Behind Mt. Baldy

by Christopher Cummings

  Graham set off as fast as he could go.

  “Bloody hell!” Roger swore and lurched after him.

  The road curved around to the left, up over a low hill then down over another narrow concrete bridge before winding up over a steeper ridge. Thick jungle with lots of secondary growth hemmed them in. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the sun blazed down on them.

  “This is supposed to be winter,” grumbled Roger, wiping drops of sweat clear of his eyes.

  “Could be worse. It could be cold,” Peter reminded.

  Somehow Roger managed to keep up as they slogged along. He found himself counting paces. Then he called The Step to himself, “Left, Right, Left, Right, Left!”

  The road wound down across another narrow bridge. They passed a cattle yard full of beef cattle and several overgrown side roads. At the next bend to the left a side road went off on the right into a clearing among more pine trees.

  Peter gestured towards it and said, “That’s where we had the pretend fort in last year’s Senior Exercise.”

  Graham pointed along an overgrown road which led into the jungle on their left. “That is where we rescued the girls from a camp.”

  “That’s when you fell in love with Tina, the navy cadet,” Peter teased.

  “Oh I did not! She’s Andrew’s girlfriend,” Graham replied hotly. They fell to discussing how Tina had gone missing, kidnapped by the bird smugglers. Andrew Collins had saved her in quite dramatic circumstances. As they talked Roger could only listen enviously. He had not been allowed to take part as he had only been a ‘First Year’ cadet at the time. Being those few months younger could be really annoying!

  The road went down across another bridge and then began to climb up a long slope with pine forest on both sides. Roger slowed down and fell behind. A car came from behind and left dust hanging in the still air.

  At the crest of the rise a well-graded road led off on the right. The sign indicated it led to School Point Campground. The others waited there for Roger to catch up. As soon as he did Graham set off again.

  “What about a blow?” Roger asked.

  “No!” Graham was adamant. “We should have reached ‘The Chimneys’ yesterday. We will stop there for lunch. It’s only another two kilometres.”

  Half a kilometre further on another good road led off on the right. This one led to Fongon Bay Campground. The main road went steadily uphill. One the left was rainforest and on their right a forest of mature pine trees which were clear of undergrowth. Buildings came into view ahead on their right. These turned out to be an old Forest Ranger Station. Graham just kept walking.

  A few hundred metres further on a gap opened up in the jungle on their left. Graham led the way across the road and stopped. Below them lay a small lake, half-covered with reeds and lilies.

  “Lake Euramo. It’s a volcanic crater lake,” he said.

  “I know. I’ve been here on picnics,” Roger said grumpily. “In a car.”

  They had all been there before with parents on sightseeing trips showing relations the Tablelands so they didn’t linger. Roger was feeling quite down by this time. His shoulders ached, his feet hurt, his chafing was starting to bother him again, his muscles seemed hot and he had a headache. He was in quite a bad mood.

  A few hundred metres along another large clearing opened up on the right. A couple of large trees stood in lawn and two brick chimneys stood beside a side track.

  “Two Chimneys,” Graham called back to cheer him up.

  “I can count,” Roger snapped. He was fast losing interest. All he wanted to do was stop and lie down.

  They walked to the shade of a large tree on the lawn between the derelict chimneys and the main road. Packs were dropped and Roger lowered himself with much sighing and groaning. He pillowed his head on his pack and closed his eyes.

  “Eleven forty-five. That’s not too bad,” said Graham. “We can have lunch. Till twelve thirty. Then we must push on. Let’s see if there’s a clue here.”

  He walked off towards the old brick and concrete chimneys, obviously all that remained of some house, followed by Peter and Stephen. Roger just lay there feeling sore and sorry for himself.

  Stephen found the clue almost at once, stuck up the rear flue of the left-hand chimney. The three walked back to Roger with their find.

  “We found it Roger,” Stephen called.

  “Good,” replied Roger without looking round.

  “Oh cheer up mate. It’s not that bad,” Graham said, sitting down beside him.

  Roger felt a bit churlish but didn’t reply. Peter sat on the other side. “Have some lunch Roger. You’ll feel better.”

  “And you’ll have less to carry,” Stephen added.

  Graham made a point of reading the new clue aloud. “Four words again. High School, Curtain Fig.”

  In spite of his mood Roger couldn’t help being interested. He opened his eyes and reached out. Graham passed him the clue. As before it was printed by hand in black felt pen on bright yellow paper and placed in a plastic bag.

  Roger looked at it and asked, “High School? Which High School? Where’s the nearest High School?” He tried to sort out the small towns which dotted the Tablelands. He had been driven across the Tablelands often enough but the layout and road network was just a maze to him.

  “There’s certainly one in Atherton,” Peter said.

  “And Malanda. Remember playing against them at the Sports Carnival?” Stephen reminded.

  “All you noticed were the legs of their girl’s basketball team,” Graham said with a grin.

  “So did you!” Stephen replied hotly.

  Peter chuckled. “I wondered when girls would re-establish their normal supremacy in Graham’s mind,” he commented to the nearby tree.

  Graham ignored his friends ‘dig’, being busy unfolding and smoothing the 1:100 000 scale maps. With a groan Roger rolled over and got to his knees to join the others studying the maps.

  “The Curtain Fig is near Yungaburra,” Stephen said. “My dad took me there once.”

  “We’ve all been there,” Roger sneered, “a dozen times. Every time relations come to visit.”

  They all looked at the map in the vicinity of Yungaburra. Peter jabbed with his finger. “There it is.”

  Graham bent to look closer, then checked a symbol on the map legend. “Yes. That’s it.”

  “How far is it? It looks a long way,” Roger asked, his eye following the circuitous route.

  Graham did some measuring. “Fifteen kilometres in a straight line. About thirty five or thirty six along the road.”

  “Thirty six kilometres! We can’t do that in one day!” Roger exclaimed.

  “Yes we can. We should be able to do about thirty,” Graham replied.

  “You might be able to,” Roger retorted.

  Peter interrupted. “If we have to we can camp along the way somewhere. We’ve come about twelve kilometres so far, so we can do another twelve today.”

  “Don’t forget we may have to go into Yungaburra to see if there’s a High School,” Stephen said.

  “No we won’t,” Roger said. “We can ask someone along the way.”

  “Good thinking,” Graham said. “Now, let’s have some lunch.”

  They dug around in their packs and began their meal. Roger opened a tin of sliced peaches.

  “Roger, I hope those peaches aren’t like the ones you took on that hike to Kuranda?” Peter asked.

  Roger snorted. It was an old ‘in-group’ joke from when they had found he was carrying a large tin of peaches ‘in heavy syrup’. He scanned the label. “No Peter. But what puzzles me, is why the clues have two places on them. Does it mean we have to go to the other places eventually?”

  “Probably,” Graham surmised, in between wolfing down Vienna sausages from a tin.

  The sound of a car coming from ahead drew their attention. Roger spooned peaches into his mouth, then looked up as the car drew closer. The car was white so the faint worry which had surf
aced subsided. Then he jumped to his feet, spluttering and dribbling juice.

  “Sgmrsh .. Iths .. It’s the Inspector!” He began to wave and yelled out as the car drew level. “Inspector!” (Inspector who? His mind tried to recall. Ah yes. Inspector Sharpe). The name came to mind when he saw the face with a moustache looking at him through the car window. For a moment he thought the police hadn’t heard him but the car began to slow and it turned off onto the side track.

  Stephen scowled. “Oh Roger! Why the bloody hell did you do that?” he asked.

  “We’ve got to tell them about the two men,” Roger replied, half oblivious of Stephen’s disapproval in his excitement.

  “They may have nothing to do with the murder,” Stephen said stubbornly.

  Graham joined in. “Roger’s right. Even if they haven’t, the police should know.”

  The police car drove back and stopped. The three detectives climbed out. All had discarded their coats in the heat and Roger felt a distinct thrill when he to saw they wore pistols in shoulder holsters. Inspector Sharpe removed sunglasses as he came over to them.

  “Hello lads. Lunch time eh? Nice spot for it. How’s the hike going?”

  “OK Inspector. But we saw these two men,” Roger said. He then described the incident. The attitude of all three policemen at once changed. They listened intently. Then Inspector Sharpe began to ask questions.

  “What time was that? About ten thirty. Where?”

  They showed him on the map. Graham made a quick sketch map on a page of his notebook, added the six figure Grid Reference, and tore the page out.

  Inspector Sharpe nodded his thanks. “Make of car? Good. Did you get its number?”

  Roger pulled out his notebook and gave it.

  “Good boy!” Inspector Sharpe said. At such praise Roger didn’t even resent being called a boy. Inspector Sharpe turned to his companions. “Foreigners in black with guns wandering around the jungle eh? I think we need to locate friend Bruno and his mate and have a chat with them.”

  He turned back to the cadets. “Thanks for this. This could be our most useful lead yet.”

  CHAPTER 7

  INTO THE JUNGLE

  When Roger heard that he felt a deep glow of satisfaction. Inspector Sharpe smiled at him and said, “You lads have been our biggest help so far and this lead may well crack the case. I think you deserve to know why I think that.” He looked at each in turn, then he went on. “We know who the dead man was. His name was Boris Krapinski and he was a European. The doctor in Atherton who did the autopsy recognized him as one of his patients. Mr Krapinski migrated to Australia about sixty years ago as a refugee after World War Two.”

  Roger couldn’t help exchanging a glance with Graham. He had just remembered the badge in his pocket and slid his hand in to hold it while he listened.

  Inspector Sharpe went on, “He was what was called a ‘Displaced Person’ and came from Kosaria. We’ve contacted the Kosarian Embassy in Canberra for more details but his neighbours and former workmates have given us an outline. Apparently he served as a soldier in the Kosarian Brigade with the British 8th Army in the North African and Italian Campaigns.”

  Inspector Sharpe paused to see if his young audience had enough history to follow him. They all nodded so he went on, “After the war he was one of those people who didn’t dare go home because the Communists had taken over, probably because they would have been imprisoned or shot, so he migrated to Australia.”

  “Curiously, although he lived in Atherton all those years he was never naturalised, that is, he didn’t become an Australian Citizen. I say curiously because there are quite a number of Kosarian migrants on the Tablelands and most have taken out Citizenship.”

  “He worked with the Forestry Department as an ordinary worker for over thirty years. That’s why we are here in the Danbulla State Forest. We’ve just been talking to the Forestry blokes at the barracks up the road. The interesting thing is that we were just on our way to Robsons Creek because of something they told us.”

  Roger was amazed, and his face must have showed it because Inspector Sharpe nodded and said, “Yes, one of them said he was driving back from Tinaroo on Saturday just before lunch and he saw Mr Krapinski come out of the jungle just beside the bridge at Robsons Creek. He was carrying a shovel. The man stopped to talk to him. They’d worked together for years and he just asked casually how he was getting on in his retirement and what he was doing with the shovel.”

  “He said Mr Krapinski was very abrupt and unfriendly and just got in his car and drove off. The forestry bloke was a bit miffed but thought that maybe Boris was digging up plants, which he shouldn’t do in a State Forest, so he forgot about it till we called this morning.”

  “So now you can see why, when you mentioned Robsons Creek and two men with guns searching the jungle, my ears pricked up. It all looks very odd.”

  Roger asked, “It was murder was it Sir?”

  “Yes. Shot in the head. We didn’t get the bullet but we got the one out of the tree. And yes, there were two different guns fired at the murder scene.”

  “Gosh!” Roger said. His mind raced with possibilities.

  Peter broke in. “You said the man lived in Atherton Sir?”

  “Yes. He lived alone. His wife died some years ago. We searched there yesterday afternoon. That raised our suspicions too, didn’t it Sgt Crowe?”

  The hard-faced, solid Detective nodded and sucked his teeth. “It certainly did Sir.”

  Inspector Sharpe explained. “We got there at about four p.m. but we were too late. Someone else had beaten us to it. The place had been searched. And I mean searched! All the carpets rolled up, cupboards emptied, wall panelling ripped off, floorboards torn up.”

  “What were they looking for?” Graham asked.

  “We don’t know. But whoever they are they must want it pretty badly. They must have spent hours ransacking that house.”

  The Detective Sergeant snorted. “And the bloody neighbours never heard or saw a thing!”

  Peter cut in. “Whatever they were looking for, it must be hidden in the jungle back at Robsons Creek.”

  “A treasure maybe!” Roger cried. He could not keep the excitement out of his voice. This was so interesting!

  Inspector Sharpe smiled. “Maybe. Whatever it is, it’s worth committing murder for. We are going there now to organize a full-scale search.”

  “Can we help?” Roger blurted out.

  “Roger!” Stephen and Graham both cried.

  Inspector Sharpe laughed. “Thanks son, but you’ve been a big help already. You’ve got a hundred kilometre hike to do. How much have you done?”

  “Only about twenty kilometres,” Graham answered.

  Roger felt annoyed and deflated. He didn’t want to walk a hundred kilometres. He wanted to solve this mystery. Then he remembered. “Oh Sir, we also found this badge. The blond man dropped it.” He pulled out the badge and passed it to the Inspector. While the three Detectives examined it he described how it came into their possession.

  Inspector Sharpe looked very thoughtful for a minute. He pursed his lips and tapped the badge into his left palm. “I will take this. We might get a fingerprint off it.”

  Roger flushed with shame. ‘What an idiot I am!’ He hadn’t thought of fingerprints.

  Inspector Sharpe saw his crestfallen look. “It’s alright Roger. You’ve been a big help. Now, finish your lunch and have a nice hike. See you later.”

  He turned and walked back to the police car with the other two detectives. Roger realised he was still holding his half-eaten tin of peaches in his left hand and felt a bit embarrassed. What a goose he was at times!

  The police drove off and the boys sat down and fell into animated discussion of all they had just been told.

  “Told you they were foreigners!” Peter said.

  Graham laughed. “Well you’d know, with a name like Bronsky!”

  Peter bridled. “That was my Grandad. Anyway he was a Russian, not a Kosa
rian. And besides, what would the Aborigines call you, you Scottish reject!”

  Stephen stopped the dispute. “Where’s Kosaria?” he asked.

  “Eastern Europe somewhere; the Balkans,” Peter replied.

  “It’s one of those little countries squashed in near Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece,” Graham added.

  They all accepted this without dispute knowing that Graham had an encyclopaedic memory for such things.

  “Isn’t it interesting?” Roger asked. “I think it’s the most interesting thing I’ve ever been involved in. I’d love to be there when they find the treasure.”

  “Treasure!” Graham snorted. “Old Boris probably got bumped off for playing around with his neighbour’s wife.”

  Peter laughed. “At his age! Ha ha ha! That’s what’ll happen to you. How’s Rosemary getting on these days?”

  Graham scowled. Rosemary, who was in Year 10, was obviously a sore topic with him at that moment. “Come on Roger, eat up. Time we were moving.”

  Roger bristled. “Just because Rosemary dumped you for that yob Nigel in Year 12 you don’t have to take it out on me by marching me to death.”

  Graham sucked his teeth and muttered but said nothing. Peter and Stephen grinned. Roger kept on eating, deliberately taking his time.

  Ten minutes later they hoisted on their packs and started walking. Roger looked back in the direction of Robsons Creek. How he wished they were walking that way! He would even walk fast if he could be there in time to help solve the mystery. With a sigh he turned his back and set off after the others.

  The road ran wide and straight for a kilometre. It was hot and dry and a passing 4WD full of tourists threw up the dust. Within a hundred paces Roger was perspiring and all his aches and pains had come back.

  After passing through another belt of jungle they came to the Forestry Barracks; two lines of sheds and huts facing each other across a hundred metres of open grass. There were several vehicles parked there but the boys saw no-one.

  The road then began to climb quite steeply and curved right. They passed into shade with the tree canopy meeting overhead. The leaves on the trees and bushes all looked drab with a coating of dust. Roger soon slowed to a crawl. Graham kept stopping and looking back impatiently. That annoyed Roger but he made the effort to keep plodding on.