by Nan Chauncy
‘A surprise? Oh, that’s different.’ Gone were weariness and aching legs. ‘What is it, Tas?’
‘I’m not telling,’ said Tas. ‘Come and see,’ he repeated, and disappeared from their view.
15
Nigel Gives an Account of Himself
After some more hard scrambling, Cherry, Brick, and Nippy came out on a fairly level stretch of rock, which faced their own High Crag on the other side of the gully. It fell away from a low cliff pitted with holes, and held a growth of stunted saplings. Among the scrub a fire burned, and Tas was bending over it to grill a small piece of steak.
‘Oh-oo! Is dinner ready?’ Nippy cried excitedly, sniffing like a terrier.
‘No—it isn’t. And Nig wants to show you wot he’s found, first.’
‘Where is Nig?’ Brick also came and gazed hungrily at the raw meat. ‘What is it he’s found, Tas? Cherry reckons it’s gold.’
‘Aw! You and your gold!’ scoffed Tas. ‘Reckon Pommies always expect to pick up a lump like a football somewhere in Tassie. Up here, too! There might be a few specks in the creek. Mad Dad told me once there was enough to make a girl’s wedding ring, but not enough to pay for the washing. ’Course it might be worth something, wot Nig’s found. I dunno… Here, you git away, Nippy. I can manage to cook this by meself, thanks.’
‘Yes, and I bet you’ll have a few tastes, too.’
‘Hullo, all of you. Don’t quarrel!’ cried Nigel, emerging with a beaming smile from one of the larger holes at the back. ‘Got something to show you.’
All their questions were brushed aside as Nigel took them to his hole, and showed them how to squeeze, one at a time, into a small shallow cave. Cherry, blinking in the dim light, was first inside, and in spite of what Tas had said she fixed her eyes on the rock round her hoping to see it suddenly glint and sparkle with a flash of gold.
‘Mind your heads!’ Nigel warned, as the next one clambered in on hands and knees.
By the time they were all packed in, the light from the entrance, which was all there was, had been almost entirely excluded.
‘Bother!’ said Nigel. ‘You’ve shut out all the light.’ He fumbled about in his pockets. ‘Don’t move forward, anyone. I’ll light a match in a minute. Or better still, call to Tas, will you, Brick? Ask him to bring a twist of bark along for a torch.’
While Tas was coming they sat on the damp floor in eerie silence, listening to each other’s breathing. There was no other sound except a faint drip-drip-drip of water seeping somewhere in the wall.
At last Tas came, and a wavering beam of light danced up a wall throwing gigantic shadows. It revealed the roof only, which was slightly domed in one place where a couple of bats were clinging. Nippy relieved the general tension with a giggle. ‘Bats!’ he muttered. ‘All this—to see a couple of bats!’
‘Thanks, Tas,’ said Nigel, taking no notice of Nippy. ‘Can you throw the light down a bit? I mean on the floor.’
‘That do?’
‘That’s better. Hullo! What’s the matter, Cherry?’
For at the sight of what lay on the floor Cherry had been unable to stifle a cry. She had been looking for nuggets of gold and was all unprepared for the sight which met her gaze, the sight of a skeleton with a grinning skull stretched just at her feet.
Brick and Nippy did nothing but stare. The torch flared up for a moment, showing the clear outlines of everything—the great teeth and the arm bones out-stretched—and then it abruptly went out.
‘Well,’ said Nigel’s voice in the darkness, ‘what do you think of him? Would you like the light again?’
‘No, thanks, Nig,’ said Nippy. ‘I’d—I’d rather have dinner. I didn’t think it was just some old bones.’
‘“Old bones”! What do you mean? This is a real discovery. One of the rarest things in the world. Tell them, Tas!’
‘See, what Nig’s found is the bones of a Blackfellow. A dinkum Tasmanian abo, Nippy.’ He blew on the bark and flashed another light in. ‘Take a look at him! He’s all complete with not a bone out of place. Those are his tools or weapons beside him. S’pose something must have happened to him so his tribe didn’t know he died in here. ’Member Mad Dad told us they burned their dead, so it’s dashed rare to find a skeleton now.’
‘Yes,’ said Cherry, ‘I remember what Mad Dad told us. It’s very—it’s awfully interesting, Nig, and all that. But think what we could have done if it had been a lump of gold instead.’
‘Huh!’ grunted Brick. ‘I think this is much better. I like your old skeleton, Nig.’
‘’S not mine!’ murmured Nigel modestly. ‘I’m still wearing mine, Brick. But I wonder what happened to the poor chap. He may have been hunting a kangaroo—’
‘And fell, and broke his leg…’
‘No, Brick, because there are no bones broken.’
‘Look here, you two, I must go and see to the steak.’
‘All right, Tas. We’ll have dinner now. Did you notice the stone implements, Brick? One is such an odd round stone with just one queer chipping on it, like the bill of a duck. I know! That would be meant for a platypus of course. Now, what would he use that for?’
Tas put his mouth to the hole. ‘Come on out! You can skite about them bones while you eat, can’t you? Can’t trust Nippy with that steak if you don’t come now.’
A few minutes later they were in high spirits, eating their dinner in the sunshine outside.
‘Now, Nig,’ said Cherry firmly, ‘we’d like a full account of your doings, please.’ She was unpacking food from her bag as she spoke, to add to the hot steak which Tas had so carefully divided into five equal portions for their meal. ‘You can begin with an explanation or two. For instance, why didn’t you come back to the cave, instead of wandering over here to mess about with a lot of old bones? Oh, yes,’ she added hastily, as she saw Nig’s face, ‘very interesting and all that, but please begin at the beginning and tell us everything, will you?’
‘Certainly not,’ replied Nigel. ‘You can have the details later. At present I’m so hungry I’ve got a hole inside me as big as Hollow Tree. Is that all you brought with you, Cherry?’
‘Yes, Nig. I’d have packed more, but the bandages and things took up so much room.’
‘What bandages and things?’
‘For you. You see as you didn’t come we thought—I thought—you might be hurt. Why didn’t you come?’
‘Oh, dash it all! Well, I’ll tell you, then. I got to Valleeroo on the old bike the first day, as I said I would. Then it happened pretty much as Old George told Tas. They did get me up to the Police Station on some excuse or other about our mail, and there I discovered I was to stay a prisoner while they made enquiries about me. I knew what that would mean, if they started asking Pa Pinner questions. So I just had to escape, didn’t I? They were very decent to me there, by the way; the policeman’s wife was Mrs. Bentley and she gave me tea with sausages and jam and things I hadn’t tasted for an age. She couldn’t get over how much I ate.
‘I got out of a window and slipped away before it was light. It wasn’t a bit hard to escape, really. Then I went for my life. I only stopped once, about the middle of the morning, when I found a few houses and a sort of shop where I was able to buy the Christmas steak. Lucky I did, too, as you’ll hear. (Yes, Nippy, this is the last morsel of your Christmas dinner that I’m about to put in my mouth now. Sorry! Tas and I have eaten all the rest.’)
‘You pigs! Is that why Tas went after you? I bet it was! Where did he find you, then?’
‘Shut up and listen, can’t you? As I said, I got clear by many miles of that rotten little town, and was getting along quite nicely when—well—the old bike simply died on me. Just that.’
‘Well, don’t expect us to be surprised.’
‘It was dashed awkward, though. There was a bit of a hill and a deep rut, and the next thing I knew, I was lying on the ground on top of the parcel of steak (which at least was fairly soft) while the front wheel of the bike went spin
ning away like a merry little hoop. When I went to collect up the bits of bike, I found I was about the only thing in the whole outfit that hadn’t actually come apart.
‘Before I had time to do more than pick up the steak, I heard a lorry coming full bat towards me from the Homestead direction. I guessed it was Pa Pinner driving; you know the way he grinds the gears. Not that I stopped to find out! No, I made one dive into the densest bit of bush I could find. Then I heard the thing stop so I knew he’d seen me, or at least the bits of bike. I ran and ran, in and out of the scrub, uphill or anywhere…what’s that, Tas?’
‘Bin better if you’d laid down quietly, old son.’
‘Umm…I s’pose I did lose my head a bit, as well as my directions, thinking Pa was at my heels.’
‘Why, Nig,’ Nippy burst in, ‘you did get bushed after all, just like Tas said you would.’
‘Yes,’ Nigel laughed, ‘I’m afraid I did, Nippy. I must “give him best”, as he would say, about that. I made sure I was on a short cut for Giant Steps and when I didn’t come out where I expected I got more and more confused. The bush all looked alike. I couldn’t place a single landmark, and instead of being with you all for tea at the cave…’
‘You went round the bush in circles and ate our Christmas steak,’ put in Nippy, so sadly that they had to laugh.
‘Yes, and here I might still be—lost in the bush, with the steak all finished—if it wasn’t for Tas.’
‘What happened, Tas? Tell us how you found him.’
‘See…’ Tas began, thoughtfully munching. ‘See…it was like this. I was with Old George, as you know, coming along the road. Round the next bend, if I’d only known, was Nig pedalling towards us. But I didn’t know, and jest then I hears the lorry behind me, and I reckon too it’s Pa going on a bust for Christmas. So quick as a flash I hopped down, telling Old George I didn’t want Ma to git wind I was going to the township. Old George, he winks back—he’s a good chap, is George—and moves off, while I nip in the scrub and watch the lorry go by, with Pa driving sure enough.
‘I heard it stop round the bend, so I went a bit careful, keeping to the trees as I followed to see what was up. See, I thought he might be asking Old George some questions. There was enough noise fer two or three cars, but when I pokes me nose round the bend there’s nothing at all but some bits of Nig’s bike; I nearly tripped over the front wheel.’
‘Didn’t you wonder where Old Nig had got to?’
‘Yeah. First I thought one of the cars had run ’im down,’ stated Tas dispassionately, ‘but when I couldn’t see any—like, any…’
‘Don’t mind me,’ prompted Nigel with his mouth full. ‘Any arms or legs, do you mean? Any bones or hair or so forth?’
‘Well, then I reckoned they’d grabbed him and taken him off in the lorry with them, see? Lucky thing I jest happened to spot the patch of blood where he fell.’
‘What? Then you were hurt, Nig.’
‘Sorry to disappoint you a second time, Cherrystones, but I wasn’t. Have you forgotten I fell on a very juicy bit of steak?’
‘Oh, well! It didn’t hurt the steak!’
‘No, and it just about saved me, because that steak wasn’t too well wrapped up by this time, and so I left some beautiful murderer’s tracks all the way up here.’
There was a roar of laughter.
‘So now you know, thanks to Tas being a good bushman, how I was tracked to this spot. He found me just at sunset when I’d decided to camp here for the night. In fact I’d just poked my nose into the hole over there to see if it would be dry for sleeping in case of rain.’ Nigel glanced round with a smile. ‘You can guess, after just meeting my friend in there, how glad I was to see Tas, very much alive and kicking.’
‘Good old Tas!’ they shouted.
‘Don’t thump me false teeth down me dashed neck,’ complained the hero of the occasion, ‘I wasn’t half as clever as you make out, neither. See, I was as bushed as Old Nig when I got here. Never guessed that the bitta rock over there could be High Crag; never dropped to it that the tarn was jest over the top. Stared at it, we both did, and told each other we was miles from home.’
‘You didn’t know? Then how on earth did you know to signal to us?’ Brick demanded.
‘Aha! That’s telling,’ said Tas, grinning an even wider grin. ‘Shall we let on, Nig? Or shall we keep ’em guessing?’
Before Nigel could answer Cherry had leaped to her feet. ‘I know! I know! I can guess!’ she shouted as she danced round. ‘It was Mad Dad, wasn’t it? He found you this morning, didn’t he? And told you where you were.’
‘Gosh! She’s quite right. How did you do it?’ asked Nigel, properly impressed. ‘Yes, this piece of bush seems to have fair population. First thing this morning our friend Mad Dad comes to call. Doesn’t seem the least surprised to find us here, either.’
‘Ah, Nig,’ said Brick, ‘I see now why you know so much about—about that chap in there. Mad Dad told you, didn’t he? Why isn’t he here now?’
‘He wouldn’t stay once he’d seen you answer our signals. You’re right, Brick, he was as keen as mud on the old gentleman’s bones in there, and he’s gone off to tell some chap he knows who understands these things. He told us to keep the discovery quite dark till he lets us know.’
‘Huh!’ Brick snorted. ‘Does he think we chat with our neighbours up here?’
‘He reckons,’ Tas informed them, ‘he reckons if the news gits out there’ll be a dashed lot of fuss, and blokes snooping about to ask questions and take pictures, see? But I dunno…’
‘Gosh! Cherry, you’d better cut Nig’s hair if he’s going to appear in all the picture papers,’ suggested Brick—and was nearly rolled over the edge for his remark.
‘Time, gentlemen, please! Stop this rough house,’ called Nippy to the fighting pair. ‘Aren’t we going back? Fluffles will be looking for his evening milk.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Cherry, ‘it will be milking time if we wait any longer. There’s a long climb ahead.’
She picked up her bag and led the way down towards the gully.
16
Interview with the Police
At first it was a merry home-coming as they scrambled through the bush, talking and laughing, with every now and then a break into a favourite chorus, to release the pent-up emotions of the last few days. Gradually the noise died away as the huge tree ferns were reached, and they followed each other soberly enough over slippery rock and rotting tree-trunk. On the other side of the gully, where the hill grew steep and the undergrowth less dense, they were too short of breath to talk much, though Cherry learned a few details from Nigel about his disastrous visit to Valleeroo.
‘Are you terribly fed up about the Pinners getting our mail and scoring all the time?’ she asked.
‘Well, I am a bit. But I did one thing. I shot off a letter to Mother, as well as one to Jandie, while I was down there. If I got Jandie’s address right, and she’s still alive, Cherry, she ought to know everything, soon. And I found out something from Mrs. Bentley. Things look much better about the war. There’ll only be the Japs to deal with soon. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could get Dad to settle here when it’s over?’
‘He’d love the life of course, but there are no ships left for passengers.’
‘There are aeroplanes?’
‘Never afford that.’
‘What are you two talking about?’ enquired Tas. ‘Look up! That’s High Crag just above you. Doesn’t look much from this side, does it?’
‘It does not. A poor little outcrop. If Mad Dad hadn’t told us—’
‘Yes, and I’d like to know what the old devil was doing up this way. Said he was coming to look for us. Wot a yarn! But if he hadn’t sworn this was High Crag…’
‘Just shows how easy it is to get bushed,’ called Nippy. ‘Look, Nig! That’s where we made our fires to answer your signals—there! See the ashes, Tas?’
‘Good work, son.’
They rounded High Crag at
last. The sun was slanting towards the west, slanting into the honeycomb of caves beyond the tarn, and already colouring the peaks above with the peculiar salmon red of a glorious sunset. By general consent they waited when they reached the top, and looked gloatingly over their kingdom. There lay the tarn without a ripple, reflecting the reeds and the sunshine. No goats grazed along the slope; all seemed quiet and deserted. Overhead in the blue sky a wedge-tailed eagle circled magnificently.
‘Well,’ sighed Nigel happily, ‘there’s only one thing missing.’
‘Yes, the goats,’ said Cherry.
‘You mean Fluffles,’ said Nippy.
‘No, neither,’ he replied. ‘I mean to make it home-like there ought to be a curl of smoke from the crack, “FOR THE SMOKE…”
‘“…GOES UP THE CHIMNEY JUST THE SAME,”’ they yelled,
‘“JUST the same,”
‘“BUT THE SMOKE GOES UP THE CHIMNEY JUST THE SAME.”’
As the last notes of the round died away there was silence for a second, then like a queer deep echo from the earth itself there came a line again—in a man’s deep bass:
‘“JUST THE SAME,
‘“FOR THE SMOKE GOES UP THE CHIMNEY JUST THE SAME.”’
And from the direction where Giant Steps descended a hand parted the scrub, and out stepped two policemen in uniform.
‘Quick! Shall we run?’ whispered Brick.
The others remained tensely staring, as though too startled to have the power to move.
‘Not yet—but be ready!’ Nigel whispered back. He was very white.
The foremost policeman was now out in the full sunshine. ‘Afternoon,’ he remarked pleasantly. ‘We’ve bin waiting about for you to return. Could hear you coming miles off. If “the smoke” had “gorn up the chimney just the same” we might have made a cuppa tea, mightn’t we?’
For answer Nigel, as though protecting something, took a pace forward. ‘Good afternoon,’ he said coldly and politely. ‘What do you want up here, Mr. Bentley?’