Spirits of the Ghan

by Judy Nunn

  ‘What can I do for you, Lewis?’ Matt started out on a first-name basis, keeping his tone friendly and accommodating, although his reaction was rather along Gav’s lines. This is one stitched-up prick who wants to pull rank, he thought.

  ‘I’ll get straight to the point,’ Bisley said, ‘nothing to be gained by beating about the bush, is there?’ A rhetorical question to which Matt made no response – pompous to boot, he thought. ‘Besides, in your absence,’ the engineer continued, his emphasis managing to lend an accusatory edge, ‘I’ve discussed the matter in some detail with Mr Potts here.’

  ‘Oh yes? And what matter would that be?’

  Bisley waved the folder in an authoritative manner. ‘I have a copy of the final design drawings, together with a map of the originally proposed route, and there appears to be a distinct discrepancy.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Matt glanced at Pottsy, who proffered a helpless shrug that said I did what I could, mate, then returned his attention to Bisley, waiting for the man to go on.

  ‘Yes, that is most certainly so,’ the engineer replied archly. ‘Mr Potts has shown me a watercourse that you apparently believe could pose a threat during flood, but this has not appeared in any report my office has received.’

  ‘There are often things that don’t appear in reports, Mr Bisley,’ Matt said, trying not to sound arch himself. ‘You must understand this is difficult, uncharted terrain. If we had to await approval from down south for every slight allowance that needs to be made given the conditions the wilderness throws at us, the Ghan would never see the light of day.’ He was starting to sound pompous himself, he realised, but he was desperately trying to buy time. What should he do? What was there he could do?

  ‘This is hardly a “slight allowance”, Mr Witherton.’ Bisley’s tone was more than arch, now – he was positively scathing. Did the surveyor take him for a fool? ‘I have seen the watercourse, it would pose no threat in flood, and yet you have taken it upon yourself to alter the final route measurements without the authority to do so. I must warn you, I am here in an official capacity, and I can tell you right now –’

  Gav to the rescue … ‘If you’re here in an official capacity, mate, I’ve got a complaint to make.’ He strode over, coming nose to nose with the man, burly and belligerent.

  Bisley flinched involuntarily, but to give him his due he did not back away. Lewis Bisley was not one to be intimidated by a common thug. ‘And what complaint would that be?’ he asked icily. He would have preferred to turn his back on the man, but it wouldn’t look good if he ignored a worker’s genuine grievance.

  Gav could have decked the bloke. What gave the bastard the right to piss on him? This was just the sort of prick he’d like to take apart, but that wouldn’t do the Boss any good.

  ‘A legitimate complaint, that’s what,’ he said, ‘faulty machinery. You tell that to your cronies down south. Faulty machinery can kill a bloke, you know. There’ll be some hefty lawsuits when that happens, won’t there? I’ve got a bulldozer that’s a fucking death trap. You wanna come and look at it and make a report? You better, ’cos otherwise I’ll say you refused.’ Gav stabbed a beefy forefinger at the engineer’s chest, stopping just short of bodily contact – there was nothing to be gained by an assault charge. ‘And that won’t go down too well, will it. The bosses refusing to listen to complaints from the workers? That sort of thing can cause strife with the union –’

  ‘Okay, Gav, one thing at a time,’ Matt said, interrupting the tirade. ‘I’m sure Mr Bisley will file a complaint report on your behalf after we’ve addressed this current situation. Isn’t that right, Mr Bisley?’

  The engineer gave another curt nod, turned dismissively from Gav and was about to continue where he’d left off, but Matt got in first.

  ‘In the meantime,’ he continued ‘why don’t we take a walk, just you and me? We can follow your map of the originally proposed route, and you can see for yourself the deviation allowed for the watercourse. Which,’ he added as if it was a matter of great significance, ‘actually reappears up ahead as many of these creek beds do.’

  ‘If you wish.’ Bisley obviously saw no point in the exercise but, keen to get away from the oaf confronting him, he waited with tellingly frigid patience while Matt fetched a compass from the Land Rover.

  Pottsy watched the two set off. He was mystified. What was Withers up to? The watercourse didn’t reappear up ahead at all. The creek bed and rocky embankment he’d shown the engineer was the only evidence that could have held any possible validity for the route deviation. Withers doesn’t stand a chance, he thought.

  While Pottsy was watching them walk away, Gav was climbing into his four-wheel drive, bent on getting back to the worksite where he could tinker with his faultless bulldozer.

  They didn’t talk as they walked, the engineer purse-lipped, compass in hand, following the coordinates on the map while Matt silently offered something up into the ether that seemed suspiciously like a prayer. He was grateful to Gav – the interruption had bought him time to think. His thoughts had produced no concrete answers, admittedly, apart from the obvious fact that any further discussion with Bisley was useless, but he had come to a decision nonetheless. A desperate decision requiring a leap of faith that he very much doubted was in him.

  If you’re there, he thought – Charlie, Brian, any of the rest of your mob – I need help. It’s up to you now. I can’t save your site on my own. Everything’s over to you. Where do we go to from here? Tell me what to do.

  Even as he sent up his thoughts, a part of him questioned his foolishness. What the hell am I doing, he wondered, what sort of ridiculous nonsense is this? But as they approached the rocky hillocks, he found himself seeking contact with ever-increasing urgency. I must think the way Jess thinks, he told himself. I must think of the spirit world, of the ancestors. Save yourselves, he urged as if he actually believed they were there and could hear his plea. This man will destroy your site. Save yourselves! Save your sacred site! Tell me what to do!

  But nothing was happening. He felt no contact at all. No images appeared, sending messages and instructions as they had before. There was no dizziness, no headache, no threat of an impending blackout.

  As they stepped into the clearing, Matt didn’t know what to expect, although he was tense and certainly wary given his previous experience. But walking between the rocks and into the clearing’s centre, he continued to feel absolutely nothing.

  Lewis Bisley, however, did. For the past ten minutes, as he’d slowly traced every step of the route, Lewis Bisley had begun feeling increasingly ill. At first it was biliousness and, remembering the breakfast he’d had on the plane up from Adelaide, he’d wondered whether he’d contracted food poisoning. Then he’d felt hot and clammy beneath the light suit jacket, then just as suddenly he was chilled to the marrow, shivering even. Surely he was coming down with some sort of flu virus.

  Now as they walked into the centre of the clearing the real nightmare began. All of a sudden he was under attack. Things were crawling over him – torturous, unseen things – poking, prodding, jabbing. He dropped the compass and folder, papers spilling out onto the sand. He raked his face with his fingers, frantically trying to rid himself of the creatures that were attempting to crawl inside his nose and his ears and his eyes, intent upon invading his body in order to attack from within. What was happening to him? Where had these repulsive assailants come from? What hideous force had set upon him? Lewis Bisley had never known such terror.

  ‘Are you all right, mate?’

  Lewis didn’t hear Matt’s concerned query. He fell to his hands and knees, gagging. He couldn’t breathe. Some invisible power was strangling him.

  Matt dropped down beside the man. ‘What’s happening, Bisley? Are you all right? Can you walk?’

  Lewis heard this time, but couldn’t reply. He shook his head. Of course he couldn’t walk, he couldn’t even talk. He was dry-retching now, dry-retching and suffocating, tearing at his tie and his shi
rt collar. He wanted to scream ‘get me out of here’, but no words would come, just ghastly choking sounds. He’d be dead any minute,

  The man’s having some sort of fit, Matt thought, perhaps he’s epileptic or suffering a severe asthma attack. But just in case the seizure had something to do with the site, he grabbed Bisley under the armpits and dragged him out of the clearing.

  Once well removed from the site, Lewis Bisley seemed to recover. He sat hunched on the ground, his grateful lungs heaving in gobs of air. Squatting beside him, Matt was relieved the man’s condition had improved. Things had seemed a bit scary back there, he thought. Then suddenly Bisley was once again on all fours, this time puking into the dirt.

  Lewis looked down at the mess spewing from his mouth and pooling on the ground before him. This was not the breakfast he’d had on the plane. This black muck was not normal. This was evidence of his body’s invasion. Something horrendous had happened. He retched violently another two times, then finally it was over and he flopped back in the dust, exhausted.

  Matt wasn’t sure what to say. ‘I’ll collect the file and the compass, shall I?’ he offered lamely, gesturing at the papers that lay scattered about the clearing. Not unsurprisingly, he received no answer.

  He walked back into the centre of the clearing and, when he’d gathered the material together, he looked about the site, trying to feel an unearthly presence. Was that your doing? he asked, seeking a response. If so it was pretty brutal. No criticism intended, but you were a bit tough on him, don’t you reckon? He felt no unearthly presence and he received no response.

  Bisley had hauled himself to his feet by the time Matt returned. He was kicking dust over the black vomit and adjusting his tie and shirt in an effort to restore his dignity, but Matt could see he was a nervous wreck.

  ‘I don’t suppose you want to take a look at the watercourse over there,’ he suggested, pointing to the other side of the site where there was no watercourse at all. It was not his intention to torture the man further, he simply had to be sure there was an understanding in place.

  Bisley shook his head and, taking the folder Matt held out to him, set off in the direction from which they’d come.

  Matt kept pace beside him. They did not walk fast. Bisley was still in a dazed state, shaken to the core. Matt felt sorry for the man.

  ‘Actually, Lewis,’ he said, ‘I must tell you in all honesty that there have been other strange happenings back at that place. I’ve had a weird experience there myself, something totally inexplicable.’

  Bisley halted, and for the first time since the incident he looked Matt straight in the eyes, a look that Matt found extraordinarily vulnerable.

  ‘Some things are very difficult to put on paper,’ Matt continued with care, ‘virtually impossible to describe in a report. I thought, given the strangeness of that site …’ he paused, then added firmly in order that there should be no misunderstanding, ‘together with the watercourse, naturally, which was of some concern, that a slight deviation to the route was warranted.’

  Lewis did not trust himself to speak. He wasn’t even sure if he was capable of speech. His throat hurt and his head ached. But the nod he gave Matt clearly stated that they had an agreement.

  They walked on together in silence, and when they reached the vehicles where Pottsy remained patiently waiting, the three men shook hands all round.

  Pottsy was taken aback by the engineer’s dishevelled appearance and change in his demeanour. What had happened to the bloke’s arrogance? But he made no comment, and Lewis, now in the company of the Assistant Surveyor, felt obliged to offer some verbal comment.

  ‘All appears to be in order,’ he said with Herculean effort, his voice rasping.

  Then he climbed into his AdRail Land Cruiser and set off back to Alice Springs. No mention was made of Gav’s bulldozer.

  Pottsy openly gawked at Matt.

  ‘You won’t believe it,’ Matt said, looking at the Toyota receding into the distance. ‘You won’t believe what happened out there, Pottsy. I sure as hell can’t.’

  ‘Hey Withers, fancy a beer?’

  It was several days later when Fritz dropped by his donga, a couple of cans of 4X in hand. Matt had just come back from the ablutions block having showered at the end of a long work day, but Fritz hadn’t freshened up at all. Upon his return from working with the teams involved on the rail corridor’s construction Fritz had gone straight to the canteen and when Matt wasn’t there he’d grabbed a couple of beers and sought him out.

  ‘Sure, thanks Fritz.’

  Matt took the can he was offered and the two of them sat side by side on the donga’s low front step, the lanky Queenslander spider-like, all knees and elbows. There appeared no-one else about, the doors of the other dongas closed, the majority of workers having headed directly for the canteen, but Fritz kept his voice low just in case.

  ‘You’re in the clear, mate,’ he said. ‘The corridor’s followed your centreline to a tee and no-one’s said a bloody word. If any of the head honchos thought the route varied a little from the originally mapped path they never uttered a boo, at least they didn’t to me, and I’d be the one they would have headed for if they’d wanted to raise queries. The contractors just went right ahead setting out their pegs for earthworks and rail construction based on your final route measurements and now the corridor’s gone through. End of story.’

  ‘What about the progress reports?’ Matt asked.

  ‘Everything reported as normal, nothing untoward that the buggers down south could question, and no smartarse inspector turned up to run a spot check in order to big-note himself.’ Fritz clearly hadn’t heard about Lewis Bisley’s visit and Matt decided not to tell him; it wasn’t really necessary.

  The two clinked beer cans and drank a wordless toast.

  ‘Bloody lucky,’ Matt said.

  ‘Yep,’ Fritz agreed, ‘bloody lucky all right, but there’s a reason, at least in my opinion there is.’

  ‘Oh, and what’s that?’

  ‘I think the closer we get to Alice the less questions are being asked all round. We’re ahead of schedule and the field bosses can see the end in sight, so they’re not going to let up the pace now.’ He took another swig of his beer and added with a grin, ‘There’s a bonus for coming in ahead of schedule you know.’

  Matt returned the grin, inwardly breathing a sigh of relief. It appeared the waiting game was at long last over.

  He shared the news with Pottsy and quite a few more beers went down that night – in fact the two got rather drunk, something they never did mid-week. But then covertly changing the route of a mighty railway like the Ghan was hardly a run-of-the-mill achievement, was it?

  ‘What a coup, eh, Withers?’ Pottsy said as they toasted themselves yet again with their fourth 4X. ‘What a downright, bloody coup.’

  They were celebrating their cleverness in achieving a feat so audacious – they both knew that. In their excitement neither of them was dwelling upon the reason for their audacity. Certainly Pottsy had initiated the toasts with a big thank you to the ancestral spirits for scaring off Lewis Bisley, a fact that he’d found plausible from the outset. Indeed it rather surprised him that Withers still appeared resistant, persuading himself that Bisley may actually have had some form of seizure. Typical Withers, Pottsy thought fondly, everything had to have a logical explanation. But no matter. Right now they were concentrating on the self-congratulatory aspect of the exercise.

  The following Saturday in Alice, however, when he celebrated with Jess, Matt was reminded of their true purpose.

  ‘We did it, Jess,’ he said as they sat in the Tavern at the window table that seemed to have become theirs, ‘we actually did it,’ and he raised his glass.

  ‘You did it, Matt,’ she said after they’d clinked and drank, ‘you and the ancestors.’

  When he’d told her of the episode with the visiting engineer from Adelaide, Jess had of course been adamant in her belief. ‘The man didn’t have a fit at a
ll,’ she’d stated categorically. ‘Whether or not you were aware of it, you made contact with the ancestors. You asked for their help and they came to your aid, simple as that.’

  ‘Whatever sacred purpose the site serves it will never be desecrated,’ she now said, raising her glass and saluting him again, her smile jubilant. ‘You’ve preserved it for all time and the ancestors will thank you forever.’

  Jess’s elation should have meant the world to Matt, but instead it had a surprisingly sobering effect, reminding him as it did of the past months, during which the two of them had explored realms he had never known existed, realms he still didn’t altogether believe in, but which he felt in some way he’d been given license to enter.

  Where do we go to from here? He thought his own sense of elation skidding to a halt. Where do we go to from here? He felt becalmed, a ship on a windless sea, sails luffing uselessly. What were they to do now? Where was the force that had been driving them?

  His instant deflation was readable and at first Jess wondered why he’d become so withdrawn. Then she realised that he’d simply been celebrating the success of the undertaking, not the reason for it. Her reminder had brought him down, she thought, why? Surely he can’t doubt our purpose! Surely he can’t be questioning the very motive behind the action he’s taken. He mustn’t do that. He mustn’t!

  ‘Don’t doubt the goal we set ourselves, Matt,’ she urged. ‘Please, whatever you do, don’t underestimate the importance of preserving the site. Whether or not you believe in its spiritual significance, it must remain untouched. I know this.’ Her eyes implored him. ‘Don’t ask me how because I wouldn’t be able to tell you, but trust me, I do know this.’

  ‘I know that you know, Jess,’ he said reassuringly – she appeared worried, ‘and furthermore I accept the fact that you’re right.’ Then he added with an air of self-mockery, ‘I have no idea why I accept the fact that you’re right, but somehow I do. And unquestioningly, what’s more.’

  She smiled. ‘A leap of faith?’