by Lucy Walker
‘But she was awfully brave before the plane crashed. She just looked bored as if nothing worse was going to happen than a five-foot jump.’
‘And what were you? Scared?’
‘I suppose I was, but I had young Peter. I couldn’t show it, you know. That’s terribly bad for young children. They must never see adults frightened.’
Alan smiled at her; at the same time his eyebrows flickered whimsically.
‘Stephen was right,’ he said. ‘You’re a good mother to Peter.’
Cherry rose to her feet.
‘I didn’t think Stephen thought of me at all,’ she said.
‘Stephen?’ said Alan. ‘Heaven only knows what he thinks about any of us except he’s rather impressed with the casual way Tracy takes everything. Imagine if we had two sick or hysterical women on our hands! No, he just happened to mention that a casual observer would think Peter belonged to you. Don’t be angry about it, Cherry. It is only natural he should feel concerned about his brother’s child.’
‘Of course. I quite agree. But I manage Peter much more capably than Stephen would.’
‘I think that’s what he means.’
Cherry busied herself wiping the damp earth and leaf-mould from her hands and arms. After a minute she looked across the short space between them and gave Alan an apologetic smile.
‘I’m sorry I was touchy,’ she said. ‘It was silly of me.’
‘Quite understandable,’ said Alan evenly. ‘In a situation like this we’re all apt to get a bit edgy.’
‘It’s very nearly fun,’ said Cherry thoughtfully. ‘I said that before, didn’t I?’
‘If we didn’t have the responsibility of a small child with us, and if we could let the outside world know where we are,’ agreed Alan. ‘Two men with two attractive girls ‒’ He laughed again.
After a long pause he looked up, and their eyes met. Cherry dropped her eyes and went on, more rapidly, cleaning her hands and arms with bunches of green leaf tips rolled into balls.
Peter at that moment was stirring in his hammock made of an airline rug. Cherry went over to him and lifted him out. She held him up in the air and smiled up into his face.
‘Wake up, sleepy head, there’s more bird soup waiting for you. And Stephen said I might, I just might, give you one more biscuit with it.’
Stephen and his eking out of the biscuits! Did he think she didn’t know how to ration them herself?
‘Darling Peter, I feel cross with your uncle,’ she whispered into his hair as she lowered him into her arms and carried him to a crèche they had made by dragging four logs together into a square. She set Peter down on the ground in his safety yard. ‘But don’t tell him,’ she added. ‘We can’t afford to quarrel until we get back to civilisation.’
Could she afford to quarrel with him then, she wondered. After all, he was the brother of her employer. He was a part owner in the station where she earned her livelihood.
Peter was still too sleepy to be impressed by Cherry’s reflections, even if he understood them. He sat comfortably on his nice padded seat, put two fingers in his mouth and regarded Cherry with lazy eyes. Cherry bent over and kissed him.
‘Nobody ought dare quarrel over you, ragamuffin,’ she said. This was aloud and she was suddenly aware of Alan Donnelly watching her out of quizzical eyes.
Cherry flushed and turned away quickly to retrieve Peter’s bird soup from the embers of the fire. She had been caught at playing being motherly again.
She wondered why, as she presently fed Peter, this should worry her. It was like exposing some deep secret of her nature and no one, she supposed, liked their inner self being exposed to the onlooking world. For some extraordinary reason it seemed to establish some unspoken bond between herself and Alan. It was too silly a thought, but really, spending the day in the camp like this, with the baby between them, made them look like a staid married couple.
Cherry was furious at the thought. The one thing she didn’t want to be was ‘staid’. She wanted to be young and gay ‒ and, yes, modern like Tracy. And were Tracy and Stephen out there in the jungle looking like a staid married couple? Well, not Tracy, that was for sure. Nor Stephen either when you came to think of it. There were occasions when he was amused in a manner no one, but no one, could call staid.
One thing she was certain about ‒ Alan wouldn’t be dull taking a girl out. There were moments when he had a slightly devil-may-care light in his eyes when he told his stories of people ‒ mostly girls ‒ met on overnight stays on pilot duty.
Chapter Eight
Cherry had scarcely finished feeding Peter when Tracy came through the thick undergrowth into the clearing.
‘Goodness, how does she do it?’ thought Cherry.
Tracy’s slacks were as stained and jagged as her own ‒ she was reserving the two pairs salvaged in her bag from the plane for civilisation, Tracy said ‒ but her hair, glowing like deep coals in the shadows of the trees, was smooth and beautiful as ever.
Cherry was suddenly and excitedly aware of something else about Tracy. Apart from the addition of a slightly smug look, Tracy’s face was shining clean. So were her hands.
‘Ducks for dinner,’ Tracy said, still in that slightly bored voice. ‘Stephen is de-feathering them now.’
‘Ducks?’ said Cherry, hardly daring to hope, ‘Ducks swim on water. And your hands are clean.’
‘And so is the rest of me,’ said Tracy. ‘I’ve been swimming.’
Alan had gone back to the plane wreckage for more salvage so Cherry was Tracy’s only audience as she let herself sink to the ground in a single graceful movement.
‘That,’ said Tracy, ‘calls for a cigarette.’
She reached into her blouse pocket and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. She leaned forward and lifted a charred stick from the fire embers and held its coal to the end of her cigarette. Cherry ignored the surprise appearance of cigarettes.
‘Forgive my interrupting you in that activity of yours, Tracy,’ said Cherry, standing holding Peter in her arms, ‘but if you’ve been swimming it’s just possible you might tell me where. Then I could give Peter a bath.’
‘Yourself too,’ said Tracy, idly looking Cherry up and down. ‘Just how you got yourself in that mess ‒ up to your armpits with mud, I guess ‒ I’ll never know.’
‘I don’t suppose you will, but I’ll give you an even break at finding out. I’ve been digging for water. Over there, in that hole. And the sand happens to be black when you get that far down.’
‘Quaint,’ said Tracy. ‘And I’ve never seen anything else but red earth up in these regions.’
‘Tracy, I’ll shake you in a minute. Please, please. Where is the kind of water that can get you as clean as you look?’
‘I can hear Stephen coming through the bush. Ask him. He found it,’ said Tracy, expelling long shafts of smoke from her cigarette.
Stephen, carrying two brace of plucked ducks, broke through the heavy undergrowth. For a moment he stood on the outer edge of the clearing and looked at the two girls. Tracy was reclining comfortably on the ground, her face clean and her hair immaculate. Cherry, by this time standing near her, Peter still in her arms, was dishevelled with the evidences of her more recent wresting of water from the ground-hole very much on her face, hands and arms. It went without saying, Cherry thought, not without a touch of bitterness, that her hair was all over the place too.
Stephen looked as beautifully clean as Tracy did. While she and Peter, not to mention Alan Donnelly ‒
‘If you two could bear to divulge your secret,’ Cherry said severely, ‘I might just be able to wash Peter before sundown.’
Stephen walked into the centre of the clearing and threw the ducks on to the ground.
‘Dinner,’ he said, with an air of triumph. ‘While Tracy cooks them I’ll take you and Peter to the great find of the century, Cherry.’
Alan Donnelly could be heard coming back from the plane.
‘And Alan too,’ said Cherry. �
��I guess he wouldn’t mind washing his hands for dinner ‒’
Alan broke through the bushes. It took him a full minute to realise the change in Stephen and Tracy, and to see the ducks lying on the ground.
‘You didn’t find a station homestead too?’ he asked with a delighted grin.
‘No such luck,’ said Stephen. ‘But let’s all be clean first and then we can talk about the day’s luck in hunting. We found the edge of the jungle anyway. There’s plains … open wide dusty plains about four miles due south.’
‘And hills in the distance, if you like a full description of the scenery,’ said Tracy. ‘The main thing is ‒’
‘The main thing is,’ said Alan, giving a whoop of delight, ‘out on the plain a searching aircraft could spot us.’
‘Exactly,’ said Stephen. ‘But don’t forget we can’t go too far from our water find. It’s about eight degrees north-west of the opening into the plain country.’
‘Please,’ pleaded Cherry, ‘could we go and bathe? I can’t think of anything in the world more wonderful than clean water in large quantities.’
‘Of course,’ said Stephen. He strode over and took Peter from her arms. ‘On your way to the next thing to godliness, young feller,’ he said, addressing the child.
Peter twisted himself in Stephen’s arms and looked over his shoulder at Cherry. He made the kind of demanding noises that meant he ought to be carried by Cherry.
‘We’ve got a carrying-seat for him,’ said Cherry. ‘Alan’s made it.’
‘It’s not that far,’ said Stephen. ‘I’m quite capable of carrying my own nephew.’
‘What shall we do for towels?’ asked Cherry, picking her way over the ground towards Stephen and Peter who were already turning towards the bush. She thought this was not the right moment to quarrel over Peter. If only the small darling wouldn’t peer over Stephen’s shoulder like that as if afraid she wasn’t coming.
‘What we did,’ said Tracy, still recumbent. ‘Nothing. And by the way I can’t cook ducks.’
Stephen paused.
‘Then put Alan on the job,’ he said. ‘He’s got quite a long wait.’
‘Oh no,’ protested Cherry. ‘He wants a wash and, much more, he wants a long, long drink too.’
‘Sorry,’ said Stephen. ‘We keep the party evenly divided. First rule of the bush. Never leave one alone. Two or more, yes. But not one.’
‘It’s okay, Cherry,’ said Alan with a grin. ‘I’m going to give myself one nip of that brandy with some boiled dirty water as a toast to my later ablutions. But be a sweetheart ‒ just don’t be too long. Tracy, where have you been harbouring those illicit cigarettes?’
They were still mildly wrangling over cigarettes, and how to cook ducks, as Stephen and Cherry drowned the sound of their words with their own crashing and struggling through the heavy growth.
Cherry too had wondered where Tracy had got her packet of cigarettes. It had been agreed that all treasures be pooled and be rationed out only when all members of the party were present to share. Tracy must have kept her own treasure trove and said nothing about it. Oh well, she would be forgiven. Anyone as attractive and as stubbornly dependent and useless as was Tracy would be forgiven anything. Such people always were, Cherry reflected.
All the same, she still admired Tracy for not panicking in that plane, and not having hysterics or making complaints since. Cherry quite overlooked that she herself hadn’t offended in any of these categories either.
She followed Stephen through the heavy jungle undergrowth. Now and again Peter gave a cry of protest as some prickly bush or branch-end whipped across his arms or legs. Stephen kept Peter’s face shielded with his hand.
Already, from conversation the night before, Cherry knew how Stephen could follow his own tracks through the jungle. He followed the natives’ device of breaking the twig ends of branches as he went along. It made exploring slower but certainly safer.
He was now following his own trail of broken branches.
Presently, though there was still little light through the dense growth Cherry knew they were going down an incline. She had a tendency to slip on the damp carpet of dead leaves.
Quite suddenly there was light through the trees. Then suddenly they stood on the edge of rocks. Below them was a still pool of water in a round basin, about fifteen feet across. There were lilies growing on the far edge and half a dozen birds gliding over its surface.
‘Oh!’ gasped Cherry, then asked, ‘Is it safe to drink?’
‘If it weren’t there’d be dead stuff around, the remains of reptiles and birds. And I’ve never heard of ducks swimming on poisoned water.’
‘Of course,’ said Cherry. ‘I suppose that was a stupid question to ask. But the birds do swim on heavily salted water, don’t they?’
‘I took the precaution of watching the birds, first,’ Stephen said dryly. ‘And Tracy and I have drunk long and deep. I feel perfectly fit.’
For a moment Cherry thought he might be reproaching her for looking a gift horse in the mouth, or worse, cowardice.
‘I was thinking of Peter,’ she said gravely.
Stephen looked over Peter’s head. His eyes smiled.
‘So was I,’ he said.
Cherry flushed. It was as if she had been caught out assuming he thought of her.
‘How do we get down?’ Cherry asked in order to banish every thought except those that dealt with the miracle of wide waters and swimming birds.
Stephen, still carrying Peter, began to pick his way down over the stony shore of the small lake.
‘There just could be fish down there,’ said Cherry conversationally as she followed him. This was a glad moment, she felt, and she ought to make it sound glad.
‘If we had time to fish,’ said Stephen’s voice, muffled by the fact he did not look round and Peter’s body as well as his own shoulder intervened.
They reached the bottom of the short, boulder-strewn incline and Stephen stooped and put Peter down. The child gazed at the water in absorbed interest. He put out his hands towards it.
‘I’ll wash him first,’ said Cherry.
‘I’ll do that,’ said Stephen. ‘If you just go along about a hundred yards you can bathe yourself.’
There was no shelter or privacy around the entire shore of that strange lake. One could climb up among the boulders, Cherry thought, but then one would still have to descend over an open space into the water.
Even if she swam in her underclothes …! But she would like to wash them!
‘Well, spring to it,’ said Stephen with a half-angry unevenness in his voice. ‘You will excuse Peter and me being absorbed in other things.’
Once again Cherry flushed for she realised Stephen understood her predicament and he was curtly telling her that bathing in their peculiar circumstances was more important than prudery.
He had rolled up the legs of his trousers, turned his back on the northern portion of the shore to which he had directed Cherry and bending over Peter began to divest the child of his clothing.
Peter was not only amenable, he was delighted.
‘Water, water!’ he seemed to crow. ‘Just let me in to splash!’
Cherry picked her way along the beach, took off her clothing and slipped into the water.
It was sheer delight to her hot moist body. Suddenly she didn’t care any more about the man and the child farther along the lakeside.
Cold water! Clear cold water and rounded stones for a lake bottom. Oh … what wonderful heaven!
She bent down to scoop between the stones and bring up sufficient quartz-like sand with which to rub herself all over.
‘Very abrasive form of soap,’ she reflected. ‘But, oh, how wonderful, wonderful!’
She turned over on her back and floated.
All around the lake was a wall of jungle bush and trees, straight overhead was the grey circle of humid sky. If there was any sun shining Cherry did not see it but that sky was so light the sun must be somewhere in t
he universe. It certainly dealt out its heat if not its rays into this choking jungle.
Suddenly across that space of open sky there came two wedge-shaped lines like the chevrons on a soldier’s sleeve.
‘Birds,’ she thought. ‘More birds, and not ducks.’
The lines came closer, circled the opening above the lake and then breaking their formation came down, down, down to the water.
‘Pelicans!’ Cherry cried aloud.
She crouched down in the water, her face turned up, and watched.
They came in flocks now.
After the pelicans came what she thought were herons and ibis. Then ducks and ducks and ducks. There were brown and black and grey ducks, small ones, big ones … and yes, swans. Then flying in, in a small covey, came seagulls.
Cherry wiped the water out of her eyes as if wiping away magic mists.
‘I don’t believe it,’ she said. ‘Seagulls! We must be five hundred miles inland.’
Suddenly the whole lake was covered with feathers. In a minute the birds would crowd her out of the water altogether.
In her wonder and excitement she nearly called out to Stephen but remembered in time she was handicapped by an absence of clothes.
She had brought her underclothes to the edge and realising that the homecoming of birds must mean the near approach of sundown, she retrieved the clothes and did her best, while sitting neck deep in water, to wash them.
All the time, along the beach, Stephen appeared to take no interest in anything but Peter’s joyous splashing in the water.
‘Oh, I must hurry,’ thought Cherry remorsefully. ‘He’s got to take us back, and then bring Alan.’
At the thought of Alan waiting in the steaming camp clearing for a share in that heaven she herself was enjoying, she wrung out her clothes, hastened back on to the water’s edge and drew them on over her damp body.
She hadn’t thought to bring a comb for her hair ‒
Tracy would sooner have parted with life than her comb.
She pulled on her rubber-soled shoes and ran along the beach to Stephen.
