The two boys leaned on the grab-bar across the front window and gazed out; they didn’t need to sit down to enjoy an omnibus ride and anyway, the vehicle was crowded, with every seat now taken. It was a working man’s bus, conveying men to their various places of work, but because it was Saturday a good few of the passengers were, like the Chandlers, going fishing. Mal saw a lot of rods, reels of line, catch-baskets, and he also saw, out of the corner of his eye, that Bill had settled down quite happily to chat to the man next to him, so he took advantage of the distance which separated them to hiss a word of advice in Petey’s ear. ‘Don’t keep natterin’, Petey,’ he said. ‘Dad likes to be the one to talk. You’re makin’ him feel left out, kinda.’
Petey nodded, but Mal realised even as he said the words that he had made his father sound like a spoilt kid, instead of the hero-figure he knew him to be. But he had seen the look in Bill’s eyes and had had no trouble in interpreting it. Bill wanted to be the centre of attention when he took his sons out, he didn’t want Mal fussing round Petey all the time.
‘Yes, all right, Mal. Only – only if I don’t ask you things, I’ll never learn how to fish, will I? Dad’s too busy to teach me.’
‘When we get down to the rocks, you watch Dad like a hawk,’ Mal said, visited by inspiration. ‘He’s always tellin’ me you learn from watchin’, so you can see how he does things and then try to copy him. And ask him just what he’s doing and why, it doesn’t matter how often you ask him, you see – it’s me you mustn’t ask.’
‘Oh! But Dad don’t like me askin’ him questions, Mal, truly he don’t. He gets awful cross . . . and I get skeered.’
‘I think he’d rather you asked him than me,’ Mal said, but it was a sticky point, he could quite see that. Bill did tend to shout and shove Petey away when Petey tried to be friendly. But perhaps now that they were three men together, going fishing, things would be different. ‘Have a try anyway, Petey. And now shut up and let’s look out of the window.’
The bus was still full; as fast as one lot of men deserted the vehicle, another lot climbed aboard, and the conductor’s ticket-machine was constantly rattling. The bus ran along close to the coast, so that Mal, looking to his right, could see the sea most of the time, and every time a group of would-be fishermen climbed down he checked with a glance at his father that their stop had not yet arrived. But Bill sat tight, so he and Petey continued to stare out at the road, unwinding before them, and at the trees, bent sideways by the fret of the wind.
‘Ter-min-us!’ shouted the conductor, making the word into three, and Mal caught hold of Petey’s small and dirty paw.
‘Come on, Petey, we’re there,’ he said. But half-way down the aisle he realised that Bill and the conductor were arguing.
‘. . . I meant to go further, I was told this bus went right along the coast,’ Bill was saying crossly. ‘I paid up, cobber, but this ain’t where I want to go.’
‘Everyone knows this bus stops here,’ the conductor said obstinately. ‘It hasn’t never gone no further to my knowledge, and I’ve lived here for twenty-two years. But if you tek that there path . . .’
‘Then you shouldn’t have charged me full fare,’ Bill said. His neck was flushing, Mal saw apprehensively; a bad sign. ‘I want my money back and you’ll bloody hand over! They told me at the bus station yesterday, when I enquired . . .’
The conductor turned away and the driver got down from his cab and came towards them. He was a very big man, huge and hairy, like the picture of a gorilla in Mal’s
Denizens of the Dark Continent
book. When he spoke his voice came out in a treacly rumble.
‘Trouble, Des?’
‘No, no trouble, sport, just a bit of a misunderstanding,’ Bill said quickly, before the conductor could reply. ‘The lads an’ me are goin’ fishin’ – we meant to go further, but this feller says your bus don’t go that far.’
‘It’s a five-minute walk along the cliff-path,’ the conductor interrupted. ‘If you want to fish in this weather, best get walkin’.’
Mal waited for Bill to square up to him, to start shouting about his rights, his money, but Bill just thanked the conductor rather gruffly and turned towards the path the man had indicated.
‘C’mon, lads,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Quicker we set out the quicker we’ll be fishin’.’
Mal and Petey ran after him, but they still heard the driver and conductor laughing, though Bill apparently heard nothing. Anyway he walked, if anything, faster, calling impatiently to them to try to keep up.
Following behind, Mal quickly forgot the argument, partly because he was so used to Bill’s aggressive attitude. Indeed, the only memorable thing about the recent confrontation was that it had not ended in more abuse, or violence, even. And besides, this was strange country to him and there was much to see. On his right the rocky coast formed small, bite-shaped bays, golden sand sloping smoothly down to meet the huge, crashing grey and white of the breakers. On either side of each bay the rocks stretched, black against the water, and the flung spume from the bigger waves reached the top of the cliffs along which they walked. Despite the coldness of the day there was warmth from the hidden sun coming from the thick bush on either side of the narrow, sandy path and Mal’s eyes were everywhere, taking it in. A brilliant blue flash proved to be a fairy wren, and a very large bird which was standing on a rock with its wings held out to dry was a great black cormorant . . . Petey asked about the birds in a low voice and Mal, who had done a lot about local birds in school, whispered his answers so that Bill, striding ahead, should not hear.
And presently, Bill swerved off the path and plunged across the bush, pushing his way between gorse, broom, heather. Mal followed with more caution – he knew you could find snakes in country such as this – and Petey, clinging to his hand, followed too. Then they were on the black rocks and hurrying down on to the beach.
‘Can I make a sandcastle?’ Petey asked hopefully, but Mal shook his head. Bill would not be best pleased if one of his apprentice fishermen was seen to be engaged in the childish game of building sandcastles!
‘Not now,’ he said, however. ‘Later, perhaps. When we’ve caught some fish.’
Bill turned to them.
‘We’ll go right out of the bay,’ he said. ‘Because we want deep water. It won’t be calm, of course, but if we can get beyond the breakers we’ll stand more chance of catchin’ the big fellers. Come on!’
It sounded simple, but it wasn’t. First they had to scale the great rocks, then they had to scramble over them, moving always further out to sea. And when Mal looked down into the restless depths, he was afraid. It was real deep here and though he’d not swum since arriving in Sydney he just knew a kid like him couldn’t survive in that water. You could see the swirl and drag of the currents, the crash of the surf, the way a body would be first sucked under and then crushed against the rocks . . . this was dangerous country, his father should not have brought them here.
He looked back, towards the safe sands of the bay. Sandcastles might be childish, but at least one needed sand, and right now, sand spelled safety to Mal. He longed to be back there with his little brother, paddling in the pools, digging in the sand, doing the things kids did. This sort of fishing, Mal thought, was for grown men, not for boys. What was more, the beach, the sea, were deserted, not a figure sat on the sand or on the rocks, not a fisherman tried his luck. Even the cormorant, drying his wings, had left. If something happened . . .
But Bill was stopping at last, on a great, whale-backed ridge of rock. He was grinning at them encouragingly and Mal, who knew his father very well indeed, realised that Bill hadn’t meant to come right out here, that he’d been driven by the shame of losing the encounter with the busmen. And now that they were here, of course, he couldn’t admit it was dangerous and go back. They would have to fish for a while, at least.
‘All right, fellers? You’ve done good,’ Bill said. Mal saw Petey start to smile, saw the pink warm his brother’s pale cheeks. ‘Now come on, there’s a bit of a hollow here, we’ll get into it and I’ll set up the rods.’
Bill carried the rods in a canvas hold-all. Now, he put it down and began to assemble them. Whilst he did so, Mal sat Petey down in what he considered a safe place, with a great deal of rock between him and the ocean.
‘Stay here, Petey,’ he instructed. ‘I shan’t be far away. We’ll keep up high, or as high as we can.’
And presently Bill came over to them, handed them each a baited line, and threw it out for them. ‘Hang on to the end and shout if you get a bite,’ he instructed. ‘And if it’s somethin’ real big, if it tugs harder than you want, let go the line. Got it?’
The boys assured him that they would do just as he said and Mal watched a trifle enviously as Bill set up his rod and went to within a couple of feet of the sea-surge. Not that he wanted to be down there, but if Petey hadn’t been along his father would have instructed him how to throw the line, how to bait the hooks . . . still, he would stick by Petey at least until his brother knew what he was doing.
By the time Bill decided they should eat their picnic the weather had worsened. The sea grew rougher and the wind began to shriek. Occasionally a squall of rain swept over rocks, beach, shore, and they were forced to put their backs against it and to cling to the rocks.
‘Is it time to go, Dad?’ Mal asked. Petey’s small face was pale, his eyes had what looked like blue bruises under them and there was a blue line round his mouth. ‘Petey’s awful cold.’
‘We’ll hang on till I catch something,’ Bill growled crossly. ‘Just one decent fish, Mal, then we’ll make tracks.’
And you had to hand it to Petey, not a word of complaint passed his lips. He clung grimly on to his line and was, in fact, the first to get a bite. He shrieked, jerked . . . and Mal and Bill were at his side, grappling with the wet, slippery line, Bill actually following it down to the water’s edge, playing the fish skilfully, not heeding the sea-surge when it washed over his feet . . .
The fish was huge, they could see him surfacing, sounding, despite the surging of the sea, but he was clever, too. He came roaring up to the surface so that the line went loose, then he turned suddenly, the line snagged round a tooth of rock and the fish was free.
‘Never mind, Dad,’ Petey said. ‘How would we have got it home?’
Mal laughed; it was true, they could never have carried a fish that size back over the rocks, slippery with the salt sea.
‘One more cast,’ Bill said then. ‘Just the one, fellers.’
He hated to be beaten, Mal knew it, so he shrugged himself down into a hollow in the rock and wedged his reel between his icy feet and endured. But he knew Petey had had enough, knew he should offer to take his little brother back to the beach, where they could dry out, move freely, relax. Only . . . if he did, Bill would despise him for a sissy and it had taken Mal much effort to be regarded, by his father, as someone who was tough and independent and would, one day, be a real man, like his dad.
So he stayed. And Petey, with his line broken and what remained too short to reach the restless waves, wandered between them, infuriating Bill by singing, because Bill said he’d drive the fish away. It was silly, Mal knew it, but he shook his head at Petey and frowned, and prayed for Dad to get a bite so they could leave this cold and inhospitable shore and go home.
He wasn’t watching when the accident happened. He was crouching on the edge of his hollow, gazing with hatred at his line; come on fish, bite my bloody bait, he was saying inside his head. Give us a chance, I don’t mind if you get away, I’d
rather
you got away, just bite at the bait so I can say you’re there, and then we can leave, the three of us.
But his line still swelled with the surge and moved lightly, weightlessly, so that he knew no fish was nibbling at the bait. He saw Petey stagger over to his father, presumably to ask, for the twentieth time in the hour, whether Bill had yet had a bite, and then he saw, behind Petey, behind his father, the wave.
It was huge, a monster, the biggest wave Mal had ever seen or imagined, and it was bearing down on their shore like a great lumbering express train, coming on and coming on and coming on . . .
It would take them, Mal had no doubt of that. It would sweep right over the rocky barrier to which they clung and when it ebbed, there would be no one standing on the rock. He was cold and stiff, but he jumped to his feet, screamed . . . and ran, crablike, as far up the rock as he could reach. He could
hear
the wave above all the other sea-sounds, it was loud, louder than thunder, and infinitely more frightening.
Mal clawed his way up a pinnacle of rock and turned . . . and saw Petey. In the sea. A white, terrified face, eyes wide, mouth gaping, actually in the curve of the great wave as it hung, for one frightful moment, above them.
Then it was curling downward and Mal saw Bill dive. Straight as an arrow, he dived into the wicked green heart of the wave . . . and the water snatched him down in a tumble of white foam and it curled and hissed up over the rocks and Mal was clinging to his pinnacle in earnest now, as the water tried, with the power and strength of a madman, to tug him down into its boiling white depths.
He caught one more glimpse of Petey, being rolled over and over, deep, deep down. And one more glimpse of Bill, hair flattened to his head, clothing black with water, a pair of desperate hands reaching for a fang of rock as the water hurled him past. Then, nothing but tumbled foam, and wind, and absolute loneliness.
He was running. Running and slipping and falling, clouting his knees on the rock, blood trickling, pain clawing . . . running on. He came to the cliff; he had no breath left, his chest was a fireball of pain, his heart was hammering so hard he feared it would presently jump out of his chest. Yet he flew . . . along the cliff path, every breath a scream though a silent one, his eyes flickering hither and thither. Help me, help me, he shouted, only no sound came out. My brother and my father are drowning, help me, help me!
He had been tempted to jump in, but cowardice, or common sense, stopped him. Useless, to pit himself against an element which had treated his father like a little rag doll. Get help, get help!