Treasure Hunters

by Allan Baillie

  Pat sucked his tongue. ‘I’m sorry. It’s gone. I thought I could hear something, but ’’

  ‘Don’t worry. Probably you heard the echo of the Tub’s engine. These sea mists do funny things to sound ’’

  A man’s shout came out of the mist.

  ‘Christ!’ Yanking the accelerator lever, Matt spun the wheel towards the shout.

  Pat knew what Matt was trying to do but it looked erratic. Matt was turning the Tub quickly so that the unseen boat would not come boiling out of the mist and hit her broadside. If the boats were running bow-to-bow they could slide off, maybe they could miss each other. Broadside, there was no hope.

  The Tub cut an arc in the still water, but there was no sign of a boat coming out of the mist. Matt idled the engine, squinted over the bow, sighed and lifted his hands to form a trumpet over his mouth.

  ‘Matt, don’t call,’ Col said quietly. ‘Something was wrong with that shout.’

  Matt frowned at him but he dropped his hands.

  Now Pat could hear a low murmur, like the ebb and the flow of waves on a flat beach. Then another shout and a splash. Long laughter. It was an ugly sound, with a slight touch of embarrassment, not the laughter that goes with a joke or friends together. This sounded like an unstable mob.

  ‘A party?’ Matt said.

  They heard the terrified scream of a woman, followed by another splash. Then there were many more splashes, shouts, more screaming and that terrible laughter.

  Pat pressed his back against the wheelhouse, trying to sink into the wood. Matt stumbled from the wheelhouse, his face white, and gripped the railing so tightly it was shaking a little. Col stood perfectly still with his mouth open.

  The Tub slid slowly across the cloudy water, moving only from its weight. A shadow was forming in the mist, something long and high.

  ‘The General,’ said Col.

  But Pat knew that, knew it from the first shout.

  As the Tub nudged towards the shadow the mists slid away, as if a gauze curtain was being pulled aside. The hulk of the patrol boat was sitting in the water, a grey rock surrounded by wild foam. But there was uproar on the deck. Dark men and women were struggling with light khaki men, but they were losing. The light khaki men were thrusting them towards the stern, heaving them into the water.

  They are drowning them! Pat’s body chilled.

  ‘Stop it! Stoppit!’ yelled Col.

  ‘They can’t hear,’ Matt murmured.

  ‘There’s got to be a way to stop them.’

  Maybe they won’t see us. Maybe they’ll leave soon and then we can pick up everyone. Please.

  Col barged into the wheelhouse, flipped the radio switch and grabbed the microphone. ‘Mayday, mayday, mayday. Can you hear me? There is an Indonesian ship dumping –’

  Matt reached past Col and turned the radio off. ‘What are you doing? There’s nobody listening but maybe that patrol boat. Nobody in the world can gallop up to rescue these people. Nobody!’

  ‘We can’t let this happen!’

  ‘Just wait.’

  The dark people were now all in the water and the patrol boat was moving from them.

  ‘Dad!’

  A couple of khaki men wandered from the others and started taking the cover off the anti-aircraft gun.

  For a long moment Matt stood frozen on the deck, as still as the China lion.

  ‘My God ’’ Col whispered.

  Then Matt roared, as if the bronze lion had leaped from the deck. He grabbed Col’s arm, hauled him from the wheelhouse, spinning him against the rail.

  ‘What ’?’

  And Matt lifted him and hurled him into the sea. He turned quickly to Pat and reached for him.

  Pat stumbled back. He’s gone mad!

  Matt clutched him.

  For a moment, Pat struggled, then he saw Matt’s eyes. Desperate, hunted eyes, but not the eyes of a maniac. He allowed himself to be dragged towards the rail, to be crushed into Matt’s chest, lifted from the deck.

  Matt muttered in his ear: ‘Sorry kid. Sorrento. Be back in a sec.’

  Then Pat was hurled out across the water. He splashed heavily on his back, and by the time he had surfaced and cleared his eyes the Tub was coughing black smoke and shaking away from him. He looked at Col in the water nearby, and he seemed to be stunned.

  Matt untied the dinghy and threw the painter into it, leaving it bobbing in the Tub’s wake. Ahead the khaki men had uncovered the anti-aircraft gun and were moving the barrel to the people in the water. But a swelling shout came from the bridge of the patrol boat, and the men collided with each other to swing the barrel towards the charging Tub.

  The Tub was now fifty metres from the motionless patrol boat, still building momentum with the bow aimed at its centre. The gun burst into a terrible rhythm, a shivering beat, like a steam locomotive thundering down a sheer mountainside. The calm water between the two boats was violently pocked and lifted. A few shining spears flashed ahead, clipping the bow of the Tub, but there were far more invisible bullets in the air.

  The bow began to disintegrate. Splinters, bright metal, scudded apart like birds in fright. The chained oil drums shook, quivered, sprayed, and little blue flames danced around them.

  Matt ran out of the wheelhouse, hunched down. Covering his head with his arms he hurled himself over the rails. His arms, his clutching fingers, reached down for the safety of the green water. He almost made it.

  Then the drums ignited. Blue and orange flames seared the rising mist, etching the shadow of Matt’s falling body. For a moment he seemed to be dancing in the air, with the shining spears around him. Then he fell flat into the water.

  But it had not finished. The Tub had lost most of the bow, the deck was a roaring inferno, and the wheelhouse was no more than a few skeletal black sticks. But she was still lurching towards the patrol boat. Screaming shouts came over the sound of heavy firing, the stern of the patrol boat foamed and it began to move. Far too late.

  The Tub rammed the patrol boat, tearing the squealing metal, crunching into the grey hull, pushing it sideways in the water. The flaming bow plunged into its heart until it began to fold. Then a massive roaring explosion tore at both boats, and the morning became deep red as if the sun had set in the middle of the sea. A sudden wind scudded across the water, scarring the surface and spinning the dinghy. Several heavy objects fell out of the sky and then a dappling of the surface.

  The two boats lay together for a moment, hissing like exhausted dinosaurs. Then sank together.

  the ending

  For a timeless period Pat drifted loosely in the green water. He didn’t think, he didn’t feel, didn’t see. He had turned himself off.

  Until a buzzing sound began to tickle his ears. He turned his head slowly and saw Col in the dinghy moving towards him.

  Col cut the engine and reached down to pull him out of the water. He looked at Pat’s face for a moment but avoided his eyes. ‘I ’’ He opened his hand and rubbed Pat’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, mate.’

  Pat sat on the seat, trembling slightly. Don’t say anything. Just leave me alone.

  As Col slowly weaved the dinghy through floating debris towards the people in the water he looked very carefully about. ‘Can you see him?’

  Pat shook his head. He didn’t think he could talk.

  ‘No, he’s gone,’ Col said flatly, and accelerated slightly.

  As if to close a book.

  Pat looked back at the wake and realised he didn’t want to find Matt now. Not as he must be, and that shocked him.

  ‘Hey.’ Col shook Pat’s knee.

  ‘He said something when he threw me off the Tub. He said “Sorrento”.’

  Col nodded very slowly. ‘Yes, it was.’

  Someone shouted faintly in the mist.

  Col shook his head. ‘We’ve got things to do.’

  Like trailing ropes from the stern of the dinghy. Like taking the dinghy carefully among the survivors. There were twenty-seven people in the water,
including two young soldiers from the patrol boat, and they were all frightened. But none of them were panicking. They gathered around the dinghy without touching it, and some people actually smiled up from the water. Col smiled as he slowly patted the air with his hands. Take it easy, we’ll get you home.

  Ali was the first person hauled into the dinghy. He became Col’s voice. Then his mother, made haggard by exhaustion but with a spark in her eyes, then older women, five small children who seemed to be confused at everything and some old men. Some water lapped over the transom with the last grandfather then everyone in the dinghy settled quickly.

  Meanwhile men in the water tied loops into the long ropes and the girls abandoned floating rubbish to join them there. The two soldiers were allowed to grab onto the end of one of the ropes.

  Ali nodded at them. ‘They’re lucky. Some of the fishermen wanted to drown them but a couple of women stopped them.’

  Col revved the motor and pointed the dinghy at the misty shadow of the mountain. In the long voyage two people lost their grip on the rope but Col just slowed the motor so they could get back on. Pat suggested that he should take the place of someone on the ropes but Ali said no because he was the son.

  Eventually Pat saw the sun catch the stone tiger and watched the headland slide across the burning town.

  Then Pat found that Matt had shoved the ruby into his pocket before throwing him into the water.

  Pat slowly took his eyes from the leaping tiger and saw Ali staring at the ruby in his open hand. Ali’s motionless eyes caught its cold fire as he stroked his Malacca token in vague uncertainty.

  Col was watching Pat’s face. Gently he said, ‘Why?’

  ‘Yes, why? Why did he give me this just before taking the Tub against the patrol boat?’ Pat lifted the ruby.

  Col shook his head. ‘He didn’t know how it would come out. He didn’t know.’

  Pat glared at the ruby.

  Then Ali leaned slightly towards Pat.

  ‘But there was a chance ’’ Col said: ‘He gave it to you to look after it.’

  The ruby glinted in Pat’s hand. Or he gave you something to remember.

  Ali moved his token near to the ruby. ‘It’s ’’

  Pat looked down at the token. ‘What?’ He thought: Oh no, he’s trying the old swap, like his cardboard dragon and your knife. Again.

  No! Pat jerked the ruby away.

  ‘I didn’t want ’’ Ali held his token in the air for a moment before lowering his head and taking it away.

  Col touched the ruby in Pat’s hand. ‘You know he had to do it.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘As you had to dive for Ali.’

  ‘That was different.’

  ‘No it wasn’t. You two are peas in a pod. You – no, we all - saw a moment that wanted a desperate action. I didn’t do anything in Sorrento, but you both did something here – no matter what.’

  ‘But – he’s gone!’

  ‘Maybe not completely.’

  Ali’s mother took her hands from her son’s shirt to squeeze Pat’s hand and to smile at him. Pat, astonished, smiled back and realised that the people in the dinghy were changing. An old man clapped his hands, as if he was about to begin to work; five women began to talk fast at each other; a man stretched his arms and a small girl punched a small boy on the leg. Suddenly nobody was worried about keeping the dinghy afloat.

  Because the high green hill had slid slowly away, and they could see their beach. A couple of fishing boats were half-sunk, several houses smouldering, but it was home. And if the dinghy capsized, well they could swim ’

  Pat saw that Ali was rubbing his token almost affectionately.

  Ali twitched a weak smile at Pat. ‘The luck ’ It’s coming back.’

  In that moment Pat knew what Ali had been trying to do with his token a few minutes ago. So he finished it.

  Pat reached over with his flickering ruby and clinked the lucky token. ‘To Kakek.’ Then for a quiet moment he held Ali’s eyes. ‘To Dad and Son.’

  about the author

  Since the publication of his first novel, Adrift, in 1983, Allan Baillie has become one of Australia’s most important writers for children.

  On leaving school, Allan worked as a journalist and travelled extensively. Many of his books draw upon this background and give his readers invaluable insights into world politics, with a particular focus on Asia.

  Allan Baillie’s novels, which include Little Brother(1986), The China Coin (1992) and Saving Abbie (2000), have won him acclaim, awards and international recognition. He is also the author of several highly successful picture books, including Drac and the Gremlin (1989). His books have found success in Japan, Sweden, Holland, Germany, France, Spain, England, the United States, New Zealand and South Africa.

  Allan now lives in Sydney with his wife and they have two children. He writes full time.