Terra Australis Templar (A Peter Wilks Archaeological Mystery)

by Gregory House

  To gain that evidence required more finds. That meant more trenches. Peter smiled and began to walk towards the camp whistling. Since this morning, he could think of two Aussies with all the qualifications for the task. This was going to be fun!

  Field Illustration 7

  Chapter 16 Sid, a Shovel and a Dispute

  Peter had the overwhelming urge to burst into song. His lips even trembled at the impulse. Only a fingernail’s shred of decorum kept him from launching forth into a rendition of Jerusalem or Rule Britannia. Apart from a bubbling excitement at the discoveries, he actually had no idea why those two songs in particular surged to the top of the list. Maybe it was a cultural or genetic thing. Peter had seen Aussies back home in Blighty, fall up upon each other like long lost cousins, and start singing that strange song about a traveller who steals a sheep next to a pond and then commits suicide when caught by a police constable. How or why this song stirred the Aussies, he really couldn’t tell, but right now he did understand the feeling. Problems and mysteries were being solved and best of all, it was without the interference of Sid and even better still, he could imagine the reception he was going to get from Lampie for proving her right. So he had every right to feel satisfied with his efforts perhaps being out here in the distant Kimberleys was going to be all right after all.

  He’d cleared up the trench around the two dead combatants and found a few more items that helped explain the situation. One section yet to be dealt with held a collection of pottery fragments. They were on the inside edge of the burnt structure and from first inspection, would help enormously in firming up the dating for the entire site. It might have sounded odd and extremely mundane, but shards of pottery were an archaeologist’s best friend at any excavation, for the simple reason that everyone used pottery from the very wealthy lord to the humblest peasant. The quality of a shard could tell you an awful lot about the social position of the user as well as giving a good indication as to what the pottery was being used for.

  As an example consider the ubiquitous amphora, the standard container of the Roman period, beloved of antiquities experts and historians. Find a few pieces of one and you know what it contained, where it was from and when it was made. Thus you had a complete product life history, so useful for dates and determining local consumption and trade routes.

  The other useful titbit of information was that before the industrial age of Josiah Wedgwood, pottery manufacture was a very local industry. Canny professors matched the postgraduate students’ needs for research with that specialisation. Thus you had hundreds of volumes, cataloguing the origins of medieval East Suffolk coarse ware or style differences amongst Anglo Saxon earthenware from the Thames Valley. Terribly boring reading after the first three pages though essential for cross referencing. Best of all sorting shards was a useful chore for those pesky eager undergraduates to do – that was apart from wielding a shovel.

  That wasn’t the only good piece of news Peter felt he could sing about. There was yet one more non-descript lump that had him really eager. If you did a little extrapolating you could make out a clutch of crossbow bolts attached to thin stalks of carbonised timber. As far as he was concerned, that gave them Portuguese origin in itself, as well as suggesting the view of this area of charcoal as the site of the gate and timber watchtower. For the period that was shaping up, the crossbow was still a common weapon of war, considered more reliable in damp conditions than the temperamental matchlock harquebus. All he needed now were a few musket or cannon balls and the whole picture would be clear – except for the smaller but vital question regarding who attacked the fort. Considering their progress, that task he suspected, could be completed next season, after Sid had filled out all the required forms for exploration grants and listed this as a nationally significant historical site. From what he could tell, they had enough already to set the historians raging for years!

  Pushing along that line of thought Peter paused to consider the future. All this site needed was for the discovery to be handled properly and without sensation or wild claims, and this would make reputations. It might even save him from the machinations of Dr Adams. Oh flipping hell – he had managed to avoid thinking about the unpleasantness awaiting him back at Skaze University for at least four days. Then again, if this was successful that might even fix up the problems with his doctorate. That was worth considering, maybe even a fast track return to dear old Blighty. Peter gave his eyes a rub. It must be the dust that made them water, a return home would be flipping great! He could even see Fiona bestowing on him the rewards due to a conquering hero – he could do with a solid week of rumpy-pumpy! A guilty reminder edged into this vision and hemmed and hawed about attractive site surveyors, and expected gratitude. He gave a deep regretful sigh. Needs and wants were damned difficult things to balance.

  “G’day Pete, lookin’ a bit tired mate. Bloody hell, not surprising – you’ve been busy!” He didn’t have to turn a round to recognise that Sid had returned. “Who are these two jokers anyway? Y’ got a clue for the date?”

  Perfect timing as usual – all the hard work finished. Peter pushed all other considerations aside as he turned around to deal with the grinning dig supervisor. “Afternoon Sid. I think they were killed either in battle or when this timber building burnt down. As for date, my guess from the corrosion and the depth of the overburden soil is pre eighteen hundred, though possibly closer to sixteen hundred.”

  Sid gave one of his large generous smiles that would have made a used car salesman green with envy. “Great, that’ll help prove it’s a Spanish site!”

  Peter was about to say something else when Sid’s answer percolated into his forebrain. As would be expected, it set up a few dissonances in the truth section. “Oh yes of course, it’s got a good chance of...Ahh what? Spanish! How did they crop up?”

  Sid gave him a cheery slap on the back. “Why? Cos of what you said yesterday Pete. You were right mate. I was barking up the wrong tree thinkin’ this was a Dutch site. Well last night I went over every VOC list checking for lost ships and their passages. Then Lampie helped straighten out any more problems in that. Nope you were right Pete and I don’t mind admitting it. The site’s definitely Spanish!”

  Peter blinked in confusion and quickly reviewed everything he’d said yesterday. There was a discussion on the Dutch from Sid, more from Lampie, his statement that it was Catholic and probably not Dutch, then the informative chat this morning about the Portuguese with Lampie. Nowhere in that did he specify this site was Spanish! For one, he didn’t even know when they had turned up in these waters.

  “Sid, I think you’ve – what do you Aussies say – got the wrong end of the stick. I said Catholic. I didn’t even mention Spaniards.”

  “That’s okay mate. After our chat, I did some Googling, checking on Catholic priests and missionaries and guess who cropped up as the most prominent? That Spanish bloke, Francis Xavier. It seems he was all over Southeast Asia. Anyway it has to be his stuff. It’s the right period – you said it yourself.”

  “Sid, you can’t be seriously suggesting the vestments chest belonged to St Francis Xavier? Have you gone totally stark raving bonkers? Flipping hell Sid, that’s a bit of long bow to pull.” Peter was almost incredulous. From next to no evidence, Sid had shifted into the most outrageous supposition, and what was worse, Peter was being given full credit for the ‘discovery’. He’d seen this kind of stunt in Canberra and wasn’t going to be sucked in again.

  “Sid, you’ve got no proof!”

  “Yeah sure. He had a mission to Ambon and Morotia. That’s only four days sail north. Why couldn’t he have nipped down here and buried three martyrs?”

  Sid was already fortifying his position with circumstantial evidence. That was dangerous for all of them. Peter tried very hard to keep his voice calm and reasonable in the face of blinding stupidity. Was Sid on the same planet? Didn’t he understand how pissed off the Catholic Church would be over this unsubstantiated claim? They didn’t have the Inqui
sition now, well not really these days. It had updated and was called the Office of the Doctrine of the Faith and he’d heard they’d consigned the thumbscrews to the museums. Sid’s wild claims may be able to garner support from the more fringe elements, but it would be at the price of everything else they’d discovered here. It would be treated as an amateur attempt, fit only for page twenty five in News of the World.

  “Look Sid, St Francis Xavier is a saint. He was one of the founders of the Jesuits and one of the most famous fifteenth century saints! Have you been sniffing your underarms or munching on the mushrooms again? He was the St Theresa of his day! There are whole libraries of books devoted to analysing his every waking moment. If St Francis suddenly decided to take a jaunt southwards to Terra Australis, don’t you think he would have claimed it for Holy Mother Church and sent back a letter?” Peter tried to be reasonable in the face of extreme idiocy, but it wasn’t easy. Sid was getting locked into his bizarre hypothesis. He just stood there and ignored the glaringly obvious, Peter was getting that deja vu feeling. Something extreme had to be done really fast or it’d be too late.

  He grabbed Sid by the shirt and pulled him close shoving into his face “Listen Sid I still don’t have a flipping clue why you believed that! I have given you my professional opinion on what has been excavated and if it doesn’t match your fantasies then I really don’t care!”

  Sid’s mask slipped and the veneer of affability cracked. The ghost of a smirk lit his eyes, as he shook Peter off and once more adopted that superior stance of his. It clearly proclaimed to all the assembly, he was right and everyone else blinder than a bat. It radiated an insane kind of self confidence. If Peter was pressed to give a description he would have said it recalled the sort of general that sat back in the divisional headquarters sipping Chateau Rothschild while ordering waves of men over the top into ravaging machine gun fire.

  With the spectre of the Somme wavering before him, Peter snapped. He wasn’t going to take this pile of Aussie crap anymore or wear any more of Sid’s mistakes! Automatically instinct took over. His fingers curled into a fist. He was going to punch Sid right in the centre of his conceited face – it was the only way. Damn professional integrity! As he dropped his clenched fist and moved his shoulder back, a dim recognition of danger percolated through Sid’s self absorbed smirk and he began to step backwards, out of range, his eyes growing wide in shock.

  “PETE, PETE! I’ve found something you need to see!” The loud cry of an excited Lampie punctured the tension of the imminent brawl and he spun towards her advancing figure, trying to banish the angry snarl he had faced Sid with a moment before. Lampie was cradling a wrapped object as she strode towards them. The joyous rapture on her face washed out the last of his anger. It was replaced by growing curiosity and an appreciation of Lampie’s long tanned legs flashing in the afternoon light. What was so important that he had to stop from smashing Sid’s face in, apart from watching Lampie move?

  “Pete, look at this! I wasn’t sure at first, but you said review everything so I did and bloody hell – it’s incredible!”

  Peter had never seen Lampie so excited and bubbling over. It was like watching a Christmas morning before the jaded cynicism of teenager hood settled in. He shook his head in sheer bemusement. Sid had also noticed his site surveyor’s dramatic arrival and edged towards her, keeping a careful distance away from imminent pummelling. Sid’s cowardly attempt to use Lampie as a shield almost brought a sneer to Peter’s face. However another interesting point about the present situation percolated to the fore of his brain. Lampie had discovered something and instead of going to her long-time friend and boss, Sid, she’d come running to him – very gratifying to his ego. Peter wondered if Sid realised just how much the dynamics of the camp had just altered.

  “What is it Lampie? What is so amazing?”

  Lampie blinked. Hmm, really attractive hazel eyes when they were brimming over with excitement. Peter had to give himself a mental kick in the cods to stop the onset of an embarrassing range of instinctive primal urges.

  “It’s better than finding Hartog’s plate. It’s the find of a lifetime. It’s, it’s...!!!”

  Peter put both of his hands on her shoulders to try and calm her down and spoke quietly “Ahh Lampie, could you slow down and tell me what you found?”

  At the gentle reminder, she pulled back the shrouding blanket to reveal the lacquer box they’d discovered yesterday in the vestments chest. It still glittered and shone in the Kimberley afternoon with the latent promise of the highest quality artistry. Peter hadn’t forgotten it. How could he? The inlayed lacquer box was the most beautiful object they’d recovered so far, definitely more attractive that shattered skulls on spearheads, unless of course you were into Death Metal. He briefly wondered if she was suffering some kind of fever or delirium you caught from a mosquito or from eating the wrong fish out of season, like the Japanese did with poisonous puffer fish. They’d covered this yesterday.

  “This, Pete!” Lampie opened the box and with a cheeky grin, pointed.

  Inside nestled a book with a worn leather cover. It was a few minutes before Peter realised his jaw had dropped open. Not a good idea – he spat out a few bold bush flies. The instinctive reaction on seeing such an old book was to reach out a hand to touch it. It was like touching the hand of history itself but definitely not a good idea! It didn’t matter that often historians on television programs would idly flick through documents from the 16th century or even the original Domesday Book. It was an arrogantly casual approach to an object that had survived centuries. Touching such an ancient tome with bare hands deposited oil and other undesirable materials, and meant that if many other pairs of hands did the same thing that it wouldn’t see many more years, no matter how distinguished the handlers.

  Peter wasn’t immune to desire – the worn leather cover whispered alluringly. Instead of giving in, he shoved his hands into his pockets until the urge passed. Suddenly suspicious, he darted a glance at Sid. No, the excavation leader had the same slack jawed stance and his eyes burned with a deep anticipatory hunger. No, not a plant, or at least not from Sid – he wasn’t that good an actor.

  Lampie’s shouts had pulled most the company to cluster around the trench. Bluey and Rob were clutching shovels like desperate sailors clinging to the last life raft. Of Uncle Bill, there was not a sign. He still hadn’t figured out why the old local wouldn’t leave the camp. So, since no one else was volunteering, it was up to him. Peter took a steadying breath and pulled on a pair of cotton gloves. He would have tried for a dramatic flourish, but that only worked in the films with proper gentleman’s gloves when you were required to show dash and disdain before a duel.

  Peter tapped his fingers together to shake off any dust then stopped half way to the lacquer box. What the flipping heck was he doing? This was so important it should go straight to Perth! If this was linked with those two bodies under the charcoal layer, this had to date from mid to late fifteen hundreds and was thus the oldest European site in the country. Flipping heck, he was out here as a remittance man – he’d didn’t even have a doctorate! The slightest slip up and every historian in the country would have his guts for garters. To call what he felt a lack of credibility was a supreme understatement. Peter continued to hover, hands over the open box, uncertain. Then feeling a strong reinforcement of will, he looked up to see Lampie smiling at him. That really helped. Whether it was a male-female thing or a pair of apes bonding in the quest of discovery, or simply the magical presence of Lampie, he couldn’t say, but it bucked him up enormously. Giving back a wavering grin he plunged his hands into the box.

  Slowly Peter drew the book out of its repository. It wasn’t that large, not like the Gutenberg bible, more like the smaller books of hours that were popular in the thirteen hundreds to the sixteen hundreds. It had very worn, tooled and embossed leather covers, over what he thought were wooden boards. Whatever the figures or decorations were, Peter couldn’t tell. They were too faint to ma
ke out. He gently turned it. The edges of the pages were irregular indicating that it was probably an early printing – they used a variety of sheet sizes.

  Sid’s jaw snapped shut with an audible click and he started jumping around, hollering and yelling. “YEEHAW we’re rich and famous, it’s Xavier’s journal!!!”

  Bluey and Rob, caught up in the mood, began their usual improvisation of the Highland fling.

  Peter, ignoring all this hullabaloo, continued to examine this latest find. He’d seen a few books like this one in the Bodleian library. It had to be over four hundred years old, at a guess. A real treasure of early bookbinding, probably a devotional work, they were a popular subject to print and returned a good profit. No doubt it belonged to whoever had owned the chest. They must have treasured it to place it in that lacquer box. Peter’s lips were dry with excitement. He was eager to discover why this was so well hidden and opened it to the first page.

  Sid, finding it hard to contain his eagerness, leapt over, grabbed Peter and peered over his shoulders. “What language is it in Pete?”

  “Ahh Latin, I think?”

  Sid let loose a howl that would have made a dingo red with envy. “It’s that Francis bloke isn’t it? I bloody knew it!!” Sid jumped away and began a reel with Rob and Bluey.

  Lampie, however, hadn’t joined in. She was still watching Peter’s puzzled frown and asked a quiet question that cut through all the celebration. “Peter, forget Sid. Can y’ tell whose book is it?”