The Mystery of Swordfish Reef b-7

by Arthur W. Upfield

  “He’s in great danger, Jack. I know he’s in great danger.”

  Wilton nodded. He said nothing more. He knew that Marion and Bill Spinks were twins.

  Chapter Two

  No News Is Bad News

  HAVING BEEN honorary secretary of the Bermagui Big Game Anglers’ Club from its inception, Mr Edward Blade had at his finger-tips a wide knowledge of game fishing in the waters off the south coast of New South Wales, and of men, launches and tackle. It is doubtful if anyone better could have been found for this position, for Blade was that rarity among men, a born club secretary combining a business education with charming social qualities. His life at Bermagui was of even tenor, due more to his personality and temperament than to outside influences such as the non-arrival of important gear or the difficulty in fitting an angler’s application for a launch into an extended busy period. This, of course, was prior to the disappearance of theDo-me.

  It was first realized by Mr Blade that something most serious had happened to theDo-me when Constable Telfer entered his office at four o’clock in the afternoon following that night of vigil conducted by the two Spinks women. Constable Telfer, big and tough and red of face, accepted the chair offered by the club secretary who was shorter in stature, pink-complexioned and quick in movement.

  “I don’t like thisDo-me business,” was Telfer’s announcement.

  “It will probably be cleared up about sundown when theDo-me comes home with the other launches,” Blade said. “Spinks is a good boatman, a good seaman, and a good fisherman. He wouldn’t take risks with an angler aboard theDo-me. Likely enough, he’ll report that owing to trouble of some kind theDo-me had to spend the night in some cover or other.”

  “Why?” bluntly asked Telfer.

  “Engine trouble. Or exhausted petrol supply.”

  The policeman removed his cap and set it down beside the typewriter on the paper-littered table. While his heavy fingers pressed tobacco into the bowl of an ancient pipe his prominent dark eyes noted the details of the room as though it were the first time he had been in it. He was acquainted with every picture on the wall-pictures of swordfish leaping high above water, of sharks being weighed at the head of the jetty, of world-famous anglers who had sat in the chair he now occupied. He knew the contents of heavy leather cases-huge ball-bearing, geared, still reels capable of taking nine hundred yards of number 36-cord, and that inside the long cylinders resting on wall hooks were heavy rods which even he found difficulty in bending against a knee. He had never once been out after the giants of the sea, being too fearful of sickness, but he was a fishing enthusiast on the river.

  “Alf Remmings, of theGladious, tells me that Spinks yesterday morning took on board enough fuel to keep theDo-me ’s engine running for thirty hours,” he said deliberately. “TheDo-me left port yesterday morning at eight o’clock, and her petrol supply would have run out at two o’clock this afternoon. Spinks would know his petrol supply in hours, and he would have been back some time this morning, making sure to give himself a good margin-if he had agreed with his angler to stay out fishing all night.”

  “Have you been in touch with the other stations up and down the coast?” asked Blade.

  Yes. I’ve been in communication with all police stations within a hundred miles north and south of Bermagui. Not one can report anything concerning theDo-me.”

  “I suppose you know that theGladious and theIvy were out at sea all last night, and theEdith part of the night, searching for theDo-me ?”

  “Of course,” replied Telfer.

  “And you know that Wilton, on hisMarlin, went out this morning to follow Swordfish Reef to the southward because yesterday’s current set to thesouth, and it is known that Spinks suggested to his angler trying for sharks over the reef?”

  “Of course, I know it. Ain’t I a policeman? TheIvy has gone south today, hugging the coast, and theDorothea has made out towards Montague Island. I’ve just come down from the headland. The wind is freshening from the east’ard. I saw theGladious and theEdith both well out, heading for home. There’s no sail in sight to indicate theDo-me making to port with the wind.”

  Constable Telfer produced his notebook.

  “Mrs Spinks and the girl state that William Spinks took no extra clothes and no food other than what Mrs Spinks put into his lunch-basket,” he read in a monotone. “At seven-thirty yesterday morning the garage truck delivered six six-gallon drums of petrol to theDo-me, and the driver states that Spinks said he would then have a full load of fuel and wouldn’t require none for today’s fishing. At the hotel they state that Mr Ericson took only tucker and his thermos-flask for his lunch; and, further, that he left instructions that if Martin, the Cobargo solicitor, arrived at Bermagui before he got back he was to be entertained at his, Ericson’s, expense. It’s evident that Mr Ericson and his launchmen did not think they would not get back to port last evening. And they’re still not back, being twenty-two hours overdue.”

  Blade offered a remark.

  “That’s certainly not normal in the calm weather we’ve had.”

  “No, it isn’t. If it had been blowing a nor’easter we could say that theDo-me was sheltering at Montague Island, with which there is only semaphore communication, and that possible only in clear weather. But, Blade, the sea has been calm, extra special calm.”

  The club secretary found a packet of cigarettes in the table drawer and lit one. Then he rose to his feet and crossed to the barometer, which he gently tapped with a finger-nail. The pointer moved steadily to halt at the figures 29.95.

  “Hum! Barometer beginning to fall. You say that the wind is from the east. TheDo-me might well show up before night.”

  “Hope your guess is correct,” Telfer said dryly.

  “And,” went on Blade, “if she doesn’t, then one or more of the Eden launches may have word of her when they get in this evening. I’m not worrying a great deal as yet, because of my confidence in Bill Spinks. He knows as much about this coast, and the currents off it, as any man bar old Joe Peace.”

  “I still don’t like thisDo-me business,”persisted Constable Telfer. “Listen to me. Yesterday there were three launches out at sea with theDo-me. As you know, they were theGladious, theSnowy and theEdith. The last of those three to sight theDo-me was theGladious just after eleven o’clock. TheDo-me was then still trolling to the east, towards Swordfish Reef.”

  Blade regarded the policeman steadily.

  “You have been busy today,” he said. “Go on.”

  “An hour after he last saw theDo-me, Remmings on theGladious was five miles farther south. There was a haze on the sea, reducing visibility to a few miles, and the current at the south end of Swordfish Reef was setting south. If theDo-me ’s engine had broken down after Remmings lost sight of her, she’d drift southward fairly fast because there wasn’tno wind to fill her sail. In which case a trawler, working six or seven miles south of theGladious, and as far off the land, might easily have seen theDo-me. Unlike the launches, that trawler would work all night in that same area. And last night, or rather early this morning, Remmings ran alongside the trawler and spoke with the captain. No one on the trawler had sighted theDo-me.

  “This morning the trawler was working a little north of Eden and about eight miles off shore. The Eden police got a launch-man there to go out and speak her. He spoke her at a little after twelve o’clock, and she hadn’t sighted theDo-me up till then. The Eden launch then patrolled for an hour or two without result. She has just returned to port, and I have just had her report through the Eden station.”

  After this long and detailed statement Constable Telfer stared at Blade with a positive satisfaction in his prominent eyes. Blade looked away and gazed thoughtfully at his typewriter. A period of seconds passed, when he said:

  “That doesn’t sound so good.”

  Telfer snorted and continued.

  “Before I came here I walked down to the jetty and had a talk with Harry Low. TheLilyG. Excel didn’t go out today. Lo
w reckons it don’t sound any too good, either, because this morning the sea was flat and the visibility was extra good. The men on the bridge of the trawler would have been looking for theDo-me, and they could have seen her mast at eight miles, if not a mile or two more.”

  The two men fell silent, Telfer vigorously drawing at his old pipe. Blade drumming the fingers of one hand on a paper lying on the table. In his mind the affair of theDo-me was now growing big with portent. After a while, Telfer asked:

  “What could happen to a launch out on the ocean, alone, cut off from human sight and contact by a haze?”

  “Happen! Oh!… She could catch fire. But if theDo-me had caught fire yesterday, the smoke would have been observed by Remmings, and perhaps, by the trawler. And then theDo-me carried a small boat, and those on her could very easily have rowed ashore.”

  “Low says-” Telfer began. “Low one time was whaling down at Eden, and he says that a whale could come up to blow under a launch and capsize her without giving any warning to those on board.”

  “I suppose that could be possible,” conceded Blade. “But it would be by no means probable. I have never heard of such a happening. It would be as unlikely as a launch being attacked by a sea-serpent or a gang of mermen.”

  “Could theDo-me have capsized through any other cause, do you think?”

  “Not through any cause due to the launch herself,” replied Blade. “It was a very calm day, remember. TheDo-me is as seaworthy a craft as any at Bermagui.”

  The policeman’s chair scraped noisily on the floor and he rose to his feet. With slow deliberation, he slid the notebook into a breast pocket whilst he looked down at the club secretary.

  “We’ll know what happened to theDo-me some day-perhaps,” he said. “It’s rough on the Spinks women, this not knowing what has happened. They’re up on the headland now. They’ve been there since breakfast this morning, and they were up there before daybreak. See you later.”

  After Telfer had gone Edward Blade thought to note the time. It was four minutes to five. The sunlight was slanting into his office through window and open door. He began to type a letter to a sports firm, gave it up and walked to the doorway, where he paused and searched the sky. It was streaked with faint gossamer ribbons. Re-entering the office he again tapped the barometer. The pointer indicated a drop to 29.5. Standing in the doorway once again he looked to the north past the township, over the inner bay and across the great bay to Dromedary Mountain, backing it. Thin clouds crowned its summit. Opposite the office, across the road and the un-built-on land, the river’s estuary came from the low promontory protecting its mouth to curve eastward past the launch jetty. The stretch of sheltered water was covered with dark cat’s-paws.

  “Going to be a dirty night,” he murmured, summing up all these weather signs. “Ah!”

  Coming towards him, to pass his office on her way home, was Marion Spinks. The wind on the headland had blown her hair into disorder. Even here in the street it teased the hem of her skirt.

  “Any sight of theDo-me, Miss Spinks?” he asked her.

  She shook her head.

  “I’m going home to make tea and take it to mother,” she said. “She won’t leave the headland. She won’t come home and wait.” Her control gave way at last under the long strain, and in her voice was a sob.“Oh, Mr Blade! I’m afraid… I’m afraid.”

  “But, Miss Spinks, this wind will bring theDo-me to port somewhere.”

  “Yes, I am hoping that about theDo-me. I am afraid now for mother. She’s taking on so. I can’t do anything with her, and she won’t come home. She says she must stop on the headland looking for theDo-me.”

  “Have you both been up there all day?”

  Marion nodded her head, dumbly miserable, even desperate. Blade was quick to make a suggestion.

  “Well, then, while you are home getting the tea, I’ll slip off home and ask the wife to go with you and persuade your mother to come home. Mrs Blade once was a trained nurse, you know, and she would know how to manage your mother.”

  “Oh, if Mrs Blade would!”

  “Shewill, I’m sure. I’ll have her here when you pass with the tea,”

  Blade smiled encouragement at the girl, and she went on her way. Looking after her, memory of her eyes big with dread stayed with him, but he could not help noticing her poise and dignity.

  His wife was with him in the office when Marion returned carrying a basket and a billy of tea. He stood in his doorway watching them pass along the street, pass the hotel, gain the end of the road and take the path to the summit of the headland.

  The first of the launches in this evening was a smart craft namedVida; its owner reported that the sea was rising before the wind and predicted a stormy night. He had no news of the missing launch and, as the other launches were all hurrying in, he thought no news of theDo-me had been gained.

  The last launch in was theMyoni. Williams, her owner, told Blade that he had taken his angler as far south as Bunga Head, and that he had not sighted theMarlin since nine o’clock that morning. This was shortly after six when the roar of the surf was louder than the whine of the wind about the mast stays of craft moored to the sheltered jetty. The river’s mouth was foaming, and now and then the sea on the bar and beyond it lifted high above the water in the channel.

  “Another easterly making,” complained Alf Remmings, his moustache salted by sea spray, his darkly tanned face brightened by the spray’s stinging lash. “Why can’t it blow from any other quarter but the east? Looks like we’re going to be kept in for days. If Jack Wilton and Joe don’t soon turn up in theMarlin they won’t risk the bar and they’ll have to punch away out to Montague and shelter there.”

  “Trust them two to look after themselves.” said Burns, as he was about to pass on his way to his home. “They went down south and they’ll likely enough run in to Eden for the night. And that’s where theDo-me is going to turn up, too, under her sail. This wind’ll bring her in even if she drifted fifty miles out.”

  A little after seven o’clock the anxious Mrs Wilton was relieved of growing anxiety by a telephoned message stating that theMarlin had reached Eden and would stay there the night.

  Her son and Joe had seen nothing of theDo-me.

  At seven-thirty Edward Blade locked his office and went home to find his wife absent and no dinner prepared. He changed into warmer clothes and walked to the headland. The sea was a restless pattern of black and white. The sky was ribbed with black cloud streamers, pointing to where the highlands made a bold silhouette against the sunset glow. The endless procession of rollers, surmounted by a film of spray, swept past the headland into the great bay, their left flanks wheeling into the inner bay to smash with ghastly whiteness against the promontory protecting the river, their centres rushing onward to hurl themselves far up the sand slopes beyond.

  Blade’s wife was with Mrs Spinks and Marion. Mrs Blade was almost beside herself, the girl tearfully beseeching her mother to abandon the vigil.

  Mrs Spinks was screaming:

  “Leave me alone! I’m staying here to see theDo-me come home. I won’t go. I tell you I won’t go down. My Bill’s outthere, and I won’t go home.”

  The woman’s appearance shocked Blade. His wife and Marion could do nothing to pacify her, and his own efforts were of no avail. He hurried back for Constable Telfer. They were obliged to use force. All the way down the path to the road Mrs Spinks continued to scream. She screamed until the doctor came to her house and administered morphia.

  Chapter Three

  Flotsam

  THE PREDICTIONS of the local weather experts were wrong. On the following morning the sun rose in a clear sky and a light southerly already was having effect on the ugly white-capped rollers. Day was breaking when Joe called his partner to the breakfast he had prepared on a primus stove.

  “Weather’s cleared, Jack, me lad,” he announced. “We can get away any time.”

  An hour later theMarlin was running up and over thewater mountains
, both men standing in the shelter of the glass-fronted structure protecting the wheel and steersman, the cockpit and cabin entrance. The wind was cold. The sea had the appearance of having been washed, for the valleys were dark blue, the mountain crests light blue, and the breakers brilliantly white. Astern, beetling cliffs bore the everlasting attacks of the foaming breakers. Above the cliffs were green caps of grass. Beyondrose dense timber, and farther back the distant blue-black highlands.

  Wilton had interviewed the police at Eden-some forty miles south of Bermagui-for possible news of theDo-me. There was no news from ship or shore station, no discovery of any wreckage. In his heart this morning hope was almost dead: in Joe’s heart hope was a corpse.

  “She’s foundered, Jack, that’s what she’s done,” he growled, hands lightly resting on the wheel-spokes, teeth biting upon the lacerated stem of one of his two pipes. “All yesterday we looked for theDo-me. Today I reckon we’d better look for oil and flotsam.

  Wilton nodded, saying nothing, his eyes stern, his face seemingly fixed into a mask. Presently he passed into the cabin. A glance at his barometer told him that the pressure was steadily rising. He adjusted the engine running to maintain a steady seven knots, greased the bearings of the propeller shaft. On rejoining Joe, he said:

  “We’ll look for oil and flotsam. You’re boss today. The general current is setting to the nor’ard. Whend’you reckon it changed?”

  “Not till some time after midnight. I was up then and the wind was still easterly.

  “Well, I’ll leave the course to you. You’re better able to nut out the currents working south from Swordfish Reef from the time theDo-me was last sighted by theGladious. It would give me a headache, and then I’d be wrong.”

  “All right,”assented Joe.

  Wilton rolled a cigarette, lit it, inhaled deeply. Then he clambered for’ard past the protruding shelter structure, and stood against the mast, his feet planted far apart. This day he would be the mate and would have to maintain a constant look out, not for a fin but for relics of a tragedy which had surely engulfed his lifelong friend and might engulf his own hopes of happiness centred upon that friend’s sister. He left in charge at the wheel a man whose knowledge of the sea off this coast, its feminine whims and its masculine habits, was almost uncanny. They had looked for theDo-me with more guesswork behind the search than would be employed this day in the hunt for a patch of oil and possible flotsam.