Then Marco went down with a swearing crash and she realized it was just as hard for the men. Hearing his curses lifted Tina’s spirits and she managed a grin. A glance back showed her that Neville was still leaping and jumping in her wake but he was not looking happy. Nor was he catching up. Marco scrambled to his feet and set off after her again.
The frantic pursuit went on for another hundred metres. Tina floundered and pushed her way down a long slope to an overgrown creek line. This baulked her for a few seconds but she then gritted her teeth and leapt into the long grass and water of the small creek and then clawed her way up the other side.
Marco was close behind by then and almost grabbed her by the ankle as she scrambled up the steep slope out of the creek. Neville came slithering down into the creek as she pushed through a tangle of vines and scrub on the other bank. Marco began climbing after her, uttering a stream of revolting threats and obscenities as he did.
Fear had Tina in its grip and desperation drove her on. She crashed through a belt of scrub, tripped on a vine, rolled over and sprang to her feet and continued running even before Marco was up out the creek bed.
Tina ran on, her breathing laboured and her legs and arms feeling heavier every second. She knew she was close to the end and there seemed to be no end to the forest. It changed slightly to include thickets of smaller trees and more ferns than grass but she was still able to force a path. For lack of a better option she kept running towards the rising sun, angling slightly to the left to keep the direct rays out of her eyes.
The men began closing the gap. After another hundred paces Marco was only ten paces behind and Neville only twice that. By then Tina was almost reeling with exhaustion. She was gasping in great gulps and the agonizing stitch was gripping her lower abdomen. She began to despair.
Then Marco slowed. Tina heard Neville snarl at him to keep running and she risked a glance behind. She saw Neville limp over to Marco and grab his sleeve.
“Keep running! We’ve almost got her,” he shouted.
“Can’t! I’m buggered,” Marco gasped in reply. Tina saw that his whole huge frame was heaving as he sucked in air.
“But she will get away,” Neville cried, turning to glare at Tina.
Marco shook his head, “So what? Let’s get out of here while we still can.”
Neville swore and then lifted a small radio or mobile phone to his head. “Danny, bring the vehicle to the old timber cutter’s camp,” he said. Then he turned to face Tina and shouted, “I will get you, you bitch!”
When Tina heard the threat she shuddered and a chill seemed to grip her heart. Despite the fear her mind told her to get her breath back so she slowed to a walk. All she felt like doing was collapsing but she made herself keep on moving as fast as she could. The men followed but only at a walk. Tina suddenly felt a ray of hope. ‘I am getting away,’ she thought, noting that she was now nearly fifty paces ahead of the men.
For the next ten minutes she pushed on eastwards through the forest, ignoring the bruises and scratches and the leaves sticking to her skin. She recovered her breath but felt very tired. But the knowledge that the men were still following kept her moving. Gritting her teeth she pushed herself. Slowly the distance between them and her increased until they were at least a hundred paces behind.
She increased this lead until they were out of sight for seconds at a time and then for a minute at a time. Now she really began to hope. ‘I might get away,’ she thought.
Suddenly she came out of the ferns onto a well used vehicle track. It was so unexpected that for a moment she could only stop and stare. ‘A track! Should I follow it? And which way?’ she wondered. Her mind told her that she should go right as that was the way back to her friends and the dams.
But even as she turned that way and began walking she heard the sound of a vehicle engine. She stopped to listen. No doubt about it- a motor- and getting closer. ‘But is it one of ours or is it the vehicle with Danny in it?’ she worried.
So frightened of Danny was she that she did not dare risk being caught by him. ‘He will be fresh and will be able to outrun me for sure,’ she thought. Then another thought chilled her even more. ‘And he will probably have his gun!’
Tina did an about turn and began hurrying the other way. As the vehicle got closer she began to panic and tried to run. But a stumbling trot was the best she could manage. She began casting glances into the bush looking for hiding places. ‘I must take to the scrub,’ she thought.
But she kept on along the track as the easier route to put distance between her and the men. A hundred panting paces further along Tina came to a sort of clearing. There were a few giant trees and a couple of side tracks and it looked man-made to her. ‘The old timber cutter’s camp?’ she thought.
At that point the vehicle track swung sharply off to the left and wound off through a stand of thicker timber. As Tina plodded along it she glanced back to listen for sounds of pursuit and then had a thought which made her stomach turn over. ‘I am leaving clear boot prints!’ she observed. As she looked in horror at the clear imprint of her boot in the muddy black soil she heard loud yells in the forest. At first she thought the men had seen her again but then she heard the vehicle come to a stop.
“Time I took cover,” she muttered. Reluctantly she stepped off the track into the waist high grass and head high ferns on the right of the track. For a few steps she experienced fearful thoughts about poisonous snakes- but the men were more deadly so she ignored the possibility of snake bite and pushed her way rapidly into the tangle. Within a couple of minutes she had covered more than a hundred metres and could no longer hear the vehicle or the men’s voices. Just as reassuring was the observation that her tracks were not obvious enough to follow except by patient tracking.
Then the problem of which way to walk bothered her. She stopped and looked around and noted that she was on a wide ridge top which was gently climbing. Noting the sun she thought, ‘Right is east but that is downhill. And left is back the way I came from through all that scrub. So my friends must be back past the men. Oh, which way should I go?’
Tina bit her lip and then remembered her photocopied map. With trembling hands she dug it out and studied it. But she had trouble working out where she was. ‘Which tracks did I run along?’ she thought. All the while she was still gasping in air and shivering with over-exertion and fear. Every instinct was to keep on running, to get as far as possible away from the men.
She decided to go on east, reasoning that going down the slope would take her to the Wild River and then to Moomin. ‘It’s only a few kilometres,’ she reasoned. Unsure how steep the slope ahead might be she started pushing through the tangle eastwards to where she could see the ground starting to drop away.
Suddenly she heard the sound of movement nearby and she experienced a spasm of terror so strong it all but paralysed her. She froze and looked frantically around. Her eyes seemed to blur and sweat trickled into them, making her blink. Part of her mind told her that the men could not have gotten that close without her hearing them but her ears told her it was the sound of people pushing their way through the undergrowth- and very close.
And there they were!
Through eyes made blurry by terror and perspiration Tina saw people moving only about 20 metres away. Then, even as she began lowering herself to hide, her mind registered what her eyes were seeing. They were not the men. Instead she noted army camouflage uniforms. Blinking sweat from her eyes she peered through a bush. ‘Yes, army camouflage uniforms. Army cadets!’ she thought.
A wave of intense relief swamped her and she felt dizzy. ‘Safe!’ she told herself.
CHAPTER 37
GRAHAM?
Tina let out a sob and tried to call out. She now saw that the army cadets had not seen her and were walking across her front from right to left. There were four of them, faces and hands camouflaged and all carrying packs. All were boys and one had glasses. Then recognition came.
“Graham!” she croak
ed.
The army cadets halted and went into a crouch, their heads all swivelling in her direction. Tina began pushing towards them. Graham’s camouflaged face was all she was now focused on. He looked puzzled and then grinned and said to the others, “I told you I heard someone moving.”
Tina got tangled in some vines among chest high ferns and she came to a sobbing, struggling halt. Graham saw this and at once moved to help. A few seconds later she was in his arms.
“Tina! What are you doing here? Are you alright?” he asked.
Tina found herself quiet unable to answer for a few minutes. All she could do was sob and cling to him. Waves of trembling shook her so much she could hardly stand. Dimly she was aware of Graham’s sweaty clothes and smell and the thought crossed her mind that she must smell as well. But she was safe!
The other army cadets crowded round and a clearing was quickly trampled and packs dropped. By then her trembling legs could no longer support her and she flopped down onto one of the packs. One of the army cadets, obviously the leader, said, “Steve, keep watch.”
Tina now recognized him. He was a Year 12 from her school: Cadet Under-Officer Mike Masters. With him were a Year 11 boy she had also seen and Graham and Stephen Bell. Shame at her weakness and fear mingled with her sobs of relief and she kept panting and could not bring herself to speak to answer their questions until it occurred to her that the men might not care that she was with them. ‘Danny shot at us when we were in a group. He might shoot at them too,’ she thought.
“Shhh!” she hissed, placing her fingers to her lips as CUO Masters again asked if she was alright. They looked puzzled but she shook her head and croaked. “Keep quiet. There are men after me. They have guns and might shoot.”
At that Graham’s eyes widened and he held her shoulders and crouched close. “What men Ti? Why are they chasing you?”
“Bird Poachers,” Tina whispered. “The same men who shot the ranger at Koombooloomba Dam,” she replied.
Graham nodded and instantly understood. He went into a half crouch and peeked over the top of the scrub. CUO Masters said, “You are a navy cadet aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Tina nodded. Her throat felt so dry and constricted she could hardly speak.
“And you go to our school,” CUO Masters added.
Tina nodded. “Yes, I’m in Ten ‘A’,” she said, barely able to speak her throat was so dry.
Graham crouched again and pulled out a water bottle. “Here, have a drink,” he said.
Tina gulped at the water then found she was gasping and shivering so much she could not drink without spilling some. She stopped drinking and tried to get control of her trembling muscles.
Graham looked her up and down. “Geez Tina, you look a wreck. I didn’t recognize you to begin with,” he commented.
“They.. they tried to drown me!” Tina croaked. Another fit of trembling shook her and there were more tears.
CUO Masters whispered, “Are you alone?”
Tina nodded. “There were three of us but I got separated,” she explained.
“What happened?”
Tina steadied herself and said, “We were sent to find your camp at First Light. We were to try and surprise you,” she explained. “So we walked along that old road to the New Dam.”
On hearing that all four army cadets looked at each other and chuckled. Graham grinned and said, “You wouldn’t have caught us. We packed up in the dark and moved. We were just back there in the scrub by First Light,” he said.
That annoyed Tina as it made her feel foolish. But she had to concede it was the sort of thing she had expected. However the spurt of emotion gave her voice some strength and, after another gulp of water, she quickly explained how she had seen the floatplane and then been chased. “They are just back there a few hundred metres, near that clearing,” she said.
CUO Masters looked serious and said, “I thought we heard a vehicle. We’d better put a bit more distance between us and them. Sgt Grenfell, try to get HQ on the radio to warn them. Cpl Kirk, you help Tina and Cpl Bell, you bring up the rear. Let’s go.”
Tina did not think she had the strength left to stand but she tried. Graham offered his hands and she took them. With apparent ease he hauled her to her feet. For a few moments she could only stand with both legs trembling so much she doubted if they would function. But CUO Grenfell was already moving and she forced herself to take a step.
“Ow! Oooh!” she muttered. Every muscle in the leg seemed to complain and she just wanted to stop but she made herself move the other leg. It hurt as well and forced a low groan from her. But she gritted her teeth and made herself walk. ‘I won’t place the boys in danger just because it hurts a bit,’ she told herself.
As she limped along Tina kept glancing back but there was no sign of the men and the sound of their own thrusting progress through a thickening tangle of head-high ferns and shrubs made it difficult to see very far anyway. She noted all the army cadets continually looking in all directions and particularly behind them and it reassured her.
‘They are used to sneaking around the bush,’ she thought. That was a very comforting idea.
For ten minutes the group pushed its way through the fern scrub. Tina noted they were going slowly uphill but the ground was so rough and the undergrowth so thick it made little difference. Soon she was sweating heavily and gasping for breath. Every step was an effort and she kept getting snagged by spikey little vines which either held her back or tripped her up. Graham went just ahead of her and made an effort to clear a path for her, using secateurs to cut the worst of the vines.
Frequent detours were made to avoid particularly thick patches of scrub and fallen trees but there were so many of these they had to climb over dozens of them. Tina found it exhausting and she came to a sobbing standstill.
Graham stood and held her arm. “All the logs are from that cyclone last January,” he said. “See how they are all lying at the same angle? That shows the wind direction.”
Tina could see that and vividly remembered the cyclone which had briefly battered Cairns on its way down the coast. ‘That was the cyclone that Andrew and his sister got caught in on some lighthouse near Townsville,’ she remembered. Then she also remembered that she had heard that the blonde had also been part of that adventure and she experienced a spurt of jealous annoyance.
She then remembered that Graham and his friends had made a dramatic march over the mountains near Mt Bartle Frere during the same cyclone to save a gold miner who had been trapped by a fallen tree. ‘It’s easy for him. He’s done things like this before,’ she thought. Panting with exhaustion she croaked, “Sorry,” then sobbed and added, “I need a rest.”
CUO Masters stopped and gave the signal to halt. “This will do. We are half a kilometre from where we found you. We will rest for a while. If they follow us we will hear them and will hide you and tell them a story,” he said.
Tina was again given Graham’s pack to sit down on and then almost went into hysterics when he reached down and flicked a leech off her trousers. She hated leeches and in her current state it was almost too much. “Oh! Get them off me!” she wailed softly, shuddering and then groaning as cramps seized her calf muscles.
To her annoyance Graham just chuckled and treated the leeches as a joke. He picked up all the leeches he could see on both her and him, rolled each into a ball and flicked it away. Even one that was fastened to his neck he just scraped off and flicked away. When she told him that he was bleeding he just wiped the blood onto his hand to look at it and shrugged. “Nothing much. It will stop soon,” he said. Then he went on looking for more. It was so obvious that he was really enjoying the situation that Tina got annoyed with him.
‘Silly boy!’ she thought. ‘It’s all right for him. The men aren’t chasing him.’
But it was a new insight into Graham’s character and she found his obvious toughness a bit off putting. She was also surprised at how well Stephen Bell was coping. He kept making little jokes
and smiling but never relaxed his careful scrutiny of the surrounding bush.
During much of this time Sgt Grenfell had been talking quietly on his radio. It was obvious to Tina that reception was poor and because he had a small earpiece and microphone she could not hear any of the answers but it was enough to know that they were in radio communication with HQ.
‘I like Grenfell,’ she thought. He was a solid, chunky lad with short fair hair and a calm disposition. She had often seen him around the school but now she saw he was very cool and efficient.
He crouched and said to CUO Masters, “I’ve told HQ that we have Tina with us. They already knew she was missing but did not know why or where.”
“Did you tell them about the men and the floatplane?” Tina asked.
Sgt Grenfell nodded. “Yes. They said that they got a report from the navy cadets of a floatplane taking off just after sun up.”
An idea suddenly seized Tina. “Tell them to call the police and get them to stop the crooks escaping,” she said.
Sgt Grenfell radioed HQ and passed on the message. Then he listened to the reply, nodding his head as he did. In her impatience to know Tina felt the urge to reach for the headphones but he then looked at her. “Too late I think. Capt Conkey says that a civilian Four Wheel Drive has just driven past going down the mountain.”
“Oh bother blast!” Tina cried. It was actually genuine swear words that were going through her mind but she was able to restrain herself from swearing in front of the boys.
CUO Masters took the radio and called Capt Conkey. “What do you want us to do now sir? Over.”
He listened to Capt Conkey’s reply then said, “We are closer to Stewarts Head now sir. Is the safety vehicle still there? Over.”
The answer obviously was yes. CUO Masters looked at her and said, “Are you up to a bit of a climb? Whichever way we go we have to walk a kilometre or so.”
Tina thought hard. ‘There might still be some of those men back along the track,’ she thought. That sent a shiver of fear through her and she decided a bit of pain was the better option. “I would rather go over Stewarts Head,” she said.
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