No footprints in the bush b-8

by Arthur W. Upfield

  No footprints in the bush

  ( Bony - 8 )

  Arthur W. Upfield

  Arthur W. Upfield

  No footprints in the bush

  Chapter One

  Mirage and Bombs

  ONE of Nature’s oddities was the grove of six cabbage-trees in the dense shade of which Detective-Inspector Bonaparte had made his noonday camp. They grew beside an unmade road winding like a snake’s track over a range of low, treeless and semi-barren hills; and, so close were they, and so virile their foliage, that to step in among them was not unlike stepping into an ivy-covered church porch on a brilliant summer morning.

  A more inviting place for a noon camp in late spring, away out on the edge of Central Australia, is seldom offered, and thankfully Bonaparte made a little fire within the shade and boiled water in his quart-pot for tea. With contentment bordering on ecstasy, he began to eat a lunch of damper and hard-boiled duck eggs whilst reclining against his swag.

  Thus he was able to see a picture made extraordinarily vivid by the clear sunlight beyond the shade, a picture roughly framed in the shape of a Gothic arch. In the foreground of the picture passed the unmade road he had been following for four days. The road went on to fall sharply downward and skirt a hillside two hundred feet above a boulder-strewn gully. Beyond the hill it disappeared only to reappear on the side of yet another hill, beyond which it again vanished and reappeared before becoming lost amidst the tiny foothills washed by a still white mirage sea covering a valley ten miles across.

  Beyond the mirage-covered plain could be seen the scrub on the distant higher land, scrub appearing to Bonaparte like an inch wide dark-grey ribbon supporting the northern rim of the burnished copper sky.

  Four days earlier Bonaparte had left Shaw’s Lagoon, situated beyond Queensland’s western border, a very small township offering no excuse for its existence other than that it marked the terminus of a motor mail route. Shaw’s Lagoon was roughly eighty miles to the south-east of the cabbage-trees where he was now camped, and since he had passed through the gate in the State Border Fence he had passed through no other, had met no traveller, seen no house or hut. And now, down there on the plain, yet another twelve miles to walk to the McPherson homestead, could be seen the first hint of human life, the dust cloudraised by a moving vehicle.

  Traffic on this road was rare. Eight days previously it had rained, and since then no wheel or hoof or human foot had marked it. It led to the Land of Burning Water, from which reports had drifted of strange happenings. There it lay beyond the hills, shimmering with yellow opalescence beneath the sun: burning water-the mirage.

  From his high elevation on the edge of the hill range, Bonaparte idly watched the moving vehicle. On the basis of its speed, as indicated by the dust cloud it raised, he guessed it to be a car, and further, he guessed it was being driven by Sergeant Errey, as he was aware that the senior police officer stationed at Shaw’s Lagoon was visiting McPherson’s Station.

  When the vehicle was hidden by the hills its progress still could be traced by the dust raised by its wheels, and presently it again appeared rounding a hillside, an ant running along an ant road. Calmly, and without haste, Bonaparte moved his body, brought the swag round to lie across his legs, and then began to remove the straps. It was certainly a car and the odds were in favour of its being driven by Sergeant Errey, for whom Bonaparte had a letter signed by the Chief Commissioner of the South Australian Police Department.

  He had removed one strap, and his long fingers were engaged with the other, when with singular abruptness there burst into the silence about the camp the roar of an aeroplane engine.

  Immediately following the arrival ofthis sound two crows, cawing in fear, almost fell into the branches of the cabbage-trees. Hidden from the man seated on the ground, they proceeded to vent their defiance on the plane, which passed over the camp, thence to follow the road to Shaw’s Lagoon.

  Bonaparte did not see the machine. It had come from the west, possibly skirting the northern edge of the hill range. Had it come from the north or north-west, he could not have failed to see it in the picture framed within a leafy arch of Gothic type.

  The sound of the aircraft engine had faded to a low buzz, but the crows in the branches above Bonaparte refused to leave, although they must have known he was not more than twelve feet beneath them. They continued their noisy defiance of the machine, which had been to them an even greater terror than a human being could be.

  Bonaparte removed the letter from his swag and began itsrestrapping, his hands working automatically, his gaze directed at that part of the road where next the car would appear.

  The car did appear, and at the same time Bonaparte heard the aeroplane returning. Its pilot could not be searching for a landing otherwise he would have selected the plain. He could hardly be lost, for there was the road to follow. The machine certainly had come from the west, yet westward stretched hundreds of miles of open semi-desert country, empty of settlement. Why fly in the direction of Shaw’s Lagoon for perhaps twenty miles, then turn and come back?

  The frightened crows clung determinedly to their sanctuary. Bony lifted the swag from his legs to put it aside. His action was too much for the birds. They cawed and fluttered among the branches, but still were too frightened by the oncoming plane to leave. Theircawings were shut off by the thundering menace rushing towards them in their own element. They saw the vast hawk swooping upon their retreat, clung to the branches and shrieked defiance as it passed low above them. They saw the steel egg it dropped.

  Fortunately for Bonaparte it was a small bomb. Fortunately for him, too, he was holding the swag in front of his body whilst seated on the ground. The bomb burst on the site of the now dead camp fire. Its explosion filled the shelter with dust and fumes, and sent outward steel fragments that lanced upward and severed leaves, to drop them through the dusty air.

  Stunned by the noise, flung backward by the explosion, Bonaparte gasped in dust-laden air and fumes. His mind was divided: one part wildly angry because of the outrage, the other registering the fact that the crows had left their sanctuary, and fleeing as though pursued by ten thousand hawks. Twice the plane circled the grove of trees before flying on along the road to McPherson’s Station.

  Bonaparte saw it for the first time when, having lurched to his feet, he peered with semi-blinded eyes along that same road. It was a monoplane, small, extremely fast, painted a silvery-grey. He saw, too, the oncoming car which now was less than half a mile away and traversing the steep hillside. The aeroplane was flying low to meet it, so low that its landing-wheels appeared to threaten the car.

  Bonaparte saw the bombs drop-two of them. They fell together. The car, spurting red flame, gave birth to a growing ball of white smoke, and swerved off the road as though its driver was trying to escape the flame clinging to its roof. It ran up the hillside for several yards, then stopped and appeared to shrink inward into a heart of fire. The fiery heart rolled back to the road, rolled across the road, began to roll down the hillside, began to bounce as it gathered momentum. A central explosion increased the flames, and like a meteor it rushed down to the gully bed, where it lay and spouted upward a column of writhing black smoke. The aeroplane swooped and circled low over the burning wreckage. It bore no markings. There was only one man in it. His head could be seen behind the curved windshield. He was looking overside.

  Within the black shadow cast by the cabbage-trees, Bonaparte crouched on hands and knees. Grey dust whitened his dark-brown face, rimmed his blue eyes, now brilliant and agate hard. The fine lips were drawntaut, revealing his white teeth in what was almost an animal snarl of fury. The zooming of the plane’s engine was distorted in his ears, still
feeling the shock of the explosion. His hands rested on the ground and his fingers dug constantly into its softness.

  That the pilot had flown here with the specific intention of destroying a car and its driver was as evident as the shade cast by the trees. Doubtless the pilot had watched the car crossing the plain. He knew, without doubt, just where the road crossed the hill range, and before making his attack he had flown over the road for many miles towards Shaw’s Lagoon to be certain there were no travellers upon it who would observe his subsequent act, or see his machine, and afterwards connect it with the destruction of the car.

  The only cover near the road for many miles was that provided by the grove of cabbage-trees, and, to make doubly sure he would escape observation from a chance traveller camped in the shade of the trees, he dropped his bomb among them.

  Bonaparte was tempted to run from the trees down to the blazing wreckage. To have succumbed to the temptation would have been stupid. For one thing, the car had come to rest at least half a mile from him; and for another there was no possible chance of rescuing its occupant, who must have died from the exploding bombs.

  Having partially recovered from the surprise and stunning effect of the “exploratory” bomb, Bonaparte thrust the letter into a pocket and leaned back against his swag to watch and wait. There was more than a hint of determination that none should escape the attack on the car as the aeroplane continued to circle low above what was a mass of blackened metal, enveloped by fire. For several minutes the plane circled. Then the pilot turned the machine westward, skimmed a hill-top and vanished from Bonaparte’s vision.

  Without movement, Detective-Inspector Bonaparte listened until he could no longer hear the sinister noise controlled either by a maniac or an ice-cold killer. The silence that had preceded the arrival of the two crows returned.

  Bonaparte went down to the wreckage, lying on its side. The door in the top side was still closed, but no glass remained in it or the windscreen. The tyres were burned away. He could not get near enough to peer through the distorted steel skeleton to ascertain how many people had been inside.

  Still with taut nerves and governed by a most natural horror, Bonaparte walked up the hillside, following the trail made by the blazing car. He had no hope of finding anything identifying the driver, for he had seen nothing detached from the vehicle during its descent, and now not even its numberplate was decipherable. Nevertheless he was mistaken; for, a few feet up the hillside from the place where the car had been bombed, he found a small leather attache case, on which the embossing remained to tell that its owner was Sergeant A. V. Errey. This jetsam, freakishly preserved from explosion and fire, wasall the searcher found.

  With hearing still tensed to receive the noise of an approaching aeroplane, Bonaparte stepped down to the road and slowly walked along it to the cabbage-trees, the case tucked under an arm. His mind was concentrated on the mysterious purpose of the outrage. It was a time when his eyes were much less active than normal, so much so that he came within two yards of the camp before his mind accepted the motionless shape of the tall, grey-haired, clean-shaven aborigine standing just within the edge of the trees’ black shadow.

  The man’s physique was magnificent. His age was probably less than fifty. He wore no vestige of clothing save the pubic tassel, arm bands made of kangaroo fur and a forehead band to which was glued white birds’ down and which raised his hair to a plume of grey web. In his left hand he carried a spear having a fire-hardened point, and in the right a heavy club fashioned from a mulga root.

  “Hullo!” exclaimed Bonaparte, compelled to look upward into the expressionless face. “Who are you? What your name, eh? How you bin called?”

  Clearly, without accent, in English came the reply.

  “I am the Chief of the Wantella Nation. I am Writjitandil, meaning Burning Water. This is the Land of Burning Water.”

  Black eyes opened wide, and in them blazed red anger. Bonaparte had spoken with superiority. Now he heard masterful pride in the voice of this naked black man.

  “Who are you, half-caste? What is your business in the Land of Burning Water? Tell me, quick.”

  Swift movement of a sinewy arm followed the demand. The long spear became horizontal, its point aimed at Bony’s heart.

  Chapter Two

  Chief Burning Water

  THERE are men of every colour and race who stand high above their fellows by reason of the greatness of spirit lifting them to positions of leadership. In the affairs of the aboriginal tribes of Australia, no less than in the affairs of the allegedly more civilized white and yellow people, such men are found.

  This was Burning Water. There was no mistaking the quality of leadership in his poise, in his facial expression, and especially in his eyes. Bony instantly realized that he was confronted by no ordinary aborigine. He saw with clear vision his own standing based on his unfortunate birth, saw clearly how he appeared to this regal man, and knew himself physically inferior.

  “I am waiting,” said Chief Burning Water, no whit abashed by the steady stare in Bonaparte’s blue eyes, the lithe cat-like stance of the man born of a black mother and a white father, dressed neatly in serviceable bush clothes, veneered heavily with the white man’s civilization. He saw only a despised half-caste, fruit of a woman who had broken a law.

  “Put down your spear and we will talk. You are standing in my camp.”

  “I stand on my own land, not your land.”

  “Yet you are in my camp. However, you are welcome. Put down your spear, and we will make a fire and talk!”

  “There is no time for frills, half-caste. You were here when the aeroplane destroyed Sergeant Errey’s car and killed him. I saw it done. I saw you go down to the wreck. I saw you track up the hill to the road. I saw you pick up the Sergeant’s dillybag. You have it now. All this happened in the country of the Wantella Nation. Further, you travel alone, and you walk when a man would ride a horse or a camel or drive a car or truck. Sergeant Errey was a good white man. Talk.”

  There was no mistaking the unbreakable will in the black eyes boring into his, and yet Bony without haste unbuckled his belt and removed his shirt and singlet. Then, turning his back to Burning Water, he said, speaking over his shoulder:

  “Would you drive your spear into the sign of the square and the moon when it is full? I have stood on the square of squares facing the east and the full moon. My tribal father is called Illawalli, and he lives beside the northern waters. He has spoken to me of the Wantella Nation.”

  As Bony turned again to face Burning Water, the Chief’s spear and club were dropped to the ground, and he advanced with his hand out-stretched:

  “You bear the sign on your back of the great ones among us. I, too, have it on my back. I, too, have spoken with Illawalli who is as superior to me as I am to the tick on a cockatoo’s back. Your name?”

  Bonaparte now was smiling upward into the smiling face of Chief Burning Water.

  “I am known as Bony,” he replied. “I am on my way to visit Mr Donald McPherson, and to look for the cause of strange happenings reported from the Land of Burning Water-your land. I have seen a strange happening today. So let us make a fire and talk.”

  Bony put on his vest and shirt. He combed his hair and put on his felt hat. Burning Water picked up his club and spear, with the latter pointing downward to the gully. Bony turned and saw advancing up the bed of the gully towards the burned out car a party of nine aborigines.

  “They are of the Illprinka Nation,” Burning Water explained. “They have come from the great desert country towards the west, and not for years have they been friendly. We are but two: they are nine. We have seen what we should not have seen. We must go, quick and fast.”

  “How comes it that they are on your land and so far from their own country?” asked Bonaparte.

  “I don’t know, but I think many things. Perhaps The McPherson might tell you.”

  “The McPherson is a long way away,” Bony said grimly, looking upward from t
he task of re-strapping his swag after having placed inside it the recovered attache case. “That being so, I will myself ask these Illprinka men what they are doing here on your land.”

  Burning Water stared into the abruptly cold blue eyes.

  “They are nine,” he pointed out. “They are enemies of the Wantella Nation. As you can see, they are well armed. You are a stranger to the Land of Burning Water. It would be wise for us to go, and to go fast.”

  To be discreet in the face of adverse odds is to be wise, not fearful. The present certainly was not opportune for questioning or probing into problems presented within the last hour, for a situation was developing demanding preparation to meet it.

  For the third time at this temporary camp, he unrolled his swag and this time took from it an automatic pistol and two boxes of cartridges containing twenty-five.

  “Where did you learn to speak English so well?” he asked whilst loading the pistol.

  “I am The McPherson’s tribal brother. He is my father and my son.”

  This physical impossibility was due to the intricate relationship accepted by any white man sealed into an aboriginal tribe. Bony offered no comment. In fact, he was feeling himself out of depth, as though he was in a strange country, when he was actually in his own. The prefix “the” before McPherson’s surname was, indeed, odd.

  “The McPherson taught me to speak his language properly, to add numbers, to read from books. The McPherson and I were young together. When Myerloo, the chief of the Wantella Nation, was killed, it was The McPherson who had me become chief in his stead. When that was done I discarded the white man’s clothes which I wore for many years.”

  “The McPherson must be a great man,” Bony said, pocketing the pistol and cartridges.

  “He is both great and just. He owns four thousand square miles of land, and something like seven thousand head of cattle.”