Cockatoo

by Christopher Cummings

  After passing the old school house and driving through several more kilometres of tall pine trees they turned left along the Fongon Bay Road. Tina had forgotten just how far it was and the drive seemed to be interminable. It was all through pine plantations. Most of there were old and had a dense undergrowth of ferns and long grass. Several other side tracks went off but they all looked overgrown and muddy.

  It was nearly 4pm when they came out into the open beside the lake at Fongon Bay Picnic Area. Tina was instantly appalled. The whole place was a vast clutter of tents, vehicles and boats on trailers. There seemed to be tents and people everywhere. Tina had only ever been there when it was not a holiday and now she both amazed and disgusted. ‘This looks awful,’ she thought.

  But she held her tongue and could only shake her head sadly as they drove slowly along looking for the Creswells. The Fongon Picnic Area was on a long, narrow peninsula several kilometres long. The nearest and narrowest end was a flat, grassy area about a hundred metres wide and a kilometre long. This was where the tents were. Beyond that was a dense stand of mature pine trees.

  They found the Creswells on the south side half way along and Sarah came running happily out to greet her as she climbed out of the vehicle. Sarah’s obvious delight in her presence pushed Tina’s residual fears aside. ‘Besides, there are lots of people here,’ she told herself. In fact the impression she had was of a fairground. ‘Or a refugee camp,’ she added as she saw the litter and garbage on the grass. The sight of some of the camps astonished her. Some had three or four tents linked up with tarpaulins between or in front of them and many had chairs and tables and a few had portable stoves or barbeques and even a couple of fridges.

  ‘It is not really camping,’ she thought. ‘More like moving home!’ It seemed to her to be an awful lot of trouble for just a couple of nights.

  There was half an hour while the adults talked and Tina knew by the glances they cast in her direction that her mother and father were informing the Creswells of her emotional state. That made her blush with shame and regret that she had broken down. She had to reassure her parents that she did not want to go home. This decision was firmed up by seeing Sarah’s obvious disappointment when it was suggested.

  “I will be alright mum,” Tina assured her.

  But half an hour later, when her parents and Garth said farewell and drove away, Tina felt a sharp stab of anxiety. She tried to tell herself she was being silly as she was there with the Creswells and hundreds of other people but it didn’t help much. It was when the sun went down and Tina found herself surrounded by dark shapes of tents, boats and vehicles that the anxiety returned in such force that she almost experienced a panic attack.

  To her shame she was too afraid to go to the nearby toilet block on her own and waited until Sarah suggested they go. Later, as the family settled down for bed, Tina looked out across the dark waters of the bay at the even darker line of pines on the opposite shore and she began to shiver.

  “I must be safe here with all these people around,” she told herself. “The smugglers wouldn’t come here.”

  But it was no good. She became so scared she could hardly speak. Not wanting to alarm or bother her hosts she said nothing and gratefully unrolled her sleeping bag well inside the tent next to Sarah. Then she lay down and after the lantern was turned off tried to calm her racing heart and trembling limbs.

  Map 2: Lake Tinaroo

  CHAPTER 28

  PYTHON POINT

  It took a long time for Tina to relax and even longer for her to drop off to sleep. Not only was she tormented by vague fears of the bird poachers but there was nagging worry about whether Andrew loved her. When she did slip into a restless sleep it was to suffer an awful nightmare that involved the lake. She and Sarah were out canoeing and the water was calm and it was a bright sunny day. But suddenly Tina found herself alone in the canoe and it was dark and there were waves. Worse still there was a current which was dragging the canoe along and her mind kept dredging up some fear that made her paddle frantically. But she was not strong enough. And then a ghastly, clutching hand came up out of the water. Tina stared at it- quite paralysed by fear- until the hand suddenly grabbed at her paddle and snatched it out of her hand.

  She screamed, or tried to, only managing a strangled groan. Then she began to use her hands to paddle with. But every time she went to dip her hands into the water it took a huge effort of willpower as she was gripped by the terrible thought that The Hand would reach up and grab her. Frantically she cast around, trying to locate it in the dark waves and rippling current. But it was- yes- there it is! It is coming to get me!

  She woke, trembling and all tangled up in her sleeping bag. For a few second she lay, gasping for breath and looking anxiously into the darkened corners of the tent. Only after about ten minutes did she stop trembling and get her breathing back to normal.

  ‘Just a silly nightmare,’ she tried to tell herself. But then another much more horrible thought, crept insidiously in: ‘Is it a premonition? Am I going to die? Or is Sarah going to drown or be murdered?’

  It was a dreadful thought and Tina tried hard to banish it from her consciousness. After all, there was Sarah sleeping peacefully right next to her. ‘I must be extra careful tomorrow,’ Tina reasoned. ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t go canoeing or sailing?’

  Then another, more shameful problem arose. Tina found she urgently needed to go to the toilet! But she knew she could not wake Sarah or her mother without revealing her worries. For nearly an hour she lay there, wrestling with her fear and trying to summon up the courage to go. Finally both pain and shame at her own cowardice forced her up. Trembling with both fear and cold she slipped on her sneakers and used her torch to help pick her way silently to the entrance to the tent.

  Here she stood for a few more minutes, studying the now silent tents, boats and vehicles. Distant lights showed the location of the toilet but it seemed a long way. Trembling with anxiety and continually glancing in all directions she cautiously ventured out. For her that hundred metres a real test of courage. Under every vehicle was a pool of darkness that could hide a lurking attacker; or behind every tent or boat trailer.

  Even inside the lighted toilet block Tina did not feel safe as she was all alone and she had the frightening thought that the men might have seen her and followed her. But it was cold so she finally had to pluck up the courage to leave. Shivering with both cold and fear she hurried back to her tent, losing her way twice and getting even more upset and panicky.

  She found the tent at last and was just going to slip inside when she heard the sound of an aero engine. That caused her a sharp stab of alarm and she looked up. It was only a small plane and it took her a minute or so to spot it against the stars. When she did she saw it was heading south west almost directly overhead. ‘But it’s got navigation lights on, and it doesn’t sound like the smugglers’ plane,’ she thought. But she still watched it out of sight and conjured up memories of the smugglers’ floatplane. Then she told herself she was being silly and paranoid. ‘They wouldn’t come near a place like this, not during the holiday season anyway,’ she rationalized.

  Still wondering what had become of the smugglers she looked anxiously around and then slipped quickly inside the tent. Her torch revealed only the Creswells sleeping. All was quiet and she felt ashamed of her weakness. Still shaking she slid into her sleeping bag and tried to compose herself for sleep.

  In this she was successful as she dropped into a deep and dreamless sleep from which she was roused by the noises of voices, motors and cooking. She rubbed her eyes and looked out to see that the front of the tent was open and that it was daylight. Mr Creswell was outside cooking sausages on a portable barbeque. Sarah and her mother were nowhere to be seen.

  As Tina emerged from the tent she met Sarah and her mother returning from the toilets. Smiling and attempting to conceal the fact that she felt dreadful and also very apprehensive about the day. To set her mind at rest she asked, “What are we doi
ng today?”

  Sarah smiled and said, “We are going to go sailing.”

  That was exactly what Tina had both feared and expected. In a faint hope of avoiding this she gestured to where a large power boats was revving its engine, the sound shattering the morning stillness and setting the cockatoos screeching in the pine forests. Several other power boats were already tearing across the lake in the distance. “Do you think it will be safe?”

  Mr Creswell heard this and nodded. “It will be OK. We will keep the canoe close inshore and you should be alright out in the open water on the sailboat.”

  Tina was dismayed but managed to hide this. “I hope so,” she replied as calmly as she could. It was not power boats like the large one that was even then accelerating away in a welter of foam that she was worried about. Sarah did not seem to notice her lack of enthusiasm and prattled on instead about breakfast.

  Tina stared out at the lake and through her mind flitted images from her nightmare and she shuddered momentarily. To divert her thoughts she said, “Where are we going?”

  “Exploring,” Sarah answered. “We will look at birds and check out an access road and a campsite dad says might be useful if we do our canoe expedition in the June holidays.”

  Tina remembered discussing with the others where they might paddle to and where they might camp and a check on a map that Sarah produced showed a road leading over Python Hill and down to the end of a long peninsula.

  Having set her mind at rest Tina set out alone to go to the toilet. In daylight the bustling fairground feel of the place did not bother her at all, although she thought it was strange place to camp for a holiday. Her steps led her across to the northern shore of the peninsula where half a dozen boats were being prepared or launched. Several were sailboats and there was even a canoe but most were power boats and already several of these were roaring up and down the lake.

  She stood for a few minutes and looked northwards across the lake. There was a long arm of the lake to the north of the peninsula and much narrower and smaller one to the south. From where she stood she could see five or six kilometres of the north shore, which was a kilometre or so away. There were several other picnic areas crowded with tents, vehicles and boats at points along that shore. Beyond the wall of jungle or pine plantations that backed the shore rose the rugged, jungle-covered mass of the Lamb Range.

  ‘That is Mt Haig. Mt Tiptree is on the other side of that,’ she mused, suffering vivid flashbacks to the mist net incident. She was even able to make out the sharp peak of Mt Edith at the eastern end of the range. ‘That is where the road comes down that we walked along,’ she thought.

  With an effort of willpower she forced thoughts of bird poachers and negative thoughts about the rain forest out of her consciousness and she went to prepare for the day. But those thoughts came crowding back later when she discovered where they were going to walk. Lake Tinaroo has a very distinct northern and southern section. The northern section is divided up by three large peninsulas. The two main peninsulas have in addition, dozens of small peninsulas or capes protruding into the lake. It was the largest and longest of the three that the expedition was to explore.

  After breakfast the group set about preparing their boats and gear and the sailboat and canoe were then launched. There was a small ‘Laser’ sailboat and a ‘Canadian’ canoe. It was decided that Tina, Sarah and Michael would go one way in the sailboat and come back in the canoe while Mr and Mrs Creswell and young Aiden would go in the canoe to begin with. Despite feeling very apprehensive Tina got ready, fitting on her personal flotation device and smearing sunscreen cream on her face. She made sure her belongings like bird books, camera and binoculars were in plastic bags in her backpack and added to that the sandwiches Mrs Creswell handed to her.

  The expedition got under way just after 0900. They launched off the sandy beach on the south side of the peninsula and, as Mr Creswell had feared, the first half hour was not very pleasant because of all the powerboats roaring around. Tina counted a dozen and could see more in the distance which had come from other camp grounds.

  But in spite of her initial trepidation Tina was a very competent sailor and knew how to handle a boat. She soon became engrossed in the technicalities and forgot about her vague fears. In this she was helped by it being a beautiful sunny day with a good crisp breeze that made it feel good to be alive and which made sailing fun.

  The pleasure of sailing was added to by the fact that the wind was from the South West and was just strong enough to throw up a chop. To make headway they had to do frequent tacks. Sarah acted as captain and Tina looked after the mainsheet. Young Michael just sat at the bows and kept up a running commentary. He appointed himself as lookout. The canoe went straight across Fongon Bay and hugged the southern shore, keeping it in the lee of the land out of the way of both the rougher water and most of the power boats.

  The first tack took the sailboat right into a bay on the southern shore and they passed quite close to the canoe. As they passed they waved and exchanged smart comments. The next tack took them slightly north of west and they did not turn until they were close to the pine trees on the tip of Fongon Peninsula. Then it was south east again into another bay, passing the canoe as it cut across from one cape to the next.

  Tina began to really enjoy herself and she felt like singing with happiness. Except that she was still bedevilled by nagging fears and the vague worry that Andrew still did not love her. To push such thoughts out of her consciousness she took out her binoculars and studied the birds. There were plenty of water birds in the sheltered waters of the bay; ducks of several different species and two black swans. She loved seeing them and had to comment that they were a long way from Western Aust ralia. There were a variety of waders in the reeds and shallows and in the jungle she saw both white and black cockatoos.

  Their next tack took them North West right out across the lake past the tip of the Fongon Peninsula and close to the north shore behind the Platypus Lookout peninsula. While they crossed they encountered some quite rough water and the bows threw up showers of cold spray that made Michael grumble but which only made Tina shelter her binoculars and feel exhilarated.

  Another long tack took them back close to the southern shore. This time they found that the canoe was half a kilometre ahead but they could not point any closer into the wind so had no choice but to go back across the lake again. Once they got out of the lee of the pines the wind freshened and Tina found the speed and spray mildly thrilling. She leaned out and looked ahead and tried to match what she saw to her memory of the map.

  Some parts were easy to identify. The tree-covered peninsula that had Platypus Lookout on top and a large and crowded camp ground at its base stood out clearly. So did another forested peninsula a kilometre to the west of that. This had many tents and huts in under the trees and Tina remembered it was the Scout Camp, Camp Barrabadeen. The sailboat shaved close past the western tip of this and into the large bay beyond. In doing so they passed close to a dozen canoes full of happy and enthusiastic Scouts.

  Because the wind appeared to have shifted more to the south Sarah held on her course and Tina looked around to check their progress. Over her left shoulder she noted the cluster of buildings that comprised the town of Tinaroo. Then she noted an unusual black line almost dead ahead of them. For a moment she puzzled over it but as it became silhouetted against the sky she suddenly realized what it was. ‘That is the wall of the dam,’ she thought. She knew that the lake was held back by a huge concrete dam.

  Then she noticed that there were rapidly approaching a line of bright orange buoys and she felt a sudden spurt of alarm. Turning to face Sarah she pointed and cried, “Sarah! Those buoys are the warning markers. Don’t go any closer to the dam wall.”

  Sarah’s face registered her alarm. The dam wall was still half a kilometre away but suddenly it seemed to be getting closer very fast. Michael had heard what Tina had said and now looked alarmed. “Is that the dam?”

  “Yes i
t is,” Tina agreed as she shifted position ready to go about.

  “Are we going to crash over it?” Michael cried, fear clear in his voice.

  “No. Now come about Sarah,” Tina answered, trying to sound reassuring but feeling herself suddenly gripped by apprehension. The images from her dream swirled to the top of her mind and she was suddenly gripped by terror as she remembered the images of being dragged along by the current towards.. towards what? Her rational mind told her that there was no way they would go over the lip of the dam. It appeared to be at least a metre above the lake.

  “And there is no current,” she muttered. But even so she was almost paralysed by fear.

  At that moment Sarah cried, “Stand by to come about. Ready… About!”

  She put the tiller over and the sail boat swung sharply around. Tina scrambled nimbly across under the boom as it swung and quickly tightened the sheet as the boat settled on the new tack. As they sped away from the dam Tina looked back and let out a deep breath that she did not realize she had been holding. Then she trembled and shook her head, trying to shake the nightmare images out of her mind. For a few minutes she watched the wake as it swirled and gurgled around the transom.

  Satisfied they were safe she relaxed and looked around, trying to pretend she had not been frightened. Luckily neither Sarah nor Michael appeared to have noticed so she was able to get herself under control and appear happy and interested.

  Tina saw that they were now heading almost directly towards the point that was their objective. From a kilometre off the town of Tinaroo she was able to see right down the long, southern arm of the lake. “We will start our expedition down there,” she suggested, pointing south.