Arthur Upfield - No footprints in the bush

Quite a famous character at Shaw’s Lagoon was one known to all and sundry as Beery Bill, an elderly alcoholic in monthly receipt of money from a trust fund sufficient to hire him a hut and to supply him with an almost unlimited number of schooners.

Beery Bill had been away all day with Constable Price and others on the dreadful business of the burned car in the gully bed. During the journey, of course, the supply of schooners of beer was non-existent, and it can be easily imagined with what avidity Beery Bill carried on when the supply was renewed. It soon became evident that the enforced abstention had put Beery Bill out of his stride, as it were, because he became unwell for the first time during his sojourn at Shaw’s Lagoon and, to the amazement of the twenty inhabitants, he left the hotel to sit with his back against a pepper-tree in the street.

It was quite dark. The oil lamps in the few houses and the hotel sent only sickly gleams through the open windows. Beery Bill sat and wondered what on earth had gone wrong with him, and was thus dismally engaged with introspection when he heard the far distant hum of the aeroplane engine.

He was the only person in Shaw’s Lagoon who did hear it, and knowing that his eyes could show him things unseen by ordinary mortals, he also knew that his ears could not play him such tricks. Ah! Here was a chance to entrench himself on the best side of Constable Price, and off he trotted-he was beyond walking-to the police-station with the news.

Out came Price to listen and to hear. Having expected to receive a telegram from the Flying Doctor it needed no inductive reasoning to arrive at the belief that he was hearing Doctor Whyte’s machine, and that Doctor Whyte had missed Shaw’s Lagoon and was returning in an effort to pick it out from the void beneath him.

Thus it was that shortly after Doctor Whyte realized his mistake in his calculations and turned his machine he saw far down ahead a pin-prick of red light magically grow to become a leaping fire. Down he went until his altimeter registered a thousand feet and he was passing above the fire to see people standing about it and gazing upward at his navigation lights, to see the firelight painting the sides of small houses and the hotel, for the bonfire had been lit in the centre of the one and only street.

Well, well! He’d always been lucky!

On his pad he wrote the instructions to be telephoned to McPherson’s homestead. He wrote whilst the machine was climbing towards the lazy stars. He wrapped the paper about his pipe and tied it with fusing wire. Then he sent his ship down to within five hundred feet and dropped his message. Whilst circling the township, he saw a boy pick it up and race with it to Constable Price who had changed into uniform.

Now having his position, with only a hundred miles still to fly he reset his course and flew away into the unreal world of void and dimstarshine, depending on his instruments for height and speed and wind slip. The bonfire at Shaw’s Lagoon slid away beyond the tail, slid away to vanish beyond the rim of featureless void established only by the stars themselves. He sent the machine up four thousand feet and he had ample room to pass over the hill range whereon was that grove of six cabbage-trees.

Probably he was somewhere over those cabbage-trees when he saw a pin-prick of light on the invisible horizon ahead of the propeller. It was a white light and his guess was correct that it was made by a petrol lamp on the homestead veranda. Six minutes later he was flying over the homestead, looking down on the light which had been moved on to the lawn, seeing the dim star light reflected by the water in the reservoir.

He had arrived but not landed. He circled twice, and then saw the red spark born westward of the homestead, saw it grow into a scarlet flame, watched it swiftly become a towering beacon, and sending the machine towards it, he saw about the beacon a crowd of naked aborigines, a man dressed and a woman arrayed in white.

Down he went in a giant spiral, noting the wind direction by the beacon’s smoke. A hundred feet outward from it the ground was invisible to him. Ah! Outward from the beacon in opposite directions flowed a necklace of rubies, jewels which shone the brighter the farther they got away from the fire. He sent his ship up now whilst watching the ruby necklace begin to curve to the west, extend westward like the distant lights of a street, become stilled like jewelled arms extended to invite protection and safety.

Up and away towards the stars he climbed far to the west. Then he glided earthward with the engine just ticking over and the whine of the wind in the struts a new sound. He still could not see the ground, but down he went till the nose of the ship was directed to the open end of the avenue of torches, which excited aborigines whirled above their heads to keep them alight and burning fiercely. He felt the wheels touch ground, felt them touch again and then move over the slightly uneven surface. On went the brakes, gently at first, then harder to stop the ship from charging into the bonfire at the end of the fiery avenue.

The ruby necklaces broke into two fragments when the torch bearers raced with shouts and screams towards him. He could see and hear Burning Water bawling at them to keep back, but on they came, giving the impression that his ship was about to be engulfed by a sea of fire and flying sparks.

He watched impersonally the grey-haired chief and Bony race to the machine to keep back the excited aborigines, heard the chief’s mighty voice threatening, commanding. The fiery tide halted, here and there ebbed, became stilled. He saw the woman in white running to the ship, behind her a line of fire, and he never was able to recall how he reached ground. Now he was holding her in his arms and feeling the press of warm lips on his own.

A Spoke in Bony’s Wheel

BREATHLESSLY, unwonted colour in her face, her blue eyes sparkling in the ruddy glare, Flora McPherson slipped from her lover’s arms and turned to present the visitor to the patiently waiting Bonaparte and the Chief of the Wantella Tribe.

“Harry!” she cried, “this is Detective-Inspector Bonaparte.”

Bony stepped forward and put out a hand. The doctor removed his gloves, ripped open the front of his flying suit, and fingered a monocle suspended by black cord. The monocle appeared to leap upward from the doctor’s forefinger and thumb. It reflected the firelight. Then it was perfectly poised in the right eye.

“Howd’youdo, Inspector,” he said, and there was neither drawl nor affectation in his voice.“Bony for short, eh?”

“All my friends call me Bony.”

They shook hands.

“To use anAustralianism: too right,” the doctor agreed heartily. He was no fool, this young-old man who began life as a destroyer and now was a mender. “Bony it is, comrade. And a smack on the jaw if you call me anything but Harry. And there’s Chief Burning Water. How are you?”

Dr Whyte took three steps forward to meet the chief of an aboriginal tribe, and Burning Water shook hands delightedly.

“I am well, Harry,” he said, compelled to gaze slightly downward because of his height. “I have thought of you, and I have looked forward to your next visit. I hope you will stay long.”

“Leave it to me,” and Dr Whyte brazenly winked. “How’s the infant? D’you still let her build chook houses on your tummy?”

“I haven’t yet been able to blow them down,” Burning Water replied, laughing, and his people standing behind him joined in the chorus. The flying doctor stepped out of his suit, saying:

“You would be a marvel if you did. Wellwell! I’m damned glad to see you all. What a landing!”

“It was nice, wasn’t it?” Flora agreed. “Now you must be tired and hungry. So late to arrive, too. What about your cases?”