Visions of Freedom
“TOUGHguy!”Riddell said, sneeringly.
“Quiet,” commanded Dr. Havant with unusual severity.
“Sezyou,” persisted the hairy man.
“Riddell, look at me.” Riddell was obstinate; Dr. Havant determined. Riddell visibly cringed. “I say, Riddell,” repeated Havant. To Bony he continued.
“As you requested, we have listened attentively. What you have told us is the essence of common sense, and your picture of the Plain an undeniable endurance test. I agree that we must wait here for you to send relief. As a medical man I agree that we are not fit enough to undertake the journey.”
“I’m not hanging around here,” Jenks asserted. “Not for mine. I can walk the trip. I’m going with Bonaparte.”
“Me, too,” declared Brennan. “I’ll be on my way from the toe line. If I can’t walk two hundred miles, I’ll go crawling on hands and knees. I want to feel the wind and the sun; the big black boys don’t scare me.”
They waited, waited as though for Riddell to cast his vote, but Riddell glared at them, was silent. Maddoch then said:
“If you, Doctor, decide to stay, I’ll stay with you.”
“Thank you, Clifford,” Havant replied. “Riddell, I think you had better go.”
“I’mgoin ’, Doc. Don’t worry.”
“And so shall I,” added the girl.
“No,” advised Havant. “You must stay with Clifford and me.”
“It would be too dull. You two together don’t even add up to one real man.” Her eyes mocked. Easter’s assessment now proved right. “All of you have given me only sensational radio material, enough to make real money, and I’m not missing out. I don’t intend to be Daniel, left with two tame lions.”
“You could be disaster, Myra, for the lions you would accompany,” she was told, coolly. “The lions, as you now call us all, might not get through because of you, a woman, and therefore, a weak link.”
“I’m as strong as any one of them, and no one will stop me from going with Inspector Bonaparte. Not even Bonaparte.”
“Sezyou,” snarled Riddell, and she turned on him.
“Shut up, you repulsive gorilla,” she shouted. “Shut up, you… you
…”
“I second that,” softly interposed Mark Brennan.“Myra, calm down. You’re a lady, remember? You will do just what the Inspector decides. If he says you must stay here, you stay. Because, Myra, I won’t let you spoil my chance of getting back to Pitt Street on a Saturday night. I’ll bloody well choke you to death first. Get me, Myra?”
The violet eyes turned to Bony, who decided it would be wiser to have the woman under his own lash, for those who stayed would be in the position to betray those who went. He said:
“In Myra’s favour is the fact that she has been here only a short while, and, physically, would be fitter than those who have been here for a year and more.
“Now, let us be clear. Doctor Havant stays, and Clifford thinks he ought to stay also. You others have elected to go with me. Mark Brennan, I like your spirit. I applaud your determination not to permit Myra, and others may be included, to ruin your chance of returning to civilisation. May I expect you to support all my decisions?”
“You may. Too ruddy right, you may.”
“Then, our next step. Because the way out taken by the dog might be comparatively easy for us, I warn you that to escape into the open in broad daylight could well mean the smashing of all our hopes. There are those wild aborigines, with eyesight like eagles. From our present position we cannot know where they are, and thus they could be watching for us to emerge, waiting like dingoes for rabbits to bolt. To our great advantage is their fear of the Plain by night. So we work our way out by night. We emerge by night. Your journey to freedom and the bright lights begins by night. Now go to it. Look for Lucy’s passage in the kitchen.”
Bony was left, seated on Curley’s pack-saddle and rolling a cigarette. Even Dr. Havant rushed to the kitchen. Bony was reminded of his three boys at home when, as reward, he had started them on a treasure hunt.
Havant had performed miracles under extraordinary circumstances. He had preserved their sanity, and in so doing had preserved human decency, under mind-destroying conditions.
They had obeyed simple sanitary rules and kept themselves reasonably clean, retained a form of civilised eating. They conformed to rough but invaluable community demands and, if occasionally they lost control, the loss was temporary and beneficial.
For twenty-five years he, Napoleon Bonaparte, had hunted murderers. He regarded murder as the most loathsome crime. He had viewed the bodies of the slain, and was nauseated by the public sympathy for murderers, and the cold indifference to the murdered. He believed there was but the one penalty for murder: an eye for an eye, the justice of the Bible, the justice of the aborigines.
Here were six murderers, and here was he who loathed murderers and hunted them relentlessly. Right now could he hate Clifford Maddoch? Or Mark Brennan? Even animal Joe Riddell? Havant was something of an enigma. The girl was a type he disliked, beyond the fact that she was a murderess.
When engaged on a man hunt, the murderer had been an impersonal thing, like a wild dog. This hunt for a lost woman, which had led to the discovery of a community of murderers, had become personal. They accepted him without rancour, even making him a Fellow of their absurd Released Murderer’s Institute.
There was not among them a human tiger beyond reformation, save only, perhaps, that one who had killed Mitski. Imprisonment had imposed discipline and reliance on the officers. Time tended to heal animosity against the police responsible for their arrest and the judge responsible for the sentence. As Brennan had hinted, they had acquired loyalty to their fellows, and a kind of pride of the jail where they had served their sentence. It was something akin to the soldier who takes pride in his regiment, and is loyal to his comrades.
By welcoming Bony into their Institute, they were running true to form. The police had done a job of work, and the warders had performed another job. They and their opponents were in different tradesunions, that was all.
He must beware of such reflections lest they should influence his approach to future man hunting. A lover of justice, he must recognise the danger of maudlin sentiment. The State-that easy front for diplomats, politicians, and appointed scoundrels-had defied and frustrated the courts of justice to gain personal kudos. The State was responsible for surrendering to mass hysteria, representing so many votes, and reducing the crime of murder to the level, of say, bigamy. His duty now was to do all possible to return these murderers to civilisation, when his official interest in them would end. With one exception.
They returned from the kitchen, wilting like cut flowers.
“The hole is behind the rock at the back of the stove,” Mark Brennan announced. “We can’t move the rock; we’d need such things as crowbars and gelignite. Looks like we’re sunk.”
Bony entered the kitchen. The stove had been moved to one side. A great boulder, or an upthrust of rock, had either fallen from the ceiling, or had been parted from the wall, creating a space of a little less than one foot. In this space, the dog had found the outlet at the foot of the wall.
“Take an atom bomb to shift that,” jeered Riddell, and the girl said brightly:
“That all? We’ll ask the aborigines to pass a few down.”
“You can reach in, Inspector, and feel the hole in the wall about a foot up from the floor,” Maddoch informed him.
“The dog,” Bony ordered.
Lucy was brought. Bony on his knees pushed her forward, urging her to “Sick ’em! Sool-’em-up!”
Lucy required little persuasion. She disappeared. Silence enabled them to hear her muffled barking, and when no one followed her, she returned. Bony suggested that they try again to move the boulder.
He assisted. They heaved and hauled and pushed, grunting from the effort.
“Must be an upthrust, all right,” he said. “Anyone doneany mining?”
Jenks claimed to have worked on sinking wells in the New England district of New South Wales.
“We’ll try an explosive charge, Jenks. Could you bore a hole in this rock for the charge? It will take time.”
“With what?”Jenks asked.
“I have eight steel tent pegs and a small hammer used for driving in pegs and repairing dingo traps. I’ll get them.”
They followed him to his pack-bags, from which he produced the hammer and pegs, and Jenks examined the pegs with care.
“They’re not steel, but good iron,” he said. “But wait on, now. Where’s the explosive?”
Bony produced two boxes, each containing fifty high power rifle cartridges.
“We extract the bullets. Cordite might do the trick,” he pointed out.
“Yair, but what about detonators to set her off with?” persisted Jenks, and Bony explained that each cartridge had a percussion cap or detonator, and for fuse they would have to fashion a train ofkerosened rags, light it, and run like hell.
“It mightn’t work,” he warned them. “We can but try.”
“You’re justtellin ’ us,” agreed Riddell. “Let’s give it a go, Ted.”
“First, remove the stove,” Bony advised. “Do itnow, and Myra can get on with her baking. And grab that dog. She’ll have to be tied up.”
The indignant Lucy was attached to the riding saddle, and Bony sat beside her. He could hear the low thuds of the ‘miners’ at work, and watch Myra, who was absorbed with her cooking, obviously an avenue of escapism.
Havant came to sit beside Bony. The shaft of sunlight fell between them and the entrance of the mainpassage, and across the opening above passed woolly white clouds which Bony could only guess were southward bound.
“You are wise to elect to wait for relief, Doctor,” he said, when it became apparent that Havant waited for him to speak. “I wish the others possessed as much wisdom. If we do manage to get out and away, you will not jeopardise our chances by making a rash move?”
“Of course not. That would react on me, Inspector. What are your difficulties? What can I do? You will find me anxious to co-operate.”
“My main worry is those wild aborigines. As I said, they will not rove the Plain at night, being too fearful of Ganba. This place is but three miles from the northern desert country where they live and feel safe.
“If and when we can use the passage taken by the dog, we must on no account attempt to leave during daylight. It would be essential to be at least ten miles out on the Plain before the night passes, and we must trust to luck that our tracks won’t be found and followed. Alone, I wouldn’t have the slightest worry. With the others, and one a woman-you know their physical condition.
“Assuming we can prevent undue haste, even panic, those who wait must on no account use that passage. In fact, I shall ask you to block it. You could resist the temptation to use it, even at night, but do you think you could control Maddoch?”
“Yes. The woman, no. I shall be glad if she leaves with you.”
“You are not an admirer?”
“I am not an admirer, Inspector. To me she is repellent. She has likened herself to a hen in a yard of roosters, a Daniel in the den of lions. Actually she isn’t a hen, or a female Daniel. She is sexless without knowing it, but her husband knew it, and the knowledge was the basis of the animosity which led to his death.
“She has what is termed, in layman’s language, a split mind, and I don’t mean a split personality. One part of the mind worships Myra Thomas, and the other constantly defends a Myra Thomas who is fearful of men, of sex, and of the penetration by women of the vanity behind the facade. So take her with you and lose her, Inspector.”
“She goes with us, Doctor. Now tell me, what is your opinion of Mark Brennan?”
“Brennan was, I think, the least affected by legal imprisonment, and subsequently by these caverns. He realises most clearly his dependence on you to get them through. A likeable fellow in many ways, but… the psychiatrist can cure the mind which once was healthy; he can do nothing for a mind deformed at birth. I was able to do a great deal for Mitski. I have been able to help Maddoch. Nothing can be done for Brennan. But you will find him an excellent first mate. Riddell is merely a body ruled by low intelligence. Jenks is slightly higher and, I have discovered, the hardest to understand. There is a lot of good in Jenks. As for Doctor Havant, well, you know about him. You found him sucked dry of the will to live. You will find… Did you see that shadow?”
“Yes. There is someone up there.”