Adversity is but a Spur
LEAVESand fine twigs were entwined with the wild men’s hair, and damp earth clung to their knees and chests. The stalking of their quarry had been accomplished with the perfection of the greatest masters on earth.
Cicatrices on faces and chests and thighs proved full initiation into the Luritja Nation, the remnants of which still occupy the Central Desert. They were small, incredibly tough, and had the endurance of the dingo. Their hair was bunched high by a band of snake-skin, that of three being black, that of the fourth being grey, and matching the straggly beard. He was a medicine man.
The condition of thighs and stomachs indicated they were living on white man’s food. Oddity number one. Oddity number two was the unacceptable coincidence that they delayed appearance until Bony was looking at the large entrance to a cavern.
He could have employed the rifle, could have shot one, but only one, before he himself fell to the spears of the others. The formula: “I am Inspector Bonaparte, and I arrest you for…” was so much piffling eye-wash in this situation. Obviously it was not their intention to kill him and make off with the food and gear; otherwise their spears would now be halfway through his body.
The medicine man, who was the natural leader, beckoned him forward, and when he complied, the others slipped around behind him and continued on until they were with the camels, and then the medicine man held out a hand for the rifle, and motioned Bony to sit on the ground. There he was as much a captive as though weighed with a hundred-weight of manacles.
Eyes glittered but the spears remained poised while Bony removed his coat and shirt. They remained like sculptured figures at a white man’s exhibition as he gained his feet and slowly turned about for them to see the cicatrices on his own back, he blessing old Chief Illawarrie of the far north, who had inducted him into the Mysteries of the Alchuringa Days.
What astonished them was that he, who was not wholly of their race, had been sealed into a Nation of the Ancient People. The leader spoke to the others, but they remained silent and made no sign. As intended by Bony, the situation became complicated, and often engineered complications will save such a tight situation.
The leader became human. From his dillybag of kangaroo skin, suspended from his neck by human hair, he produced a plug of tobacco and bit a chew. Bony dressed, squatted on his heels, and proceeded to roll a cigarette. The camels were no longer nervous, and Lucy lay beside Millie and watched. The warriors squatted, their spears on the ground beside them. Their prisoner was safe enough. Any one of them could have pinned Bony within seconds, and all his knowledge of ju-jitsu would have been of no avail. They had one superlative trick, and the thought of it made him wiggle his toes.
“What for you fellers do this?” he asked, and was surprised when the leader said:
“Wafor youcome here, eh? You tell.”
Mission contact! Hermansburg, perhaps! Ooldea… before the great Daisy Bates had to give up… a visitor, perhaps, to Ooldea just long enough to gain a smattering of English.
“Dingoes,” replied Bony.“Patsy Lonergan my father and my uncle. Patsy Lonergan… you know Patsy Lonergan?”
The name registered. They spoke softly among themselves.
“Patsy Lonergan die quick,” he told them, and nodded to the camels. “I get Patsy Lonergan’s camels. Now I catch dingoes.”
Further soft interchange of opinions among them lasted a full minute. No reference had been made to the silk scarf which they must have seen fluttering above the blow-hole, and which they must have seen being crammed into a pocket. Finally two of the young men rose and proceeded to unload the camels, taking no notice of Lucy’s barks of protest. The unloading completed, they removed Millie’s noseline, and, despite Curley’s objection, removed his leather halter. The ropes holding them down were removed and the animals were kicked to their feet and sent running. The leader shouted an order, and one of the men seized Lucy and the other bound her with the noseline.
The ropes were then securely knotted and one end fastened about Bony’s chest. The unloading and freeing of the camels was puzzling him, and fastening the rope about him seemed for the purpose of conducting him to their camp, although even this was unnecessary.
The leader now motioned him to walk to the area of bare rock in the centre of which was the gaping opening of the cavern, and about this he could do nothing but obey. A few moments later he knew their intention was to lower him into the cavern. At the edge of the hole he turned in rebellion, and the leader, without emotion, said:
“Better you go with rope. Long way.”
Wisdom, if of sinister import. The great Inspector Bonaparte realised, when encountering those four pairs of relentless eyes, that it would be wise to accept the assistance of the rope as the floor of the cavern could be more than a few feet under the ground surface. Thus, without injury, he found himself on the floor of limestone, approximately twenty feet below the surface.
He was in a chamber roughly circular, and something like thirty feet in diameter, the walls curving inward as they mounted to the orifice. The limestone floor was uneven. He saw the mouth of what appeared to be a long tunnel, down which burned a star of light. To one side, on a wide rock ledge stood low stacks of tinned food. There was an opening off this place, and, of all objects to quicken his amazement, he could seea large kerosene stove.
Then those above were jerking at the rope, requiring him to free himself of it. This he did, and they drew it up.
He could hear Lucy barking up top. From the tunnel issued a voice slightly distorted by echo, saying:
“I didn’t do it! Damn you all, I didn’t do it!”
It could have been Ganba, only Ganba is known to ignore English. Besides, Ganba doesn’t need a light to aid him on his underground gallivanting.
It came again like the same voice, the words disproving it.
“You doneit all right, you stinking rat.”
Movement above again drew Bony’s attention. The opening was being masked by Curley’s pack-saddle, and he had to leap aside to avoid it. After it, came the riding saddle, the pack-bags, and every item of his gear, including even the camel bells and the hobbles, everything save the rifle. The resultant clatter had no effect on the voice or voices, down the tunnel.
“You waited for him and smashed him with a rock. I didn’t, I tell you! I didn’t! Oh, leave him alone.”
Up above, a new sound, Lucy’s frightened whimpering. She was being lowered by the rope, and when Bony caught her, the rope was drawn up. She licked his face happily as he swiftly unbound her.
“Sure he’s dead, Mark?” said the tunnel. “My dear Myra, of course he’s dead.”
The recollection of the automatic pistol was one of a chaotic sequence. The wild men had spent no time with the gear and his effects, other than to strip the camels and toss everything down after him, everything save that beautiful Savage rifle and the loading ropes. They would drive the camels away, and even now might well be engaged in brushing out their tracks to complete the obliteration of all evidence leading to the discovery of this place.
As the dramatist might say, it wasn’t in character. Most decidedly it was unorthodox. The possession of tobacco proved recent contact with whites. These people in that tunnel-who were they, what were they doing here? Myra Thomas! Who else? But prisoners, as he assuredly was. Those saddle-bags which contained his personal effects contained his own automatic.
He fell upon the bags, dragging them from under one of the water drums, swiftly unstrapped the off-side bag and delved for the weapon, small and compact, and deadly at twenty feet. He knew that the clip was full. A broken box of cartridges he slipped into anotherpocket, and the bag was re-strapped and tossed back to the heap of gear littering the floor.
A voice in the tunnel said:
“Why, here’s a ruddy dog!”
All English so far. No guttural voices. Lucy had found them.
“That’s funny. How the hell did she get here? Must be someone up top. Come on! If she got in, weoughta get out.”
The light twinkled. It was being carried along the tunnel. Seated on the heap of his gear, Bony waited. The sunlight through the opening was falling slightly to his rear making him conscious of the fact that he occupied the commanding position in this situation now developing.
“She’s a pet dog,” a woman said in the tunnel. “She loves being made a fuss of. What’s your name, sweet?”
A man entered the chamber followed by the woman, then four men. They halted at the tunnel’s mouth, appearing to Bony as ghosts lurking in a cobweb-festooned corner of a derelict dungeon. The woman held the wriggling dog, only her shape indicative of her sex, for she wore men’s trousers and coat over a man’s sports shirt. The man carrying the hurricane lantern was tall and hawk-faced. Another was big and muscular. A shrimp of a man peered with weak eyes, and another seemed to have springs in his knees.
Every face was putty white, faces in which eyes glowed like dull coals in a dark room. They stood there staring at the stranger seated on the pile of gear, as though utterly unable to believe what they were seeing, until it seemed to Bony that in this tableau only the dog moved.
The woman released the dog, who ran to Bony and snuggled against him. Bony said, politely:
“Howd’you do?”
They came forward, slowly, led by the woman. The tall man’s face was insulted by the clothes he wore, for the sweeping breadth of the forehead, the mane of iron-grey hair, the cast of the mouth, and the expression in his dark eyes pictured intelligence above the average. His voice supported what his countenance portrayed.
“Who are you?” he asked, with the ‘old’ school accent.
Bony recognised him.
“The name is William Black.”
“It conveys nothing, Mr. Black. How did you come to be here?”
“Dumped by wild aborigines.”
“Wild aborigines! How extraordinary. What are those things you are sitting on?”
“Camel gear.”
“Camel gear! Camels! Wild aborigines! Whom did you murder?”
The light-blue eyes were compelling, the eyes of a man accustomed to being obeyed. He was, Bony was aware, Dr. Carl Havant, a psychiatrist who practised in Sydney until eleven years ago.
“I cannot recall having murdered anyone,” Bony replied.
“I am still doubtful. What school did you attend?”
Ah! Clever indeed is the man who can adopt a fictitious character and maintain it under sudden stress. He had spoken in his usual manner.
“Never mind about that,” he said sharply. “Who are you, and what are you all doing here?”
“We are merely in residence.” The tall man regarded Bony gravely. “Would you oblige by telling us precisely where our residence is, we presume, in Australia?”
“We are now on the northern extremity of the Nullarbor Plain.”
“There, Maddoch! Did I not argue that we must be on the Nullarbor Plain?”
The dark eyes looked down upon the short man whose clothes hung upon him, and who appeared emotionally bankrupt. The man with the knees like springs answered for the little man.
“Could have been east Gippsland, like Clifford said. Could have been up north a bit from Perth, like I told you.”
“Yes, yes! Quite. Well, we are at the north of the Nullarbor Plain. And now, Mr. Black. You tell us that you were ‘dumped’-your own word-down here by wild aborigines. I’ve always thought that wild aborigines are to be found only in the north of Australia. Pardon repetition. Whom did you murder? Please do not hesitate, Mr. Black, or be alarmed.”
“Caw,” exploded the man with the springy legs, “I know this Mister Black now. I’d bet on it. Doc, and ladies and gents, meet Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte.”