Wings Above the Diamantina

by Arthur W. Upfield

“We have a long swim yet. I want you to understand that Illawalli must be taken to Coolibah as quickly as possible. You have to help him and not bother with me. You have to take him to the white feller doctors at Coolibah. Illawalli, my old friend, you have to put up a big fight. When you reach Coolibah tell them who you are. Tell them that you have come to read the mind of the sick white woman. They will take you to her. You will touch her and read out her mind to the white feller doctors what you see there.”

  The old and marked face melted into a smile.

  “You funny feller, Bony. We go where you go,” Illawalli said.

  “Too right!” agreed Shuteye.

  “Me, too!” added Bill Sikes. “You blow out, Shuteye he help you. Ole Illawalli blow out, me help him. Too right!”

  “Neither of you alone can help Illawalli to reach dry ground. If you don’t do as I say we may all be drowned. No, you both must help Illawalli.”

  “Too much talk,” Illawalli pointed out impressively. “Like white feller, we throw ’way too much time. Water—she get higher and highest and she run fast and fastest. Plenty time corroboree talk afterwards, eh?”

  “Confound you for staunch fellers,” Bony shouted.

  Together they stepped into the water and swam. Careful not to expend energy through fighting the current, they swam steadily.

  There was no cease from effort, no respite during which strength might be recuperated. Bony’s arms now were filled with lead. His thighs were aching with cramp. He was being swept into a tree-top by a strength greater than his own, a tree-top rushing at him with traps set beneath and above the water, fashioned by its gnarled branches.

  He felt a body beside his own—a body that pushed vigorously. Shuteye cried out:

  “Swim, Bony! Swim, Bony! Go on, swim, Bony!”

  With the low measure of his failing strength, Bony struck out. Cramp! He was getting cramp in his legs. They felt dreadful. If only he could stop movement and rest. What the devil was Shuteye punching him for?

  “Take ’er easy, Bony,” shouted the fat man from beside him. “Clear water now. On your back! On your back! Ole John Kane, he war perched in tree like a fowl. You hear him screech?”

  Bony obeyed. The clear dome of the restful sky met his weary eyes. His mind was dominated by a strange lethargy. He found that existence was quite pleasant: this drifting, this gentle drifting....

  “Come on, Bony! Give ’er a go! Kickum feet!” implored Shuteye. “Go on! You sleep? Kickum feet!”

  Bony obeyed, finding that the pain had gone, from his legs, but that still the molten lead remained in his bones. Time went on and on. Kick, kick, kick! Always kicking. Why was he always kicking? It was so senseless. He wanted just to rest.

  Quite without a period of transition, his mind became clear. He could hear Shuteye’s rasping breathing, and he felt the swirl of water about him created by Shuteye’s legs. And he knew that Shuteye would not abandon him even to save himself.

  “Let go!” he shouted weakly.

  Turning like an eel, he was swimming beside the gasping Shuteye. Now, so near that their whaleback summits towered above them, a range of sand-dunes, clean of herbage and light red of colour, was sliding northward. Desperately he swam. Someone was yelling, and because it was not Shuteye, he wondered who it could be. Now Shuteye was trying to shout, a gurgle in his voice. Bony was spent. It was now impossible for him to swim. Why swim, anyway? There was neither sense nor reason in swimming when he did not want to. The light went out in a red glare which quickly faded to complete darkness. Someone was still holding him, still punching him. It was not unpleasant, this surcease from action. Then the daylight burst into his open eyes, and he saw the ugly face of Bill Sikes. He smiled at Bill Sikes, and then closed his eyes.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  The Miracle

  IT WAS LIKE waking in the warm sunlight of early morning. The harsh cries of cockatoos came across the summits of the dunes from a line of bloodwoods behind them. But when Bony stirred and sat up he was violently sick. Beside him was old Illawalli, who took one of his hands.

  “I wait, Bony. I know you sleep. Bimeby you be all ri’. You jus’ tired, but bimeby you all ri’.”

  A peculiarly exquisite sensation was running up his arm above the hand held by the chief, a feeling that quickly banished the terrible lethargy of all his muscles. It crept all through his body and swept out of his mind the desire to sleep, like a fresh breeze off the ocean. Now, without assistance, he sat up straight. Illawalli continued to hold his hand.

  The westering sun hung above the distant lines of coolibah trees ranged beyond the wide stretch of water visibly running past them—water which the circular line of dunes pressed back to the west. Bony and his companion sat within a few feet of the brown flood, while farther along the “shore” Shuteye was working a pointed stick with his hands, and Bill Sikes was determinedly blowing into a little pile of dead and powdered speargrass among which the stick point was buried. Smoke was rising from the grass pile, and the fat man was urging the other to blow harder.

  “That Bill Sikes, he fine feller,” Illawalli said with conviction. “He grab me and he pull me out of the water. Then he run alonga sand range and in he go for you and Shuteye. Shuteye he not let you go till he pretty near dead drowned, and Bill Sikes he have to get Shuteye and you out together. No Bill Sikes, Bony, you dead now, all ri’!”

  “I can believe that, Illawalli. How do you feel?”

  The old man’s black eyes twinkled. The white stubble of beard and the fringe of scant white hair, to be seen below the flying helmet, emphasized the colour of his skin.

  “We rode the emu that flies, the white captain and me,” he said. “We see the clouds of the beeg storm ri’ close. Then we go look over top of them. Cripes, I was cold, Bony! I shiver. I want little fires all round, but I don’ mind. The emu that flies couldn’t get over that storm. She thunder and she lightning. Funny, I want to puff and puff, and puffin’ no good. Then the white feller captain—him good feller all ri’—him send that emu down closer to ground and I stop puff puffing and don’t want little fires no more. Then we get closer to the storm and presently we fly over station homestead. But it ain’t no plurry good. We’re too late for the emu to stop and have shuteye. We fly along above track. Then we see house. Then we come down, and the emu begins to run alonga ground. Woof! Bang! Som’it hit me wallop, and I go shuteye.

  “I wake up with little white feller looking at me, and tall white feller clost. He had beeg eyes and a devil in his mouth, and he say: ‘You Chief Illawalli?’ I say, yes, too right! He say: ‘You come see Bony?’ I say, yes, too right. He say: ‘I take you see ole Bony. This, white feller, he take care of white feller captain.’

  “So off we go in motee car. She rain and she thunder and lightning, and the tall white feller he drive motee like hell. Presently we stop at a pub like that one up in Burketown. Then white feller with devil in his mouth, he say: ‘You gotta stop here and wait for Bony. Bony come bimeby. Then he take me down steps. He go away and come back with pannikins and a little devil you take off shiney things from bottles. Him not too bad. We drink up goodo. I have a shuteye long time, wake up, and a drink up goodo, go shuteye some more. Bimeby little feller white feller he came down and he say: ‘How you do, Illawalli? You have good drink up. All yours. You no pay. So I drink up like an ole fool. Now ole Illawalli him pretty crook.”

  “Did the devil in the white feller’s mouth go like this?” asked Bony, imitating John Kane’s peculiar mouth twitch.

  “Too ri’!” assented Illawalli. “Now whaffor you want me, Bony?”

  “You ’member long time ago I sent an emu that flies to bring you to a station called Windee, and there you met old Moongalliti and told me all that was in his mind?”

  “’Course! I don’ forget. You ’member I wantum to be beeg feller blackfeller with ole Moongalliti and I gave him white feller dope and then when he plenty sick we go look-see him and I give him blackfeller dope make him well. Me, I b
eeg blackfeller after that. Too right!”

  Bony told all he knew concerning the condition of Muriel Markham, and of his hopes that, by the aid of his remarkable powers, Illawalli would read the young woman’s mind and tell them many things.

  “Goodo! I see what she thinks.” Then the ancient chief leaned towards Bony, his keen eyes studying the detective, in them a look of entreaty. “An’ you ’member me say one, two, three times me say, I give you the secrets my father give me and his father give him and so ’way back before Ara waded through the sea to come and drop spirit babies in the bush to wait for blackfeller lubras to come by?”

  “Yes, I ’member,” assented Bony wistfully. “But the price you ask I cannot pay. Do not tempt me again, Illawalli. I cannot pay it. I cannot give up my whitefeller life to rule your tribe after you dead.” Then, as though to put temptation behind him, he called to Shuteye. “Hi, you Shuteye! That tobacco dry yet?”

  The two blacks had kindled the fire and were drying tobacco and cigarette papers. At Bony’s voice they turned about to grin delightedly at him, and Bill Sikes called out:

  “You good, Bony! You wanta smoke?”

  Bony stood up.

  “I do,” he replied. “How far are we from Coolibah?”

  “’Bout ten mile,” replied Shuteye.

  “Then, when that tobacco is dry, we will be getting along. I’m hungry. We all must be hungry.”

  “Too right, we’re hungry,” agreed the fat Shuteye. And Bill Sikes asked:

  “Hey! Wot are we gonna do with Mr Kane? He’s roostin’ like a fowl in a tree out there.”

  “Where?” demanded the astonished detective.

  “Out there!” shouted Shuteye mirthfully. “We come along pass him, ’member, when I lug you alonga.”

  They pointed to the nearest line of coolibah trees, fully a third of a mile across the brown flood, and, knowing the aborigines as he did, the detective was astounded by the casual manner in which John Kane’s dangerous position was made known to him. Illawalli had recited his adventures; the others had laboured at making a fire with primitive methods: all while a white man was in grave danger of drowning.

  Faintly from the north the soft chug-chugging of a motorcycle engine reached them, and above the relief that Kane had not reached Coolibah was now the satisfaction that Constable Lovitt was approaching. The aborigines—their philosophy in many respects was delightful—thought to do nothing until their leader Bony, should recover sufficiently to continue to give directions with regard to the rescue of a man whom they knew was to be arrested.

  Lovitt came in sight, riding his machine with practised facility along the foot of the sandhills. His progress was necessarily slow, and it was some few minutes before he arrived.

  “Glad to find that you got over all right, sir.”

  “Yes,” admitted Bony. “We have had a long and arduous swim. I would have been drowned had it not been for Shuteye and Bill Sikes. I shall make it a point to see that they are suitably rewarded.”

  “I did not meet John Kane, sir,” Lovitt explained. “When I came to the flood I knew that if either you or he did escape it that you would land far south of the road crossing. Have you seen anything of him?”

  “Oh, yes. Like us, he was caught,” Bony replied. “Only a minute ago my attention was drawn to the fact that he is now roosting like a fowl in one of the nearest line of coolibah trees. How we are going to rescue him I do not rightly know. I am afraid I could never manage it.”

  Lovitt gazed out to the trees and vainly tried to pick out John Kane, despite the eager assistance of the two blacks. They could see him, they asserted, but the constable could not make him out until he used the field-glasses he carried in his kit-bag.

  “Yes, there he is,” he said. “He’s in that largest tree towards the end of the line. Well, sir, I think I’ll go out for him.”

  “The current is very strong, Lovitt,” Bony pointed out “There is no possibility of obtaining a boat, I suppose?”

  “’Fraid not, sir. No, I’ll have to swim. Will you come with me, Sikes?”

  “Too right!” replied the ugly but tough aboriginal.

  “Me too,” chipped in Shuteye. “We go up river about a mile, swim down to Mr Kane, and then fetch him out alonga that sandhill down there.”

  “That’s sound,” agreed Lovitt. He eyed Illawalli and said: “You can come with us up river and take charge of our clothes. Bring them down to where we’ll get ashore.”

  They all walked northward along the edge of the river for nearly a mile until Lovitt decided, after a searching study of the flotsam, on the place to take off. White man and blacks stripped, and with dawning comprehension Bony watched the constable strap his pair of handcuffs to his naked waist.

  “I may have to knock him out, sir,” Lovitt said casually.

  “You may,” Bony gravely agreed. “If he refuses to leave his perch there will be nothing else for it. Good luck!” Illawalli and he picked up the constable’s uniform and the blacks’ clothes, and slowly walked downstream watching the bobbing heads. Wisely, Lovitt allowed Sikes to lead, and the watchers saw how Sikes craftily swam with the current and yet edged constantly farther from the shore. Presently, when the three were being swept swiftly downstream, Bony and the old chief were forced to walk rapidly.

  They could just see the three heads reach the tallest tree of the line, and after that they could not follow what happened. It was Illawalli who first saw the three rescuers far below the tip of the tree line, and they left to walk on round the great natural bay created by the sand-dunes that turned the flood westward.

  They were standing waiting and watching Lovitt and Bill Sikes bringing ashore the inert figure of the Tintanoo squatter. They waded into the flood to assist them, and Kane was dragged to dry land.

  “Half-drowned?” Bony inquired.

  “No, he is all right,” Lovitt panted. “As I expected, he wouldn’t leave the tree. I had to go after him, and got badly scratched. Was compelled to knock him out; but we got him, and that’s the main thing.”

  Dr Stanisforth straightened up from his bent attitude over the patient at Coolibah, removed the earpieces of the stethoscope, and looked at Dr Knowles with eyes from which hope had vanished.

  “She is very low,” he said, “but her vitality is extraordinary, and she may live yet another week. At the moment she is not asleep; she is insensible. She may never regain consciousness.”

  “Then we may no longer hope to save her?” whispered Elizabeth.

  “Her condition has failed to react to all our treatment. We have done everything that medical science has made possible.”

  Knowles turned his anguished face to the wall. The specialist looked pityingly at him. Elizabeth Nettlefold stepped swiftly to the younger man’s side and was about to say something when the door opened.

  Bony stood surveying them. He glanced across at the white figure on the bed. Knowles leapt across the room so that they stood face to face, the doctor’s eyes desperate, the eyes of the detective without expression. Then, into the tense hush broke the soft voice of the half-caste.

  “Will you permit my friend, Illawalli, to visit your patient, Doctor?” he asked quietly.

  “What! You have found that aboriginal witch doctor? You have come through the flood?”

  “Yes. Illawalli is outside, awaiting your permission to enter.”

  The hope blazing from Knowles’s eyes subsided.

  “You are too late,” he said bitterly.

  “Then Miss Double M is dead?”

  “No, Mr Bonaparte, but she is close to death,” Stanisforth answered. “She is no longer conscious.”

  “Even so, you will allow my friend to see her?”

  The specialist shrugged. “Your friend can do no harm,” he grudgingly conceded.

  “Very well, then. Kindly do not interfere with Illawalli.”

  Opening the door, Bony beckoned, and there entered the tall, gaunt figure of the old chief still wearing the flying helmet
.

  “Illawalli,” Bony said softly, “the white woman is dying. Can you read the mind of a dying woman?”

  The incongruously-dressed ancient swiftly appraised the others.

  “I have been thinking,” he said. “Maybe it is as I have thought. Give me light.”

  Bony switched on the ceiling light. Illawalli passed to the bed, and gazed down at the wasted, expressionless face. The silence within and without the room was profound. The specialist was visibly sceptical, but on Elizabeth’s vivid face shone the dawn of a great hope.

  With the ball of a little finger, Illawalli raised the patient’s eyelids and gazed long and keenly into the vacant dark-blue eyes turned slightly upward. For fully half a minute he looked down into those vacant eyes, and then gently closed the eyelids. Taking up one of the waxen hands, he pressed the point of a finger into the flesh of the forearm, and Bony saw that the little pit in the flesh made by the forefinger remained clearly indented after the finger point had been removed. Gently the old man put down the nerveless hand and arm on the coverlet. Turning, he addressed Bony:

  “Come!”

  Then Dr Knowles was standing before them, his eyes glassy, his mouth trembling.

  “You can do nothing? You cannot read her mind and tell us who drugged her?” he cried savagely.

  “No. Ole Illawalli cannot read the shuteye mind,” Illawalli replied with regal dignity. “You wait. Bimeby me and Bony come back. Bimeby sick white woman no shuteye. She get up! She talk! She laugh. Come, Bony!”

  Together they passed out of the room, and when in the corridor the old man said sharply:

  “Light, Bony! Bring beeg feller light.”

  The detective found Mr Nettlefold in the study, and the cattleman produced a lamp which gave a brilliant light. Illawalli took it and, with Bony at his heels, hurried from the house. The chief led the way past the men’s quarters, on down the creek now filled with the flood water, and then, like a gnome of vast proportions, he set to work gathering the leaves of certain plants brought up by the recent thunder-storms.