Arthur Upfield - Wings above the Diamantina

“You can depend on us, Bony. And you can depend on Sharp, too, I think,” Knowles said quietly and without bothering to ask time-wasting questions. “We will go at once. We’ll take care of Kane.”

“Good man! Kane is in his Bentley, and I have not a ghost of a chance of overhauling him. Now get away. And thank you!”

Without troubling to remove Gurner’s telephone instrument, Bony shouted to Bill Sikes, and together they ran out to the utility. Crying to Shuteye to get aboard, Bony started the engine, and they were away, roaring down the steep incline to the river channels.

“Shuteye!” he shouted, and then when Shuteye replied: “Open my suitcase and give me my pistol.”

The utility roared up the first of the channel banks, and Shuteye handed the pistol round the hood to Bill Sikes, who passed it to Bony. Bony put the weapon on the seat beside him, and shouted to Shuteye to stand up and keep a lookout forward above the hood for Kane’s Bentley. There was the possibility that beyond one of the river channel banks, lying concealed, John Kane awaited them to fire a fusillade, of bullets. He could do that easily enough; he could destroy them and yet remain safe himself behind an earthwork.

Suddenly Bony jammed brakes, bringing the utility to a screaming halt on the narrow summit of a bank. Down in the channel beyond them was slipping southward a body of brown water. It was the beginning of a great flood of water that had fallen over the Diamantina water-shed from the recent storm.

“Go back! Turn round, Bony! It’s a flood!” cried Bill Sikes.

Actuated by the same impulse, they left the car and were joined by the excited Shuteye. They saw the water stretching north and south in that channel that was, perhaps, fifty feet in width, water cutting them off from the eastern side of the Diamantina. It came sweeping round a northern bend, carrying sticks and rubbish, rippleless, in aspect solid, probably as yet only a foot deep.

Beyond them the coolibah trees shut from sight the distant sand-dunes bordering the east side of the river. Bony turned to the runabout, jumped up into the truck body and then climbed to the hood top. From this position he could see the eastern sand-dunes, and he estimated them to be one and a half miles distant at the nearest.

One and a half miles of channels rapidly flooding to bar them from the eastern sand-dunes, and some eight miles of them lying westward to the high ground at Tintanoo! Why had not the doctor reported the coming of this flood? Had he known? Had Kane, for some reason, deliberately kept the Coolibah people ignorant of its coming? But now was no time to cogitate. Soon they would be like mice floating on a wood chip in a bucket of water. Already in the deeper channel they had crossed, the flood water must be increasing.

It was too late to turn back-evenwere he so minded. Were they west of the river the flood would cut them off from Coolibah for weeks. Even minus the urgency of getting Illawalli to Coolibah, their only chance of life was to push forward to the nearest side of the river-east-push onon foot, because the utility would certainly be stopped in that deepening channel.

“Come on, Bony!” the blacks shouted in unison. “Quick! Water coming down behind!”

The detective glanced to his rear. A line of debris was being rolled over and over down the channel last crossed, and beyond it the sunlight gleamed onrunnelled water. The debris line passed them, travelling faster than a man could run.

Bony shook his head, and jumped to the ground.

“We would never get back to the west side,” he advised his companions. “We have to get Illawalli and ourselves to the east side, which roughly is a mile and a half distant. Bill, unstrap the water-bag.”

Shuteye laughed, faintly hysterical.

“Wot for we want water?” he asked. “Plenty water in the ole Diamantina now.”

“We must try to revive Illawalli. We cannot carry him far,” Bony said sharply.

Shuteye and he dragged the inert form from the utility, and Bony, snatching the water-bag from Bill Sikes, poured a stream of cold water on the face of the heavily-breathing aboriginal chief. A bony black hand feebly attempted to ward off the stream. Black eyes opened-to be blinded with water. The sunken mouth opened-to be filled with water. The gaunt figure then struggled to rise, and was assisted by the detective and Sikes.

“Who you?”Illawalli asked the latter.

On turning to see who held him on his other side, his narrowed, lethargic eyes opened to their fullest extent.

“Bony!” he gasped.“Goo’ ole Bony! Ough! I bin feel, crook. Plenty too much booze.”

“Listen, Illawalli,” Bony urged earnestly. “We are caught by a big flood. We have to wade and swim to reach high land, do you understand? Wake up! Do you hear me! Wake up!”

“Too right! Ough! I’m crook.”

Illawalli was violently sick, while they dragged him down the channel bank to the edge of the shallow water. The water was flowing swiftly, but did not reach their knees when they splashed across to the farther dry bank. The old man’s legs were so useless to him that it was necessary almost to carry him up the bank, with Shuteye pushing him behind.

The next channel was dry as yet, but it was their last dry crossing.

Strength slowly returned to Illawalli’s skinny legs. The flying helmet was jammed hard down on his white head, the chin-straps flapping on his thin shoulders. The head sagged pitifully. He cried constantly to be allowed to lie down. When crossing a channel in which the water reached their waists, Bony splashed it up into the chief’s face, and this assisted to revive him.

“Goo’ ole Bony! My father and my mother! My friend! My son!” Between gulps for air he ejaculated these expressions of affection. “That there little white feller, he give me booze, plenty booze. Hesay you come soon, Bony. He say me drink up, and I ole fool. I drink up plenty. I ole fool to drink and drink, but little feller white feller; he don’ want no money, he don’ want nothing. He good feller whitefeller, and I was ole fool. Ough! This feller plenty crook.”

“You will get better as we go along,” Bony said cheerfully. “Ah-here is where we swim.”

Wading now was no longer possible. To cross a fifty-yards-wide channel meant being swept down several yards. To cross a channel two hundred yards wide in which the current was stronger meant a crossing at a sharp angle. Fortunately, Coolibah homestead lay many miles to the south, but the farther south the flood swept them so much wider was the crossing.

The sun poured its heat on them, and to each man was attached a cloud of flies and mosquitoes. To touch a stick on the water was to be bitten or stung by a venomous insect. The banks were giving up their countless insect inhabitants, and these were swarming into the coolibah trees.

Gradually the effects of alcohol were lifting from Illawalli. Forced exertion and contact with water were lightening the lethargy from the old aboriginal’s brain. That was just as well, for all were rapidly tiring. They could not linger on a dry bank before taking the water of each channel. Before and behind them ranged thecoolibahs -strange, shapeless trees of which not one inch of wood was straight. Already the low-lying channel banks were submerged, bringing two channels together to form a wide, swiftly-moving, brown flood, the submerged channel banks marked only by the line of trees rooted in them. Dry banks became ever more widely separated, and those yet above water were rapidly sinking into the flood like bars of sugar in hot tea.

“Look, Bony! There’s a car!” shouted Bill Sikes, as they stood in a group on a dry bank, Illawalli now needing but little assistance. On the far side, apparently floating on thewater, was the black top of a car hood. Its passengers were not to be seen. They were not sheltering on the opposite bank or clinging to coolibah trees beyond it.