by Peter Docker
‘And why have you brought this savage before us?’
His eyes flick to Bright Eyes who steps forward right on cue. Under his kangaroo skin cloak, his hand rests on the handle of his stone axe.
‘Permit me to present Bright Eyes, the eldest son of the duke of the lands south of the river mouth, known as Beeliar.’
Stirling and Luscombe take him in more completely. When Stirling was here mapping the potential settlement location, the closest he got to the natives was a deserted campfire. Bright Eyes is physically the most impressive individual I have ever met, with his thick muscles packed into his burly frame. Their eyes linger on the distinctive scar tattoo on his right shoulder, the mark of his high rank. Stirling turns his eyes back to me. He dismisses my introduction with a curl of his lip. Maybe his snarl is him trying to smile.
‘Am I to presume that Captain Fremantle is otherwise engaged with native girls, so he sends you in his place?’
Stirling and Luscombe share a smile. I address Luscombe.
‘Captain Fremantle wished me to convey the absolute folly of attempting the passage to the sound until the seas and the winds are more favourable. There are many hidden sandbanks, and with your draft, Captain Luscombe...’
‘I shall be piloting the ship in, Mister Conway,’ Stirling says. ‘Perhaps Captain Fremantle forgets that I have been here before; that I charted this whole region; that I was the one who lobbied the ministry for this settlement.’
‘Sir, Captain Fremantle wished me to impress upon you in no uncertain terms–’
‘That will be all, Lieutenant Conway.’
‘Sir?’
‘That will be all. Please thank the good captain for his undue concern.’
I salute them with my cold claw hand.
‘Captain Stirling. Captain Luscombe.’
They do not return my salute. I about face, and Bright Eyes opens the door for me. We share a conspiratorial smile. We step out into the cold sheeting rain, and are enveloped by the roughhouse sounds of the big seas crashing into Wadjemup just beyond.
Twenty-one: Smash and Grab
‘Brother!’
I hang on. Through the waterfall flowing over me and through me, I hear the voice again.
‘Brother!’
My eyes snap open. I’m hanging onto the skin and being pulled across the surface of the water. Swirling around my neck is the white vomit mixed with dam water.
‘Brother! Let go!’
I look up to see the concrete wall of the dam looming up out of the darkness, and on the surface of the film-covered water are two spotlights dancing towards us.
‘Let go, bruz!’ Mularabone calls again, urgency in his voice without volume.
The edge of the spotlight is almost on me. I open my claws and let the skin go. It is pulled out from under me like the old tablecloth whip-trick, and I am the quivering china left behind. I drop my head into the water; my forward momentum takes me straight down into the depths, pulling my feet in quickly as I go. I kick out immediately for the wall. The lights zigzag back and forth on the surface above us. I kick out for the wall. I look sideways but I can’t see Mularabone. I swim and swim. Finally, my reaching fingers touch the rough concrete of the wall. I brace myself against the dam wall by spreading my fingers wide and applying pressure. I can still hear the hum of the retractor machine from down here. I ease up the wall. I look up. The spotlights are further out, where I just came from, scanning the now open water. I ease my face out of the water and take a long slow breath. Mularabone is already on the surface. He gives me his smile. He has one for every occasion. The retractor machine hums for a moment longer, and then is switched off. The silence comes down. Then we hear the Water Board troopers up on the dam as clear as if we were standing next to them.
‘There’s nothin.’
‘Must’ve been a snag.’
‘Or a croc?’
‘Crocs don’t worry me.’
‘Bullshit.’
Laughter. The spotlights get turned off. There are still a few work lights illuminating the top of the dam. Mularabone signals to me to follow and he moves along the wall to our right. There is a ladder out in the centre of the dam. He gets there and waits for me. I get to the rusted ladder and grab on.
‘You right, coorda?’ he whispers.
‘Yeah.’
‘Ya chucked up.’
‘Seasick.’
‘Bullshit.’
We breathe. We listen.
‘What now?’ Mularabone asks.
‘Smash and grab.’
‘Wait here.’
He goes up the ladder the three or four metres to the top. He slips his nulla-nulla out of his belt. I go up the ladder slowly until I am just below the lip of the dam. I hold on to the ladder. My head rolls forward to rest on the concrete wall. Above me I hear a scuffle, a muffled shout, and the dull thuds of heavy wood on flesh. There is movement in the water below and I look to see a big gnarly form sliding away into the darkness of the water. Then Mularabone is above me at the ladder.
‘Okay, coord.’
I go up the ladder. There are three Water Board troopers laid out on the concrete. Mularabone quickly grabs their weapons, handing one to me. Over on the edge of the dam is their vehicle, and beyond that the short road to the lit-up Water Board compound. We stride out for the vehicle, dripping and squelching as we go. We are still thirty metres from the vehicle when a trooper steps out from the driver’s side. He has earphones in. He gives us a funny look, and pulls out his earphones.
‘Are you blokes gonna take all night?’
Then he really clocks us. ‘Who the fuck are youse?’
He glances into the cabin. The Sarge would tie our weapons to us if he ever caught us without them in our hands, may his soul find peace. We are close enough now to see the dilemma on the trooper’s face. Our weapons are in our hands, and coming up, and that front seat is a long reach away.
‘Don’t do it, trooper,’ Mularabone warns. But Mularabone’s voice galvanises him and he dives for the weapon on the front seat. We both fire and the trooper is blasted backwards as our rounds smash into him. We take off for the vehicle.
‘Didn’t you trust me to get him?’ asks Mularabone.
‘I want to do my bit.’
‘You drive. I’ll shoot. We need something to hurt this concrete.’
I jump in, hit ignition, and gun the engine. The onboard system lights up and I hit manual all. Mularabone has two spare weapons at his feet. I drive with mine in my lap. I head straight for the compound. The radio comes to life.
‘H20 6, this is H20 1, sitrep, over?
I hit the transmitter.
‘H20 1, this is 6.’
‘6, this is 1, we heard shots. Sitrep, over?’
‘1, this is 6, we have taken fire. No CAS. We are coming in hot. One terrorist shooter on north side of dam.’
‘Roger 6. Gate, this is 1. Open up.’
‘1, this is gate. Open up.’
Ahead of us we see the crash barriers being removed behind the gate. Mularabone gives me a grin. ‘Open sesame.’
I gun the vehicle for the opening. We are a hundred metres out and moving fast when the radio fizzes into life.
‘Gate, this is H20 Charlie Oscar. Shut the gate. I say again, Charlie Oscar, shut the gate.’
Mularabone and I know that voice. But Jack’s too late; they’ll never get the barriers back in time to stop us. There is a spotlight swinging onto us. Mularabone gives a burst of fire and it explodes. He rakes the tower on his side with fire, and then leans out across the bonnet to hit the other one. The gate tower men are fumbling for their weapons as they go down. Sloppy. We smash through the gates.
‘Is that you, Conway?’ comes Jack’s voice on the radio. Inside the compound there are figures running everywhere. Mularabone is finding targets and putting them down.
I hit the transmitter. ‘Surprise!’
Mularabone and I both clock the Armoured Fighting Vehicle just inside the gate. M
ust be their quick-response fire team. The AFV has machineguns and a heavy gun mounted forward. Fire starts coming our way. I start to swerve this way and that, as random as hell.
‘What now?’ I scream to Mularabone.
‘Power. Then tank. Then out again in that rig with the gun.’
‘Hurtful.’
‘Life is pain.’
Now Jack will be sorry he ever brought us in here. His HQ is over the far end of the compound but the solar storage isn’t far from the tank and the metal boxes where we were kept. I switch off our lights as I see the storage cell system dead ahead.
‘Hang on, bruz!’
‘Where’d you learn to drive?’
‘I didn’t.’
We both brace and the vehicle slams into the storage structure. There is a massive electrical hiss-pop. And the whole camp is swathed in darkness. All around us the troopers are running and firing. This is why Mularabone is the best. He grabs me.
‘You good?’
‘Yeah.’
We pile out of the wreckage and run for the doors of the tank. When you’ve crashed a few of those junior cruisers, you just know how it’s gonna go. At the tank entrance there is a big chain threaded through the steel outer doorhandles. Mularabone steps back and I go back with him. Mularabone empties his mag into the chain. At point-blank range the ricochet is terrifying and I can’t believe we aren’t hit. The chain falls away. Mag change. A couple of rounds come our way from over near the gate. I throw up my weapon and fire at the flash until it stops. Mularabone is kicking down the doors. They burst open. I step in. Mularabone stands at the door and fires a burst back the other way towards HQ and our burning vehicle up against the solar storage facility. Illuminated in his muzzle flash is Mitch the Blood Nut.
Mitch yells at me in the darkness: ‘What the fuck’s happening?’
‘You got parole, shareholder.’
He steps up close to me and I smell his off breath.
‘I know you!’
Mularabone turns and thrusts the spare weapons at him.
‘We’re not the enemy, brother.’
Mitch grabs the weapons. He hands one back to Torby.
‘Thanks, Trooper,’ he spits back at me.
‘See ya later, shareholder.’
Mularabone turns and sprints back for the AFV by the gate. Behind us, Mitch is firing and moving. By the time we reach the AFV there is a serious firefight going on behind us. We throw ourselves onto the ground at the rear of the AFV and look back to the exchange of fire ripping through the night.
‘He’s good, your mate,’ grins Mularabone.
‘Not my mate.’
Inside the AFV we hear the voices of the nervous troopers. The engine is switched on, and the spottie on top lights up. Mularabone clambers straight up onto the shell of the vehicle and pumps two rounds into the light. Inside the AFV we can hear them swearing. The top hatch is suddenly thrown open, and out pops the head of a trooper. Mularabone smashes him in the face with his nulla-nulla, and the man slumps back. He slips the club into his belt and swings his weapon forward and fires a burst down into the vehicle. I sit up. The back hatch opens and three troopers pile out. I am so close to them that I can smell their stale vinegary sweat. I shoot each of them once in the head. Mularabone is clambering down the hatch. I go straight in the back. He jumps into the cockpit, slams it into gear, and we lurch forward. The trooper that Mularabone nulla-nullaed groans. I shoot him in the back. Mularabone guns the engine. I drag the body into the rear, and slide into his seat. I hit the screen and bring the weapons systems online. Mularabone doesn’t turn on the lights, and we smash through the last barrier with a rolling crunch, and burst through the front gates. I’m in imaging now, and bringing up the picture of the dark road in front of the AFV, and feeding it to Mularabone’s screen. He is going fucken flat out. A few rounds slam into our hull but no serious fire. In moments, the dam appears on my screen.
‘Surprise!’ yells Mularabone and laughs with the exhilaration of the moment. ‘Ha! They weren’t expecting that!’
‘I wasn’t expecting it, coorda!’
The dam is on my screen. I target the centre of the concrete mass, as low as I can go. ‘Steady, brother. Steady. Stop!’
Mularabone slams on the anchors and the AFV slides to a halt in the pindan.
‘Firing now!’ I warn, and hit multiple-fire-max, and the gun opens up.
Whump! Whump! Whump!
Whump! Whump! Whump!
In the imager the HE rounds slam into the concrete wall one after the other. Almost instantly I see the concrete darken with moisture.
‘That’s it! We’re out!’
Mularabone puts the AFV in gear with a bit of throttle, aiming it to the road going across the top of the dam. I turn and pile out the back door with Mularabone right behind, and we roll hard into the dust. We are up and running, sprinting for the scrub just on the water side of the dam. There is a depression in there. We throw ourselves down and crawl into the scrub until we are on the edge of the slope down to the water. Coming out of the compound is another AFV.
We duck down. Mularabone is into his backpack. His heat signature-masking device is still wrapped in its waterproof coating. The AFV is firing at the empty AFV rolling out onto the dam.
Mularabone rips off the plastic, pulls up the aerial, and keys in the GO. We press into the earth. They pour their fire into our AFV. It has reached the edge of the dam.
Whump! Whump! Whump!
They hit it, and up she goes. Mularabone puts his device down on the edge of the decline. The AFV is burning fiercely. There is an almighty crumpling sound, and the ground beneath us shakes. The dam gives way. The smoking AFV is gone in a moment, and so is most of the dam, as a couple of billion gigalitres of water surges down into the parched valley below.
Ghost of History: Finest Navy the World Has Ever Seen
Even in the relative safety of the sound, the swell is big. The howling wind has swung overnight from the south and is now blowing directly east. The winds come direct from below the coastline of Africa, picking up the chill and power from the colliding Antarctic systems to batter the shores of this island continent without mercy. Fremantle stands on the bridge and sips from a steaming mug.
‘He is coming, Mister Conway,’ he says, and I try to find the sail of the Parmelia above the heavy swell.
I stand next to Fremantle, whether to give comfort or draw it, I cannot say. The rain does not let up.
‘The Governor cometh,’ I comment.
‘The Governor is dead, long live the Governor,’ says Fremantle.
Bright Eyes watches us. Fremantle notices him. He wants to say something, but then thinks better of it. He drains his mug and puts it down. He retrieves his glass from his coat pocket, and twists it over and over with his hands.
‘Hardly a robust endorsement for the virtues of the Empire, Mister Conway.’
‘Captain Stirling is an experienced pilot, sir. He has traversed these waters before.’
Fremantle has the glass to his eye. Bright Eyes comes over and wants to look through the glass. Fremantle directs him how to hold the piece to his eye. He looks through, exclaims loudly, and then checks the image again with his naked eye. He repeats this process several times. Then he turns the glass on Fremantle, and shouts with joy when he sees the magnified image. He pulls a nulla-nulla from his belt, and hands it to Fremantle. Fremantle stands there holding the club and looking at me blankly. Bright Eyes aims the glass at the mainland, shrouded in rain.
‘Good trade, sir.’
‘Indeed.’
Bright Eyes hears our exchange and comes over.
‘Morning sir. Indeed!’ he exclaims. And when we laugh, he adds, ‘Good trade, sir.’
Fremantle holds up the club, and swings it a few times to test the weight. He gives a satisfied nod to Bright Eyes who smiles and holds up his glass.
Our eyes go back to the Parmelia. She is coming in from the north, trying to angle slightly east to keep
the swell at her back. But she is too fast, and too close to the small island of Ngooloormayup. There are several big sandbanks right there. They may not even have been there the last time Stirling was here. That was two years ago – and even in the six weeks we’ve been here we have learned that you cannot depend on conditions to remain unchanged.
‘Ready the longboats!’ calls Fremantle, and the order is repeated down on the decks.
There is a slippery scramble of sailors working in the rain to comply. Our eyes are on the Parmelia as she appears and reappears in between massive swells. Then we see her slam into the sandbank. She hits and slews sideways so that the huge swells are hitting almost side-on. She looks fast on the bank; her sails are torn away and the foreyard gone. Waves crash over the decks of HMS Parmelia.
Fremantle cannot stifle a wry smile as he sees Bright Eyes watching the ship hit the sandbank, and then reach for his glass and put it to his eye to have a closer look.
‘I am quite looking forward to meeting Captain Stirling again,’ says Fremantle.
‘Bright Eyes must be completely awed by our sailing prowess, sir. I wonder what he’ll report to his father?’
‘The finest navy the world has ever seen.’
Twenty-two: Going Over
The water boils over the rubble of the demolished dam. We can still hear sporadic firing from the far end of the compound.
‘Your mate is still going.’
‘Not my fucken mate.’
‘Where’s your loyalty, bruz?’
I look down to the dam. The level has dropped at least twenty-five metres over the last few hours of darkness. As the light comes up, we can look up the valley to see huge tracts of land that were under water last night, emerging.
‘Uncle will be happy,’ I say to Mularabone.
He grabs his masking device and swathes it in its waterproof covering. He stashes it in his pack. We go backwards down the slope to the retreating water’s edge. Jack will be here soon to survey the damage and, depending on how long he takes to quell Mitch and Torby, to look for us. Either way, we have to be gone. We get down to the water’s edge, and now the roaring of the rapids fills our ears. There are huge clouds of spray crisscrossed with new rainbows filling the air where the dam wall used to be.