Terra Australis Templar (A Peter Wilks Archaeological Mystery)

by Gregory House

  Determined to do it now and thank him for his help, she strode towards the site tent. That chat didn’t happen. She caught Peter rocketing out of the open flap, his face was white and he was shaking. He also wasn’t watching where he was going and ran straight into her.

  “Sorry Lampie. I’m afraid I’ve had it with your wildlife. I think I need to go for quiet walk somewhere safe and scorpion free.”

  With that obscure comment he disentangled himself, gave a brief nod and hurried back up the hill. She didn’t even get a chance to ask what the hell he was on about. These Pommies were so unpredictable. Shaking her head, Lampie slipped into the tent and found the source of Peter’s deep concern. As per his earlier request, he had opened the lacquer box. It could only happen to a person like Pete, with his unique relationship with the local wildlife. Several large bush scorpions were crawling around the open lid of the box. Well it would have been a cool place to wait out the heat of the day. Lampie would have burst out into laughter instead she contented her self with a quiet chuckle, and went to find Uncle Bill. She had some tasty tit bits for his two pets.

  Chapter 19 The Scorpion’s Sting?

  Peter frowned deeply and eased himself down without spilling the mug of coffee. This site was proving flipping dangerous! He could reluctantly accept that the other morning he wasn’t in danger from that pair of snakes, except of course, if he suffered from a weak heart, or as the Victorians put it, a nervous disposition leading to chronic sudden stress and shock. Well shock was one description – he couldn’t go swimming, he couldn’t sleep easily, and now he had to look really carefully before he picked up anything. Scorpions flipping scorpions by the flipping dozen in the lacquer box – crawling all over the book! What was this, an out take from The Mummy Returns? He wasn’t an expert on the habits of Aussie wildlife, that was more Lampie’s line, but scorpions just happening to choose that box to set up house, struck him as damned odd, even for the Kimberleys.

  One more worry cropped up as he sipped his coffee. So far Sid had lived up to his side of the arrangement and there wasn’t much he could complain about. He had, to all intents and purposes, been in charge of the dig. Every facet of the excavation had been under his direction and they had made amazing progress. However this was a difficult subject to pin down. Every time he’d tried to get a handle on his site report, all manner of difficulties had cropped up – snakes, visitors, scorpions, celebrations, suggested offers to go swimming, that last one had been hard to knock back. So the result was Sid appeared to have unlimited time to compose his report, days and nights worth, while Peter couldn’t find five minutes. An average person may just think it bad luck and poor timing, but then he wasn’t an average person and he did remember the Sid of Canberra days and his uncanny ability to manipulate events to suit himself.

  His frown deepened. Here he was thousands of miles from anywhere. What was he the flipping hell to do? Well he could walk away – integrity held him firm on that option. He’d loose a bucket of professional standing and he had no real evidence of any problems, apart from a constant twinge of suspicion. That was a very poor defence to mount in the academic journals when all this was published. Just how do you phase as ‘untrustworthy as a weasel’ diplomatically? Other more respected historians did it all the time but they had the protection of tenure or publishing contracts. Viteraputive sniping at rivals was a long held tradition in the academic world.

  For maybe the seventy fifth time, he tried to figure out why Sid had called him in. This site appeared perfectly tailored for a fair slice of his skills. He really wouldn’t have thought Sid had that much foresight.

  As he mulled over his growing conundrum, one more difficulty waved its hand for attention. He had promised Wally to watch out for Lampie. Ahh, that did create a problem, despite her proved ability of managing bucolic Aussies like Bluey and Rob and her familiarity with the Kimberleys denizens. The merest whiff of cutting and running, leaving an innocent girl in the hands of a known cad and bounder, would have generations of solid English gentry rearing up in violent protest. Oh flipping hell, he’d had too much Victorian education and read too much Kipling. Next he’d be doing Biggles impersonations! If he tried to justify to his ancestors that Lampie was a completely different class of girl who didn’t need protecting like the classic ‘English Rose’, well that just wouldn’t cut the mustard. Oh flipping hell, this just wasn’t fair. His cultural stereotyping had sprung an ambush and kicked him in the bollocks! For good or ill, need or not, he couldn’t leave Lampie with Sid. Nor could he shake off the premonition that Sid was going to screw this site up as badly as his last time in Canberra.

  As they say, needs must when the devil farts! So he had better get to work. As the sun began to give that spectacular spread of colour that was a Kimberleys sunset, Peter slipped into his small tent while everyone else was preparing for dinner, grabbed what he needed, and moved it to a spot twenty paces north of the camp . Then to finish off his quest, he eased into Sid’s old tent, pulled the SD cards from the two cameras, and slipped them into his waistcoat pocket. Easy enough – just like Oliver Twist. Then he sauntered over to the camp fire as Uncle Bill served up barramundi grilled with butter and lemon and fire baked potatoes. By his sainted aunt, they ate well on this site. Soon after he’d cleaned up his gear, Peter made the excuse that after such a splendid meal, he needed to go for a walk.

  Lampie perked up at that and flashed him a smile. “Y’ want some company Peter?”

  Oh flipping hell, this was going to be difficult to refuse. He gave a rueful grin along with a slight bow while holding his right hand over his stomach. “Thank you for the offer Lampie but it is probably best if you don’t! Ahh, it’s an old malady, a touch of Crusader’s Curse from my last trip to the Levantine, it could take a while.”

  Sid gave a braying laugh rocking backwards and forwards. “Pete mate, take a shovel, a long walk and bury it deep! Here this might help.”

  Peter intercepted a thrown bottle and gave an unfelt smile of thanks. Hmm OP rum – was that meant as painkiller or disinfectant? His humiliation was made complete as Bluey, the first to figure it out gave his companion Rob a hurried whisper. Both eventually joined in the round of laughter as Peter, shovel in hand, pretended to stagger off. He felt a good deal of anger at that, but maintained the charade. His only consolation was the glimpse he had of Lampie before he left. She clearly didn’t approve of her companies lack of manners and, giving them a scowl, left for her vessel. Oh dear the sacrifices he made for the profession. He was hoping St Helena, the patron saint of archaeologists, was keeping track of this.

  It took him ten minutes to rescue his cache. A further fifteen minutes walking brought him to what he considered the right spot, along the low ridge to the north of the camp. It was a wave carved hollow in the low sandstone cliff face, perfectly secluded and comfortable. Peter opened his small pack and pulled out the rugged laptop, and went through the start up procedure. It chugged along merrily and its low level radiance screen gave just sufficient light to work by. Peter sent a personal prayer of thanks to Freddie – this was everything he promised. If he played it carefully, he had several hours of battery life, more than enough. So he began. Using a small LED pocket torch to illuminate his dig notes, Peter prepared his own version of events, giving times, dates and GPS locations, then his rough interpretation of the finds and their possible source or indication. Even at his fastest, it must have taken a couple of hours. Then he pulled out the SD cards and copied across their data, scrolling through the collected images. Excellent! Lampie really was a flipping wonder, worth her weight in gold to any dig supervisor. She had photographed every one of her site maps and sketches, all of them! This made his work so much easier. Using her thoughtful additions, he appended images to each section of his report. That looked a lot better, maybe even professional. Finished!

  Peter got up and stretched. That was one mammoth worry removed from his shoulders. He felt so much better. Now the whole excavation was beginning to
take shape, developing a coherent story. Dutch no, Spanish probably not, Portuguese a hesitant yes. In the absence of any evidence for the other two, that appeared most the most likely choice.

  Taking a sip of the rum that Sid had so thoughtfully provided, he looked out over the dark lapping waters of the bay. At a guess, the tide was flowing in and the strange constellations sparkled and glittered in the rippling reflections. It really was a magical place. The moon was a past half and waxing towards full and its pale radiance brought up the low shadows of the trees and rocks, transforming the landscape into something from the other world of the Faerie. Peter gave a slight shiver. It was a long way from the hill forts and woodlands of home and the stories of the Wild Hunt riding through forest and over the mounds, and as a historian he knew that they spoke real tales of older times, fears, hopes and wishes rather than the stuff of fantasy. But here and now, he could almost feel the touch of the Queen of the Sidhe, as she rode past on her nightly progress. Unselfconsciously he touched the penknife in his pocket. Silver may have been the Faer Folk’s delight, but cold iron they dreaded. Slowly the feeling passed and Peter gave himself a shake. It was odd that a childhood fear from home should suddenly possess him so far away. If his old gran, Olive Condell-MacPherson, could see him now, she would nod approvingly at his precautions. For all of being a strict Presbyterian, she had still put out a bowl of milk for the ‘wee folk’ and iron above the doors and windows.

  Sitting with his back against a sculpted rock, he relaxed, took another sip of the fiery Aussie rum and let his mind wander. This was a beautiful and rugged land but it wasn’t his. Not that he was laying any claims – those two native gentlemen from the Land Council had been very firm about that. What could he say? Yes he was, as they called him, a ‘whitey’ and his ancestors did send out the First Fleet to settle Terra Australis and, from what he’d heard, according to one interpretation of British law, the land was judged Terra Nullius, an empty land. The fact that it was known to hold aboriginal peoples was conveniently ignored. Peter, in the course of his studies, had reviewed a selection of colonial practices but in no way did he consider himself an expert. So he couldn’t judge the outraged stance of their visitors in their previous or current treatment by the Australian government.

  If he looked dispassionately at the patterns of history though, something like this was bound to happen. If the aboriginals thought that if the English hadn’t arrived they could continue living as they had done for millennia, they were in for a nasty shock. During the great scrabble of the European powers, from the age of exploration to the era of rampant colonialism, his whitey ancestors had all the advantages to grab whatever they wanted – technological superiority, social organisation and painfully acquired immunity to diseases that laid waste entire races. He knew it sounded like social or cultural Darwinism, a tag that the kindly old naturalist would have abhorred as unchristian, but history told him that the English used the same tools and terms in securing their earlier colonial acquisitions in Scotland and Ireland. Some of his ancestors took particular exception to those attempts, especially the Irish and Scottish ones. It was quite strange listening to them complain and rail. They did have a right and it was probably legitimate, though not being an Aussie, he wasn’t going to enter into this closely held argument. But, and this was a difficult one, he’d tried to consider a ‘what if’, like what if it had been someone else and that was a really touchy and difficult field to tiptoe in, since it tended to arouse all sorts of nationalist passions.

  Well he was here relaxing, so why not give it a try? First you look at how the European powers treated their colonies that held native peoples and translate that pattern of history to Australia. Spanish were historically the first on the list. Oh dear, their record in the New World wasn’t the best – wide spread slaughter and pillage, overlaid by a purely extractive colonial system. If he remembered correctly, it was some time before the Spanish agreed that American Indians had souls, a good excuse for brutality and uninhibited mayhem. Next were the Portuguese. They found trading posts more useful and only slowly acquired an overseas empire. Depending on the situation they treated natives well, or not. On the darker side they were pivotal in starting the slave trade in Africa, so maybe not such a good model. Then there was the French. Well as a Brit, he was naturally biased. Centuries of warfare and rivalry left a mark. However to be honest, their relationships with the natives in the New World were mostly reasonable, though that could have been influenced by their desire to use the Indian nations against the English colonies. If so, it may have been better for the aborigines if the French had settled the land, that was right up until the time it came to part company. That was where the French fell down with their record in Indochina and Algeria. The final option was the Dutch. There were only two colonies to use for an assessment, Indonesia and South Africa both exciting extreme rages of opinion, in both native peoples and colonial settlers. Perhaps it would be safer to avoid that one, too many complications.

  That was the what ifs, but Peter knew they were all extreme ‘maybes’. In the end it was always going to be Britain that settled this land. They had the position, the population and the sea power. Reluctantly he was forced to agree with generations of jingoist British historians. Yes, short of a generation or so of spectacular and continuing French victories at sea, it was going to be the English! Unless of course the new nation of the United States tried to seize a Pacific port, maybe? No that wasn’t going to happen. They weren’t strong enough – yet.

  The rum was taking hold. He had a sudden desire to commiserate with those two kooris over the fact that the English had turned up and taken their land. Historically he could sympathise with that. He was sure his Anglo Saxon and Celtic ancestors felt the same about the bloody Normans invading and conquering in 1066, but that was all history now. Taking his ease like this, pleasant temperature, a strong serve of alcohol and a beautiful view, all he needed to make it paradise was a bikini clad blonde frolicking in the gentle waves and a good book.

  Oh Flip, flipper, flipping Hell! He’d forgotten the book!

  Suddenly he was drenched in complete sobriety. The pleasant buzz of the rum was gone in the surge of panic, as he scrambled to restart the laptop. Slowly the electronic beastie progressed along its predictable path, telling him what an excellent choice of operating system he’d made, and then flashed its ready symbol as the screen patiently waited for his command. Peter opened the copied SD folder and searched through it. No, he couldn’t have missed the folder, but it wasn’t there! Slow down, slow down, breath. Search methodically! Peter kept on repeating that phrase until it became a mantra. No, still didn’t make any difference – it wasn’t in any folder. How could it have disappeared? He had to think logically. Lampie wouldn’t have deleted them. Everything before the book and after was still on the SD card. He searched again – nothing! Peter would have slammed the laptop on the ground in frustration. Need and sanity halted the imperative.

  Perhaps he was going about this the wrong way. Taking deep breathes to calm down, Peter started once more by rebooting the system. Yes, it steadily ticked through its opening sequence, then sat there. Well, what did his anorak mates say about computers – ‘garbage in garbage out’. That didn’t help. What were the other instructions?

  Oh yes – is it plugged in? Well, no it didn’t need to be! And yes he had checked it was switched on and had gone through the proper starting procedure, and yes, there was no illegal operation. Then he tried the always useful stand by check to see if it could read the drives. Peter clicked the computer icon and as expected up they came up – one, two, three, and four. Peter waved his fist at the screen in a futile effort to gain compliance. See it had all its four drives, stupid mechanical piece of junk…

  Ahhh! Ooh! That was a worry – there should have been only three.

  Perplexed at his discovery of a bonus drive, Peter clicked on it and immediately was rewarded by an instant message, ‘Password Required’. He sat back and blinked. The m
ysterious extract drive couldn’t be on Freddie’s system. He’d had a few hours airport terminal time to pour over the manual, and some of its mangled English he’d even understood. Therefore if it wasn’t on the laptop, where was it? Clicking ‘disconnect external’, gave him three options. One he knew was the memory stick. So what were the other two? He pulled out the SD card to eliminate it as an option, and both drives suddenly disappeared. Oh damn, he was running out of computer savvy.

  Peter slipped the card back in its slot and the two missing drives popped back up. All right if it was going to play those sort of games, back to intuitive logic! One of these drives on the SD card had a password. Of the expedition team, who would be more likely to want a secret drive? That was a ticklish question. Lampie would naturally want her own private space. That figured, so he had to ask, was this her camera or the expedition’s? Peter paused. He’d watched Lampie unload gear – what man wouldn’t? What about the cameras? She’d said something about Lavost Explorations providing all the spare gear. Would they want a separate secret cache? What would be the point? According to Lampie and Sid, they were a very well off mineral company. If one of their contractors shot several extra reels of basking wildlife or bikini clad bimbos, who cared? No, it needed to be someone sneaky, underhanded and suspicious. Well when you put it like that, the answer was so simple. SID!