The Golden Soak

by Innes, Hammond;

  I drank the rest of my tea slowly, conscious of Kennie watching me all the time. Then I closed my eyes and tried to sleep. God, what a mess! And no way out that I could see.

  We got going again shortly after five, and just before sunset a single-engine plane came over. It must have picked up our dust streamer for it came in very low from the north, circled us slowly, then headed back into the fireball blaze that was reddening sky and desert.

  We made better progress that night, fewer stops and only one puncture. We caught a frozen ice-glint glimpse of the great salt lake in the dawn and by nine we had reached Karara Soaks. The police were waiting for us there, a sergeant and a constable with two Land-Rovers and native trackers. The sergeant had a warrant for my arrest.

  Fremantle Gaol,

  30th April, 1970.

  Six

  INTERLUDE ON REMAND

  Well, there it is – the whole truth of how I came to Australia and what happened to me there. I have been working on it for over two-and-a-half months, sometimes in the library, sometimes in my cell here. At least I have been honest with myself, or as honest as I am ever likely to be, and now that it is finished I shall give it to my lawyer and he will have to decide how much needs to be revealed in my defence when the Lone Minerals action comes up for hearing in a fortnight’s time. In any case, it has served some purpose. It has kept me mentally occupied so that I’m still reasonably sane, even if I have been living in a kind of vacuum.

  The only thing that really worries me is Janet. I would like to have broken the news of her father’s death to her myself. But the sergeant took me straight to the police station at Mt Newman. I had pustules on my legs where the spinifex spines had set up sores that were beginning to turn septic and he wasn’t taking any chances. It was 70 miles to Jarra Jarra and 70 back – another day’s driving. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘she’ll have heard it by now.’ Which was probably true since he had radioed a report back from the Soaks.

  I have written to her, of course. I did that shortly after I arrived here, a difficult letter because I did not want her to know how McIlroy had met his death or that her father had deliberately gone out into that sandstorm. I thought she might have read between the lines and guessed it was suicide, but maybe she didn’t want to. Maybe she wanted to believe that I was in some way to blame for his death. At any rate, I have had no letter from her, not a line all the time I have been here – 81 days to be exact. I don’t blame her, and with the station wrapped round her neck, all the problems of her father’s death magnified by the financial mess he was in, she probably hasn’t had much time. But I am sorry all the same. Somehow a letter from her would have made a difference. And Kennie … Kennie might have made an effort to see me.

  It was this feeling of being alone in Australia, without one single friend, that started me writing a full account of all that had happened. I finished it yesterday. I suppose the idea originated from that Journal, a record while it was still clear in my mind. As I say, it kept me sane in my solitary, friendless state, cooped up in my cell here with the sunlight swinging across the bare little room, day giving way to night, to dawn again and the glimpse of an endlessly blue sky, my weekly visits to the remand court at Perth the only relief from the monotony of it.

  My lawyer has been almost my only visitor, a short, dark man, with eyes that dart restlessly behind heavy-framed glasses. His name is Chick Draper, and though his manner is deliberately abrupt, he is a kind fellow and has taken a great deal of trouble on my behalf, even though he knows he hasn’t much hope of a worthwhile fee. It started as a straightforward immigration case – entering the country under a false name and with a false passport. He advised me to plead guilty, since the alternative might be extradition to face criminal charges of arson and fraud in England. This I did and was remanded in custody pending further enquiries. I hadn’t enough money for bail, even if they would have granted it, so there was nothing for it but to watch the Australian autumn fading into winter from my cell while the immigration people and my lawyer tried to sort the tangle out. And then just when he thought he was getting somewhere, he was faced with the further charge of fraud while on Australian soil.

  This was brought against me by Lone Minerals shortly after I was remanded in custody the second time. Their No. 2 drill hole had given core samples showing 0.2 nickel in pentlandite over a band width of 15 feet at a depth of 600 feet. It was this news, confirming the optimism of their annual report, that had caused the shares to rise so dramatically back in January. They had fallen just as fast since, for Freeman had brought in extra equipment and half a dozen holes drilled in quick succession had shown no trace of nickel. Following this announcement the shares hit an all-time low of 12 cents and there was an outcry from both the public and the Sydney and Perth stock exchanges. I was the obvious scapegoat and I suppose I should have realized that proceedings were inevitable once I had agreed to plead guilty to the immigration charges, for if I wasn’t Alec Falls then I had no right to pose as a mining consultant.

  By pleading guilty my lawyer had hoped for a short sentence and permission to remain in Australia under my second name of Wentworth, which was my mother’s family name. But with a criminal charge pending he had agreed I should change my plea to one of not guilty when the immigration charge came up for hearing again. And then Kadek came to see me.

  Ever since my arrest, it had puzzled me how the authorities could have known I had entered the country on the passport of a man supposedly dead. There was always, of course, the outside chance that a zealous immigration official had been sent a copy of one of the English papers that had reported the Drym fire. But it was really too much of a coincidence, and at that first court appearance no evidence had been given covering this point. It had to be either Kadek or Rosa – they were the only ones who knew. And after Kadek had visited me here in prison I had no doubt who had tipped them off. Not that he admitted it, but it was there all the same, implicitly understood between us.

  The date of Kadek’s visit was February 23, just four days after I had been informed of the Lone Minerals action. He was seated when I was brought into the interview room and he got up very abruptly. But he didn’t come forward to greet me, nor did he shake hands. I remember feeling at the time there was something almost guilty about the way he started to his feet. ‘Sorry about this,’ he said with a gesture that seemed to include, not just the room, or even the prison, but the whole system. He had that same slim briefcase with him and he held on to it throughout the interview. ‘Treating you all right, I hope?’

  I nodded. ‘All right.’ The same steel-trap mouth, not the flicker of a smile, and his eyes slitted as though he had brought the sun’s glare in with him. ‘I get bored, that’s all.’ That was before I started writing.

  He sat down again and I took the other chair, facing him across the table. The door shut and we were alone. ‘Well?’ I asked. He still seemed hesitant, as though he didn’t know quite how to begin, and I said, ‘Is it about Lone Minerals? Is that why you’re here?’

  ‘Yes.’ And then quickly, as though he wanted to get it over with: ‘You’re in a bit of a spot, Alec. You’ve pleaded guilty, which was sensible in the circumstances, but looking at it from Freeman’s point of view, that means your report on Blackridge was fraudulent.’

  ‘It was your idea,’ I said. ‘You introduced me as representing Trevis, Parkes & Pierce.’

  ‘Which you weren’t, of course. But then I’m not going to admit that I knew that.’

  ‘Then’ you’ll be committing perjury.’

  ‘If I’m called – yes.’

  ‘You will be,’ I told him.

  ‘But you went along with it. You didn’t deny it. And you wrote that letter. Les included it, every word of it, in his annual report. Signed – Alec Falls, Mining Consultant. It was that letter, more than anything else, that was responsible for the rise in the shares; that and the assay figures based on the surface sampling –’

  But I wasn’t letting him get away wi
th that. ‘The surface samples were taken by Petersen’s geologist from an area recommended by Culpin. If the dust was planted there it’s’ nothing to do with me.’ And I added, ‘I think you’ve forgotten something.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘If anybody takes the can, it’s Chris. Remember? Culpin salted the area with nickel tailings taken from Western Mining by the aborigine, Gnarlbine. You know it, and I know it.’

  ‘I don’t know anything of the sort.’

  ‘Nothing for you to worry about. That’s what you told me.’

  I can still see that thin-lipped smile of his, the way he shook his head. ‘No, I’m afraid I don’t remember.’ And then he was leaning towards me across the table. ‘Now look, Alec, I’m here to help you. But not if you’re going to put words into my mouth. You understand?’

  I understood, all right. He would lie. Even under oath he would lie. He was crooked as hell, but it would be my word against his. ‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t think you’d want to be reminded of what you said.’

  He nodded, knowing he had made his point. But just to be certain, he added, ‘This case will be before a jury. And they’ll all be Australians.’

  ‘And you’re an Australian and I’m not.’

  ‘Right. You haven’t a chance of implicating me, or Chris. In fact, if you try that, I can promise you things will go badly for you, very badly indeed. You had an option, don’t forget. And you took it up – 5,000 shares.’ He was smiling, sure of himself now. ‘Your only hope – and this is what I want you to understand – is to persuade Les Freeman to withdraw the case.’

  ‘And how do you suggest I do that?’

  ‘If you were to offer him something in exchange. Information, see. A company like Lone Minerals is dependent entirely on prospects. A really good prospect, something that would put the company on the map – if you could offer him that, then I am sure he would have his lawyers back down.’ He was watching me now, his face tight-lipped, his eyes slitted, his whole body tense as though willing me to accept.

  The brazenness of it! The sheer thick-skinned audacity … ‘You have the bloody nerve to come here –’ I stopped, suddenly aware that I was shouting; ‘What do you want?’ I was still trembling, but I had myself under control now. I knew very well what he wanted.

  ‘Come on,’ he said quietly. ‘You’re not that dense. You were with Garrety when he died. And we all know why he went into the Gibson.’ He left it at that, his eyes fixed on mine, waiting. And I let him wait, the silence hanging in the stuffy air of that little room. In the end he sighed. ‘Okay. I’ll spell it out for you. Garrety knew the location of McIlroy’s Monster. That right?’

  I didn’t say anything, watching fascinated at the sudden gleam that had come into his eyes, the naked greed of the man. I could deny it, of course. But if I denied it, then there had to be some other reason why Garrety had gone into the Gibson, and I wasn’t going to admit that. So I kept my mouth shut, the two of us staring at each other in silence. At length he said, ‘We’re pretty certain he never reached the actual location. His Land-Rover had broken down and that’s the reason he stopped where he did. There’s no copper there as far as we know.’ He leaned a little further forward, his eyes searching my face. ‘Or is there? You were with him there when he died. You’re the only man, apart from that black, who knows what’s there in the ground.’ He was staring at me, tense and waiting.

  ‘It was your plane then that came over us?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes. Chris chartered a Cessna on my instructions. He made two flights. On the second flight he flew very low several times over Garrety’s last camp. He could see him working on the Land-Rover’s engine, the black standing beside him. And there was rock showing through the sand. He says it was some form of conglomerate, and as far as he could see there were no indications of copper. But then Chris isn’t a geologist and he wasn’t on the ground. You were.’

  For a moment, just for a moment, I thought of telling him it was the location. But then he said, ‘You tell me Chris was wrong and we can move petrol up to the Stock Route and have a helicopter and a geologist on the spot inside a week.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Culpin was right. It’s a conglomerate formation.’ I didn’t want him sending a helicopter in when the real location was only twenty or thirty miles from the Kurrajong Soak. They could so easily fly a radial search.

  ‘Well, where is it then?’

  I didn’t answer.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, don’t be a fool, Alec. You can’t handle a thing like this on your own. It needs a consortium. And if Les goes ahead with this case, you’ll be in prison for a long time.’

  I still didn’t say anything. I was thinking of Ed Garrety and his love of Jarra Jarra, the hopes he’d had, the dreams. Giving me that battered wallet, he had handed on to me a trust – an obligation, a challenge perhaps. It wasn’t something I could just give away, even if it did mean my liberty. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I did that.

  ‘Look,’ Kadek said. ‘You’ll get three years at least. Don’t think in those three years nobody’ll go looking for the Monster. They will. And they’ll find it. Everybody’s talking about it. Prospectors, I mean. A man dying like that, a mining man with him at the time – just because you’re out of touch, don’t imagine they haven’t put two-and-two together. If it’s there, they’ll find it all right, so you might just as well …’

  ‘Go to hell!’ I said, and I got to my feet. I was angry then, angry at myself for being tempted. Nobody likes the prospect of wasting three of the best years of their life, and I knew he was right. Three years was what my lawyer had said. ‘If there is copper there, then it belongs to Janet Garrety.’

  ‘It doesn’t belong to anybody. You know that.’ He had followed me slowly to his feet. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll leave you now. But think it over. There’s no immediate hurry. Nobody can peg a claim at the moment, and it may be a month or two yet before the ban is lifted. So you’ve still some time. And your lawyer knows where to contact me.’

  I didn’t understand what he was talking about. ‘What ban?’ I asked.

  ‘Didn’t you know? The Minister of Mines imposed a ban on pegging so that mining registrars could catch up with the backlog.’

  ‘When?’ I asked. ‘When was the ban imposed?’

  ‘Initially on January 22, and then on February 3 he announced he was reserving all Crown land. Nobody could peg after that.’ He tucked his briefcase under his arm. ‘Well, you think about it.’ And he added, ‘In addition to dropping the charges, I’m sure I could persuade Les to do something for you personally if it turned out as big as the name implies. Mining consultant to the consortium throughout the development period. That would set you up in Australia for the rest of your life.’ Again that tight-lipped smile. ‘Think about it. And when you’ve made up your mind, all you have to do is tell your lawyer feller. Okay?’

  He left me then, and when I got back to my cell, all I could think about was that Chris Culpin had pegged the hollow on Coondewanna the very day the ban had been imposed. That claim of his had never been registered and couldn’t be registered until the ban was lifted. I wrote to Janet that night, and then I started on my manuscript. By then, you see, I knew there was something in me that prevented my ever bartering the possibility of freedom for the, knowledge Ed Garrety had passed on to me. It might be nonsense, but that didn’t matter. I suddenly found I had principles, and at a time when I could least afford them. A bit of a joke that.

  I have described the interview with Kadek in detail in an endeavour to explain my own irrational behaviour. Maybe it was in character. I don’t know. Or maybe I’ve grown up a bit during the days I’ve spent in prison. Again, I don’t know. I’m so cut off, so solitary – but at least I have come to terms with myself. I no longer belong to Kadek’s world, or to Rosa’s. I’m not the man who set fire to Drym. I’m somebody else now, though my name is still Alec Wentworth Falls and I still inhabit the same body.

&nbs
p; But perhaps it isn’t the days in prison. Perhaps it was the days in the Gibson Desert that changed me. And Ed Garrety. Particularly Ed Garrety. To go back there. To go back to the place of his crime, if it was a crime, in search of peace, knowing he was dying – and then to end it, quickly, cleanly. How can you betray a man like that? How can you not be influenced by him? A term in prison is nothing to the long years he was imprisoned within himself, and if, by accepting my fate, I can achieve something of the same moral stature … God help me, I am not made of the same material, but at least I can try.

  Fremantle Gaol,

  1st May, 1970.

  Seven

  McILROY’S MONSTER

  I was released from prison on Monday, May 18, following a brief court hearing at which the authorities dropped their charges of illegal entry. The criminal charges of fraud in connection with the Blackridge prospect had also been withdrawn. Even the possibility of extradition had become remote. As my lawyer explained, for the insurance company to succeed with their charges of obtaining money by false pretences, when it was Rosa who had put in the claim, they would have to prove either complicity or arson. He thought, in the circumstances, I would hear no more from them now that my identity was accepted by the Commonwealth Department of Immigration. ‘There’s no law against a man leaving his wife, and since we now have evidence that she has been cohabiting with a man on Rottnest Island …’ He had left it at that with a smile and a broad shrug.

  It’s a strange feeling to suddenly find yourself free again after being held on remand for so long – a hundred days exactly. And though nobody in their senses would say they have enjoyed being in prison, I cannot say that I regretted it or that I actively disliked it. This may seem strange, but it gave me an opportunity to take stock, something I had not had time to do since I had landed at Fremantle on December 27. In a way it was like being back at school, or in the services, for it enabled me to get to know an extraordinary cross-section of Australians, some good, some bad, but most of them men I should not have come across otherwise. There were other nationalities there, of course, but it was the Australians that interested me, and those hundred days, living in that close, ever-changing community, taught me a great deal about the country and the people. I do not recommend it as essential training for immigrants, but it is certainly one way of attending a crash course on the behaviour pattern of men whose grass roots are very different to those of almost any other nation. And I came out of prison, not in any state of uncertainty or depression, but knowing exactly what I intended to do, my mind wonderfully clarified, my metabolism like a dynamo recharged and my senses sharpened. I celebrated by staying the night at the Parmelia, a luxurious room with a view over the Swan River and a meal I still remember.