Arthur Upfield - Man of Two Tribes

Visions of Freedom

“TOUGHguy!”Riddell said, sneeringly.

“Quiet,” commanded Dr. Havant with unusual severity.

“Sezyou,” persisted the hairy man.

“Riddell, look at me.” Riddell was obstinate; Dr. Havant determined. Riddell visibly cringed. “I say, Riddell,” repeated Havant. To Bony he continued.

“As you requested, we have listened attentively. What you have told us is the essence of common sense, and your picture of the Plain an undeniable endurance test. I agree that we must wait here for you to send relief. As a medical man I agree that we are not fit enough to undertake the journey.”

“I’m not hanging around here,” Jenks asserted. “Not for mine. I can walk the trip. I’m going with Bonaparte.”

“Me, too,” declared Brennan. “I’ll be on my way from the toe line. If I can’t walk two hundred miles, I’ll go crawling on hands and knees. I want to feel the wind and the sun; the big black boys don’t scare me.”

They waited, waited as though for Riddell to cast his vote, but Riddell glared at them, was silent. Maddoch then said:

“If you, Doctor, decide to stay, I’ll stay with you.”

“Thank you, Clifford,” Havant replied. “Riddell, I think you had better go.”

“I’mgoin ’, Doc. Don’t worry.”

“And so shall I,” added the girl.

“No,” advised Havant. “You must stay with Clifford and me.”

“It would be too dull. You two together don’t even add up to one real man.” Her eyes mocked. Easter’s assessment now proved right. “All of you have given me only sensational radio material, enough to make real money, and I’m not missing out. I don’t intend to be Daniel, left with two tame lions.”

“You could be disaster, Myra, for the lions you would accompany,” she was told, coolly. “The lions, as you now call us all, might not get through because of you, a woman, and therefore, a weak link.”

“I’m as strong as any one of them, and no one will stop me from going with Inspector Bonaparte. Not even Bonaparte.”

“Sezyou,” snarled Riddell, and she turned on him.

“Shut up, you repulsive gorilla,” she shouted. “Shut up, you… you

…”

“I second that,” softly interposed Mark Brennan.“Myra, calm down. You’re a lady, remember? You will do just what the Inspector decides. If he says you must stay here, you stay. Because, Myra, I won’t let you spoil my chance of getting back to Pitt Street on a Saturday night. I’ll bloody well choke you to death first. Get me, Myra?”

The violet eyes turned to Bony, who decided it would be wiser to have the woman under his own lash, for those who stayed would be in the position to betray those who went. He said:

“In Myra’s favour is the fact that she has been here only a short while, and, physically, would be fitter than those who have been here for a year and more.

“Now, let us be clear. Doctor Havant stays, and Clifford thinks he ought to stay also. You others have elected to go with me. Mark Brennan, I like your spirit. I applaud your determination not to permit Myra, and others may be included, to ruin your chance of returning to civilisation. May I expect you to support all my decisions?”

“You may. Too ruddy right, you may.”

“Then, our next step. Because the way out taken by the dog might be comparatively easy for us, I warn you that to escape into the open in broad daylight could well mean the smashing of all our hopes. There are those wild aborigines, with eyesight like eagles. From our present position we cannot know where they are, and thus they could be watching for us to emerge, waiting like dingoes for rabbits to bolt. To our great advantage is their fear of the Plain by night. So we work our way out by night. We emerge by night. Your journey to freedom and the bright lights begins by night. Now go to it. Look for Lucy’s passage in the kitchen.”

Bony was left, seated on Curley’s pack-saddle and rolling a cigarette. Even Dr. Havant rushed to the kitchen. Bony was reminded of his three boys at home when, as reward, he had started them on a treasure hunt.

Havant had performed miracles under extraordinary circumstances. He had preserved their sanity, and in so doing had preserved human decency, under mind-destroying conditions.

They had obeyed simple sanitary rules and kept themselves reasonably clean, retained a form of civilised eating. They conformed to rough but invaluable community demands and, if occasionally they lost control, the loss was temporary and beneficial.

For twenty-five years he, Napoleon Bonaparte, had hunted murderers. He regarded murder as the most loathsome crime. He had viewed the bodies of the slain, and was nauseated by the public sympathy for murderers, and the cold indifference to the murdered. He believed there was but the one penalty for murder: an eye for an eye, the justice of the Bible, the justice of the aborigines.

Here were six murderers, and here was he who loathed murderers and hunted them relentlessly. Right now could he hate Clifford Maddoch? Or Mark Brennan? Even animal Joe Riddell? Havant was something of an enigma. The girl was a type he disliked, beyond the fact that she was a murderess.

When engaged on a man hunt, the murderer had been an impersonal thing, like a wild dog. This hunt for a lost woman, which had led to the discovery of a community of murderers, had become personal. They accepted him without rancour, even making him a Fellow of their absurd Released Murderer’s Institute.

There was not among them a human tiger beyond reformation, save only, perhaps, that one who had killed Mitski. Imprisonment had imposed discipline and reliance on the officers. Time tended to heal animosity against the police responsible for their arrest and the judge responsible for the sentence. As Brennan had hinted, they had acquired loyalty to their fellows, and a kind of pride of the jail where they had served their sentence. It was something akin to the soldier who takes pride in his regiment, and is loyal to his comrades.

By welcoming Bony into their Institute, they were running true to form. The police had done a job of work, and the warders had performed another job. They and their opponents were in different tradesunions, that was all.

He must beware of such reflections lest they should influence his approach to future man hunting. A lover of justice, he must recognise the danger of maudlin sentiment. The State-that easy front for diplomats, politicians, and appointed scoundrels-had defied and frustrated the courts of justice to gain personal kudos. The State was responsible for surrendering to mass hysteria, representing so many votes, and reducing the crime of murder to the level, of say, bigamy. His duty now was to do all possible to return these murderers to civilisation, when his official interest in them would end. With one exception.

They returned from the kitchen, wilting like cut flowers.

“The hole is behind the rock at the back of the stove,” Mark Brennan announced. “We can’t move the rock; we’d need such things as crowbars and gelignite. Looks like we’re sunk.”

Bony entered the kitchen. The stove had been moved to one side. A great boulder, or an upthrust of rock, had either fallen from the ceiling, or had been parted from the wall, creating a space of a little less than one foot. In this space, the dog had found the outlet at the foot of the wall.

“Take an atom bomb to shift that,” jeered Riddell, and the girl said brightly:

“That all? We’ll ask the aborigines to pass a few down.”

“You can reach in, Inspector, and feel the hole in the wall about a foot up from the floor,” Maddoch informed him.

“The dog,” Bony ordered.

Lucy was brought. Bony on his knees pushed her forward, urging her to “Sick ’em! Sool-’em-up!”