Death of a Lake

by Arthur W. Upfield

  They passed through low scrub and over ragged ridges and the world was utterly still and strangely stereoscopic, the only movement being the twisting column ahead. They saw that the quarters were safe, and the tops of the pepper trees were thrashing in the updraught created by the red remains of the large house. The machinery shed and the store and other buildings were warped but not ignited.

  Lester they found bending over someone sitting in the armchair on the veranda of the quarters. He didn’t notice the arrival of the utility, or of the travellers until they stepped up to the veranda and Barby said:

  “You been tryin’ to singe the flies, Bob?”

  Lester straightened, and they saw the occupant of the chair was Joan. Lester’s face was drawn by obvious shock, and he forgot to sniffle.

  “Yair,” he said. “Ma got caught.”

  The girl stared at the smouldering ruin, her hands pressed between her knees. As though whimpering she said:

  “I couldn’t get her out. I tried ... I couldn’t.”

  “I was sitting here having a cat-nap,” Lester put in. “I hear a roar and I thinks it’s a willi passing by, till Joan run over and woke me up. Then the ruddy house was going up swoosh, and there wasn’t a chance to get near it. Burned faster than dead buckbush in hell.”

  “It would in a shade temperature of 117 degrees,” agreed Bony, and Lester snorted without sniffling.

  “Hundred and seventeen!” he echoed. “A hundred and twenty-one when I came back from lunch.”

  “No one else home?” asked Bony, who had unconsciously taken command of the situation.

  Lester shook his head. Joan repeated her whispered statement, then she sat upright and looked dazedly at Bony.

  “I was reading in my room, and Mum was lying down in her room. All of a sudden I was surrounded by smoke and flames. I ran to Mum’s room, but she had fainted or something, and I dragged her off the bed, but I had to leave her. The house was crashing ... I couldn’t stop with her.”

  Smoke stains and ash streaked her face and arms. As she continued to stare at the ruins, Bony turned her chair from the picture of desolation. Her hands remained clasped between her knees as though to control their trembling, and he left her to procure aspirin and water.

  “Take these,” he said, his voice hard in an effort to defeat possible hysteria. “Bob, boil a billy and brew some tea. Make it strong.” The girl swallowed the tablets obediently. Gently Bony patted her shoulder. “Cry if you can, Joan. It’ll help.”

  He left Barby with her. Lester was making a fire behind the building. He crossed to the machinery shed, noted how close it and the store had come to destruction. The smoke column was now a thin spiral, and high in the sky the smoke had solidified to a huge white cloud. Wherever the overseer was, he must see that cloud.

  Of the house nothing remained bar the roof iron now lying upon the grey ash. Even the three chimneys had collapsed. He was able to draw close enough to see the remains of the iron bedsteads and their wire mattresses, the cooking range and several iron pots and boilers, the piping carrying the power lines, the steel safe where the office had been.

  Joan Fowler was fortunate to have escaped, for certainly she would have been given no more than a few seconds to get out of the inferno.

  It occurred to him that the heat of the ruin was barely higher than the heat of the sun. There was no doubt concerning the abnormal heat of the early afternoon, and he could imagine the temperature within the house before the fire started. Even the bedrooms would be like fired ovens, and to lie on a bed, fully dressed, would be an ordeal. Joan had said she was reading in her room when smoke and flame surrounded her, and that her mother was lying in her bedroom.

  That worried him as he sauntered about the huge oblong of grey ruin which had been a house.

  On the far side of the site the few citrus trees were beyond salvation, and the garden was destroyed. At the bottom of the garden stood the fowl-house, intact, and within the netted yard were the bodies of several hens. Their white shapes drew Bony. He wondered if they had been killed by the heat of the sun or the heat of the fire. His own throat was already stiff with thirst.

  Farther on beyond the garden fence grew an ancient red gum. It stood on the slope of the bluff and when Bony went on to the fence he was out of sight of those on the veranda of the men’s quarters. There was a gate in the fence, and he wasn’t mistaken by that which had drawn him to it. On the red ground was a gold ring set with sapphires. It lay in the half-moon depression made by the heel of a woman’s shoe, and because, as always, he had noted and memorized the tracks of everyone living here, he knew that the impression had been made by Joan when returning through the garden to the house, from one of the two house lavatories.

  These structures were farther down the slope and fifty yards apart. The imprints on the path leading to each revealed which of these was used solely by the women.

  He retrieved the sapphire ring, and remembered having seen this ring worn by Mrs Fowler. He recalled that Joan was now wearing her lounge clothes, a jewelled bow in her hair. Also that she was wearing the wristlet watch given her by Lester, and an opal bracelet thought by Witlow to have been subscribed by Martyr.

  He followed the path to the lavatory visited by the women.

  Behind the door, suspended from a hook, was an old and shabby handbag, and as he examined the contents his eyes were hard and his mouth grim. There was a lipstick in a studded holder; a gold-etched compact and cigarette-case; a few bobby pins; a bank-book in Joan Fowler’s name showing a credit of £424 6s.; and a roll of treasury notes bound with darning wool. And a gold brooch set with opals, an emerald ring, and a wristlet watch.

  The jewellery belonged to the late Mrs Fowler.

  Chapter Seventeen

  After the Fire

  BONY RETURNED items to the handbag and the bag to its nail behind the door. He crossed to the other toilet, found nothing, and detoured to arrive at the pepper trees behind the outbuildings. The dogs welcomed him, unconscious of their good fortune, unaware of the effect of the fire upon the upper portion of the trees. He spoke to them, patted several, and passed round to the front to regard with studied interest the warped walls and doors of the machinery shed and other buildings. Like a man shocked by the catastrophe, he wandered to the edge of the hot ruin, remained for a while, and finally joined Lester and Barby, with Joan Fowler, on the quarters veranda.

  They barely noticed him, each seemingly engrossed by a private problem. Lester had brewed tea, and Bony helped himself and squatted on his heels to roll and smoke a cigarette. Presently Barby said:

  “No hope of phoning to the homestead, I suppose?”

  “Don’t think,” replied Lester. “There was a coupla spare instruments, but they were inside the office when I last seen ’em.”

  “Where did Martyr go?”

  “Went out to Winter’s Mill with Carney. Took the ute.”

  “Take ’em an hour and a half to get home ... after they seen the smoke,” Barby estimated. “Just as well make ourselves comfortable.”

  “Can’t we get Mum out of that?” complained Joan, and wasn’t answered till she repeated her remark.

  “She ain’t feelin’ nothing,” Lester pointed out. “Hell, it’s hot, all right. Couldn’t be worse droving a mob of rams on the plains. What d’you reckon, George? Reckon Martyr’ll take the lot of us to the River homestead?”

  “Don’t think. Take Joan in, of course.”

  “Go to the River!” the girl exclaimed. “I’m not leaving here.”

  The suggestion banished the lethargy of shock, and her eyes blazed at Barby as though he dictated her future. He stroked his moustache with the mouth of his pipe and regarded her, calmly frigid.

  “There’s no argument. I’m not the Boss.”

  “But why should I leave here?” persisted the girl. “I’ll be all right. I can cook here when you bring things from Sandy Well to cook with. Besides, I’m not leaving Mum ... like that.”

  Barby got
up from the packing-case, and strolled into the sunlight and over to the smouldering ash. The girl watched him under partially lowered lids, her mouth twitching and her hands never still. Now and then the light was caught by the jewelled hair-clip and opal bracelet. Abruptly, she stood, and, as abruptly, Lester stood, too.

  “Better not go over, Joan,” he advised. “Better stay here. Nothink to see over there, anyhow. Ash’ll cover up everything.”

  “I...” Joan resumed her chair, and Bony knew she was as surprised as he was by the revelation of Lester’s mental strength under crisis. Lester refilled the pannikins, and presently Barby came back. He nodded acceptance of the tea, stirred it with the splinter of wood serving as a spoon and sat upon his heels with the ease of the native-born. And the girl waited a long time before she burst out with:

  “Well, did you see anything of Mum?”

  “Pipe down, Joan,” snarled Barby. “Nothing to see. Think about something pleasant, can’t you?”

  “No, I can’t, and don’t talk to me like that, George.”

  “Got to, Joan, or you’ll start a tantrum, and then I’ll have to slap you out of it. It’s too hot to argue.”

  “Well, I’m not going to leave here, no matter what Martyr says.”

  She looked at each of them as though hoping they would argue with her. Lester sniffled and snorted noisily. Barby seemed interested in the last spiral of smoke rising straight and slowly from the twisted iron sprawled upon the ground like the backs of sleeping beasts. Bony pretended to doze. It seemed hours before they heard the returning utility.

  Martyr stopped his truck at the machinery shed, and he and Carney remained in it as they stared at the débris. Those on the veranda waited and watched, until the overseer and Carney left the vehicle and walked to the edge of the ashes. They stayed there for several minutes before Martyr came to the quarters. His light-grey eyes were steel discs in his weathered face.

  “How did it happen?” he asked.

  “Don’t know,” replied Lester. “I was having a shuteye after lunch. I heard what I thought was a passing willi-willi, and took no notice until Joan shook me awake and I seen her going up ... the house, I mean.”

  “Mrs Fowler?”

  “She got caught.”

  The light-grey eyes turned to the girl, concentrated on her for a second, seemed to leap away from her to Barby, and returned to Joan. “Tell me about it,” he said, and the girl faltered:

  “I ran to her room. I tried to drag her out. She was in a faint or something, or unconscious from the smoke. I got her off her bed, but I couldn’t get her out of her room. The place was full of flames all round. She was too heavy, and I couldn’t breathe. I ... We must get her out of that.”

  Martyr sat on the case. Carney leaned against one of the veranda posts, his face blank but his brown eyes nervous. The girl lay back in the arm-chair, her eyes closed, restless fingers rotating the opal links of her bracelet. The men waited for the overseer, who apparently needed time to plan action. And Bony felt rather than witnessed growing elation in him.

  “It’s a rotten mess,” Martyr said in his terse manner. “How much spare tucker have you, George?”

  “Enough for a couple of days, but flour only for tomorrow,” replied Barby, anticipating the questioner’s mind.

  “Where are you camped?”

  “Johnson’s.”

  “Take the men back with you. You fellows roll your swags and camp with George.” A faint smile flickered about Martyr’s mouth. “Give George a hand with the rabbits tonight ... to earn your tucker. Harry, fill the ute tank and look to the oil. Joan, you’ll come with me to Sandy Well, and then on to the River.”

  “But why?” Joan sprang to her feet. “I’m all right here. I can cook here instead of Mum.”

  “What in? What clothes? What’ll you cook?”

  The girl’s eyes grew big and almost baleful. There was nothing of resignation in her, or supplication. Carney stilled against his veranda post to watch her with admiration, her head flung back, breasts lifted high and her green eyes flashing. Bony thought of Boadicea.

  “What in?” she shrilled. “A pair of Mac’s spare pants and one of your silk shirts.”

  “My silk shirts are fired to ash.”

  “Then Lester can lend me one. What’s it matter? You bring back some cooking things from Sandy Well. And flour and rations. I’ll manage to cook on the open hearth of the sitting-room. I’m not leaving, I tell you.”

  “All right,” Martyr said slowly and with emphasis. “But you are not staying here. You can go with the fellows to Johnson’s Well, and you can damn well do the cooking there. There’s no window to the hut and the door won’t shut, but no one will mind that. I’m sure. Come on, Harry. Help me fuel the ute and I’ll get going to Sandy Well and the telephone. I’ll leave you to see that Joan goes to Johnson’s. And no fighting over her before I get back with the Boss and the police.”

  Save for Carney, who crossed to the utility, they presented a tableau. The girl defiant, her mouth curved upwards; the overseer silently taunting her to stick to her guns; Lester and Barby waiting with cynical tensity for her final choice.

  “That’ll do me,” she said, and Martyr turned and walked after Carney.

  Ten minutes, and the utility was served, and the overseer returned to the quarters, to address the men.

  “No one is to interfere with the remains of the house, you understand. As soon as practicable. Sergeant Mansell will be out from Menindee, and he’ll be in charge. That’s the drill.”

  “Righto, Mr Martyr,” Lester said and sniffled before adding: “We’ll get along.”

  The overseer cogitated, regarding each of them in turn, coming in the end to Joan Fowler and staying with her a fraction longer than necessary.

  “Wait for Mac, George, before you push off,” he said, and turned away.

  He backed into the utility, slammed the door, started the engine. They watched the dust rising behind the wheels as it sped up the long rise, and no one spoke till after the machine disappeared over the distant crest dancing in the heat. Carney sat on the veranda step and rolled a cigarette. Lester appeared to expect to see the utility reappear and come speeding down the rise. Bony drank more tea.

  It was not a situation the girl could stand. She jumped to her feet, and Carney swung round to look at her.

  “Well, if you all won’t talk, I’ve something to do,” she said, almost shouting, and made to pass Carney.

  “You heard what Martyr said,” Carney quietly reminded her. “No interfering with the fire ashes.”

  “Damn you, Harry! And the fire ashes, too. Let me pass. You can come with me if you like ... right to the door.”

  Carney was young enough to blush his embarrassment, but he managed a chuckle and airily replied that such a walk would be fine. The others watched them skirt the house site, to pass beyond the back of the bluff and towards the lower garden gate. When Carney’s head only was in sight, he stopped and the girl went on. Lester sniggered, and Barby pointed out MacLennon, who was arriving at the yards.

  MacLennon didn’t dismount. He rode on to the quarters, astonishment depicted clearly on his unshaven, broad face.

  “Someone play bonfires?” he asked.

  “Yair,” replied Lester.

  “Thought the wild blacks had attacked the joint,” Mac-Lennon remarked, with ill-disguised casualness. Slipping off the sweat-drenched horse, he tethered the reins to the veranda rail, and almost fell upon the tea billy. “What a bloody day! Anyone under the iron?” “Ma Fowler.”

  “You don’t say, Bob! You shove her back in after the fireworks started?”

  “S’far as I know, she never got out to be shoved back in,” Lester drawled. “I was having a shut-eye when Joan woke me up with the news.”

  “Where’s she?”

  “Over in the Little Bungalow. Harry took her halfway.” MacLennon put down the empty billy-can, wiped his mouth with a forearm, regarded Lester with sombre eyes, and Lester added ha
stily: “Martyr said none of us was to go delving for Ma. Harry’s seeing to it that Joan don’t do no delving, see?”

  “D’you think you’re gonna stop me doing a bit of delving?” enquired MacLennon.

  “Caw, blimey!” exploded Barby. “Pipe down, you blokes. What’s rasping you all the time? A woman gets burned up in a fire, and it’s a police job. You got brains, I suppose. Martyr’s gone for help, and tucker, and other things ... including the Boss and the police. And you’re all coming over to camp at my place.”

  Bony slipped into his room, selected a few things and rolled his blankets into a swag. He dropped the swag outside the bedroom window, climbed after them, carried it to Barby’s utility. He was “meandering” about the machine shed when Carney and Joan returned to the quarters, and when the men were rolling swags for the move, he slipped away down the shoulder of the bluff and so to the “Little Bungalow”.

  The handbag behind the door was empty.

  He emerged from behind the line of partially burned pepper trees when Lester and Carney brought their dunnage from the quarters to the utility and MacLennon was freeing his horse, and he was confident that none of them had been observing him.

  Carney loosed the dogs, and they raced the horse to the trough. Bony was first aboard the truck, standing immediately behind its cabin on that side where Joan would enter. He was thus able to look down at her when she drew near and when she was about to step into the cabin. She was wearing a blouse of cream pleated silk, now soiled by smoke and ash. The plunging neckline, as he had anticipated, revealed a glimpse, nestling deep down, of the blue bank-book he had seen in the old handbag.

  It was ten to five. The water-saturated dogs loped behind the vehicle which Barby drove unhurriedly. Nothing else stirred in all the land, the invisible host of rabbits crouching in shade and burrow, the invisible birds clinging to the shadows falling upon branches and even upon the ground. Nothing else moved but the eyes of watchful kangaroos, and the sky was void save for the watching, waiting eagles.