A Hidden Heart of Fire

by Edna Dawes

  A HIDDEN HEART OF FIRE

  Edna Dawes

  © Edna Dawes 1976

  Edna Dawes has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1976 by Robert Hale & Company.

  This edition published in 2019 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Some men are driven by a reckless need to meet a challenge.

  Chapter One

  Ben Garrett was feeling the lethargy of a late tropical afternoon as he sat in the jeep beneath the shade of a tree. Must be getting old, he thought as he lazily scratched his greying hair and yawned. The boat which called once a month at Wonara was standing offshore, and the sagging old bundle of planks officially termed ‘the launch’ was on its way back to the small jetty with one or two passengers, an assortment of crates and boxes, and the mail.

  Ben watched its approach through crinkled eyes, then suddenly dropped his feet from their resting place on the steering-wheel, and whistled through his teeth.

  “Sufferin’ wombats!” he exclaimed softly in a broad Australian accent. “Pinch me and say I’m not dreaming!”

  He eased himself from the vehicle and walked into the sunlight to confirm that he really did see a redhead who could have stepped straight from the calendar hanging on the wall of the office. Well, not quite, because this redhead had more clothes on.

  And what clothes! The cream and brown dress fitted like a second skin and the elegant hat banded with a brown tie would have looked more at home at the Melbourne Cup than on a deck covered with livestock and sacks.

  Nancy Martin herself was feeling more dismayed by the minute! Her aunt had told her that Wonara was nothing but a small island untouched by tourists or western civilization, but she had imagined a tropical paradise, not this! The cockleshell she was travelling in, in company with several pigs, crates of chickens and sacks of meal, had only two other human passengers, who must be residents of the ramshackle native village they were slowly approaching.

  As a scene, one could appreciate the sickle of glowing sand, the clear sun-washed sea and the whiskery palms which fanned into dark green curving archways of leaves; and the village itself had a certain photographic charm. But the whole thing was spoilt by the jostling, squabbling residents as they extracted the maximum excitement from this monthly event of the boat’s call.

  She looked again at the woven grass huts on stilts, clinging to the flattened semicircle of shoreline, which alone was free from the wall of dense vegetation, and she had the impression that the jungle was inexorably taking over.

  Why do I always let myself in for things like this? she groaned inwardly. If I hadn’t told Mother I would be in Australia for quite a time, I could be spending a month in Brisbane, instead of visiting my aunt and uncle on this out-of-the-way island. Mother wouldn’t have written to them suggesting the visit, and I wouldn’t be here now!

  The bump which announced the boat’s arrival at the jetty nearly knocked her off her feet, and the mad criss-cross of passengers determined to embark, despite the onslaught of customers bent on unloading their merchandise, put paid to her shady hat. It was knocked into the sea and floated gently into shore like a breakaway water-lily. It was retrieved by a lean giant of a man in his early fifties whom she hadn’t noticed before, and he waved it in the air to reassure her.

  “Hold on, lady,” he called. “I’ll come and get you.”

  There was no finesse about his rescue; he pushed and shoved like all the others, with the advantage of superior height and strength, until he stood beside her in the boat. “Ben Garrett,” he told her, holding out his hand. “You must be Nancy Martin.”

  She shook hands with him and smiled. “Thank you for catching my hat.”

  “All part of the service. Er, look, there’s only one way to avoid being trapped on board until after dark, so here goes.” He picked her up in his arms and swung her on to the jetty.

  Nancy was taken by surprise and said as much. “You have a novel approach, Mr. Garrett.”

  He grinned. “It comes from spending too much time on places like this. Which is your luggage?”

  “Those two by your feet, and that leather box over there. Be careful with that one,” she added hastily, having visions that it might be tossed up as lightly as she had been, “it’s my camera.”

  “Right-o,” he said.

  Next minute he had the luggage stacked on the jetty and had vaulted up beside it. “Keep close behind me,” he advised, picking up a case in each hand and repeating the free-for-all method to force a way along the narrow walk.

  Half-way there, he jumped on to the sand and held up his hands to help her. “Better use the beach. There is so much hard bargaining going on at the end of the jetty that we’d never get through. I have a jeep just under the trees. You can wait there while I collect what I came for.”

  He strode off, and Nancy half-skipped, half-ran after him, her camera bumping painfully against one hip and her delicate shoes filling with fine, hot grains of sand.

  The suitcases were in the back of the jeep when she caught up with him and started to empty the cream-coloured sandals in order to make room for her feet once more.

  “I was expecting Uncle Matt to meet me,” she said, looking up from her task.

  Ben was enchanted by her flushed face and the way she pursed her lips as she concentrated on what she was doing.

  “I have no doubt he would have done, had he known you were arriving.”

  She stopped abruptly, with one shoe in mid-air. “I’m sorry, Mr. Garrett, I just can’t work all this out. You know my name; my luggage is in the back of your vehicle—yet nobody expected me off that boat. Please explain.”

  “Call me Ben,” he suggested, noting the brown flecks in the eyes which had started to glow darkly green. “Where I come from, it’s only a man’s enemies who call him Mister.”

  “I am likely to become one at any minute, unless you justify this kidnap attempt.”

  He laughed. “I work at the research station with your uncle, which is how I knew you were paying him a visit. Oh, yes, they are expecting you, but didn’t know when.”

  “I wrote, giving a date.”

  He nodded towards the sea. “The letter is probably in the mailbag I have come to collect. We have only a monthly delivery, you know. Give me fifteen minutes to gather up the stuff for the station and then we’ll get going. I can’t wait to see their faces when I drive in with you beside me. They’ll be as sick as kangaroos that they manoeuvred me into this job of getting the mail today!”

  Nancy tried to look severe, but didn’t succeed. “Are they all as smooth talking as you, Ben?”

  “Oh, yes,” he assured her, “but they are much younger!”

  The interior of the island was mainly jungle, so the drive to the opposite end was along a bumpy earth road which had been hacked out, and which became treacherous after a monsoon had turned it into a river of mud, Ben told her.

  “You must be very isolated,” she remarked. “Why did they put the research station on the opposite side from the village?”

  He raised his eyebrows at her. “I can tell that you are no marine scientist, or the reason would be obvious to you. The tidal flow is past the northern end of the island and it is the marine life around there which will tell us the most.”

  ‘Wonara Marine Science Research Station’ announced a large board at the entrance, but the place itself was a lot smaller than its name. The jungle opened into a man-made clearing in a secluded
cove which contained a huddle of wooden bungalows of varying shape. There was not a lot of difference between this settlement and the one Nancy had seen at the landing-stage, except that here there were no piglets and poultry straying through the living quarters and the whole place had the air of an official establishment, in that there was a regimented orderliness and studious silence.

  Her heart sank. Certainly, travel brochure descriptions could be applied to the almost indigo sea and sky, the wide spread of sand and encircling verdant jungle, and the thunder of surf breaking could truly suggest ‘getting away from it all’, but here was one girl who didn’t fancy getting quite this far away!

  Ben ruined the serenity of the place by roaring into the centre of the wired-in compound, his hand pressed on the horn. Immediately, the place came to life, so that by the time the jeep had halted before a bungalow marked ‘office’, people were appearing on verandas from all sides. Nancy little realized that the arrival of the boat each month was a high spot for this group of Australians isolated in the ocean, who had been sitting with ears stretched for the sound of Ben’s return.

  It meant letters from home, news of the outside world, magazines and newspapers, shopping by mail-order—and, best of all, fresh food supplies. Towards the end of each month their meals began to grow rather monotonous as they reluctantly ate up all their least favourite items, which had been left till last. With the arrival of the boat, hearts and stomachs rejoiced!

  The first to reach the jeep was a short, stubby young man with a shock of hair. He had raced from a building to the left, which appeared to be the laboratory, but he pulled up short when he saw Nancy.

  “Blimey O’Reilly!” he exclaimed, in a Cockney accent which sent Nancy winging the twelve thousand miles to home.

  “Charlie, this is Nancy Martin,” said Ben with a grin, “the best thing to arrive on that boat since I have been here.” He turned to the girl beside him. “Charlie Barnes works in the lab with your uncle. He was one of your countrymen until he decided the Aussie girls suited him better, married one, and settled in Sydney. He is on top-line for a letter from home—which is why there’s all the rush.”

  “There is one, isn’t there?” Charlie asked anxiously.

  “Sure there is.” Ben reached into his pocket. “I got it from the bag, so’s I could give it to you right away.”

  “Thanks, chum. Excuse me, miss, but I’m having my first baby any day now and I must find out how the missus is.” He waved a hand in farewell and walked slowly away as he slit the envelope.

  “It can’t be Nancy!” cried a female voice, and there was Aunt Meg coming up behind them—almost at the same time as her husband appeared from the laboratory. They had not seen their niece for six years, and although photographs had been regularly exchanged between Nancy’s mother and her sister Meg, these had not prepared the couple on Wonara for the sophisticated creature they saw alighting from the jeep.

  Meg Green, an effusive woman, did all the usual embarrassing things aunts do when confronted with a suddenly grown niece, and Nancy had to smile throughout a barrage of questions and exclamations on how the freckles on her nose no longer seemed so prominent nor her hair quite so carroty as when she had had that dreadful frizzy perm.

  During the inquisition by her aunt, and hearty back-slapping from Matt, Nancy was vaguely conscious of a fair-haired young woman who walked slowly across the compound from the right and took several packages from Ben.

  Meg spotted her as she started to walk away. “Sheila, you must meet Nancy. I feel so flustered that I have forgotten my manners.” She fanned her flushed face with a handkerchief. “I have been so looking forward to this visit, but her surprise arrival has made me go all to pieces.” Nancy was pulled forward. “My dear, this is Sheila Maitland. Apart from working in the laboratory with your uncle, she is a much-valued neighbour. What I should have done without her at times, I really don’t know. She’ll be as pleased as I am to have another woman to swell our numbers, because the menfolk have things too much their own way here.”

  Sheila Maitland was tall, with pale hair which curled close to her head. There was a toughness about her which made nonsense of the feminine appeal of her blue eyes, mouth soft and bare of lipstick; and when she greeted Nancy, her voice was firm and decisive.

  “Hello, Nancy. Welcome to Wonara—such as it is. Your visit will do Meg the world of good. She has been giving me quite a lot of concern just lately.”

  “Hush!” said Meg hurriedly. “We mustn’t burden Nancy with details of our castaway existence the minute she arrives. When you have opened your parcels, dear, come over for a cup of tea with us.”

  “I’ll be there,” promised the Australian girl, and walked back to her bungalow.

  Nancy watched her go. How could she cut herself off from life like this! Admittedly, Sheila looked the part. There was that tanned, healthy, outdoor air about her, not unusual in Australian women, and she had the type of pleasant, open face which had no need to rely on make-up. Suddenly Nancy felt over-dressed and out of place in comparison, which was ridiculous, because if anyone should feel at a disadvantage it should be the girl in faded shorts and a man’s shirt.

  “Poor girl!” said Meg, also watching the retreating figure. “She talks about being concerned on my account, when she has such a terrible burden of her own.”

  “Oh?” Nancy was brought back from her thoughts. “What’s that?”

  “I’ll tell you all about it—but I mustn’t keep you out here any longer in those shoes, which look so dreadfully uncomfortable. Matt, dear, have you finished for today?”

  Matthew Green, used to his English wife’s chatterbox ways, had been standing patiently by the jeep, waiting to get a word in, and now he smiled at her and his lovely niece.

  “As from now, the lab is closed. I’ll just lock up, and then I’ll be ready for that cup of tea.”

  Ben had disappeared into the office, so Nancy picked up her two cases and walked beside her aunt towards the veranda steps of the first bungalow to their right.

  “What was that about Sheila?” she asked curiously.

  “Oh, my dear, you couldn’t have come at a better time to lift everyone’s morale. Jim Maitland was drowned three months ago.”

  “How dreadful!”

  “He did all the underwater photography for the scientists—that’s how he and Sheila met—she’s a marine biologist—and they say he was one of the best. Around three months ago he ruined some valuable film through unusual carelessness. Rod was simply furious! Rod McNaughton is the senior man here, dear,” added her aunt, in one of the asides she interspersed all her conversations with. “As a result, Jim went out on his own to take another series of shots—and didn’t come back. His body—” Her face took on a stricken look. “They found evidence that she had been drowned. Poor Sheila had to go across to Manua Island to identify a ring which was the only way of proving it was Jim.”

  To Nancy’s dismay, her aunt’s eyes filled with tears, and the girl hastily changed the subject by admiring the way Meg had turned the simple bungalow into a home, with little touches of comfort. They had climbed the steps and now stood on the veranda, looking at the lounge—which, to Nancy’s eyes, still seemed pretty spartan, despite the additions.

  Nancy felt dreadful! Why had she not inquired more fully into the amenities of Wonara? The clothes she had brought were completely unsuitable for a dump like this and would only serve to accentuate her sophistication. She supposed her scatty Aunt Meg would have no more idea of the kind of geared-up life a fashion photographer for a glossy magazine was bound to lead than Nancy herself had had of the sort of place a marine science research station would be. For the second time since her arrival Nancy wished she had not been inveigled into this duty visit.

  *

  The orange twilight ended like a shutter coming down over a camera lens, and night was suddenly there as the tea-party on the veranda broke up.

  Sheila Maitland turned down an offer to join them for dinne
r “I would love to come some other time,” she said with a smile, “but I think you three should spend your first evening alone. Good night. See you tomorrow, Nancy.”

  The dinner was excellent. A flood of shame passed over Nancy as she recalled her disparaging attitude to life on Wonara, although she was unaware that the boat which had brought her had also brought their dinner. They sat on the veranda to eat, because the dining-room had been turned into a guest-room. The sounds of a tropical night kept Nancy from giving her full attention to the conversation. A chorus of cicadas and bullfrogs went on incessantly, and the English visitor appeared to be the only one who noticed the lizards which played on the walls.

  There was an enormous fluorescent moon which lit the cove, and Matt commented on it with gratification. “Good thing there’s no cloud tonight, because Bessie is liable to go.”

  Meg laughed gaily. “You should see your face, Nancy dear! I must explain about Bessie. She is the generator for our electricity. Have you heard her humming? We are so used to it that it doesn’t bother us any more. Well, she often breaks down without any warning, and then we have to rely on lamps or candles. The men thought of the name Bessie, because she is as temperamental as a woman—so they say!”

  “When we have been overloading her, as we have this afternoon in the laboratory, she is likely to pack up,” added Matt. “However, perhaps she’ll be on her best behaviour in your honour. By the way, Meg, I left a message for Rod to come across for a drink after dinner. He hadn’t returned when I left, so I thought an invitation for a meal would rush him too much. I know he has several things piling up in his office, and he was out before I was up this morning.”

  “He is driving himself too hard,” said Meg with a shake of her head. “I don’t see why he feels so badly about Jim’s death. He didn’t ask him to get another set of pictures.”

  “No-o, but he was flaming mad because Jim had ruined the others—and he is officially responsible for all his staff. No one can blame him for Jim ignoring the rule never to dive alone, but deep inside I think he feels that his anger drove Jim to do it—and Sheila is a constant reminder.”