The Mystery of Swordfish Reef
( Bony - 7 )
Arthur W. Upfield
Arthur W. Upfield
The Mystery of Swordfish Reef
Chapter One
A Calm Day
A DEPRESSION which had been hesitant to move on from the south-eastern coast of Australia, and thereby had for a period of days sent mountainous seas crashing against the rock-armoured headland protecting the township of Bermagui, finally passed away over the Southern Tasman Sea. Its influence rapidly waning, the wind shifted to the north, the spring sunshine became warm, the grassy slopes back from the river gleamed like velvet, and Jack Wilton and his partner, Joe Peace, continued their work on the hull of theMarlin.
At high tide a week earlier the sleek ocean launch had been hauled to the foot of a narrow beach well inside the river’s mouth. Like many rivers along this coast the Bermaguee has teeth in its mouth in the shape of a bar, a bar perfectly safe to navigate in all weather save when the easterly gales roar across the great bay into which flows the river. The bar is something of a dividing line: outside it is the ocean, a despot of capricious moods; inside it the river provides shelter for many fishing launches, their slender jetty, a huge fish-trap, and migrating birds.
Although the tuna season was in full swing, Wilton had taken the opportunity provided by a week’s gap in his engagements with anglers to clean and treat the hull of his twenty-eight-foot-long marine engine-driven launch. After the tuna season would follow the more important swordfishing season, lasting from December to April. There would be little chance for a clean-up then; besides, at the end of long days at sea the anglers liked to be speedily taken back to port.
Work on theMarlin was completed this calm day the third of October; at midnight when the tide was high the craft would be refloated and taken to her berth at the jetty. Of the dozen launches that lay o’nights against this splinter of iron-bolted baulks of timber, eight had been there all this day. The other four had taken anglers to sea after the vast shoals of tuna and kingfish, anglers who came from Melbourne and Sydney, and as far afield as New Zealand, England and America.
The two men at work on theMarlin were unable to see the river’s mouth and the bar hidden from them by the low promontory protecting river and estuary. They could see a stretch of the straggling settlement of Bermagui. The main part of the township nestled in the lee of a greater headland that, like the smaller one guarding the river, pointed northward along the coast. They were able to observe the truck being driven along the road to Cobargo, see it stop at the shore end of the jetty, observe two men step from it. Even at this distance they could recognize the owner of the garage, Mr Parkins, who was the assistant weight recorder to the honorary secretary of the Bermagui Big Game Anglers’ Club, Mr Edward Blade, who now accompanied him.
“First of the launches must be coming in,” remarked Jack Wilton, owner of theMarlin.
Joe, his mate, stared from beneath bushy grey eyebrows at the two weight recorders now walking along the jetty to its seaward extremity where was erected the beam to take the scales and fish. Two women stood talking to a launch-man on his craft, and several day visitors followed the weight recorders.
“Likely enough to have been a good day out there,” Joesaid, his voice deep and penetrating even in the open. “I think this job will do for another nine months.”
He was a ponderous man, this Joseph Peace. His movements were sluggish and deliberate-until agility was demanded of him when theMarlin was bucking like a cork on a mill-race. The curious could not have discovered anyone in Bermagui who had ever seen Joe wearing either a hat or boots. Memory would have had to be placed on the rack to recall having seen Joe freshly shaven. The half-inch stubble of greyish beard seemed permanently halted in growth, but to balance this oddity his complexion defied the tanning effects of sun and wind; which was more than could be said of his dungaree trousers and the woollen pullover that betrayed many harsh washings. His small grey eyes were at the moment calm from mental contentment, and the strong and stubby fingers went downward to draw from the leather belt about his vast waist one of the two wooden pipes invariably carried there. Slowly, he said:
“TheDo-me might go on the market if Mr. Ericson buys land here, and builds himself a house and buys himself a launch for Bill Spinks to run for him year in and year out.”
Brown eyes surveyed Joe quizzingly, brown eyes set in an alert brown face. Jack Wilton was young and strong and lithe, of average height, and as clean as the sea which was as much part of his existence as the air. Joe became a little truculent.
“Well, if it turns out as you say Marion Spinks says so, Bill Spinks won’t have no more use for theDo-me.”
“Perhaps not, Joe. Supposing Marion’s right? Supposing Ericson does buy that land and builds a home on it, supposing he does buy himself a good launch and hires Bill permanently to run it for him: supposing Ma Spinks and Marion moves out of their house and goes to live with Ericson, Ma to cook and Marion to housemaid; and supposing that Bill does think he won’t have use for theDo-me and decides to sell her, what makes you think you’ll do better as her owner than you’re doing as my mate?”
The clear brown eyes had become stern and the old grey eyes shifted their gaze back again to the jetty.
“Might,” Joe answered.
“You wouldn’t,” Wilton assured him earnestly. “Running a fishing launch is the same as running a farm or a business. You’ve got to put back into her a lot of what you take out of her. You’re too easy-going, Joe. You’d take all out of theDo-me and put nothing into her as repairs and overhaul. You wouldn’t escape worrying, Joe. As my mate you don’t have to do any worrying at all, and you don’t have to put back into theMarlin anything of the quarter-share you take out of her. Besides, Joe, we’ve been mates for a long time.”
Grey eyes determinedly gazed at the jetty. A grunt was born deep in the massive chest beneath the blue pullover. Quite abruptly the grey eyes moved their gaze to cross swords with the brown eyes, blinked, and then as abruptly shifted back again to the jetty.
“Ha-well! Reckon you’re right-about us being mates for a long time, an’ about me being too easy to make money like an owner,” Joe agreed, still truculent.“Any’ow, where’d you be if I did have a launch of me own? Lost, that’s what you’d be. All you know about this coast, and the fish swimming off it, is what I’ve taught you, you young, jumped-up, jackanapes.”
“Agreed, Mr Know-all.”
“What’s that?”
Wilton laughed, white teeth flashing in the amber of his face, and Joe snorted and mumbled something like:
“Know-all! Me? Too right I know all there’s to know about this coast and the ruddy sea.” Then more distinctly, he added: “Well, do we stay here till the tide’s high, or do we go ’ome for some tucker?”
“Home and tucker it is, mate-o’-mine.”
“Mate-o’-mine!”Joe echoed, witheringly. “You’re going to the pitchers too much, that’s what you’re doing. There’s theGladious first home.”
Into their view slid a roomy launch, its white hull and brown-painted shelter-structure protecting the wheel and the cabin entrance. The owner was steering, and in the cockpit two anglers were dismantling their gear.
Joe and Wilton stepped into their dinghy and Joe rowed round the stern of theGladious, as she drew alongside the head of the jetty to permit her catch to be weighed, and pulled in alongside an ancient tub which provided a step upward to the jetty. They were watching the heavy tuna being weighed, their interest in fish eternal, when a smart craft hove into sight beyond the bar. TheEdith was gently lifted higher than the river, appeared to be powered by a force much stronger than her
engine which rushed her forward over the bar and then deserted her. Like a gull shecame swimming towards the jetty. Behind her, still to cross the bar, was a heavier craft named theSnowy.
One after the other the launches delivered up to the club secretary their biggest fish to be weighed-twenty, thirty, forty-pounders, and one after the other were moved to their usual berths alongside the jetty. The anglers hurried away to their cars parked ashore and drove round to the Bermagui Hotel. The day visitors sauntered to their cars, to gather wife and children preparatory to the home journey. Joe rolled homeward, leaving only Remmings of theGladious and Burns of theEdith to tidy their craft before dinner. Wilton called down to the two women who were sitting on the hatch combing of theLilyG. Excel.
“Bill’s a bit late getting in, Mrs Spinks,” he said to the elder of the women. “Mr Ericson may have decided to fight a shark on the way home. Whatd’you think of theMarlin? We finished up on her today, and we’re refloating her tonight.”
“She looks very nice in her new dress of paint, doesn’t she, mother?” replied the younger woman, stepping lightly from launch to jetty to stand beside Wilton. He flushed faintly, and his eyes became veiled when he glanced at Marion Spinks. Gallantly he assisted the mother to the jetty, and she said, brightly:
“Yes, she certainly does. The clean-up will add a knot to the speed, Jack. Hasn’t it been a wonderful day? It must have been as flat as my irons outside. There’s hardly any surf at all.”
Both these women were dressed with that severity and neatness which is the hall-mark of home dressmaking. Both were a fraction above average height, but further than a resemblance in mouth there were no traces of kinship. The elder woman was blonde, and hard work and the years had made her body angular. Marion was a brunette and strongly built. Her shapely figure had gladdened more than one artist, and Wilton thought her the most beautiful thing in his world of ever-changing beauty.
“Well, I must be getting along for dinner,” he said, a hint of reluctance in his voice. “Do we travel part of the way together?”
“Not now, Jack,” replied Mrs Spinks. “We’re to give Mr Ericson an answer to his proposal.”
“About working for him when his house is built?”
“Yes. He wants to know this evening so that he can forward his business. If Bill decides to go with him, we’ll be doing the same. We all think a lot of Mr Ericson, and I’m sure we’d be very happy.”
“He’s a very decent man,” agreed Wilton, regarding Mrs Spinks and Marion alternately. “I think you’ll be wise to accept his offer. Bill will have a regular crew all the year round, while you two will have an easier time. Well, I must go alone if you intend to wait for theDo-me. What about the pictures tonight, Marion? Coming?”
“If you’d like to take me,” she replied, looking directly at him.
Wilton was optimistic as he walked the road to the township and his home. There were moments when he was exceedingly pessimistic, for Marion Spinks was not able to make up her mind sufficiently to surrender to the idea of marrying him.
He was dressed in his good blue suit when he heard his mother talking with someone in their kitchen-living-room. It was half-past seven and the evening was advanced. Through the open window of his bedroom came a cool draught of air, soft and fragrant with flowers growing in the tidy garden. Beyond the window the evening was quiet, unusually quiet. It was strangely empty of sound-the omnipresent sound of surf.
With his mother was Marion Spinks.
“Hullo! What’s up, Marion?”
“TheDo-me isn’t home yet.” she replied, her eyes troubled.
“Not home! Well, there’s plenty of time for her to get home without you worrying.”
“That’s what I tell mother. But you know what she is, Jack. And-and…”
Her voice died away as rainwater vanishes in droughty earth. Her face was tautened by unease of mind. Mrs Wilton echoed her son’s remark about there being plenty of time still for theDo-me to reach port before the need for worry. Wilton crossed the room and stood close to the girl.
“Well?” he asked softly.
Into the wide blue eyes entered an expression of entreaty. Her right hand grasped his left arm.
“I haven’t felt too good all afternoon, Jack. Now I feel that there’s something wrong with Bill and young Garroway and Mr Ericson. You know how it is with me and Bill.”
“But what could be wrong?” argued Wilton. “The sea all day has been as calm as a park lake. It’s not yet fully dark, and even if it was as black as the ace of spades Bill could navigate theDo-me across the bar and up to the jetty.”
“Still…”
The blue eyes now were compelling. The small nostrils were slightly distended, and the hand which grasped his arm was now clasped by her other hand.
“I feel-I know-I feel that something’s happened to theDo-me,” she said, slowly and softly. A strange power seemed to emanate from her which he felt. “There hasn’t been a breath of wind all day, and Alf Remmings said it’s been hazy, too. There’s no wind now. I’ve just been up to the headland. The sea looks like new-cut lead. Supposing theDo-me ’s engine has broken down-the sail would be useless. She might be current-driven to the coast rocks.”
Wilton said, gazing into the fearful eyes regarding him pleadingly:
“There may be something in what you say. I don’t think it’s likely, though. Bill knows his engine, from sump to tank. Tell you what! If theDo-me isn’t home when we come out of the pictures I’ll get Burns and Remmings to go out and patrol. TheMarlin not being ready for sea, I could go with one or other. But-still-by that time theDo-me will be home. Hang it! Bill’s one of the best launchmen here.”
The girl bit her lower lip.
“I wouldn’t enjoy the pictures. Jack, thinking, thinking-”
“All right! If that’s how you feel I’ll change back into my sea clothes and go after Burns and Remmings now. You slip back home and stop your mother worrying.”
“Yes, dear, that’s best,” Mrs Wilton said in support. “You can leave the rest to Jack.”
An hour later the three launches, Edith, Gladious andIvy, crossed the bar and slid like shadows over the bay swell towards the tip of the headland and the ocean. Marion and her mother waited at home until their anxiety would permit them to wait there no longer. It was close to midnight when they walked along the road to the jetty.
There they found theSnowy, with other launches moored against the jetty, and they went aboard her and took possession of the two uncushioned anglers’ chairs. They could see nothing, but it was comforting to sit there.
The familiar sounds of the river were infinitely more soothing than the empty silence of their home-the cry of a gull, the honking of swans far up the river, now and then the plop of a small fish followed by the surface movement of heavier fish chasing it. All about them life was unseen but prolific, familiar. Outside, the ocean was as quiet as if it had been withdrawn to the very stars that gleamed in the velvety sky. From it came no sound save the faint music of surf on sand. It was not the voice of the sea they knew so well-the heavy pounding and thudding of league-long rollers.
At 2 am theEdith came in with Eddy Burns and Joe Peace on board. They reported that they had patrolled up and down Swordfish Reef without sighting theDo-me. At daybreak the two women were still on the jetty when theEdith went out again, after which they hurried home for a meal and then walked to the front of the great headland protecting the township. At noon all the searching launches returned to port. TheDo-me had not been sighted, nor could her wreckage be observed on the coast. Silently, Marion and her mother were eating lunch when Wilton entered their kitchen-living-room.
“It’s no use worrying,” he told them. “A wire may come through from somewhere.”
Marion crossed to him, for the first time to hold out her hands for him to take.
“Tell us, Jack, what you and the others think,” she pleaded.
“We think that theDo-me ’s engine broke down when they wer
e trolling along Swordfish Reef,” he answered frankly. “As the current’s been setting to the south’ard for more than twenty-four hours, theDo-me would have been taken south. We think she might have been taken past that trawler that’s been working off Bunga Head since yesterday morning, and by now she ought to be somewhere off Eden.”
“Oh! Then what had we better do?” urged Mrs Spinks, whose face was white and drawn and in whose eyes was a strange light.
“I was thinking of getting Constable Telfer to telephone the police at Eden to ask one of the launchmen there to make a special trip to sea to look for theDo-me. Remmings spoke the trawler early this morning, but they haven’t seen theDo-me. Still, she must be down south somewhere, and Joe says that as there’s been no wind the currents wouldn’t have taken her ashore.
“Anyhow, it’s no use you two worrying. I’m taking theMarlin to sea directly we can get her loaded with oil. We mightn’t be back tonight, because Joe is going to follow the currents down from Swordfish Reef till wedo find theDo-me. Excepting for a broken engine theDo-me must be all right. The sea’s like a pond. Haven’t seen it so calm for years. Some ship or other is bound to sight Bill and give him a tow to port, or at least wireless his position.”
“It’s good of you-and the others, Jack,” Marion said.
“It is that,” added Mrs Spinks. “We’ll never be able to repay you all, I’m sure.”
“Yes, you can,” Wilton told her, and then stared at Marion. “You can repay us by not worrying. And, remember, Bill would be the first to go out after any of us. Well, so long! And no worrying, understand.”
He stood for a moment regarding the girl’s haunted face with lifted eyebrows and a smile that was forced, Impulsively she squeezed his hands, and he felt himself rewarded for a night’s vigil. He wanted badly to draw her to him and kiss her, to wipe away from her blue eyes the expression of dread. He said to her:
“How do you feel now about Bill?”
The Mystery of Swordfish Reef b-7 Page 1
