Terra Australis Templar (A Peter Wilks Archaeological Mystery)

by Gregory House

  Peter could have cursed. He knew it was a booby trap but what choice did he have?

  Freddie shuffled around under his desk and pulled out a scarred aluminum case with a tattered shoulder strap and slung it towards him. “Catch. This’ll come in handy!”

  Peter swayed back with the impact. Not that the case was heavy, four or five kilos, just the momentum of Freddie’s effortless lob. Suddenly he was glad Adam’s hadn’t thought of putting him in the Sports Clubs.

  “Gee, thanks awfully old man. Just what I need, a battered metal box. What the flipping hell do I do with it?”

  “Mate, just cos I belong to the oldest culture in the world, doesn’t mean I scorn modern technology. In that case is the latest in heavy duty, field computing, a General Dynamics Rugged Laptop. You can drop it or get it wet and it’ll still chug along, so tough the SAS use it.”

  Peter could see that Freddie was past warming up. He was in full flow as he rattled off all manner of specifications. This was a surprise. While he accorded him his due as a master of the still, this was a whole new area of Freddie’s personality he hadn’t seen before.

  “Its got a 2 Gig processor, 120 Gig extractable drive, Bluetooth compatible, WAN, WPA, CDMA and a whole troop of other geeky letters, like GPS and Port Sat as well as solar recharger, extra batteries and a dozen waterproof memory sticks.”

  Peter was impressed. Well actually a lot more than that, he was overwhelmed. This was way, way past generous and stammered out a kind of thank you. “Freddie. Ahh, this is a bit much, isn’t it? I mean I’m just going up the coast. They have hotels and tarred roads and everything, don’t they?” That last bit edged closer towards panic as he tried to match the excessive versatility of the field kit with the usual Aussie habit of laconic understatement.

  “Yeah they do, but it’s oblivious Adams’ wants your nuts in a vice. With this little beauty you don’t have to rely on the uni laptop, and mate, everything you do on that bugged piece of shit, flash stick it and back up in this ASAP.”

  Peter suddenly turned pale as the implications of that last instruction percolated through his surprise. “What…what you mean the university system is bugged?”

  That got a very nasty chuckle from Freddie. “Yeah. Every terminal, laptop and the entire network. Adams has his own team of hackers that sift through everything. How else do you think he has such a grip? Knowledge is power mate.”

  Peter turned paler and quickly reviewed his emails.

  Freddie noted his change and gave a leering snigger. “Got a guilty conscience, Pete. Been trawling the Danish teen porn sites?”

  “What! Arrghh, No! That is, just a couple of shots from Fiona, you know. Ahhhh crap! Freddie, you’ve the morals of an alley cat.”

  “That’s why the girl’s beach ball team likes me, meeooow!! But Pete mate, don’t forget, put everything important on this laptop, or else Adams’ll have it before you.”

  So that was yesterday, full of shocks and surprises, and now he had three more hours driving till he hit Gympie, and only God knew when he’d see sun, sand, surf or BIKINIS!

  Chapter 4 Limberlost Terrace

  Well past midday on the Saturday found him rattling along some back road to the south east of Gympie past some place called Kin Kin. The journey had been uneventful except for the radio stations constant insistence that the Bunny Stranglers were the next hot item soon to rival Silverchair (in their dreams!). So no matter which station he flicked to, their latest rendition of No Regrets, Pass me the Sauce was belting out across the airwaves. Damn he should have remembered to download some better music, like Night Wish or Within Temptation. Considering the shock of yesterday he could do with some dark divas right now. His stress had eased a tad as the scenery improved, once he’d left behind the traffic snarl of Brisbane.

  The majestic range of the Glasshouse Mountains had marched along on his left as he travelled towards the Sunshine Coast. Like a lot of the scenery around this part of Queensland, they looked pretty amazing – massive green clad spires towering amongst a lower range of hills. He’d done a few cruises through the university library just getting a feel for the place and its resources. The history component was pretty slim, almost to the point of non-existence in physical form. Electronic representation was a bit healthier though he doubted that students really looked at them for anything more than a keyword search. Anyway it did contain a few surprises and one was about some local history. The mountains he was passing were given their European name by that well travelled British explorer, Captain James Cook, who at that time made the latest and the most comprehensive charting of the Australian coast line. That was a titbit of Aussie history he knew well, though he tended to ignore the gloss put on the ‘discovery’ by most Aussie historians and looked more at the real reasons behind the signal event of western history for this island continent.

  Britain and France had just finished their latest round of wars, a habit that had gone on for centuries as the two countries, separated only by the brief span of the English Channel, fought over the sort of long-running grudges that afflicted neighbours and those with too close familial acquaintance.

  In the last session of the Seven Year War, a war whose dating depended on where you hailed from, France had lost spectacularly. Her armies in New France had finally gone down in bloody defeat and her key fortresses of Louisburg, Montreal and Quebec were taken by the combined forces of the British Army and His Majesties loyal colonial militias. Then of course, the bargaining began over the division of spoils and the future of the vast province of New France. This large swath of the continent was split between the dominion of Canada and the United States and consisted of that rich belt of states of the mid west from Ohio in the north to Louisiana on the Gulf. And its fate trembled on the tip of a quill. All that enormous expanse of land was almost traded for possession of two small islands in the Caribbean – Martinique and Guadalupe. For once the British representatives held onto their slim quota of commonsense and retained the Canadas. However the upshot was that the French had to look elsewhere for suitable land for colonies and presumably in cabinet discussions at Versailles, someone happened to mention that distant land located to the south of the Dutch Spice Islands. No one important had claimed it, so maybe it was up for grabs?

  Now the British being protestant, as well as God’s favoured nation, to their way of thinking, had a certain set of beliefs – one being that they were superior to the Catholic French. This was obvious to them, after all they’d won, while the French were currently going through a deepening financial crisis, trying to figure out how to pay for the last war with money they didn’t have. The other important belief was in their ordained right to a globe spanning empire. That tenet of faith was a little difficult to accomplish if you didn’t actually explore and legally claim all the blank parts of the world map. At least before the French did! As for the rights of indigenous people to the quiet possession of their lands, that was not an issue, either legally or ethically. They gave them as much consideration as they did to the claims of the Irish or the Scots. The common belief was, if they couldn’t hold it they didn’t deserve it, an attitude that was also applied to useful parts of Spanish, Dutch or Portuguese overseas possessions.

  So back to Captain Cook. He was ‘officially’ just the transport for Sir Joseph Banks and his expedition to observe the transit of Venus from the Pacific Ocean paradise of Tahiti. The transit was regarded as a vitally important scientific measurement. With it, modern astronomers and mathematicians could, by using triangulation, accurately calculate the distance between the earth and the sun. Why bother you ask. Well according to Edmund Halley a noted astronomer in the previous century, with that answer you could then calculate all the distances of the planetary spheres, a Holy Grail of the scientific community in the Age of Reason.

  And thus we came to the other mission of Captain Cook. Once the Transit had been successfully observed, he was commanded to travel westwards and explore, chart, map and claim the lands hitherto call
ed Terra Australis, or the ‘Great Southland’. As we now know, he did an amazing job, producing the best and most detailed maps of that mysterious continent. Sir Joseph Banks and his team were no slouches either and amassed an amazing collection of plant and animal specimens and illustrations, that bewildered the literate circles back home. In all, it was a very public method of telling the French to look elsewhere.

  Peter knew history put its stamp on everything. The past in every way influenced the present, a simple fact that he had tried to teach the commerce students. For instance, they spoke English in Australia instead of French because of the success of Cook’s expedition – well that and the incompetence of George III’s ministers over the matter of the American colonies and taxes. So in the manner of all experienced explorers, Cook named everything he saw while sailing up the coast and by the time he got to this section you would have thought his imagination was flagging, or the list of government officials to honour was running pretty short. That wasn’t to be. From his view on the HMB Endeavour he looked inland from off the coast by Moreton Bay. What he saw reminded him of home, and the burgeoning industrial landscape. So he called them the Glasshouse Mountains, after the shape of the glass furnaces he grew up with. Simple, elegant and evocative.

  It wasn’t the beach, but it had been pretty amazing to watch the changing profiles of Tibrogargan, Beerwah, Beerburrum, and Crookneck and realise they were the cores or plugs of long eroded volcanoes. Just how old was this land to leave such monuments?

  Eventually after getting lost several times after he left the Bruce Highway at Gympie, Peter pulled up by a broken farm gate with the name ‘Limberlost’ painted in faded letters on the side of a rusting milk pail.

  This must be the place. According to the folder it had the right name as well as the other visual clues like the shiny white SUV parked beside the entrance and its relaxed looking driver who was slumped back in the seat snoring. Peter pulled his car closer and got out, slamming the door. Surprisingly all that did was elicit a louder snore. Even the snarling vocals of ‘Mind the Milk’ from the radio made no difference. He walked closer and tapped the side of the car door. “Excuse me. Are you Mr Geoff Davis, the site archaeologist?”

  That polite question triggered a cascade of responses. The slumbering figure twitched like one plugged into the power socket and shot upwards as well as sideways in the apparent misapprehension he was lying on a couch. “SNNNNortl, waccckk!! Ah Christ! What, what the fuck! I swear I didn’t touch her! OWWWW…Who…who the hell are you?”

  Peter suppressed a smile at the reaction and thrust out his hand in the friendly manner that he’d found Aussies appreciated. The gesture was ignored by the dishevelled figure, now frowning and trying to rub both his head and elbow, a difficult procedure at the best of times, without having the added hindrance of still being strapped into the front seat. “What! Urkk. No, no. Do I look that stupid?”

  Considering the strange contortions Peter was observing, he hoped it was a rhetorical question and refrained from commenting. “I’m Westfall from Regional. Davis couldn’t make it, and what do you mean by sneaking up on me?”

  The startled inhabitant of the SUV wrestled a pair of glasses out of a case and placed them on a florid nose, then peered out of the open driver’s side window at his visitor with the blinking eyed stare of a startled owl. Then muttering something about bloody overtime and miserable salary, he tried to straighten a very rumpled business suit jacket. At every strike of his large flabby hand, a cloud of chip fragments erupted from his coat, creating a miniature blizzard that then had him flapping both hands as if searching for an elusive mosquito.

  “How do you do? I’m Peter Wilks from Skaze, here about the site report.” He hoped that cleared up a few questions. Mr Westfall still looked both stunned and resentful and glared at him in a similar manner to an angry Groper denied his snack, then turned a dismissive shoulder as he shuffled through some assortment of items stashed on the front passenger seat. Peter maintained a friendly smile though he was a tad puzzled by the welcome.

  “Are you that specialist sent up from the Uni?” Hadn’t he said so? Westfall of Regional was still clearly upset over the interruption to his nap and threw that question over his hunched shoulder. That was soon followed by a grunt of triumph. Mr Westfall had obliviously discovered his quarry and spinning his bulk around in his seat, thrust a folder under Peter’s nose.

  “Take this! I’ve been here for three days waiting for you. What have you been doing – walking up from Surfers?” At that angry accusation, Peter took a step back in surprise and stammered an apology while he clutched at the slipping folder. The outside was covered in something sticky that he hoped resembled melted chocolate and a long smear of perhaps raspberry jam.

  “Have you? I’m, I’m sorry. They only gave me the task yesterday.” It was a distracted answer as he tried to flick off the smeared remnants on his fingers, but another part of his memory linked the peevish complaint with Freddie’s warning. So he was an overdue bunny. Adams must have gone through whole faculties before he’d alighted on one Peter Wilks, remittance man and suspected spy. That was ominously interesting.

  “About bloody time!” After further struggle, Mr Westfall freed himself from his seatbelt and opened the SUV door. He was preceded by a cascade of empty plastic drink bottles and a flutter of torn chip packets. Once his feet hit the ground, Mr Westfall spun around and slammed the door shut with a savage intensity and, while maintaining a tight grip on the handle with one hand, waved the other in a vague motion over towards the line of hills on his left. His figure looked even more dishevelled out of the car than in. For instance, his grey business suit looked not so much wrinkled as ‘well slept in’ for at least a week if not longer. Then there were the strange patterns overlaying the front of his trousers as if perhaps it had been decorated by a troop of drunken incontinent snails.

  “Well you go through the gate, along the road, past the house and sheds then follow the second dirt track on the left up the hill to the top of that ridge. Got it? Fine, see ya later.” With that breathless set of instructions, Mr Westfall wrenched the door open and fighting another surge of rubbish, clambered in, immediately turning on the ignition. The SUV responded with a fierce roar and began to roll forward as its driver struggled to put his seat belt on, steer the vehicle and lean out the window.

  “But… but? Wait! What am I supposed to do?”

  “I don’t know. Ask Davis. I’m off!” So with a spray of dirt, shredded chip packets and the loud crunch of crushed drink bottles, Peter’s liaison speed away down the road, lurching wildly in an attempt to miss the ranks of potholes.

  He stood there in the metaphorical cloud of dust. It had rained recently so a fountain of mud was more likely and shook his head, before stooping to wipe clean the forlorn folder on a patch of grass. The remains of Westfall of Regional’s feasting were spread around, the imprints of his tyre marks, a scatter of soft drink bottles and snack wrappers, possible future archaeology, but now just thoughtlessly discarded rubbish. Peter frowned at the sight and before he continued with the bizarre assignment, cleaned up the mess. In the process he considered if this was perhaps a portent of things to come.

  The waved at ridge was a good deal further away and taller than he’d thought. It was a good kilometre past the gate and up a rough track that zigzagged along one flank, before beginning a precipitous ascent over the final hump. The last few hundred yards had him really worried. The car the Skaze motor pool deigned to give him was best described as a compact, ‘zippy urban’, perfect for the professional single who just wanted to nip down to the cafe and grab a latte. Its application as rally entrant was failing dismally. Its small jazzy wheels, highlighted in metallic blue, squealed and spun in a frantic attempt to gain traction, while a cloud of white smoke began to signal that all was not well under the bonnet. Peter floored the pedal in a last attempt. He’d given a quick glimpse to his rear and seen the fate that awaited failure, a short fast slide down the tr
ack until a too sudden stop, by one of the many large trees that covered the slopes.

  The whine of stressed rubber increased in pitch. Maybe the car had sensed its peril for it gave a lurch and shuddered its way up the last twenty yards, in a cloud of muddy blue smoke. Soon after it hit the top, the cabin was filled with the aroma of burnt caramel and the Jazzy urban slowly rolled to a stop. Peter opened the door and got out. Only the most optimistic, wouldn’t have recognised those signs – a cooked transmission. Short of a tow truck or a sky crane, it wasn’t going anywhere today. In the old days, if it had been a horse in that condition, he’d be taking off the saddle and pulling out his trusty naval colt to give it the coupe de gras.

  The brief notes in the folder hadn’t mentioned the 1200ft or more peak of the ridge. That must be the low hill feature called ‘Gentle Annie’ the site was situated on. In Peter’s understanding of geography, this wasn’t low unless compared to the Himalayas. He looked at the two folders. Both had assumed the sort of lean brevity that would have meet with the approval of an anorexic minded civil servant. Several pieces of paper and a rough drawn map didn’t come close to being even a preliminary draft of the preamble. So where was the rest of it and why so little? Well he had to find some sort of farmhouse or other building on this road where he could arrange transport for his crippled vehicle, so he may as well have a look around. Peter slung his bulky haversack over a shoulder and set out along the muddy track while he looked through the scant research.

  According to one sheet, this ridge arced around to the west, before dropping to a mere 500 feet then shooting back up another peak over 1000 feet. The sharp backed ridge and its enclosed valley had been in the possession of the Dun family going back to the 1880’s. Then it had been a prosperous estate, farming cattle in this rich red soil, nothing remarkable or noteworthy until the 1920’s. After the First World War that changed. One son had died in the horror of Poziéres and parts of the estate where sold off. During the boundary resetting, one of the farm workers found something up here on the ridge. According to the Gympie Gazette of July 23 1927: