The dinghy is a Second World War inflatable that Milo ordered from the Army Disposals catalogue. Even with the addition of Chaucer’s excitable wet bulk, the craft is bigger than they need. As soon as Alan climbs in, it drifts lightly into the main current, leaving Peggy waving at them from the bank.
“Three men in a boat,” she calls, “be careful, and please take care of Chaucer.”
The Murrumbidgee glides and swirls like a silk scarf in the fingers of a ballerina, and aromatic interludes of wild honey, resin and spring blossom emanate across the gorge from clumps of ti trees, wattles and native pines.
The travellers hardly need to use their paddles. Whenever they risk running aground on one of the tiny sandy beaches Milo propels the dinghy back into the current with a bamboo pole.
“Look at that!” shouts Alan. “Look it’s there again.” A tiny head creases the water, then disappears.
“Platypus,” says Milo. “We’re lucky. Most Aussies live their whole lives without seeing one in the wild. Hopefully, we’ll see a few more; you count them up, Alan. It’ll impress that teacher of yours.”
“When I told Miss Bartlett we were going, she wanted to come too. I said it would be OK, but I don’t think she meant it seriously.”
“I bet she did, Alan,” says Milo. “From what Peggy tells me, Miss Bartlett has got her eyes on your dad.”
“Never,” says Alan. “In any case, Miss Bartlett is not all that pretty and her hair looks phony.”
“Don’t I get a say in this?” asks Brandt.
“No,” says Alan.
“Well, that’s that then,” says Milo. “Now, Alan, as you’re the cabin boy, will you get me a beer, please, and pass one to your dad? You might like a Coke yourself. Is that right, Otto?”
“About the Coke?”
“No, about Miss Bartlett having a wig.”
“I didn’t mean she wears a wig,” says Alan. “She’s really not that bad.”
“Very gallant,” says Milo. “You’re a gentleman, just like your dad. Cheers, men.” He raises his bottle.
By the time Alan has counted fourteen platypuses, they spot a wider beach of sand and quartz boulders flanked by ribbon gums and bush peas. “She’ll do,” says Milo. “It’s pretty shallow here; Alan, would you mind pulling us in?” The boy takes the rope again, slips over the side and tows the raft to shore. Brandt leaps out after him and drags it up the beach.
The sand is hot under their bare feet, and the three strip down to their shorts and cool their legs in the river. Two ducks rise up from the reeds in alarm with loud cries of kwoo-eek kwoo-eek.
“It’s freezing!” shouts Alan.
“It’s the meltwater, but colder than I thought it would be,” says Milo. “I should have waited another month, sorry about that. Mind you the weather’s all right – plenty of sun.” He has already started on a cheese-and-salad roll, the other two unwrap chicken drumsticks and Chaucer gnaws contentedly on a gammon bone.
The whirr of bush crickets is soporific, and, after lunch, Alan and Milo lay on their towels and close their eyes while Chaucer goes off to doze in the shade of a boulder. A fat lizard ventures out from a hollow in the bank, flicks its blue tongue as if to taste the air then sees the dog and retreats into the shadows.
Brandt stays alert, but after a while he gets up quietly, slips on his sandals and strolls around a bend in the river. He smiles when he sees the gorge narrowing sharply and the flow speeding up to break into white water. This is exactly what he’d been hoping for. Lazing about in a rubber boat as it drifts down a languid river is fine for an hour or so, but not to be compared with riding the rapids; not that these look to be all that big.
As he stares around him, the sublimity of the gorge overwhelms his senses. The river sings, the air is full of bush fragrance, tiny blue bees hum around the corollas of miniature flowers, just yellow flecks of life among the stones. In the river a furred head rises, and another, then all is still. Brandt slips off his sandals and walks barefoot along the cool eddies. He stops as he hears a splash on the opposite bank, and is startled by a tremble in the reeds and a flash of reddish fur; he’s certain it’s a fox. He feels his heart pounding.
Across the river, the gorge is broken by a deep cleft. It is only when his eyes adjust to the shadowy tones that he sees her deathly face. Despite a breeze stirring the ferny undergrowth her red hair hangs motionless. Her missing eye becomes a black vault that draws him into itself until he shakes his head violently and looks away.
Despite the hot sun, Brandt is shivering like a wet cat. The sky-blue Murrumbidgee does nothing to dispel his terror of a sight, which, if it is part of the earth at all, can only belong to the deepest night. His head feels light, his knees unsteady as he flees up the bank and back along the track.
There’s sure to be a rational explanation.
Then why are you running away?
It’s psychological, and it can’t be anything to do with stress. What could be less stressful than a day on the river?
Then why are you running away?
He pauses for breath and starts to debate the unthinkable, that his mind is perfectly healthy after all, but this would mean that the spectre has to be a real spectre: a grave-yard horror, one of a multitude of horrors that men used to believe in through the dark centuries of superstition. But every culture has had its superstitions and most of them linger on.
So, was the Enlightenment mistaken and it is a fact, after all, that the world is infested with ghosts and demons? But if that were so, would the soul of an innocent woman be lingering here among them and haunting her murderer?
That is why you have been running away.
He hears Chaucer barking; they must be just around the point. Sunshine by a river. Why has he let his brain churn with such horror on an afternoon like this? He has an adopted son who would be the envy of any father, he has a true friend in Milo; in fact, Milo has become the only friend he has ever known.
No more questioning and anxiety, no more running away. If the fox woman returns, he will stand his ground and face her. He’s already resigned himself to the fact that Alan could have a proper future with Milo and Peggy. Brandt’s got nothing to lose.
“You’re back,” says Milo. “Bit of reconnoitring?”
“The river looks a bit skittish downstream,” says Brandt. He pushes out the dinghy, pulls himself into the back, checks that Alan has adjusted his life jacket properly before he puts on his own, and then takes one of the paddles. Milo stands at the bows with his long pole like Charon, the Styx ferryman. Chaucer rests his paws on the gunwale, his eyes alert and his tail slapping the wet rubber base of the raft.
They drift twenty yards downstream before the river accelerates and the flow breaks into turbulence.
“Paddle harder. Race the current,” shouts Milo wielding his long pole to keep the craft free of the rocks. “Keep paddling, keep it up, race the current – faster. Come on, away we go.”
“Away we go,” yells Alan paddling like the furies.
At the first bend, the raft spins broadside on with the direction of flow, the rush of water taking them downstream with the impetus of an express train.
“Keep down, Alan!” Brandt finds himself shouting at the top of his voice as he competes with the roar of the foaming rapids ahead.
Milo puts his weight behind the pole. His bulky life jacket is becoming a nuisance, so he pulls it over his head and drops it at Chaucer’s feet. Free of this encumbrance, he keeps switching the pole from side to side and the raft straightens out. Chaucer starts howling.
“Rocks ahead!” yells Milo. Brandt pushes the dinghy clear on the starboard side, and Alan stands up and stretches out his paddle for greater reach.
“Get down, Alan,” shouts Brandt all the louder. “Don’t stand up.”
The river descends into a line of short-lived whirlpools and deep channe
ls. Milo balances himself upright, ready with his pole, but with his full attention on the rapids, he misses an overhanging willow branch, which clubs his head and in seconds sweeps him into the torrent.
“Stay with the dinghy, Alan.” Brandt plunges overboard. Something brushes against his face as he bobs up from the flow; it’s Chaucer. The icy water is already sweeping the dinghy past them, with Alan steering madly with his one paddle towards a bank of reeds and willows. The current drags at Brandt, who needs all his considerable strength as he splashes out towards Milo disappearing in the heaving waters.
“Milo. Milo.” Coughing up water, Brandt is shouting himself hoarse. “MILO!”
Under the willows, he spots a sluggish whirl pool where a humped body sullenly rotates.
“Milo.” Brandt drags the unconscious Milo to the bank. He turns him over onto his stomach and applies the artificial respiration technique he learnt in the SS, but never had to use. At first, Milo is expelling more river than air, but, at last, he pushes Brandt’s hands away, heaves himself up a little and coughs.
“Where’s the boy? Where’s Alan?” Milo’s voice sounds thick; the side of his forehead is swelling.
“He’s with the raft.” Brandt says with more confidence than he feels. He remembers the rapids smoothing out before the next bend and Alan should be safe in the dinghy, but he must get down to him right away. His immediate concern is for Milo, who is shivering violently, slurring his words and closing his eyes, displaying all symptoms of exposure.
“Chaucer,” Milo whispers, “where’s Chaucer?”
“He dived in after you. Don’t talk. Chaucer’s probably downstream. He’s a dog; they swim better than humans. He’ll get ashore somewhere. Come on, Milo, we’ve got to get you up from the river, then I’ve got to find Alan.” Brandt drags Milo up the bank, and, after checking for snakes, sets him down in a grassy hollow. “I’m leaving you here; I’ve got to find Alan – and the dog. Back for you soon.”
The core of Brandt’s chest feels ice cold as he sets off running down the track, but, after a few minutes, he starts coughing and is forced to slow to a walk. And then he hears a shout.
“Otto.”
Alan is tearing up the track towards him and relief floods through Brandt’s every sinew.
“Are you OK, Otto?” says Alan, his eyes reddened with tears. They clasp each other tightly and Brandt is the first to let go. “You’ve gone very white, Otto. Where’s Milo?”
“I’m fine. Milo’s safe. I’m just so glad to see you. Milo’s just up the track, but he’s got a bruise on his head. Come on.”
“I was sure you were both drowned,” says Alan. “Where’s Chaucer?”
“We’ll find him.” First, we’ll get Milo.
When they reach the grassy hollow, Alan and Brandt help Milo to his feet and support him as they follow the track down to a flat cove where Alan has moored the dinghy. A dripping Chaucer unsteadily plods towards them, his tail waving droplets in all directions and his eyes going from one to another as though he doesn’t know which one to greet first.
Brandt pulls off Milo’s sodden top and, because Alan is the only one of them with comparatively dry clothes, he lets Milo have his shirt, which they wrap around him like a shawl. Milo is shaking so much with the cold that they can hear his teeth chattering. Brandt thinks he needs treatment, but the only way to find it is to continue downstream to the Numeralla confluence, where, hopefully, Peggy will be waiting with the car.
Chaucer lies exhausted across the raft, his head resting on Alan’s lap. Milo flops back in the stern, his face is warming in the sun, but his eyes are closed. Brandt only has to steer the raft with a single paddle as the flow is hardly more than a walking pace. He watches flotillas of black swans with cygnets and gaggles of ducks foraging among the wild watercress. The surface of the river is as calm as milk, and the wild gorge and silent forests have given way to cattle spreads, while merino sheep graze on the higher ground. But all this sublimity is marred as he thinks of what might have been the end for all of them.
When they reach the confluence, they have the unusual sight of a battered trailer tethered to a Rolls Royce parked under a pepper tree. Nearby, a picnic table is laid with four napkins and a chequered cloth. Brandt catches the citrus aroma of lemon-iced fruitcake, and sees two thermos flasks and a blue jug. By one of the table legs a meaty bone bridges a red dog bowl.
Seeing Brandt supporting Milo out of the dinghy and both of them soaking wet, Peggy rushes down the bank. “What’s happened? Milo, what’s happened to your forehead? Tell me.”
“I fell in,” says Milo. Peggy stares at Brandt and then at Alan. “Otto, you look terrible. Now, Alan, you tell me exactly what happened.”
“A branch hit Milo and knocked him overboard, Otto and Chaucer jumped in after him. Otto saved Milo’s life, I took charge of the raft and that’s about it.”
Brandt turns to Alan. “We’ll first help Peggy with Milo, then we’ll bring up the boat and the other kit.”
If Brandt were wrung out physically and emotionally by the rescue of Milo, the hallucination and the icy state of his lungs, he gives no hint of it, as he and Alan load the trailer and secure the raft with thin ropes. When they finish, Alan goes back to the table and Brandt stares up river.
Peggy gives Chaucer a good rub with a towel, then she pours them all tea from the thermos. While they are drinking and because no one is hungry, she packs the cake back into the basket along with the plates and cutlery. As they get in the car, both Brandt and Milo start to shiver uncontrollably, and it seems apparent to Peggy that more damage has been done then she first realised.
The Rolls has its own drinks cabinet and she insists that the two men each take a tot of brandy. “What about you, Alan, are you really all right, love? You did so well with that boat. I’m terribly proud of you. We all are.”
“Thank you, Peggy,” says Alan. “Yes, I’m fine, but I never thought I’d have to use some of that stuff we practised at canoeing club; it’s not all about canoes, we have to know about rubber dinghies and hypothermia – lots of things. So I’m fine, thank you, Peggy and that tea was pretty good.”
Peggy drives them back. Despite the heat of the afternoon, Milo is swathed in the two blankets he always keeps in the car boot. Brandt in his wet clothes, still feels that his lungs and his stomach are fused in ice. His mind is active and his speech clear, but he knows all about exposure; it kills, especially children – he’s seen it happen many times. Thank God Alan didn’t fall in the river too.
As the car slips onto the smooth Monaro Highway once more, his mind turns to the spectre.
But why now, after all this time? Why, in God’s name, did he not see her before he came to Australia? He discounts what happened on the Syrenia, which was a nightmare, but here she is so damnably real. Next time, he will face her – God help him – but he will face her, just like he said he would.
Peggy wants to take Milo to Cooma Hospital, but he will have none of it. Instead, he lies curled up on the back seat in the baking car with the windows up, shivering like a wet dog. And speaking of wet dogs, Chaucer is riding in the trailer, steadying his bone with a wet paw while the slipstream ruffles his fur like a fan on milk.
Peggy doesn’t drop off Brandt and Alan at Garigo, she drives straight on to Tumbledown. As soon as they arrive, she runs a hot bath for Milo and another in the guest’s quarters for Brandt.
25
The three adults are in the elegant sitting room of Tumbledown Homestead. Milo has an ice pack on his forehead, but the rest of him is covered from the neck down by an eiderdown.
“I was a fool,” he says, “I knew damn well I shouldn’t have been standing up in a rubber dinghy, without a life jacket, in the middle of the rapids.” He turns to Peggy. “I’m really sorry, love. It would have ended badly for me if it hadn’t been for Otto. I owe this good man my life.”
Pe
ggy goes over to Brandt, who is now wearing some of Milo’s clothes, which are miles too big for him. He rises shakily as she pulls him towards her and wraps her arms around him. “Thank you, Otto. Thank you so much. Now sit yourself down again and take things easy.”
Brandt feels drained and he hopes he doesn’t look like Milo, because Milo looks terrible. There are large bags under his eyes and his face has lost its usual tan; it’s become a yellowish grey. The comfy red-and-black plaid chair he is sitting in appears too big for him. As Milo speaks, Brandt notices that his lips are as white as putty and his voice is slurred. “Where’s Alan?” he asks. “Where’s he gone?”
“He’s outside,” says Peggy. “You can see him through the window.”
Alan has just finished unpacking the trailer and now he tries to unhitch the trailer itself from the Rolls. Brandt gets up straight away to go out to help him, but Peggy is adamant.
“No, Otto,” she says, and she opens the french window and calls out to Alan. “Leave it for the men, Alan. You’ve done more than your bit today.” Alan waves his acknowledgement, but doesn’t come inside. Instead he deflates the dinghy and goes off with it to the barn with Chaucer at his heels. Brandt watches him haul the dinghy up onto to the rafters and lay the paddles against the wall. Two of Milo’s roustabouts come across to unhook the trailer.
“I told him I’d get him a dog,” says Brandt.
“He knows you’ll keep your promise, Otto,” says Peggy. “He also knows you’ve got a lot on at the moment – especially with the chalet. Wait for the autumn.”
They watch Alan unravelling a knot in the dinghy’s tow rope. Brandt notices that Peggy must have brought back some of the boy’s clothes from Tumut. He is wearing grey shorts and a safari-style bush shirt to match. It’s a bit like the Deutsches Jungvolk uniform, but Brandt cannot imagine Alan in the Deutsches Jungvolk. When he was Alan’s age, he was already a Jungbannführer. The bespectacled and puny Alan would never have been considered for promotion at all.
Orphaned Leaves Page 25
