“We will get wet!” Stick wailed.
“You don’t have to,” Andrew replied. “It is only waist deep at the most and I heard Capt Kirk tell Mr Beck that he would nudge her further in as the tide came in a bit more.”
“We need to get ashore and start looking,” Willy said. Now that they were there he was gripped by impatience. At the back of his mind was a niggling worry he could not quite pin down.
Thirty impatient minutes later, during which Carmen exactly plotted their position on the 1:50 000 scale map and she and Willy had twice calculated the magnetic compass course they had to walk to the approximate location of the ‘Kittyhawk’ wreck, the group made their way down into the tank deck and forward to the ramp. This had now been lowered and only about 10 metres of shallow water lay between them and the dry sand.
“Can we go now?” Willy asked, adjusting the belt with two water bottles on it.
His father shook his head. “No. First we have to unload everything and make sure we are ready,” he vetoed.
“Aw Dad! Someone might beat us to the wreck,” Willy wailed.
“Who?” his father asked, indicating the empty beach and bush.
Willy had Mr Jemmerling’s name on the tip of his tongue but instead he said, “This mining exploration team. They might stumble on it by accident,” he suggested.
“Not likely,” his father said.
Mr Beck turned to Capt Kirk, who had joined them on the ramp. “These mining people, where did you land them?”
Capt Kirk pointed along the beach. “About half a mile further along, where the water is a bit deeper. You can still see their wheel tracks on the beach.”
Willy looked and was just able to make out disturbed sand above the tide line. That got him feeling even more agitated. Mr Beck next asked, “What are they looking for?”
“They weren’t clear about that,” Capt Kirk replied, adding, “Not that there is anything unusual about that. Those sort of people keep their cards pretty close to their chests. There can be a lot of money involved.”
Willy’s mother now made a comment which crystallized the niggling worry Willy felt. She said, “I find it an extraordinary coincidence that two groups should both want to land on this beach by barge in the same week. I would imagine years go by and no-one ever lands here.”
“You are right there,” Capt Kirk agreed. “I doubt if I have seen more than one person on this beach in twenty odd years of sailing past it every few weeks.”
On hearing that Willy’s suspicions and anxieties increased. “Mineral exploration people would have instruments to detect metals wouldn’t they?”
“Quite likely,” his father agreed.
Mr Beck turned to Capt Kirk. “This mining group Captain, how many people and what gear have they got?”
“Six men, led by a fellow named Jenkins. They have a bulldozer, plus a ‘Bobcat’ thing with a front end bucket, a Four Wheel Drive, and two trucks loaded with fuel and stores,” Capt Kirk replied.
“Oh well. It may mean nothing,” Mr Beck said doubtfully. He then gave instructions to start unloading.
Capt Kirk held up his hand. “I just need to remind you; this is the ‘Stinger Season’. There might be deadly jellyfish. Make sure you have long pants on, and strong footwear in case of poisonous sea shells or stingrays.”
Willy knew all that but had quite forgotten about such perils of the tropical ocean. Now he looked at the sea with a wary eye. Somewhat gingerly he followed Andrew as he stepped off the ramp into thigh deep water. To his surprise the sea felt warmer than body temperature and he decided he wouldn’t be swimming in it anyway. This idea was strengthened when a wave came in and wet him to waist height.
Marjorie refused to get wet. “You carry me,” she said.
“No. Wait for the boat,” Willy replied. He wasn’t going to carry her in his arms with all the crew and his friends grinning at him.
A small, flat bottomed dinghy was carried down and slid into the water, held steady by Andrew and Willy till two paddles were produced. Willy’s mother and father and Marjorie and Stick then climbed in and were pushed right into the ankle-deep shallows. After they were ashore Andrew instructed Willy to help him push the boat back to collect their bags and camping gear.
As he waded out Willy said, “Where are we camping?”
Capt Kirk heard this and said, “Not within a hundred paces of the sea. A few years back a huge crocodile that was swimming past one night crawled up and dragged some tourists out of their tents. They were camped along near the western end of the bay there, and had their tents only forty of fifty metres from the water’s edge.”
“Crocodiles!” Stick cried, looking around anxiously.
“And sharks,” Capt Kirk added.
‘Sharks!’ Willy thought. That thought made him glance anxiously around- then gasp in fright. Only 20 metres away the triangular fin of a shark was sticking out of the sea! “Shark!” he cried, splashing to the end of the ramp and scrambling quickly onto it, heedless of grit and scraped knees and knuckles.
“Only a little one,” Andrew commented, pushing the boat to the ramp.
Carmen, who stood there ready to pass down kitbags, snapped at him. “It might be, but you can get out of the water, silly brother.”
Andrew grinned but did as he was told. Willy stood there dripping and fascinated. The shark swam quite close and he saw it was only about a metre long. It was a brown colour and hard to see in the water which was stirred up with silt. The shark swam around for a few minutes and then vanished under the ramp.
That made it worse. “Where did the bloody thing go?” Willy asked. He stared long and hard at the water.
“Never mind,” Andrew answered. “We will travel in the boat. Now help me load it.”
The kitbags were loaded in and Willy joined Andrew and Carmen in the boat and helped propel it to shore. Mr Beck and Norman then carefully drove the two ‘4 Wheelers’ loaded with camp equipment down the ramp and into the shallow water. They spluttered ashore and up the beach. A dozen jerry cans of fresh water were then ferried ashore. Mr Beck then did a communications check with the satellite phone.
As soon as that was done Capt Kirk began calling orders and the Wewak winched up her bow ramp and reversed off. As the LCT backed out into deeper water Willy experienced a sense of being very isolated. ‘We are a long way from anywhere,’ he thought. ‘I hope nothing goes wrong.’
It was 10:00 by then. Mr Beck directed them to move the stores up to the top of the dunes. Willy carried his kitbag and a rolled up tent up the sandy slope. It was steeper and higher than he had expected and was puffing and sweating profusely by the time he got there. The location did not impress him as a very nice camp site. It was a thicket of small, wind-twisted trees and bushes and five paces into it there was no breeze at all and the air was stifling.
Mr Beck looked around and said, “This isn’t very nice. I think we had better spend some time looking for a more suitable campsite.”
Carmen pointed east. “There are some casuarinas a couple of hundred metres that way. That might be a better spot.”
“We will look,” Mr Beck said.
Willy wiped sweat from his face and felt impatience surge. “Oh sir! Can’t we also start looking for the plane? There are enough of us to do both things at once.”
Willy’s father supported him. “I agree. It is only about two kilometres inland from here. I think four of us should go, taking water and radios, while the others find a suitable camp site.”
“Who goes?” Willy asked, very anxious to be included.
“Mr Beck and Norman because they have been there before, and some of you kids,” Willy’s father answered. “Who wants to go?” he asked.
Willy at once put up his hand. So did Andrew and Carmen. Willy’s father nodded and said, “OK, three of you- I think Andrew and Carmen because they are good navigators, and you Willy.”
Once that was decided they made sure that the 40 Channel UHF hand-held radios were workin
g and that they had their pocket compasses, maps and water. Willy’s father made sure they had their compass bearings worked out correctly both ways. “We don’t want to have to go searching for lost people,” he said. “So stay together and be back in two hours please. This is just a preliminary reconnaissance.”
Norman extracted a rifle from his gear and checked it. “Just in case of pigs or crocs,” he explained.
Satisfied the reconnaissance party was ready Dr Williams, who had been unconsciously accepted as the leader of the expedition, allowed them to go.
‘At last!’ thought Willy as he checked his small compass and then followed Carmen and Andrew into the thicket.
CHAPTER 25
TOUGH GOING
Within a couple of minutes Willy realized that walking the two kilometres might be tougher than he had anticipated. The thicket was unpleasant to push through and the plants scratchy. That made him glad he wore his long-sleeved, dark blue shirt and long trousers. He was also quickly glad he wore a pair of old cadet books as the sand underfoot was soft and he noticed that Andrew and Carmen, both of whom wore joggers, frequently grumbled about sand. The thicket did not have thorny vines like the wait-a-while and stinging tree of the rainforest but it had its own unpleasant little surprises.
The first of these was the stifling heat. The next that became quickly apparent were green ants. A few sharp nips around the neck and wrists got Willy and the others slapping and scratching. Next both Carmen and Norman got stung by native paper wasps.
After pushing through the dense stands of bushes for a hundred metres or so the group came out in a more open hollow. This was studded with clumps of spiky grass, the points of which easily pierced the cloth, causing exclamations of surprise and pain. At almost the same time yet another irritating surprise was encountered. Carmen suddenly cried out in pain and slapped at the back of her neck.
“March fly,” she explained disgustedly.
Willy then realized another was buzzing close to his head. He swatted at it, loathing the big brown flies with their savage bite. Larger than horse flies they settle quietly and then stick in a proboscis about 4mm long to suck blood. It was not the first time any of them had encountered the annoying insects.
Andrew swatted at one and then said, “Bloody things! What I’d like to know is why they are called March flies when they appear in December!”
Willy had to smile. The blasted things were always around in summer, but were not usually a nuisance in the city or the wet rainforest areas. Keeping a wary eye out for more insects he resumed walking.
Beyond the hollow was another sand dune. This appeared to extend off to both sides, parallel to the beach dune. This dune was covered by quite different vegetation: a mixture of paperbarks and cottonwoods. The paperbarks were no worry and there was little undergrowth but the cottonwoods grew in thickets with branches growing out almost at ground level. These were awkward to negotiate and all of the group were hot and sweaty by then.
The sandy ground under the cottonwoods was covered in a thick carpet of dead leaves. These crackled and slipped underfoot and also housed various ‘nasties’. There were numerous spiders but twice Carmen sprang back in alarm when snakes were seen. Both of these were yellow-bellied blacks. Watching the repulsive reptiles slither away sent cold chills through Willy.
‘We are a long way from medical help,’ he worried. He knew that the medical plan was to use the satellite telephone to call for an Emergency Services helicopter. ‘That will have to come from Cairns and will take a couple of hours to get cranked up and get here, then another hour or so to get back to a hospital,’ he calculated.
The cottonwoods and paperbarks extended inland for several hundred metres. On the inland side the group came to a paperbark swamp. This brought them to a halt on the edge of the water. Willy stared at the dark-coloured water with distaste and anxiety. It did not look deep and was only a hundred paces across to the next low dune- but…!
Carmen looked at it anxiously. “Do you think we should cross?” she asked.
“You are worried about crocs?” Mr Beck stated.
Carmen nodded. “I am.”
Willy felt another stab of fear. His eyes scanned the swamp, staring suspiciously at several semi-submerged logs. “We could detour around it,” he suggested.
“We could,” Andrew agreed.
So they did. First they went to the left, but that brought them to a much larger pool, a hundred metres long and fifty wide, and obviously deep water. So they retraced their steps and went to the west. Mr Beck now became anxious, worried that they might get lost. Carmen and Willy both reassured him. “All we have to do is walk north and we must come to the sea,” Carmen said.
In the end they waded a shallow, 25 metre wide part of the swamp. On the other side they saw another snake. This was a dark, olive brown and more than a metre long. Seeing the reptile got Willy even more concerned. ‘That might be a Taipan. We might survive the bite of a black snake, but not the bite of a Taipan,’ he thought. He had read that death from a Taipan bite could occur in minutes. To his relief the snake slid off into some bushes.
Fear now got him looking very carefully at where he placed his feet. The country they were now moving through was across another low sand dune that was aligned parallel to the others. It was covered in waist high dry grass- blady grass and some sort of prickly grass. Trees and bushes made it fairly close country and also blocked both the view and the wind. Only an occasional glimpse of the distant Melville Range gave some assurance of heading in the right direction.
Norman stopped to have a drink. “Bloody hell Dad, how did you ever find a plane wreck in this stuff?” he asked.
“From the air,” Mr Beck answered. “It is on the edge of a big salt marsh and I was a lot younger and a lot fitter then.”
Willy also drank, emptying his first water bottle. That worried him because he had only one more and they still had not covered the distance.
After another few hundred metres they came out on the edge of a salt marsh. Much of this was covered with clumps of spiky salt water grass but there were flat open patches of dry mud and salt pan. As the group walked out of the relative shade of the trees the heat seemed to engulf them. The sun felt as though it was scorching through cloth.
Suddenly Norman gave a low warning hiss and stopped. “Pig!” he whispered. He stepped clear of them and raised the rifle, working the bolt to load a round into the breech as he did. Willy looked and then sucked in his breath. About a hundred metres away, on the far side of the salt pan, he saw the wild pig. It was big, black- and terrifyingly fast. To his enormous relief it was running away from them, not charging.
Andrew also gasped and said, “Boar.”
“Yes, and just as well,” Norman said. “If we run into a sow with piglets we might be in real trouble.”
Willy thought of stories he had heard about wild pigs and shuddered. The adult pigs weighed several hundred kilograms and were very strong. He knew that he had no chance of survival in a hand-to-hand struggle with one of the creatures. They had very sharp teeth and wickedly vicious curved tusks that could slice and rip. The only escape was up a big tree. A hasty look around showed the nearest suitable one to be a good hundred paces away and he doubted if he could cover that distance before a wild pig caught him.
The stinging bite of a March fly took his mind temporarily off pigs. He slapped at it and crushed the insect with a feeling of irritated satisfaction. The group resumed walking, going straight across the salt pan on the compass course. It took three minutes of walking in the sweltering heat before they entered the belt of timber beyond.
The soil changed back to sand and the trees changed to some sort of stunted and twisted tree which grew in dense thickets. A few paperbarks grew amongst them. There were more green ants and then they encountered yet another irritating nuisance: hairy caterpillars. Andrew struck a nest of them and cried out in pain and dismay. Within seconds his skin came up in angry red welts. Luckily this was on his
left wrist and hand.
“Will you be alright Andrew?” Carmen asked anxiously.
Andrew nodded. “I think so. It stings but I’ve been stung by the little buggers before and don’t think I am allergic to them,” he replied.
They had another drink and Mr Beck studied an aerial photo he had. “This belt of scrub is only a couple of hundred metres wide,” he explained. “The salt pan where the ‘Kittyhawk’ landed is the one on the other side.”
“Landed?” Willy queried. “I thought it crashed.”
Mr Beck nodded. “The pilot obviously thought it looked the best place to land in this area and he was lucky- to begin with. He got his wheels down on a patch of dry mud and had almost rolled to a standstill near the trees before his wheels broke through the crust. The plane then pitched up on its nose and slid forward in soft mud till it hit the dry sand and stopped. That pilot was a very lucky man,” he explained.
“Did he survive?” Andrew asked.
Mr Beck nodded. “Yes. He made his way to the beach and was picked up by a small coaster and taken to Cooktown,” he said.
“Didn’t the air force try to salvage the wreck?” Carmen asked.
“Yes they did,” Mr Beck replied. “They hauled it off the mud and took out the guns and radios. But the wreck was obviously too far from the beach to haul out so they left it and the sand and leaves blew over it and trees grew up to hide it.” He described again how he had been lucky enough to find the wreck many years before.
The group pushed on through the scrub, sweating and muttering. It became so thick that Willy began to compare it to the jungle- except that the trees were only four or five metres high and it was all very dry. Suddenly Andrew, who was leading, stopped and cried out. “Come and look at this!”
They hurried forward, stepping out onto a bulldozed vehicle track. Willy stared at it in concern. It was obviously new. The crushed vegetation piled along the sides still had green leaves on it. Deep wheel ruts in the sand showed that vehicles had been along it recently. “The mineral exploration people?” he suggested.
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