East of outback, p.1
East of Outback, page 1
part #4 of Australian Destiny Series
AUSTRALIAN DESTINY SERIES
Code of Honor
Power of Pinjarra
Taste of Victory
East of Outback
Cover illustration by Dan Thornberg,
Bethany House Publishers staff artist.
Copyright © 1990
Sandy Dengler
All Rights Reserved
Published by Bethany House Publishers
A Ministry of Bethany Fellowship, Inc.
6820 Auto Club Road, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55438
www.bakerpublishinggroup.com
Ebook edition created 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-4412-6257-8
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
CONTENTS
Cover
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
1. Leviathan Playing
2. Pearl of Great Price
3. Madman’s Track
4. The Mouths of Babes
5. Lily
6. Blue Mountains Wonga
7. Kalgoorlie
8. Blood and Water
9. Undeserving Worm
10. Perfidy
11. Escape
12. Sleepers
13. Jarrah
14. An Evening in Town
15. Baa Baa Black Sheep
16. Brouhaha
17. Rats
18. Ghosts
19. Eagles
20. Oceans of Opportunity
21. Oceans of Rabbits
22. The Rains
23. The Call of Home
24. Fires of Hope
25. The Way Home
26. On the Track Again
27. Bushed
28. Nests
29. Fire
30. My Father’s House
About the Authour
Back Cover
CHAPTER ONE
LEVIATHAN PLAYING 1925
Laughing, splashing, dancing ripples of light pierced the ocean surface and splintered across the shallow world below. They burned away a bit of the blue-green and let hints of color flash here and there among the endless coral, the outcrops of dark, stolid rock, the shifting sand. Then they fell upon a gray form ranging, and the laughter ceased.
With the chill arrogance of a hunter born at the top of the food chain, the shark cruised sinuously, its seventeen feet of power undulating. Two fathoms above, the water’s restless surface broke up the light, creating unusual shadows and patterns. Such patterns might confuse an untuned eye, but this one did not hunt by eye. It read its waters by taste and smell, and hearing. Not even the tiniest waterborne vibration, the faintest aquatic odor, escaped detection.
It caught a vague essence of sea turtle drifting up from near the ocean floor three fathoms below. Vibrations. There. Ahead. A sea turtle struggled in the grasp of an unfamiliar predator. The predator stood erect, vertical against the sea floor, less than a fathom tall. Its head was encased in a huge shell, its torso and appendages in soft skin. A cascade of bubbles followed two endless antennae toward the surface.
The shark circled warily. Although half the shark’s size, the predator was dangerous. This very shark had once been struck on the snout by such a predator—an experience not to be repeated.
And yet, the turtle—that rich, meaty turtle. . . .
The predator’s head moved inside its shell, watching the shark. A sudden burst of bubbles roared out of its appendages. Startled, the shark veered away.
It turned. Again it came arcing in. Turtle blood! The scent called; it tantalized; it commanded. Nothing else mattered now. The shark rolled onto its side, its maw wide open, and rushed past predator and prey. Its ten-score teeth sheared meat and bone. Blood! It came whipping around into another pass.
Amid a howling, vibrating cloud of bubbles the predator ascended through the crystal green. The bubbles shook the shark, confused its senses. It tilted away and swung around again. Another smaller shark approached, drawn by the blood. They spiralled upward together in a deadly helix toward predator and prey.
______
“Fahster, lahds!”
Colin gave up trying to roll the air hose onto its reel. He hand-over-handed it up over the side, blindly letting it fall on the deck behind him. Beside him Dizzy cranked mightily at the winch as Captain Foulard dragged in the lifeline.
A brass dome exploded out of the churning froth of the sea surface. Colin and the captain together lunged over the side, grasping. Colin gripped a random handful of the canvas diving suit and pulled. He hooked his other hand under the diver’s arm and leaned back, lest the weight pull him over the side.
Dizzy grunted, the line on his winch as taut as a guitar string. With clangs and clunks, Sake the diver came up over the Gracie’s gunwale helmet first. Colin reached for a leg, for the final tip up and over, and froze. A pink maw, followed by a white belly, broke the surface and slid by, missing Sake’s diving boots by inches.
Colin stared numbly. “That thing’s half the length of the boat!”
Dizzy hit the rail beside him for a fleeting glance as the shark melted into the green. Rapidly he crossed himself. He looked wide-eyed at Colin and shook his head slowly. “This place ain’ no place for me, Col. Goin’ home. I swear to you I’m goin’ home.”
“Yair.” Colin couldn’t always sift out Dizzy’s tortured Spanish accent, but he understood that speech. He clapped.his chum on the shoulder and turned to the more pressing problem at hand—Sake.
Captain Foulard and Ariel, the Koepanger cook, had propped the slight, stocky little pearl diver in a half-sitting position against the hatch cowling. They wrenched the spherical diving helmet loose and lifted it away.
For a few moments, Sake Tamemoto studied infinity with vacant eyes. His skin, normally the warm yellow ochre of the sun-tanned Japanese, had paled to dirty ashes.
“Sake!” Captain Foulard shook him. “The beast bite you?”
The man suddenly returned. His eyes changed focus from infinity to the rail before him. “No. No, he did not. The turtle, though—he bit the turtle.”
“Turtle!” The captain exploded. “How many times I tell you, leave dem turtles alone! Cause nutting but trouble, like now. You cahn’t be daht sick of salt pork, you gotta risk your neck for turtle!”
The crackling eyes twinkled. Sake was back again. He smiled. “Oh, yes I can.” He looked at Ariel. “A cup of tea, please, to soothe the nerves. Then I go back down. Thank you.”
Ariel left, shaking his head.
Colin glanced at Dizzy. “Sake, you’re really going back down? When you know what’s down there?”
“There are two sharks there, lad. They will tear apart the turtle. Then they will go on. Good shell remains. We must not leave this place yet.” His color was starting to return; Colin watched it seep back by degrees.
“Yes, but—”
Sake raised a slim, almost feminine finger. “Captain Foulard is correct. Except for the turtle I would be in small danger. A shark comes, you release some air from the cuff of your diving suit. The bubbles repel him. Boot him on the nose if he passes by. But sharks love turtle meat even better than I. They will not so mildly go away if you have a turtle. Still, sharks are not the danger; whales are.”
“Whales?” Dizzy shook his head. “Sharks, they eat people, eh? Muy peligroso. Whales they don’ eat people, dangerous alia same.” Dizzy was as small and slight as Sake, and quite a bit thinner. Yet, he could lift any weight, perform any feat of strength. Immense power. When he rested he went completely flaccid; when active, he bounded about, swift and smooth, ever moving.
If mankind could somehow harness the energy in Desiderio Romales, Colin thought, we could get along without the sun.
“Why are whales dangerous?” Colin settled onto the deck beside Sake. Ariel delivered the tea.
Sake sipped a few moments. “So big. Just so big. When they panic, nothing you can do. One time, a time I will not forget: we were diving off Adele Island when a pod of humpbacks came among us. Playful. They were playful. I was young then, like you, Colin. Young enough to know everything. You are how old?”
“I’ll be seventeen in July.” Colin felt his cheeks grow warm.
Sake nodded, sipped. “You are very strong for one who is young. I was not strong, but clever. Ah, so clever. Other divers in the area rose, went aboard to wait until the whales left. Not I. I was winning much good shell, and as you know, Dizzy, whales are harmless. I would complete my task.”
The wind was picking up. Colin jammed his fingers into his brown hair and shoved it up off his face. The breeze tossed it right back again. If Mum knew how badly he needed a haircut. . . .
“A big bull came along, a humpback bigger than our boat. As he passed overhead it was like night descending, to be in his shadow. I stood in awe, my whole body arched back that I might watch the monster glide by. Those flukes! Each bigger than a dinghy.”
Colin glanced at Dizzy. The little man was probably pushing thirty, yet he sat rapt as a child of six.
Sake drained his cup. “A crosscurrent caught my line just then, and drew it out wide. It hooked on the passing flukes. Instantly, the whale panicked. He shot forward. He broached. And with ea ch great flap of his flukes I was yanked thus! And so! I was jerked from the water. I was dragged through the water.”
“Your air line couldn’t have stayed together with all that.”
“True, Colin. Yes. One moment I can hear the click-clack, click-clack of the pump. Then, silence. Of great fortune, I thought to close my air valve just as the fluke caught. Air came into my suit, but air did not leave it, you see.”
“Sort of like blowing up a balloon?”
“Just so! And when the line broke, I closed the other valve to keep out the water. Like a fool the whale began to run, perhaps three fathoms deep. I am dragged along behind, turning rapidly like a propeller. I managed to free my knife. I cut the lines and came up on my own air. The lugger had given chase. It rescued me, and just in time before my air was gone.”
“And now you come up as soon as there’re whales around.”
“Too right.” Sake lurched to his feet. “Too right. You will be wise to learn from your mistakes, young Colin. And much wiser if you learn without making them!”
It took Colin a while to sort the air line and reel it up properly. Then Sake’s lead-weighted boots clunked their way down the outboard ladder; his great round diving helmet disappeared below the gunwale.
Dizzy manned his station. His was an exacting task, nearly as glamorous and specialized as Sake’s, for Dizzy was the diver’s tender, and Sake’s life lay in his hands. Dizzy minded the diver’s air line and kept the air pump working. Much more intricate was the task of handling the lifeline properly. If the diver traversed areas of the sea bed devoid of pearl shell, he kept his boots off the ground and let the lugger’s gentle drift carry him along. Should he spot shell or cross a promising area, he would signal, and Dizzy must correctly interpret the signal. Urgent signals such as “up quickly,” “shark,” and “stage,” in which the diver, working deep, wished to rise by stages, required that he give the diver the proper amount of slack when working, yet not so much that the line might become tangled in coral.
Amidships on the little boat, Colin returned to his own task—that of shell opener. With a flick of his knife he opened each oyster, casting the valuable shell onto a pile, groping through the slimy-soft body for the one-in-a-thousand chance of a pearl, then throwing the meat overboard. Over and over again. His fingers were stained greenish and crisscrossed with dirty, dry cracks, like weathered wood. There were worse ways to earn a quid, but Colin couldn’t think of any.
Up from the galley drifted the aroma of sliced onions. Ariel was hard at work on supper. Salt pork, no doubt.
Blister. A hemispherical bump interrupted the glistening hard inner surface of this shell. Colin laid it aside and picked up the next oyster. Blister and baroque—oddly shaped mother-of-pearl—were to be kept separate.
The captain came topside presently, and stood a moment watching Colin at work. Wherever he stood, Captain Foulard towered, huge and boisterous, with warm brown skin and black, wavy hair. His polyglot French/Islander accent challenged Colin’s ear almost as much as Dizzy’s Spanish, Sake’s Japanese inflections, and Ariel’s Koepanger gibberish.
The captain smiled. “You, Colin Sloan, you not like most fellers work de pearl fishery. Different. More school, mebbe. What you think about, you sit here all dese hours doing dis?”
Colin shrugged, mildly embarrassed. “Lots of things.”
“Like?”
“Like, uh, how different Broome is from Sydney, where I grew up. And how the people here are different, too. The way of life—everything. And working. I like working, doing something with my hands.” He grinned and raised a hand. “Even when the work does things like this to them.”
The skipper chuckled and flopped down on the deck beside the shell pile. “Live in Sydney, huh? Papa got lotsa money, hey?”
“Yeah, might say that. He’s a commodities broker. He and Mum never went in much for flash—no fancy parties and touring cars and such—but they got enough money, and then some.”
“And you don’ like Papa’s money.” There was a twinkle in the captain’s voice. He was teasing, but just how much?
“There’s money and there’s money. I ’bout starved when I first got to Broome, but I’m making enough now.”
“When you come to Broome?”
“Coupla months ago. Five months now, I guess. November last year, 1924. Just as the boats were coming in for the lay-up season. I thought I missed the action, but there was plenty of work building boats, and refitting and rousting on the pier.”
“Why you come up here to Broome? Why not someplace else?”
Colin had to think about that a moment. “’Bout as far as you can get from Sydney, I guess,” he chuckled.
The captain slapped Colin’s shoulder. “Mebbe your Mama ain’ flahsh, but she raise a good kid. Good worker. Glahd you aboard, lahd.” He rose quickly and headed for the galley.
“Thank you, sir.” Now what was that all about? In the month Colin had worked aboard this pearling lugger, this was the first time the captain had singled him out for conversation.
He froze. His probing fingers had felt what they always looked for. Pearl! Only twice before had he discovered the hard little knot in the slimy oyster meat. This was by far the biggest of the three. He pinched and squeezed, separating the pearl from its gooey matrix. He dropped it in his shirt pocket, cleared the shell, and tossed the meat into the water.
Ever since his arrival in Broome, Colin had been hearing whispered tales of the fortunes in undeclared pearls that changed hands in the booming, open town. Snide pearls, they were called, pearls pocketed by the shell openers and never reported to the lawful owners. It was said that thousands of pounds changed hands in the illicit snide trade.
True, Colin would earn a share of the proceeds of this vessel, come lay-up season. But it would be a small share, a minuscule share, for he was no more than a casual hand, a laborer at the very bottom of the complex pyramid of the shell fishery. This pearl, this one pearl, could keep him nicely through the four months’ lay-up and beyond.
It isn’t yours! his mind screamed. It is now, boasted his heart. Isn’t! Is! Isn’t. Is! The frenetic argument within him roared away all afternoon and into the evening. The pearl, nestled snug in his pocket, seemed to burn there. He ended up with a basher of a headache.
An hour before sundown. Sake surfaced on his own air and came aboard. Colin helped Dizzy remove the helmet and assist him out of his diving suit.
Sake’s bronzed face beamed, as it so often did after a good day. “How did we do?” he asked, looking right at Colin.
“Lots of good shell won today,” he replied, his conscience gouging at his aching forehead. Not only Captain Foulard would lose if he did not declare the pearl; Sake worked on shares, too.
“See more sharks?” Dizzy hung the limp suit to dry.
“One. But, I do not think it was the same that stopped by earlier. It sniffed about and went away.”
Colin shuddered. He spent the few minutes left before dinner opening the last of the shell Sake had won. Won at what price? The little diver could be dead or mutilated by now. It happened, and not infrequently. And what price the pearl?
He bagged the new shell. With part of it he topped off the three-hundred-pound hessian sack they had commenced filling two days ago. He sewed it shut with huge clumsy stitches. Monk’s cloth, sackcloth, burlap, hessian—whatever you called it, the stuff was scratchy and hard. He could imagine a penitent wearing it as punishment.
Punishment.
With the small amount of shell still left he started another sack.
Captain Foulard cried out. From the galley, from below, everyone ran to join him on the stern. A thick, black cloudbank squatted against the flat line of the sea to the northwest.
Dizzy crossed himself. “We far ’nuff from shore we gunner ride it out, you think?”
“Gunner hafter be. You and Ariel strip dis boom, get de spare out. We build a sea anchor, slow us down mebbe.”
The two seemed to require no further orders. They hurried off.
Colin could not take his eyes off the burgeoning, black storm cloud. “Last month, sir, when that cyclone ripped up Port Hedland, they were saying then it was the last storm of the season. That’s why all the luggers lay up over summer, isn’t it? To avoid the storms?”
