'Well, chase Aunt Lizzie round the haystacks!' exclaimed Bertie. 'This native warrior stuff is all news to me. I thought Australia was civilized
— if you get what I mean.'
'So did I,' returned Biggles. 'And so, I imagine it is, except for —
well, take a look at that spear. There's nothing civilized about that.
I'll see what West has to say about it. I shan't be long.'
Taking the spear Biggles departed.
He was away about half an hour. When he returned the others looked at him expectantly as he held out the spear. 'West says this thing came out of Arnhem Land. He asked me how I got it. When I told him he thought I was kidding. Said that sort of thing didn't happen here. I assured him that it did. He told me this top corner of Australia used to be called the triangle of death on account of the ferocity of the natives. Even today, with native reserves and all that sort of thing, they're not to be trusted. That goes for the half-civilized natives who work up the Daly for the white planters. Incidentally, what struck me as odd — or significant if you like — was this. West said many of the early peanut farmers were Russians. I wonder does that mean anything. Any who are left would certainly employ some native labour. What I'm getting at is, that fellow who had a go at me couldn't have had any personal grudge against me. He could have had no possible reason for wanting to set fire to us, anyway. Somebody sent him; somebody who knows how to handle the locals.'
Biggles was silent for a while, his expression hardening. 'You know, that thought puts an uncomfortable notion into my head.' He paused again, and continued: 'After what West told me I'd decided to do a high reconnaissance over the headwaters of the Daly; but that can wait for a bit. There's no hurry. Airstrips don't run away. And the Matilda can't be back there yet, if that's where she's going. I'll tell you what. Tomorrow morning I shall run down to Broome in the Halifax and have a word with Bill Gilson. Ginger can come with me. Algy, you take Bertie with you in the Otter and see if you can spot the Matilda.
Don't go near it. I'll give you a course from the mouth of the Daly River to the island. If, on that course, you see a lugger heading for the Daly it's pretty certain to be the Matilda.
Get its position. That's all I want. Take the machine up to the ceiling: the moment you spot the lugger, cut your engines and turn away. It doesn't really matter if they see you, but it'd be better if they didn't.
When you've done that make for Broome. We'll wait there for you.'
'Okay,' agreed Algy.
'It's getting late if we're to make an early start. I'll take first watch. The rest of you see about getting some sleep,' concluded Biggles.
CHAPTER IX
Murder in the Outback
It was still only nine o'clock the next morning when Biggles and Ginger arrived at Bill Gilson's house, just in time to catch him going out. The airport superintendent had promised to keep an eye on the machine.
Bill looked surprised to see them. 'You fellers don't waste any time,' he observed cheerfully.
'We've none to waste,' returned Biggles, introducing Ginger. 'Let's go into the office. I want a word with you.'
'Now listen, Bill,' he went on, when they were settled. 'Has Joe Hopkins, your old prospector pal, come in yet?'
'No.'
'You mentioned he was overdue.'
'He is.'
'Is that customary?'
'No. He's usually pretty regular. The tucker he takes with him lasts just so long and no longer. There's nothing to eat in the spinifex. If he isn't soon in I shall have to do something about it.' 'Are there any natives in the district he works?'
Bill stared. 'What's that got to do with it?'
'Are there?'
'Yes. Plenty. But you didn't worry about that. He knows them and they know him.'
'There's never any trouble with them?'
A curious expression dawned on Bill's face. 'Now what made you ask that?'
'Last night, on Darwin airport, one tried to spear me.'
Bill's expression turned to incredulity. 'At Darwin! Are you pulling my leg?'
'There was nothing funny about it, believe you me,' retorted Biggles seriously. 'I have reason to believe that the man was an Arnhem Lander. I also have reason to believe that the people I'm looking for, which includes Boller, one of the names on that list I showed you, have an airstrip at the top end of the Daly. They've certainly got one no great distance away. That's where the Auster must have come from with the people who burnt the boat.'
Bill shook his head. 'There's nothing queer in Australia about a private airstrip. Everyone flies — farmers, stockmen, doctors, everybody — and thinks nothing of it. We were about the first people to become what used to be called airminded. No doubt it was a matter of the distances people had to cover to get anywhere. To be fifty or a hundred miles from your nearest neighbour is nothing in this part of the world.'
Biggles nodded. 'I realize that. But you still haven't answered my question about the general behaviour of the natives.'
'Well, since you mention it, there have been reports of — well, if not exactly trouble —
difficulties. Of course, some of 'em always have been awkward and unreliable; and lately, instead of getting more friendly, as you'd expect, there's been what you might call a stiffening in their attitudes towards white men. Old Harry Larkin — he's another old timer — told me the other day that a
party on what they call walkabout had threatened him. I took it with a pinch of salt, although I must admit that Harry isn't the sort to be easily scared. But what's all this leading up to?'
Biggles lit a cigarette. 'You'll call me an alarmist, I know, but it occurred to me last night that this is just how the trouble began in Malaya and Kenya.'
When Biggles said that Ginger knew just when the thought had struck him, the previous evening, and he had paused in the middle of a sentence.
Bill was staring. 'Do you mean Mau-Mau, and that sort of thing?'
'That's exactly what I mean.'
Bill smiled sceptically. 'But that couldn't happen here.' 'Why couldn't it?'
'Well, it just couldn't, that's all.'
'Tell me why?'
'Most of 'em are in regular touch with whites.'
'So they were in Africa.'
'They've got their own reserves—'
'So they had in Africa.'
Bill shook his head. 'I still don't see how it could happen here.'
'Neither, I imagine, could the settlers who took their wives and kids to outlying farms in Kenya, and now never move without a gun in each hand.'
Biggles went on. 'Now look, Bill; I'm not the sort of man to get in a flap easily; and I own freely that I may be barking up a tree with nothing in it. I also own that when I came out here the last thing in my mind was trouble with the natives. I didn't really know what I was looking for. But since I've been here one or two things have happened that have made me think hard. Last night, after that man had flung a spear at me, the idea suddenly came to me that the set-up in the sparsely populated areas of Australia is exactly the same as in East Africa.
Natives, without settled homes, outnumbering the whites. Isolated homesteads far apart. Stockmen, farmers and prospectors out on their own.... It only needs one or two people to walk about telling the natives that white men are a lot of thieves who have swindled them out of their land, and turned them into slaves, and the next thing is murder.' Biggles made a deprecatory gesture. 'I may be quite wrong, but putting two and two together from what I've learnt since I came here, that was the ugly picture that suddenly crystallized in the fog. This dirty business is all part of the Cold War. It has worked in Malaya, Kenya, Indonesia, Burma and all over the Middle East, so I don't see why it shouldn't happen here. The men who landed in that stolen boat on Eighty Mile Beach came from behind the Iron Curtain, which is the general headquarters of the Cold War. I know more about them than you do. Whether I'm right or wrong about what they're doing here, don't kid yourself that they can't hurt you, or t
hat the technique that has worked in Asia and Africa couldn't work in Australia.' Biggles stubbed his cigarette.
Bill's expression had changed. 'I never looked at it like that,' he admitted soberly.
'Well, it might be worth your while if you bore it in mind and kept an ear to the ground for rumours of agitators. You told me yourself that this fellow Adamsen, in Perth, was known to be one.'
'He's left Perth, they say.'
'Oh he has, has he. I wonder what he's up to. And what about Roth, of Tarracooma Creek — wherever that might be.'
'I've found out where that is.'
'Where is it?'
'It's an old sheep run on the edge of the desert, south-east from here.'
'How far?'
'Roughly, between a hundred and a hundred and fifty miles.' 'Would Hopkins be in that direction?'
'More or less. He's not so far out, of course — mebbe forty miles.'
'Would I be likely to fly over him if I went to Tarracooma?' Not unless you made a bit of a dog's leg.'
'Might I see him from the air?'
'I should think so. He's got a mine — or rather, a digging — with a home made crusher.
He lives in a wurlie, that's a bough shelter, near what we call a soak, to provide him with water. He scratches enough gold dust to keep him going.'
'Do you know exactly where this place is?'
'Sure. I've called on him there. It's at the foot of the MacLaren Hills.'
'This soak, as you call it. Would that be the only water supply in the district?'
'Yes.'
'Would the natives use it?'
'I expect so.'
'Then it might be a good thing if someone had a look to see if Hopkins is all right.'
'He can take care of himself'
'I'm glad to hear it, because if Tarracooma is a prospective trouble spot, and being on my list it may be, the natives in that area may be some of the first to get restless.'
'I see what you mean,' replied Bill slowly.
Biggles glanced at his watch. 'While I'm down here I think I'll run out and have a look at this place Tarracooma. I could take in Joe's workings on the way. Would you care to come along?'
'I would, very much.'
'Okay. By the way, whether Joe is all right or not, I wouldn't say anything about my suspicions to anyone just yet. There may be nothing to it. But when a fire is smouldering it only needs one spark to set it alight. That's why I'm hoping you're right about Joe being able to take care of himself; because if he isn't that may be the spark.'
'If he isn't, don't worry; I'll catch the man who did the mischief,' said Bill grimly.
'Exactly,' returned Biggles drily. 'The result of that would be more trouble by way of a reprisal — and up goes the balloon. But let's not talk about that until we have to. Let's go.
'
They all walked briskly to the garage where Bill kept his car. 'If you'll keep low I shall be able to pick up my landmarks as we go along,' he averred.
Presently the Halifax, at a few hundred feet, was heading out over the inhospitable terrain that lies behind so much of Western Australia's coast. At the worst it was stark desert, with ribbed sand dunes and tawny hills; at the best, spiky spinifex and salt bush.
Salt lakes, as round as saucers, dotted the landscape, reflecting the clear blue of the sky.
There was not a living creature in sight. This, brooded Ginger, was the true Australia, still the same as it had been for countless years before the white man came.
'Take a line on the dip between those two humps on the horizon — a bit to your right,'
requested Bill, and as Biggles altered course a trifle he resumed his scrutiny of the wilderness for the missing prospector.
The objective took on a more distinct outline as the machine droned on towards it; but of the missing man there was no sign. The scene remained as lifeless as a picture.
'Make for the bottom of the gulley in that hill on your right,' said Bill. 'There's a clump of mulga near it. It's just this side of it that Joe has his wurlie. You'll see the mine. He should be there, or not far away.'
'He isn't there — unless he's deaf,' said Biggles evenly. 'If he was about he'd be looking at us by now.'
The Halifax roared over the mine. Biggles circled it twice, losing height. A hole in the ground, the primitive bough-shelter, a billy-can hanging over a dead fire and some implements lying about, were all that could be seen.
'He should be there,' muttered Bill. 'He hasn't started for home. If he had he would have taken his billy with him.'
'What do you suggest we do?'
'I'd like to go down and have a look. Can you land?'
'It ought to be possible on that bare flat area. Let's see.'
Biggles flew on to the area of desert he had indicated. 'Seems to be all right,' he decided.
'We'll try it. But don't blame me if we have to walk home.'
Actually, the ground was level and devoid of vegetation, and Biggles put the aircraft down without much risk, finishing his run about three hundred yards from the prospector'
s lonely workings.
'The machine can't take any harm where it is,' remarked Biggles, as they got out, and began walking towards the mine.
The sun was flaying the earth with bars of white heat that made the air quiver and the distant skylines shake; but everything else was still.
There was no sound; no song of a bird, no whisper of a breeze. As they drew near the wurlie the silence seemed to take on a sinister quality; for it must have been
evident to all that the miner was not there or he would certainly have shown himself by now. Maybe that was why Bill lengthened his stride so that he was the first to reach the shelter.
He took one glance inside, and the face that he turned to the others had lost its colour. '
He's dead,' was all he said.
The old prospector lay in a crumpled heap. He had obviously been dead for some days.
There were some ugly black marks on the sand, on which the flies were busy.
'Stay where you are,' said Bill, in a flat voice. 'I'd better attend to this.'
Biggles lit a cigarette and surveyed the sterile landscape.
'He was murdered,' reported Bill, when he had finished his inspection.
'Aborigines. He was clubbed, and stabbed to death with spears. Couldn't have had a chance to defend himself. Came on him in the night, mebbe.
Where's his rifle? I don't see it. I know he had one. Kept it in case he got a chance for a shot at a kangaroo. It was an old service .303.
Had his initials on the butt, I remember. No cartridges, either. Queer.'
'I see nothing queer about it,' said Biggles. 'When this sort of thing starts that's how it goes. They probably killed him for his rifle. Now, perhaps, you see what I mean,' he concluded, significantly.
Bill tipped his hat on the back of his head. 'I still can't believe it.
This sort of thing was common enough years ago but it doesn't often happen now — not in these parts, anyway.
Poor old Joe. And to think how many times he's shared his water and tucker with them.'
'We shall have to bury him. It's usual here to bury a perish, as we say, where he's found.
We've tools. Then I'll fetch my tracker and see what he has to say about it.'
'You mean, you'll follow up the murderers?'
'To hell and back if necessary. We don't let anybody, black or white, get away with murder – not even here. Don't tread on more ground than you can help.'
All taking a hand they dug a shallow grave. The body of the old digger was laid in it, after which the earth was replaced and stones piled on it. Bill recited the Lord's Prayer, stuck the spade in the ground at the head of the grave and started to collect the dead man'
s few simple belongings, putting them in his 'swag' – a coarse canvas holdall. After searching about for a little while in the wurlie he said:
'There's something else missing.'
'Wha
t is it?' asked Biggles.
'His dust – gold dust. He wouldn't have stayed here had his claim been worked out. He always managed to get a few ounces. Kept it in a little kangaroo-hide bag he made. I've seen it scores of times.'
'He might have hidden it.'
'Not he. Why should he? He wouldn't be expecting trouble.' 'Seeing the natives—'
'He had no time to hide it, even if he thought of it, which isn't likely.
52 Biggles In Australia Page 8