For a moment or two Joe still held the attention of the detective. Bony was interested in Joe’s enormous calloused feet and his agility which seemed, when needed, to uncoil like the quickening of a sleepy snake. Then other things claimed Bonaparte. The engine of the craft on which he stood roared with power and the jetty slid away. The scene turned half circle, and they were moving down-river towards the narrows. Joe came aft as lightly as a cat, to unwind a light line and to toss its feathered hook overside.
“Get a holt, mister,” he rumbled, proffering the line to his angler. “Want bait-fish.”
A second line he let go astern, and to Bony it seemed that the rock-footed promontory on the one side and the steep-sided sand-bar on the other were closing in to pinch the Marlin. The water under them began to boil. Little wavelets darted over the cauldron as though animated by hidden springs. The stern of the Marlin sank downward and then the bow thudded and spray hissed outward. They were on the bar and the entire craft lifted above the river water they had left. Now they were over the bar and in the bay, and the action of the Marlin was regular—rising and falling.
The promontory protecting the river’s mouth fell astern, and Bony saw the white sweep of the little inner bay extending round in a white-edged crescent to skirt the township and to end at the base of the great protective headland jutting northward. Eastward beyond that tongue of rock-armoured land lay the Tasman Sea. Northward he gazed across the great bay to Cape Dromedary, blue in the distance and guarded by the tall mountain of the same name.
The long ground swells were advancing majestically shoreward, smooth-sloped and dull green in colour. Up and over them moved the Marlin, two craft ahead of her, another coming out round the promontory.
“Fish-oh!” shouted Joe, and in that instant of time Bony’s line was tugged so heavily as to be almost taken through his clenched hand. The launch engine at once accelerated when the propeller shaft was put out of gear by Wilton. Bony found himself frantically hauling in his tautened line, was conscious that Joe was acting similarly. Now both lines were cutting the water as the hooked fish swam powerfully to the right and left. With a heave Joe jerked his catch into the cockpit, but Bony permitted his to jump the side of the launch and so lost it.
“Lift ’em clear, or you’ll lose ’em every time,” Joe urged.
“I’ll try to remember to,” assented the smiling Bony, and it was then that Joe summed up this new angler. Here was no haughty know-all.
Out went the bait lines and onward went the Marlin. In the bait-box the two-pound salmon snapped like a machine-gun.
“You see, as the boat’s going when we hook ’em don’t begin to haul ’em in until the speed of the boat slackens,” advised Joe. “Now look out! We’re coming to another shoal.”
This time Bony joined Joe in the shout of “fish-oh”, and waited until the launch lost speed before beginning to haul in. He lifted into the cockpit a blue-green bonito, a species of tuna, weighing about a pound and a half, and he was astonished to see Joe taking from his hook a similar fish of the same weight.
“That’s the sort,” chortled Joe. “Just the right size for the swordies, and their favourite. Going to try ’em again, Jack. There they are!”
Wilton swung the Marlin round again to cross over the shoal, and two more bonito were added to the bait-box.
“That’ll be enough,” called Wilton. “We’re lucky this morning to get bait-fish so quick. Come and take the wheel, Joe. We’ll go straight out as the wind might move to the east’ard during the day.”
Beyond the tip of the headland, the chop from the south caused the Marlin to roll as she climbed up and over and down the endless swells. Other launches were still engaged getting bait-fish, trolling close to the ugly rocks, obedient to the master at the wheel. Out here the surge was attacking the Marlin, taking her high and dropping her low, her white wake lying astern like the track of a scenic railway. Bony stood leaning back against the stern rail, watching the other launches, the receding coast, and Wilton, who was pushing outward to either side from amidship a long pole from the point of which fell a light rope line. To these lines were attached brightly painted cylinders of wood which, when tossed overboard and dragged by the lines, darted beneath and skimmed over the surface like torpedoes gone mad. Teasers, Wilton explained to Bony, and then came aft to join him.
To the end of the cord line on the drum of the huge reel fixed to the butt of the rod, which in turn was swivelled to the edge of one of the two angler’s chairs, Wilton fastened one end of a twenty-foot long wire trace. At the other end was the hook, almost the size of a man’s hand. On the hook he placed one of the recently caught bonito, further securing it with a section of cord. Finally he slipped the bait-fish over the stern and it dropped back some thirty odd feet and skimmed the surface like a small motor-boat, escorted either side by a darting teaser.
“D’you see, Bony, the bait-fish and the two teasers look to a shark or swordie just like a small shoal of fish following the launch for protection,” Wilton explained. “Now you sit here with a leg either side the rod. That’s right. You leave the rod resting on the stern rail. This spoked wheel at the side of the reel is the brake, and you must remember that you can easily put on brakage enough either to break the line or the rod. Just you work it for a bit, and try it for yourself. Have on only sufficient brakage to resist the water on the bait-fish.”
“Oh! Ah, yes! I see! I’ve mastered it. What else?”
“It’s the angler’s job to watch his bait-fish and the sea on the stern quarters. It’s our job to keep watch on the sea for’ard and on both beams for a fin, or for shoal fish where it’s likely a swordie will be.
“All you’ll see of a swordie will be his fin sticking above water and cutting it like a knife. When you see one you yell out “fish-oh”, but for crikey’s sake don’t lift the rod or do anything with the line or reel. Let him come after the bait-fish. Let him take it, and the moment he does you whip off the brake and prevent the line over-running by pressing on the revolving drum with your left hand. Have a glove on, of course. Anyway, before then I’ll be with you, and if you do just what I tell you, and don’t get excited, we’ll get him.”
“A fish may come after the bait-fish any second?” pressed the thrilling Bony.
“Any second. And you may have to wait only a minute or as long as a week.”
“All right.”
“Now just you have a practice with that brake, and when done troll the bait-fish at that distance astern. I’ll go for’ard and see what I can see.”
When Bony was satisfied that he understood the action of the brake on the reel, he gazed out over the sea—to landward to observe the headland shrinking downward and becoming submerged in the general green of the coast; to the north where on a “pimple” he could see the white stick of Montague lighthouse; to the east as far as the faint line of the horizon; to the south beyond the battlemented Bunga Head.
The wind was freshly cool. The sea was a bluish-green. The white caps surmounting the southerly chop were quite gentle in action, and appeared to be impishly daring the mighty swells coming from the east and ignoring them.
Bony filled his lungs with the clean salt air—and thought of his eternal cigarettes. He thought, too, of poor Sergeant Allen, who could not appreciate this riding over the sea on a horse of wood encased with copper. For the first time in his career the thrill of hunting a man was subordinated to the thrill of hunting a giant fish, and he blessed his lucky star for directing his footsteps to Sydney at the moment when the Chief Commissioner was despairing that his friend’s murder would remain for ever a mystery unsolved.
This new assignment had certainly resulted from fortuitous circumstances. In Sydney on research work connected with the agitation of sand-grains by wind, he had been asked to call on the Chief Commissioner who had admitted the defeat of his best men to solve this mystery of the sea. Then it had been suggested to the Queenslander that he take over the investigation.
Bony asked for the history of the case and all the statements obtained, and for a day to study this collection of matter. It became obvious that the Do-me and those on board her had not been destroyed by natural causes. The recovery of the angler’s head from the sea bottom did more than suggest a murder: it raised the probability that one or both of the launchmen were still alive and that the launch itself was hidden somewhere along the coast. The lack of flotsam supported this idea, but the known history and character of the launchmen, as well as Ericson’s plans for settling at Bermagui, raised another probability that they as well as the angler had been murdered.
A survey of the investigation conducted by Allen and Light, then by Handy and his assistant, produced the belief in Bony’s mind that the attack on the mystery had failed because one sector was weak. Assuming that the crime had been committed at sea, then the scene of the crime had not been thoroughly examined when it ought to have received the closest attention. The fate of the launch and the three men in her had been attacked from the wrong angle.
Although Bonaparte was the vainest of men, and one of the proudest, he never failed to understand his own limits, and when he decided to accept the assignment he clearly saw that the sea was not his element as was the Inland of Australia. The sea might easily defeat him when the bush had never done so; and, in undertaking this case of the missing launch, he would be accepting a grave risk of defeat. This in itself would be a small thing in his amazingly successful career but one of vast importance in its psychological effect upon his future.
Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, the son of an aboriginal woman and a white man, was what he was this day, here on the sea angling for swordfish off Bermagui, because of the pride based on continued success in his chosen career. It was this pride of accomplishment which sustained him and prevented the bush from claiming him body and soul as it claims all whose heredity is rooted in it. It was as though pride was a plank floating on the Ocean of Life, and he a castaway clinging to the plank. Should the plank become water-logged he would sink into the depths there to perish as Detective-Inspector Bonaparte and to exist as Bony, a half-caste nomad.
Sitting there in the angler’s chair and waiting for a fin to appear and come racing after his bait-fish, he realized the risk of failure, and its inevitable result, which he had entailed when accepting the assignment. Nevertheless he felt pride in his pride, was thankful that he had taken the course he had taken, and knew that had he declined the assignment through fear of failure fear for ever would be a positive menace.
On no, this was not his natural background, this heaving water which retained nothing on its surface for long. This was 11th January, and the genesis of the case, dated 3rd October, was out here far from land. Life and the elements leave their records on the bush for years; but here on the sea life and the elements left no record for even such as he to read.
In all his bush cases he had had many allies: the birds and the insects; the ground which was like the pages of a huge book wherein were printed the acts of all living things; the actions of rain and sunlight and wind. And greater than all these added together was his ally Time. And now of all his former allies only Time was with him.
He had recognized this, too, when accepting the assignment, for there was no hint of compulsion about its acceptance. Here was a case which would truly try his mettle by reason of the fact that he would be removed from his background to one quite unfamiliar, and this was recognized by the New South Wales Police Commissioner as clearly as by Bony himself. When he decided to accept it, Colonel Spendor, his chief, was asked for the loan of his services, and this time had not put a period to Bony’s absence from his own State.
There had been raised the subject of abnormal expenses: for Bony saw that to reach the point of being able to reconstruct the affair of the Do-me, even in theory, would mean the engagement of a launch and fishing for swordfish, the imbibing of sea lore from men familiar with it from childhood, and the making of this sea background almost if not quite as familiar as his own background. To achieve this his expenses would be high: three pounds a day for the launch, a fiver a week for the tackle, four guineas a week for hotel accommodation, items rarely found in a detective officer’s expense-book.
“Among Ericson’s effects was his will,” began Mr MacColl. “He had neither wife nor kin to whom to leave his money, and he left it to me. I shall not object, Bonaparte, if all that money is spent on finding the man who killed my friend. Do not think of the expense: give all your thoughts to finding Ericson’s murderer.”
So Time, limitless Time, was his, even if Time demanded much money. He could ignore Time and Time would be his ally. He could impinge himself upon this unfamiliar background, and make this changing and yet changeless sea give up its hidden clues.
The soft and pleasant hours passed, during which one part of his brain considered the problem of the Do-me and the other part remained alert for the coming of a giant fish. But no fin appeared to come knifing after the skimming bait-fish seemingly so detached from the launch and always so frantically swimming after it as though fearful of being left behind to the mercy of hidden monsters. Joe was relieved at the wheel and he went for’ard to stand with one hand gripping the mast to assist balance whilst scanning the sea. When he came aft again to take over the wheel, Wilton brought Bony’s and his own lunch and sat in the vacant angler’s chair.
The conversation during the half-hour he was there was—swordfishing.
When Joe took his place to eat his lunch, his conversation was—swordfishing.
Bony learned a great deal and hoped he would remember at least a little of what he had learned if a swordfish ran away with the bait-fish. He was impressed by the quiet enthusiasm in the voices of these two men who might well have been expected to be bored with this incessant chase after fish to be caught by other men. He was struck by the extraordinary similarity of these seamen with bushmen who are such keen observers of their background, men who think and reason and wonder, and he became glad that he had undertaken this investigation and had laid down the conditions of himself becoming an angler.
By lunch-time the morning chop had abated and the wind had become a cooling zephyr. When one of the escorting teasers dived deep the clarity of the water amazed him. The coast was a mere dark line above and beyond which rose the inland hills, the whole dominated by Dromedary Mountain. They were seven miles out and not far from Swordfish Reef, although Bony did not know it.
He was standing over his rod when he fancied he saw a surface shadow beside one of the teasers. This shadow fell back a little and drifted across the stern to the port teaser. But there were no clouds today, and the birds were absent. And then just behind the port teaser rose a streamlined triangular fin.
“Fish-oh!” he shouted.
Upward along his back flashed an exquisite sensation. The blood rushed to his head and drummed in his ears. His feet and finger-tips tingled, and a coldness took charge of his brain. The fin was apparently attempting to nuzzle the teaser, and it created a little wave as though it were the sharp bow of a fast ship. He heard Joe shout. He heard Wilton’s rubber-shod feet thud into the cockpit. He wanted to turn and draw their attention to the fin, and found himself unable.
“Pull in that starboard teaser, Joe. Quick! Sit down, Bony! Pull on your gloves. Watch him. Off with the brake if he takes the bait-fish. Remember what I told you.”
Inboard came the coloured cylinders of wood, leaving the bait-fish alone to fall victim. The fin sank, vanished. Joe stood with one hand on the wheel and the other on the engine clutch. Wilton stood now behind his angler, slipping about Bony’s body the leather harness which he clipped to the rod reel.
“That’s right! Stay quiet. Don’t raise the rod. Whip off the brake when I say so, and press on the cord on the drum when it runs out so that it won’t over-run when the fish stops.”
The division of Bony’s brain now gave attention to the sea about the bait-fish and the quiet voice behind him. He w
as fastened to the rod and reel, but the butt of the rod was swivelled to the chair and there was no possibility of his being dragged overboard.
“Ah—there he is!” Wilton cried. “A nice fish, too! Here he comes. Don’t move the rod. Let him take the bait and run, and be ready to off with the brake. Remember what I said. He’ll go like hell with the bait-fish in his gummy mouth, then he’ll stop to chew it a bit and swallow it head first. Then, when he feels the hook or the trace, up he’ll come, and that will be the moment to strike. He’s got to come up to get rid of the hook, or try to, ’cos he can’t swim backward, and you mustn’t let him swim forward.”
A shark’s fin has a zigzagging action, ungainly and brutish. This fin maintained a comparative straight course, it had again appeared a hundred yards astern the launch, and now it came on with astonishing speed after the bait-fish. Bony imagined the bait-fish imbued with life; imagined its tortured instinct to escape; realized the hopelessness of out-distancing that pursuing fin. The fin came on to keep pace for a fraction just behind the bait-fish. It appeared to hover there for many minutes which actually were split seconds. Then it vanished.
“The ruddy cow!” roared Joe.
“Never mind,” Wilton urged quietly. “He’ll come again. He’s a bit suspicious; that’s all.”
When Joe again spoke his disgust had become fury.
“He won’t come no more,” he shouted. “It was them teasers what done it. Just our luck he’d want to take a look-see at one of them and not the bait-fish. Pity we never seen him. Didn’t you see him before he came under them teaser, Bony?”
“No. And I only saw him under the water, not his fin. He looked like a dark shadow.
“Take a circle, Joe. We might pick him up again,” Wilton ordered.
The launch circled for ten minutes, but the fin did not again appear, and the Marlin continued her trolling.
“Bit of bad luck, what,” Wilton cheerfully informed his angler. “Never mind. There’s plenty more between here and New Zealand.”
Bony - 07 - The Mystery of Swordfish Reef Page 6
