Willy at once unbuckled his seat belt and stood up, moving to one side. Mr Jemmerling squeezed past and into the seat. Willy lingered for another minute or so, looking out and taking in everything that was occurring on the flight deck and on the instrument panel. In the distance, beyond another very rugged range of mountains he saw a long line of clouds right on the curve of the earth. Some were huge white piles and others in layers. The impression they made caused Willy to think of pictures he had seen of the icebergs in the Arctic.
‘I hope we don’t have to fly through that lot,’ he thought, knowing that there were more big mountains ahead.
They didn’t have to. By the time Willy had resumed his seat in the cabin they were over the next range of mountains and the town of Mareeba was visible in the middle distance. He now saw that the cloud masses were piled on the mountains beyond. A few minutes later they began their landing approach, wheels being lowered and flaps extended.
The rugged conical shape of Mt Abbott slid by to port and then they were low over open bush which abruptly gave way to ploughed fields and flat country. The airport boundary fence slid below and then they were down. It was a smooth and uneventful landing and they rolled to a stop outside the hangar where the journey had begun the previous day.
Feeling stiff, hungry and a bit deafened Willy climbed thankfully out of the ‘Catalina’. It had been a great experience and he was glad he had been given the opportunity, but he had also had enough for the time being. When all were out and their gear unloaded Mr Jemmerling thanked them for coming.
“I hope you enjoyed it,” he said.
“It was great. Thank you sir,” Willy said.
The others said thanks as well and Willy noted that there was a wary tenseness when Mr Beck and Norman said their thanks. ‘The competition begins again,’ Willy thought.
“Good luck with your prospecting,” Mr Jemmerling called as they walked towards their vehicles.
“Thank you, same to you,” Mr Beck replied.
As they reached their parked car Willy said, “I didn’t like the sound of that. He sounds very sure of himself.”
“I wonder what he knows that we don’t know that he knows,” Stick added.
“Not much I hope,” Mr Beck said. He then turned to Mrs Beck, who was waiting with their car. “Hello mother. All well?”
“Yes. Now, do you all want to come home for some afternoon tea before you start driving back to Cairns?”
Willy’s mother and father looked at each other, obviously reluctant but Mr Beck said, “I would appreciate it. There are a couple of details about next weekend’s trip that we need to pin down.”
“Alright, but not for long,” Willy’s mother replied. “We want to drop in on Aunty Isabel for a few minutes as well.”
They stowed their bags in the boots of the two vehicles and then climbed into them. Willy went in the back between Marjorie and Andrew. As they drove away from the airport he cast one last affectionate look at the ‘Catalina’. ‘Good plane Pterodactyl!’ he thought. He noted that Mr Jemmerling and his crew had gone inside the nearby building so he did not wave.
It was only a short drive- 5km- all along a good straight bitumen road. The Becks led the way. After only a few minutes drive they reached the turn-off, easy to identify because of the signs and the yellow painted ‘Matilda’ tank. As they slowed and turned in past the tank Willy noted a man sitting astride a motorcycle which was parked behind the tank. The man had his helmet on so his face was not visible. He appeared to be studying the tank.
The two cars drove into the car park, the Becks parking near the front gate of their new house, which is to the right of the museum. Willy’s father parked on the left of the Beck’s car. They all climbed out, chattering happily. Mr Beck stretched and groaned, “Oh, it’s good to be home! I’m getting a bit too old for jaunts like that. I…Hey! Who is that?”
Willy looked up and his eyes followed Mr Beck’s pointing hand. He saw a man walking across the side yard of the Beck’s, having obviously just come out of the back door. The man was dressed in grey overalls and looked to be about thirty, with brown hair. In his hand he carried a grey carry bag with a shoulder strap.
Mr Beck started forward, yelling, “Hey! You! Who are you? What are you doing in my yard?”
The man immediately broke into a run. “Burglar!” Norman cried. He opened the front gate and started running after him.
Mrs Beck cried out in horror, then called, “Oh Norman, be careful!”
Willy saw instantly that the man would be over the side fence before Norman could reach him. ‘That crook is heading for the highway,’ he noted. Without further thought he started running diagonally across the car park, ignoring his mother’s cry to stop.
Andrew and Stick set off after him, all shouting at the man to stop. Willy saw the man jump over the fence and sprint off into the belt of open savannah that grew between the house and the highway. As the man ran he slung the carry bag over his shoulder, casting frequent glances back at his pursuers. Norman reached the fence and scrambled over it, jumping down twenty metres to Willy’s left.
Willy raced into the bush in hot pursuit. The savannah was mostly ironbarks with almost no undergrowth and only knee high grass. It was no obstacle to running and Willy pushed thoughts of snakes aside. ‘I can catch this guy,’ he decided as he began to close on the man.
The man was only fifty paces ahead and obviously made the same deduction. Up till then he had been running directly towards the highway, with Willy angling in on his right rear. Now the man turned and ran off at an angle, directly ahead of Willy. Norman, Andrew and Stick, all came dashing along behind.
Willy began nerving himself to try to tackle the man, aware that it could lead to a violent struggle. As he ran he was dimly conscious of others yelling and of vehicles whizzing past at high speed out on the highway. An engine burst into life and roared. Sweat began to trickle into Willy’s eyes and he blinked. Now he had run a hundred metres and was starting to gasp for breath. He was no athlete and knew it but he kept pushing himself as hard as he could.
As they ran they drew closer and closer to the highway. ‘He might try to stop a car,’ Willy thought. But now he was only about 25 metres behind and was sure the man would not have time to do that.
The man broke out of the bush and began running away along the mowed verge of the highway. Willy reached the cleared lane and turned to follow. As he did a motorcycle came racing up from behind him.
Whack!
Willy felt the blow without understanding it. The next thing he knew he was rolling on the dry grass and rough gravel beside the bitumen. Half stunned and wondering what was happening he looked up. He saw that the motorcycle had screeched to a stop just ahead of the running man. The man immediately leapt onto the pillion seat. As soon as he was on the motorcycle’s engine roared and it sped off, spraying dust and gravel into the faces of Willy’s friends. To Willy’s chagrin the motorcycle accelerated and sped away towards Atherton.
Stick helped Willy to his feet. “You OK Willy?” he asked.
“Yeah, what happened?” Willy asked angrily.
“The guy on the bike hit you under the ear as he went past,” Stick replied.
Willy watched with frustrated anger as the motorcycle vanished from view, racing away at full speed. “Bugger! We need a car. Quick, back to the cars!” he cried.
He turned and was about to start running back to the car park when his father’s car pulled up. It was driven by his father, who switched off and got out. Willy ran over to it. “Dad, don’t stop! After him! They will get away!”
Willy’s father shook his head. “No. I am not going to try chasing a motorcycle all over the Atherton Tablelands. That is a job for the police. Now, are you hurt? I saw that brute knock you down.”
“I’m fine!” Willy cried in angry frustration. He was aware that his head did hurt a bit and that he had some gravel rash but he ignored it. His father pulled out a mobile phone and called the police, then s
aid, “You lot quickly write down any details, descriptions of what those men looked like, their clothes and so on, and their motorbike type and number.”
That made Willy feel foolish. He hadn’t thought to note the registration number of the motorcycle. He wasn’t even sure what colour it was. Luckily Andrew had got that information. Stick knew his motorbikes and was able to provide the details of brand name and colours.
“Right, back to the house and we will wait for the police,” Willy’s father ordered. He waited for them to climb in and then started the car and swung it around. A minute later he parked it back in the car park. They were met by Willy’s mother, who at once began to fuss over the blood trickling down from his right knee. She hustled him into the house and Marjorie and Mrs Beck joined in worrying.
“Never mind me,” Willy cried in exasperation. “It’s only a scratch. What happened? What did the burglar take?”
Mr Beck came through from his study and Willy could tell by the expression on his face that it was bad news. Mr Beck said, “He’s taken all my information on the plane wrecks. All of it.”
Willy was stunned. He shook his head in disbelief, then said, “Does that mean we can’t find them?”
“Mr Beck shook his head. “No, but it will be a lot harder, and it means someone else wants them very badly and they might be trying to beat us to them.”
“Oh no! We must hurry! We can’t let those crooks get there first!” Willy cried.
CHAPTER 21
WILLY IS IMPATIENT
As the implications of the theft sank in Willy was aghast. “We must do something. We can’t just wait and let those crooks find our wrecks.”
“Not much we can do. We don’t have a ship until next Saturday,” Willy’s father pointed out.
“Can’t we see if Captain Kirk can start earlier?” Willy asked. His impatience was steadily rising.
Mr Beck shook his head and said, “I believe he has another contract until then.”
“There must be other boats!” Willy cried.
“Then you find one and hire it,” his father said. “Now calm down and let your mother wash that gravel rash.”
His mother nodded and bent to dab antiseptic on the scratches. “You have another week of school too,” she pointed out.
“School! Oh piffle!” Willy snorted. “All the exams are done. We are just filling in time.”
Stick now said, “There must have been two of them. That bloke on the motorcycle must have been watching.”
“He was,” Willy agreed. “I saw him looking at the yellow tank but thought nothing of it. I would have caught that bloke but for him.”
“And probably had more than a few scratches to show for it!” his mother snapped. “Now sit still. Marjorie, pass me that bandage.”
Willy looked up at Mr Beck as his mother began bandaging. “The crooks must have been waiting until there was no-one home so they could break in and steal your maps Mr Beck,” he said.
Mr Beck nodded and aid, “Looks like it.”
“But how would they know we were away?” Willy asked.
Norman answered. “It was no secret. We told plenty of people we were going.”
Willy thought about that but was puzzled. “But if they go to the wrecks we might catch them there, or will know who ends up with them. I don’t see how they think they can get away with it.”
“They might sell them to someone else who will deny it,” Norman suggested.
“Jemmerling,” Stick cried. “I’ll bet he paid them to do it.”
“Be fair Stick,” Mr Beck replied. “You have no proof that Mr Jemmerling had anything to do with it.”
“Yeah, but it looks mighty convenient to me. He hires the crooks, then takes us all away for the whole weekend to give them a chance to steal the maps,” Stick replied.
To Willy that sounded plausible but he felt quite uneasy about it. “Mr Jemmerling has just given us a real treat. I don’t believe he is like that.”
“I’ve heard he is a really unscrupulous character,” Mr Beck said. “There have been stories for years about how the Jemmerling Collection was put together. But I still don’t like to think ill of a man who has just done me a favour.”
They left it at that because the police had arrived. For the next hour they were all busy being interviewed. The police examined the back of the house and reported that the back door had in fact been broken open. The whole incident left a bad taste in Willy’s mouth and threatened to destroy his satisfaction over the weekend flights. Already he sensed that it would linger in his memory as one of the great flights of his life.
It was well after 5:00pm before they left. This necessitated phone calls to Andrew’s and Stick’s parents to warn them that they were all safe but would be late. On the way they stopped for a few minutes at Aunty Isabel’s. It was nearly 7:00 before they dropped Andrew at his home and by the time they had dropped Marjorie and Stick and driven home it was just before 8:00pm.
During the whole evening Willy puzzled and fretted over the robbery. ‘Who did it, and why?’ he wondered. He found it hard to believe that Mr Jemmerling might have been behind the theft. ‘I like him,’ he thought. Besides, Willy felt grateful for the ‘Catalina’ flight. So all he could do was carry on with his normal life while feeling irritable and wish they could move faster.
Monday came, starting the last week of school. Willy found that very irritating. With Captain Conkey away at the Army Cadet Promotion Course and half the students absent- for all sorts of vague reasons- there was no real study to be done. During History and Geography the rump of the class was joined to another and supervised by the Chemistry teacher, who had no interest in teaching anything. So Willy just sat and fretted.
After school he made his way to the city and purchased a couple of 1:50 000 scale topographic maps of the Bathurst Bay area- just in case. He also went to the library and borrowed some books on the early sea explorers of Australia. These at least kept his mind occupied. The on-going arguments between the historians who claimed that the Chinese charted the coasts of Australia in 1421; those who gave the credit to the Portuguese under Cristovao de Mendonca exploring the east coast in 1520 or 1521; and those who clung to the more traditional views that it was the Dutch- Jansz and so on- all kept him interested.
Willy also began packing and preparing for the expedition. To him the time seemed to drag and he continually imagined the men locating the wrecks and hauling them away, although how and where to he could not decide. He became so short tempered and irritable his mother snapped at him to stop being impatient, “And if you are bored, help by doing some weed pulling in the garden.”
Each night his father phoned Mr Beck and they discussed both the expedition and the theft of maps and notes. The police made no progress in their investigation. That did not surprise Willy. ‘It will be just another ‘break and enter’ to them. It won’t have a high priority,’ he thought. Mr Beck assured them that he had purchased more maps and charts and was asking old friends for clues.
Mr Beck also mentioned that the Pterodactyl had flown out that day and had not returned. He said the people at the airport had not been able to tell him where it had gone. All they could confirm was that Mr Jemmerling and his man Hobbs had been on board. This news disturbed Willy even more and his impatience gnawed at him so that he felt he had a physical itch.
‘Surely Mr Jemmerling isn’t the thief?’ he mused. Then he shrugged. ‘If he is then he will beat us to the wrecks for sure.’
It was like this for the next four days. The only relief was a few cuddling sessions with Marjorie. At school he and his friends discussed every aspect of the proposed expedition and became increasingly excited as Friday drew nearer. The discussions also gave Willy more sober food for thought. Present at many of the meetings were not only people like Carmen and Tina but also Noddy and Luke Karaku and other friends.
‘So many people know about this expedition it is no secret,’ Willy thought. Then he worried about which one, if any, mi
ght be in the secret pay of rivals. ‘Our security wasn’t very good,’ he mused.
The other distraction was getting his Christmas shopping done. This he found very difficult. ‘What on earth can I buy Marjorie?’ he wondered. ‘What do you buy a teenage girl? And who else to buy presents for, and what to get them?’ It at least kept him busy after school and on Thursday evening.
Friday came at last. That evening was the last Air Cadet parade for the year. Willy made sure his uniform was as perfect as he could, polishing and ironing and then, after dressing, studying himself in the mirror until his brother Lloyd teased him. His mother drove him there and he could hardly contain himself. All he wanted to do was tell everyone about the flight in the ‘Catalina’ but he was aware it would sound like boasting.
But it was Stick who did that, allowing Willy to put in seemingly modest additions. That was still enough to cause Finlay and others to turn up their noses in jealousy. The training paraded followed its usual course: first parade, an admin session during which he handed in his permission form and medical and Next-of-Kin forms for the January promotion course; and explanation of what to expect on the course; then drill and final parade. During the session on the promotion course Willy repeatedly thought about his friends on the Army Cadet Promotion Course.
‘It finishes in a few days time. I wonder how they are all going?’ he thought. He also considered it a pity that the army cadets weren’t coming on the expedition the next day. From what Mr Beck had said it was the one needing a bit of bushcraft. ‘Having expert navigators like Peter and Graham along would make things easier,’ he thought.
That night he could hardly sleep for excitement. Willy had never been on a long sea voyage and was just a little anxious that he acquit himself well. ‘I don’t get airsick, so I shouldn’t get seasick,’ he told himself. The idea of being seasick in front of the navy cadets was not something he wanted to happen!
Coasts of Cape York Page 25