“’Fraid so.”
Graham looked at his watch. “Can
we go, or do we have to stay till they get here?” he asked. Roger saw that it
was now twelve twenty five.
“I want you to stay. I’m sorry.
While we wait I’d like you to help me get your stories down on paper,” Sergeant
Grey said. Then he looked up and frowned. A car full of tourists had
pulled up and people were getting out. “Widmark, tell them to push off,” he ordered.
“Stay up there and keep people away.”
The constable stood up and
hurried up the track. The tourists were ordered to move on.
“This road is pretty damned
busy,” Sergeant Grey growled as two more cars went past, kicking up clouds of
dust.
“It’s the school holidays
Sergeant, so there’s more traffic,” Stephen explained.
Sergeant Grey gave a sarcastic
laugh. “You don’t have to tell me!”
Stephen flushed and looked away.
Sergeant Grey then asked if they
wanted him to contact their parents.
“Oh no!
Don’t do that!” Roger wailed.
“My mum will take me home and that will mean no hike for me.”
Silver Wolf spoke up. “I’m sure
their parents would be happy for me to witness their statements Sergeant.
They’ve been in my troop for years.”
Sergeant Grey nodded. “That’ll do.
We’ll get handwritten statements today and they can come in with their parents
to sign typed copies after their hike.”
The boys brightened up at that.
Sergeant Grey went to the police car and returned with a plastic folder and
writing paper. He then had each boy in turn sit and give his story while Silver
Wolf listened. Constable Widmark was told to cover the body and to chase away
some more curious sightseers.
While he waited, Roger was a bit amused
to see that Stephen kept casting nervous glances at the now shrouded body every
minute or so. It gave him some satisfaction after all the jibes Stephen had
flung at him over the years. He noted that Stephen looked so pale that his
freckles were much more noticeable.
An hour went by. The boys became
a bit bored and restless.
Roger felt his stomach grumble.
“I’m hungry. Can we have lunch?” he asked.
Stephen looked at him with a
shocked expression on his face. “Roger! How could you possibly eat near a ...
near a
..”
he tailed into silence.
Sergeant Grey thought it a good
idea. He told them to collect their gear and move it up to the edge of the road
and to have lunch.
“More like afternoon tea if you
ask me,” grumbled Graham. “It’s nearly two o’clock. We’ve lost nearly four
hours.”
Peter was the last to be
interviewed and he had just joined them when two more police vehicles arrived;
a car and a Landcruiser.
Three men in suits, obviously
detectives, emerged from the car. The police photographer and fingerprint man
emerged from the Landcruiser. An ambulance arrived and stopped. More
tourist cars began stopping but were moved on.
The boys sat on a rock and
watched while Sergeant Grey explained things to the leader of the Detectives.
He was a thin man of medium height with a hatchet nose, bristly moustache and
close cropped black hair. Sergeant Grey pointed at the boys and Roger saw all
the faces turned to look.
That made him feel
as though
he wanted to hide.
They were called down and
introduced.
“This is Detective Inspector
Sharpe. He will be in charge of the investigation,” said Sergeant Grey.
Inspector Sharpe looked at each in turn and had each state their name. When
Roger’s turn came he stuttered from concern.
Inspector Sharpe frowned
irritably. “What’s that? Speak up boy!” he snapped. Roger looked into two hard
black eyes which seemed to reach inside his skull and he shivered. With an
effort he swallowed and cleared his throat. “Roger Dunning Sir,” he said.
“You swam out and pulled the body
ashore?” Inspector Sharpe asked.
“Yes Sir.”
“That was a brave thing to do. I
think these boys have done a very good job, don’t you Bob?” He turned to a
burly Detective Sergeant beside him, who grunted assent.
Raised voices on the road
attracted their attention. Roger looked and saw that Captain Conkey, still in
civilian clothes, had arrived. The constable allowed him to park his car and
then join them. As he walked down Captain Conkey looked at them with a mildly
annoyed expression.
“I didn’t even have time to get
home before I hear you are in trouble,” he said.
“Oh sir!”
Roger expostulated.
Captain Conkey introduced
himself. He obviously already knew Silver Wolf and Roger thought he detected a
degree of reserve between the two men.
That made Roger feel
even more uneasy. Over the last year or so his own interest in Scouts had
declined as he had risen in rank in the army cadets and that bothered his sense
of loyalty.
Twenty minutes went by while the
situation was again explained and Captain Conkey decided if they could go on
with their hike. He asked Inspector Sharpe, who agreed.
“Can we go now Sir?” Graham
asked.
“If Sergeant
Grey and DS Crowe have all the details, yes.
Where are you boys off to?”
“Platypus Lookout to look for a
clue,” Graham answered, glancing at Captain Conkey as he did.
Inspector Sharpe raised his right
eyebrow.
“Clue?”
Captain Conkey explained their
hike,
then
concluded: “So they have to go there to
search for a clue which tells them where to go next.” He looked at his
watch and added, “And if you don’t mind, I will fly. I have to go to a dinner
tonight in Mareeba and before that I will need to phone and incident report to
the army HQ in Townsville; and I’ve now driven here twice today.”
“By all means Captain. We will be
in touch if we need you,” Inspector Sharpe agreed.
Captain Conkey looked at the
boys. “Now you lot stay out of trouble and I will see you on Friday. Good luck
and take care.”
“Yes sir,” they chorused as he
waved farewell and hurried up the track to his car.
Graham looked at the sky and
said. “We should make it to Platypus Lookout before dark if we go fast.”
Inspector Sharpe nodded and
asked, “Would you like a lift?”
Graham and Peter shook their
heads. “No thanks Sir,” replied Graham. “We have to walk the distance.”
“Where will you be camping, in
case we need to ask you something?” Inspector Sharpe asked.
“At one of the
campsites.
We’ve got a permit,” Graham replied, tapping his map pocket.
Silver Wolf then interrupted.
“You just reminded me. I’m sure I saw this man at Platypus Lookout yesterday
morning.” He described what he had seen.
Inspector Sharpe listened
intently while the Detective Sergeant jotted notes. “We will have a look there
later. If you boys see anything there don’t disturb it and let us know,”
Inspector Sharpe cautioned. Then he turned back to Silver Wolf. “Do you want a
lift Sir?”
“No thanks. I’m only going to
Camp Barrabadeen.” He pointed across the arm of the lake to a timber clad
headland. “I’ll walk with the boys. It’s only a couple of kilometres to the turnoff.”
The boys moved off up the track,
Stephen leading. Roger came last. Graham took off his pullover and packed
it while the others pulled on their basic webbing and packs. Silver Wolf joined
them. At a call from Inspector Sharpe the ambulanceman went down with a
stretcher.
“The body looks
more spooky
under that blanket than it did just lying on the
beach,” Roger commented.
Graham and Peter both looked but
Stephen kept his face averted. “Shut up Roger!” he hissed.
“Let’s go!” Graham ordered
emphatically.
It was just after 2:30pm when the
four boys and the scoutmaster started walking. To Roger’s annoyance cars went past
every couple of minutes, raising clouds of dust. The boys began to perspire and
the dust stuck to them.
For the first ten minutes they
walked in silence, still oppressed by thoughts of the murdered man but as they
rounded each bend in the road and saw new sights they began to cheer up. Roger
made a conscious effort to push the horror into the back of his mind by noting
the different types of trees.
At the turnoff to the Scout Camp
Silver Wolf bade them good hiking and turned off. The boys walked on along the
main
road,
down across the end of a backwater full of
dead trees and water lilies, then up over a low ridge.
Roger soon forgot the body in the
effort of trying to keep pace with the others. He had to push himself to keep
up on the uphill climbs and was ruefully aware that his shoulder muscles were
already hurting under the weight of his gear. He tried to ignore the bodily
discomfort but that just seemed to make him even more aware of a dozen niggling
little irritations
:-
his webbing digging into his hips,
a boot rubbing his left heel, a sore little toe on his right foot, his trousers
rubbing the soft insides of his thighs.
The boys went down and around the
end of another swampy backwater which gave a view out onto the lake but on the
next upslope this was cut off by a belt of quite thick rainforest. Graham kept
checking the map he carried in his hand and Peter took his out from time to
time. Roger couldn’t be bothered. It was hard enough just keeping up. ‘They can
navigate,’ he thought. ‘They are better at it than me anyway.’
The road wound around the lower
slopes of jungle clad ridges, keeping just above the level of the lake. Every
few hundred metres it crossed creeklines emptying into gloomy backwaters. The
day was fine but in under the overhanging trees there were patches of damp
which made the road soft.
Graham pointed to one of these.
“There must have been rain recently to make it as wet as this,” he observed.
“How much
further?”
Roger asked.
“About two kilometres,” Graham
replied.
“Can we stop for a bit?”
“No.”
They walked on. Roger began to
feel miserable. Hiking hurt. He wondered why he did it. It wasn’t as if he
didn’t know what it would be like. He’d been on a dozen other hikes. He looked
at the three packs ahead of him and felt a tinge of jealousy. How could Graham
and Peter just wander along looking around them and talking as though they
didn’t have a care in the world? They didn’t seem to even notice the weight of
their gear. At least Stephen seemed to be bent forward a bit, head down. Roger then
rebuked himself for feeling such malicious pleasure.
‘It’s all very well for them,’ he
thought gloomily. ‘They have just done their ATA Course and have toughened up.’
He had also been on the exercise but because he was only a ‘Second Year’, and
the ATA Course was for ‘Third Years’, he had not done all the activities.
They passed through more rain
forest
. A whole line of four-wheel drive vehicles roared
past; ten of them, each with one or two people in it, some reading maps and
others talking on CB radios. The boys stood in weeds beside the road and
waited. Dust billowed, causing Roger to cough and scowl in annoyance. Then they
continued on.
Roger suddenly cannoned into
Stephen’s pack. Stephen had stopped suddenly. “Look out Roger! You nearly
knocked me over,” he snapped.
“Sorry, what?
What?”
Roger’s gaze followed Graham’s
outstretched finger. He and Peter had also stopped.
A red-bellied black snake had
appeared out of the weeds a few metres in front of them and was sliding across
the road. Roger felt a shiver of fright as he watched it. The snake was at
least two metres long and so thick he couldn’t have put his finger and thumb
around it (not that he would ever want to, even if it was dead!). The reptile
was so black and shiny it looked as though it had been polished and the
underside was a surprisingly bright red. It moved with what was, to Roger’s
eyes, appalling speed.
“Isn’t it
beautiful!
”
Peter cried.
“So shiny.”
“Beautiful be buggered!” Graham
replied. He hated all snakes.
“We should kill it,” Stephen
added.
“Against the law, except in
self-defence,” Peter reminded.
“What with anyway?” added Graham
as the snake slithered into the undergrowth. “We’d better watch where we put
our feet when we step off the road.”
The boys continued on. Roger now found
his eyes scanning the weeds along the edge of the road. He walked with his head
down, his hands grasping the pack straps to help ease the burden.
They came to another large
backwater studded with the grey trunks of dead trees and fringed by reeds and
lilies.