by Peter Corris
Marsha checked the tape recorder. 'What a story.'
'Yeah,' Bright said impatiently, 'but could Boolil tell you where this happened? Exactly where?'
Hawke grinned. 'Not exactly. That'd be too easy, wouldn't it?'
The camera and sound men arrived the next day—Joel and Stuart, freelancers from Alice Springs. Hawke spread maps on the kitchen table and asked Bright what he wanted to do.
Surprised, Bright said, 'Find the bodies. No, shit, that's crazy. I want to get some footage of places along the route the Crafts took—the ranges, the salt lakes and so on. But we don't know how far they got so we don't really know what they saw. And I suppose it's changed a lot.'
Hawke nodded. 'Pilbara's changed a good bit. Not much else has. That's no problem. I don't want to take the show over but if we reckon Boolil's story's on the up and up I can show you where they might have finished up and plan a route to there.'
'Sounds all right,' Bright said. 'Marty?'
'Sure,' Marsha said. 'But if they were wandering, out of water, they could've circled around, backtracked, who knows?'
'Right.' Hawke said. 'Joel and Stuart could probably have fun with that.'
Joel and Stuart had started drinking beer at 10 a.m., to the disapproval of Hawke. But they said they always did this and seemed surprised that it was worthy of comment. The cameraman, Joel, a stringy, hard-faced thirty-year-old was the spokesman for the pair. Stuart, younger and softer looking, appeared to be good at taking orders. He nodded at everything Joel said and drank his beer in long swigs. Joel said they'd need a day to hire their own 4WD and get supplies and then they'd be ready to go.
Hawke drew a circle on the map about the size of a five-cent piece. The centre of the circle was south of Lake Mackay and its top edge intersected with an area on the map defined by a dotted line.
Bright pointed to the dotted line. 'What's that? Don't tell me it's a military base.'
'Aboriginal reserve,' Hawke said. 'We'd need permission to poke about in there but I reckon we'd be unlucky if we had to. From what I could get out of Boolil, and he's no map-reader, mind, the spot's further south.'
Marsha consulted the scale on the map. 'It's an enormous area. What're we looking for—a valley, an oasis, what?'
'No valleys or oases out there, Marty,' Hawke said. 'It's all spinifex, mulga and sand. There's bores and waterholes—we'll be all right. Different story thirty years ago.'
Bright said, 'So how do we find this spot?'
Hawke frowned as Stuart popped another can. 'I didn't promise you we'd find it, did I? I said we can look. Boolil told me about the place in his way—a matter of where the spinifex ends and sort of corridors through the country. You wouldn't understand. You have to feel it, like the blacks do. We're looking for a sort of rock shelter. Think of it like a little bit of Stonehenge and you'll be close. I've got the feel of it. We've got a chance.'
'What're the roads like?' Joel asked.
'Pretty crook once you get into the Gibson. We'll be on and off them. We can use the Gunbarrel Highway for a bit.'
'What's that?' Marsha said.
Hawke snorted. 'A couple of ruts running for 500 kilometres. If it gets twenty vehicles a year it's lucky.'
The morning was already hot and Vic was tempted by the can Stuart held up with an enquiring look. But he shook his head. 'Have you been over much of this country, Col?'
'Some of it,' Hawke said. 'But I've never been up around Lake Mackay. Not many people have except the blacks, and bloody few of them.'
Marsha had kept notes on the conversations so far and transcribed the tape of Hawke's account of Boolil's story. She consulted her notepad. 'You said the Aborigines have stories about the Crafts. You haven't told us anything about that yet.'
'Not much to tell,' Hawke said. 'There's a place near Lake Disappointment the blacks attach special significance to. A sort of maze. The story goes that the Crafts did something there that angered the spirits of the place.'
'Could they have got lost?' Marsha said.
'Better hope not. It's an impossible place. No, the blacks don't say anything about them going in, just that the expedition was cursed after going there, that's all.'
Marsha was scribbling. 'This story just gets better and better. I can hardly wait.'
Hawke stared at her. 'It isn't going to be a picnic. Ordinarily, I wouldn't think of going into that country at this time of the year. Especially with new-chums. Too late. Too bloody hot. But the weather's been completely buggered up the last couple of years. This good spell we're having could last. Better hope it does, or you'll really find out what hot is.'
'She loved the Sahara,' Vic said.
29
Hawke's Land Rover and Joel's hired Toyota Land Cruiser left Roebourne shortly after dawn. Both vehicles were heavily laden with supplies—water and fuel, food, first-aid equipment, camping gear. Hawke had a two-way radio aboard. He also had a Winchester rifle and a double-barreled shotgun which Marsha had noticed as they were loading.
'What're they for?' she said. 'I thought there weren't any dangerous animals in Australia.'
Hawke was amused. 'Well, that's right—apart from pigs, buffalo and crocs. A wild camel can give you a pretty bad time and there's some nasty human beings, too.'
'You're not serious?'
'No, not really. But it's best to take precautions. We can get some rabbits, might get a wallaby or two along the way—good eating.'
Marsha, whose notions of Australian wildlife were formed by British television, shook her head and walked away. In other parts of the world it would have crossed her mind that she was a lone woman going out into the desert with four men, all but one of whom she didn't know. She had certainly had this thought in Africa. But with these Australians, even Vic, the realisation carried no weight. They were easy with each other and she had the feeling that they would quickly become just as easy with her. They wouldn't have to work at it. A few jokes and drinks shared and she'd be a mate. She sometimes wondered if Australian men had the same hormones as others.
The expedition made good time travelling south-east towards the Hamersley Range. The country got drier and the fences got fewer.
'Beef country,' Hawke said. 'Pretty good, considering.'
'Considering what?' Bright said.
Hawke glanced in the rear-vision mirror to check that Joel had made the last turn. Through the curtain of red dust he could see the Cruiser nicely centered on the rough road. 'Considering I sometimes think you white fellers and your animals've got no bloody business being in the country. Mind you, that's m'mother's side talking. One of my Irish grandfathers owned a couple of million cattle and the Afghans brought the camels. I can't talk.'
They camped in the foothills of the Hamersleys. Hawke's arrangements of primus stove, groundsheets and water containers was swift and efficient. He decreed the site of the latrine and supervised the laying out of sleeping bags and the gathering of the right wood for the modest fire. It was an austere but comfortable camp. The next day they pushed on towards the giant open-cut mines and hillsides half hacked away.
'None of this's any good to us,' Bright said. 'It wouldn't have looked like this in 1960.'
'Got some good footage back there a bit,' Joel said. 'Mountains in the distance, no fences.'
Bright nodded glumly. Hawke went to the Land Rover and fiddled with his canvas pack. He came back to where the other three were standing looking at the red roads that ran up the side of a mountain of iron. 'Here's something you can use.' He opened his hand to show a compass. Its needle was swinging wildly. 'The Crafts would've used a compass, wouldn't they? Being old-time travellers? Well, this's what would've happened to it. The rocks are solid iron, drive a compass crazy.'
Bright enthusiastically helped set up the shot. They filmed the compass, lying in Hawke's pink palm, going haywire.
Marsha looked at Hawke with a new respect. 'You know how to keep people happy, don't you, Col?'
'Have to in this business, Marty. You
should see some of the people I take out. Hate each other on sight. That's dangerous in the bush. One bloke showing he's tougher than another. I can usually given 'em the right toys to play with.'
When the filming was finished Bright consulted with Hawke about the route. 'We know the Crafts were obsessed with crossing mountains and deserts. They'd have gone over these ranges and then more or less due east.'
'Sounds crazy,' Hawke said. 'What was their game?'
'We don't know. It seems to have been more than just adventure.' Bright thought back over what he knew of the African, Asian and American expeditions. 'Could have been something to do with finding really out-of-the-way places.'
'Sounds like the maze I was telling you about. The Abos say they went there and that's good enough for me. No point in crossing the Hamersleys though.' Hawke pointed. 'Save a lot of time to just get out there. Cross the Great Northern and keep going.'
'Great Northern what?' Marsha said.
'Highway. Sealed road in fact. But it wasn't there in the Crafts' time. Don't think it was even started. This country's gone soft since then.'
'Let's do it,' Bright said.
Hawke took off his hat and wiped his bald head. He put the hat back and grinned. 'Glad you agree, Vic. Sooner I'm out of sight of that bloody mess the better. I can feel the country screaming under my feet.' He strode towards the 4WD. Bright and Marsha exchanged a look.
'Amazing guy,' Marsha said.
'Sure is. We'll have to get plenty of him on film.'
'I noticed last night—you're not writing up your journal. The computer okay?'
'Yeah, I could run it off the Rover battery. No, it's funny. I keep the journal when I'm out of England, in a foreign country. Sort of helps me keep myself together. I thought I'd do the same here but now I don't feel the same. I guess I'm at home. What d'you think of it so far?'
'I'm with Hawke, I'm afraid. I think you lot have buggered it.'
Bright nodded. 'Maybe the desert'll be different. We can't have buggered that.'
They swung east, away from the mining country and pushed on, crossing the Yule River which was little more than a sluggish, muddy creek and then the sealed road Hawke had spoken of. Turning round to look at the other vehicle, Marsha thought she caught Stuart giving the north-running tarmac a longing gaze. She wondered about his beer supply. They camped before nightfall in a gully that had been honeycombed by rabbits. Hawke took the shotgun and returned inside half an hour with three rabbits which he skinned, wrapped in tin foil and cooked in the hot ashes of the camp fire. The beer appeared to be holding out. Joel, Stuart and Bright drank it warm from the cans. Marsha joined Hawke in drinking black tea spiked with rum. The night was bitterly cold; Hawke banked the fire and they sleep close to it in their sleeping bags. Bright cursed when he had to get up to piss.
'You shouldn't drink so much beer if you don't want to get up,' Marsha said.
Bright grunted at the lack of sympathy but he couldn't hold a mood of annoyance. He looked up at the stars and felt a peacefulness creeping over him, taking away the tiredness and tension in his body caused by the bucking of the 4WD. He reached over and touched Marsha's face.
'This is great,' he said.
Marsha smiled in the darkness. 'Yes, it is. I wonder if the Crafts camped near here?'
'I get the feeling no-one's ever been here before. I suppose that's what they were after, that feeling.'
'Basil Craft was also after women,' Marsha said. 'I don't think he'd have had much luck out here.'
'This is different,' Vic said. 'All different.'
The country deteriorated now the further they went until the grass and mulga scrub gave way to vast islands of spinifex in a sea of rocks and sand.
'The Crafts were here after a run of real dry seasons,' Hawke explained. 'Camels would've been the only possible means of travel and even that was pretty hairy. Some of the waterholes would've been dry and the bores we've got now didn't exist.'
Vic surveyed the landscape doubtfully. 'Are those sandhills solid? Can the vehicles get over them?'
Hawke grinned. 'Most of 'em. You get the odd hollow one. But we won't go over them much. There's sort of paths through the spinifex, like I said. It'll piss you off the way we have to travel, feels like going round in circles sometimes, but it's the best way.'
'The camels would have gone over the spinifex, would they?' Marsha said.
'When they had to. The Afghans'd put them through pretty much the same way I'll put this bastard through.' Hawke kicked the side of the Land Rover.
Four days circuitous travelling brought them to the edge of the Gibson Desert and the maze Hawke had described. It was a deep gorge the entrance of which had been eroded and abraded by wind and water so that it consisted of a series of rock pillars twenty or thirty metres high and set at odd angles. They had approached from the south and the gorge ran to the north. From the entrance it was impossible to tell how far it ran or what its internal structure was like.
Joel set up his camera and began to film the pillars. Bright hastily scribbled out a few lines and read them over while he changed his shirt and pushed a comb through his matted hair, now longer than he usually wore it. He had a day's stubble on his face and looked travel-worn but alert. Joel shot him walking towards the first of the pillars, stopping abruptly and turning back to the camera.
'According to the Aborigines,' Bright said, 'the Craft brothers came to this place and violated it. We don't know what they did but the Aborigines believe that the expedition was cursed from that moment on. Perhaps they were right. This is a weird and impressive place. I want to walk into it, touch one of those pillars in there. I am drawn into this maze. I want to lose myself in it. No, I want to pass just out of sight but not out of cooee of my companions. Perhaps this is what Basil Craft and his brother did. But I am afraid.' Bright shook his head and strode towards the camera. 'I'm afraid. I'm not going in there.'
Marsha said, 'Great stuff. D'you really feel like that?'
'Bloody oath I do,' Bright said. 'I wouldn't go in there for quids. And I'll tell you something funny. Know what it reminds me of?'
'What?'
'Wadi Djoul. Don't ask me why, it just does.'
'You should've said so on the link.'
Bright shook his head. 'It's crazy. The two places are nothing alike.'
'Except that Basil Craft was in both and violated something both times.'
Bright nodded. 'That's what I should have said.'
When the camera gear was packed away and Joel and Stuart had had two beers, Hawke approached Bright and Marsha and indicated to them to squat. They did and he used a stick to draw in the thin, grey sand. 'Decision time,' he said. 'The Crafts said they were going through to the Alice. If they did, and the Afghans would've known the way like you'd know your way down George Street, they'd have done this.' He drew a line running east with a southerly incline. 'That's where the waterholes are and a couple of bores these days. It's the logical way to go. We can do the same and you can run the line that they disappeared out here and never made it into Alice. You can film us making it to Alice, know what I mean?'
Vic grinned. 'You've done this sort of thing before.'
'Three programs on Lasseter, or is it four? I forget. Or we can head for the country Boolil talked about.' The stick moved on the sand again. 'It's up here. Bloody awful. Bit dangerous even for us. Up to you. First way gives you plenty of atmosphere and an easy ride. Second way's rough but gives you an outside chance of finding something out.'
'How risky?' Bright said.
Marsha's voice broke as she protested. 'Vic!'
Bright's knee joints cracked loudly as he stood. 'I'm responsible for you and those two, and I'm not interested in joining the statistics on journos dying for their story. How risky, Col?'
Hawke shrugged. 'Vehicles're okay. Weather's all right. Supplies are holding. I know where the bores are. We should be apples, barring accidents.'
'That's life,' Bright said. 'Let's go looking.'
Hawke uncoiled from the squatting position without effort or sound. 'Hold onto your hats,' he said. 'You're in for a rough ride.'
After the first day in the Gibson Desert Marsha had a dream. She dreamed that the world was shrinking, that the lush, green productive parts of the planet had disappeared and that this flat grey-green landscape, broken by reddish sandhills was all that remained. In her dream, as they penetrated the desert, its edges drew in towards them so that the desert itself was shrinking, concentrating towards an ever smaller and more barren island in a sea of nothingness. She awoke from this dream shouting and Bright reached across from his sleeping bag to calm her.
'What's wrong, love?'
She told him about the dream.
Bright said, 'That's terrific stuff. I'll use that.'
'Jesus, Vic. I was terrified.'
'It's only a dream. Look, if it makes you feel any better, a lot of the early explorers had dreams like that. Leichhardt for one. He was always dreaming strange stuff about Australia swallowing up Germany.'
Marsha had done some reading on the Australian explorers but in her confused state she had trouble distinguishing them. Burke and Wills, Hume and Hovell, Stuart, Sturt. Who was Leichhardt? What about Voss? 'Really? Yes, it was something like that. What happened to him?'
Bright eased back and tried to pull Marsha down from her rigid position. 'It wasn't the best example,' he said.
'He disappeared, didn't he? Like so many of them.'
'Not that many. A lot of them got to be rich and famous and died in their beds. Christ, I wish we were in a bed now. How long's it been?'
'Good try, Vic,' Marsha said. She slowly slipped down inside the sleeping bag and lowered herself back onto the rolled-up coat she was using as a pillow. 'Can you reach that rum bottle?'
Bright was closest to the fire. The bottle was propped up against a mulga root Hawke had chopped from the sand. The fire was low. Bright unzipped the top of his sleeping bag, reached out, put the root onto the fire and grabbed the bottle. 'Yes.'