Secret in the Clouds

by Christopher Cummings

  Stephen did likewise and felt his heart rate shoot up again. A vehicle was coming. To his dismay it stopped nearby and there was the sound of doors slamming. The muttering of voices came to them. Graham crouched lower and Stephen did likewise as the voices came closer.

  “Is this your car?” asked a man’s voice. ‘Henry,’ Stephen thought.

  “Yes it is,” Peter answered.

  “So get in it and get going, and don’t come back again or you will end up in court,” Henry warned.

  “Yes sir,” Peter answered. “Get in Tom.”

  There was the sound of doors opening and closing and then the motor of Peter’s car started. This was so close that Stephen felt like holding his breath lest the men hear him. After a moment the car was heard reversing back along the fire trail. As it did Henry said, “Follow them Rolf. Go all the way to main road, then come back to Horse Pocket turn-off and wait there till we join you. I will go back and get Robert to watch along the Quaid Road as well.”

  “Is this necessary?” Rolf queried. “I’m bloody hungry.”

  “You just obey orders and earn your pay,” snapped Henry. “That Bronsky kid is a mate of the two who found the plane and Robert was certain there were four of them in that car, so Bell and Kirk are probably still in this area. Now get going.”

  As Henry said this Stephen saw his own dismay mirrored on Graham’s face. What stunned him the most was how much these strangers appeared to know about him and Graham. ‘Who are they? And who pays them?’ he wondered.

  The sound of the men’s voices receded along the fire trail back towards the Black Mountain Road. Stephen shook his head. “This is getting serious,” he muttered.

  Graham looked at him curiously. “Why do you think that Steve?”

  “Because someone with enough money and pull has closed off the road and paid these men to guard it, and to search the mountainside,” Stephen replied, “and it’s the reason why that worries me.”

  “What reason?” Graham asked.

  “If the German spy network still exists they will try to cover their tracks,” Stephen answered.

  Graham scoffed. “Oh come off it Steve! The Second World War was seventy odd years ago. Germany has been a NATO ally for all that time. Why would there still be a German spy network in Australia? They could learn everything they needed by normal means.”

  Stephen had to agree that made sense but he was till troubled. “Well someone wants to cover up what went on,” he replied. “Possibly the spy is till alive and wants to cover his tracks to protect himself.”

  “He’d be bloody old!” Graham answered, “Eighty or ninety if he was a day.”

  “My Nanna’s eighty seven,” Stephen replied.

  Graham nodded at that. “Anyway, what do we do now? We are stuck here miles from anywhere with no vehicle and Pete won’t be able to get back to pick us up.”

  “I guess we walk out,” Stephen replied. “And avoid getting caught by those men while we do.”

  CHAPTER 18

  WHO, AND WHY?

  “You don’t think there is any danger do you?” Graham asked.

  Stephen hesitated to answer lest Graham think him as over-dramatising things. Then he nodded and said, “Yes I do. It has crossed my mind that this German spy might have a couple of murders to cover up.”

  “Murders! Who?” Graham asked.

  “The missing Lt Bellamy and his driver,” Stephen replied.

  “Oh fair go! You don’t really think the two things are linked do you?” Graham asked, but he sounded doubtful himself.

  Again Stephen nodded. “Yes I do. I think it is too much of a coincidence. A German floatplane crashes while trying to fly in to contact spies; and the officer and driver sent to investigate the same plane crash vanish, all within hours of each other.”

  “I suppose so,” Graham replied. “But that was a bloody long time ago.”

  “Maybe, but the person who killed them could be still alive,” Stephen answered, “and he might be willing to take drastic action to keep his secrets. If he has murdered two people then he might be willing to murder two more.”

  Graham looked appalled and glanced anxiously around. “You might be right I suppose. So how do we take care of ourselves?”

  “Get safely out of this area first,” Stephen said. He was about to add that if they were caught and murdered no-one would every find their bodies in all that jungle, but he held his tongue. But the thought chilled him and he started to tremble.

  Graham opened his map and studied it. Stephen bent over to look. “Which way do you recommend?” he asked.

  “It’s about ten kilometres to Horse Pocket,” Graham answered. “Then we could go to either Oak Forest or Kuranda. That’s about a dozen kilometres either way. But I don’t like either option as our friend Rolf is down that way watching.”

  “So what else can we do?” Stephen asked.

  “Go north along the Black Mountain Road to the Bump Track area, or maybe west to try to find one of these roads leading over towards Mt Molloy, or go east down to the sea,” Graham replied, tracing these on the map with his finger.

  “There’s no road to the sea,” Stephen pointed out.

  “Oh yes there is!” Graham replied. “It’s not marked on the map but the Quaid Road goes down to near Hartleys Creek at Wangetti Beach, and the old ‘Inch to the mile’ map shows a pack track went down this ridge here. I reckon we can do that. It is the shortest route.”

  “How far?” Stephen asked.

  “Only five or six kilometres in a straight line,” Graham replied.

  “Be further by road.”

  “Sure, but definitely the quickest,” Graham replied.

  “They might be watching it,” Stephen suggested.

  “They will be watching all of them if this is as important as you say, and if they have enough men,” Graham replied.

  Stephen looked at his watch. “Seventeen twenty. It will be dark in an hour and a half. If that is what we are doing we’d better move.”

  Graham nodded, had a drink, then clipped his waterbottle back in before turning and heading back into the jungle. Stephen followed. They paused for a couple of minutes at a small creek to drink and refill a waterbottle each then continued on. It took less than ten minutes to retrace their track to the Quaid Road. However here a problem arose. As Graham pointed out, their ‘good friend Robert’ had been posted to watch along the clearing. This left the boys no option but to struggle along inside the rain forest beside the road for another 500 metres until they crossed a gentle crest-line.

  This was hard going and took time and it was almost 18:00 by then. Stephen was feeling faint with hunger and exhaustion and kept licking his lips. Despite the clammy summer heat he was cold. Swirling cloud added to the growing gloom. With the twilight came a chill of apprehension. ‘By now Peter will be home and trying to explain things to my Mum and Dad,’ Stephen thought gloomily. One thing he didn’t want was another conflict with his parents. He could only speculate on what story Peter and Tom might tell and hoped they wouldn’t say too much.

  Graham crept out onto the edge of the bitumen to check they really were over the crest. He then nodded and beckoned Stephen to join him. “We are past that gate,” he pointed out. “So, unless Friend Robert has a key he can’t drive along to catch us.”

  That was some comfort. So was the cloud which now swirled thickly around them, even though it chilled Stephen even more.

  The two boys set off down the wide bitumen road, marching side by side as fast as they could step it out. Neither said much, both concentrating on staying alert in case of trouble. The road went straight for over a kilometre then curved right through a cutting. It was engineered for multi-lane traffic to travel at a hundred kilometres per hour and was easy walking. Dense jungle grew on both sides.

  Twenty minutes walking brought them to a problem. Floods had washed out a huge section of the road. The boys had to scramble along the steep hillside and cut a path around the obstacle. Be
yond that was a landslide which blocked the road but they climbed over this and went on. The road wound down the mountain, with a steep drop on the left and very high, steep cuttings on the right.

  Now they were in the shadow of the mountains and jungle and the cloud was a gloomy veil which added a spooky touch to the scene. Stephen became very anxious and kept looking at his watch. 18:30 came. ‘Less than an hour to dark,’ he thought, biting his lip.

  Abruptly they came out under the cloud and Stephen let out an exclamation of delight. “The sea!”

  The sight of the sea in the distance cheered him enormously. He noted the line of the coast and the clouds drifting in as a layer of grey. Graham pointed to a flat, grey disk on the horizon. “Must be Green Island,” he said.

  Stephen hadn’t thought about it and considered Green Island to be more to the south but he didn’t argue. He just strode on, feeling better by the minute, even though his body hurt more. Chafing and blisters were adding their pain to hunger and thirst but he gritted his teeth and strode on. Graham seemed to lope along effortlessly beside him.

  They went down a long straight incline and around the side of a steep little knoll covered in savannah woodland. Beyond that they had a marvellous view along the coast and back up at the mountains. The last glow of sunset was still lighting up the sea but the coastline was all in shadow, only the white sand of the beaches and breakers showing clearly.

  The two paused for a drink and Graham pointed behind them. “Oh look at that! I didn’t realize the Macalister Range was so steep.”

  Stephen looked back and was impressed. Except for the ridge they were on the seaward face of the mountains dropped in a steep escarpment which extended for many kilometres. The lower slopes were all open bush: savannah and grassland. This gave way to thick jungle and steep, rocky outcrops towards the top. A strong wind had now got up and the clouds were swirling up over the crest in a most spectacular fashion.

  Graham pointed off to their right, to where the small coastal plain ended a few kilometres to the south. Here the mountains came back to the sea. “That is Red Cliff Point over there,” he said. “See that ridge that comes down from the highest point of the range? That is the ridge we came down at the end of our Adventure Training Award Course last year.”

  “The track from Christmas Pocket?” Stephen asked.

  Graham nodded. “That was a good exercise!”

  Discussing the cadet exercise kept them occupied for the next twenty minutes while they marched on down the road. By now Stephen was shaking with cold and his eyes kept watering, making it hard to see. He found it a relief when the road curved in behind a hill on the ridge. That got them out of the wind for a while. He was also heartened to note how quickly they were descending the mountain. At each bend they were obviously closer to sea level.

  After rounding another spur and following the road into another large re-entrant behind a hill, which Graham insisted was the last hill on the ridge, Stephen was even more heartened to hear the sound of motor vehicles on the Cook Highway.

  ‘Not long now!’ he thought thankfully.

  The road curved to the right and angled down towards where the roof of a building showed among the tree tops. Graham stopped for a pee and then said, “I think we should leave the road now. We are nearly at the bottom and if those men are watching it that is where they are most likely to be.”

  It was twilight by then and Stephen was loath to walk into the bush in the dark but he knew it was a good idea. He followed Graham off the road onto a stony ridge covered with dry bush. Almost at once Graham let out a mutter of satisfaction. “Look, an old road,” he said, pointing both ways.

  Stephen could clearly make out the line of an old bench cut. The friends walked along this easily, pushing through a few bushes and stepping over the odd dead log. The sound of traffic on the highway became even louder. Even though it was nearly dark Graham now slowed right down and began to ‘ghost walk’, taking care not to stand on dead twigs.

  The precaution was justified. Right near the bottom of the range Stephen glimpsed the white of a parked vehicle. The boys crept closer and Stephen saw that there was a man sitting in it, facing up the road. The vehicle was parked just around the last bend at another gate. It was too dark to see the man inside.

  Taking their time the two boys edged back around the hillside away from the vehicle. Only when they were a hundred metres away and down on the edge of a belt of head-high guinea grass did Graham speak. “That bloke was watching the road.”

  Stephen nodded. The thought that he was being hunted made him feel quite nauseous. He began to wish he had never found the wreck or anything to do with it. Genuine sickness from over-exertion, heat and cold, hunger and thirst, now assailed him. “Let’s find a phone and get a lift home,” he said.

  “We could hitch hike,” Graham suggested.

  “No. Too risky. It might be them who picks us up,” Stephen replied.

  “Not likely,” Graham said, but he accepted the idea.

  “Where do we find a phone?” Stephen asked.

  “At the Crocodile Zoo at Hartleys Creek,” Graham replied, pointing north. “It is only a short distance that way.”

  Having no better plan Stephen agreed. But it turned out to be a bit more than a short distance. Worse still they had to push through a thick belt of long grass to reach the highway. Graham led the way, making plenty of noise to scare the snakes. As they got closer to the edge of the road Stephen began to have misgivings about walking along it but decided he was being silly. ‘I’m getting paranoid,’ he thought.

  It was another 500 metres to the Crocodile Zoo. To get there they had to walk along the verge of the highway around the base of the hill. Opposite were a row of houses and several street lights illuminated an intersection they had to pass. Dozens of cars went racing past in both directions and as each one lit him up with its headlights Stephen felt a tightening of his muscles as he worried that it might be the men.

  The Zoo was closed. There were lights inside and at the back but no sound. The boys stood and stared at it with some dismay. Graham walked around the paved garden area at the front to check if there was a public phone. While he did Stephen sat and studied the huge fibreglass replica of a crocodile. The thing was nearly ten metres long and was so big that if he sat on its back his feet would not touch the ground.

  “The bloody things actually grow that big,” Graham said cheerfully as he came back.

  “I know,” Stephen agreed gloomily.

  Graham pointed to the dark line of trees marking the nearby creek. “My Dad reckons Hartleys Creek was infested with the buggers when he was a boy.”

  “Did you find a phone?” Stephen asked. He was now so tired, cold and hungry that he just wanted to get home.

  “No. We will have to try the houses over the road,” Graham answered.

  Stephen wasn’t keen on that but again had no alternate plan so he got to his feet with a groan and hobbled painfully after Graham. They had to wait for four tourist busses to go rushing past before crossing the highway. They then walked to the nearest house.

  “Wait here,” Graham said. He went in and Stephen thankfully sank down. To his annoyance mosquitoes began to attack him. Then it became very muggy and a light drizzle of rain spattered down. Graham knocked on the door and Stephen heard him explaining to the man who came to the door that he and Stephen had been hiking and were late and could he please phone his friend to pick them up. The man sounded suspicious but said yes and Graham was allowed in.

  A few minutes later Graham came back out. “It’s OK,” he said. “I rang Pete. He was home and he hasn’t told our parents yet. He is coming to pick us up straight away.”

  “Great,” Stephen muttered. He was now so worn out he just wanted to lie down and sleep, except he was very hungry and thirsty. Graham must have been thirsty as well because he sought out a tap and had a drink. The sound of running water stirred Stephen and he limped painfully over to join him. Graham drank deeply and
filled one of his water bottles. Stephen contented himself with a big drink and with rinsing the sweat and salt off his face.

  Graham checked his watch in the lamplight. “Eight thirty. Be another half hour yet. Let’s find somewhere to wait.”

  “Won’t this do?” Stephen grumbled.

  “I don’t feel like camping in this bloke’s front yard,” Graham replied. “Besides, what if that man drives along past here?”

  “Oh all right,” Stephen agreed fretfully. He followed Graham out onto the footpath and along it to the left to the intersection. Here Graham selected a spot in the shadows of a tree. “We can watch the highway from here,” he said, seating himself against it.

  Stephen dropped his pack and lowered himself down to sit on it. As he did aches and cramps began to assail him and he groaned so loud Graham asked him what was the matter.

  “Never mind,” Graham replied when Stephen explained. “We will soon be home.”

  No sooner had he said this than one of the cars speeding past slowed down and pulled off the highway directly opposite them. Thinking it might be Peter Stephen looked but saw it was a grey Holden of the latest make. He was about to say something to Graham about the mosquitoes when the actions of the two men in the car made him tense.

  The men had remained in the car and were looking towards the Zoo. Even as he watched Stephen saw one calling on a radio or mobile phone. “Those men in that car,” he said quietly to Graham.

  “I’ve seen them. They look mighty suspicious to me,” Graham replied, “As though they were looking for someone.”

  “And reporting their arrival,” Stephen added, noting the man put the radio or phone down. He glanced at his watch. Only twenty minutes since Graham phoned: too soon for Peter. “I wish Pete would hurry up,” he said.