The Mystery of Swordfish Reef b-7

by Arthur W. Upfield

  The trawler had vanished, having left for Sydney to unload her catch. The coastal steamer, Cobargo, was coming south to call at Eden, whilst far at sea a trader was making for Melbourne, smoke from her solitary tall stack lying low upon the water astern of her.

  Noonday found theMarlin fifteen miles north of Eden and some ten miles off land. The trader had been captured by distance and theCobargo had gone in to Eden to unload and pick up cargo. The sea was empty. Even when theMarlin was atop a water mountain Wilton could see nothing afloat. The rollers were becoming mere swells, shrinking fast under the energetic influence of the low chop set up by the southerly wind.

  He went aft to bring back his lunch and tea thermos. He ate whilst sitting on the forward hatch, his gaze never on his food, always on the sea. Once he saw the fin of a mako shark, and now and then a shoal of small fish whip-lashing the surface in frantic effort to escape bigger fish. A school of porpoises came to gambol about the bow, grey-green symbols of streamlined speed.

  Having disposed of his lunch, he repacked the basket and took it down below. Only a minute did he give to tending the engine and then gained Joe’s side to take a trick at thewheel.

  “Keep her there for a bit,” Joe said. “I’ll go for’ard with me grub and keep a look-out. Might alter course from time to time so’s to come in to the tail of Swordfish Reef from the east. Keep an eye on me.”

  Wilton heard him moving heavily beside the shelterstructure, saw him waddling forward to sit on the hatch-covering he had just vacated. Joe’s thin grey hair was whipped by the breeze, but his body seemed as immovable as a rock. He was a man of whom a first impression was always bad and always in error.

  In his turn he was repacking his tucker basket when he paused to stare landward, and then to thump the decking with onecalloused hand. Through the glass Wilton saw him pointing to the west. He heard him shouting but could not distinguish the words, and he left the wheel to raise his head above the shelter structure by standing on the gunwale.

  “Aireyplane,” shouted Joe, again pointing.

  Wilton saw the machine. It was flying low above the sea, and its course quickly informed him that it was on no normal flight. It was searching for theDo-me, or its wreckage.

  So the fact of theDo-me ’s disappearance had been broadcast, for the plane must have come down from Sydney. Although it was a twin-engined machine, the pilot was taking a chance by flying so far from land. It was coming towards them now on a straight course; Wilton was able to watch it and steer the launch with his left foot on the wheel-spokes.

  Joe stood up to wave, and when the machine had passed over and began to circle there could be seen two men, one of whom waved back whilst he examined theMarlin through binoculars. After that, like an albatross, it “drifted” northward.

  Joe came aft with his lunch basket.

  “Sooner be here than up in that thing,” he said, with the conservatism of the sailor. “Shift her four points to starboard, and we’ll follow up a current running between two reefs.”

  “Telfer must have got to work reporting the absence of theDo-me,” surmised Wilton, again standing before the wheel and obeying his partner’s order. “That plane’s from Sydney all right. She’s an Air Force machine.”

  “Hell-’v-a-’opeof sightin’ theDo-me now,” grumbled Joe. “And not much chance their sighting oil after last night’s weather. Any’ow if they seen a patch of oil they couldn’t tell if it came from theDo-me or a steamer.”

  “How do you think to tell it if we come across any?”

  “If we come across oil, Jack, the chances are that it came from theDo-me. ’Cos why?’Cos we’re follering tight the sea-drift from where theDo-me must have gone down. Oil anywhere away from the drift would be steamer’s oil, likely enough, any’ow, after last night’s weather it won’t be easy to look at from aboard here, let alone a plane, low as that one was working. Better let me take the wheel. I’ll have to do a bit of dodging about. If there’s anything to be found it will be within a mile or two of this position.”

  Wilton was standing beside the mast when, some forty minutes later, he abruptly turned aft and raised both his arms. Instantly Joe pushed the engine clutch into neutral, and raised himself to look over the shelter structure. Wilton was pointing to the sea about the launch.

  “What d’you make of it, Joe? Is it oil?”

  Joe’s eyes widened. Then he sprang down into the cockpit, bent low to bring his eyes on a level with the gunwale to squint across the low chop-waves on the slopes of the greater swells. Perhaps for half a minute he remained thus before clambering for’ard to join his partner in staring downward at the surface of the water. Then:

  “Yes, that’s oil, Jack. Film’s thinner than ordinary due to last night’s rough weather. It’s oil, all right, and it’s in the drift coming from Swordfish Reef. Now lemme think.”

  His face became a study of mental concentration, the expression not unlike that of a schoolboy trying to remember a lesson. In fact his brain was working on a problem that would have defied a professor of mathematics, for he sought the answer to the question: How far from an oil patch which offers exceedingly slight resistance to wind might be found flotsam from the same craft from which came the oil, when the velocity of the wind was such and such for so many hours, when it blew from such a quarter before changing to such a quarter, when this current would flow at so many knots to the hour, and that at so many knots, to join another current moving at such a speed?

  “We’ll move on a bit,” he said sharply. “You stay here and keep a look-out. Don’t pass by as much as a splinter of wood.”

  The aeroplane was still out over the sea, out from Bunga Head, ten miles south of Bermagui. TheMarlin was six miles south of the great headland and seven miles off the small settlement called Tathra. They could this clear day see the hotel at Tathra.

  Joe brought out from the cabin a petrol drum, and standing on this he could see on all sides above the shelter roof whilst he steered with his naked feet. He sent theMarlin forward at a mere two knots to the hour, scanning the coast about Tathra and taking constant bearings from Bunga Head. The upper part of his body rested on the roof of the shelter and his hands protected his eyes from the near light. Apparently undirected, theMarlin began a series of zig-zags, curves and giant circles.

  Steadying himself by holding to the mast and the port mast stay, Jack Wilton ceaselessly scanned the sea with greater mental concentration than ever he had watched for a fin. His craft’s extraordinary antics perturbed him not at all, for his confidence in his partner was supreme when it was a question of the currents controlled by the wind and the reefs far below the surface. He did not permit himself to gaze landward, or to watch the plane, giving every second of time to the surface of the glittering sea.

  The wind was dying. The chop from the south was falling fast, and the now unopposed swells were flat topped and smooth sloped. Minutes mounted to an hour, the hour grew to two hours, and still Joe stood on his drum and steered with his naked feet. He watched not the sea but the land and Bunga Head, for that Head and points of the land gave him his constantly changing positions.

  The plane had at last gone from the sea. There was a launch far away tothe nor ’-east, its hull below the horizon, its mast standing stiffly on the horizon like a hair on the head of a bald man.

  Both Wilton and Joe were confident that if theDo-me had gone down there must be flotsam and oil to betray its fate. The oil they had passed over was more likely than not to have come from theDo-me, for Joe was following an invisible road to Swordfish Reef above which the missing launch was assumed to have sunk. On this same invisible road would be objects which would float away from theDo-me if and when she sank; objects such as the angler’s chair-cushion, the wooden bait-fish box, hats, lunch basket and wooden tucker box, thermos flasks and milk bottles. If the door giving entry to the engine-room cabin was open at the time of the catastrophe, a good deal of gear would wash out and float to the surface. Somewhere along Joe’s narrow
and invisible road would be floating flotsam from the missing launch-if she had sunk-and Joe’s ability to keep to this track zig-zagging across the trackless sea was something extraordinary.

  Ah! There was Jack still standing against the mast, but now loudly stamping on the deck to attract his partner’s attention. He did not look back, but continued to stare away over the starboard bow, as though he knew that once he shifted the direction of his gaze the object would be lost to him. Joe altered course in accordance with the orders given by Wilton’s outstretched arm, his feet taking the place of his hands on the wheel-spokes.

  Presently he came to see ahead a line of suds, thin and broken. As he well knew, it was the division line between a current setting landward and one making seaward, a dividing line forming a no-man’s-land on which floated the chalky backs of cuttlefish, the bodies of dead crabs, and other offal of the sea.

  Then Joe saw that which was exciting his partner. It was reflecting the sunlight, winking as the water moved its angle with the sun. Joe pushed the clutch into neutral, and theMarlin lost speed and glided towards the sun-reflector. Wilton shouted:

  “It’s a thermos-flask!”

  He raced aft to leap down into the cockpit, where he crouched over the gunwale whilst Joe expertly “edged” the craft alongside the flasks. With his booted feet hooked about the side rail of the starboard angler’s chair, Wilton leaned far out and down to snatch from the sea this piece of flotsam. Joe helped him inboard, and together they regarded the flask.

  The cap cup was screwed on tightly and yet was not rusted on. There was no rust on the screw of the flask, which was new and obviously had not long been in the water. The cork was firmly pushed into the glass receptacle, and on being pulled free permitted Wilton to pour a little of the contents out on to a hand palm. It was tea, and when he tasted it, he said, looking at Joe:

  “Might have been brewed this morning. Hullo, what’s this?”

  On the bottom of the flask had been scratched two letters. The scratching was still bright. Only recently had it been done.

  “Who-in-’ell’s B.H.?” demanded Joe. “Them’ssomeone’s initials.

  “Yes. B.H. Can’t be Hooper of theLily. His are M.H.”

  “No. And B.H. don’t stand for Ericson, or for Spinks, or for Garroway, Spinks’s mate. She couldn’t have come from theDo-me.”

  There was vast disappointment in Joe’s voice. He turned back to the wheel, put in the gear, climbed to his petrol drum and resumed his crouching attitude above the shelter roof. It was as though he blamed Wilton.

  Wilton placed the “find” in his lunch basket in the cabin, and resumed his place at the mast. Slowly theMarlin was sent on her way parallel with the winding line of suds. When at the end of the suds line, the craft continued her apparently aimless wandering about the sea. During the next hour Wilton retrieved a caseboard, which, however, had small shell fish adhering to it, proving that it had been in the water for some considerable time, and a butter-box with similar evidence.

  Nothing was seen or retrieved of vital importance to the fate of theDo-me; and the flask was not likely to have any bearing on it, either.

  Time passed quite unnoticed by the searchers until the sun, having travelled down the sky’s flawless bowl, rested for a moment on the horizon and then was swallowed by the sea. Still theMarlin crawled along the invisible road, and still the two men maintained their stations and their attitudes. Only when increasing dusk decreased visibility to a few yards did Jack Wilton come aft, to say:

  “We’ll go home and come out again tomorrow.”

  “All right! We can start from Swordfish Reef tomorrow,” Joe agreed.“If we don’t find anything tomorrow, then theDo-me ’s still afloat somewhere.”

  It was close to midnight when theMarlin approached the now invisible bar, kicked herself over the tumbling water into the channel, and crept along the river to the jetty.

  Three men stood on the jetty, evidently waiting for them.

  “Any luck, Jack?” inquired Mr Blade.

  “No. Don’t think so, anyway.”

  “Don’t think so!” echoed a man whose dark shape against the starry sky informed the seaman that he was a stranger.

  “What ’ave you got to to with it, any’ow?” demanded Joe, climbing to the jetty with a mooring-rope.

  “This is Detective-Sergeant Allen,” said Constable Telfer.

  “Coo!” snorted Joe, as though Detective-Sergeant Allen had no moral or legal right to breathe.

  Wilton gained the jetty, to say to the waiting three:

  “We’ve seen nothing of theDo-me -only that aeroplane. We’ve been looking for wreckage, flotsam, where Joe reckons flotsam from off theDo-me ought to be if she had sunk. We found nothing belonging to her. All we found was a new thermos-flask. Here it is. On the bottom is scratched the initials B.H.”

  “Ah!” murmured Allen with immense satisfaction. “B.H. stands for Bermagui Hotel. The morning that theDo-me last went tosea, one of the maids at the pub dropped Mr Ericson’s flask and broke it. She filled and gave him one of three flasks bought a couple of days before by the hotel. The barman scratched the initials on all three of ’em.”

  Chapter Four

  A ClueAmong Fish

  BEFORE THE construction of the Prince’s Highway, Bermagui was an isolated hamlet aroused only at Christmas and at Easter by the small influx of visitors from inland farms and the market town of Cobargo. Even after the opening of the Highway it suffered to some extent through the disadvantage of being seven miles from it at Tilba Tilba. It was His Majesty the Swordfish that “made” Bermagui.

  The discovery of swordfish in the waters off the southern coast of New South Wales was due to chance, for their swift-moving dorsal fins when seen by the fishermen were thought to be a species of shark. A fisherman when out for salmon, using a hand line with a feathered hook attached, one afternoon was bringing to his boat a fine fighting salmon which was followed by a huge fish. The big fish came to the surface close to the boat-to reveal not only its dorsal fin but its “sword”.

  For some time this was thought to be only a fisherman’s yarn, until Mr Roy Smith determined to test the story, and on 2nd February, 1933, proved its authenticity by capturing with rod and reel a black marlin weighing 262 pounds. Still, doubt remained general that swordfish regularly visited the coast of southern New South Wales, although the fishermen declared that the swift-moving fins had been seen every summer. When Mr Roy Machaelis and Mr W. G. Wallis between them captured nine swordfish in the one day, deep sea anglers the world over began to take notice. The subsequent visit of Mr Zane Grey resulted in Bermagui becoming famous as a centre of big game angling.

  When Angler Ericson and his launchmen on theDo-me vanished, Bermagui suffered a slight setback, for it naturally followed that when an unexplained catastrophe overwhelmed a small launch the other launches were considered to be too frail for the open sea, or too likely to be the victims of whales or mermen, or too liable to strike an uncharted reef. Proof of this came quickly in the form of cancelled bookings of the launches and hotel accommodation.

  The search for theDo-me achieved nothing but the reclamation of one thermos-flask from the sea.

  Detective-Sergeant Allen’s reputation was high, but he was unfortunately a poor sailor. Jack Wilton and Joe took him out to show him the position of theGladious when Remmings last sighted theDo-me, and the position of theDo-me when she was last sighted, but poor Allen became frightfully sea-sick and unable to maintain any interest. Thereafter he confined his investigating to the land.

  One man in Bermagui came to wonder just who and what Mr Ericson had been-and was, if still alive. The secretary of the club followed the intensive and extensive search with both hope for its success and gratification that officialdom was trying so hard, incidentally, to remove the stigma the mystery put upon Bermagui.

  A second plane was sent down from Sydney to assist the first in its thorough examination of the sea and the coast. Allen recommended the empl
oyment of theMarlin, and her crew, to continue making a search for flotsam, and for a little more than a fortnight Wilton and his mate enjoyed government pay. On shore, Sergeant Allen organized two search-parties to explore the base of cliffs and those parts of the coast barred to launches, these men primarily concentrating on the discovery of small items of wreckage not likely to be observed by the air pilots. At the end of three weeks the only clue to the fate of theDo-me was the thermos-flask retrieved from the sea by Wilton.

  Even the flask was not a clue that proved anything. That it belonged to the licensee of the Bermagui Hotel, and that it had been filled with tea and put into Ericson’s lunch basket, was, of course, established; but, there was no proof how it came to be floating in the sea; whether it had been washed off theDo-me when she sank, or had been lost overboard. General opinion favoured the first theory; for, as Joe Peace maintained, had the angler or one of his launchmen accidentally knocked the flask overboard it would have been retrieved. It appeared unlikely that an article such as a thermos-flask would fall overboard unobserved. The angler would take it from the basket, and pour tea from it, whilst he was in his rightful place-the cockpit.

  Joe’s claim to the wide knowledge of the local sea currents, and his ability to follow them, even to “back-track” them, was given little credence by Sergeant Allen, or by Detective-Sergeant Light, who came down to assist him. The small army or reporters were even greater doubters. For a while Bermagui accommodation was taxed to its utmost, and the official search was maintained for three weeks.