‘That is a crimson rosella and it is caught in something,’ she decided.
She pointed and even as she opened her mouth to speak she got a shock as she recognized what was happening. ‘That is a mist net! That bird is caught in a net!’ she thought. As a host of possible reasons for the net being there flitted through her mind Tina pointed and said, “This is a mist net. They are not legal, except for people with a special research permit.”
Stella frowned and looked at the net, the lower corner of which was secured to a tree trunk near them. “Maybe that is why it is here, a university project or some study by a park ranger?”
Tina was not convinced. “Might be, but I don’t like it. It seems fishy to me.”
At that Blake laughed and said, “That is a bird, not a fish.”
Andrew stepped over and gently felt the nylon mesh. As he did he looked at Tina. “Do you think it might be more of those bird smugglers, like we ran into at Koombooloomba Dam?”
“That’s what I am afraid of,” Tina replied. She was now feeling very uneasy. Her emotional state was added to by concern for the parrot, which was now struggling strongly to try to free itself. As she studied it she became aware of a tinkling sort of noise. Guided by her ears she looked and saw that several tiny bells were attached to the net and it was these that were making the noise as the parrot struggled in the net.
Her mind tried to grapple with the implications of this and as it formed the idea that the bell was to warn whoever had set the net that something was caught in it she heard a squelching noise behind her. She glanced over her shoulder and almost fainted with shock.
It was a man
And not just any man. It was Danny the Bird Smuggler!
‘Danny!’ her mind shrieked. Memories of his threat to ‘get her’ swamped her with paralysing terror. Danny was looking very grubby and unshaven and was wearing an old jungle green shirt and grimy shorts. In his hand he had a bird cage. As he came up over the lip of the creek bank he saw them and stopped. His mouth dropped open and he swore.
Tina could only gasp and croak. The others turned to look and as they did Danny turned and bolted. He went back down the slope at a fast run and was lost to sight among the ferns and undergrowth along the creek bed.
Blake spoke first. “Who was that?” he asked.
“Danny!” Tina croaked. “The man who shot the ranger at Koombooloomba and who shot at us,” she replied.
“You sure?” Blake queried.
Andrew hurried forward to look down into the creek. “Yes. That was him. I won’t forget his ugly mug too quickly.”
“So the net was set by bird poachers,” Stella stated.
Tina nodded. “Definitely. Come on, we must get away from here.”
Stella frowned. “Why? There are four of us,” she replied.
“That won’t stop him,” Tina said with conviction, terrifying images of Danny shooting at them in their canoe swamping her mind.
Andrew nodded. “You are right. We are witnesses to a murder committed by him,” he agreed. “And this might be a good opportunity to get rid of us.”
That idea so terrified Tina she felt nauseous. ‘Oh my God! He will come back and kill me,’ she thought. She gasped and realized she was breathing very fast and sweating. “He said he would get me,” she added.
“When?” Andrew asked.
“During the holidays at Croydon, when I told the police about their plane landing on the lake there,” Tina explained.
Andrew nodded. “I remember you telling us. But is he alone I wonder?”
“Doesn’t matter. He will have gone to get his gun and he will be back in a few minutes. We must get moving,” Tina said, her voice almost a wail.
Stella looked around and the pointed back up the slope. “Do you mean go back up the mountain?”
Tina nodded. “If need be.”
Stella looked appalled. “Oh! I don’t think I can do that.”
“Then we must take to the jungle,” Tina said.
A very anxious looking Blake pointed down the valley and said, “What about going around him through the jungle?”
“Not a good place to try,” Andrew replied. “We are at the top end of a very steep gorge here and I think the country will be truly awful to try to get through if we go that way. I think we need to try to creep past him much closer.”
“But isn’t that dangerous?” Stella asked.
Andrew nodded. “Yes, but the officers are meeting us just over that way at a road. They will be able to contact the authorities.”
At the mention of the Officers of Cadets Tina calmed down a bit. “Try the phone and call them,” she suggested.
Andrew took out the phone but then shook his head. “No service down here in this valley,” he replied. Before Tina could suggest it he unclipped the radio and called on that. But there was no reply and Tina’s hopes slumped. She was now nearly hyperventilating and was almost twitching with fear. But her brain was working and so were other emotions.
“We must try to reach the officers,” she said.
“Why?” Blake queried.
“They might run into trouble too. We must warn them,” Tina replied. That notion had only just come to her but had instantly firmed into a moral duty that overrode her own fears.
“But they are adults!” Stella said.
That childish view annoyed Tina. “So was the ranger that Danny shot,” she retorted.
Stella looked sulky at that but Blake said, “We should dump these packs in case we need to run for it.”
Andrew nodded as he clipped the radio back on. “Good idea. We will hide them and we can always come back and get them later.”
He suited his actions to his words and swung his pack off, then walked into the jungle back up the track and pushed the pack out of sight behind a log. The others followed his example. Tina was so relieved to get rid of the weight that she almost sobbed. She kept glancing back along the track and her ears strained for any sound of Danny returning.
Then she glanced up at the struggling crimson rosella and two thoughts melded in her head into a desire to free the bird: out of pity for it and then from the fierce desire to deny Danny his prey. ‘I won’t let him get it,’ she thought. That urge helped calm her and she found herself pulling out her pocket knife.
“What are you doing?” Blake asked.
“I am going to set that bird free,” Tina replied.
“Why? Let’s go!” Stella cried. She was now clearly on the edge of panic.
“So that mongrel can’t get it,” Tina replied. Driven by a sharp spasm of anger and a desire to hurt that later made her feel ashamed she went over to the net and slashed at the ropes holding it up. As she did she knew she was being silly and that her actions were placing the others at risk. But she felt compelled to do it so she cut and sawed at the thin nylon ropes, while frequently glancing over her shoulder to watch for Danny.
Then another idea came to her. “Blake, use your camera to take photos please, lots of them.”
Blake nodded and pulled out his camera. He began snapping shots using his flash, changing distance as he did.
Andrew moved to help Tina, even thought Stella hissed at them to get going. Within a minute the whole net slid down in a tangle of slithery nylon. Tina pulled at the net and was amazed at what fine fibres it was made from- but how strong they were. Then she got tangled in it and frustrated. However she persevered and soon she had the bundle of net which contained the terrified parrot in her hand. Careful not to further injure the crimson rosella she took a firm grip and then very carefully eased and teased the net away from it. Andrew helped by holding parts of the net and by cutting bits that snagged on things.
Within a minute Tina had the bird free of the net but held firmly in her grasp. The terrified parrot immediately nipped at her, clamping onto the web of her left hand. The bite really hurt and the beak drew blood. She cried out softly in pain but was not diverted from her plan. After turning the parrot over to check it
for injuries she held it close and whispered, “You will be alright now fella! Fly away!”
With that she held both hands up and opened them. It took the parrot a few seconds to realize it was free and during that time Blake snapped two more photos. Then the parrot released its bite, flapped its wings and flew away. Within seconds it was lost to sight among the tree trunks and shadows.
Seeing it go gave Tina an intense feeling of pleasure and she smiled. Then Andrew took hold of her wrist. “Your hand, it’s bleeding.”
Tina glanced down and was shocked at the amount of bright red blood that was flowing in thick trickles down over her hand and fingers. Trying to make light of it she said, “It’s nothing. We will wash it when we find some water.” She was now focused on hiding- and on reaching the officers to call the authorities. She turned and began walking slowly down the slope towards the sound of running water.
The others followed: Andrew, then Blake and Stella at the rear. Tina glanced back to check and then focused all her attention on the jungle ahead. As she moved cautiously along her fear level went up again and she found she was sweating, dry in the mouth and that her heart was pounding so loudly it made it hard to hear.
A few minutes later she reached the creek. The old vehicle track dipped into the shallow water and then went up the other bank where it curved to the right out of sight. The creek was only a metre wide and ankle deep so she was able to step over it. As she did Andrew whispered, “You wash that hand and put a bandage on it. I will keep watch from up on the bank.”
Tina nodded agreement as she could feel blood dripping from her finger tips and she was worried about how bad the bite might be. Andrew went up the slope and Blake followed while Tina turned and knelt on some moss covered rocks to reach the water. The water was crystal clear and so cold it gave her a real surprise when she plunged her hand into it.
Stella joined her, still looking very fearful. Tina sighed with relief and then rubbed off some dried blood. She kept washing until she could see that the bite was really only a surface nip that had torn some skin. Watching the thin streamers of blood swirling away in the water reminded her of her First Aid lessons. ‘Only capillary bleeding,’ she told herself.
She had a small bandage in a pouch on her belt and she got Stella to bind this over the wound. Stella did her best but she was shaking so much that she made a bad job of it. That annoyed Tina but she managed to bite back the angry words that formed in her mind. Instead she said, “Thanks.”
Then she bent to have a drink and to wash her face. Stella did likewise. To Tina that mountain stream tasted better than anything she had ever drunk in her life. It instantly refreshed her and she was able to think more clearly. After another drink she took out her waterbottle and filled it. Stella followed her example. When she had drunk her fill and replaced the now full waterbottle Tina made her way up the bank to where both boys crouched in the edge of the jungle. “Go and have a drink and fill your water bottles,” she said.
“But what if the man comes back?” Blake asked.
“All the more reason to have a drink now. We might have to run off into the jungle and who knows when you might find more water. No. Do it now,” Tina replied.
Andrew nodded and made his way down past Stella. Blake followed. Tina crouched behind a big tree and peeked out to look along the overgrown road. She saw that it now ran parallel to the creek on an old bench cut, with the creek on the right and the hillside on the left- a dismayingly steep looking slope.
What was now bothering her was where Danny was. ‘What is he doing?’ she wondered. ‘Surely he has now had time to run back to the road to get his gun?’ she thought, remembering that Andrew had said it was only about a kilometre. From the depths of her memory she dredged up something Graham had said once about soldiers marching a kilometre in ten minutes. She glanced at her watch and saw that it was 3:50pm. ‘That is nearly twenty minutes since we saw him. He could appear at any moment.’
She tensed, ready to run for her life and fearing that the jungle would make it impossible to escape, particularly from bullets. ‘Oh hurry up!’ she fretted as the boys drank and filled their waterbottles in the stream behind her.
Several more minutes went by before the boys rejoined the girls. Tina sighed with relief and realized she had almost been holding her breath from anxiety. Andrew at once set off through the jungle between the creek and the road. Luckily it was mostly ferns, cycads and vines with no wait-a-while so they were able to push through it fairly easily.
Until Stella discovered the leeches!
She gave a little shriek that made them all turn and glare at her and hiss for silence. Stella gave them a guilty but panicked look and pointed. It was Tina’s turn to gasp. Two slimy, fat leeches the size of her little finger were attached to Stella’s forearm.
Blake wasn’t impressed. “They are only leeches. Here, just pull them off.”
“Aren’t you supposed to burn them off or put salt on them?” Andrew commented.
Tina answered that. “That works but I have read that it is very cruel as it causes the leech to die in agony.”
“So what?” Blake replied with a shrug.
“So it is cruel. Just pull it off,” Tina said.
Then she discovered a leech on her own left arm up inside the sleeve. It had latched on to the veins on the soft flesh under her wrist. She at once lost all interest in Stella’s minor problems and scratched at the thing until it came off. But then it bled worse than the parrot’s bite and more blood quickly stained the now crumpled and wet bandage.
Blake looked at the blood and nodded. “They spit an anti-coagulant onto you so that your blood thins and flows more easily.”
Stella was horrified. “Spits! Ugh! Will it get infected?”
Blake shook his head. “Shouldn’t. In the old days the doctors put them on to take out blood.”
“They still do,” Andrew added, searching his own clothes for leeches and plucking one off his trouser leg.
It took a couple of minutes for them to deal with the leeches, all finding a couple. Andrew then pointed to others that were wriggling their way towards them. When Tina saw one of the tiny things making it way across a leaf with a head-tail-head-tail movement she was both fascinated and appalled. Then it stopped and stood up, its whole body waving.
“It is sensing your body heat,” Blake explained. He flicked the leech away and grinned.
“Never mind the leeches, let’s get past this bird poacher,” Tina replied. She was dismayed that for a few minutes they had lost focus on the deadly danger they were in.
They moved on as cautiously as they could without actually creeping. Luckily there was a flattish area beside the creek and they could move along that. There was plenty of cover behind twisted tree trunks and rotting logs all covered in moss. The moss was soaked with water and Tina found her clothes and hands were soon grimy as well as slimy. The bandage became disgustingly soiled and began to unravel.
Ten minutes careful movement brought them to a section of the valley where some of the afternoon sunlight was able to penetrate. That made it less gloomy but added a shadow problem to the fieldcraft. Now Tina found it harder to see. And with the creek gurgling and tinkling along beside them she could not hear anything.
4:15 came and went. Tina began to fret about the officers walking into trouble. ‘If they aren’t already there,’ she thought anxiously. But she did not suggest using the radio in case Danny heard it. So she just kept on creeping from tree to tree, now ignoring the leeches and the wet moss.
Suddenly Andrew stopped and pointed. Tina crouched and then peered ahead to try to see what it was he was indicating. Then she saw it was a tent fly strung up between four trees. Underneath it was a jumble of boxes and gear. From the far side a faint column of wood smoke was rising through a band of sunlight.
“Their camp,” Andrew whispered.
Tina looked around and bit her lip. The camp took up most of the flat and was only a few metres from the creek. “
We will have to go around it on the uphill side,” she replied.
As she was closest she led the way, still moving with extreme caution. Every nerve was now alert and she knew she was quivering with tension and that she was sweating despite the chill mountain air that was now flowing down the gorge. Thirty paces had her at the base of the hill and another five had her up beside the old road on its bench cut. ‘We will have to cross this,’ she thought, knowing that could be risky.
For a few seconds she studied the slope on the other side. It was steep but covered with small trees. ‘We can pull ourselves up by them,’ she told herself. After another cautious glance along to her right she rose to her feet and went to step out onto the old road. As she did she glanced to her right again and the flicker of movement caught her eye. Fear coursed through her and she tensed and then felt she was going to die with shock.
Fifty metres away, hurrying along the old road towards her was Danny, and he was carrying a gun!
CHAPTER 22
JANGLED NERVES
For a second Tina froze. Then she realized that she was still half hidden behind a big tree and that Danny’s body language did not indicate that he had seen her. She began to ease herself back behind the tree, while at the same time gesturing frantically with her right hand to those behind her to stop and get down. To her relief they did.
“What is it?” Andrew whispered as Tina lowered herself to a crouch behind the tree’s buttress roots.
“He’s coming back and he’s got a gun,” Tina croaked. Heart in mouth she pressed herself in behind the mossy tree roots. She was terrified that Danny would walk past and see her and the thought of what he might then do to her almost transfixed her with paralysis. But she knew she had no other option but to try to hide- and hope. ‘We have made a terrible mistake!’ she thought as she strained her ears to detect his approach.
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