Secret in the Clouds

by Christopher Cummings

  SECRET

  IN THE CLOUDS

  The Army Cadets

  Christopher Cummings

  ALSO BY

  C. R. CUMMINGS

  THE GREEN IDOL OF KANAKA CREEK

  ROSS RIVER FEVER

  TRAIN TO KURANDA

  THE MUDSKIPPER CUP

  DAVEY JONES’S LOCKER

  BELOW BARTLE FRERE

  AIRSHIP OVER ATHERTON

  COCKATOO

  THE CADET CORPORAL

  STANNARY HILLS

  COASTS OF CAPE YORK

  KYLIE AND THE KELLY GANG

  BEHIND MT BALDY

  THE CADET SERGEANT MAJOR

  COOKTOWN CHRISTMAS

  *SECRET IN THE CLOUDS

  THE WORD OF GOD

  THE CADET UNDER-OFFICER

  THE SMILEY PEOPLE

  SECRET

  IN THE CLOUDS

  The Army Cadets

  Christopher Cummings

  © Copyright C. R. Cummings 2000

  1st Edition 2000

  This eBook edition published 2013 by

  DoctorZed Publishing

  www.doctorzed.com

  eISBN 978-0-9873452-4-0

  cover image © Belka | dreamstime.com

  This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealings for the purpose of private study, research criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act,

  no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission.

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

  Cummings, C. R.

  The secret in the clouds: a North Queensland novel

  ISBN 1 74008 107 2

  1. Title.

  A823.3

  Map 1: Atherton Table Lands

  CHAPTER 1

  A BAD NIGHT

  8pm Saturday night

  February--- the ‘Wet Season’ in tropical North Queensland

  In the jungle beside the Black Mountain Road

  Stephen Bell, 16, lay back on his groundsheet and eased his stiffening muscles. It had been a long day; hard but enjoyable. As he gently massaged his calf muscles Stephen looked around at his three companions and felt glad to be there. They were good friends- the best- his mates of the ‘Hiking Team’. Over the years they had shared many adventures and had come to trust and rely on each other.

  It hadn’t always been an easy relationship though, Stephen mused. ‘And it was often my fault,’ he thought ruefully, remembering times when foolish actions of his had caused breaks and great strains to the friendship patterns. It had never been an equal relationship arrangement. Graham Kirk, fair and blue-eyed, his face alight with laughter and his good looks accentuated by the flames of their small campfire, had been Stephen’s strongest friend.

  ‘Yet he is often more a friend to that fat slug Roger,’ Stephen thought. Roger was a few months younger and, because of that, a year behind at school, and a rank lower in the army cadet unit to which they all belonged part-time. Roger was a chubby, cheerful lad of fifteen and was Graham’s platoon sergeant, his 2ic. ‘I suppose they have to work together closely to run their platoon,’ Stephen grudgingly admitted.

  Graham was, like himself and the fourth youth, Peter Bronsky, a ‘Fourth Year’ cadet and all three had only a few weeks before qualified for promotion to the rank of Cadet Under-Officer- the cadet equivalent of an army 2nd Lieutenant. It had been a good course- 10 days of hard work- with about 40 other cadets from every army cadet unit in North and Central Queensland. And Peter had topped it, to Stephen’s private chagrin. ‘The bugger topped the Corporals Course too, and his Sergeants Course,’ Stephen thought with annoyance. He had only come a poor 5th, one behind Graham.

  Peter sat opposite Stephen, busily stirring a billy of rice, while cracking jokes with the others. He was a tall, dark-haired youth whose grandparents were refugees from Russia. Stephen got on well enough with him but had to admit he felt some jealousy at Peter’s obvious ability. Graham was very capable too but Stephen secretly thought he was better than him because he had much more success with the girls. ‘In spite of my glasses and freckles,’ he mused. ‘If Graham wasn’t so wet behind the ears, and so bloody honourable, he would lay them in rows!’

  A shower of rain began to patter on the leaves, causing Peter to growl and move his billy in under the plastic shelter tied between four trees- a ‘hutchie’ in their cadet jargon. Stephen moved his feet further in under his shelter and smiled at Roger’s attempts to move boots, socks and food in under his shelter beside Peter’s. ‘Silly bugger! He is always getting caught out.’

  That brought to the surface of his mind the oft repeated argument that Roger should not be on most of their hikes because he was too fat and unfit. ‘Although he has started to lose weight and toughen-up a bit,’ Stephen observed. Secretly he thought Roger a bit of a sissy and a weakling. ‘Although he has shown he can really try when he has to,’ he conceded.

  “Bloody rain!” Graham growled, but it was with a laugh. He rarely minded rough conditions, indeed seemed to thrive on them. “We’ve been walking in rain half the bloody day. It could let up and give us a quiet night now,” he said.

  Peter began to mix brown sugar and condensed milk into his rice. “I wouldn’t have minded if it had been raining this morning when we came up The Bump,” he observed

  The four friends were on their first weekend hike of the year and had started that morning down on the coastal plain near the town of Port Douglas. From there they had hiked along a road which ran west along the Mowbray Valley through fields of sugar cane and patches of rainforest. They had then climbed up onto the higher country along an old pioneer’s road, The Bump Track. The track was now mostly overgrown and, in places, very steep. There had been no clouds and no breeze so it had been stifling. They had sweated all the way up, Stephen with the double disadvantage of his glasses continually ‘fogging up’ from condensation.

  Up on the higher ‘Tableland’ country things had become easier to begin with as the track wound through thick tropical jungle. That had been cooler. Stephen had enjoyed that until the clouds had moved over and the rain began just before lunch. Lunch had been eaten huddled under hastily erected hutchies at the junction of the Bump Track and the Black Mountain Road. After lunch the boys had walked on south along the Black Mountain Road. This wound through more dense jungle and went up and down over numerous small hills. Because the road surface was only clay it had rapidly become greasy and hard to walk along.

  So it was a very tired and wet group that had stopped just before dark to camp for the night in a small clearing of more open forest on a small rise. Since then the rain had poured down intermittently. As before it now eased up. Through a gap in the clouds Stephen was granted a fleeting glimpse of the dark bulk of Black Mountain two kilometres off to the east. The rising moon cast it in dark silhouette.

  Privately Stephen considered it to be a sinister peak. It was the only mountain for many kilometres and rose in a rough pyramid shape for 600 metres above the surrounding country. ‘It’s a very distinctive feature,’ he thought, noting again that, even in the moonlight, it looked black.

  Then more cloud closed in, so low that it swirled around the campsite as a fog. Graham placed more sticks on the fire and carefully stoked it up again. “Bugger the rain,” he said. “It nearly put our fire out.”

  “It’s this rainforest wood,” Peter said. “It all burns too quickly and turns to ash instead of coals.”

  Graham nodded agreement as he coaxed the fire back to a cheerful flicker of flames. Stephen sat up and stretched forward, emitting a low groan as his aching muscles protested.

  Graham looked at him and chuckled. “You getting too old for this Steve?” he asked.
<
br />   Stephen grunted. “Huh! I just haven’t done enough exercise over the holidays,” he replied.

  “Too much time spent chasing the girls,” Graham answered with a grin.

  Stephen snorted. “Oh! You can talk! That was all you did.”

  “Was fun too,” Graham agreed. The friends had spent Christmas and New Year on holiday in the Kuranda area and there had been several holiday romances with the local girls.

  As they talked Stephen became aware of the drone of an aircraft engine. It sounded to be coming from the north. ‘Single engine,’ he decided, ‘and heading this way.’ Gesturing up he said, “Glad I’m not up there flying in this weather.”

  Peter nodded and said, “Too right. It would be a bit bumpy up there in these clouds.”

  “Cumulus Granitus,” Roger added.

  “Eh?”

  “Cumulus Granitus,” Roger repeated. “It is the pilot’s nickname for clouds with rocks in them. I wouldn’t be flying that low if it was me.”

  “You’re right, he does sound pretty low,” Stephen agreed.

  They all now stared up at the swirling grey mass which was almost hiding the treetops above them. Stephen listened to the drone of the aircraft motor and felt a twinge of anxiety. “I hope he knows that Black Mountain is there,” he said.

  Even as he said this there was a distant crunching sound and the engine noise came to an abrupt stop. Just for an instant Stephen glimpsed a fleeting flash of reddish light up where he knew the mountain was.

  Roger looked up. “He didn’t crash did he?” he asked, voicing all their thoughts.

  “I think he did,” Peter replied, his mouth setting in a grim line. He stood up and stared up into the darkness. Graham and Roger joined him. Stephen sat where he was, scratching at the prickly heat which had begun to irritate his skin, while a growing sense of dread gripped his heart.

  “Can’t see anything,” Graham said.

  “I saw something,” Stephen commented. He spoke softly, as though not wanting to admit even to himself, that they might be witnesses to a tragedy.

  “What was it Steve?” Peter asked.

  “A reddish flash,” Stephen replied. He stared past Peter and up into the swirling dark clouds. Raindrops began to patter on the leaves again.

  “You’re sure?” Roger asked, turning to face him briefly before looking back into the night.

  “I’m sure,” Stephen replied, nettled at his statement being questioned.

  Roger’s mouth sagged open. “Oh my God!” he gasped. “That means people might be dying up there on the mountain.”

  The image of badly injured or burnt people lying in the rain and dark jungle filled Stephen with horror. He had to swallow as his stomach became suddenly queasy.

  Graham shook his head. “But surely the Air Traffic Control people at Cairns Airport would have warned him,” he suggested, his face alive with doubt.

  “Not necessarily,” Peter replied. “He was coming from the north. He might have been in a radar shadow behind Black Mountain.”

  “But he must have known the mountain was there and would have been flying higher than it,” Roger said.

  “He might have been lost,” Peter commented.

  Graham frowned. “All the more reason to fly higher than the highest mountain around I would think,” he said.

  Roger stared up at the dark mountain. “Perhaps we can’t hear him because he is now over the other side of the mountain?” he now suggested hopefully.

  At that Stephen shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think we heard a crash. And that means we must do something. We can’t just sit and here and say it is none of our business.”

  “We could listen to the news tomorrow and see if any planes are missing,” Roger suggested.

  Stephen sighed, then shuddered. “No. I am not going to sit here and let people die just because I wasn’t willing to get off my fat bum and do something,” he said. He meant Roger getting off his fat bum, but managed to change what he said in time.

  “Me neither,” Graham agreed. “I won’t be able to sleep now, wondering.”

  “But what can we do?” Roger asked.

  Peter spoke first. “We must go and report what we heard,” he replied.

  “And go and look,” Stephen added.

  Roger gestured towards the wall of dark jungle. “Oh, how can we do that?” he cried.

  “We cut our way through it,” Stephen said.

  Graham nodded. “We can do that. We did it last year up on the Herberton Range. It was slow I know, but we got there.”

  “We had more incentive then,” Peter added wryly. “We were being chased by Kosarian Partisans remember. (Read Behind Mt Baldy by C. R. Cummings).”

  Graham theatrically rolled his eyes. “Don’t remind me!” he said.

  “But how would we know which way to go?” Roger persisted.

  “On a compass course,” Stephen replied. He began fumbling for the compass he had in his shirt pocket.

  “How can we get a compass bearing?” Roger asked.

  “I saw it crash,” Stephen replied.

  “But you can’t see it now,” Roger said.

  Stephen pointed. “No. But I can see a tree just over there which is in line with where I saw the flash,” he replied. He raised the compass to his eye and squinted into the prism. There was just enough light from the luminous marks inside for him to read the bearing. “Sixty six degrees,” he said.

  “Add seven gives us seventy three degrees Grid,” Peter said. He at once moved in under Stephen’s hutchie, taking out his notebook and pencil as he did. “Give me your map Graham,” he instructed.

  Graham reached into the map pocket on his army trousers and pulled out the map in its plastic case. He took the map out and handed it to Peter, who unfolded it and laid it out flat on Stephen’s groundsheet. As he did this another shower of rain began to patter on the leaves. Roger edged in under cover to join them.

  As Peter took out a protractor he said, “Give me some light please.”

  Both Stephen and Graham pulled out pocket torches and turned them on. In their light Peter settled his protractor on their position on the map and marked off the bearing, then used the side of the protractor to rule a line. This ran up the side of Black Mountain, crossing the North-South crest line about half a kilometre from the highest point.

  “About there,” Peter said.

  “Could have been worse. It could have been right on top,” Graham commented.

  “Bloody close enough!” Roger added.

  Stephen studied the contour lines. “About nine hundred metres up,” he estimated.

  “How high are we now?” Roger asked.

  “Just below four hundred metres,” Graham replied, pointing to their location.

  “How long will that take to climb?” Roger asked.

  “Five hundred metres up and two kilometres along, all in the jungle and all in the dark,” Graham said. “I reckon we will take about seven or eight hours at least to get up, more with our packs.”

  “With our packs!” Roger cried in dismay. “Why would we take out packs?”

  “Because if there are injured people up there they are going to need shelter and warm bedding and so on,” Graham replied.

  Roger nodded and accepted this. He looked glum. Stephen looked at the faces of his friends in the glow of their hand torches. “So who is coming up with me?”

  “I will,” Graham replied at once.

  Peter looked at Stephen. “Are you sure you should go Steve?”

  “Why not?” Stephen snapped in reply.

  “Your glasses, in the rain and so on,” Peter said.

  Stephen had thought of that but the idea had only inflamed his determination. “I’ll manage,” he asserted gruffly.

  “I don’t think you should,” Roger put in.

  “Well I’m bloody well going!” Stephen cried. He knew it would be better if he went along the road but felt a strong desire to prove himself. Lurking at the back of his consci
ousness was a desire to prove to the others, particularly Roger, that he wasn’t afraid of dead bodies.

  There was a moment’s silence, then Graham asked again. Stephen set his jaw and said, “I’m going. Graham and I can do it.”

  Peter bit his lip and nodded. “Alright. Roger and I will go for help.”

  “Where will you go?” Stephen asked.

  “Back along the road to The Bump Track. There are some houses there I think.”

  “What if they don’t have a phone?” Roger asked.

  “Then we keep walking, or ask the people to drive us,” Peter replied. He bent to study the map and did some quick measuring. “It is about five or six kilometres back to the nearest house. We should make that in about two hours at most.”

  “Long before we reach the top of the mountain,” Stephen said. He was now secretly dreading the ordeal he foresaw, but said nothing to indicate this.

  Graham nodded. “Probably have a rescue helicopter up there hours before we arrive,” he added, giving a weak chuckle as he did.

  Peter looked doubtful. “This cloud and rain might make that fairly difficult,” he commented.

  “You’re right,” Graham agreed. “OK, let’s get moving.”

  The boys at once moved to their own shelters and began packing up. Graham tossed more firewood on the spluttering fire but the frequent small rain showers quickly gained the upper hand, reducing the fire to wet ashes before the boys had completed packing.

  To Stephen packing up and dressing ready for what he knew would be an ordeal, both physically and emotionally, was distressing. He laced up his boots and made sure his jacket and pullover were handy at the top of his pack, carefully wrapped in plastic bags to keep them dry. He rejected the idea of a raincoat. ‘We will be soaked from sweat in ten minutes anyway,’ he told himself.