Arthur Upfield - No footprints in the bush

“No, my brother. I have a use for Itcheroo.”

As Bony had anticipated, Flora insisted on accompanying them to the aeroplane, and then stood with Bony and Burning Water watching the pilot swing the propeller and subsequently warm up the engine. When he was satisfied, Whyte got to ground again and joined them.

“She’s all right,” he said.“As sweet as a lady of my acquaintance. We’ll get away when you’re ready, Bony. Expect us back by noon, Flora, and as hungry as arctic sledge dogs.”

“I’ll be on the lookout for you,” she promised. “Here Bony, you must put on the coat. You’ll probably find it cold.”

Bony slipped on the heavy serge coat belonging to McPherson, wished the girlaurevoir, and left her with Burning Water and the small crowd of aborigines to walk with Whyte to the waiting machine.

The engine was purring softly and the propeller was reflecting a disc of colourless light. One of the blacks shouted, but neither Bony nor the doctor turned about to see the cause as the blacks had been shouting to each other.

Then above the purring of the aeroplane engine there burst on their eardrums a greater sound rising swiftly in crescendo. Bony spun round to face westward, to face the girl and the crowd of aborigines, to see above and beyond them the silver-grey aeroplane which had destroyed Sergeant Errey’s car. With the wind behind itit was coming with terrific speed, coming down and towards them.

“Back!” he shouted to the doctor. “Come away. It’s Rex and he might bomb your plane and kill us.”

He dragged the reluctant doctor from the machine into which they had been about to enter. The silver-grey plane came down to a hundred feet, passed over their heads, then climbed a sky road as though it were a bouncing meteor. The blacks were stunned to silence whilst they watched the invader make a giant half-circle and return.

“Scatter!” shouted Bony, and running to the girl, he grasped her arm and urged her away from the crowd.

“Whatever is he going to do?” Flora cried.

“I don’t know. He might bomb Harry’s plane. He might bomb us if we bunch into a mass. Now wait. We’ve no cover. It is useless to scatter more than we are now.”

The silver-grey machine was coming down and slowly, its engine ticking over. They could see the helmeted, goggled man in its cockpit. Then the great wings were spread above them, and the shining body passed comparatively slowly over them. They saw the bomb leave the underside of the fuselage, saw it fall like a drop of quicksilver to strike the cockpit of the doctor’s aeroplane. Came then a loud report, a burst of flame, a gathering plume of smoke which the wind carried eastward.

Another Spoke in Bony’s Wheel

“WHAT a rotten sportsman-to kill a sitting bird!”

The flying doctor’s voice was cool, a quality noted by Bony whose mind was concentrated on the wonder of a man being able to think along two lines of thought at the same time. He stood gazing upon the roaring flames and the vast black smoke clouds rolling over the claypans past the foot of the homestead garden. He was thinking what a pity it was that such an example of man’s inventive genius could be so easily destroyed. At the same time he was thinking what a wonderful opponent this Rex McPherson was proving to be.

The flying doctor proceeded to step out of his flying suit, and Bony recalling that he was still wearing McPherson’s heavy overcoat, removed it. Then, as though directed by an order, the three “fell in” and silently began the walk back to the homestead.

Presently the doctor said, conversationally:

“It’s a great tragedy that that fellow wasn’t born in time and in circumstances permitting him to take part in the last Great War. He’s got guts. He’s got flying temperament. He’s got that valuable war-gift, ruthlessness.”

“It is going to be a pity that he was born too soon to take part in the next war,” Bony said so calmly that Flora flashed at him a resentful glance. “I am afraid, doctor, you will have to stay longer than was arranged.”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to slog you one if you call me anything but Harry-Mister Napoleon Bonaparte.”

“That would grieve me, Harry.”

Flora wanted to laugh, recognized the danger of hysteria, and controlled herself. That men suffering such loss and disappointment should thus speak to each other did not seem to be natural. She was furiously angry. The doctor said:

“It would give me tremendous gratification to slog someone hard and often. That crate was the best I’ve ever had, and I’ve only had it six months. It cost four thousandquidlets -Australian.”

He uttered the word Australian as an afterthought, and Flora wanted screamingly to ask him what difference it made. If only she could see her lover “slogging” that hateful Rex!

“Insured?” Bony asked.

“Half. What’s the odds? I’m stranded without a machine.”

“We will go to the office and smoke a cigarette. Then we must bestir ourselves. Effects are the offspring of causes. The destruction of your machine was caused by two bombs. The bombs exploded because they were dropped. The dropping was caused by the release of mechanism caused by the hand of Rex McPherson. He was there in his aeroplane to drop the bombs at the right split-second because he knew your plane was there. He knew your plane was there because an Illprinka magic man told him, and the Illprinka man knew because Itcheroo, a Wantella magic man, told him. Itcheroo is the person fit and proper to take your slogs.”

Dr Whyte stopped and turned and glared back at the aborigines still watching the metal twisting in the flames.

“Itcheroo is not there,” Bony said. “Later I may introduce him to you.” Following this half-promise they walked in silence, arrived at the road to Shaw’s Lagoon and followed it up the steep slope to the office which they entered.

“What are we going to do about this business?” asked Whyte his voice still unruffled, his face almost without expression. Crises appeared to freeze him. Bony completed the making of a cigarette before he answered.

“It does seem that I continually make plans only to have them frustrated before they can be put into action,” Bony said, slowly. “Were I not a patient man I would become angry. It seems, too, that I have been lethargic, and yet for this I have an excellent excuse. I hate to hurry or to be hurried. I decided that having accomplished what I came to do I would return to Brisbane and my wife and family. My wife will now be writing telling me how much I am missed and urging me to return as quickly aspossible, and my Chief Commissioner will again be thinking of sacking me. But to revert. Having established the person who was causing a great deal of trouble in the Land of Burning Water, my mission was accomplished. Then I stood by the tomb of Tarlalin, and my plan to retire to Brisbane was discarded.

“I then decided to start out after Rex McPherson when Miss McPherson’s uncle returned home. I could not do so because Mr McPherson did not return. I waited for the arrival of Dr Whyte-no slog, please, for I am speaking impersonally-and Dr Whyte’s aeroplane is destroyed. These constant frustrations will have to cease.”

Whyte stared at Bony fascinated and a little awed at a man whose ego was smarting under this challenge.

“As Miss McPherson will not run away, Harry, will you remain here for a week, two if necessary, and see to it that Rex McPherson doesn’t steal her?”

The doctor considered and then assented.

“You see, Miss McPherson, what a problem you are,” Bony continued. “However, I like problems, especially feminine ones, if genders can be applied to problems-which I doubt. Now I will plan again, and this time there must be no frustration. Pardon me.