Terra Australis Templar (A Peter Wilks Archaeological Mystery)

by Gregory House

  Peter, once more, was bending over the find and was beginning to point out a few interesting features. “Well Sid I can’t claim to be an expert. You’ll need to get these verified by the museum, but I can tell you that the box is either Japanese or Chinese inlayed lacquer work. It was a popular export item for the Europeans from the 1500s to the 1800s. The British Museum has a few very like this.”

  Lampie concentrating on her task, snapped more shots as Peter pointed to the next set of finds.

  Sid nodded like all of them, his eyes glowing with rapt fascination. “What about those two animal shaped, arrhh, objects? Any ideas Pete?”

  Sid’s old mate rubbed his face with the back of a cotton gloved hand, then eased the first of the animals out of its resting place and slowly turned it over.

  “This is very interesting. I’ve seen pieces similar to this before. From the weight, it’s probably bronze with silver gilt. As to the design, I think this is a cat or a lion. These banded decorations just scream Arabic influence, but the tower part on the back looks to me like it’s supposed to be a candle stick.”

  Lampie gave it a closer examination as Peter placed the animal in the padded tray. Yeah he could be right there. The pointy spike in the central of the tower would be useful for a candle. She remembered a very simple version of it in the school chapel at Geneva.

  “Got a time period Pete?” Sid clasped his hands tight before his next question.

  Lampie noted the nervous gesture. She was just as keen on the answer – the future of the dig depended on it.

  “As too date,” Peter paused and shook his head frowning, “best guess is a similar time period to the box. As I’ve said before, all this needs proper dating and analysis back at a museum or, if we had more dateable finds from this site, that would help.”

  She suppressed her own urge to jump up and down. The site was looking better and better – pre British colonisation at the least. Lampie was tempted to give Sid a nudge. This would be the perfect time to mention the two graves, except that their leader was still staring intently at the gilt cat candlesticks.

  “Where’d they come from Pete?” That hungry look of Sid’s was back.

  “That’s difficult to tell Sid. These pieces don’t come with a made by stamp like toasters. From a preliminary examination, it could be any of the Arab ports on the African coast up to the Persian Gulf. I’ve seen bronzes like this in Cairo and in the Lebanon so I don’t think it’s from India or the old Spice Islands, though I can’t claim to know much about their local decorative motifs, other than flicking through a few general interest art and archaeology books.”

  Sid smiled and nodded

  “If we look at the rest of the pieces in here, I think on first sight they tell us a lot. Five porcelain bowls, three green and two blue, and a silver bowl. They put this entire find in the category of the South East Asian trading routes.”

  Lampie left off the cameras to film Peter’s explanation.

  He then proceeded to tick off points on his fingers. “First, I think we can place most of these pieces in this find in context. If we link the cross, the silver chalice and bowl along with the fabric remnants, I would have to say this is the travelling vestments chest of a priest, definitely a Catholic one. As for the three skulls, they’d have to be Catholic as well, to be stored in the vestments chest. They may have been his companions, or missionaries slain by Spice Islands pirates, so placing them in this chest was the best burial that could be managed.”

  To Lampie this explanation appeared plausible. She knew European trading vessels would have been a tempting target for any freebooters around the Indonesian islands, though that didn’t explain how the chest came to be here. For a moment Lampie had a wild hope, then before it could seize hold, she choked it back down. No, not that she needed proof – they all needed proof! Taking refuge behind the cameras, she watched Sid shake his head then point out a few problems with Peter’s hypothesis.

  “I don’t know if we should discount the Dutch, Pete.” The dig leader waved down the incipient complaint and continued. “Yeah I remember that they were protestant, so I agree it’s unlikely they’d be careful with any Catholic vestments. So why bury it here?”

  Peter threw up his hands and shrugged. “I’m not an expert on maritime practices of the pre industrial age. All I can think of is shipwreck. Maybe it was too large for the survivors to transport?”

  Sid and Lampie exchanged a very meaningful stare and simultaneously they spoke one word. “Batavia!”

  Peter blinked like an owl and shook his head in confusion. “What! Isn’t that the name of a province in the Netherlands? What’s it got to do with the Kimberleys?”

  Ignoring the bewildered state of his old mate, Sid turned to Lampie and shot out a question. “Lampie the sat system and the batteries on Bast – are they all fired up and ready to go?”

  “Yeah, sure Sid. The USB port on the hub is still a bit touchy so pull off the panel and jiggle the wires. That usually helps.”

  “Great! Could you fill him in on the meaning of Batavia? I’ve got to check the VOC database!”

  Peter was still none the wiser when Sid ran off down the hill.

  After giving Rob and Bluey a discreet signal to rack off, Lampie put a hand on the English archaeologist’s shoulder and drew him over to the shelter of the tarp. “Peter you remember the flight up here with Trussie?”

  “Yes I do. Buccaneer Archipelago, Koolan Island, Horizontal Waterfall, and the rest why?”

  That was a wavering response from the Englishman. From the worried crease of his brow, Lampie wasn’t sure how much of their in-flight conversation he was in ‘receptive condition’ to remember. His constant recourse to the blue bucket may have dulled his appreciation of the briefing. Oh well time for a recap.

  “Okay, I mentioned the fact that the Dutch kept on hitting the coast on their way to Java.”

  “Ahh yes?”

  “Well the most famous, or actually infamous, umm landing, was that of the East India Company vessel the Batavia in 1629. She was wrecked in the Abrolhos Islands, seventy kilometres off Geraldton, north of Perth. It was pretty famous in Australia. I read a book about it called the Island of Angry Ghosts when I was a kid, real scaring stuff retelling what happened after the wreck. It kinda led me here actually.”

  Peter still looked confused but at least he nodded encouragingly.

  “As I said the ship was wrecked quite a way south of here,” Lampie continued. “But the interesting story is that one of the ship’s officers was planning a mutiny, literally as the ship hit the rocks. Well, everyone survived and they landed all the crew and passengers on a couple of the islands. It was a pretty desolate place with very little water and the captain and commander of the trade convoy decided to sail off to Java for help, a couple of thousand kilometres to the north. They took some fifty of the crew, most of the officers, and the only two small vessels to survive. Unknown to them, they left the leading mutineer and his mates behind with the rest of the passengers.”

  “Once they’d sailed off, this guy, called Jeronimus Cornelius, took charge and started killing anyone who opposed him. A group of twenty soldiers, who’d been landed on another island resisted him. But that didn’t stop Cornelius from murdering over a hundred of the survivors and seizing the ship’s treasure and grabbing another merchant’s wife for his mistress.”

  “My God, I’d always thought of the Dutch as so restrained, well except for the red light district of Amsterdam of course.” Peter had a wry smile on his face. “What happened to this chap, Cornelius’s mutiny?”

  “Months later the convoy commander returned in another vessel and put the mutineers on trial. They were found guilty and then strung up. Cornelius, as the ring leader, had his hands chopped off before being hanged. A couple of the lesser mutineers were recorded as being marooned on the mainland, making the west coast the first spot for European settlement.”

  “Lampie, all this is fascinating and shows that I needed to do
a lot more research before I arrived, but why is it relevant to this site?”

  “Pete, the Batavia and the Gilt Dragon are the most famous wrecks, not the only wrecks. We only recently found another one in the late 1930’s, the Zuytdorp. In 1712, it hit a reef just off the coast, a hundred kilometres north of where the Batavia went down. Several expeditions over the past few decades found extensive evidence of survivors and their salvage on the cliff about the wreck site. There is some conjecture they intermarried with the local aborigines. After that we hit a blank. But Peter, we know. The Zuytdorp was carrying over two hundred thousand florins plus a cargo of bullion and silver. It hasn’t been found yet nor do we know what happened to the survivors, apart from some very strange finds like the breech blocks of bronze swivel guns and empty bottles of wine and spirits.”

  “So you think this chest may be connected with the Zuytdorp?”

  Lampie gave a shrug and continued. “Who knows? Sid’s going online to check with both the museums and the international wreck databases. There were hundreds of ships lost sailing to the Spice Islands. The VOC list is the most comprehensive, while the Spanish and Portuguese are more erratic or secretive. Anyway what’s really important is that this spot hasn’t had any previous connections to any known wrecks.”

  “All right Lampie, let me get this straight. This chest could be a clue to a wreck you don’t know about and that makes it really valuable?”

  “Y’ got it in one Pete!”

  The Englishman smiled and nodded. Great, thought Lampie, he was beginning to get the crucial point of the excavation. A mystery wreck of some age would get them all sorts of funding!

  Peter appeared to shed the weight of indecision and worry. He squared his shoulders and gave the brim of his hat a playful tug, then flashed a rueful grin.

  “So Lampie, you mentioned some graves. Let’s get this all packed and go and check them out for more evidence of your mystery ship.”

  She could have cheered. Yaaayyyy the hunt was on!

  Field Illustration 3

  Chapter 12 The Friggin Diggin and the Graves

  Peter carefully covered the box with a spare tarp. He knew there were still several interesting items remaining in the bottom of the chest that required cataloguing and description apart from the beautiful lacquer box. Whatever it contained would have to wait till later. Nor had they finished digging out the chest. That in itself was an important artefact. After the explanation about wreck history from Lampie, he felt really eager to check the rest of the site, though at the same time he mentally cursed himself for sloppy work. Before any dig he’d always walked the site even if he was only there to wield a shovel. He didn’t have any excuse. Perhaps he was suffering from some kind of Sid associated delirium? No, that wasn’t going to wash. At the sight of the beaches and the turquoise water, his perspective had eroded. A distant voice of his conscience muttered something about attractive site surveyors with a blonde ponytail. That suggestion was studiously ignored though not dismissed. Peter considered himself a professional. This was a proper site. He’d been retained for his experience. He needed to maintain the highest of standards, especially with anything involving Sid.

  Recalling his old friend wasn’t such a good idea. For the umpteenth time today, his former roommates’ name suffered a further blackening, bloody stupid idiot. Flipping showy crap with the chest, a typical stunt from his old Aussie mate. Sid always did like to take the victor’s laurels before the battle was even done. Peter would have been less inclined to leap to conclusions if the moron had done a proper introduction, building up all the bits of evidence, then pulling out the chest. Now they had what could be loosely described as a treasure chest but still no real links to anything actually, except mythical pirate practices. Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest – yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

  Peter stood up and looked around for Lampie. She’d travelled all of ten paces to the west and was tugging up another dirt covered tarp. So far every trench here was covered over, a sensible precaution. They did the same back home, considering the frequency of rain. However he didn’t think it was for weather proofing at this site. Wasn’t this supposed to be the dry season? He made a note to ask Lampie about that later. Maybe they had problems with wild animals digging in the holes. In the meantime, since their extensive digging team of Rob and Bluey had disappeared, he began to move the media gear across to the graves site. A quick flash of a smile from Lampie told him his effort had been appreciated. A further unexpected reward was the sight of her bending over to pull back the last of the tarps. Peter whispered a silent pray of thanks to the inventor of the tank-top as the distinct shadows of her swaying breasts brought a desert like dryness to his throat and a constriction to his inner leg measurement. Modern archaeology had some unexpected benefits. It was certainly more pleasant to watch Lampie at work than any number of sweaty Egyptian diggers.

  Suffering a sudden rash of conscience, Peter knelt to give Lampie a hand and found he had to move cautiously lest his manly equipment suffered sudden strangulation or catastrophic strain. Flipping hell, talk about embarrassing! He shifted leftwards in an effort to cover his surreptitious attempts and began to slip. Now if he’d paused to think about it, the whole bizarre situation could have been avoided and he’d have had a perfectly good ogle. Peter felt himself overbalance and as instinct does, it took over. He threw both hands out in front of him to stop from landing in the open grave. At the same time, he tried to kick off from the disappearing ledge. As it transpired Lampie had noticed him over balancing and naturally she stretched out her arms to help. No problems so far except that she was unaware of the main reason Peter was slipping, the cursed affliction of trouser cramp. Peter, as one would, grabbed at the proffered support and there he stood, his hands wrapped around Lampie’s forearms both of them swaying slightly in perfect equilibrium. In the few seconds after his rescue, a part of Peter’s back brain began to analyse a new set of inputs. Lampie’s skin was smooth and pleasantly warm, while he could feel the play of muscles that supported him.

  He might have held it at that point, a little awkward but no more. Then the afternoon breeze from the south drifted over the low hill. As he was beginning to find, the remote north-west of the continent was vastly different from any of his previous experience – first the light, then the arching space, followed by the vivid colours of rock and water. Now it was a more nebulous characteristic, the air. Along the coast it held a travelogue of its passage, the tart spiciness of the coastal acacias, the tang of fresh salt, the aromatic bite of eucalyptus. It usually wasn’t until someone had been there for a couple of days that they discovered the invigorating qualities of the Kimberleys air. Gone was the throat clenching stench of diesel and petrol fumes or the grey brown acrid sludge that hung over the city towers, obscuring them from view and corroding both your spirit and your lungs. This wondrous place was different. To breathe was refreshing, like water to a parched soul and a better high than a jolt of pure oxygen. It wouldn’t be pushing it too far to suggest a Breatharian may have been able to survive here until their ‘pure diet’ convinced them to make friends with a saltie.

  It had been a few days now and Peter was not immune to its influences. He felt stronger, healthier and well recovered from his previous mal de mer. Now the Kimberley air worked on other reflexes. As the breeze picked up, he could smell all those mingled aromas of the coast. There was one, however, that sent all manner of jolts and signals sparking through his body. The breeze rippled past Lampie and as it did so, her scent hitched a ride. That potent mix slammed into Peter’s already overloaded senses. It was too much to take. He tried not to breathe in deeply but that was like asking a drowning man not to clutch for a life preserver. His eyes widened in shock as her perfume teased receptors dormant for months. Oh God no! He thought that was the prayer that he sent up, though in the confusion it may have been. ‘Oh God more yes yes!’ It was a tad blurred after the event. All his nerves were working overtime to cope with the sudden surge of
interest and the consequences were dire. Peter found himself afflicted by the worst case of ‘Crotch Cramp’ imaginable. Then it got worse. Because of local geology, the ground next to the graves was loose and crumbling and failed to cope with the added weight of a straining, deeply embarrassed English historian and promptly gave way.

  For a few moments there was confusion. Peter tried to jump without knotting his nether regions or letting go of Lampie, while she tried to pull him away from the exposed grave. Still it may have worked if she hadn’t lent the wrong way. She found herself falling backwards, dragging a now airborne Peter after. In this tumble, gravity applied its usual restraints and Peter landed hands outstretched, this could have been extremely painful – painfully sprained wrists and bruises at the least. Luckily he avoided that misfortune because of Lampie.

  “Ahh Pete?”

  “Ahh yes, Lampie.”

  “You alright Pete?”

  “Ahh I think so Lampie, yes I am.”

  “Good. Now that you’ve copped a good feel, would y’ mind getting off me?”

  Peter began to slowly comprehend the other consequence of his cushioning by Lampie. Number one, her breasts felt very rounded and firm. Number two, their bodies locked together like they were moulded. And number three, he wanted to keep breathing in her scent for a very long time – a year would be nice. And looking into her eyes from so close also gave him a real tingle. Finally, embarrassed reality gave him a kick in the nadgers, and Peter realised what he’d been doing and flushing a bright scarlet, rolled off, scrambling to regain composure.