by Lucy Walker
‘Oh!’ said Cherry, suddenly deflated.
She was lolling here having fun and all the time, somewhere down there a thousand miles away, her father and mother were sitting, their ears glued to the radio, the papers shaking in their hands.
Here she was, momentarily happy, and down there in the Street of the Pines Dad and Mum were being made sick with anxiety.
‘Stephen,’ she said, ‘how soon can we get out of here? You said you found where the jungle ends and the plains begin. How long before we can make the plains? Will searching aircraft see us there?’
‘What do you think I’m carrying in this bag? Why do you think I made Tracy and Alan take waterbags yesterday? When we’ve collected as many birds and as much water as we can carry between us, we’ll head for the plains to-day.’
‘Oh,’ said Cherry, relieved. ‘Thank goodness. They must be worrying about us back home ‒’
‘Of course. And now to take your mind off their troubles just look at that new one growing up over there.’
Cherry followed Stephen’s eyes to where Peter was no longer sitting on the ground. He was elevated on all fours, his knees and elbows stiff, holding himself balanced in a position that he wasn’t quite certain he could control.
Stephen drew in his legs as if to rise, but Cherry put out her hand and stopped him.
‘Don’t, don’t!’ she pleaded urgently. ‘He’s going to stand up.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I don’t know. I think. I’ve never seen a baby stand up for the first time. But I think …’
‘The maternal instinct, eh? There really is such a thing.’
‘Ssh!’ said Cherry. ‘Don’t move.’ Her hand rested on Stephen’s arm, holding it firmly so that he would not stand up and interrupt the child in the performance of this first adult rite.
It seemed an age that Peter remained in that curious four-legged position.
‘Oh!’ said Cherry in agony. ‘If only he’d put his feet a little closer together, he’d make it.’
Peter’s hands lifted an inch from the ground. He wavered, then slowly, with concentrated patience he straightened his back. Suddenly he was seeing the world from a new angle. There was a look of sheer astonishment on his face. His eyes were wide with wonder.
He looked at Cherry and Stephen, and, wordless, they looked back at him. Then slowly over Peter’s face there spread an expression of satisfied, seraphic joy. He knew he’d done a wonderful thing. One foot came forward in a first step then he lost balance and sat down on his seat with a plonk.
‘O-oh!’ said Cherry and slowly expelled a breath of joy herself. She was quite unconscious of the fact she held Stephen’s arm and that her eyes were wet.
Stephen looked at his self-satisfied nephew, then at Cherry’s face. He pulled in the corners of his mouth and scratched the back of his neck with his left hand.
‘I’m a grown man and have been walking for thirty years,’ he said. ‘And I haven’t seen anyone shed tears over that fact yet.’
‘I’m not crying,’ said Cherry, thrusting away the arm which she had held so tightly, and brushing her hand across her eyes. ‘I’m smiling.’
She jumped up and ran across the clearing to the child. She knelt down in front of him and took his hands.
‘Come on, Peter,’ she said, cajoling. ‘Do it again, darling.’
Stephen unlooped himself from his sitting position under the tree, picked up the carrying-bag and went towards her.
‘You’re a strange person if ever there was one,’ he said, addressing the top of Cherry’s head. ‘One minute you’re worrying as to whether Tracy is man-eating Alan Donnelly, at the same time trying to hustle the whole party out on the plains to send lovelorn messages down south. Next moment you’re prepared to waste hours of time watching a small boy learning to walk.’
‘You’re heartless,’ said Cherry, standing up and picking Peter up in her arms. She gave the child a warm hug and then helped settle him in the carrying-bag which Stephen already had over his shoulder. She looked at Stephen again. ‘And I don’t think you’re very kind about Alan Donnelly.’
‘And I think you’re too kind. He’s a grown man and can fend for himself, you know.’
‘Of course I know. I’m only particularly nice to him because it was his plane that landed us in this mess. He must feel responsible, though he doesn’t say anything.’
‘He didn’t land us in this mess. A bolt of lightning did. And the insurance will pay for the plane,’ he said abruptly, then added, ‘I’ll take the gun, you take the bag, Cherry.’
‘Peter’s heavy and he wriggles. I’ll take the gun and both bags.’
‘You will not,’ said Stephen. ‘I never trust a woman with a gun.’
‘Thank you,’ said Cherry tartly. ‘I don’t like guns anyway.’
‘Right,’ said Stephen. ‘That settles that argument equably. Well, are you ready? Then on our way.’
Oddly enough it had been a pleasant interlude, that short rest under the cabbage tree. The tendency to argue between herself and Stephen could hardly be called real argument, Cherry thought. It had been more like friendly badinage. It was rather nice like this. Sort of friendly. She felt she had come a long way to seeing a nicer side of Stephen’s character. In fact, getting to know him.
And as for young Peter taking his first step in the middle of a jungle! Well, really, the early morning was full of mysterious wonders!
Cherry thrust her way through bushes happily as she followed Stephen and the baby.
‘It’s lovely,’ she thought. ‘Really lovely. If only we could go on for ever. For ever and ever, with short stops for a nice clean bath, of course.’ Momentarily she had forgotten the rest of the world.
Stephen had his own thought processes as his eyes, without direction from conscious thought, picked out the marks that showed the way.
She was a quaint little thing, was Cherry Landin.
His mind went back to the picture of the young girl running across the white sands of the Indian Ocean in her blue swimsuit, the sun shining on her hair, as youth and the sheer physical joy of living shone like an aura from her whole physical being.
He had been amused at her sweet youth, at her girlish anxiety to get into the water lest the water would not wait for her.
Then she had turned out to be the prospective governess for his brother’s children.
‘Well, well,’ he had thought. ‘Wonders will never cease. So inexperienced and willing to go away for a whole year from that over-cloistered and cosseted hearth of the Landins.’ He had wondered, rather briefly, how anyone as inexperienced could possibly manage the two children on Yulinga Station.
And here she was managing Peter, the younger and tougher, from Stephen’s point of view, of the two children as if Peter was her own, and she’d been managing babies all her short life.
Stephen, holding his nephew close to him as he thrust his way between trees, and through and over heavy undergrowth, smiled to himself.
He rather liked the way Tracy fooled the world. Much more worldly, of course, than the girl ploughing her way through the jungle behind him. Yet oddly enough Cherry was attractive in her quaint quasi-old-world way, and, as Alan Donnelly had remarked, as game as Ned Kelly. Alan had something of a reputation of being a man for the ladies. Stephen hoped Cherry wouldn’t get hurt. He was no longer smiling, but frowning now as he pursued this train of thought.
He emerged from the tree fringe to find Tracy and Alan Donnelly camped a hundred yards away from where he now stood with Peter in his arms. There was a fire burning and Tracy was busy cooking something on the end of a long forked stick.
Alan let out a whoop of delight and came towards Stephen. Tracy, more leisurely, put down her bush fork, pushed her hair back into place and began to pick her way delicately over the stones and broken tree debris on the high bank above the lake.
‘Well, you’re a fine pair,’ said Stephen. ‘Took too long swimming, I suppose?’
&nbs
p; Alan grinned.
‘Ask Tracy,’ he said. He looked inquiringly first at Stephen then into the dark tunnels of the bush. ‘Where’s Cherry?’
‘Following along,’ said Stephen, looking back over his shoulder, expecting to see Cherry appearing between the trees.
There was a momentary silence between the two men and in that moment it was quite obvious there was a silence in the bush too. There was no sound of anyone approaching.
The grin disappeared from Alan Donnelly’s face. His voice was suddenly sharp.
‘Where’s Cherry?’ he said. ‘Damn it, man, where is she? You haven’t left her behind? In there? In that damn’ jungle?’
He thrust past Stephen and pushed into the bush.
‘Cherry!’ he shouted. ‘Cherry! Cherry!’
Stephen’s face had frozen.
‘Tracy,’ he said quietly. ‘Come here and get Peter.’
It took several minutes to free Peter from the shoulder bag and settle him safely in Tracy’s arms.
‘Don’t be long, for goodness’ sake,’ Tracy said. ‘I’ll never manage this wriggling elephant for more than five minutes for sure.’
Stephen did not answer. He turned and thrust back into the bush. Twenty yards back along the trail he stopped and listened. He could hear Alan Donnelly thundering on and over and through the undergrowth with the noise of half a dozen elephants as he did it.
Beyond that noise he heard Cherry’s clear voice.
‘Here! This way, Alan. I’m all right.’
Alan in his ardour to get there would never follow the sound of her voice, Stephen thought. And if Cherry was unhurt and just being difficult he would tell her with considerable forcefulness that there were certain pranks not played when, fun and all though the adventure might be, their lives actually were in jeopardy.
Stephen strode on through the bush in anger.
Tracy was the only one other than himself who knew the real dangers of that jungle. Poisoned bushes, small snakes and even pythons, were negligible beside the horrors of getting lost in it. He had carefully kept this knowledge from Alan and Cherry. On himself he had taken the responsibility of watching their every footstep, of eating before they did, of testing leaves, sticks and bush fronds before Peter had been allowed to be put down amongst them. And a burden that responsibility had been.
Cherry had adopted proprietorial rights over Peter and good and all though this might be in its appropriate place, in an insect and snake infested jungle this was a responsibility she was not equipped to undertake. All very well on a homestead veranda, or a comfortable seat in a plane.
Alan Donnelly, having had a start on Stephen, got to Cherry first.
She was sitting on the ground, in a nest of bushes and smiling.
‘Don’t look so worried,’ she said brightly. ‘It’s only my foot. I caught it in the creepers, and tripped. I think my ankle’s swelling a bit.’
Alan was beside her in a minute and sank down on one knee. Their two heads nearly touched as they bent to look at the ankle. They looked up simultaneously and their eyes met. Alan wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.
‘You gave me an awful fright, Cherry,’ he said. ‘I thought you were lost. Why didn’t you call out to Stephen?’
‘I heard your voices. I wanted him to get through to the lake and put Peter down first. He couldn’t help me with Peter in his arms. Besides, I thought if I rested a minute I’d get up and hobble after him. Anyhow ‒’
‘Anyhow what?’
‘You got lost yourself, last night,’ she said reproachfully. ‘I worried too.’
‘I wish I had that honest excuse,’ he said ruefully. ‘I’m afraid it was no more than that Tracy liked swimming so much I couldn’t persuade her out of the water before the sun began to go down behind the trees.’
‘Were you swimming with her?’ demanded Cherry primly.
‘No such luck. A hundred yards away,’ grinned Alan. ‘That’s why I couldn’t get her out of the water.’
They looked at one another and laughed.
They were thus, Alan on one knee before Cherry and Cherry, one slightly swollen ankle thrust out before her, sitting back on her two hands, her head thrown back and laughing, when Stephen burst through the bushes.
He stopped and took stock of the scene.
Alan failed to see the irritation in his face.
‘She’s all right, old man,’ Alan said. ‘Not lost, merely injured.’
Stephen walked over to the couple, and standing stiffly looked down at Cherry’s foot.
‘Not very bad,’ he said dryly. ‘Why didn’t you call out?’
Cherry sensed at once the anger behind Stephen’s expressionless face.
‘There wasn’t any need,’ she said. ‘I would have come on in a minute or two. I was safe here and I could hear voices ‒’
‘Next time think of other people as well as yourself,’ Stephen said. ‘I’m sorry to have to exercise my authority like this, Cherry, but I’ve told you ‒ we stay together. No one member of the party shall be anywhere ‒ I repeat ‒ anywhere out of sight of another.’
Cherry began to scramble up and Alan helped her.
‘She’s safe and sound, that’s the main thing,’ said Alan by way of making peace.
‘Is Peter all right?’ Cherry asked Stephen. She had no answer to his recrimination.
‘He’s with Tracy,’ Stephen said dryly. He added, ‘She knows a good deal more about the nature of this country and the right places to put a child, or a grown woman for that matter, in the undergrowth.’
‘What was wrong with the bush I was sitting on?’ asked Cherry. ‘It was a nice soft one.’
Stephen looked at her as if he would like to smack her first and explain afterwards. He did neither.
‘There are bushes, and bushes,’ he said cryptically. ‘Let’s leave it at that.’
Cherry took a step on her injured foot.
‘Ouch!’ she said, then tied her mouth up in knots so that she wouldn’t say that again.
Stephen stopped and looked at her, then over his shoulder at Alan.
‘I’d better carry her,’ he said. He was taller and his shoulders were much broader than Alan’s.
‘I’m all right,’ protested Cherry.
‘We’ll decide that when we get out of here.’ He bent down and swung her up in his arms. In an effortless way he began to weave his way amongst the trees and through the undergrowth.
Cherry felt guilty, also sorry that the pleasant companionship of the early morning had disappeared and that in its place there was one large angry man and a slightly injured and foolish girl.
‘It’s quite nice up here,’ she said brightly. ‘Now I know why Peter likes you carrying him. It’s high up.’
‘Just keep quiet and let’s get out of here,’ said Stephen tersely.
‘It was nice of you to carry me, Stephen,’ said Cherry, ‘but now I know why I thought my bushes were soft. Things are a bit prickly round this part of the world right now.’
Stephen had stooped and twisted a little to dodge a tree on one side and get under another on the other side. His head bent down and their faces touched. Cherry smiled and for a moment she thought she saw its reflection in his own grey eyes.
‘I won’t do it again,’ she promised. ‘Besides, it hurts.’
They had reached the edge of the lake and he set her down so that she stood upright on both her feet. She steadied herself on his arm.
‘That’s all right,’ he said in a softer note. ‘We’d better look at that foot. If we want to make the plains to-day we’ve a long walk ahead.’
‘And you can’t carry me all the way,’ said Cherry brightly, and smoothing down her clothes with both her hands. Over Stephen’s shoulder she caught sight of Tracy. ‘My goodness, where’s Peter?’
‘Crawling about somewhere,’ said Tracy.
Stephen spun round and Cherry started forward, hesitated as her injured foot made itself felt, then stopped de
ad. Twenty-five yards away Peter was standing up beside a small bush. He gave a yelp of delight, took first one step, then another, then fell back into a sitting position. He looked astonished for a minute, then seeing that the world was safe and right way up he beamed.
Cherry, staring at him, was still holding Stephen’s arm, partly to balance herself and partly because she had forgotten she was even touching him.
‘Call that crawling?’ she said with scorn to Tracy. ‘The man is walking‒’
‘Oh,’ said Tracy. ‘A pity you don’t take a leaf out of his book.’
Cherry dropped Stephen’s arm as if it had been a hot rail she had been holding.
‘Why!’ she thought, ‘Tracy minds my holding Stephen’s arm. But of course … I’d forgotten, there’s some sort of understanding between them. How crazy can a girl get!’ She pushed her fingers through her hair as if to brush cobwebs out of her mind. ‘I’d actually forgotten.’
She started to walk forward across the stony surface of the ground towards the child. She gritted her teeth hard against showing any expression of pain.
Her ankle hurt badly but Stephen had said they had quite a walk to the plains and it was unthinkable that she, Cherry, should hold them up.
‘Uh-huh,’ said Tracy to Stephen. She stood with her arms akimbo, one foot arched and pointed, tapping the ground lightly. ‘And just exactly why did you have to carry her, Stephen? I’ve a theory our little governess was putting on an act.’
Cherry had reached Peter and she knelt down beside him, taking his two hands in her own and trying to encourage him to try that momentous business of standing up and walking again. She had her back to the others.
Stephen pulled his ear irritably.
‘Her ankle is swollen,’ he said. ‘I should have left the ministrations to Alan.’
‘Of course. The histrionics were intended for him, didn’t you know? She really has got something, has our Cherry. Not so dull-witted after all.’
Stephen looked at Tracy.
‘You kept Alan camped out all night, a whole jungle away. Nobody was very pleased about that, you know.’
Tracy looked at him with lazy eyes and beautifully arched brows. She smiled serenely.
‘So long as you noticed my absence, darling.’