Cockatoo

by Christopher Cummings

  As soon as the mouth of the creek came into view she changed her mind about what to do next. She had considered swimming across to Swallows Island or even to the far side of the lake but now she gave that idea up. ‘It is too far. I am weakening too fast. I will drown,’ she thought. So she cast the plane off and gave it a last shove then turned and swam back the way she had come.

  She knew that was a risk too but reasoned that hiding among the reeds and bushes on the shore of the lake was not a good plan. ‘The crooks can come searching for me in their power boat and a spotlight will quickly pick me up,’ she thought. She decided that trying to reach the army cadets remained her best option. So she angled across to the far side of the creek and very cautiously breast stoked past the camp. As she did she saw only one brief flicker of a torch and that appeared to be up the track beyond the tent.

  By this time she was feeling both exhausted and cold. Despite the danger she floated to get her breath back and then eased into a sidestroke to keep the camp under continuous observation. As she swam she kept having to fight down panicky fears about what might be lurking in the black, slimy water. When she did touch weeds or reeds she let out little gasps of fright and had to calm herself.

  Then the camp was out of sight behind her and she was able to relax a bit. She saw that the creek was narrowing in and she began to encounter more and more floating weeds. A thick, dark tangle of bushes and reeds hemmed her in on both sides. After another fifty metres there was no longer a clear channel and she had to push through an ever thickening tangle.

  It became harder and harder for Tina to swim and she resorted to hauling herself forwards across the matt of floating lilies and grass. She began to consider pushing through the tangle of vegetation to reach dry land. ‘Maybe it will be easier to creep through the pine forest?’ she wondered. But her memory told her it would be awful, all ferns long grass and prickly weeds.

  Behind her she heard an angry shout. She turned and looked back but was around a bend in the creek and only glimpsed a few flickers of torch light. ‘They have discovered that the floatplane is gone,’ she decided. Now the fat was in the fire! ‘They will really be after me now!’ she thought. But it was with a mixture of fierce satisfaction and fear.

  Tina continued on up the creek and again found a narrow channel but it was now so shallow she could touch bottom. But that was no use as the bottom was all slush and mud so she had to keep half-swimming, half-crawling. She came to a stop, gasping and worn out. Ahead of her she could see a black wall of dense vegetation and a dark, horizontal line. ‘That is the bridge on the Danbulla Forest Drive,’ she thought, ‘and the trees are the jungle where the Indian village was.’

  Cheered up she pushed forward and then came to a terrified stop. Something had slithered across the lilies near her and had slipped into the water. ‘Snake?’ she wondered. For a few seconds she floundered there on the edge of hysteria. She was gripped by an intense desire to pull her legs up and kept cringing at every touch from a weed or reed. Then she knew she had to get out of the water.

  Driven by a phobia induced panic she clawed, stumbled and floundered up out of the creek into the belt of weeds and bushes on her left. Almost at once she was brought up short by thorns and prickly bushes. She came to a panting, sobbing halt and crouched trembling and shaking in the dark undergrowth. For several minutes she was quite unable to move.

  It was the sound of a motor that brought her back to her senses. ‘A vehicle, and it is just up there where the fort clearing is,’ Tina thought. She stood up and tried to look over the top of the bushes. She was just in time to see the beam from the headlights of a vehicle flicker across the tree tops and then she heard it accelerate away from her along the main road.

  ‘Was that the army cadets- or the crooks?’ she wondered. Another spasm of panic seized her. ‘I must catch up with the army cadets,’ she thought. But were they gone? She began pushing through the undergrowth, almost heedless of the scratches of lantana and the pain of thorns ripping her arms and body. It was a log that stopped her mad rush. She banged her shins against it and went sprawling in the weeds. Tears welled up and the pain was so intense that for several seconds all Tina could do was grip her ankles and rock back and forth whimpering.

  Then she heard another vehicle. The sound came from the forest off to her left and she knew at once it was the crooks. Fear helped her regain control and she crouched behind a tree and tried to recover her breath. She saw the light from the headlights flicker on the trees and then heard it slow. It then turned towards her and she saw the beam of the headlights shine out just over her head. ‘Have they seen me?’ she wondered.

  But the vehicle did not stop. Instead it swung around the clearing and then turned and went out onto the Danbulla Road. But this time the vehicle turned right. Tina got a glimpse of it as it roared off down the road to the bridge. She expected it to stop there but instead it drove on up the next hill and vanished from sight. As the sound of its engine died away in the distance Tina puzzled over what it might mean. ‘Have the crooks run away?’ she wondered. And what did they do about the floatplane?

  Having no answers she resumed forcing her way through the forest but this time much more cautiously, feeling where she put each foot and pushing the worst of the prickly plants away from her face. Gnawing at her was the fear of Danny waiting for her at the clearing. She pictured him crouching behind some logs or behind a tree on the edge of the clearing, the gun ready. So she crept forward, straining her ears to listen and cursing very sound she made herself.

  Because the undergrowth was so thick her progress became a crawl. Soaked as she was she began to shiver as the temperature dropped. Once she thought she heard something and stayed crouched and tense for several minutes. Eventually she decided she was mistaken and resumed her painful progress.

  At last she reached the edge of the ‘fort’ clearing. Here she knelt behind a tree and carefully looked in all direction. Her worry that she was much too late to meet up with the army cadets was quickly confirmed, sending her hopes plummeting again. In the starlight the place had a deserted and sinister look about it, the piles of logs making pools of shadow that could hide anything. There were certainly no vehicles there and she did not dare call out. She knew that any army cadets there might be very quiet but not that silent.

  ‘They aren’t that good,’ she told herself. But was Danny still waiting for her? The thought almost paralysed her with fear. Again she waited and listened while straining her eyes to search the numerous blobs of shadow. After a while she shook her head. ‘He might be, but I can’t afford to wait. I must try to catch up with the army cadets.’ Wondering how much of a head start they might have she crouched behind a pile of logs and pushed the button to light up the display on her watch.

  0145!

  Tina was shocked. She then did a quick calculation. ‘If the army cadets left at midnight they must be a long way away now,’ she thought. That was a demoralizing idea but she had to accept it. ‘The sooner I start the sooner I might catch them up,’ she decided.

  But it took a real effort of courage to start walking. Her mind had already worked out that one or more of the smugglers might be waiting along the road. ‘They could just sit beside the road in the darkness and I will have no warning at all,’ she thought, picturing them jumping out to grab her- or worse.

  But despite her fear she forced herself to get moving. ‘I will freeze to death,’ she told herself, although all she really wanted to do was lie down and sleep. By this time she felt utterly exhausted and was both hungry and very thirsty.

  Skirting carefully around the right hand edge of the clearing she made her way along the dirt road to the Danbulla Road. At the junction she stopped and listened, her imagination conjuring up smugglers waiting in the darkness under the trees. But the only sound was the whisper of the wind in the leaves so she reluctantly resumed walking.

  Within a hundred paces her courage almost failed her. The road went into a tunnel of rainforest an
d in under the trees it was so dark she literally could not see her hand in front of her face. All she could discern in the blackness was a vaguer tone of dark grey that indicated the gravel surface of the road. But even that was a poor guide and she kept straying into the slushy verge or even into the edge of the jungle. Only by walking on the crown of the road, and that by feel, could she make good progress.

  She was dismayed at how loud the crunch of her boots sounded on the gravel and sand but after a time she became resigned to that. ‘If I creep along it will take days to walk the distance,’ she told herself. But 16 kilometres seemed to be a daunting distance. ‘Can I do it?’ she wondered.

  Then it began to rain. That really lowered her spirits and she was soon soaked again. This undid all the warming effect of walking. The dripping and gurgling at least helped cloak the sound of her boots but the road surface became muddy and several times she slipped. Only by muscle wrenching effort did she keep upright.

  Then she encountered a real problem. The sound of running water warned her she was coming to a creek. Her boots suddenly thudded on concrete overlain by sand. Then her shins struck the concrete kerbing of a bridge and the next thing she knew she had fallen heavily. She landed across the concrete kerb, the blow slamming into her right knee and chest, winding her. Just in time she realized she was falling and she gripped the kerbing and pushed away. It was so dark she could not see anything of the bridge or road but she fell back onto the roadway with a painful bump which bruised her buttocks.

  For several minutes Tina sat there, whimpering and rubbing her smarting knee, ankles and elbows. Her heart rate had shot up to a rapid hammering. As awareness sank in of how close she had come to a potentially disastrous fall she broke into a fit of trembling. She felt the urge to cry and call for help. ‘The creek sounds a long way down,’ she thought. The knowledge that she could have been killed or seriously injured made her shiver. Images of lying in the flooded creek below the bridge until she died caused her more bouts of shaking. ‘Nobody would look for me there,’ she thought.

  So she made herself get up and keep walking. Cautiously she inched across the bridge, one boot at a time. On the other side she paused to check the time. Her watch told her it was now 0245. ‘And I have only walked a kilometres or so,’ she thought unhappily.

  Driven by fear she plodded on in the darkness and rain. After a time sheer exhaustion numbed her mind and she just slogged grimly on. Each step became an effort and she seemed to be just one mass of weak muscles and aches. She tried drinking the falling rain but quickly gave that up and at last sucked a handful from a puddle beside the road. The road wound up and down and through more rainforest and then along stretches where there was pine forest beside it. There were two more bridges and she crept across them, inching one boot forward at a time.

  At 0320 she came to a clearing and a road junction. Once she realized what it was she paused and crouched at the side of the road listening. ‘Are they waiting for me here?’ she wondered. But all she could hear was the wind in the trees and the trickles and drip of water. Cautiously she walked forward and she recognized it as the junction where the Mt Edith Road went off to the right. ‘This is where the search HQ was when they were looking for Willy,’ she remembered.

  The knowledge that she had made some progress cheered her and she pushed herself to keep walking. A few minutes later she came to Robsons Creek and this time there was enough light in the clearing for her to make out that the creek had only low banks. By now feeling dehydrated she carefully made her way to the edge of the water to have a drink. She drank greedily until she felt bloated and then staggered back up to the road and plodded on.

  The road went up over a hill that seemed to go on for ever. Worse still the rain began again and the road became slick and greasy. Several times she slipped and fell, getting bruised and coated in mud each time. After each fall she lay in shivering shock for a minute or two, just wishing the nightmare would end. But then she gathered her strength and struggled to her feet.

  Going down the other side was nearly as bad and once she slipped and landed heavily. ‘Just as well I’ve got a big bum,’ she thought ruefully as she regained her feet. The drizzle stopped and she plodded on.

  The road crossed a causeway with swamp on both sides and there was just enough light for her to make out the marshes and water. ‘I remember seeing this,’ she told herself. But she could not picture where it was on the map. Now she regretted not paying more attention on all those drives around the lake she had done in the last few years.

  The road went up a slope and then into more rainforest. The road then levelled out and wound around through pitch black darkness. Tina steeled her nerves and kept on moving. ‘I must come to somewhere soon,’ she told herself She pictured the army cadets marching with their packs somewhere ahead and kept hoping she might catch them up. But in her heart she knew this was a faint hope. ‘Unless they have some battles to fight which delay them,’ she decided.

  Further thought brought her to the conclusion that such activity was unlikely. ‘Major Wickham won’t risk injuring cadets by trying to move in the jungle in the dark.’

  Depressed and sore she plodded slowly on. At each bend she experienced a surge of hope and then a dash of dejection when only more blackness and jungle was revealed. She was now so tired and hungry she felt both exhausted and disoriented. Several times she stumbled and her eyes began to play tricks on her. It made her fearful she was starting to hallucinate and she sobbed with despair, just wishing it was all over.

  Another low causeway was crossed and then the road went steeply up a large hill into pine forest. It was hard going and she was forced to stop every fifty or hundred paces to get her breath but it still cheered her. ‘I remember this hill. I am getting closer,’ she told herself. And then she was like the little engine that could and grimly told herself, ‘I think I can. I think I can.’ until she reached the level ground on the crest.

  For several minutes she stood gasping and trembling at a road junction. The dark wall of pine trees seemed to hem her in and oppress her but despite the cold wind that began to chill her she felt better. ‘I am winning,’ she encouraged herself. ‘Just keep walking.’

  So Tina did. And then her heart leapt with hope when she saw a distant pinpoint of light. It was far away and she knew it was off across the other side of the lake, but it was human. ‘There are people there,’ she muttered.

  Then the distant light had the opposite effect, making her feeling very much alone. She shivered and sobbed and could not go on. Exhausted she slumped down on the wet grass at the side of the road and began to cry. ‘If only a car would come along!’ she thought. But then she realized she did not dare stop any vehicles. “It is just as likely to be the crooks looking for me,” she muttered. ‘But why aren’t the cadets looking for me?’ she wondered.

  It all seemed very unfair and disheartening but after weeping a bit more she realized she was shivering with cold. ‘I must keep moving or I will get hyperthermia,’ she reasoned. But it took a real effort of willpower to raise herself to her feet and to lurch into motion. Every muscle seemed to be stiff and sore and chafing burned with a sharp sting under armpits and between her thighs.

  But at least it was downhill. The road went down quickly and the distant light was lost to sight among the tops of the pine trees. The road was slippery and she had to go carefully and her feet and legs hurt so much she whimpered with pain. But she kept on. First the road curved down to the right and then back to the left before levelling out on a long straight.

  Tina plodded along this, almost tottering with fatigue. The darkness was still almost complete, the road being just a grey ribbon that wavered before her exhausted eyes. ‘At least it has stopped raining,’ she thought.

  And then she got a really great boost to her hopes. On the right she came to a clearing with some buildings in it. “I know where I am! This is the Kauri Creek Picnic Area,” she muttered. She had done nature rambles and picnics there with
the Girl Guides and Brownies when she was a little girl. Just being somewhere she knew made her feel very much better.

  But the place was in darkness and she knew it was not a campsite. ‘But the Kauri Creek Camping Area isn’t far and there are people there,’ she thought, remembering a Guide camp there two years earlier. Heartened but now needing a pee she stepped off the road and limped across to the toilet, intending to use it. But when she got there Tina could not go in. In the darkness it just seemed too creepy and she backed away and just peed on the lawn.

  Hot with shame at doing such a bad thing she pulled up her pants and hobbled across to a picnic shelter shed. She sat on one of the bench seats and considered her next move. For a few minutes she contemplated staying there until it was daylight. ‘At least I will be out of the rain,’ she told herself. But not dry. Her clothes were still wet and she was shivering. ‘I am not taking my clothes off,’ she told herself, remembering the camping advice about sleeping dry.

  Then the loneliness and spookiness of the place began to get at her. All around was dark forest and she could not hear anyone creeping up on her because the nearby creek was flowing fast and making a lot of noise. Her imagination began to get the better of her tired mind and several times she felt a cool breeze up her back and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Terror began to clutch at her heart and she jumped at every unusual sound.

  Then the image of the camp ground as she had seen it that afternoon from her canoe came to her. ‘There are people camped there,’ she thought. ‘If I can get there I will be safe.’ She knew it wasn’t far as her memory told her it was only a pleasant stroll for little Brownies. ‘Maybe ten minutes walk for me?’ she decided.

  So she heaved herself to her feet then stood on trembling legs until the muscle spasms calmed. A check of her watch told her it was 0430. Slowly and painfully she walked back across the lawn to the road. It seemed to her that the light had improved but it was still very dark. Once she was back on the muddy gravel she turned right and began limping along. Fifty paces on there was a concrete bridge across the creek and she remembered standing on it with the Guides and looking down at a beautiful clear stream which wound off through the jungle.