Death of a Lake b-18 Read online

  Somewhere along a cross-passage Mrs Fowler was hysterically crying, and they distinctly heard the face-slap momentarily stopping the hysteria. A door slammed, cutting the whimper threatening renewal of the screaming.

  “What happened?” asked Bony, and was relieved of tension when the overseer leaned the weapon into a wall corner and advanced to them.

  “An accident,” he said, evenly.“Nothing for anyone else to worry about, when Joan can pacify Mrs Fowler. I was cleaning my gun when it went off. Didn’t know it was loaded, and I could have sworn it wasn’t.”

  “Funny time to be cleaning a gun,” growledMacLennon. “Do any damage?”

  “No, I don’t think so. The charge went into the floor. Everything is all right.”

  The air was heavy with burned powder. From a distant room Mrs Fowler could be heard sobbing.

  “It’s quite all right, Mac. You can get back to the quarter,” Martyr told them.

  He was unusually pale, but his voice was steady. He stood with his hand on the door preparatory to closing it. Lester sniffled and that touch of normalcy killed unreality. And unreality was buried when Martyr said:

  “Good night!” and closed the door.

  Chapter Ten

  An Unsolvable Mystery

  DUETOHISlifelong habit of waking at dawn Bony witnessed the first throe of the coming death of Lake Otway. On waking he proceeded, as usual, to roll a cigarette and while doing so recalled how the pelicans had congregated in great crowds on the previous evening. He had slept on the top of his bedclothes, and it was now as hot as when he had fallen asleep.

  On bare feet, he passed out to the veranda and sauntered to its end overlooking the Lake.

  The birds still congregated. He counted eleven masses of them in a rough line along the lake’s centre, each mass looking like an island on which now and then someone waved a white flag. The flag was the white of under-wings when a bird raised itself and flapped its wings as a cat will stretch to limber up.

  The sky slowly acknowledged the threat of the sun. The surface of the Lake caught and held the same threat, and when the edge of the sun lifted above the trees behind Johnson’s Well, the first bird took off.

  The unit detached itself from a mass, flapped its great wings, paddled strongly and began to lift. When air-borne, the bird took the long upward slant as though bored with flying. Another bird followed, a third, and so on to form a chain being drawn up to the burnished sky by a magnetic sun. The same routine was followed by the other congregations of pelicans, until there were eleven long black chains over Lake Otway, each link rhythmically waving its white flag.

  When a thousand feet above the water, the leader of each chain rested upon outspread pinions, and those following gained position each side of the leader and also rested. Thus a fleet was formed, which proceeded to gain further height, every ‘ship’ of each ‘fleet’ alternately winging and resting in perfect unison.

  The chains having been wound up and the fleets formed, the sky was ribbed and curved with black-and-white ships, each with its golden prow. Like ten thousandArgosies, they sailed before the sun, fleet above fleet, in circles great and small as though the commanders waited for sailing orders.

  Presently the fleets grandly departed, one following the other, the units of every fleet in line abreast, sailing away to the north till the sky absorbed them. Fifteen, twenty years hence that same sky would produce similar fleets ofArgosies to sail down the air-ways and harbour on Lake Otway reborn.

  “They must have felt the bottom with their paddlers,” Carney said, and Bony turned to the young man whose face defied sunburn and whose large brown eyes seemed always to be laughing.

  “What’s the tally?”

  “Be a wild guess. Ten thousand, perhaps,” Bony essayed.

  “Could be more. The swans took off some time in the night, looks like.”

  “One foot ten inches of water left, by the marker. Bottom of the Lake flat all over?”

  “Like a billiard table excepting at Johnson’s Well end,” replied Carney. “There the creek extends into the Lake for about a hundred yards. They call it the Channel. Water will stay there for some time because the Channel is twenty feet deep, and the sandbar keeps it from running out. The banks being steep and slippery, it’s a trap for stock, which is why the flocks watering at the Lake had to be shifted.”

  “You will be sorry to see the Lake die,” Bony said, and Carney nodded and his eyes, Bony fancied, became wistful.

  “When she’s full, Lake Otway makes this place worth while,” Carney said. “I’d like to own this country and have Lake Otway full all the time. How would it be with a light yacht to sail on windy days and an aquaplane to pep things up?”

  “You forgot the fishing-boat,” Bony added, to make the picture complete.

  “There was a boat here, brought out soon after the Lake filled. We used her for fishing and bathing from. Then we got an east wind, a real beaut, and it raised short up-and-down waves that pounded the boat to splinters. We ought to have had sense enough to pull it well up the shore-line. Now there’s barely enough water to float a loan.”

  Carney was propounding a ‘brilliant idea’ to keep Lake Otway permanently filled when Lester appeared to give his first sniffle for the day. On being told that the pelicans had departed, he said no respectable bird could be expected to “lollop around on a plate of soup,” and Bony noted that Carney’s moment of loquacity ended.

  Who had cooked the breakfast this morning was not evident. The dishes were placed on the table for the men to help themselves. Nothing was said of the gun incident, and afterwards the men loafed about the quarters and Bony went for his horses, including the grey. At the morning smoko gong everyone crossed to theannexe, and again neither woman appeared.

  “Wonder how George’s getting on with the rabbits?” Carney said, obviously to lighten the general mood. He was supported by Lester.

  “Ought to be doing pretty well. Inever seen so many rabbits around this Lake before, and nowhere else for that matter. You can go anywhere and holler and choke the burrows with ’em. It’sgoin ’ to be the fun of Cork when the water dries out and leaves only the Channel. There’ll be so many rabbits drinking at the Channel, old George and his dogs and cats and galah will all be buried under the rush.”

  The sniffle was almost a snort, and Bony said:

  “As I am going to spend the night with him, I’d better warn him.”

  “Yououghta give up breaking and go in with George,” suggestedMacLennon. “Make more money in one night at the rabbits than any of us would make in a month. Wouldn’t mind giving it a gomeself.”

  “Not me,” supplemented Lester.

  MacLennonscowled into his tea-cup.

  “We’ll all go in with George,” he said. “Harry’llwant to, I bet. And Martyr won’t be left out. The women could come along, too, and cook for the gang.”

  “Suits me,” drawled Carney.“But no guns.”

  “No guns,” agreedMacLennon. “Guns go off on their own account late at night. George wouldn’t like that. Make him nervous.”

  Lester cackled, and raised a laugh.

  “A grain or two of strychnine if you like, but no guns.”

  “Seems to be a joker in the wood heap,” Bony mildly surmised, andMacLennon glowered.

  “Yes. Bloody funny. We’ll cut the talk and stick to rabbits. If we’re all going, we’d better get RedDraffin out to lend a hand. Told me he could skin five hundred an hour when he got his hand in.”

  “Bit over the fence, that one,” objected Carney, and Lester argued.

  “You want to see Red in action. If he can’t do five hundred, I’ll back him to do four ninety-nine. Tried myself out once and got up to ninety-nine.”

  Bony left them discussing famous tallies and went back to his work, and an hour later was surprised to see Joan sitting on the top rail of the yard watching him. Today she wore navy-blue slacks and a blue blouse, and blue wasn’t her colour. When he joined her to roll a cig
arette, he asked:

  “How is your mother? Recovering from the fright she received?”

  “She’s all right now. Sleeping it off. Shock, you know. The sound inside the house was terrific.”

  “It must have been. Who did fire the gun?”

  He looked at her, watching her mouth frame the words:

  “Who fired the gun? Why, it went off when Mr Martyr was cleaning it. The idiot! Messing about with a gun at that time of night.”

  “Where was he cleaning the weapon?”

  “It sounded in his room. Said it went into the floor. When are you going to let me ride the grey?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon. Suit you?”

  “Yes. I’ll be able to manage him?”

  “I shall be riding with you.”

  He swung his legs over the rail to sit facing across the open space and the light-drenched Lake beyond.

  “All the pelicans left this morning,” he said. “The swans went during the night.”

  Joan swung herself round to face the Lake. The house was then slightly to their left. Bony said:

  “I have been wondering what caused the hole in the house roof above your bedroom.”

  Receiving no support at this turn of the conversation, he looked directly at her. Her face was expressionless, and her eyes were green, like bottle glass.

  “You don’t believe Mr Martyr when he says the gun went off while he was cleaning it?”

  “The hole in the roof wasn’t there yesterday. Martyr could have been cleaning the gun in your room, and the gun could have been pointed at the ceiling when it was discharged. The iron roof is quite low to the ceiling, and the Number One shot did not expand to make a colander of the roof, as you can see.”

  “You were outside looking through the window?”

  “I wouldn’t dare.”

  “Then how did you know where my room is?”

  “Because the slacks you are now wearing, and which are so nicely pressed, were lying over the window sill. What did happen last night?”

  “I told you. You wouldn’t know, anyway.”

  Joan climbed down to the ground, where she turned and looked at him, head up, an insolent smile curling her mouth. He smiled at her, and her mind was held by his eyes, deep blue andunwinking, and they grew in size and threatened to read her secrets. Then he released her.

  “You’ll ride the grey tomorrow?”

  “Of course. And we’re still friends?”

  “If you will permit.”

  “Then say nothing about the hole in the roof.”

  “As your friend, why should I?”

  She laughed, turned to make for the house, said over her shoulder:

  “Thanks. You’re improving. See you sometime.”

  Bony found Martyr working in the office after lunch, which was served by Mrs. Fowler, now her usual self. Tentatively, he told the overseer his intention of spending the night with George Barby; the alert pale-blue eyes in the weathered face were speculative until their owner nodded agreement.

  “How are you travelling… per horse?”Martyr asked, and when told Bony would walk, he offered the use of the station utility. With assumed shyness, Bony declined the offer, saying he would prefer the walkabout, and Martyr nodded understanding of the urge which often cannot be resisted by aborigines.

  Thus, in the late afternoon, Bony went down to the Lake and followed the short line round to Johnson’s Well. The clear burning heat dried his throat, and the glare of the water seared his eyes, so that he turned a tap in one of the reservoir tanks and drank the comparatively cool water. Thereafter, he sat in the shadow cast by the tank and fell to making another of the everlasting cigarettes.

  Relaxed, he went over again the reactions of those whom he had told of this trip toBarby’s camp for the night, and arrived at the same conclusion-that no one of the men appeared abnormally interested, or betrayed even a hint of pleasure at being relieved of his presence. The short conversation withMacLennon the previous evening during which emerged the ex-fighter’s interest in the gold locket worn by Gillen occupied him for five minutes.

  Then he wandered about this Johnson’s Well, hauling himself up to look down into the water filling the reservoir tanks. Wire netting was stretched across the tank-tops to prevent birds drowning and fouling the water. He removed the boards covering the well, and would have gone down the ladder fixed to the shaft had he been certain about the air below. The discarded tank attracted him. It was smaller than those in service, and he guessed its capacity to be three thousand gallons. Its circular wall appeared to be in fair condition, but then it is always the floor of an iron tank which first rusts out.

  Without difficulty, he hauled himself up to look inside, and received one of the great surprises of his life.

  It was filled almost to the brim with the carcasses of cormorants. They had been there so long that the sun had mummified them, and there was no evil smell other than the faint musty odour. How many? There must have been several thousand birds that had piled into this tank to die.

  Chapter Eleven

  The Trapper’s Camp

  BONYFOLLOWEDTHEcreek bank to the dune blocking it at the shore of Lake Otway, and on his walking over the ramparts of blown sand the Lake inall its mystic colour stretched before him.

  The continuance of the creek beyond the sandbar and out into the bed of the Lake was plain enough, the Channel being forty yards wide and said to be one hundred yards in length.

  The buildings of the out-station were blobs of red-and-white atop the red bluff, and much nearer, on the opposite shore, was the white patch ofBarby’s tent set up in the meagre shade cast by an ancient gum. Everywhere in the shallows extending from both sides of the Channel, ducks were busy, but the herons and other waders fished with such marked indifference as to cause Bony to wonder why they wetted their feet. Flocks of moorhens ran about the dry flats, and galahs sped under the arches of the metallic sky as though to prove to earth-bound men that nothing created by nature has straight lines.

  On the wide strip of dry land betweenBarby’s camp and the dwindling water of the Lake, Barby had erected a flimsy fence of wire netting in the form of a very broad V, the point of the V thrust into the wall of a high netted trap about ten by ten feet. Now the netting was lifted off the ground and hooked to the top of the posts, mere sticks hammered into the earth. The rabbits would soon begin their evening journey, from burrows and every inch of shade on the sand dunes and the uplands beyond, to drink at the Lake, and after dark they would be out on the flats in countless numbers. And then Barby would lower the netting, making sure of a wide selvedge on the ground, and in their efforts to return to their burrows and feeding grounds, the rabbits would drive to the point of the V, pass through a hole at the point and so into the great trap.

  Barby was cooking at his fire. Close by the tent was the utility, the tailboard beingBarby’s table, and a wooden case his chair. Under the vehicle were his three dogs, who on sighting Bony ran excitedly to meet him. The black-and-white cats came from somewhere to add their welcome, and the galah, who had perched on the tent ridge-pole, became so flurried it forgot to fly and slid down the canvas to ‘flop’ on the ground and emit screams of injured dignity.

  “Day, there!”Barby shouted long before Bony drew near.“Seen you coming, so I’ve boiled the billy. How’s things?”

  There being nothing to shout unnecessarily, Bony deferred an acknowledgement of welcome until he stood watching the trapper layinga bread dough in a bed of hot white ash.

  “Thought I would put in a night with you,” he said. “How is the fur coming?”

  “Staying the night! Good on you. Fur’s coming in like a ruddy flood. Two thousand pelts last night. Could have got five thousand if Red had been with me. You sighted him at all?”

  “No.”

  “Give us a bit of a hand in the morning?” Barby asked, anxiously. “Tea’s in the billy. Sugar and pannikins on the table.”

  “I could lend a hand for a couple of hours,�
�� Bony said.

  He filled a pannikin, added a morsel of sugar. The dogs subsided. The cats daintily rubbed against his legs. The galah waddled over the ground on its clumsy pigeon-toed feet, tumbled on its back and looked up at him with hard bright eyes.

  Barby covered his bread dough with the ash, plus an addition of tiny red coals, careful to spread the heat. Because his face had been darkened by the sun his eyes were inconspicuous, but they were no less quick, no less alert.

  “Goin’ to be even hotter tomorrow, by the look of that sun,” he remarked. “Hope it keeps up. Hotter she is the thirstier the rabbits.”

  “Did you see the birds go?”

  Barby nodded.

  “You don’t see a sight like that down in the stinking cities,” he said with emphasis.“Or that.”

  Bony followed the direction of his out-flung hand and witnessed a rabbitunhesitantly come running from the dunes, its normal timidity vanquished by the onslaught of thirst. It followed a straight line to the truck, stopped in its shadow for a moment, moved on and over the foreleg of one of the dogs. The dog lifted its upper lip in a sneer of disdain and continued panting. It did snap at a fly. The rabbit ran on to the flat, seeking the water it must drink or perish.

  “Why in hell I own dogs I don’t know. Fat lot of use, ain’t they? Well, I’ll knock up a stew for dinner.”

  “What can I do?” asked Bony.

  “Do! Nothing, just yabber. How’s things on the other shore?”

  “Everyone is a little moody.”

  “Watchin’ each other, eh?”

  “And the Lake.”

  The galah determinedly tried to detach tabs from Bony’s riding boots… until a flock of galahs whirled overhead, when it twisted its head to look up at them. Barby shouted to Bony to ‘grab him’, but Bony was too late. The bird took wing and sped upward to join his kind.

  “Now we’ll see something, I hope,” Barby predicted. “But one day he won’t be coming home.”

  Barby’sbird joined the flock, which proceeded to put on a turn of aerobatics for the benefit of the stranger. The stranger could not be distinguished, for its performance was as flawless. They flew about the camp tree, shrieking at each other and the watchers, and presently there emerged from the general cacophony a sepulchral voice: