by Dave Freer
“You, of course, would caution him if you knew he had actually done anything, but we don’t as yet have conclusive evidence,” said Lieutenant Ambrose, smoothly enough to be a lawyer himself. “All she will say is that she doesn’t want to talk to him. She wants to talk to the Westralian Mounted Police. Just what a good citizen would do.”
“Not in these bleeding parts, unless they were in deep trouble,” said the railway-man who had been working on the shed. “Me and Tony and three of these submarine coppers will be with you, Miss. He’s likely to go bark-o.”
“And there will be several men just outside the door,” said Lieutenant Ambrose. “The rest of the men will be taking up positions in case of any trouble. But I gather Vister and his crew are out in their mole, and they would have most to lose. They get in in two hours’ time, so we want to move as soon as you have that statement, Inspector.”
A little later, Linda found herself being escorted by grinning, burly men to the office of the power-station manager. There was a large, jowly, unshaven man with narrow eyes propping up the passage wall outside it. “Where do you think you’re going?” he growled, fondling the rifle he held.
“Got a girl to see the manager,” said the railway-man, stepping between the rifle and her.
Sergeant Morgan and Inspector Johns, who had approached, walking quietly, from the opposite direction to the group with Linda, were almost on top of him before he realized they were there. He must have heard them at the last minute and turned. Seeing two large men in the uniforms of the Westralian Mounted Police didn’t seem to be quite what he was expecting. He dropped the rifle. “Ah. It’s Porky Balmin,” said Sergeant Morgan. “I’ve been looking for you, Porky. There’d better not be any live rounds in that rifle, or you’ll be in stir for even longer.”
The unshaven man gaped at them, then tried to turn to run, only to find himself brought up short by a hand on his collar. “You go ahead,” said the inspector to the rest of them. “You’re just seeing the manager, I’m arresting a known felon,” he said, face absolutely prim.
They knocked and went in.
“Who said you could come in?” asked the sandy-haired man with very pale amber eyes. Linda thought his eyes looked rather like those of the Weimaraner dog down the road, but without any sign of the dog’s pleasant nature.
“We’re the scout mole crew. We was working topside. We brought this girl to see you, Mr. Ness.” Ned pushed Linda forward a little.
Ness smiled. It was not a kind smile. “Ah. I see why Balmin let you in. Well, you can get out. I’ll deal with this. You’ve got some questions to answer, girly.”
“I’m not saying anything to you. I want to talk to the Westralian Mounted Police,” said Linda, eyes downcast.
“You’re in such trouble, you don’t want to talk to them,” said Ness. “I’ll make you a deal, little girl. You tell me what I need to know, you shut your face for life, and I’ll see you get a ride to Kalgoorlie. There’s some places there that’ll take young girls. Your mother is dead, and you’ve got no one. Forget you ever came here, forget your boong boyfriend, and we won’t prosecute you for theft.”
He looked at the men still standing there. “I thought I told you to get out.”
“Can’t just leave her,” said Tony. “Give her a break, Mr. Ness.”
“Break! She’s lucky I don’t tell Balmin and the boys to take her out into the desert and leave her there. And if you’re not out of my office in thirty seconds I’ll see you get something broken. What’s your name?”
“Tony Porter. Look, yer can’t do this. Yer boss won’t let yer. You got no authority to do this, and me and the boys ain’t leaving until yer prove yer have. Yer covering up murder, and now you want to send this poor lass to Kalgoorlie. That’s a bad town, that.”
“Porter,” said Ness icily. “You’re fired, and docked your outstanding pay. Any of you even speak of murder or about this girl, I’ll get to hear about it and you’ll never work again. There’s no time to waste on some aboriginal kid being got rid of, and girls like this are not going to stop us. Rainor said it was to be all hushed up, and that’s the way it’ll be. We’ve got a blacklist for workers who cause trouble, we circulate it, and all the major employers work together on this. I’ve warned you…”
“Show me yer authority. Yer talking through your hat. Mr. Rainor never said you could do this. Them’s crimes. We’re going to tell the wimps,” said the big Tony Porter, putting a hand on Linda’s shoulder.
“We own the police, you fool. You’re going to end up breaking rocks for your trouble. I’ve orders directly from Mr. Rainor, in person. Balmin!”
“He’s been detained,” said Inspector Johns, leaning around the open door. “Can I help you? Seeing as you ‘own’ me.”
The sight of the slouch hat and uniform made quite an impression on Ness. “I…I was just speaking rhetorically,” he said. “I meant no harm, really. Of course I was going to call the police. It’s just been really important to Westralia to keep the tunneling going.”
“Tell it to the judge,” said Inspector Johns.
“Oh, by the way,” said Clara’s mother, putting her hand on Linda’s other shoulder. “Miss Darlington is not my daughter. And I am not dead. Now, would you like to explain where you thought you were going to send my daughter?”
“Not unless he wants me to march his teeth out of what he sits on,” growled Gordon, the submariner who’d been playing a plainclothes witness. “Better stay in jail, because we won’t need a list to remember you.”
“I want a lawyer,” said Ness, looking like a cornered rat.
“Mr. Cheswick?” asked Lieutenant Ambrose.
“Yes!” said Ness.
“I believe he’s going to be one cell over from your dear boss for his role in attempting to subvert a witness. We’ll get him to talk to you once the clanker takes you down to Ceduna. Now, we need a secure place to lock these two up, and we need to round up the rest of those who might try to stop a police investigation. I think this place could be the scene of at least one crime.”
Linda had no part in the arrest of the shift-captain or the foreman. She was up at the wing, writing a reply to her father’s message. He wanted to know if she had suffered from frostbite and if her lungs were all right…and nothing about Nicky. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or worried that it was not being mentioned.
The WMP, however, were making sure that her ex-boyfriend’s boss was not going to be happy. Linda was pretty certain it was deliberate, she just wasn’t quite sure why. They declared the tunnel a crime scene and off-limits until further investigation. They declared the newly returned steam mole a crime scene. They found McGurk, who had been relegated to a back office and was steaming about that…and charged him, too. When the clanker came in the morning, the prisoners would all be on their way to Sheba in irons. The WMP were playing very hard, it seemed.
Linda knew, from having been on the breakfast table fringes of politics, that they didn’t usually treat Westralian businesses that harshly. She had to wonder just what her father and some of his friends, like Colonel Clifford, were up to. It was more than just a murder investigation or cover-up.
“So, what do we do when we get to Queensland?” asked Tim.
Tired, dusty, but with the tender filling up with a stock of short sections of hardwood that were, hopefully, going to work on the conveyor. Otherwise they’d have to hand feed the furnace, which would be hot and difficult. Using the axes and bow-saw had been hard work already, but it might save them later. Wood was scarce out on the plains, but quite available in the gullies. They’d stopped near a huge tangle of flood-washed, bone-dry wood in a braided river bed. They’d spent most of the daylight hours cutting wood, except during the middle of the day, when they lay in the shade, drank water, and talked. And talked. It seemed like years they had to catch up on, not weeks.
“I guess the first question is how do we even know when we’re in Queensland?” said Clara, wishing of all things t
hat she could have a bath. “I know there are tropical forests on the coast, but his letter said it was very hot and humid at first, but the country outside the prison was baked brown. He said he’d landed at Rockhampton and been transported as far inland as the railway would go. It was called Winton Prison, so I suppose it must be somewhere near Winton. Looking at the map it appeared to be about two hundred and fifty miles east-southeast of Dajarra.”
“Well, I suppose tomorrow, really early, we better start heading east-southeast, then. And burrow if we see problems and sneak in at night. I’d start tonight, but I am so tired I’d fall asleep. I’m sorry, Clara.”
“And why should you be?” she said, reaching out and giving his arm a squeeze. “It’s barely a ton of wood we’ve shifted, to say nothing of a few little adventures with wild savages.” He was like that, always thinking he should do more.
“They weren’t exactly savage,” he said, slightly defensively.
“It’s what they’d have been called back in Fermoy,” said Clara. She hadn’t meant it nastily or anything. They just didn’t wear a lot of clothes and used spears. Obviously Tim was bothered by it.
He yawned, then said, “The world’s a bigger place, and not quite everything in Fermoy was perfect. Like that school you talked about…”
“Fair enough, Tim Barnabas.” She yawned, too. “We’re not in Fermoy. And we’re not on the Cuttlefish, either. I’ll fall asleep on my feet any moment now. Which means you get to kiss me good night.”
He grinned. “It’s not all bad here.”
They awoke long before dawn. Clara had slept well for the first time in what felt like forever, feeling the warm comfort of Tim lying against her back. It was most improper, she knew. But then, having finally found Tim, there was no way she was sleeping anywhere but right next to him. And there were dingoes and wild aboriginals out here. She wasn’t sure how dangerous either were, but there was no sense in taking any chances. She knew that the snakes, scorpions, and spiders were deadly enough.
They ate. The steam mole was provisioned for two men for a couple of weeks, but much of what there was was in the form of flour and other dry goods. Despite working in the galley for Cookie on the Cuttlefish, neither of them were too confident about cooking. The condensed milk and biscuits they knew what do with, however. And tea. Clara had always wondered just why her mother made such a fuss about tea…until she hadn’t had it for a day or two. In the dawn they got the steam mole primed and going and set out. It was just so much easier with two people.
Jack and Lampy and the soldier, McLoughlin, had ridden for another two hours before stopping. Lampy noticed the horses were pulling south and guessed what it meant. “They smelling water, Jack. Give ’em their heads.
The horses took them to water, which was amazing in itself, nearly as amazing as water existing out here. Jack had a feeling that the billabong—which was what Lampy called the long, limpid pool that remained on this bit of otherwise dried-up river—wouldn’t look so good in the daylight, but right now it saved them water, and there was a little feed there for the horses to supplement the rations they carried. It was hard to add looking after the horses into the list of things that had to be done, but Lampy just couldn’t. His ankle was swelled up like a balloon. Jack had him lying on his back with it up, kindling the fire, while he unsaddled and hobbled the horses. The saddlebag had revealed, among other things, a small bottle of rum, and Jack gave the soldier some. He wasn’t sure, medically, if it was a good idea, but the man was in pain. He offered some to Lampy, too, for the same reason. The young half-aboriginal lad—Jack had found out that his father had been a “whitefeller”—shook his head violently. “I don’t drink that stuff, man. I seen what it does. My pa wasn’t a bad feller when he wasn’t drinking.”
“Some people can’t tolerate it. My friend Padraig was a doctor, and he reckoned the tendency ran in families.”
“I’ll have his,” said the soldier, his voice weak and tremulous, betraying his bravado. “I feel a little rough, and it might smooth the ground.”
“I’ll save it,” said Jack.
He let them sleep a while, and sat there looking at the stars reflected in the narrow band of water tucked between the trees. Their chances had improved vastly with the horses, water, and rifles, but from what McLoughlin had let slip there were other hunters out there, other groups searching the desert, mostly to the south of them. They couldn’t be that far away. He regretted that he hadn’t shot to kill the tracker. But Jack came from a background that held life as precious and not to be taken lightly, or if there was choice. But by now, the tracker could have found another party. And then the chase would be on again. The question in Jack’s mind was just how far it was to the underground railway of the Westralians? Would he find it? Or would he simply ride over it? And what did he do with the boy? Lampy was so set against the Westralians, with good reason, but with that foot he was in no state to cope with the desert.
Jack dosed a bit. Some rest he had to have, but years of practice had made him quite good at not sleeping too deeply. Mary slept like the dead when she slept, and if his little Clara had called out, it had been Jack who had got up to tend to her. Thinking about his wife and daughter and being free to maybe see them again one day made that light sleep more refreshing. He woke, somewhat later, when the soldier groaned in his sleep.
Long before sun-up they rode somewhat north of due west. “Might be chased by the other soldiers,” Jack explained. “If the tracker finds them and tells them. Where do you think’s best, lad?”
They were on a slight rise, and in the clear sunrise they could see right across miles of flatland into the rougher country beyond. It all looked so endless, and so empty.
Lampy’s foot and ankle felt better when he woke, but it didn’t last with riding. The throbbing wasn’t helping him think. But the Irishman was right, it wouldn’t take the tracker all that long to find the other soldiers. They’d probably get some other men, too, now that he and Jack had guns.
Jack called him “lad.” Asked for his advice. He was a different whitefeller to the ones Lampy had met around his father. Different to the prisoners and the guards, too. “Look, we stick to the side of the channel. That big plain…it would be faster to cross, but we’d be visible for miles.
“We go a little north. And then you can see that darker line. That’s a channel. Got some scrub trees. They won’t see us so easy, we won’t raise so much dust. We go ’long that. In them hills over that side, we can rest out the hot time of day. If they come for us…we’ll see them, too. We can run then.”
So they turned north and then along the edge of a braided dry creek set about with scattered, scrubby bushes rather than trees, moving across the plain just a few feet lower than the skyline. It was pretty flat, this country. They crossed the broad central braid of the dry river and then went north until they found another dry course going west. It was a good part to get across before the midday heat, and it was already warm.
Lampy ached. Both he and the soldier had chewed quids of Pituri leaves he’d spotted on a nearly dead plant, which had helped a bit. But he was still sore. The sun was starting to get toward where they’d have to find some shade—maybe something in the rocks in the rough country. And then Lampy spotted the smoke trail a little to the south out on the plain. He pointed it out to Jack, who rode south a little away from the slight valley.
Jack called back, “I’ve never seen anything like it, but it’s not chasing us.”
Lampy and the soldier rode over to him, and there, out on the plain, maybe two or more miles off, in the shivering heat, was a machine, smoke coming out of its low stack. At this distance, Lampy couldn’t see a lot more.
“Looks like a steam car of some kind. The question is, whose is it?” asked Jack.
The soldier was slumped on the horse, staying on more by habit than any reflection of his condition. He was as white as a ghost. “Ain’t ours,” he muttered. “Mus’ be them Westralian bastards.”
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p; “Well, we’d better see if we can signal to them or catch them,” said Jack.
Lampy held up his hand. “Jack…you hear something?”
He definitely could, and it was nothing he’d ever heard in the desert before. Then he worked out what he was hearing. Up in the sky was one of those flying balloons. He’d heard of them. Never seen one. It was long and white, and even from here he could see the Union Jack painted on the tail. The noise came from its motors.
“Back to the dry bed,” said Jack urgently. “It’s got to be hunting us.”
Tim and Clara had made slow going across the rougher country. There were rocks and gullies and steep spots they just had to avoid. Tim saw what he’d believed was a power station in the distance two days before. In the early morning’s clear dry air it was obviously just a tall, monolithic rock. They moved past it and out onto a vast, flat plain, not a tree to be seen, just a distant, heat-quivering horizon.
“Well, at least we’ll be able to move a bit faster,” said Tim. “No gullies to fall into, anyway. But I hope we have enough fuel. There’s nothing out there, is there?”
“It’s almost like the sea,” said Clara. “I was thinking, the only way we’re ever going to find my dad without getting caught is to get ourselves what all those old books call ‘a trusty native guide.’”
“So long as you don’t have any ideas that I am one. I’ve had being taken for the locals, just because of the way I look to the back teeth. I’m thinking of getting ‘my dad came from Jamaica’ tattooed on my forehead,” said Tim, as they trundled out onto the plain, crunching over scattered tufts of dry grass, heading toward the distant horizon.
“Maybe you could get them to talk to us, though.”
“I wouldn’t know where to—What’s that?”