‘Captain, something bad is brewing,’ he told him. The Kouri man was greatly respected by everybody even by the Gubbah or White men, for his bearing as well as his knowledge of the Songlines.
‘And what is it, Bilongong?’
‘A willy willy is going to hit us.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous man, can you even feel a breeze, let alone a draught?’
‘The birds are beginning to fly west.’
‘Come, come, don’t they always do that at this time of the year?’
‘No, boss. They’re three weeks early. Something bad is coming. Also the ants are rebuilding their nests on high grounds.’
‘So you’re saying a cyclone is coming?’
‘Yes boss.’
It was not that he disbelieved the Kouri, but he was unwilling to do anything to slow down his march towards those millions he knew to be at the other end of the rainbow. Only when the winds had started showing that they meant business did he order work on the barn to stop. It was clear that unless action was taken, the half constructed barn would be blown apart. Nathaniel, in his capacity as foreman, remembering the Sunday-school story of how David set up Bathsheba’s husband Uriah, welcomed this opportunity and ordered Danny to climb up the roof and fix tarpaulin on the open gaps to stop the force of the cyclone. He went through the motions of urging him to take the greatest possible care. ‘If anything should happen to you, I’ll never forgive myself.’ The boy knew that it was a highly dangerous task. Once up, he could hardly budge. The winds were buffeting at his slender frame, and it was a miracle that he was not immediately hurled to his death. However, he not only completed the job, but ended up unscathed. Nathaniel was relieved and disappointed in equal measures. As was the Captain.
The guilt that the cousin had felt did not stop him trying other strategies, but none succeeded.
Danny who did not own one malicious bone in his skeleton had not the slightest suspicion of his cousin’s involvement in the many near misses that befell him, but he did not fail to notice that Nathaniel did everything in his power to earn a pat on the back from the Captain. He would wipe the glass in which he had poured his ale before tending it to him, straighten the chair on which the master was going to take a seat, flick a spot of dust off the lapel of his jacket. Morbick-Cullen responded to this by wiping the scowl off his face when addressing him. One day Danny had been working non-stop for a whole hour digging a well, after the Kouri water diviner had chosen the spot, and was taking a breather when Morbick-Cullen arrived on the scene.
‘You mother-fucking loafer,’ he bawled at him. ‘Small wonder you thought the boss was too demanding and set fire to his barn. Five minutes’ work and you need a rest.’
‘No, Captain, I was-’ He did not let him finish, shutting him up with a violent backhand slap across the face. Nobody had ever done that to Danny before. He was aware of the fate that would be his if he did not keep his anger under control, but he could not help casting an oblique glance at a spade in the corner, nor hide the subconscious but repressed intent in his eyes. Morbick-Cullen laughed obscenely.
‘Yes, you sonofabitch, I’d like to see you make a grab for the spade. I’d have no compunction about stringing you up on that gum tree there.’ Danny suspected that bosses were not allowed to do that, but knew that it was in their gift to despatch anybody they wanted to Norfolk Island by reporting them for some repeated offence. It was known that this was a fate worse than death. Nobody ever came back from the island. There, they were kept in shackles and the guards were specially chosen from the most sadistic. Bilongong, the water diviner who was the only man who regularly went to the Island to locate new wells had told them about the regime. He told of convicts sent there for rebellion sighing with regret that they had not finished off their enemy, for then they would have hanged. Something much more desirable than rotting on that wretched hell on earth, counting the days to your end. Bilongong told of the story of how when a priest from the mainland brought news of a reprieve to a condemned man, the latter gave a howl of fury and began pulling out his hair and beating himself.
‘I’ve had my eye on you from the first day, you scoundrel, arsonist-’
‘Sir, I never set fire to nothing,’ Danny said not looking up.
‘Are you calling your cousin a liar?’ Danny did not believe that Nathaniel who knew all the facts about the turmoil in Dorset would have said that. When they were together later, he asked him. He hotly denied that he had said anything of the sort. Then what made the captain say this? he challenged. Angrily the older cousin replied, He’s read your file man, they said so in court and it got writ in them files.
‘He’s threatening to get me sent to Norfolk Island,’ the boy sighed. It was at the mentioned of The Island, that the idea occurred to him. It was like a flash of lightning. He had noticed that a complete idea often came to him wholesale. One moment it’s not there, then in less time than it takes for a flash of lightning to illuminate the landscape and disappear, it’s there, perfectly formed.
He will craftily encourage the boy to do something that will earn him a one-way ticket there. Why had he not thought of that before? That would leave him the sole possession of the luscious Yolanda. And perhaps in possession of his soul too. Slightly tattered perhaps, but not irretrievable. Yes, it was still going to be a sin, he accepted that, but he would atone for it and hoped that he might still be spared hell fire when he died. Something which he could not hope for if he went ahead and engineered Danny’s death. He had always believed that God was all-forgiving. Oh, tell our woman I want her in my shed tonight, he told Danny. The boy hated the word “our” more than he did playing the unwilling pander. Yolanda had said that she could not see how they would ever be rid of the powerful cousin. Only once the hope that Nathaniel would be subjected to a fatal accident buzzed just over his conscious mind, but he did not allow it to rest there, and just swatted it away. He did not believe that his happiness would prosper on the misfortune of another. The best thing that Danny could imagine was that his cousin would meet some other woman one day, but he conceded that the chance of this happening was the same as having a white Christmas at Sunrise.
It was at about this time that the man from London and his sister came to stay at Hunter’s Hill. Mr and Miss Smith, they were told.
Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler, having been involved in Professor Moriarty’s tumble into the chasm at Reichenbach, it was feared that the latter’s second-in-command, the psychopathic Colonel Sebastian Moran, would spare no effort in exacting vengeance upon the people he would have held responsible. They did not want to take any chances before they gathered their wits and strength, and worked out a foolproof strategy to combat the totally insane military renegade. If Moriarty was evil, Moran was evil and insane. Therefore unpredictable and doubly dangerous.
Mycroft Holmes was devastated when for a whole week he had not heard from his younger brother. Sherlock would either drop in on him, or he would stop at Baker Street. He went twice to Number 221B in one day, and his knocking remained unanswered. His younger brother usually kept him informed if he was going some place, and although he pretended a complete lack of interest in his detective work, he was well aware of his ambition to bring Moriarty to book. He was sufficiently acquainted with his brother’s idiosyncrasies to know that if he, Mycroft was in the dark about Sherlock’s whereabouts, then the likelihood of anybody else being better informed was close to nil. Still he made some enquiries and as he expected, those idiots at Scotland Yard had not one iota of useful information to share with him. He became prey to depression, and Mrs Myntle his devoted housekeeper had all the trouble in the world to keep him alive by force-feeding him broth. It was a whole month before a letter arrived from Porto in Portugal. Sherlock, without apologising for causing his brother grief (it had not occurred to him that he had), mentioned that he was going to New South Wales with a friend. That hussy, no doubt, spat Mycroft. But when Mrs Myntle appeared with a bowl of broth, he barely allowed her to put it
on the table before he jumped on his feet.
‘Dear Mrs Myntle, two things.’ The dear lady stared at him, so surprised was she at the sudden cheerfulness of her employer.
‘First, allow me to place a little kiss of appreciation devoid of any ulterior motive on your esteemed cheeks.’ The dear old thing froze and allowed this operation to take place. Mr Holmes reminded him of her soldier son who had been killed in the Sudan.
‘Now, dear Mrs Myntle, I am going to rebuke you. Are you meaning to starve me to death with this regime of yours? I want flesh, dear lady, poultry, mutton, pork chops, you hear?’
After the first hearty meal that he had had in a whole month, he demanded the jar of Mr Eno’s miracle stomach cleaner of the old dear, and after having imbibed “this sugarless lemonade”, he settled down to write a long letter to his wayward sibling. He began by rebuking him. A little quote will reveal to the reader aspects of the character of the government adviser so far perhaps unsuspected: Let me begin this by telling you how disappointed our dear departed materfamilias, had she been alive, would have been by your utter thoughtlessness in leaving without a word of your whereabouts to her. She would have lost her appetite, and would have been unable to sleep, gnawed by worry about someone who seemed not to care about her. She would have been too distracted to function properly. She would have uprooted precious seedlings and left the weeds in the ground. She would have pricked her fingers darning your socks. Just imagine her with a frying pan of hot boiling oil frying your bacon. But then, you were always cavalierly in your dealings with her, always taking her for granted. I know you think that she had but little regards for you, but I know how greatly she admired you in all things.
The second part of the letter was devoted to advice and addresses of people he had been useful to in the past, who owed him a favour, and who would surely be only too glad to be of service to him when he needed help.
A few days after arriving in Australia, for no reason that Sherlock could think of he stopped at the Poste Restante at the Port Jackson Post Office, and claimed total surprise when the chap behind the counter said, Yes indeed, we do have a letter addressed to a cove bearing your name.
Captain Morbick-Cullen was one person Mycroft thought his younger brother might like to meet. He had been instrumental in furthering the wounded soldier’s appeal for the handsome gratuity which enabled him to buy Sunrise with its nine hundred acres of land, and he had suggested that Sherlock and his friend visited the settler in Hunter’s Hill.
They were given adjacent rooms at Sunrise Farm and invited to stay for as long as they wished. They naturally insisted on doing their bit. Whilst Holmes enjoyed carpentry, Irene hated accountancy, but she got on well with Sylvia.
They were discouraged from talking to the convicts, on the grounds that it was dangerous. Nothing could have fired Irene’s curiosity more. She got to know the two cousins among others. She found the older one shifty and hypocritical, and formed an opposite view of the younger one.
She enjoyed the new environment, but it was clear that Sherlock missed the routine of his Baker Street practice and its intellectual challenges. And possibly Mycroft. She was greatly interested in the Kouries, and discovered that they were a surprisingly spiritual people. The musician in Sherlock, missing his violin, was keen to know about the didgeridoo. Boriwa the carver happily taught him to play the instrument, and made one for him from the stem of a young eucalyptus tree, assuring the gubbah that in a matter of weeks the tree would have sprouted a new stem. He was deeply impressed by the concern the Kouri people had for all living things. He tried explaining to his female companion the similarities he had discovered between these two completely different musical instruments, but she understood not a word of his exposition. Are you sure your father was a singer of great repute? he asked laconically. For her part, Irene asked Bilongong many questions and learned about Dream Time and survival techniques. Lost in the middle of the desert or forest, they could always find enough to eat whereas the gubbah would perish in a matter of days. They could build seaworthy craft from tree barks, read the signs in the sky to predict rains and winds. And cyclones.
Bilongong was very proud of his ancestors. They were the true Australians, he said. They were expert boatmen, and had used their canoes and then walked considerable distances over what is now the sea, and which was then land, after they kept seeing smoke, presumably from forest fires, from where they had settled (which Irene would later learn was Borneo in South Asia). It was about a million years ago, according to the Songlines. Nobody had explained to him what made the sea take over the land. She would discover later that it was in fact fifty thousand years ago when the coming of an ice resulted in ice collecting at the poles. This had caused a drop in the sea level of hundreds of metres, enabling people to walk on the bottom of what was later filled by the sea. Bilongong told of his ancestors who regularly walked the ninety miles from Australia to Van Diemen’s Land. The epic tale was part of the Songlines, and children were taught about it.
The Kouri man explained to her their concept of property, how his people could not imagine the notion that anything could belong exclusively to one person. How can a tree belong to anybody? The edible roots under the ground, the fruits on trees, the wood for burning, the bark for making canoes, belonged to whoever needed them, how could they be the property of one person? Baiame had put them there for everybody. He told her of the sadness of his people when the gubbah came and took possession of the land of their ancestors and drove them out. They did not even dream of asking for our permission to share what it produced, he wailed.
The Kouries were steeped in the tradition of generosity towards other tribes. She listened carefully and sympathised with their plight. After a long silence, he looked at her, shook his head, and said wistfully, ‘And they even tried to steal my name. One day the Captain said that I was now Barry Bongo. But what about my name? Bilongong? I asked. No, there is no more Bilongong, he said. He had stolen my name.’ That was a rare occasion when the Kouri man smiled, revealing his impossibly white teeth. Probably the first time that she saw that little twitch at the commissures of his lips, which entirely knocked the usually glum expression on his face off its perch. Anyway, he added, after that time, when he called me, Barry - a beautiful smile it was - I made as if I had not heard. He had stolen his name back! He needed me, you see, so he gave up.
Bilongong taught her the art of boomerang throwing, how to hold it, how to take a few steps back, the best angle to raise your arms to, how to run forward and then hurl. You don’t need strength, he explained, but a quick movement of the wrist. She naturally became an expert in days.
‘My name is not Mary Smith, but Irene Adler,’ she said in a conspiratorial whisper.
‘I see, Miss Smith,’ he said laconically.
______
Nathaniel had started setting his plan in motion. He began by stealing a case of a dozen bottles of beer which he shared with his Kouri friends, and then went to Morbick-Cullen to say that it had been stolen by persons unknown. Most probably the ten or so convicts and eight Kouries working on the farm. Not that he thought of these harmless men as friends, but crafty as he was, he wanted these simple fellows who were not natural drinkers, in his grasp. He apologised to Danny, who did not see why he had to, and said that he had no choice but to report the theft to the Captain. The boss loved the situation, for he was then able to don the mantle of the law-giver. A search promptly revealed the presence of the empty bottles under Danny’s bed. Nathaniel rubbed his hands in glee, and angrily asked his cousin whatever possessed him to do that? Did he not know what to expect now? This is surely going to be counted as a second conviction. Did he not know what being a double-convict mean?
‘Norfolk Island,’ replied Danny sadly.
‘If you so badly wanted a few beers, why didn’t you ask me?
‘But I never stole the beer.’
‘What were the empties doing under your bed then?’ The younger man was flummoxed. The idea
that anybody would try to set him up never occurred to him. Somebody must have been completely soused.
Fortunately for him, the Captain was quite keen on finishing the erection of the barn, and only sentenced the boy to a hundred lashes this time.
Irene discovered that Bilongong had a great sense of fun, even if he had no ear for irony. Could it be because telling lies did not come naturally to the Kouri? she wondered. At first he did not understand when she joked or made a flippant remark, but when he began picking on these, his eyes would light up and he would nod and shake his head with merriment. He was of course a fount of knowledge when it came to Kouri lore and readily expounded to the visitor on their theories of Creation, planetary system, what happened to dreams.
Coincidentally, the same day that Nathaniel had his brainwave, the Kouri man was telling Irene about how his people made dependable floating crafts which could take you over hundreds of miles of ocean. There is a special technique for peeling off the bark from the bangalay, called the canoe tree, and this could quite easily be fashioned into buckets for carrying water, containers for food, and canoes. On rare occasions, a single large piece was adequate, but usually two or three pieces had to be sewn together. The vessel was then made waterproof by sticking gum from the same tree into the needle punctures. Baiame had thought of everything. He makes the water and he makes the bark. He gives Kouri man the idea to make canoes by sewing. Sewing creates holes, but the Supreme Spirit orders gum on the canoe trees. Truly Baiame’s love for his people and his powers are without limit. The paddle was usually made from goinna, and if the lady so desired, he would happily teach her how to use it. Sherlock Holmes suspected that there was some attraction between those two, but worked hard on pretending that this had nothing to do with him. Whether his hunch was justified or not, is left to the imagination of the reader.
At the same time, Nathaniel had a devilish idea. He would start by asking the innocent natives he worked with to arrange for a canoe to be built for him. Although when he had started cultivating the Kouri boys, Mulga, Adoni and their friends, he had no specific idea about what he wanted of them, now he saw it with absolute clarity. With more drink in them they would do his bidding. They would arrange for a canoe to be built and hidden. Furthermore he would pilfer various objects from the kitchen and hide them in some cracks between the rocks near the canoe. He would engineer Morbick-Cullen’s discovery of the craft, and then imply with due pretence of unwillingness that it was poor misguided Danny the culprit. If that did not leave the terrain free for him to indulge in his passion for the young Gypsy girl, then it would mean that Yolanda was not meant for him. He might drown himself in the Parramatta after tying stones to his ankles. There would be nothing left to live for in this god-forsaken place, so far from the beloved land of his birth. But he was quite sanguine about his plan working.
Sherlock Holmes Vs Irene Adler: A Duel of Wits (The Irene Adler Series Book 4) Page 13