Old Absalom looked stunned. He muttered and shook his head and Andrew feared he was going to faint. One of the ladies came and held his arm. Old Absalom then nodded. “Luke boy was not kidding when he say you a Collins then. You the dead spit of Bert Collins.”
“I’m Andrew Collins. This is my sister Carmen,” Andrew said.
Old Absalom bowed and shook her hand, then turned back to Andrew. “Yeah, I read that paper you wrote. Really got us thinking it did.”
“Did you know my grandfather well?” Andrew asked.
“Too right! We dived together for years, off the old Pearl Reef,” Old Absalom replied, his eyes misting with memory.
“So you knew Joshua Murchison too then?” Andrew asked.
Old Absalom snorted and curled his lip. “Him! That no good for nuthin’. Yea, I knew him. Never liked him though and didn’t trust him. Used to feel real uneasy when I was on the bottom an’ him workin’ the pump and lines up top.”
Andrew was surprised at the venom in the old diver’s voice. He said, “We want to find out what really happened to our grandad. You know they found the wreck of the Deeral?”
Moses answered him. “We read about that an’ it got us all speculating. She not anywhere near where the Murchison say she sink. Somethin’ mighty strange about that.”
“We dived on the wreck,” Carmen added.
“You a diver eh?” Old Absalom queried, looking surprised.
Carmen nodded. “Yes, both Andrew and I have qualified as Advanced Open Water Divers. Luke is an open water diver too.”
“Lukey a good boy,” Old Absalom said with evident approval. He then gave a sidelong glance at Moses and added, “Not like some. Back in my day all men were divers- but not women eh?”
Andrew sensed there was some cultural, gender issue here but all he detected was Moses looking a bit uncomfortable and irritated. Old Absalom went on, “So you tell us about this wreck eh?”
This led to a description by Andrew and Carmen of the wreck of the Deeral and its location and condition. When the fact that scuttling charges had sunk her was mentioned all of the listeners nodded their heads and looked serious.
Moses said, “Luke tell us that and we read your paper. Makes us think that there was foul play.”
Luke spoke next. “I reckon they found the gold in that Merinda and then Murchison he bumped them all off to keep it all for himself.”
On hearing his own theory put like that Andrew stared with surprise. He nodded and said, “That’s what I think. But how do we prove it?”
Moses said, “If we could find the wreck of the Merinda we could check to see if the gold is still there. If it isn’t then maybe it was taken.”
At that Jordan gave a chuckle and said, “Finding some gold wouldn’t be a bad thing either.”
“Yeah, but how do we find the wreck of the Merinda?” Moses said. “Lots of guys have tried an’ she sure ain’t layin’ anywhere near where people think.”
“I’ve got an idea where to look,” Andrew commented. “But we’d need a boat.” As he said that he looked around to see where Muriel was. Even as he did he saw her and their eyes met. She was looking in their direction and had a sort of frozen glare on her face. For a full second she held his gaze, then looked away. That sent a wave of uneasiness through Andrew. ‘I hope she doesn’t know what we are talking about,’ he thought.
Unaware of this by-play Moses answered. “We got the boat, but we fishermen, not divers.”
At that Old Absalom snorted, to show what he thought of the soft younger generation. “In my day all warriors worth their salt was divers,” he said.
That obviously stung Moses who retorted, “Yeah well, I got more sense. I seen what live in that sea, an’ it all got big sharp teeth!”
“Huh!” sniffed Old Absalom.
It was obviously an old argument. Andrew wondered how to lead the conversation back but Carmen did it for him. “Never mind that,” she said. “Would you be willing to help, to use your boat?”
“Too right!” Moses agreed.
That made Andrew a bit anxious. “What sort of boat is she? Could we go right out to the outer Barrier Reef in her?”
“Too right. The Moa Mermaid, she a forty foot motor launch. She old, but she seaworthy. She often been out to the reef. But where do we look, and who do the diving- you kids?”
“That’s right,” Andrew replied. Only then did it dawn on him that he had possibly committed himself to more terrifying dives beneath the sea. The thought made him shiver but he pushed the fear into the back of his mind. ‘I want to know,’ he told himself.
“Yeah, but where to look?” put in Jordan, who had been listening with interest. “We can’t just search every reef for hundreds of kilometres. We got a living to make.”
“I’ve got an idea where,” Andrew answered.
“Where?” Moses cried.
“I’d rather not say yet,” Andrew replied. “I have to check something first. If I am right, we can go ahead and do some proper planning.”
Carmen then said, “But it has to be next week, or we leave it till the holidays at the end of the year.”
The thought of waiting another three months filled Andrew with impatient dismay. To his immense satisfaction Moses looked at Jordan and said, “We could go out for a few days next week eh Big J?”
Jordan looked thoughtful and then nodded. “S’pose so. Could do some fishing at the same time as like as not.”
Andrew’s mind had been racing, images of charts filling his mind. He nodded and said, “That would be great, but you would need to be in the Bowen or Whitsundays area.”
Moses nodded. “We figured that. Haven’t been to Bowen for a coupl’a years. Be a nice change. What you say Big J?”
“We couldn’t get there before Monday or Tuesday next week,” Andrew said.
At that Carmen cried, “Steady on Andrew! We have to ask Mum and Dad for permission and we will have to organize buying or hiring diving equipment and so on.”
Moses nodded and said, “OK, you kids ask your parents for permission and then we organize. No point in sailing all the way to Bowen only to find you can’t come.”
They had to leave it at that. The cadets were called to start cleaning up and the guests were requested to leave. After a few final questions and an exchange of phone numbers and addresses they parted. As Andrew and Carmen walked back with Luke to where the cadets were being formed up he was gripped by a fierce desire to learn the truth.
He also got another uneasy qualm when he noticed Muriel looking hard at them. He said, “We had better keep all of this quiet. We don’t want to cause trouble with Muriel.”
As she swerved off to join her division Carmen gave Andrew a half pitying look but nodded. That upset him as he still harboured vague hopes of making it up with Muriel.
There followed several hours of cleaning, packing and loading vehicles. During all of this Andrew fretted with the urgent desire to get to a telephone to call his parents to ask for permission to go looking for the wreck of the Merinda. The possibility that they might forbid any such thing was strong and that gnawed at him. It also made him guiltily aware of Muriel whenever she was near him.
When all the work was done the cadets were allowed free time to socialize. Along with a dozen others Andrew made his way to the public telephone available to the cadets. To his intense frustration he was about tenth in line and could only sit and fret with impatience. As he did his hopes declined by the minute as gloomy negative thoughts crawled into his mind.
‘We had enough trouble persuading Mum and Dad to allow us to do the diving courses,’ he mused, ‘and they were properly conducted by experienced professionals with all the right gear. This will just be us and a couple of fisherman.’
After waiting half an hour, when he was only second in line, Andrew saw Carmen approaching. She smiled and said, “I thought I would find you here. You can come away.”
“Why? I don’t want to lose my place in line,” Andrew answ
ered.
“It doesn’t matter if you do,” Carmen replied. “I have already spoken to Mum and Dad.”
“How?” Andrew asked, annoyed that he had wasted that much time and energy.
“Shona’s mobile phone,” Carmen answered.
“What did they say?” Andrew asked anxiously.
“They said they wanted to know exactly what was being proposed and that we would have to wait till we got home and could tell them in person,” Carmen answered.
That was what Andrew had expected. It clashed with his fierce desire to find out the truth. This was now so strong that he had even begun to consider wild schemes to try to achieve that goal: schemes such as getting off the bus in Bowen on the way home, or of running away from home. The idea of somehow leaving the bus in Bowen he quickly shelved. ‘It would cause too much trouble to the cadet officers,’ he decided. And there were all the practical difficulties of food, money and accommodation, and so on.
Even so the idea kept recurring and as the coach taking them home passed by Bowen the next morning Andrew looked intently out and kept wondering how he could find out the truth. All the Townsville and Cairns cadets travelled home in two hire coaches, along with most of their officers. After the usual farewells they had left Mackay at 0715. It was only as the coach was pulling out of the depot yard that Andrew realized he had forgotten to feel sad about the camp ending, so engrossed was he now in his quest for the truth.
The trip from Mackay to Townsville took five hours, broken by a stop at the Don River Roadhouse just north of Bowen. There was a delay of an hour in Townsville while they had lunch. During that there were more farewells, this time to the Townsville cadets.
“You must come and visit us next holidays,” Martin Schipholl said. This sentiment was echoed by Anne Maudsley, much to Andrew’s embarrassed discomfiture as he thought it was fairly obvious that she was meaning him. That impression was reinforced by the stony looks the suggestion engendered on the faces of Tina and Jennifer. For a moment Andrew was tempted to tell Martin and Anne about the proposed search and to suggest they join them but then he shook his head. ‘No, loose lips sink ships,’ he told himself. ‘They wouldn’t be allowed and would only get in the way. They aren’t divers.’
Then it was another tiring four hours to Cairns with a stop at Cardwell. It was nearly 6pm when the coach arrived at TS ‘Endeavour’. The parents were mostly waiting but another forty minutes went by while stores were unloaded and packed away. Only when that was done were they paraded. Lt Cdr Hazard then congratulated them and thanked them for their good behaviour. Finally they were dismissed.
As they made their way towards the gate, struggling under kitbags and suitcases there was another worrying little incident. Andrew saw Muriel ahead of them and after she greeted her parents she said something that made them turn their heads to look towards him and Carmen. ‘I think she suspects something,’ Andrew thought. Rather than risk an embarrassing incident he looked away and hurried to meet his own mother.
CHAPTER 28
THE CHART
By 11:15 the next morning Andrew and Carmen were afloat on their catamaran, heading down channel towards Trinity Bay. When, after their chores, they had told their mother they were going to the Yacht Club, she had shaken her head and muttered that she would have thought they would have had enough of sailing by now. But, to their great relief, she had not said no, so they had hurried away. Now, dressed in old clothes and carrying a haversack of things they thought they might need, they were on their way to commit a possible crime.
That thought had Andrew in a sweat of anxiety. Normally law abiding he was worried just on that account but there was also the possibility that getting caught and having a criminal record would exclude him forever from his cherished ambition of being an officer in the navy. He did not voice these fears to Carmen as he knew she would at once offer to go in his place and there was no way he would place his sister at risk, not just to save himself!
It was a pleasant day with no clouds and with light winds so the sailing was simplicity itself and he barely noticed it. So skilled and practised were both of them that they instinctively handled the cat as it slid quickly but without fuss over the gentle waves in the lee of the mangroves on the eastern side of the waterway. That was the course they had agreed on, to slip along close to the shore so that for most of the voyage they would be hidden from any watcher at Bosuns Bay. It had the risk that they might be observed by people who knew them (Muriel!) driving in a car along the coast road but, as this only came close to the sea at two points, Andrew did not think that was a big risk.
By 12:40 the cat was passing the group of houses nestled in the little cove just to the south of Bosuns Bay. A small boat ramp and vehicle turnaround had been built on the end of the rocky headland that divided this cove from Bosuns bay. Carmen steered in to the beach near the boat ramp. The cat was beached and then secured to a mangrove that was struggling for existence in the sand. Close above them was the main road, making this the period of greatest danger of being discovered on the approach voyage. Despite this they had agreed the risk had to be run. To try to secure the cat among the rocks of the headland itself was to run the even greater risk of waves grinding it on the rocks, possibly damaging it.
They had of course agreed that sailing into Bosuns Bay in broad daylight would be very poor tactics. So now they set out to make their way around the end of the headland by scrambling across the rocks. This was not particularly difficult but it was hot. Being in the lee of the mountains there was almost no breeze so both were soon perspiring freely. As it was the 3rd of October and thus the start of the Hot Dry Season, this was only to be expected.
As they got closer and closer to Bosuns Bay Andrew became more and more anxious. He was scared and regretted suggesting the raid. However he knew he could not easily back out. Both Carmen and his father wanted to know the truth too and if he backed out he suspected Carmen might try to do it on her own. So, reluctantly, he continued on. As they rounded the end of the headland and more and more of Bosuns Bay came into view the slower he went, pausing behind trees or rocks to scan the view ahead for any sign of people. Seeing no-one he continued on, creeping from rock to rock.
Ten minutes of careful approach had brother and sister among the big boulders near where the small creek came down to the beach. It was only then that Andrew realized they had both walked on the beach and left a trail of very clear footprints. “We must brush these out as we leave,” he whispered to Carmen.
Their plan, already agreed on, was to creep up the creek line and study the house before trying to sneak in (How Andrew hated that word sneak!). From where they were they could just make out the boathouse but the main house was not visible. By creeping forward through the trees and bushes Andrew was able to ascertain that the boathouse was closed up and locked. That was a mild disappointment as he was curious to know if the lifebuoy was still hanging inside. His supposition was that, if Old Mr Murchison really had something to hide, he would have now disposed of it, in an attempt to get ready of any incriminating evidence.
It was exactly that fear that was now motivating Andrew to make this attempt to find the old chart- if it was still there. ‘And if it actually has anything to do with the mystery,’ he thought, unhappily aware that a pencil line on an old chart might mean nothing. ‘It might be pure coincidence and have nothing to do with the disappearance of the Deeral at all,’ he told himself.
Having often seen old pencil lines on other charts Andrew was only too aware that this might be a wild goose chase. Worse was the thought that he might be about to wreck his whole life over a mere hunch, a supposition that had no foundation in fact. Glancing back at Carmen and seeing her urging him to go on did not help. He had put all these gloomy thoughts to her and she had insisted they still had to try.
The creek was easy to move up. There was only the tiniest trickle of water and the rocks were dry and easy to climb over or walk on. Five minutes of slow scrambling had the pair up le
vel with the house. This was just visible all the time, glimpsed through the foliage. Andrew now crept out of the creek line to a better point of vantage and carefully studied the house. What he found was that he was actually too close to it to see much. From the edge of the scrub he could see the side and roof but not the back patio or garden.
What he did note with real satisfaction though was that the doors of the garage were open. ‘All I have to do is slip in there for a minute and it is done,’ he told himself. But he also discovered that it was a lot easier said than done. He found that his heart rate had shot right up and that his palms had gone sweaty.
Making his way slowly and carefully back to where Carmen waited (and annoyed at the unavoidable crackling of dead leaves under his gym boots) he told her what he had seen.
“I will just nip in now,” he whispered.
“Not yet. Let’s go right up to the road and check the side windows and the front of the house first,” Carmen cautioned.
Andrew agreed that was sensible so they continued up the creek to the small concrete bridge. Seeing it caused Andrew a flood of memories of Muriel. It seemed only yesterday that he had followed her under it. That thought caused a sharp pang of regret that hurt more than seemed fair.
Carmen studied the front of the house and the driveway, then said, “No other cars parked outside. That should mean that only the two old folks are at home.”
Andrew nodded. What he had feared was finding Muriel and her family there. If there were only two elderly people in the house then that improved the chances of successfully carrying out the raid (He preferred to use that term with its military connotations as a sop to his conscience). Heartened by that thought he led the way back down the creek until they were level with the open garage door.
Once there he crept forward from tree to tree, pausing frequently to study the side windows and to listen. The only sounds he could hear were the gentle rustle of leaves in the breeze, the swash of small waves on the beach, and the hum of insects. The house appeared silent and deserted. Tensing himself for action Andrew glanced back at Carmen and nodded. She was to stay outside on watch.
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