Secret in the Clouds

by Christopher Cummings

  That was a blow to Stephen’s hopes. “We can walk in,” he suggested as they walked out to the car. “You don’t think you need a permit just for hiking.”

  “Gran can’t do that,” Tom replied. He looked quite downcast and that made Stephen cast around for another plan.

  “I will talk to Graham,” he said. “He might be able to think of something.”

  Feeing quite depressed at the progress of his investigation Stephen slumped into the car and stared gloomily out of the window. ‘There must be a way?’ he thought.

  CHAPTER 15

  PERMISSION?

  As soon as he got home Stephen went to the telephone. He was puzzled by the fact that they had not been granted a permit. Into his mind’s eye came to look on the office girl’s face as she had looked up from the computer to them and then back down at the screen. ‘She didn’t look happy, and I don’t think she was telling the truth,’ he thought. With that in mind he telephoned Lorna. Lorna was a girl in his class who lived in Kuranda. A few years before he and Lorna had enjoyed a fairly steamy relationship before deciding they weren’t suited for each other. Now they were just good friends.

  “Lorna,” he asked, “Do you have any friends who live out along the Black Mountain Road?”

  “Yeah, Noreen, why?” Lorna replied.

  “Can you ring her up and ask her if the Black Mountain Road is closed for road works, then ring me please?” Stephen asked. The junction of the Black Mountain Road was just across the Barron River Highway bridge from Kuranda township and the first couple of kilometres were secluded houses set back in the rain forest. Then the road entered the State Forest.

  Stephen got his answer twenty minutes later. “Nope, she reckons the road is same as always, and she’d know, her Dad works along it with the Natural Resources Department,” Lorna said.

  “Thanks Lorna,” Stephen said. “See ya when ya got nuthin’ on ‘cept ya transistor Babe.”

  Lorna giggled. “Don’t be rude Steve!” she answered.

  At that moment his mother spoke from behind him. “Who is that you are talking to Stephen?” she asked.

  Stephen blushed and hung up. “Only to Lorna Mum.”

  His mother frowned and pursed her lips. “Do you always talk to girls like that?” she asked.

  “No Mum,” Stephen answered. ‘Only the ones I might get lucky with,’ he thought. Then he noted Tom smirking from behind a magazine on the other side of the room and went even redder. ‘Bugger you too mate!’ he thought. ‘You are so ugly you’ll never get a girl anyway.’

  After tea Stephen again went to the telephone. This time he rang up Graham. “Have you got any old ‘One inch to one mile’ maps?” he asked.

  “No,” Graham replied. “Dad’s got a couple tucked away I think but I can’t get them. Why do you need one?”

  Stephen explained the visit to Major Barnes. Graham listened, then said, “What about Capt Conkey? He has lots of those sorts of things.” Capt Conkey was their Geography and History teacher and was always showing the class old maps and photos of geographical things.

  So Stephen phoned Capt Conkey. “Oh good,” Capt Conkey replied. “I was about to ring you up to find out how your interview went.”

  Stephen told the story again, then asked about the maps. To his relief Capt Conkey replied, “Yes. I’ve got a full set of the whole region. They are all laminated to protect them so I can let you use them. I will bring the ones you want tomorrow.”

  That cheered Stephen up somewhat but left the basic problem of not having permission to drive through the State Forest along the Black Mountain Road. He said to Mrs Downey. “You could drive us to the northern boundary of the State Forest and we could walk in and go up the mountain and back,” he suggested.

  “Isn’t that a bit risky?” Mrs Downey asked.

  “It’s what we did three weeks ago,” Stephen replied. “We walked up the Bump Track from the Mowbray Valley, then south along the Black Mountain Road to the point where we saw the plane crash, and we did it all in one day.”

  Tom, who was listening, nodded. “If that is the only option we will do that,” he said.

  “What about these other boys? Will they mind the walking?” Mrs Downey asked.

  At that Stephen burst out laughing and his parents both smiled. “We are the ‘Hiking Team’,” he explained. “Graham and Peter can march thirty kilometres in a day, and then the same at night if they have to.”

  “And they have,” Stephen’s father added, giving a wry smile. “You won’t get into any of your usual scrapes this time please son.”

  “What scrapes?” Mrs Downey asked, looking the very picture of anxiety. Stephen noted a look of concern on Tom’s face and mentally sneered. ‘Poor little Mummy’s boy is worried!’ he thought. He was getting tired of sharing his room and the facilities with ‘a horde of invaders’.

  To Stephen’s relief his mother replied, “Oh, they have had a few adventures over the years. Stephen, tell them about the crooks who were using the old gold mine at Stannary Hills for a hideout.”

  “Tin mine Mum,” Stephen replied, but was happy enough to recount the tale. ‘She could have picked on the madman in the jungle at Kuranda,’ he thought, ‘or the Kosarian Partisans up behind Mt Baldy, or the paedophiles who tried to murder us.’

  So the evening was spent with stories, including the finding of the Kirk family gold mine in the Mulgrave Valley during a cyclone. Stephen enjoyed the evening and particularly relished the hero worship in the eyes of Sally and Nancy. He also noted Tom looking a bit doubtful. ‘He doesn’t believe me,’ he thought.

  Later, as they lay in bed just after the light was turned out Tom confirmed this by asking, “Steve, you weren’t just making those stories up were you?”

  “No. They were only some of the milder ones. There was a time when I got lost in the jungle up beside Kanaka Creek, that’s down near Innisfail in the sugar country, and I found a treasure.”

  “Oh go on! You did not!”

  “I did so! Well not just me. Peter and Graham helped,” Stephen replied. Then his conscience made him add, “And Roger, and Graham’s sister Kylie and her friend Margaret, the one who thinks the sun shines and sets on Graham.”

  “You... you don’t think your friends will mind me coming along do you?” asked Tom anxiously.

  That made Stephen feel quite guilty. ‘I’ve scared the poor bugger,’ he thought. ‘Probably never been camping in his life.’ He said, “Not at all. They are good blokes. Have you got much experience of bushwalking Tom?”

  “No, just picnics in the country,” Tom confessed.

  Stephen could not resist the temptation to boast some more, mentioning some of the army cadet exercises he had been on.

  Tom said, “I didn’t even know there was such thing as army cadets. They don’t have them at my school. You sound like you have a lot of fun.”

  “We do,” Stephen agreed, suddenly very conscious of just how important his friends and being in cadets were to him. ‘I’m bloody lucky really,’ he thought.

  With that thought he slipped off to sleep.

  To dream of Lorna, and of being caught naked with her by Judy, just as they were getting excited. So once again he woke up very aroused which was a problem, as Tom and his sisters were already awake. To help him relax there was the puzzle of the permit. ‘Why would the people in the Natural Resources Office say the road is closed when it isn’t? I wonder if they are doing something at the wreck?’ That thought got him quite anxious, picturing teams of investigators digging and removing the wreckage while they searched.

  To test his theory Stephen suggested a simple plan at breakfast time. “Mrs Downey, would you mind going in to the Natural Resources office today and applying for a permit to drive along the Black Mountain Road?”

  “No, but why waste time if the road is closed?” Mrs Downey asked.

  “I just want to see if it really is,” Stephen said.

  Reluctantly Mrs Downey agreed to do this, with the sto
ry that they were just tourists from Victoria but that Mrs Hopkins wished to see the area where her father had worked many years before.

  That agreed on Stephen went to the phone and called Peter. Peter was the only one of the ‘Hiking Team’ who was 17 and had recently gained his drivers licence. Stephen said, “Pete, would you do me a small favour? Go in to the Natural resources office today and apply for a permit to drive along the Black Mountain Road. Give your Mum’s car registration.”

  Peter took some persuading but on being convinced they needed two cars to move every one if they were to climb the mountain that weekend he agreed to do so.

  He did. When Stephen saw him at school just before classes Peter shook his head and said, “No go. I didn’t get a permit. They told me the road is closed for repairs.”

  “Thanks Pete. The road isn’t closed but we need an alternate plan to get there. What do you suggest?”

  “Get driven in to the northern end via the Rex Highway or through Julatten, then walk like we did last time.”

  That sounded a workable plan to Stephen, even though it obviously meant a route march of about a dozen kilometres just to get to the base of the mountain. As soon as Graham and Roger joined them they discussed this. Stephen was also pleased to find that Graham had the 1" to 1 Mile maps from Capt Conkey. He settled to study these with great interest. In the end he had to shake his head and admit they didn’t seem to help much. Some of the roads appeared to be the same but the topography did not match very well in some areas.

  After a few minutes of study Stephen shook his head. “I’m glad I didn’t have to navigate on these bloody maps,” he commented.

  “Why?” Graham asked.

  “The contours are a bit vague in places,” Stephen replied.

  Graham and Peter both bent to compare the modern map with the old one. “You are right,” Graham agreed. “The big lumps are more or less in the right place but a lot of the smaller features are different.”

  “So we are still going on this trip then?” Roger asked.

  “Yes. Are you allowed?” Stephen replied.

  Roger made a face. “My Mum’s not very happy about it,” he answered.

  “You blokes don’t mind if this Tom Downey kid comes with us?” Stephen asked.

  “Not at all. What’s he like?” Peter asked.

  “Bit of a dork,” Stephen answered. “Never been in the bush.”

  They discussed possible problems which might result from this but agreed they would all help Tom. “After all,” Peter said, “The poor bugger has come all this way to try and find his grandfather. It’s the least we can do.”

  “Great Grandfather,” Stephen corrected.

  “Whatever! Now who goes in what car?” Peter replied.

  So they arranged times and who would go in which vehicle. By then Stephen was looking forward to the expedition, even though he knew it would hurt. Solving the mystery still tantalised him.

  It tantalised him even more when he got home and learned that Mrs Downey had obtained a permit to drive along the Black Mountain Road. “No trouble at all,” she explained. “I just gave the girl the details of the hire car and she typed it into the computer and gave me the signed permit a few minutes later. Here it is.”

  Stephen took the proffered document and studied it. To him it appeared the same as similar ones he had seen over the years. ‘So why didn’t we get one? And why was Peter refused as well?’ he wondered. It was a niggling little thing which bothered him. ‘Someone doesn’t want us near that plane again,’ he decided. But why? He decided that some official was stealing the wreck, or parts of it, and didn’t want it known.

  “We will know when we get there,” he muttered as he went to sort out his hiking gear.

  That raised another minor problem. Tom had no suitable clothes and no camping gear. As they were planning to get up and down the mountain in one day this did not seem to matter much. Jeans, gym boots and a long sleeved shirt were provided, along with an old cloth bush hat. From the storeroom Stephen dug out a belt and an old waterbottle and the old ‘37’ pattern pack he had used for scout hikes before he had joined the cadets.

  It gave him a degree of cynical amusement to see how excited Tom became as he prepared for the expedition. ‘You’d think it was bloody Burke and Wills setting out for six months,’ he thought.

  Despite his cynical and aloof exterior Stephen was actually quite excited as well. Bedtime was enlivened by the two little girls who had now begun to flirt with him and did a lot of giggling and peeking.

  The household was astir by 6 O’clock the next morning and by 7:30 they were loaded into the two cars owned by Stephen’s parents, and into the hire car. The decision on whether they would drive along the Black Mountain Road with all of the cars had not yet been decided. The plan was to drive north along the Cook Highway, then come south along the Black Mountain Road. The parents would picnic at the bottom of the mountain while the boys climbed it. After that they would drive south to Kuranda and home.

  Twenty minutes of driving picked up Graham, Peter and Roger. To Stephen’s secret relief Tom went in the hire car driven by his mother. Mrs Hopkins and Sally went with her. Nancy insisted on going in the same car as Stephen and she embarrassed him by obvious eye by-play and giggling hints. ‘Silly little girl!’ he thought as he settled into the back of his father’s car with Peter in the front. Graham and Roger went in Stephen’s mother’s car.

  The drive north was one Stephen had done many times and usually enjoyed but now he was too pre-occupied with puzzling over the mystery of the plane wreck to take much notice, save for a few wistful thoughts about Elli, his girlfriend back in Year 10, as they drove past Buchans Point and Ellis Beach. The road then wound on along beside the sea, giving wonderful views along miles of coastline where the steep coastal range dipped down to beautiful white sandy beaches and rocky headlands.

  As they rounded Red Cliff Point Stephen noted Black Mountain standing up clearly on the plateau behind the escarpment of the Macalister Range. He pointed it out to Nancy and his mother then insisted they stop the cars and show Mrs Hopkins. They found a gravel parking area on the outside of one of the bends and pulled over. It was a relief to stretch the legs and Stephen was gratified by the way Mrs Hopkins stared at the mountain in silent reflection.

  Stephen stood there fascinated himself, being once again struck by the fact that it was the only mountain that high for many kilometres. ‘How did that German plane come to crash into it?’ he wondered. ‘All that area with no mountains and it had to slam fair into the side of the only one. What was it doing? Where was it going?’

  After a few minutes they drove on. The road wound on around more bends beside the sea, leaving it for a few kilometres at Wangetti Beach, then returning to it at White Cliff Point. After that the highway wound on next to the sea to Yule Point and then onto the coastal plain on which nestled the sugar farms of the Mowbray River and the Mossman district. An hour was spent in Port Douglas and twenty minutes going to Mossman. After driving up and down the main street they headed back south to the turn-off to the Rex Highway.

  This took them up onto the ‘Tablelands’ through a belt of rainforest. On top the land had mostly been cleared and the rolling country was dotted with farms. Some careful navigation was now called for and at the Julatten School they turned left onto the Euluma Creek Road. This was a single lane bitumen road which led them back eastwards to the turn-off of the Black Mountain Road. All the while Black Mountain stood out clearly, only a few clouds drifting by.

  The Black Mountain Road was gravel. For the first few kilometres it was a public road which wound up and down past farms and isolated houses. The cars passed the junction of ‘The Bump’ walking track and Stephen pointed this out. The road then entered rainforest and soon afterwards came back out into more open eucalypt forest.

  All the while they had not passed a single vehicle so Stephen suggested they keep driving. “We aren’t liable to meet any Rangers,” he said, “and even
if we do we can plead ignorance and use the permit Mrs Downey has.”

  As he said this they drove around a bend and ahead appeared a wall of dense jungle. The road plunged into this in a tunnel of dark vegetation, the entrance closed by a barricade. Parked beside it was a white Four Wheel Drive with a man sitting in it.

  “I don’t think so,” Stephen’s mother said as she braked the car to a stop.

  “Try it please Mum,” Stephen asked.

  A man dressed in khaki shorts and shirt climbed out of the 4WD and walked over. “Sorry. The road is closed,” he said.

  “We have a permit,” Stephen’s mother replied.

  The man did not ask to see it. He just smiled and shook his head. “Sorry, the road is closed. There has been a mistake.”

  The other vehicles had pulled up behind and Stephen’s father and Mrs Downey got out and walked forward. Mrs Downey showed the permit and told the tale of her mother, all to no avail. The man just shook his head and said he was sorry for the mix-up but the road was closed.

  By then Stephen had climbed out. He studied the man’s clothes and vehicle and then asked, “Are you with the Forestry?”

  “Natural Resources,” the man replied. “Ted Grogan’s the name.”

  He shook hands and was very friendly but was adamant- the road was closed. Feeling quite disappointed Stephen climbed back into the car and grumped at Nancy who tried to cheer him up. As the car was turned and they began driving back northwards Stephen twisted in his seat and looked through the back window. The man was writing in a notebook and as the car went around the bend Stephen saw him reach into his vehicle and pick up a radio handset. ‘He’s taken our number and is reporting us,’ he thought.

  That puzzled him. ‘Why would he do that? Who would care what tourists drove along the Black Mountain Road?’ The only thing he could think of was that it was some sort of police surveillance to catch people who grew marijuana in the jungle.