Treasure Hunters

by Allan Baillie

  But pass that stone tiger; pass that gate, and everything changes.

  Out there everything is going to be strange. There will be nothing you know.

  2 / matt

  The plane skidded past the peak, so close that the tiger’s eyes seemed to be glinting at Pat. He glanced down at the goosebumps on his arms, shook his head and rubbed them.

  Well, of course Dad is down there, Pat thought.

  The plane curled away from the mountains and dipped towards a blue-white sea, as calm as a lake.

  Dad, or someone else, he thought.

  Dad was an accountant; he used to bring home piles of paper – other people’s paper – and fiddle with his computer way after Pat had gone to bed. Even when he’d gone fishing with Pat and Robbie he had kept thinking about those pieces of paper. Like he was weighing the fish he’d caught against the minutes he had lost on the paper piles.

  But that guy had disappeared. The new guy didn’t call himself ‘Dad’ on the postcards; just ‘Matt. As if the old, worn Dad had gone for all time. As if that accident had bumped off Dad and replaced him with this weird bloke. Yeah, and he’s probably an alien from the planet Zong, with retractable antenna. Oh, definitely.

  Hey, you like the change, don’t you? Okay, you haven’t seen him for eleven months and twenty-three days but he writes and sometimes phones. Then he – Matt – gets talking about the ships under that blue-white sea ’

  Yes son, there’s a lot of ships down there. Where? In the waters of the Strait of Malacca and the seas of Java, Flores, Seram and Banda, all the way to Irian Jaya. That’s where. There are tens of thousands of wrecks down there jostling for room. Dhows from Arabia, galleys from India, junks from China, praus from Sulawesi, caravels from Portugal, galleons from Spain, East Indiamen from Holland, frigates from England, clippers from America ’

  Yeah, right, Dad.

  Yeah kid, and me and my mate are going to find a couple of them ’

  You have to listen to him when he says that. Especially after you have helped them, spending hours hunting up odd information at Sydney’s Mitchell Library and National Maritime Museum. And learned scuba so you could dive with them.

  Dad, Matt, it doesn’t matter, so long as he is waiting for you. Oh shut up.

  The jungle was now folding back from the blue-white sea. There were a few rice paddies, then the town. A pier, a few fishing boats, a lone freighter, a cluster of double-storeys and a few houses. The island’s mountain fenced in the town and its harbour, but a track wandered across a spur to reach a tiny fishing village.

  That’s it? All that way for a dump? No, no, it doesn’t matter. It is out there; the bright sea is what counts.

  The plane dipped towards a short landing strip and a flat yellow building, bounced heavily, and the engines immediately roared as the propellers reversed their pitch to act as a brake. Pat pushed his head away from the seat in front as the roaring eased off and the plane taxied towards the yellow building.

  Okay, we’re here. Pat saw his face in the window and wrinkled his nose at it.

  As rain-worn steps were rolled up to the plane he stood with the other ten passengers to pull his bag from the overhead compartment.

  What if Matt is not there? Pat stopped in mid-swing and held the bag at his shoulders. What if you’ve come to the wrong place? You could have made a mistake with the name of the town, you’re dumb enough ’

  He dropped the bag to his side, waited, shuffled behind a man wearing a purple batik shirt and stepped out of the plane. He opened his mouth like a fish as the glare of the high sun baked and blinded him. He stumbled down the steps to the crumbling concrete of the tarmac and peered at the yellow building swimming before him. He blinked, dropped his eyes to the feet of the passenger ahead and moved after him.

  ‘Hey, Pat!’

  He looked up again and saw a flash of orange in the shade of the building. He nodded and moved forwards. ‘Hi, Dad,’ he said when he got closer, and grinned.

  ‘Ah, you can call me Matt up here.’

  Pat looked up at him. Matt had changed, from the burnt chocolate face to the sun-bleached ponytail. He had a lot of crinkles around his eyes and mouth as if he had been laughing most of the time. He was wearing a faded orange shirt with worn-out cotton trousers and ragged sandshoes.

  ‘Okay, Matt.’ You can’t really call him ‘Dad’ when he looks like a pirate.

  ‘Good flight?’ Matt dropped his heavy hand on Pat’s shoulder and squeezed.

  ‘No worries. Did you find –?’

  Matt suddenly tightened his hand on Pat’s shoulder. ‘Find fish? Millions of them.’

  Pat sucked in a breath.

  Matt relaxed his grip. ‘All right, now?’

  Pat flexed the shoulder and nodded. Matt wasn’t asking sympathetically about your crunched shoulder. He was saying: Have you worked it out now? Shush, we don’t talk about things; there are people around us ’ Now that could mean that something has happened.

  Matt walked Pat through the crowd and waited for the trolley from the plane.

  Maybe ’ Don’t even think about it. There are spies everywhere; they can read your face. You’re just here to fish and see some of the seaweed, right?

  ‘How’s Beth?’

  Pat stopped. ‘I forgot, I have to phone Mum.’

  ‘Right now?’

  ‘She said to phone the moment you found me.’

  ‘Yes, boss.’ Matt pulled him to a battery of phones, and Pat fed one with coins while Matt went to collect Pat’s suitcase. Mum picked up her phone halfway through the first ring, as if she was hovering around it.

  ‘Hi Mum,’ said Pat. And for ten minutes he told her how well he was, how great the little plane was, how the island was okay, the people were great, Dad looked fine, and yes, he would be very careful about everything.

  Mum sounded as if she did not believe a word.

  ‘Well, where is he?’ she said finally, as if Pat had made up everything.

  Pat saw Matt coming towards him with his suitcase. ‘He’s coming now.’ Pat passed over the receiver and watched.

  Sometimes Matt sounded a little like Pat. ‘Hi love, we’ve got him ’ no, no ’ don’t worry about it. He’s going to have a holiday with the fishes, that’s all. We will look after him, I promise ’ Nothing like that on the island, it’s not like Timor or Aceh and anyway we’re away from the island ’ Find something? Careful, ears are everywhere. It’s fish, just fish ’’

  Then he put more money into the phone, turned from Pat and muttered into the receiver for a while. When he uncoiled from the phone his face was slightly flushed. ‘She’s thinking about me.’

  ‘Yeah, she wants you back home.’

  ‘She said something then?’ Matt hefted the suitcase onto his shoulder and began to walk to the glass doors of the terminal.

  ‘She said ’’ Pat started to tell him what Mum had said about Matt growing up, but quickly sidestepped, ‘something about the accident.’

  Matt stopped. ‘The accident?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  For a moment Matt looked at him, before shaking his head. ‘No, it’s a great day, let’s get into it.’ He strode out into the sun.

  3 / fishes

  Outside was a waiting taxi. A creaking, scarred taxi, with red painted mudguards on a black body and a fringe on the windscreen. Behind the wheel was a man with a drawn face and a bent peacock feather on his frayed straw hat. He seemed to be weighing up Pat like a fish.

  ‘Um, hi,’ Pat said and he moved into the back. He lifted an eyebrow as he dodged a spring that was poking from the seat.

  ‘Don’t knock the vehicle.’ Matt said. ‘It goes, and that’s a big thing out here.’

  He spoke to the taxi driver in Indonesian and the taxi lurched away from the yellow building.

  Pat looked at Matt’s face, trying to read something between the lines.

  ‘What?’ Matt glanced across.

  ‘Um, nothing.’

  Well, not q
uite nothing. Like what has happened? Okay, Matt and Col took an old boat to Indonesian waters to look for ancient wrecks – a year ago! And Matt asked you to find information for the year 1857 – facts about the weather, and a ship called Lady Jane – then more information about trade routes in 1500. Never mind about your schoolwork or anything else. But in all those months he had not said a word about finding something. Nothing at all. Well?

  ‘You’re wondering about the fish,’ Matt said with a slight nod towards the taxi driver.

  ‘Yes, the fish.’ Pat looked at the taxi driver and was sure he was almost asleep.

  ‘You remember the first fish?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  The first fish was the Lady Jane, a ship loaded with gold from the Chinese miners at diggings in New South Wales. The ship had sailed from Sydney in March 1857 bound for Canton, China, but it didn’t reach the port. Col was so sure that he knew where the ship had gone down he had dropped his job as a teacher. Matt had joined him later.

  Matt shrugged. ‘It got away.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Yeah, it was a pity, after all your work. But ’’

  ‘But what?’ Pat squinted at Matt’s face.

  ‘There are more fishes in the sea.’ Matt rubbed his nose.

  Pat scowled at him.

  Matt sucked his lip for a moment, then pulled his hand from his pocket, and Pat felt something pressed into his palm. ‘It’s good water out there,’ Matt said.

  ‘I ’?’ Pat frowned slightly. There was something between his palm and Matt’s hand.

  ‘But you have to work for it.’ Matt closed Pat’s fingers over his palm, lifted his hand and wobbled a single cautioning finger.

  Pat glanced at Matt, but Matt was staring at the road. Pat forced his eyes to the other side and looked at a hill of banana trees and rice paddies. He watched a row of stooping women planting rice shoots in the ankle-deep water while his fingers explored the small object Matt had passed to him. Something flat, metal, but so light ’

  ‘You did a good job with your homework,’ Matt said. ‘Especially the second lot.’

  The taxi shuddered along a dirt road, jigsawing towards the leaning houses that marked the outskirts of the town. A woman was washing a baby on the wooden steps while kids in ragged shorts splashed around her in black water. Behind her there was a pot bubbling in the middle of the open porch. It looked as if she never stepped inside the house.

  For a moment Pat looked back at the woman and the kids, his fingers stopped on the object. Then the taxi took a quick corner and his fingers moved again. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘It all helps.’

  The object was ragged at the edges, but it was round. ‘It was hard work sometimes. Very hard.’

  ‘It was harder up here. Some of the libraries – even universities – don’t have books. Rows of grey metal shelves with nothing there. And forget Dutch and Portuguese books. I think they have burnt them.’

  Pat’s fingers found a small hole in the object and his eyes shimmered. Okay, you’ve got something. A hole, very close to the edge. If only you could see it ’

  The taxi quietened on the sealed road, passing dusty shops, a small grey mosque, and a few warehouses. There was almost no one on the street.

  Pat was now feeling tiny ridges on the face of the thing in his hand. As if there was something complicated on it. As if it was a coin. A very old coin ’

  Look, this peacock guy; he wouldn’t see if you pulled it out for a moment.

  A single dog skittered across the road and the taxi driver hit the horn.

  Pat bit his lip as he slid the thing towards the edge of his pocket. Then he caught the taxi driver’s eyes watching him in the mirror, shoved the thing deep in his pocket and wiped the expression from his face.

  But it is too light for a coin. Doesn’t matter. It means something or Matt wouldn’t give it to you. But it couldn’t be worth much otherwise Matt wouldn’t take the chance of you losing it.

  A single Chinese man was hurriedly pulling metal shutters across the windows of a shop as a woman hauled a small boy from the road. The taxi driver’s peacock feather tickled the roof as his eyes darted from side to side. The taxi was shaking, slowing to a crawl.

  Pat thought: Maybe this thing came from the bottom of the sea.

  There was a faint sound in the distance.

  Yes, yes, that edge is ragged because the water and the sand have been rubbing against it for a long time. Centuries. There is something out there ’

  A roaring mob whirled into the road ahead and rushed towards the taxi.

  4 / the mob

  The taxi driver hissed through his teeth like a broken steam pipe as he slammed on the brakes. He pushed his back deep into the seat and the peacock feather scudded across the roof. The engine stalled.

  The mob flowed from the road to the pavement, chanting and waving brightly coloured poles. Pat saw men banging sticks on the bitumen.

  The taxi driver twisted the ignition key several times, even after the engine fired. He thumped the gear stick against his leg, squealing the tyres as the taxi jerked backwards. He swung round to look back and Pat could see fear in his eyes.

  Pat thought: This is serious. He clutched the door handle.

  A heavy horn blasted from behind and the taxi lurched to a stop. Pat glanced over his shoulder to see an old truck leering over the taxi’s boot. The taxi driver gripped the wheel and made the taxi roar, like a trapped wolf.

  ‘Take it easy.’ Matt caught the driver’s arm and smiled at him. ‘It’s okay.’

  Pat felt as if Matt was talking to him and dropped his hand from the door handle.

  The driver took his foot from the accelerator, but his hands were white on the wheel as he stared at the thundering crowd.

  Youths swinging around lampposts, banging rubbish lids, clattering sticks on the shop shutters. There was no sign of the Chinese shop owner Pat had seen before.

  Matt nodded slowly at Pat, as if he was becoming sleepy in the face of the mob. That cool.

  But Pat remembered the woman and her raggedy kids ’ They all hate us, they think we’re rich. They’re going rob and kill us!

  He clamped his fist on the handle of the door again. Run out, fast! Back to the rice paddies ’

  ‘You stay,’ Matt said quietly as he slid out of the taxi. He leaned on the roof, almost yawning as the shouting crowd swirled towards him. He lifted his hand casually, as if he could stop the charge with a lazy gesture.

  He can’t do this!

  The taxi driver was gripping the steering wheel so hard that it shook, as two boys waving sticks moved towards them. They began bumping their bodies against the taxi’s sides and slapped their free hands on the bonnet.

  Pat stopped breathing and his eyes locked on their faces. This was going to be so bad ’

  The first youth, his thin face scarred with acne, saw Matt’s lifted hand, frowned, looked at Matt’s face.

  Then he slapped Matt’s hand with a grin.

  And that changed everything. The mob flooded around Matt and the taxi and they rocked the taxi, slapped the bonnet and Matt’s offered hand. None of them were angry. Not at all. They were cheering.

  Pat suddenly started to see fragments inside the mob, little men, fat men, young men, children, even a few women. He saw a handful of dancers in the street, clapping to build a rhythm. He saw large, bright, orange and green squares being flapped by several chanting groups – flags? He saw a grinning woman capering around with a small child sitting on her shoulders. A kid flattened his lips and nose against Pat’s window before laughing and running away. This mob looked like a crowd of footy fans after winning the grand final.

  Pat felt a soft banging on his leg and was surprised to see that his clenched fists were drumming his knee. He had to deliberately make the fists stop shaking before he could force them to relax.

  The crowd eddied around the taxi and the truck, disappearing as suddenly as it had appeared. Matt stretched and eased back into his
seat. The taxi driver wound down his window and spat after them.

  Matt frowned at the taxi driver then shrugged. ‘That was the flag mob,’ he said to Pat.

  ‘Monkeys,’ muttered the taxi driver and moved slowly down the road.

  ‘Just get us to the harbour, all right?’

  Boy, I’m glad you’re friends with them,’ Pat said.

  ‘Friends?’ Matt shook his head. ‘I’m not. You saw a bit of street diplomacy, that’s all. And you can’t complain, either.’ He prodded the driver and turned back to Pat. ‘Without it, his taxi would have a few more dents.’

  The driver grunted.

  Matt shrugged. ‘Out here you have to make friends with everyone. It’s part of the business. The flag bunch want independence. They want to leave the mother country and flap off on their own – like Timor, Aceh, Irian Jaya, Ambon, the Dyaks of Kalimantan.’

  ‘Sea of rats,’ hissed the taxi driver and the peacock feather swirled under the roof.

  ‘There we are. Now can you see my problem?’ Matt sighed.

  ‘Um,’ Pat said slowly.

  ‘Okay there’s people like the mob back there that want to quit Jakarta – Indonesia – but there are others who do not want to quit. Like him,’ Matt thumbed the taxi driver. ‘Like the military. Especially the military. But we get help and information – great information – from all of them, and we have to get on with the military just to stay in their waters. What do you do?’

  Pat wasn’t really listening. His hands still felt wet from that moment in the street, but they were gone and their problem was not his. Right?

  ‘What you do is nod and smile at everyone and keep your head down.’

  Pat jerked his head up in surprise. That was the way he walked into a new school, or into that first plane. As if he had an echo in his head.

  ‘I don’t care what they want – independence, or cannibalism,’ said Matt. ‘It’s nothing to do with me. Just so long as I don’t get affected. But don’t tell Beth about the flag mob, or you will never get here again.’