Terra Australis Templar (A Peter Wilks Archaeological Mystery)

by Gregory House

  ‘Dear boy whatever possessed you to dig there? Evidence is our lord and master. Supposition and conjecture are the Devil’s tools to ensnare the unwary! Never give in to the lure of the easy answer. That path leads to damnation!’

  Hmm evidence. The scans hinted at intriguing anomalies. Like everything else in Deception Bay, their meanings and origins were clouded. He’d dug here due to the large blob of noise and struck gold of a kind. So that part was correct – dare he trust the rest of the signal? Dare he ignore them just because they weren’t what he’d expected? Whose site was this – Dutch, Portuguese, English, French perhaps…or? No he wasn’t going to stray into flights of fancy each of those were first on the list, depend on evidence as Bartleby said. Peter dusted his hands and picked up his site diary to look once more at the printouts. He frowned and tapped them thoughtfully. Pride, arrogance and assumed national superiority – he knew those weren’t sins that gripped the British more than other nations, despite claims to the contrary. To the French and Germans, God was not an Englishman, a fact they’d tried to prove for several centuries. However a long string of ‘British’ triumphs tended to reinforce the concept of natural superiority of the British over foreigners, unruly natives and ungrateful colonials (except of course for that error of judgement with the Americans). Peter wasn’t a fool. He was British and proud of it, and knew that Nelson’s victories and the Battle of Britain had molded his concept of the world and in many ways coloured his interactions with the Aussies.

  All that ‘history’ was going to effect how he interpreted this site and handled his relationship with Sid over what he believed they’d found. As an Aussie archaeologist, Sid naturally expected to find items and layouts that fitted in with his cultural upbringing, such as aboriginal shell middens, stone tools, Dutch and more modern English colonial wrecks. If Sid saw this readout, he’d do what any other local expert would do – dig where the noise was and dismiss the rest as background anomalies. Peter didn’t. He looked once more at the read-out and made his decision. Cultural baggage be damned! He folded the incriminating paper and shoved it inside his diary then with a determined shrug and a wry grin hopped out of the trench Peter was going to ensure his ‘uncertainty with history’ was lavishly spread around.

  “But mate, y’ had us doing that scanning stuff all day! It’s bloody hot and Bluey’s got a blister!” Obligingly Bluey held up the injured appendage. To Peter’s eye, the callused paw could have performed dentistry on a shark without gaining a scratch. He ignored the attempted evasion and waited a minute or so. Eventually Rob and Bluey grumbling returned to their task. “Y’ can’t be a very good arch’ologist. Sid never made us dig more than two trenches at any site.”

  “Yeah, bloody Pommie wanker. What does he know?”

  Peter studiously ignored the comments and once he’d made sure they weren’t going to slacken off, walked up the hill. The GPR had given three good responses around the top of the low hill, not far from the chest and graves. He had noted them and despite any despairing complaints, he’d slated Rob and Bluey to dig a series of exploratory trenches later. Finding more ways to make Sid’s offsiders day a misery wasn’t his driving motivation. This stroll was to get a grip on the way the terrain flowed, as well as to check on their day’s surveying. The hill wasn’t a prominent site nor did he think it had ready access to fresh water. According to Lampie, the closest stream was two kilometres as the crow flies, to the south east, and you had to sail two and a half kilometres around the southern headland, then three more to gain the mouth of the estuary. Easy enough in a motor dinghy. A tad more challenging in a row boat. Unless of course there was a spring or catchment pond nearby and the survey wasn’t complete enough for that.

  So it came down to a simple question. If you were travelling by caravel, carrack or galleon why would you choose this place to park and camp long enough to build some structures out of timber? The question regarding any attack came later. Nautical matters of the ‘Age of Discovery’ weren’t his forte. At that point his stomach made a vigorous reminder of its parlous state. Damn, he needed to get this sorted. Inspiration occasionally hit for the strangest of reasons. For Peter, it occurred to him that he had the perfect excuse – grab some lunch and visit Lampie. What an excellent accompaniment!

  Digging into a generous bowl of Thai style prawns and rice, Peter felt almost satisfied as he wandered towards the main site tent. It was also supposed to be Sid’s, but the needs of the dig had shifted him to a spare one man tent next to Bluey’s. Such were the sacrifices of leadership. Peter gave the tent flap a symbolic knock before poking his head in.

  “Good afternoon Lampie. How are you going?”

  The blonde site surveyor was sitting at a flimsy folding table, drawing a series of detailed views of the lion candlestick on her sketch pad. The western wall of the tent had been rolled up to allow in more light and Lampie had her back to the rest of the campsite. “Oh, hi y’ Peter. How’s the digging?”

  “Well enough. Have you seen Sid?”

  Lampie flicked back her ponytail and Peter suppressed a whimper, while mentally giving himself a kick. He didn’t want any repeats of the ‘graves incident’. As for Sid, all that Peter asked at the moment was to keep out of his way. At this stage of the excavation, if Sid suddenly decided to head off to Adelaide, Peter would have shelled out for the ticket and popped the champagne.

  “He’s over at Bast on the internet again. He was here for a few minutes, then reckoned he had an inspiration and ratted off.”

  That, as far as Peter was concerned was a mixed blessing. No Sid meant no interruptions. Good, but from past experience he was certain that a ‘Sid inspiration’ meant imminent problems on the horizon. He gave a brief shrug and pulled up a folding camp chair – not an easy task while balancing a bowl of spicy prawn delight. “Lampie, do you mind if I ask you some more questions?”

  “Yeah sure Peter. Shoot.”

  “I have a few problems I am trying to work out. Why would a ship choose this particular area to land, when they have hundreds of miles of coast to choose from?”

  Lampie gave a nod and continued to sketch for a few minutes. Peter didn’t mind, the prawn dish was tasty and he found that he quite liked watching her hand guide the pencil over paper. Her slim tanned fingers moved over the page in easy gestures, it almost looked like magic the way Lampie developed a scatter of random lines into a very good image of the lion. In between she gave his question a moment’s consideration before returning with her own.

  “Okay, how long do y’ think they were here for Peter?”

  That was difficult to answer. He’d already considered that while digging through the charcoal layer. Added to that he had another complication – what kind of numbers were they talking about?

  “Well Lampie, I think I can answer that one if you could give me an idea of how many on a vessel of that period?” She must have been amused by his question for an easy smile tugged at her lips though the tracing the pencil moved on.

  “That’s easy – a large galleon or trade vessel could hold two hundred. The Batavia had close to that, while the Dufkyn, which mapped Cape York, had less than thirty. Take your pick.” Lampie was definitely a fount of information, Peter nodded at her reply and mused aloud.

  “So they carry that many, I didn’t think the vessels were so large, or on the other side of the equation, so small.” Lampie seemed to take that as another part of the question and gave him a fuller explanation.

  “They weren’t Pete. The average galleon was only forty metres long, not including the bowsprit, and passengers were packed in like sardines. Due to a lack of sanitation, they regularly lost a quarter or more in a long voyage from Europe to the Spice Islands.”

  Peter paused a moment prawn halfway to mouth and did a quick calculation – say one hundred plus, to err on the side of caution, and at least one or two buildings and the other structures, he was getting Rob and Bluey to check on. “I think whoever it was, would have been here longer than a we
ek, maybe a month or so. I’m not sure it was supposed to be permanent.”

  Lampie finished the decoration on the lion and put the sketch pad down on the table. “That’s difficult to answer Pete. We talked about sources of water when we sailed up here so my not be it and there isn’t anything terribly valuable around here except for pearls.” She gave a regretful shrug and flipped a page to start on the front view of the lion.

  Peter precariously lent against the tent pole and tried to consider another angle. There had to be something simple he was missing – either in the habits of Portuguese sea captains or a blindingly obvious environmental factor. He was going to have to think on this. In the mean time he felt real grubby from the excavation, and sitting next to a clean and tantalisingly aromatic Lampie, made him feel like a night soil collector.

  “Lampie, any suggestions on where I can clean up? I believe I smell a tad rank, like a four week old sock.”

  “That’s easy Peter. If you want a quick dip, jump in the estuary where I’ve moored Bast. The tide will still be in.” Lampie paused in mid reply. “Naw, scratch that. You’re into beaches aren’t you? Well the one we’ve got over there,” Lampie waved westwards, pointing over the visible mast of her ketch, “is the best and longest, high tide, white sand beach from Cape Lévesque to Wyndham. Great for a swim just mind the sharks and salties and y’ll be right.”

  Peter tried to recall another tourist spot where it was thought a good place to swim so long as you watched out for the sharp toothed predators. Oh well it was worth a splash.

  “Hey Peter, if you jump in the water keep an eye out for Irukandji.”

  “What?”

  “Oh did Sid forget to tell you?”

  “Tell me what? What are Irucandies?”

  “Irukandji. Oh bloody Sid, he’s useless. He was supposed to give you the briefing on unfriendly wildlife.”

  Peter gave that one a bit of thought – Sid fail to mention something dangerous, never!

  “I am all ears” Back on the east coast he’d heard long descriptions of all the dangerous Aussie critters, so many in fact that he’d had occasion to wonder how the locals survived or how many volumes the toxic taxonomy ran to.

  “They’re small jelly fish or stingers, like the Portuguese Man of War, except they’re smaller, deadlier and transparent.”

  He was about to ask how much smaller until Lampie held up two fingers an inch apart. Oh that small.

  “And they’re almost invisible?” That was just for clarification, not that he was worried or anything.

  “Ahh ...yeah!”

  “So how do I see them?”

  Lampie frowned at that question and stopped for a moments thought. “Y’ know Peter, that’s a good one. I usually wear a lycra swimsuit, but its the Dry season they’re usually not here for a month yet.”

  “Lampie if these jellyfish are that small and almost invisible, how will I know I’ve been stung?”

  “That’s easy Peter, it’ll hurt a bit. The rescue guys are told just to strap the victim down, keep’em still and don’t bother with the morphine.”

  No drugs or painkillers required, that wasn’t so bad. Enough time to get treatment, maybe it was slow acting? Then his natural suspicion of the Aussie’s indifference to deadly threats kicked in.

  “Why not?”

  “It doesn’t work, too painful for morphine. Doesn’t stop the screams. I’ve heard they have to knock them out.”

  What a wonderful country – a minuscule stinger that is so dangerous modern painkillers are useless! Peter couldn’t wait to avoid the water. Rallying his flagging spirits he pushed up from the camp chair and began to head off. “Thanks for the help Lampie. I think I’ll just go for a stroll along your magnificent beach.”

  Strangely the appeal of a cooling swim had lost its allure. Great, Sid promised him sun sand and bikinis. Well, two out of three may not appear to be so great a disaster. But the linked concept of the three natural features of coastal frolic in Australia automatically implied a place to swim without being eaten or stung. As for the bikini component, without it the whole scenario was forlornly incomplete. What must the Portuguese have thought as they beached their vessel? Several paces away it struck him that they were looking at this the wrong way round. Immediately he spun around and strode back to the tent.

  “Hiya Pete. That was a quick walk.” The site surveyor absently threw the greeting over her shoulder, as she picked up her pencil.

  Peter was so excited he dropped his hands to the table. It trembled alarmingly at the impact. Then he thrust his face between Lampie’s and the candlestick to gain her fullest attention. She crooked an eyebrow at his interruption, with the same amused tolerance that one would give a dancing cockroach.

  “Lampie if you had too, where is the best place to beach a vessel on the Kimberley coast?”

  “What – y’ planning to run a ship aground Peter?”

  “Lampie I am serious. You’re the only one here who understands boats, tides, storms and such! If you knew this region and were driven towards the shoreline, where would you try for?”

  That had her thinking. Lampie idly tapped her teeth with the pencil. Peter could hear her muttering a low string of names – inlets, bays, river mouths he assumed.

  “Y’ know Peter, you’re right. This would have to be the best place if you had a choice. Anywhere else and the rocks or reefs’ll get you. Here there’s nice soft sand. Bloody hell, it’d even be perfect for careening!”

  “The first part I understand, but what is careening and why do you need a beach?”

  “Back in the days of wooden sailing ships, they had a problem with barnacles and weeds attaching themselves to the hull of the ship. If there were too many, the ship suffered from drag and slowed down. Well a ship’s captain would find a nice sandy beach or secure inlet and run the ship into shore on a high tide.”

  Peter nodded vigorously – it was all becoming clear.

  “When the tide ran out, the ship would be left high and dry so that the crew could scrape off all the growth on the hull.”

  “How long would this take?”

  “Depending on the condition of the hull, three days to a week. The ship’s carpenter would also take the chance to check how much damage there was under the water line from marine borers. If it needed repairs as well, a few weeks more.”

  Peter grabbed her shoulders and gave her a big noisy kiss on the forehead, then sprinted out of the tent heading up the hill. Great!! Lampie was a genius. She’d given him a scenario for the site, its reason for being here.

  He ran over to the trench that Rob and Bluey were deepening and jumped in.

  “What the fuckin’ hell d’ya think ya doing ya crazy Pommie?”

  “Thanks for the excavation. How about you two head back to the camp for break?”

  His two reluctant diggers didn’t need any further encouragement. Both scrambled out of the trench with amazing alacrity, and although they didn’t imitate Peter in his flat out sprint, their pace back to the camp was a lot faster than an amiable waddle.

  Peter unclipped his camera and began to take shots of the trench. Despite the whining of his two press-ganged diggers, they knew their stuff. The trench bisected the feature specified on the scan and ran for eight metres at a one metre depth, heading north-west and about fifteen metres northwards of the charcoal and bodies trench. He grabbed one of the abandoned shovels and dug away one particular section in depth, to give him a clearer picture of the site’s stratigraphy. Fifteen minutes work proved his previously unvoiced suspicion. It was as clear as the layers in a cake. The Portuguese or whoever had been here, had prepared a defence, only a simple one consisting of a bank and ditch, probably topped by a wooden palisade. That narrowed down the possibilities and as far as he could tell, left two explanations. Thanks Lampie!

  The first was similar to the wreck of the Batavia. The vessel was driven ashore by a storm and either luck or judgement brought them to Deception Bay. Then, once more like the Batav
ia, the ship had survived wrecking sufficiently to be salvaged for tools and equipment. His reasoning for that was the effort needed to construct a ditch and embankment defence. The scan indicated that this site was ringed by a potential ditch. Now thanks to Bluey and Rob’s sterling effort, that had been proved. That wasn’t the only evidence it provided. It also gave him a clue as to the numbers involved. Since the site was a hundred metres by eighty metres in size, a dozen survivors couldn’t have done it. It was simple calculation of manpower and resources. You’d need over fifty to construct this, as well as tools, supplies and most of all, a compelling reason to build it in the first place. The beautiful thing about this hypothesis was that it worked just as well for careening or repairs. As to who did it, the Dutch were out of the running. If this site had been theirs the fortification would have been more angular – a diamond or square shape with reinforced corners to take advantage of their superior firepower with cannon or musket. Excellent, Lampie was going to be really happy. All the evidence was pointing towards an early unrecorded Portuguese site. All he had to do was tie in the rest of the finds. A part of him glowed at the chance to fulfil her childhood dream. A more calculating demon hinted at more personal advantages but he dismissed that.

  All this raised more problems. The dead bodies in charcoal were going to take a lot more effort to work out, though he did have a very intriguing possibility, once more drawing on Lampie’s boundless knowledge of the Spice Islands. She’d said that a local kingdom, the Maccassans, used to trade with the aborigines of the Northern Territory. It was always possible that one of their vessels came across the beached or stranded Portuguese. Taking advantage of the situation, a quick bit of pillage and plunder, – that worked and explained the lamella armour, though he’d need a lot more proof before he would say that out loud or put it in print.