He studied Joe’s waxen features.
“They’re not coming…are they?”
Something happened to Martin in that moment of realisation. It was another day. Joe said the first thing they must do each morning was to switch the radio on and scan the frequencies. They might contact the radio ham again or even one of the planes searching the area.
He flipped the switch and the red light came on again. He picked up his headset, put it on and cleared his throat: MAYDAY…MAYDAY…ALPHA, TANGO, ZULU CALLING. He tried again. Joe said to do it twice and move on.
“See, Joe…I’m doing what you said. There’s no answer…so I’ll move on.” He turned the dial and then looked back at Joe. “What was that, Joe? We haven’t had breakfast yet. I know…I was going to see if the radio worked first.”
The light had gone out and Martin had not noticed. He switched the radio off and turned to the packet of biscuits he’d brought out the night before. He pulled back the wrapping and took out the slab of oatmeal and vitamins he’d already started, broke it in two, placed the fresh side on the console between them and bit into his half.
It crumbled in his mouth. It was dry and he desperately wanted something to wash it down. He remembered what Joe had said earlier.
“I know, Joe, but this is all we have left. It’s no use you going on about how dry they are, and how much extra water we’ll use. I know all that, but what are we going to do? You said they would keep us alive at the end.”
Martin went silent. His brain was trying so hard to remember what Joe had said about surviving. “We’re not going to…are we, Joe? We’re nearly out of water. When that goes, how long will we survive then?”
Martin remembered the honey and peanut butter sachets. “What about these, Joe…they should help?” Martin said, reaching out to the shelf in front of his knees. “What do you fancy, Joe? Honey or peanut butter?” Martin laughed. “Yes, I agree…peanut butter might be too dry. Honey it is.”
Martin pulled back the tab and opened the sachet. He poured half onto his biscuit and placed the sachet on the console next to Joe.
“Umm…it’s still not perfect, but it’s a bit more palatable.”
As Martin slowly ate his biscuit, another of Joe’s measures for drawing out their meagre rations, he noticed the state of the windscreen. The sandstorm had left a swirling haze on the glass; probably the reason for his unusual blue vision when he’d awoken this morning. It might stop him from seeing a plane when it passes over.
He jumped up, opened the door and grabbed his jacket from behind the rear seats. Using the broken wheel-arch he’d used to dig out the sand when they’d first crashed, he turned it over and used it as a step to allow him to reach the windscreen. Rolling his jacket into a ball he started scrubbing the frosted glass. It was a fruitless exercise. Each alternative way he rubbed the glass, it made no difference; it was still blurred. It was a little cleaner, but still sandblasted beyond repair.
Martin returned to the cockpit, tossed his jacket behind the seats and sat down again beside Joe. He realised he was sweating and turned round to look outside his window towards the east. He hadn’t noticed when he was in front of the plane. The sun was now level with the tail. Soon it would be above the plane and he knew he was going to fry.
By mid-afternoon in Broome, Philip Hastings was pacing the operations room floor listening to the radio chatter. Josh kept shaking his head and Bryce was busy plotting each report of no contact. Outside another plane landed to refuel while an earlier landing was taxying onto the runway for another last circuit before they called it a day. Philip kept checking his watch, wondering whether or not he should give Kate a ring and try to explain their failure to find the plane.
Bryce could read him like a book. “Did you actually expect us to find them straightaway?” he said. “They’ve still got three hours.”
“Yes, I know, Bryce…I can count, and for your information that’s only one hour over the search area; unless they’re lucky and spot them on their way back.”
“I thought the Lear would make a difference.”
“It’s made a difference by covering more ground. Look at your chart. There are more green lines filling the search triangle than anything else. And still they haven’t spotted anything; why do you think that is?”
An awkward expression crossed Bryce’s face, “To be honest there’s only one explanation; we’re searching in the wrong place.”
Philip looked aghast, “The wrong place…I thought you were so sure of your calculations. That’s what all this lot was about,” he shouted, waving his finger over Bryce’s immaculate chart.
“I told you, Philip…it would only take a variance of a couple of degrees to throw us off by twenty kilometres.”
Philip walked around the table looking at it from every angle before he answered Bryce’s bombshell. “That’s almost like saying that after three days we have to start all over again. What do I tell Martin’s wife?”
“You don’t, Philip. You use your usual charm to explain that we shall extend the search area tomorrow and hope for the best.”
By five o’clock, when Kate knew the planes would be returning, she phoned the number Philip had given her. It was his personal mobile, so there was no way he would be engaged elsewhere.
“Hastings,” he replied.
“It’s Kate, Philip. I know by now you would have rung me if they’d found anything, but I’m going mad here…have you anything for me?”
“I’m sorry, Kate. The time just got away from me. I’ve been here in the operations room all day listening to the chatter and watching Bryce plot each plane’s search pattern. There’s been no contact so far, and they’ve covered almost every section of the search area.”
“Maybe you’re searching in the wrong place.”
“That’s just it, Kate; how do we know? As I explained to you, we have no fixed point of contact. We just have headings. Martin’s plane could be anywhere.”
“I thought the jet was going to help?”
“So did I, Kate.”
“But it’s been three days, Philip. How long can they last?”
“CASA is going to join the search tomorrow.”
“What’s CASA?”
“It’s the Civil Aviation Authority. It means more planes.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“I don’t have an answer, Kate. They have enough emergency rations to last some time. I don’t know about the water.”
The line went quiet. Philip suspected she was trying to hold back her tears and he gave her a moment; but there was nothing else he could say.
“All right, Philip…I’ll speak to you tomorrow. Goodbye.”
“I’m sorry, Kate. I’ll…” The phone went dead, and he cursed.
Whether it was because of sitting beside Joe’s dead body or the result of hunger and thirst, Martin had begun hallucinating. It was late afternoon and he switched the radio on again for one last attempt to catch any planes in the area. He was unaware that the red light had not come on and continued with his usual Mayday broadcast.
“Hi Dad, it’s Adam. Thanks for the money, it really helped me out. I’ll be getting my grant soon so I’ll be able to pay you back. Give Mum my love. Bye.”
Martin did not question his son’s reply and changed to another frequency.
“Martin,” Kate called out to the chair he had set up on the patio, “when are you going to fix that drain. I’ve got dishwater backing up here. And while you’re on, you might as well see to that sticking gate.”
“Sorry, dear,” Martin replied. “Just finishing this crossword; shouldn’t take more than a couple of days.”
Martin snorted and switch to the next frequency. “Come on, Martin,” Joe said, shaking him. “You can’t loll about all day; there’re jobs to do if you want all those planes to spot us. Get the tarpaulin out of the cargo space and spread it out in front of the plane. And sprinkle some sand in a giant SOS; they won’t miss that.”
“Yes, Joe, I’ll do that now,” Martin said, switching the radio off.
He took off the headset and was fumbling with his harness, wondering why it was undone, when he heard a sound like someone rapping on the window. He turned in its direction and saw a face peering in at him. It was Kate. She was shouting at him, telling him to get on with his jobs.
“I am…I am,” he said. “For heaven’s sake, give me a chance, woman.”
He only turned away for a second, still fumbling with his harness when she rapped on his window again, only this time much louder. He turned to give her a piece of his mind, but she had disappeared.
In her place was a large black face with a broad mouth of white teeth. He was saying something and Martin opened the door.
“Hey you fella…come with me.”
“I can’t. I’m waiting for a plane.”
“You won’t live that long…you’ll soon be like the dead fella.”
“What dead fella? This is my friend, Joe. Say hello, Joe.”
“You not right in the head, mate. It’s the heat in here.”
In his unstable state Martin had not realised how hot it was inside the plane. Although it was still hot outside, it was a lower temperature and a breeze was beginning to stir the spinifex as the sun dropped further towards the horizon.
The young Aboriginal boy opened the door to its full extent, leaned in and placed his hand over Martin’s forehead. “How long him been dead then?” he said.
The change in temperature and the presence of another human being seemed to revive Martin’s cognitive ability. He was still feeling weak, and he suddenly remembered his arm, but the sight of an indigenous native bending over him brought him back to reality.
“Oh Joe…I found him like that this morning.”
“You won’t last long with dead man. He’s starting to smell already. You have to leave plane. Come with me to cattle station nearby. They look after you and see to your arm,” he said, helping Martin out of the plane.
What Martin was not aware of was that ‘nearby’ to an Aborigine was two days away.
After sitting Martin down on the good wheel, he gave him a drink of water from a gourd hanging from his shoulder. It was different from Martin’s bottled water; it was coarse and bitter, like the water he and Kate tasted from a natural spring in Tasmania. He was sitting on a rocky outcrop while Kate cooled her aching feet in a nearby pool. Martin laughed and the Aboriginal boy shook his head in despair, thinking he had lost his mind.
The boy looked over towards the west. There was no time to lose and he checked Martin over, seeing if he was fit to make the journey across rough terrain. Martin would not survive in city clothes. He climbed into the plane to see if there was anything he could use. He brought out the emergency rations, remaining water and the first aid bag and dropped them at Martin’s feet before going back to check behind the seats. He returned with Martin’s jacket and his holdall carrying the work clothes he used on the sites he visited.
“Is this everything?” he said.
Martin was not sure until he saw his jacket next to his feet. When he picked it up and attempted to put it on, despite its state after wiping the windscreen, the boy snatched it away from him.
“No good for desert,” he said, throwing it to the ground.
Martin stared at the jacket lying at his feet for what seemed ages and as he did so the recent events began to clarify in his mind. The jumble of images he was experiencing suddenly began to make sense as if a curtain had been drawn back.
He bent down to his jacket again. The boy made a move to stop him and Martin waved him away as he went through his pockets for his wallet and anything he thought he might need. The boy continued to unzip the bag and started pulling out the work clothes. Martin wondered why he would be interested in them, noticing he was nodding his head in approval.
“Take your things off,” he said. “City clothes too hot for desert.”
“What everything?” Martin asked.
The boy laughed. “You can keep your shorts on. Change into this.”
He handed Martin his lightweight overalls. They were all in one with a zip up the front and he pulled the legs on, stood up and slipping his good arm in first, turned and looked at the boy. He shook his head, and then his mass of white teeth opened in a broad smile. Reaching into the small pouch he was carrying he took out a knife, slit the other arm off the suit and pulled the rest up Martin’s chest so that he could zip it up to his neck. He then turned back to the bag, brought out the hard-hat that was mandatory on mine sites and placed it on Martin’s head.
“No one is going to miss me out here in this!” Martin said. The fact that the hat and overalls were bright orange made no impact on the boy.
The boy finally came across Martin’s desert boots. It was a fashionable term; not that they were really designed for the desert. Martin found them very comfortable on the rough terrain he was used to rambling over, and the thick, tyre-like soles gripped the slippery surfaces of the mine tunnels.
The boy tossed them over to Martin. Told him to remove his city shoes and put them on instead. That done, the boy gathered up the clothes and his smart new shoes, and stuffing them into the holdall, he threw it into the plane.
He then turned his attention to the first-aid bag. He seemed to know what it was when he opened it and examined its contents. Satisfied, he picked up the two remaining bottles of water, placed the unopened one in the bag and poured the half-empty one into his gourd. He then picked up the box of emergency rations and took out the pack that was already open. He bit into a biscuit, chewed it a couple of times and spat it out with a fierce grimace. He tossed that inside the plane also. Martin seemed amused and chuckled to himself.
Satisfied there was nothing more of value, the boy picked up his spear, boomerang and shoulder bag and walked off around the plane. A silly thought crossed Martin’s mind that he was going to leave him there; that the whole charade with the clothes was for his amusement. Martin shook his head to rid it of such thoughts. His mind was becoming clearer and he was done with such fantasies.
With the arrival of the Aborigine something happened to Martin. He had little recollection of what state he was in, but he knew enough to realise he was not far off joining Joe. He still felt weak, fearful of whether or not he was capable of making it to this cattle station Willy had mentioned, but his thoughts were clearer now.
The boy returned after his inspection of the plane and Martin noticed he had found the rope he’d used to tie off the tarpaulin. It was coiled up and slung across his head and one shoulder as if he was about to climb a mountain. But there were no mountains out here in the Sandy Desert.
“We go now…day nearly over,” he said.
“Hang on,” Martin called out.
He reached into the breast pocket of his overalls for the small black book he’d retrieved from his jacket. He tore out a page and scribbled a note with the pencil in the spine. The writing was a bit shaky with his left hand. He then stood up, leaned into the plane and placed the note in Joe’s hand.
“God Bless, Joe,” he said, touching the cold hand. “Thanks for everything.”
The boy looked impatient. The small ritual meant nothing to him, yet his time with the white ranchers had taught him their ways.
“Come now,” he said. We have a way to go before sunset.”
As Martin stopped in front of the plane, he noticed the boy heading off into the setting sun. Martin turned and looked back for one last glance up into the sky to see if the cavalry was about to arrive at the last moment. The sky was empty.
CHAPTER 11
Martin was not a religious man; he spurned the Protestant faith he had been christened in, yet he crossed his heart before starting his journey. He was still shaky when he left the plane and he had no idea how far the Aboriginal boy intended taking him, but as he turned to follow, he noticed the boy had stopped.
He was waiting for Martin to catch up and seeing him at a distance suddenly
brought home to Martin who his new companion really was. In the past five years in Australia, Martin had not come across a native Aborigine. He had seen them on the television, in books and on his visits to outback mining sites, but those Aborigines were Aussies. They were dressed like any other miner, ate the same food, drank the same beer, but they were not natives; the Aborigine standing in front of Martin was.
He looked majestic. But for a small loincloth and a mass of white slashes decoratively placed all over his body, he was naked. He was standing like a statue with everything he needed to trek through the Sandy Desert. He was holding a long slender spear, a boomerang was slung in the braided bands around his waist alongside his water gourd and a small leather pouch hung from his shoulder.
He looked impatient and Martin placed his one good hand around the bottom of the first aid bag and shuffled away from the riverbed and the plane he had so maligned, yet which had served him well for the last three days.
Martin had no idea why the Aboriginal boy was walking off into the desert so near sunset. Watching him stride away from a relatively clear sandy area into what looked like rough country confused Martin’s already taxed mind. He consoled himself with the thought that, come sunrise, he too might be dead and when the planes finally arrived they would only find two corpses.
Was he wise to allow this juvenile to take him from the apparent safety of the Cessna’s cockpit to a night in the wilds of the desert? He had to trust him. He would know how to survive in the desert. And he would also know when it was the right time to stop. He appeared to be looking for something; scanning the country ahead, first one side then the next. The sun was setting opposite Martin’s right shoulder, which meant they were travelling south-west. Then the boy did stop, turned full on into the huge ball of vermilion and continued.
Martin soon found out what it was he was looking for. They were approaching a group of trees or shrubs; they were so small. They were surrounded by a mass of spinifex. Martin knew that much and when the boy finally dug his spear into the sand and dropped his boomerang alongside, with his gourd, Martin was sure he knew what the trees were. They were the indigenous acacia; prolific in some parts of the Sandy Desert, along with the spinifex.
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