Arthur Upfield - Wings above the Diamantina

Knowles drew in his breath sharply. In rapid speech he told her what he had told Bony regarding the loss of the woman who had taken shelter with him in a London doorway.

“This bush castaway is the image of the girl who died in my arms,” he explained to a wide-eyed Elizabeth. “That night most of me died, too. I wanted to die, but I was a coward. I could not commit suicide. I adopted John Barleycorn as a friend, seeking in his friendship forgetfulness. Sometimes I found it, but the more I clung to John Barleycorn the farther death drew back from me to take my enemies in the air. And then… and then, here in this room in the form of our patient I see again that woman I loved. To me the resemblance is unearthly. I saw then that I must be keen enough, clever enough to save her, and that to do it I had to strike off the chains my friend, John Barleycorn, had wrapped about me. And I have done it-freed myself. I have conquered alcohol, for I know now I need never seek it again. Through these long weeks I have fought a thousand devils-real devils, devils I could see-and I have won. Because of her I have won.”

Elizabeth’s eyes were streaming tears, but they never faltered in their gaze.

“Yes, I have won,” he went on.“For what? For what have I fought, if we fail to save her? I love her, do you hear? I’m thirty-eight. She is about twenty-three. She could never love me-if we saved her-but that is of much less importance than the fact that I love her and would be paid for all the terrors I have faced by one smile. I ask nothing. I tell you, I ask nothing ofher, and nothing of God except that her life may be granted to me… and now… now this storm.”

He fell silent after that outburst, and for a little while Elizabeth was unable to speak.

“I have guessed you cared, Doctor,” she whispered at last. “But she won’t die! She cannot die after all we have done together! Not after what she has unconsciously done for you. If Inspector Bonaparte’s black friend comes…”

“It might have been possible, Miss Nettlefold, if he had arrived last week,” Knowles told her. “It promised hope when we needed it. But now-how could any man read a patient’s mind when that mind is not functioning? She is beyond the help of any magic, black or white.”

It was eleven o’clock at Golden Dawn and the rain had stopped. Over the plain to the east the stars were beginning to show, but to the far west lightning still split open the sky.

Within the police office, Bony sat before the telephone and the large-scale map spread over Sergeant Cox’s table. The detective picked up the instrument and called the exchange.

“Have you yet been able to get through to Tintanoo or Gurner’s Hotel?”

“No. The lines are still out of order,” replied the night operator.

“Well, ask Mr Watts to speak, please.”

A moment. Two. Thencame the postmaster’s voice.

“I am sorry to have kept you on duty to so late an hour, Mr Watts,” Bony said regretfully. “It seems that all those western lines are down. You haven’t been able to raise the St Albans exchange?”

“No, we have failed to raise any one west of us,” Watts replied. “As you say, all the western lines must be down. Most likely a pole has been shattered by lightning.”

“That is what has happened, no doubt. It is kind of you to stay on duty, but there appears to be no reason to ask you to stay longer.”

“That’s quite all right, Mr Bonaparte,” Watts said quickly. “I am trying to raise St Albans by a roundabout route. I have got round to Springvale to the north.”

“Good! We have plotted Loveacre as far south as four miles east of Monkira Station. We have worked out the speed of the storm and Loveacre’s speed-of course sheer guesswork-and it places the captain somewhere west of a line drawn from the river’s western channels a little north of Tintanoo homestead to a range ofsandhills on Coolibah called the Rockies. When will you be sending out a lines-man to repair the break in the western lines?”

“First thing to-morrow morning.”

“Do the poles closely follow the road?”

“In some places, no. But my man uses a truck for the work, and it should not be long before he discovers and mends the breaks. I’ll ring immediately I can get St Albans.”

“Thank you.”

Replacing the receiver, Bony pushed away the instrument, and fell again to studying the map. At his side Cox sat bolt upright in his chair, smoking his pipe with savage energy. Presently Bony said:

“If it were not for that Markham girl I would be enjoying all this. I do not so greatly fear for the safety of Captain Loveacre and Illawalli as I fear that it will be too late for Illawalli to do anything after all. Loveacre is too good a man to court death in that storm. He was south of Rosebrook when the storm turned back, and he was still west of the storm when he got as far south as Monkira. I incline to the belief that when he found himself unable to reach Golden Dawn he made for the temporary dry-weather landing ground north of Coolibah, and that when he could not reach there he flew west across the river to land somewhere near Gurner’s Hotel, where the country is fairly open, or to Emu Lake, which he knows…

“We’ll ring Coolibah.”

Within a few minutes he heard John Nettlefold’s voice.

“We have had one hundred and thirty-five points of rain here,” Bony opened. “How much has fallen at Coolibah?”

“One hundred and forty. I was on the point of ringing you up when your call came through. For some unknown reason I have got through to Tintanoo on the river line when all previous efforts to do so failed. Kane informs me that Loveacre’s machine passed overhead at the same time as the storm arrived. It looked to him as though the captain intended toeffect a landing on the strip of clear ground between the river and the homestead. It was just as well that he didn’t, because it is a steep incline. Loveacre then flew west. Kane got through to Gurner’s and told him to keep a look-out and be ready with his car to go after the machine while it was in sight in case it landed, but Gurner had left on a trip to St Albans. Later Gurner rang up from St Albans, reporting that the machine passed over him soon after he left the hotel and landed off the road ahead of him. It was smashed badly in the landing. He rescued Loveacre, who is badly injured, and took him to the doctor at St Albans, but he did not mention anything about Illawalli. When I asked Kane about the passenger he said that Gurner said nothing to him about there being a passenger at all.”

“Ah! That’s strange,” said Bony, his calm voice concealing his nervous tension. “Will you again ring Kane and get him to make contact with Gurner for information about Illawalli? Good! I’ll be here. Then would you get through to Ned Hamlin and ask him to be sure that both Shuteye and Bill Sikes are at the hotel by seven in the morning? I’ll be there then to meet and pick them up. Illawalli was with the captain. Of that there is no doubt.”

When Bony had repeated the information to Cox he looked at the time. “Loveacre’s down,” he said harshly, “but no Illawalli! Between Gurner’s and St Albans. I leave at day-break for Gurner’s.”

Bony Is Again Submerged

TWO DAYS AND NIGHTS had passed, and Bony was exceedingly weary. A dozen times during this period of incessant labour, with the assistance of Bill Sikes and Shuteye, he had had to dig the runabout from rain-soaked road bogs.

Captain Loveacre had elected to put his plane down on flat claypan country not far from the western end of Tintanoo and on a small selection owned by people named Martell. What had from the air appeared to be a good landing place was made traitorous by low banks of sand enclosing theclaypans, and the machine had turned right over on its back, smashing the propeller, its broken body forming an arch that had prevented afatality.