Arthur Upfield - The bushman who came back

There arose, in this man of two races, emotion he rarely permitted to surface. It was like a heatless fire deep behind his eyes, and he swore at the blinding sun and the frustrating mirage. Pinned like a moth to a specimen board, he and those behind him were being vitally delayed for the mud to engulf them.

Ah! There was movement of a sort, a shape impossible to identify. Swiftly it grew to monstrous size, swiftly to diminish to vanishing point. The sniper was retreating.

Bony made to leap to his feet, and was brought to reality by the mud shoes. He wanted to run, but again the boards restrained him. In a semi-crouching attitude, Bony hurried after him, with the nightmare sensation of leaden feet.

He came to the dingo-rest where the sniper had staged his last hold-up, and instead of waiting for the others he pressed on, determined to nail the enemy before he could gain cover behind the shore dunes. Now how far to the blessed land, the clean, the beautiful land? How much farther over this filthy mud? What had Yorky said? Ah, yes, two miles. A long way, and yet not so long when clean red sand and a hut near water waited.

An hour later he saw the red sand, sand rising in billows as of red spray suddenly suspended, great red cliffs of it, gouged and gullied by the shadow drifts of graphite powder. And he saw, without distortion, a man run from the mud and race up the beach. Without expending time sprawling, Bony halted, sighted and fired. He heard himself shout when the running figure staggered. He heard himself curse when the running figure recovered, to run on between two cliffs of red spray.

He was down on the mud yet again, fighting for control of breathing and nerves. He struggled to sink yet lower into the mud, knowing that his adversary was calmly selecting his cover from behind which he could pin down a regiment. How far was he from the beach? It was impossible to assess distances in this shimmering colourless radiance.

His rifle was ranged to fire point-blank up to 350 yards. He could do nothing now but wait, hoping to see the spurt of flame before hearing that wasp, thus learning the position of the adversary. Vain hope, indeed, when the sun is directly before one, and a bare five hands’ width above the summits of low dunes.

He was thinking how to place himself beyond range of the Winchester and still keep the dunes within range of his own rifle, when a sound like a cork being withdrawn came from his left, followed about two seconds later by the report. To turn about and retreat in a manner dictated by mud and hampered feet was to ask for a bullet in the back from a man able to see clearly with the sun behind him.

The next bullet hit the mud several yards immediately in front of Bony. He saw the tiny spurt of mud so disturbed, and found consolation in the obvious fact that the marksman could not see where his bullets hit, and so correct his errors, for the impact raised no dust. The following bullet informed him that the marksman was immediately to his front, and probably behind a low declivity between two humps.

To his complete bewilderment, therefore, he witnessed the appearance of a dark figure at a point at least two hundred feet to the right of this place; and the figure was a man who was waving something white. Then in the shimmering light haze he saw that the man was moving in a crouching manner along the foot of the dunes, and towards the place where the rifleman should be. Bony aimed at this position and fired, and was rewarded by the miniature avalanche of sand marring the face of the dune.

Now there was distinct movement on the top of the ridge between the dunes, and two things happened. A bullet plopped into the mud on Bony’s left, and the man at the foot of the dunes began to run, still crouching, towards where the marksman must be. He was stalking the rifleman, and had taken advantage to cover ground when knowing that the marksman was concentrating on his shooting.

Good man! Bony proceeded to assist him further by now and then claiming the rifleman’s full attention. The stalker entered a shadow, disappeared. A bullet plopped into the mud eighteen inches in front of Bony’s rifle muzzle, and he realized that, fortunately, bullets did not ricochet off mud. Then he saw the white fabric being waved atop a sand ridge much nearer the marksman, and Bony tried to dig a furrow across the ridge.

Minutes passed. The sun sank lower still, even more effectively blinding Bony, who could now see only by shading his eyes. Shortly afterwards even that was useless. Lying there utterly helpless while the sun sank behind the sand ridge were moments suspended for ever. Now the distant land was sharply silhouetted against the light; for the first time the odds were in Bony’s favour. The shadows were gone, the light shimmer was banished. He could see clearly the scar of the avalanche made by his bullet on the virgin face of the dune behind which lurked his adversary.

Then he saw a movement directly over his sights, and settled to make this a victory shot, stilling his nerves, freezing his arms and neck muscles while beginning the slow pressure on the trigger. This was it. He could actually see the top of the fellow’s head over the smaller blob of rifle muzzle resting on the sharply etched red sand line against the saffron sky. He knew now that the range was well under two hundred yards, and in his hands was a superb weapon. Conditions were ideal. Now to dispatch a high-velocity bullet into the brain of the killer!

One fraction of increased pressure on the trigger and the bullet would have been sped, one fraction of a second more would have achieved finality. But the second passed and the pressure was stopped, for just beyond the marksman rose that waving white object. It rose above the ridge, revealing the head and body of the man waving as he mounted the opposite slope. The man lifted his arm, and his hand held a rifle or a waddy. Whichever it was, it was brought downward with severe force.

Then on the summit was an aborigine waving vigorously for Bony to come on.

Reaction almost caused Bony to sob from sheer frustration. He wanted to shout oaths and curses. Having waited all that time, having exposed himself to bullets all about him, having come to the moment of equalization, to be frustrated by a damnedabo!

Standing, he sloughed the mud from his clothes, and congratulated himself that there wasn’t a smear on the rifle. Turning about he saw Yorky and Meena still far out, the man continuing to carry the child, and when the storm of unreasoning anger subsided, he placed the rifle on the mud without a qualm and went back to meet them.

“He pinned me to the mud,” Bony said. “Just when I was able to let him have it, that blasted aborigine clouted him.”

Yorky, standing like Atlas, screwed his face into a peculiar expression, part admiration, part incredulity.

“You pinned him behind thatsandhill, too, for a full hour. I’d sooner be talking to Linda thanlyin ’ where you was. Better get going, Inspector. Thismud’ll turn to soup any minute.”

“Let me carry Linda. Edge round me and go first. That aborigine… I must admit… is our friend for life.”

“It’s Charlie,” Meena said, quietly, and with infinite pride. “He’s still waving.”

Yorky headed the short procession, swaying drunkenly with fatigue, and followed by Bony with Linda astride his shoulders. The mirage vanished into the miasma of nightmare, and the land of salmon-pink urged them off the rusty-iron Lake Eyre.

“I don’t want to see that ole lake again.”

“Neither do I, Linda. I like lakes with cool water, like your private lake out there. And when I reach a shower I’ll stay under it all night.”

“You can’t. Mr Wootton wouldn’t like you wasting all that water.”

“Wouldn’t he?”