely overcast; she was still unable to determine direction. At sunset the whole world seemed to darken at once, so that it was impossible to tell which was west or east, and she never saw the sunrise; bright daylight always wakened her. But now she needed to know where she was, because she had to leave her small camp.
For five days Joanna had survived on the hope that someone from her party would find her, that Beth would suddenly materialize, or Hugh. She had set out each day in a different direction, walking as far from her camp as she dared, always keeping the lean-to in sight, leaving a trail of pebbles as she went. She would explore as far as she could, and then return just before dark, following the pebbles back to the shelter, where she ate a little of the tinned meat and biscuits, and then slept fitfully, wrapped against the cold in Captain Fielding's jacket, wishing she knew how to start a fire without matches. She had awakened in terror many times, as she relived the flash flood in nightmares, or as Beth appeared to her in dreams, dying in many different ways. Joanna awoke to her own screams, and then lay trembling beneath the eucalyptus shelter, praying that this, too, was a bad dream, and that she would soon awaken in her own bed at Merinda.
And she had cried—for Beth, for poor Captain Fielding, for herself.
Now the food was gone, and almost all the water. Joanna faced the hard fact that she would have to leave this place in order to survive. But she didn't know which way to go. She had found the compass, with its erratic needle, and the leather satchel, its precious contents intact. But these would not tell her east from west; they would not lead her to food and water.
As she stared at the bleak landscape, she tried to remember what she had heard over the years about surviving in the wilderness. She knew there was water here, hidden, but one had to know where to find it. And food, if one had cunning and skill, could be plentiful.
She felt the weight of the waterskin in her hand. The first thing she knew she must do was to find water.
But Joanna didn't want to strike off arbitrarily, in just any direction. She had to walk with a purpose, she had to choose the right path. She surveyed the low-lying hills to her right, which she had explored on her first day. She knew there was no water there. To her left lay miles of scattered boulders, as if a mountain, long ago, had exploded. Behind her was a flat, monotonous expanse, and ahead the mallee continued, its saltbush and stunted eucalypts offering the most promise.
And so she chose to head in that direction. But before she went, she left a sign for anyone who might come along, to let them know she had been there. Removing one of her lapis-lazuli earrings, she tied it to a sturdy branch of the tree, and then, with a sharp stone, carved her name into the eucalyptus trunk. She made a large arrow in the sand, using pebbles, pointing in the direction she had gone. Finally she left the relative security and familiarity of her little camp, carrying Fielding's jacket, the leather satchel and the disturbingly light waterskin. She decided she would walk as far as she could, even though she was weak, and put off drinking the water no matter how severe her thirst became.
She trudged through the semi-desert, walking across the sand-plains and dry salt lakes, past mulga and spinifex, and twisted eucalypts that, with their multiple trunks, bore no resemblance to the tall and graceful trees at Merinda.
The hours passed, and she kept up her spirits by thinking of home—she recited Hugh's ballads, she carried on imaginary conversations with Beth and Sarah. She envisioned finding Beth just up ahead, sitting in her own little camp, and of how joyful their reunion would be. And when Joanna realized that the day was growing dark, she looked back and could no longer see the tiny lean-to, nor any recognizable terrain. She had no idea how far she had walked, but she was extremely hungry, and her thirst was like nothing she had ever imagined.
She sat down in the protection of a group of boulders, praying that this wasn't home to deadly snakes, and held the waterskin in her lap for a long time before taking a desperate drink. Panic and fear began to steal over her again. She looked up at the sky, but still there were no stars, no moon. I am going to die here, she thought, and she began to cry.
She awoke to another mocking, milky sky, and a silence that she thought was going to drive her mad. After leaving behind her second earring, and another arrow made of rocks, she continued to walk again, searching the dried creek beds for pockets of water, digging under shrubs, trying to coax some wetness out of this unforgiving land. At noon, she drank her last mouthful of water, but she kept the waterskin. Hunger pangs had turned into genuine pain, and as she forced herself to keep moving toward an inhospitable horizon, she feared the terrible end that was most surely facing her. After an hour or two she had to stop. It was useless, she knew, to keep trudging without knowing wher
e she was going. Water wasn't going to just fall from the sky, or suddenly spring up from the earth. She had to find it, and soon, while she still had her wits about her.
She caught up her straying hair and pinned it tight. She thought of the woman who had passed through this very wilderness with her young husband and little girl. "Naomi was strong," Patrick Lathrop and Elsie Dobson had said. And Joanna realized now just how strong her grandmother must have been, to survive in this place.
I am Naomi's granddaughter, she told herself as she surveyed the unpromising scene. I will be strong, too.
And then she thought of her mother, Lady Emily, coming through this area as a child in the company of an Aboriginal girl, and wondered: How did they do it? How could two such vulnerable creatures, walking on foot, have made it across so many barren miles?
And then it came to her: They knew how to follow the songlines.
Of course, Joanna thought, that was the answer. She had been trying to survive by thinking like a gently bred young Englishwoman, when she should have been thinking like the people who had been born out of this land—the Aborigines. They had survived by following song-lines. Joanna knew that songlines connected dreaming sites, each of which represented a stage of an Ancestor's journey, and that they were usually a day's trek from each other. But how to find one?
She turned in a slow circle, trying to make something of the barren scene. She saw rocks, dwarfed trees, sandy hillocks, dried creek beds, but nothing that resembled a songline. But then, she wondered, what did a songline look like?